text:
2000-02-16 Georgia Theatre, Athens, GA
2000-02-17 Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA
2000-02-18 Be Here Now, Asheville, NC
2000-02-19 Carrboro Center For The Arts, Carrboro, NC
2000-02-26 Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH
2000-03-06 Rams Head Tavern, Annapolis, MD
2000-03-07 The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
2000-03-09 Gullifty's Underground, Cedar Cliff Mall, Camp Hill, PA
2000-03-11 Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH
2000-03-15 WNKU Studio, Northern Kent University, Unversity Heights, KY
2000-03-15 Barrel House Brewing Company, Cincinnati, OH
2000-03-16 Canal Street, Dayton, OH
2000-03-18 Martyrs', Chicago, IL
2000-03-19 Martyrs', Chicago, IL
2000-03-20 Shank Hall, Milwaukee, WI
2000-03-24 Comfort Zone, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2000-03-25 The Ark, Ann Arbor, MI
2000-03-26 Flint Public Library, Flint, MI
2000-03-28 Tralfamadore Cafe, Buffalo, NY
2000-03-29 Lost Horizon, Syracuse, NY
2000-03-31 Valentine's, Albany, NY
2000-04-01 Bearsville Theatre, Woodstock, NY
2000-04-02 Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton, MA
2000-04-03 Higherground, Winooski, VT
2000-04-05 House Of Blues, Cambridge, MA
2000-04-06 WMBR, Student Union, Cambridge, MA
2000-04-06 House Of Blues, Cambridge, MA
2000-04-07 The Stephen Talkhouse, Amagansett, NY
2000-04-08 At The Tabernacle, Mt. Tabor, NJ
2000-04-22 Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH
2000-04-28 Merlefest, Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC
2000-04-29 Merlefest, Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC
2000-04-30 Merlefest, Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC
2000-05-10 Upstage, Philadelphia, PA
2000-05-11 Town Hall, New York, NY
2000-05-13 Rosebud, Pittsburgh, PA
2000-05-25 Gothic Theatre, Englewood, CO
2000-05-26 Fox Theatre, Boulder CO
2000-05-27 Mishawaka, Poudre River Canyon, Bellvue, CO
2000-05-29 E-Town Radio Show, Boulder Theatre, Boulder, CO
2000-05-30 Blue Spruce Inn, Frisco, CO
2000-06-16 Park West, Chicago, IL
2000-06-17 City Stages, Birmingham, AL
2000-06-19 Rams Head Tavern, Annapolis, MD
2000-06-20 Star Pavilion, Hershey Park, Hershey, PA
2000-06-21 PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ
2000-06-23 Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA
2000-06-24 Stone Coast Brewery, Portland, ME
2000-06-25 Meadows Music Theatre, Hartford, CT
2000-06-27 Polaris Amphitheatre, Columbus, OH
2000-06-28 Riverport Amphitheatre, St. Louis, MO
2000-06-30 High Sierra Music Festival, Plumas-Sierra County Fairgrounds, Quincy, CA
2000-07-01 High Sierra Music Festival, Plumas-Sierra County Fairgrounds, Quincy, CA
2000-07-03 Truckee Regional Park, Truckee, CA
2000-07-04 Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA
2000-07-05 Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA
2000-07-08 McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA
2000-07-14 Court Street Grill, Pomeroy, OH
2000-07-20 B.B. King Blues Club & Grill, New York, NY
2000-07-22 Radio Show, Amagansett, NY
2000-07-22 The Stephen Talkhouse, Amagansett, NY
2000-07-23 The Stephen Talkhouse, Amagansett, NY
2000-07-26 Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville, IN
2000-07-28 Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA
2000-07-29 Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, NY
2000-07-30 Molson Ampitheatre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2000-08-01 Seagate Convention Center, Toledo, OH
2000-08-02 P&C Stadium, Syracuse, NY
2000-08-04 Jones Beach Music Theatre, Wantaugh, NY
2000-08-05 Gathering On the Mountain, Big Boulder Ski Area, Blakeslee, PA
2000-08-18 Student Orientation, Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH
2000-08-19 Student Orientation, Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH
2000-09-01 Hookahville, Buckeye Lake Music Center, Hebron, OH
2000-09-02 Lynagh's Music Club, Lexington, KY
2000-09-03 Darien Lake Music Center, Darien Center, NY
2000-09-23 Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH
2000-10-01 Hemingbough Greek Amphitheatre, St. Francisville, LA
2000-10-07 The Turning Point, Piermont, NY
2000-10-08 The Stephen Talkhouse, Amagansett, NY
2000-10-13 Student Orientation, Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH
2000-10-14 Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH
2000-11-04 Columbus Music Hall, Columbus, OH
2000-11-15 The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
2000-11-16 The Cat's Cradle, Carrboro, NC
2000-11-17 Arts & Science Center Of Catawba Valley Auditorium, Hickory, NC
2000-11-19 The Palace Theatre, Albany, NY
2000-11-21 Swarthmore College, Lang Music Building, Swarthmore, PA
2000-11-22 Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA
2000-11-24 Convention Hall, Asbury Park, NJ
2000-11-25 Beacon Theatre, New York, NY
2000-11-26 Bardavon 1869 Opera House, Poughkeepsie, NY
2000-11-28 Rams Head Tavern, Annapolis, MD
2000-11-29 WRSI Studio, The Riversound Cafe, Northampton, MA
2000-11-30 Paradise Theatre, Boston, MA
2000-12-01 The Colonial Theatre, Keene, NH
2000-12-02 Higher Ground, Winooski, VT
2000-12-07 The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
2000-12-08 Mystic Theatre, North Petaluma, CA
2000-12-09 Paradise Performing Arts Center, Paradise, CA
2000-12-12 8150 Cafe, Vail, CO
2000-12-13 Fox Theatre, Boulder, CO
2000-12-14 Gothic Theatre, Englewood, CO
2000-12-16 Barkley's, Frisco, CO

