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"I would have lost weight as long as I stay on the diet required, but the exercise helped me not only lose weight faster, but also helped me with self image as I watched my physical capabilities increase. Exercise is also necessary believe it or not to relieve pain initially. It stimulates the production of endorphins and helps dissipate gas pockets that form shortly after surgery. I had the roux-N-Y procedure, which is a laporoscopic procedure. Part of the procedure is to inflate the abdominal cavity with a neutral gas to give the surgeon room to work. This gas, if you lie around after surgery, causes intense pain in of all places, your left shoulder and the only way to ease the pain is to get up and move around to dissipate the bubble."
"I've tried everything, walking was too painfull, cycling was easier on my knees and a whole lot more fun. I was in pretty bad shape. I tried cycling because when I was much younger, I seriously enjoyed cycling. It was nothing for me to take off on a century, so I wanted to regain that capability. I really couldn't do a lot at first, I was winded and completely exhausted after 1/2 mile. I was determined to get back into life; however, and kept at it. Swimming would have been a good alternative as well as far as low impact, but I couldn't afford to get a membership anywhere. It was a hardship even buying a used bike!
"Cycling has helped me get healthier by helping me drop the weight, in addition to the surgery, along with giving me a tangible feeling of accomplishment. In losing the weight, among other benefits, I am off insulin and diet regulated as far as Diabetes goes. The exercise has helped bring my blood pressure down to normal range with no medication when before, I was holding the bottom end of high blood pressure through medication. In addition, my at rest heart rate is now down in the 60's and 70's from 109. I still have an enlarged heart, but the pumping action has gotten FAR better, I formerly had an outflow fraction of about 68%, and my heart efficiency has increased dramatically. I am also off of Oxygen except for night time use as I still have apnea, so I use oxygen and a Bipap when I sleep still. This is soon to be reevaluated, however. I had a blood oxygen saturation of 68% off of oxygen and had a rough time getting it above 82-85% even at 10 liters of Oxygen/minute. I am currently holding 97% at rest and 85%+ under stress(exercise). I can hold my heart rate at 180 for 30 minutes under exercise without discomfort as well. Before my surgery, I was only able to walk about 40-50 feet without extreme discomfort and chest pain. These are all direct results of the aerobic exercise cycling offers me. My peak weight was 581 pounds and I am currently at 260.
"I've definately learned the principle of 'No pain, no gain.' At first, it was discouraging when it hurt, but you get past that, and the feeling you get from pushing past another barrier is the best feeling on Earth.....BAR NONE! It's kind of like Zen to me, I get lost in the ride and get outside my body, and the next thing I realize, I'm 15-20 miles into the ride and feeling pretty good. I'm not the fastest rider in town, but I am steady! I've gone from a 5 mph pace being all I could do for a half mile at a time to 14-16 mph pace for the day! This is on a mountain bike converted to road, by the way, as I felt the mountain bike would hold up to me better with the heavier components. It boils down to the fact I wanted to stay alive as a reason I went through all this!"
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Scottish islands seek their own independence
An independent Scotland doesn't go far enough for some Scots.
A group petitioned the Scottish Parliament last March to be allowed — if the independence referendum passes — to hold a referendum on independence for Scotland's three main island groups: Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles.
STORY:Remote Scottish outpost splits on independence vote
MORE:Scotland's independence fever is contagious
Margaret Mackenzie, a press officer for the Referenda for the Islands campaign, said in e-mailed comments that the movement enjoyed strong support from as far away as Hong Kong and Venice, Italy. The Scottish Parliament rejected the petition.
"The whole thing was deeply flawed," says Jean Urquhart, an independent member of the Scottish Parliament. "Nobody even knows where they live or who they are." Mackenzie declined to reply to a request for a phone interview with USA TODAY.
Still, the question of whether the islands really should be part of Scotland persists. "All U.K. and Scottish authority in Shetland rests on the assumption that Shetland is part of Scotland, so it seems reasonable to ask when it happened," local chronicler Stuart Hill wrote in a book on Shetland's constitutional history in 2009.
"Thus far, nobody can tell me, so I'm drawn to the conclusion that it never did."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
News and Events
- University Of Sargodha Lahore Campus-Cultural Festival 2018
- UCP Project presentation competition (MBA and MS) 2018
- LUMS (CGPM Conference on creating inclusive organisational and public spaces: Call for Papers) 2018
- GIKI's Industrial Open House and Career Fair 2016
- LUMS' Biology Seminar on Forensic Sciences 2016
- QAU's 7th Convocation to be Held in May 2016
- LUMS' Business Technologies Recruitment Drive 2016
- IBA's Advanced Management Program (AMP) Phase-1 2016
- ISNET / SUPARCO's Five-Day Workshop on Student Satellites 2015
- MUST's International Conference on Business and Management Research 2015
Punjab Examination Commission (PEC) is the organization that is authorized by Government of Punjab to conduct Class / Grade 8 exams in Bahawalnagar district. Thousands of students from Bahawalnagar take exams each year and passing ratio is generally in the range of satisfactory to good.
