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The writer George R. R. Martin left Hollywood in 1994, determined to do what he wanted for a change. He'd had some success in television, working on a new version of "The Twilight Zone" and on the fantasy series "Beauty and the Beast." But the pilot for "Doorways," a series he'd developed, hadn't been picked up, and he was tired of the medium's limitations. "Everything I did was too big and too expensive in the first draft," he told me recently. He wanted castles and vistas and armies, and producers always made him cut that stuff. A line producer for "The Twilight Zone" once explained to him, "You can have horses or you can have Stonehenge. But you can't have horses and Stonehenge."
On the printed page, however, he could have it all. He recalls telling himself, "I'm going to write a fantasy and it's going to be huge. I'm going to have all the characters I want and all the battles I want." In 1996, he published a novel of seven hundred pages, "A Game of Thrones," the first volume of a projected trilogy called "A Song of Ice and Fire." The series chronicles the struggle for power among several aristocratic families in the Seven Kingdoms, an imaginary medieval nation. In a genre crowded with stale variations on what Joseph Campbell called "the hero's journey," with plots distilled from ancient legends, Martin took his inspiration from history instead of from mythology; he based his tale, loosely, on the Wars of the Roses, the bloody dynastic struggles in medieval England. Compared with most epic fantasy fiction, Martin's story contained relatively little magic, and it felt dangerous, lusty, and real.
Although "A Game of Thrones" was not initially a hit, it won the passionate advocacy of certain independent booksellers, who recommended it to their customers, who, in turn, pressed copies on their friends. A following was born, albeit a spotty one. Parris McBride, Martin's wife, recalls, "When George went on the first signing tour for the series, the manager at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, in Kentucky, had four hundred people waiting for him. A few weeks later, he's in St. Louis, and nobody turns up for the signing at all."
The days when nobody showed up for a Martin signing are long gone. In January, at a hastily scheduled appearance at Vroman's Bookstore, in Pasadena, hundreds of fans waited in a line that coiled around the store. They presented Martin with volumes from "A Song of Ice and Fire" and works from his early years as a science-fiction writer, as well as with calendars, posters, e-readers, yellowing pulp magazines, and replica swords. Three young women wore handmade T-shirts emblazoned with the coats of arms of their favorite clans from the series. Martin was unflaggingly attentive to his supplicants, including the couple who asked him to pose for a photograph with their infant daughter, who was named Daenerys, for one of his heroines.
Martin has now sold more than fifteen million books worldwide, and his readership will likely multiply exponentially after the launch, this month, of "Game of Thrones," a lavish HBO series based on "A Song of Ice and Fire." He is committed to nurturing his audience, no matter how vast it gets. "It behooves a writer to be good to his fans," he says. He writes a lively blog, and though he has an assistant, Ty Franck, who screens the multitude of comments that are posted on it, he tries to read many of them himself. A fan in Sweden, Elio M. García, Jr., maintains an official presence for Martin on Facebook and Twitter, and also runs the main "Ice and Fire" Web forum, Westeros.org. (Westeros is the name of the fictional continent that is home to the Seven Kingdoms.) When Martin is travelling, which is often, he attends the gatherings of the Brotherhood Without Banners, an unofficial fan club with informal chapters around the world, and he counts its founders and other longtime members among his good friends. In many respects, he's a model for contemporary authors confronted with a wobbly publishing industry and a fractured marketplace. Anne Groell, Martin's editor at Random House, tells her authors, "Outreach and building community with readers is the single most important thing you can do for your book these days. You need to make them feel invested in your career."
Still, a close relationship with one's audience has its drawbacks. As Martin puts it, "The more readers you have, the harder it is to keep up, and then you can't get any writing done." He added to his burden when he decided that his planned trilogy needed to be at least a seven-book series. "The tale grew in the telling," Martin often says, quoting J. R. R. Tolkien, a writer he greatly admires.
The tale also got stalled. There has been no addition to the "Song of Ice and Fire" series since 2005, when the fourth volume appeared. And that book, titled "A Feast for Crows," was only half a novel: it had been surgically removed from a manuscript that, at twelve hundred pages, still wasn't complete nearly five years after the publication of the third volume. Because "A Feast for Crows" followed the adventures of a number of new characters—and left the fates of several popular characters unresolved after the previous book's cliffhanger ending—some fans were disappointed by it. Martin included a postscript in "A Feast for Crows," explaining what he'd done—and then, as he told me, "I made the fatal mistake of saying, 'But the other book is half-written and I should be able to finish it within a year.' "
In the six years since, some of Martin's fans have grown exceedingly restless. The same blogging culture that allows a fantasy writer like Neil Gaiman to foster a sense of intimacy with his readers can also expose an author to relentless scrutiny when they become discontented. Fans desperate to find out what happened to Martin characters like Tyrion Lannister—a smart, cynical dwarf born into one of the most powerful families in the Seven Kingdoms—found it irksome to check Martin's Web site for updates about the series' fifth book, "A Dance with Dragons," and find instead postings about sports or politics. They began to complain in the comments section of Martin's blog and on Westeros.org.
As the chief moderator of Westeros.org, García deleted forum posts that he regarded as "not constructive," including increasingly wild speculation about the cause of the delay and the ultimate fate of the series. Martin's blog was similarly monitored. Even so, the discontent soon spilled over into other platforms—from science-fiction and fantasy forums to discussion boards on Amazon.com. One poster wrote, "George R. R. Martin, you suck. . . . Pull your fucking typewriter out of your ass and start fucking typing." Another joked that Martin had written a book called "How to Cash in Big Time After You Write Half a Series." Such invective has flourished even after Martin, in early March, announced that "A Dance with Dragons" will finally be published on July 12th. One skeptic, posting on Amazon.com, said of the release date, "Don't hold your breath on this one unless you like passing out."
An entire community of apostates—a shadow fandom—is now devoted to taunting Martin, his associates, and readers who insist that he has been hard at work on the series and has the right to take as much time as he needs. Even Gaiman got dragged into the feud when he responded, on his own blog, to an inquiry about Martin's tardiness by issuing this reproof: "George R. R. Martin is not your bitch."
The online attacks on Martin suggest that some readers have a new idea about what an author owes them. They see themselves as customers, not devotees, and they expect prompt, consistent service. Martin, who is sixty-two, told me that Franck calls the disaffected readers the Entitlement Generation: "He thinks they're all younger people, teens and twenties. And that their generation just wants what they want, and they want it now. If you don't give it to them, they're pissed off."
Martin and McBride live in a stucco house in Santa Fe. Martin also owns the place across the street, which he uses as an office. He's converted the closets into dioramas to display his large collection of miniatures. Most of them are medieval, with the knights outnumbering infantrymen—"I like the pageantry and the color," he told me, his voice still tinged with the accent of his home town, Bayonne, New Jersey. When I visited, in January, Martin, a short, portly man whose jaw is fringed with a gray beard, opened a door in the hallway to show me a tiny scene from the banqueting room of a castle, complete with gossiping ladies, an amorous couple, dogs begging for scraps, and a drunk passed out with his head on the table.
Like his closets, Martin's head is crammed with people. By García's count, there are already more than a thousand named characters in "A Song of Ice and Fire," although many of them are mentioned only in passing. Martin was startled by the size of García's census, but he enjoys being surprised by his own work. He thinks of himself as a "gardener"—he has a rough idea where he's going but improvises along the way. He sometimes fleshes out only as much of his imaginary world as he needs to make a workable setting for the story. Tolkien was what Martin calls an "architect." Tolkien created entire languages, mythologies, and histories for Middle-earth long before he wrote the novels set there. Martin told me that many of his fans assume that he is as meticulous a world-builder as Tolkien was. "They write to say, 'I'm fascinated by the languages. I would like to do a study of High Valyrian' "—an ancient tongue. " 'Could you send me a glossary and a dictionary and the syntax?' I have to write back and say, 'I've invented seven words of High Valyrian.' "
Tolkien created the genre of epic fantasy, and it is still dominated by his example. Martin is widely credited with taking such fiction in a more adult direction. David Benioff, who, with Dan Weiss, is an executive producer of the HBO series, told me that he had given up reading fantasy because "so many of the writers seemed to be a pale imitation of Tolkien. After a while, you don't need to read another book about hobbits or hobbit-like creatures trying to destroy some evil artifact."
A typical post-Tolkien epic fantasy is the best-selling "Wheel of Time" series, by Robert Jordan. David McCaman, a marketing executive and one of the founding members of the Brotherhood Without Banners, dismissively summarizes the genre this way: "The young kid on the farm discovers he has powers, and no one dies, and they find the magic to rule the world." He calls it "Nerf fantasy," meaning that "it's really safe." By contrast, "A Song of Ice and Fire" doesn't truck with "orcs and goblins and dark lords and bad and good. It revolves around people, really gritty people, and real situations, things that you don't see in fantasy—sex and language and betrayal." Benioff once told New York that "Game of Thrones" was " 'The Sopranos' in Middle-earth," and although he now winces at the formulation, it remains sound; the book's intricate, racy narrative practically feels custom-built for HBO. The series especially resembles "Rome" and "Deadwood," although, unlike them, it's free from even the most perfunctory obligation to be historically accurate.
Martin's characters indulge in all the usual vices associated with the Middle Ages, and some of them engage in behavior—most notably, incest—that would shock people of any historical period. Characters who initially seem likable commit reprehensible acts, and apparent villains become sympathetic over time. Martin transgressed the conventions of his genre—and most popular entertainment—by making it clear that none of his characters were guaranteed to survive to the next book, or even to the next chapter. "When Indiana Jones goes up against that convoy of forty Nazis, it's a lot of fun, but it's not 'Schindler's List,' " he explained. He wants readers to feel that "they love the characters and they're afraid for the characters."
The serial nature of "A Song of Ice and Fire" is key to the involvement it elicits. Although story lines conclude in each of the novels, the larger narrative arc remains unresolved, encouraging readers to speculate about what might ultimately happen. Online forums are an ideal place to debate rival theories, allowing participants to forge the emotional bonds that define contemporary fandom.
"George and I are fans first," McBride told me. During his teen-age years in New Jersey, Martin wrote for comic-book fanzines, inventing his own superheroes and writing new adventures for the superheroes created by other fans. But it was in science-fiction fandom that he found a lasting home.
Martin attended his first science-fiction convention in 1971. At the registration desk, he was greeted by Gardner Dozois, who, coincidentally, had pulled from the slush pile of the magazine Galaxy Martin's first professionally published story, "The Hero." (It appeared in 1970.) The two men remain friends and collaborators. Martin attends about six conventions a year, and he says that since college "virtually all the women in my life, including Parris, were people I met at science-fiction conventions."
When Martin and McBride met, at a convention in Nashville in 1975, she told him that one of his stories, "A Song for Lya," had made her cry. The gathering was in the free-spirited mode of the times—in an autobiographical essay, Martin notes that, when this conversation took place, they were both naked. (He does not elaborate.) He was, however, engaged to someone else. McBride went to work for a travelling circus for a while. By the time he moved to Santa Fe, in 1979, she was waiting tables in Portland, Oregon. They'd kept in touch, and after his marriage broke up they began what McBride calls a "fannish romance," meeting at conventions and exchanging letters. In 1981, he persuaded her to move to New Mexico.
McBride likes living in Santa Fe—the area has a "strong fan group." She calls the science-fiction community "my perfect tribe." With Martin, she has tried to instill the Brotherhood Without Banner with the mores of her generation of fans. The Brotherhood, whose origins can be traced to a convention ten years ago in Philadelphia, doesn't charge a membership fee or have a defined organizational structure. Anything too official, in McBride's opinion, "is not the fannish way."
In the Brotherhood, local gatherings are called "moots." On the night of the Pasadena book signing, a moot was held in the back yard of a Spanish-style house in town. Brotherhood members from way back mingled with relative newcomers. Martin leaned against the railing of a deck, drinking beer and swapping anecdotes about past conventions.
There is no doubt where the Brotherhood's members come down on the question of the long wait for "A Dance with Dragons." One group at the party responded with head-shaking and exclamations of disgust when Martin informed them, "I'm still getting e-mail from assholes who call me lazy for not finishing the book sooner. They say, 'You better not pull a Jordan.' " Robert Jordan, whose real name was James Oliver Rigney, Jr., died of amyloidosis in 2007, before the "Wheel of Time" series was finished. (Another writer, Brandon Sanderson, will finish it.) Martin said that he found such remarks particularly heartless: "I knew Jim, which is what his friends called him. He was a friend of mine."
"How dare he die?" a woman said, witheringly. "I mean, what an inconvenience to the fans."
Several veterans briefed me on the group's traditions. At that first Brotherhood party, in 2001, a tipsy reveller (this is a crowd that likes to lift a glass) asked Martin to knight him. Martin said, "I can't knight you. You haven't gone on a quest yet!" When his petitioner implored Martin to invent one, he sent the fan and several others off in search of Philly cheesesteaks. When their prize was secured, Martin dubbed the group the Knights of the Cheesesteak. So began the custom of Martin sending fans off in the middle of the night with orders to bring back local street food. The Brotherhood quests are a gentler version of a fraternity hazing, providing people who have in common only a particular literary taste with the shared experiences that turn them into pals.
It was a brisk night, and as we clustered by a clay fireplace a fan named Erik Kluth recalled the moot in Kansas City where he was knighted. Martin had commanded him and some other fans to retrieve barbecued smoked brisket tips. But by the time Martin issued his decree restaurants had closed. In desperation, the fans rooted through garbage left outside one establishment. Finally, they tried to cook the dish themselves, in a drug-store parking lot. Martin was impressed enough by the effort to dub them the Knights of the Dumpster.
I also met Kim Ohara, a soft-spoken woman who has been a Brotherhood member since the first moot. She told me that, even on Internet forums dedicated to Martin's work, much of the discussion isn't about "A Song of Ice and Fire." "You can talk about the books only so much," she said. Once the fans get to know each other, the focus tends to shift to the stories of their own lives. Several Brotherhood members had got married. In one case, Martin assisted a fan by signing one of the "Ice and Fire" novels with a remarkable inscription: a marriage proposal to another fan.
Elio García estimates that he spends up to thirty-five hours a month supervising Westeros.org, the "Song of Ice and Fire" discussion site. García, a Cuban-American, moved to Sweden to be with his girlfriend in 1999, the same year that the two of them established Westeros.org. She had introduced him to Martin's series, and he soon shared her obsession with it. The site now has about seventeen thousand registered members. Despite his attachment to the books, García did not get to meet Martin or his fellow-fans until 2005. "I never really did the whole convention thing," he told me. "I consider a lot of these people friends. But they're not physical, next-door-neighbor friends. They are people I know on the Internet."
García is a superfan. His knowledge of Martin's invented world is so encyclopedic that the author has referred HBO researchers to him when they have questions regarding the production of "Game of Thrones." Although García's participation in Westeros.org is voluntary, his involvement with Martin's work has become semi-professional. He is being paid to consult with licensors creating tie-in merchandise and to write text for a video game based on the series. He and Martin are collaborating on a comprehensive guide to the books, "The World of Ice and Fire." Martin himself sometimes checks with García when he's not sure he's got a detail right. Martin told me, "I'll write something and e-mail him to ask, 'Did I ever mention this before?' And he writes me right back: 'Yes, on page 17 of Book Four.' "
The proliferation of plot elements is a major reason that Martin's writing pace has slowed. "A Song of Ice and Fire" primarily takes place over several years on a continent about the size of South America. Each chapter is narrated in the third person, from the point of view of a single character. The first book had eight major viewpoint characters, but by "A Feast for Crows" the total for the series had grown to seventeen, each in a different location and enmeshed in a complex plot—fighting in wars, journeying through arduous terrain, scheming to steal a throne.
Making sure that the chronologies of the different stories line up has particularly bedevilled Martin. He said, "I have to ask myself, 'How long is it going to take this character to get from point A to point B by ship? Meanwhile, what's happened in the other book? If it's going to take him this long, but in the other book I said that he'd already arrived there, then I'm in trouble. So I have to have him leave earlier.' That kind of stuff has driven me crazy." Last year, he wrote on his blog, "I know perfectly well that as soon as 'Dance' is published, some of you out there are going to attempt to correlate its chronology with that of 'A Feast for Crows.' . . . Well, it may well make your head explode. It did mine. The 'Dance' timeline alone is a bitch and a half."
Martin is in the unusual position of being a writer whose work is attended to even more closely by his readers than by himself. And, as the panorama of "A Song of Ice and Fire" has grown ever more expansive, Martin has become increasingly afraid that he'll make mistakes. He has already made some tiny ones: "My fans point them out to me. I have a horse that changes sex between books. He was a mare in one book and a stallion in the next, or something like that." The eyes of one supporting character are described as green in one passage and blue in another. As Martin puts it, "People are analyzing every goddam line in these books, and if I make a mistake they're going to nail me on it."
A Norwegian schoolteacher named Remy Verhoeve is one of these hyper-dedicated readers. Until a friend persuaded him to try "A Game of Thrones," he had never especially liked fantasy fiction, with the exception of "The Lord of the Rings." In his opinion, the first three volumes of "A Song of Ice and Fire" are "the finest novels I've ever read." After discovering the series, he read those three books ten times each. "Sometimes some piece of art comes along and changes everything," he told me. Yet Verhoeve, operating under the nom de guerre of Slynt, now runs a Web forum dedicated to denigrating Martin and his supporters. The site is called Is Winter Coming?—a snide play on "Winter is coming," the motto of the Starks, one of the central families in the series.
Like every protracted Internet war, the schism in Martin's fandom is difficult to comprehend from the outside. Each camp nurses grievances against the other, and any conversation between the two degenerates into ad-hominem attacks. (Actually, the quarrel may never have consisted of anything but ad-hominem attacks.) Hunkered down in their respective forts, each side magnifies its own indignation. Yet if you chat with one of the participants he or she will claim to be dispassionate. "Personally, I just feel kind of sad for them," García said of his foes.
In Verhoeve's telling, disaffected fans—who sometimes call themselves GRRuMblers—formed a renegade movement in 2009, after Martin posted a blog entry titled "To My Detractors." It was Martin's attempt to deliver a definitive response to "the rising tide of venom about the lateness of 'A Dance with Dragons.' " He went on, "Some of you are angry that I watch football during the fall." Other online posters, he noted, objected to him "visiting places like Spain and Portugal (last year) or Finland (this year)." The post ended, "As some of you like to point out in your e-mails, I am sixty years old and fat, and you don't want me to 'pull a Robert Jordan' on you and deny you your book. Okay, I've got the message. You don't want me doing anything except 'A Song of Ice and Fire.' Ever. (Well, maybe it's okay if I take a leak once in a while?)"
Verhoeve, who has been banned from Westeros.org, was incensed by Martin's post, and a few days later he set up Is Winter Coming? The forum's tone was inspired by Finish the Book, George, a blog begun in 2008 by two brothers using the monikers Pesci and Liotta—a reference to two actors from the gangster film "GoodFellas." The pseudonymous pair had taken their cue from another Martin blog post, this one admonishing visitors to stay on topic or butt out. ("If you want to comment on other matters, including, but not limited to, the lateness of 'A Dance with Dragons,' that's fine, just go do it on your own blogs.") In response, Pesci and Liotta began publishing one blistering post after another, making them heroes, of a sort, to the detractors. One post reads, "Since we all know GRRM can't write unless he is in his special place with his special writing booties on and the temperature at exactly 69 degrees and the sun aligned with Aquarius, I take this as another sign that the big guy hasn't typed a word of ADWD today."
The brothers have been less active of late, but Is Winter Coming? is humming with hostile creativity. So far, the forum has produced a "field guide" to the various types of Martin defenders and how they may be refuted; a pseudo-legal brief titled "The People Against George R. R. Martin"; detailed charts attempting to expose how few hours Martin has devoted to writing "A Dance with Dragons" per year, based on his blog postings; and a three-hundred-page "Encyclopedia GRRuMbliana," which includes a spirited history of the forum. Members have also written "A Feast for Trolls" and "A Dance with Detractors," long parodic narratives, in the style of "A Song of Ice and Fire," which feature broad caricatures of Martin and his key defenders, including Gaiman. A small publishing house made a deal with Verhoeve to compile some of his blog postings into a book, to be titled "Waiting for Dragons."
This is an astonishing amount of effort to devote to denouncing the author of books one professes to love. Few contemporary authors can claim to have inspired such passion. The HBO team of Benioff and Weiss, novelists themselves, were taken aback when I told them about the shadow sites. "I'm going to start an Ian McEwan troll site," Weiss joked. "I love him, but . . . "
"Where is 'Atonement II'?" Benioff interjected. "We've been waiting and waiting."
Martin knows what it's like to be provoked by a serial entertainment. He experienced it himself as a faithful viewer of "Lost," the ABC adventure series about a group of castaways trapped on a mysterious island. "I kept watching it and I was fascinated," he recalls. "They'd introduce these things and I thought that I knew where it was going. Then they'd introduce some other thing and I'd rethink it."
Like many "Lost" fans, Martin resented the series's mystical ending, which left dozens of narrative threads dangling. "We watched it every week trying to figure it out, and as it got deeper and deeper I kept saying, 'They better have something good in mind for the end. This end better pay off here.' And then I felt so cheated when we got to the conclusion." He does think of himself as being bound by an informal contract with his readers; he feels that he owes them his best work. He doesn't, however, believe that this gives them the right to dictate the particulars of his creative process or to complain about how he manages his time.
Although some detractors, like Verhoeve, attribute their disgust with Martin to what they view as his poor P.R. skills and "lack of proper communication," the essence of their complaint is transactional. In one posting, Liotta fumed that he and "literally hundreds of thousands of other people have spent countless hours and dollars in faithful dedication" to Martin's work. It makes little difference to these fans that they knew the series wasn't finished when they started reading it, and that they still own the books they spent all that time and money on. As far as the detractors are concerned, Martin's contract with them was for a story, their engagement with it offered on the understanding that he would provide them with a satisfying conclusion.
Contrary to what his more extravagant critics allege, Martin insists that he has been working continuously on "A Dance with Dragons." "They have all these insane theories that the book has been finished for years, but I'm sitting on it until the HBO series comes out so I'll make more money," he says. "Or I farmed out the book to another writer, or I've lost all interest in the series and now I just want to do other stuff."
Nevertheless, I pointed out, "A Dance with Dragons" has taken him longer than any of the preceding four novels. "Maybe I'm rewriting too much," he suggested, after a fretful silence. "Maybe I have perfectionist's disease, or whatever." We were seated in an addition to his office that he calls his "library tower." Built in 2009, the renovation has provoked a mixture of scorn and resentment among his detractors, who alternately regard it as a faux-medieval affectation and as a flaunting of the wealth that they believe has dulled Martin's motivation to finish the series. It's a handsome but hardly extravagant structure lined with bookshelves, a tower only in comparison with the low-lying architectural style common to Santa Fe. Its sole medieval aspect is a set of stained-glass windows with the sigils of five houses from the Seven Kingdoms. Although the miniature knights in Martin's dioramas reminded me of the Technicolor artificiality of a Hollywood costume picture like "Ivanhoe," the windows looked surprisingly authentic, and I found them beautiful.
Martin explained that he's been tinkering with some parts of "A Dance with Dragons" for ten years. He has a "real love-hate relationship" with a chapter that focusses on Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf: "I ripped it out and put it back in, I ripped it out and put it back in. Then I put it in as a dream sequence, and then I ripped it out again. This is the stuff I've been doing."
Such indecision, Martin suspects, may be fuelled by the mounting expectations for "A Song of Ice and Fire." The reviews for the series have been "orders of magnitude better" than he's received for anything else. After the fourth volume came out, Time anointed him "the American Tolkien." Many readers have told Martin that his tale is the greatest fantasy story of all time. With the HBO show and his online critics breathing down his neck, the pressure has become even more intense.
"I don't want to come across as a whiner or a complainer," Martin said, as tinted light from the afternoon sun filtered through the stained-glass windows. "No! I'm living the dream here. I have all of these readers who are waiting on the book. I want to give them something terrific." There was a pause. "What if I fuck it up at the end? What if I do a 'Lost'? Then they'll come after me with pitchforks and torches."
Martin hopes that, after he surmounts the particularly thorny problems of "A Dance with Dragons," the final two books will come much faster. Some detractors insist that he'll never complete the series, and they like to kibbitz about who ought to fill in for him if he pulls a Jordan. Martin, however, has indicated that he will not permit another writer to finish "A Song of Ice and Fire." The story begins and ends with him.
At one point, I posed a question to Remy Verhoeve. Suppose that "A Song of Ice and Fire" never does get a proper ending. He'd still have those three novels, the ones he considers the finest he's ever read. Would that not be a consolation? He was quiet for a while before answering: "Yeah. I guess it is. Though sometimes I wish I had never read those books." ♦