subset: commoncrawl


text:
So, What's New for 2009?
Since the end of the year is coming upon us quickly, blogs and articles are flooding my inbox with horoscopes into the future of New Media. Some earlier predictions in the year came true and others did not due to the current economic situation. This post gleans some interesting points from a few articles that have different opinions.
Steve Rubel believes that we will be completely digital within five years. or almost completely digital. An example of this is the declining print newspaper and along with it, its ad revenues. The newspaper's competitor is now products like the Kindle which is sold out until Februaries. Newspapers and magazines need to embrace this type of technology and take advantage of it before it's too late. Artwork will no longer be static. Marketers will be able to program their ads to change depending upon if the viewer has already seen the ad on a different site.
Pete Blackshaw predicts that users will be sick and tired of social media and every gadget and widget that comes along. the novelty of the coolness of the applications that are fun to play with like toys on Christmas morning, are no longer played with by the New Year's day. Blackshaw believes that marketing will go back to the basics of advertising and connecting with customers. He says that having real conversations will customers will win out of virtual ones. Diversity will become a necessity in advertising as well as companies reinforcing their trustworthiness as consumers are becoming skeptical of the company' ethics that they are doing business with. Mobile phones and PDAs will continue to make marketing available to the consumer anywhere at any time.
Andrew Hampp forecasts that radio will continue to make the transition into the digital realm. Online radio advertising revenue has grown 9 % to $1.34 billion in the first three quarters of 2008. Clear Channel, one of the top two radio groups, said that it had a 24% audience growth in 2008 reaching 20 million listeners.
I think that in 2009 we will see a crunch in spending in the adveritsing market. Every day there are articles about hundreds of layoffs in the advertising industry. Companies will expect more money out of their marketing and may try some home grown efforts with the internet and social marketing. I see a lot of articles on how to market on social networks so we will be seeing more out of that area for awhile. I believe that there will be a huge growth in mobile marketing in the next few years. As kids spend more time online and at home playing games, there will continue to be more advergaming as a result. Companies need to spend 2009 getting to know their consumers again and encourage them to interact with them.
Happy New Year and a great 2009!
For more information on the above articles, please read:
For Radio, Digital Moves Pay Off in 2008 by Andrew Hampp
Consumers to Suffer from Social Media Indigestion in 2009 by Pete Blackshaw
How Digital Media Will Deliver Tangible Benefits by Steve Rubel
Much Ado About SPAM, Nuisance or Necessity?
When I think of the word SPAM, three things come to mind: minced meat in a can, Monty Python, and annoying unwanted email. This post is about the later of course. Can email be useful and profitable for users and marketers, or is it just a waste of time and money?
It is estimated that Spam accounts for 60% of all email and that it costs companies over $10 billion annually as employees spend time checking and deleting their email. As a result of all this unwanted email, 50% of users do not trust email. The user is afraid of privacy concerns, false email identities, viruses, or fraud. However, if we ban email, are we stepping on the principles of free marketing? We accept that we get junk mail, but when it comes into our home through the phone or email, it is considered and invasion of privacy. Will we be soon registering our email addresses on a do not Spam email list?
So Spam emails sound like a nuisance but do they really work? A test was done by The University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego with 75,869 hijacked computers to see what the response rate would be for some fictional email campaigns. When the user clicked on the link, the link would not work. About 469 million junk emails were sent out over the a 26 day time period, only 28 sales resulted. This is a 0.00001% response rate. Sounds horrible. However, on a much larger scale, this email campaign with others could make companies $7,000 per day. Since it costs little to send emails, this is a great return.
According to "Will Can-Spam Affect You?" by LaToya Deann Rembert (link no longer valid), Spam emails must follow specific rules however to be considered legitimate:
• They must be labeled as an advertisement
• It has to have an opt-out link
• It has to have a legitimate company mailing address at the bottom
• It must have a working, real return email address
• It cannot have a misleading subject line header
So the marketer has all the rules checked off and in place, but the response rate and send rate still isn't very good. According to Email Marketer: Email Wost Practices" by Bill McCloskey (link no longer valid) here are several items that can be done to give your email a better chance of being received:
• Make sure there are no broken links
• Check for mistakes in the email addresses like two @@'s
• Check your email on several browsers including Mac's and older browsers
• Make sure the slashes aren't backwards in links like http:\\yoururl.com when it should be http://yoururl.com
• Check to make sure the time stamp is correct, some marketers will put future dates to make sure that their email appears at the top of the inbox
Email marketing remains to be one of the most profitable forms of marketing reaching large amounts of people. Email marketing does not have to be used only for advertising, it can be used for market research and customer service purposes. You can earn your customers trust by sending them emails that will help them rather then sell to them.
What do you think? Email marketing: nuisance or necessity?
This information came from course readings:
Effective Email Marketing 2004: Ten Things to Think About this Year
Email Worst Practices: A Must-Read Primer on Bad Email Practices
Will Can-Spam Affect You?
Should Spam be on the Menu?
Other Resources:
Ethics for Search Engines and The Advertisers Who Use Them
This week's topic in class was on Ethics in Search Engines. I will expand this post to Advertising ethics using search engines as well. I never knew until a few days ago that when I used to hide keywords on website using the same color text as the background that this was considered unethical in the world of search engines and that you could be severly punished. I had no clue. I also found out that I was right in telling my client not to used 200 pages of keywords in the meta tags section of his website. I refused to do it. I was also right that it as nuts to use vague keywords and ones that had nothing to do with his industry in the meta tags.
Before I read the articles this week, I knew a little bit about Search Engine Optimization with websites including using metatags, keywords, descriptions, alt tags for images, and other little things to enhance the chance that my websites will be seen by search engines. I also knew I could pay a lot more to have special companies optimize my websites for me. I have also paid for sponsorships and entertained paying for higher results in search engine placements. I had not known the extent of the search engine ethics issues and the extent that advertisers go to for better placement.
I see search engines as a service but they need to support themselves so they sell ad space or search results placements to advertisers. I don't see this as being any different that an advertiser paying for television ads on TV. The TV station has to pay for its programming through the sale of ad space to sponsors and these sponsorships generate over $3 billion a year in revenue (NPR clip). However, to those that can't afford the ad placement they would not rank very high on search engines. This can be a problem since 70% of users don't go past the first page of search results. This doesn't seem fair to the little guy but my design company can't afford a search engine sponsorship but I'm not upset that I don't get the top page placement for web designers. One of the problems with paid inclusions is that 60% of search engine users cannot tell the difference between a paid link and an unpaid link. Of these people, 80% felt that search engines should disclose which results as paid inclusions and sponsored results. (McLaughlin, 2002)
Search Engines don't help the situation by either obscuring which links are sponsored links but sometimes not even disclosing which links are paid for and which ones are not. If they do disclose which links are sponsors it is in tiny type or a light grey type. I do not feel that paid sponsorships and inclusions are unethical as long as they are clearly marked that they are paid advertisements. They don't have to be bright red in big bold type, I think that having a light grey small font as long as it is readable would be good enough. The paid inclusions should be separated from the other search results in it's own section that is clearly defined. (Wouters, 2005)
An article I came across from iProspect, Search Engine Marketing Ethics, gave a good list of Ethics an no-no's for advertisers using search engines, they call is spamdexing:
• Using keywords that aren't related to your website
• Causing search engine results to display your website more than once in the same search
• Submitting multiple pages of your website instead of its entirety
• Hiding keywords using the same colored text a the background
• Page-swapping, swapping our one page for another after a high ranking is achieved with the first page
• Page-jacking, stealing a competitors page and swapping out your page for theirs once you attain their rankings
• Keyword stuffing, reapeating the same keywords in hidden areas of the site
• Trademark hijacking, stealing competitors keywords and slogans and hiding them in your site
• Redirecting pages too quickly, after achieving the high rankings, redirecting people to another page
Does anyone have any thoughts on the ethics of search engines and the advertisers who use them? I had never thought about before this week.
For more reading on these topics, see:
Search Engine Marketing Ethics by iProspect (download the PDF)
The Straight Story on Search Engines by Laurianne McLaughlin
Search Advertising (audio)
Still in Search of Disclosure by Wouters
Web Design Ideas…
For class this week we had to review an article on web design and apply it to our IMC class and then review four other articles from classmates. This is where the content and ideas have come from for this post as well as the one below. This weekend, I have to propose a web design idea and justify why I made the choices I did with support from articles like the ones I reviewed. I find this to be a difficult exercise since I am a web designer by trade. It is hard to take a step back and look at your designs from a different point of view. The last post focused on the user, this one will focus upon the design itself.
My first article dealt with the importance of the home page "Home Page Goals" by Derek Powazek. Powazek believes that there are four main goals to keep in mind while designing home pages for websites: Answer the question "what is this place?", don't get in the repeat visitor's way, show what's new, and to provide consistent and reliable global navigation.
The home page is the most important page on the website, if you fail to engage your viewer immediately, than you have failed in your purpose of the website. The designer has only a few second to engage the viewer before the make the decision to stay within the site or to move on. First impressions are very important to website viewers with 65% of users surveyed stating they would not buy products from a website that was poorly designed. Users also ranked 50% of the time that design was the most important component when evaluating websites.
The first goal is to answer the question, "what is this place?", if the website fails to answer that question immediately, the viewer will be irritated and confused and will leave the site. The text on the site should answer this question immediately using as few words as possible.
The second goal is to not get into the repeat visitor's way. Making a new experience for both a new visitor and a repeat visitor helps keep the viewers interested and coming back again.
The third goal is to show them what's new and give the user a reason to come back again. If the viewer knows that they will have new information every time they go to the website, they will come back often. Powazek suggests using blogs as a way to accomplish this goal.
fourth goal is to provide consistent and global navigation. You don't want your users getting lost and confused. Use the same button links on the home as you do everywhere else. A user should not have to learn a new navigation system every time they click on a link. (O Conner, 2004).
The second article is "Understand Web Design" by Jeffery Zeldman. Zeldman comments that it is difficult to design for websites if you do not understand how the web works and it's hard to understand the web when those around you don't understand it either.
Zeldman writes, "web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity." This rather profound and true. It is difficult to engage viewers, adapt to their needs, and make changes over time while keeping their brand identity.
Zeldman also says that immature designs hate doing the conventional boxy looking websites, but it's difficult to make websites flow right without using a grid. I think that until they make oval or circular monitor, we have to stick with boxes. They don't make die-cut computes!
The third article I reviewed was "Design Choices Can Cripple a Website" by Nick Usbrone. Nick Usborne writes that although great copy, a compelling message, and a strong sales argument are important, they way a site is designed can make a great impact for better or worse. Design can also impact the text itself in bother positive and negative ways.
He mention not to lose focus that your website has a purpose and that most designers don't understand the effects that their design choices have on meeting that purpose. Some of those choices are:
• The position and color of the primary call to action
• Where the testimonials are located on the page
• Are the links images or text?
• The amount of white space on the page
• The position and prominence of the main header
• Number of columns used on the page
• The number of visual elements competing for the viewers attention
• The age, sex, and appearance of someone
Usborne goes on to say that testing different versions of your website and text with real users is very critical and not to skip this important step. The results of their test surprised them as the clear winning design was not the one they were favoring. As a result, we will all become better designers and writers.
By keeping in mind the goals of the home page, the purpose of each element on the site, and understanding why we design web pages the way we do can remind those of us who do this for a living how to make better design choices. I know I get into designs ruts and prefer designing pretty sites to functional sites.
For further reading on the topic of web design, please consider:
Duncan, Tom, (2005). Principles of Advertising & IMC (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill
Ten Things I Hate in a Website by Jason O'Connor
Home Page Goals by David Powazek
Design Choices Can Cripple a Website by Nick Usborne
Designing Websites with the User in Mind
The idea and content for this post has come from two articles I read this week on web design and the user.
As a designer you have no idea who is on the other end of that monitor, what type of browser they are using, whether they are using a computer or mobile phone to view your site, whether they have the right plugins, or they could be blind. Designers need to learn to account for as much of their audiences as possible. Anticipating the user's needs will give them the best experience possible and make your brand look good in the process.
There are many types of users. Some want the very basic and simple. Some don't mind a flash element and few images. Then there are others that want every gadget available to make their experience more enjoyable.
We sometimes forget that websites, unlike traditional media, require and encourage human interactivity. The user wants to see pretty websites that lead to a good experience and warm fuzzies towards the brand in return. Designers also need to step into the shoes of their target audience and really understand their needs and design the website around those discoveries.
We need to design websites that bring out a response from the user and get them to interact with you by telling a story. The storyline is different with websites though, instead of it starting with "in a land far, far, away" and "the end", the user can start with "the end" go to the middle and then the beginning if they want.
By keeping the above tips in mind, perhaps the user will have a good online experience and good impression of your website and brand.
For further reading on this topic visit:
Ruining the User Experience by Aaron Gustafson
Human-to-Human Design by Sharon Lee
Widgets? Yes or No?
Widgets can be fun and cool. I must admit that when I bought my new Mac a few years ago and it came with a "dashboard" full of widgets I thought they were fun and I do believe they have their place for some companies. For example, EBAY has a widget that track auctions you are watching. I personally use the weather bug, a lava lamp, and a cheap gas locator. However, There are thousands and thousands of widgets online now and the odds of your company's widget standing out among the crow is small. By using widgets, you have to give up knowing what the ROI on your investment is as you cannot track who has your widget and how many people it has been passed on to. You have no control over who gets your widget, it is left to other customers who send it on themselves to their friends. (Havenstein, 2008)
Widgets are commonly used on social networks like Facebook. Ben Kunz suggests in his article, "Why Widgets Don't Work", that people that use interactive communications have three modes: receiving, hunting, and doing. While people are on Facebook they are doing and are not hunting for new products so they will be difficult to reach. Kuntz suggests using widgets only if they reach hunters, hit the right target, is useful to your customer, and can be launched even if it doesn't go viral. (Kunz, 2008) Widgets can be fun and useful but only as an extension of an overall interactive marketing plan.
Paul Sacco, senior manager for online development and strategy at Southwest said that they hit 2 million downloads within the first year of their fare alert widget "Ding". In third quarter of 2008, they had 10 million. Bob Garfield writes that "Branded widges are the refridgerator magnet of the Brave New World". I would have to agree. I had never really thought of them that way. I love the way Macs can hide there's on the Dashboard so they don't get in the way.
Garfield goes on to write that widgets are powerful because your consuemrs actually look for them, download them, use them, and pass them along to their friends. However, widgets are only as good as the novelty, once the fun and thrill is gone they are forgotten. Widgets are cost effective too since they cost very little to produce, however their reach can be small. A lot of bang for your buck though.
Some problems with widgets are right now they are not compatible on every platform, so you may need to make a few versions.. They are also hard to track who has them. Another problem is that people only have so much room for so many icons, applications, widgets, and everything on their computer. (Garfield, 2008)
Overall, I think the widget is cool and fun and underutilized. For some companies like Southwest, it's a gold mind!
For further reading on this topic:
Widgets are Made for Marketing, So Why Aren't More Advertisers Using Them?
Companies Struggling to Find Widget Advertising Strategy, ROI.
Advergaming and Brand Building with Children
When it comes to our children it is in our nature to try to protect our most vulnerable members of our society. It is difficult to measure the effects and influence of this type of advertising on children and translating it into dollars. As IMC practitioners it is our duty to be careful when targeting this market. What do we gain as a company if we persuade children to influence their parent's to buy our products? Can we with integrity be proud of our sales figures while our children, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren become overweight and lazy? Did we help to contribute to this
Currently over 85% of companies who sell food and beverage products have advergames online numbering over 500 free games. The spending by companies in the U.S. market on gaming was estimated to be over $760 million in 2007 with an estimated 256 million users. (Jussel, 2007) In 2005, the top rated food companies logged in over 12.2 million visits to their website by children. Advergaming can be more influential than other forms of media as well. With a television commercial there is little viewer interactivity. With an online game, the product message gets more deeply ingrained into the viewer since they are more involved with the media. (Lelchuk, 2006) Children spend on average over one hour a day online and about 49 minutes a day playing video games. Many children also have their own computer in their rooms (31%) at home. (Rideout, 2005)
Since young children cannot read, they are left to images and logos to tell them about products. When the images are bright and fun and show a cartoon character on the front promoting the product, then it must be for kids and therefore fun right? If it has no character on it then it must be boring, healthy, and for adults. In order to obtain this brand recognition, then companies need to use visual appealing cartoon characters for brand recognition. (Neeley, 2004
Since it is difficult for children to distinguish between characters promoting products and TV characters, companies need to think twice about what images they want representing their products to a vulnerable audience. Professor Dale Kunkel of the University of Arizona sates, "In TV advertising, there is a clear boundary between what is the program and what is the advertising. But on the internet it is blurred." (Lelchuk, 2006)
When I observed children and parents in the cereal aisles of two different grocery stores over the period of several hours I did observe some commonalities:
– Children under the age of 3 didn't really care about the cereal or images around them.
– Children ages 4-8 immediately chose the cereal they wanted using past history to make their choices.
– Teenage girls seemed more health conscious and were seen looking at labels and the back of the boxes and made healthier choices.
– Parents were also seen asking their children what they wanted.
– I also observed that most families with children ages 4-8 avoided the cereal aisle altogether or they sped down the aisle as fast as they could.
– Another observation was that parents more often purchased fast cereals such as PopTarts or breakfast bars over cereal.
As an IMC practitioner, the above observations would lead me to conclude that we cannot lump all children into one category. Each child responds to and reacts to products and advertising differently. Children under the age of three seem either uninfluenced by the cartoon characters and promotions, or they do not have the brain development to associate with them yet. Children ages 4-8 seem to be the most influenced in the market and older children want something healthier and that is easy to take with them while on the go. Perhaps they are more health conscience, watching their weight, or are involved with sports type activities.
So, in conclusion, I would be hesitant to lump all children together and tell you what to do or not do to market to them as a group. Each group needs to be taken into consideration carefully. We do not want to alienate the trust of the parents or these children who will someday be buying these products for their own children. Kim Masters writes, "…children's experiences beyond their own households – in the neighborhood, school, or in the larger community – can have a powerful impact on their growth and development". (Masters, 2006) I believe we can extend this to the area of marketing and advertising as well.
For more reading on this topic, please see these articles:
Marketing to Children is Big Business.
'Adverganes' Hooks Kids on Products.
Advergaming Arcades Shift Toward Virtual Villages & Kid Vid
Masters, Kim (2006, October 3). For Toddlers, a World Laden with Advertising.
Neary, Lynn (2006, October 3). Tweens and the Media: What's Too Adult?
Neeley, Sabrina M. and Schumann, David W. (2004, Fall) Using Animated Spokes-Characters in Advertising to Young Children. Journal of Advertising., vol. 33, no. 3. Pp. 7-23
Rideout et al (2005, March). Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year Olds.
New Media and the Diaries of an Angry Shopper
There's a sucker born every minute… wasn't this a quote by the Ringling Brothers? I think I can identify with that right now after my 10 hours of marathon shopping yesterday. I have always looked forward to the day after Thanksgiving for shopping. The sales, the deals, the thrill of the hunt, and finally the kill. Consumers love to feel like they got a good deal. It makes them feel like good stewards, that they somehow out smarted the store. They have warm fuzzies and a feeling of good will to all mankind. Well, almost all mankind, we may exclude the person who stole our parking spot, tried to run us over with their car, or the took the last perfect gift in stock. We have all been there.
Right now I am outraged, tired, used, and abused. I have no feelings of goodwill towards these stores at all. In this era of consumers tightening their wallets, we expect more form the stores to give us reason to shop there and spend our precious, limited money. The ads this year gave me and my family no reason to go very early. I still went, after all it's tradition right? I remember when items were on sale, you had a good chance of the item actually being in the store, that they didn't sell the two they had in stock to the first two people camped out in front of their door at 4am. Don't worry, I will tie this post into new media somewhere.
I got suckered into using coupons this year, I LOVE coupons. My own mini shopping pass to buy the gift of my choosing. Spend $50, get $10 off, Save 15% off your entire purchase, Bucks, Points, VIP Passes. Armed with my minions of coupons I was really to make some good deals. However, where is this microscopic fine print? "I'm sorry but cashmere sweaters are excluded from that coupon", "I'm sorry but this brand of purse is excluded from that sale", "I'm sorry but you were 40 cents shy of getting the $10 off deal and no it is to be used towards one item only not the entire purchase", "I'm sorry but the price listed on the DVD isn't the sale price, the sale price is 4 cents off, therefore you are 2 cents short of using the $4 off coupon", "That 40% off coupon can be used in the store, but yes we know the online price is $30 less than the in-store price so you really save nothing", "I'm sorry but that coupon does not work with gift sets". This happened to me several times yesterday and today. I feel like I was taken advantage of by dozens of retailers yesterday. They may have gotten more money out of me, but what did they really get? A customer who is critical of sales, deals, and coupons. I think I'll just get people gift cards and let them hunt from now on.
Ok, so what does this have to do with new media. Now that I feel better after my diatribe, I'll tell you. The best deals this season were through new media. On some websites you could sign up for RSS feeds that let you know up to the minute deals online at various stores. Stores have also become to smart to let shoppers buy Black Friday deals from their own computers on store websites at 4am, you just need a fast connection speed to get the deals before the run out of stock. There are several Black Friday blogs letting you know the store deals weeks before the ads come out in the paper. They also held contests and stores offered exclusive deals on some of these sites. Email marketing was also big. I had dozens of deals in my inbox everyday. The best deals I got were through the internet. Free shipping, 40% off and 30% off.
This holiday season, traditional marketing is out and new media marketing is in. In order for this consumer-retailer relationship to work. The consumer needs to feel like they got a good deal even if they didn't. I usually love buying gifts for the people I care about and having bad feelings towards the purchase and the stores is not good for the consumer, retailer, or the economy. Perhaps next year, my shopping will be at home, on my computer, nice and warm without tired feet.
EDITED: Edited to say I spoke with my sister the day after typing this and she had a 10% off coupon good for any item in the store that wasn't a door buster. Turns out every item in the store was a door buster item!