PEC Class 8 Result for Bahawalnagar 2016
To view and download the PEC's 8th Class Results for Bahawalnagar in 2016, please go to the link below,


text:
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The healthcare debate is shockingly narrow. We have the do nothing crowd, the privatize it more crowd, the single-payer people, and the public option folks. On the more radical end of the mainstream debates are those calling for more general practitioners, preventive care/incentives, and co-ops. Of the bills pushing through congress now, I have a feeling the public option is the only one with any teeth, but there are a million other non-mutually-exclusive ideas which could be implemented.
If we shift the focus to not just prevention but an anti-aging paradigm, we can delay death, improve productivity, and enhance wellbeing. Unfortunately the short term bias of individuals, corporations, and the government collectively shifts the focus towards lucrative disease-specific research. Most diseases are merely a symptom of aging, which is the root problem. There is no excuse for the NIH to fund disease-specific research when the money could be spent so much better on fundamental aging research which the market is not already providing. The SENS Approach has already laid the roadmap for what needs to be studied, yet funding is grossly insufficient, and as with all things regarding aging, time is of the essence.
Setting aside genetic engineering for now, even simple things like vitamin deficiencies cause an inordinate amount of medical problems, and this is especially sad in a country like the US which, despite being the wealthiest in the world, still has vitamin D deficiency among the majority of the populace. Unfortunately this is part and parcel with our overall short-term bias.
Unintended consequences of current government policies are wreaking havok on us. Red meat, corn syrup, and many other American dietary staples are heavily subsidized by our government. Eliminating those subsidies, and maybe even taxing these to cover the externalities of their unsustainable production, would do as much to improve our health as just about anything that is being proposed. Additionally, banning the use of antibiotics on healthy farm animals, as the Obama Administration has openly supported, would prevent the outbreak of antibiotic-resistant diseases. Furthermore, promoting local farmer's markets would improve the quality of our food and our communities.
Libertarians often rail against the FDA, as the Life Extension Foundation does effectively, and much of the complaints are absolutely justified, but what is often overlooked is the archaic patent system. Not only are patents granted too frequently, and there is actually much to be said for dismantling the patent system entirely, we have a sort of tragedy of the commons when it comes to corporate patents. Although having the freedom to grant your patent to someone else in theory seems like a good idea, in practice what happens is all the researchers end up ceding their patents to their employers and the end result is a sort of medical servitude and reduced incentive to innovate. Yet if corporations, which shouldn't be legal persons anyways, were not legally entitled to hold patents, they would still have incentive to hire researchers who could use their facilities and license back the discoveries at fair rates (standardized to a certain percentage floor).
The NIH should not fund any research which will go toward patented research, ever. All research which is conducted with public money must go towards the commons or else it is corporatism plain and simple. Open Source Medicine would enhance innovation and reduce costs.
Also, as Kevin Carson argues, there is plenty of room for small low cost community clinics staffed by general practitioners or even the sort of "barefoot doctors" described in the article. Seriously, you don't need to waste the time of an MD for a simple ear infection, and such things constitute a huge proportion of healthcare.
As Robin Hanson notes here, we simply spend too much on healthcare. True, a huge amount of that is a result of waste, fraud, abuse, and the problems mentioned above, but some of it is a result of simply spending too much money on ridiculous experimental treatments and so forth that we shouldn't be doing at all since there really isn't any evidence that they help. One way many countries deal with this issue is rationing, but in fairness, this article was mainly arguing for a reorientation of our priorities and an elimination of subsidies, tax breaks, etc for healthcare providers. While I disagree with the argument that the quantity of treatment itself is a problem, I think it is useful to think about just how much we value healthcare, and how effective each extra dollar really is, because too often this issue is ignored completely.
Lastly, one area in which significant gains could be made is via automation. If we could fund research of automated systems and robots to assist care-providers, we would be able to spend less on care-providers. More would be able to live at home without the need for medical supervision, and for those who live at the hospital, there would be less need for nurses and nurses's aides to take care of the dirty details, and more time to look after their social and emotional wellbeing. I'm not just talking about robots like ASIMO or R2D2 to fetch you things, though there is certainly a place for that. I am also thinking on a very practical level. There are already motorized wheelchairs, machines which aid people in the bathroom, or help them up the stairs, or shift them around to prevent bedsores. There are even robotic exoskeletons being developed. These sorts of things which can not only maintain the health of the elderly and disabled, but actually give them back lives of relative normality, but most of the machines are patented and the designs are secret. Open innovation and government funding could speed this up immensely.
Please, think outside the box guys!


