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The Global Club Management Software Market Research Report is a professional in-depth study report and indeed a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.
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Club Management Software is a computer software which provides associations, clubs and other membership organizations with the functionality they require to provide their services to their members.
The report, titled Global Club Management Software Market defines about its present scenario and briefs readers about its products, applications, and specifications. The research lists key companies operating in this Global Club Management Software Market and also highlights the key changing trends adopted by the companies to maintain their dominance.
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By using SWOT analysis and Porter's five force analysis tools, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of key companies are mentioned in the report. All leading players in this Global Club Management Software Market are profiled with details such as product types, business overview, sales, manufacturing base, competitors, applications, and specifications.
For a detailed competitive analysis, the Global Club Management Software Market is segmented on the basis of region, application, and product type. By region, the Global Club Management Software Market is divided into Europe, Global, North America, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America.
Key companies are focusing on spreading their products and services across various regions. Additionally, acquisitions and mergers from some of the leading organizations are on the cards in the near future.
Efforts are being taken by most of the companies to improve their research and development activities to introduce innovations. Governments of many nations are also contributing towards the growth of the Global Club Management Software Market by increasing their funding.
All these factors are predicted to propel this Global Market.
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Marketing strategies and Marketing channels adopted by key companies are highlighted in this report. Companies are focusing on improving direct & indirect Marketing strategies, develop various Marketing channels, brand strategies, and pricing strategies.
With this, the key companies will get a chance to focus on adopting the new trends and innovations in Club Management Software Market. Additionally, by merging with startups, leading companies are aiming to maintain their dominance in the Global Club Management Software Market.
Innovations have helped key companies to introduce new ways of developing and advancing this Market. With the development and the introduction of tools, more concepts are able to create growth opportunities in the Market.
Factor such as risks and technological progress are also highlighted in the report. Importance is given to changing consumer needs and customer preferences.
The analysts also focus on changing trends in a political and economic environment that might affect the Global Club Management Software Market. As per the findings of the report, the changing rules and regulations of governments of many nations are predicted to affect the growth of the Global Club Management Software Market over the forecast period.
However, changing strategies and new product developments are predicted to contribute towards the growth of the Market.
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Ladies of Letters Irene writes to Vera to help spring her from the mental hospital and indeed help arrives, in the form of Karen and Damon who rescue her. The three of them head for the outback where they are living rough.G
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The Red Green Show "The Beaver Dam" Possum Lake is rising thanks to industrious beavers and their dam. Red uses empty duct tape rolls to make a beer cellar.G
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Keeping Up Appearances - The Memoirs of Hyacinth Bucket "A Celebrity for the Barbecue" Hyacinth volunteers Richard's services at the Church Hall where there is a problem with the lights. However, he is less than successful in his chore.G
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The Thin Blue Line "Fire and Terror" Grim and the CID initiate a counter-terrorism operation. Fowler deals with mythomaniacs, and Habib becomes attracted to a fireman.G
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Outnumbered Mum finds an inappropriate image on the family computer. Karen, convinced she has won a large amount of money, starts to spend it. Ben brings his special talents to the ancient game of chess.G
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My Family "Let's Not Be Heisty" Ben's attempt to pay money into his bank account is thwarted when someone else tries to take some out - with the aid of sawed-off shotguns. Ben and Susan, along with others, are held as hostages. Ben decides to act as a negotiator.G
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My Hero "The Family Way" George is pregnant with a surrogate baby for a childless couple on Ultron. He and Janet yearn to keep the child until they see it.G
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Are You Being Served? "Strong Stuff This Insurance" Grace Brothers' new group insurance scheme requires the staff to become fit before medical examinations.G
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As Time Goes By "Surprising News" Jean's sister-in-law and husband raise envy by announcing they will retire to Spain to live on their pension plans.G

subset: commoncrawl


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We as bicycle frame builders in order to have buisness need to get exposure for our work-for me it is mostly at the races....for my more artistic brethren the venue is one or more of the various trade shows that showcase custom and/or collectable bicycles. Both avenues are potentially great but both require time and money to participate in and there is no guarantee that sales will result from either venture. The internet serves well as a place to have work displayed and information available to the potential customer but if you are not showing your wares out in the real world, your chances of sales are pretty slim. When the shows as we now know them first started up about five years ago ( the framebuilder exclusive ones...) they were gatherings that for the first time brought builders together in one place and for the most part helped solidify the framebuilder community. This process of celebrating the craft while at the same time re-enforcing the bonds of framebuilding folks was so long overdue , it was like a huge dam of enthusiasm and inspiration had broken open.We , as builders were no longer working in relative isolation. I, personally was moved by the first three shows I displayed at....they served to inspire me in a big way. The show had an unspoken theme, at least in my mind. It was :" Hey, we build frames....check out what we do." Now, just a few years later the show is now several shows....the community is now divided into sub-groups. The enormous size of the country and the increasing costs associated with the original show are the main cause but for me the focus of the original show is what spun me off. Now the handmade bike show can be distilled to this theme .: " Hey, look at what i build....". The "We" part of it is gone, buried under a big pile of one-upsmanship and big gaudy bowling trophies. While I applaud the talent of folks who win awards at the show-you really can't win an award with anything less than exceptional-The thing that still is not awarded for the most part is the commitment that some folks have to the craft, be it what they do for racers, junior developement or mentoring new builders. In my mind, that's what is where the focus needs to be and that is what will keep this craft from dying. No amount of museum quailty adornment will convince the bulk of cyclists that a custom bike is worth seeking out. I'm sticking with " Look at what we do " as the saying for the present and future builders who wish to not see the demise of framebuilding. You can save the " Look at what I do" for your blog.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Us vs. them......
Posted by swiggco world at 8:04 AM
2 comments:
- AnonymousApril 29, 2010 at 5:45 PM
Brother Paul,ReplyDelete
Well said, keep up the good work. Some of us appreciate what you [and others] do more than all the "show bikes" out there. Here's to simple, well made, functional frames that serve their purpose, look good and deliver great value to the client. Bravo!
Thanks......I'll remember that when I build that stainless lugged bamboo recumbent triple with a solar powered GPS onboard !ReplyDelete
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Huh How'd that Happen? Dérailleur broke apart at the elbow. No crashes or big hits. Just failed. I've never seen anything like it. This is Pam's Travel bike, so it could've been damaged in transit, but nothing noticeable.
The only other epic fail I've seen is a chain ring.
Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.


