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Article number: | ZSC6BEE81BU |
Availability: | In stock |
It is hardly surprising that Beethoven did not write any more chamber music for winds after 1800. Following the change to middle-class musical culture, demand declined for buoyant serenades and divertimenti intended for court circles – a genre that Beethoven had reservations about as it was. Composed in 1795 with no known occasion in mind, his Sextet op. 81b is thus all the more remarkable, standing out on account of the unusual virtuosity of the horn parts. Our edition is the first to provide the bass part as originally intended by Beethoven: for violoncello supported by a double bass. In addition to the original horn parts in E flat, it also contains transposed parts in F.


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Tuesday, May 5, 2009
By Popular Demand: More Wreckwear!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Here's the back:
And while I'm at it, check out this hilarious little number Erin Lusk of The Cupcake Attitude whipped up:
Ah, it doesn't get any better than passive-aggressive baked goods. Be sure to check out Erin's site for more cute designs like this.
And naturally, I stuck it on a shirt:
I also added a new "I Want Sprinkles" design last week for myself:
Which looks great on an apron:
And lastly, partly because I thought it was fun, and partly out of curiosity to see if anyone would actually ever purchase such a thing, I whipped up a Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockey tie:
If any of you actually buy and wear this thing, you must send me pictures. Seriously; that would just about make my day. ;)
You can click on any of the above pictures to go the corresponding Zazzle page, where you can tinker with colors and shirt styles to your heart's content. You could even buy the item in question, but I know that's just crazy talk, so I'll stop now.
If you have a design you'd like to see on a Cake Wrecks shirt, e-mail me! If I use it, I'll give you a shout-out here on the blog and link to your blog or website both here and on Zazzle.
71 comments | Post a Comment
- Diana Dang said...
Haha, those are awesome =)
- May 5, 2009 at 4:10 PM
- Naazju said...
In response to the tie: Father's Day *is* next month . . .
- May 5, 2009 at 4:16 PM
- Eternal Lizdom said...
I have a feeling that the baby mohawk carrot jockey ties will soon be taking over the world!! Churches, corporations, offices- it's coming!! Grand prize is to find a cake decorator wearing one!!
- May 5, 2009 at 4:26 PM
- TheresaHPIR said...
Ooh! The apron would make a great Mother's Day gift, and the shirt and tie would be excellent for Father's Day, hehehehe.
- May 5, 2009 at 4:30 PM
i love the apron, but i think you need an alternative for the northeast region that says "i want jimmies". because in philly, they are jimmies, not sprinkles, dangit!
- May 5, 2009 at 4:43 PM
Wait, I'm confused. Where does the missing cupcake GO in the cupcake cake? There's not a place for it!
- May 5, 2009 at 4:45 PM
- Megan said...
I was hoping Happy Falker Satherhood would make it in time for Father's Day! LOL!
- May 5, 2009 at 4:48 PM
- Sarah said...
I'd totally buy the tie for my hubby but he says although he loves cake wrecks he'd never wear it the place he wears ties...church. I am however thinking about buying the apron for my friend who can't get enough rainbow sprinkles.
sarah - May 5, 2009 at 4:54 PM
- Shannon said...
Best. Tie. EVAH!! If I were a guy I would TOTALLY wear that.
- May 5, 2009 at 4:59 PM
- Kathy at The Junk Drawer said...
"It's like a word journey." That will never get old. Love what you did with these!!
- May 5, 2009 at 5:00 PM
- anne said...
OMG. OMG. The naked mohawk baby carrot jockey is the best thing I have seen today.
- May 5, 2009 at 5:09 PM
- Lyz said...
I like the sprinkles one, cause even those who *gasp* haven't found CakeWrecks yet will enjoy it!
But mostly I just had to leave a comment 'cause the word verification is "lyzings" - which, of course, is a comment made by ME! - May 5, 2009 at 5:11 PM
Happy Falker Satherhood is my new favorite holiday, greeting and personal motto.
Thank you, Cake Wrecks!
Kathleen - May 5, 2009 at 5:27 PM
Yes! I would buy two jimmies t-shirts, that's how much I love jimmies!
- May 5, 2009 at 5:28 PM
i can find someone to model the tie, and take a picture of it.. but you are gonna have tell me how to reach you
- May 5, 2009 at 5:59 PM
- StuffCooksWant said...
Happy Falker Satherhood... bwah ha ha ha hahahahahaha.
- May 5, 2009 at 6:33 PM
- Rebekah said...
I want an 'It a gril" shirt!
- May 5, 2009 at 6:47 PM
- allison said...
I *would* get the sprinkles shirt if there weren't ugly flowers on it that have nothing to do with sprinkles. Bad design.
- May 5, 2009 at 7:06 PM
- Mrs. West said...
How about a mternity shirt with one of those hideous "belly cakes" on it? Perfect I say
- May 5, 2009 at 7:07 PM
- Andrew said...
Did "Happy Falker Satherhood" actually appear on a cake? And if it did... can someone link to the entry? =)
- May 5, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Those are GREATNESS!
- May 5, 2009 at 7:33 PM
- Dani said...
Actually I really like the tie. Hmmmm Fathers day is relatively soon.
- May 5, 2009 at 8:04 PM
ok dont want to be critical but next time i think you need to put all the images and wording a bit lower down i think they are a little high and my boobs will totally distort the image up that high.
Sorry dont mean to pick - May 5, 2009 at 8:07 PM
My boyfriend really, really wants the tie. I may actually have to buy it for him.
- May 5, 2009 at 8:14 PM
Love to the third power the "Happy Falker Satherhood" (I so hope I spelled this right--please, please spelling Gods)
Leslie - May 5, 2009 at 8:43 PM
- TJ said...
So why are the cupcakes out there so cranky? See:
http://pictureisunrelated.com/2009/04/29/can-you-be-creative-somewhere-else/ - May 5, 2009 at 9:01 PM
This has totally made my week! The "Happy Falker Satherood" t-shirt is, truly, icing on the cake!
- May 5, 2009 at 9:27 PM
- Karen said...
I have a blogger award for you. Stop by my blog and pick it up. Love your site!
http://savingthefamilymoney.com - May 5, 2009 at 10:01 PM
- Cassandra said...
I love that tie. The only problem is I don't know a single person (who I am close enough to to buy them something) who wears ties!!!
Do they print that image on fabric and then make the tie??? If so - I would totally buy some naked carrot-jockey fabric! I would make a dress out of it.
kinition: kin + fruition (e.g. "I just found out my brother loves ties. My plans of buying a naked-carrot jockey tie are finally coming to kinition!") - May 5, 2009 at 10:03 PM
- Naddy said...
falksatherhood is like pumping the icing with the keyboard. very klutzy fingers.
the tie with the baby shall give me nightmares... - May 5, 2009 at 10:16 PM
's it. I'm so buying that tie.
- May 5, 2009 at 10:17 PM
- andie said...
Um. Meeshi... There is a sprinkles shirt with no flowers on it. It's been available for ages. The one with flowers is a new design.
And Andrew, "Happy Falker Satherhood" did appear on a cake. Yesterday. - May 5, 2009 at 10:41 PM
- Absolutely,absolutely said...
- May 5, 2009 at 11:40 PM
- May 5, 2009 at 11:45 PM
Yup--perfect father's day presents! Shirt and the tie! (though I have to agree, I don't think my hubby will would wear naked babies to church either lol) Great wreck-wear!
- May 6, 2009 at 12:22 AM
I love that tie, for $15 maybe. Not for $32. And I would wear it, and color coordinate it, and send you a picture. But not for $32
- May 6, 2009 at 12:44 AM
- Amber Schmidt said...
Oh my flippin lord that is hilarious... my husband NEEDS that shirt to add to his collection!!!!
- May 6, 2009 at 8:09 AM
- Megan said...
That tie is awesome.
- May 6, 2009 at 8:16 AM
I don't find the I Want Sprinkles thing funny anymore, since it's just quoting Angela from The Office.
- May 6, 2009 at 8:31 AM
- karengreeners said...
Too, too awesome. Happy Falker Satherhood should be in a greeting card, too.
- May 6, 2009 at 8:43 AM
- Miranda said...
Who's the guy in the Falker Satherhood shirt? Can I get HIM? :D
- May 6, 2009 at 8:54 AM
- Melinda said...
"ok dont want to be critical but next time i think you need to put all the images and wording a bit lower down i think they are a little high and my boobs will totally distort the image up that high.
Sorry dont mean to pick" -Anonymous
Have a couple kids, Anonymous. Your boobs will be in just the right place to buy a t-shirt then.
Great job, Jen! The word journey cracks me up every time! - May 6, 2009 at 9:15 AM
- jenni said...
The tie looks like one of those pieces of art that if you stare at it long enough an imagine will pop out. I LOVE IT.
I'm thinking that's what my husband is getting for Father's day. - May 6, 2009 at 9:21 AM
- Kashmir said...
OMG, I am SO buying a BMCJ tie!
- May 6, 2009 at 9:46 AM
I may get that tie for my friend's husband - he'd wear it!
- May 6, 2009 at 9:53 AM
- Carrie said...
I think you could have an entire holiday line of t-shirts. In the vein of the old navy holiday shirts... but these would be much more awesome!
any of those would be nice on a shirt...I love the wrecky holiday sayings for all the ones you have featured. I think it would be hilarious!
because I am a Disney expert and knew that was not EPCOT..how ridiculous! - May 6, 2009 at 10:29 AM
I would love to wear your Cake Wrecks T-shirts but they don't come big enough...I would need a
4x or maybe a 5x. Come on now...don't forget about all us more "round" fans!!! - May 6, 2009 at 10:34 AM
- Fesoes said...
I wish I had a boyfriend so that I could buy him that tie to wear during one of our college formal dinners. That would be epic.
I'm actually tempted to buy the baby carrot jockey tie just because it's a baby carrot jockey tie. - May 6, 2009 at 10:43 AM
Actually, if they are from Columbia, MO someone might buy the tie. The Kewpie doll is the mascot of one of the local high schools. (Go Kewpies!)
- May 6, 2009 at 10:54 AM
Okay, did anyone else notice that, as you scroll down on the screen, the carrot jockeys look like they're moving? Come on! Try it!! Just scroll up and down and watch!
- May 6, 2009 at 11:03 AM
- Dea said...
LOVE the tie....I wish I was still a waitress, I would so wear that...