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Tellison are one of those acts that, even though you find yourself liking them, you can't imagine them being anyone's favourite band. It's hard to think of a better way of describing their music, because it's difficult to put a label on. It's not that they defy categorisation in that Radiohead 'we're too complicated to possibly be reduced to a genre', sort of way. It's almost the opposite. With Tellison, it's more that they don't really have a trademark that says 'This is the sort of band that we are'. It makes it hard to imagine what Tellison's biggest fan says when he/she is asked, 'What's so great about Tellison?'.
It's strange, because they're the sort of band that might come up in conversation, and everyone will agree that they're good. But you never meet anyone who raves about their latest single and yearns to see them play live. Everyone, it seems, has already seen them. 'They were good,' they'll say.
And they are good. The Wages Of Fear, their second album, ticks a hell of a lot of boxes. On its opening track, 'Get On', crunchy power chords are saved from tedium by a big, warm, fuzzy lead hook. The whole mood of the track (and much of the album) is guaranteed to lift you out a bad mood by smothering you in major chords. But by weaving minor notes into the melodies, Tellison don't crudely wallpaper over your woes. They tell you everything will be okay, instead of insisting that everything is fine through a gritted smile.
What Tellison explore, in fact, is that curious emo strain of the pop-punk DNA. But they do it without ever writing a ludicrously catchy pop song, without ever writing a snotty punk anthem, and all the while being far too reserved to be caricatured as full-blown whining emo kids. All of which makes it far too easy to listen The Wages Of Fear and enjoy it (subject to a previously established fondness for the likes of Taking Back Sunday and Hundred Reasons) without really noting any stand out tracks.
There are moments that remain in your memory – the puzzlingly fun a cappella break in 'Collarbone' is a delightful surprise, while the battling post-punk riffs of 'Tell It To Thebes' eventually snap like an elastic band into a great thudding coda. Unfortunately, there are bits that stick in your mind for the wrong reasons too, such as 'Freud Links The Teeth To The Heart', which as the token slow song isn't helped by lyrics that sound simultaneously sweet and shoddy ("My dentist's a girl from France / I fancy off her pants"). Then there's 'Horses', which contains a repeated refrain of, "Horses can feel more than we do". I mean seriously, what the fuck?
Overall though, The Wages Of Fearis in no way defined by these slip-ups. Unfortunately, it's no more defined by the genuine sparks of creativity and originality that turn up from time to time. It's just good, if you like that sort of thing – which to be fair, a lot of people do. Tellison certainly don't show any signs of revitalising or redefining alternative rock in this country, but they'll keep getting gigs and people will keep enjoying them. You won't rush out to buy this album, but if Tellison are on at a festival you're going to, you'll probably go see them there. And they'll be good, which is more than you can say for a lot of bands.
6Robert Cooke's Score


