text:
Today I present three Merry Melodies...the first three of which were commissioned by the Alfred P Sloan Foundation to teach folks the joys of the capitalist/free market system...
I swear that the first one came up naturally in conversation after school yesterday...and I had to go hunting it down to prove that it existed. Here's "Yankee Dood It".
It's from Wikipedia - of course - that I learned about the Alfred P Sloan Foundation connection...which lead me to "Heir Conditioned". (The only embed I could find comes from a Russian website, and connection is pretty slow. If you're interested in watching it, click play, pause it, let it load, and come back in a couple of minutes.)
I also found out that the Sloan Foundation's third commission was "By Word of Mouse".
Vezi mai multe video din Animatie
When I mentioned these three cartoons to Doug Studer - my neighboring teacher - to explain my reference to him perhaps leaving his broken shoes out over night for the elves to fix, one of his students mentioned the cartoon "I Love to Singa" as his favorite, so I close with that one.
And, honestly, it's the most entertaining of the three because it doesn't have a thing to do with economics.
April 30, 2010
April 28, 2010
Things I've collected through the years
- Comic books
The collection that I was probably happiest about. Took decent care of them - every one bagged and boarded - but certainly loved the collection enough not to let the comics sit untouched. Nothing was worth a ton of money, and none of them were in near mint condition but they were certainly in very good. Plus, it got my parents to take me on a ton of trips to Great Escape. My favorites - from a distant memory since I sent the full collection off to the Action Auction a decade ago - Batman #339...#400...Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans...Action #583...Superman #423...Teen Titans annual #3
- Teddy bears
This one was a collection that was collected for me. The maternal grandparents got me teddy bears - Humphrey Beargart, for example - and I did, admittedly, enjoy them as a kid. There's still one or two of them in the guest room here at The Homestead. Most of the collection got donated to Goodwill or somewhere from time to time.
- Patches
When I was a kid, I bought a patch from every place I went. I was going to sew them on a backpack and carry a record of all my trips with me. 'Cause it was going to be cool. I swear, inside my head, so cool...
- Pint glasses
When The Girl and I got our house, we tried collecting pint glasses on each of our vacations - "Who's on First" from the Baseball Hall of Fame, Elvis from Graceland - that didn't last long because the cabinets got too crowded too quickly and our adult life didn't need quite as many pint glasses as her college life did.
- Inaction figures
This one was pretty solid for a while as I'd grabbed the first three sets and variants of Kevin Smith's inaction figures. The Kevin Smith ardor, however, has faded and I moved these along to Katydid a couple of months ago. Sort of a repeating patterns to most of my collections.
- Tick figures
When we were in college, The Girl was a big fan of The Tick cartoon series on Fox, like a big, big fan. At one point, I thought that introducing her to the comics and maybe the action figures would somehow be kinda cool, so I ordered a few toys, a few comic books, a steel box. She thought they were neat - maybe because she's all polite and stuff, maybe because she really enjoyed having the toys. So I bought more - pretty much all of the action figures they ever made. This collection is still around but kinda stuck in the downstairs coffee table, only coming out when kids come over and find them.
- South Park figures
'Bout the same as The Tick figures. Bought initially as gifts for The Girl, still hanging around on top of the cabinet in our current dining room.
- South Park DVDs
All thirteen seasons plus the movie...that's like $375 worth of Dvds which we admittedly loved the hell out of but pretty much don't ever watch a second time. At this point in the post, I'm starting to wonder if these are solid financial choices.
- Neil Young cds
I come from a completist when it comes to music. If you like an artists - a lot - you get all their music. I swear that my mom has over 150 Bob Dylan cd's - obviously not all of which are official releases. At one point I owned every Neil Young cd and was on the search for the missing six. Since that point, however, I've sold or given off about a third of the Neil Young collection, keeping only the albums that I still really enjoy. John Mellencamp is also in this category. Queen came close. The switch to digital just might save me from this physical collecting urge. Of course, I did download two of the five parts of the absolutely complete U2 recently, so maybe the urge still exists even if its not for the physical products.
- Fiestaware
The Girl and I got started on Fiestaware when we were registering for our wedding gifts at Macy's. The saleswoman gave us a few minutes to wander around while she set up our registration info, and we settled on Fiestaware. It's a classic, simple line. We both loved it. When the saleswoman asked us what color we wanted, we said we wanted one place setting of each, something that the woman found...um...interesting. Since then, we'd been picking up a piece or two of every new color release. Somewhere along the way we realized that we had enough serving bowls and large platters for the two of us who don't do a whole lot of entertaining 'round The Homestead. So we don't have anything in chocolate, ivory, or lemongrass (and no lilac or sapphire either, of course), but we have some awesome dinnerware that we use every day. We just don't need to keep collecting it.
- Baseball cards
This was a very sporadic collection. Whenever dad would visit Kaiser's tobacco - where he loved getting his cigars - I would get a pack of baseball cards, gum and all. All I cared about was getting the full Reds team for that year. Then I got enough money - allowances primarily - to buy a full set...and the binder and card pages to hold them. And I was suddenly a collector. Then I got a couple more full sets - the '88 Donruss, the '89 Upper Deck - and I was a full-fledged collector. In all honesty, I have absolutely no clue whatever where those sets went. I might've sold them, might've given them away, might've just lost them in a closet somewhere.
- Beaker figures
It all started with a Gift-of-the-Magi Valentines Day in which The Girl got me a Mega Beaker and I got her a Sam the Eagle figure (she was working at a school whose colors were blue and whose mascot was the Eagles). From there I got a couple of Muppet Labs, a Bunsen Honeydew, even a Phil Van Neuter because he came with plastic glassware. For a while, my students would take Beaker various places on their vacations - as would I. Now, however, that seems to have drifted to the wayside. Th figures are still around, however, in my classroom.
Tags: lists, narcissism
April 27, 2010
Alphabet game: C is for artists
The third in a series that may end up being twenty-six members long...maybe...
April 26, 2010
The buddha is dead. Long live the buddha...
Transbuddha disappeared a while back, and there was much sadness.
But the buddha has reappeared as Dad's Big Plan.
Check it.
But the buddha has reappeared as Dad's Big Plan.
Check it.
Tags: blogs
April 25, 2010
Frozen Falls
I happened upon this photo from the Wikipedia article about the Journey Behind the Falls attraction on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, and it just reminded me how much I desperately want to see the frozen Niagara Falls some winter.
That is all...
Tags: nature, photography, vacation
April 24, 2010
Dunno what to call this week...any suggestions?
No videos this week...instead, just a cartoon...
- The Circle of Leaf - outstanding photo, outstandinger title
- 50 Famous Authors & Their All-Time Favorite Books - I've read like four of the favorite books.
- The Walmart Experiment - 24 hours in a super walmart...I'm kinda curious to try this
- State Budget Balancer - play the game of "Balance the Cali Budget"...it's just shy of impossible
- Chart of the Day: Cutting the Deficit - it's a tough call...but clearly, poll stats are not the way to go
- If you're looking for a job, that Facebook profile can only hurt you - yes another reason I don't have a Facebook account - along with just being a Luddite
- Winscape - no need for windows, just slap up two HDTVs with awesome programming
- Nerd Merit Badges - I think I can only earn two of them
- Allen's new football stadium will turn some heads - 'cause it's a high school football stadium costing $59.6 million...Texas is weird
- Watercolor superheroes - I particularly like the Superman by Lora8 and the redheads by duss005 but they're all really well done
- Mark Fiore.com - a pulitzer prize winning political cartoonist without a newspaper - It's a whole new world.
April 23, 2010
Happy YouTube 5th Anniversary
Holy crap...it's only been five years (to the day) since the first YouTube video was uploaded.
Wow, how the world has changed.
Tags: the interweb, YouTube
What the Fonk?
Thank heaven for the combination of the intertubenet, YouTube, and low budget, local advertising.