text:
Foes of immigration 'amnesty' mobilizing
- Angry calls during last immigration debate shut down switchboard in Congress
- Opposition slow to build up steam this time
- Bipartisan group of lawmakers support pathway to citizenship
PHOENIX -- As lawmakers get closer to introducing a comprehensive immigration-reform bill, opponents are gearing up to flood Congress with calls condemning any legislation that allows illegal immigrants to gain legal status or citizenship.
The same tactic helped defeat immigration reform the last time lawmakers considered passing bills in 2006 and especially 2007, when a flood of angry calls shut down the switchboard in Congress.
That prompted supporters to pull the plug on immigration reform in favor of beefing up border security first.
Groups opposed to immigration reform say legalizing illegal immigrants is a form of "amnesty" that rewards people who broke the country's immigration laws and encourages more people to enter illegally or remain unlawfully after their visas have expired.
Once legislation is introduced -- lawmakers anticipate late March or early April -- opponents plan to take advantage of the country's high unemployment rate and conservative discontent with President Barack Obama's policies to fuel a grassroots campaign against the bill that includes phone calls, emails, faxes and online petitions to lawmakers.
"It's just starting to percolate," said Rusty Childress, a former Phoenix auto-dealership owner who has founded several anti-illegal immigration groups, including United for a Sovereign America, American Freedom Riders and Riders USA.
Childress and others who oppose any form of legalization for undocumented immigrants acknowledge that, so far, the issue hasn't generated as much heat as it did in 2006 and 2007, even though Obama has made immigration reform a top priority this year and a bipartisan group of lawmakers is moving fast to get a bill passed as quickly as possible, perhaps this summer.
"I am trying to light a fire here and get the passions burning again, and I know that, in the end, Americans will melt down the phone lines in Washington against amnesty," Childress said. "We are not there yet."
They blame fatigue for sucking some of the life out of the "anti-amnesty" movement. Opponents also say there is a feeling that passage of an immigration-reform bill may now be inevitable given the renewed push by key Republicans to pass immigration reforms to attract increasingly influential Latino voters following the drubbing GOP nominee Mitt Romney received from them in November.
"It is tiring. There may be a sense that people are a little worn out," said Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA. The Washington, D.C., group advocates for restrictions on immigration and has organized campaigns in the past urging its members to call, fax or email lawmakers to oppose immigration reform.
"And I think there is a little bit of sense right now that maybe they can't stop it, so why bother," Beck said.
Diminished influence
A sharp drop in illegal immigration since 2007 has slowed some of the momentum behind the "anti-amnesty" movement, Beck said. Since 2006, Border Patrol apprehensions on the southern border with Mexico have dropped 66 percent, from 1.07 million to 356,873 last year.
In the Tucson Sector, which covers most of Arizona, Border Patrol apprehensions are down 69 percent since 2006, from 393,074 to 120,000.
"In that sense, the conditions don't feel probably as dire or raw," Beck said.
In 2006 and 2007, the last time Congress seriously considered immigration reform, illegal immigration was a major topic on talk radio and conservative hosts played a major role in fanning public opposition.
Now, immigration reform has not gained as much traction on talk radio, said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a trade industry magazine, which conducts a weekly survey of the most frequently discussed issues on talk-radio stations nationwide.
According to the magazine's weekly survey, immigration was the No. 1 issue on talk radio at the end of January, when a bipartisan group of eight senators, including Republicans John McCain and Jeff Flake from Arizona, announced a set of principles for crafting a reform bill.
The "Gang of Eight" plan includes creating a pathway to citizenship for the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, contingent on making sure the border has been adequately secured.
But since then, immigration has been overshadowed by other issues such as the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester, gun-control legislation and rising gas prices. Last week, immigration did not even rank among the top 10 issues, according to the Talkers survey.
"That is not to say that it could not flare up again, and it's not to say that it's not an important issue," Harrison said. "It hasn't fallen off the radar. It's still there."
In February, several angry constituents told McCain during a town-hall meeting in Sun Lakes that they are opposed to his support of immigration reforms that include a pathway to citizenship.
But polls indicate there is strong support among Americans for that type of reform.
A Fox News poll said that 72 percent of registered voters surveyed Feb. 25-27 favored allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country and eventually qualify for citizenship as long as they meet certain requirements such as paying back taxes, learning English and passing a background check.
Democrats favored a pathway to citizenship by 82 percent and Republicans by 63 percent, the poll said.
In recent weeks, immigrant-advocacy groups have been mobilizing to keep pressure on lawmakers to introduce a bill that includes a pathway to citizenship. They have held regional bus tours and rallies and are planning their own campaign to get 1 million supporters to call their representatives in Congress and urge them to support reform.
Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a Washington, D.C., group that advocates for comprehensive immigration reform, doesn't think opposition will be as strong this time because the influence of "anti-amnesty" groups has been diminished by the November election, when Obama swept more than 70 percent of the Latino vote. Romney campaigned on a strident, anti-immigrant message, saying he favored self-deportation and was opposed to letting illegal immigrants gain legal status.