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这位前副总统的竞选团队似乎忘记了注册口号Todos Con Biden的域名,Todos Con Biden(西班牙语)翻译成英文是" All With Biden"。TodosConBiden.com现在属于唐纳德·特朗普的连任竞选团队。
一旦访客单击" Let's Go"操作按钮,将被重定向到" Latinos for Trump en español "的英语页面,敦促访客为竞选做出贡献并支持特朗普的连任。页面左上角的消息是:"Paid for by Donald J. Trump For President, Inc."。
$30 Million Sale of Voice。com Sets New Record for Highest Cash Price Paid for a Domain
Voice.com has changed hands for $30 million. The news came in a press release from seller MicroStrategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR). The buyer was Block.one, a company that is using Voice.com to launch its new blockchain-based social media platform called Voice.
Ad Practitioners LLC acquires Money。com for a reported $20 million
The New York Post reported that Money.com was sold for $20 million. What's left of 47-year-old Money magazine has been sold to a 3-year-old digital startup run by a former Google executive.
Money has sold its surviving brand, Money.com, to Ad Practitioners LLC, based in Dorado, Puerto Rico. Terms were not disclosed, but sources say the brand went for just over $20 million.
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NAHB produces in-depth economic analyses of the home building industry based on private and government data. Our economics group surveys builders, home buyers, and renters to gain insight into the issues and trends driving the industry.
The Housing Market Index (HMI) is based on a monthly survey of NAHB members designed to take the pulse of the single-family housing market. The survey asks respondents to rate market conditions for the sale of new homes at the present time and in the next six months as well as the traffic of prospective buyers of new homes.
Look ahead with the Home Builders Forecasts by region and type.
An overview of the behaviors within the U.S. framing lumber pricing market.
NAHB members around the country conduct in-district meetings with the U.S. representatives and senators.