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A Moro indigenous ethnic of Austronesian who live geographically in Maritime Southeast Asia, root language is Malayo-Polynesian (sometimes called Extra-Formosan or Malagasy). Today I speak Bajau, Malay and English.
Friday, September 28, 2012
HITB - Keeping Knowledge Free for Over a Decade
Other Conference Activities:
Following the success of HackWEEKDAY held for the first time last year at the HITB Security Conference in Kuala Lumpur, HITB2012KUL will see the introduction of HackWEEKDAY – Hack-to-Hack
An all new 36 hour hackathon which will will run alongside our 10th year anniversary conference kicking off on the evening of October 9th (training day 2).
Registration is COMPLETELY FREE and we have space for 50 developers in total comprising a mix of .edu and professional developers.
The HITB CommSec Village is our new Community and Security area dedicated to highlighting various security related projects from the open source community and from various hackerspaces. These communities will have their own playground and demonstration area to show off their projects and a chance to interact with the conference attendees.
Capture The Flag
To celebrate the 10th year anniversary of HITBSecConf, the CTF Overlords and CTF Crews 1.0, 2.0 and the all-new 3.0 will be coming together to work on a 32 HOUR NON STOP CAPTURE THE FLAG COMPETITION which we're calling CTF Weapons of Mass Destruction – Fallout Apocalypse!
In our previous CTF Weapons of Mass Destruction, Teams had a set of daemons / services running on their machines and they had to exploit rival teams' daemons to steal their flags. Submit the flags to obtain offensive points and also unlock nuclear weapons that can be launched against rival teams. For defensive points, all the team had to do was to keep their daemons up and running.
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So apparently the universe is 4,000 years old.
RE: So apparently the universe is 4,000 years old.
So many cats, so few good recipes.
RE: So apparently the universe is 4,000 years old.
Quote:1. They worship a peagan god
Well, I'm guilty of both. Love me some debauchery. Bacchus is a badass by the way.
Quote:And the Amens0_0 they haunt my dreams
"Do what though wilt shall be the whole of the Law." - The Book of the Law
"There is no God but man" - Liber OZ
Light and Nature
RE: So apparently the universe is 4,000 years old.
I'm not a pagan god, I'm a Sumerian succubus =p He's way off. And I only sin by my existence. There's nothing I can do which won't offend a fundamentalist. Can't be female, can't be male, can't have sex, I'm just a big ball of sin not even trying. I even advocate for understanding of sinners (transgendered people), so that people won't ruin the earthly lives of their neighbors who disagree with them. Oh my cat what a sinner!!! Oh wait they don't say cat that must be some sort of sin in itself =p
I'm not a non believer, I believe in the possibility of anything. I just don't let the actuality of something be determined by a 3rd party.
RE: So apparently the universe is 4,000 years old.
That Miss USA video was simply awful. Their answers were so...vague it seemed as if they really didn't give an opinion at all. I really don't like the Miss USA association to begin with, but this really takes the cake.
1. I doubt very many of them even understand the basics of evolution, and how it's very supported and accepted in the scientific community. They keep using the phrase, "It's just a theory"... it's like they didn't even understand the scientific meaning of the word. I didn't appreciate how those that sounded firm in their belief that evolution should be taught in schools were quickly cycled through, I guess Miss USA didn't want to upset middle America.
2. Creationism should be taught along with evolution? Get out of town, this is biology class, not religion or philosophy. Science as in "Reasoned, testable, rational" not based on feelings or superstitions. Also, this is a sore point for me, considering there are SO MANY MORE views on creationism other than the Abrahimic view, like the bad ass Japanese view (Classic Shinto myth believes that the Japanese islands were bukakked into existence).
I believe that religion should be taught in schools, but from an anthropological prospective rather then an anecdotal perspective, with major religions covered, as well as several historical and minor religions as well. (After all, the better you know your enemy).
13-10-2011, 06:55 AM (This post was last modified: 13-10-2011 06:59 AM by Azaraith.)
RE: So apparently the universe is 4,000 years old.
(06-06-2011 11:39 AM)myst32 Wrote:(06-06-2011 11:23 AM)FaceOfBoe Wrote:(06-06-2011 11:18 AM)Buddy Christ Wrote: That's crazy. We all know that the earth is 28 years old, because I didn't exist before then. And if I didn't exist, how could the world?
Assuming no degredation... I'd think the parts would wear out, get damaged or get lost by being thrown up and falling repeatedly far sooner than they'd ever fall together as a watch. In a vacuum and an enclosed space with invulnerable parts, yes, but in reality? As near to impossible as makes no difference - and there are bottlenecks on it happening that prevent infinite time from working out. You're correct of course, but the odds are like 1:(infinity - 1) that the watch would form in the short amount of time where all watch parts are falling in the same place undamaged. I doubt you'll be able to convince most creationists that infinitesimally small odds are still greater than 0, since it sounds so "impossible" that it's ridiculous. They don't usually understand that everything is a matter of probabilities - very little is determinedly impossible.
Better without God, and happier too.
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by Kelly Harms
Genre: Adult, Chick Lit, Contemporary, Romance, Women's Fiction
Publication: August 9th, 2016 by Thomas Dunne Book
Format: ebooks
Source: Author, Publisher, NetGalley
Connect: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
A young painter, Lily has reached a crossroads in her life. Her career hasn't taken off, her best friend may no longer be the trusted friend she thought, her boyfriend is a disappointment, and now she can't keep up with the rising cost of living in the city. With no one to turn to, Lily is forced to move from her beloved apartment, but while packing she comes across a piece of mail that had slipped to the back of her junk drawer: a letter detailing further action needed to finalize the annulment of a quickie Vegas wedding. Ten years ago!
Lily decides it's time to turn over a new leaf and the first item on her list of things to fix is getting the annulment... but you can't just send a reply ten years later, "Hey by the way we are still married." This is something that must be addressed in person. Lily takes to the road to track down her husband - the charming, fun, and sexy man she connected with all those years ago - Ben Hutchinson.
Ben Hutchinson left a wealthy dot-com lifestyle behind to return home to his family and the small town he loves, Minnow Bay. He's been living off the grid and the last thing he expects is a wife he didn't know he had to show up on his doorstep.
By chance, Lily arrives at the magical Minnow Bay Inn, and there she will discover not just a place to lay her head, but new friends, a thriving art community, and maybe even the love of her life.
Lily's life isn't going as well as she wants. Her love life and her career as a painter are going nowhere. Now, Lily is forced to move out from her apartment. While packing to leave, she discovers a mail that reminds her to finalize the annulment of her Vegas wedding ten years ago.
The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay is a fun, light romance read. It isn't hard to get into the book. The author has a really nice writing style that I like and the characters are loveable. Lily is an air head, but it was fun to see how she is going to survive her new life. She went to Minnow Bay looking for her husband and expects him to be the charming, fun man she knew years ago, except that, he changed. A lot. I love the interaction between Lily and Ben right from the beginning. They are great together despite their misunderstanding and all that. The supporting characters in the book, Colleen and Jenny especially are making the story livelier. I absolutely enjoy the setup! If you're looking for a light, fun book, this is the book for you.
I received a copy of this book from the author/publisher and NetGalley in exchange for my review.


