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Registration for students new to the district can be accessed at any time online by clicking here. In-person registration at Willie Brown will begin on Thursday, July 26th during office hours (8:30 a.m.-11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m.) and will occur daily.
One evening registration session will be offered at Willie Brown on Thursday, July 26th, from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm.
Returning student online enrollment will be available July 23rd in Skyward. Proof of residence is also required and can be emailed to email@example.com. Proof of residence is a current gas, water, or electric bill with dates of service in May or later.
Class Assignment
Current Proof of Residence is required for all returning families. Families who have provided their Proof of Residence AND completed returning student online enrollment by August 6th, may contact the office to receive their homeroom teacher assignment. Otherwise, you will need to bring your Proof of Residence to the Meet the Teacher event held the evening of Monday, August 13th to receive the teacher assignment.
Current Proof of Residence (gas, water, or electric bill with SERVICE dates within the last 30 days (and dates of service in May or later), parent/guardian's name, and student name may be emailed to email@example.com.
Meet the Teacher will be held on August 13th from 5:30-7:00 p.m. This evening is an opportunity to meet the teacher and take school supplies to the classroom. Current Proof of Residence and online student registration MUST be submitted on or before the evening of Meet the Teacher to receive the teacher assignment.
Parent Orientation Night
Teachers will present information to parents about procedures, expectations, goals, and systems that are campus wide, team specific, subject specific, and teacher specific. There will also be a Q&A session at the end. Please see below for your grade level dates and times.
Pre-K and Kindergarten Orientation will be held on Monday, August 13th at 5:00 PM
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Seek Crestline Jobs OnlineResumeGator recommends Crestline job seekers to add an ExpertRating online certification to their resume. These certifications can be obtained quite easily from any computer with an Internet connection. The certifications help employers assess your exact skill in a particular area and boost your chances of landing a good job.
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Dr. Paul Beresford-Hill Named New Chairman of The English-Speaking Union of the United States
Dr. Paul Beresford-Hill MBE was elected Chairman of The English-Speaking Union of the United States unanimously at a meeting of its Board of Directors on September 27, 2015. His two-year term of office began immediately. Dr. Beresford-Hill was selected to lead the English-Speaking Union of the United States for his global experience as a scholar, educator, administrator and author.
Paul Beresford-Hill is a distinguished educator who has worked at the secondary and tertiary educational systems of the US and the UK. A graduate of both Oxford University and Columbia, he has been a Research Associate at the Oxford Department of Educational Studies, Senior Member of Wadham College, Oxford, and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University Teacher's College. He has worked in the USA, the UK and Asia, and was Chief Administrator for Global Learning at Dowling College in Long Island. From 1999 to 2004 he was Director of Bangkok Patana School, the British International School in Thailand, one of the largest international schools in Asia.


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Subaru BRZ - Titanium Strut Tower Nuts
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These six titanium nuts add a touch of style to compliment your Subaru BRZ engine bay. All nuts are CNC machined from high performance Grade 5 6AL-4V Titanium for high strength and light weight.
Nuts are finished in your choice of color. Burnt, Silver, Blue and Gold are usually in stock and ready to ship the same week. All other colors take approximately 2 weeks to produce before shipping.
Note: Photos are for illustration purposes only; actual size and/or quantity may vary. Please see description above for quantities included in this package.


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Train will debut a new song called "Brand New Book†during the premiere of NBC's The Biggest Loser tomorrow  (9/27). Â
A clip of the song will play during the opening credits of the show all season.  According to Billboard, frontman Pat Monahan was writing extensively over the summer and has about half an album's worth of new songs. The band will go into the studio in November to start recording their next album.  They'll then head out on the road for a tour of China and Southeast Asia in December and finish the album in January.
(Ed Note, wouldn't it be bad karma to debut on something called Biggest Loser? Just sayin')
/Lee Ann Waterrs


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SEE Photos: The Making of Pulp Fiction in Stills, Snapshots, and Script Pages
"I wasn't sure I wanted to be in the movie," Uma Thurman tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Mark Seal of Pulp Fiction. Thurman explains that it wasn't just the obscenity, or her character's drug habit—it was also the rape of her crime-boss husband. "Pretty frightening," she says. Referring to the boarding-school environment she was coming from, Thurman says, "I was 23, from Massachusetts." It took a lot of work on Tarantino's part to convince her. "He wasn't this revered demigod auteur that he has grown into. And I wasn't sure I wanted to do it, because I was worried about the Gimp stuff," she adds, referring to the leather-clad character who emerges from a cage, set to have his way with the bound-and-gagged Marsellus Wallace. "We had very memorable, long discussions about male rape versus female rape. No one could believe I even hesitated in any way. Neither can I, in hindsight."
Thurman says that, of all the scenes she was nervous about, it was dancing with John Travolta that intimidated her the most, "because I was so awkward and embarrassed and shy." Travolta also remembers the scene: "Quentin recommended the Twist. And I said, 'Well, Little Johnny Travolta won the Twist contest when I was eight years old, so I know every version. But you may add other novelty dances that were very special in the day.' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'There was the Batman, the Hitchhiker, the Swim, as well as the Twist.' And I showed them to him, and he loved them. I said, 'I'll teach Uma the steps, and when you want to see a different step, call it out.'"
In retrospect it's hard to believe that Quentin Tarantino would have had trouble getting a script developed, but every major studio passed on Pulp Fiction. It was Harvey Weinstein, then running Miramax under Disney, who couldn't close the deal fast enough. "When I read the Pulp Fiction script, I went to him [then chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg] and said, 'Even though I have the right to make this, I want to clear it with you.' He read it and said, 'Easy on the heroin scene, if you can, but that is one of the best scripts I have ever read. Even though you don't need it, I am giving you my blessing.'"
Casting proved to be one of the biggest challenges in making the movie. Harvey Weinstein was dead-set against giving the role of Vincent Vega to John Travolta. "John Travolta was at that time as cold as they get," says Mike Simpson, Tarantino's agent at William Morris Endeavor. "He was less than zero." Simpson had given Weinstein a "term sheet" of Tarantino's demands, which included final cut, a two-and-a-half-hour running time, and final choice of actors. "One of the actors I had on the list was John Travolta," says Tarantino. "And it came back: 'The entire list is approved . . . except for John Travolta.' So I got together with Harvey, and he's like, 'I can get Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Penn, William Hurt.'" By then, according to Simpson, "Daniel Day-Lewis and Bruce Willis, who was the biggest star in Hollywood, had both gotten their hands on the script and wanted to play Vincent Vega."
The negotiations for Travolta came down to the wire. "At midnight our time, three in the morning in New York, Harvey said, 'Let's just close the deal, and we'll address that tomorrow in good faith,'" Simpson recalls. But Simpson told him, "You're going to agree to it right now, or there's no deal." Later, when the Weinsteins saw the finished film in Los Angeles, Harvey announced facetiously, 20 minutes into the screening, according to Richard Gladstein, then head of production at Miramax, "I'm so glad I had the idea to cast John Travolta."
Bruce Willis's interest in the project relieved Weinstein's concerns that the movie lacked bankable stars. With the main role of Vincent Vega already cast, the only option for Willis was Butch, the boxer—which Tarantino had promised to Matt Dillon. "So he gave Matt the script," Simpson tells Seal, "and he read it and said, 'I love it. Let me sleep on it.' Quentin then called me and said, 'He's out. If he can't tell me face-to-face that he wants to be in the movie—after he read the script—he's out.'" So the role went to Willis. "Once I got Bruce Willis, Harvey got his big movie star, and we were all good," says Tarantino. "Bruce Willis made us legit. Reservoir Dogs did fantastic internationally, so everyone was waiting for my new movie. And then when it was my new movie with Bruce Willis, they went apeshit."
The role of Jules Winnfield proved difficult to cast, mainly because Samuel L. Jackson was under the impression the part was his, until he found out he was in danger of losing the role to Paul Calderon. Jackson flew out to L.A. for a last-ditch audition with Tarantino. "I sort of was angry, pissed, tired," Jackson recalls. He was also hungry, so he bought a takeout burger on his way to the studio, only to find nobody there to greet him. "When they came back, a line producer or somebody who was with them said, 'I love your work, Mr. Fishburne,'" says Jackson. "It was like a slow burn. He doesn't know who I am? I was kind of like, Fuck it. At that point I really didn't care." Gladstein remembers Jackson's audition: "In comes Sam with a burger in his hand and a drink in the other hand and stinking like fast food. Me and Quentin and Lawrence were sitting on the couch, and he walked in and just started sipping that shake and biting that burger and looking at all of us. I was scared shitless. I thought that this guy was going to shoot a gun right through my head. His eyes were popping out of his head. And he just stole the part." Lawrence Bender adds, "He was the guy you see in the movie. He said, 'Do you think you're going to give this part to somebody else? I'm going to blow you motherfuckers away.'"