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Presented by
Games of Oct. 21-22, 2011
QB Keith Welch, So., Lewis and Clark
Welch scored all four touchdowns in a 31-28 win against Puget Sound, guaranteeing Lewis and Clark's best season in 20 years. He completed 23 of 36 passes for 322 yards while also running for 142 yards and four touchdowns on 23 carries.
OL Armand Jenifer, Doug Drummond, Ed Rodger, Ben Cranston, Roland Massimino, Johns Hopkins
The Blue Jays line paved the way for a record-breaking day for the Blue Jays, who knocked off Gettysburg, 83-21. JHU set school records for total yards (731), passing yards (545), total plays (100), touchdowns passes (7) and first down (39). JHU's 83 points are the second-highest single-game total in school history and the most since JHU scored a record 87 vs. Loyola in 1924.
RB Jon Lien, Sr., Carleton
Lien broke a 48-year-old Carleton school record with 259 rushing yards in the game, scoring all three Knights' touchdowns (46, 58, and 25 yards) including the game-winner on Carleton's first play of overtime in a 23-17 overtime win against Macalester. He averaged 9.2 yards per carry.
RB Scottie Williams, Jr., Elmhurst
Williams rushed for 235 yards for the second time in four weeks, helping Elmhurst to a 43-36 win over Millikin with 30 carries. He scored on touchdown runs of 38 and 2 yards while also catching a 9-yard touchdown pass. He averaged 7.8 yards per carry while eclipsing the 1,000-yard mark for the season.
WR Michael Zweifel, Sr., Dubuque
Zweifel got several steps closer to history with 17 receptions for 207 yards and three touchdowns in a win at Buena Vista. He's 11 catches short of the all-time college football receptions record.
WR Wes Schmidgall, Sr., Eureka
Schmidgall set career-highs with 18 receptions for 273 yards against Greenville. He added three touchdown catches, all of which came in the final seven minutes of the game, helping the Red Devils erase a 15-point fourth-quarter deficit.
TE Billy Chapman, Jr., Middlebury
Chapman set a career-best with 11 catches, nine going for first downs, totaling 122 yards and a touchdown in 49-43 win against Bates. Chapman also caught a key 2-point try, knotting the game at 36 apiece in the fourth quarter.
DE Dayn Washburn, Sr., Christopher Newport
Washburn forced a pair of fumbles in a 51-33 win against North Carolina Wesleyan, including one that led to a 24-yard touchdown return by teammate Justin Navarro. He also recovered one himself. Washburn posted two sacks, with three tackles for a loss of 5 yards. Of his six total tackles, five were solo -- both totals were career highs. He also broke up a pair of passes.
DT C.J. Carroll, Jr., Albion
Carroll had eight tackles, five solo, including five sacks for loss of 39 yards in the Britons' 52-7 win against Olivet.
DE Matt Harris, So., Gallaudet
Harris set a program record and was half a sack short of the Division III mark with his seven-sack day against Becker in a 44-20 win before season record crowd of 3,854. Harris sacked Becker quarterback Robert Baker seven times for a loss of 49 yards to set the single-game sack record for the Bison. He finished the game with eight tackles.
LB Jim DiLisio, Jr., Delaware Valley
DiLisio became the first player in Aggie history to return two interceptions for touchdowns in the same game as the Aggies routed King's 54-13. Both scores came in the first half and were from 48 and 13 yards.
LB Walter Butler, Sr., Massachusetts Maritime
Butler forced a pair of fumbles, returning one 48 yards for what proved to be game-winning touchdown, while adding seven solo tackles (including four for losses of 16 yards), pair of sacks, two quarterback hurries and pass breakup in a 34-6 win against Maine Maritime.
LB Jarryn Bingham, Sr., Mississippi College
Binghman tied an American Southwest Conference record with four sacks in the 34-21 win over Howard Payne. Bingham tallied six total tackles and had four tackles for loss with 29 yards lost. Bingham also forced and recovered a fumble.
LB Cullen Carroll, Jr., Willamette
Carroll had seven total tackles (five solo) in Willamette's game against D-I FCS scholarship program Portland State. He earned two and a half tackles for losses (13 yards lost), including a sack. On his sack, he also forced a fumble, which Willamette recovered at its own 26.
CB Dakevis Howard, Sr., Wesley
Howard had five tackles and two interceptions in a win at NAIA Walsh. He returned one of the picks for a touchdown to ice the game in the fourth quarter of a 28-3 win. Wesley allowed just 65 passing yards and 176 total yards in the game.
S Zach Autenrieb, Jr., Thomas More
Autenrieb set a Thomas More single-game and career record in the Saints' win against Bethany. He set the school's single-game record for interceptions in a game with three and set the school's career record for interceptions with 22. He returned one of the interceptions 40 yards for a touchdown.
S Demetreus Johnson, Jr., Coe
For the second consecutive game, Johnson intercepted a pair of passes. He also returned his first interception 35 yards for a touchdown, his second consecutive interception for a score. He now has six interceptions on the year, with two going for scores. He also had a career-high 10 tackles and blocked a punt on Loras' first possession, leading to Coe's first touchdown.
CB Kurt Devlin, Jr., Grove City
Devlin tied a school record with three interceptions in a 21-16 win against St. Vincent. His first two picks set up Wolverine touchdowns and his third interception came with 1:13 left in the game, helping seal the victory. Devlin also led Grove City with 10 total tackles, seven solo.
Special teams
K Tim Albright, Jr., St. Thomas
Albright was 3-for-3 on field goals, including a 48-yarder off grass into a slight breeze as the Tommies defeated Bethel 23-13.
P Tyler Rasche, Jr., North Central (Ill.)
Rasche punted four times for a 45.0-yard average, putting three of them inside the 20. Illinois Wesleyan managed a total of 8 yards on two punt returns, one of which was fumbled and recovered by the Cardinals. Rasche pinned the Titans on their 1-yard line with a 49-yard punt in the second quarter, then forced IWU to start from its own 5 after a career-long 63-yard punt in the third quarter.
ST Kyle Allen, Jr., Westminster (Pa.)
Allen scooped a fumbled Thiel kick return and returned it 36 yards for a touchdown in a 48-21 win.
RET Ted Delia, Jr., Gettysburg
Delia tied a pair of records when he returned a punt 91 yards for a touchdown in Gettysburg's 83-21 loss to Johns Hopkins. It was Delia's third punt return TD of the season, which ties a school and Centennial Conference record.


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- Made in USA of imported fabric & American-Made Materials
- Thick latex foam pad is more comfortable, lasts longer than other foams, and will never go flat (unlike polyester fiber fill)
- Sturdy drawstring yoke is more secure than elastic and lasts longer than non-slip grippers
- Tufted with durable tacking-stitches, no buttons
- Machine Washable, Air dry
- Adjustable to fit most round bar stools with a 1"-2" thick round seat
Sizes & Dimensions
Approximate Dimensions
Size Standard: Fits barstools approximately 12"-14" Diameter with a round seat approximately 1"- 2" thick
Size Extra-Large: Fits barstools approximately 14"-16" Diameter with a round seat approximately 1"- 2" thick
PLEASE NOTE: Barstool not included. Each cushion sold individually, this is not a multi-pack. Size labels such as "Standard" or "Extra-Large" are provided as a general reference but are not to be solely relied upon for size selection; select size based on listed approximate dimensions. All dimensions are measured at widest points. This item is hand-crafted from pliable materials, please allow for slight variations of size and silhouette. Intended to fit round stools with a seat approximately 1"-2" thick; not intended to fit diner or shop style stools with a wide metal band around the seat. Online color appearance varies according to your device and settings; fabric swatches are available on request. Pattern placement varies.
- Care: Machine Washable, Air Dry
- Content: 100% Cotton
- Origin: Made In USA with Imported Fabric
Since 1889, Barnett Products has insisted on using the highest quality materials and superior construction methods to create a more durable product. Each of our bar stool cushions is Made in USA by skilled sewers, not mass produced by machine.
We're confident our barstool cushions are worth every penny, because they are proven to last years longer. The comfort of our premium mattress-grade latex foam fill rivals more expensive therapeutic cushions, plus it will never go flat (unlike polyester fiber fill). In fact, our latex cushion is designed to recover from shipping, washing, squashing, or whatever adventures life has in store for it -just gently tug outwards on the edges of the cushion, then sit on it for awhile to help it return to its full size and original shape."
Customer Reviews
bar stool covers
I like that they stay in place. A nice addition to my wooden stools
Love it
Colors are perfect, fit is perfect and its very cushiony. Thank you!
Great product. Company a pleasure to work with.
Made well, fabric great & was a perfect fit!


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This could be a tough one..
Precious Stone
Gypsy Feet
The Flow
World Weary
Cause To Be Alarmed
This could be a tough one..
Last edited by tenohtwo; 03-03-2008 at 03:24 PM.
Would love to hear them open a show playing Cause To Be Alarmed. Gets the energy flowing. Still relevant 20 years later.
...when a breath inspires it's a sign of life...
Definitely tough. Cause would surely be a good rocker. The Flow would be a neat song to share together with friends. But I keep imagining Cy singing World Weary right in front of me, and it makes me breathless, so I'm going with that.
Maybe on course to the best yet!
Ooh, tough choice. I picked Cause, this song would definately get everyone rockin out!
Well, being a Shoeman, and all that.....
Had to go with "Gypsy Feet"
I don't "go through channels." I dig my own....
My first Fixx concert was in 1989 during the Calm Animals tour. Gypsy feet was one of the best songs live and I would love to hear it again. What's kind of interesting about this poll is that World Weary is one of the choices. That night I saw them, they did not sing this song.


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Scroll down to reveal the correct answer.
The Original Memory Gym
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Memorise.org is the World's Leading Memory Trainer committed to improving your ability to remember and recall information. You will find great videos to improve your memory and tools to help you practice putting it to use!
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This would be a good year to think about Julia Ward Howe's initial proclamation for a Mother's Day:
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...


