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In the summer of 2012, Dee Gordon was beginning to see a once-promising career slip away. He had been a fourth-round pick in 2008 who had been told so often that he was the Los Angeles Dodgers' shortstop of the future that he started to believe it, regardless of what he was doing on the field. But that summer, he had hardly earned being the future anything.
The problem with top prospects in this modern era of information is that they are fully aware of their status. Beyond what's available to read online, a copy of Baseball America -- and its proliferation of prospect rankings -- sits on one or more coffee tables in a major league clubhouse. Often, the same young players on the cover of that magazine are often appearing in those major league clubhouses at the same time.
Earlier this year, Boston Red Sox phenom Xander Bogaerts, signed as a virtual unknown from Aruba, told me that his career was aided because he had never grown up being ranked a day in his young life. He never knew how good he was or how good he was supposed to be. It was not until he had almost catapulted to the majors and began being noticed by a mass audience that he was aware that a lot was expected of him. By then, he was ready to handle the pressure.
But it was not that way with Gordon. He had grown up with a famous baseball playing father, former pitcher Tom Gordon, and he'd starred in high school and had quickly become a prospect even though he had started playing the sport late in life after preferring basketball as a kid.
By the time the draft arrived, Gordon was a known entity, not only in baseball front offices, but anywhere were fans could find out information about the draft. Gordon quickly ascended through the minor leagues, and had a good rookie season with the Dodgers in 2011. That was when the trouble started.
Gordon had been lauded so much and experienced so much minor league success that he was ill-prepared for the troubles that awaited him in his second season. Gordon was aware of the expectations placed upon him, so every bit of failure was painful. And he failed a lot in 2012.
After going hitless in a game, Gordon would often panic. He'd begin to doubt himself. But prospect rankings always had him believing that he was going to be given extra chances. His perceived status within the organization became a crutch.
"I think a lot of times with a young player, I think they feel entitlement," said Dodgers third base coach Lorenzo Bundy, formerly Gordon's Triple-A manager at Albuquerque. "The only thing you're entitled to here is to go out there and perform. When you don't people are going to look for other people. That's the nature of the beast. This Major League Baseball, the highest level there can be, toughest game to play in the world. It's all about competition, it's all about competing."
When Gordon tore ligaments in his thumb on July 4, 2012, he was hitting just .229 with a .562 OPS. Two months later, once again healthy and with a minor league rehab assigment under his belt, there was no longer room for him in the starting lineup. Star shortstop Hanley Ramirez had been acquired from the Miami Marlins while Gordon was out. Veteran Mark Ellis was already entrenched as the Dodgers second baseman. There was nowhere for him to play. It became the low point of his young career.
Gordon sulked for several weeks and refused to even consider a position change that might have gotten him more playing time in a utility bench role. All those prospect rankings had him convinced that shortstop was the only place for him. Recalled to the big leagues in early September after rosters expanded, Gordon had just three plate appearances the rest of the year.
"I didn't handle it well," Gordon said. "I was young. I was pissed. But then I just looked in the mirror and said, 'Dude, you have to get better. You want to play? Get better.'"
He did.
* * *
After a recent game against the New York Mets, Gordon, now 26, spent several moments simmering in the clubhouse. The Dodgers had won the game, but Gordon had committed an embarrassing gaffe on the basepaths. He had forgotten how many outs there had been during one inning and had been tagged out at third base because he had stopped running hard. Gordon was angry and embarrassed.
"That can't happen," Gordon said that night.
These days Gordon, one of baseball's biggest and most pleasant surprises this season, takes nothing for granted. He knows he's one long slump away from being sent to the minors, or at least to the bench. Gordon's torrid April start (.344 average, .853 OPS) has been tempered in May (.243 average, .609 OPS), but he's become an important cog for the talent-laden Dodgers.
"I'm more patient now," Gordon said. "I don't panic as much as I did in the past, to be honest. You get mature as a player, learning what you can and can't do."
Gordon leads all of baseball with 30 stolen bases, and is generally a terror for opposing teams on the bases. In an era where run scoring has diminished, Gordon's ability to steal a base or take an extra base on a ball hit to the outfield becomes magnified. He's been caught stealing only three times this year while hitting at the top of the Los Angeles lineup.
"He's incredible," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly says of Gordon's base running abilities. "I don't care [in what era] you're playing. When he's getting on base, you don't stop him really. You just don't throw him out. It's not like it's just against guys who have slower times. He's not afraid of anybody. I think his percentages are showing that he's going to get you. For the most part, there's not a lot you can do about it. He's been patient with the guys you can't run on. But there's very few of those guys that are fast enough to keep him from running at all."
Gordon's resurgence began from the moment he began to ignore the expectations that had once been put upon him. He spent the majority of 2013 in the minors. Finally, after much prodding from Bundy and the organization, Gordon accepted a position switch. He played 20 games at second base for the Triple-A Isotopes.
At the end of the year, during the Dodgers' organizational meetings, it was suggested that Gordon learn to play center field in order to boost his versatility for a possible utility role in the majors. The team suggested he try the position at winter ball in the Dominican Republic. Gordon spent more than a month in center.
Shortly after his return, Ellis, whose team option had been declined, signed with the St. Louis Cardinals, which left the Dodgers second base job wide open. Gordon was asked to go to Puerto Rico to play second base. He did not hesitate.
"It was a grind," Gordon said. "I didn't have an offseason to be totally honest with you. I was able to get through it."
Gordon beat out Cuban Alex Guerrero, who had been signed to a four-year $28 million contract in the offseason, to win the Dodgers starting second base job during spring training. After having resisted moving away from shortstop, Gordon found the transition to second base had revitalized him.
"You don't have to be everywhere," Gordon said of playing second base. "It's just better comfort-wise, to be honest with you."
Scouts began to notice that spring that Gordon appeared more relaxed at second base.
"He's starting to learn what he is," said one American League team scout. "He had confidence and swagger to his game for the first time in his career."
His approach at the plate also changed. Prior to the 2013 season, Gordon, always rail thin, gained about 10 pounds to try to help his game. The problem was that he really didn't know what to do with that weight. Being stronger only encouraged him to try to hit the ball farther.
In his 38 games with the Dodgers last year, Gordon had a career-low 1.63 ground ball to fly ball ration, an almost inconceivable number for a player whose strength is his speed. This year, his GB/FB rate is a career-high 2.97.
"For me the biggest thing with Dee's offense has been getting the ball out of the air," said one National team scout. "When I saw him in the Dominican Winter League last year you could tell he was really focused on getting on top of the ball and keeping it on the ground. He's always had the type of speed that if he hits it on the ground anywhere, he's got a chance for a hit and anything that falls in the outfield always has the potential for extra bases. One of his bigger issues in the past was he was hitting too many fly-balls, which given his lack of power, were usually easy outs."
The National League scout also noticed that Gordon is now standing closer to home plate during his at-bats. Teams are more reluctant to pitch him inside for fear of hitting him. Any trip to first base for Gordon could turn troublesome for opposing teams because of his speed.
Standing closer to home plate also sets up Gordon to see his favorite pitch on the outside corner of the plate. This year, he's swung and missed at an outside pitch only three times.
"I don't miss that," Gordon said. "That's my pitch."
The keys for Gordon's longterm success will be for him to handle the adjustment teams are making, and for him to handle the grind of a long season. Gordon gained 10-15 more pounds this offseason so his body will not wear down.
"I thought gaining more weight would help," Gordon said. "I can say that it kind of has."
Gordon has always had proper perspective in his personal life. His mother, who had separated from Tom Gordon, was shot and killed by her boyfriend when Dee was just six years old. After his mother's death, Gordon was sent back to live with his father and grandmother. To this day, he fondly remembers everything he can in those six years he spent with his mother.
But at some point, Gordon needed to also learn perspective in his baseball life.
While in Albuquerque last year, Bundy saw a gradual change in Gordon's demeanor. His bitterness at being sent down to the minors had been replaced by a determination to return to the majors. Gordon did not want to be a minor leaguer.
He offered to do what it took to get back to the Dodgers. Gordon, the former top prospect, had been humbled.
All the changes he had made to his attitude and to his baseball game have finally resulted in him being a major league regular once again. But Gordon refuses to acknowledge that he's attained any type of success yet. Anything can happen in a long season, he says.
But the people around him have noticed a difference in him.
"Dee Gordon is having fun on the baseball field again," Bundy said. "And that's the most important thing."