Check out all the Vern Fonk commercials over at their website. I particularly enjoy Shapoopi!
Thanks to Warming Glow for pointing out these works of cinematographical genius.
Tags: advertising, television
April 22, 2010
Endorsing the Tweakers
I got a set of speakers for my laptop a while back - Philips SBA220 - mostly because they were half off when a store in Kenwood Mall was going out of business. I think I paid around $15 for the two connected speakers, and - once I started using them, roughly when I blew my laptop's tiny speakers - I was pretty happy with them.
They produce pretty good sound for their size. They light enough and have a decently long cord so they can sit on each side of my admittedly larger laptop easily enough. But there is one significant drawback to them.
And they use those batteries like nobody's business.
And it sucks recharging a half dozen batteries over and over again and not being able to listen to music for the few hours it takes to charge 'em back up.
So I went and stole The Girl's laptop speakers instead because they don't take any batteries (technically they run on one internal, rechargeable battery but I've yet to kill the full battery after having used them for months a couple of hours at a time). Admittedly, the sounds a little thinner, but the speakers are smaller, more attractive, and have way awesome battery life.
I'm all down with and can officially endorse the Tweakers.
If you're in need of speakers for you iPod, laptop, whatever, get yourself a pair.
They frickin' rock.
They produce pretty good sound for their size. They light enough and have a decently long cord so they can sit on each side of my admittedly larger laptop easily enough. But there is one significant drawback to them.
And they use those batteries like nobody's business.
And it sucks recharging a half dozen batteries over and over again and not being able to listen to music for the few hours it takes to charge 'em back up.
So I went and stole The Girl's laptop speakers instead because they don't take any batteries (technically they run on one internal, rechargeable battery but I've yet to kill the full battery after having used them for months a couple of hours at a time). Admittedly, the sounds a little thinner, but the speakers are smaller, more attractive, and have way awesome battery life.
I'm all down with and can officially endorse the Tweakers.
If you're in need of speakers for you iPod, laptop, whatever, get yourself a pair.
They frickin' rock.
Happy Anniversary
10 years ago today...
Thanks to everyone who was there and involved, especially to those of you who I know read this blog - Gamer, Smamy, Sully, Ame, The Mater Familias. Is there anybody else lurking out there who was at our ceremony?
And I am not getting The Girl something in tin.
Thanks to everyone who was there and involved, especially to those of you who I know read this blog - Gamer, Smamy, Sully, Ame, The Mater Familias. Is there anybody else lurking out there who was at our ceremony?
And I am not getting The Girl something in tin.
Tags: narcissism, personal stuff
April 21, 2010
The new photo home
I'd promised a while back that I would find some other place to post Princeton photos, and I apologize for having been slow to share what that new place would be.
It's up but skeletal at this point, I warn you.
I'm using Picasa's Web Albums for now, mostly because the uploading is so phenomenally easy from Picasa which I was already using to organize the photos.
Wish they had tags, but that'll be something to hunt for in the future.
For now, though, feel free to check out what's up over there.
Over the coming summer, I'll get all the old photo albums uploaded for viewing - probably just as highlights of each album, but it'll be something.
It's up but skeletal at this point, I warn you.
I'm using Picasa's Web Albums for now, mostly because the uploading is so phenomenally easy from Picasa which I was already using to organize the photos.
Wish they had tags, but that'll be something to hunt for in the future.
For now, though, feel free to check out what's up over there.
Over the coming summer, I'll get all the old photo albums uploaded for viewing - probably just as highlights of each album, but it'll be something.
Tags: narcissism, photography, princeton
April 20, 2010
Alphabet game: B is for artists
We move onward this week...my favorite songs from B artists...
April 19, 2010
The news in awesome science
John McPhee would be so proud.
Every so often we are lucky enough to be reminded that nothing we can do, nothing at all can ever keep nature in check.
The grounding of air transport all over Europe due to volcanic eruption this past week...
Scientists finding life in "Pitch Lake...filled with hot asphalt and bubbling with noxious hydrocarbon gases and carbon dioxide"...
Australia dealing with a locust plague the size of Spain...
I swear, man, there are things in science that continue to amaze me every minute of every hour of every day.
April 18, 2010
Chicago, here we come...
The Girl has placed our request to stay at an apartment up in Wrigleyville, allegedly a three-minute walk from Wrigley.
With The Girl taking some classes this summer, we didn't have a big window to hit if we were going to fit both in.
So it look like we'll be in Chitown from Wednesday, 6/9 through Saturday, 6/12, and we'll get to see a part of the city we don't normally stay in.
Good times...
Tags: vacation
April 17, 2010
The Leekly Winks
Check 'em...
- Ramenbox - customized ramen gift boxes...or survival kits as it were
- What stormtroopers do on their day off - I've posted a link to some of these before, but this is a nice, big collection
- Redesigning the boarding pass - a bit
- The source of the above image, 'cause we should all give credit where credit is due
- Top 100 Interview Questions - nice practice to go through and think about how you'd answer tem pre-interview
- Giant Jesus Statue to get Facelift - I was disappointed. This article says Big Butter Jesus is going to get a paint job. I was hoping for something colorful, but no. Just the same old butter color but more weather-resistant.
- Why would a reputable company do this to themselves - made me wonder why the PCSD used stock photos on our levy drawing posters
- Web browser performance - should I really be using chrome instead of Firefox?
April 16, 2010
The new hotness
Florence and the Machine "DOG DAYS ARE OVER" Music Video from LEGS MEDIA on Vimeo.
It's not the video - that's awful.
It's the music.
I grabbed Florence + the Machine's album Lungs from the library a few days back and have been playing it fairly constantly at school and in the car since then. Generally good feedback from the students - not that it always matters to me - makes me think that there might be a few other folks out there who might also enjoy it.
Check the video (thanks to coilhouse) or head over to their/her website to stream four of the album tracks or stream the full album on the garish Artist Direct site.
As pretty much always, thanks to NPR for pointing Florence out to me.
Tags: music
A modester proposal
I like the slight adjustment, and I feel sad if you don't know what's being adjusted.
Tags: chucklesome, webcomics
April 15, 2010
Movie Confessional
- The Sound of Music
- Gone With the Wind
- Miracle on 34th Street
- It's a Wonderful Life
- The Ten Commandments
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Avatar
- The Grapes of Wrath
- Titanic
- The Crying Game
- Vertigo
- The Deer Hunter
- Star Wars
- 40 Year-Old Virgin
- The Departed
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Hoosiers
- Heat
- Roadhouse
- Almost Famous
Tags: movies
April 14, 2010
Let's play global thermonuclear war
I greatly prefer the carrot, and I really like the concept of the carrot requiring a little bit of a game to get to it.
I'm curious about the toothbrushing game that's mentioned in the article. Would the toothbrush actually somehow measure whether its in a mouth? If not, I'm gonna just end up leaving my toothbrush on.
Curiously, do any of my readers play Foursquare or use Green Goose?
I think I'm going to start reading about the Gamepocalypse.
April 13, 2010
Alphabet game: A is for artists
We begin today with my favorite songs from artists beginning with the letter A...
And, just in case you were curious, yes, I do have the next twenty-five entries in this series entirely completed. Publishing them on a week, I'm done with Tuesday posts through October 5th.
And, just in case you were curious, yes, I do have the next twenty-five entries in this series entirely completed. Publishing them on a week, I'm done with Tuesday posts through October 5th.
April 12, 2010
The week that was...
For the past couple of weeks, LeRoy - our elder dog, somewhere around a dozen years old now - has been desperate to head down to our lower level rather than to stay upstairs where we've been locking him for the past few years. It's not like we trap him in a cage; he gets the run of three rooms - with a couch, water, toys, two big windows that he can see out without even jumping. But that's not been good enough for him for the past couple of weeks - no idea why.