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July 18, 2014, 4:06 pm
Cartoons of the day: Smallpox, anthrax and the CDC
Earlier this month, a government scientist discovered six vials of smallpox at a research center near Washington, D.C. The vials were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Also this month, an investigation found that the CDC had previously stored deadly anthrax in unlocked refrigerators and transported dangerous materials in Ziploc bags. Editorial cartoonist Joe Heller wonders how secure the vials of smallpox are now, while Mike Luckovich questions the CDC's filing system.
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Urban Living is dedicated to providing a range of care services, electronic monitoring and associated products, which assist users or providers, to deliver or personally enjoy and maintain "quality of life" at a level of their choosing.
Our aim is constantly to improve and develop facilities, which benefit all who use them, via national or local operational centres which are accountable, reliable, flexible and professional in their dealings.
Urban renewal is the name given to the activity of redeveloping high density urban areas. There are many examples of both successful and unsuccessful urban renewal all over the United Kingdom, and either way it has always had a major impact upon local residents and urban landscapes. Urban renewal is also a method of reforming and stimulating local economies, and therefore urban renewal is thus a policy of investment and renovation, and is a key part of all local authority policies.
We want to hear your views on our sustainable lifestyles website: what's good about it, what's not so good, and how we can improve it to make it the most interesting and useful resource possible.
Contact our team of experts on Enjoying Urban Life for further details.
Personal domestic care to the younger disabled.
Home from hospital care, or following a period of illness Respite care for families and carers.
Shopping, hospital and doctor visits. Care for children with disabilities & learning disabilities.
Basic home maintenance & gardening.
Care packages from half a week to 24 hours a day.
Confidential incontinence assessment
24 hour Rapid Response medical alarm service (Careline).
Supervision & recording of prescribed medication.
This website has nothing to do with the old Urban Living website.
For more information regarding the Urban Living website please contact them directly on 020 7944 4400.


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Price: 5 out of 5 stars
Packaging: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall Quality: 3 out of 5 stars
What it claims to do: Its PowerCurve brush crimps hairs up to a 45-degree angle while the patented CurLock formula freezes the curl in place for 12 hours
My experience: I had high hopes for this mascara, however it did not meet my expectations. First of all, I didn't notice the slightest "curl", but more of a "lift" to my lashes. I also like the double-ended wand, however each wand on each side is too short which made it hard for me to get hairs in some places, it also didn't help that the brush wand itself was curved albeit I am aware that this curvature of the brush was intended to give the curl; I am just used to other brush wands that are not so curved, hence it made it hard for me to use. I DO like however the conditioning base as it made my lashes seem longer and healthier (like I need it to be longer!) I just find it funny how the commercials make it seem like it's the holy grail of mascaras when Adriana Lima is CLEARLY wearing false eyelashes giving the illusion that if you buy this mascara, that you too, will have fabulous mile-long, hitting-your-eyebrow lashes. Nope.
The price is very reasonable and it is available at most stores. I think id rather give the Lash Blast a try.
Final word: I am sticking to my L'Oreal Telescopic Mascara and my Dior Show. To be honest Dior Show really doesn't do much for me either, but I love how it never gets hard or flaky and makes my lashes really plush and a bit more volumized.
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Monday, November 12, 2007
Product Review- Maybelline XXL Curl Power Mascara
Price: 5 out of 5 stars
8 comments
- sushii said...
mmm.. i too have trouble finding the right mascara for myself...
and until now i still haven't found the right one :(
i have the L'oreal telescopic mascara as well but it's all glumpy...... does that happen to you?
- November 13, 2007 at 12:32 AM
- candy said...
Have you tried L'Oreal Voluminous? At first I swore by my Maybelline Volume Turbo Boost but now I'm pretty much a convert. Voluminous is non-clump whatsoever, and boosts volume a great deal. I'm lemming for Fiberwig now though, as I need length and curl holding power.
- November 13, 2007 at 5:02 AM
- christianadivine said...
Haha! I know, it's funny how that works with advertisement right? I'm pretty sure that MOST if not all mascara commercial celebrities are wearing falsies. :P It's funny cause my boyfriend and I will be watching TV together and when we see a commercial on TV I'll say stuff like, "WOW! Those are NOT her real lashes... those are OBVIOUSLY falsies." LOL. He thinks I'm a weirdo for noticing stuff like that. :P
- November 13, 2007 at 8:33 AM
- nilla cookie said...
I completely agree on the commercials. I just posted up the new Lash Blast commercial featuring Drew Barrymore and the very last shot does not look like her lashes at all! I noticed because I just watched the Charlie's Angels movie on TV the other night and it doesn't look the same at all - LOL!
- November 13, 2007 at 9:42 AM
- Vanessa said...
Sushii- Nope it doesn't clump on me, but then again I have a "ritual" sometimes when I put mascara, curl it comb it out, put the conditioning base, then apply the mascara, so perhaps that's why it didn't clump or ordinarily it probably would have...
candy- I actually tried the voluminous one too, I like it.
Christiana and Nilla Cookie- I know right! Shooooot the ad agencies didn't think that WE would notice they are falsies???! haha pish tosh!
- November 13, 2007 at 11:32 AM
- psychoexgirlfriend said...
Hey Vanessa, I'm an avid reader of your blog. Great work. I love how often you update. I also swear by Voluminous which I find does the same job as Diorshow. Have you ever used the Shiseido Mascara Base?
- November 13, 2007 at 11:52 AM
- smiling_diva said...
Haha so true about Adriana Lima's false lashes, but she's still prettyyy! And I actually love my Maybelline Turbo Boost and L'Oreal Voluminous. Hope you like the Lashblast! Chao
- November 13, 2007 at 12:28 PM
- alien man?! said...
Same here w/the Diorshow. By itself, it didn't amaze me as much as it did for others. I mean, I have to give it credit that it works better than most mascara I've tried, but my lashes are just too short for it to work by itself. However, when combined with Imju Fiberwig, I actually get the effect I want. I think it's great as a "base" mascara. Imju was kind of weak by itself, too, but worked magically when combined with Diorshow.
- November 15, 2007 at 12:46 AM


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It's tough not to think about Gerry Protti's appointment as chair of the new Alberta Energy Regulator as putting the fox in charge of the hen house.
After all, Protti is anything but an industry outsider.
His storied career, which included a stint in the bureaucracy of Premier Peter Lougheed that he refers to as a tremendous learning experience, has allowed him to witness the evolution of the energy sector from the vantage point of ringside seat.
Before the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers was formed, there was IPAC — the Independent Petroleum Association of Canada. Protti was the executive director of IPAC and went on to become the first chair of the CAPP board of governors.
"This is an important next step in establishing the single regulator," said David Pryce, vice-president of operations at CAPP, "and we are very encouraged they have appointed someone of Gerry's experience and background because it cuts across so many lines."
All this means he is no stranger to managing some big egos around a boardroom table.
He also spent a total of 15 years at Encana and its predecessor company, PanCanadian Energy. In addition to serving as a director on several boards of directors, Protti was vice-chair of EPIC, the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, that published a paper late last summer recommending both the approach and structure for a national energy strategy.
"Having been at CAPP, in the public service and the private sectors, means he has one of the most diverse sets of experience in the energy sector and brings a well-rounded perspective." said provincial Energy Minister Ken Hughes.
"He understands the role of the public interest, the economic fundamentals of the industry, the importance of having a social license to operate and the environmental considerations that are important to Albertans," he added.
Protti's appointment, from a short list of four candidates culled from a nationwide search, stems from the decision by the Alberta government to establish a "next generation," single regulator in the province, which included the new legislation governing energy development in the province.
That legislation, the Responsible Energy Development Act, was passed during the fall sitting of the legislature last year and is meant to cover the key issues of balancing energy development in the province from perspective of providing the right protection for the environment, while encouraging investment and protecting the interests of landowners.
But Protti in place is only a part of the puzzle.
The Regulatory Enhancement project, of which the single regulator is a part, is, as Pryce pointed out on Tuesday, the second step in the province's competitiveness review.
"Now the challenge is to establish a board that is a governance board and not one that gets involved in operations," said Pryce.
Also important, according to Pryce, is pulling the various pieces together — from the Energy Resources and Conservation Board, the regulatory functions from the various government departments and the resources under one umbrella to ensure timely delivery of regulation.
It won't be an easy task and it's likely the debate as to whether Protti is the "right guy" will go on for a while.
But those who have dealt with him through the years had nothing but good things to say about his appointment.
"He brings a lot of insight to this position from a number of perspectives and experiences" said a longtime Calgary banker. "And he also communicates well, which is increasingly important in today's energy world and the challenges we face, especially in Alberta."
This is especially true, given that the position won't be without controversy. Whether intended or not, there will be times when the regulator will come under fire and Protti will be the first line of defence.
"He is an inspired choice," said one longtime industry insider, "you couldn't pick a better guy because he is the type who will listen, distil and incorporate what he is hearing from stakeholders."
And he's never been one to shy away from a challenge or take a risk.
It was 10 years ago this month that he signed on as an extra in the Calgary Opera's production of Verdi's La Traviata, where he played a variety of roles including that of a matador who had to gracefully collapse on stage.
Protti — early in his career — worked in the provincial department of finance where he says he watched first-hand as Premier Lougheed held the public service accountable, while ensuring everyone felt their jobs were very important, and learned how to diplomatically deal with challenging issues and individuals.
During an interview last summer, he recalled the impact Lougheed had on him — telling the young Protti that the work he was doing was very important for the province.
And now he is contributing again, with the benefit of experience.
Protti has watched the industry evolve from being a fledgling player in the oilsands, witnessed the changes in the natural gas industry — from regulation to deregulation — and the challenges associated with industry obtaining and maintaining its social license to operate. By taking this on at this point in his career — though one of his close friends who is also a veteran oilpatch player asked if he had "lost his mind" when he heard the news — Protti is coming full circle, back to the public service.
He is a terrific choice, said another longtime oilpatch colleague.
"All that he needs for this job is in his wheelhouse — he is smart, experienced and he understands where all the tripwires are in the public service. It's good for the province and good for the industry."
Protti wasn't available for comment on Tuesday.
Deborah Yedlin is a Calgary Herald columnist