- May 6, 2009 at 11:48 AM
- Giusi. said...
FLMAO!!!! weeeeeeeeeeeee i LOVE THE TSHIRT <33
- May 6, 2009 at 12:00 PM
I have just ordered the tie for my husband for Father's Day. So perfect and he has to wear it because it's from the kids!
- May 6, 2009 at 12:10 PM
Oh my gosh, these are ridiculously awesome! Great job!
- May 6, 2009 at 12:14 PM
Just in time for Father's Day! The weirdest tie EVER!
- May 6, 2009 at 12:21 PM
The tie is too awesome!
It's a little Halloweeny on the black background for my tastes but a dark teal looks nice. - May 6, 2009 at 12:41 PM
- lindalou said...
Need me some Falker Satherhood. That will never stop being funning.
- May 6, 2009 at 1:18 PM
- Mrs. Suiter said...
Did anyone else notice that when one scrolls up or down, the baby carrot jockeys fly across the tie? Now, if only the actual tie would have flying baby carrot jockeys...
- May 6, 2009 at 3:57 PM
- Christy said...
its a word journey!
LOVE IT!!! - May 6, 2009 at 4:18 PM
- Mark said...
I wish so much that I had the money to buy the tie. That's the greatest thing ever.
- May 6, 2009 at 5:54 PM
You should totally do a "I want Sprinkles" tie!
WV = perpe
Is the interwebs trying to tell me something? hmmm? - May 6, 2009 at 9:38 PM
YAY! I totally want the tie!!
- May 7, 2009 at 9:36 AM
I think my doctor needs that tie. It couldn't be any worse than the green one with the little golfers on it that he worse the last time I saw him.
- May 7, 2009 at 3:37 PM
DNfromMN said...
I love that tie, for $15 maybe. Not for $32. And I would wear it, and color coordinate it, and send you a picture. But not for $32
May 6, 2009 12:44 AM
I wear ties all the time.. i have to agree with DN. polyester ties do not wear well.. and are not worth a higher price. I would wear the tie, but not at that price. (okay ties for me are like shoes for some) - May 7, 2009 at 4:33 PM
Cute! :p
- May 7, 2009 at 4:45 PM
I thought jimmies were just the brown sprinkles?
- May 10, 2009 at 2:03 AM
I gotta have the naked mohawk-baby carrot jockies on a t-shirt. Seriously. I will but it and wear it. And send a pic.
- May 10, 2009 at 2:06 AM
- writtenbliss said...
I. love. that. tie.
- May 20, 2009 at 2:01 PM
ooh a panic at the disco shirt with the scary singer cake on it :] i'd so wear that
- June 7, 2009 at 2:15 PM
Of all of the horrible and creepy things on your site... Everything... You had to choose THIS one for a tie.
...But the pranks you could pull... Ah, the pranks...
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! - September 13, 2009 at 1:32 AM
my boyfriend wears ties to school every day. my best friend and i love cake wrecks and decided to get my boyfriend one of those ties for his birthday. we told him a few weeks ago and the look on his face was priceless!
- March 6, 2010 at 4:16 PM
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A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Mexican meth now accounts for as much as 80 percent of the drug sold in the U.S.
By Jim Salter
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Mexican drug cartels are quietly filling the void in the nation's drug market created by the long effort to crack down on American-made methamphetamine, flooding U.S. cities with exceptionally cheap, extraordinarily potent meth from factorylike "superlabs."
Although Mexican meth is not new to the U.S. drug trade, it now accounts for as much as 80 percent of the meth sold here, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. And it is as much as 90 percent pure, a level that offers users a faster, more intense and longer-lasting high.
"These are sophisticated, high-tech operations in Mexico that are operating with extreme precision," said Jim Shroba, a DEA agent in St. Louis. "They're moving it out the door as fast as they can manufacture it."
The cartels are expanding into the U.S. meth market just as they did with heroin: developing an inexpensive, highly addictive form of the drug and sending it through the same pipeline already used to funnel marijuana and cocaine, authorities said.
Seizures of meth along the Southwest border have more than quadrupled over the last several years. DEA records reviewed by The Associated Press show that the amount of seized meth jumped from slightly more than 4,000 pounds in 2007 to more than 16,000 pounds in 2011.
During that same period, the purity of Mexican meth shot up too, from 39 percent in 2007 to 88 percent by 2011, according to DEA documents. The price fell 69 percent, tumbling from $290 per pure gram to less than $90.
Mexican meth has a clearer, glassier appearance than more crudely produced formulas and often resembles ice fragments, usually with a clear or bluish-white color. It often has a smell people compare to ammonia, cat urine or even burning plastic.
"You can look at it and see it has a much more pure look," said Paul Roach, a DEA agent in Denver.
The rise of Mexican meth doesn't mean that American labs have disappeared. The number of U.S. meth labs continues to rise even as federal, state and local laws place heavy restrictions on the purchase of cold and allergy pills containing pseudoephedrine, a major component in the most common meth recipe.
The crackdowns that began a decade ago have made it harder to prepare large batches, so many American meth users have turned to a simpler method that uses a 2-liter soda bottle filled with just enough ingredients to produce a small amount of the drug for personal use.
But south of the border, meth is being made on an industrial scale. Sophisticated factories put out tons of the drug using formulas developed by professional chemists. The final product is often smuggled into the U.S. taped beneath tractor-trailers or hidden inside packages of other drugs.
While clandestine U.S. labs generally supply rural areas, Mexican meth is mostly targeted to urban and suburban users. Increasingly large quantities are turning up in dozens of American cities, including Dallas, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, St. Louis and Salt Lake City, according to the DEA.
The marketing format follows a well-established pattern. By simultaneously increasing the purity and cutting the price, the cartels get people hooked and create a new customer base.
"They're marketing geniuses," said Jack Riley, the agent in charge of the DEA office in Chicago.
When Illinois authorities recently confiscated 1,000 pounds of Mexican marijuana, they found 10 pounds of meth hidden among the pot — essentially a free sample for the distributor to give out to drug users, Riley said.
Until recently, meth was seldom seen in major urban areas, except in biker gangs and parts of the gay community, Riley said.
"We've never really seen it on the street like we've seen cocaine and heroin," Riley said. He worries that if the estimated 180,000 members of street gangs in Chicago get involved in meth trafficking, violence could follow.
Like the U.S., Mexico has tightened laws and regulations on pseudoephedrine, though some labs are still able to obtain large amounts from China and India. To fill the void, cartel chemists have turned to an old recipe known as P2P that first appeared in the 1960s and 1970s in some parts of the western U.S.
That recipe uses the organic compound phenylacetone. Because of its use in meth, the U.S. government made it a controlled substance in 1980, essentially stopping that form of meth in the U.S. But in Mexico, the cartels can get phenylacetone from other countries, DEA experts said.
In the third quarter of 2011, 85 percent of lab samples taken from U.S. meth seizures came from the P2P process — up from 50 percent a little more than a year earlier, DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said.
Federal agents say the influx of meth from Mexico illustrates the difficulty of waging a two-front war on the drug in neighboring countries. When one source of the drug is dealt a setback, other suppliers step in to satisfy relentless demand.
Considering the relatively untapped market of bigger American cities, the rise of Mexican meth is not surprising, said Illinois State University criminologist Ralph Weisheit, a meth expert.
"It's something that was inevitable," Weisheit said. "This wasn't hard to predict."
American authorities are not the only ones taking notice. The sharp spike in meth activity is also evident from the other side of the border. Seizures of labs and chemicals have increased nearly 1,000 percent in the past two years.
Last year, Mexican authorities made two major busts in the quiet central state of Queretaro, seizing nearly 500 tons of precursor chemicals and 3.4 tons of pure meth with a street value of more than $100 million. In Sinaloa, investigators found a sophisticated underground lab equipped with an elevator and ventilation systems as well as cooking and sleeping facilities. The facility was reachable only by a nearly 100-foot tunnel with its opening concealed under a tractor shed.
And in February, soldiers in western Mexico made a historic seizure: 15 tons of pure methamphetamine, a haul that could have supplied 13 million doses worth more than $4 billion.
The meth problem is spilling into other parts of Latin America too. In December and January, Mexican authorities seized nearly 900 tons of precursor chemicals at Mexican ports, almost all of it bound for Guatemala, which seized about 1,600 tons of meth precursors in 2011 — four times the 400 tons seized there a year earlier.
For now, cocaine remains far and away the cartels' most profitable drug. The RAND Corp. estimates that Mexican traffickers earn $30 billion in annual export revenue from cocaine, $20 billion from heroin, and about $5 billion from meth.
But cocaine is getting more expensive and less pure. According to the DEA, the price per pure gram of cocaine rose 59 percent from 2007 through September 2011. At the same time, the purity level dropped 25 percent.
Cocaine also typically comes from Colombia, meaning Mexican cartels serve as middle men who compete against each other to smuggle it into the U.S. That marginalizes their profits.
Because methamphetamine is a synthetic drug that the cartels can make for themselves, the profit potential is enormous.
"It's not plant-based," Weisheit said. "It can be completely produced in Mexico. It's very compact, and that makes it easy to smuggle."