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A rather interesting timelapse map of dominance in the Middle East over the past 5000 years. I wish it showed more than just the primary dominances, though.
(I have a bad headache tonight, so I'm a bit short on profound thought. Sorry.)
Thursday, September 28, 2006
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I've just been yesterday to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe at the re-launch of the Picturedrome Theatre in Barton Street in Gloucester - it was wonderful - it is still on until 4th Jan - see here.
Photos: White Witch, Mr Tumnus and Lucy, White Witch and wolf, Aslan and gang meet in woods.
The story from the Chronicles of Narnia, written by C.S. Lewis and first published in 1950 opened at the former Olympus theatre - the play written by Adrian Mitchell, produced by Adrian Locher and directed by Alexander Gifford.
One of the best characters in the play is Nicholas Allan (of Star Anise Cafe in Stroud fame) who played Mr Tumnus - indeed a perfect Mr Tumnus! Also in the cast is Bread Street, Ruscombe resident Alex Brabbins who played Edmund brilliantly and Penelope Wildgoose, a former Stroud District Green party candidate in local elections, who played the White Witch wonderfully terrifyingly scary...wanted to hide behind my programme.
Loved the movement of the Leopards and the wolf was also especially scary and loved the howl! Other highlights included Mr and Mrs Beaver and former Randwick resident Andrew Floyd who played Aslan and the professor.
The sets were great but the 'puppets' fantastic - the eagle moved wonderfully, the great giant and various other creatures.....thank you indeed - don't miss it!
Tickets cost £8, with £7 concessions, from 01452 503050 or online at www.ashacentre.org/narnia.
23 Dec 2009
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrope
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Republicans led autoworkers union defeat in US
Republicans led autoworkers union defeat in US
Feb. 17, 2014
CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (AP) — Republicans fighting a unionization effort at a Volkswagen plant painted a grim picture before last week's vote. They said if employees joined the United Auto Workers, jobs would go elsewhere and incentives for the company would disappear.
Now that workers in the southern state of Tennessee have rejected the UAW in a close vote, Republicans are feeling pressure to fulfill its promises that keeping the union out means more jobs will come rolling in across the Southeast, where foreign-owned, non-union plants have proliferated.
The Volkswagen vote has established a playbook for denying the UAW its goal of expanding into the South. The UAW was defeated in a 712-626 vote Friday night.
Many viewed VW as the union's best chance to win in the South because other automakers have not been as welcoming to organized labor as Volkswagen.
Labor interests make up half of the supervisory board at VW in Germany, and they questioned why the Tennessee plant is the company's only major factory worldwide without formal worker representation.
VW wanted a German-style "works council" in Chattanooga to give employees, blue collar and salaried workers, a say over working conditions. But the company said U.S. law won't allow it without an independent union.
On the first of three days of voting at the Chattanooga plant, Republican Sen. Bob Corker, citing unnamed Volkswagen officials, all but guaranteed that the German automaker would announce within two weeks of a union rejection that it would build a new midsized sport utility vehicle at its only U.S. factory instead of sending the work to Mexico.
"What they wanted me to know, unsolicited, that if the vote goes negative, they're going to announce immediately that they're going to build a second line," Corker told The Associated Press.
The company reiterated its longstanding position that the union vote would not factor into the decision. Corker also acknowledged that he had no information on whether the company would also expand if the union won.
But the implication was clear, union leaders said. His senator's statements — along with threats from state lawmakers to torpedo state incentives if the UAW won — played a key role in the vote.
UAW President Bob King called it unprecedented for Corker and other elected officials to have "threatened the company with no incentives, threatened workers with a loss of product."
"It's outrageous," King said.
Corker, who had originally announced he would refrain from making comments during the election, changed course last week after he said the union tried to use his silence to chastise other critics.
"I have no idea what effect we may or may not have had," Corker said. "But I think I would have forever felt tremendous remorse if ... I had not re-engaged and made sure that people understand other arguments."
Corker's claim that a no vote would quickly mean more jobs actually fit in with an assertion Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam leveled days earlier, when he said a union win would hurt the state's ability to attract auto parts suppliers and other future business.
Corker said the day after the vote that he and other state officials planned to restart discussions with Volkswagen officials this week about state subsidies for expanded production in Chattanooga.
Several workers who cast votes against the union said they still support the idea of a works council — they just don't want to have to work through the UAW.
Frank Fischer, the CEO and chairman of the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, said the vote Friday wasn't a rejection of a works council. He said the goal remains to determine the best method for establishing a works council that serves employees' interest and Volkswagen America's production in accordance with U.S. law.
Fischer did not address what the vote means for potential expansion at the plant other than to say "our commitment to Tennessee is a long-term investment."
The German automaker's CEO, Martin Winterkorn, announced at the Detroit auto show last month that the seven-passenger SUV will go on sale in the U.S. in 2016. Winterkorn said the new model will be part of a five-year, $7 billion investment in North America.
Winterkorn said Volkswagen is committed to its goal of selling 1 million vehicles per year in the U.S. by 2018. The company sold just over half that many in 2013.
Krisher reported from Detroit.