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On "Tulips"
Jeannine Dobbs
In "Tulips" (Ariel), one of Plath's most popular poems, she uses a personal experience as a setting to express the complexities that the idea of childlessness has for her. Ted Hughes says she wrote "Tulips" after being hospitalized for an appendectomy in March of 1961. She had miscarried just a short time before this operation; probably the second hospital confinement triggered associations with death and birth. These tulips are "like an awful baby." There is something wild and dangerous about them. She wants to reject them because she says they "eat my oxygen." She wants to reject the tulips as she wants to reject the trappings of her life and the family she has:
Now I have lost myself, I am sick of baggage--
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.
Not tulips but death is the gift she wants, as in "A Birthday Present" (Ariel), but in both cases the irony is that the gift is life. What she finds in her rejection of the gift here is freedom, a kind of perfection:
I didn't want any flowers. I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free--
. . . .
it is what the dead close on, finally. . . .
Her freedom is both wonderful and terrible because the price is so high. The woman must give up her man and her child that hook onto her, as well as her things, her possessions. And the ultimate price--and reward--is death.
From "Viciousness in the Kitchen: Sylvia Plaths Domestic Poetry." Modern Language Studies 7.2 (1977).
Eileen M. Aird
The world of the hospital ward is a welcome one of snowy whiteness and silence, in which the woman grasps eagerly at the ability to relax completely because nothing is required of her. She has moved beyond normal activity, and relishes the opportunity to relinquish all responsibility, to become a 'body' with no personal identity:
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the
And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to
The renunciation of individuality also includes the reduction of others to a depersonalised level, so that they make no claims on her and she is aware of making none on them; consequently she sees the nurses hurrying about the ward as being as alike as a flock of gulls flying inland. She sees herself as an inanimate object, a, pebble. . . .
The tulips erupt into the whiteness of the microcosm the patient has created as a painful reminder of the health which she consciously strives to reject. The world of Ariel is a black and white one into which red, which represents blood, the heart and living is always an intrusion. The tulips hurt beacuse they require the emotional response which will rouse her from the numbness of complete mental and physical inactivity; she feels that the flowers have eyes which watch her and increase her sense of her own unreality: And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow/ Between the eye of the sun and the eye of the tulips.' This sense of unreality, of substancelessness, is not similar to the feeling of immersion in self which she has cultivated, it is a sense of inadequacy and alienation also described in "Cut": "I have taken a pill to kill/The thin/Papery feeling.' Eventually the tulips force her attention into focus and she merges from the world of whiteness and silence to a not unpleasurable anticipation:
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea
And comes from a country far away as health.
Although Tulips is written in the present tense it has less of the immediacy of some of the later poems in Ariel because the element of control exhibited in the meditative focus and the fashioning of thought and feeling into logically connected statements operates as a distancing device.
From Sylvia Plath: Her Life and Work. Copyright © 1973 by Eileen M. Aird.
Margaret Dickie
One of the few poems she saved from this period is "Tulips," written in March, 1961, about some flowers she had received when she was in the hospital recovering from her appendectomy. Actually the flowers are only the occasion for a remarkable psychological journey into and out of anaesthesia, the "numbness" the nurse brings her in "bright needles." The poem traces the stages by which the hospital patient sinks reluctantly into an anaesthesized "peacefulness," and equally reluctantly comes out of it, through repeating and reversing the imagery of the first four stanzas in the imagery of the last four so that the poem moves into and out from a central stanza with unusual symmetry.
The "too excitable" tulips and their explosions in the first stanza are what the patient awakes to finally in the last stanza, where she claims that the tulips "should be behind bars like dangerous animals." In the first, she has given her name and day-clothes away; in the last, she reclaims herself: "I am aware of my heart." In the second stanza, as she relinquishes herself to the nurses that "pass and pass," she is propped up "Like an eye between two white lids"; coming back to life in the penultimate stanza, she moves through the same stage where the tulips interrupt the air "Coming and going" and "concentrate" her attention. The nurses' tending in the third stanza is matched by the tulips' watching in the seventh. The sensation that her possessions "Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head" just before she succumbs to the anaesthesia in the fourth stanza is reversed in the sixth, when, awaking, she feels that the tulips "seem to float, though they weigh me down," "A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck." In the middle stanza she attempts, in Emily Dickinson style, to describe the state beyond consciousness: "How free it is, you have no idea how free-- / The peacefulness is so big it dazes you."
"Tulips" is an unusual poem for Plath because it does move inward toward a silent center and out again. The fear, shown in many of Plath's early poems, of losing control or the final reluctant relinquishment to unfathomable powers is absent in this process; where she claims, "I am learning peacefulness," "I only wanted/ To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty." Even more unusual than this acceptance of self-loss is the process of reversal, where the mind gradually takes hold again after the grim recognition that the tulips' "redness talks to my wound, it corresponds." The common strategy of Plath's poems early and late is for the mind to generate hyperboles that torment itself; but in "Tulips" this generative faculty has a positive as well as a negative function. "Tulips" is not a cheerful poem, but it does move from cold to warmth, from numbness to love, from empty whiteness to vivid redness, in a process manipulated by the associative imagination. The speaker herself seems surprised by her own gifts and ends the poem on a tentative note, moving toward the far-away country of health. Because she has so exaggerated her own emptiness and the tulips' violence and vitality, she must then accept in herself the attributes she has cast onto the tulips, which return to her as correspondences.
If the supersensitive mind can turn tulips into explosions, it can also reverse the process and turn dangerous animals into blooming hearts. The control of "Tulips" -- the matching of stanzas, the correspondences developed between the external object and states of consciousness -- marks a new stage in Plath's development. Her earlier efforts to train her vision outward, toward the landscape, and to concentrate on realistic details, as well as her very early apprenticeship in set forms combine with the Yaddo exercises in spontaneous associative creation to prepare her for her final poems, of which "Tulips" was the first example. In "Tulips" she develops a new persona. Though she is neither the public persona of Plath's moor-walker or seaside visitor nor the intensely private and fragmented identity of her surrealistic meditations, this speaker shares qualities of both. She is clearly in a hospital, responding to nurses, needles, flowers; but she is just as clearly engaged in an internal drama, reacting to a wild imaginative activity. The tension between outer and inner images is maintained (as it had not been in the early poems) by a tremendous artistic and psychological control.
In this poem Plath reveals what she meant when she said that the manipulative mind must control its most terrifying experiences. The speaker here, responsive to inner and outer compulsions, is able to handle her situation. As the inner tensions intensified in the last months of her own life, Plath was forced to create a persona much more rigid than the speaker of "Tulips." At this point, however, rigidity is what she scorns.
From Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Copyright © 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
Charles Molesworth
In "Tulips," the imagery of forced seeing, of vision itself as the source of the exacerbated sensibility, assaults us everywhere:
They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The comic, almost spitting disgust of the assonance in the phrase "stupid pupil" adds to the allusive parody of Emerson's "'transparent eyeball" from Nature. But this painful, forced seeing is still, one feels, better than the anesthetized drift that constantly threatens to overtake the poet. But whatever the reader might feel, Plath seems consciously desirous of either the drift or the pained fixation, as long as it provides her with an extreme experiential locus.
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.
The openness to experience that some regard as one of the hallmarks of American literature becomes, in Plath's poetry, an ironically balanced pointer that can tip toward either salvation or annihilation.
I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free--
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.
These alternatives, salvation or annihilation, are here joined in a single image-turned-simile; and the toneless quality of the lines parodies the transcendent religious structure that lies behind them, just as "stupid pupil" parodies Emerson. "So big it dazes you" and "you have no idea how free" both originate in the vocabulary of schoolgirl intensification, and Plath built her language almost exclusively out of various forms of intensification. Condensation, catachresis, metonymy, and the verbal strategies of riddles and allusive jokes: all these and more are devices both to record and to ward off the numbing that results when ordinary consciousness is faced with an overwhelmingly fragmented objective world, a flood of facticity that simply will not submit to tenderness or mercy.
One of the standard critical cliches at sprang up around confessional poets was that the language itself provided their salvation, that the redeeming word could set right what the intractable world of egos, projects, deceits, and self-destructions had insidiously twisted. This axiom still putatively left room for individual poets to develop personal styles and remain recognizably confessional. Oddly enough, however, when thrown back on a radically personal axis, the poetry often ended up being simultaneously god-haunted and narcotized, as if narcosis and transcendence were mirror images of each other. In the poetry of Plath and Sexton, we find not only the subject matter but also the very structure of their imaginations returning again and again to an irreducible choice: the poet either must become God or cease consciousness altogether. Haunted by the failed myth of a human, or at least an artistic, perfectability, they turned to a courtship of nihilism.
From The Fierce Embrace: A Study of Contemporary American Poetry. Copyright © 1979 by the Curators of the University of Missouri.
Barbara Hardy
In "Tulips," there is a slow, reluctant acceptance of the tulips, which means a slow, reluctant acceptance of a return to life. The poem dramatizes a sick state, making it clear that it is sickness. The flowers are hateful, as emblems of cruel spring, as presents from the healthy world that wants her back, as suspect, like all presents. They are also emblems of irrational fear: science is brilliantly misused (as indeed in feeble and deranged states of many kinds) and phototropism and photosynthesis are used to argue the fear: the flowers really do move toward the light, do open out, do take up oxygen. The tulips are also inhabitants of the bizarre world of private irrational fantasy, even beyond the bridge of distorted science: they contrast with the whiteness of nullity and death, are like a baby, an African cat, are like her wound (a real red physical wound, stitched so as to heal, not to gape like opened tulips) and, finally, like her heart. The end of the poem is transforming, opens up the poem. The poem, like the tulips, has really been opening from the beginning, but all is not plain until the end, as in "Nick." Moreover, in the end the tulips win, and that is the point. It is a painful victory for life. We move from the verge of hallucination, which can hear them as noisy, or see them as dangerous animals, to a proper rationality, which accepts recovery. The poem hinges on this paradox: while most scientific, it is most deranged; while most surreal, it is most healthy:
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.
It is the country she as to return to, reluctant though she is: the identification of the breathing, opened, red, spring-like tulips with her heart makes this plain. She wanted death, certainly, as one may want it in illness or, moving back from the poem to the other poems and to her real death, as she wanted it in life. But the poem enacts the movement from the peace and purity of anaesthesia and feebleness to the calls of life. Once more, the controlled conceits; and the movement from one state to another creates expansion. The poem opens out to our experience of sickness and health, to the overwhelming demands of love, which we sometimes have to meet. The symbolism of present giving and spring flowers makes a bridge from a personal death-longing to common experience . . . .
From The Survival of Poetry. Copyright © 1970 by Barbara Hardy
Richard Grey
A poem like 'Tulips' is a good illustration of Plaths passion and her craft. Its origins lie in personal experience: a time when the poet was taken into hospital and was sent flowers as a gift. The opening four stanzas recover her feelings of peace and release on entering the hospital ward. 'Look how white everything is', she exclaims:
how quiet, how snowed-in,
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands,
I am nobody . . .
The verse is nominally free but has a subtle iambic base; the lines, seven to each stanza, move quietly and mellifluously; and a sense of hidden melody ('learning' / 'lying', 'lying by myself quietly', 'light lies', 'white walls') transforms apparently casual remarks into memorable speech. What is more to the point, the almost sacramental terms in which Plath describes herself turn this experience into a mysterious initiation, a dying away from the world. 'I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses', Plath says, 'And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to the surgeons'. Everything that gives her identity, that imprisons her in existence, has been surrendered; and she sinks into a condition of utter emptiness, openness that is associated at certain times here with immersion in water -- a return to the foetal state and the matrix of being. The only initial resistance to this movement comes from a photograph of her husband and children she has by her bedside: reminding her, evidently, of the hell of other people, who cast 'little smiling hooks' to fish her up out of the sea.
In the next four stanzas, the tulips -- mentioned briefly in the first line and then forgotten -- enter the scene with a vengeance:
The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
The flowers arc all that is the opposite of the white, silent world of the hospital, carrying associations of noise and pressure, 'sudden tongues and . . . colour'. They draw Plath back to life, the conditioning forces that constitute existence. She feels herself 'watched', identified by 'the eyes of the tulips': their gaze commits her to a particular status or role. What is more, this contrary impulse drawing her back into the world and identification 'corresponds' to something in herself. It comes from within her, just as the earlier impulse towards liberation did. This probably explains why the conflict of the poem remains unresolved: the ninth and final stanza of the poem simply and beautifully juxtaposes images of imprisonment and escape, the blood of life and the salt sea of death. 'And I am aware of my heart', Plath concludes:
it opens and closes
ts bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me,
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.
The alternatives here are familiar ones in American writing: either to live in the world and accept the identity it prescribes, or to flee into a state of absolute freedom. What is less familiar is that, here as elsewhere, Plath associates these two alternatives, traditionally figured in the clearing and the wilderness, with the absolute conditions of being and not-being. Fixity, in these terms, is life; flight is immolation; freedom is the immediate metaphor of the hospital and the ultimate metamorphosis of death.
From American Poetry of the Twentieth Century. Copyright © 1990 by the Longman Group UK Limited.
Renée R. Curry
Plath steeps the poem "Tulips" in a whiteness depicted as powerful, peaceful, and obliterating: . . .
The wintry whiteness of the white walls presses in on the speaker, both teaching her about tranquility and enforcing it on her. The pressure results in eradication of herself and obliteration of the volatility of life. Van Dyne links this annihilation to "the speaker's fears of carnal and contaminating flesh" (Revising Life 92). As well, Van Dyne suggests that the speaker enjoys the process of noting the body's drift into "anonymity and irresponsibility" (Revising Life 92). Hayman, too, claims that Plath luxuriates in the abdication of responsibility in this poem (155). Significantly, the body that drifts into erasure in "Tulips" is a white body in a white world, a body confronted with entrapment in or escape from its own powerful signifiers. The speaker in the poem claims to understand the tulips as signifiers of a complicated sexual world intruding on the hallowed and clean white world of the hospital. She suggests that she might elude the seductiveness of the tulips should she become a nun and regain purity.
This reading of the poem works well enough; however, when we read the poem with an eye toward racial signifiers, the poem situates the plight of many white women who ardently desire an escape from culpability in white dominance over others. Dyer argues that white women are partially responsible for white dominance, but that because of their marginal status in relationship to white men, the only way they can maintain their own honor as white women is to do nothing about their role in domination (206). Thereby, the exquisite and languorous passivity that Plath demonstrates in "Tulips" marks white women as the culpable incapables that they are in the face of white dominance. The tulips remind the woman in the poem of other worlds, of other lives, of a colorfulness outside herself, but the woman cannot acknowledge these worlds and maintain her white passivity simultaneously. She would have to sacrifice the peacefulness of whiteness.
The tulips signify, by their glorious and bold colors, glaring Otherness. The frustrated speaker of the poem prescribes an enslavement for them uncannily linked to Africa: "The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; / They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat. " Annas rightly notes that the speaker experiences an obligation to choose between the two worldsthe white world and the colorful world (A Disturbance 98)however, I find that the speaker clearly wishes she did not have the choice. She prefers to imprison the dangerous and colorful world, so that she may remain passively white.
Perloff reads the white world of the hospital into which the colorful tulips intrude as a "dead, " "dazed, " and "empty" one. She reads the tulips as the entity that will force the speaker out of her whiteness (119). But I contend that in the final stanza only the image of the imprisoned tulips permits the speaker to associate the red of the flowers with the red of her heart. Figuratively speaking, Otherness may only serve as a catalyst for white inspection once it is safely ensconced behind bars.
from White Women Writing White: H. D., Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, and Whiteness. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. Copyright © 2000 by Renče R. Curry
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There have been no changes among the General Authorities since the last general conference. It is therefore proposed that we sustain all of the General Authorities and general officers of the Church as at present constituted.
Those in favor may manifest it by the uplifted hand. Any opposed may manifest it by the uplifted hand.


