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My first year-end review!
I was so excited for this opportunity that I decided to watch as many dramas as I could in preparation this year, and all but forced myself to doggedly stick with obvious train wrecks because I figured, "Hey, at least it'll give me something to write about."
If I learned anything, it was that I should never do that again. That's a life lesson every drama viewer should learn early in their infancy, so I'll just chalk it up to some late blooming on my part. Ergo, take some of these review choices with a grain of salt and (hopefully) not as a pure representation of taste.
This was the year for time traveling heroes, questionably nice guys, single-minded kings, guardian angels, reapers, rockers, brothers, heroes, and hanbok-wearing chickens. Not every year has a bandwagon, but 2012 sure did; there was more time traveling than you could shake a stick at. And for most of those offerings, you'd be shaking that stick pretty angrily.
Since hindsight is 20/20, I'm riding out this year's trend by posing this question to each drama: If I could turn back time, what would I do differently?
Gaksital OST – Melody Day – "That One Word" [ Download ]
Padam Padam… The Sound of His and Her Heartbeats
jTBC, one of the four fledgling cable networks to rear their heads into the drama world this year, started off with a bang when it aired its flagship production, Padam Padam. Helmed by PD Kim Kyu-tae (A Love to Kill, The World That They Live In) and written by Noh Hee-kyung (also of The World That They Live In), this was a fantasy melodrama for the record books, and one which has stayed at the top of the 2012 list despite being one of the first to air.
On a purely technical level, we had superb and poignant writing that focused on a misunderstood hero struggling to understand and cope with the burden life has given him, only to be given a sort of Groundhog Day-esque chance to change the past and future. I liked that we confronted the idea of whether second chances should be given because they're deserved, and whether there exists a point of suffering that, once we've passed it, deems us worthy to receive some sort of karmic reward.
As Kang-chil, Jung Woo-sung put in a commanding performance, embodying all that it meant to be a man falsely accused and given another chance at life, only to be faced with the mantra: Life just isn't fair. His journey broke my heart, his urgency to live in the moment when he couldn't be assured of the next was always palpable, his change over the course of the series poetic. I couldn't imagine a better actor for this role, as we saw every emotion played out in such stunning, close-up detail, allowing us a deeper and even more intimate peek into a simple man's very personal, slightly fantastical, and incredibly moving story.
Too often in the scope of the big broadcasters do we get shows that start off strong only to fizzle out by the end, whether due to exhaustion and/or time constraints. So far I'm enjoying cable's propensity to see a show through, with Padam starting off strong and finishing even stronger, with an ending that was well-conceived and inspiring. In a year where I had gripes with many a drama's ending, this one stays strong in my memory as a perfect and whimsical bookend to a fantastic and thoroughly engrossing tale.
If I Could: I'd watch it again.
History of the Salaryman
What a delight. Though it started to lag in the second act, History of the Salaryman was the type of drama that gave me hope for the future of dramas and for the medium itself, because it defied all normalcy. It was wacky, bizarre, hilarious, and heartfelt. There was a sense of assuredness in the production that rang of a close-knit team (the director, writer, and even a number of the actors came from 2010's Giant), making the fun the cast was having with their roles infectious.
Something not immediately evident – which added an extra layer to the proceedings – was the story's basis in the real-life, historical tale of the Chu-Han Contention, giving us adaptations of Liu Bang (Yoo Bang), Xiang Yu (Hang-woo), and others. The fact that the creators managed to modernize the tale by inserting it into the world of corporate politics (while also renaming their main character after the word "breasts") was just icing on the cake. You could have gone the whole show without realizing the historical connection, but if you did notice, it was like a whole new world had opened. This is one of those shows that felt thought-out and conceptualized from the ground up, and it showed in all levels of the production.
I was both surprised and pleased that Salaryman performed so solidly in the ratings simply because it was so unconventional. There was a universality we could all take from the characters, whether it was Bang's struggle to make something of himself when he lacked the intellect or Yeo-chi's struggle to understand the plight of the poor, to hilarious effect.
Jung Ryeo-won's propensity to curse like a sailor while managing to inject such heart into her character made Yeo-chi the definitive female role of the year for me – the one to beat – especially when we consider and compare her to all the milquetoast heroines of 2012. Her pairing with the always-wonderful Lee Beom-soo and the rest of the truly talented ensemble made this show something great.
Unfortunately, despite an extension of only two episodes, the ending conflict seemed to stop short of all that we were promised from the source material. While the second act was executed as well as it could have been, it still felt as if we were missing a third act, something to really tie it all back in and complete the story. Sometimes you can't win 'em all.
If I Could: I'd give them a longer extension (gasp!) if it meant they could include a third act, and then rewind/replay.
The Moon That Embraces The Sun
As someone who loves sageuk, I've never taken issue with the fusion-ification of the genre, if only because every genre must evolve in order to survive. The fact that The Moon That Embraces The Sun was able to bring in such a sizeable audience (40%! Higher than Chuno's groundbreaking numbers in 2010) is something to be commended, right?
Technically, yes. Mentally? No. When first hearing about the premise of a fantasy sageuk, one not based in real history, I thought, "Yeah! That'll free it from the constraints of eagle-eyed history buffs and allow them to tell any story they want!" Which was partly true, except the story they told was not one that was new, or fresh, or even all that interesting. Really it didn't even require the historical setting it was based in – the King acted more like a lovesick puppy than a King, the politics were all ham-handed and, in the end, most of it was pretty irrelevant to the love story.
I'm probably the very epitome of an anti-fan when it comes to long childhood backstories, but Moon/Sun was a case where the story was just plain more interesting and better played in the childhood stages, leaving us attached to characters that all but disappeared into their adult forms. Kim Soo-hyun came out strong considering the one-mindedness of his character, but Han Ga-in's portrayal of the amnesiac Wol/Yeon-woo didn't ring any meaningful bells for me. Shutting her away in a back room didn't help much, either.
The conflict wrap-up at the end was simple and lazy, and went to prove that the writers had no plan for any of the satellite characters, or satellite stories, or the main story, even. Too much was sacrificed at the altar of the One True Pairing. But there's one thing this show never sacrificed, and that was Symbolism. I think I speak for everyone when I say: Yes, thank you, we got it the first twelve times.
If I Could: I'd throw the king a bachelor party and just get it over with.
Operation Proposal
Operation Proposal was one of those dramas where I think I knew it wasn't very good, but enjoyed it despite myself. No drama was more repetitive this year, with the same "Renovatio!" sequence played about once every episode, as our hero tried to win back his first love by fixing every, and I mean EVERY, misstep of his from their past.
Where this drama failed was in properly conveying whether this true love was worth 98273 chances. Each change produced its own rippling effect, yet the outcome was always the same: It wasn't enough. Our hero could give his girl a uniform button, a first kiss, and an amazing rendition of "Nobody" by the Wonder Girls, yet the hand of fate never seemed willing to move the odds back in his favor. In retrospect, it would have been fresher of the drama for him to realize that his first love might just be better off without him.
But when the plot got convoluted and the feelings misplaced, the ensemble cast was there to ground us. The friendship and camaraderie warmed my heart enough to look past all the glittery gold vials, because time was spent developing their stories even as they fell victim to parallel universes and the butterfly effect. The time travel mechanics didn't always make sense – okay, never really made sense – but these were the kind of things that'd cause nothing but headaches if you thought on them too long. So I didn't.
Overall we got a complete story out of this drama, with some wonderful acting by Yoo Seung-ho and company. I don't know if that's all we should ask for, but it did its job, for the most part. It was fluffy, light, repetitive, yet somehow endearing despite all that. I wouldn't recommend it to the serious drama connoisseur – but at the time, it was just fine.
If I Could: I probably would have stopped Baek-ho after the 933rd Renovatio. But then I'd have to grapple with seeing less of him, which is a tall order.
Fashion King
Oh, Fashion King. If I had one word to say to you now, it would be "No." If I had a longer word, it'd be "Nooooooo."
If we set aside the severe lack of tone, the weird crab fishing/country-hopping interludes, a villain and her offspring out of Devil Wears Prada: If This Movie Really Sucked, the absence of fashion sense (I know!) or likable characters (Iiii know), the undercurrent of racism (people will treat you terribly and commit violent acts against you because this is America), and the suits which made Lee Je-hoon look like he got into a fight with an electric fence – or worse, the suits which made Yoo Ah-in look like he stole them off a schoolboy – Fashion King still gets my vote for worst drama of the year. Yes, even worse than Dr. Jin, and I'd reason that's based on the fact that at least Jin tried to tell a story, even if it failed miserably. I don't think the same can be said of Fashion King.
If I squint really hard in order to try to guess what the story was about – via magical powers and telepathy – I still come up empty. Was it about our heroine's (and I use that term loosely) road to independence? Probably not, since she kept getting pulled around by the two fair gentlemen in her life and knew only the words "Mmm…" and "…No." Maybe it was about the heroine's(?) progressive case of Spine-Shrinking Meekness as she became the focus of a love triangle from hell – in which case, we might have something. (Except it wasn't. At least on purpose, anyway.)
Was it about our second lead working through his daddy issues to become a real, independent business owner? Not really. Was it about our hero's (again, using that term very loosely) quest to become an acceptable human being? Nope. Was it really about the world of fashion after all? Not really. I can't even see what the main throughline would be, other than a chance to watch terrible people do terrible things as slowly as possible.
If there was only one character to root for it was the second male lead, which is both a testament to the actor and to the fact that he was the only one who seemed to be trying. (That goes for both Lee Je-hoon as an actor, and his character.) Even though, as far as character traits go, he was also a terrible person. But then when you look at all the characters in this show that didn't do their actors any favors, a little bit of effort goes a long way.
This was also one of those instances where a ending filled with WTFery did nothing to negate the total effect of the show. Sure, it didn't make sense and was obviously planned from the beginning, but really, was that one moment worse than all nineteen episodes that came before it?
If I Could: I'd put on a garish fur coat, soak in a rooftop swimming pool, and wait for the inevitable.
The King 2 Hearts
There's a saying that a hero is only as good as his villain, or as Bruce Willis put it in Die Hard, "Any story where you have good guys versus bad guys can only be as smart as the intelligence of your baddest guy." I think that holds true for a lot of dramas that are hero-centric. While The King 2 Hearts served as a love story amidst the tumultuous North/South divide, it also personified the evils our king had to face in the form of Bong-gu, an international weapons dealer/billionaire played by seasoned actor Yoon Je-moon.
Yoon Je-moon put in a villain performance for the record books in last year's Tree With Deep Roots, where he was completely cerebral and able to go toe-to-toe with King Sejong the Great. So he's capable of some amazing stuff, yet he ended up being more of a caricature here than anything, right along with the international politics. (Those outside of Korea, anyway.)
I realize that part of that problem is due to King's incredibly vast scope in presenting multi-cultural conflicts that spanned from here to the end of the world. I commend the show for attempting such a large-scale endeavor, and when it stayed closer to home, it succeeded. The love story between leads Lee Seung-gi and Ha Ji-won was palpable and something to root for. Earnest Bot's contribution to the show also goes without saying, even though I'm saying it, because he brought a whole new level of heart to the drama that was unexpected but certainly not unwelcome in a show that had a great deal of heart. (2 of them, actually.)
But it was the very frequent and consistently awful use of foreign day players to act as representatives of their respective countries which sucked me out of the story, time and time again. I wanted to believe the events that were happening, but frankly, it was close to impossible when the man with access to The Red Button (from any English-speaking country, really) sounded like a confused tourist told to read off a post-it note. I understand why we couldn't get seasoned English-speaking actors in there, but a part of me wondered if the show was in a little over its head in the international politicking department. The heart was all there, that's for sure. And the camerawork was excellent, too – but the execution of believable international conflicts left a bit to be desired.
Because when faced with a choice of any state in the U.S. to bomb in order to cause an international snafu, our villain – in his infinite wisdom – chose to bomb Michigan. Michigan.
If I could: I'd ask why the king had to have not two, but 2 hearts. (Seriously, I still don't know why.)
Equator Man
Equator Man had a lot of things going for it: A great cast, a truly traumatic childhood impetus-for-revenge, and jaw-dropping cinematography. Aside from the severely-misguided use of music in the first few episodes, the directing was probably my favorite thing about the show.
I remember thinking that the initial synopsis for this show was doing it a disservice: "A typical melo story about two men with boiling passion." As if they were trying to assure the audience that a good ol' garden variety melo story would be thrown in there. In the end, that's what it felt like – that in the midst of this fascinating tale of revenge and redemption, there was a little bit of melo tacked on there. (I'm using the King of Dramas definition of melo, as something used to pander to the audience. Like an unnecessary love line.)
So, we got a love line with Lee Bo-young, which never did anything meaningful for the story. And every foray into that aspect of the show was like hitting the snooze button on an otherwise intense and very vengeful alarm.
Uhm Tae-woong and Lee Joon-hyuk were stellar, as was most of the veteran ensemble. My heart broke watching these brothers-by-bond experience that one horrible moment you never want in a friendship – you know, the one where your friend tries to bludgeon you to death. The grander plot movements were all there, and the sheer intensity that filled every frame kept me going. But the smaller story movements? Not so much.
I think that time skips and actor-switches have never done a drama a greater disservice than they did here, simply because it's honestly impossible to buy the fact that Lee Hyun-woo can go to sleep and wake up only a few years later as Uhm Tae-woong. Even if the character, Sun-woo, was left out in the sun during his coma, it just stretched past the realm of suspended disbelief into "What? Who's that? HE'S WHO?" territory. What's worse is that there actually exists a huge time skip later which could have used the actor switch more believably, though it seemed like the director was afraid of spending too much time with the younger incarnations to wait until then. (Can you blame him when he had Uhmforce waiting in the sidelines, ready to take the ratings world by storm?)
I found the greatest weakness of the show to be in the script, which tried to be so grand that it inevitably lost a sense of scale after moving from time skip to time skip to time skip. We had to traverse so many years to get our characters to a place where they could start thinking about taking action. In order to be Epic, a show need not cover the dawn of time onward, nor does it need to make an obligatory yet ultimately meaningless trip to the equator in order to make the title relevant.
Aside from that, lots of good stuff here for the viewer with a strong constitution. Or for the viewer who enjoys awesome cinematography, like yours truly.
If I Could: I'd give Lee Bo-young's character a personality and change the order of the time skips, then I'd cuddle PD Kim Yong-soo and remind him that he's my favorite cinematographer working in dramaland. And then I'd hope someone would bail me out if I got arrested for it.
Love Rain
So here's my main issue with critiquing Love Rain: There's nothing inherently wrong with it.
Here's the qualifier: There's nothing inherently wrong with it if you don't mind a story that takes you everywhere but forward, characters who are incapable of being people because they've experienced a First Love (and we don't know their paaaain because we've clearly never loved before and must live vicariously through them), noble idiocy, debilitating illnesses that no one tells anyone about, and every other thing you've seen in PD Yoon Suk-ho's work before. If you just want moving scenery, then this is the drama for you.
That's not to say that there was anything wrong with the acting, since I find Jang Geun-seok to be a talented young actor despite his rather colorful real-life persona. Yoona also did well in her role, which required her to go from quiet and reserved to strong and stubborn in one fell swoop. What I didn't enjoy were any of the adult characters, especially Mom and Dad… but mostly Dad.
I think, ideally, we were supposed to think his love was grand and romantic for spanning so many years without a single word from the object of his affections, whom he believed to have died. In practice and reality, I found Dad's love dangerous and very off-putting, because he'd let it permeate into his current family life without giving his wife and son a chance. That's how closed off he was and how devoted he was to his first love… Because Love Trumps Personal Responsibility?
Whatever it was, it wasn't romantic. At that point, dedication became a sickness which I couldn't root for no matter how they demonized Dad's new wife. Heck, I even sympathized with her; I'd be mad too if I couldn't compete against a dead girl. The younger version of Dad, played by Jang Geun-seok, was bearable because youth and tumultuous first loves go hand in hand. Once he reached his older incarnation, I'd had enough with his obsessive selfishness and clocked out whenever the focus moved to his love story.
And while this show kind of played with that notion of mayhaps-our-love-is-harmful-to-others in the form of how the parents' love affected their kids' love (I know, it's only slightly less squicky than it sounds), in the end, Dad's form of love and devotion was still painted in rosy, romantic hues, just like the scenery. How sweet(?).
And the rest, as they say, is forgettable.
If I Could: I'd check the weather report, stay indoors, and maybe do anything else.
Queen In-hyun's Man
Queen In-hyun's Man took the drama world by storm this side of the ocean, and sort of surprised everyone by being… well, really, really good. It's not that I had low expectations for the drama, but that I'd merely had no expectations – I was really about to pass it up, until the internet fervor made me stand up and take notice. I'm glad I did.
It's strange that the reason I was ready to write this drama off ("Not another time traveler!") ended up being one of the aspects this show handled better than its predecessors. Up until then, the time travel mechanics for each show had been shoddy at best, heavy-handed Fate interventions at worst (here's looking at you, Rooftop Prince), but here was a drama with a refreshingly simple mechanism for time travel that seemed organic to the world that it came from. Well, refreshingly simple but for the fact that our hero had to risk his life each time to activate it.
Much of this drama's success owes itself to fluid writing and a couple you just couldn't help but root for. The directing worked stylistically, and tonally carried us from Joseon to the present day without skipping a beat. (Though, admittedly, the editing hand was a little heavy at times – did we really need five different angles of an everyday phone call?)
We had a hero we could all fall for in the form of Ji Hyun-woo, who radiated strength, magnetism, and that sexiest trait of all: Intelligence. Has braininess ever looked quite so good? He takes the cake for my favorite character of the year, due to his adaptable nature, clear-headedness, and oh yeah – his ability to fight swords with books. Boom.
*drops drumsticks*
If I Could: I already did. Just because you didn't see me single-handedly hold up that cell phone tower in Joseon doesn't mean I wasn't there.
Dr. Jin
Because this show brought out the ironic hipster recapper in me, I think it's only right to write this review completely ironically. So, here goes:
Dr. Jin was a triumph. In fact, it was a visually stunning tour de force with A+ directing, one which always provided the best angles and crisp, clear focus in every shot. The fusion between intent and execution was flawless as we journeyed into the complex and steadfast mind of Jin Hyuk as he pondered and overcame existential questions like, "What good can I do in history today?" (Answer: A lot!) The medical prosthesis were never too gross and were, in fact, incredibly realistic. That time Hyuk sniffed the Queen Dowager's vomit to ascertain the nature of her illness was, to put it simply, poetry in motion.
Breast exams are a hard business, but having one done by candlelight while the dulcet tones of Jaejoong's voice sang a lullaby in the background? So perfect, and so very respectful. No one in their right mind could find that scene in the least bit hilarious. And the fact that said cancer was cured in one day doesn't mean the illness wasn't serious, but more so that Hyuk was just that resourceful. I'd venture to say, and I'm just throwing this out there, that Hyuk was a genius.
This was a completely serious and totally respectable show which answered all the questions it asked at the onset. Brain fetus? Explained. Parallel universes? Explained. Brain surgery that leaves behind only one decorative ribbon across the forehead? Totally explained. What more could a viewer ask for?
Nothing, as it turns out, in a show that was perfect from start to finish. In no way was Song Seung-heon woefully miscast for this role, which he played with an assuredness and finesse befitting an actor with more than a decade of experience. On that note, everyone was well-cast and suited for their roles, which they took with all the gravitas befitting a proper sageuk. (Which, of course, they were in.) They weren't afraid to be funny when the situation called for it, even though there were few. With such demanding political machinations going on, including a king who passed gas in front of his ministers for completely justifiable reasons, who had time to laugh? I certainly didn't.
And, finally, the romance stole my heart away. Caught in the midst of a love triangle, Park Min-young played her character with sensitivity and restraint, clearly conveying to us, the viewers, why the past version of herself (which was also satisfyingly explained as it tied into her modern-day persona – a dream! Who would have thought of that?) would outright reject her fiancé's advances from day one. Surely it couldn't be because as a character, she had to remain pure for a man her future self loved but one she had no personal knowledge of, right?
Right. It all made complete sense. Along with every clown car operating room, because that many people are always necessary for surgical procedures. One last thing – thank you, PD Han, for showing us only one ab scene throughout the series. Mostly, thanks for making those abs a facsimile made from silicone, so that Jaejoong looked like he had a muscle suit on. That's exactly the sort of thing the audience wanted to see, and boy, did you deliver.
If I Could: After a dose of Irony-B-Gone, I'd realize that this was a pretty terrible drama and would go back in time solely to unmake it. But I'd save the footage from Hyuk's tenure in the Torture Taco for days I need a laugh.
Gaksital OST – Ulala Session – "Goodbye Day" [ Download ]
Equal parts dark and epic, Gaksital possessed a sweeping grandeur that won my heart, broke it, crammed it into a box of nails, and then lifted it high with the voice of thousands gathered to fight, however slim victory would seem, against their oppressors.
Set in the bleak world of 1930s occupied Korea, Gakistal was not without flaws, but it's one of those cases where the sum was greater than the parts (even when most of the parts were made of epic win). It was everything I could have wanted in a hero story, and yet So. Much. More. It was an action thriller, a political thriller, a thriller thriller, and most of all, it was a story of two friends torn apart by one's ascension into herodom and the other's descent into madness.
I'm a huge fan of well-done, multilayered villains, if only because a good villain gets to go where the hero dare not tread, unshackled from moral boundaries or conscience. Except our villain did have a conscience in there, somewhere, which lent power and intensity to the role of Shunji Kimura that Park Ki-woong executed beautifully. Which, admittedly, shouldn't have been a huge surprise for an actor familiar with villainous roles (Chuno, Bow, The Ultimate Weapon), but I'd say this part served as a milestone for his career, and it's nice to know that the actor thought the same.
Park Ki-woong's villain managed to elicit both pity and scorn – pity because he was so misguided on how he could return his lost innocence, scorn because he really did seem to enjoy being bad sometimes. Which begs the question: Was the quiet, smiling Shunji merely a shell for the monster hiding beneath, or did circumstance make him so?
The beautiful thing about this show is that our hero started out worse than his nemesis, especially in regards to taking joy from the suffering of others – most of which he himself caused. He held no great love for his countrymen or a sense of patriotism, but that all changed when this show proved just how dark it could go, and how deep our hero would have to fall before he could rise as a man worthy of the symbol his country needed.
The fact that Gaksital was able to make such a man into a hero still amazes me, and Lee Kang-to takes the award for the most difficult narrative arc to convey, simply because he had so much ground to cover. In the face of that daunting task, Joo Won delivered a stellar performance by firing on all cylinders, never afraid to forsake vanity for art. This being dramaland, I've seen a lot of men cry, but it'll be a long time, if ever, that I forget the sheer devastation and loss we heard in Kang-to's wretched cries – screams? – of grief.
And it'll be a long time, if ever, before I forget how much this drama moved me.
If I Could: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'd just go hang around set and watch the awesomeness unfold firsthand.
Big had some big cojones to cheat the audience out of a follow-through for its premise. Cojones swingin' past its knees.
Unsurprisingly, Gong Yoo was fantastic in the title role, though unfortunately his performance alone couldn't save this drama. It's a sad thought when we consider it's the Hong Sisters who wrote it, but my guess is that they were in over their head with this one. Like Oohlala Spouses, the problem they presented at the outset was too great to solve. So while it made for a compelling narrative in the beginning, we soon found ourselves with nowhere to go, and we were getting there fast.
Conflicts were recycled, the body swap was conveniently one-sided, and most of the decisions our characters made had no basis in reality. Who was Gil Da-ran, really? Who was Seo Yoon-jae? What started off as a mystery we'd thought would slowly unfold turned into something best solved over an off-screen time skip. If there's one thing I wish would just disappear from dramaland forever, it'd be the Time Skip Cure-All. Never has it seemed like more of a cop-out. (But the same can be said for all the offscreen moments in the drama, of which there were too damn many.) It just felt like the writers had given up on making sense and went for solutions that neither felt earned or deserved.
Last but not least, what did the institution of parenting ever do to the Hong Sisters, for parents to be portrayed as soulless mercenaries who bear children solely to harvest their organs for that other, better child they inexplicably love more? Is there just not enough love in the world to spare for more than one child?
If I Could: I'd take everyone back to the drawing board. This one needs a do-over.
Arang and the Magistrate
Out of all the dramas that purported themselves to be "fantasies," no one got that moniker down quite as well as Arang and the Magistrate.
I was hooked from moment one by not only the bizarre quotient of the story – a ghostly amnesiac heroine elicits help from a local magistrate – but by the look and feel of it all. We didn't just get a little spooky fog added to a Joseon set, but a fully-realized world in which the Jade Emperor and Hades played baduk in heaven while ghostly reapers teleported to the mortal realm to capture the souls of the dead.
This was also a show which paid an incredible amount of attention to detail, one which you didn't necessarily have to be looking for to enjoy. Lots of little things just caught my fancy, like the detail in the ghostly tattoos or the fact that a reaper could just poof from one spot and materialize at his destination with the ease of a creature who's just been doin' his thing for centuries.
Arang and the Magistrate was also refreshing in that it focused the scale of its earthly story down to one town virtually free of grand political machinations (for once, a sageuk not all about a monarch!), and one which truly needed a magistrate. Colorful characters peppered every corner of this drama, adding life and whimsy to a wonderfully focused series.
Among the cast, Lee Jun-ki was a standout as the unenthused new magistrate faced with three quibbling ajusshis and a town full of corruption. He and Shin Mina shared great rapport and lit up the screen with their bantering and budding partnership in a relationship that was surprisingly frank for a fusion sageuk. Then again, when you've taken the trouble to construct your own mystical world with set mystical rules, you can pretty much do whatever you want in it.
And the fact that they did just that sails Arang right to the top of 2012 for me. With a refreshing sense of dry humor and a good mystery to match, this is just one of those dramas that's unique enough to have staying power, yet relatable enough for everyone to find a bit of enjoyment. Or a lot of it, in my case.
If I Could: I'd go hang out with the Jade Emperor in heaven, maybe play some baduk, maybe help him water his goat. Take that as you will.
To The Beautiful You
To The Beautiful You was definitely one of the prettiest dramas of the year. It was also one of the most vapid ones. Granted, one can describe the original Japanese version of Hanazakari no Kimitachi e as delightfully vapid, but there's the rub – it was, at least, delightful.
I'm all for adaptations making their individual mark on the world, and think that Boys Over Flowers, despite its flaws, did that to good effect. But it's like this drama took everything from the original at surface level only, and then had no idea what to do with it all. So even if they had already decided to focus less on the dorm shenanigans in order to make this a crude facsimile of every high school drama ever, the fact that they couldn't even give our heroine one line of exposition besides "I gotta do dis" to explain her reasoning for doing anything was a huge drawback. Maybe I'm old school, but character motivations are usually necessary in order for us to connect.
This is one of the year's bigger disappointments, which seems strange, because I'm not sure why I expected much from an idol vehicle produced by their parent label which, to no surprise, had zero drama-production experience. (Some lessons just have to be learned painfully, I guess.) I had faith that it'd at least keep the spirit of the original, that sense of zany fun and cast chemistry. And even if it didn't, I had faith that it would, at the very least, tell me a story.
Instead, there was unnecessary angst all over the place without real reasons as to the why of it all. Villains were put in place without motivation. The dorm leaders were treated like well-worn characters we knew and loved with the ease in which they popped in and out of the story, except we didn't know them at all. There was a point in the middle of the series where the dorm leaders had a "moment," though I found myself hard-pressed to recognize who was talking.
Most of the conflict that strung each episode to the next by a coarse hair was based on the "Will they find out I'm a girl?" one-trick pony which, frankly, was the least-engaging conflict in a show about gender-bending. I just… I still can't understand how the heroine of this tale was never given a clear motive for anything she did. Even a seasoned actress would have had trouble with the role – what's there to play? So in the scope of admittedly poor writing and poor ratings, leads Minho and Sulli showed commitment to their roles.
If I Could: I'd tell Jae-hee that she didn't actually have to do anything unless she gave a reason for it, and then there'd be no drama. The end.
Nice Guy
Nice Guy OST – Junsu – "Love Is Like Snow" [ Download ]
Boasting a star-studded cast in the form of Song Joong-ki and Moon Chae-won, Nice Guy came onto the scene among fanfare and hype, which helped give a high springboard to jump off of as far as ratings went. And they only climbed higher (for a while there, I thought we'd actually break 20%).
This show had a curious taste for ambiguity, and it delighted in withholding information from the audience – which, admittedly, isn't a bad thing in and of itself. I found it fascinating that two people could watch the same scene and come away with two completely different interpretations, and while I'm all for discourse, having so many meanings floating around seemed to make one thing clear: This show wasn't being clear enough.
As an audience, we don't need everything to be black and white, but as a writer, I'd think you'd want to get your point across, so your scene can convey the meaning you (ideally) would like it to. But at the point where the audience is confused about what this look meant or what that silent stare said, then maybe we've passed the point of deliberate, purposeful mystery and have entered the realm of… well, true mystery. One maybe as hidden from our storyteller as it was to us.
Nice Guy was one of those dramas I enjoyed from a detached perspective, since I was never really able to fully connect with our resident not-so-nice-guy. That might be due to the fact that most of the series was spent waiting for the other shoe to drop, whether it was amnesia, car crashes, or the usual bout of life-threatening illnesses and subsequent bouts of noble idiocy. (Though, admittedly, there never was a nobler and prettier eediot than Kang Maru.) But no one pointed it out better than Writer Lee herself when she had our hero(?) pick up a copy of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
To this day, I'm not quite sure what purpose that served other than serving as the writer's acknowledgment that yes, our hero did cry wolf one too many times. And because there were so many false alarms and so many lies, by the time we were given the go-ahead that this was the real deal, I was already too wary to fully invest.
That doesn't stop Nice Guy from being a well-directed and finely acted melodrama (Park Shi-yeon also gave a great, layered perfomance), and one with a thematic throughline that was carried through from beginning to end. That counts for a lot.
Does thematic resonance count more than story if the story wasn't cohesive enough to get us to that thematic mecca believably, though? I'm not so sure – it's like saying the writer's intentions mattered more than her execution. And in the end, we tune in to be told a story, not to be shown an idea.
If I Could: I would. If I could remember.
Oohlala Spouses
Out of all the shows that caused dangerous spikes in blood pressure this year, Oohlala Spouses might take my personal vote for Most Infuriating Drama of 2012. What, that's not a category?
I gave the first episode wide berth considering its comic tone and the number of episodes it had to set things right, even as I thought: "Well, they must be making Shin Hyun-joon's character so irredeemably terrible because they've got a great redemption arc for him, right?" Wrong. In fact, I negate every hope in my head and song in my heart I expressed during the premiere. I don't know what made me so optimistic, so I'm considering it a fluke.
I should have noticed the red flags during the body swap shenanigans, or the heavy hand of Personified Fate, or the fact that Victoria was not a real person in any way, shape, or form, and did not act in accordance with the way a functioning person would act and behave. At first I thought they'd have somewhere to go with her character, like there was somehow a mystery to her Swedish past that would explain everything, or at the very least, help us to understand her. Again, I was too optimistic, because that never happened.
As the episodes wore on, husband Soo-nam was painted worse and worse, to the point where no audience member should have thought he was worth redeeming. And instead of giving him a meaningful arc, we instead got a case where he just woke up one morning all remorseful and in love with his ex-wife. Sorry, nope, nah, nay, no, that's not gonna work. There are just some things you have to earn, and the right to be taken seriously after cheating without remorse while treating your wife like garbage is one of them.
Because when you have characters in your show asking: "Well, if THIS was the result, why did we need the body swap, or anything that's happened until now?" then we've got some very serious problems. Does it count as hanging a lantern when you hang yourself in the process?
If I Could: I'd make it in time to see the wedding, so I could be that person in the back waiting to chime in: "I have an objection! In fact, I have a list of objections! A very, very long list."
It's like the title says. These are shows that haven't finished airing yet, so they'll only get brief blurbs here. And really it's just one, but it's worth mentioning.
Can We Get Married?
Though less buzzed about than fellow cable sleeper hits such as Queen In-hyun's Man and Answer Me 1997, Can We Get Married? has proven itself to be one of the strongest romantic comedies of the year. Scratch that – it's just a strong drama, through and through.
I gave the first episode a chance unabashedly just for love of Sung Joon, and was taken aback when the end of the episode hit because it seemed like it was all of five minutes long. And yes, episodes are a bit shorter on cable, but the reason why this one feels like it just zooms by is due to the tight writing and even tighter directing. It just injects a sense of energy to the show that you didn't know you were missing. The scenes feel fresh and breezy, the dialogue is quick, the characters relatable, the pace fast.
Pacing is really what makes or breaks a romantic comedy, since too much time spent running around in circles tends to tire the audience out. Not here, where we experience a myriad of couples while our main duo, Sung Joon and Jung So-min, are introduced to us having already passed the honeymoon stage of their relationship. We meet them as they're already considering marriage, and walk with them through the havoc reality wreaks on love.
Another standout of the show definitely falls to the depiction of a divorce, played with stark realism that other dramas tend to shy away from. I especially love that we're not being peddled the idea that this marriage should be saved, so that we instead get to commiserate with the soon-to-be-ex-wife as she faces a horrible nightmare none of us would want to find ourselves in.
In a year so starved for romantic comedies, Can We Get Married? is an astonishing little drama filled to the brim with realism and handled with aplomb by everyone involved. Cable networks jTBC and tvN had a good year, that's for sure. Here's to many more.
- 2012 Year In Review, Part 3: A Variety of Flavors in 2012 (gummimochi's review)
- 2012 Year In Review, Part 2: Life Lessons from a Mixed Bag of Dramas (kaedejun's review)
- 2012 Year In Review, Part 1: Something for everyone? (javabeans' review)
- 2012 Beanie Awards: Vote for your favorite dramas of the year
- 2011 Year In Review, Part 5: Editors' Picks
- 2011 Year In Review, Part 4: The dramaMeter: highly scientific and foolproof (girlfriday's review)
- 2011 Year In Review, Part 3: Somewhere Over the K-Drama Rainbow (Dahee Fanel's review)
- 2011 Year In Review, Part 2: The Good, The Bad, and The Hmmm… of 2011 (kaedejun's review)
- 2011 Year In Review, Part 1: Measuring 2011 on the Sticky Scale (javabeans' review)


text:
Having lost 10 of 13 players from a team that won its second straight Division 1 state championship, GALAX is easily the least experienced of the three Twin County boys' basketball teams. But that doesn't mean the Maroon Tide doesn't know how to win.
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text:
Literature, SCIENCE + arts
The Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts welcomes colleagues in the sciences, engineering, technology, computer science, medicine, the social sciences, the humanities, the arts, and independent scholars and artists. SLSA members share an interest in problems of science and representation, and in the cultural and social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine.
The 31st Annual Conference of SLSA (Society of Science, Literature and the Arts) in Tempe AZ
CONTROL: EMPATHIES, 2017 Conference of the European Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts
The 30th Annual Conference of SLSA (Society of Science, Literature and the Arts) in Atlanta, Georgia
CONTROL: 2016 Conference of the European SLSA
SLSA members create in a variety of artistic and academic formats. Click to see our New Creations blog. Then let us know what you're up to on LITSCI-L or email email@example.com .


text:
Brand New MINI Clubman 2.0 Cooper D 6dr [Chili Pack]
Available at MINI branchesFinance your car with PCP
Representative 6.8% APR
- Low monthly payments
- A new car every 3 or 4 years
- Flexible mileage options available
- Pay the Guaranteed Future Value at the end of your contract if you want to buy the car
Interested in this car?
Vehicle summary
Mileage | Zero - brand new |
Fuel | Diesel |
Gears | Manual |
Engine | 1995 cc |
MPG (combined) | 65.7 |
CO2 emissions | 113.0 g/km |
Road tax | Free |
Doors | 12 |
Seats | 5 |
Body type | Estate |
Colour | Choice of colours |
Featured specification
- Navigation system
- Chilli Pack
- Basic bluetooth function with USB audio
- DAB digital radio module
- Air Conditioning
- 3 spoke leather sports steering wheel with piano black finish
- Crash Sensor - activates hazard/interior lighting + unlocks doors
- Body coloured roof
- Airbags
- DSC-Dynamic Stability Control
- Chrome door handles
- Rain sensor including auto headlights activation
- Multifunction steering wheel
- Height/reach adjust steering wheel
- Radio visual boost
Standard specification
Driver Convenience
Brake pad wear indicator warning light | DTC - Dynamic traction control |
Exterior temperature gauge | Intelligent emergency call |
MINI Driving Modes | Mini Ecall |
MINI TeleServices | Navigation system |
On board computer | Personal Profile |
Service interval indicator | Servotronic speed sensitive power steering |
Auxiliary input socket | DAB digital radio module |
MINI Connected | MP3 compatible radio/single CD player |
Radio visual boost |
Exterior Features
Anti dazzle rear view mirror | Black-Line look door sill finishers |
Body coloured bumpers | Chrome door handles |
Chrome exhaust tailpipe | Chrome headlight surround |
Chrome plated radiator grille | Electric front windows + one touch + anti-pinch |
Electrically adjustable door mirrors | Follow me home headlights |
Front intermittent wipers | Heated door mirrors/heated windscreen washers |
Heated rear window with timer | LED fog lights |
Rain sensor including auto headlights activation | Rear wiper |
White indicator lights |
Interior Features
12V power point front | 4 lashing points to secure luggage |
60/40 split folding rear seat | Auto air conditioning with cooled glovebox |
Centre console storage box | Chrome interior door handles |
Driver/passenger sunvisors | Easy entry seats |
Front and rear cupholders | Front and rear Isofix child seat preparation |
Front and rear velour floor mats | Front centre armrest with storage compartment |
Front headrests | Front interior light |
Front passenger grab handle | Front seat backrest storage nets |
Heated front seats | Heater with recirculation function |
Height/reach adjust steering wheel | Luggage compartment lighting |
Multifunction steering wheel | Outer passenger rear headrests |
Rear armrest with storage | Rear grab handles |
Sport front seats | Storage compartments in doors |
Toolkit in luggage compartment |
Interior lights pack - Mini Clubman | Storage compartment pack - Mini Clubman |
3 point automatic seatbelts | 3 point rear seatbelts x3 |
ABS | Automatic Stability Control (ASC) |
CBC - (Cornering brake control) | Crash Sensor - activates hazard/interior lighting + unlocks doors |
Driver and passenger airbags | Driver and passenger side airbags |
DSC-Dynamic Stability Control | Electronic brake force distribution |
Electronic parking brake | Front curtain airbags |
Front passenger airbag deactivation | Fuel cut off safety device |
Hill start assist | Pyrotechnically pre-tensioned front seatbelts |
Traction control | Twin horns |
Tyre pressure warning |
Comfort access system | Drive away door locking |
Keyless Start | Locking wheel bolts |
RF remote control central locking | Second remote key |
Thatcham category 1 alarm+immobiliser |
Diesel particulate filter | Electronic differential lock |
Technical specification
CO | 0.269 | CO2 (g/km) | 113 |
HC+NOx | 0.088 | NOx | 0.041 |
Particles | 0.0001 | Standard Euro Emissions | EURO 6 |
Engine and Drive Train
Camshaft | DOHC | Catalytic Convertor | True |
CC | 1995 | Compression Ratio | 16.5:1 |
Cylinder Layout | IN-LINE | Cylinders | 4 |
Cylinders - Bore (mm) | 84 | Cylinders - Stroke (mm) | 90 |
Engine Code | B47C20U0 | Engine Layout | FRONT TRANSVERSE |
Fuel Delivery | COMMON RAIL | Gears | 6 SPEED |
Number of Valves | 16 | Transmission | MANUAL |
Fuel Consumption
EC Combined (mpg) | 65.7 | EC Directive 1999/100/EC Applies | True |
EC Extra Urban (mpg) | 72.4 | EC Urban (mpg) | 56.5 |
Badge Engine CC | 2.0 | Badge Power | 150 |
Coin Description | D | Coin Series | Cooper [Chili] |
Insurance Group 1 - 50 Effective January 07 | 18E | Manufacturers Corrosion Perforation Guarantee - Years | 12 |
Manufacturers Paintwork Guarantee - Years | 3 | NCAP Adult Occupant Protection % | 90 |
NCAP Child Occupant Protection % | 68 | NCAP Overall Rating - Effective February 09 | 4 |
NCAP Pedestrian Protection % | 68 | NCAP Safety Assist % | 67 |
Standard manufacturers warranty - Mileage | 999999 | Standard manufacturers warranty - Years | 3 |
Vehicle Homologation Class | M1 |
0 to 62 mph (secs) | 8.6 | Engine Power - BHP | 150 |
Engine Power - KW | 110 | Engine Power - PS | True |
Engine Power - RPM | 4000 | Engine Torque - LBS.FT | 243 |
Engine Torque - MKG | 34 | Engine Torque - NM | 330 |
Engine Torque - RPM | 1750 | Top Speed | 132 |
Alloys? | True | Tyre Size Front | 225/45 R17 |
Tyre Size Rear | 225/45 R17 | Tyre Size Spare | TYRE REPAIR KIT |
Wheel Style | VENT | Wheel Type | 17" ALLOY |
Vehicle Dimensions
Height | 1441 | Length | 4253 |
Wheelbase | 2670 | Width | 1800 |
Width (including mirrors) | 2022 |
Weight and Capacities
Fuel Tank Capacity (Litres) | 48 | Gross Vehicle Weight | 1910 |
Luggage Capacity (Seats Down) | 1250 | Luggage Capacity (Seats Up) | 360 |
Max. Loading Weight | 590 | Max. Roof Load | 75 |
Max. Towing Weight - Braked | 1300 | Max. Towing Weight - Unbraked | 710 |
Minimum Kerbweight | 1320 | No. of Seats | 5 |
Turning Circle - Kerb to Kerb | 11.31 |
Independent review
Review courtesy of Car and Driving
MINI Clubman Cooper D
MINI has re-invented its Clubman model as a Focus-sized family hatchback. And it makes a fun and practical choice in volume Cooper D diesel guise. Jonathan Crouch drives it.
Ten Second Review
MINI is suggesting that family hatchback buyers wanting something a little different at the upper end of the Focus and Golf segment should 'go with their gut' and choose this second generation Clubman model. Drawing inspiration from the MINI estates of the 1960s, it's the most accessible car the brand has ever produced and also the largest. Unique twin rear doors add a dash of uniqueness too. We tried the volume 2.0-litre 150bhp Cooper D version.
MINI has never really gone mainstream. To date, the brand's BMW-era products have been stylish, quite up-market but a little different. Here though, is where that policy starts to change. This second generation Clubman model, launched late in 2015, is the company's first serious attempt at a volume market segment, in this case that for Focus-class family hatchbacks. It's a very significant car. The concept of a slightly more spacious MINI is nothing new. But the delivery of one with the practicality and sophistication to directly take on the Focus fraternity very definitely is. This Clubman model can offer this because BMW itself has also entered this market with its 2 Series Active Tourer, the company's first front-driven design. The two cars share the same engines and underpinnings - which means that Clubman buyers will get more sophisticated mechanicals than they might expect from a MINI: an engine as large as 2.0-litres in size, for example, in the volume Cooper D diesel variant we're trying here.
Driving Experience
So what's it like on the road? A little different from the MINI norm is the answer - but thankfully, not too different. No, it doesn't feel quite as sharp and frisky as the 5 Door MINI Hatch model to drive, but then this is a larger, heavier car. Anyway, compensation comes with better refinement and far superior ride quality thanks to a purpose-designed multi-link rear suspension system. If you want to tweak the damping, an optional 'Variable Damper Control' control system allows you to do it, working through the 'Green', 'MID' and 'Sport' settings of the 'MINI Driving Modes' system, another extra-cost feature. Engine-wise, the bulk of the range is based around 2.0-litre power that gives buyers the option of an 8-speed auto 'box as an alternative to the standard 6-speed manual. Most buyers will want the 150bhp Cooper D diesel we tired, a car that makes 62mph from rest in around 8.5s. A pokier 190bhp Cooper SD variant is also offered. Of course you can't have everything. This Clubman's larger size will make it a touch less wieldy around town than you might expect a MINI to be; the turning circle, for example, has risen from the 11.0m reading you get in a MINI 5 Door Hatch to 11.3m here. Still, we'll take that in return for the improved ride quality, something complemented by impressive refinement that would be even better if MINI could find a way of keeping tyre roar down.
Design and Build
There's no disputing that from the outside, the Clubman still looks like a MINI, even though it's quite a substantial thing, almost identical in height and width to a Volkswagen Golf or Ford Focus. Two distinctive side-hinged split rear so-called 'Clubdoors' mark this model out from any other on the road. They open via a dual-section chrome handle or, with the optional 'Comfort Access' feature fitted, by waving your foot beneath the bumper if, key in pocket, you approach the car, laden down with bags. Inside, you'll find 360-litres of luggage space. If that's not enough, then flattening the rear bench frees up more space than any MINI model to date has ever provided - 1,250-litres. Enough on practicality: time to move up-front. Here, there'll be a conflicting mix of impressions for those familiar with modern MINIs thanks to design that's different, yet somehow still the same. Features like decent door armrests and a centre console that, for the first time on a MINI, extends up to the instrument panel make it feel more grown-up inside. In fact, you might even talk of a 'BMW-style' feel were it not for familiar MINI touches like the column-mounted dials, the row of toggle switches below the ventilation controls, the personalisable interior light colours and, most familiar of all, the huge circular display that crowns the centre stack.
Market and Model
MINI isn't troubling to address the budget end of the family hatchback segment here, instead targeting this second generation Clubman at Volkswagen's Golf and better-specified mainstream Focus or Astra models in this sector. That means pricing in the £20,000 to £25,000 bracket. Here, we've been trying the volume 2.0-litre diesel Cooper D version which at the launch of this car was the least expensive diesel variant you could have, prived at just over £22,000. We reckon it's the one to go for, offering punchy 150bhp performance at a premium of around £2,300 over the 1.5-litre petrol-powered base 'Cooper' derivative. Equipment levels are pretty generous, with the Cooper receiving 16" alloy wheels, sat-nav, Bluetooth handsfree phone connectivity, a central display with LED ring and start/stop with keyless start. You also get an 'Excitement Pack' which adds extended interior lighting and projects the MINI logo onto the ground when you open the door, just in case you forgot what you were driving. Options include the popular 'Chilli Pack' which has been around since the original 'new' MINI was first introduced. Here, it includes part-leather upholstery with heated sports seats, park distance control, climate control, LED headlights and LED fog lights - all for just shy of £3,000 extra. Expect the usual range of MINI safety features, including ABS, stability control, traction control and optional adaptive cruise control.
Cost of Ownership
Let's get one thing out of the way first: this MINI won't be the cheapest car in its class to run. The big 2.0-litre engine you get on Cooper D and Cooper S models makes sure of that. That's not to say the Cooper D won't be frugal; official figures suggest it'll get 68.9mpg, while chucking out 109g/km of CO2. That isn't much worse than some smaller 1.6 litre rivals. Buyers should expect a standard 3 year 60,000 mile warranty, with fixed price servicing under MINI's TLC scheme a worthwhile option. Residuals have always been a MINI strongpoint, so your Clubman should retain a good chunk of its value when you come to sell. Just make sure you don't go overboard on the extensive options list; the 'Chilli Pack' has most of the essentials. Speaking of options, try to keep any paint combinations on the tasteful side to maximise resale value. Almost all MINI buyers opt for the no-brainer TLC package, which, for around £350, gives you comprehensive servicing cover for five years or 50,000 miles, whichever is reached first.
In summary, if you need a practical car from this brand and find the Hatch 5-Door model too small and the Countryman Crossover too quirky, then Clubman ownership could be tempting, particularly in this Cooper D guise. Forget the compromised and poorly executed first generation version of this car: this MK2 Clubman model is a very different proposition. Some other family hatches still offer a little more practicality but there's no doubt that the prospect of going Club-class and enjoying this car's eager uniqueness will seem very appealing to many of the new buyers MINI is seeking to target. Of course, Clubman customers must still be people unafraid to fly in the face of convention. If that's you though, then a bigger MINI adventure beckons.
Finance this car
Representative finance example | |
Monthly payment | £319 |
Deposit | £319 |
Term (months) | 48 |
Fixed interest rate | 5.9% |
Cash price | £25,270 |
Arnold Clark deposit | £2128.13 |
Credit amount | £22,822.87 |
Completion fee | £1 |
Guaranteed future value | £11,822.31 |
Total amount payable | £29,263.44 |
Contract mileage | 32000 |
Excess mileage charge | 5.62p per mile |
APR | Fixed 5.9% APR representative |
Why choose personal contract purchase (PCP)?
- Low monthly payments
- A new car every three or four years
- Flexible mileage options available
- Pay the guaranteed future value at the end of your contract if you want to buy the car
Applying for finance
Arnold Clark Automobiles Limited and Harry Fairbairn Limited act as credit brokers sourcing credit to assist with your purchase from a carefully selected Panel of Lenders (to view click here). Lenders may pay us a fee for these introductions. A guarantor may be required. All offers and credit subject to status, terms and conditions. Applicants must be 18 years or over.
Find a dealer
To find your nearest MINI branch, please enter your location.
* Calls may be recorded for quality or training purposes.


text:
SYNOPSIS:In 1660s England, women are forbidden to appear on stage and Edward 'Ned' Kynaston (Billy Crudup) uses his beauty and skill to make the great female roles his own - like Desdemona in Othello. When King Charles II (Rupert Everett) decides to allow real women to tread the boards, it is good news for the monarch's mistress, the saucy, stage-struck Nell Gwyn (Zoe Tapper). It is also good news for secret thesp Maria (Claire Danes), Kynaston's lovelorn young dresser who has been secretly performing at a seedy tavern in lavish costumes borrowed from her employer. It is very bad news for Ned who plummets from his exalted position as one of London's leading ladies to become a virtual nobody - until Maria, now a rising star, takes it upon herself to make a man of him again.
Review by Andrew L. Urban:In the rustic theatres of 17th century London, a beautiful woman in a striking costume is as alluring as she would be today. Even if she were a man - as she could be today.Ohio born Jeffrey Hatcher's fact-inspired play, Compleat Female Stage Beauty has now become a compleat film, thanks to an intelligent and inspired adaptation of his own work, a director who knows what he wants to achieve and a cast willing and able to bring us characters we can love, hate, disdain ... but never disregard. Billy Crudup gets inside the character of Ned Kynaston, a somewhat tragic young man whose back story is teased out much to the benefit of the emotional landscape of the film. No-one remembers the real Ned, of course, but Crudup gives us a very credible version. We learn how and why he is such a perfect leading lady, and it's much more affecting than a superficial camp joke.Whether you fantasise about the role if it were in the hands of Jude Law is up to you.Claire Danes is emotionally transparent, but never pitiable - far from it. She is the beating heart and the compassionate friend, the instrument of Ned's survival and transformation. Which is another great strength of the script: Ned's decline is not tragic but it is dramatic. His resurrection - if you can call it that - is not manufactured but organic. After all the talents he has nurtured all these years are very real, and we're saved from false sentimentality by the resolution, without pandering to cheap emotional devices.Both Danes and Crudup are American, but neither gives it away; the language of the entire cast is neatly positioned in a limbo that accommodates the 17th century by suggestion, but without a fussy accuracy. Likewise the production as a whole, which skilfully posits us in the London of 1660, just five years before the great fire, without overstating itself. Driven by vaguely celtic violins and guitar mixed with piano and drums, the George Fenton score is also suggestive rather than factually pedantic. It works a treat.Tom Wilkinson's natural screen persona always lands a solid punch in these period pieces, here as the theatre manager and star, playing Othello to Crudup's Desdemona. Nothing jars in this film, and the emotional joyride is grounded by a great sense of literature and the certainty that these are real human beings.Overwhelmingly humanistic and full of the understanding of the human condition, Stage Beauty is rewarding and entertaining while staying relevant. Director Richard Eyre is confident about the upbeat tone and his sense of style and dynamics helps propel the film beyond simple labels: romantic period comedy/drama and historic biopic with cross references to a drama about finding oneself...now there's a genre. Better to just enjoy it, never knowing what to call it.
CRITICAL COUNTFavourable: 1Unfavourable: 0Mixed: 0
STAGE BEAUTY (M) (UK/Germany/US)
CAST: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Rupert Everett, Tom Wilkinson, Zoë Tapper, Ben Chaplin, Hugh Bonneville, Edward Fox, Richard Griffiths
PRODUCER: Robert De Niro, Hardy Justice, Jane Rosenthal
DIRECTOR: Richard Eyre
SCRIPT: Jeffrey Hatcher (from his own play)
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Andrew Dunn
EDITOR: Tariq Anwar
MUSIC: George Fenton
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Jim Clay
RUNNING TIME: 110 minutes
AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR: Dendy
AUSTRALIAN RELEASE: November 25, 2004
VIDEO DISTRIBUTOR: Magna Pacific
VIDEO RELEASE: June 8, 2005


text:
An up close look at an investment strategy that can handle today's uncertain financial environment. Market uncertainty cannot be eliminated. So rather than attempt to do away with it, why not embrace it? That is what this book is designed to do. The Permanent Portfolio takes you through Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio approach - which can weather a wide range of economic conditions from inflation and deflation to recession - and reveals how it can help investors protect and grow their money.
Written by Craig Rowland and Mike Lawson, this reliable resource demonstrates everything from a straightforward four-asset Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) version of the strategy all the way up to a sophisticated approach using Swiss bank storage of selected assets for geographic and political diversification. In all cases, the authors provide step-by-step guidance based upon personal experience. This timeless strategy is supported by more than three decades of empirical evidence
The authors skillfully explain how to incorporate the ideas of the Permanent Portfolio into your financial endeavors in order to maintain, protect, and grow your money. Includes select updates of Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio approach, which reflect our changing times
The Permanent Portfolio is an essential guide for investors who are serious about building a better portfolio.
©2012 Craig Rowland and J. M. Lawson (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
There are no listener reviews for this title yet.
"Great Investment Advice for Preserving Wealth"
This is a great book about a very simple strategy aimed at preserving wealth and making a reasonable inflation adjusted return. The strategy is very simple, but the detailed advice about how to implement it is very helpful. I found the arguments in favor of the strategy very compelling.
As an audiobook, it suffers in two respects. First, the book has a lot of tables, which the narrator just reads. Kind of mind-numbing. Second, the narrator is just not that good. His voice reminds me of Don Adams playing Maxwell Smart, for those of you old enough to remember.
Maybe better purchased for a Kindle or as a hard copy book.
"This book in audio format need to be removed"
The book is probably ok but the way the audio was compiled it is really unusable. When the narrator hits a chart it reads all the information in the chart. It goes on for 15 min or so on each chart. It is worthless as an audio book. Remove the charts and give us a pdf to see the charts.
The reading of charts cell by cell.
Not really
I quit listening to the book so I didn't finish. I am so sorry to have to complain about this book. I am going to ask for a refund. Sorry guys I'm sure the book is good. It is just the presentation layer that is bad.
"Good audio book"
Good audio book but too many tables. Hard to visualise. A simple summary and conclusion would better. Just skipping the table is better.


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Regenerating the Tenth Doctor edition of its popular RRG game Cubicle 7 have announced an Eleventh Doctor edition of its time-travel role playing adventure Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space.
Coming with all new artwork and game material the Eleventh Doctor edition comes in a box set complete with everything players need to save the galaxy.
Included in the box will be two rulebooks plus a quick start guide, a book of adventures featuring creatures and aliens from the most recent season, character sheets, game tokens, and dice.
A 144-page gamemaster guide and an 86-page player guide will include full colour interior art.
A four panel Doctor Who Gamemaster's Screen is also currently planned for release in 2012 and is available to pre-order from the Cubicle 7 store for £9.99
Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space (Eleventh Doctor Edition) is available to pre-order now from Amazon for £35.05 with release due on 20th June.


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The Which Music Genre Has the Best Looking Females? TEST (With Pictures)
Indie Pop / Rock
How exactly do you define "indie"? I don't know...
And how exactly do you define indie girls?
I don't know, but they sure look good! :)
"Indie rock is genre of alternative rock that primarily exists in the independant underground music scene. It primarily refers to rock musicians that are or were unsigned, or have signed to independant record labels, rather than major record labels. Genres or subgenres often associated with indie rock include lo-fi, post-rock, sadcore, C86, and math rock, to list but a few; other related (and sometimes overlapping) categories include shoegazing and indie pop. Indie rock artists place a premium on maintaining complete control of their music and careers, releasing albums on independent record labels (sometimes their own) and relying on touring, word-of-mouth, and airplay on independent or college radio stations for promotion. Some end up moving to major labels, often on favorable terms won by their prior independent success. "
All possible test results
80s Pop
Guess you like g... Read more
Chart Pop (Modern)
Britney, Christina and a bunch of other pop dolls may not create the ... Read more
I guess you like natural and folkish looking women! ... Read more
So, you like them dark and stylish? Well, who woul... Read more
Indie Pop / Rock
How exa... Read more
J-pop / K-pop
Ever thought about moving to Japan? span style="font-size:... Read more
Even if you don't like metal... Read more
Neofolk / Martial Industrial
Wikipedia: "Neofolk is a form of folk music-inspired experimental... Read more
Punk / Grunge / Riot Grrrl
It looks like you like chicks with an attitude! span styl... Read more
Synthpop / Electropop / EBM
You like cyberpunkish girls, with a high-tech futuristic loo... Read more
Well, I don't know what defines a trip-hop girl, but it look... Read more
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inside the mind
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Movie review:
Urban Legend
For a horror movie, this is not all that bloody. One by one, students at a northeastern college are killed in the style of urban legends. One is decapitated by a man hiding in the back of her car. While the acting isn't spectacular, it's reasonably engaging. I didn't really figure out the mystery murderer right away.
If teen horror is your thing, you'll probably enjoy it.
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Useful Christmas Vacation Tips for You and Family
Travelling this Christmas? Get a peace of mind and ensure your Christmas vacation goes smooth and easy when you prepare beforehand and travel smart. Christmas Vacation Tips for a Smooth Vacation Check your travel documents Make a checklist for your travels. Check them at least twice to make sure you don't forget your essentials such as your travel documents.
Read more


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New Mothers Grew Bigger Brains within Months of Giving Birth
Article ID: 569869
Released: 20-Oct-2010 10:45 AM EDT
Source Newsroom: American Psychological Association (APA)
Available for logged-in reporters only
Behavioral Neuroscience (Vol. 124 No. 5)
Warmer Feelings Toward Babies Linked to Bigger Mid-brains
Newswise — Motherhood may actually cause the brain to grow, not turn it into mush, as some have claimed. Exploratory research published by the American Psychological Association found that the brains of new mothers bulked up in areas linked to motivation and behavior, and that mothers who gushed the most about their babies showed the greatest growth in key parts of the mid-brain.
Led by neuroscientist Pilyoung Kim, PhD, now with the National Institute of Mental Health, the authors speculated that hormonal changes right after birth, including increases in estrogen, oxytocin and prolactin, may help make mothers' brains susceptible to reshaping in response to the baby. Their findings were published in the October issue of Behavioral Neuroscience.
The motivation to take care of a baby, and the hallmark traits of motherhood, might be less of an instinctive response and more of a result of active brain building, neuroscientists Craig Kinsley, PhD, and Elizabeth Meyer, PhD, wrote in a special commentary in the same journal issue.
The researchers performed baseline and follow-up high-resolution magnetic-resonance imaging on the brains of 19 women who gave birth at Yale-New Haven Hospital, 10 to boys and nine to girls. A comparison of images taken two to four weeks and three to four months after the women gave birth showed that gray matter volume increased by a small but significant amount in various parts of the brain. In adults, gray matter volume doesn't ordinarily change over a few months without significant learning, brain injury or illness, or major environmental change.
The areas affected support maternal motivation (hypothalamus), reward and emotion processing (substantia nigra and amygdala), sensory integration (parietal lobe), and reasoning and judgment (prefrontal cortex).
In particular, the mothers who most enthusiastically rated their babies as special, beautiful, ideal, perfect and so on were significantly more likely to develop bigger mid-brains than the less awestruck mothers in key areas linked to maternal motivation, rewards and the regulation of emotions.
The mothers averaged just over 33 years in age and 18 years of school. All were breastfeeding, nearly half had other children and none had serious postpartum depression.
Although these early findings require replication with a larger and more representative sample, they raise intriguing questions about the interaction between mother and child (or parent and child, since fathers are also the focus of study). The intense sensory-tactile stimulation of a baby may trigger the adult brain to grow in key areas, allowing mothers, in this case, to "orchestrate a new and increased repertoire of complex interactive behaviors with infants," the authors wrote. Expansion in the brain's "motivation" area in particular could lead to more nurturing, which would help babies survive and thrive physically, emotionally and cognitively.
Further study using adoptive mothers could help "tease out effects of postpartum hormones versus mother-infant interactions," said Kim, and help resolve the question of whether the brain changes behavior or behavior changes the brain – or both.
The authors said that postpartum depression may involve reductions in the same brain areas that grew in mothers who were not depressed. "The abnormal changes may be associated with difficulties in learning the rewarding value of infant stimuli and in regulating emotions during the postpartum period," they said. Further study is expected to clarify what happens in the brains of mothers at risk, which may lead to improved interventions.
In their "Theoretical Comment," Kinsley and Meyer, of the University of Richmond, connected this research on human mothers to similar basic research findings in laboratory animals. All the scientists agreed that further research may show whether increased brain volumes are due to growth in nerve cells themselves, longer and more complex connections (dendrites and dendritic spines) between them, or bushier branching in nerve-cell networks.
Article: "The Plasticity of Human Maternal Brain: Longitudinal Changes in Brain Anatomy During the Early Postpartum Period," Pilyoung Kim, PhD, Cornell University and Yale University School of Medicine; James F. Leckman, MD, Yale University School of Medicine; Linda C. Mayes, MD, Yale University School of Medicine and The Anna Freud Centre; Ruth Feldman, PhD, Yale University School of Medicine and Bar-Ilan University; Xin Wang, MD, PhD, University of Michigan, James E. Swain, MD, PhD, FRCPS, Yale University School of Medicine and University of Michigan; Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 124, No. 5.
Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/bne-124-5-695.pdf
Article: "The Plasticity of Human Maternal Brain: Longitudinal Changes in Brain Anatomy During the Early Postpartum Period: Theoretical Comment on Kim et al. (2010)," Craig H. Kinsley, PhD, and Elizabeth A. Meyer, PhD, University of Richmond; Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 124, No. 5.
Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/bne-124-5-710.pdf
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 152,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.


text: Tedy Bruschi's Going To Want To Try This Out Nowmjdeadspin5/13/07 3:15pmFiled to: The ShockerNew England PatriotsTedy BruschiNfl21EditPromoteShare to KinjaToggle Conversation toolsGo to permalink You know, a lot of people express concern about our nation's youth. But I say, when you've got a 13-year-old boy, smiling so broadly in front of a football star that he just tricked into throwing up the shocker ... I think the future's in good hands. Advertisement The story, according to the generous reader who sent it in, is that he took his girlfriend's little brother to meet Tedy Bruschi, described as the lad's "hero." Tedy resisted at first, and didn't know what the shocker was ... I imagine this is how he'll be finding out. Here you go, Tedy ... sorry you had to find out like this. But hey, now that you know, don't hesitate to experiment with it.Reply21 repliesLeave a reply


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Movie News: New 'World War Z' Images; Downey and Burton's 'Pinocchio;' First Trailer for Tina Fey and Paul Rudd's 'Admission'
World War Z: Recently the first trailer for the zombie epic World War Z debuted, but that doesn't mean the movie is completed. Extensive reshoots are continuing on the production, and new images of a bloodied Brad Pitt have surfaced, although, frankly, he doesn't really look worse for the wear. The movie opens next summer. [Just Jared via Collider] Pinocchio: Will a Kick-Ass writer convince Robert Downey Jr. and Tim Burton to sign on the dotted line for a new version of Pinocchio? Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class) is in negotations to work on the script for Warner Bros.' Pinocchio, which focuses on a wood-carver who searches for his magical puppet turned son when he goes missing. An early draft of the script was penned by Bryan Fuller, creator of beloved TV shows Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies. [The Hollywood Reporter] Steve Jobs: When he was hired, superstar writer Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network, The Newsroom) made no secret of the fact that he had no idea how he would be adapting Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson's massive biography of the Apple cofounder, into a movie. He has now licked the problem: he plans to structure the movie around three lengthy sequences taking place in real time backstage before significant Apple product launches. [The Daily Beast] Admission Trailer: The first trailer for Admission, which is the first teaming of Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, reveals a bright-looking comedy about parenthood and responsibility. Fey is a college admissions officer, Rudd runs a commune, and somebody might be getting reunited with a child they never knew. The movie is due in theaters on March 8, 2013. [Yahoo! Movies]
In the movie The Edge of Seventeen, what is the name of the character played by Woody Harrelson
Mr. Bruner


text: Both the San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles campuses of Cuesta College are open and classes are in session after a power outage Sunday night. According to PG&E, power was restored to most customers by 12:45a.m. Monday after 145,000 customers from Lompoc to Cambria were left without power starting around 9:30p.m. Sunday night due to an outage of two transmission lines in Morro Bay that feed power to the entire Central Coast.


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Millstone Quilts
An historical gristmill in Virginia inspires Civil War-style quilts.
Grinding Away [1]
Regina Simmons and her husband, Chris, restored a 160-year-old gristmill situated in a picturesque landscape rich in Civil War history, turning it into Millstone Quilts. Relics from the 19th century decorate the shop porch.
Meet the Staff [3]
Front row, from left: Paulette Lewis, Regina Simmons (owner), and Della Nobles; back row: Katherine Peterson, Linda Stagg, Ruth Gullette, Denise Hall, and Vicki Johnson.
In the Woodwork [5]
A loft railing showcases a variety of quilts, including, on the right, Hanging Gardens by Cozy Quilt Designs. A large shelving unit under the hanging quilts houses jars of fabric scraps, fabric squares in a variety of patterns, and the latest quilting books.
Slow It Down [7]
Regina hopes that customers can slow down and appreciate the time-honored hobby of quilting after visiting her store, which gives a nod to Civil War-style quilts.
Petal Patch [9]
Staff member Vicki Johnson designed Petal Patch for Quilt Sampler® Fall/Winter 2011 magazine.
Machine-Quilting Designs [11]
In Petal Patch, designer Vicki Johnson placed some appliqué flowers off-center for variety. Michelle Eno machine-satin-stitched around each flower three times to create a feeling of movement. She machine-quilted each 16-Patch block with a leaf-and-curlicue motif that accentuates the spiral centers of the flowers.
Petal Power Color Option [13]
Instead of appliquéd flowers, quilt tester Laura Boehnke showcased a novelty print in the unpieced 8" squares and surrounded all squares with striped strips. Dots, prints, and tone-on-tones in the 16-Patch blocks add to the playful look of the kid-friendly quilt. Fabric is from the Rainbow Zoo collection by Amy Blay for Red Rooster Fabrics [14].
For more information about Millstone Quilts, visit millstonequilts.com [15].


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The older cat is mostly a indoor cat but also is allowed free range outside when she wants to go. When she is out side she almost always brings us home a "gift" of another animal she has killed, from mice to small rabbits. She is most definitely a hunter.
We have never had any other pets since having her. She is fixed (in case that matters).
We got a 10 week old male kitten Labor Day and she wants to kill it.
She sneaks up on it and does everything she can to get to it and the 1 time she did get to it she went right for its throat. Thankfully I was right there and got her off him with no damage done.
We have had 4 new born (human lol) in our family since we got our older cat and she has never behaved badly to them, so we thought we would be OK with a new born kitten.
What do we do???????


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Alpha Kappa Delta
Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) is an international sociology honor society that encourages the study of humanity for the purpose of service. Each candidate for membership must be an officially declared sociology major or demonstrate a serious interest in sociology; must be at least a junior; must have accumulated the equivalent of an overall grade point average of 3.0; must have maintained the equivalent of a 3.0 grade point average in sociology courses; and must have completed at least four regular courses in sociology prior to initiation.
AKD is affiliated with Association of College Honor Societies. ACHS outlines "how to judge the credibility of an honor society" and includes among the criteria for specialized honor societies such as AKD, including "rank in the upper 35 percent of the class."


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Des Plaines resident Benjy Banuelos received the Youth Hero Award from the Illinois Fire Inspectors Association at the organization's annual awards luncheon on Friday, Oct. 26, at Medinah Banquets, Addison. Banuelos received the award for his actions on Friday, Dec. 23, 2011, when his family's townhouse caught fire in the 1300 block of Fargo Ave., in Des Plaines.
The fire occurred when a can of gasoline was knocked-over on the stairs, causing gas to run down and through the basement steps. The fumes from the gasoline traveled to the water heater's pilot light, which ignited the fumes in a giant flash, causing the fire to spread rapidly.
Banuelos was in the basement with his aunt, grandmother and baby cousin. After the fire started, he was able to escape the basement via the flame-threatened stairway. In climbing-up the stairs, Banuelos' pants leg caught fire. Once at the top of the steps, he yelled to his family to get out of the house because of the fire. He quickly went outside and performed "stop-drop-and-roll" to extinguish the flames on his clothing. He then called 911 on a cellphone to report the fire. The call is thought to be the first one reporting the fire, thus summoning the fire department. The fire department arrived quickly enough to rescue Banuelos' unconscious grandmother and cousin from the basement fire. After weeks in the hospital, both victims went home with no long-term effects from their ordeal.
The Illinois Fire Inspectors awarded Banuelos with the Youth Hero Award for putting into practice the safety messages taught by the fire department at Banuelos' school, and for staying calm and taking measures which resulted in saving not only his own life, but those of his family members.
• Send Your news to firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Away: Dallas [22-19 ATS] Home: Orlando [20-18-1 ATS]
Game Time: 6:00 PM Stadium: Amway Center
Recent Meetings: N/A
Team Leaders: Dallas: Points: O.J. Mayo (18.2) Assists: Darren Collison (5.1) Rebounds: Shawn Marion (8.1)
Orlando: Points: Arron Afflalo (17.5) Assists: Jameer Nelson (7.2) Rebounds: Nikola Vucevic (11.1)
More: Live Odds In-Depth Matchup Information Consensus Betting Information
Good Spot for Magic here.
In January Magic have played the playoff contenders tough, I think their loan loss ats was against utah by a point.
Dallas just played a string of teams from their conference. covering 6 in a row. let down spot for Dirk and friends.
Magic will show up for Big D, Orlando + 3.5
I know I am going against the trend that the visitor wins in these meetings, but lucky for me I don't need a su win, just cover!


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Crowds are flocking to see the film "300" about the ancient Spartans' last stand at the pass at Thermopylae against an invading Persian army. Yet many critics, in panning "300," have alleged that the film is essentially historically inaccurate. Are they right?
Here are some answers. But first two qualifiers. I wrote an introduction to a book about the making of "300" after being shown a rough cut of the movie in October. And, second, remember that "300" does not claim to follow exactly ancient accounts of the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Instead, it is an impressionistic take on a graphic novel by Frank Miller, intended to entertain and shock first, and instruct second.
Indeed, at the real battle, there weren't rhinoceroses or elephants in the Persian army. Their king, Xerxes, was bearded and sat on a throne high above the battle; he wasn't, as in the movie, bald and sexually ambiguous, and he didn't prance around the killing field. And neither the traitor Ephialtes nor the Spartan overseers, the Ephors, were grotesquely deformed.
When the Greeks were surrounded on the battle's last day, there were 700 Thespians and another 400 Thebans who fought alongside the 300 Spartans under King Leonidas. But these non-Spartans are scarcely prominent in the movie.
Still, the main story line mostly conveys the message of Thermopylae.
A small contingent of Greeks at Thermopylae (which translates to "The Hot Gates") really did block the enormous Persian army for three days before being betrayed. The defenders claimed their fight was for the survival of a free people against subjugation by the Persian Empire.
Many of the film's corniest lines - such as the Spartan dare, "Come and take them," when ordered by the Persians to hand over their weapons, or the Spartans' flippant reply, "Then we will fight in the shade," when warned that Persian arrows will blot out the sun - actually come from ancient accounts by Herodotus and Plutarch.
The warriors of "300" look like comic-book heroes because they are based on Frank Miller's drawings that emphasized bare torsos, futuristic swords and staged fight scenes. In other words, director Zack Snyder tells the story not in a realistic fashion - like the mostly failed attempts to recapture the ancient world in recent films such as "Troy" or "Alexander" - but in the surreal manner of a comic book or video game.
The Greeks themselves often embraced such impressionistic adaptation. Ancient vase painters sometimes did not portray soldiers accurately in their bulky armor. Instead, they used "heroic nudity" to show the contours of the human body.
Similarly, Athenian tragedies that depicted stories of war employed contrivances every bit as imaginative as those in "300." Actors wore masks. Men played women's roles. They chanted in set meters, broken up by choral hymns. The audience understood that dramatists reworked common myths to meet current tastes and offer commentary on the human experience.
Some reviewers think the film is gratuitously violent. But Thermopylae was no picnic. Almost all the Spartans and Thespians were killed, along with hundreds from other Greek contingents. Some of the film's most graphic killing - such as Persians being pushed over the cliff into the sea - derives from the text of Herodotus. And the filmmakers omitted the mutilation of King Leonidas, whose head Xerxes ordered impaled on a stake.
Finally, some have suggested that "300" is juvenile in its black-and-white depiction - and glorification - of free Greeks versus imperious Persians. The film has actually been banned in Iran as hurtful American propaganda, as the theocracy suddenly is reclaiming its "infidel" ancient past.
But that good/bad contrast comes not from the director or Frank Miller, but is based on accounts from the Greeks themselves, who saw their own society as antithetical to the monarchy of imperial Persia.
True, 2,500 years ago, almost every society in the ancient Mediterranean world had slaves. And all relegated women to a relatively inferior position. Sparta turned the entire region of Messenia into a dependent serf state.
But in the Greek polis alone, there were elected governments, ranging from the constitutional oligarchy at Sparta to much broader-based voting in states like Athens and Thespiae.
Most importantly, only in Greece was there a constant tradition of unfettered expression and self-criticism. Aristophanes, Sophocles and Plato questioned the subordinate position of women. Alcidamas lamented the notion of slavery.
Such openness was found nowhere else in the ancient Mediterranean world. That freedom of expression explains why we rightly consider the ancient Greeks as the founders of our present Western civilization - and, as millions of moviegoers seem to sense, far more like us than the enemy who ultimately failed to conquer them.


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I know what you mean - depending on the silk, I find that some of my ties do have a tendency to stay wrinkled, whereas others smooth out much more quickly. My printed ties tend to lose their wrinkles very quickly, whereas grenadines and woven ties tend to hold wrinkles a bit more, in my experience.
As others have said, giving the tie time between wearings (say, a week or more) helps. Instead of hanging, I roll most of my ties and store them in a set of drawers and I think that rolling helps to get rid of wrinkles, too.
You know. I used to roll all my ties. And then I read somewhere about hanging ties being better for wrinkles... .
That was before I owned any vandas though. So maybe I should go back to that option.


text: I'm looking for a venue for a long boozy lunch with a small group of friends. Something warm and inviting, where we wont be shuffled out the door as soon as the meal ends. Prefer something central to save on taxi fares but happy to travel for if worthwhile. I'm after an English pub kind of vibe. Suggestions appreciated!


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Follow PSU Football: | Follow @PennStateFball |
Aug. 10, 2012
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - There's never been a better time to wear the blue and white and represent the Nittany Lions! Penn State fans are encouraged to wear their colors on August 31 for College Colors Day. As part of the national celebration, Penn State is participating in the inaugural Pledge Your Allegiance for College Colors Day spirit competition. The winner of the competition will earn the prestigious College Colors Day Spirit Cup and $10,000 towards the general scholarship fund.
Nittany Lion fans can register at www.espn.com/collegecolorsday to "pledge their allegiance" to Penn State as the school with the most college spirit and loyal fan base.
The rivalry competition includes 165 participating colleges and universities. The contest will run through the month of August, leading up to College Colors Day on August 31. Throughout the competition, standings will be tracked nationally, as well as by conference.
All registrants are entered to win weekly $50 gift cards from ESPN Shop and one of two grand prizes including a $500 college shopping spree at ESPN Shop. The inaugural spirit competition is presented by The Collegiate Licensing Company(CLC), a division of IMG College, and NCAA Football.
College Colors Day is an annual celebration that encourages fans to wear their favorite college or university apparel to promote their pride and spirit for their school.
Later that day, Nittany Lion fans can carry their pride and support into Beaver Stadium for the Football Eve celebration. The ninth annual event marks the start of the new season with a festival-like atmosphere outside at 6 p.m. The pep rally at 7 p.m. will feature the Blue Band, cheerleaders, the Lionnettes, the football team, and Penn State Head Coach Bill O'Brien.
Season and single game tickets are now on sale for the 2012 Penn State football season. For information on joining the Nittany Lion Club, purchasing season and single game tickets, as well as club seating in Beaver Stadium, fans can go to www.GoPSUsports.com/tickets or call 1-800-648-8269 (1-800-NITTANY) weekdays from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. The pricing of 2012 Penn State football game tickets and accompanying donation levels is the same as in 2011.