He's been knocking down the baby gate that we use to trap him and heading downstairs to lie on the couch and the carpet - rather than the laminate floors upstairs. No idea why. Maybe it's the warmer temperatures - it is cooler downstairs, after all, and he is getting older by the day.
On Monday we'd headed to Home Depot to order a new water heater - hoping to qualify for the Ohio Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate program. That meant we'd have to switch from our 80-gallon electric hot water heater (which has been slowly leaking for the past year or so while we hoped to avoid catastrophic failure through sheer blind faith) to a smaller 50-gallon gas model, something more in line with our two-person household.
We got to Home Depot, answered the needed questions, scheduled the delivery and installation for Tuesday morning while The Girl was home, and dropped a few bucks for an extended warranty meaning we'd not have to buy another water heater for a long time.
As I headed back to school on Tuesday after Spring Break, The Girl began her break by stinking up the house with paint and primer - the kitchen walls and trim on Tuesday before tackling the bedroom trim and doors for the next few days. She'd used up the sage green for the kitchen walls and headed to Sherwin Williams for a quick resupply.
She left the dogs upstairs.
I called to check in on the way home and found out that the conversion of our electric to the new gas hot water heater would take an extra six or seven hundred dollars - new piping, new venting, an expansion tank, a pressure release valve, a flux capacitor - and that we'd actually be better off to just buy a new, same-sized electric tank - both in the short run and the long run. Lucky us. So we needed to head back to Home Depot and change our order.
As I drove home through the neighborhood - our suburban, uneventful, white-bred niehgborhood - three police cars - one undercover - rolled to a stop, and the police ran out, chasing someone down the street. I've no idea who, no idea why. Just a little excitement to start the week.
When I got home, I found that LeRoy had broken into the barricaded kitchen, gotten into the wrapped up paint tray and tracked paint across the laminate floor after apparently trying to eat the plastic paint tray while The Girl was restocking and I was hearing the sirens. The Girl took the floor cleanup. I took the dog cleanup and hopped into the shower to scrub his feet and mouth.
Once everything was under control and as cleaned up as we could imagine, we headed to Home Depot to switch our gas for an electric hot water heater, our 50-gallon, energy efficient tank for an 80-gallon energy monster. No worries, they said, since we'd never actually gotten the gas model in the first place. All we had to do was call the installers back and tell them to change what they were bringing our way.
So homeward we headed.
To a dog that had been trapped upstairs. And who had ruined our upstairs couch.
He'd apparently gotten freaked out and peed all over the thing, urine dripping into places that we would never be able to clean. Admittedly, the couch had been through the wars, having been with us for a week longer than LeRoy had been. The cushions were ripped in various spots, and we'd extended its life by covering it in a rotating pair of king-sized sheets so the dogs and The Girl could still enjoy it.
So, out to the garage the couch went, replaced with what The Girl spent the next three days referring to as our doggy opium den, three separate palates of dog beds, piled so that the two dogs and the aged cat could enjoy them. Heck of a start to the week.
Thursday, more painting by The Girl. LeRoy again broke free to downstairs but without incident.
Friday, more painting and the installation of the $600, 80-gallon hot water heater - which, of course, cost $1200 after still-needed expansion tank and pressure release valve.
Friday evening then was a trip to Ikea to see the couch that The Girl wanted to replace the destroyed couch with. She'd sat down in every couch in the store and chosen the one that felt best and was also washable and relatively inexpensive - for a couch, anyway. I wasn't immediately sold on the couch but didn't see any better options at Ikea, so we headed onward to Ashley Furniture, Costco, and Value City Furnitue to see if there were any better options.
There weren't of course, so we headed back to Ikea to pick up the last Klippan four-seat sofa in the building along with two washable covers and head home with the flatpacked couch hanging a foot out of the back of the station wagon. An hour later, we were sitting on our new couch, long enough for both of us to lounge at the same time.
If LeRoy pees on this one, we might have a dog to offer around.
He did, of course, greet us when we got home with the couch with a thoroughly destroyed book that I'd borrowed from my principal. $38 plus $10 shipping to replace that one.
It's never boring to be a home owner.
In an only vaguely related note, we got our taxes finished this week and owe like $2500.
Tags: dogs, the girl, The Homestead
April 10, 2010
Anybody wanna go to a yardsale this morning?
- 6 Guys With Jobs That Would Kill The Average Person - I've read about #2...wow...
- Feds Found Pfizer Too Big to Fail - this should make bigger news
- Soccer Reporter - I'm posting this Monday morning, but I'm guessing it'll be all over the web by Saturday when you read this
- Lego business cards - three weeks 'til my birthday...wanna get me some of these customized?
- State of the Nation - I try to be rather nonpolitical 'round here, but this has to be said...
- Strange Time To Get Mad - as does this
- Infographic - about infographics
- Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon - I'm in...all in...especially for this video
- SnorgTees - I'm digging 'em
- Mozzarella-stuffed Garlic Rolls - cheese, dough, garlic, salt...hommina...hommina...hommina...
- Don't Wear a Cardigan - watch out for those lucky charms, Calen
- The Garry Shandling Movie Project - I like some of the movie titles better than the photoshop works
- Pictory - Gorgeous photos of San Francisco
- Amazing pencil carving - it's not misnamed
- Top 250 Movies Map - neat way to display everything
- Periodic Table of Imaginary Elements - seriously, birthday coming up
April 9, 2010
Red on Roundball
I can't imagine a modern video made like these, with NBA stars from various teams (and various eras) getting together for an instructional video about the fundamentals.
And my favorite...
And my favorite...
Tags: basketball, YouTube
April 8, 2010
Instant CSI
Go ahead, click the link and click the sunglasses.
It's too fun not to.
It's too fun not to.
Tags: chucklesome, memes, television
April 7, 2010
The Rat Pack Rides Again
We're going old school today...enjoy the ring a ding ding...
Sadly, I don't have this one to include...
Sadly, I don't have this one to include...
April 6, 2010
Grilled Cheese Academy
Yeah, the sandwiches look great, but the familiar voice is why I'm sending you to the Grilled Cheese Academy website.
I think I know who it is, and I'll leave my guess after the jump (sorry, DanEcht).
Tags: advertising, food
April 5, 2010
Yard sale for a good cause
Check out all the details and head over to Bechtold Park from 9am-1pm on Saturday to make a donation and maybe get something you need.
Tags: charity, cincinnati, radio
For this man, I would've screamed
I mentioned recently that I don't yell at sporting events. I will, however, admit to yelling "Shoot It" for a guard with unconscious range, a hair trigger, and a lack of fear.
For Pete Maravich, I would've blown out my vocal chords.
For Pete Maravich, I would've blown out my vocal chords.
Tags: basketball, YouTube
April 3, 2010
This space for rent
- Today's opener video is thanks to Brobible - and is frickin' amazing.
- Niagara Falls at Night With Lights - Niagara Falls really is amazing to see...I desperately want to see the falls frozen up, but it'll take a colder winter than they've had for a while
- Run, Jesus, Run - the 10 second gospel...if anybody gets an ending other than crucifixion, please tell me, 'cause I can get twelve apostles, but I still end up on the cross
- Bizarre Pepsi Flavors - wonder where these were available
- Playing for Peanuts - poor pay in baseball's minor leagues
- 13 Bands That Knew You Need a Song Explaining Their Band Name - "Bad Company" by Bad Company on the album Bad Company
- My name is not really Penelope - Penelope Trunk has actually now become Penelope Trunk...apparently she wasn't
- From the Vault: Ben & Jerry's - interesting marketing response back when B&J's was still tiny
- The Bible, Physics, and Fallen Angels - I'm guessing this guy - who explains the alien abduction phenomenon in relation to the physics of angels and the bible - doesn't have a degree in science.
- 'Misirlou,' from klezmer to surf guitar - I had no idea that 'Misirlou' started as a klezmer song
- Bulgus with chickpeas, red peppers, and spinach - very tasty, meatless meal - no breadcrums actually in meal, no matter what the title says
- Family Cashing in on 'David After Dentist' - apparently there's money to be made in filmed your drugged up children
- American Chopper - apparently a fraternity brother of mine was on American Chopper just before Christmas
- My Desktop - not really mine but it may be if I can pull off being that cool
- Cheerleading Fun - our Powder Puff game in April 28th...I'm hoping for a routine like this at our pep rally
- The Twist Ending - wait for it...wait for it...
- Craziest - a flash short story...kind of reminds me a Pi
- World's Largest Gummy Bear - I particularly recommend the questions at the bottom
- And we close with Brian Williams slow jamming the news - thanks to Jimmy Fallon
Happy spring, folks
Get out and enjoy the gorgeousness...
In terms of blog redesigns...
I'll be dropping my use of "after the jump" 'cause it bugs DanEcht. I'll probably still use them when I'm posting a bunch of YouTube videos, but other than that, I'll cut it out.
The current design (dark wood) will hang around a little while, mostly because I haven't been able to find a better version that I like. Eventually I'll play around with something more in the black palette since that's apparently what I'm thought of as being. Sorry for the background image, Ame, but I dig it, and I was getting pretty tired of the plain, flat background.
And if you are going to be indoors, check out Kyle's self-indulgence for a cool cover of INXS's "New Sensation" from Beck's record club.
Tags: blog, link, photography
April 2, 2010
Take your spaghetti tree and shove it
I hate April Fools Day.
Hate it.
I don't like practical jokes, and I especially don't like practical jokes played on me - thankfully there weren't any of those this year.
Every frickin' day, I wake up and head to the intertubes to check out what's up in the world. And on this day, this frickin' day, I get tired of every website posting something that's a stupid joke.
A twenty-cd collection of NPR fundraising announcements? Dumb
Google renaming themselves to Topeka? Dumb
Rob Neyer's Thursday links being all hoaxes? Dumb
When there were fewer media outlets, the occasional practical joke was funny. Now, however, that there are countless media outlets - that every company and person has its own blog - and they all feel the need to write or post or read or tell something that they think is funny, it's simply April Fools overload.
Cut it out, folks.
There has been one funny April Fools gag. One.
Tags: rants
April 1, 2010
A white man's book about the black man's game
It's been a fair while since I've been this willing to gush about a book.
It's also been a while since I've gotten halfway through a book and decided to buy it rather than try to force my way through before its return deadline to the library.
And now that I'm about to finish the book up, I'm not feeling even a single iota of regret for the purchase.
This is, quite simply, the best basketball book I've read.
No qualifier ("this year", "since this other book", "about the NBA")...no conjunction ("but for the...", "if not for...")...no disclaimer at all.
This book is awesome.
If you have any interest in basketball in the least, read this book.
Whether you have any interest in the NBA or not (and I have very little, in all honesty), read this book.
Ok, enough gushing and empty platitudes. Let's get to why this book is awesome.
Tags: basketball, books
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text:
The web development team in my office at Changi Airport is a rather small team. We have one designer, one UI/UX expert, and one front-end developer. Sometimes, when there are many projects happening at the same time, I will also work on the front-end tasks with the front-end developer.
In the dotnet.sg project, I have chance to work on front-end part too. Well, currently I am the only one who actively contribute to the dotnet.sg website anyway. =)
Unlike the projects I have in work, dotnet.sg project allows me to choose to work with tools that I'd like to explore and tools that helps me work more efficiently. Currently, for the front-end of dotnet.sg, I am using the following tools, i.e.
- npm;
- Yeoman;
- Bower;
- Gulp.
Getting Started
I am building the dotnet.sg website, which is an ASP .NET Core web app, on Mac with Visual Studio Code. Hence, before I work on the project, I have to download NodeJs to get npm. The npm is a package manager that helps to install tools like Yeoman, Bower, and Gulp.
After these tools are installed, I proceed to get a started template for my ASP .NET Core web app using Yeoman. Bower will then follow up immediately to install the required dependencies in the web project.
From Bower with bower.json…
Working on the dotnet.sg project helps me to explore more. Bower is one of the new things that I learnt in this project.
To develop a website, I normally make use of several common JS and CSS libraries, such as jQuery, jQuery UI, Bootstrap, Font Awesome, and so on. With so many libraries to manage, things could be quite messed up. This is where Bower comes to help.
Bower helps me to manage the 3rd party resources, such as Javascript libraries and frameworks, without the need to locate the script files for each resources myself.
For example, we can do a search of a library we want to use using Bower.
To install the library, for example Font Awesome in this case, then with just one command, we can easily do it.
$ bower install fontawesome
The libraries will be installed in the directory as specified in the Bower Configuration file, .bowerrc. By default, the libraries will be located at the lib folder in wwwroot.
Finally, to check the available versions of a library, simply use the following command to find out more about the library.
$ bower info fontawesome
I like Bower because checking bower.json into the source control ensures that every developer in the team has exactly the same code. On top of that, Bower also allows us to lock the libraries to a specific version. This will thus prevent some developers to download some different version of the same library from different sources themselves.
…to npm with package.json
So, now some of you may wonder, why are we using Bower when we have npm?
Currently, there are also developers supporting the act to stop using Bower and switch to npm. Libraries such as jQuery, jQuery UI, and Font Awesome, can be found on npm too. So, why do I still talk about Bower so much?
For ASP .NET Core project, I face a problem on referring to node_module from the View. Similar as Bower, npm will position the downloaded packages in a local folder also. The folder turns out to be node_module, which is on the same level as wwwroot folder in the project directory.
As ASP .NET Core serves the CSS, JS, and other static files from the wwwroot folder which doesn't have node_module in it, the libraries downloaded from npm cannot be loaded. One way will be using Gulp Task but that one is too troublesome for my projects so I choose not to go that way.
Please share with me how to do it with npm in an easier way than with Bower, if you know any. Thanks!
Goodbye, Gulp
I first learnt Gulp was when Riza introduced it one year ago in .NET Developers Community Singapore meetup. He was then talking about the tooling in ASP .NET Core 1.0 projects.
However, about four months after the meetup, I came to a video on Channel9 announcing that the team removed Gulp from the default ASP .NET template. I'm okay with this change because using BundleMinifier to do bundling and minifying of CSS and JS now without using Gulp because using bundleconfig.json in BundleMinifier seems to be straightforward.
However, the SCSS compilation is something I don't know how to do it without using Gulp (Please tell me if you know a better way. Thanks!).
To add back Gulp to my ASP .NET Core project, I do the following four steps.
- Create a package.json with only the two compulsory properties, i.e. name and version (Do this step only when package.json does not exist in the project directory);
$ npm install --save-dev gulp
$ npm install --save-dev gulp-sass
- Setup the generated gulp.js file as shown below.
var gulp = require('gulp'); var sass = require('gulp-sass'); gulp.task('compile-scss', function(){ gulp.src('wwwroot/sass/**/*.scss') .pipe(sass().on('error', sass.logError)) .pipe(gulp.dest('wwwroot/css/')); }) //Watch task gulp.task('default', function() { gulp.watch('wwwroot/sass/**/*.scss', ['compile-scss']); })
After that, I just need to execute the following command to run gulp and changes made to the .scss files in the sass directory will trigger the Gulp Task to compile the SCSS to corresponding CSS.
$ gulp
There is also a very detailed online tutorial written by Ryan Christiani, the Head Instructor and Development Lead at HackerYou, explaining each step above.
Oh ya, in case you are wondering what is the difference between –save and –save-dev in the npm commands above, I like how it is summarized on Stack Overflow by Tuong Le, as shown below.
- –save-dev is used to save the package for development purpose. Example: unit tests, minification.
- –save is used to save the package required for the application to run.
I once heard people saying that web developers were the cheap labour in software development industry because they are still having the mindset that web developers just plug-and-play modules on WordPress.
After working on the dotnet.sg project and helping out in front-end development at work, I realize that web development is not an easy plug-and-play job at all.

subset: commoncrawl


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About Elise Redlin
Elise is the Content & Marketing Manager at Vertical Measures, an internet marketing company in sunny Arizona providing services ranging from content marketing, to social media marketing, link building, and advanced SEO. She's fully immersed herself into the world of content marketing and content strategy and is the managing editor of this blog. +Elise Redlin
1 Comment
Jonny Ross Jul 18, 2011
this is a great idea, and I am in the middle of putting a post together for you to consider. Is there a deadline?
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**editor's note: Simon is not one today (actually it was on 7/11 which is when I originally attempted to post this. . .I've changed to using Windows Live Writer and was having some trouble with the pictures. . .but now it's all good. . .let the blogging resume!)
My BABY is ONE today! Wow, that was fast (click for a peek at his very first post). He was a really awful baby (of which I will remind him often. . ), but now he makes up for it big time. I am completely in love with this little boy! Happy Birthday Si-si!
I totally stole the idea for his shirt from Tesia, a friend from High School. Super easy and it turned out so cute!
Simon is. . . So big (his latest trick)
I kept trying to get a picture of the back of his shirt and he kept turning around to find me!!
We headed out to the zoo. . .
Molly went up to the dog show in Omaha with Grandma Mary so we missed her!!
See ya dudes! More pictures of tomorrows big party with cake of course coming up soon!!


text:
With the war in Iraq winding down and a new phase of reconstruction largely underway, the outlook for global economic growth is improving. Economics correspondent Barry Wood has more on this.
For several months the uncertainty over whether there would be war in Iraq unsettled the world economy. Oil prices shot up. Consumer and business confidence declined. There were signs that Europe and America would go back into recession.
But with the war effectively over, the Iraqi oil fields relatively free of damage, and the prospect of oil prices coming down—perhaps sharply, pessimism is turning to optimism. Horst Koehler is the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
"And that also means that the risks of war on the global economy has remained contained and in particular, the concerns about sharply rising oil prices have not materialised "
The IMF, which held its semi-annual meeting of finance ministers last week here in Washington, says global growth will be about 3.2% this year, improving to four percent in 2004. China and the United States continue to be relative bright spots. But there is trouble in Japan and Europe, particularly Germany. IMF Chief Economist Kenneth Rogoff says Germany's economy is too heavily regulated and needs far-reaching reform.
"I think the fundamental problem in Germany is that it has not been able to recover strongly at any point over the last several years, and I think it's reached the point where we can safely say that major structural reforms are needed. And first among those we would list labor market reforms."
It's hard to hire or fire workers in Germany and generous social welfare benefits mean there are weak incentives for the unemployed to seek work. Germany alone accounts for 30% of European output.
The IMF and World Bank are hopeful that by the time of their next meeting in Dubai in September global economic activity will have substantially picked up.


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Crazy Weekend
I won't bore you with details of the weekend, but I do want to share one funny story:
As part of my introduction, I asked everybody in the auditorium to make me feel at home by sticking their pen through one of the holes in their outlines and twirling it around. It was really fun and I was shocked at the level of participation. Anyway, in between services this morning I was informed that our health ministry actually had to administer First Aid to a woman who got pocked in the eye by a message outline that had flown off someone's pen! I totally feel for her, but that is stinkin' hilarious. Just another reason they don't let us youth people speak in big church very often.
10 comments:
- James said...
I know I said it last night, but I'll say it again - you tore it up, dude. Excellent message, great delivery, inspired illustration with the Dirty Little Secret thing...kudos bro.
- Leigh Sarti said...
Hey Kurt,
Jana says you di great... I knew you would!
Have a "relaxing" week putting out fires at camp...
- mike morabito said...
Hey Kurt, I heard you speak today at church and I throughly enjoyed spinning the paper on my pen all way down at the overdrive service. Great Job, who'd a thought that would be so entertaining.
And oh yeah, thanks for speaking too, haha. You were funny, and I was glad to hear about how you really feel at home ministering to Junior High students. That is inspiring.
from a friendly cracked pot,
-mike morabito
- Joshua Griffin said...
It was great, man ... !! How about the paper airplane during the last service, too? JG
- Corutney Gause said...
Kurt....you did a GREAT job. I was entertained by your pronunciation of fragile...unfortunately no one else around me found it as amusing. A also enjoyed the one brave guy in the crowd that threw a paper airplane up at you. You kept my attention...and that's impressive since I have the attention span of a puppy. Can't wait to here it again!
- greg vujnov said...
Kurt, Linda and I could not make your weekend speaking in "big church" heard you did great! Wish I could have seen the twirling message notes. Eye injury, very funny!
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Friday, January 24, 2014
Parenting - Letting go...just a little
5 comments:
College!? It does seem far away from my vantage point. I'm sure it's hard to let go. My poor mother had to put me on a plane to fly to a whole other continent for college.ReplyDelete
Great picture of him- so handsome!
- AnonymousJanuary 25, 2014 at 10:49 AM
A wonderful post! When we prayed for Austin yesterday it really started to sink in that Austin is truly a young man. He is not a boy anymore which makes me sad, but I am more excited that he is a Godly young man with a fantastic future ahead of him!ReplyDelete
Hi there! I'm creating a blogroll of blogs that blog (at least occasionally) about homeschooling high school. (http://letshomeschoolhighschool.com/homeschool-high-school-blogs/) I came across yours today and would LOVE to add it. If you would consider this, could you email me? email@example.com. Thanks in advance! Blessings...ReplyDelete
I'll be there this fall. Mixed feelings. *sigh*ReplyDelete
For right now, she's sitting two feet away from me doing homework. I'll enjoy her closeness today. :)
We people think our babies not grow up but its not true abslutely right they stand where we stand a long time ago. When our baby was in a baby trolley. Time goes very soon but we think we are almost there where we stand at the time of birth of our baby.ReplyDelete
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The next Negro League legend to have the spotlight in my on-going series is the great Judy Johnson, one of the greatest third baseman in Negro League history:
Between 1918 and 1936 Johnson played for the Hilldale Club, the
Bacharach Giants, Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords, and compiled
a career .293 average, though he batted as high as .389 (1925) and .376
(1929, when he was also named MVP of the Negro Leagues).
Beyond his playing field performance, he is also credited with
discovering and mentoring the great Josh Gibson, just as Negro League
legend John Henry Lloyd did for him when he first came up.
By then a player-manager for the legendary Homestead Grays, the squad
featured no less than five future Hall of Fame players: Johnson, Cool
Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson.
Post Negro leagues, Johnson became a scout in the Major Leagues for the
Philadelphia Athletics before moving on to the Braves, Phillies and
From 1971 through 1974 Johnson was also on the Baseball Hall of Fame's
Committee on the Negro Leagues, helping to find a rightful place in
Cooperstown for inductees like Paige and Gibson before being elected
himself in 1975.
A wonderful baseball life that spanned decades, and to a greater extent,
worlds in respect to how American baseball evolved between 1918 and the


text: If you're anything like me, one of your childhood fantasies was to attach a recording device to one of your remote controlled toys and use it to explore. Nowadays this fantasy is becoming a reality with cool recording toys like this one, which you can even control right from your phone. I can't wait to see how far this kind of technology has come in a few years!


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I just saw a great video of an interview on Canadian TV with former Bush aid, David Frum. First, of course this would be on Canadian TV. No American news agency - except for perhaps PBS - would ever devote a half an hour to an honest and frank discussion of political ideas and strategies.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Good Ideas From a Republican
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 5:28 PM
4 comments:
- The Law Talking Guy said...
Sure, RBR, but he's an ex-Republican in the sense that he's admitted to being kicked out of the fraternity and has publicly complained about it. He's a Republican the way Lieberman is a Democrat.
- Raised By Republicans said...
Since political parties in the US can't revoke your membership like that I will ignore the "kicked out of the fraternity" thing with regard to his actual party ID. What really matters is what he considers himself to be and how he behaves politically.
I don't think he has renounced the Republican party the way Lieberman did with the Democrats. He's also a firmly committed conservative and wants conservatives to win elections (he just thinks the approach currently in favor in the GOP is the wrong one). You can't make analogous statements about Lieberman and liberals. Since 2006, Lieberman has done nothing but campaign against Democrats.
Frum does have one thing in common with Lieberman though. They both campaigned for John McCain in 2008. He even - grudgingly - gave his public support to Sarah Palin. It was clear in the interview that he dislikes Palin so I can only imagine that he supported her publicly out of loyalty to the GOP ticket - again, something he has in common with Lieberman.
Yet it is true that he is on the "RINO" list for people like Limbaugh, O'Riley and Beck. It is certain that he is not a typical Republican of these times. And that's part of the point I was trying to make.
- The Law Talking Guy said...
Frum is being widely denounced by the right, and you know that, RBR. It's a bit disingenous to point to him, then, as if he were "one of them" when he has been cast out.
I do agree that some of his ideas about how the GOP has done itself in have some merit.
As for the savings/tax-exempt issue, wow. So like make all savings accounts like a 401K with no strings attached, and with no future taxation? Sounds very, very, very expensive. There is a reason for a top limit on 401K donations, btw, to limit the cost.
- Raised By Republicans said...
You missed my point apparently. I'm saying it doesn't matter WHAT Glenn Beck says about him. "They" don't get to dictate Frum's party identification - only Frum does that. He is still a member of the Republican party, still campaigns on behalf of Republicans and if he were to run for office would likely run as a Republican.
A limit to tax exemptions for savings seems reasonable and practical. I guess we could just argue then about what that limit should be and what kinds of accounts would qualify. Certainly encouraging more savings and less consumption is a good goal, do you agree?


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Florida Panthers Foundation Partners With Ocean Exploration Trust For Launch Of Nautilus Exploration Program And Public Educational Programsby Staff Writer / Florida Panthers
Sunrise, Fla – As part of a broad commitment to youth initiatives in Broward County and South Florida, the Florida Panthers Foundation has partnered with the Ocean Exploration Trust and famed oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard's Exploration Vessel Nautilus for the 2014 exploration season. The Florida Panthers Foundation will donate to the Ocean Exploration Trust to help fund Nautilus' upcoming voyage throughout the Florida Straits, Gulf Coast, and Caribbean at an event on Monday, June 9, at Port Everglades.
Nautilus will depart from Port Everglades on June 11. Through the use of advanced telepresence technology, students, educators, and members of the public will be able to join the Nautilus team as members of the expanded Corps of Exploration. They will be able to watch real-time action in high definition streaming video and participate in live interactions with shore-based audiences via nautiluslive.org, a 24-hour portal bringing expeditions from the field to future explorers on shore, beginning June 11.
"Sharing the excitement of the moment of discovery with the public is a key part of our mission," said OET Executive Vice President, Dr. Katy Croff Bell. "Our program exists to use the excitement of exploration to inspire and motivate the next generation of scientists and engineers, by bringing our expedition directly to schools, museums, homes, and mobile devices. We are thrilled to work with the Panthers Foundation to use that excitement to build our first Community of Exploration & Education in the country."
"The Florida Panthers Foundation and the entire Panthers organization are privileged to partner with and support Dr. Ballard, Nautilus, and the Ocean Exploration Trust as part of these innovative and collaborative programs for the children of Broward County and South Florida," said Panthers CEO & President Rory Babich.
Nautilus was donated to the Ocean Exploration Trust by Florida Panthers owner Vinnie Viola, who purchased the decommissioned 212-foot ship and donated it to Dr. Ballard and OET for conversion into a premier exploration vessel that will also benefit youth education in the U.S.
"Vinnie Viola is an amazing American and patriot who is committed to helping our youth strive to reach their goals in life whatever they may be," said OET President, Dr. Ballard. "Thanks to Vinnie, his wife Teresa, and the Florida Panthers Foundation, we will be able to reach tens of thousands of students and teachers across Broward County and South Florida, including some who may be selected to sail on Nautilus each year, serving as role models and mentors in our Corps of Exploration."
A former United States Naval Officer, Dr. Ballard is a National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence and a Professor of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. He is most widely known for his discovery of the RMS Titanic in 1985. On Feb. 6, 2013, Dr. Ballard spoke to a large audience at BB&T Center about the Nautilus mission and youth education prior to the Panthers' home game that evening.
OET and Nautilus will host an invitation-only event on June 9 at Port Everglades from 9 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Media availability with Dr. Ballard will be held from 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. The event will also feature tours of Nautilus for local school groups, educators and media members.
About the Florida Panthers Foundation
One of the primary missions of the Florida Panthers Foundation is to build a better future for the children of South Florida. Through philanthropic partnerships, grants, donations and community outreach programs, the Foundation maintains a focus on children's health, fitness, education and cultural needs.
About the Ocean Exploration Trust
The Ocean Exploration Trust was founded in 2008 by Dr. Robert Ballard. Our international program centers on scientific exploration of the seafloor launched from aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus, a 64-meter research vessel. In addition to conducting scientific exploration, the Nautilus Exploration Program offers telepresence to explorers on shore via live video, audio, and data feeds from our ships. The program also includes an education component that brings educators and students on oceanographic expeditions. The 2014 expedition sponsors are the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Bechtel, the Viola and Panthers Foundations, Alcoa Foundation, Sea Research Foundation, Office of Naval Research, the National Geographic Society, University of Rhode Island, and additional private donors.


text:
Just thought I'd share this fun bulletin board we made for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The kids loved it when they found their own hand prints that they had traced and cut out from construction paper.
It was inspired by the quote , "Love is the key to the problems of the world", from the book Martin's Big Words. If you haven't already read it, it's a must read! The video is at the end of this post if you don't already have the book.
Each of the kids wrote their own dreams for the world.
Many of you have asked for the quote so I've included it in the download. You can grab both the heart template and quote here.
We also read about the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and answered questions about his life, completed some fun activities, a craft, and created a timeline of the events in his life.
You can grab these Martin Luther King, Jr. activities here.
You can watch the video of Martin's Big Words down below.


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The local Post Office has promised to investigate and resolve the problem of missing post thanks to a mass complaint brought by local expats.
For many expats living in and around Fethiye the postal service is one of the lifelines that helps them to keep in touch with friends, relatives and other back in the UK.
But recently one local resident Anita Aşar found that important letters sent from the UK to her post box in Fethiye were not arriving.
As a long term resident Anita knew that if she was having problems with the postal service then others probably would be too.
So she decided to find out and wrote an open letter that was published on Fethiye Times, featured in the local printed press and on internet forums asking if other residents were missing post.
The letter generated a huge response with over 100 people contacting her not just about missing post but poor customer service too.
Anita along with other concerned residents met with the post office manager recently and presented him with the emails and signatures collected and asked him to take action.
The manager has agreed to carry out a full audit of the postal system from Fethiye back to the UK and promises to improve customer services too.
However, the manager was at pains to point out that any post that is currently missing is unlikely to be traced and delivered.
So thanks to the efforts of people power we should all hopefully start to see some improvements in that essential lifeline – the post.


text:
Happy Friday to all!! I hope everyone survived the hurricane without any major issues, and if you were traveling you arrived safely.
Here are some gorgeous pics from our trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium last week in Cali. Aren't jellyfish so graceful?
My posts this week:
Keri Russell's Brooklyn brownstone.
Take me away Tuesday: Le Monde, Edinburgh.
World cliff diving off the ICA.
Recipe: edamame humus.
Here are some great things buzzing around:
I love these pocket square bowtie sets for guys!
An awesome idea for customizing your plain jane furniture.
Check out this super interesting Singapore home!
We have a flight back to Boston Sunday, fingers crossed hurricane Katia doesn't take over Logan. We are so blessed to have such a welcoming family out here, but I miss the city!


text: job details posted Thursday, May 31, 2018 location waterloo, ontario job category Industrial Support job type temporary reference number 2093294STFEN apply now Email this job print job description We are searching for students and permanent Assemblers to join the team for a summer term assignment. The position is from May- September 1st but could be ongoing for the right individualsWe are looking for committed people who are going to stay the summer duration or longer. If you have entry level assembly experience or have used dollies and carts for moving product we need your help!AdvantagesWhat is in it for you: - guaranteed hours between 32-40 hours/week- increased hours in July/August- $14.50/hour plus- hourly performance based on performance - Benefits through Randstad upon placement - Referral bonus program available - Weekly cheques with 4% vacation payout QualificationsWhat is required of you: - previous assembly experience - great attendance- willingness to learn and adapt- attention to detail- able to work independently or as part of a team- enjoys working to help others develop If you are interested in this opportunity review below the many options on how to apply.How to apply:1) Respond directly to this job posting2) Apply on www.randstad.ca3) Call 519-772-01814) Email firstname.lastname@example.com or email@example.com) Fax resume 519-772-0186Our services will not ever be at a cost to you. Registration with Randstad offers you the benefit of our industry knowledge and client database which spans over many industries.Randstad Waterloo is committed to helping you tackle the challenges and take advantage of promising career opportunities. Connect with us today to learn more about many positions we have to offer at the Waterloo Randstad.Jackie,NishaPhone Number:519.772.0181Fax Number:519.772.0186Randstad CanadaRandstad Canada is committed to building a diverse workforce reflective of the diversity of Canada. As a result, we promote employment equity and encourage candidates, especially those who identify as a woman, an Aboriginal person, a person with a disability or a member of a visible minority group, and any others who may contribute to the diversification of our workforce, to apply. Randstad Canada is also committed to developing an inclusive, barrier-free selection processes and work environments.If contacted in relation to a job opportunity, you should advise your Randstad Representative or your local Randstad branch in a timely fashion of the accommodation measures which must be taken to enable you to be assessed in a fair and equitable manner.Information received relating to accommodation measures will be addressed confidentially. For all feedback on equity and accommodation needs, please contact your local Randstad Canada Branch. share Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Google+


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Reuters Staff
1 Min Read
Sept 13 (Reuters) - Double Medical Technology Inc
* Says its Shenzhen IPO 3,223.7 times oversubscribed in online tranche
Source text in Chinese: bit.ly/2wWBUyJ (Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom)
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.
© 2018 Reuters. All Rights Reserved.


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Job Description
A Building Services consultancy with for over 25 years have been successfully delivering building services engineering projects. They specialise in the design and contract administration of mechanical, electrical and public health services as part of building refurbishments and new build schemes across the UK. In addition, the company provides Feasibility Studies, Condition Surveys and has Lead Consultancy experience.
The leading consultancy work principally in the commercial, healthcare, residential care, education, defence, retail and industrial sectors. Project values are often in excess of £10m. They have built up a strong sustainability background with experienced staff in low carbon design and low and zero carbon technologies.
You will play a big part in delivering these projects and will be given a lot of opportunity. In addition you will have genuine opportunity to progress to Associate level, private medical healthcare and pension. The working hours are flexible and very much suited to you.
As a Mechanical Design Engineer you will be responsible for the mechanical designs across a number of client projects in the UK. You will have the opportunity to work as part of a multi-disciplined team. You will also work with clients from concept/feasibility stage, conduct initial and detailed designs on major large scale projects, HVAC design calculations, Mechanical Designs on a number of projects across different sectors and liaison with architects, clients, structural engineers and contractors
This consultancy is looking for an engineer with skills and/or experience good Mechanical Design (Building Services) Engineering experience, good Mechanical Design skills, HVAC experience, knowledge of British Standards and Building regulations and good communication skills, both oral and written.


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The Onion is a United States comedy newspaper that also produces parody news programs. One of the funnier programs I've seen has an Al Qaeda spokesman complaining that the US is taking too long to replace the World Trade Center. The joke is that the spokesperson transparently wants the US to build a new one so his organization can attack it again, but is treated as if he is concerned with rebuilding for the same reasons Americans want to rebuild.
I thought of that when I read an opinion piece in the New York Times by Boris Gromov, a Russian commander who led in Afghanistan and Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's Ambassador to NATO. They want the US to remain in Afghanistan until the US achieves the successes the Russians achieved.
Recently there have been numerous appeals in Europe to curtail the presence of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan as soon as possible. The arguments underpinning such appeals are essentially both pacifist and irresponsible.I'm not going to say that I do not believe these officials are sincere, but it is an interesting idea to think of that maybe they are not. A failure of both the United States along with the entire NATO alliance in Afghanistan would be disastrous for the US and Europe, but may not be as bad for Russia. If NATO is discredited sufficiently, Russia will not have to worry about Georgia or other nearby nations hoping for outside support in challenging Moscow.
The national selfishness of peace-loving Europeans is understandable. There is a persistent flow of bad news from Afghanistan — military losses, scandalous incidents involving NATO soldiers, terrorist activity and the suffering of civilians.
No one likes bad news, especially if it comes from the provinces where one's country's soldiers are deployed. The Afghan problem causes growing irritation, fatigue and misunderstanding on the part of the public. Moreover, the state of their troops in the Afghan swamp mars NATO's image as "the most successful alliance in the world."
I repeat that I am not comfortable saying the Russians are being deceitful in this piece. Russia would benefit from the region remaining stable. Of course, Russia will not supply troops ...
We insist that NATO troops stay in the country until the necessary conditions are provided to establish stable local authorities capable of independently deterring radical forces and controlling the country. That is why we are helping NATO by providing transit for goods and training personnel for Afghanistan, including anti-narcotics officers.... but Russia is preparing rapid reaction forces just in case NATO is humiliated and has to leave in a disorganized fashion. In any event NATO should get to the business of learning the lessons Russia learned.
Nevertheless, our cooperation with NATO is substantially limited since we are not sending our own troops to Afghanistan. We've been there before and we did not like it. That said, we are training CSTO Rapid Reaction Forces — an operational formation of elite units from Russia and our allies in Central Asia — in case of a NATO fiasco.
Meanwhile, NATO should get down to studying our war in Afghanistan, in which the Soviet Union managed to deter the onslaught of Islamic fundamentalists for a full 10 years.Some important lessons Russia obviously learned are not to go back, and that the sooner Russia had left, the better it would have been for Russia.
Most likely the Russian strategists are being sincere in this essay. They want the US to succeed. It is humorous to ask the question, what if they are not.


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Novel approach to keeping travel agents on their toes - fine the hell out of 'em
As Leftfield, one of FlightGlobal's blogs says: "Airlines may say they love travel agents, and maybe they do, but they have an odd way of showing it."
Delta Airlines is making sure agencies tow the line by double-checking all bookings they make via a GDS for errors.
But the carrier will not just send a strongly worded email for cock-ups or other misdemeanors, oh no.
Passive bookings (ghost bookings) will see the agent charged $3.50.
Hmm. That's quite steep.
But a bank-busting $50 will slapped on agents automatically (via the Airlines Reporting Corp) if they make an invalid name-change to a booking or are found to be making naughty block bookings - which it calls "duplicative, fraudulent, fictitious, and speculative reservations" - to reserve fares.
Be warned - The Airlines Strike Back!
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: delta travel agent GDS


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The brand new iPhone 4S comes with Siri, an amazing personal assistant that can do a lot of things by voice command.
Unfortunately, Siri is still in the early stages of development, which means it cannot access your apps and every part of your iPhone.
I showed you how to tweet with Siri, and now, I am going to show you how to set up Facebook so that you can update your status with Siri as well.
Hopefully Siri will be able to launch apps and perform complex commands in the near future, but until then, you can text your Facebook status update with Siri.
(Read: What is Siri?)
How To Post to Facebook with Siri
Because Siri can send text messages, you need to enable your iPhone 4S on your Facebook account.
1. Log in to Facebook and click on the arrow next to Home.
2. Choose Settings – > Mobile (or click this link)
3. If your phone number isn't already added to Facebook, add it by following the on screen prompts.
4. You'll need to text Facebook and then enter a verification code so that you are the only one that can post on your account.
5. Add Facebook as a contact on your iPhone. I find that Siri does better if you add Facebook as a first name, rather than as a business.
6. Add the number 32665 to the Facebook contact.
7. Press and hold the home button for 2 seconds.
8. When Siri dings, Say, "Text Facebook, followed by your status update."
9. You'll need to keep your update under 160 characters and you need to speak punctuation.
10. Siri Will show you the message, and ask for confirmation. Press confirm, or say yes, to post to Facebook.
These status updates will appear on your Facebook timeline just as if you used the iPhone app or posted on your computer. This is a handy way to update Facebook while you are on the go.


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Security! Did someone call Security!!!
Here is another man flanked with children... so sexy, even if they are Redskins fans.
This was hands-down my favorite picture! I love a Cheeky Bloke.
This is my husband's twin brother and my nephew. I would cry too if my mommy put me in that stupid suit. Poor buddy... Aunt Crissy would never dress you like that. I will have a talk with your mother.
And Now... onto those other guys:
I should have put Vince first because he is from Chicago and he is tall and he makes me laugh. There is nothing sexier than a man that can make a woman laugh so much that she tinkles a little.
Mercy. Val Kilmer... Ice Man... Swoon. Thank you Mr. Kilmer for awakening my sexual being in my formidable teen years. My husband would like to shake your hand.
Okay, when I said I didn't add anyone to the list personally, I lied. I added Tom Cruise... before he was a Scientologist and jumping on Oprah's couch. It's the flight suit... I just couldn't help it.
Hello Mr. Baker... how are you? Would you like to gaze into my eyes and run away with me? Okay... I'll get my overnight bag. Let me call a babysitter too.
"THUD" That was me falling off of my chair. MMMMM Ryan, you had me at your six-pack. My cousin-in-law Shanie sent me this... my little sister Claire will be licking her computer screen when she sees it.
I think we should all go out and rent Top Gun tonight because all of the men made it in here... except for Goose. Poor Goose, he didn't even take his shirt off at the volleyball scene, but Rick here, he had his shirt off and I decided to not go to the nunery right after watching that movie. Phew!
Lord Have Mercy. Let me just pull these up for you a bit... or just leave them the way they are. Thank you.
MMMMcDreamy. Let's all just look at him for a moment shall we. Nice, very nice. I love the grey in his scruff... those blue eyes... his regal nose.... that floppy hair. Swoon.
OH MY GAWD!!! I love tall, dark, smoldering, mysterious, exotic... Oded Fehr, I even like saying your name. Don't look at me like that Oded, I'll never get anything done today.
Oh Mr. Dracy, which are you Pride or Prejudice? I could never figure that one out... but I love you. I honestly do.
Here's another one... hat on-hot, hat off-bald. But that is Okay, who is paying attention to his bald head when you have to get past the fact that he is shorter than you and probably weighs less as well... but he lives on the beach so SCORE!
Okay, I realize I should have posted this man at the very tip tip top of this blog since apparently 99% of you watch Lost and would gladly have this man's babies. Josh Halloway, do you realize how loved you are? I wonder... I also think I may need to go to the video store and rent all of the previous seasons of Lost to catch myself up on this guy. What have I been missing!!
I think I just felt my uterus scream out in desire. I had a GREAT pic of Josh here naked as a jay-bird, but the rules said I could not post it... so I just saved it to my hard drive. Look at how dirty he is... I think he needs a bath, a bubble bath.
Here's aonther man that makes no apologies... and that is HOT! Has anyone seen the movie "Crank?" Enough said.
Lets all be silent for a moment and pretend that we are the towel... be the towel, know the towel... remove the towel. hehe.
Killing two birds with one stone. Hello Bond... James Bond, Hello Mr. Jones-Indiana Jones. Men of substance-very nice.
In my next life I want to come back as a young waitress so that George Clooney will date me. No need to thank me Mrs. Firefly for this photog, thank George.
Eduardo Verastegui, please don't look at me like that, I can't leave my husband for you... no matter how many times you ask me to with those smoldering eyes and those luscious lips. I will always say no. Ask me one more time...
Dennis Quaid... how do you do it? How do you have the body of a 25 year old? I want to know... but please don't tell me you only eat fish and cottage cheese and work out 8 hours a day, you'll ruin it for me. Let's just pretend that God has blessed you with those abs for us women to swoon over.
Becks... no matter how skinny your wife is, I still believe that you like girls with a little meat on their bones. Right? RIGHT?
David, I dont care if you are addicted to sex... you are so tall that I will overlook all of the negatives about your persona. Just don't speak... let us look at you.
Look at that smile. Couldn't you just curl up on a couch with him and spend the rest of your life happy in that smile. Lordy.
Clive, don't be so angry. It is Okay... you will be able to beat those guys up that you don't like for my honor-really. I didn't mean to make you jealous-I promise. I know how you don't like to be jealous and you will rip the head off of any man that makes a move on your woman. Have mercy.
Do you know that when I went searching for a photo of Cary Grant, he was the easiest to find a naked pic of? Not that I was searching for naked pics of these men, but Cary Grant's naked pic was just there, staring back at me. Go google Cary Grant and click on the images... you'll see what I am talking about. You are welcome.
I know, I know... Brad Pitt left his cute little wife for a homewrecker like Jolie... but look at him in Fight Club. Hello tough guy... how you doin'
Andrew Younghusband... I don't know who you are, but apparently someone, somewhere thinks you are swoon-worthy, and I am not about to questions another woman's swooning abilities.