text:
Detrek Browning stayed true to FMU and became the school's all-time leading scorer
By Tucker Mitchell
In an early January game against Clayton State, Detrek Browning waited calmly behind the three-point line while teammate Brandon Parker battled for a loose ball in the lane. Eventually, Parker swatted the ball towards Browning, who gathered it in, paused to set himself and casually flipped in a three-pointer that etched his name into a prominent place in the FMU record books. With that relatively unremarkable basket, Browning became something quite remarkable — the leading career scorer in the school's almost 50-year-old history.
That the record-setter came on a routine play is not surprising. Browning's calling card as a player is his ability to score, seemingly without effort; to make a unique ability to find ways to put ball basket appear quite ordinary.
What was remarkable about the play is that Browning was around to do it at all.
The dynamics of college basketball at all levels have changed dramatically in the past decade. Players move regularly and easily from school to school, looking for the next bit of slightly greener grass; and there is not much hard-working coaches and schools can do about it. Their path is fraught with peril.
Bring a player along too slowly and he will leave for a situation where he can play/shoot/start more often. But, bring them along too quickly, develop them too well – and this is especially true for programs at Division II schools like FMU — and bigger schools will come calling. They can't recruit a player, per se, until he puts his name on the NCAA's official transfer list (which numbers each year in the thousands) but word gets around. Pssst. If your name is on that list. …
After he averaged 20.1 points a game for FMU in 2015-16, officially his sophomore season, word got around to Browning. There were schools out there – Division I schools – who were interested. And Browning knew the drill. Friends, foes, even some of his teammates, had gone that route.
"I was hearing from a few people," Browning says, "and people were in my ear, telling me to go, that this was my big chance. But …"
Browning shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders. The big decision, he says, was really no decision at all.
"Man, after all (FMU) has done for me … I mean, they were there for me when no one else was," says Browning. "And the people here have always been great. This is where I belong. I wasn't going anywhere. I guess maybe coach was worried, but I wasn't leaving."
Gary Edwards, Browning's coach at FMU, admits to some nervousness during the spring in question. But those days are long past now and recalling them now brings a smile to Edwards' face.
"Detrek's done a lot of neat things here, made a lot of big plays, and he'll always be one of my favorites," says Edwards, "but if you ask me what I'll remember most that's it. It's that loyalty that Detrek showed. That's a rare quality. It's better than all those points he scored."
Things happen
Maybe Detrek Browning never should have wound up at FMU in the first place.
He wasn't exactly a secret coming out of Irmo (S.C.) High School, just north of Columbia. Irmo, led by legendary coach Tim Whipple, is one of the premier high school basketball programs in South Carolina and Detrek Browning did nothing during his time with the Yellowjackets to lessen that.
Browning played three varsity seasons at Irmo and helped the team win two state championships. In his senior year Irmo went 29-0 — Whipple's only unbeaten squad in 37 years at the helm — and captured Whipple's fifth state title.
Browning may not have been — may being the key word — the best player on a team that also included University of South Carolina recruit Justin McKie. But he wasn't a secret. He was receiving significant recruiting attention by his junior year and had a number of Division I programs giving him long looks.
But … things happened. One program that seemed like a sure thing signed another guard and never called Browning again. Another changed coaches. And so on.
Whipple says it was clear to him — then and now — that Browning belonged on a Division I roster.
"Oh, there's no doubt that the could play at that level," says Whipple. "But you know, coaches look at things … it's tough. He (Browning) was a little small maybe, kind of got in that inbetween thing position wise. Was he a point guard or a shooting guard? He didn't play much point for us until his senior year. But maybe he's a little small for a D-I shooting guard, maybe he's not that fast … So …"
So, early that year, one Edwards' assistants at FMU saw Browning play and suggested the Patriots make a run at him. Edwards saw him and quickly agreed — "best point guard I saw all year," Edwards said.
Edwards found out Browning's recruiting had taken a funny turn and put on the full court press. When Browning came for his official visit, Edwards offered him a full scholarship on the spot.
Browning held out for a little while, waiting for the "better" offer that never came. Eventually his own good sense — all who know him see him as an extremely well-grounded person — and a little hectoring from his mom made him a Patriot.
"I kept thinking, 'maybe a bigger school will offer me something,'" Browning says. "Meanwhile, mom is saying, 'are you crazy? They're offering you a full scholarship. They really want you. You know what? She was right."
Red-shirt tears
One more test remained.
Though a polished player for a freshman, Browning arrived on the FMU campus to find Evrik Gary — the number three scorer in school history — already ensconced in the point guard role. Edwards and the Patriot staff persuaded Browning that the thing to do was sit out — redshirt is the term — his freshman season, just as Gary had done.
The move made sense, but it's easier said than done. Redshirts spend all the practice time that regular players do but don't get to play in the games, can't even travel with the team to away contests.
"You're really on your own a lot of times and have to stay focused to keep working on things, getting better, on your own," says Browning. "That's a good thing. There's a lot to get used to moving from high school to college. It helped with basketball, with school, with everything. I tell everyone now 'Redshirt. That's the way to do it. It's the best thing I've ever done.' But it's not easy. I'll have to say there were a few nights where a few tears were shed. "
Conserving energy
One point — not the first point, but a point all the same — that Browning would make about his game, about the way he plays basketball is that he can dunk the ball.
"Most definitely," says Browning. "I actually have two dunks in games (at FMU). I guess there could have been more — fans would like it — but it's not something I was ever that excited about. A bucket is a bucket. I'd rather conserve my energy."
Good at energy conservation. Now there's a line that doesn't show up on many scouting reports. But that aspect of Detrek Browning, basketball player, says about as much about his game as any. He glides around the court, under control, moving from place to place — moving from the right place to the right place — with a studied nonchalance that lulls opponents, fans and even his own coach into a state of disinterest.
"He's one of those guys," says FMU's Edwards, "where you pick up the stat sheet afterwards and you say, 'Twenty-five points? How'd he do that? I didn't see that.' He's very, very smooth."
Browning's chief skill is an absolute intangible. He has innate understanding of the game that allows him to see plays before they develop.
"It doesn't just happen," explains Browning. "I've had some very good coaches. And I do think about all the plays. I just think about them five or 10 seconds before they happen."
Which is five or 10 (or more) seconds ahead of most.
Speed Kills
The awards and honors are piling up fast in Browning's final season. He's been the Peach Belt Conference Player of the Week four times (through January), set the FMU single game scoring mark (41 points) in early January and is clearly poised to post-season accolades as well.
It's all well-deserved, but still surprising all the same for Browning seldom looks like the best athlete on the floor. The 6-0, 180-pounder is a little stocky as basketball players go, and doesn't have the chiseled musculature of some. His two dunks aside, he is not a great leaper, and he's probably not the fastest guy around either, although as dozens of oft-burned Peach Belt Conference foes would attest, he is plenty fast enough.
Browning comes from a very athletic family. His mom (Carlissa), various uncles and aunts and cousins all played college sports. His brother is a good bit heavier than Detrek, "but can still beat me in a race. He can fly.
"My uncle (Milton Kershaw) who played football in college and is just crazy fast, taught me early on that speed kills," says Browning. "It's the most important part of most sports. But it's not necessarily who is fastest. It's who can be fast when they need to be."
Browning is a fine defender (he will finish his career among FMU's all-time leader in steals, too), but what sets him apart are his offensive skills. In Browning's mind — a good place to start for analyzing basketball — the key skill is shooting. He has simple mechanics and feel for the shot that came to him almost from the moment he took up the game — he hit a long buzzer beater to win the championship game in his first year of organized basketball at age 12.
"If you can shoot the basketball, I mean really shoot it, you are basically unguardable," Browning says. "Try to stop the shot and it's a fake and I'm by you for a pull up (jumper) or a layup. Try to stop that and …. "
His voice trails off. Another basketball thought has popped into a mind that processes such information at an astonishing rate.
"It's always amazing to me the number of basketball players — Division I players — really can't shoot," says Browning. "That's kind of the point of the game isn't it?"
The Gary plan
Browning plans to follow in the footsteps of his former teammate Gary and play basketball professionally for as long as he can. Gary has been on an oddball world tour since he left FMU — Luxemburg, Bulgaria, Dubuque, Iowa and now, Cyprus — but he's got a suitcase full of memorable experiences and … he's still playing. The dream is still alive.
Browning understands. He knows he can play at a very high level and is eager to prove it, even if that means traveling some strange roads and learning even greater patience.
Whenever that is done, Browning suspects his long-term future lies … in coaching. He's a Dean's List student who'll graduate in May with a degree in Psychology, and reservoir of knowledge that he thinks will translate nicely in that field.
"I seem to have a pretty good understanding of basketball," says Browing. "I think that (coaching) could work out."