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Hi there, I don't know my rating because I am French and we don't have this system, but by reading stuff on the Internet I would say I should be 3.0:3.5. I am available on Tuesday/Thursday after 5:30pm and Saturday/Sunday all day.
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I am free this evening after 5pm. I am on Lake Merritt but could play in Albany.
Hi Guillaume, I'm interested in playing. Let me know when you're available. email@example.com
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The popularity of soccer in the United States has increased greatly in the last ten years.
Major League Soccer has become a more respected league with better competition. The MLS All-Stars were able to defeat the European Champions, Chelsea, in the All-Star game in July 2012. With this kind of success, MLS players are more recognisable than ever.
Like any player, those in the MLS want to play for one thing. The MLS title. They want the prestige that comes with being champions. Could they be given more to work for?
In every sport, there will be teams that have a trying season. Soccer is no different. In every other league around the world, teams that struggle get relegated to a lesser division. Why not implement that into the MLS?
Not only would this give struggling teams a reason to keep fighting, but also teams in lower divisions (NASL and USL) could work their way up the top flight. It would give them something to strive for.
The MLS has been working hard to be recognised in world football. They are becoming closer to reaching this goal. If they model their league ranking system after the best leagues in the world, they will start to compete as a global force.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 25th Mar 2012 19:44 UTC
"Last week a large, profitable company sued a small start-up business for patent infringement. As a non-legal person, I can only guess that this sort of thing must happen fairly often. I would also guess that the large companies, which have the means to hire crackerjack legal teams and drag cases out, must often win. And while I guess I feel bad for the small businesses, I've never really cared before now. Because this time, the stakes are high. This time, it's my daughter's voice on the line. Literally." Infuriating. Maybe these are the kinds of stories we need to get normal people to care enough to force lawmakers to change. Sadly, the big bags of money from Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle are probably far more important to them than this sad story.
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RE[2]: Comment by shmerl
by danger_nakamura on Tue 27th Mar 2012 17:47 UTC in reply to "RE: Comment by shmerl"
Exactly, so the only thing one can realistcally do is to not buy their shit(politics can be bought and therefor don't work). Everybody who complains about software patents and then goes out and buys Iphones, Ipads, Oracle, Windows, Xbox or Office is a hypocrite PERIOD
I agree that this is the honorable thing to do, and that it may have some impact in some cases.
I disagree that it is the ONLY thing to do. Some people say that talk is cheap, but I don't agree. Talk helps to keep issues visible.
Having once observed first hand (on a small scale) a phenomenon play out in real life, I will tell you what can happen if people keep talking about an issue. Maybe someone that would otherwise remain ignorant becomes educated and convinced. And maybe this someone is the nephew of someone important in the industry. And maybe this someone has to hear from his nephew over Thanksgiving dinner that he is being a DICKHEAD and is wrong. And then maybe something will change.
I'll concede that this is a dramatic example, although I did watch it happen in the relatively smaller fishbowl of local politics. The larger point is that dialog is important. It is not merely complaining - even though some people clearly are just complainers. Keeping an issue at the forefront has value, and if its all that someone feels able to do than I say at least they are doing that.