"You'll see strong opposition, but I don't think it will be anywhere near the kind of volume or visibility of 2006 and 2007, in large part because I think Republicans have realized that by branding themselves as anti-Latino, it hasn't been very good for them electorally," Sharry said.
Even if opposition from "anti-amnesty" groups is strong, Republicans are likely to pay less attention than in 2006 and 2007, said Matthew Garcia, a history professor and director of comparative border studies at Arizona State University. "I think there are enough Republicans now who understand they need Latino votes," Garcia said. "And they understand the political calculus, so they are going to have to accept pathways to citizenship."
Contributing factors
High unemployment could help fuel opposition from Americans who are concerned that letting undocumented immigrants gain legal status will hurt the millions of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who are out of work, Beck said.
The U.S. Labor Department Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that as of January, there were 12.3 million unemployed people.
Having a Democrat in the White House could also help fuel opposition, Beck said. The last time Congress considered passing immigration reform, a Republican, George W. Bush, was president. Bush supported comprehensive immigration reform.
Beck said members of his group already have sent more than 1 million faxes to members of Congress since the start of the year. The group also posted a petition on its website opposing a proposal by the bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight to legalize undocumented immigrants "in a time of budget-deficit crisis and high unemployment."
More than 190,551 people have signed the petition, according to the group's website.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C., group also opposed to reforms that include a pathway to citizenship, is urging members to sign a petition on its website telling Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to "reject amnesty."
Rubio, a member of the Gang of Eight, once opposed allowing undocumented immigrants to gain legal status but came out in favor of comprehensive immigration reform after the election.
"Looking back at the experience of 2006 and 2007, the other side did a very good job of turning people out onto the streets," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for FAIR. "The people who were opposed to the legislation, what they were able to do was get their message across in a different way: Calling their members of Congress, going to town-hall meetings. So, I suspect (for opponents), it is going to be much of a repeat of what we saw."


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When was the last time that a horror movie made you cry? I don't mean tears of laughter, nor do I mean the childish tears of fear that some of us got as 8 year olds witnessing the horrors of Evil Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the first time (though for some of us, that explains a lot). No, I want you to think of the last time a horror film, due to its emotional intensity, its pathos, and its masterful depiction of basic human tragedy left you with literal tears standing in your eyes as the final credits rolled.
I've seen a lot of horror movies, and over the many years that I've been watching my beloved fear flicks, I can think of only two times that this has ever happened to me--and BOTH of them were after watching Jean Rollin's 1982 Gothic MASTERPIECE, The Living Dead Girl.
We open with a group of blue-collar workmen clandestinely delivering a load of chemical waste to an illegal dump site in rural France. While one of the workmen (whose uncanny resemblance to a young Art Garfunkel gave me pause) sits outside drinking wine, the other two cart a barrel of industrial by-products down to an underground storage space. After stacking the chemicals haphazardly on some other rusty barrels down there, one of the workers tells the other that the tunnels connect with an old family crypt further on down, and that they could make some quick cash by robbing the graves and selling the jewelry the rich folks were buried with. Desecrating aristocratic graves while right next door to a stash of dangerous chemicals...what could possibly go wrong?
The sweaty Frenchmen find their way into the crypt, which though abandoned for years still has a set of torches burning on the walls. (Of course this is not so strange if you consider that Rollin is ALWAYS more interested in an interesting visual than in logical sense, and the visual IS striking.) They break open the two coffins they find and start looting, though the younger of the two is briefly startled by the incredible beauty of the girl in his coffin, who died a couple of years ago. (Again, the lack of rot probably has more to do with Rollin's quest for a good visual than with the preserving agents of the chemical fog, so it's best just to go with it here.) Then a mild earthquake hits, knocking over one of the barrels of toxic waste and setting up a thick smoke-machine fog that quickly floods the whole crypt. It's the kind of thing that you just KNOW is not going to end well.
And end well it doesn't. Catherine Valmont, the beautiful corpse (played by the stunningly ethereal Françoise Blanchard), is somehow revived by the chemical fog, and instinctively sits up to meet her defiler and GOUGES OUT HIS EYES with her claw-like nails, which one can assume continued growing after her death (like they do). The special effects here are frankly bad, but the scene is so gory and the violence so shocking that it's easy to overlook. The other workman has meanwhile taken a nose-dive into a puddle of acidic goo, so he's out too. When Garfunkel comes down to see if his amis are all right, Catherine sticks her fingers in his throat and makes a meal of his arterial spray! A strong opening, and uncharacteristically gruesome for a Rollin flick.
*, but Rollin's goal was obviously just to get the dead girl up and about, and having accomplished that he kicks the story into gear with his trademark visual flair. Long-range shots of Catherine in her bloodstained grave clothes wandering listlessly across a sunlit field are classic Rollin, and just absolutely breathtaking. Catherine is spotted by bickering American couple Barbara and Greg, and Barbara takes a few pictures of the girl before she vanishes.