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Previously on MMMMMovies:
Yesterday the Duke and I began our meticulous discussion of Walerian Borowczyk's infamous nunsploitation effort, Behind Convent Walls. (Click here to read Part I.) When we left our excellencies, we had just finished discussing a scene in which a near-unconscious Sister Clara is taken by the bare-bottomed cad Roderigo, in a long, lingering love (?) scene. Today we pick up where we left off in the transcription of the raw audio, with the Duke and the Vicar deeper in their cups and more free with their glee.
Today--the Capenter Nun's prize-winning project, a consideration of what makes nuns so darned sexy, and some completely tangential yet entirely appropriate Naschy love.
Warning: the even remotely religiously reverent should stop reading now and go to the 700 Club website or something. We'll all be happier.
Really. I'm not kidding.
Okay. You were warned!
Roderigo's questionable seduction of Clare is not the only explicit scene we had—I know you're a big fan of the whittling girl.
D: Yes, yes.
V: What happens is, the Meat Man is outside, and he's chopping wood—IYKWIM—and a piece of the kindling flies up, because he's such a ramrod strong guy he could put his cock through a wall—
D: Everything is a metaphor in this movie.
V: Everything is innuendo.
D: There's nothing left unturned; every scene has a purpose.
V: So he is chopping his log, as it were, and a piece of his wood flies up through the window, IYKWIM.
V: And one of the nuns grabs the LONG, HARD piece of wood—
D: And thinks, "Oh my God! This could TOTALLY be a phallus!"
V: She gets a piece of glass to cut with, and then goes back to her room and whittles herself a dildo.
D: And this isn't any normal dildo—we're talking about a cucumber-esque, 3-inches in diameter wooden phallus. But the CAPPER, as it were, is a perfect rendition of the face of Christ on the base of the dildo!
D: I can just imagine the props guy for this movie. "Now what we need is a dildo." "All right, I can carve a wooden dildo. I can knock one of those off in half an hour." "But what we need on the base of it is, THIS!" And they hold up a picture of Jesus!
V: Our Lord and Savior.
D: Yes. I can imagine this guy back at his wood shop, carving Jesus into the base of a dildo, thinking, "Yep—it's Hell for me!"
V: Especially an Italian guy!
D: Exactly! "There's no escaping this—I might as well not even confess, because I'm just going straight to Hell!"
V: There's no penance, for this.
D: "There's no amount of Hail Marys or Our Fathers that could POSSIBLY make a difference now."
V: Let's go ahead and talk about the scene—because I know you want to—where the Christ Dildo gets put to use.
D: Oh, my god—not only do we get explicit penetration, but we get BLOOD. Which, I was like, "Holy fuck!"
V: Literally!
D: Not only are they showing this thing going into this nun, but there's BLOOD on the thing…
V: She throws the thing into a basin of water, I believe, and there's these clouds of blood rising…
ON it, as it's going…
[The Bar Wench returneth, a shocked look on her face]
BW: Something else?
D: You know, for some reason I really feel like some chili cheese fries.
BW: Um …okay. [she leaveth, in haste]
V: We did get a very explicit scene there, and it just went ON and ON. Not only was she using the Christ Cock in such a blasphemous and AWESOME way, but she was…it wasn't enough for her to feel it—
D: Oh no no no! She had to see it, going into her! Through the ingenious use of a hand mirror, she watched in various positions. What killed me was, she watched for a while lying on her back, you know, and then, "Well, you know, I wanna get on my knees," so she turns over, tries to look in the mirror, but she can't really see what's going on.
V: And that's not gonna work.
D: So she keeps maneuvering around, trying to get the best view…of, basically, Christ fucking her. Which you'd WANT TO SEE, right?
V: I mean, you've GOTTA see that!
D: I mean, Christ is carved on the base for a reason! You want to know that it is in fact Jesus fucking you. And let's be frank here--who doesn't want to be fucked by Jesus?
V: I know *I* do.
D: Exactly! Sign me up! [laughs]
V: It's a gift from God, really.
D: Just think what would take hold, from His seed spilled into your rectum. What unholy thing would spring forth!
V: [long pause] I…I just really don't know where to go from there, man. You've rendered me speechless, and probably damned by association.
D: It's a talent I have, and a curse.
V: Moving on... So later the Mother Superior comes in, and she discovers the Christ Cock—
D: And she wants to know what's going on.
V: Yeah, "What *is* this thing?" Because she's never seen anything like it, I mean, she's never—
D: No, she wouldn't have!
V: She's never put anything in her cooch, her entire life.
D: Her cooter is dry as a bone.
V: So she asks the young nun, "What is this for? What were you doing right before I came in here?" And the killer for me is that the nun completely shows her! She's like, "Well, okay, I was doing THIS! I was fucking myself with Jesus!"
D: "I think I got a splinter! But it was worth it!"
V: [laughs himself to damnation, takes another sip of his beer] God damn. The Avery Reverend is kicking my ass.
D: You can see why "feared by Satan" is on the label.
V: Talking of which, I was surprised that Satan didn't show up in this movie.
D: Yeah, because usually there's at least some kind of imagery, if nothing else.
V: Right. For instance in Malabimba…
[distracted by shininess outside pub window] Okay, a hearse just went by.
D: Driven by what looked like Keith Richards. In fact, it may have been!
V: Keith Richards is actually dead, you know. It's just that the drugs haven't worked their way through his system yet. If he ever cleans up, he's just going to disintegrate, like in the Poe story, "The Case of Msr. Waldemar"…
D: Right.
V: Or, not Waldemar, I'm thinking of Daninsky. Naschy—we can't go through a session like this without Naschy coming up.
D: No—it's been almost 30 minutes, without a Naschy reference. I think that's a record.
V: I don't know whether Naschy ever made a nunsploitation movie.
D: No, but he SHOULD have. Oh my god…
V: He's still alive. There's still time. He could direct one, *and* he could play Satan.
D: Agh…
V: For our readers, the Duke just made the "O" face.
D: I'd rather him play Satan, and it could be directed by Coffin Joe. Of course, that would be a world-ender.
V: Indeed—"starring Paul Naschy, directed by Jose Mojica Marins"…I mean, the Apocalypse would happen, right there. But it would be totally worth it.
D: I would watch it, and then kill myself.
V: Well, you would have to. Or maybe you couldn't, because your eyes would be bleeding…
D: My brain would turn to mush, I'd let out a massive roar as I orgasmed into my robes, then I would expire.
V: It's really a shame that Naschy and Mojica have not gotten together.
D: Yeah, it really is. Because that would be the perfect storm of awesome.
V: I mean, I really—we're getting afield of the topic, but I think we should record this for posterity—I really think that Naschy…you know I love Naschy. I mean, you know I would totally go gay for Naschy.
D: Oh yeah. Who wouldn't?
V: Who wouldn't, exactly. But I think that, as a director—Naschy, he's got the childlike joy, he's got the monsters, I love Paul Naschy. But I really think that Mojica is a better filmmaker.
D: Agreed. Naschy doesn't have the depth of depravity that's required to make the most truly unholy of films.
V: So if he were an actor in a movie written and directed by Jose Mojica Marins, then the world would have to end.
D: Exactly.
V: In my dream world, which is a much better world than the world we live in, that pairing would happen. Well, I guess we should get back to Behind Convent Walls…
D: Yes.
V: Now, there is a difference—we were talking about the Devil not showing up in this movie. There is a difference between nunsploitation movies in which—
D: I'm sorry, I have to pause here—I notice in the Vicar's notes, he's got in all-caps: "SWORD CANE!" [Laughs] That's awesome.
V: Yes! The Mother Superior with the sword cane.
D: It's so inexplicably awesome.
V: She's stabbing through mattresses trying to find pornographic drawings…
D: It's obviously the perfect device for a Mother Superior to have, but it's the first time I've actually seen it put on film.
V: Now the Mother Superior meets a rather ignominious end, as she is poisoned with an overdose of opium from the drug-addled nun they have in there. They put opium in her tea, and for some reason it's fatal.
D: It's just a hot shot of opium.
V: And when she dies, it occasions one of the great scenes in the movie, because the nuns just completely FLIP OUT!
D: With absolutely no oversight.
[The Bar Wench returneth yet again]
BW: You guys doin' all right?
D: Damn and blast your eyes, woman! Can't you see we're conversing here?
V: No, wait, my friend—I'd like to order a Xingu Lager.
BW: [pauseth] All right. [leaveth]
D: I apologize, but really, this insubordination among the help is inexcusable. [tents fingers, arches eyebrow] She must be punished.
V: Something tells me you were thinking of appropriate punishments well before her first transgression.
D: Some people are born needing punishment.
V: I think she arrived at her need sometime after puberty.
D: Let's hope so, at any rate.
V: But moving on—when the Mother Superior's death is announced in the convent, in a wild frenzy the nuns just dash out into the hallway, running naked up and down the corridors—as you do.
D: Except for the wimples! They always wear the wimples.
V: Now, we haven't discussed why it is that nuns are so sexy. And I know that you, as a connoisseur of the nunsploitation genre, would have some thoughts on this subject.
D: Hmm. [strokes chin thoughtfully] What is it? The innocence? The defilement of the good? The thought that these nuns are cloistered away, obviously indulging in these kinds of things behind closed doors? It has a certain power over the imagination.
Alucarda, which for me is still the pinnacle. But the more I think about Behind Convent Walls, the more awesome it seems to me. I mean, basically it's your standard "Randy Nuns in the Convent" kind of thing, but you add the explicit Jesus dildo scene, you add the explicit sex, the oral sex with Clara—
[The Bar Wench returneth—setteth down the drinks, leaveth most hurriedly]
V: [looks after her suspiciously] You don't think she's spying, do you? I mean, for THEM?
D: The Inquisitors? They wouldn't dare! Not after the rogering I gave the Grand Inq last time. There's a reason they call him "Tuck-a-mata" now.
V: Anyway—you've got Veronica, who's the sorority girl type here, she goes kind of crazy at the end and starts believing she's got the stigmata because she's hurt her hands on a crown of thorns made of roses, which I think is a brilliant image. There's a lot of stuff with the roses and the thorns, with Veronica especially. She gets blood on her finger early on from a thorn during the Frolic in the Chapel, and she sucks the blood from her finger VERY suggestively.
D: And awesomely.
V: After she finds out that her aristocratic relatives have gone to America and she has no power because they're away, she goes CRAZY. She starts feeling up a statue of the Virgin Mary, for instance.
D: Also awesome.
D: That's another thing I wanted to touch upon, because obviously this guy Walerian had a bone to pick with the Catholic church.
V: IYKWIM! It seems to be something with the Italians especially, which is no surprise. I mean, they've got the Vatican City right there in the middle of Rome.
D: So there's nothing more taboo than banging a nun. PURE SHOCK CINEMA in Italy would obviously have to include the defilement of the Holy Roman Church.
V: Now at the very end, as in many of these movies, we have THE INQUISITION coming in.
D: Which no one expects.
V: I was *completely* caught off guard by that. The guy who comes in, though, the Bishop, he looks a lot like Jack Palance to me.
D: He does!
"Whatever happens in the convent…STAYS in the convent!"
D: Just like Vegas.
V: Exactly.
D: You know, I just wonder in the real world how much convent lesbianry the Vatican has had to cover up.
V: All of it, I'd imagine. But it would be an interesting anthropological study.
D: It would be. Because you know it's going on. It *has* to go on.
V: Well, yeah. Perhaps…I don't know—how much of our perception is affected by these movies, or how much do the movies reflect reality?
D: Yeah. I'm sure if we went over to Italy, and dug up some remote convent, it would be full of old crones.
V: Indeed. The whole "real-life lesbian" story is generally not nearly as alluring as it's been portrayed on film.
D: I mean, that may go over in some circles, but it's not *my* "Images in the Convent."
V: Oh, there's another great one, Images in a Convent. You can read that one on Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies. [belch] The readers should know that the Duke and I have been partaking in *very* high alcohol beer for quite a while now. I actually have a beer standing here I haven't even touched.
D: I have some Reverend squeezin's to get rid of.
V: Oooer! But we need to return to our favorite character, The Meat Man. Because he meets a rather ignominious fate as well.
D: Yes, his demise is much celebrated.
V: When the Mother Superior ends up dead, unfortunately for our Meat Man he was inside the convent, banging one of the nuns over a crate full of chickens.
D: Which is an image *everyone* needs to see!
V: So he's trying to escape the convent while everybody is trying to figure out who killed the Mother Superior, and of course *he* gets blamed, unjustly. He's chased down by the villagers, and I believe he's killed at that point, or if not he's at least beaten very severely. And really all he wanted was to get his meat into the convent.
D: He just wanted to work his joint.
V: Put a hole through the wall. Bang a few nuns. And who among us hasn't had similar thoughts?
Thanks and thanks again to Tenebrous Kate for providing the copy of the film that both the Duke and the Vicar devoured with much rapacious hunger! And tune in tomorrow for the third and final installment in this, the longest review ever on MMMMMovies. Please read! Otherwise we will have been banned from our favorite pub in vain!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Behind Convent Walls (1977), Part 2 of 3: Into the Lower Depths
Previously on MMMMMovies:
Posted by The Vicar of VHS at 7:00 AM
Labels: '70s, 3+ Thumbs, Nunsploitation, Paul Naschy, Round Table
2 comments:
- Tenebrous Kate said...
I'm fairly certain that the reason Naschy never made a nunsploiter is that the focus on women would detract from what he knows to be his beefy awesomeness ;)
- March 26, 2009 at 7:38 AM
- The Duke of DVD said...
Indeed. I know I, for one, would be saying things like "Who put this naked nun in front of my shirtless Naschy? Get outta the way, wench!" while watching this mythical film. Perhaps it's best he didn't delve into this genre, staying instead with his mastery of werewolf movies, and seeing bitches in chains.
- March 26, 2009 at 9:26 AM


text: 10/25/2007 (08:30PM - 09:00PM) (Thursday) : When Liz (Tina Fey) meets her idol, Rosemary Howard (Guest Star Carrie Fisher), she invites her to be a guest writer on the show. However, Rosemary's radical ideas that Liz grew up admiring are now too controversial for Liz's NBC show. When Liz refuses to fire Rosemary, Jack (Alec Baldwin) pressures Liz, who promptly quits. Jack brings Tracy (Tracy Morgan) to a therapist to figure out why he must do the opposite that he is told. Meanwhile, after Jenna (Jane Krakowski) ruins Kenneth's (Jack McBrayer) page jacket, Kenneth must compete in a page-off in order to keep his job. Carrie Fisher guest stars; Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Lonny Ross, Katrina Bowden, John Lutz, Maulik Pancholy, Kevin Brown and Grizz Chapman also star.


text:
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Vive La France! Madonna Celebrates Her 55th Birthday in France
7 comments:
She looks great and Lourdes looks gorgeous!ReplyDelete
She is brilliant! Her Top Fivers on her birthdayReplyDelete
1. Something to Remember
2. Live to Tell
3. Masterpiece
4. Like a Prayer
5. Ray of Light
Happy Birthday Madonna!!
Happiest Birthday EVER Madonna! You are beyond.ReplyDelete
Is that Lady GaGa WTH HER??ReplyDelete
LETTER FOR LA NONNA IN HER BIRTHDAYReplyDelete
Another birthday, another year to endure that plump and huge face with manly legs. But we've already get used to see her fooling around like BobSponge, haven't we?
So she's been in France... AGAIN. La Nonna has turned to France in recent years because it's the only country that pays a little attention to her terminated career. I guess moving to Paris is her her career move. Well, that's way better than Las Vegas, isn't it?
I've been appalled by recent pictures of her. I feel sorry for her when I see her wearing those grillz. Riiing Riiing! Hello Nonna? Just to tell you you're 55. Now people stopped laughing at her attemps at being trendy: now they feel sorry. Advice 1: Act your age, Nonna and stop being so pathetic; advice 2: quit that shit Kablahblah that's ruining your life; advice 3: get rid of asshole Oseary and bring Freddie de Mann back; advice 4: stop adopting niggas and drop that Malawi shit for good (titless Angelina did it all first); advice 5: stop delivering those BORING messianic messages (nobody crowned you Saviour of the World and we don't want you to be) and advice 6: get those dreadful fillers off your face and change your haircut. I'd add a 7th advice if I may: get rid off those hideous outfits you seem to prefer for off-camera life: iranian foulards, black trousers, hats, fingerless gloves, etc (we've been seeing you wear this shit from 2007 onwards).
By the way, her fat daughter already looks like a whore (like mom, like daughter)and her ugly son (boy is he ugly!)is to launch a music career (?????)OMG! Do we have yet to endure this?
Now I'll have to read la Tony's comments about me being nasty "everytime la Nonna does something great", or so goes the stupidity she said some time ago.
Puddie, don't be such a bitch and don't delete my comment. As Nonna says, I'm expressing myself.ReplyDelete
Kiss & hugs for all Nonna's fandom
Wait, didn't Madonna, the one who doesn't have a fan base anymore apparently, top the Forbes list this year and also have the #1 grossing tour in the world? Oh and wouldn't Madonna be the same artist who, just over a year ago, set a record as the most watched half-time at the Superbowl that even a year later, Beyonce, HUGE GLOBAL SUPERSTAR, couldnt even surpass?ReplyDelete
Oh, yeah, that's right. jejejejejejajajajaja.
Madonna has been over since 1982.


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Workers at Hyatt Hotels have asked patrons to boycott their workplaces. In conjunction with a group of religious scholars supportive of labor rights, they have addressed a special plea to participants in AAR/SBL to boycott the Hyatt McCormick Place and Hyatt Regency in conjunction with the conference. They're asking attendees not to stay at, eat, or attend panels or interviews at those two hotels.
A petition you can sign at the link above will be delivered to the AAR and SBL Boards of Directors in advance of the conference. A strong, early show of support from scholars affiliated with the organizations will allow them to pull conference events from Hyatt early, and prevent them from forcing attendees to choose between attending events and respecting picket lines.
In Chicago, Hyatt has refused to adopt the contract that other major hotels abide by. Nationally, the boycott against Hyatt is based around their use of exploitative subcontracting arrangements, poor working conditions for housekeepers (and lobbying to prevent regulatory improvements), and other reasons explained here.
I have worked alongside the UNITE HERE union in many capacities, as an organizer in my first post-college job, as an ally when I was in local government, and as a member in my college dining hall. In the labor movement at large they are passionate advocates, tactical innovators, and well known for empowering workers as leaders in the union structure and as a "countervailing force" within their own workplaces. I have complained in other venues about dumb boycotts, but this is a principled and effective use of the tactic. (It's notable, and common to boycotts led by this union, that they are called by workers in the hotels, who go into it knowing that reduced business means short-term sacrifice of their hours and tips in exchange for long-term strength.)
It's by comment-section felicity that I ended up connected to this community, and I'm grateful to have the soapbox to connect something personally important to me to you. Please sign the pledge and help persuade AAR/SBL to move its conference business out of Hyatt.


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Limitations to Restoring BAK Files
When restoring a SQL Server database back-up file in the Hosting Control Panel, you are limited to using BAK files that you created using the back-up feature in our Hosting Control Panel. You are not able to restore a BAK file that was created outside of our system. There are several reasons we have established this restriction:
- Based on the Microsoft® security best practices, hosting providers should not enable users to restore BAK files from sources outside the hosting provider.
- Certain security vulnerabilities can be passed through a BAK file, effectively allowing a malicious attacker to execute arbitrary code within a hosting provider's protected environment.
Based on this information, we observe the Microsoft® security recommendations and disallow restores of SQL Server BAK files that did not originate from a backup within our system. Therefore, you are not able to use the SQL Server restore feature to import a BAK file that came from a database outside our system or from a different hosting account.
For additional information about restoring your database, see the following articles:


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All players must wear rubber–soled tennis shoes. Rubber cleats and raised heel shoes are prohibited.
No food, alcoholic beverages or glass in court area.
No pets, skateboards, bicycles, roller blades, roller skates or street hockey are allowed on tennis courts or any other non-tennis activity.
Non M-NCPPC tennis classes or private/group lessons without permit and/or involving the collection of fees are prohibited.
Non-permitted play is limited to 1 hour for singles and 2 hours for doubles play when others are waiting.
Organized group activity is prohibited without a permit and violators will be subject to removal or fine by Park Police. This includes activity that is more than doubles play.
Permit holders are entitled to use tennis courts on dates and times specified in the permit.
Play begins on the hour and ends on the hour.
Solicitation of any business, trade or occupation is strictly prohibited unless authorized by a permit. This including, but not limited to: conducting class instruction for a fee and the taking of photographs and/or videos for commercial use, selling tennis services or products.
Violators of these rules should be reported to the Park Police by calling 301-459-3232.
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Does Vitamin C thin the blood and is it helpful in glaucoma patients?
Moderator: ofonorow
Kay wrote:Does Vitamin C thin the blood and is it helpful in glaucoma patients?
Nutrition and Glaucoma
For decades, eye doctors have approached glaucoma as a loss of peripheral vision resulting from optic nerve damage caused by elevated fluid pressure in the eye. However, eyes with normal fluid pressure can also lose peripheral vision. Now researchers suspect a nerve toxin may be involved in the common form of glaucoma. Glaucoma patients exhibit an abnormally high concentration of glutamate in the vicinity of the optic nerve.17 Glutamate is a primary chemical used in the transmission of optic nerve impulses. Housed inside the nerve sheath, it is innocuous. As optic nerves die off at a normal rate and release small amounts of glutamate, surrounding Muller cells detoxify the area. But glutamate may overwhelm the Muller cells and destroy surrounding cells, thus releasing more nerve-toxic glutamate, resulting in an accelerated loss of vision that is typically observed in the end stages of glaucoma.
While nerve-protective drugs may take years to develop, an array of natural nerve protectors may be able to minimize glutamate toxicity. These include vitamin B12 (methylcobalamin),<18 SAMe (S-adenosylmethionine),18 ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba),19 vitamin E,19 coenzyme Q10,19 folic acid,20 and magnesium.21
Japanese researchers prescribed 28 glaucoma patients a high oral-dose of 1,500 mcg/day vitamin B12 for five years in an open-label study to evaluate the vitamin's influence on vision. The patients receiving B12 experienced less measurable loss of peripheral vision, more stable visual acuity, and better control of eye fluid pressure compared to a group that did not take B12.22 The effects of vitamin B12 are attributed to the preservation of myelin, which insulates nerve cells. Results of this study were achieved with methylcobalamin, a readily absorbable form of vitamin B12.
Cyanocobalamin, the more common form of vitamin B12 present in vitamin supplements, has not been effective in other studies of optic nerve disorders.23
Various studies reveal that Greenland Eskimos have lower rates of glaucoma than other Caucasian populations, an observation attributed to the consumption of omega-3 fish oil. Omega-3 fats appear to help prevent optic nerve disorders. A proprietary combination of DHA-rich fish oil, vitamin E, and vitamin B complex widened the visual field of 30 glaucoma patients within 90 days in an open-label, nonrandomized study.24
In animal studies, researchers were able to lower ocular fluid pressure, a measure of glaucoma, by injecting a very large dose of 0.2 mL/day cod liver oil. Reduction was from 21 mmHg to 18, with injections of 1 mL/day lowering pressure to 14.5 mmHg.25
There is also evidence that lutein and zeaxanthin also help protect the optic nerve. The nerve layer of the retina, near where nerve cells exit the eye and connect to the brain, is protected from oxidative damage by lutein. Researchers have found that a lack of lutein in this nerve bundle may be an early sign of glaucoma.26
Other Eye Disorders
The aqueous fluid in the eye delivers antioxidants to the front of the inner eye, which helps to keep the fluid drain unobstructed. This fluid drains out of the eye in a controlled manner that maintains the shape and fluid pressure inside the eye. When drainage is blocked, fluid pressure rises and can impinge upon peripheral optic nerve cells at the back of the eye, narrowing side vision.
Glucosamine sulfate and vitamin C may counter fluid drain swelling. In a preliminary, uncontrolled 1998 U.S. pilot study of two patients, an unreported daily amount of glucosamine sulfate substantially reduced abnormally high fluid pressure over the short term.27 Vitamin C may help by maintaining the collagen structure of the fluid drain. 28,29 Taking 500 mg vitamin C four times a day moderately and significantly reduces eye fluid pressure in humans.30,31 Typical recommended dosages of glucosamine for collagen support are 1,500 mg/day.
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"Lenovo's ThinkPad T420s is the business user's ultimate Goldilocks notebook. At 14.1-inches and 4 pounds, the laptop is extremely light and portable, but large enough to provide a generous high-res screen, a powerful processor, and full-sized keyboard and touchpad. However, with a price of $1,349 (as configured), the ThinkPad T420s costs more than heavier 14-inch systems such as the ThinkPad T420 or the HP EliteBook 8460p. Spoiler alert: this lightweight notebook is worth the investment."
I have not used a ThinkPad since around Y2K. At that time I swore that I would never buy one. Of course work bought them and even today the ThinkPad is still a business worrier's tool. Boy has time change my thoughts. First, it weights a mere 4lbs and less than a 1 inch thick. The build quality is excellent with the use of carbon fiber and plastics for durability, in case of a fall. Even the screen is excellent for watching HD movies. The keyboard was even mentioned as having the ability to channel a spill (coffee or your favorite beverage) away from the computer. Of course the downside is the cost. Time has changed the ThinkPad and is looking like a contender. For you ThinkPad fans does this fit the bill?
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NEW YORK — Stock indexes moved lower in light trading on Wall Street Wednesday. Strong earnings from Abercrombie & Fitch were offset by a gloomy report on retail spending from the government.
NEW YORK — Stock indexes moved lower in light trading on Wall Street Wednesday. Strong earnings from Abercrombie & Fitch were offset by a gloomy report on retail spending from the government.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 56 points at 12,692 shortly after noon. The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped four points to 1,370 and the Nasdaq composite was down four points at 2,879.
Abercrombie & Fitch, the purveyor of apparel to teenagers, was among the standout stocks. Abercrombie jumped $8.76 to $39.94 after reporting that its international business was thriving and that its net income soared 40 percent in the most recent quarter, more than analysts were expecting.
The strong results from Abercrombie were tempered by a report from the Commerce Department saying that Americans cut back on spending in October, suggesting that many are still cautious about the economy.
Sales dropped 0.3 percent last month after three months of gains. That's worse than analysts had been expecting, according to FactSet. The government also said auto sales fell 1.5 percent, the most in more than a year. Sales may have been hurt by Superstorm Sandy.
Investors will be closely watching a press briefing later Wednesday by President Barack Obama.
Stocks were roiled in the immediate aftermath of last week's presidential election on concern that the U.S. will fall over the "fiscal cliff." Unless lawmakers hammer out a deal to cut the budget deficit by Jan. 1, a series of tax increases and revenue cuts will be implemented that will likely push the U.S. back into recession.
"Investors' hopes that the election would end uncertainty remain unfulfilled," said Lawrence Creatura, a portfolio manager at Federated Investors in Rochester, New York. "Investors are still grasping for visibility....it's very tough to determine what happens next."
The S&P 500 has slipped 3.7 percent since Obama won re-election Nov. 6, and has dropped 6.5 percent from Sept. 14, when it hit the highest point of the year. Stocks had risen over the summer before the Federal Reserve announced Sept. 13 that it would extend its so-called quantitative easing program by mortgage-backed securities with the intention of holding down borrowing costs.
Market participants are also awaiting the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve's October meeting on Thursday for more insight into how the U.S. economy is doing. The notes are scheduled to be released at 2 p.m. Eastern.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.61 percent from 1.59 percent.
Among other stocks making big moves:
Cisco Systems, the world's largest maker of computer networking equipment, gained $1.05 to $17.89. Cisco said late Tuesday that its earnings rose 18 percent in the latest quarter and that U.S. companies are starting to spend again.
Mosaic, a company that mines for potash, a key ingredient in fertilizers, slipped $1.92 to $48.82 after saying that international demand for its product had weakened and that it was lowering its sales forecasts.
Advanced Micro Devices, a chipmaker, slumped 11 cents, or 5.3 percent, to $1.98 after the company denied a report that said it was considering a sale. The stock has lost about 76 percent of its value since reaching a 52-week high of $8.35 in March as the company's sales dwindled as consumers shift away from PCs to tablets and smartphones.


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This template has a set of built-in options to help you configure its look and behavior in your site. To configure these options, you must:
Go to the administration section of your existing Joomla site and go to the Template Manager, located under Extensions.
Locate the template style of the template and click its name.
Next you will see all the available options:
- Load jQuery (applies to Joomla 2.5 only)
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Note: This item is more than 12 years old. Please take the publication date into consideration for any date references.
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Media Contact: TPWD News, email@example.com, 512-389-8030
Oct. 6, 2006
Deer Park Man Breaks 33-year-old Texas Tarpon Record
AUSTIN, Texas — A 25-year-old Deer Park man set the pending Texas state record for tarpon when he landed a 210-pound, 11-ounce fish off the Galveston Fishing Pier Wed.
Jeremy Ebert was fishing for "bull reds" when something different – and obviously bigger – picked up his bait.
"We hooked the fish at about 8:30," Ebert said. "It made one big jump and then smoked off about 300 yards of line real quick. I got a good look about 30 minutes later, and I knew he was big."
Ebert fought the fish for about 45 minutes, and lifted it from the water with the help of a massive net and more than half-a-dozen other anglers.
"I grew up on that pier. I've fished it a lot," he said. "I saw my dad catch a tarpon off that pier when I was about 11 years old and it hooked me for the rest of my life."
A self-proclaimed "tarpon junkie," the record-breaking fish was Ebert's fifth "Silver King" of the year and only the latest of about two dozen he's landed in his fishing career.
A change in the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's fishing regulations last year dispensed with the $120 trophy tarpon tag and made it legal for an angler to keep one tarpon over 80 inches. The 80-inch minimum length was settled-on as the threshold for a fish that might beat the longstanding state record of 210 pounds.
That fish, an 86.25-inch tarpon, was caught in November of 1973 by Tom Gibson.
"I've never killed one, I've always taken care of them," Ebert said of his decision to keep the fish and have it weighed. "We got this fish to the pier and it pretty much rolled-over dead. I wouldn't have brought one up just to take pictures. If there was a chance of reviving him, even if he was that size, I probably would have let him go."
Capt. James Plaag of Silver King Adventures has been chasing Gulf coast tarpon for years, and said 2006 has provided as good a tarpon season as any he's seen.
"This year's been like old times," Plaag said. "Our tarpon fishery this year was outstanding. There's been some big days."
On one of those days this year, Plaag said, he went 10 for 21 at the mouth of the Brazos River. Translation: he and his clients landed nearly half of the tarpon they jumped. The biggest fish that day was estimated at about 140 pounds.
"You can't target the big ones," he noted. "You just hope he gets on there."
Plaag said that, as much as he would have liked to have set the new record himself, he was happy to see his friend Ebert do it.
"I was proud of Jeremy. He fishes a lot – he deserved it," Plaag said. "The average guy, if he hooked that fish, he ain't gonna catch it. Records are made to be broke, and it just gives me something else to fish for."
"This is a shocker here. If there's one state record I want, this is it," Ebert said. "All my friends drove down in the middle of the night to see it. It was definitely the best fish I've caught."
Ebert donated the fish to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. TPWD biologists have taken DNA samples and also will age and sex the fish before it is displayed on an "ice table" at the annual TPWD Expo in Austin Oct. 7-8.
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- Publish date:
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- 1969
Nixon says prospects for peace in Vietnam are better
At a news conference, President Nixon says he feels the prospects for peace have "significantly improved" since he took office. He cited the greater political stability of the Saigon government and the improvement in the South Vietnamese armed forces as proof.
With these remarks, Nixon was trying to set the stage for a major announcement he would make at the Midway conference in June. While conferring with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, Nixon announced that the United States would be pursuing a three-pronged strategy to end the war. Efforts would be increased to improve the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces so that they could assume responsibility for the war against the North Vietnamese—Nixon described this effort as "Vietnamization." As the South Vietnamese became more capable, U.S. forces would be withdrawn from South Vietnam. At the same time, U.S. negotiators would continue to try to reach a negotiated settlement to the war with the communists at the Paris peace talks.
This announcement represented a significant change in the nature of the U.S. commitment to the war, as the United States would be withdrawing troops from the war for the first time. The first U.S. soldiers were withdrawn in the fall of 1969 and the withdrawals continued periodically through 1972. At the same time, the United States increased the advisory effort and provided massive amounts of new equipment and weapons to the South Vietnamese as well. When the North Vietnamese launched a massive invasion in the spring of 1972, the South Vietnamese wavered, but eventually rallied with U.S. support and prevailed over the North Vietnamese. Nixon proclaimed that the South Vietnamese victory validated his strategy. In fact, a peace agreement was finalized in January 1973, but the fighting continued anyway. The U.S. did not deliver the aid it had promised in the case of continued attacks—the South Vietnamese held out for two years but they succumbed to the North Vietnamese in April 1975.


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Eric Jaffe
Eric Jaffe is the former New York bureau chief for CityLab. He is the author of A Curious Madness and The King's Best Highway.
Years ago, general wisdom held that transit systems must bring people into a city's central business district. The idea was to create a corridor from home to job. But the idea and the systems remained long after jobs left the city center.
The mindset is changing in some cities — in one recent example, reported by our Emily Badger a few months back, Tallahassee decentralized its entire bus system. And generally speaking, these multi-destination transit systems have been much more effective than the downtown-only systems they replaced. They're generally more productive than their counterparts, according to recent research, carrying more passengers at lower cost:
But while multi-destination transit systems may be better suited to modern life than their radial predecessors, it's unclear whether or not they divert passengers from single-occupancy vehicles. That's because transit riders can be broadly divided into two categories: "dependent" riders, people who are more or less forced to ride given the high cost of car ownership, and "choice" riders, those who simply prefer riding to driving.
A new study from the Mineta Transportation Institute tries to compare and contrast these two transit populations, using the city of Atlanta as an example. The study leaders use data from the 2000 Census, as well as a detailed examination of Atlanta's multi-destination bus and rail systems, to identify variables most important to each group.
Their overriding purpose, they report, is to pinpoint policies that might increase the share of choice riders taking transit, while preserving the core of the multi-destination systems that offer so much benefit to dependent riders.
The first thing the researchers noticed, in line with previous research, is that dependent transit riders tend to take the bus and choice riders tend to take rail. Bus/dependent riders tend to come from lower-income zones and has less access to a car, compared with rail/choice riders. Unlike their bus-riding counterparts, rail riders place a premium on out-of-vehicle travel time — in other words, they don't like when it takes a long time to get to a transit station. The central business district is a major destination for rail riders, and they also seem to prefer going through transit-oriented developments. Neither of these factors plays a major role in bus/dependent travel, according to the report; on the contrary, bus riders are trying to reach lower-density employment centers.
At the same time, the two types of riders have much in common. Both are sensitive to in-vehicle travel time, as well as the time it takes to transfer. A quarter of all rail riders transfer to bus to complete their trip, according to the study, which suggests that intermodal transfers are critical as well. And even though rail riders head to the downtown core more often than bus riders, areas with a large number of jobs — though not necessarily high-density employment centers — remain a key destination for both groups.
The way to attract both choice and dependent riders, then, is to create a transit network that traverses the center district and still extends deep into low-density employment corridors; that improves access to transit-oriented developments, as well as the developments themselves; and that expedites the transfer process — particularly intermodal transfers.
In short, the authors suggest that Atlanta and other cities keep the core principles of the multi-destination system and make them bigger, stronger, faster:
These results derive from a study of Atlanta, Georgia, but given their consistency with lessons derived from other locales, they provide important policy guidance to transit agencies seeking to increase ridership by both rider groups. Certainly, more money would be needed first to develop such a system and then to operate it, but the characteristics of transit demand from Atlanta reported here and the performance of multi-destination transit systems elsewhere suggest that an expanded multi-destination transit network in Atlanta would have beneficial results. Regional riding habits would increase substantially without sacrificing productivity, while operating cost per passenger would decline. Both transit-dependent and choice riders would use this expanded network in larger numbers than they use the present one.
Of course, as the authors hint at only briefly in this concluding statement, the proposal here is easier outlined than implemented. The study has done a service to the literature by illuminating, or at the very least reinforcing, a basic understanding of dependent and choice rider preferences. But it stops short of the pressing concern faced by transit agencies across the countries these days: where to get the money to achieve real change.
Without that practical push, either from other scholars or actual policymakers, the discussion remains an abstraction — the type of mental exercise that might at least kill some time while you await your transfer.
Figure from "Understanding Transit Ridership Demand for a Multi-Destination, Multimodal Transit Network in an American Metropolitan Area: Lessons for Increasing Choice Ridership While Maintaining Transit Dependent Ridership"
This year-long journey across the U.S. keeps you at consistent high temperatures.
The most famous space in the city is set to get a pedestrian-friendly redesign that will create the city's largest garden by 2024.
The urban economist Donald Shoup collects reports of violence that erupts over parking spaces. To him, disputes between drivers are signs of a bigger problem.
How much money do workers have after paying housing costs? For working-class and service workers in superstar cities, the affordable housing crisis hits harder.
Residential "upzoning" policies being adopted from Minneapolis to Seattle were once politically out of the question. Now they're just politically fraught.


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Decorative shelving serves two terrific purposes – it both enhances the look of your shelves and protects your possessions. Whether you want to add a finishing touch in the kitchen, bedroom or bathroom, a decorative shelf creates a look of distinction and sophistication. Decorative shelving is available in a variety of sizes to fit virtually any space and comes with decorative shelf brackets that are easy to use and assemble.
A decorative corner shelf is a fantastic way to add that extra touch to your kitchen cabinets or open kitchen shelving. With delicate details and a lovely look, a decorative shelf adds extra style to your space. A decorative metal shelf blends with virtually any existing decor and enhances the look of your cabinet hardware as well.
In addition to their aesthetic value, decorative shelves protect your possessions. With decorative shelving, you won't have to worry about items falling off of your shelves. They will be protected and kept in place with this new shelf. Decorative shelving combines two helpful functions – while they enhance the appearance of your space they also protect it. What more could you ask for from your shelving!


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Join Date: Apr 2002
Home MUD: Threshold RPG
Posts: 1,247
Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
In Mike Rozak's post from here he wrote:
I will use Threshold RPG as an example. 2004 was probably our peak year in terms of total usage. We had a small but noticeable decline in both 2005 and 2006. But in 2007 we experienced growth that made up for most of 2006's decline, and so far 2008 is continuing in that direction. If it continues, either 2008 or 2009 will be a *NEW* peak. Considering the fact that Threshold is a 12 year old game, I think the possibility of hitting a new peak after experiencing a decline is pretty amazing. Obviously, I was highly motivated to figure out the reasons behind this resurgence, and I have narrowed it down primarily to these:
It is easy to understand how #1 and #2 worked. That is just standard game management stuff. Meet the needs and desires of your customers and you benefit. Hire good people and you benefit. The harder one to decipher is #3. Why in the last year and a half have more and more graphical players been trying MUDs for the first time? I have a few theories.
Now, I am not about to say that this is the Golden Age of MUDs and they are going to rise up and have more total players than WoW and its ilk combined. But what I do see is that MUDs are actually starting to reap a little benefit from the overall growth of online gaming, and the failure (and/or unwillingness) of graphical games to meet ALL of gamers' needs. This presents an opportunity for MUDs that I think should be, and can be, taken advantage of.
Join Date: May 2005
Name: Derek
Location: Orlando
Posts: 354
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
Not wanting the important matter of clog dancing to be interrupted by this MUD discussion I move it to it's own thread where the subject can receive the attention it so rightfully deserves.
Let's use this thread for your views on the future (or lack thereof) of MUDs and compare clog dancing socials in the break room. Thanks!
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 48
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
The problem is, even if you can convince players that text/language is a good foundation (and I definitely think text has strong points), a LOT of other stuff about MUDs holds them back. My first reactions on entering a text MUD are:
- Why does the overall UI look so crappy (because I'm usually using a Java-ish client written by a mud-admin who thinks of it as a holdover until I splurge and pay for Z-mud... which is incredibly scary looking, although powerful.)
- Why don't I have a graphical map? (Because it's assumed that I'll eventually use Z-mud or something and figure out how to use automapping.)
- Character creation usually involves picking one of 50 races and one of 50 classes. To find out what the races/classes are, I either have to type in an obscure command or visit the web site. Why isn't this better integrated.
- Why do I have to type all the time? Why can't I click on the word "orc" and get a context menu for the most common stuff I can do to the orc. Arrow keys to move, etc.
- And MUD help reminds me on Unix "man".
- And a few pictures here and there wouldn't hurt. It doesn't have to be $30M worth of art, just a few.
- At which point, I usually log out disgusted.
People coming from MMORPG-land will all have their own conscious/subconscious impressions, and they won't be exactly the same as mine.
To use a book analogy: Back in Roman Times, there were no spaces between words, and scrolls were more common than books. Imagine reading Harry Potter on a scroll, with no spaces. It could be the exact same text, but the presentation limits the experience.
Which is why I wrote option (a) is to do nothing (stick to scrolls, and MUDs tha run on virtual teletype machines), or (b) update the experience (books with pages and modern conventions, or MUDs that solve some of the problems I mentioned above, or whatever problem most people see as being important).
Some counter-thougts:
1) You may be the exception. What's the total MUD population now, and has it been increasing or decreasing? No one knows these answers. My own highly-flawed memory of watching the MUD forums (topmudsites and ilk) is that post numbers seem to be going down. (Just as the population numbers in individual MMORPGs have a habit of peaking and gradually declining. At the moment, MUDs seem to be on the gradual decline.)
2) The MMORPG population is growing at the rate of around 30% per year (plus or minus). If the MUD population is shrinking at 10% per year (my non-scientific innacurate guestimate), then relative to MMORPG's, MUDs are shrinking at approx 40% per year! Yes, this isn't an entirely fair comparison, but it's something I got used to doing when deciding what financial investments to make, where the return on an investment is relative to what other investments return.
And a slightly wild tangent that's related (and which you briefly mentioned):
I'm excited about UMPCs, mini-notebooks, or whatever you want to call them (Eee-like devices). I expect them to be popular with schoolkids, travelling adults, and 3rd world countries. At the moment, MMORPGs don't work well (if at all) on them.
Imagine a nice-looking, easy-to-get-going MUD on such a device. It's be perfect! MUDs are low bandwidth, low CPU, low screen-real-estate, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, low power consumption.
So yes, I do see hope for MUDs, but I think they have to change and adapt. (Which leads to paradigm shifts and why people/companies fail to ride out the paradigm shift, but that can be for yet another topic.)
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 83
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
I can only speak from a single person's standpoint, but I'm certain I'm not unique in this respect. For the most part, Threshold is dead-bang on the money with his points. Especially the 'keep up with the tech advances' part in order to play a game.
As to the comparisons of Harry Potter and Roman scrolls, I think a better analogy between MMORPGs and MUDs is book-to-movie. While the subject and much of the content might be nearly identical, it's that intangible element that a reader brings to a book, hefting some or much of the imaginary burden of visual and audial imagery, absent in the nature of movies to spoonfeed that content to the viewer in totem. No matter how good the graphics and sound get, human imagination is better, and MUDs passively accomodate those willing to lift that imaginary burden.
I can see some of Mike's points, but seriously, how much visual input or lore research does one need to do for 'orc'? No matter how most MUDs shade the differences, we all pretty much know what it is. Even if a game has fifty races, I'm willing to bet 8-10 of them are quickly recognizable from the name alone, if not more.
Granted, I do some things to my keyboard for MUDs to make it more like a very complicated handset, such as aliases and hotkeys and macros to make the experience less typing-intensive and more fluid, but it's been my observation that those who are willing to read almost 100% of their content don't mind typing almost 100% of their input. Generally. I'm actually -against- art in MUDs, for the same reason I was appalled by the inclusion of brothers Hildebrandt paintings inserted into the LotR novels. What I see in my head is better rendered, especially when viewing the words of genuinely great wordsmiths.
I'm also one who tends to think there's still a steady population (and will continue to be so) of people who like the challenge of the medium. Most of our graphics-based joystick reflexes will hit a peak, and in many of those games, the race is to the swift, those best in shape from the wrist down. Unlike such games, MUD skills, a different set, tend to only improve over time. You spell better, your read more quickly or more comprehensively, you type faster, and you're exposed to some people who are truly gifted at it, and their skills become part of your skillset as well. I greatly prefer learning (and I still do, even at age 47) from a great roleplayer to learning from a talented gamer. One such skillset is 'seeing' the map in my head. I do refer to some of the ingame maps from time to time, but to me, seeing the terrain in a MUD is as transparent a process as looking at a graphics screen.
Whether or not the market trends bear out my observations eventually, my prediction is that MUDing is far from dead, except in the cases of rigid development.
Two cents.
Join Date: Aug 2007
Name: NewWorlds
Home MUD: New Worlds
Posts: 1,402
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
My post went to the wrong thread and should be here, toit:
I think you may need to read back to a thread I started awhile ago called the book and the movie for a more appropriate analogy of Muds.
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 48
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
Some random comments:
1) I should probably clarify "click on the word "orc" ". In my own game, I show pictures of objects (which text MUDs won't have, of course). There is a command line, but 90% of what a player wants to be done can be accomplished by clicking on an object image and selecting a menu item from a context-sensative menu. For example: Click on an orc's image and you'll see a menu with "Attack", "Say hello", etc. Click on a lantern and it'll have "Light/douse", "Add more oil", etc. A text MUD wouldn't have the images, but it would make sense to click on the object's word/name in the text and get the same menu.
2) As for character creation, or any other UI element: Imagine your mother (or appropriate tech neophyte) trying to play your game. Where would they have problems? It seems to me, that text MUDs have evolved and complexified so that there's a lot of stuff you need to know to play them. Z-Mud is an example of this, with a UI just as complex as Microsoft's C++ development IDE.
Raph Koster made a point (don't have the link) that game genres start out easy and accessible, and gradually get more and more complicated until only the illuminati know how to play. And then the illuminati die off, and the genre dies. He uses the example of table-top war games, which started out being fairly simple (Risk-like complexity), but by the 1980's had thick rulebooks and took days/weeks to play out. When wargames first appeared, they were so simple anyone could play. By the 1980's, only the hard-core would play. D&D is similar: It started out very simple, with the origianl D&D rulebooks and then Basic D&D. Now on the 4th edition, it's hugely complicated, especially compared to its origins.
If your MUD is so complicated that there are 50 races, 50 classes, 5000 items, 6000 spells, etc., then you'll find it hard to attract new non-MUD players. They'll find the whole thing overwhelming. Meanwhile, your experienced players are continually asking for more complexity. If they get it, they stay. But the extra complexity also creates a barrier that prevents new players from joining.
The same can be said about muds with 20K rooms. It's simply overwhelming to a new player.
As an example, a few years ago I saw Legend of the Green Dragon on the Internet. (Legend of the Green Dragon?) It was almost a MUD. It had LOTs of players, partially because it was playable from a web page, and partially because it was such an easy game to play. It seems to have empties out since then.
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 48
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
I do disagree with the reliance on a UI based on a teletype (Teleprinter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). You can still have text, but you don't need to rely on just one window with 10-point courier font, that scrolls. And you don't need to rely just on typing.
BatMud's UI (www.bat.org | The official site of BatMUD) is a step in the right direction. But it's a relatively small step, scary looking to new players (see my previous comment), and it only works with bat mud.
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 208
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
Usually discussions like these mostly cover observations but don't offer any solution. One such observation often mentioned is that a lot of people don't know about text MUDs.
Say we had 2-3 graphical MUDs(aka mmrpgs) here on the TMS toplist. What would happen?
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 310
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
1. Create a shell application that has UDP support, and creates the IE instance itself, handles the "page finished loading" event, then links via UDP to Mushclient, so that your script can receive noticed that data came in and respond to the "event".
2. Create a shell applicaiton that uses the Mushclient .tlb structure to get callbacks to the client, and creates the IE instance itself, handles the "page finished loading" event, then calls, using data passed "from" the script, CallPlugin(some_hex_number,data), then have that plugin try to figure out what the hell to do with the data, which is *not* able to contain more than like 255 characters, even if the data you need to send it does.
The *correct* way to do this would be something like:
#Don't remember the exact names at the moment. "world" is the internal Mushclient functions. a = world.createobject("ie.application") connect(a.finished, "myfunction") a.loadurl("www.test.com") sub myfunction () note "Yeah! The page finished loading!" end sub
You can't imagine both how fracking hard it is to either find how to manage the above though with a scripting system, or how much even more insane it is to try to do it with MFC getting in the damn way.
A lot of stuff it would be nice to see are just plain trade offs. Mushclient doesn't currently support 1) blinking, 2) text positioning, 3) inline graphics, 4) more than one font at a time, 5) a mapper. Why? Because the first four make writing the custom windowing code even *more* complicated. The last one the author didn't even have the first idea where to start making one. He figured an external for that might be better, and I tend to agree, since as things stand with scripting, some stuff, like path finding, would lock up the client while it ran, and synchronization of the script to the triggers, etc. without having the client suspend while they ran... isn't too feasible. And external, with proper integration is better for that.
Anyway. Point is, clients tend to be hit or miss when universal, since there is always "some" features that are not as practical as one would like them to be, which never make their way into the client. And, invariably, the ones that do have them, are missing other things. Ones like Batmud, which is mentioned, have a leg up only due to the fact that they don't even try to be universal, so don't have to make apologies for not supporting some feature the mud itself doesn't supply.
Some, like the one I use and mentioned, are so damn close that my teeth itch, but none of those of us that use it have the slightest fracking clue how to fix the problems, including the guy that wrote it, who frankly has no intention of fixing some of the things I consider flaws himself (not when he had to release the source to keep it alive, since no one would fracking pay him for using it).
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 48
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
(High-quality graphics would be wonderfull too, but that's completely unrealistic because MUDs are more of a hobbyist virtual world, with limited ($0.00) budgets. And those small budgets are part of the reason why MUDs are worth keeping alive, because they're not trying to be (to use another analogy) mass-market McDonalds or McWoW, but a mom-and-pop restaurant on the corner - niche market, small community.)
However, I would like to see MUDs evolve (not towards MMORPGs - that's already been done).
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 48
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
I suspect lots of people here have some of the same issues that I do. There are certainly enough posts on topmudsites and mudconnect talking about clients, attracting new players, etc.
However, the reason that companies don't survive paradigm shifts is because they refuse to make/see hard decisions. Often, they can't switch to the new technology because that will upset their existing customers. (As per IBM and PCs/Dos/Windows paradigm shift.)
The "facts" are:
- "Everyone" knows a better client would be a win.
- But no one has written it. It's a lot of work. (I know, since I've written a better client.) There are dozens-to-hundreds of attempts, but none have hit the mark. Or, those that have come close charge money (because it's a lot of work). Or there are other problems, like it only runs on Windows.
- And, MUD players have a proud tradition of being able to play with whatever client they want. If one client were to come out that was perfect, admins would need to convince all their players to use it, which wouldn't be possible.
- And, even if the perfect MUD client were written and admins could convince all their players to use it, it's basically impossible to convert a huge 20K-room MUD to use the new client. There's way too much code/content to fix.
- In addition, there's the "making the gameplay simpler to attract newbies" issue because that will probably lead to losing some long-time players who will complain that the game is too simple.
As a result, there are half measures like the BatMud client. But (IMHO) they aren't sufficient.
Join Date: May 2005
Name: Derek
Location: Orlando
Posts: 354
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
On the BAT client, what would you add to that particular client that would take it from a 'half measure' to 'almost there'? I've played around with it a little myself and was quite impressed, although I didn't get into checking out its capabilities for client basics like external scripting, triggers, etc.
Join Date: Aug 2007
Name: NewWorlds
Home MUD: New Worlds
Posts: 1,402
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
I have a few issues whenever the topic (and it's happened a few times) comes up about the fear of the demise of MUDS or the need for "new clients" with maps and gadgets and automapping and pictures, blah blah.
I started out playing all graphic games, Ultima Online, Meridian 59, Diablo, and on. When I found muds it was through a third party chat room on gaming and my first impression was unique, definitely different and I thought a strange concept. But after two weeks on a zero whistles and bells client (telnet), I was hooked with the whole imagination (book vs. movie) style.
After many years, I see it the same way. It IS an entirely different concept and style of gaming and to me much more immersed roleplay than any graphic game could hope to achieve. My arguments are not about that though, but rather about why the push to bigger, more functional, more graphic oriented clients? Bat client? Who cares. I don't play MUDS for automapping, graphics, mouse clicks, or multi window interfaces. If I did, I'd be playing the multitude of graphic games that blow mud features out the window.
What will happen with newer graphic/sound/mapping clients is that your clients (players) will eventually say, "ya man, L33T client dood! It's even starting to catch up with Runescape and WoW. Hey, let's just play WoW, ain't much different!" And unless you are prepared to build a WoW game, you will have oversold yourself.
Now I'm not against better clients with features that enhance text gaming and new clients should bost that.
In short. MUDs are text for a reason. They are books. Don't try to make them movies.
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 48
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
Some thoughts from my first few minutes of playing:
- Clicked "Create new character" and it sends me to a web page! Why not do this in the client?
- The web page wasn't working, and I found I could bypass that and just log in. All the "action" appeared to happen in the LL corner, where there's a small window (with small text, in courier) that's standard mud output, which has a fairly direct lineage from teletype. It doesn't need to do this, and could have one window for the room description, another for "events that are happening". (I've seen other MUD/IF clients that do this.) Or how about a separate window for inventory.
- As posted earlier, I'd like to click somewhere (on the words or object list or images) and get a context menu. Instead, I have to type everything. Yes, there are hot-keys, but they're not intiialized to anything.
- In the map window, it shows "This location does not support maps" (in the newbie area). Why can't I see a standard room-as-box and exits-as-lines display? And I should be able to click on the map to move.
- I am given no instructions about what to do. Only because I've played MUDs and IF do I know to type, and what the game is about.
- I type "Examine poster". Doesn't work. "Read poster" doesn't work. "Look at poster" seems to work... if you're going to rely solely on a parser, make a good one. Or bring up help if it looks like I'm clueless about what to do.
- Too many windows, making the game look complicated and scary.
- Font in the windows is small and courier - making it look complicated and scary.
- There is only one font. Why not have a larger font for the room name, italic for directions, etc? (I'm glad they didn't use hot pink and day-glow yellow though.)
- "HP 10/10 Sp:10/10 etc." What does this mean? I know, but it may not be obvious to players. And why is it displayed both in my transcript AND in the UR corner?
- "455 ms" is obviously my ping time, but why is that displayed by default.
- "15:13" - It displays the time in the LR corner. But the time is also displayed on my taskbar. Why add to the clutter.
- Etc.
Again, to emphasize, new non-MUD players don't know all the MUD conventions that you take for granted.
Attached are some screen shots of my client to show you how I think. (I'm sure many people will disagree with my tastes.) Yes, I know there are graphics (and text-to-speech), which many people here don't like, but imagine the same type of less-cluttered UI with only text. Advanced users can turn on more windows, but new players don't need to worry about the clutter. (PS - I'll be uploading a new version of my client, with new content, sometime in the next few months and posting here asking for feedback.)
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 48
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
BUT, let me use an example about automapping. The action in most books (barring fantasy) is usually un-tied to place. Sure, you know the characters are in Fred's living room having a discussion, but exactly what the living room looks like, where it is, and its relationship to the bathroom is irrelevant. Maps aren't needed.
In MUDs, that information is very relevant. Even books (mainly fantasy) contain maps when they affect the understanding of the book. Books will often contain small images at the start of the chapter (like a sketch of the entrance to the mines of moria, or the goblet of fire), not necessary, but a nice touch.
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: USA
Home MUD: Threshold RPG
Home MUD: Stash
Home MUD: Archons of Avenshar
Posts: 653
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
I think I disagree about the lack or presence auto-mapping being a feature that drives players away or keeps them. My favorite MMO* had no automapping, and you traveled by learning key landmark features and just knowing the realm. This played a huge role in PvP, and people who could never tell their way around (me) were not allowed to drive. It still remains my favorite MMO to this day.
Now, lots of MMOs have an automapping fuction because there's pretty much no other choice. In a 3D game, you can't really whip out your graph paper and pencil and map out the places you've explored. MUDs are one of the last bastions of the whole graph paper and pencil type of mapping, and lots of gamers still enjoy that. The "scene" setting of a mud happens in room descriptions. Granted, having a nice picture can add to the whole event, but a well-described mud sets the scene very well. Then players add to the scene based on the "room" that they are in.
Honestly, I think the fastest way that a mud loses players is simply that there's a lot of people out there who do not like to read. MMOs give you the option of playing and interacting in a fantasy world without ever really having to read a single word. People who don't read recreationally simply look at a text game and go, "Huh?"
Anyway, I'm rambling a bit. Your client looks very interesting, by the way!
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 310
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
The idea being, if you mud decides to have an MMO style display of the character inventory, either you can adjust "that" data so that its sent differently, negotiate for it with a plugin, or otherwise *only* change it when you need to. The plugin to handle it would consist of the data management to send/receive commands *specific* to that plugin, and all you have to do is create a plugin that has a layout of the window, icons for the items, and the script needed to handle what you can do with it. Then, on the mud end, you have a universal system, possibly extending MXP, since that would be simpler, which would just go:
// Any version 1.3 or higher, you could do 1.3, 1.7, if 1.8 introduced a new field, for example.
mud: <need=plugin_id, 1.3, +>
client: <have=plugin_id, 1.4>
mud:<plugin_id, place=item_num, slot=arm>
client:<plugin_id, dragging=item_num>
client:<plugin_id, place=item_num, slot=bag=1>
Without the plugin in it, it would look and act more or less identical to Mushclient now, but have support for adding your own code, so that, if you wanted, you could even borrow the layout from such a plugin, parse "existing" data, and display an inventory, even though the mud itself doesn't support the plugin at all.
All that data negotiation does is allow the mud to send data to the client in a way that is **certain** the client will display the data in a particular way. But even without a plugin made "by" the mud admins, a client that supported such a script system could allow the user to manufacture one anyway, then just parse the "existing" output into the display. Since things like clicking, dragging, etc. would all be capturable events, you could have them do any behavior you wanted. So, instead of the plugin doing:
function drag(item, item_name) { <plugin_id, dragging=item_num> } function drop(item, item_name, location) { <plugin_id, place=item_num, slot=location> }
function drag(item, item_name) { world->send "remove " .. item_name } function drop(item, item_name, location) { if location = "bag 1" { world->send "open bag 1" world->send "put " .. item_name .. "into bag 1" } else {...
Point being, you don't need the admin to code anything, either into the mud, or a plugin. Someone is likely to do it anyway. We have plugins that, in terms of the ones I made:
1. Tell you how many potions you could make, based on how much of each ingredient you have in inventory.
2. Track the lunar cycles, to determine when one mob would appear, and show the moon phase in the status bar.
3. Keep track of how long you have been playing and warn you past a certain point.
4. Track your spells, to determine when they are 10-20 seconds from failure and need renewal.
Others... Have made ones to ghost the world window, so you can send chat and other text there, instead of having it in the main window, and other things. Someone made a mapper for a hex based map, to play a Battletech based mud, which while an external program, is "connected" to the client via a plugin, which runs the mapper, then feeds info back and forth.
Yes, in the perfect world, the admin are going to go, "Heh, and inventory with icons would be real neat!", and code one. In an imperfect world, if it was possible to create on in Mushclient, half the people that use it would already be using/adapting **my** version of one to the muds they play on. That this hasn't happened is entirely due to the fact that it just isn't possible to do at the moment.
So, no, adapting a 20k room mud to "support" something, is a non-issue. Unless its something nuts, like a 3D image of every room, or ambient sounds for areas, or something that "has to be" integrated into every room in the game, all doing so really does is simplify the data handling for the player, many of which will look for a solution, but not write one themselves. Otherwise, *someone* if you give them the tools, *will* code something for you, without even requesting, or possibly even wanting, it.
Last edited by shadowfyr : 04-17-2008 at 12:29 AM.
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 156
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
I'm not sure which worries me more: designing something into our game that states Thou Shalt Only Use MUSHclient in order to play at Legends of Karinth, or designing something into our game that states That Shalt Only Use a Windows Machine in order to play at Legends of Karinth.
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 48
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
And (b), creating graphics is expensive and time-consuming, to the point where many people feel it's not possible for a non-paid amateur group of MUD authors to create graphics. For my own project, graphics is limited to faces (which was a lot of work for the first face, but easy for all the others because they're procedurally generated), items (where I use sparse and quickly-drawn models), and buildings/scenery (which isn't really that time consuming to do something quickly). The aspect of content that's been chewing up the largest chunk my time is trying to make the NPCs more lifelike.
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 48
Re: Are MUDs the clog dancing of online gaming?
If you create a wonderful client without the backing of one of the top MUDs, you'll probably find your work ignored.
Trying to design by committe will get you bogged down in a lot of great ideas that no-one is willing to implement (unless you're really skilled at committes or lucky to get the right people on committe).
My own implementation is somewhat similar to what you describe except:
- The server specifies what window to display the text on.
- The text is transferred as (basically) HTML.
- A command (to click) is <a href="inventory>What am I carrying</a>
- If the href has <click> then the client requests that the player click on another object, and <click> is replaced by the object that was clicked on.
- All objects are assigned GUID (16(?)-byte globally unique IDs) for every object, and that's embedded in the HTML.
|Thread Tools


text:
The National Foundation of Medical Research held a highly-attended conference each year in Washington, DC. The Foundation had a series of awards that could be presented during the conference to doctors and medical professionals who had made a significant contribution to furthering medical knowledge in a main area of study. However, the awards were not generally awarded every year as the candidates must have made an outstanding and recognizable contribution to the science of medicine, which probably helped explain why the Foundation's awards were considered some of the most prestigious in the medical industry. This year, several of the awards were given out to candidates scattered across the nation. Determine the full name of each recipient (one had a last name of Foster), the area of medical research each recipient contributed to (one area was back injuries), and the city where each recipient lived.
1. The doctor who came from Chicago was given an award for his research into cancer.
2. Patricia was researching heart disease but she didn't live in Miami.
3. Harry's last name wasn't Atkins. Amy didn't live in Charlotte.
4. Ms. Ford's award was for her work in DNA mapping.
5. Michelle Slater wasn't researching mental diseases.
6. Chet lived in Dallas. The doctor whose last name was McQueen worked in Seattle.
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