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Sensual New Maison Close Collections at Azalea's Opening Soiree by Lindsay of ThatJeNeSaisQuoi:
Azaleas and Maison Close were kind enough to invite lingerie-loving and super stylish StyleOnTheCouch to their joint soiree: Azaleas just moved to a larger location a few doors down from their former storefront in the East Village and Maison Close has some new lines to celebrate. Since Sarah is currently across the pond (New York misses you, Sarah!) she sent me in her place and I was thrilled to attend! There may or may not have been role-playing with lingerie accessories in front of the cameras(!). It was great to see some familiar faces and get the low-down on their new collections which will be available at Azaleas in January. Can't come soon enough!
Maison Close is quite a special intimates range. I say special because there aren't many brands in the lingerie ether that can successfully achieve sophistication through ensembles that are chock full of bravado and sensuality. It's also quite affordable and I highly recommend it for anyone who is trying to build out her lingerie wardrobe on a budget. The new line plays with 'notions of control and submission, secrecy and revelation, retention and ecstasy' and stays true to Maison Close's French roots. What does this look like, you ask? There are three new styles and each comes in a variety of different looks. Let me explain.
Nuit Blanche is for the woman who wants to add a dash of glam to her outfit. Made mostly of sheer black mesh and punctuated with studs, Nuit Blanche comes in a variety of cuts, most notably in two different body suits, a babydoll and a uber-high waist thong that extends into a halter top. One of my favorite cuts – the Soutien-gorge balconnet – looks like it was made to peek out from under a barely there tank or dress… perfection for a night on the town.
Villa des Lys is made of delicate black floral lace, calling to mind sensation, drama and romance. Like Nuit Blanche, it's available in several different cuts including a body suit, backless cat suit (!!!) and a 'mini robe' which wears like a mini dress. I love that Maison Close is playing with the idea of innerwear as outerwear. I do think that if one were to plausibly wear this lingerie as outerwear (keeping the catsuit in mind here), one would need to wear it as part of an overall layering scheme, as with most lingerie we wear out to play. Let a few lacy bits peek out here and there, but certainly don't give it all away up front.
My favorite of the new ranges is Exquise Allure, perhaps because it's the most unexpected from Maison Close. The fabric is an absolute dream, it feels like something between silk and lycra… slightly stretchy but sumptuous and soft to the touch. It's a milky beige color and is slightly transparent (don't worry, it doesn't read 'bridal'), giving the pieces an ethereal feel when compared to the brand's darker fetish offerings.
I agree with Lindsay that Maison Close is a very well priced brand for those looking to extend their lingerie collection. One for a lingerie-lover's Christmas wish list for sure.
Thank you very much Lindsay! You can view Lindsay's blog ThatJeNeSaisQuoi here.


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Oliver, C and Petty, J and Ruddick, L and Bacarese-Hamilton, M (2012) The association between repetitive, self-injurious and aggressive behaviour in children with severe intellectual disability. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. (In Press)


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There are so many issues in the health care debate, you need a scorecard to keep up with them. One that keeps many people scratching their heads is what's so wrong with the Hyde amendment? As Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh asks today in an op-ed piece in washingtonpost.com's "On Faith" blog, why is the Senate hiding from Hyde?
Sister Walsh is the director of media relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The U.S. bishops have come down firmly on the side of universal health care, but they are equally firm that reform of the current system must not include an expansion of federal funding of abortion itself or of insurance plans that cover abortion. The Senate bill — the only one under consideration in this 11th hour of the debate — does not include any specific prohibition, such as the Hyde amendment, which forbids federal funds being used for abortions. Congress has refused to put a Hyde-like prohibition in the Senate bill, claiming that it isn't needed. But as Sister Walsh points out, "The Hyde Amendment has been satisfactory for America for almost 35 years. Why not incorporate it into health care reform legislation now?"
Do we really need Hyde in this legislation? You bet, say the bishops. What would happen if there is no specific prohibition? One needs a crystal ball to say definitively, but hammering out public policy, especially such sweeping public policy, always means trying to anticipate the future and prepare for the "what ifs."
Part of the bishops' concern is over the "what if" community health centers, a federally funded program, suddenly found themselves forced to offer elective abortions. They do not do so now, but the bishops maintain that the reform legislation, if enacted into law, ultimately would require them to do so. This is a complex issue. The USCCB has issued a fact sheet explaining the quandry that health centers would find themselves in if the Senate bill is passed without a specific fix.
What's the fix? As Sister Walsh points out, there is an easy one: Hyde.


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"Celebrate Children," Children's Museum & Theatre of Maine annual auction with live and silent auctions, hors d'ouevres, cash bar and emcee Lori Voornas, Ocean Gateway Terminal, Portland. $40 in advance; $45 day of auction. kitetails.org. 6 to 10 p.m.
SLAP: Superhero Lady Arm Wrestlers of Portland, female armwrestling tournament with emcee Rachel Flehinger and music by Zombie Beach; benefits A Company of Girls; Mayo Street Arts, Portland. $7. mayostreetarts.org. 7 p.m.
"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Horse Prom," fundraiser for Mad Horse Theatre with dancing and a prom theme, Maine State Ballet Theater, Falmouth. $25; $45 per couple. madhorse.com. 7 to 11 p.m.
Walkathon Across America, national event to raise awareness of environmental concerns with
4-mile walk around Back Cove; benefits the Jennifer Parker Foundation, starts at Green Building Supply Store, Portland. $25; free for ages 14 and under. 495-2031. 1 p.m.
14th Annual American Heart Association Northeastern Maine Heart Ball, cocktail hour, dinner, live and silent auctions and music by NEVAH, University of Maine, Orono. $125. heart.org/maine. 6 p.m. to midnight.
"The Moose in Me, the Moose in You," one-woman comedy show with Ida LeClair (Sarah Poulin), benefits the South Berwick Library, Spring Hill Restaurant, South Berwick. $20 in advance; $25 day of show. friendsofsouthberwicklibrary.org. 7:30 p.m.
11th Annual Duck Race, benefits the Unity Area Rotary Club, Sandy Stream, Unity. $5 for two ducks; $10 for five ducks. unityrotaryclub.com. 4:30 p.m.
Third Annual 5K Run/Walk for Autism to Benefit Preschoolers, hosted by Woodfords Family Services, United Masonic Lodge, Brunswick. $20; $10 for ages 8 to 17; free for ages 7 and under. woodfords.org. 9 a.m.
Community Fun Run, 5K run/walk and 1-mile fun run to benefit capital improvements and a scholarship fund, Kennebec Montessori School, Fairfield. $15 in advance; $20 day of run ($5 in advance; $10 day of run for children under 12). kennebecmontessori.org. 9 a.m.
"Mad Hatter Affair," Maine Historical Society fundraiser with Kentucky Derby on TV, live music by the Tony Boffa Band, auction, cocktails and dinner, The Woodlands Club, Falmouth. $100. mainehistory.org. 5 to 11 p.m.
Book Sale, benefit the library's book fund, Camden Public Library. Free admission. 236-3440. 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday; 1 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
Fourth Annual Shake-N-Bake Benefit, music by the Wicked Blues Band and Married with Chitlins; benefits Aubrey Padilla and Wayne Crooker, who are facing life-threatening illnesses; Railroad Restaurant and Tavern, Lisbon. $15. 666-3601. 1 p.m.
Chocolate Sunday, gourmet cakes, chocolate specials, chocolate-covered fruit, beverages and sundaes; benefits seminary restoration fund; Parsonfield Seminary, Parsonfield. $8. 793-8825. 2 to 4 p.m.
Cinco de Mayo Cruise, salsa dancing, food and music by guitarist Chad Cummings; benefit NAFSC programs; Bay Mist, Casco Bay Lines, Portland. $30. 647-4534. 3 to 5 p.m.
Mayfair, May pole dancing, family activities, live music, food and citywide yard sales, various locations, Bath. Most events are free. Schedule at visitbath.com. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
Kennebunk May Festival, pancake breakfast, faerie crowns and gardens, make your own May basket, May pole dancing, parade and more, various locations, downtown Kennebunk. Most events are free. Schedule at kennebunkmaine.us. 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Institute for Civic Leadership 20th Anniversary Celebration, join 300 leaders from all sectors to share inspirational stories of community impact with hors d'oeuvres, storytelling, live entertainment, a short film and a cash bar, Ocean Gateway Terminal, Portland. $75. goo.gl/Yb0uC. 5:30 to 8 p.m.
Kirtan, Brenda McMorrow and John de Kadt, ecstatic song and poetry, The New Church, Portland. $20 in advance; $25 at door. 233-6846. 7:30 p.m.
Roderick Russell, sword-swallowing mentalist, Freeport Theater of Awesome. $18 in advance; $20 at door ($12 in advance; $14 at door for ages 12 and under). awesometheater.com. 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Cuatro de Mayo Music Night, performance slots will be open for individual acoustic acts plus a jam session for anyone who wants to play; storytellers and poets also welcome; Fuego Diablo Studios, Pownal. Free. 408-3185. 5 to 8 p.m.
"May the Fourth Be With You," Maine Academy of Modern Music "Star Wars" bash with music by Emergency Sirens, Yard Sail, Illegal Eagle, Metal Sideburns, Battle Taxi and Rupture the Fish; Breakwater School, Portland. $5; $3 if in costume. maineacademyofmodernmusic.org. 5 p.m.
Juggler and comedian Brent McCoy, Leura Hill Eastman Performing Arts Center, Fryeburg. $8; $4 for students. fryeburgacademy.org/pac. 7 p.m.
Spring Carnival and Open House, games, face painting, crafts, food and more, French School of Maine, Freeport. Free. 865-3308. 11 a.m.
New Gloucester History Barn Open House, permanent and temporary exhibits about local history, New Gloucester Historical Society (History Barn). Free. 926-3188. 9 a.m. to noon.
"Fiesta! Cinco De Mayo at El Rayo," outdoor bar and barbecue, mechanical bull riding, face painting and music by The Pete Kilpatrick Band, Anna & The Diggs, Builder of the House, Pete Witham & The Cozmik Zombies, Jaw Gems, Maine Marimba Ensemble and Primo Cubano; El Rayo Taqueria, Portland. Free admission. elrayotaqueria.com. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Shape Note Singing, four-part singing tradition also known as Sacred Harp, everyone welcome to participate, The New Church, Portland. Free. maineshapenotesinging.org. 1 to 4 p.m.
Third Annual Sprout Film Festival, short films about autism and other intellectual and developmental disabilities presented by Spurwink, Franco-American Heritage Center, Lewiston. Free/donation; $25 for reception. francocenter.org. Reception, 5:30 p.m.; films, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday.
"The Blind Banker" (2010), stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, Rockland Public Library. Free. 594-0310. 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
"The Woodmans" (2010), documentary/biopic of photographer Francesca Woodman presented by Strand Theatre and Farnsworth Art Museum, Strand Theatre, Rockland. $8.50. rocklandstrand.com. 8 p.m. Friday.
Maine Outdoor Film Festival, benefit for Teens to Trails featuring Maine-made films "Turning Tail," "For Those Who Love Paddlers," "Moments from Hogback" and more, Cony High School Auditorium, Augusta. $10. teenstotrails.org. 7 p.m. Saturday.
Movies with S.T.E.V.E.N.: "Satan's School for Girls," make fun of bad 1973 horror movie, 21-plus; Geno's Rock Club, Portland. Free. 221-2382. 10 p.m. Monday.
"Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942), classic George M. Cohan biopic starring James Cagney, Dunaway Center, Ogunquit. Free. ogunquit performingarts.org/arts. 7 p.m. Wednesday.
"Girl Rising" (2013), Opera House Arts presentation of documentary about nine girls and the power of education to change the world, Stonington Opera House. $7. operahousearts.org. 7 p.m. May 9.
"Girl Rising" (2013), documentary about nine girls and the power of education to change the world, portion of ticket sales will help fund programs for the girls; Strand Theatre, Rockland. $10. rocklandstrand.com. 7:30 p.m. May 9.
George Daughan, author of "1812: The Navy's War," Prince Memorial Library, Cumberland Center. Free. 829-2215. 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
Susan Dahlgren Daigneault, author of "In the Shadow of a Mountain: A Soldier's Struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," Falmouth Memorial Library. Free. falmouthmemoriallibrary.org. 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
Sixth Annual Merriconeag Poetry Festival, with Megan Grumbling and finalists from several area high schools, Merriconeag Waldorf School, Freeport. Free. merriconeag.org. 3 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
Maine Poetry Express, conducted by Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair and including readers Ellen Taylor, Dave Morrison, Steve Pixley, Dan Bookham, Ted Kanellakis and Clio Berta, Camden Public Library. Free. 236-3440. 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Debra Spark, author of "The Pretty Girl," Prince Memorial Library, Cumberland Center. Free. 829-2215. 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Carol Lilleqvist Welsh, author of "360 Square," a memoir about adoption, Raymond Village Library. Free. 655-4283. 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Portland Pirates, AHL affiliate of the NHL Phoenix Coyotes, Cumberland County Civic Center, Portland. $16 to $20. portlandpirates.com. Vs. Syracuse in Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, 7 p.m. Thursday (and a Friday game if necessary). Portland Sea Dogs, minor league baseball affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, Hadlock Field, Portland. $9, $10. 874-9300. Vs. New Britain, 6 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; vs. Reading, 6 p.m. Monday to Wednesday.
Annual Spring Dance Concert, Bowdoin College (Pickard Theater), Brunswick. Free. 725-3375. 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday.
Port City Swing Dance, music by the Tom Whitehead Swing Quartet, Woodfords Club, Portland. $10. portcityswing.com. Lessons at 8 p.m.; dance at 9 p.m. Friday.
Contra Dance, music by the Big Moose Band and calling by Chrissy Fowler, College of the Atlantic (Gates Center), Bar Harbor. $6; $1 for children; $2 for family dance. 288-5015. Family dance at 6:30 p.m.; lessons at 7:30 p.m.; dance at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Greater Portland Community Contra Dance Series, music by Sassafras Stomp and calling by Mary Wesley, Falmouth Congregational Church. $10; $7 for ages 13 to 17; $5 for ages 5 to 12; free for children under 5. 358-9354. Lessons at 7:15 p.m.; dance at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Ecstatic Dance Maine, expressive dance with DJ, Reiche Community School Gymnasium, Portland. $10 to $20; sliding scale. 408-2684. 10 a.m. to noon Sunday.
Scottish Country Dancing, new dancers welcome, no experience necessary, Community House, Kennebunkport. Donations at door. 839-8637. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
UMaine Sports
Drive for a national title fires up UMaine Bear huggers
Solar power achieved a New England milestone on chilly Thanksgiving
Local & State
Toy Fund: Brunswick artist raffling piece from paint-a-thon
Varsity Maine
Swimming: Teams to watch
Our View: Judge's refusal to invalidate ranked-choice ruling is a civics lesson