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Last Horror Blog Presents 10 of the Best Horror Movies of 2012
Welcome to The Last Horror Blog, a biweekly column on all things horror.
The year 2012 was not a banner one for horror cinema – a list compiling the worst titles of the past 365 days would dwarf even the most positive-thinking person's record of the year's best – but it wasn't all doom and gloom. Amongst all the mainstream studio dreck and found-footage cash-ins were several good and creepy flicks – you just had to be willing to dig a bit to find them. And, to be fair, two of the best horror films of 2012 did come from the studio system – so maybe there's hope moving forward.
We've already looked ahead to 2013 in the previous Last Horror Blog entry (and I'm ashamed I forgot Alexandre Aja's adaptation of Joe Hill's Horns on that list…), so we know there's good stuff looming on the horizon in the next 12 months – but join me now for a look back at the best of 2012. As always feel free to leave your picks in the comment section below -- and keep in mind that these are presented in no particular order. Now, on with the show.
We kick things off with Scott Derrickson's creepy supernatural thriller Sinister. Ethan Hawke stars as a true-crime writer who puts his family in some seriously spooky danger when he discovers an old box of twisted home movies.
Sinister is at its best in those moments when it's showcasing the found footage on the discovered videos -- and Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill deserve credit for the way they've blended found footage with more traditional film techniques (it's sort of reminiscent of Cannibal Holocaust in that regard). The formula proved to be a hit with audiences as the film grossed over $80 million at the box office (quite a profit given its $3 million budget) and earned a spot on countless Year's Best lists. If you missed it at the theater, you'll want to be sure and catch the DVD release this February.
The Bay
While most people have grown a bit weary of the whole "found footage" phenomenon, several films on the list this year prove that the narrative format is still viable – it just requires a director with vision to really pull it off. Barry Levinson fits that bill quite nicely.
Levinson's eco-chiller The Bay didn't get much in the way of promotion when it released in the latter stages of 2012, which is unfortunate, because it's a found-footage faux documentary that stands head and shoulders above many of its brethren.
The film chillingly chronicles the decimation of a small Maryland town by mutated fish parasites. Drawing on real-life possibilities and spinning them to horrific ends helps make The Bay feel frighteningly plausible. Trust me, you won't want to go swimming or even drink a glass of water after this one ends.
Keeping with the found-footage theme, we come to V/H/S – which has the distinction of not only being a found-footage film, but also an anthology.
I'll admit to really liking anthology films and wishing we saw more of them. The downside is that since they feature different stories it makes them hard to grade overall. That's also true here – as V/H/S offers five tales from different filmmakers – all of varying quality. That being said, the hits outweigh the misses with this one. V/H/S might feature a pointless framing story (poor Adam Wingard – he deserved better), but entries from Ti West, Joe Swanberg and the collective known as Radio Silence make up for the stories that don't quite hit the mark.
Richard Bates gives us a sort of female-focused riff on We Need to Talk About Kevin in his difficult-to-classify film Excision.
AnnaLynn McCord musses herself up to play Pauline – a troubled and antisocial teen with delusions of grandeur struggling to get through high school. Like Kevin, Pauline lives a good middle class life with a decent family – and yet for some reason, she goes off the rails in a genuinely horrifying way late in the film. Like Lynne Ramsay's feature, Excision is not a horror film in the traditional sense of the term – it's a twisted domestic drama with moments of black comedy, extreme gore and, yes, genuine horror. The most disturbing part is the way we tend to root for Pauline at various narrative junctures (particularly against her frustrated, but well-meaning mother – played with glee by Traci Lords) and willingly forgive her for her transgressions and awful behavior.
The Loved Ones
Speaking of strong female villains, no discussion of 2012 is complete without a mention of Robin McLeavy's terrifying turn as Lola in The Loved Ones.
Sean Byrne's high school horror flick came out several years ago, but because of various issues we're only finally seeing it in America in 2012. That's incredibly unfortunate, because The Loved Ones is excellent and deserved a wider and more timely release.
McLeavy carries the film as Lola, a spoiled princess with a very questionable relationship with her father, who has dear old dad kidnap a local boy after he turns down her prom invite. Lots of torture and unpleasantness follow, but writing The Loved Ones off as "just another torture-porn movie" isn't fair or accurate. There's genuine tension in this one – it's disturbing and totally worth tracking down now that it's available on home video.
The Innkeepers
Ti West continues to cement his reputation as a horror filmmaker worth watching with this follow-up to House of the Devil, the paranormal chiller The Innkeepers.
Sara Paxton and Pat Healy star as two hotel clerks/paranormal investigators spending the last long weekend at their hotel before it shutters its doors for good. It's a mostly empty house, save for the two counter folks, a former actress turned psychic (Kelly McGillis), and a strange old man – but things soon take a turn toward the spooky when unexplainable events start to occur.
Like West's earlier work, The Innkeepers is a "slow burn" horror film. We spend more time getting to know the mundane lives of the characters than being scared, but when the spooky stuff finally starts happening in the final act, it's mostly worth the wait.
Kill List
Foreign countries provided some of the best horror films in 2012 – and Ben Wheatley's Kill List is England's entry on this year's list.
Two contract killers run afoul of dark and supernatural forces while carrying out a series of hits that take them across Europe in this moody chiller that's sure to get under your skin. Neil Maskell and Michael Smiley turn in fantastic performance in a film that featured loads of improvised dialogue. There's a genuinely unsettling atmosphere that permeates every frame of Kill List – and only a disappointingly ambiguous ending kept this from being my favorite horror film of the year. Despite that, this is a legitimately disturbing film that should appeal to anyone who loves horror cinema.
The Cabin in the Woods
Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods was a bit of a revelation for horror fans in 2012 – it proved that not only could Hollywood still do horror right (if, of course, you enlist talent like Joss Whedon…), but also that you could take tired genre tropes, spin them on their ear, and come out with something new and different in the process.
For a film that starts out looking an awful lot like an Evil Dead rip-off, Cabin in the Woods closes as one on of the most original and unique horror films not only of 2012, but of recent memory. College students head to the titular cabin, wake up zombie monsters, get picked off one by one, and then it all goes off the rails.
Whedon's script mixes comedy and gore and a love of horror cinema into a heady concoction that is arguably the best horror film of the year. If only Hollywood would make more movies like this one and less microbudgeted knockoffs…
While not a horror film in the traditional sense (no one dies, there's nothing supernatural happening, and the monsters are merely humans), Craig Zobel's Compliance earns a spot on the list for highlighting the banality of real life evil.
Based on a true story, a young woman (Dreama Walker) is wrongfully imprisoned at her job at a fast-food restaurant when her boss (Ann Dowd) is manipulated into restraining her by a man on a phone claiming to be a cop.
A modern day reminder of the Milgram Experiment (which showcased how people would do things that went against their morals if an authority figure instructed them to do so), Zobel's film pushes buttons and raises uncomfortable questions for everyone who watches it. Would we react differently if we were in this position? Our gut says yes – science says, "not so fast…"
Disturbing, at least a little bit divisive (the Sundance Q&A inspired some heated exchanges), and marvelously acted, Compliance is easily one of the year's best regardless of what genre you place it in.
Room 237
As a huge fan of Stanley Kubrick and The Shining, I was excited to check out Rodney Ascher's documentary about some of the crazy theories the master's adaptation of King's haunted-hotel novel spawned over the years... and it didn't disappoint.
Ascher talks to numerous film fans who've dissected the tale of Danny Torrance and the Overlook Hotel to extreme degrees – and while doing so, uncovers their theories about all the hidden meanings buried in the film.
While some of these ideas are kooky (the "hidden admission" with Kubrick copping to filming a fake moon landing for the U.S. government is fascinating but totally bonkers), others are just plausible enough to make the viewer stop and think. Kubrick was a meticulous artist and a brilliant man, which makes many of the ideas explored in Room 237 seem possible. Even if they're not, you'll never look at The Shining in the same light after seeing this fascinating documentary.
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text: Tailgate Talk, Join us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube July 25, 2009 10:52 AM Tweet TAGS: Marketing, Overseas December 18, 2014 By Farm Journal Editors Email Farm Journal has joined the Facebook community to reach out to even more people who have an interest in agriculture. Look for Farm Journal and click to become a "Fan." We'll post the top news, video and pictures and let you connect with others. Once you become a fan, suggest it to your friends to allow the online agriculture community to grow! If you're on Twitter, you can also follow Farm Journal to events and to the field in real time by visiting www.Twitter.com/FarmJournal. We Want To See Your Crops! How do your crops look? Will your yields be above or below average? Read farmer reports from the field in AgWeb's Crop Comments. Share yours by e-mailing email@example.com. Be sure to include photos and videos of your fields. Almost all point-and-shoot digital cameras have a video function, so film away. Just attach the photos and videos to your e-mail. If you have any technical questions, send an e-mail to email@example.com. We're happy to help. What A Day! Tipsy-Turvy What do a hill, a groundhog hole and driving fast have in common? All three combined to make this baler tip over. While trying to beat the rain, the farmer went a bit too fast on an incline and hit a groundhog hole. The tractor almost tipped over, too. Luckily, everything turned out all right, if not right-side-up. Stat Rack Videos on machinery, events, markets, crop comments and more: 285 Number of videos on Farm Journal's YouTube channel 234,866 Total number of video views 11,909 Number of views of "Versatile Tractor Launch," the most viewed video 9,221 Number of views of "Utterback Provides Advice on When to Sell Corn" video 549 Highest number of views in one day—for a video from the 2008 Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour Back to news


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Charlie Rose NULL
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Dialogue "Media, Ethics and the Election" Marcia Franklin talks with Kelly McBride, a senior faculty member of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida who specializes in ethics, reporting and writing at the school for professional journalists, news media leaders, future journalists and journalism teachers.G
10:30 pm
Aspen Institute Presents "America 2012: A Country Divided" The Aspen Ideas Festival played host to the leading political thinkers and newsmakers. Disparate views shared the stage for civil conversation on health care policy, voter fraud, and political media coverage. Valerie Jarrett, Jane Harman, Vin Weber, Mitch Daniels, journalists from The Atlantic magazine, CNN, National Journal, and more bring an in-depth analysis to America's divided political environment. D
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Need to Know "America By The Numbers with Maria Hinojosa: Clarkston, Georgia" MARIA HINOJOSA ANCHORS. This week, Need to Know airs a special edition titled, "America By The Numbers with Maria Hinojosa: Clarkston, Georgia." In the shadow of Stone Mountain, GA (once a gathering place for Ku Klux Klan cross burnings), Clarkston is a town of 7,500 that has gone from 90% white in the 1980s to less than 14% white and over a third foreign born today. D


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Yes, We're Open
Alan Richman hits the streets of New Orleans to see how the country's most distinctive cuisine has fared after Katrina
I've never had much luck eating in New Orleans. I might be the only person who disliked Uglesich's, a beloved seafood joint where I once stood in line for an hour in wretched early October heat for a po'boy containing a miserly quantity of oysters so overcooked they were like marbles. I believe most of the profits made by that establishment came about because of its periodic threats to close, which inevitably brought a rush of business. Uglesich's finally shut down last year, to everybody's dismay but my own.
On a trip to New Orleans in the early '90s, I made it my business to eat at the restaurant of Frank Brigtsen, then coming into prominence as one of the acclaimed new masters of Creole cuisine. I didn't enjoy my meal. Brigtsen puts so many miscellaneous items on every plate that a fellow has to be pretty picky not to like anything, but it was that way for me. I gave up on the twin tourist standbys, Antoine's and Arnaud's, decades ago, just like everybody else. I will concede that the one spot that never disappoints me is Café du Monde, where the beignets—doughnuts to you and me—are made seconds before they arrive at your table.
I think people either take to the city or they do not. They buy into the romance, or they abhor the decadence. I know where I stand.
New Orleans was always a three-day stubble of a city, and now, courtesy of Katrina, it's more like ve. The situation is worse, of course, in the devastated areas, where the floodwaters and the winds did their work. I know we are supposed to salvage what's left of the city, but what exactly is it that we're trying to cherish and preserve? I hope it's not the French Quarter, which has evolved into a illogical mix of characterless housing, elegant antiques stores, and scuzzy bars, a destination for tourists seeking the worst possible experience. The entertainment values are only marginally superior to those of Tijuana, Mexico.
Of course, there's the food. I'm not certain the cuisine was ever as good as its reputation, in part because the people who have consumed, evaluated, and admired it likely weren't sober enough at the time of ingestion to know what they were eating. The food can be praised for distinctiveness and historical significance, both noteworthy, but the restaurants were going in the wrong direction before the hurricane—think, if you are old enough, of French-hotel food of the '50s. Too many luxurious restaurants were desperately trying to attract business by serving meals that fulfilled some illusory idea of what traditional cuisine should be. A local joke says it well: New Orleans has a thousand restaurants but only one menu.
It's impossible to know whether the restaurants started moving in that direction because they were sentimentalizing the past or because they hoped to profit from it, but the results were less than inspirational. Food should not taste as though it belongs in a museum.
New Orleans has always been about food and music, with parades added to the mix. (In the North, where I come from, we like to think we're about jobs and education, with sports thrown in.) Vulnerability goes along with loving the dinner table too much—think again of our old friends the French. It might sound harmless for a civilization to focus on food, but it's enormously indulgent. Name a society that cherishes tasting menus and I'll show you a people too portly to mount up and repel invaders.
Something like that occurred with Katrina. It was never the best idea, building a subterranean city on a defenseless coastline. Residents could have responded to that miscalculation in any number of conscientious ways, but they chose endless revelry. New Orleans fell in love with itself and acted accordingly, becoming a festival of narcissism, indolence, and corruption. Tragedy could not have come to a place more incapable of dealing with it.
I'm not saying we shouldn't rescue the city. We have no choice, because of all those displaced citizens living in motels in Houston or wherever desperation has taken them. It's for them that we should participate in the rehabilitation of New Orleans. I can't think of a great deal more that moves me. We could, as an alternative, transform the city into a gastronomic habitat. The goal would be to save the crawfish étou¬ée, much as land in other locales is being set aside for whooping cranes and elderberry longhorn beetles. New Orleans, to me, is a city of crooks and cooks. When I went down there for a week in July, I made a point of going to most of the important restaurants that had reopened. Also on my list was every small spot that I knew about or friends recommended. Not many were unknown to me. New Orleans is one of the best-promoted destinations, and it has few restaurants that aren't famous.
Wherever I went, I asked for a definition of the food being served. I wanted to figure out once and for all what people think they're getting—Cajun or Creole or something from the chef's imagination.
You've heard about the cuisine, of course, but you've probably heard wrong. Meals are rarely accompanied by washboard thumping and zydeco bands. That ritual goes along with Cajun food, fundamental and spicy, brought down from Canada—good Lord, are we trying to save food from Canada? —by Acadian farmers and their spokesmodel, Longfellow's Evangeline. What has been said about one-pot Cajun cooking being tasty is true, except nobody goes to New Orleans to eat it. It's best appreciated in Lafayette Parish, a three-hour drive west. Folks out there call themselves Cajuns, and I promise you they do not behave like the rest of us.
Supposedly, Creoles can be found in and around New Orleans. I have never met one and suspect they are a faerie folk, like leprechauns, rather than an indigenous race. The myth is that once, long ago, Creoles existed. Certainly there was a Creole cuisine, a fancified amalgamation of French (mainly), Spanish (just a little), Italian (even less), and African-Caribbean (unavoidable). The African-Caribbean influence was the kind of fortuitous culinary accident that occurs when the swells eating the food don't come from the same background as the workers cooking the food.
The idea that you might today eat an authentic Creole dish is a fantasy. Turtle soup, crawfish bisque, and fried speckled trout are unlikely to be made precisely as they once were, and the one dish that is faithfully replicated—gumbo—might be Cajun and it might be Creole, depending on whom you favor. I side with the Cajuns, who, unlike the Creoles, appear to be real. Barbecued shrimp, another standard, possesses Cajun straightforwardness, but it was thought up by an Italian about fifty years ago. The po'boy, the great submarine sandwich of Louisiana, was invented by kindhearted brothers who wanted to feed striking streetcar drivers. It's likely the original po'boy consisted of French fries and beef gravy on long rolls, a concoction with eerie similarities to Quebec's poutine (fries, gravy, cheese curds on a plate). If that makes po'boys Cajun, then I guess I'll have to concede that New Orleans does one Cajun dish particularly well.
I would happily have excluded the French Quarter from my culinary explorations, but it does retain some culinary significance. That district gives me the creeps in a way that New Orleans's famous aboveground cemeteries—the cities of the dead—do not. I made it a point to hurry past the bars where tourists were big-gulping Hurricanes while listening to tattooed Bourbon Street bands screech "Proud Mary" at levels high enough to shatter empties scattered in the streets. (The city has never gotten around to mandating bottle deposits.)
I started one evening of eating at the French Quarter's Central Grocery, which looks like an Italian specialty shop but in reality exists to sell one product, the mu¬uletta, a sandwich thought to have been invented there exactly one hundred years ago. If you ask the owner, Frank Tusa, he says otherwise: "People here weren't making sandwiches a hundred years ago." Okay, make it seventy.
The prewrapped (but just-made) sandwich consists of salami, ham, cheese, and mortadella on focaccia-like bread slathered with a crunchy homemade olive-and-vegetable spread. The cuisine? "Sicilian," said the counterman. If the quality of the meats and cheeses had been anything other than ordinary, it would have been an unusually interesting sandwich. Since they were not, it was merely a good sandwich.
Between the French Quarter and the shattered Lower Ninth Ward is a two-dish spot, Vaughan's Lounge. It's a roadhouse in a neighborhood that has lost many of its roads, courtesy of flood damage. The building where you can find Vaughan's Lounge doesn't look so great, either, but I was told it had started to crumble long before Katrina. Mostly, people go to Vaughan's for the music, in particular Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers, appearing Thursday nights. The co-owner, Chris Songy, puts out a pot of red beans, usually around 1 a.m., but that's not the dish that dazzled me. On Friday nights he also boils up seafood.
His oversize fresh shrimp, the kind that come about ten to a pound, were freshly caught and freshly boiled, stacked up in Styrofoam containers behind the bar. I ate mine with Abita Restoration Ale, which I strongly believe should replace Barq's root beer as the city's signature bottled drink. I paid $7 for nearly two pounds of shrimp, although Songy put a slight damper on my enthusiasm when he told me, "My boiled shrimp make me nauseated. I can eat other people's but not mine. The fumes get in my nose." From what I'm told, New Orleans once had innumerable cooks like Songy, perfectionists without pretense, and Songy admitted not many were left. "We're pretty scattered now," he said.
I'm not going to claim that Liuzza's by the Track is the best restaurant in New Orleans, but I'd put it second. It's an old bar with mismatched stools located in what I'd call a mid neighborhood—about half the houses are occupied and about half are deserted. Garbage remains in the streets and on the sidewalks, and in one pile, just down the block from the restaurant, I came upon a trash heap containing a broken 78-rpm Capitol record of Margaret Whiting singing "Till We Meet Again." Some of the garbage in New Orleans is evocative of past lives, akin to the detritus of an architectural dig. I'm trying to be unstintingly hard-bitten here, but that kind of broke my heart.
I ate a lot of good food at Liuzza's by the Track—which shouldn't be confused with Liuzza's, a di¬fferent place with di¬fferent owners. I also ate two dishes that no other restaurant I tried made nearly as well: barbecued shrimp and gumbo. The shrimp were about five inches long (including heads) and came in a simple butter-lemon-pepper sauce that everybody should have been able to make well but for some reason nobody else could. The gumbo was stunning, texturally similar to a Kentucky burgoo, which is a slow-cooked half-stew, half-soup mélange. The gumbo at Liuzza's by the Track was thinner and yet more flavorful than any other version I ate during my visit. It had a tang of tomato and contained plenty of chicken, sausage, and shrimp. It was a revelation, easily the best old-time dish I tasted. I asked the waitress to describe the cuisine, and she looked at me kind of funny, like I was too dumb to figure it out for myself. "It's seafood," she said.
My boycott of po'boys ended at Liuzza's by the Track. I figured it was time to reengage and get over the Uglesich's debacle of years ago. I had a fine plan—to concentrate on the oyster and roast beef versions—and excellent intentions, but I immediately o¬ffended two New Orleans residents with me by describing the bread as terrible. It seems that New Orleanians feel intense affection for their so-called French bread, which isn't French and is barely bread. It's cotton encased in an extra-thin crust.
I was told this particular style of bread is responsible for New Orleans's bread pudding, a renowned dessert that I am predisposed to abhor. I sometimes wonder if French Quarter revelers sitting with their heads between their legs have drunk excessively or if they've eaten a hearty portion of bread pudding swimming in warm, buttery whiskey sauce.
I got hooked on po'boys, despite their carbohydrate packaging. My plan was to eat at least two a day, telling myself that they were mere nibbles between meals. Zimmer's Seafood, a retail fish store, reopened in the truly shattered neighborhood of Gentilly while I was there, and I got in line for an overstuff¬ed oyster po'boy that I ate standing on the curb, looking out over blocks and blocks of abandoned, nearly destroyed houses. You try to eat under those conditions, your sandwich has got to be great. By then I had figured out that the ideal way to order a po'boy is "dressed," which means with lettuce, tomato, "my-naise," and pickles, although I didn't much care for pickles with oysters. Zimmer's held the lead for best po'boy until I was taken to Parkway Bakery, which isn't overly famous but should be.
A lot of New Orleans restaurants aren't as good as they used to be, but nobody says that about Parkway, because by all accounts it used to be a dump. It also used to be a bakery, until earlier floodwaters came along and cracked the brick ovens. The bar manager, Derek Guth, proudly told me that the Katrina floodwaters rose so high in Parkway that a photo of the damage was on exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art. (Maybe the residents of Pompeii had the same macabre sense of fulfillment, pleased that they were being buried in hot ash like none before them.)
As Guth told the story, the original owners closed Parkway in 1995, and it stayed shut for eight years. He said the old place was so filthy that men would drive up with their dates but leave them in the car while they got po'boys to go, because any woman who walked inside would be too disgusted to eat. "What I heard," said Guth, "is that the board of health gave them a long list of violations and said they'd close the place up if they weren't fid. The owner said, How long we got?' The inspector said, Until Labor Day.' That was the day they closed."
Parkway reopened less than three years ago, to deserved acclaim. The po'boys come on that customary bread, but here it's been warmed, which helps considerably. The oyster version, monstrously long, was overflowing with oysters, as though oysters cost so little that the quantity of the serving was of no financial concern. (We northerners pay $3 apiece in restaurants, and that's without anybody going to the trouble of cooking them for us.) The oysters were masterful, but then, I've never had badly fried oysters in New Orleans, except at Uglesich's. The roast-beef po'boy was even better and, to my amazement, more overstuff¬ed. The meat tasted a little like the Italian roast beef found in Chicago and a little like the braised beef in fancy French restaurants.
The way to eat at Parkway is to order a sandwich, grab a Barq's root beer from the back of the cooler to make certain you get a cold one, take a seat in the dining area (but not in the path of the hot air blowing from the ice-making machine), wait patiently to hear your name, and dig in, getting beef juices all over yourself. By the way, should your Barq's not be cold enough, do not think about pouring it into a cup and adding ice. Drinking from the bottle is how it's done. (If you're wondering what the ice machine is for, I have no idea.) You'll ask yourself if New Orleans food gets better than this. Sometimes it gets much worse.
I was first in line for lunch at Bayona, where I'd estimate 90 percent of the wall art consists of framed press clippings heralding the accomplishments of chef Susan Spicer. The hostess led me past twenty-four empty tables until she reached a cramped one, back in a dark, airless corner. I didn't mind the worst table in the house. I'm used to that. It's just never happened to me when every other table was unoccupied.
My waitress described the cuisine as "a little bit of everything," so I ordered a little bit of everything. Before eating, I decided to wash up, a compulsory pre-meal ercise in this damp, brooding climate. Instead of towels, normal in fancy restaurants, there was a hand-dryer, an international-airport touch. While walking back through the rapidly filling room, I shook my wet hands over the heads of people sitting at tables nicer than mine.
Spicer's famous garlic soup was reddish brown as well as plenty thick, two attributes that almost certainly derived from one source, a long-cooked roux. (We've all heard of roux, the legendary Louisiana fat-and-flour mixture, but I can't say I've ever seen it so visibly in action.) The "crab and Creole" salad wasn't as interesting as its name—I was expecting a composition that included chopped up Creoles, allowing me finally to glimpse one of them. Alas, the salad consisted of hard supermarket-grade tomato wedges surrounding a concoction of crabmeat (not much), endive, and onion.
A note here on crabmeat, a product that we Yankees consider luxurious. During my stay in New Orleans, it was the best local ingredient available, and every restaurant but Bayona piled it on. At Brennan's, my Eggs Nouvelle Orléans, described as poached eggs on a bed of crabmeat, was more like poached eggs on a barge of crabmeat. I could barely finish it. At Bayona, I could barely find it.
For the pièce de résistance, I ordered a sandwich that locals and the Bayona waitstaff advised me not to miss: smoked duck, cashew butter, and pepper jelly. It was warm and leaden, as though it had been compressed with car-crushing equipment. It glistened with fat. It had that creepy jelly and that weird butter plus a few chunks of duck and a lot of oily cooked onions. It was moist. It also was reddish brown, like the soup and, come to think of it, the walls.
Spicer's second establishment is Herbsaint, where Donald Link is the chef and co-owner. A few years ago, the food was notably good. A waitress on the occasion of my latest visit informed me that the cuisine was "French with a southern twist." She then brought me a glass of corked Italian wine—maybe I had it coming for not ordering a French or a southern wine.
I started my meal with mediocre-tasting but great-looking gumbo that had chopped scallions, a scoop of rice, and a crustacean carcass suspended on top. Its major attribute was massive density, required to keep all the floating tidbits from breaking the surface tension and sinking. I can't say I took a liking to most New Orleans gumbo, finding it dull and one-dimensional, lacking high notes. Maybe roux is magic to locals, but as a thickener, I don't see that it's much di¬fferent from cornstarch. I next attempted fried frogs' legs, a bad idea. Frogs' legs are subtle, sort of like flounder on a stick, and the taste of the delicate meat was obliterated by a spicy fried-chicken-style coating. The frogs' legs were French with a Colonel Sanders's twist. For my final savory, I ordered chicken and dumplings. Don't blame me. I'm not the one who decided this was a southern restaurant. The dish was a chicken casserole with negligible chicken topped with dumplings cleverly disguised as a crust, making it a sort of potpie. I'd describe it as southern with a Stou¬ffer's twist.
I don't know of another city that o¬ffers such consistently second-rate desserts as New Orleans (although if you come upon bananas Foster, it's worth a try). I ordered coconut-cream pie with a macadamia-nut crust and pushed it away after two bites. A waiter seemed concerned, so I said to him, "Ask when it was made." He returned with a disgusted look on his face, confirmed it was two days old, and took it o¬ my check. What do I think of Bayona and Herbsaint? The food was miserable, but that didn't matter. At least they were both up and running. In New Orleans these days, any working enterprise deserves praise.
I stumbled upon exactly one civilian tidying up. I knew I wouldn't find many residents in the neighborhoods. I was aware that the citizenry of New Orleans tends not to be civically engaged, but I expected more volunteers than that. The woman was at the curb across the street from Willie Mae's Scotch House, a local fried-chicken institution being renovated, and she was removing muck from a gutter simply because she and the Catholic church she belonged to thought it was good work for God-fearing folks to do.
I asked her where I could find the best fried chicken in town, inasmuch as Willie Mae's was a few months from reopening. She suggested McHardy's. Then she remembered that McHardy's had burned down after reopening. For the people of New Orleans, more bad luck.
Less than a half mile away, I discovered Leah Chase, 83, living in a FEMA trailer—think of these as one-piece modular homes that leak formaldehyde gas. She is the owner of the restaurant Dooky Chase, which was named after her father-in-law and was undergoing post-Katrina renovations a few months ago. I told her of my despair with New Orleans and that it needed some kind of supreme commander, a Dwight Eisenhower, to take over and tell everybody to get to work. She said, "Or a George Patton. Somebody to go at it. Somebody to push hard."
Small restaurants like hers, many of them black-owned, were harder hit by Katrina than large restaurants, most of them white-owned. Chase's reaction to her misfortune has been optimism rather than despair. She told me the small restaurants were fortunate to have saviors in important chefs such as Frank Brigtsen and Paul Prudhomme of K-Paul's. "The big fancy places uplift us," she said. "We can't uplift the big ones, but the big ones can uplift us. Some think that God was prejudiced, he saved so many of the big ones, but I think he knew what he was doing. If we were saved and they were lost, we couldn't replace them. They can make us better, but we can't make them better."
Only a few of the famous dining rooms remained closed in July. Commander's Palace was expecting to reopen as soon as it could count on enough help and enough tourists. A now hiring sign was posted outside the restaurant when I drove past. Commander's must return to business for no other reason than to safeguard its Creole bread-pudding sou¬lé. I doubt that it's Creole, but it's one of the few variations of that dish worth eating.
Gabrielle was closed. Chef-owner Greg Sonnier told me that he and his wife, Mary, came back to New Orleans as soon as they could. At first they couldn't get to their restaurant, so deep were the surrounding floodwaters. They had only six inches in the building, but they also had roof damage and a missing back door. Although they were trying to open in a new location, he said they couldn't get approval because New Orleans politics were worse than ever.
I went to Brigtsen's, home of "modern Louisiana cuisine," according to a waitress, and found it precisely as it was a dozen years ago. The tiny rooms were cramped. The tiny tables were cramped. The tiny wine list was cramped, although the 1996 Dom Pérignon for $140 was a bargain. Eating there felt like dinner at an earnest bed-and-breakfast. One of my guests said, "I feel like I should be coming downstairs in the morning for Belgian waffles." The menu was fussy, the plates were overloaded, and every entrée was finished off with snap peas, summer squash, and vinegary coleslaw. It's hard to fault the concept of giving customers a lot, but what was set down in front of us could have been assembled by a fat guy going through a buff¬et line.
The beloved Galatoire's, once nearly forgotten, has been overrated since winning the James Beard Award for outstanding restaurant in America in 2005. Nevertheless, it remains a mandatory stop. I wouldn't miss a place this charming, and neither should you. The waiters wear well-pressed tudoes, and the busboys look like admirals in dress whites. Our waiter had a Cajun accent so pure I wanted to tape it for the Smithsonian.
The ground-floor dining room is a triumph of understated old-restaurant decor, with a tile floor, bright lights, cloth napkins, mirrored walls, and brass coat hooks. I never thought New Orleans got cold enough for outerwear, but my luncheon guests assured me that a sixty-degree cold snap still brings out ladies in furs. Not much about Galatoire's changes, although the ice for drinks is no longer chipped off¬ huge blocks.
The "French-Creole" food, as the waiter labeled it, is uninspired, except for the irresistible crabmeat maison, which is really a mayonnaise-based ravigote. I don't like many fish preparations better than trout meunière amandine, but what I got for lunch looked and tasted fried rather than sautéed. I'm also reasonably sure the thick, fresh fillet of fish wasn't trout, unless somebody had landed a fifteen-pounder that morning.
Lilette is everything you hope to find in a small, chef-owned-and-operated restaurant. It looks decidedly New Orleans, with a tile floor, high ceiling, tin roof, and overhead fans, but I thought the menu—described to me as "French with Italian influences" —suggested New York. (It included Kurobuta pork belly, which no stylish East Village boîte dare be without.)
Lilette is located on Magazine Street, where floodwaters never rose, and chef-owner John Harris told me he prospered from October 2005, when his restaurant reopened, until the end of last year. He credited FEMA checks. People in the neighborhood received two checks, an immediate $2,000 disbursement and $2,358 in rental assistance, and they were dining o¬ff the windfall. "Everybody got $4,358 from FEMA and didn't have to pay any bills," Harris said. "And nobody had a refrigerator. Guess what? They went out to eat. Business was unbelievable."
Upperline is a sweet-looking, yellow-brick spot that manages to pull o¬ what few other restaurants have accomplished—honoring culinary history without becoming trite. Maybe that's because it doesn't try to be haute. The local art on display, collected by owner JoAnn Clevenger, is moving, and Upperline's interpretations of famous dishes seem charming rather than hackneyed. It's the place to go if you want fried green tomatoes, shrimp rémoulade, or, if you must, honey-pecan bread pudding. The desserts weren't distinguished, but they were warm, homespun, and comforting, always a successful concept.
Jacques-Imo's is a Creole Bar Mitzvah, fine dining for people who have no idea what fine dining should be. It's loud and absurd, inappropriate for anybody over the age of 17. I was led through an open kitchen, where I saw waitresses picking up fried oysters with their bare hands and dropping them into salads. (Unfortunately, that very salad comes with every entrée.) There are a couple of dining rooms, and I got the one overlaid with a creepy mural, a swamp scene that M. Night Shyamalan might have painted.
My waitress informed me the food was "traditional New Orleans" and suggested I begin with shrimp-and-alligator-sausage cheesecake, similar to the ludicrous food I remember from road trips through Florida with my parents fifty years ago. (Maybe they were lying and we were in Louisiana.) For my entrée, she suggested the carpetbagger steak with caramelized onions, blue cheese, and oyster-tasso hollandaise. Carpetbagger steak is a tenderloin sliced open and stu¬ffed with oysters, one of those famous foods that nobody has ever actually eaten. The Jacques-Imo spin, adding all those extras, seemed insane, but the dish was splendid, thanks to the butteriness of the steak and the freshness of the expertly poached oysters.
I've eaten at August three times, and I'm certain it's the best restaurant in the city. It serves what I'd call modern Louisiana food, although our waiter claimed it was "not necessarily regional but what's best and freshest in the market." That statement wrapped up my investigation into Creole and Cajun food, and this is what I learned: There isn't much sense in putting an all-purpose label on New Orleans food. If you go to fancy restaurants to seek out Cajun or Creole food, you almost certainly won't eat well. To their credit, residents value independent chefs who cook in their own kitchens, and only a good dining experience can come of that.
On this visit to August, the maître d' led me to the undesirable back room, which appears to be paneled in milk chocolate. If you think that sounds dreary, it is. Adding to the absence of a pleasing ambience was a knob marked Musak, set in the wall above my head. Any dish you order at August makes sense, and I include the ones that shouldn't. I had a salad of heirloom beets, crabmeat, bacon, quail eggs, dill, mustard greens, and black-eyed-pea croutons, all in a light, sweet dressing. It was ridiculous sounding, but the ingredients were in exquisite proportion. A special of "cowboy rib eye" with truffle butter was something of a miracle—I tend to feel that way whenever I get a beefy, satisfying steak. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, since chef John Besh operates a steak house in the casino a couple of blocks away.
During my time in New Orleans, I sought to keep some perspective. For example, when the sommelier at August brought me an incorrect vintage of the wine I'd ordered, I tried not to be too distressed, knowing that somewhere in the Lower Ninth Ward a house was sitting atop a car. Yet it's important to come to a tough decision about New Orleans, because it's going to cost Iraq-magnitude money to get this place back to where it was or, better yet, where it should have been.
I do admire much about the restaurants, even if their desserts survived Katrina because they were too heavy to float away. Restaurants could be the saviors of New Orleans, providing they produce innovative rather than repetitive food. They risk becoming meaningless if restoration means transforming the city into a low-density Creole theme park where food is one component of a commemoration of the past.
Besides becoming stultified, they would su¬ffer mightily without neighborhood regulars. The citizens of New Orleans might not be the most energetic Americans—I believe their morning ercise regimen consists of stumbling out of bars—but they are joyful, expressive eaters. No restaurant can flourish if the only people who knock on its doors are tourists who bring little to the table besides credit cards.
I don't mean to imply that classic dishes can't be pleasing. I admired Liuzza's by the Track precisely because its barbecued shrimp and its gumbo were magnificent renditions of old standards. If other New Orleans restaurants also strived for superior versions of these dishes, in the same way that southern barbecue joints battle over the best ribs or the best brisket, that alone would be a reason to admire the current state of the cuisine. Unfortunately, the restaurants don't have that competitive drive. Faux orthodoxy is no virtue, even if it results in tour buses double-parked outside.
August should be the model for New Orleans restaurants. John Besh appreciates local ingredients (but doesn't limit himself to them), understands the flavors of Louisiana, and invariably chooses modern methods of food preparation over old-fashioned ones. He's got it sorted out. I have no idea whether New Orleans cooking was better a hundred years ago than it is today, but I do know that restaurants cannot be successful imitating what they don't know.
I can't think of many cities more identified with cuisine than New Orleans, or one more dependent on its restaurants. They can help save the city, but first they have to save themselves.
Alan Richman is a GQ correspondent.


text:
A few days after the big parade, the reigning St. Patrick's Day parade queen, a pretty (it goes without saying) young woman named Sarah Gorecki (I will get to that name shortly), said, "Yes, there are no more parades, but this is a lot more than about parades. You are representing your Irish heritage. I visited a hospital yesterday and spent time with all these wonderful children."
Chicago has been selecting St. Patrick's Day parade queens for nearly four decades, and the process has always been intense, with more than 100 women of Irish ancestry between the ages of 17 and 27 judged, according to the rules, on such qualities as "grace, sincerity, beauty, poise, personality and wit."
"It is a contest, but there's no jealousy," said Gorecki. "All the girls become your friends."
You can gather insight into the process by getting a copy (available at skinnyhouli.com) of "Her Majesty, 'da Queen," an hourlong documentary by Mike Houlihan, shot on selection days in 2009 and 2010 and filled with interviews with labor leaders (the parade is sponsored by Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local Union 130 United Association), contestants and their family members, and some of the judges.
Catherine O'Connell was the parade queen in 1976.
"My mom and her friend signed me up in 1975, and I made it into the queen's court, and I got a watch," she said.
"At a party later at our house, somebody stole the watch. So next year I said, 'I'm signing myself up for the next contest. I need a watch.'"
She got a watch and the crown and has since made annual appearances at a St. Patrick's Day luncheon gathering of all former queens and the current one.
"It is a great kind of a sorority," said O'Connell. "I feel like a den mother. We have so much fun together."
Gorecki said, "I probably didn't realize it until the luncheon, but this honor and these women who came before me are part of me forever."
The 21-year-old Gorecki — "Polish on my dad's side and Irish on my mom's side," she said — is a freshman at DePaul University majoring in international studies, having taken a break after high school to explore a musical career on the West Coast. But she is determined that music stay a part of her life.
If she needs a role model, there is not far to look. O'Connell has made a fine career as a singer, first in taverns and cabarets before quitting to start a family. For the last decade or so she has been drawn to more intimate and less raucous spaces, such as churches, cathedrals and theaters.
O'Connell will be performing with longtime pals Kathleen Keane and Jimmy Moore on April 16 at the Skokie Theatre.
She used to characterize her career by saying, "I marry 'em, and I bury 'em" but since expanding her realm to include performing at baptisms, she said playfully, "I'm hatchin', matchin' and dispatchin'." She has also made five wonderful CDs, survived a horrific car crash, raised three fine young boys and still proudly wears, but once a year, the yellow sash she received long ago when she was a queen.


text:
Motorists are encouraged to plan ahead for a sober ride New Year's Eve as Minnesota attempts to make it five years in a row with no drunk driving traffic deaths during the holiday.
Motorists are encouraged to plan ahead for a sober ride New Year's Eve as Minnesota attempts to make it five years in a row with no drunk driving traffic deaths during the holiday.
In the last 10 years, there have been eight drunk driving deaths during the New Year's holiday; zero in the past four years.
"Statistics show more people are doing the right thing by planning ahead for a safe ride home on New Year's Eve," said Jean Ryan, DPS Office of Traffic Safety impaired driving coordinator. "We hope people make a resolution to continue that behavior throughout all of 2013."
DPS 10-year data shows a reduction in New Year's Eve–New Year's Day drunk driving deaths and serious injuries:
25 deaths; seven (28 percent) involved a drunk driver.
60 serious injuries; (43 percent) 26 were alcohol-related.
1,608 DWI arrests (322 per-year average).
10 deaths; one (10 percent) involved a drunk driver (zero in last four years).
24 serious injuries; eight (33 percent) were alcohol-related.
1,477 DWI arrests (295 per-year average).
Despite the downward trend in drunk driving incidents, New Year's Eve still has the potential to be a dangerous night on Minnesota roads.
"All it takes is one bad decision for our roads to turn deadly," says Lt. Eric Roeske, Minnesota State Patrol. "In many cases, that bad decision occurs when someone decides get behind the wheel after a night of drinking."
Many law enforcement agencies statewide will be increasing DWI patrols on New Year's Eve to encourage smart decisions and enforce the law.
"Toasted" — New TV Spot
DPS is airing a new TV spot this week, "Toasted," to encourage motorists to avoid the dangers and consequences of drunk driving. View the spot at www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXDTSwTzTGM&feature=youtu.be or download a broadcast-quality. "https://mndeptpublicsafety.sharefile.com/d/sd19934ec4d94ea29
DWI Consequences
A DWI offense can result in loss of license for up to a year, thousands in costs and possible jail time.
Repeat DWI offenders, as well as first-time offenders arrested at 0.16 and above alcohol-concentration level, must use ignition interlock in order to regain legal driving privileges, or face at least one year without a driver's license. Offenders with three or more offenses are required to use interlock for three to six years, or they will never regain driving privileges.
Tips to Prevent Drunk Driving
Plan for a sober ride — designate a sober driver, use a cab/public transportation or stay at the location of the celebration.
See www.metrotransit.org/millerfreerides as Metro Transit is offering free rides on New Year's Eve from 6 p.m. through the last scheduled trip on buses and light rail.
Those not planning to drink should let family/friends know they are available to offer a sober ride home.
Buckle up — the best defenses against a drunk driver
Report drunk driving — call 911 when witnessing impaired driving behavior. Be prepared to provide location, license plate number and observed dangerous behavior.
About the Minnesota Department Public Safety
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) comprises 11 divisions where 2,100 employees operate programs in the areas of law enforcement, crime victim assistance, traffic safety, alcohol and gambling, emergency communications, fire safety, pipeline safety, driver licensing, vehicle registration and emergency management. DPS activity is anchored by three core principles: education, enforcement and prevention.


text:
Rep. Howard Berman this week lost his job representing the San Fernando Valley to Rep. Brad Sherman, but he could emerge from the experience with a fancier title and a big blue plane.
Berman, who has been chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is among those now mentioned by U.S. officials as a possible replacement for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton when she departs next year. Berman, 71, has worked closely with the White House over four years on sensitive issues such as Iran and is known as competent and discreet, traits much prized by President Obama.
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is the most often mentioned candidate for the job, but Kerry's departure could risk loss of a Democratic Senate seat to Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who was beaten this week by Elizabeth Warren and would be a strong candidate for a new opening. Another much mentioned candidate, Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, could face a tough confirmation fight because of GOP allegations that she issued misleading public statements after the terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.


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Joined: 07 May 2011
Posts: 296
Location: Dojčlant
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 8:57 am
Post subject: Re: re
Kill Monument wrote:
Manuel had an imaginary label, Comaworx, that were supposed to initially release Cthonic Rites and some other stuff. I sent him 18 Euro for CR and never saw hide nor hair of it again. I was at the Ashes to Ashes... Doom to Dust Fest in 2005 that he organized and it was fantastic but I believe he ripped off the bands. His name is mud at this stage.
Wonderful tribulations ensued on the doom-metal.com forums, I remember that rather well (things were never cleared up completely as well). I, for one, received my advance payment for that Moss album back a while after it came to pass that Comaworx wasn't going anywhere (I believe to remember that it was Olly of Moss whom I sent the money, but it could've been Manuel, either way I got a free t-shirt out of that). The matter has had great effect on Bunkur's publicity, so far as the release of the "Nullify" album being mentioned almost nowhere (I was really surprised when I first saw it listed on the band's Metal Archives page).
I hold no grudge whatsoever against Manuel, or have any opinion on him or his doings for that matter, there would neither be a personal reason to do so nor am I fully aware of everything that happened regarding both Comaworx and the AtADtD fest to warrant any personal stand on that (which would be something rather childish to do, anyway). Still, I am rather surprised about this split release as Manuel seemingly still is treated as a persona non grata.
I've listened to a few samples of "Nullify" and must say they have taken a development for the better. The sound is more abrasive now, heavier and also more varied and dynamic, although this takes away from the sheer monolithic primitivism of "Bludgeon". Still, their best effort to me is the "Devolve" track, probably because it is also their most stripped-down and weirdly dark.
Also, to end this tedious rant, congratulations on your band's "Light Rotting Out" album. I've only had the opportunity to listen to it in full once, but it has some great things going for it. It often felt like I was listening to a seriously warped 70's occult progressive rock album, some Jacula or Salem's Mass vinyl record first broken into pieces, then haphazardly glued together and played at incorrect speed. It doesn't sound like your standard fare extreme doom metal at all which I welcome very much.
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Kill Monument
Joined: 27 Feb 2008
Posts: 2209
Location: In a meaningless leaning mess
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:35 am
Post subject: Re: re
Aszfargoth wrote:
[Also, to end this tedious rant, congratulations on your band's "Light Rotting Out" album. I've only had the opportunity to listen to it in full once, but it has some great things going for it. It often felt like I was listening to a seriously warped 70's occult progressive rock album, some Jacula or Salem's Mass vinyl record first broken into pieces, then haphazardly glued together and played at incorrect speed. It doesn't sound like your standard fare extreme doom metal at all which I welcome very much.
Haha, well that is a description of our sound I haven't heard before. a refreshing change from being erroneously labelled Funeral Doom at least
Glad you like it.
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Kill Monument
Joined: 27 Feb 2008
Posts: 2209
Location: In a meaningless leaning mess
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:41 am
Post subject: re
Listening to Salem Mass now, for the first time. Like a flower power Pagan Altar! Nice
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Joined: 10 May 2006
Posts: 23519
Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 2:38 pm
Post subject:
To coinside the album release, september 2004, of Bunkur I - Bludgeon I decided to invite some friends to play along. So soon enough Thee Plague Of Gentlemen participated. At that same time there was a wave of new very extreme doom bands coming up just gearing up such as Moss, Funeralium, Wormphlegm and more. After some thoughts plans were made to do a two day(both Tilburg, Holland and Gent, Belgium) festival with the new breed of extreme doom; Ashes to Ashes...Doom to Dust fest with: Thee Plague Of Gentlemen, Bunkur, Moss, Funeralium, Wormphlegm, Planet Aids, Malasangre and Forgotten Tomb. Both dates were succesful and a new festival seemed to have emerged...at least in my mind.
Just a few months after I already started to assemble the line-up for the next edition. This time I felt I should broaden horizons and look for extremity differently so in december I got in contact with Jus from Electric Wizard and soon enough he confirmed.
So I got a great headliner for the second edition! Soon enough more mammoth acts could be added; Reverend Bizarre and Worship(!!!), Tyranny, TPOG and Planet Aids again and Esoteric...EW destroyed the Roadburn Greenroom in april so prospects were good and a third gig in Arnhem was added as a Warming up with just four bands. Promotion was started in Dutch and Belgian magazines despite the fact the fee for Electric Wizard was still TBA after months of asking with Jus by either mail or phone. Then one month prior to the fest I got called by Justin, the EW drummer stating the band wanted a fee much higher than anticipated. Presales were already in motion, entrance-fee fixed so I couldn't add five euros to the entrance-fee of 15 euro anymore.
This, in the end turned out to be the reason why some bands couldn't be paid right after the final gig of the weekend. Some money had to come in via presales in Belgium but that didn't cover the losses. The blow of this failure of the second edition was considerable and kept me away from the scene for years.
Nevertheless in collaboration with the 013 venue who would take over the finances I would 'curate' the third edition in 2008 and the approach would be massive this time; 23 bands were planned but due to poor promotion the venue cancelled the two smallest halls and reduced the number of bands to 6 without any consideration of my part of the story. Due to the fact that the big bands were committed through written contracts it was impossible to shift back to the underground approach of earlier versions so in the end 7 bands would play for about 500-600 people; My Dying Bride, Krux(!), Mordor, Serpentcult, Switchblade, Kongh and Bunkur. Without personal financial demise the festival didn't generate the money I hoped for to compensate the bands from 2005.
So to make sure that would happen I set up a fourth edition and this time it looked splendid; Shining, Urfaust, Bunkur, Switchblade, Funeralium, Kongh, Alkerdeel, Saturnalia Temple in the Hall Of Fame in Tilburg; presales were going good as one week before the festival the venue cancelled due to municipal decision concerning sound-pollution in the direct vicinity of the venue. So in the remaining 5 days shelter was found in Leeuwarden; almost 250km away from Tilburg, at De Romein...needless to say lots of people did not show up and left me in the end with a loss of 5000 euro.
That debt was paid back to all bands, hotel, venue, amp-hiring company - including the bands from 2005!!! - from september 2009 to june 2011 except for a small amount to be paid to Greg/Esoteric.
I have always kept a distance between the forum-knights that befouled my name and myself. I do not wish to contact any of them and this statement is the last response to any message be it positive or negative.
The name Bunkur is smeared with this affair in ways that still hinder the development of the band. With the last payment to P.Kloos, set for august 2011, all payments in connection with Bunkur will be finalized. Support the musick not the rumours! Await the Third Abomination at 11.11.11; Bunkur III - Incinerate!!!
One thing should be distilled from all the above and that is that fanatism is not to be mistaken for greed and love for musick not for the exploitation of it!!!
I apologize to all those who suffered from my ignorance and naivity...thanks to those who have given me a first and/or second chance.
Into Comadoom,
Manuel Tinnemans
I don't read DMs.
NWN carries all IBP releases.
IBP carries all NWN releases.
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Joined: 02 May 2010
Posts: 4851
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 3:06 pm
Post subject:
Sounds like he had a hell of a time getting fests set up. You'd think he would have just gave up after the first couple of failings.
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Kill Monument
Joined: 27 Feb 2008
Posts: 2209
Location: In a meaningless leaning mess
Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:51 am
Post subject: re
I have recently been contacted by Manuel and he has offered to reimburse me for the Cthonic Rites payment. He seems to want to clear up his name and sort out his debts which I think is fair play. As I said, it's a pity the festival turned out to burn both the bands and his reputation but having read the above statement it seems that perhaps the debacle wasn't so cut and dry. Anyhoo, sound of him to fix up with me.
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Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 227
Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 5:27 am
Post subject:
An update from Mordor:
After six months of intensive working, we have just finished to record the voices, guitars, bass and some percussion for the song In League with Wotan. Dealing with the Lord of Valhalla and the primordial time of His sacrifice to Himself to reveal the runes, we really want to create a deep song able to communicate something of this cosmic act. We will soon begin to complete the programming of the orchestral sounds and samplers and to begin the mix.
Bread no one gave me,
nor a horn of drink,
downward I peered,
to runes applied myself,
wailing learnt them,
then fell down thence.
Hávamál, Poetic Edda, Thorpe translation
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Mordor Swiss
Joined: 10 Dec 2011
Posts: 3
Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 7:47 am
Post subject:
An update from Mordor:
Split Mordor/Bunkur III
While the time of the Wild Hunt and the crossing of the Wintry Darkness is near, we are pleased to announce that, after a long work, the song In League with Wotan for the split with Bunkur is now mixed and mastered and has been sent to Nuclear War Now!
Work was ours, may pleasure be yours and glory to the Gods.
I learned nine spells
From the famous son of Bölthorn,
The father of Bestla,
And I won a drink
Of that precious mead,
Poured from Ódhrerir
Hávamál, Girdaukas and Crawford translation
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global deathrape
Joined: 28 May 2009
Posts: 657
Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 8:27 am
Post subject:
I've asked this guy numerous times to pay me back for a record he received from me, his payment was charged back so I never received payment for it. Every time he fed me some bs line until he finally just stopped bothering to respond.
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Joined: 04 Feb 2007
Posts: 3436
Location: Finland
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 1:31 pm
Post subject:
hope it wouldnt take 1,5 year more till it is out
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Joined: 27 Jul 2011
Posts: 1153
Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:34 am
Post subject:
Yosuke, any definite releasedate for this (on vinyl) ?
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Joined: 04 Feb 2007
Posts: 3436
Location: Finland
Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:58 am
Post subject:
Wolfsturm888 wrote:
Yosuke, any definite releasedate for this (on vinyl) ?
he never have 100% fixed dates.. plus "cover art in progress" still
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Mordor Swiss
Joined: 10 Dec 2011
Posts: 3
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 7:01 am
Post subject:
Split Mordor/Bunkur III
An update on our most recent creation In League with Wotan... we are currently waiting on the artwork to be finished, then this long awaited split should be ready to be released on Nuclear War Now. Meanwhile here is a picture of the Mordor line-up anno 2013...
Last edited by Mordor Swiss on Thu Dec 12, 2013 5:25 am; edited 1 time in total
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Joined: 26 Jun 2012
Posts: 298
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 2:35 pm
Post subject:
Mordor still destroy, even after all these years. Alongside a re-issue of "Odes" and "Csejthe" someone should do "The Way of Nihilism" compilation as well.
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Shocking Eidos ad banned
The Advertising Standards Authority has outlawed an Eidos advertising campaign for Kane & Lynch.
The body has ordered Eidos not to print or broadcast the ads again, after upholding 26 complaints and calling the promotion 'graphic' and 'shocking'.
One press ad shows a gagged woman, crying and having her head held back by one of the pair. It was printed over a double-page spread in Edge, with a second version appearing in Total Film magazine.
The ASA said: 'The portrayal of violence it contained, with particular regard to the female hostage, was graphic and too shocking to be seen in an untargeted medium.'
Another Kane & Lynch poster held a quote from the Official Xbox 360 Magazine stating, 'Grittier and nastier in tone than anything you've seen before, the violence here is visceral, brutal and very, very real'.
The ASA said this version was 'likely to be seen as condoning and glorifying real violence', and was also irresponsible and 'likely to cause serious or widespread offence'.
The body ruled that both press ads were 'graphic and too shocking to be seen in any medium' and said they breached its code on responsible advertising, decency, violence and antisocial behaviour.
Complaints against a TV ad for the game were also upheld, with the ASA concluding that it breached its code on harm and offence, violence and cruelty and personal distress.
The ASA added: 'A "crunch" sound was heard as the butt of a rifle was brought down on what was suggested to be a victim's head and another in which a man with a bloodied face appeared to have his throat cut; which we considered were likely to cause offense and distress to viewers despite the animated treatment.'
In its defence, Eidos said the poster image was intended to be 'cinematic' but it was not their intention to cause offence. The publisher also pointed out that, although the print ad portrayed a kidnap scene from the game, the woman was unharmed despite the mouth gag.
The firm said the TV ad was also designed to be cinematic and because of the subject matter of the game, was "not ... overly violent".
Channel 4 and Channel Five, which broadcast the TV ad, apologised for any distress caused.


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HARTSVILLE, S.C. – The Coker softball team is set to take on the Crusaders of Belmont Abbey in a non-conference doubleheader on Friday (Feb. 28) at Saleeby-Stokes softball field. Live coverage of the game will be available at www.cokercobras.com.
The Cobras are coming off a split in their previous doubleheader against UNC Pembroke. The Braves took game one, 7-3, but Coker snagged game two with a 2-0 victory. Tayler Barcomb and Ashlee Ellen continue to lead the Cobras offensively. Barcomb is hitting .371 with six RBI, three doubles and eight runs, while Ellen sports a .343 average with four home runs and 12 RBI on the season.
The Crusaders are 4-13 overall after sweeping Erskine in a doubleheader on Wednesday. Dani Marietta's .308 batting average and two home runs lead Belmont Abbey offensively. Defensively, the Crusaders are led by Samantha Jacobs. In 45 innings she has thrown 51 strikeouts, gave up five home runs and tallied a 3.73 ERA.
Game one of the doubleheader will begin at 1 p.m., followed by the game two at 3 p.m. Tickets for the game will be available at the gate, $5 for adults, $3 for students, and free for all Coker faculty, staff and students.
Release written by Sports Information Intern, Sara Allen.


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Kia Mario Blain Sainte-Julie
For an estimate of your vehicle as a trade-in against this Kia Optima in St-Hubert, Sainte-Julie & Boucherville, please fill-out this form, and a specialist at Kia Mario Blain Sainte-Julie will contact you shortly by e-mail or phone as per your preference. We offer the most money on the purchase of vehicles in the greater St-Hubert, Sainte-Julie & Boucherville area. Don't hesitate to ask for what your vehicle is worth as a trade-in, you will be surprised at how fast you could be the next owner of this Kia Optima thanks to Kia Mario Blain Sainte-Julie in St-Hubert, Sainte-Julie & Boucherville. Don't wait any longer, ask for your trade-in value now!


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Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Lord Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892 / Lincoln / England)
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In Memoriam A. H. H. 7
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
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Compare Compensation Claims Limited is regulated by the Claims Management Regulator in respect of regulated claims management activities. No. CRM23837. This registration is recorded on the Claims Regulation website.
A company registered in England, Company registration number 7218187. Registered office: 32 Lloyd Close, Nelson, Lancs BB9 9EH.
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True South Dining Room
The award-winning True South Dining Room at The Rees Hotel in Queenstown epitomises sophisticated elegant dining. Take a journey to one of Queenstown's hottest restaurants on Lake Wakatipu and see why Executive Chef and rising culinary star, Ben Batterbury, has cultivated such a following.
Guests are treated to experience a sense of surprise when they dine in the True South Dining Room – with something delicious, exciting and unexpected! Adrienne Rewi of Frommers New Zealand Guide found it to be " an adventurous menu and visually stunning, and I for one think that "food as theatre" is a very important component of dining out".
"There is no better place to sample the excellent local produce than The Rees Hotel True South Dining Room." – Valli Little, Delicious Magazine
"There is no better place to sample the excellent local produce than The Rees Hotel True South Dining Room." – Valli Little, Delicious Magazine
The genuine taste of the True South, pride in the region is expressed with a menu of dishes based strongly on local produce. Sourcing high quality suppliers south of Christchurch, buying local not only assures freshness and quality control, it reduces food miles and encourages sustainable practices.
Offering mouth-watering monthly menus, with daily tweaks and seasonal changes, it showcases Ben's signature style that is fresh, clean on the palate and exhibits creativity, innovation and above all, amazing flavour. The calibre of Ben's skill has seen him win awards Excellence Award from Beef + Lamb New Zealand, he's a 2012 Beef and Lamb Ambassador.
You will also discover a private cellar of one of the most comprehensive collections of fine Bordeaux wines in the Southern Hemisphere, perfect for enjoying in the cosy ambience of the Bordeau Wine Lounge. The palate can be further delighted with a choice of the best wines from the different sub-regions of Central Otago, Emmerson's ales from Dunedin, Mt Pisa mineral water, and delicious local fruit juices.
To make a reservation or contact us for more information:
To make a reservation or contact us for more information:
E: email@example.com


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Dollars and liability have been a focus for recent debate among county commissioners concerning the Gulf County Jail.
Dollars and liability have been a focus for recent debate among county commissioners concerning the Gulf County Jail.
That debate has echoed one of a decade ago.
The Board of County Commissioners currently oversees the jail largely due to events of roughly 10 years past. Then, former Gulf County Sheriff Dalton Upchurch, after a series of acrimonious Board of County Commissioners meetings, ceremoniously turned over the keys to the jail to the BOCC.
Upchurch waged a public campaign seeking funding to address maintenance deficiencies, in particular leaky roof and exterior walls.
Upchurch called the jail a �lawsuit waiting to happen� and finally decided he was not willing to accept the liability of operating the jail without the dollars to fix problems.
Ten years later the BOCC has invested several thousand dollars to improve the footprint of the aging jail and have reduced the operating budget.
Commissioners praise jail administrator Michael Hammond for consistently returning a portion of his annual budget to the general fund and have taken a decidedly hands-off approach to Hammond�s supervision.
�What�s the point of having someone supervising something and you don�t listen to them?� Commissioner Tan Smiley recently asked.
However, Commissioner Joanna Bryan has argued the jail carries plenty of liability � the level unknown due to the lack of recent inspections � and in a time when her fellow commissioners are examining a host of budget options, from cuts to new taxes, Bryan wonders if the jail�s $1.2 million budget isn�t worth a long look.
Bryan�s proposals have met a united opposition not seen directed at a single commissioner since a previous board ousted former commissioner Nathan Peters, Jr. as chair in a false step toward county-wide voting.
She raised the issue first during budget discussions and when she brought the jail to the floor at the last meeting, the response from commissioners ranged from chilly to acrimonious.
With the board looking at some $2 million in cuts from department budget requests while considering a 5-cent a gallon gas tax, an additional penny in bed tax and increases to tipping and beach driving fees, Bryan wondered if the savings realized by sending female inmates to be housed in Bay County couldn�t translate for the male population.
�What if we farm out the male population?� Bryan said.
Based on numbers provided by county staff, Bryan contended there was savings of nearly half a million dollars.
The cost to house an inmate per day in Gulf County is $79.21, based on population averages and the jail�s $1.2 million budget.
The average inmate count is 42; the low has been 17 and the population does not exceed 80, according to statistics provided by county administrator Don Butler.
The winter and holidays are typically when the population is low; it swells in warm months and before circuit court days.
The cost of housing an inmate in Bay County is $41 per day.
Based on an average of 42 inmates, that translates into an annual cost of $628,530, or a savings of more than half a million dollars.
�This would benefit Bay County to fill its jail and will shift the costs and liability out of the county,� Bryan said.
Those numbers do not include transportation back and forth to Bay County, but Bryan has contended the issue should be examined.
Commissioner Warren Yeager, at least initially, agreed.
�I am all for thinking outside the box,� Yeager said. �I am not for raising the millage rate.�
Hammond said staff had run numbers before to assess the costs, but with the male population the savings to the county were not as significant as with the women.
He told Bryan he would run the numbers again but those have yet to be provided.
As for liability, Bryan has recommended an inspection of the jail by the Florida Sheriff�s Association.
That recommendation was met with uniform dissent from fellow commissioners � in a flashback to the county-wide debates of the prior decade � as well as a first in recent years at the BOCC; defiance from staff in the face of direction from a commissioner.
The closest instance of actions similar to Hammond�s stated refusal to allow Bryan and an inspector entry to the jail was a profane outburst directed at a commissioner by a staff member during an insurance debate several years ago.
That employee was terminated after the public incident.
�I have a right to have that jail inspected,� Bryan said in the face of Hammond�s refusal to allow an inspection without a vote of the full board.
The inspection is the responsibility of the jail administrator under Florida law.
Liability rests with Hammond and, given Hammond�s role as a county employee, the Board of County Commissioners, according to state statutes governing jails.
Based on information provided by the Florida Sheriff�s Association, which had offered a free jail inspection, Bryan contends an inspection should be performed annually; inspections are performed at other jails, including small counties, despite Hammond�s statement otherwise; and that to not undertake an inspection leaves the county open to liability.
�We have an issue with liability,� Bryan said. �With an inspection, at least it shows we are trying to do something.�
Ignorance of the problems at the jail � and county staff acknowledged the jail does not meet Modern Jail Standards, the template for inspections � is not a defense against liability.
The county, Bryan contends, has a duty to protect and failure to do so is �deliberate indifference.�
�You can�t afford to meet Modern Jail Standards,� Hammond told commissioners. �My recommendation is not to do it.�
Bryan has also been informed that given Hammond�s stance, sending an inspector to the jail would not be an option through the Florida Sheriff�s Association.


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9:00 pm
Natural World: Wild Indonesia "Underwater" Strung out along 5,000 kilometres of the Equator, between Asia and Australia, Indonesia's 17,000 islands make up the largest and most varied archipelago on Earth. From freezing glaciers to coral reefs, orangutans to Komodo dragons, the sheer diversity of landscapes and life defies the imagination. This series tells the story of one of the world's most fascinating regions and its magical wildlife. D
10:00 pm
Nature "The Loneliest Animals" Scientists work feverishly to breed some of the world's most endangered species in high-security high-tech labs and investigate what forces have led to the demise of entire species. Featured animals include Yangtze turtles, a baby Sumatran rhino, a special collection of lemurs, the Spix's macaw, and a giant tortoise from the Galapagos, the last known specimen of his kind.G
11:00 pm
Wild! "Camels Empire" Camels have walked our planet for 45 million years and have learned to survive some of the harshest environments on earth. This film explores the surprisingly wide range of the camel family, retracing their family history to reveal the qualities that make them so resilient, and examines our relationship with these ancient beasts and the role camels played in shaping the foundations of human society.G


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Agilent Announces 3GPP LTE Signal-creation Software
<B>Agilent Technologies Inc.</B> announced the availability of its Signal Studio for 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) software.
Agilent Technologies Inc. announced the availability of its Signal Studio for 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) software.
Designed to work with Agilent's N5182A MXG and E4438C ESG vector signal generators, Signal Studio software helps wireless R&D and manufacturing engineers create Agilent-validated and performance-optimized signals to design and test evolving 3GPP LTE products for the next generation of mobile communications. The 3GPP LTE standard is intended to provide a framework for the evolution of 3G toward a high-data-rate, low latency and packet-optimized radio-access technology, thereby enabling significant new opportunities in mobile TV and video.
Agilent's Signal Studio is powerful, PC-based software for creating standards-based LTE signals. An easy-to-use user interface simplifies signal creation via familiar tree-style navigation of the signal structure. Before releasing its software, Agilent validates the signals generated by the software with industry experts to ensure they are correct, even in situations where the standards are not yet clearly defined. Used with Agilent's vector signal generators, these signals help engineers better characterize, evaluate and fine-tune their designs under parametric and functional test conditions.
Signal Studio provides spectrally correct signals tailored for testing and evaluating components such as power amplifiers used in LTE mobile handsets and base transceiver stations. Because the signals are spectrally correct, they emulate real-world signals (for example, having the proper bandwidth, peak-to-average ratio and spectral shape, etc.). The software also supports importing a user file with data that has been pre-coded to simulate transport layer coding, enabling early receiver design and test.
The new software features the ability to adjust LTE parameters to fine-tune signal characteristics for specific applications. Some of the key parameters that can be adjusted include bandwidth (1.25, 2.5, 5, 10, 15 or 20 MHz), modulation type (QPSK, 16QAM or 64QAM), number of channels, type of channels (data or control, for example), channel power level, payload data and resource block allocation, among others.
With this flexibility, the engineer can test and optimize component performance over a wide range of operating conditions, including situations with few users or many users transferring data at different rates. Signals can even be configured to simulate worst-case scenarios, revealing component deficiencies before they are deployed. A graphical user interface simplifies signal configuration while the .NET API enables integration into a test executive.
"As a leader in the measurement industry, Agilent is fully committed to providing today's engineers with the resources they need to efficiently and effectively create the next generation of mobile communication based on 3GPP LTE," said Gregg Peters, vice president of Agilent's Signal Sources Division. "Our new Signal Studio software, with its ability to create industry-validated, spectrally correct signals, is a prime example of that leadership. As the 3GPP LTE standard matures and LTE infrastructure is deployed, that commitment will continue with enhancements for the Signal Studio 3GPP LTE solution to keep our customers at the forefront of this technology."
Signal Studio for 3GPP LTE software is specifically designed to work with Agilent's MXG and ESG vector signal generators. The Agilent N5182A MXG offers industry-best adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR) performance and switching speeds, coupled with simplified self-maintenance to maximize uptime. It is ideal for design and manufacturing teams producing components for communications systems, including high performance, base station MCPAs (multi-carrier power amplifiers).
The E4438C ESG provides lower phase noise, higher output power and excellent level accuracy. It features advanced baseband capabilities including digital inputs/outputs and fading, making it better suited for early LTE receiver evaluation.


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With six seniors on the roster this season, the Hood River Valley High School varsity girls tennis team is working to improve on last season's rebuilding effort that concluded with a fifth-place league finish.
The team played matches last week against 6A Gresham and Sam Barlow to kick-off its 15-match schedule, and although both were filed as losses, coaches are optimistic for the season.
"We've got a great group of girls and some seasoned players this season," said Justine Ziegler, who is co-coaching the team with Leslie Kerr. "It's pretty hard to say how we will compare, but we have the depth to do pretty well this season."
Senior Emilee Ziegner returns as the team's No. 1 singles player after finishing out last year narrowly missing a trip to the state tournament with doubles partner Emily Roberts. Ziegner is accompanied by fellow seniors Claire Rawson, Petra Knapp, Sophia Oswald, Vanessa Sandoval and Anna Guemperlein in both singles and doubles categories.
"In addition to our seniors, we have some young talent that will be exciting to follow," Ziegler said. "Olivia Newcomb is a freshman that has made our varsity lineup and is impressive for such a young player. We've also got an awesome doubles pair in Naomi Greenwald and Elisabeth Webb (both juniors). Those two have chemistry on the court that works really well."
Ziegler said a top-three finish in the district would be a good result. The team is part of 5A Special District 1, which incorporates Columbia River and Intermountain conference teams into one league.
HRV vs. Gresham
Emilee Ziegner: 6-0, 6-0 loss
Claire Rawson: 6-4, 6-3 win
Miranda Starr: 7-5, 6-3 win
Maddy Graham: 6-0, 6-0 win
Sophie Oswald and Vanessa Sandoval: 6-0, 6-1 loss
Petra Knapp and Naomi Greenwald: 6-2, 6-4 loss
Emma Cameron and Siena Harlin: 6-4, 6-2 loss
Hannah Bergemann and Olivia Newcomb: 6-1, 6-4 loss
HRV vs. Sam Barlow
Emilee Ziegner: 6-2, 6-0 loss
Petra Knapp: 6-0, 6-0 loss
Miranda Starr: 6-0, 6-0 win
Olivia Newcomb: 6-0, 6-0 win
Sophie Oswald and Vanessa Sandoval: 6-0, 6-4 loss
Claire Rawson and Anna Guemperlein: 6-2, 6-4 loss
Naomi Greenwald and Siena Harlin: 3-6, 6-3, 1-0 win
Emma Cameron and Hannah Bergemann: 6-0, 6-1 win
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July 5-12 Podcast
Kerry Weber talks about her year with Mercy Volunteer Corps.
Applications to religious volunteer programs have risen dramatically this year as a result of the shrinking job market. In "Will Work for Free," assistant editor Kerry Weber looks at how the influx of volunteers and the poor economic conditions are affecting programs like the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. On our podcast Kerry discusses why she chose to spend a year with the Mercy Volunteer Corps after graduating from college and what spiritual lessons she learned from the sisters of Mercy and the families she worked with on an Indian reservation.
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Royal Ontario Museum
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