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"When I look back on it, the word for what it was, all those years ago, was primitive," says Delores (Dee) Brehm, a 50-Year Joslin Medalist, diagnosed in 1949. Of course Dee Brehm is referring to the management of diabetes before the era of technology which, as she notes, "makes life so much easier now."
Like a Chemistry Set
Both this Joslin Medalist of 56 years with diabetes and her partner and husband, Bill Brehm, are philosophical about those years when syringes had to be boiled and sharpened on emery cloth. They also remember "Benedict" solution, test tubes and more boiling procedures. All of this was comparable to using a household chemistry set.
"We had to accept what was available," says Dee, who adds that the biggest change for her came with the blood glucose meter. The Brehms obtained one of the earliest models from England, and Bill remembers that it was "certainly the first useful tool we had to monitor blood glucose in real time."
These Joslin donors have been instrumental in the funding of Joslin's Medalist Study—led by Joslin Research Director George L. King, M.D.,—which studies the blood and DNA of people who have survived diabetes for 50 years or more. Besides providing financial assistance, Dee is participating in the study herself because, as she puts it, "I feel so grateful to be alive after all of these years of brittle diabetes without complications."
The potential impact of Dee's participation in this study is also clear to this couple: "It's an important thing to do," says Dee. "If I have something special that has protected me, and the Joslin scientists can find out what it is, then perhaps that could help someone else." Recently, Bill was invited to join the study as well, as a member of the control group.
Accelerating the Search
The Brehms are true ambassadors to the diabetes community. Bill is affiliated with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and both Dee and Bill are involved in creating a type 1 diabetes research center at the University of Michigan. Indeed, they have been extraordinary philanthropists in this endeavor at the institution that diagnosed Dee and first managed her diabetes.
"We are interested in accelerating the search for the cure of type 1 diabetes," explains Bill. "We seek to bring new tools to bear to support the scientific endeavors and to facilitate the analysis and collaboration of the research process. We also want to enable the complex enterprise that is needed to change this malady from a chronic disease to a cured disease. We must align all the planets in the type 1 diabetes universe and establish a grand coalition, with clear goals and pathways."
It is this spirit of collaboration and invaluable participation in the process that make the Brehms such a special couple. Or, as Hillary Keenan, Ph.D., the Joslin Medalist Study Coordinator puts it: "I have appreciated the Brehms' ardent support of the Medalist Study—contributing not only monetarily, but more importantly, with their time and input. They have been a pleasure to work with and they truly exemplify the spirit of the 50-year Medalist group."
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Page last updated: November 07, 2019


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As Persian Gulf carriers continue to grow rapidly, so does their influence
With huge losses for European airlines and growth in the Asia-Pacific region, the pattern of the power shift in the air transport industry is firmly set. But Middle Eastern airlines are also driving consolidation and securing key positions that give them a tight grip on the industry's general agenda.
The new balance of power comes in several shapes and sometimes is apparent in tiny instances, such as occurred on the sidelines of last week's International Air Transport Association (IATA) annual general meeting in Beijing. But all of them send a strong message. Lufthansa CEO Christoph Franz has been the most vocal opponent of the three big Persian Gulf carriers— Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways—criticizing them for being state-owned and subsidized. He believes that the Persian Gulf carriers enjoy other unfair advantages such as access to export financing, low or no taxes and cheap labor. Franz's rage culminated in the statement that the Persian Gulf countries are a "sandpit with money."
But several high-level diplomatic interventions and a lunch date with Emirates President Tim Clark later, Franz now says he has "high respect for the entrepreneurial achievements" of his new competitors.
Their influence is stronger because Emirates, Etihad and Qatar continue to grow relentlessly, while other regions, and Europe in particular, are suffering. The shift may even lead to new partnerships in some cases. For example, Qantas has fought against the three exhaustively to protect its "Kangaroo route" between Australia and Europe, once a lucrative business. But this month, the Australian carrier said it will take a full-year net loss. Investor shock drove Qantas stock down 32%, shaving $1 billion from the company's market capitalization.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, who was still elected as IATA's new chairman of the board of governors, is under immense pressure to deliver improved results. But Emirates was quick to say it is interested in a "commercial arrangement" with Qantas, as Clark said here, noting that Emirates does not want to buy a stake in the largest Australian airline. As the three Persian Gulf carriers are offering attractive connecting services through their Middle East hubs, a deal with Emirates would be similar to admitting defeat for Qantas.
Emirates does, however, want access to local feed in Australia, particularly now that its rival Etihad is picking up a 4.99% stake in Virgin Australia. Etihad CEO James Hogan would like to increase the shareholding significantly, with the deep commercial alliance between the two that includes Etihad's wet-lease of a Virgin Australia Boeing 777-300ER.
Etihad is in negotiations with Air France over a possible code-sharing agreement, and it also has stakes in Air Seychelles, Air Berlin and Aer Lingus, and its Middle Eastern competitors are considering buying into other carriers, too. Qatar Airways has invested in Cargolux and was close to purchasing Spanair before pulling out of talks early this year. Turkish Airlines, fast-growing and ideally situated between Europe, Asia and Africa, is on the verge of taking a minority stake in LOT Polish Airlines. It is also imaginable that a Persian Gulf carrier could buy the International Airlines Group (IAG) stake that Spain's troubled financial institution Bankia might be forced to sell, a purchase no one would have foreseen a few years ago.
Qatar Airways and Etihad are also playing with the idea of joining one of the global alliances, as well. The sidelines of the IATA meeting were rife with rumors that Qatar Airways will announce it is joining Oneworld. But no announcement came, and CEO Akbar Al Baker refused to say anything on the matter. Industry executives indicate the process is not far enough along for anything more concrete at this stage.
But a potential Oneworld membership was about the only thing on which Al Baker did not have a comment, and the resonance of his opinions has grown, too. Previously, Al Baker wielded influence by writing multibillion-dollar checks for new Airbus and Boeing aircraft and scaring competitors with record rounds of passenger growth. Last year, he criticized IATA for being a club of the past, a nontransparent lobby representing the interests of old-style legacy carriers in the U.S. and Europe.
IATA's chairman for the past year, KLM CEO Peter Hartman, was forced to launch a review of the association's corporate governance and distribution of power, resulting in remarkable changes that were adopted by the general assembly. North America is losing a board seat and the Middle East and Africa are gaining one—to be filled by Al Baker. The Asia-Pacific region will also get more representation. Other governance changes include limiting board members to three three-year terms.
Hartman points out that the measures are "by no means" the end of the reforms and states that more changes can be made if members are in favor of them.
The shift in power is taking place against the backdrop of an industry on the edge, particularly in one of its former strongholds, Europe. IATA Director General and CEO Tony Tyler sees "serious downside risks" for the projected $3 billion profit of its members in 2012. "The biggest and most immediate risk is the crisis in the Eurozone," he says. "If it evolves into a banking crisis, we could face a continent-wide recession—dragging the rest of the world and our profits down." IATA's baseline forecast is for $631 billion in revenues and a $3 billion profit, a margin of 0.5%. But a 1% shift in revenues could turn the profit into a $3 billion loss.
That IATA was not forced to revise its forecast downward has to do with the fact that oil has become somewhat cheaper, relieving some pressure on operating costs. The cargo market appears to have put the worst behind it after sharply declining in the last 1-2 years, and passenger demand is still strong in several key markets, including Europe, whose airlines have nonetheless been unable to turn that demand into profitability. In fact, IATA's stable guidance masks significant deterioration in Europe, where the association now expects a combined loss of $1.1 billion, almost twice as much as it predicted only three months ago. North American airlines, by contrast, are now projected to reach a $1.4 billion profit, $500 million more than foreseen in March and a little better than in 2011.
Carriers in the Asia-Pacific region are struggling with continuing weakness in cargo traffic—despite some improvement in the first half of the year—as well as the economic slowdown in China and India, which still contribute two-thirds of the overall industry profit. The deteriorated European markets will lower Middle Eastern airline profits to $400 million from $500 million, although they are the fastest-growing carriers and have received 80% of the benefits of the slow rebound in cargo markets.
In the current cycle, global air transport profits peaked in 2010 at $15.8 billion, a margin of 2.9%. A year later, they fell to $7.9 billion, a 1.3% margin. Where they will go next depends largely on which risks will become realities and when.
IATA Chief Economist Brian Pearce says, "overall performance is still pretty good, except in Europe." Cash flows are close to mid-cycle levels and airlines have managed to keep load factors up. Pearce notes that carriers have also added capacity at a slower pace. But he is worried this might change soon with an expected up-tick in aircraft deliveries from Airbus and Boeing this year.
"The problem is that the rest of this year looks very uncertain," Pearce says. "We expect further deterioration in Europe; the second half will be worse." The IATA guidance assumes anything up to and including a Greek exit from the Eurozone, but nothing more dramatic. The guidance also assumes a weak U.S. economic recovery, no hard landing of the Chinese economy, no Iran conflict and an average oil price of $110 per barrel.
To bolster airlines' ability to capitalize on demand, meanwhile, IATA is proceeding with its initiative for airline distribution. Tyler says the global distribution systems "have not been able to facilitate innovation like we have seen in other industries." Therefore product innovations "cannot break free of product descriptions limited to booking classes such as F, C or Y and their derivatives," he says.
IATA is working on new distribution standards that better enable airline differentiation; the foundation standard, to be defined this year, will be the basis for a common interface between airlines, consumer applications, distributors, travel agents or even other airlines. The common interface is also intended to allow airlines to make offers tailored to individual consumers. The business case for the new system and a road map for its implementation are to be presented at the World Passenger Symposium 2012 in Abu Dhabi in October.
Separately, to save costs, IATA is consolidating its global operations, reducing the number of local offices to 45 from 59. The remaining offices will in turn take on a broader role and drive global campaigns on a local level. The IATA financial settlement system will be consolidated into five hubs: Miami, Amman, Beijing, Madrid and Singapore.