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Did Samsung Bilk Apple Out of $2.5 Billion?
Jul 24, 2012 2:32 PM PT
How much is a "bounce" worth on a tablet PC? It could be worth enough -- along with other patent disputes -- to add up to US$2.5 billion. At least, that's the figure Apple came up with in its patent infringement suit against Samsung, and it all comes down to the bounce, the scrolling API, and finally Samsung's use of Apple's "design patents or trade dress rights," according to Foss Patents, which compiled the per-unit royalty dispute.
This figure is what Apple believes it is due as a per-unit royalty as part of its intellectual property lawsuit with Samsung over the Galaxy Tab 7.7.
If this isn't confusing enough, the case gets more complicated as an injunction awarded by a Dusseldorf appeals court on Tuesday apparently conflicts with a previous ruling from a UK court. In another dispute in America, a U.S. district judge has tried to convince the two parties to settle, but for now a trial is scheduled be begin in federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Monday.
"It is not surprising that different courts -- in different countries, especially -- would reach different results, said R. Polk Wagner, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania. "Patent law is very complex, and although most developed countries have similar patent systems, they are definitely not the same. Thus, the patents Apple and Samsung are fighting about are not necessarily the same across the world."
Apple and Samsung did not respond to our request to comment for this story.
Suits and Countersuits
What complicates the situation even further is that Samsung's patents apparently cover some adopted industry standards, which means that Samsung competitors generally agree to pay a reasonable royalty for using them.
"This is a complex case because it involves Apple asserting both design patents and utility patents," said Andrew Beckerman-Rodau, professor of law at the Suffolk University Law School. "And Samsung is counterclaiming that Apple is violating several of its utility patents.
"At least from press reports, it seems that Apple used the Samsung patents without paying the royalties," Beckerman-Rodau told the E-Commerce Times. "My guess is that the dispute will devolve to the amount of royalties Apple has to pay Samsung for using the patents."
Additionally, it could come down to whether a judge decides that the aesthetics can be patented, which could be akin to trying to suggest that a patent includes the size and shape of a flat panel TV.
"Apple has been very aggressive in using design patents which only cover the exterior ornamental appearance of their iPad and other devices," said Beckerman-Rodau. "Such patents do not cover functional aspects of their devices. Of course, this makes sense, because Apple is known for making devices whose appearance is aesthetically pleasing. Of course, such design patents can be more easily avoided, typically, than utility patents, which cover functional aspects of a device."
Patent Resolution
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has previously tried to persuade the parties involved to settle out of court, which doesn't seem likely at this point. But is this really down to saber rattling?
"Certainly, this will eventually be resolved -- likely by both sides eventually figuring out that international litigation is a huge drain on attention and cash, only serving to benefit the competitors of both companies," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the Enderle Group. "Eventually, they'll have to come to the table and cross-license. It just often takes a long while for both sides to reach a point where they realize they are looking ridiculous and are wasting tons of time and money."
Until that moment comes, this is likely to put the patent dispute in the spotlight -- for good or bad.
"The ongoing battles between Apple and Samsung offer testimony to three points," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-It. "First, the generally confusing state of intellectual property and patent law in the IT industry; second, confusion in the interpretation of those issues in various countries and global regions; and third, the degree to which fierce competition between two tech behemoths can turn these contentions into a confusing series of global smack-downs."
Even resolution in this matter will only likely be followed by new complaints and future cases.
"Unfortunately, I believe this is indicative of a new competitive trend -- especially in the case of IT vendors closely matched in intellectual and financial assets like Apple and Samsung," King added. "But if it continues to escalate in vehemence, it won't be long before 'injunction' replaces 'innovation' as a guiding principle in technology."
Risk vs. Reward
How far this will go really depends on whether one party or another thinks it can win -- and at the same time not spend a fortune to win what could be a dramatically smaller sum of money than it sought to get. As is usual, the winners aren't either of the companies involved.
"The real winners here are the lawyers," tech industry analyst Jeff Kagan told the E-Commerce Times. "To you and me, this is real money, but to them this is just play money as they try to win the game."
However, the risks of where this could lead -- beyond just the money -- could be what might make the companies involved -- in this case Apple and Samsung -- reach an agreement.
"I think we are still in the early stages of the litigation -- at the preliminary orders stage, not the final decisions," added Wagner. "So I'm not sure I would read too much into any individual result at this point. I expect this will be a long process, but that eventually the parties will settle most of these cases. The risk is too high to leave the decision to courts."
With that in mind, the most likely situation is that the rattling of sabers continue, the companies do a back-and-forth dance, and then resolve -- with both parties claiming victory or satisfaction. And those lawyers cashing big checks.
"How will it end? Who knows," added Kagan. "The way these things typically go is if one company was wrong, the ruling goes against them and then they have to pay some kind of fee to the other company to use the technology. Either that or they make a change in what they offer to eliminate that technology. But either way, it's not really that big of a deal. It usually gets settled, and both sides move on in the competitive space. Today it appears Apple and Samsung are enemies. Tomorrow they could be partners. Crazier things have happened."