*I think there is an explanation for this, though admittedly more poetic and fairy tale-oriented than a traditional horror trope; it has to do with Catherine's connection to her cousin Hélène, about which more will be said shortly.
Catherine wanders to the expansive castle that was once her home, now abandoned and up for sale. She stumbles blank-faced through dust-covered rooms, sniffing the air and running her fingers along furniture, as if her body remembers things that her mind cannot yet grasp. Somehow Rollin magically invests the images here with a pathos and delicate emotional texture that dialog would likely destroy, as we feel the nostalgia inherent in the dead girl's return. One particular shot where Catherine absently rocks an antique rocking horse--a horse that was doubtless her own plaything in life--just brims with emotional portent.
A female realtor arrives to show the house to another American couple (the presence of invading Americans seems to be a theme here, though I haven't quite thought that one through yet), and they barely miss crossing Catherine's path as she heads upstairs to her old bedroom. Once there Catherine finds an old picture of two young girls smiling in each other's arms, and as the realtor locks her in downstairs Catherine flashes back to her youth, when she and her cousin Hélène swore eternal love to one another and sealed it with a blood pact. "I'll never leave you. I'll always love you," the two girls swear. "If you die first, I'll follow you." Again, the way Rollin films these scenes--all soft focus and brilliant light, suggesting a halcyon past of happy days and innocent love--if you've ever been a happy innocent kid with a best friend, it just hits you, and hits hard, right in the heart.
Next we see the grown-up Hélène (Marina Pierro) in her swanky city apartment, looking wistfully at the same picture that spurred Catherine's flashback (a nice bit of visual exposition by Rollin--no dialog required). It is she who has put the castle up for sale, and reminded by the photo she calls the house, hoping to catch the realtor there. When the phone rings Catherine--whose jerky motions and stiff limbs tell us her motor skills are not what they used to be--knocks the receiver from its cradle, then opens a music box sitting nearby, a relic from the girls' shared past.
Hélène recognizes the tune immediately, and gasps, "Catherine?" Again, in a lesser film you might wonder how Hélène would know it was her cousin, who after all was supposed to have died two years hence, but Rollin's visuals in the flashback and his uncanny ability to invest image with emotion, it totally rings true--or at least it did for me.
Catherine does not reply, so the shaken Hélène quickly gets in the car to head out to the castle and find out for sure who was on the other end of the line. Meanwhile the perky young realtor has called her boyfriend for a dirty weekend at the hitherto-abandoned chateau. The horny young kids quickly get down to business in the parlor, leading to some of the sexay artistic nudity you expect from Jean Rollin. And the realtor is one hot little Eurobabe, it has to be said.
The kids' coitus is interruptused by Catherine playing piano in the next room, and when the boyfriend goes to investigate, he gets his jugular perforated by the dead girl's talons. He stumbles back into the room where his nubile girlfriend awaits, then tilts his head back and lets loose with pulsing arterial spray all over her naked flesh! Again, the effects on the wound leave something to be desired, but the visual of the beautiful, naked girl slowly being covered with blood in an artistic, explicitly sexual way--that's just trademark Rollin, and if you can't get behind it, you'd best just get off the bus now.
Catherine makes short work of the screaming, blood-soaked realtor, who expires on the front steps in a gorgeous Gothic image: sprawled naked on the stone steps, the house looming over her in shadow, Catherine in blood-streaked grave clothes waiting to feed. Just beautimous.
Hélène arrives shortly thereafter to discover the carnage on the steps and in the parlor. She's about to call the police when she hears the tell-tale music box again, and stumbles in shock to the conservatory where she finds Catherine sitting at the piano naked. (ANOTHER gorgeous image--seriously, there are long stretches in this film where I just want to screengrab EVERY FRAME.) When she tries to speak to Catherine and gets no response, Hélène surmises her cousin must have brain damage, and her family said she was dead just to cover it up. Seeing from the blood around her mouth and on her discarded clothes that Catherine is responsible for the killings, Hélène briefly considers calling the police--but remembering their love for one another, their blood pact as children, Hélène decides instead to drag the bodies to the crypt and flee with Catherine, protecting her as much as she can.
Once in the crypt however Hélène discovers the other bodies and the empty coffin, and the terrible truth dawns on her--Catherine is a living dead girl. Catherine comes down to the crypt, obviously suffering, and through her actions Hélène discovers that her cousin needs living blood and flesh to ease her pain. Re-enacting their blood pact, Hélène cuts her own wrist and allows Catherine to take nourishment from her, setting the stage for all the tragedy to follow.
After trying and failing to feed Catherine with a slaughtered dove (another strong image that Rollin has used before, heavy with poetic meaning), Hélène begins procuring food for Catherine through other means. She lures a female motorist to the chateau, and after a tense, uncomfortable "seduction" scene locks the hapless woman in the crypt with Catherine, who graphically tears her guts out and feeds on her pulsing blood! While the woman screams Hélène covers her ears upstairs, wracked with guilt but unable to allow her cousin to suffer the torments of the dead. It's a powerful emotional scene, showing that Hélène intends to honor her pact, no matter what the cost.
"I was fine--just fleeting sensations. Death would have quietly taken me back...You wanted to entice me back to the world of the living! Look, I'm surrounded by corpses! I made this into a charnel house!" This makes it clear that, more than the chemical waste in the barrels, it is Hélène's inability to let go of Catherine's memory, her basically selfish desire to keep her beloved cousin alive rather than mourning and allowing her to pass into death, that has brought Catherine back to this world of suffering. A powerful sentiment, and emotionally true, I think.
Still unable to let go, Hélène goes into town in search of another victim. Using the old "your boyfriend is hurt--come with me and I'll take you to him!" ruse, she brings a voluptuous young lady out to the crypt and ties her to one of the stone supports. When Catherine, writhing in hunger pains, still refuses to kill the girl, Hélène takes a knife and saws at the nude victim's stomach, hoping the sight of blood will make Catherine's instincts take over. The girl screams, like any torture victim--and it becomes apparent that Hélène has become the real monster.
Barbara and Greg show up and Hélène must go out and deal with them, which she does in a shocking and brutal way, cementing her place as sympathetic villain. Meanwhile Catherine unties the victim and tells her to go back to the village and tell them all what she has seen. Catherine then tries to drown herself in the castle lake, but Hélène sees her and pulls her out, in anther stunning, almost Pre-Raphaelite composition from Rollin. This sets up the absolutely incredible ending--an ending of such pathos, such beauty, such shocking violence, and such real, deep, palpable human tragedy, it would be criminal to say anything more.
The Living Dead Girl is doubtless the most narratively coherent of the Rollin films it's been my pleasure to see, and also the most emotionally powerful. Despite the low-budget nature of the special effects and the sometimes suspect acting from many of the leads (most specifically Carina Barone as Barbara, who is seldom even remotely believable), the sheer power of the visuals and artistry of the storytelling carry this flick past my logic centers and straight into my heart. Françoise Blanchard as Catherine is a blank slate for much of the film, but I believe that is by design--it's only as she comes more back to "life" that she shows emotion, making the film's denouement that much more powerful. Marina Pierro as Hélène comes off fairly flat most of the time, but as I said before, Rollin's compositions and visual poetry more than do the job for her. As usual with a Rollin flick, if you get caught up on the narrative logic and the effects, you're kind of missing the point--and here it's worth shutting off the critical logician in your noggin to bask in the gorgeous tragedy on display.
The Living Dead Girl is a work of high art--a fairy tale, a parable, a classical tragedy, a meditation on mourning, and quite simply, a masterpiece. It's also, probably obviously, one of my favorite films, period. If you haven't seen any Rollin, this is an excellent place to start; if you have seen Rollin but haven't seen this film, you're missing a staggering achievement. Off The Thumb Scale, naturally. One for the record books.
P.S.--It's always risky reviewing a film you personally have unconditional love for, and I know there are those out there who don't share my view. Still, my whole goal here is to say what I think about the films I see, and this is what I think about this one. If you don't agree, I can respect that--just be sure to change the subject if it ever comes up in conversation with me. Otherwise, there'll be a rumble! ;)
Monday, June 2, 2008
The Living Dead Girl (1982): or, Sometimes You've Got to Let Go
Posted by The Vicar of VHS at 4:28 PM
Labels: '80s, 3+ Thumbs, Jean Rollin, Zombies
11 comments:
- Mr. Karswell said...
This is indeed a good place to start with Rollin. Unfortunantly it's also a good place to stop, before you bear witness to his many other godawful films (Zombie Lake anyone?) while expecting another Living Dead Girl. Of his many "films" this is definitely one of the more memorable. And if you must, give The Raisins of Death a shot too. Not great, not terrible... same with A Virgin Among the Living Dead, Requiem for a Vampire, all worth a watch at least.
- June 2, 2008 at 9:34 PM
- The Vicar of VHS said...
This means war, Karswell! WAAAAAR!!!
Just kidding, of course. I won't blame you that your taste is so underdeveloped that you can't appreciate the genius of Rollin. I'll just pity you, with a pity only a hair's breadth removed from contempt. :)
I keed because I love.
(Don't listen to him, folks. Rollin is a genius.)
- June 2, 2008 at 10:13 PM
- Mr. Karswell said...
I will killlllllll you!!!!
Seriously, his films have moments, like Jess Franco's films...
- June 2, 2008 at 11:05 PM
- Tenebrous Kate said...
This is such a lovely write-up of one of my very favorite films, Vicar. *applause*
Karswell, tsk tsk for mentioning "Zombie Lake" in such a context! Everybody's got to make a living, and if that means cashing in with some green Nazi zombies, then so be it. I forgive Rollin this trespass. I posit that "Frisson of the Vampires" and "Fascination" are made entirely of cinematic goodness, and along with "Living Dead Girl," balance the Karmic scale in Rollin's favor ;)
- June 3, 2008 at 8:13 AM
- Inspector Winship said...
I must admit, Zombie Lake is probably the one reason I have steered clear of this flick. Maybe I'll give this one a try. It did inspire my favorite Rob Zombie song after all.
- June 3, 2008 at 8:47 AM
- The Duke of DVD said...
A splendid review as always, my dear Vicar. Rollin captures the female form like no other, to be sure.
- June 3, 2008 at 9:28 AM
- Richard of DM said...
Amen, duder. I friggin' love The Living Dead Girl. I never get tired of this one.
-Richard of Doomed Moviethon
- June 3, 2008 at 1:56 PM
- The Vicar of VHS said...
Thanks for dropping by, Richard! Big fan of your site, btw, as my sidebar linkage love testifies. :)
So it's settled then--Karswell doesn't know what he's talking about. >:) At least in this instance...
(You know we love you, Daddy K...)
- June 3, 2008 at 2:40 PM
- Mr. Karswell said...
What the Hell?!! I said I LIKED Living Dead Girl too, didn't I? Re-read my comment dum-dum.
- June 3, 2008 at 5:08 PM
- Shweta Mehrotra Gahlawat said...
great writeup. this makes me believe that the 80s were good for the horror genre- am going to go and see if i can find a copy TODAY! :)
- June 5, 2008 at 4:48 PM
Fucking brilliant, Vicar.. Best review ever written on this damn fine beauty!
- December 5, 2009 at 2:54 PM


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Yes, the trailers for the upcoming robots-vs-monsters flick Pacific Rim are pretty awesome. Also awesome: This funny "sweded" version from Dumb Drum.
This is the latest in a long run of sweded trailers these guys have done, and I've enjoyed all of them. I particularly like the way they do GLaDOS' voice.
Everyone doing well? Anyone out there playing Heart of the Swarm? I can't believe Jason beat it already, I'm only like three missions in. Talk games, movies, Pacific Rim or anything else, here or in the Talk Amongst Yourselves forum.


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Lately I've been working on a slightly different library project than usual, and I've learned some important things about digital libraries, my job, and myself. (That sounds a bit like those revelations celebrities always make on the covers of women's magazines. I always thought it strange that the celebrities learn everything in threes.)
A philosophy professor here wanted the library to acquire and digitize a copy of Histoire Naturelle de Mre. Francois Bacon, a seventeenth-century French translation of Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum, published as far as I can tell just a few years after the English version. The library did manage to acquire a copy, which makes us one of the few libraries in the country to have one. I know you're jealous. The finding and purchasing was relatively easy. I was pleasantly surprised that the book was under a thousand dollars considering its relative scarcity and decent condition. However, I wasn't sure about the digitization because I hadn't worked with the digital projects people before. Partly to get the project going, and partly to learn something new, I agreed to help out with the project if it was accepted into the queue. The project was swiftly approved, and within a couple of weeks of receipt the book was digitized (with excellent images).
I'm hesitant to admit my previous ignorance of what goes on behind the scenes of these digital projects, but I had little idea. I figured it was more than scanning pages and loading the images on the web, but that's about it. I use these projects all the time, but hadn't thought much of their creation, much like I'm happy to use the catalog but glad someone else does the cataloging. This may be the only project I've followed from selection to the very end, which I hope is near. I watched the digital photographer photographing some of the images. I watched the head rare books cataloger do some minor tweaking of the MARC record.
Then came my part, the METS record, which according to my favorite easily accessible encyclopedia–the Wikipedia–stands for "Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard" and "is a standard for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata regarding objects within a digital library, expressed using the XML schema language of the World Wide Web Consortium." That sounds about like what the more knowledgeable programmers and catalogers told me, so I'll stick with that. My task in this project was to help create the METS record, which among other things creates the points of entry into the digital document. You probably knew that already. I had no idea. I don't know what I've been doing with myself the past few years. If you go to this project and click on the drop down box that marked SHOW, you'll see one thing the METS record does.
With 628 images, I suspected the METS record might be a little tedious to create. I also knew that it was in XML, which I have no experience with. I foolishly thought there would be some sort of editor program to help with this. I don't mean an XML editor, because I had one of those. I mean something more like Dreamweaver, that creates html and css and all that good stuff without having to hand code it. I wanted a Dreamweaver for my METS record. Imagine my shock when I was told there wasn't one, that some people have been handcoding parts of these projects. I'm always more or less happy I'm not a programmer or a cataloger, but this confirmed my feelings.
Fortunately, another of our catalogers has created a macro that translates an Excel spreadsheet into a proper XML METS record. Though initially thinking this project might be a good way to learn XML, I was counseled by wiser heads to use the spreadsheet method instead. Most of it was me going through the images and creating points of entry on chapters or subchapters, labeling them, matching page and image numbers, etc. Very detailed work. I finished the spreadsheet was told it looked pretty good, and am waiting to hear if it made its miraculous metamorphoses into a workable METS record.
What I learned about digital projects is how complicated they are and how much work goes into even the simplest one. Some of my colleagues have criticized the rate at which the digital projects have been moving, but after seeing how much had to be done, and how many people had to work together just to digitize one book properly, I understand why it's not the same as scanning and loading onto a website, which some people seem to think. The whole project has given me a better understanding of the behind the scenes work of a lot of my hardworking colleagues.
I can't say I learned anything new about my job, but I needed a third insight to sound like a celebrity. Still, it was reinforced for me how dependent we all are on other people doing their work well. When I'm doing it, it seems to me that most of my work is independent. I don't often work in teams, and I can do a lot of my job without interacting with other librarians or being in a particular location. In any given week, I'm much more likely to interact with a professor or student than with a colleague. I like the autonomy, but my autonomy depends on all the teams working behind the scenes making sure that when I click a button ordering a book, that book later shows up on a shelf, or even in a digital project.
What I learned about myself is that I'm still glad I'm not a cataloger or programmer, but now I have more concrete reasons. I'm just not cut out for that detailed work. I'm an end user and proud of it, but I'm even more thankful for the detail-oriented people in the background making all this stuff work for me.


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Stuart Bower has slammed British Gas for billing his mum's address more than £780 -despite her passing.
The 65-year-old said it felt like a comedy sketch from Monty Python, and that he worries how many other people have been hit by similar mistakes. Retired police officer Stuart, from Hove, East Sussex, said it would have given his mother a heart attack, if she were alive.


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Currently 2G Technology (GSM), or second generation technology, is widely used worldwide for cell phone networks. The problem with 2G technology is that the data rates are limited. This makes it inefficient for data transfer applications such as video conferencing, music or video downloads. To increase the speed, various new technologies have been in development.
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To cater the growing needs of 4G, mobile data communication providers will deploy multiple antennas at transmitters to increase the data rate. Unlike the 3G networks, which are a mix of circuit switched and packet switched networks, 4G will be based on packet switching only (TCP/IP). This will allow low-latency data transmission. Furthermore, the use of IP to transfer information will require IPv6 to facilitate the use of more cell phone devices. During the presentation, an overview of the various generations of mobile device technologies preceding 4G would be followed by technical aspects of 4G and how it functions, as well as the way it can lead to future innovations in cellular and communication technology.
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JR 8/05/2010 03:51:00 PM Tweet Edit
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great mix
Niiice... A perfect step-back jumper!
What the hell happened to the parquet floor in the background on the site? What's this new design crap? How come every time I come to this site I get more and more annoyed?!
Norman, stfu
if youre so annoyed, then why the hell are you visiting this site..


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It probably goes without saying that Philadelphia has an incredible July Fourth celebration, with an enormous fireworks display. But the festivities in the city go year-round. For the rest of the summer, check out Night Market Philadelphia for street food and a celebration of Philly neighborhoods, and dozens of free outdoor movie screenings. Blue Cross RiverRink Summerfest — nearly all summer long — includes food, drink, games and loads of fun cruising on skates. In the winter months, the Blue Cross RiverRink transforms into an ice rink for Winterfest, and the international Philadelphia Auto Show also hits in the winter months.
There's serious shopping to be had all over Philadelphia. Several malls, including the Philadelphia Mills Mall and nearby King of Prussia Mall, offer popular national chains, while others focus on a more upscale experience, found at The Bellevue Philadelphia. For more specialty and independent shops, locals love Rittenhouse Row in the Center City neighborhood and University Square right in University City, where many college students center their apartment search. Fabric Row, just south of Historic Philadelphia, is where to go for vintage goods and collectibles from local boutiques.
Before launching into the plethora of sports teams, both collegiate and professional, that unite Philadelphia sports fans, we need to cover the ways that you can prove your athletic abilities, like the Rocky 50K — roughly 31 miles. It's free to enter and totally unsanctioned, so don't show up looking for route markers and free water. For those that would rather take a seat and cheer for a team, Philly is home to four professional sports franchises: the Eagles (NFL), 76ers (NBA), Phillies (MLB) and Flyers (NHL) franchises — so there's not really an off-season. Nearly all the pro teams play at the South Philadelphia Sports Complex near Center City. College sports are just as exciting, home to the Big 5: University of Pennsylvania, La Salle University, Saint Joseph's University, Temple University and Villanova University basketball teams.
Philadelphia is one of the best cities for biking in the country, with hundreds of miles of dedicated trails to explore, such as the scenic Schuylkill River Trail. In southeastern Pennsylvania, