text:
A zombie plague has wiped out 95 percent of America. Camps of survivors band together in pockets across the country, waiting for small squadrons of human "sweepers" to inch their way across major cities, destroying the remaining zombie-like creatures hiding out in office buildings and shopping malls.
But now the human sweepers have to tackle their biggest challenge yet: clearing the undead from Lower Manhattan.
That's the setup of Colson Whitehead's post-apocalyptic zombie novel Zone One. The book tracks a team of human "sweepers" as they make their way through a walled-off area of New York City over the course of three days.
Team leader Mark Spitz must stay calm to avoid the zombies lurking around every corner. But he keeps having flashbacks to the worst days of the zombie apocalypse, when everything — and everyone — in his life was destroyed.
"Mark Spitz is trying to reconcile moving to the city and becoming a real New Yorker with this empty landscape that confronts him," Whitehead tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "In Zone One, I'm describing New York a couple years in the future, and it looks pretty much the same but the ruined city is superimposed on the city that's still standing."
Whitehead, who also wrote Sag Harbor, The Intuitionist, John Henry Days and The Colossus of New York, explains that he wrote his latest novel in part to pay homage to the grime-filled New York of the 1970s — and to the science-fiction and horror novels he read as a child.
"It was staying in the house, being a shut-in as a 10-year-old and just curling up with The Twilight Zone or a stack of comic books that made me want to be a writer," he says. "I envied kids who played soccer and football, but that was not my gig."
Whitehead says writers would be unlikely to survive an apocalyptic event — as would Olympians and other high achievers.
"In the apocalypse, I think those average, mediocre folks are the ones who are going to live," he says. "I think the A-pluses will probably snuff themselves. The C-minus personalities will probably be killed off very quickly. But it's the mediocre folks that will become the heroes. ... Anyone who survives will be a hero."
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. Colson Whitehead's novel "Zone One" came out last year in the middle of a zombie craze, and it became a national bestseller. It's now out in paperback. The book is set in Manhattan after a plague has spread around the world turning many of the infected into zombies.
When the novel begins, the worst of the plague is over and New York's provisional government is trying to restore some semblance of normal life. The main character, Mark Spitz, is part of a team that is supposed to clean out the remaining zombies.
Colson Whitehead is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called Genius Award. His novel "John Henry Days," about a journalist assigned to write about the legendary John Henry, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His semi-autobiographical novel "Sag Harbor" is about summering in a middle-class African-American community in the Hamptons.
Terry spoke to Colson Whitehead in October, when "Zone One" was published in hardback.
Colson Whitehead, welcome to FRESH AIR. Let's start with a reading from "Zone One." And you want to just set it up for us?
COLSON WHITEHEAD: Sure. In this section, Mark Spitz, our humble protagonist, is hiding out. The end times have come, and he's found a refuge with a woman named Mim in a toy store in Connecticut. And he's mulling over how they got here and trying to process how much the world has changed.
(Reading) The boy that wandered into the cellar of his personality still nursed the naive hunger for a life of adventure. As a kid he'd invented scenarios for adulthood: to outrun a fireball; swing across the air shaft on a wire; dismember the gargoyle army with an enchanted blade that only he could hold.
(Reading) Now he was grown up and the plague had granted him his wish and rendered it a silly grotesque. It was not so glamorous to spend two days doubled over emptying your guts because you'd gambled on the expired bottle of kiwi juice. All of the other kids turned out to be postal workers, roofers, beloved teachers, and died. Mark Spitz was living the dream. Take a bow, Mark Spitz.
And then he goes on to think about all the movies and TV shows he loved as a kid and the monsters in them.
(Reading) He loved the subgenre of misunderstood aliens and mechanical men who yearn to love. He'd always seen himself in them, the robots who roved the galaxy in search of the emotion chip; the tentacled things that were, beneath their muddled puckered membranes, more human than the murderous villagers who hunted them down for their difference.
(Reading) The townspeople, of course, were the real monsters. It was the business of the plague to reveal our family members, friends and neighbors as the creatures they'd always been. And what had the plague exposed him to be? Mark Spitz endured as the race was killed off one by one. A part of him thrived on the end of the world. How else to explain it: He had a knack for apocalypse.
(Reading) The plague touched them all, blood contact or no. The secret murderers, dormant rapists and latent fascists were now free to express their ruthless natures. The timid, those who had been stingy with their dreams for themselves, those who came out of the womb scared and remained so, these too found a final stage for their weakness and in their last breaths were fulfilled. I've always been like this. Now I'm more me.
GROSS: That's Colson Whitehead reading from his new novel, "Zone One." So let's talk about the scenario that you've created. What is the plague that destroys so much of New York?
WHITEHEAD: The plague is a zombie plague, and I'm still trying to get over saying zombie out loud so many times a day. And the infected and dead are about 95 percent of the population, and then there are the survivors. And the plague is running down; they're rebuilding society.
There are camps of survivors here and there across the country, and now they've decided to tackle New York. It's an island. You can go through and sweep out the remaining zombies, the plague-ridden wretches. And our hero, Mark Spitz, is part of a team of sweepers.
The Army has swept out most of the creatures, and Omega Team, Mark's team, is going door-to-door in residential buildings, office buildings, and getting that remaining one percent of the monsters who are lurking in closets and in storerooms so that they can resettle Manhattan and bring the survivors home.
GROSS: So the people who are left include the living, the skels, and the stragglers. What are skels?
WHITEHEAD: The skels are what we know as conventional zombies, slow-moving. They gain their horrific potential in groups. And then there are stragglers, which I added to the mix. And stragglers are malfunctioning zombies. They are the human statues. Once they've been infected, they go to places that were important to them, places that are emotionally charged.
So if you were a lawyer, you might follow your homing instincts and go to your office and sit in your chair and wait for clients who never come. If you are a shrink, you might go to your office and wait for patients who are dead and are probably not going to show up for their 1:00 appointments. So downtown is littered with these stragglers, these human statues who are representing some sort of aspect of their past.
GROSS: And there's something so creepy about that concept.
GROSS: If you were straggler, where would you be?
WHITEHEAD: Oh, probably on my couch watching the evening news and unwinding, waiting for a broadcast that's never going to come.
GROSS: Right.
WHITEHEAD: For a weather report that really had no impact on me.
GROSS: Do the zombies in your book have any consciousness of the fact that they're zombies?
WHITEHEAD: As far as the zombies, we don't know what they're thinking. I doubt it's that complicated. I'm kind of hungry. Whole Foods is closed, so...
WHITEHEAD: ...I go after this guy right here. Part of what I'm trying to do in the book is erase that line between the infected and the uninfected. The stragglers are tied to emotionally charged places in their past, and so are the survivors.
They're also ghosts haunting themselves, the people they used to be, the homes, their homes that no longer exist. So whether you have the plague in your blood or not, you're kind of zombie-like is what I'm trying to say, I think.
GROSS: Now, Buffalo, New York has become the home of the provisional government, and the best and brightest have been sent there to rewind the catastrophe, and in return they have a 24-hour-a-day generator and uncurtailed hot showers on command, which is a really big deal in this post-apocalyptic world.
And one of the things they're tackling in the provisional government is language, trying to describe the post-plague world; they're rebranding the survival. They have specialists crafting the new language. What were some of your inspirations for this rebranding?
WHITEHEAD: When I was conceiving the novel, I just had the idea that people are pretty much the same after the disaster, they're just a little more bummed out. And so it seems that marketing will come back pretty quickly, bureaucracy, all those sorts of things.
And if you are trying to marshal a very depressed populace towards a new future, you are going to need a song, "Stop, Can You Hear the Eagle Roar," which is, you know, the uplifting anthem that people are humming under their breath.
You're going to need a name for this new class of people, the American Phoenix, we're rising from the ashes. So it seemed that that kind of corporate sloganeering would come back pretty early along with the desire for gourmet coffee, fresh arugula and all those sorts of nice things that we associate with contemporary society.
GROSS: So the anthem for the new world is "Stop" - exclamation point - "Can You Hear the Eagle Roar," parentheses, theme from Reconstruction, and I love the fact that you've made the anthem a parentheses song.
WHITEHEAD: Well, you know, you love those, you know, all those pop songs that are like "You're Rolling Me" - parentheses - "Like a Pair of Dice."
WHITEHEAD: So I thought the book would be a lot more - well, hopefully the book is gloomy, but the jokes started creeping in pretty early and I had to embrace that.
GROSS: So can you sing the song - the anthem?
WHITEHEAD: I should probably hire a songwriter to actually make a melody. The lyrics will be fun to write. I should get on that. But it's probably close to, you know, things they play at baseball games or any sort of sports match. I don't actually go to any sports matches. Are they even called sports matches? I'm not sure.
GROSS: Tennis matches.
WHITEHEAD: Games. Games.
DAVIES: Colson Whitehead, speaking with Terry Gross. His latest novel is called "Zone One." We'll hear more after a break; this is FRESH AIR.
DAVIES: We're listening to Terry's interview recorded last October with writer Colson Whitehead. His novel "Zone One" is now out in paperback.
GROSS: So why are zombies and vampires so popular now? Why do you think?
WHITEHEAD: I wish I could tell you. I mean, my strange affinity goes back to when I was a kid. I read a lot of horror novels and watched a lot of horror movies: B movies; good horror movies like "The Thing"; bad movies like "Horror of Party Beach." And I was definitely too young to, you know, to see these things. So I saw "Dawn of the Dead" in junior high...
GROSS: That's one of the Romero films, George Romero films.
WHITEHEAD: Yes. The second one, zombie classic, and it was rated X, you know, no one under 18 admitted, but my parents took me and my brother on a family outing, it was very pleasant, and since then I've had zombie anxiety dreams.
I've had zombie anxiety dreams for the last 30 years. And this book started from a dream I had two and half years ago. Finally, one of my dreams was useful. I was out of the country with some houseguests, it was very lovely.
And I had this dream that I wanted to go out into the living room of my house, but I was wondering if they'd swept the zombies out yet. And then I woke up, and usually when you have a dream, and you're sort of aware it's a dream, you think I have to remember this when I wake up, it's going to be a good book and then we wake up, and it's terrible.
This time I woke up and thought: This is a real, actual, logistical nightmare. How do you get rid of the zombies when you're trying to rebuild society? And that's how the book started for me.
GROSS: So when your parents took you to see "Dawn of the Dead," even though it was rated X, and it was rated X because it was so graphic. I mean, the zombies are, like, eating, they're just, like, chewing on legs and arms. It's a really, really gory film. And you had signed the nightmares ever since. So did your parents do the right thing or the wrong thing by taking you to see that exceptionally gory zombie film?
WHITEHEAD: I got a book out of it.
WHITEHEAD: You know...
GROSS: Thirty years later.
WHITEHEAD: Thirty years later. So it paid off. I mean, I think - we didn't have babysitters, my brother and I. We would just go to Crazy Eddie, which was an old video store in New York City, every Friday and rent Betamax tapes of late '70s splatter movies and classic horror movies, Dario Argento, and have these horror film festivals.
And until - I think until college I wanted to write horror novels. I wanted to write the black "Shining" or the black "Salem's Lot." Basically, if you took any Stephen King title and put the black in front of it, that was sort of my aspiration.
GROSS: So when you were young, you wanted to write the black "The Shining" or any - take any Stephen King novel and put the black in front of it. So what's going on racially in your new novel? Is your character African-American? Is he white? Is race an issue? Is this truly like - is it a post-racial world and a post-apocalyptic world?
WHITEHEAD: You know, I mean, the use of the word post-racial is so funny these days. Folks think that because Obama was elected, suddenly racism disappeared, you know, the day after, on November 6th. And, of course, it didn't. We don't live in a post-racial world.
However, it seems when folks have the apocalypse on their plate - or at least it seemed to me - that racial differences, class differences, your funny accent, these things aren't as important as finding that last can of peas and maybe a bag of beef jerky that will get you through a couple days food.
GROSS: And making sure that the person isn't a zombie.
WHITEHEAD: Yes. That helps. That helps.
GROSS: Yes, right.
WHITEHEAD: So "Zone One" is a post-racial world simply because they have more things on their mind than skin color, gender difference
GROSS: Now when you were growing up in Manhattan, you went to prep school. And you said you were often the only African-American in the room. And when you'd go to a bar mitzvah, which you did a lot growing up in Manhattan...
WHITEHEAD: It was a great time. I mean, that was my introduction to chicken on skewers, finger food. You know, I look back very fondly.
GROSS: Little egg rolls?
WHITEHEAD: Yes. Oh, God.
GROSS: So how did that shape your sense of what it meant to be black?
WHITEHEAD: It didn't shape my sense of what it is to be black. I mean, it helped with my outsider-ness. And I think if you're an outsider, as you are in a predominantly white prep school, you become a observer.
But that kind of otherness can be found in so many sectors of daily experience, and I try to tackle that in "Sag Harbor." We have this prep school kid who divides his time between New York City, where he's in a mostly white environment in school, and an African-American community in Sag Harbor in the Hamptons, a middle-class, upper-middle-class enclave. And he toggles back and forth between an all-black society and a mostly white society and tries to figure out who he is and who he's becoming.
GROSS: In "Sag Harbor," your semi-autobiographical novel about summering in the Hamptons in African-American summering community there, the character describes his parents as being from the uplift-the-race category. And I'm wondering if you would describe your parents that way, too. And if so, how did that relate to their expectations of you?
WHITEHEAD: There's some of that in their personality. You know, they're the civil rights generation, and I'm the product of their struggles and what they - and their aspirations and what they wanted for their kids. And they're the product of their parents' strivings, being the first doctors, lawyers in their family, this newly emergent black middle class in the '20s.
So they had certain - I think, you know, they wanted me to have a decent job and make a lot of money. And when I told them I wanted to be a writer, they weren't incredibly psyched. I mean, I was fortunate to get a job working at the Village Voice and supporting myself doing journalism, not supporting myself in a very lofty style, but I had money for beer, and that helped.
And even when I was being a journalist, they sort of didn't understand and assumed I would get with the program and become a lawyer. I didn't. I started writing novels. The first one didn't go anywhere.
And I think it wasn't until my first, "The Intuitionist," came out that they were fully on board. They could actually see a review of it in a newspaper and say, oh, it's actually something that's real. And even if you didn't go into investment banking or brain surgery, he can take care of himself.
GROSS: There's an incident that happens in your novel "Sag Harbor," and I was wondering if this is based on anything that happened to you. The main character, who is African-American, is with some kids who are white. A one of the white kids drags his finger across the main character's cheek and said look, it doesn't come off - referring to his color.
And, you know, the kid tells the incident to his father. And the father gets really angry that his son didn't hit the white kid, that his son just kind of took this insult, which the father considered the equivalent of calling the kid the N- word. So is that based on a real incident?
WHITEHEAD: I wouldn't say based. You know, I think - you know, my father's upbringing was definitely more rough-and-tumble, and I think you become more aware of those tiny, insidious moments where the world is teaching you what actually it thinks of you.
I grew up with, you know, great friends, went to a school where I was with the same, you know, gang of kids from kindergarten on, and was definitely insulated from certain realities - sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way.
So in "Sag Harbor," I was trying to pick out small moments like that, things that happened to my friends, happened to me and slow them down and unpack them and try to deconstruct what's going on in these moments of real racial animosity but also just racial misunderstanding.
Some white folks don't understand that, actually, black people don't like have their head - their hair patted. It's just hair. It's just an afro. You find it springy. Wow. That's great. Don't touch me.
So I did endure a certain amount of head-patting as a kid, and trying to, like, figure out what's going on in folks' brains when they reach out and touch your afro was sort of a fun part of writing "Sag Harbor."
GROSS: One of your first book jobs, perhaps your very first book job, was working at the Village Voice, the first - I think it's fair to say the first really big alternative weekly newspaper. And you were, what, assistant book review editor, or assistant to the book review editor?
WHITEHEAD: Yeah. I was about six months out of college, and it was my job to open the 40 books a day we got from publishers, file them, answer the phones. I had to get a phone voice, because I was a big mumbler, so voice literary supplements.
WHITEHEAD: That was a real milestone for me. And, I mean, it was a great time and a great opportunity. I'm not sure how kids find journalism jobs these days. But because, you know, the Village Voice thought of itself as a writer's paper, if you hung around and badgered folks, you would get an assignment.
And if it was okay, you'd get the second one. And so I started off in the TV section, because the editor seemed like an easy mark.
WHITEHEAD: And he gave me an assignment, and that led to other stuff. So I never took any creative writing classes in college. I tried to audition for them, and I was turned down both times, which was very depressing. But I became a writer at the Voice, you know, filing once a week.
If you write a good article, you get great feedback. Good job, Colson. If you are too self-indulgent and spend the first four paragraphs talking about your romantic woes or why you're depressed, you hear nothing.
So you know you sort of screwed up, and maybe you should not be so voice-oriented and more attentive to the job at hand. And then that gave me the confidence to start writing fiction, even though I never - I'd only written maybe, you know, four stories in my whole life.
GROSS: Well, thank you so much for talking with us.
WHITEHEAD: It was a lot of fun. It got me out of the house, always a big plus in my world.
GROSS: Yeah, are you still a shut-in?
WHITEHEAD: Yeah. When you work at home - you know, you write, you work at home. So those are the rhythms of my days.
GROSS: And that suits you?
WHITEHEAD: Yes. I like it just fine.
DAVIES: Colson Whitehead, speaking with Terry Gross in October. Whitehead's novel "Zone One" is now out in paperback. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.


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Products >
cDNA_Synthesis_and_Library_Construction >
Poly A+ RNA from Clontech is enriched for mRNA transcripts with two rounds of oligo(dT) cellulose purification. The mRNA is isolated from our total RNA collection, which is meticulously prepared to high quality using our proprietary modified guanidinium thiocyanate method. We offer a selection of poly A+ RNA from rat tissues including brain, lung, liver, and other tissues.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Product Features:
Cookie & biscuit press
Doubles as icing gun
Material: ABS plastic & stainless steel
Use the biscuit discs to create different cookie & biscuit shapes
Comes with an assortment of stainless steel nozzles for different icing effects
Hand wash only
Gift boxed
Pack Contains:
1 x Press/Icing Gun
10 x Stainless Steel Biscuit Discs
1 x Coupler
8 x Stainless Steel Nozzles
Pack Weight: 508g
Brand: Swift
Manufacturer Part Number:
178 48845
Gun: H 160mm L(min.) 250mm (max.) 380mm D 60mm
Biscuit Disc: Ø 50mm
Coupler: H 25mm Ø 50mm
Nozzle (approx): L 30mm Ø 18mm


text:
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White Bean and Tuna Salad
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(Recipe ID: 236)
Serves 6 to 8
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Source: Chef Joseph Lowery
Uncomplicated Italian favorite.
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- 3 cans Cannellini or other white beans, rinsed and drained
- 1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive oil *
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 Clove garlic, minced and mashed
- 3/8 teaspoons Salt *
- 1 1/4 teaspoons Ground black pepper *
- 5 or 6 Green onions, thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons Parsley, finely chopped
- 2 9 1/4 ounce cans of oil packed tuna
- Roasted peppers, lemon slices, sprigs of parsley, and black olives for garnish *
- Drain the canned beans through a strainer and rinse them with cold water.
- Drain a second time and spread them out on several paper towels to dry.
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- Jul 2:
- Alfalfa's-anchored development in Louisville gets final OK
- Nov 20:
- Louisville approves Alfalfa's-anchored redevelopment for Safeway site
- Oct 25:
- Alfalfa's-anchored project gets green light from Louisville Planning Commission
- Oct 16:
- Louisville extends $1 million in incentives to Alfalfa's to locate at vacant Safeway site
- Oct 15:
- Louisville may woo Alfalfa's with 'aggressive' incentive package
- Sep 2:
- Developer pitches Alfalfa's for controversial Safeway site in Louisville
- Jul 2:
- Alfalfa's eyes vacant Safeway site in Louisville for new store location
- Jun 6:
- The deal is dead: Louisville evaluates its prospects at Safeway site
- May 15:
- Louisville pushes decision on Safeway project to June
- Apr 28:
- Next stop for Louisville Safeway re-do: City Council
- Mar 8:
- Louisville Planning Commission shoots down Safeway redevelopment project
- Feb 23:
- Louisville Safeway redevelopment to go to a third hearing
- Feb 9:
- Safeway redevelopment hearing draws crowds in Louisville
- Feb 5:
- Safeway redevelopment proposal in Louisville courts controversy
- Jun 1:
- High-end apartments, retail planned for old Safeway site in Louisville
- Apr 19:
- Louisville Safeway store to close
LOUISVILLE -- A light at the end of the long, darkened Safeway on South Boulder Road flickered on this past week, with a local developer inking a contract with the grocer to purchase the empty building.
Louisville's economic development director, Bonnie Star, said Boulder-based Loftus Development signed a contract with Safeway on Wednesday and has plans to turn the 26,588-square-foot store -- shuttered since mid-May -- into a mixed-use project.
"He will likely be pursuing a rezoning of some sort," she said, referring to the company's owner, Jim Loftus.
She said she didn't have a specific development plan in front of her and couldn't provide details on the mix of retail and residential envisioned at the Village Square shopping center site.
Neither Loftus nor the broker on the deal, SRS Real Estate Partners' Jason Kinsey, could be reached, despite multiple attempts. A representative for Safeway declined to comment on the pending deal.
Star said Louisville was hoping that a large retail operation, perhaps an organic grocery store, would have filled Safeway's space at 707 E. South Boulder Road.
"The site has been a tax-producing asset for us and in the best of all worlds we'd like that type of retail to take over the same space," she said.
But after several inquiries and no bids over the past 11 months, the city opened itself up to other development possibilities. Star said she doubts that a project will get far with the City Council without offering "some retail" at the site.
Sales tax revenues along the commercial corridor where Safeway operated plunged dramatically last year -- falling 39 percent -- from $307,000 in 2009 to $188,000 in 2010, according to city tax data. Over the past five years, sales tax revenues have fallen by 50 percent in the district.
Loftus has about six months to perform due diligence on the Safeway site, Star said, before closing on the deal.
At the Village Square shopping center last week, business owners greeted the news of the possible redevelopment with restrained optimism.
Rajiv Shukla, owner of Village Square Wine & Spirits, said his business volume declined by nearly 30 percent after Safeway's closure last year and hasn't recovered.
He was reluctant to comment on the prospects of revitalizing the 30-year-old plaza without seeing more detailed plans, but he made known his immediate preference.
"I wanted something, like an anchor, that could bring more crowds," Shukla said. "But something is better than nothing."
Pizza King owner Steve Duncan also said he was "concerned" about a mixed-use project coming in place of a big box retailer, especially because Village Square, where he has been since February 2010, is not a "destination" shopping center.
But he also said he'd rather see something come in than continue staring at a hulking grocery store with no customers and no business.
In related news, Star said that earlier this month she learned that U-Haul was eyeing the shuttered Sam's Club on McCaslin Boulevard as a possible truck rental and storage location.
The giant retailer laid off 125 workers when it closed in January 2010. Louisville is eager to see a new retail tenant occupy the 127,000-square-foot building at 550 S. McCaslin Blvd.
Star said it's unlikely that the City Council would approve a U-Haul at that location because of covenants with adjacent property owners that prohibit vehicle rentals. She said the Sam's Club spot is still a good site for a traditional retail outlet.
Joanne Fried, a spokeswoman for U-Haul, said the company made an offer to Sam's Club parent company, Walmart, to buy the building. But she said neither company has been able to arrive at an agreed upon price.


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photo 1 of 33
Clifford Starks
TRAINING: I do my BJJ and wrestling in the mornings, my sparring in the afternoon, and my strength and conditioning in the evenings.
When and why did you start training for fighting? I missed the competition. I used to wrestle and I love to compete.
What ranks and titles have you held? 3rd in PAC-10. State champion in high school.
Do you have any heroes? My parents
What does it mean for you to fight in the UFC? It is an amazing opportunity. I am very thankful to have it and I want to do the best that I can with the opportunity given to me!
Did you go to college and if so what degree did you earn? Yes - B.A. in Kinesiology from Arizona State University
What was your job before you started fighting? Personal Trainer
Favorite grappling technique: double leg
Favorite Striking technique: cross
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Wakey wakey, rise and make the coffee …December 31, 2011 at 11:50 am | Posted in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 2 Comments
I was woken from a deeeeeep sleep this morning by hubby going 'beep beep, beep beep, beep beep …'
'Eh, g-g-g-wha? isi time ta ger-gup?' I said sleepily.
'Yes, and I want my coffee in bed!' replied hubby. Well, how cruel! 'Seemed a shame to wake you from such a deep sleep,' he said cheerfully.
'Didn't stop you from doing it,' I grumbled, climbing creakily (and crankily) out of bed.
'Well, no. You told me yesterday, when it was actually your turn to make the coffee but I made it, that I should have woken you up and gone "Get out of bed you lazy bird, it's your turn to make the coffee." I didn't do it then so I'm doing it now …'
Me and my big mouth! He's quite right, I did say that yesterday. I don't know what possessed me.
I groggily hunted for something to put on over my nightie and found a tatty, ratty and definitely catty old jumper. 'What?' I hear you cry. 'Doesn't the poor penguin even has a dressing-gown to keep her aching bones warm?' Well yes … it's warm and pink and very, very snug … and I'm sure the cat lovers among you will understand when I say:
But in the end I'm glad hubby got me up relatively early, because I managed to squeeze in some exercise before starting my mammoth New Year cookathon, and of course I feel a lot better for it.
Isn't motivation a funny thing? I (almost) always feel better for a 20-minute embarrassing bop in front of an exercise video, and yet I can rarely motivate myself to do it! Mind you, it's a darned sight easier when I'm not at work for nine hours a day. I guess that's the fundamental difference. Anyone think I'm overworking?
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LOL I love this post. I prepare the coffee maker at night. In the morning we just have to flip the switch (on our 23 years old electric coffe maker). Eventually the machine will die. When it does, we'll replace it with one that has a timer. Unfortunately, they only brew the coffee, and don't deliver it to your bedside. 😉
Glad to hear you were able to get in a quick workout. I feel better once I exercise, too. It's just so hard to start, though. May 2012 bring you many such good starts to your day.
Comment by WarmSocks— January 2, 2012 #
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Sean Renfree's season-high 314 yards passing, Duke amassed a season-high 500 yards of offense en route to a 38-14 victory over Memphis in front of 23,658 fans at Wallace Wade Stadium. Down 14-7 in the second quarter, the Blue Devils outscored the Tigers 31-0 the rest of the way to move to 3-1 on the season.DURHAM, N.C. — Led by senior quarterback
Renfree was 26-of-37 for 314 yards with four touchdowns and one interception on the night. He also picked up 20 yards rushing on three carries. Senior Conner Vernon led the receiving corps with eight catches for 120 yards and two touchdowns, his 11th career 100-yard receiving game. Freshman Jela Duncan anchored the running game with 88 yards on nine carries.
The Duke defense was outstanding as it held Memphis to just 152 yards of offense in the game and only 79 yards in the final three quarters. Junior Brandon Braxton led all Blue Devils with eight tackles, including four solo stops, and a tackle for loss. Senior Walt Canty and redshirt junior Ross Cockrell added seven tackles apiece while sophomore Jonathan Woodruff registered 1.5 sacks for the game.
The Duke offense struggled in the opening quarter, turning the ball over twice on its first two possessions, including a fumbled punt at the Duke 23-yard line. Duke's defense salvaged the situation with an outstanding effort on fourth-and-3 to keep the Tigers off the scoreboard.
The turnover woes continued for Duke as Renfree threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown from the Duke three-yard line. Wynton McManis made the play for the Tigers, giving Memphis the early 7-0 lead.
After a slow start, the Blue Devils' offense found its rhythm starting in the second quarter. Duke compiled 414 yards of offense in the final three quarters, including 196 in the second session alone.
Duke, after turning the ball over three times in four possessions, answered with a nine-play 79-yard scoring drive. Faced with a third-and-10, the Blue Devils drew a pass interference penalty to move the ball up to its 36-yard line. Junior Juwan Thompson picked up three yards on the ensuing play to set up a 27-yard strike from Renfree to Desmond Scott to the Memphis 34.
Renfree continued to shine on the drive as he connected on each of his next three passes, including a 22-yard pass to Connette at the Memphis 4-yard line. Connette got the call on first down and powered into the end zone for six points, tying the game 7-7 with 10:28 remaining in the second quarter.
Memphis sophomore Bobby McCain nearly put the Tigers back in front on the ensuing kickoff as he took the ball 95 yards, setting up a Tevin Jones two-yard touchdown run for the 14-7 advantage.
Duncan got into the action and quickly put the Blue Devils in scoring position with a 58-yard dash up the left sideline to the Memphis nine-yard line. Duncan added one more yard on the next carry, but the Blue Devils were unable to find the end zone, settling for a 23-yard Ross Martin field goal.
Renfree and the Blue Devils' offense continued to roll in the final minutes of the first half. The senior signal caller, taking over on the Duke 27-yard line, went 4-of-4, including a 37-yard completion to Vernon in the left corner of the end zone, on Duke's next possession to give the Blue Devils a 17-14 lead. Renfree threw for 136 yards on 10-of-18 passing in the second period to give Duke the three-point edge heading into the locker room.
Duke carried the momentum over to the second half, outscoring Memphis 21-0 after the intermission. Renfree hit Scott on a 16-yard touchdown strike for the only score of the third quarter to put the Blue Devils up 24-14.
Touchdown grabs by Vernon and Connette extended Duke's advantage as the defense limited Memphis to 24 yards in the final period to secure the victory.
Duke opens ACC play next weekend when it travels to Wake Forest. Kickoff is set for 12:30 p.m., on the ACC Network.


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This week on the farm
We are a few weeks past our initial freeze, but that doesn't put a stop to the happenings at the farm. Mornings are starting a little bit later, with less to pick and less daylight to see it in so that is nice for the field crew. The rest of the team is just as busy as ever.
The last few days of Indian Summer have kept the Ice Cream Stand hopping. We are planning on keeping it open until Halloween, so be sure to get your jimmy and frappe fixes while there is still time.
We still have around 30 varieties of apples on hand. This week saw some of the pie favorites dry up, but fresh tastes like Cameo make an appearance. We hope to have some new tastes later this week as well. Check out what we have on hand here: Apple Page.
The greenhouse is still chock full of blooming mums, and fall annuals, including a fresh shipment of fall pansies, perfect flowers for cool weather color. You'll also find hundreds of pumpkins for perusal in and around the greenhouse as well as out in front of the farmstand near the Hay Man. While pumpkins are prevalent this year, it shouldn't keep you from picking out yours soon. Carving time is at hand!
The field, despite the freeze, does have quite a bit to offer still. Broccoli and cauliflower are arriving steadily from our Standish Field. We have several crops of lettuce at hand, that we plan on bringing in as long as weather allows. Hopefully you've noticed the return of homegrown cabbage to the stand, plus our fall only Chinese Cabbage.
The salad turnips that are so sweet and even great raw that were such a hit in early summer are back as well, though only limited as we were only testing them out as a fall crop.
The parsnips are still going strong as well, and we should have enough to harvest them til the ground freezes. A new vegetable also hit the stand this week. Our homegrown Flower Sprouts were a fun and unique trial crop this year. They are a cross of brussels sprouts and kale that result in tiny florets that are great when stir fried, roasted or treated in any of the methods you would to either of the parent vegetables. This special food is proving to be fairly inefficient to grow in the field, so if you love it make sure we know!
It is going to be wonderful to be open for the entire holiday season this year, and to be providing fresh produce and prepared foods to our loyal customers. As part of our look into what to offer this season the deli has been working toward getting its catering platters figured out. We look forward to presenting you with options for both deli and cheese platters soon. If you are interested please contact the deli, and we will hopefully have more information readily available on the web soon.
Just one more reminder that this Tuesday, Oct 23, we will close an hour early so that we can co-host an event with Babson College for Food Day. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but excited for the opportunity to introduce our farm to some of the finest chefs around. Looking forward to sharing some of the festivities with you soon.
In addition to some of the attendees to this event, we know there are quite a few customers visiting us for the first time this fall. We can't wait to welcome you. Just a quick note on how to find us. The easiest path from major highways is to take exit 19B off 128, turning right at the third set of lights onto West Street. Follow to the end and turn left on Central Ave. Volante Farms is on the right. See you soon!
Parting Shot: cool weather slows down everyone, especially these Salamanders:


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Observing that many of my articles were about the "good old days" or the depression era, Jerry Seigel suggested I write a column about the Christmas tree of days gone by.
Observing that many of my articles were about the "good old days" or the depression era, Jerry Seigel suggested I write a column about the Christmas tree of days gone by. Everyone has their own memories, but this is the tree I recall as a child.
First, the tree would be cut from a field nearby. The choice was cedar. Those Arkansas pine trees didn't fill the bill. Scotch pine, blue spruce, and Douglas fir didn't grow there. A flat board was nailed to the bottom of the tree to hold it upright. It never occurred to anyone to stand the tree in water, so by New Year's it was a genuine fire hazard.
A star was placed atop the tree. This five-point star was cut from the back of a Big Chief nickel tablet and covered with foil from gum wrappers. Decorative balls were made from hickory nuts wrapped in red and green paper and tied with colorful narrow ribbon. Strings of popcorn served as decorative rope. Some families strung cranberries, but when available, we chose to eat them. In some homes, you would see red and green paper ropes which went around the tree. Most families used those inexpensive silver icicles which added luster to the tree. Before the Chinese took over the Christmas market, the more affluent decorated their tree with a string of real light bulbs, but if one burned out, they all went out. Years later, we had the shiny glass balls but they would shatter if you sneezed very loud. Someone came up with artificial snow that could be sprayed on the tree.
The first year Ann and I were married, she paid $2 for a Christmas tree at Moss's Market in Monett. This was the first time I wondered what kind of woman I had married. It had never occurred to me that you would buy a Christmas tree. I have since caved in to the modern ways. Last year, I paid $60 for a huge Frazier fir. With children and grandchildren home for the holidays and club parties to host, I haven't given in to the artificial tree. When the kids were young, selecting the tree was a family affair but achieving a consensus was not easy. Size was the primary consideration for one, while color and shape were the deciding factors for others. I wanted a tree with a base that would fit in our tree holder. One year, we cut a tree covered with ice. It was in the garage for a week before it could be brought into the house.
While living on Melody Lane, I learned a lesson in tree disposal. I cut the branches from the tree and taped them together into small bundles to use as kindling in the fireplace. Returning from the grocery store, Ann was following the fire truck wondering where it was going. It was going to her house, to deal with a chimney fire which her husband, in all his brilliance, had ignited.
Roy Shaver writes a weekly column for the Daily News.


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WAYNESBORO — As it turned out, the headlining act was well worth the wait.
Scheduled as the showcase game of Friday night's Franklin County Tip-Off Tournament, the boys basketball contest between Greencastle-Antrim and Waynesboro certainly didn't disappoint, with the Blue Devils putting together a late rally en route to a 55-49 victory.
After overcoming an eight-point deficit at halftime to carry a 43-42 lead into the fourth quarter, G-A's composure proved to be the difference down the stretch, answering each Waynesboro score before delivering the decisive blow with 48 seconds remaining.
Tied at 49-49, Joel Zola's putback on a frantic inbound play granted the Blue Devils (1-0) a 51-49 advantage, with a missed 3-point attempt on the other end forcing the Indians (0-1) to foul in order to regain possession.
From here, G-A's Zach Faulkner handled the rest, knocking down both ensuing free throws before converting a steal into an easy lay-in, ultimately sealing the victory.
With the win, the Blue Devils now have the opportunity to defend their tournament title of a year ago against Chambersburg, who defeated James Buchanan in Friday's opening round, in tonight's championship game set to begin at 8:30 back inside the WASHS gymnasium.
"I never thought we were going to lose the game, we just couldn't seem to get clicking," G-A head coach Gary Martin said. "We would make two or three bad plays, and then they would make one or two buckets to stay right in it. Waynesboro played well and they were ready to beat us. Fortunately, we were able to pull it out in the end."
Although the Blue Devils managed to escape, it was the Indians who arguably made the biggest statement in Friday's season opener.
Despite failing to close out its opponent, Waynesboro had G-A on the ropes throughout all four quarters, showcasing an inspired effort against one of the area's premiere programs.
Unfortunately, the Indians' reward is a spot in today's consolation game against JB set to tip off at 5:30.
"We didn't lose the game, they went out and won it," Waynesboro head coach Tom Hoffman said. "We think we're better, but you have to go out and win. The only thing that is really going to insure our improvement is to win. Plenty of positives, it's a little bit of a moral victory, but it still goes in the wrong column."
Early on, the Blue Devils appeared to seize initial control, with Zola wasting little time assuming his expanded scoring role by netting 11 of his game-high 17 points in the first quarter, resulting in an 18-15 G-A lead at the end of one.
Unfazed, five consecutive points from Connor Fetterhoff abruptly shifted the momentum, with Waynesboro going on to outscore G-A 19-8 in the second stanza, capped by a baseline 3 from James Bennett to give the Tribe a 34-26 lead at the half.
The advantage stood until late in the third, when Holden Baker provided the Blue Devils with a spark off the bench, bucketing five points as part of G-A's 7-0 run to close out the quarter, reclaiming the lead at 43-42.
A floater by Zola to open the fourth briefly extended the slim cushion before Seth Hoffman buried his second 3 of the night to knot the score at 45-45. The back-and-forth tussle continued as a Brandon Puffenbarger jumper was answered by a Shaquill Smith runner in the lane, again drawing Waynesboro even at 49-49 with two minutes remaining.
Following a G-A timeout at 1:15, a foul called on the Indians underneath set up the pivotal inbound play, and consequently, Zola's putback off his own miss, giving the Blue Devils a lead they would not relinquish.
After surrendering 34 points in the first 16 minutes, G-A held Waynesboro to just five field goals in the second half, outscoring the Indians 29-15 over the final two quarters.
Faulkner, who was forced to miss nearly seven minutes of action after picking up his fourth foul midway through the third, still finished with 15 points in the win. Puffenbarger acted as the third Blue Devil to reach double figures, ending with 10 points and six rebounds.
Fetterhoff paced Waynesboro with a team-high 13 points followed by 10 from Tim Ingram. In all, the Indians received contributions from seven different players, including Smith, Hoffman, Bennett, Devonte Montgomery and Ryan Kelley.
Greencastle-Antrim 55, Waynesboro 49
Greencastle 18 8 17 12 —55
Waynesboro 15 19 8 7 —49
GREENCASTLE (55): Joel Zola 7 2-4 17, Zach Faulkner 5 4-4 15, Brandon Puffenbarger 5 0-0 10, Holden Baker 3 0-0 7, Danny Stepler 1 2-2 4, Austin Scott 1 0-0 2, Matt Montedoro 0 0-1 0, Eli Englehart 0 0-0 0, Sam Sprague 0 0-0 0. 3-point field goals: 3 (Zola, Faulkner, Baker). TOTALS: 22 8-11 55.
WAYNESBORO (49): Connor Fetterhoff 4 4-4 13, Tim Ingram 4 2-5 10, Shaquill Smith 4 0-0 9, Seth Hoffman 2 0-0 6, James Bennett 2 0-0 5, Devonte Montgomery 2 0-1 5, Ryan Kelley 0 1-2 1, Cole Warrenfeltz 0 0-0 0, Alex Cline 0 0-0 0, Cory Chatfield 0 0-0 0. 3-point field goals: 6 (Hoffman 2, Fetterhoff, Smith, Bennett, Montgomery). TOTALS: 18 7-12 49.


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It will have spinning barrels and will look like the ones in the movies with a 2000 round hopper on top of it.
The mill i used
Here is the piece of aluminum that i am making the EP sear tripping box from. The trigger will sit on top of the marker with the 2000 round hopper in front of the triger frame, so i only need a small hollow block to hold the noid and ram.
A little work with a drill press and a slide vice and we are off and milling
The tools i am using cost less than $200, A ryobi 1/4hp drillpress and a $100 slide vice. It is still ruf but it wont be for long
I cut the ram flat on all four sides and taped it to the noid. The lowers are ready to go


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First thing's first – Holy crap! It's been two months since my last Death Knight Tanking post. Wow. Uh, whoops? Sorry about that, guys. We also know now that Blood is going to become the tanking tree when Cataclysm hits, so I should have gotten this done a couple of months ago for sure.
Here are the links to the previous guides if you'd like to go have a look at them.
Death Knight Tanking: Frost (55-60)
Death Knight Tanking: Frost (61-70)
AoE Grinding: Frost Death Knight Edition (70)
Play Styles: Death Knights for Spellcasters
Psynister has been sitting at level 80 now for a while. I haven't done a whole lot with him since then, save for running a few heroics here and there. Surprisingly enough I get chosen for DPS most of the time in randoms, which doesn't bother me much to be honest since I actually enjoy my DPS spec and playing as Unholy DPS is a blast.
Last time we talked about getting you up to level 70, some of the differences between Two-Handed tanking versus Dual Wielding, how the Rune and Runic Power system works, and the different rotations between trash packs and bosses. This time we're going to focus more on finishing off our spec to level 80, getting geared up to tank heroics, and some updates we need to make in reaction to the changes that came in our most recent patch, 3.3.3.
Frost Tanking Spec
Endless Winter 2/2: Your strength is increased by 4% and your Mind Freeze no longer costs runic power.
Threat of Thassarian 3/3: When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Rune Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 100% chance to also deal damage with your offhand weapon.
Bladed Armor 5/5: Increases your attack power by 5 for every 180 armor value you have.
With the recent patch, Endless Winter became a very strong addition to our tanking toolbox with a solid boost to our Strength. Threat of Thassarian provides us with a welcome increase to damage which in turn of course is an increase in threat generation. Bladed Armor finishes off our tanking tools by adding even more attack power as a good deal of our threat against bosses is going to come from our attacks more so than our diseases.
NOTICE: The spec I'm suggesting here is what you should use for leveling. It's not a raiding spec. If you are going to continue on into heroics and raids as a Frost Tank then you'll want to use one of the following: Dual Wield Tanking or Two-Handed Tanking. For Heroics you're better off using the DW build for extra threat, but for raiding you'll want the 2H build instead. Welcome to patches changing how things work.
Also, Blizz has revealed to us that Blood is the tanking tree going into Cataclysm, so the work that's been put into these guides is going to become completely nullified in a matter of months when the expansion hits. Nothing like wasting several hours of research and writing only to have it nullified. Thanks Blizz, screw you too…
Glyph of Howling Blast: [Major] Your Howling Blast ability now infects your targets with Frost Fever.
Glyph of Disease: [Major] Your Pestilence ability now refreshes disease durations on your primary target back to their maximum duration.
Glyph of Icy Touch: [Major] Your Frost Fever disease deals 20% additional damage.
Glyph of Obliterate: [Major] Increased the damage of your Obliterate ability by 20%.
Glyph of Frost Strike: [Major] Reduces the cost of your Frost Strike by 8 Runic Power.
Glyph of Unbreakable Armor: [Major] Increases the total armor granted by Unbreakable Armor to 30%.
Those are my major glyph suggestions in the order that I would suggest them.
Glyph of Pestilence: [Minor] Increases the radius of your Pestilence effect by 5 yards.
Glyph of Raise Dead: [Minor] Your Raise Dead spell no longer requires a reagent.
Glyph of Blood Tap: [Minor] Your Blood Tap no longer causes damage to you.
As for minor glyphs, those are the ones you tank with as Frost, plain and simple. Raise Dead is the one you can change if you feel so inclined.
New Spells: 71-80
Raise Ally: Raises the corpse of a raid or party member to fight by your side. The player will have control over the Ghoul for 5 minutes.
Empower Rune Weapon: Empower your rune weapon, immediately activating all your runes and generating 25 runic power.
Army of the Dead: Summons and entire legion of Ghouls to fight for youl. The Ghouls will swarm the area, taunting and fighting anything they can. While channelling AotD, the DK takes less damage equal to their Dodge plus Parry chance.
Ok, so Raise Ally is one of my favorite spells of all time. When I first found out this ability existed after Wrath launched and that someone in my guild had it, I intentionally got myself killed just so I could run around as a ghoul. As far as using it yourself, you'll probably only use it on rare occasions. Pull it out in a raid when all the druids have already used their combat rez or in dungeons when your healer's not a druid, your dps are being stupid, or whatever. It's a fun spell but it's not especially useful.
The Empowered Rune Weapon spell is great for tanking and DPS alike, immediately resetting all of your runes. If you know you need to front load some serious threat on thing right from the beginning it's not a bad idea to switch your rotation to something like HB > BB > PS > D&D > ERW > BB > BB > Pest > Obl/HB > PS > FS. It's great for throwing down everything you've got and then resetting your runes and jumping into your rotation as normal. It's basically a free ticket to the Open a Can show.
And last but not least, Army of the Dead; the sole reason I ever wanted to have a Death Knight in the first place. I've said it before, but I'll bring it up again here, I'm a Necromancer at heart and this spell is the only thing that fits that makes my shriveled black heart have a happy beat. For tanking you want to pull this out before you pull to begin with and then lay into whatever it is you're fighting with as much hate as you can. The Army is going to taunt things off of you left and right which sucks, so you need to keep an eye on their timer and be ready to establish threat once they're gone. It's a lot easier to do on a boss than on a pack of mobs, but if you use it at all then that's how/when to do it. Be prepared to use your taunt, Death Grip, or 2-3 Icy Touches to reestablish agro once they're done.
Tanking Trash
I'm going to list two different Rune Sets here, one for when you're running with your guild and they understand that giving you a few seconds to build threat is beneficial to them, and one for when you're in a PUG and need to front load the AoE threat as much as possible because you know the people in your group are going to AoE the second you start moving.
Just to reiterate, I tank as Frost while Dual Wielding slow, one handed weapons.
No Rush Rune Sets
First Rune Set: Icy Touch (F), Plague Strike (U), Pestilence (B), Blood Strike (B), Howling Blast (FU), Frost Strike
Second Rune Set: Obliterate (FU), [Howling Blast if Rime procs], Obliterate (Death Runes), [Howling Blast if Rime procs], Howling Blast (FU), Frost Strike
The First Rune Set establishes our diseases on all of the mobs within the area, burns our Blood Runes to proc our blood tree's defensive talent, and then hits with our AoE to get a solid start on our threat. The Second Rune Set is there to establish as much AoE threat as we can using our big damaging spells.
When you're cycling through the Obliterates looking for a Rime proc you might want to cycle through your targets as you do so that if Rime does not proc then at the very least you get to spread your threat throughout the mobs by not hitting just a single target. When Rime does proc, use your Howling Blast right away. If you find that Howling Blast is off cooldown when an Obliterate shows up in the rotation, go ahead and cast HB instead if you're fighting more than two mobs. Similarly, if the rotation says to use HB but it's on cooldown, use Obliterate instead.
AoE Rushed Rune Sets
First Rune Set: Howling Blast (FU), Blood Boil (B), Blood Boil (B), Plague Strike (U), Blood Tap (none), Pestilence (Death), Icy Touch (F), Frost Strike (60+ RP only)
Second Rune Set: Howling Blast (FU), Obliterate (Death Runes), [Howling Blast if Rime procs], Obliterate (FU), [Howling Blast if Rime procs]
Nothing really changed here as far as rotations and general play style went. The one big change that should be brought to your attention is that Icy Touch now generates a truckload of threat when you're in Frost Presence. If your taunt/DG either miss or are on cooldown, just target the mob and Icy Touch them instead. It now generates 14 times its damage as threat which is huge.
Tanking Bosses
Now that we have our hard hitting abilities, it's time to change up the boss rotation as well.
Boss Set One: Icy Touch (F), Plague Strike (U), Blood Strike (B), Blood Strike (B), Obliterate (FU), Frost Strike (60+ RP only)
Boss Set Two: Obliterate (FU), [Howling Blast if Rime procs], Obliterate (FU), [Howling Blast if Rime procs], Obliterate (FU), [Howling Blast if Rime procs], Frost Strike, Frost Strike
This is your rotation for fighting bosses. Establish your diseases, and then take advantage of the hardest hitting spells you have every time they come up. If the boss has adds then you might need to use regular Howling Blasts in place of some of those Obliterates, and you'll want to drop the first Blood Strike for a Pestilence instead so that you get your diseases spread around nicely. Other than that it's all about bashing the boss in the face as hard as you can each GCD.
With the changes in 3.3.3 Icy Touch deals 14x its damage as threat (in Frost Presence) which is pretty huge. If you lose threat on something then you either need to taunt it with Dark Command, Death Grip it to force focus on you, or use Icy Touch for burst threat. If you're having particular trouble holding a mob then taunt it with Dark Command to bring your threat up to the level of whoever has it right now, and follow it up with Icy Touch to get a strong lead on them.
If you're having problems with agro on the boss then drop some of those Obliterates and replace them with Icy Touch and Plague Strike instead. You'll lose a bit of damage, but you'll gain threat from Icy Touch instead.
Preparing for Heroics
I'm not going to make a gear guide here because that's not what I do here. This blog is dedicated to getting you leveled up, not getting you maxed out once you're there. It's not hard to do a search online for gearing guides for heroics though so you shouldn't have much trouble.
I will give you some basic guidelines though. First off you need to get your Defense raised to 535-540 so that you can avoid being critically hit. The cap for Heroic instances is 535, and 540 for Raids. Get your Defense up first off and then switch to your Stamina. You're looking for 20,000 HP while self buffed starting off, and as long as you're close to that you should be alright. You'll have the dicks out there that insist you have 28k+, but as long as you're somewhere close to the 20k, say +/- 2,000, then you're good. If you can get up to 28k or more then all the better, but it's not a requirement.
An easy way to buff up your health a bit is to have the Mining profession, though there's not much you can do besides gear, gems, and enchants for the Defense issue. If you're looking for maximum benefit from professions then you want Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting, or Blacksmithing and Engineering. Other professions can provide tanking benefits as well (Enchanting and Inscription come next on my personal list), but those will be your best bet.
If you're going to PUG a lot, then be prepared to do a lot of your pulls with the AoE heavy rotation I mentioned up above, and don't be surprised if you find yourself doing a lot of single disease with just Frost Fever because you're burning too many runes to bother with Plague Strike and Pestilence. If you're holding threat then you're doing just fine.
And remember, it's better to piss off a bunch of random people you'll never see again by fail tanking in a PUG than it is to let your own guild down in a raid. I'm not telling you to go intentionally piss people off, I'm telling you to suck it up and go run some PUGs where things are going to go wrong, threat issues will happen, and frustration will occur, so that you can learn from it and grow stronger. Nobody gets better from being on easy mode all the time. Go introduce a little chaos into your life and force personal growth, that's how you're really going to learn to handle situations that get out of hand rather than getting a blank stare as you watch your raid wipe.


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quote:Originally posted by Guest6597Why not? We've lost a few hockey teams in the past. We need to keep hockey in Canada. We should also try to get back Winnepeg and Quebec.
quote:Originally posted by Canucks Manquote:Originally posted by PhillyFan12but wouldnt it be stupid if there was another toronto team.They have 2 New York teams, no one has a problem with that.CANUCKS RULE!!!
quote:Originally posted by PhillyFan12but wouldnt it be stupid if there was another toronto team.
quote:Originally posted by PhillyFan12toronto should not have another jersey or another type of team,it should stay like it is,the people that hate toronto,i dont think theyed want to see another toronto town and team
quote:Originally posted by brentrock2There is 2 New York teams because the Islanders city is in New York and so is New York Rangers.
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The 11th House
by Dana Gerhardt
From my cozy vantage in one of the overstuffed reading chairs at the local Barnes & Noble, I heard a strident voice, followed by a distinctly snotty laugh: "No you're not. That's silly. You're just a little boy." Likely it was the seven-year-old girl who'd been holding court at the children's table, organizing puzzles and, with an oozing superiority, instructing the three and four year-olds not to fold pages or run in the aisles. What poor child was she humiliating, I wondered. Then I heard the voice of my then three-year-old son: "I am too. I am Batman."
Instinctively I got up, my hand in a fist. I sat back down. A middle-aged woman shouldn't take on a seven-year-old girl, no matter how badly she wants to preserve her son's innocence. Better of course to watch what he would do. "I'm Batman," I heard Branden repeat defiantly. A moment later he was running circles around the aisles of books, issuing guttural hero sounds and stabbing at the air with an invisible sword. Another boy joined him. "I'm Batman and you're Superman," Branden sang. He had found a friend and all was well. His super powers had been preserved.
The 11th is the house of friends. Opposite the 5th, that sandbox of child-like innocence and fantasies of our specialness, the 11th house describes our first experience of tribal society, the playground where we meet the world. In the 11th we discover we're not alone, which, as my son had just found out, can be both good and bad. The 11th house brings us allies, the comforts of shared experience, the strength of a collective stand. It also turns a critical eye on our behavior, makes us vulnerable to group opinion, and defines us as "out" or "in." The house of groups and organizations, the 11th immerses us in the society of others. Like a jeweler's wheel, it grinds and polishes the individualism and creativity of our 5th house self, fitting us to the larger world.
But that's not all. There's a garage sale of concepts associated with this house. When I began this series, a colleague wrote to say she couldn't wait to read what I'd make of the 11th house. I replied, "Me too!" For if there's a theme that strings its varied keywords together, it has mostly eluded me. We're told that the 11th symbolizes the social codes that bind a society and the revolutionary zeal that breaks it apart. It rules both astrologers and the legislators who would outlaw them. It describes what we have in common and what makes us different. It's a future-oriented house, but its social web is often sticky with the past. We're told the 11th is about warm and loving relationships and the ones about which we feel much less. Here we're detached. And we subordinate ourselves to collective aims. Yet we're also acknowledged. Astrologers like to say that the 5th is where we give love, and the 11th is where we receive it. Then there's that most curious assignment, which says the 11th is the house of hopes and dreams. As if that weren't enough, the 11th also rules airplanes, computers, varicose veins, electricity, galaxies, ballots, advisors, humanitarian causes, and unexpected gains.
Multiple keywords are a bothersome feature of many houses. But what troubles me most about the 11th is how little confirmation I've gotten from matching its keywords to my clients' experiences. When this house is active, I cannot confidently state, as some astrology cookbooks do, that a person will be inspired to join a 12-step group or volunteer for the PTA. Or that when this house is challenged, it signals difficulty with friends. When a friendship becomes so problematic that an individual needs to discuss it with an astrologer, often enough the 7th house of partnerships or the 5th of playmates is involved. Perhaps the most surprising feature of this house is how differently it's described by classical astrologers and contemporary ones. Modern astrology is often accused of white-washing all traditional forecasts of misfortune. But the 11th is one house which modern astrology has actually stripped of its happy fairy wings!
Classical astrologers called the 11th "Bona Fortuna" ("Good Fortune") and the "House of Good Spirit." The logic, according to Deborah Houlding1, a modern expert in traditional astrology, is that a planet in the 11th is distant enough from the Ascendant that it can be seen clearly. Symbolically, it has passed the danger of being combust the rising Sun. And, it has freed itself from the 12th house hazards of incarceration or invisibility. Planets here are elevated above earth, and in their diurnal motion, are heading toward the Midheaven. Attaining one's desires are the promise of this position. Manilus considered the 11th the most fortunate of all the houses, superior even to the 10th. The Midheaven suggests completion; power in the 10th has nowhere to go but down. A planet in the 11th, however, is on the way up. And so this house is festooned with hope, optimism, faith, ambition, and triumph. Lucky, benevolent Jupiter is said to "joy" in this house.
According to John Frawley, another modern expert in the traditional approach, the 11th's good fortune further derives from its position as second house from the 10th. It therefore indicates gifts (2nd house possessions) that come from the King (10th house). By extension, the 11th holds all manner of lucky breaks, from pennies on the sidewalk to lottery wins, any bounty that drops unexpectedly from above. It's this logic that first put "friends" in this house too. Friends are natural benefactors. Full of goodwill for us, they're ready to help whenever we're in need; a man rich in friends is indeed wealthy. But it is a mistake, says Frawley, to keep adding people to this house, going from friends to all the groups and organizations to which we might belong. The Chaldean order of planets makes the Sun ruler of the 11th. "As is only fitting," writes Frawley, "for as the eleventh shows the good things that descend to us from Heaven, so the Sun is the image of this endless, inexhaustible bounty permeating and sustaining the cosmos."2
Classical astrologers saw a rainbow in this house and a pot of gold. But what happened to them? How did we fall into that more turbulent modern zone where we do—and sometimes don't—belong?
"Traditional astrology speaks feebly of the eleventh house as the house of 'hopes and wishes.' How weak a conception for one of the most vibrant of all the houses!"3 That's what the father of modern humanistic astrology, Dane Rudhyar, had to say about the 11th. And what did Rudhyar believe was more vital than good fortune? "(B)anding together with friends, with companions fired by a similar yearning for vision and creative social or religious change." Which makes me think of a beer commercial full of visionaries and humanitarians. The 11th lost the benefits of its position between the 12th and 10th houses, its planets out of danger and on their way up. Modern astrology uses the "alphabet" system. That means the 11th house is allotted the attributes of the 11th sign of the zodiac: visionary, humanitarian, and future-oriented Aquarius. That's how "friends and benefactors" grew to include "community" in general. And how we got the assignment to join with others here, to work for the greater good. In the 11th, says Rudhyar, "the power of society, of the collectivity or the group, is released through the individual … or more specifically, through the activities the individual performs through the social unit."4 Gone are personal hopes and dreams, also gifts from the king. We're now meant to join with our brothers and sisters and map a shiny future of the world. Go to PTA meetings! Join Overeaters Anonymous! Save the Whales!
Trained as a modern astrologer, I discovered this house's legacy of good fortune only recently. If planets here attract unexpected blessings, my eyes have not been trained to look for them. I would like to tell you happy stories of fortunate 11th house planets and transits. But it's perhaps an occupational hazard that clients rarely call astrologers to say good fortune has struck them and they'd like to know what the devil is going on. Nor am I experienced enough in the art of horary astrology, for which the 11th's fortunate meanings are largely intended. Horary erects a chart for the moment a client asks a question of an astrologer. If the question is "Will I get what I'm hoping for?" the condition of the 11th house ruler will indicate whether the answer is yes or no. What I did learn from my clients was that planets or transits through this house do not always signal a particular delight in saving humanity, joining groups or even sharing good times with friends. In fact, a number of clients have even told me that after reading the astrology books, they wondered if their birth chart was wrong. Despite their Sun or Moon, or Mercury or Venus, being in the 11th, they often felt lost and unhappy in social situations.
Invariably people's stories about the 11th, their journeys to connect with the family of man, are filled with vulnerabilities, and more than one emotional scar. Eleventh house memories often go back to that first experience of a social unit, one's family of origin. And planets here, by way of aspect or archetypal qualities, hold these stories in succinct astrological code. Jean has Pluto in the 11th squaring her Sun. Pluto's position shows where we must change. It challenges us to find our power, though for a long time we may feel powerless in this particular area of life. Jean always felt like an outcast in her family. She's been dogged since childhood by the feeling she doesn't fit in, that perhaps she doesn't deserve to belong. She's spent most of her adult life working as a freelance computer consultant, never settling in one place too long. But her real passion is working as a healer. Her greatest success and joy has been finding the "tribe" who welcomes and accepts her gift.
My friend Bill has both Moon and Saturn in his 11th. Bill's Moon wants to nest in the comforts of a convivial circle of friends. His greatest joy is sitting at the corner espresso bar, listening to lively debates about politics and culture. Bill once told me that he's often had a deep desire to throw himself into a pile of people and merge. But his Saturn has given him an equally strong need to erect barriers between himself and others. As I watch Bill move through the world, his rigid body language often sends a Saturn message: "Don't look; don't touch." For as long as I've known Bill, he's been searching for community, but his Saturn insists it must be the right community, the right company, the right neighborhood, the right book discussion club. After years of looking, he hasn't found it yet. While his North Node in Aquarius supports, demands, the search, his South Node in Leo holds back in royal isolation.
Moon and Saturn can be reflections of one's mother and father in a chart. Bill's parents make a spooky haunting of his 11th house world. Both upstanding Christians, they cared what the neighbors thought, but never mixed with them. For years they roamed the churches of their town, but never joined one. Bill's father opened a one-man law office and stayed in that isolation his whole adult life, shaking his head at "all the lunatics out there." Mom planted more seeds of distrust, "Your friends don't really like you. They just want to play with your toys." Despite an upper middle class income, the family lived in a lower middle class neighborhood, like nobility in exile. The "rich boys" the other families talked about, Bill and his brother became the targets of playmates who should have been friends. The neighbor boys used to lie in wait to throw rocks as they walked home from school.
The modern 11th house is a complicated place. Instead of that warm and benevolent pair, Sun and Jupiter, presiding over its activities, we have Uranus and Saturn, the ruling planets of Aquarius. The mythology of these two suggests a never-ending conflict. Uranus had the nasty habit of eating his children. Saturn (as Kronos) was the son who escaped this fate and struck his father down. Uranus is lord of the sky. Indeed, all innovation, all progress, all revolutions begin as creative concepts—sky god stuff. When we are filled with Uranian inspiration in this house we are like Prometheus, stealing the fire of the gods. We are brilliant and daring. But sure as Uranus was cut down by Saturn, so must our lofty ideals inevitably fall to Saturn's limits. That's how it ended for Prometheus too. He was punished and bound to a rock as birds pecked his liver. The rock is Saturn, the hard reality of this house. Here is the establishment—the group that disapproves. Uranus may inspire us to breakthroughs, but Saturn resists change or co-opts it. The tension between these two planets suggests our experience in this house will have its ups and downs. At times our progressive and unorthodox inclinations will find the utopia of likeminded community that Rudhyar celebrated. Other times we'll be the oddball surrounded by a forbidding Saturn crowd.
The 11th house gives us friends and community, but it requires something of us in return. It expects us to periodically relinquish self, to balance individuality with "hive" mind. What's striking about indigenous cultures is how they can live in exactly the same way for hundreds, even thousands of years. Indigenous (earth) cultures are heavy with Saturn. The tradeoff is that in such tribes innovating individuals are shunned. There are no parades for being different; individuality is death to the group. In the myth, Saturn follows in his father's footsteps and eats his children too, until his son, the new sky god Zeus eventually cuts him down. The tension between earth and sky is always present in society. The too rigid community makes it impossible to individuate. The too individualistic society makes for a dangerous, unstable world.
I once read (so long ago that I don't remember where) that prominent 11th house and/or Aquarian placements suggest a significant experience of social rejection, a suffering of banishment at the hands of the tribe. Starting out as an astrologer, whenever I met someone whose chart carried this potential, I'd ask if this were true. Most indeed had at least one painful story of being drummed from a social circle. Years later it occurred to me that I might have gotten the same response had I asked everyone this question, prominent 11th house placements or not. The needs of the 5th house individual are inherently antagonistic to the needs of the 11th house group. Who among us hasn't been wounded by this collision? Indeed, it's often this very experience that puts us in touch with our own humanity. Rejection makes us question our 5th house creativity. It also calls in question the rules of our 11th house community. We might suffer in this house, but such suffering increases our sensitivity to the sufferings of others. Experiences here inspire us to dream of a better world.
The modern 11th house is a turbulent and changing field. Its feedback keeps us on our toes. The social organizations ruled by the 11th are forever in a kind of flux, the tension between the inspiration that set them in motion and the forces of time that pull them apart. Friends are a constantly shifting circle. Groups are good for a couple years then fall apart. In the 11th we meet the constantly changing world. Whatever self we set up in the 5th gets jostled here, tested, to stand or sink in its shifting ground. The 10th describes our role in society. But the 11th shows how we actually do it, how we must "realize" ourselves in shifting circumstances, over and over again.
When planets transit or progress through the 11th, people often feel the urge to take their interests, gifts or skills into a larger world. Whatever sandbox they've been playing in is no longer big enough. They need to see a new reflection of themselves. With 11th house transits, we grow bold enough to enter a new field or widen the circle we're already in. Something may happen to us that radically shifts our priorities. We may indeed meet fortunate allies and benefactors. Or we may encounter resistance—especially from the group we might be leaving behind. In her excellent book about solar returns5, Mary Shea suggests that planets in this house signal a year when you should question all the rules, particularly your own. Let Uranus challenge your familiar Saturn structures. Investigate what holds you back. Let yourself ask daring new questions. Why not quit your job and start a new business? Why not sail around the world all by yourself? You don't have to act on every crazy impulse that pops into your head. But if don't have any crazy ideas stretching your sense of what's possible, how can wonderful surprises happen in your future?
One way to reconcile Uranus and Saturn is to refine your wild ideas into realistic goals. It is wise to think about your future whenever this house is emphasized by transit or progression. And that takes us full circle. It brings us back to the classical view that this is the house of hopes and dreams.
For years I avoided this phrase until I discovered it's actually useful and true. I was inspired by Robert Cole's wonderful book on the annual path of the Sun through the houses.6 Each year, for approximately one month, the Sun returns to your 11th house. This is the month, says Cole, when you should choose the seeds for whatever you want to plant in the year ahead. It is the time when hoping and dreaming are most beneficial. The Sun has just transited through your 10th house—representing an annual peak, when your work has ripened and is most visible. Now you must start preparing for the next year's harvest. What do you want to grow in the year ahead? This is the month to list everything you'd like to accomplish.
What's even better is that you don't have to start working on these goals right away. You get a month to think about them. When the Sun leaves the 11th and enters your 12th house, you need to let these visions soak into your dreams, like germinating seeds. It's common, during the 12th house month for your hopes to turn into doubts and fears. But we'll talk about that next time, when we reach the final installment of this series!
|As earth's closest celestial ally, the moon has a powerful influence on daily life, but few are tuned in. If you want to increase your sensitivity to the lunar rhythm, this is the workshop for you. Every month before the New Moon, you'll receive a 26-page workbook, personalized to your birth chart and current location. You'll learn about the astrology particulars-the new moon and solar ingress, how these influence your chart, along with moon phases, moon voids, moon signs and house transits. Throughout the cycle, you'll be guided into an ever more intimate appreciation for the moon's workings in your life
|Twelve Moons Workshop at mooncircles.com
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While many recordings exist from the radio broadcasts of the forties and fifties, a large percentage of the SAM SPADE programs are considered "lost" -- due to the lack of preservation. Today, fans of the program seek out those "lost" adventures, especially the earliest broadcasts that shed light on just what kind of character Sam Spade is and the explanation for the popularity during the late forties.
This book offers reprints of thirteen scripts from THE ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE. Almost every script originates from a "lost" episode that fans cannot access via recordings. A holiday offering from the Steve Dunne season is included, as well as an episode revealing Sam's affections for another woman so strong he was willing to lose his secretary for her. A lengthy essay revealing the background concerning each of these scripts is included.
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QUINCY � The Quincy Village Board took the next step during Tuesday night's meeting �in moving ahead with a $2.9 million sewer project. After a brief public hearing�during which�Craig Shumaker, a representative with Fleis & Vandenbrink Engeneering Inc., outlined the project the board voted to move forward with the project plan. There was no public objection to the project. Village Manager Eric Zuzga said the upgrades to the system�are something the village has needed for the last few years. �The securing of the S2 Grant really helped us to move forward,� he said. The S2 Grant for $326,335 will go toward engineering work and site plan work for the improvements to the existing structures in the village. After looking at several different options the board approved the plan, which will�carry a capital cost of $2.6 million�based on a reduction in size. The original project had a projected cost of over $3.3 million. Zuzga said he doesn�t expect the cost of the project to go any higher than the $2.6 million. Extra money was built into the cost to cover other expenses that may occur once the project begins. The work will include the draining of two retention ponds, the removal of sludge from those ponds, removal of existing equipment, a new diffused aeration system, replacing of equipment at three of the village�s nine lift stations, upgrades to the main lift station and other improvements. Zuzga�said the lift station improvements will be big. �We are having to Band-Aid together three of the stations at this point to keep them operational,� he said. The village is looking to secure a USDA Rural Development Revenue Bond to pay for the project. The bond would be a 40-year bond and would be paid back at a rate somewhere around 2.5 percent. Zuzga said unfortunately the village doesn�t qualify for grant money from rural development because of its existing water rates. However, it does qualify for a poverty interest rate through the USDA program. The village hasn�t raised its water rates since 2007. The projected cost for a typical residential customer would be $8.60 a month after the project is complete. A detailed rate study is to be completed as part of the proposed project that will review overall system rates, charges and needed reserves. Income generated from rate surcharges for high volume/high strength users may result in a lower cost to a typical residential customer once the rate study is complete. With Tuesday night�s approval Shumaker said the soonest the project would begin would be September, because of the acquisition of bonds and permits. He said the earliest completion date would be the summer of 2014. Zuzga said he is hoping the village can help to speed up the process with the ordering of equipment ahead of time.
$2.9 million sewer project moving forward


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The Bastrop Mayoral Forum was held Thursday night in the courtroom of Bastrop City Hall.
A full house was in attendance to hear what the candidates had to say regarding the future of Bastrop and what their role, if elected, would be.
The candidates were asked predetermined questions, with each receiving two minutes to answer. The first question got right to the heart of what can be viewed as a controversial decision the city made in regards to the failed takeover of People's Water Service. The candidates were asked if they would pursue the take over and to explain their answer.
Troy Downs, Samuel Jackson and Arthur Jones all answered they would not pursue the takeover, while Henry Cotton said he was a proponent of public utilities and had already been through the opinion of the city taking over the water company when Clarence Hawkins was mayor and the decision was brought to the people by a vote. The measure did not pass and Cotton said while he was still for public utilities, the people had spoken on that matter.
James Murphy said he did not know, he would have to look at what had already been done before he could make a decision. Mayor Betty Alford-Olive held up the City Charter, which defines the role of the mayor and told the crowd that she had exercised the will of the aldermen. Her job was to exercise that will and that is what she did.
Other highlights included:
How would you encourage business growth?
Cotton more workforce readiness
Downs train more people to work at jobs they like
Jackson needs a marketing tool the city as more recreational vs industrial bring public transportation
Jones clean the city first impression is only impression
Murphy look for the root causes of why there businesses are not coming, decrease crime, increase education
Olive continue what had been doing, working on industrial park to have more shovel ready sites
Anderson give tax exempt status to new business, network with other cities
How would you balance the budget?
Downs stated that he would have to be elected first in order to see how the budget could be balanced
Jackson stated he would cut nonessential personal
Jones said he couldn't say until he was able to go through it
Murphy said the city would save $400,000 if he was elected because he would not take pay.
Olive said she had lived with the budget for three years and had made many cuts including travel.
Anderson said he would cut out the luxuries in city hall and raise milage
Cotton can't adequately answer without being able to fully study it.
What is your plan to minimize crime?
Jackson said he is a victim himself. He feels drug addiction drives crime, engage community more
Jones: find the basic problem, update police equipment, improve response time
Murphy: issue more citations, make citations mandatory for officers
Anderson said officers need to live within the city limits in order to have a bigger presents in the community
Cotton: parish-wide government,
Downs said more neighborhood patrols
Olive said the city has to compete with other cities for officers, looking closely at high crime areas and are keeping those areas covered
What are the biggest changes people would see at the end of your first term?
Jackson: open government; a regional plan
Jones: cleaner, safer, more trained officers
Murphy: the city will be quieter no auto boom boxes
Olive: stands on her record
Anderson: fairness to all citizens
Cotton: more activities for the youth, more technically advanced
Downs: everyone getting along, working together
Is beautification important?
Jones: beautification is one of most important things that can be done
Olive: absolutely important
Jackson: it is a tool but there is more that we can concentrate on
Cotton: economic development is more important
Downs: important because image is everything
Anderson: important, but it starts at home
Murphy: not a priority, its superficial
The entire forum may be viewed from the City of Bastrop's website at www.cityofbastrop.com.


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Some of my Facebook Likeronies were looking for witty responses that stop people questioning your cosleepng right in their tracks. Since I couldn't find any, I thought I'd write some up myself.
- Cool, then I can give her pointers on her wedding night!
- Well, I guess we'll have to move out then, one day
- If only that were true
- Oh so you met a lot of college students who still sleep in the same bed there parents do, do you?
- You haven't lived until you've tried the kitchen counter
- Co-sleepers do it on the couch
- Babies like to be rocked to sleep
- You don't have to be asleep to be intimate.
- It's great! Thanks for asking, how's you sex-life?
- Boy, I hope so!
- Aren't you afraid your child sleeping alone might affect him?
- Afraid? No. I actually want him to grow up a confident person.
- Yes, I bet she passed that magic marker where she doesn't need love and comfort any more.
- Aren't you too old to be sleeping in the same bed as your husband?
- How often do you still fall out of your bed? You know the edge is there so you avoid it. Same goes for baby.
- I'd be much more scared if she was laying in another room, all alone.
- It's a baby! She's supposed to be dependant!
- Boy, I hope so.
- If only that were true


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Fill the grid using the numbers 1 to 9. Each number must appear just once in every row, column and 3x3 box.
For a helping hand call our solutions line on 09068 338 228. Calls cost 60p per minute at all times. Service supplied by ATS.
Buy next week's Observer Digital Edition to see the completed puzzle


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For a Japanese experience, try a ryokan, where the floors are covered in tatami mats, breakfasts consist of fish, rice, pickled vegetables, and miso soup - and, at the end of a hard day of sightseeing, you can soak in a communal bath before changing into your yukata (dressing gown), sliding shut your paper-screen door, and bedding down on a futon.
There are several to choose from in Asakusa. I stayed at Ryokan Shigetsu, on a quiet side street just steps from Senso Temple and a short walk from both subway lines. The place is immaculate and comfortable, and the English-speaking staff are friendly and helpful. Make sure to have at least one soak in the rooftop cedar bath, with its view of Senso-ji's five-storey pagoda. (Ginza or Toei Asakusa line to Asakusa station, exit 1)
Rates: Doubles are $200/night; western-style rooms available for less (shigetsu.com/e/index.html)
If you prefer western-style comfort, there are hundreds of mid- to high-priced hotels to choose from. I stayed at the Hotel New Otani in Akasaka for several nights, a sprawling complex so massive - 40 (!) restaurants, cafes and bars - you'll need a couple of days just to get your bearings. Aside from its central location, the New Otani's main draw is its 400-year-old garden (also open to non-guests), complete with stone lanterns, carp ponds and a waterfall. And on a clear day, you can't beat the view of Mount Fuji from the 40th-floor restaurant, which serves a breakfast buffet of both Japanese and western fare. (Ginza or Marunouchi line to Akasaka-mitsuke station, exit D)
Rates: Doubles from $470/night (newotani.co.jp/en/tokyo)


text:
Balistapus aculeatus (Linnaeus). Humuhumu Apua'a.
In: "The Shore Fishes of the Hawaiian Islands, with a General Account of the
Fish Fauna", by David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann.
Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. XXIII, for 1903. Part I.
P. 574, Plate LXII.
Image ID: fish3082, NOAA's Historic Fisheries Collection
Credit: NOAA Central Library Historical Fisheries Collection
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Testing C#/.NET Code
I have followed the evolution of the .NET framework and the C# language since the original beta 2. I wrote many programs at home and published several articles on the framework and language, but until recently, I never had the the chance to use them in a professional capacity. These days, I work for Roblox, where I write highly scalable and highly distributed services using C# and the .NET framework, and I enjoy every minute. C# is a wonderful programming language. It started out as a better Java, and in each revision, it has added more and more good stuff (generics, anonymous functions, attributes, LINQ, async support) with great balance. For some reason (great language designers?), the power and richness of C# never gave me a feeling of bloat like other languages do. When you throw in the .NET framework and Visual Studio, you get a superb development and runtime environment.
Visual Studio provides a good unit test framework (Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting), which you can configure with attributes. It allows you to run any subset of tests in your solution. My go-to technique is to place the mouse cursor on a test I want to run and then click CTRL+R+T to launch just that test. In the past, I used to write little console programs to exercise different parts of the code. Not anymore.
While there are also many other great test frameworks (both commercial and free), I will use the built-in Visual Studio support in the following examples, but the concepts are not related to any particular test framework.
The .NET framework keeps excellent metadata for every object and allows reflection. You can take any object even without knowing its type (all objects are derived from the
object class) and, at runtime, discoverits fields, properties, methods, etc. You can also access fields and properties, and invoke methods. The most important thing about reflection is that it allows you to ignore access modifiers. You can access private state and invoke private methods, access internal types, as well as instantiate private classes and nested classes. The following example shows a
A with a private data member
_x and a private method
class A { private int _x; public A(int x = 5) { _x = x; } private void DoubleIt() { _x *= 2; } }
Class A happens to be a nested class. This is important because, when accessing nested classes, you qualify their name with
+. If you are not sure what is the exact type name of the class you want to test, you can use the
GetTypes() of the assembly to list all the types it contains. Here is a unit test for
class A using raw reflection:
[TestMethod] public void RawReflectionTest() { var assembly = GetType().Assembly; // Get all the types in the assembly var types = assembly.GetTypes(); var typeName = "ReflectionDemo.ReflectionTest+A"; var t = assembly.GetType(typeName); var instance = Activator.CreateInstance(t, 4); // Get the value of X var filed = t.GetField("_x", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance); var value = filed.GetValue(instance); Assert.AreEqual(4, value); // Invoke DoubleIt var method = t.GetMethod("DoubleIt", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance); method.Invoke(instance, new object[] {}); // Verify result value = filed.GetValue(instance); Assert.AreEqual(8, value); }
Obviously, it is pretty cumbersome, so I created a little utility class called ReflectedObject that makes it a little more straightforward. Here is the same test using
[TestMethod] public void ReflectedObjectTest() { var assembly = GetType().Assembly; var typeName = "ReflectionDemo.ReflectionTest+A"; var instance = new ReflectedObject(assembly, typeName, 4); var value = instance.GetField("_x"); Assert.AreEqual(4, value); instance.InvokeMethod("DoubleIt"); value = instance.GetField("_x"); Assert.AreEqual(8, value); }
If you're using .NET 4.x, it is possible to go even further using the
DynamicObject class, then writing a subclass that allows you to directly access private fields, properties, and methods.
I recently worked on a effort to integrate RabbitMQ into Roblox's technology stack. RabbitMQ is an awesome message queue with built-in clustering support. The RabbitMQ C# Client provides a full-featured API to talk to the RabbitMQ server. Unfortunately, it is not cluster-aware. If you want to talk to a cluster and handle situations like nodes going up and down, temporary disconnects, and recovery, you need to write a lot of extra code. I did just that and I wanted to test it.