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OfficiallyDrunk necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 121 diseños de 33 diseñadores freelance.
OfficiallyDrunk.com - Have fun while getting plastered!!! Our website will provide a unique spin on drinking games that will make it easier to find games to play and learn to play to them. Additionally, we will sell drinking related products, hold contests and host the craziest parties across the nation.
Drinking games are usually played by twenty-somethings but of course there are the exceptions!!!
We are thinking that a text-only logo will suffice, but some graphical elements would be great as well. It must be bright, fun and encapsulate the spirit of crazy-fun drinking!!!
Some Ideas:
- Our primary idea is "Officially" in cursive and "Drunk" in block letters in sort of a collegiate outline (think letterman jacket style)
- The use of a ping pong ball, bouncing into a red solo cup of beer (with beer splashing out)
- Perhaps the use of an empty glass of beer to in place of the "u" on Drunk
- We like slight gradients and they may be appropriate in some designs but not all
- We light bright colors, especially black, red combo but not limited to such colors
- Some direction would be to look at the logos of CollegeHumor.com or DoubleViking.com (as well as the style of letter outlines, we like that style)
All in all, we want something that kicks ass -- we know that the designers here will figure out the best ideas.
Some Requirements:
- Must be scalable and degrade well into black/white only
- Must be usable on multiple mediums (web/print/merchandise/etc. -- CMKY)
- Must be usable on both black/white backgrounds or provide variations for both.
- Vector source files must be provided, including fonts if used. (Adobe AI, PS) as well as optimized jpg/gif files for at various sizes.
- Full rights to the winning design are required
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Business Room
Double room with added comforts. The room features one double bed as well as extra sleeping arrangements, for up to five people.
A spacious and comfortable room with added comforts. Plenty of room to relax in the separate seating area, and ample space to take care of work at the practical desk. Bathroom with shower, a hairdryer and complimentary toiletries. Telephone, minibar and flatscreen TV with a varied selection of channels and the option of logging on to entertainment services, plus free WiFi.
- Free WiFi
- Breakfast is always included
- Eco-Lighthouse certified
- Richer selection of toiletries
- Iron and ironing board
- Travel magazines
- Bathrobe and slippers
- Private safe
- Mini-bar
- Telephone


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JR approaches AJ's teammate Kyle at Jane's Addiction and threatens to expose him if he doesn't hand over the extra juice.
A Little Extra Juice.
Lea and Zach follow a lead, Cara thanks JR, and Dixie gets to know Anders.
At the station Lea and Zach find a maker's mark on the Koslov pendant.
At the hospital, Anders tells Angie and Jesse that Cassandra tested negative for all STDs but she's pregnant. Angie worries about the effects of the drugs on the baby. Inside Cassandra begs for something to take the edge off. Angie assures her she and Jesse are there for her, but Jesse is gone. In the hall, Jesse calls Uri and demands a meeting.
Outside school Miranda apologizes to AJ. She asks him to stay away from her but he promises never to turn his back on her. She's his life.
At Chandler mansion JR stashes Kyle's backpack as Cara arrives to gush about her trip with Oliver. She grabs him for a hug and is impressed with his progress. She agrees to a date. Miranda and AJ arrive and explain away his black eye as a baseball injury. Later, AJ and Miranda play video games in his room and get into a tension-filled tickle fight.
Zach and Lea pretend to be married and welcome jeweler Constantine to their hotel room. Zach picks out a brooch before they request a custom piece, much like the Koslov pendant. Constantine admits he has made three pendants for the Koslovs – one for Uri, one for the father and one for the brother Vladimir. He has no idea where they are and is too busy for new clients.
Dixie joins Anders at Jane's Addiction. She did research on him and is assured Cassandra is getting the best care. She asked why he left Denver and he says he is interested in new challenges. He wonders why all the questions, but she just wants to get to know him. He tells her she is the most attractive therapist he has ever met before leaving.
Jesse punches Uri in an alley. Uri threatens to kill everyone in his family before he comes after him.
Back in the hospital David comforts Angie. She thanks him for being there, again. Later, Zach and Lea show Cassandra a picture and she recognizes Uri as the leader. Vladimir did everything he said. When Jesse returns he gives Angie an excuse for his whereabouts. She needs him strong right now for all of them.
Cara can't believe how well JR is walking in the square. She's proud of him.
At the mansion JR wants the truth about AJ's injury and promises to talk to Hunter's dad. Later, AJ and Miranda hug and almost kiss. She rushes off while he takes a call from Heather.
Pine Valley spoilers for the next All My Children:
David goes on Talk Tempo.
Cassandra gets tough news.
AMC Recap Part 2: Reminders Of My Dark Past.
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Knots Landing: Modern Macrame
- Artist Sally England created this gorgeous headboard for the Ace Hotel in Portland.
- Lovely planters hang beside the bed in a farmhouse in Idaho. From Design*Sponge.
- A bright blue owl hangs beside owl prints in a cheerful family home from Design Mom.
- A vintage wall hanging pairs with colorful curtains in space by interior designer Shannon Tate.
- A white planter is perfect in this bohemian chic bedroom, complete with rattan headboard. From Family Love Tree.
(Images: As linked above.)


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ECS L337 GANK Machine Z87H3-A2X Extreme Review
ECS L337 GANK Machine Z87H3-A2X Extreme Introduction:
After looking at what the motherboard offerings are like from a few other manufacturers, it's time to see what ECS is bringing to the table in the high end gaming/enthusiast sector. Over the past few years ECS has really pushed forward in this sector to make inroads with products that genuinely were great products. With the launch of the Z87 Chipset and Fourth Generation Core series processors from Intel, ECS has released its L337 series of boards in the Killsteel and GANK series.
The board I am looking at today is part of the GANK series, The ECS L337 GANK Machine Z87H3-A2X Extreme comes equipped with features such as 2-Way SLI, 3-Way CrossfireX, Lucid Logix Virtu MVP graphics options, Dual Gigabit LAN, 15µ Gold Contacts, triple density PCB, ECS Durathon technology, and its Qooltech V Ultimate active cooling solution. And that's to start.
Priced at roughly $220' the ECS L337 GANK Machine Z87H3-A2X Extreme is in the middle price range of Z87 based motherboards' so with the feature set and capabilities alluded to it presents some value for that coin. The question has to be asked is if it is ready for the big time or will it be relegated to obscurity as another board with a gimmicky name with a solid feature set? Or... will it truly supplant some of the favorites in the market? Let's find out.
ECS L337 GANK Machine Z87H3-A2X Extreme Closer Look:
ECS L337 GANK Machine Z87H3-A2X Extreme comes in a box that could only be described as busy. By that the carbon fiber look of the gold lettering in the GANK logo and the overall carbon fiber look of the box is incredibly colorful when looked at under the lights. You get a brilliant holographic effect as the light bounces off the box with an array of colors. If nothing else, ECS has set its package apart from the rest of the boards on the shelf at your local big box mega computer hardware center. The front panel shows this board is part of the L337 Gaming series motherboards that is split into the GANK and Killsteal lines. The basic feature set shows that it is designed for use with socket 1150 Intel processors, supports Windows 8, AMD CrossfireX, NVIDIA SLI, and Virtu MVP. The back panel lists the key specifications for the board across several different panels that talk about the Qooltech V cooling solution, 15µ Gold Contacts, eight channel audio, Dual Gigabit LAN, Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, dual displays, and DDR3 3000+ memory support. The front panel flips open to dig quite a bit deeper into what makes the GANK Machine Z87H3-A2X Extreme the board for your system as it looks at the Durathon component structure, EZ Button control center, and more. On the right side you get a first look at the board that is pretty pleasing to the eye.
Inside the brilliant exterior is a sold black interior case that holds the board and accessory bundle in a pair of boxes. The board in one and the bundle neatly packed into the other. Sweet and simple and almost standard for motherboard packaging these days.
The accessory bundle ECS equips the GANK Machine Z87H3-A2X Extreme with is more than enough to use all of the functionality on the board. The driver and utility disk, manual, and quick start guide round out the documentation. The hardware in the bundle includes seven SATA 6Gbps data cables with locking ends, an I/O shield, SLI Bridge connection, wireless LAN antenna, and dust plugs for the I/O connectivity options you will not be using.
On paper the GANK Machine looks to be a winner in all aspects due to the wide ranging feature set and build construction. Let's delve deeper into what makes the GANK Machine Z87H3-A2X Extreme tick.