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Be sure to check out the boxing event.
Save the Boxers
Also a great event about Synchronized napping can be seen here.
Sheltie times
Everyone have a great day
I'm sure you will get nice and clean! Y'all keep cool and dry down that way!ReplyDelete
You are so very handsome, why you taking a bath? Do you have a. Date tonight?ReplyDelete
It's always such a treat to see you, handsome Orange Boyzo! We hope all of you are finally having a cool down. Purrs!ReplyDelete
Oh you look SO good Orange Boyzo! Always a treat to see you. xoxReplyDelete
We hope you enjoyed your nap in the grass Orange Boy.ReplyDelete
Cool pictures, thanks for the share.
Mom is always on the lookout for great shots and you supplied them very nicely today.
Have a purrfect Thankful Thursday. My best to your wonderful mom. ♥♥♥
It's always great seeing you, OB... but yeah, what's with humans taking photos while we kitties are bathing?ReplyDelete
You are handsome Orange Boyzo!! Bath or no bath!!ReplyDelete
Sure have great things to be thankful for indeed, even with bath time caught on tapeReplyDelete
We are thankful for your nice green grass too, because it gives us a chance to see how handsome you are!!!
Woos - Ciara and Lightning
Orange Boyzo you sure are one handsome orange boy!!!!ReplyDelete
You make an excellent spokescat Orange Boyzo.ReplyDelete
You are so handsome.ReplyDelete
You're looking great, Orange Boyzo.ReplyDelete
Oohhh.. That grass looks so lovely and soft. I'm jealous. 'Round here, the grass is all brown and dry and icky and bits get stuck in your fur and they itch 'cause they're all dry and icky and... Needless to say, we haven't had rain in over two weeks. MOUSES!
Orange Boyzo, you did a great job with your thankful post! Sorry Mom Marg took pictures of you when you were taking a bath, though!ReplyDelete
Orange Boyzo! Mes THANKFUL your Mom tooked pictures of yous taking your bath! It makes mes happy!
What a handsome guy you are Orange Boyzo!!
Dory, Jakey, Arty & Bilbo
a thurzday post ona fry day dood...... R reeder iz messed up ore sum thin ~~~~~ anyway; lookin good buddy....veree handsum in deed...fotoz two iz total lee kewl ! ♥♥♥☺☺☺ReplyDelete
That was a fantastic event! I can't remember, did I enter this event with Christmas' picture?ReplyDelete


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It can be very difficult to get any of the information you really want when you question an applicant's job reference. Modern employment laws make it hard, if not impossible, to ask any specific questions about a former employee. If you are going to ask one question, however, Jack DeBoer has the perfect one.
DeBoer wrote in his book "Risk Only Money" that many employers these days don't really want to shoot straight with you when it comes to discussing employees who were not that great. They don't want to face the possibility of a lawsuit if their answers costs that person the job, even if it's hard to prove it. If you are going to get the information you need, DeBoer wrote that you should ask the following question: "If you needed the skills of this employee, would you rehire this person?" This is a great question to ask because it's a simple yes or no answer that requires no further explanation, and it allows the employer to tell the truth without violating any laws.
DeBoer also suggested that hiring managers should learn to read between the lines when listening to an answer. For example, if you ask how trustworthy the former employee is, listen for any hesitation in the answer. Anything less than "Oh, absolutely!" can be a signal that you aren't getting the whole truth. You can also try asking about the employee's performance rather than their character, as DeBoer wrote that there are fewer laws restricting those kinds of questions.
Employee screening can sure be difficult, but the tips above should make it a little easier to get the information you really need.


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Rio 2016 Olympic Games badminton mixed doubles winners - (from left) silver medallists Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying of Malaysia; gold medallists Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia; and bronze medallists Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei of China. PHOTO: REUTERS
Although some countries offer financial incentives to its athletes, a genuine sporting culture may be the best guarantee of success at the Games.
SHOCK and awe just about sums up the stunning achievement of young Singaporean swimmer Joseph Schooling at the Rio Olympics.
His victory is classic David beating Goliath; he was the underdog from a tiny country that had never won an Olympic gold.
What made it all the sweeter and remarkable is that Schooling beat the mightiest, most decorated Olympian in history – American Michael Phelps who has won 23 gold medals – and set an impressive new record of 50.39 secs for the 100m butterfly event.
When news of Singapore's first gold medal broke, it quickly overtook other stories emanating from Rio and became the talk of the world.
It eclipsed its Asean neighbours' own Olympic gold successes: Vietnam's shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh in the 10m air pistol competition and Thailand's weightlifters Sopita Tanasan and Sukanya Srisurat in their individual weight classes and certainly overshadowed Malaysian diving duo Pandelela Rinong and Cheong Jun Hoong's silver in the women's synchronised 10m platform diving.
All are no small feats but there is a total of 28 sports in the Games, not counting those with multiple disciplines, and the most popular ones for a global audience are gymnastics, track and field and swimming, according to topendsports.com.
Among Asian nations competing in the Games, China and Japan are traditionally strong contenders in gymnastics and swimming although the Chinese gymnasts seem to be doing poorly this time around.
For most other Asian competitors, the sports they excel in tend to be the ones with less mass appeal like archery, shooting, judo, badminton and for some strange reason, women's weightlifting.
Apart from the Thais, Taiwanese, Filipina and Indonesian female weightlifters have also won medals for their countries.
China remains the sporting powerhouse of Asia, sending its largest delegation of 416 athletes to Rio this year, but they have failed to defend their gold medals in sports they used to dominate like badminton and diving.
As for the glamorous track and field events, there doesn't seem to be any Asian athlete who can challenge the likes of Usain Bolt.
Meanwhile, the other Asian powerhouse, India, with the second largest population in the world, has never done well at the Olympics, which has been the subject of intense debate among Indian and foreign sports pundits.
India also sent its biggest ever contingent of 118 sportsmen and women, and has so far won only a bronze medal in wrestling. Winning an Olympic gold medal is the Holy Grail of sports.
The pomp that surrounds the Games gives the gold medallists unparalleled honour and prestige. And the nations they represent go into collective convulsions of ecstasy and nationalistic joy, which make their governments equally happy.
That's why many nations pour millions into sports programmes to nurture and train promising talents and offer great financial rewards to successful Olympians.
Schooling will get S$1mil (RM3mil) from the Singapore government for his gold medal. Vietnam's Hoang reportedly will receive US$100,000 (RM400,000), a figure, according to AFP, that is nearly 50 times greater than the country's average national income, of around US$2,100 (RM8,400).
Malaysia, which is seeing its best ever performance in Rio, thanks to its badminton players and divers, rewards its successful athletes handsomely under its National Sports Council incentive scheme.
An Olympic gold medal winner will receive RM1mil and a monthly pension of RM5,000; a silver medallist, RM600,000 and a RM3,000 pension while a bronze winner gets RM100,000 and a RM2,000 pension.
Taiwan, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand have similar monetary reward schemes. North Korea uses a carrot and stick scheme: huge rewards for medal winners and hard labour for the failed ones.
Several western countries have the same financial bait, including the United States, France, Russia and Germany, but at a lower rate.
Does it work?
The Technology Policy Institute looked for a correlation and was mindful of variables like country size and income, "since those are surely the biggest predictor of how many medals a country will win: more populous countries are more likely to have that rare human who is physically built and mentally able to become an Olympic athlete, while richer countries are more likely to be able to invest in training those people."
The researchers found no correlation between monetary payments and medals and said it was not surprising in some countries. In the United States, for example, a US$25,000 (RM100,000) cash award would be dwarfed by million-dollar endorsements the athlete could get.
The researchers also set out to see if the results were different for countries with lower opportunities for endorsements. Their conclusion: "overall the evidence suggests that these payments don't increase the medal count" either.
Rather, countries that do well are those with a longstanding sporting culture that values and nurtures their athletes long before they qualify for the Olympics.
That is evident in Western societies where sportsmen, even at the college level, are feted and idolised. In Asia, however, the emphasis is more on book-learning and earning prestigious degrees.
The BBC quotes Indian Olympic Association head Narayana Ramachandran as saying India's sorry performance is more than just a shortage of cash or organisation.
"Sport has always taken a back seat vis-á-vis education. Most Indian families would prefer their children became dentists or accountants than Olympians," he says.
But that attitude is surely changing as more Asian sportsmen and women go professional and are able to make a good living.
In Malaysia, its most popular sportsman, badminton star Datuk Lee Chong Wei, is highly successful with a number of endorsements under his belt.
For now, it is still the Western countries that dominate the Olympic medal tally table. But it's only a matter of time before more Asian nations, once no-hopers at the Games, rise up the charts.
It's already started. The Rio Games will go down in history as a watershed for Asean, with two member states – Singapore and Vietnam – winning their first gold medals. May it be so for Malaysia, too.
By June H.L Wong Chief Operating Officer (Content Development) The Star, Malaysia.
The writer was the former group chief editor of The Star Media Group Malaysia. This is the eighth article in a series of columns on global affairs written by top editors from members of the Asia News Network and published in newspapers across the region.
Heartbreak again for Chong Wei, Chen Long takes gold
The medallists (from left): Silver medallist Chong Wei, gold medallist Chen Long and bronze medallist Viktor Axelsen on the podium at Riocentro Pavilion 4. - AZHAR MAHFOF / The Star
RIO DE JANEIRO: Lee Chong Wei, the king of Malaysian badminton, will leave the Rio de Janeiro Olympics without the crown – and so will Malaysia without the coveted gold.
The 33-year-old lost his third Olympic final after going down 18-21, 18-21 to Chen Long at the Riocentro Pavilion 4 on Saturday.
It was indeed a painful end for Malaysia as it was the third false dawn. Earlier, Malaysia had also lost in the men's doubles and mixed doubles finals.
Malaysia thus will return home with a total of four silvers and one bronze.
The other three silvers came from Chan Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying (mixed doubles), Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong (men's doubles) and divers Pandelela Rinong-Cheong Jun Hoong (women's 10m platform synchro). Cyclist Azizulhasni Awang contributed the sole bronze through the men's keirin.
Both Chong Wei, playing in probably his last Olympics, and Chen Long went onto the court to loud cheers from their countries' supporters.
Chong Wei, who lost to Lin Dan at the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London finals, looked tentative in the beginning to allow Chen Long to open up a 4-0 lead. But he recovered his composure to lead 5-4.
After that, they traded point until it was 7-7 before Chong Wei pulled away for an 11-7 and then 14-10 lead.
But Chen Long refused to go away and managed to level at 14-14.
Twice Chong Wei surged in front but Chen Long capitalised on the Malaysian's mistakes at the net to lead 20-17. Although world No. 1 Chong Wei managed to save one match point, his failure to return a smash gave Chen Long a 21-18 win in 35 minutes.
Oozing confidence, Chen Long was always in front in the second game – leading 4-1 and 5-2.
But Chong Wei fought back to go 8-5 up. Chen Long then went on a smashing spree, winning six points for an 11-8 advantage.
The 27-year-old world No. 2 never looked back after that as he always had at least a three-point lead.
Everything looked lost for Chong Wei as Chen Long reached 20-16. The Malaysian saved two match points but then sent the shuttle out to lose 18-21 in 38 minutes.
For Chen Long, it was his first Olympic gold to add to his two All-England and World Championships crowns.
Chong Wei can only look in envy as he's still without a world or Olympic crown. He also lost in three World Championships finals.
Chen Long's gold was only China's second at these Games after Fu Haifeng-Zhang Nan triumphed in the men's doubles.
Earlier, two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan fell from grace in probably his last Olympic outing after losing 21-15, 10-21, 17-21 to Dane Viktor Axelson in the 70-minute bronze medal playoff.
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London 2012 Olympics - Medal Table
Rio 2016 Asia Regional Aug 21 Medal by Countries
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The Olympic flame burns in Maracana Stadium during the opening ceremony at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug 5, 20...