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2012 VCU Women's Soccer Schedule (pdf)
RICHMOND, Va. – Now that the dust of conference realignment has finally settled, VCU Women's Soccer released its revised 19-game fall schedule on Thursday.
The Rams' new 2012 slate features nine home matches, including early season meetings against Big East foes Villanova (Sept. 2) and Pittsburgh (Sept. 9), as well as a road game at SEC member Tennessee (Aug. 26). In all, VCU will face four teams that participated in the NCAA Tournament in 2011, two of which are Atlantic 10 opponents.
The Black & Gold will keep two of its existing Colonial Athletic Association rivalries intact with battles against perennial power William & Mary (Sept. 20) and Old Dominion (Sept. 23), while also hosting cross town and new A-10 rival Richmond (Oct. 19) at Sports Backers Stadium in its regular season home finale.
VCU kicks off its 2012 schedule with a home match against High Point on Friday, Aug. 17 at 7 p.m. The Rams then hit the road for four of their next six matches, including a trip to the Tennessee Lady Vol Classic Aug. 24-26, where VCU will face Akron and host Tennessee. The Black & Gold also visits Longwood (Aug. 19) and American (Sept. 7), while hosting Villanova (Sept. 2), Pittsburgh (Sept. 9) and UMBC (Sept. 14) during that stretch.
VCU begins its new A-10 era with back-to-back road matches against Charlotte (Sept. 28) and George Washington (Sept. 30), before returning to Sports Backers Stadium for five straight home games beginning with Fordham on Oct. 5. The Rams then host LaSalle (Oct. 7), Saint Louis (Oct. 12), Butler (Oct. 14) and Richmond, and close out the regular season with matches at Xavier (Oct. 26) and Dayton (Oct. 28).
The A-10 Championship is scheduled for Nov. 1-4 at Rhode Island.
VCU will look to continue its momentum from last season. After starting the 2011 campaign with a string of hard-luck, one-goal losses, VCU finished the season strong, going 7-1-3 in its final 11 matches, including eight shutouts and just three goals against.
As part of their impressive finish, the Rams matched their longest CAA regular season unbeaten streak since 2005 (nine games). That stretch also helped VCU to a second-place regular season finish, the school's best in six years. VCU took a 10-match unbeaten streak into its CAA Championship game against William & Mary on Nov. 6, before falling to the 20th-ranked Tribe 1-0 in overtime.


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The Flysch Route: cliffs with 50 million years of history
Zumaia. Algorri Centre
Spain is full of stunning natural settings. Nevertheless, there are some places that are especially fascinating. One of these is the Flysch Route on the coast of the Basque Country, northern Spain. Come and accompany us on a journey along the coast of Guipúzcoa and admire one of the most spectacular areas of cliffs you have ever seen, which also conceal 50 million years of history. Come and discover this whim of nature.
Only occasionally do we have the privilege of seeing real natural treasures. So, if you travel to the province of Guipúzcoa (in the Basque Country), we would recommend you take a boat trip to the coastal towns of Mutriku, Deba and Zumaia. There you can do what is known as the "Flysch Route": several kilometres of rugged cliffs that lead down into the sea, formed through the erosive action of water and movements of land over the course of 50 million years. These rocks have always been of interest to geologists on account of their fossil remains. Now it is your turn to discover them.
When you are facing these cliffs, you have before you the richest marine ecosystem anywhere on the Basque coast, and rocks that contain the mark of vital events in the earth's history such as the disappearance of the dinosaurs or the last major global warming event. A real journey back through time.
Guided tours
If you like walking as you observe beautiful views, then you can get to this area under your own steam, although you should make sure to wear comfortable clothing and footwear. Nevertheless, you should only access the rocks from the beaches at low tide to avoid danger.
The most advisable option is to go on one of the guided tours organised March-September by tourist offices like the one in Zumaia or the one in Deba, an active tourism company and the Algorri visitor centre in Zumaia. Routes generally take four hours and include various activities: you will go to the Nautilus visitor centre in Mutriku, which has spectacular fossil remains and where they will explain the geological history of the Basque coast. From the port in Mutriku, you will take a boat trip to Mutriku, Deba and Zumaia, with a panoramic view of the cliffs from the sea. Once you get to Zumaia, you will be able to visit the Algorri visitor centre.
Sports and relaxation as you decide
The area where the route takes place is also ideal for sports such as surfing, scuba diving and underwater fishing. If you are interested in any of these then you will find perfect conditions here. You can also rent bicycles, kayaks and boats to organise an unforgettable outing on land or at sea. For those who prefer something more relaxing, then in Zumaia there are bird watching boat trips on the Urola River accompanied by a specialist guide.
After enjoying all these activities, you can always opt for a swim at one of the local beaches, like Santiago, Ondarbeltz or Aitzgorri. You will love their crystal clear waters and stunning landscapes. Furthermore, there are also spots like Sieteplayas: a series of small, quiet, hidden coves in Mutriku.


text: 10 Ways to Perk Up Your Sluggish Digestion This Winter slimquickcoach | January 30, 2015 Why does it seem like you gain an extra layer of pudgy padding from more than just your poufy coat every winter? Winter weight is harder to stave off because cold weather brings out the inner bear in us. The instinct to hibernate and seek warmth and comfort leads us to curl up, move less, slow down and crave cooked,… Read More


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Flight Following February 2011
Flight Following
the official newsletter of the Air Care Alliance
Welcome to Flight Following! We will periodically publish Flight Following on our website and also send it directly via email in order to make sending and receiving it as convenient as possible for everyone.
This journal is intended for volunteer pilots, group leaders, other volunteers, professional staff, and all those interested in the incredible world of public benefit flying! Feel free to pass it along to others. We hope it provides useful information making it easier for those who use aviation in public service do a better and more enjoyable job of flying to help others!
Air Care Alliance | 2060 State Highway 595 | Lindrith | NM | 87029
SUBSCRIBE to Flight Following: CLICK HERE > TO -
Please feel free to forward this newsletter or the link http://www.aircareall.org/ff-090510.htm to other members of your group and to anyone else interested in public benefit flying.


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Download the Report (4.9M) Canadian Data (2M)
Provide feedback on this document Visit the Governance of Enterprise IT Knowledge Center community
View the News Release
This fourth edition of the IT Governance Institute's status report of the governance of enterprise IT covers 21 countries and 10 industries. It reveals accord on the contribution of IT to business success, the challenges and opportunities connected with IT the impact of the economic crisis and views on IT outsourcing, social networking and the cloud.
Findings include that:


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So you are smart and have a heart of Gold. You want to use your talent for social good but do not know how or where to start.
How about we, give you a chance to showcase your smartness for a social cause and let you win dollars too!
Sounds exciting? Read on.
Natural or man-made, disasters bring chaos. developerWorks gives you a chance to put your coding and testing skills to become a part of the rescue team from miles away. Participate in the contest and help ease the communication and logistics breakdown that happens when disaster stricks. Use your own idea or copy and improvize someone elses.
Visit http://bluemixathon.devpost.com/ to know participate.
Follow the handle @bluemixathon and tweet using the hashtag #Bluemixathon.


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ConnecThing.io is an IOT Platform sold through the Solution Provider and IT/OT Channel only.
The core of the platform is the multi award winning IOT AEP middleware by Davra Networks but it is our partner ecosystem that makes ConnecThing.io one of the leading IOT Platforms as recognised by No.1 IT Partner Channel News Network CRN.
Join Our Partner Programs
|Solution Provider Partners
|Vendor Partner Program
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|Marketing Affiliate Program
Fludia is eco-innovative company, created in 2002. Focused on cleantech - smart grid energy management, electric load curve monitoring. Its has dedicated team with load curve analysis specialists and computer science professionnals Technologies developed by Fludia are dedicated to the collect, analysis and display of electricity consumption. More than 150000 meters are measured thanks to Fludiameters products and more than 4000 load curves processed by Fludia's software technology.>
Result Pages: 1 Displaying 1 to 1 (of 1 products)
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IoT Solution Description ...
Price: $75.99


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Just a question if such a forum could be added? (We do have a Feature Request forum)
That way all the "bugs" could be addressed nicely without them scattering along the forum
I'm not asking for an "official" bug tracker (there is one already for the beta testers)...just like to find those reported here in one place when i'm looking for a specific behaviour (and prevent double reports).
Thank you


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Become a fan
At AAMCO Cedar Bluff, we know your fuel filter helps prevent water, dirt particles and other contaminants from getting into your vehicle's fuel system, where they can clog up your fuel injection system or carburetor. The fuel filter itself can get clogged or contaminated over time, making your car, truck or SUV perform at less than its best.
The fuel filter should be replaced according to your vehicle manufacturer's specifications or we recommend replacing it about every year or two if you drive under more severe driving conditions-for example, if your car is constantly subjected to the stresses of stop-and-go driving.
At AAMCO Cedar Bluff, our Fuel Filter Replacement Service includes disconnecting and removing the old filter, installing a new filter and checking the fuel filter and fittings for leaks.


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First Broadcast is It's Nice That's dedicated audiovisual website which hosts all of the videos we produced, talks from our events, our podcast and other audio offerings. It was active from August 2013 until December 2014.
At present First Broadcast is on hiatus. All of our audio and visual content is available at itsnicethat.com/watch and itsnicethat.com/listen.