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View Condenser Product Brochure
Hvac Direct Split System Air Conditioners 16 SEER 4 Ton 2 Stage Condenser
Weight (Shipping):282 LB
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The compressor in your new air conditioning system is covered by a Lifetime Limited Warranty*. If the compressor ever fails, a new one will be provided to the original purchaser of the central air conditioning system as long as they live in the same single-family residence. All functional parts are covered by a 10-Year Parts Limited Warranty.* For a full description of all warranties applicable to this product, please review the consumer brochure or product warranty by clicking on the links below.
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With this central air conditioning system, you will enjoy top quality, high-efficiency cooling and an environmentally friendlier chlorine-free refrigerant — all at a refreshingly affordable price.
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Before purchasing this appliance, read important information about its estimated annual energy comsumption, yearly operating cost, or energy efficiency rating that is available from your retailer.
* To receive the 10-Year Parts Limited Warranty or Lifetime Compressor Limited Warranty, online registration must be completed within 60 days of installation. Online registration is not required in California or Quebec.
Energy Star ratings are dependent upon conditions beyond equipment installation. To make certain your HVAC equipment qualifies for the Energy Star designation get complete information at www.energystar.gov.


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Thursday, September 16, 2010
Playing and Sharing........(maybe with you)
Sometimes this is when some terrific spontaneous designs can happen. We were testing out a number of different supplies, when I quickly drew a feather that I could paint to see if there would be much "bleeding" across the lines. Once I got it home, I realized that I really quite liked it, I added a little doodling and turned it into this postcard.I decided to make a couple more based on that same design
This one is using some tiny scraps left over from a previous painted fabric project, the little circles were coloured using Sharpie markers.This one was done using a marbled fabric, the colour placement was not planned, I drew the individual feathers onto the paper side of fusible and simply pressed it to the marbled fabric and then cut out the feathers, sharpie markers were again used for colouring the circles.
Here comes the "sharing" part of this post...........would you like to have this postcard? I am afraid the first 2 are spoken for, but this third one will go to one of my blog readers. To have a chance to find this card in your mailbox, just leave me a comment. Are you a regular visitor or have you just recently come across this blog? I know that there are lots of you who visit often but don't always leave a comment and that's okay, but if you want a chance to win this card you'll have to let me hear from you. Remember to be sure I have a way to contact you. I'll announce the winner next Thursday, Sept 23rd so you have lots of time.
52 comments:
- MARIKA said...
I observe it always blog entry the translating very good one there is not a thing obstacle to read .
I like it very much free sewing .
This work wonderful gift !!
Thank you for the opportunity onto the game ,I present myself there will be fortune maybe :))
- September 16, 2010 at 4:24 PM
- Quilt or Dye said...
I love it! I think I am one of your followers and have been for a while.
- September 16, 2010 at 4:24 PM
- Terri Stegmiller said...
This is definitely a fun design and it looks great in all three versions. You probably should make some more.
- September 16, 2010 at 4:24 PM
- sbsudbury said...
You continue to inspire me Jill. Thanks to for opportunity to have a piece of your wonderful work in my home.
Crazy busy in Sudbury,
Sharon Bourque
- September 16, 2010 at 4:25 PM
I'm a collector of your art! You know I'm just so excited over here!!
- September 16, 2010 at 4:31 PM
- Trudi said...
I'm very fortunate to have a piece of your art, and would be thrilled to win another! These are truely beutiful and you alway continue to inspire me to play more - thank you :)
- September 16, 2010 at 4:40 PM
- Debbie said...
Fabulous! Count me in, please. I absolutely love your doodles. I am working on my drawing, so I love to visit your blog. And this feather is wonderful.
- September 16, 2010 at 5:06 PM
- Dolores said...
What wonderful postcards. I am a follower and enjoy viewing your creativity.
- September 16, 2010 at 5:29 PM
- The Cozy Quilter said...
Hi Jill
Your postcards are mini works of art and I would love to receive one in my mailbox!
- September 16, 2010 at 5:44 PM
- Cheryl said...
Jill , I love your post cards with the feather designs ,I never saw a cloth postcard before ,would be nice to get one of your's .I love to look at your blog too ,Cheryl
- September 16, 2010 at 6:29 PM
- Sherry said...
You are one amazing creative person. I love to see your work. This is the one blog I will always read.
- September 16, 2010 at 7:40 PM
- Michelle said...
I am a newer reader of your blog and I really enjoy it! You are a very talented artist and I am inspired every time I see your artwork. Love your postcards!
- September 16, 2010 at 7:57 PM
- Melinda said...
I would love to win a postcard. I read your blog regularly and enjoy it a lot.
- September 16, 2010 at 8:20 PM
- Terry said...
I just found your blog recently and love seeing what you are doing. Beautiful work!
- September 16, 2010 at 9:53 PM
- Periwinkle Pumpkin said...
I love your blog and I always read it. Your zentangle drawings based on the creative prompts are wonderful and inspiring. I usually just lurk but I couldn't resist the chance at your wonderful postcard!
- September 16, 2010 at 10:23 PM
- Karen S said...
Pick me! Pick me! You know I always read and usually comment!
These are so cool (seriously).
- September 16, 2010 at 10:33 PM
- Quilter Kathy said...
I probably shouldn't even enter because I have already been the recipient of one of your beautiful cards...but I can't resist!!
I love the card where you used all the tiny fabric scraps...love love love!!
- September 16, 2010 at 11:50 PM
- marjay said...
Your new postcards are beautiful. I would be extremely happy to receive one of them. I have subscribed to your blog in Google Reader for quite awhile now.
- September 17, 2010 at 3:00 AM
Yes please! It's a marvellous design, and I like the way it looks so different in the various colour ways. Your blog is always a delight.
- September 17, 2010 at 3:03 AM
- Quilts and Cats said...
I too, just LOVE your art. I've been following your blog for quite a while and you are always an inspiration to me. The postcard would look just wonderful in my sewing studio!
- September 17, 2010 at 5:51 AM
- GailM. said...
Hi there... I'm a follower. I love this feather. I'm also interested in what the results of your ink and marker research is. I've bought many brands of markers to test. I want to ink my own quilt labels, but most seem to run or fade, or bleed.
LOVE LOVE the feather!!
- September 17, 2010 at 6:58 AM
- Quiltbug said...
I've been an avid reader of your blog for ages. I love your creative prompt work as well as the logo for QC which I hope to attend in London. Your graffiti piece in the show earlier this year is spectacular. Keep up the good work and put me in the draw. i would love to win one of your postcards.
- September 17, 2010 at 7:54 AM
- Carol said...
Gorgeous ...... make that GORGEOUS !!!!!!
As always you are such an inspiration.
- September 17, 2010 at 7:57 AM
- Jacqui's Quilts said...
Would love to win your postcard!! I follow your blog fairly regularly and love reading about your inspirations!! See you soon.
- September 17, 2010 at 8:03 AM
- Anne Huskey-Lockard said...
They are ALL amazing!
And yes, I would love to have my name in the draw for the remaining unclaimed one!
It is fun to see a design repeated and treated in such different ways; it holds well and provides so many options!
- September 17, 2010 at 9:21 AM
- 501 Quilt Blocks said...
I love your postcards! I read your blog through Quilter Blogs. Thanks for the chance to win.
- September 17, 2010 at 9:30 AM
- Anita in Florida said...
Love those postcards! Would love to be entered in the drawing.
- September 17, 2010 at 9:32 AM
- WvHmmngbrd said...
I have heard lots about these fabric art postcards but have never seen one in person. Would love to find one in my mailbox so I can get in on the fun! thanks for the chance to win!
- September 17, 2010 at 10:38 AM
- Mary-Kay said...
I'd love to see your art in person and it would be great if I won something.
- September 17, 2010 at 1:52 PM
- tich said...
Thank you so much for the lovely welcome, on becoming a follower. I love your site and have been reading it for a while. I like the way you take an idea and expand it. I want to try some of your ideas. Thanks for sharing so much.
- September 17, 2010 at 1:54 PM
- orkaloca said...
Hi! I'm one of those who follow you but never leave a comment... but I've your blog in my feedreader so I don't miss a post :)
I love your work and I can't miss the chance to have one of your cards :)
Thanks for the chance!
my email is: info(at)orkaloca(dot)com
- September 17, 2010 at 2:06 PM
- Barb said...
Hey Jill ~ your favorite "stalker" here. You know how much I love your work ~ and while I'd love another piece of your art ~ I don't want to be greedy.... just wanted you to know how beautiful all these pieces are. You are just so talented! Congrats to who ever is lucky enough to win.
- September 17, 2010 at 2:38 PM
- Robbie said...
Yep,yep..who wouldn't want this postcard! Love your week and just I'm a follower!
- September 17, 2010 at 8:47 PM
- Jackie said...
I am a regular visitor, all the way from Manitoulin=))
- September 17, 2010 at 10:42 PM
- nj said...
Hi Jill, I love to make fabric postcards to send to friends and family and would love to receive one of your beauties. I enjoy your blog and creativity.
- September 18, 2010 at 12:04 PM
- ....... said...
I am one of your recent followers....You are after my heart in more than one way...I'm a toy sewing machine collector (62 of them) AND a fabric postcard maker! However, your postcards are so much more beautiful than mine!
- September 18, 2010 at 2:08 PM
- Katie said...
These are gorgeous! The one where you filled the feathers in with marker reminds me of Zentangles. Which I'm totally fascinated with after starting FMQ! = D
- September 18, 2010 at 10:32 PM
- Kim said...
I do visit often without commenting, I just have to have a look at your doodles,projects, and creations.
Thanks for a chance to win the postcard it looks lovely and as always I am again inspired by your work.
Happy sewing
- September 19, 2010 at 8:33 PM
- helen-mary said...
Jill, I would love to have that postcard in my collection, so I hope I'm lucky. Yup, I follow you. I just looove your stuff.
thehuberts @ mountaincable.net (take out the spaces)
- September 20, 2010 at 7:57 AM
- Quilt Rat said...
I am posting this comment for Marianne. Google reader is not co-operating for her so she sent me the following comment through my email
I read your blog through Google Reader and although I have been able to post comments in the past this is no longer possible for me despite having a Google account. Maybe it has something to do with me not having a personal blog any more I don't know. I just wanted to let you know that despite not leaving comments I enjoy your blog very much and you inspire me to try out things I would not otherwise be brave enough to try. I know I ought to let you know now and again; it is not very polite to just use and enjoy without ever letting you know so a huge
Thank you for sharing your adventures!
It is much appreciated.
Kind regards
- September 20, 2010 at 10:18 AM
- Clare Wassermann said...
How nice to see another little addition too your techniques - the cards are lovely x
- September 21, 2010 at 4:43 AM
- Marcia said...
Thank you for this giveaway. It is the first time I've commented (as you suggested). This piece is wonderful so am entering the drawing. mlwright29 (at) hotmail (dot) com
- September 21, 2010 at 6:03 PM
- connie said...
Oh, I am so excited I was catching up on my favorite blogs. I would have hated to miss an opportunity for a piece of your work. I hope all is well. I love this piece, but I love all of your work. :-)
- September 22, 2010 at 12:23 PM
- Bunny said...
I would be delighted to win your amazing work. Love it.
- September 22, 2010 at 12:51 PM
- Beth said...
I tried to leave a comment a few days ago... but the Internet in South Africa is not always functinal.... It hung on uploading the comment. But I read your blog and have a link on my Blog... so I always know when you have an update. I'd love to have the postcard!!! Oh, and I love the design- all the variations.
- September 22, 2010 at 1:03 PM
- ooglebloops said...
I am a follower, and regular reader/lurker, not always a commenter ! Great postcard - and I love the rat photo!!!
- September 22, 2010 at 1:28 PM
- upstateLisa said...
Oh my goodness how did I miss this post (I am a follower!) these are absolutely gorgeous!!!!
- September 22, 2010 at 3:21 PM
I have your blog on my blogroll at Canartisan. I stop by once in a while to see what's new. Love the postcard!
- September 22, 2010 at 5:55 PM
- Cathy H. said...
Beautiful postcards! I am a regular follower. I always look forward to your post. I love to see your doodles!! Thanks for the wonderful chance to win one!
- September 22, 2010 at 6:08 PM
- Joanne said...
Love it! Please count me in! Thanks♥
- September 22, 2010 at 8:21 PM
- Diane J. Evans said...
Love them all!!! Once again, I am inspired to get my body back into that studio and play with shapes. So, count me in on your giveaway -- here's hoping #51 is the charm!
- September 22, 2010 at 9:59 PM
- Jaye said...
I really like the feathers you have created. They remind me of Piece O'Cake designs, but with a Jill twist! I follow you and have your blog in my blog reader as well.
- September 23, 2010 at 12:11 AM