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OggPCM Draft1
This is the original OggPCM draft. After a heated debate, most developers have now moved to OggPCM2
What is it
OggPCM is a pulse-code modulation (PCM) audio codec for Ogg. Similar to Microsoft's .wav or Apple's .aiff formats, it's a simple way to store and transfer uncompressed audio within an Ogg container. For the purposes of this document, the term PCM is used to describe a digital representation of an audio signal, where volume samples are taken at regular uniform intervals and then quantized into a digital (usually binary) code. A more complete definition of PCM and related terminology can be found at Wikipedia.
Why is it
The intention for this format is as an interchange format, for example for use with OggStream. It is also useful for storing time-synced decoded audio/video, as opposed to using RIFF/WAV (.wav) and YUV4MPEG (.yuv) in separate files as was done during Theora development. It is intended to be less complex to use than either RIFF or AIFF.
Stream Description
A stream is composed of a header packet, zero or more comment packets, and one or more data packets. Data packets may be of variable length, including zero. The only valid use of a zero length data packet is to mark the end of stream. Data packets must contain samples for all channels. That is to say, the length of a data packet must be a multiple of the number of channels times the storage size of a single sample. For instance, for a stream containing 6 channels at 2 byte per channel, the length of the data packet must be a multiple of 12 bytes.
The degenerate stream is a single header packet followed by the raw data packets. While this degenerate stream is not incredibly useful for long term storage or as a general purpose container, it is useful for applications where other data describing the stream is available out of band, for instance amongst cooperating applications in an inter-process communication scheme. Streams providing the extra defined comment packets are intended to be useful for long term storage and communication amongst diverse applications.
Packet Format
Header and comment packets are processed as per the value of their first byte. Packets of unknown ID should be silently ignored, providing a convient way to add future expandability which does not break the data format. An example of how this can be useful is the proposed ReplayGain extension to .wav format: http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/file_format_wav.html
The header packet contains a field indicating the number of comment packets preceding the raw data. Applications must either parse or skip exactly this many packets, in addition to the header packet, before treating the stream as raw data.
Header Packet
Multibyte fields in the header packets are packed in big endian order, to be consistent with network byte order. A header packet contains the following fields:
Packet 0, BOS, 16 bytes 8 0x00 Stream Header Packet ID 24 "PCM" Codec identifier - 8 0x01 Version Major (breaks backwards compatability to increment) 8 0x00 Version Minor (backwards compatable, ie, more supported format id's) 8 [uint] Number of header packets preceding data 8 [uint] Number of Channels, 0 = 256 - 16 [flag] Flags 16 [enum] PCM Format ID - 32 [uint] Sample Rate
The flags field is defined as follows:
Bit Description 15 (MSB) Interleaved/Chunked - If set, data in the packets is "chunked" by channel. In a data packet containing 3 channels and 2 samples/channel, the chunked storage order would be 001122. For the interleaved storage format (default), the order would be 012012. others Reserved
Applications conforming to version 1.0 of this spec MUST:
- set all reserved flags to false (zero) when creating these streams.
- preserve all values of all reserved flags when reading or modifying these streams, unless the application sets the minor version field to zero, in which case the reserved flags must be set to false as well.
Comment Packets
At this time, there is only one defined comment packet.
Comment Header Packet 8 0x01 Comment Header Packet ID 24 "PCM" Codec Identifier -- Continues as [Comment Header]
Data Packets
Data packets have no header word. This is done to preserve the alignment of the data payload. The contents of the data packets are specified by a combination of the 'PCM Format ID' field and the 'Flags' field. The length of the data packet must be a multiple of the number of channels specified in the header, and the storage size of a single sample, as specified by the 'PCM Format ID' field.
Supported PCM Formats
Formats are identified within a header packet by a 16 bit "format type" field. While most applications will treat this as an opaque type, it is possible to discern some information about the format from the value of this field itself. Specifically, the format's storage size, in bytes, and its byte ordering, can be discerned by parsing the lower 6 bits of the value. These values are exposed so that it is possible to extract individual samples without necessarily understanding the coding scheme involved. While for pratical purposes, due to performance concerns, most applications will choose to operate on a buffer directly, it is nonetheless possible to work a sample at a time.
Binary Value Meaning ..xxxx00 N/A, or data not accurately described by this scheme. ..xxxx01 Least significant byte first. Bytes are MS bit first. ..xxxx10 Most significant byte first. Bytes are MS bit first. ..xxxx11 Data is machine endian ..0000xx Data can not be described by this bytepacking scheme. ..0001xx Samples are stored using one byte per sample ..0010xx Samples are stored using two bytes per sample ..0011xx Samples are stored using three bytes per sample ..0100xx Samples are stored using four bytes per sample ..1000xx Samples are stored using eight bytes per sample
The remaining 10 bits describe the coding scheme used to convert the digital value to an audio signal. The following formats are defined for version 1.0 of this format. For purposes of attribution, it should be noted that these formats are the PCM formats supported by the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) project, and should be fairly comprehensive.
Format ID Short Name Description -- Signed integer coding (0) 0x0004 OGGPCM_FMT_S8 Signed integer 8 bit 0x0009 OGGPCM_FMT_S16_LE Signed integer 16 bit little endian 0x000A OGGPCM_FMT_S16_BE Signed integer 16 bit big endian 0x000B OGGPCM_FMT_S16 Signed integer 16 bit machine endian 0x000D OGGPCM_FMT_S24_3LE Signed integer 24 bit little endian 0x000E OGGPCM_FMT_S24_3BE Signed integer 24 bit big endian 0x0011 OGGPCM_FMT_S32_LE Signed integer 32 bit little endian 0x0012 OGGPCM_FMT_S32_BE Signed integer 32 bit big endian 0x0013 OGGPCM_FMT_S32 Signed integer 32 bit machine endian -- -- Unsigned integer coding (1) 0x0044 OGGPCM_FMT_U8 Unsigned integer 8 bit 0x0049 OGGPCM_FMT_U16_LE Unsigned integer 16 bit little endian 0x004A OGGPCM_FMT_U16_BE Unsigned integer 16 bit big endian 0x004B OGGPCM_FMT_U16 Unsigned integer 16 bit machine endian 0x004D OGGPCM_FMT_U24_3LE Unsigned integer 24 bit little endian 0x004E OGGPCM_FMT_U24_3BE Unsigned integer 24 bit big endian 0x0051 OGGPCM_FMT_U32_LE Unsigned integer 32 bit little endian 0x0052 OGGPCM_FMT_U32_BE Unsigned integer 32 bit big endian 0x0053 OGGPCM_FMT_U32 Unsigned integer 32 bit machine endian -- -- IEEE Floating point coding (2) 0x0091 OGGPCM_FMT_FLT_LE IEEE Float (-1,1) 32 bit little endian 0x0092 OGGPCM_FMT_FLT_BE IEEE Float (-1,1) 32 bit big endian 0x0093 OGGPCM_FMT_FLT IEEE Float (-1,1) 32 bit machine endian 0x00A1 OGGPCM_FMT_FLT64_LE IEEE Float (-1,1) 64 bit little endian 0x00A2 OGGPCM_FMT_FLT64_BE IEEE Float (-1,1) 64 bit big endian 0x00A3 OGGPCM_FMT_FLT64 IEEE Float (-1,1) 64 bit machine endian -- -- IEC958 coding (?) (3) 0x00CD OGGPCM_FMT_IEC958_3LE IEC958 Subframe, 24 bit little endian 0x00CE OGGPCM_FMT_IEC958_3BE IEC958 Subframe, 24 bit big endian 0x00D1 OGGPCM_FMT_IEC958_LE IEC958 Subframe, 32 bit little endian 0x00D2 OGGPCM_FMT_IEC958_BE IEC958 Subframe, 32 bit big endian 0x00D3 OGGPCM_FMT_IEC958 IEC965 Subframe, 32 bit machine endian -- -- Mu-Law coding (4) 0x0104 OGGPCM_FMT_MU_LAW Mu-Law -- -- A-Law coding (5) 0x0144 OGGPCM_FMT_A_LAW A-Law -- -- ADPCM coding (6) 0x0180 OGGPCM_FMT_ADPCM Ima-ADPCM -- -- GSM coding (7) 0x01C0 OGGPCM_FMT_GSM GSM -- -- 24 bit signed integer in 32 bit storage (8) 0x0211 OGGPCM_FMT_S24_LE Signed integer 24 bit little endian 0x0212 OGGPCM_FMT_S24_BE Signed integer 24 bit big endian 0x0213 OGGPCM_FMT_S24 Signed integer 24 bit machine endian -- -- 24 bit unsigned integer in 32 bit storage (9) 0x0251 OGGPCM_FMT_U24_LE Unsigned integer 24 bit little endian 0x0252 OGGPCM_FMT_U24_BE Unsigned integer 24 bit big endian 0x0253 OGGPCM_FMT_U24 Unsigned integer 24 bit machine endian -- -- 20 bit signed integer in 24 bit storage (10) 0x028D OGGPCM_FMT_S20_3LE Signed integer 20 bit little endian 0x028E OGGPCM_FMT_S20_3BE Signed integer 20 bit big endian -- -- 20 bit unsigned integer in 24 bit storage (11) 0x02CD OGGPCM_FMT_U20_3LE Unsigned integer 20 bit little endian 0x02CE OGGPCM_FMT_U20_3BE Unsigned integer 20 bit big endian -- -- 18 bit signed integer in 24 bit storage (12) 0x030D OGGPCM_FMT_S18_3LE Signed integer 18 bit little endian 0x030E OGGPCM_FMT_S18_3BE Signed integer 18 bit big endian -- -- 18 bit unsigned integer in 24 bit storage (13) 0x034D OGGPCM_FMT_U18_3LE Unsigned integer 18 bit little endian 0x034E OGGPCM_FMT_U18_3BE Unsigned integer 18 bit big endian -- Other coding schemes supported by ALSA but not specified here: MPEG -- TODO: ADPCM and GSM need further specification (or elimination) since these aren't really byte packed like the other formats here are.
Encapsulation in Ogg
Following standard terminology for uncompressed audio, an audio frame is the collection of samples for all channels for a single sampling period. For example, an audio frame for a stereo signal is a pair of sample values for the left and right channels.
The granulepos of an Ogg page indicates the presentation time of the last presentable element in the last complete packet within that page; for OggPCM, a granule is an audio frame. The granule position specified is the total audio frames in the stream including the last complete packet in a page. Audio frames must not be split across packets. The rationale here is that the position specified in the frame header of the last page tells how long the data coded by the bitstream is in samples as well as provides the current stream position to seeking routines. A truncated stream will still return the proper number of audio frames that can be decoded fully.


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That was the consensus Monday as Britain's rock critics responded to the Stones 50th anniversary bash Sunday night, the first of five shows to commemorate their half century of rhythm and blues-tinged rock. It was the band's first London performance in five years, and their own advancing years had led some to be skeptical that they could still perform at the highest level.
They were led by the seemingly ageless Mick Jagger, whose strutting style has not been dimmed, and backed by brilliant guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood and the energetic drumming of Charlie Watts, who is now past 70 but shows no sign of slowing down. There was a stunning guest appearance by former Stone Mick Taylor, who stole the show during a searing performance of "Midnight Rambler" and a brief visit from former bassist Bill Wyman.
The Daily Mail's Jan Moir said the Stones had somehow beaten the aging process: "You might imagine that they had been worn down by life, by wives, by arthritis, by scandals old and new, by drugs, but no - they seemed indestructible." She said their swampy, gritty sound remains unique after half a century.
Daily Telegraph reviewer Neil McCormick said the band exceeded all expectations. He described the weaving of the guitarists, mixed with Jagger's blues harmonica, as a wonder.
"When looking for the secret of the Stones, it is perhaps that they actually listen to each other while they play, and almost lose themselves in it, while their brilliant frontman keeps it all together," he wrote.
Ebullient fans agreed with this assessment, as did the Guardian newspaper, which gave the performance four out of five stars.
Jagger, in skin-tight black pants, a sparkly tie and a matching checked jacket and hat, took time out from singing to thank the crowd for its loyalty.
"It's amazing that we're still doing this, and it's amazing that you're still buying our records and coming to our shows," he said. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Lead guitarist Keith Richards, whose survival has surprised many who thought he would succumb to drugs and drink, was blunter: "We made it," he said. "I'm happy to see you. I'm happy to see anybody."
But the band's fiery music was no joke, fuelled by strong guest appearances by Taylor, and Mary J. Blige, who shook the house in a duet with Jagger on "Gimme Shelter," and Jeff Beck.
The 50th anniversary show, which will be followed by one more in London, then three in the greater New York area, lacked some of the band's customary bravado - the "world's greatest rock 'n' roll band" intro was shelved - and there were some rare nostalgic touches.
The concert began with some early Stones' numbers rarely heard in concert, including the band's cover of the Lennon-McCartney rocker "I Wanna Be Your Man" and a cover of "It's All Over Now," written by Bobby Womack and Shirley Womack.They didn't shy away from their darker numbers, including "Paint It Black" and "Sympathy for the Devil" - Jagger started that one wearing a slightly silly black, purple-lined faux fur cape that conjured up his late '60s satanic image.
He even cracked a joke about one of the band's low points, telling the audience it was in for a treat: "We're going to play the entire "Their Satanic Majesty's Request" album now," he said, referring to one of the band's least-loved efforts, a psychedelic travesty that has been largely, mercifully, forgotten.
He didn't make good on his threat.
Jagger seemed more mellow than usual, chatting a bit about the good old days and asking if there was anyone in the crowd who had seen them in 1962, when they first took to the stage.
He said 2012 had been a terrific year for Britain and that the Stones nearly missed the boat, playing no role in the celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the London Olympics, or the new James Bond film.
"We just got in under the wire," he said. "We feel pretty good."


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Trials HD
(Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB) Fasten your helmet…and unlock the full version of Trials HD. This physics-based motorcycle game has over 50 brilliant tracks and amazing HD graphics, in two unique game modes. Customize your rider, unlock bikes, climb global leaderboards, and compete with new in-game friend-scores. With the level-editor, create and share an unlimited amount of new tracks. Trials HD is an experience you haven't seen before! There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.
- 6/21/2010
- RedLynx, Ltd.
- Microsoft Studios
- Action & Adventure, Racing & Flying
- Dolby Digital
Online features
- Content downloads
- Leaderboards
Get it here. Play it there.
Buy Xbox content on Xbox.com. Your Xbox 360 console will automatically download the content next time you turn it on and connect to Xbox Live.
Learn More


text:
MKB Veszprém KC
Mkbveszprem.eu Website Analysis (Review)
Mkbveszprem.eu has 994 daily visitors and has the potential to earn up to 119 USD per month by showing ads. See traffic statistics for more information.
Hosted on IP address 184.108.40.206 in Hungary.
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Domain name: | mkbveszprem.eu |
Title: | MKB Veszprém KC |
Description: | |
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Cuba will end the two-currency system it has used for nearly 20 years. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba has used either American currency or a peso that's pegged to the dollar alongside its national peso.
The monetary unification will phase out a system that has become a symbol of exclusivity and foreign wealth. Many products that are imported into the country can be bought only with the dollar-based convertible peso. But most Cubans are paid in the standard peso, which is worth just a fraction of the other currency.
"The policy exacerbated the creation of a two-tier class system in Cuba which divided privileged Cubans with access to the lucrative tourist and foreign-trade sectors from those working in the local economy," the BBC reports, "all-too-visibly contradicting Cuba's supposedly egalitarian society."
Cuba's Central Bank says it will continue to back both the convertible peso, or CUC, and the Cuban peso, or CUP, when it begins the process of unifying the two currencies. The bank says the change will make it easier to calculate labor costs and other statistics, along with making Cuba's economic system more efficient.
No dates have been released for the plan, which has the backing of President Raul Castro. The change was announced in an official guideline published in the Communist state's Granma newspaper.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Update: Randy Travis In Critical Condition In Texas
A news release from the singer's publicist says the 54-year-old Travis was admitted to the hospital Sunday in Dallas and was in critical condition Monday evening.
Travis was being treated for viral cardiomyopathy, a heart condition caused by a virus, according to his publicist, Kirt Webster.
The Mayo Clinic's website says the disease weakens and enlarges the heart muscle, making it harder for the heart to pump blood and carry it to the rest of the body. It can lead to heart failure. Treatments range from medications and surgically implanted devices to heart transplants.
The illness is a continuation of a tough run for Travis after a handful of recent high-profile appearances, including a performance during the Country Music Association Festival's nightly concert series and George Jones' funeral.
Long a popular figure in country music, the North Carolina-born singer has been trying to put his life back together after a series of embarrassing public incidents involving alcohol.
Travis pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in January following his arrest last year when he was found naked after crashing his Pontiac Trans Am.
Travis was sentenced to two years of probation, fined $2,000 and given a 180-day suspended jail sentence. He was required to spend at least 30 days at an alcohol treatment facility and complete 100 hours of community service.
The multiple Grammy Award-winning singer rode his alternately mellow and majestic voice to stardom in the 1980s and '90s with hits like "Forever and Ever, Amen" and "Three Wooden Crosses."


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These "Yellow Bird" jewelry display cards are available in a variety of sizes and fittings to make them perfect for your unique products. They can be cut with fittings for earrings, necklaces, hair clips, lapel pins, key chains, and more. Each card comes with the graphics shown above and can be personalized with your own text. You can also order them with just the graphics and either hand write your name or stamp it on the cards.
Print and cut from 16pt recycled white cover stock.
Quantity of cards is determined by the size selected (see drop down menu).
**Not all fittings are available in all sizes.


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Home » Electroacoustic/Contemporary » WISHART. TREVOR: Journey Into Space
WISHART. TREVOR: Journey Into Space
Composed between 1970 and 72 in one of the UK's earliest electronic music studios, privately pressed as two LP's in 1973. There are acoustic sections, mostly of junk and toys (bike bells, squeeze horns, bottles, metal tubes, combs etc; everyday field recordings, Concrete sounds and a lot of processing (also features current York University students Steve Beresford, Jonty Harrison, Roger Marsh, Dominic Muldowney, Bernard Rands and Jan Steele).
Code: PD18
Price: £14.50


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DETROIT (AP) -- Subaru is recalling nearly 634,000 cars and SUVs in the U.S. because lights beneath the doors can overheat and cause fires.
The recall affects all Outback and Legacy cars from model years 2010 and 2011. Also included are Tribeca SUVs from 2006 through 2012 and Forester SUVs from 2009 through 2012. Subaru says the Tribecas and Foresters were sold before January of 2012.
The company says moisture can get into puddle lights beneath the doors and cause a short circuit that can melt plastic and cause fires.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says on its website that Subaru will install an additional fuse at no cost to the owners. The recall is expected to begin in February.


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So, apparently, there's this "cake show" in Austin where bakers make cakes and show them. Which is why it's called a "cake show." And apparently, many of these cakes are freaking awesome. Let's take a look, shall we?
(You may have noticed by this point that I'm not all that "good" with "words" but I am "trying.")
Hey, look!
Yellow is my favorite color!
Ya know, what's most impressive to me is that these bakers actually left the relative safety of their own homes and, as far as I know, Texas did not kill a single one of them. Frankly, I'm amazed.
Green is my favorite color!
I'm pretty sure those are daisies.
This next cake was part of the official Texas theme of the show:
Which was death.
Wait. I'm being told that it actually wasn't death.
(Are you sure? It was in Texas, right?
Ok, apparently the theme was "Superheros."
Like this one:
By Kimberly Chapman
Great. Now I have the theme from "Batman" stuck in my head.
(I'm also not so good with "Superheros.")
He looks like he's ready to kill me. Clearly, he is from Texas.
And finally, the most awesome cake I've seen in quite some time:
A special thanks to our Texas liaison, Kimberly Chapman. And hey, maybe next year Jen and I will be able to attend the show! (They rent out the Popemobile, right?)
Have a Sweet to nominate? Then send it to Sunday Sweets [at] Cake Wrecks [dot] com.
Quick update: Thanks for the great comments today guys. For the record, Jen and I both agree that Texans are some of the kindest, most awesome people we have met. However, I've been to Alamo, Houston, Amarillo, Dallas and Austin and been sick, injured or hospitalized every time. But maybe it's just me... -j


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Summer is in full swing and we are just spoilt for choice. Not only are the markets filled with a ton of locally produced fruits and vegetables but they are also filled with great imports. In particular, I have been enjoying the figs lately. Mostly I have just been snacking on them but when I found some extra brie in my fridge I decided to do something more. After discovering that jams and preserves went well in grilled cheese sandwiches one of the first jams that I tried in a grilled cheese was a fig jam and I really enjoyed it. I was thinking that a grilled brie and fresh fig sandwich would also be great. This time I decided to beef (or pork in this case) the sandwich up a bit with some tasty prosciutto. The brie and fig panini turned out really well. The brie melted nicely and the sandwich was nice and ooey and gooey and good with every bite trailing strings of melted brie. The sweet fig, brie and prosciutto were a great combination and I practically inhaled the sandwich. Luckily I have enough of everything to make a few more of them.
Fig and Brie Panini with Prosciutto
- 2 slices of bread (or a bun cut in half)
- 2 figs (sliced)
- 4 ounces brie (sliced)
- 2 slices prosciutto
- olive oil
- Assemble the sandwich and brush the outsides with olive oil.
- Grill until the brie is nice and melted and the bread is golden brown.


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She said: "That was clear. But the question was how to do this in a way that was fair to everyone in the community."
Ms. Martin, who has been chancellor since September 2008, was thrilled by the chance. You couldn't buy this kind of educational experience, or, quite frankly, this kind of publicity; it's an honor. But she worried about the fairness of having campus life disrupted by a political event. A day or so of fretting followed....This time, in the heat of Obama's reelection campaign, there was no "day or so of fretting." Coordination with the campaign flowed smoothly, with the UW's website linking students to the campaign website and requiring them to provide their phone numbers and click "I'm In" to get tickets. I'm In... what? The campaign effort? And this time the event wouldn't be in Library Mall, inconveniencing food vendors and the 5 o'clock Mass-goers. It would be smack in the center of campus, displacing many university students and employees for an entire day.
Ms. Martin and the Board of Regents signed on, then received validation of that decision in the plans of students and faculty members to gather after the political rally to debate everything from the economy and the wars to the political process itself. The only dissent has come by e-mail from a couple of alumni, objecting to the use of the campus for the rally.
"This is a campus that values political speech," Ms. Martin said.
But political speech comes at a cost. It meant the complete or partial closing of several buildings, from the University Bookstore to the spectacular State Historical Society building. It meant a day off for all the food vendors in Library Mall. It meant the cancellation of the 5 p.m. Mass at the St. Paul's University Catholic Center.
Why didn't Biddy Martin put on a show of fretting this time? Take a day to brood publicly about the university's educational mission, the separation of education and politics, minimizing inconvenience, and setting up an after rally discussion session about the deeper meaning of it all?
Biddy Martin isn't here. The University drove her away by rejecting the plan for UW independence she negotiated with... Governor Scott Walker... boo hiss... toxic!
Martin understood politics. She performed well in the political theater, and then she took her bows and absconded to Amherst.


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Whether you love to know your dog is clean or you're gearing up for family photos with him or her, a dog grooming salon can take care of everything. From baths to brushing, to even painting your dog's nails, you can expect to pay a starting price of about $40 for a full grooming service (for a small dog). Grooming salons will mostly offer a basic package deal which can include a bath, trimmed nails, and cleaned ears. Dog grooming salons give special care to elderly dogs who might need to take frequent potty breaks or rests between services.
The price of dog grooming starts around $40 for a full grooming service for a small dog, and around $75 for a large dog. If you have more than one, prices can be significantly lower for the second and third dog. For mobile grooming, where groomers come to you, a full service of ears, nails, anal glands, bath, blow dry, and scissor finish is about $75 for average size dogs.
Dog Grooming Price List | Average Cost |
Full Service (small dogs) | $40 |
Full Service (large dogs) | $75 |
Nail trim + buffing | $15 |
Nail trim | $10 |
Teeth brushing | $10 |
Breath Refresh | $10 |
Ear cleaning | $10 |
Gland expression | $10 |
Face, feet and fanny trim | $15 |
Flea & tick treatment | $15 |
Blueberry facial | $5 |
Paw balm | $5 |
Nail Polish | $7 |
Typically, you should tip your dog groomer 15 to 20 percent of the service total to show your appreciation for a good job. Tips should be whatever you can afford and are a token of you gratefulness. It's quite common for your groomer to give you extra services at no charge, such as teeth brushing or nail trimming. Keep all this in mind when considering how much to tip. Additionally, there are certain circumstances when you should the tip the groomer a bit more.
Here's a few examples of when you should tip the groomer extra:
Full Service Dog Grooming includes: A bath with towel and hair drying, teeth brushing, nail trimming, eye and ear cleaning, a brush out, and a haircut based upon your dog's breed standard or your individual style choice.
Basic Service Dog Grooming includes: A bath, trimmed nails, and cleaned ears.


text: King Soopers can help you find the perfect anniversary flowers and gifts! You'll find the ideal anniversary roses, flowers, plants or anniversary gift for your wife, friends or relatives at King Soopers. Nothing says love like a bouquet of red roses or a floral arrangement of her favorite flowers that will bring a smile to her face.


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The colorful antique quilt was made by my Great Grandma Sluiter, using scraps from dresses she made for my Grandma. |
You can view a before and after of Tori's shabby little chair HERE. |
Maybe someday I'll get cute, matching knobs for the old dresser that was once my Dad's. |
The curtain tutorial can be found over at The Shabby Creek Cottage. Thanks for the hours you put into these while I stenciled the floor, Mom!!!! You're the best! |
I would also love some day to exchange the shade on the lamp (a wedding gift 12 years ago) for a fun fabric rosette covered one. Any opinions? |
p.s. We stopped at Lowe's last night after our date to buy a threshold for the door. So now the total for this room makeover is $5.60. :)


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Three years ago, an unknown filmmaker posted a minute-and-a-half long video of a weird-looking orange badgering an innocent apple on the other side of the kitchen counter. While the orange was realistic in shape and size, it had the mouth and eyes of a human and spoke in the squeaky voice of an 8-year-old boy. Same with the ill-fated apple, which gets massacred by a large kitchen knife in a surprisingly brutal denouement.
The clip was an epic hit. Within three weeks it had been watched more than a million times. In six months, it had more than 50 million views, and its creator—Minnesota-born Dane Boedigheimer—had become a YouTube superstar, thanks to the dozens more Annoying Orange videos that he and his writing partner Spencer Grove had uploaded in the interim. By January 2012, their wacky talking fruit videos had more than a billion views and were raking in nearly $865,000 in annual ad revenue, according to the web ad-buying platform TubeMogul.
Now Boedigheimer, 34, has made the unusual move of turning a web-originated series into a top-ten TV show for boys. In The High-Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange, which debuted on the Cartoon Network in June, Orange and his oddball gang of edible friends (including Pear, Passion Fruit, Grapefruit and Marshmallow) move out of the kitchen and onto a fruit cart, where more elaborate escapades ensue. An Annoying Orange Christmas album just dropped on iTunes, and the TV Christmas special—a spoof of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol—airs tonight, December 3. It's a whirlwind success story by any measure, but especially for a guy who came out of nowhere and got millions of kids to tune in to his fantastical, fruit-filled world.
(MORE: 9 Dream Jobs That Actually Pay)
Eight years ago, Boedigheimer was just another nobody in the City of Angels. The son of a roofer, he spent his first year after college at Moorhead State University in Minnesota working at a one-hour photo lab while trying to break into the film scene in Minneapolis. "I only got in on one shoot, so that was the extent of that," he says. In 2004, when a college friend and fellow film major recommended him as a production assistant on MTV's Pimp My Ride, Boedigheimer moved to Los Angeles and took the job, earning $700 a week.
He came up with the idea for Annoying Orange in 2009 while working as a freelance filmmaker for online businesses, creating mostly promotional videos. In his spare time, he made short videos (using a Sony EX1 video camera, Final Cut Pro editing software and After Effects for special effects) and posted them to his site GagFilms. "I was always doing my own stuff and posting it to the internet. I was just doing random comedic videos. One of the things I always went back to was talking food videos. I don't know why—just some sort of weird obsession with talking food. Annoying Orange was just another one of those talking food videos," he says. (Predecessors include the hilarious Screaming Eggs and the deranged Kool Aid Killer.)
When his Annoying Orange videos started taking off, Boedigheimer signed on with a management company called The Collective. But he struck out trying to find a TV studio willing to develop the show in-house. Says Boedigheimer: "Their number one question was, 'You've got these two-to-three minute videos on YouTube, which are great, but how are you going to translate that to a longer form?'" With no takers, his management company took the unusual step of financing the pilot on its own for a few hundred thousand dollars (a fraction of what it typically costs a studio to produce a pilot in-house). Even then it was a tough sell: "We shopped it around to a bunch of different places, and most were kind of lukewarm about it," says Boedigheimer.
(MORE: 5 Rules for Re-Gifting Without Looking Like a Cheapskate)
The sole exception was the Cartoon Network, which licensed the show in November 2011. "We bet on the potential," says Cartoon Network Chief Content Officer Rob Sorcher. "We didn't know if it could make the jump into a TV series, but it looked like it could," he adds. Tom Sheppard, the Emmy Award-winning lead writer for the TV show, says he signed on because the main character, Orange, "reminded me of classic cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny. I liked tackling the challenges and figuring out how you make a show out of characters with no limbs." A few solutions: Make them hop, fall, or, when all else fails, launch the more dispensable edibles out of canons.
Not everyone loves Annoying Orange. Parents hate it, and critics have slammed it for being "obnoxious" and filled with "rude humor." But it's an undeniable hit with its target audience: boys. It's currently the top-rated show for boys in its Monday night slot, according to the Cartoon Network, which ordered up another 15 episodes of the show in November. (605,000 boys ages 2-11 watched the Nov. 19 episode, the most recent original episode that Nielsen has tracked.) It's also the newest member of an elite club of crossover hits, including Showtime's Web Therapy (starring Lisa Kudrow), Adult Swim's Childrens Hospital and the Cartoon Network's Adventure Time.
Even as the Annoying Orange TV show has taken off, its web counterpart has slowly begun to lose steam. While still hugely popular with 2.5 million subscribers, the YouTube channel is no longer in the top ten. Webisodes that used to get several million views on average now hover around a million views each. (A notable exception is the spoof of Gangnam Style, which got more than nine million views.) And traffic to AnnoyingOrange.com, which redirects to the YouTube channel, fell from 564,000 unique visitors in October 2011 to just 38,000 in October 2012, according to comScore. TubeMogul estimates that annual ad revenue from the Annoying Orange YouTube channel has dropped by 42% since January.
Spencer Grove, who writes the Annoying Orange webisodes, chalks the drop up to growing competition. "If we had released the first episode of Orange today, I don't know if it would go viral," he says. According to Google, which owns YouTube, users upload 72 hours of videos every minute, versus 10 hours a minute in 2008. The flood of new content has fragmented viewing habits, making it harder for any one channel to hold people's attention for long. What's more, Google's recent $300 million investment in marketing a few dozen original channels has made it tougher for other newcomers to get noticed.
(MORE: The Chips Are Down)
"Audiences are very fickle," says Jeff McCall, professor of media studies at DePauw University. "It would be natural to have some decline in the web traffic partly because it is on TV and partly because it loses some of its charm because it is on TV. Once it goes mainstream, people think 'I'll look for something else that's novel and doesn't label me as a traditionalist.'"
Like it or not, Annoying Orange has become more mainstream than ever thanks to its first ever Christmas TV special and music album, complete with funny renditions of classics like We Wish You a Merry Christmas. "It's kind of in line with Alvin and the Chipmunks," says Grove, who worked on the project. Look out, Charlie Brown.


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Helia Maxi Dress (Chocolate)
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ReviewsHelia Maxi Dress (Chocolate) - Charcoal Exclusive
Introducing the Helia Maxi Dress, a captivating blend of comfort and style that will elevate your wardrobe to new heights. Crafted from luxurious ribbed jersey material, this dress boasts a sumptuously soft texture that feels exquisite against the skin. The elasticated straps ensure a secure and comfortable fit, while the round neckline adds a touch of elegance to the overall silhouette. With a flattering flare at the hem, this dress accentuates your figure beautifully, creating a look that is both chic and sophisticated. Lined for added comfort and coverage, the Helia Maxi Dress is the perfect choice for any occasion, whether you're dressing up for a special event or simply enjoying a day out with friends.
Please note: when hanging this style, please use the hanger loops to prevent stretching over time
Chocolate maxi dress
Ribbed jersey material
Elasticated straps
Round neckline
Flared at hem
Shell: 93% Rayon / 7% Elastane
Lining: 95% Polyester / 5% Elastane
- Wash garment inside out
- Gentle washing cycle in cold water
- Drip dry away from sun and do not tumble dry
- Iron items on low heat and keep iron moving to avoid melting fibres
- High heat can cause damage to the garment fabric
Studio model is a size AUS 8/US 4, wears an AUS 8/US 4 in this style.
Height: 172cm / 5'6"
Bust: 80cm / 31.5in
Waist: 64cm / 25.2in
Hips: 82cm / 32.28in
Standard Postage | $7.95 (2-5 business days)
Express Postage | $9.95 (1-3 business days)
Orders over $99 receive FREE EXPRESS SHIPPING
Express shipping - 8-12 business days
Orders over $150 receive FREE AUSPOST EXPRESS SHIPPING
Express Shipping - 4-9 business days
Orders over $200 receive FREE AUSPOST EXPRESS SHIPPING
At Charcoal Clothing we want you to love your new items, and even if you don't, we're here to help!
To begin your returns process, please click HERE
Credit Notes, Gift Cards, Returns and Refunds from purchases online, can only be processed via our eCommerce platform (online purchases can not be returned in-store).
In-store purchases can be returned to any physical CHARCOAL store only.
- Items can be returned within 30 days of fulfilment for an online Credit Note, Exchange, Refund, or AfterPay/Zip Pay cancellation.
- We offer Refunds to the original form of payment for returned orders
- We offer either an Afterpay/ZipPay cancellations, Refund or credit note for returned orders
- When returning for a Refund or Afterpay/ZipPay cancellation, we will deduct $6 for the use and cost of our returns facility if you are an Australian based customer.
- We cannot accept returns from in-store purchases via online, and vice versa.
- We do not accept returns or exchanges on items marked as 'FINAL SALE'. These are items with Final Sale displayed on the product image, not items marked down from discount codes or on flash sales.
- Items must be received in original condition - unworn, unwashed, with all tags still attached. Items must be free from stains and scents e.g. makeup, fake tan, perfume. Please take care when trying on to not damage or stain the item/s as if your return does not meet the above criteria it will be sent back to you.
- Shoes must be returned in their box and in unworn, original condition.
- For hygiene reasons swimwear, bodysuits, cosmetics, earrings and undergarments cannot be exchanged or returned.
- Please email email@example.com if you believe your product is damaged or faulty. We will treat this with the highest of priority.
To begin your returns process, please click HERE
All you need to do is:
- Follow the prompts and fill out the next steps to successfully complete return.
- Please include EXC- when returning an exchange order.
- Once completed, you will be able to download and print your free* Returns Label if returning for a credit note, otherwise, a $6.00 fee will be charged to return for a refund.
- If you do not have a printer or you are unable to print, not to worry!
Simply download your Returns Label and show your barcode at any Post Office location which displays the symbol , from the list that will be shown below and they will print your label for you. Your Return Label is valid for 28 days.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team!
The cost of all International Returns is the responsibility of the customer as our courier (DHL) cannot generate a Returns Label.However, if you go to your local Post Office, they will be able to assist you with processing and paying for the return.
- Place the item/s you're returning into the parcel with your filled out Returns Form and seal it up securely!
- Take the parcel to your local post office or courier service of your choice and send it to our address (see below).
- Once your parcel has been delivered to our PO Box, it may take additional time to reach our Returns Depot. Upon arriving at our depot, your return should be processed within 2-3 business days.
Virginia, QLD, 4014
Please access a Returns Form here
- Credit notes can be used to make a future purchase and will be issued as a "Gift Card", they are valid for 3 years from date of issue.
- Credit notes issued by our eCommerce department can only be used online, and not in store.
- Your credit note will be emailed to you as a Gift Card once your return has been processed.
- Credit notes/Gift Cards cannot be refunded.
- We deduct $6.00 for the use of our returns label if you are an Australian based customer (unless your item has been deemed as faulty)
- If you return your items before your first Afterpay payment is due you, these amounts will be removed from your Afterpay plan and you will not have to pay for them.
- If the payments have already been made when you return the items, the amounts will be removed from your Afterpay payment plan and/or the initial payments refunded.
- For more information on terms and conditions, visit Afterpay's website here
- For more information regarding Zip Pay, please click here: https://www.charcoalclothing.com.au/pages/about-zip
- Depending on your payment method, funds can take up to 1-5 business days to come through.
- We deduct $6.00 for the use of our returns label if you are an Australian based customer (unless your item has been deemed as faulty)
- As soon as your refund has been processed, you will receive an email from us confirming the refund.
- If you have any questions or queries regarding your refund, please send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com, and our CS Team will happily assist you.
- Your exchange will not be sent until your return parcel has been processed back at our warehouse.
- If the item becomes out of stock once your return has been processed, we will send you an email to let you know however, our Returns Department will issue you a refund/credit note by default unless stated otherwise.
- Please Note: The dispatch of your parcel can take approx. 10 business days.
- Our items are photographed and professional lighting is used, so item colour may vary slightly though we aim to keep it as accurate as possible. Please refer to the product description, close up shot and video to see true colour. Colour may also look slightly different based on your display screen.
- Our accessories and jewellery are not plated unless stated otherwise. This means they may tarnish if exposed to water, perfume etc.
We want everyone to be able to enjoy and use Charcoal Clothing Australia. To protect the experience of all our customers, Charcoal Clothing Australia reserves the right to refuse service to any person engaging in fraudulent behaviour or abuse of our return policies.
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Send us an email at email@example.com and our friendly Customer Care team will help you out!