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Guild Meetings!: Every 3rd Thursday of month. Meeting starts 7:00pm at Boise Church of Christ, 2000 Eldorado St., Boise, Idaho
Member Directory: Please remember that the Member Directory is solely for the use of Boise Basin Quilters and its members and is not available to nonmembers. This information is not to be distributed and is to be used only for BBQ business. Thank you.


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REVIEW SNAPSHOT®by PowerReviews
Reviewed by 1 customer
Comments about Spencer's Black 20s Fedora Hat:
One size fits most? What a joke! This hat wouldn't fit unless I tried squeezing my head into it causing a near headache for me. Do me a favor Spencer's, and start getting hats that fit larger heads better. Either that or cue us in on your website that certain hats run small, or list the ACTUAL HAT SIZE! Also, this was one of 4 hats from 4 separate purchases where the brown packing paper did more damage to the hat than "protection" for the hat. Unless an item that is made of glass or is otherwise easily breakable, PLEASE STOP putting packing paper in the box!


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The Alabama Hills are located between the town of Lone Pine and Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the continental United States. The Hills are best known as the scenic back drop to classic western films like Bad Day at Black Rock and How the West Was Won as well as television shows like The Lone Ranger. Newer films like Django Unchained, Iron Man, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen have even found the Alabama Hills to be a desirable filming location.
Long before Hollywood, and even the earliest white settlers discovered the beauty of the Alabama Hills; the Paiute called these hills home. The massive outcroppings of boulders served as the perfect shelter for the Natives, and the nearby mountains provided opportunity for game and gathering.
The Paiute continued to live in the Alabama Hills even after the earliest white settlers arrived. In the 1860's a conflict arose between the Paiute and the settlers, the Paiute was found to be slaughtering the settlers' cattle during the harsh winter months. The settlers retaliated by killing members of the Paiute tribe, and in retaliation the Paiute began to kill the settlers. This began the Owens Valley Indian War, which lasted until the winter 1862 when the settlers destroyed all the Paiute food reserves. In the spring of 1863 the Paiute was forced to leave their beloved homeland and were relocated to Fort Tejon in the Tehachapi Mountains.
Today the Paiute again live near the Alabama Hills at the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation. The Reservation was established in 1937. The current Tribal population is estimated to be around 350 persons.
The pictographs found in the Alabama Hills are likely left here by the early Paiute that settled this area. This particular site utilized orange and white paint, with a majority being in orange. I've posted in the gallery below the images as you can see them with the naked eye, as well I've posted enhanced images utilizing a program called DStretch. DStretch has done a wonderful job popping out the designs that have faded and you can no longer see.
Interested in visiting this site?
BOOK OPTION: The Alabama Hills Pictograph Site is featured in Secret Places in the Mojave Desert Vol. III. Detailed maps, and GPS coordinates are included. Order your copy now.


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Briar Rose Fibers Knit-Along
Come join us for a knit-along showcasing one (or two, or three...) yarns from Briar Rose Fibers. Order enough yarn for your project or find a pattern for the Briar Rose in your stash and get ready to cast-on. Chris, whose imagination is behind all of the hand painted heaven, has graciously offered a yarn "give away" from time-to-time. So, what are you waiting for? E-mail me at: Kniterella at Cox dot Net and let's get to knittin'!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
3 Comments:
- At July 27, 2007 9:35 AM, buttercup said...
Beautiful! No doubt it will be a favorite! Which yarn are you using and what is the pattern?
- At July 27, 2007 9:34 PM, Kniterella said...
Incredible! I don't know that I would want to drop a stitch either, but I would love to see what it would look like. Your work is just lovely.
- At March 23, 2008 1:26 AM, said...
You did not drop a stitch - so therefore isn't it a different pattern? It certainly looks a lot different.
I'm like buttercup and would like the pattern.
janeyknitting AT yahoo DOT ca


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By Casey Domski
PITTSBURGH, Pa.–It's big, it's yellow, and it's Pittsburgh's newest addition. The 40-foot-tall rubber duck made its appearance late last week sailing down the Allegheny River in downtown Pittsburgh. The duck's arrival kicks off the start of the Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts. The month-long festival features theater, dance, music and visual arts from around the world.
The giant duck has made appearances across the world from Hong Kong to San Paulo since 2007. Created from the plans of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, the project requires the assistance of massive pontoons to transport the duck, and huge crews which inflate and deflate the duck. The massive rubber duck is said to have "healing properties" and people from around the country are flocking to the Allegheny River's edge to get a glimpse of the new addition.
Pittsburgh is the first U.S. city to ever host one of the massive yellow rubber ducks, and is the result of the hard work of Paul Organisak of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Organisak, who saw pictures of other duck events around the world sought Hofman's approval for the project and helped make it a reality in Pittsburgh. The duck has attracted boaters from all over, however, officials are asking that there is a constant buffer zone around the duck to prevent any damage. Hofman also does not allow any corporate sponsors to work on the project.
Pittsburgh resident Angie Van Every was one of thousands of people who came out last weekend to see the giant rubber duck.
"It's really amazing to see," said Van Every. "It makes you totally forget about all of the stress in your life and issues around the world for a moment, it almost makes you feel like a kid again."
Van Every also shared what she thinks the duck symbolizes.
"I think the duck symbolizes equality," said Van Every. "The duck is here as part of the International Festival of Firsts, and I feel like its something people from around the word can come together and relate to."
Zachary Mullaney, also a Pittsburgh resident, shared his thoughts on the newest Pittsburgh addition.
"Last week it was crazy downtown with the arrival of the duck," said Mullaney. "I was on my way home from work and people were just stopping their cars in the middle of the road to get a glimpse of the duck."
Mullaney also commented the duck's appeal to the city.
"It really fits in well with all the Pittsburgh yellow downtown," said Mullaney. "I didn't think I would really care about it when I first heard the duck was coming to Pittsburgh, but even I found myself walking over to see it during my lunch break."
Pittsburgh resident AJ Reese mentioned how the duck seems to be bringing people from around the area together.
"Everywhere you look someone's talking about the big yellow duck," said Reese. "It's bringing people from all around Pittsburgh together without them even realizing it, which is really remarkable."
Reese also expressed how wonderful the timing of the ducks arrival is.
"The duck arrived right in time for playoff baseball, which is also a first in quite a while for Pittsburgh," said Reese. "It's really a cool thing to have it right next to PNC park with everyone here for the playoffs," he added. "I will be sad to see it go."
If you haven't had a chance to see it yet, the big rubber duck with be splashing around Pittsburgh until late October. The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust will be selling everything from official duck T-shirt, to magnets and ball caps around downtown Pittsburgh.


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Saturday, October 25, 2008
Someone Like Yourself
People learn and grow by getting scolded by their parent(s) or teachers. When you are scolded, you may not understand the reason and you might hold a grudge against them. The trauma may last for a long time, even in adulthood some people still cannot let go of their painful memory of their childhood. In some cases, those grudges start to dissipate once he or she starts to mature. Many times, he or she really starts to understand when they become the parent. Even though it still doesn't make sense for what your parent said or did to you, you now may be able to understand from a parent's stand point. Hopefully you will realize that while your parent is still alive. Usually, it happens after he or she is dead. I too sometimes think about my deceased father and think that I could have done more for him while he was alive. But I think it's just as good to be in the thoughts. When you think of him or her, think in a cheerful way. Those thoughts will reach to their soul. If you have sad or regretting thoughts, they would worry about you.
During one's life, there will always be people who would criticize you or slander you. Let it be. When he or she is immature, they would not understand you even if you tried to explain. The case might be vice versa. People will eventually grow up.
Outside of the World of Reality, in the other dimensions, souls with similar vibrational energy gather. In other words, they don't have a chance to meet other kin. Although the spirits in a higher realm are able to go to the lower realm, yet still not able to stay for too long.
From now on, the spirits from the other dimensions are coming into our World of Reality. They are now looking for their kin souls. There is nothing to worry, if you are living proudly to your innate god. A kin spirit coming to you is a wonderful thing. I am very much looking forward to it. How about you?
Ikashite-itadaite Arigato-gozaimasu
Thank you for letting us live
from Oct.4,2008
Posted by マータ at 3:52 PM 1 comments
Monday, October 20, 2008
Your Own Color is the Best Color
October 10th was the futonorito day (meaning 20 - a divine number adding 10 +10) and the sunspot activity was outrageous. (http://swc.nict.go.jp/sunspot/). Since the 10th, my sleeping time has decreased to three hours. Until last month, if I didn't have five hours of sleep, my days were a little hard. Now I am just fine with only three hours of sleep. I seem to have more stamina too. The company I work for, the building is quite big, and sometimes I have to run around. I don't get out of breath anymore. Is this what they call runner's high? (laugh)
When I hold a baby in my arm, I am overwhelmed by the baby's spiritual magnetic field, how solid it is. It is not about how high or low her or his level is. He or she solidly holds their own spirit body as their essence. It is so amazing to know and feel that. When you are born to this world, each and every one of us is a representative of god. To maintain your own spirit body in a good condition is the way to bring out your innate god with ease. However, as we grow old, we have thoughts, actions, having ill feelings on others or against you…etc. We repeat all of these things and we add "stuff" onto our spirit body.
Moreover, in recent years, people have been paying a lot of money to become a licensed psychic reader or healer not knowing that they have added a spiritually magnetic energy field to themselves. Healers have become a trendy occupation making a lot of money. This is nonsense, and in truth it is a fraud. These people are ignorant. In time, the answer will be exposed to everyone. By that time, it will be too late to turn back.
If you interfere with other spiritual magnetic field in exchange with money, your innate god will hide, your life force will shrink, and cuts down your life span. One's life span is determined by how pure you maintain your original spirit body.
When you believe in yourself, you are maintaining your innate god and your life span will be as long as it should be. You will look younger than your actual age.
People who are in the "spiritual business", might talk about how your soul is higher or lower than others, but this doesn't really matter. Whoever kept his or her own "color" is the successor.
Psychics who give spiritual dust to others, will age faster, some loses hair in younger age. They usually don't live long. But on the other hand, when that psychic has an evil spirit behind, they live much longer. The ones whose works are lackadaisical, death will approach in their 50's.
Those who are ordinary people, simply live by believing in yourself, even if you are ill or in misery. That is your "color." If you can live in gratitude, you have nothing to worry about. In fact, that it the most wonderful way of living. You will be led to live in a place where everyone is in gratitude. It is a very comfortable place.
If this strong sun spiritual radiation continues, the psychics who make a living out of their "spiritual business" might not be able to survive. With the sun radiation starting from next year, his or her spirit body might be burnt by the sun.
The sunset is exceptionally beautiful on the day when intense sunspot is exposed.
Ikashite-itadaite Arigato-gozaimasu
Thank you for letting us live
from blog of 10.19.2008
Posted by マータ at 7:14 PM 0 comments
Labels: futonorito, sun radiation, Sunspot
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|Visit the rest of the tour for more great reviews, interviews,
and chances to win your own copy of PROMISE ME SOMETHING and THIS IS HOW I FIND HER!
Check out my interview with Sara Polsky,
part of the Sara2 Blog Tour!
Check out my review of the other book I'm giving away,
PROMISE ME SOMETHING by Sara Kocek!
Mental illness is always a tough subject, but even more so when it has the ability to destroy or irrevocably alter an entire family. Kids are forced to grow up too fast and deal with guilt that was never meant for them, as is the case in Sara Polsky's debut novel THIS IS HOW I FIND HER.
Sophie is used to her mother's ups and downs. She's been acting more manic than usual lately, but she's an artist and prone to moods. Right? Wrong. When Sophie returns home after the fourth day of the new school year, she discovers that her mother has overdosed on pills. Her mother is bipolar, and had stopped taking her pills, causing her depression to rise to the surface. Sophie feels guilty and responsible. Her mother asked her to help keep track of making sure she took the pills if she forgot. Sophie never noticed that her mother had stopped and was getting worse. She feels as though everything is her fault and that she is to blame for her mother being in the hospital. Sophie temporarily moves in with her estranged aunt, uncle, and cousin Leila. Old wounds open alongside the new, and a new school year is the least of Sophie's many concerns.
Sophie is forced to be the parent because her mother is unable to take care of herself, and that's no situation any teen or child should have to be in. She bears so much responsibility, and it's interesting to see the way the dynamic changes upon entering her aunt's household. She has, for lack of a better word, Survivor's Guilt. Is it wrong to want to live her own life when her mother is still in the hospital after having attempted to commit suicide? What happens when her mom gets out? Sophie is afraid to make new friends and pushes those who try away, knowing she'll have to give them up when she goes back to taking care of her mother full-time. In some ways, she wishes her mother would never get out of the hospital, because she wants a life of her own. Polsky does a great job reflecting everything Sophie goes through and experiences. She handles the material sensitively, and shows the way Sophie deals with her situation. As the novel deepens, readers also understand more about Sophie's aunt and cousin Leila, and the emotions they experience through her mother's mental illness as well. The entire family is affected by her mother, Sophie most of all. THIS IS HOW I FIND HER offers a closer look at what makes up a family, and how to recover and work around the tough situations life throws at us. Teens going through something similar will really relate to Sophie and feel more hope for themselves when it comes to their own situation.
This cover is very pensive. You can tell that the model is upset; there's some real emotion in her face and posture!
The farmhouse taking up most of the cover actually plays a role in the novel, too, and I always like when book covers reflect genuine book moments rather than invented ones.
I like the use of the teal with the red, falling into earthier shades of brown and orange as well. The coloring works for me!
The farmhouse taking up most of the cover actually plays a role in the novel, too, and I always like when book covers reflect genuine book moments rather than invented ones.
I like the use of the teal with the red, falling into earthier shades of brown and orange as well. The coloring works for me!
Title: THIS IS HOW I FIND HER
Author: Sara Polsky
Author: Sara Polsky
Release Date: Sept. 1, 2013
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
Received: For Review
Received: For Review
Sophie Canon has just started her junior year when her mother tries to kill herself. Sophie has always lived her life in the shadow of her mother's bipolar disorder, monitoring her medication, rushing home after school to check on her instead of spending time with friends, and keeping her mother's diagnosis secret from everyone outside their family. But when the overdose lands Sophie's mother in the hospital, Sophie no longer has to watch over her. She moves in with her aunt, uncle, and cousin, from whom she has been estranged for the past five years. Rolling her suitcase across town to her family's house is easy. What's harder is figuring out how to build her own life.
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Ten years ago, Rae Petersen went to an event at Kansas Citys Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation at which area residents were urged to take on a project to solve a problem in the city.
She recalls a meeting in which a handful of white people were sitting around complaining about racism. The meeting may not have seemed productive at the time, but it did produce results.
Petersen joined with other activists to create the Troost Avenue Festival, a project to help erase the long-held reputation of Troost as a racial dividing line rife with troubles.
The idea mushroomed, and on Saturday, the 10th annual festival attracted people of all races neighbors and representatives of 90 participating groups who filled the 3100 block with music, displays and other activities.
This year, so many bands asked to participate that the performance schedule was set to run until 10 p.m., the latest time ever.
The event began at noon after a mini-parade from Linwood to 31st Street by members of Mothers United, Mothers in Charge and the Show Stoppers Community Drill Team. The Rev. Justin Mathews with Reconciliation Services then called for participants to pray for dividing lines to be broken down.
Kansas City Councilman Jim Glover said there are signs the dividing line is crumbling. You can see people moving in on both sides of Troost, he said. You can see things continuing to improve.
Varied performers such as the KKFI Labor Chorus and the Rappin Foster Grand Parents signed up to take the stage during the day.
At tables along the curbs, dozens of social service, church, school, civic and business groups showcased what they do. Shoppers bought fresh fruit and vegetables in the Mobile Market bus parked at one end of the street. Google Fiber representatives set up operations under a white tent. Connections to Success shared information about its work with ex-offenders.
Diane Marrin, a volunteer with Kansas City Community Gardens, stood at a card table where a few potted plants challenged a brisk wind to stay upright.
We want to expose kids in this neighborhood to our Beanstalk Childrens Garden at Swope Park, Marrin said. If they identify our plants, they get a beanstalk seed to take home to plant.
Woodworker Brad Walsh had his card table covered with neckties and bow ties made of fine wood slats. He came back for his second year at the Troost festival even though he hadnt made a sale at his previous appearance. Walsh said he lives in Waldo but felt connected to midtown as a Rockhurst University graduate and employee of Hallmark Cards.
Janelle Strozier, a case manager at Swope Health, helped man a table to share information about the federal health insurance marketplace.
Were answering questions, Strozier said. Its a lot of education about what health insurance is, what co-pays and premiums are.
Petersen said she was pleased with the 10th edition of the festival. She said that even a late-morning lightning bolt that crackled too close for comfort was a good thing: We all ran indoors and got close together.


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Want to know how to write a superheroes movie?
Critic Roger Ebert revealed the five steps in a paragraph of his review of The Avengers.*
Below you will see his simple 5 step formula in red, with my observations added.
Ebert's # 1. There must be a threat.
Usually there's what I call a macro threat and a micro threat. The macro threat is big, really big. The earth could tilt on its axis. The ice age could return in an instant. All the vacuum cleaners in existence could turn on their owners. That last one hasn't been done yet. If you sell it it, cut me in and make it cash, not a percentage of the back end. You and I know that no matter how many superhero dolls they sell we'll never see a penny of the back end.
Sorry, I got distracted.
The macro threat can take many forms but the upshot is that it would mean the end of mankind. Some days that seems like a pretty good idea to me, but maybe I'm just grumpy.
The micro threat is something the audience can relate to. If the world ends, Jenny won't be able to go to the junior high school prom, or Timmy's parents, who were just starting to speak again after a bitter divorce, definitely won't get back together.
We have to see some examples of what could happen to the whole world. Usually this entails the destruction of capital cities like London, Paris and Rome. In the US it tends to be New York or Los Angeles, the only cities screenwriters can imagine living in, although once in a while Seattle takes a hit. Screenwriters could live in Seattle if it didn't rain so much.
In older movies, a lot of this destruction was seen on a TV screen where it wasn't so apparent that New York was actually made of Legos. If the movie was really low budget, you'd just see a radar screen. "General, it looks like…" "Yes, Private, I'm sorry, I know your grandmother lived in Seattle….but…there is no more Seattle." Nowadays, though, we want to see cities falling into craters or being hurled into space or being consumed by vacuum cleaners, ideally in 3D.
Ebert's # 2. The heroes must be enlisted.
You can't just call the superheroes and expect them to come. They're in a sulk somewhere and you have to coax them to save the world.
Maybe they went into seclusion because the press painted an ugly picture of what they're really like, just to sell papers. (I wouldn't rely on this one much longer because soon the kids who are expected to make up the bulk of the audience will not know what "newspapers" are unless they've heard grandma and grandpa mention them.)
Maybe the superheroes did go over to the dark side for a while but only because some kind of Kryptonitey substance or force field or something made them do it.
Or maybe something happened to make them cynical and not sure mankind is worth saving. They could just be grumpy like me.
Sometimes they'll be really reclusive and you have to send somebody to one of the poles or to another planet because the superheroes are not answering their phone. I'd suggest you have a cute child do the talking. Superheroes are suckers for kids with big mooney eyes. Give the kid some kind of not too unattractive handicap, it couldn't hurt. A plea from a kid in a wheelchair will shake even a moody superhero out of his or her lethargy.
Ebert's #3. The villain must be dramatized.
It's kind of hard to boo climate change. But make it Dr Emil Klimatechange or Dr Basil Climatechange and stick an eye patch on him, and you're in business. Villain roles are the only thing keeping German and British actors working. How come the super-villains are never French or Italian? Because halfway through the movie they'd give up and pretend they were on the good side all along.
I use that cultural stereotype only to motivate young readers to look up 20th Century history on Wikipedia. I intend no offense to my French and Italian friends. If I had any.
Of course we don't have time for actual three-dimensional characters other than in the most literal sense, involving special glasses, but we do want a hint of what made the villain turn bad. Maybe they were made fun of when they were kids for having to wear an eye patch, or they got a taste of power and now they're addicted. Admit it, you wouldn't mind controlling the entire universe. You'd never be late for anything again, because the meeting starts when you show up.
I've always felt that if I were ever in a position to destroy humankind I'd blame it on the fact that my parents ate my pet rabbits. Don't use that one, I'm saving it in case I figure out how to tilt the world on its axis and need to justify it afterward. I'd start by destroying a city in the name of my tragic bunnies. Not Seattle. I'm going for Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I once spent an unbearably humid summer. Yes, I would be edgy and unpredictable, as so many villains are.
Ebert's #4. Some personality defects are probed.
It's not only the villains who have issues, so do the superheroes, although much smaller ones. In the process of saving humankind, they have to face up to their own little vulnerabilities so they have the semblance of a character arc.
Perhaps they have trust issues, caused by an ill-fated love affair with some kind of alien or by being aliens themselves. It's not easy being green. But the love shining in the eyes of that differently-abled little child can heal almost everything.
Maybe their superpowers have made them a touch arrogant and overly competitive and they have to learn to be humble and to work together. Or they have to learn to go to sleep without leaving a light on. That last one hasn't been used yet, I'm trying to give you some fresh ideas as we go along.
Whatever their foibles, they will overcome them and be better superheroes when what remains of the earth is saved. Which brings us to…
Ebert's #5. And then the last hour or so consists of special effects in which large mechanical objects engage in combat that results in deafening crashes and explosions and great balls of fire.
When the smoke clears, some proportion of the earth has been saved, and Jenny gets to go to a makeshift version of the prom held in the smoking ruins of what once was, and will again be, a great junior high school.
The battle to save the earth has brought Timmy's parents together again and despite suffering the pain of a large decorative smudge on her cheek his Mom takes the hand of his father who suffered a flesh wound to his shoulder and we just know they're going to make it work.
And like the Lone Ranger and countless selfless heroes before them, the superheroes go off into the sunset and wait for the sequel.
(Jurgen Wolff's screenwriting blog is at www.ScreenwritingSuccess.com, where you can sign up for his free monthly Brainstorm creativity e-bulletin. His most recent books are Your Creative Writing Masterclass and Your Writing Coach, both published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other booksellers.)
* Ebert's review is here
Learn about the casting process and the best ways to get the right actors for your production.
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Jurgen Wolff is a writer, teacher, and creativity consultant. In the United States, he wrote for sitcoms including "Benson" and "Family Ties." He wrote the feature film, "The Real Howard Spitz," starring Kelsey Grammer and directed by Vadim Jean. He was a script doctor on the hit film, "Mannequin" and others starring Michael Caine, Walter Matthau, and Eddie Murphy. For Germany, he co-created the comedy series, "Lukas," which ran for 65 episodes, and an original comedy series called "Krista." He also wrote nine episodes of the series," Relic Hunter." He wrote two TV movies for the Olsen Twins, and several the German TV movies including, "On Top of the Volcano," starring Maria Schrader and Sebastian Koch (2007). His play, "Killing Mother," was produced at the Gorky Theatre in Berlin, and he's also had plays produced in New York, Los Angeles, and London.
As a writing and creativity teacher, his courses include "Beyond Brainstorming," "Create Your Future," and "The Creative Breakthrough Workshop." He has presented his courses at the University of Southern California, the University of Barcelona, the Skyros Institute, many films schools, and groups and organisations including The Academy for Chief Executives, Egmont, Grundy-UFA, and Columbia-Tri-Star. For eight years he was a visiting lecturer for the Pilots Program in Sitges.
His books include "Your Writing Coach" and "Your Creative Writing Masterclass" (Nicholas Brealey Publishing), "Creativity Now" (Pearson),"Do Something Different" (Virgin Business Books), "Successful Scriptwriting" (Writers Digest Press), "Top Secrets: Screenwriting" (Lone Eagle Press), and "Successful Sitcom Writing" (St. Martin's Press). He has written for many publications including the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Broadcast Magazine, and he is the editor of "Brainstorm," the creativity ebulletin.
His writing blogs are at www.TimeToWrite.blogs.com and www.SuccessfulScreenwriting.com. He runs the Writing Breakthrough Strategy Program, an online group coaching program. He is based in London but spends part of each year in Los Angeles. He can be contacted at email@example.com.
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President Donald Trump says the US military is "locked and loaded" to deal with North Korea, ramping up the rhetorical brinkmanship.
"Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong-un will find another path!" he tweeted.
He spoke as Pyongyang accused him of "driving" the Korean peninsula to the "brink of a nuclear war".
North Korea has announced plans to fire missiles near the US territory of Guam.
The Pacific island's homeland security agency issued a fact sheet on Friday with tips for residents to prepare for any missile threat.-UNS/BBC


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Guys its that infamous time of year again! HAIR FAIR 2013!!! I ran around all four sims at the event and grabbed as much as I could – and now I'm broke 😛 lol – well worth it, hope you enjoyed the hairs I picked out to show off! Hair Fair opens tomorrow – please check out WEBSITE for more information. Also if you want demos today, join the Hair Fair Demo group – again CHECK WEBSITE for further information.
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The USS New York, an amphibious transport dock ship (LPD-21) is being commissioned this morning on the West Side of Manhattan at the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum just a few short miles from Ground Zero. Seven and a half tons of steel from the Twin Towers were used to fabricate a portion of the ship's bow. The commissioning at the Intrepid is fitting because it was there that the announcement was made to use steel from the Twin Towers to fabricate a portion of the ship's bow.
This is the sixth ship in the US Navy to bear the name New York.
The New York's motto is "Strength forged through sacrifice. Never forget."


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27 August 2013
2013 Alaska State Fair: Machines of the Past
4 comments:
- Sandy said...
Rev. Paul,
Tractors!!! Do you have a favorite one?
My son's good friend always displays his tractors at the local fair. He also flies to I think it's Wisconsin where they have the large tractor show.
- 9:48 PM, August 27, 2013
- Rev. Paul said...
Sandy, I think my favorite was the '53 Farm All.
- 6:58 AM, August 28, 2013
- FrankC said...
I note that none of the tractors have the tank like tracks that the first tractor had. As per James Burke in "Connections 3" episode 2.
- 1:57 PM, August 28, 2013
- Rev. Paul said...
Correct, FrankC. Might be because they're not used in the winter, for the most part.
- 2:40 PM, August 28, 2013
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