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Red and turquoise
It's been a whole three weeks since I've been to a Diablos game. Doesn't sound like much, but I was kinda used to seeing at least two or three games a fortnight. Nice to be back there. I've had an underlying bad mood for a the last couple of weeks, and while I'm not blaming a lack of live baseball (which would mean my winters would be awful), the lack of baseball, that lack of emptying my mind of its daily crap, well, I don't think it helped. But, hangover intact, sunglasses on, steaming hot subway journey to the park, and it was free New Era mini cap day.
As you can see from the flyer that they put up on Facebook, there's a wee bit of misdirection going on. They do say it's a New Era mini cap, but the photo of the Diablos caps made me assume I'd be getting a mini Diablos cap. Sadly not. It was just a New Era cap. Still, it's a new one for the tiny collection of mini caps. Here is a photograph of that collection.
And here's a photo of my flatmate's cat clearly signalling that she is a Rockies fan.
The weird thing about it being a New Era promotion day was there was very little stuff going on. Some minor league between innings games for children a couple of times was about it. The strangest thing was the lack of caps for sale in the store. They had no official on-field caps. None. All they were selling was the fashion-y caps, which, as we all know, are wrong.
Because I'm rather twitchy about these giveaways when they are limited in number, I got there 90 minutes before first pitch; in time to see the visitors taking batting practice. I rarely get to the park early enough for that sort of thing. Sitting there, drinking a hair of the dog Corona, it occurred to me that batting practice has a very similar dynamic to one of those silly, world record achieving, gang bang porn films: lots of dudes stood around swinging their bats impatiently waiting their turn to bang away in the cage.
The DJ, if that's the right word, at the ballpark seems to have found some new records. He played a song by Muse. I've not really heard a Muse song all the way through for about ten years. I was genuinely a wee bit flummoxed at how ridiculous they sound. I wonder if they realise. I wonder if they do that music as a kind of huge money-making joke. And the DJ played that awful "Umbrella" song by the Baseballs. I see what you did there, Señor DJ. And still on the topic of music, the cheerleaders were dancing to the Rihanna song "Only Girl in the World." I got to imagining what that would be like if a woman was in fact, the only girl in the world. I imagine it'd be quite a stressful situation, to say the least.
I was very self-conscious at the game for some reason. Actually, I know exactly why I was feeling self-conscious: I'd been watching a guy while batting practice was going on. He was probably in his mid-forties, wearing a Diablos cap, a Diablos jersey, which was tucked into his knee-length black shorts, and calf-high white socks. Generally, a pretty dorky look. And he was stood with his back to the field near the top of the seating area, throwing a baseball against a seat a few rows higher and catching it in his glove. I watched him for a few minutes. All the time, he had no idea I was watching and planning to blog about him later. That made me self-conscious. I noticed that I have a habit of setting my beer down on the floor, and re-setting it two or three times. Just moving a few millimetres, not much, but it was unnerving to notice it. I also got bored of score-keeping in the second inning and wanted to stop, but because a guy who was sat a few seats away had taken a lingering look at what I was doing on a couple of occasions, I was too embarrassed to just put the cap on my biro and relax.
As with games in the other two-thirds of North America, the vendors try to drum up trade as they walk around the park. Lots of stuff to buy: buy, soft drinks, popcorn, nuts, ice cream, iced coffee, esquites, and tacos de cochinita. The taco de cochinita vendors were wearing new tabards. At least, I think they were new; I'd not noticed them before. Someone had cleverly noticed that the name of this particular snack has the same initials as appear in the cap logo of a major league team. And, well, it seems like they've ripped off the Minnesota Twins' logo completely.
While we're talking about vendors and logos: the souvenir guy was selling small plastic batting helmets. Not just Diablos helmets, but Yankees helmets too. And interestingly – well, maybe not – it seems like the logo on these mini helmets is the jersey logo, not the logo that normally appear in the helmet or cap. Topic already addressed here.
There was, though, one vendor who caught my eye. He wasn't shouting about his wares. He didn't walk up and down the steps touting his goods. He just walked slowly, looking hopefully up at the spectators, holding a large hardback book in his hand. I watched him for a while. He didn't seem to have any takers. Sadly, I didn't get a photo, and I have no idea what the book was.
The Saraperos, last season's champs, aren't doing so great so far this season. Heading into the game they were 26-37, second from bottom in the Zona Norte division. The Diablos, though, were 37-26, half a game out of first place. The Diablos wore their red alt jerseys, Saraperos wore their turquoise. It was a bit softball, but quite a nice colour combination, I think.
After taking the lead off a Carlos Valencia home run in the bottom of the first, the heart of the Saraperos order crushed it in the second and third, taking a 5-1 lead. But coming off the back of six straight wins, the Diablos chipped away, gave up a couple more, and eventually prevailed, off of two solo homers in the seventh. 8-7 final score. Seven straight wins. Huzzah. (And they won today, too.)


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Josh Brolin & Bruce Willis Bring 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For' to Hollywood
Josh Brolin is handsome while attending at the premiere of his latest movie Sin City: A Dame to Kill For held at TCL Chinese Theatre on Tuesday (August 19) in Hollywood.
The 46-year-old actor was joined on the red carpet by his co-stars Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Stacy Keach, and Dennis Haysbert.
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Josh Brolin
True Blood's Ryan Kwanten, Michael Bolton, Johnny Knoxville, and The Bridge's Demian Bichir were also seen showing some support for the movie, which hits theaters on Friday, August 22.
15+ pictures inside of Josh Brolin and Bruce Willis at the Sin City: A Dame to Kill For premiere…


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Moderators: Jenise, Robin Garr, David M. Bueker
Ultra geek
Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:35 am
Knoxville, TN
He put the 'bar' in 'barrister'
Tue Mar 21, 2006 8:31 pm
Vancouver BC
Otto Nieminen wrote:Am I the only one who gets some merde/shit/dung/funk/brettanomyces bruxellensis in my Musar? What sort of strange Musars do you get accross the pond?
Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:07 pm
Helsinki, Finland
He put the 'bar' in 'barrister'
Tue Mar 21, 2006 8:31 pm
Vancouver BC
Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:07 pm
Helsinki, Finland
Bill Spohn wrote:As for Bret, you can probably get a reading on it if you taste a wine that really has it. I'd suggest some of the older Beaucastels, but that would be an expensive lesson.
Hello out there - can anyone suggest a currently available modestly priced wine that is egregiously affected by Brettanomyces? - Think I'll post this as a separate thread and maybe somene can offer a nice 'study' wine on the subject!
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