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Can Tzipi Livni oust Netanyahu and the Likud Party?
| Jerusalem
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who appeared to be cruising to re-election a few weeks ago, suddenly appears vulnerable as the country prepares to go to the polls in January.
The political comeback of a popular former foreign minister on Tuesday, coupled with the ruling Likud Party's selection of an especially hard-line slate of candidates, has suddenly raised questions about Netanyahu's prospects. Eager to portray Netanyahu as an extremist, opposition parties see an opportunity to mount a formidable challenge to the Israeli leader.
Ousting Netanyahu remains a formidable task, but the return of Tzipi Livni, who served as Israel's foreign minister and chief peace negotiator from 2006 to 2009, injected a high-profile name into what had been a lackluster race. Well respected internationally, Livni immediately took aim at what she called a "leadership vacuum" and promised an aggressive push for peace with the Palestinians.
RECOMMENDED: Five top Israelis who don't want to bomb Iran
"I came to fight for peace," she said. "And I won't allow anyone to turn peace into a bad word."
During Netanyahu's nearly four years in office, peace efforts with the Palestinians have remained frozen.
The Palestinians refuse to resume talks unless Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, occupied areas that the Palestinians claim for an independent state.
Netanyahu blames the Palestinians for the deadlock. The prime minister imposed a partial freeze on settlement construction early in his term, leading to a brief attempt to resume negotiations. But Netanyahu refused to extend the construction slowdown, and the talks quickly collapsed. He says talks should resume without any preconditions.
The deadlock has pushed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to head to the United Nations this week to upgrade the Palestinian observer mission to "nonmember state" status. The General Assembly is expected to pass the request.
The Palestinians believe the international endorsement, while largely symbolic, will bolster their position if negotiations resume. Israel, backed by the United States, opposes the bid and has been furiously lobbying allies to oppose it, saying all differences must be resolved through negotiations. In a setback for Netanyahu, France announced Tuesday that it would vote in favor of the Palestinians.
At a time when there are no talks with the Western-backed government of Abbas, Israel this week opened an indirect dialogue with Abbas' rival, the Islamic militant Hamas movement, as part of a cease-fire that ended an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip last week. Israel considers Hamas, which seized control of Gaza five years ago, a terrorist group.
"Everything is upside down: a government that negotiates with terrorists and freezes all dialogue with those who work to prevent attacks," Livni said.
Livni told the audience that the fighting in Gaza, in which her youngest son was mobilized to Israel's southern front, had factored into her decision to return to politics.
"A week ago when my youngest son, today an officer in the Paratroopers, went down south, I sent him a text message that I had decided to fight on my turf, politics, so that he maybe won't have to fight on his turf, the battlefield," she said.
Throughout his term, Netanyahu relied on a handful of moderate figures in his Cabinet to blunt international opposition. Following a pair of events this week, Netanyahu appears to have lost this political cover.
On Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak resigned from politics. Barak, a former prime minister, had often served as Netanyahu's unofficial envoy to Washington to ease tensions with the White House.
RECOMMENDED: Five top Israelis who don't want to bomb Iran
Then Monday night, Netanyahu's Likud Party announced its slate of candidates for the Jan. 22 election.
The list was dominated by hard-line supporters of West Bank settlements. Some candidates have alienated mainstream Israelis with failed attempts in parliament to stifle dissent and rein in a Supreme Court that they believe is too independent. In addition, several prominent moderates were effectively ousted. Netanyahu's decision to join forces with the ultranationalist party headed by his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has added to concerns that his next coalition will be too hard line for many.
Menachem Hofnung, a Hebrew University political scientist, said the Likud could have a hard time appealing to centrist voters with its new list. "After seeing the Likud's results, the race is (wide) open," he said.
Livni, 54, joins a field that includes the centrist Labor Party, led by former journalist Shelly Yachimovich, and the centrist "Yesh Atid," led by former anchorman Yair Lapid.
While largely similar in ideology, these rival parties have focused largely on domestic economic issues. Livni made clear her new party, called "The Movement," would focus on resuming peace efforts.
"I decided to give an answer to people who don't have anyone to vote for," Livni said. "This party will return this hope that was lost."
It won't be an easy task. Recent polls have predicted Likud would be the largest party in the 120-seat parliament and in a strong position to cobble together a majority coalition. The centrist parties remain divided, and their leaders have been reluctant to join forces.
A survey published Tuesday predicted that Livni's new party would garner just nine seats, Labor would win 20 and Lapid's Yesh Atid would get only five. That would leave the centrist bloc far short of the 61 seats needed to form a coalition.
In contrast, Netanyahu's Likud would win 37 seats, making it by far the largest single party in parliament, with hard-line nationalist and religious parties giving it a majority.
The poll by the Maagar Mochot agency surveyed 504 people on Sunday and Monday and had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. However, the poll was conducted before Livni's comeback and Likud primary results were announced, so the numbers are expected to change.
Livni herself is the daughter of one of Likud's founding fathers and entered politics in 1999 as a Likud lawmaker.
But like many other former hard-liners, she has moved over to Israel's dovish left to confront what many believe to be a demographic time bomb. If Israel continues to control millions of Palestinians, they say, it will cease to exist as a democracy with a Jewish majority. The solution, they say, is establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
As foreign minister, Livni forged a strong relationship with her American counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, as well as the Palestinians. The sides claimed to have made great progress.
Although her legacy was tarnished by criticism over an Israeli military offensive in Gaza in 2009 that left hundreds of civilians dead, she nonetheless remains popular internationally. She has been identified by Time, Newsweek, and Forbes magazines as one of the world's most influential women.
But she has stumbled as a politician. Livni led centrist Kadima Party in 2009 elections after then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was forced to resign because of a corruption scandal.
While Kadima won the most parliamentary seats in that election, Livni was unable to form a coalition and confined to the opposition. Early this year, she was ousted as party leader and left politics. Kadima has steadily lost support since then, and recent polls have forecast Kadima may not win even a single seat in parliament.
RECOMMENDED: Five top Israelis who don't want to bomb Iran
Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg and Daniel Estrin contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.


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Rise of the Guardians: Film Review
The Bottom Line
A lively but derivative 3D storybook spree for some unlikely action heroes.The DreamWorks Animation production features the voices of Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher and Chris Pine.
A very odd assortment of mythical childhood figures, some of them afflicted with severe emotional insecurities and inferiority complexes, are thrown together as an unlikely set of action heroes in Rise of the Guardians, an attractively designed but overly busy and derivative mishmash of kid-friendly elements.
A sort of Justice League or Avengers equivalent made up of the fearsome team of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman and Jack Frost, this final DreamWorks Animation production set to be distributed by Paramount will play in a predictably agreeable and profitable fashion to small fry but will skew young despite the presence of an excellent voice cast. The world premiere took place Oct. 10 at the Mill Valley Film Festival in advance of the Nov. 21 commercial bow.
Based on the book series Guardians of Childhood by William Joyce, as well as on the author's short film The Man in the Moon, the script by David Lindsay-Abaire (Robots, Rabbit Hole) plays fast and loose with these legendary fixtures of childhood, attaching to them all sorts of neuroses, feelings of inadequacy and the sense, or threat, of being ignored. Some might find this tack delightfully mischievous, but it's just as easy to reject as ridiculous the notion that Jack Frost — a free spirit very much like Peter Pan who can fly around anywhere he wants — suffers from an emotional trauma he suffered hundreds of years earlier.
Perhaps the most readily amusing of the gang is Santa, or, as he is more geographically named here, North. A muscular powerhouse rather than a fatso, North has heavily tatted forearms and, as wonderfully voiced by Alec Baldwin, sports a distinctive Russian accent not inappropriate to the proximity of that country to his palatial mountainside workshop. Also gathering here are the rangy and rascally E. Aster Bunnymund (an excellent Hugh Jackman), the hummingbird-like Tooth (or Tooth Fairy, delightfully rendered by Isla Fisher), the mute and tubby spinner of gold Sandman and, ultimately, Jack (a fine Chris Pine), who has wandered the globe alone for centuries and feels woefully unrecognized compared to the others because he has no special day or occasion to make an imprint on the lives of children.
All the same, Jack is hard-pressed by North to join in the battle against Pitch (as in pitch black), a diabolical figure (plausibly acted by Jude Law) who, after a long absence, has returned to throw Earth into darkness and provide much-needed nightmares to kids everywhere. As with Jack, Pitch's re-emergence feels arbitrary and generic, while the tall, sneering and stubby-toothed figure bears far too close a resemblance to Harry Potter's Voldemort, as do his minions, black steeds that disintegrate into fragments and flash through the sky almost identically to Death Eaters. So while Jack tries to sort out his issues of neglect (kids in small-town America don't even notice him) and struggles over whether or not to join the others, the battle against the lord of the night commences.
Director Peter Ramsey, a longtime storyboard artist making his feature directorial debut after beginning with the 2009 telefilm Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space, never misses a chance to throw in one more roller-coaster-like visual ride to pump up the 3D experience. But the characters and settings are attractively designed, and the vocal performances have real color and a sense of fun that gently undercuts the treacly sincerity of certain obligatory kid-pandering moments.
Composer Alexandre Desplat really gets a workout here, dextrously blanketing the film with ever-changing tempos and motifs to suit the moment and propel the action. At least 10 percent of the 97-minute running time is devoted to the end credits.


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In the present scenario, Samsung AC is a popular and leading global brand, when comes to consumer products such as Refrigerator, Microwave oven, LCD, Fridge, Air Conditioners, etc. Samsung AC Consumer products are actually free from major or minor technical troubles and actually require least Samsung AC repair services in any given situations, circumstances and conditions. The Samsung AC latest Refrigerator and Fridge along with Samsung AC LCD and Air Conditioner are in the lead sales in Hyderabad. When it comes to Samsung AC Service Centre in Asif Nagar, you really have several attractive and special options in order to choose from many authorized service centre present in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secondrabad. In Hyderabad, the Click4repaires.com is an officially registered multi-brand service center to provide different types of repair services of Samsung AC consumer products.
During the summer in this region, Samsung AC Air Conditioner is a great hit among esteemed customers of Samsung AC. It is readily available for sale separately in authorized Samsung AC showrooms and shops plus other registered dealers. Your Samsung AC AC may not work properly, when you use it improper manner. If your Samsung AC Air Conditioner is in warranty or out of warranty, all you require is just Samsung AC repair service provider in Hyderabad.
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