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Installing Flaming River's New Electronic Steering System
We got our first look at the new Motorsports Electric Power Steering system from Flaming River when the company sent us a new-product announcement a while back. We finally got to see the piece up close when Chad Blundell from Blundell Speed & Machine called to tell us he was installing one on a customer's '40 coupe.
The car's owner wasn't enjoying the exercise from the manual steering rack, and came into Blundell's for a more mainstream power steering setup. A 327 small-block sat between the stock unrecessed firewall and the crossflow radiator; there wasn't much room left for power steering with the addition of an alternator and A/C condenser, and several other shops had told him they couldn't do the job without tearing apart the whole front end, adding a serpentine belt system, relocating the alternator and condenser, and trying to stuff in a PS system.
Chad figured the Flaming River system (PN FR40105) might be the best solution. The kit comes with the motor assembly and ECU computer that responds to steering input-including driver resistance preferences as well as speed and wind resistance, and road and tire resistance-and can be used with manual rack-and-pinion or manual steering box systems. As the ECU senses pressure changes, it adjusts the motor to respond accordingly. There is no power assist under straight-line driving. The system runs off of the ignition source, and draws only about 5 to 8 amps under ordinary conditions, and never more than 25 amps. If power is lost, it reverts to manual steering.
This is definitely not a low-buck way to go. With a retail price of right around $6,000, it's certainly not the cheapest way to steer your car, but for some rodders, it might be the smartest. It might also make sense if you factor in the cost of a new rack, accessory drive system, and any other modifications that might need to be done, as well as the downtime of the rebuilt.
Flaming River advertises that the Motorsports unit requires the fabrication of a mounting bracket for specific applications, which is what Chad was up to when we dropped in.
In addition to where it will fit, there are all kinds of considerations when fabricating the bracket. Column angle is particularly important and can be adjusted with U-joints, but ideally the system should run as straight as possible with a minimum of U-joints. The location of the shaft through the floor and the position of the column at the driver end must also be considered. No part of the system should interfere with the pedals. Any levers at the upper end must be able to clear the dash and be reasonably comfortable to use. By running a Flaming River Micro column, Chad was able to make things a little easier, but he added some challenges by running a column shifter. He also wanted to make the installation "plug and play" as much as possible, meaning that the components can be unbolted and removed easily in case the unit needs servicing or some other underdash components need to be accessed.
A further consideration was that the bracketry had to be beefy enough to handle the resistance in the steering. The bracket has to withstand the rotational torque going into the system as resistance increases. When building a bracket, remember that it's doing more than holding a 12lb part; it's trying to resist the torque being generated by the steering system.
The '40 was one of the first customer hot rods to be equipped with this new Flaming River system. Since they are generally designed for use with floor shifters, the manufacturer was eager to see how Chad planned to pack one under the dash with one of FR's tilting shifter columns. We were too.


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Gabriele Bunkheila, MathWorks
An increasing number of applications require the joint use of signal processing and machine learning techniques on time series and sensor data. MATLAB® can accelerate the development of data analytics and sensor processing systems by providing a full range of modelling and design capabilities within a single environment.
In this webinar, we present an example of a classification system able to identify the physical activity that a human subject is engaged in, solely based on the accelerometer signals generated by his or her smartphone.
We introduce common signal processing methods in MATLAB (including digital filtering and frequency-domain analysis) that help extract descripting features from raw waveforms, and we show how parallel computing can accelerate the processing of large datasets. We then discuss how to explore and test different classification algorithms (such as decision trees, support vector machines, or neural networks) both programmatically and interactively.
Finally, we demonstrate the use of automatic C/C++ code generation from MATLAB to deploy a streaming classification algorithm for embedded sensor analytics.
Recorded: 21 Mar 2018


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Grouped together on a tray and filled with leaves and flowers, weathered bottles and jars make an easy table dressing. "In quantity, simple vessels can look so dramatic," says Seo. 1. Collect your own bottles of various shapes and sizes over time (mustard jars, perfume bottles, and jelly jars all work well) or salvage some for just pennies at thrift stores. 2. Randomly fill some of the containers with leaves and flowers and place them on a serving tray or platter, packing the jars tightly together. Cost: $0
Cozy up a set of chairs by reupholstering them with pieces from outgrown or thrift-store sweaters. 1. Cut a sweater apart, working up the side seams and across the shoulders. Trim off the neck hole and sleeves, leaving two squares of fabric slightly larger than the seat of the chair. 2. Unscrew the seat cushions from the chairs. (The screws are usually on the cushion's underside.) 3. Cover the cushions with the sweater fabric, and secure the cloth edges to the underside using a staple gun or small tacks. 4. Trim any excess and reattach the cushion to the chair. Cost: $0
Melt down the dregs of burned-out candles to make new ones in old flowerpots. You'll give both items a new lease on life. 1. Scrub the inside of the pot only, leaving the outside aged. 2. Use a coin to cover the drainage hole in the bottom. 3. Insert a ready-made stiff cotton wick (sold at craft stores) or make your own wick out of cotton twine. To hold the wick upright, tie one end loosely to a pencil laid across the top of the pot. 4. Melt chunks of old candles in a pot set over a low flame or in a double boiler. Pour the liquid wax into the flowerpots. 5. Let set overnight and then trim the wick. Cost: about $2
Find new purpose for mismatched dinnerware sets in the form of a tiered serving tray for hors d'oeuvres or desserts, or use as a catch-all for jewelry, keys, and other small knickknacks. 1. Gather three plates and two cups. 2. Alternating between plates of descending size, using teacups as spacers between the tiers, glue the dishes together with a strong epoxy. To avoid using excess glue, apply only to the rim and bottom of the cup, rather than the plate. 3. Allow the glue to dry overnight, then hand wash before using. Cost: about $2
When heated, plastic containers can break down and leach chemicals into food. Reusable, durable lidded glass ones, like Ikea's 365+ line, are safer for your family and the planet. Use them to store leftovers or dry goods like pasta and beans. ikea.com. Cost: $5.99 to $6.99 each
We're often told to buy cleaners in bulk to save on packaging, but it's not always practical and doable to keep a gallon-size jug of dish soap by the sink. A clear plastic condiment bottle left over from the last BBQ easily dispenses with the problem. 1. Soak an old squeezable bottle in hot water to clean off the label and remove any food residue, then let air dry. 2. Add soap; refill as needed. Cost: $0
They don't just keep your wine from spilling and spoiling; corks can also protect your tables and countertops from hot pots and pans. 1. For a medium-sized trivet, collect at least 50 uniformly sized corks. 2. Stand them upright and arrange them into a tight circle. 3. Surround corks with an 8- to 10-inch metal hose clamp (sold in the plumbing section of the hardware store). 4. Tighten the clamp to bind the corks together and then trim the excess clamp with metal clippers. Cost: about $3
At some point, a cotton button-down wears out its welcome on a hanger. Turn it into cloth napkins or dishcloths, reducing your need for paper products. "The softer and more worn, the better," says Seo. "Faded plaids and check patterns look especially great." How to: 1. Wash the shirts well and cut the fabric into uniformly sized pieces, about 12 inches square. 2. Either leave edges frayed or sew a hem for a cleaner look. Cost: $0
Usually used once and tossed, plastic baggies can actually hold up to washing, drying, and reuse. 1. Insert chopsticks or wooden dowels into the holes of an unused toothbrush holder. 2. Hand-wash bags with warm, soapy water. 3. Hang bags upside-down on the chopstick prongs to let water run out and air flow in. Cost: about $7
When you finish off that last Altoid, save the container. It's the right size for holding office supplies like paper clips and stamps. 1. Trace the top of the tin onto leftover contact paper or cork sheets (found at craft stores) and cut out the pattern. 2. Use glue to affix the cover to the tin. 3. Label the top to indicate what's inside. Cost: less than $10
Don't toss paper that's only been printed on one side into the recycling bin. Bind the sheets together for a quick, handy notebook. 1. Cut the paper into uniformly sized rectangles. 2. Stack the pieces blank-side up and punch two to three holes along one edge. 3. Grab an old shoe box and cut two pieces of cardboard the same size as the paper. 4. Punch holes along one edge, keeping them aligned with the paper holes. 5. Sandwich paper between the covers and "bind" the book using key rings. 6. Cover the cardboard with old carpet samples or colorful contact paper. Cost: about $3
Onions and oranges often come bagged in a plastic mesh. Instead of tossing the bag, use it to cover a bio-degradable cellulose sponge for extra scouring power-and to make the sponge last longer. Just wrap the mesh around the sponge and secure with tightly wound leftover twist-ties at each end. Cost: $0
Caught a cold? Try hanging a bundle of eucalyptus (sold at craft stores and flower shops) from your shower curtain rod. "The heat and steam help to activate the herb's essential oils, which can ease congestion," Seo explains. Hang a bundle with natural garden twine (more moisture-resistant than cotton twine) on the shower rod, away from the spray of the water. Enjoy the scent for a few weeks as you take a hot shower. Cost: less than $10
Perk up your couch or love seat with throw pillows fashioned out of vintage Ts. "If you don't sew --and I don't -- you can take the cut pieces to a dry cleaner or tailor and have them make the basic stitches for you," suggests Seo. 1. Cut two identical squares of fabric from old T-shirts (one from the front and one from the back). 2. Lay the squares on top of one another, exterior sides facing in. Sew the pieces together along three edges, leaving one edge unsewn. 3. Turn the newly created "pillowcase" inside out and stuff with pillow filling (available at fabric stores, or from an old pillow you don't use). 4. Sew the fourth edge of the square shut. Cost: about $3
Replacing carpet creates an enormous amount of waste -- about 1.75 million tons a year in the United States. If you have to install new carpet, save leftover bits from both the old and new rugs to turn into fuzzy coasters to protect your furniture from errant drips. (They make great housewarming gifts, too.) 1. Cut out squares of carpet, trimming the fray. 2. If the coasters get stained, wash in the sink like dishes and let them air-dry. Cost: $0
Most shower curtains are made from vinyl, or PVC, a plastic that can release hormone-disrupting phthalates and other harmful pollutants into the air. JCPenney's PVC-free Carlisle shower curtain is made of polyester -- a synthetic material, yes, but long-lasting and phthalate-free. (When it finally does need to be replaced, use it as a drop cloth for your kids' art projects or collecting leaves in the fall.) jcp.com. Cost: $24.99
Pinecones and dried herbs such as rosemary, sage leaves, and cinnamon sticks make fragrant kindling for a winter fire -- and, unlike composite firelogs and lighter fluid, don't rely on chemicals to ignite the flame. 1. Bundle dried herbs and small pinecones in a sheet of newspaper and secure the ends with raffia or cotton twine. 2. As you pile up logs for your fire, nestle the herb bundle underneath, with paper ends sticking out. 3. To start the fire, light the newspaper ends. As the paper burns up, the herbs inside will ignite and incinerate, giving the logs a chance to catch fire. Cost: less than $10
Turn those winter scarves collecting dust in the back of your closet into one-of-a-kind blankets. 1. Pair up six or seven scarves with complementary colors and a variety of textures. 2. Cut them to equal length and sew (or have them sewn) together, edge to edge. For extra warmth, you can sew on a fabric backing in a similar shade. Cost: $0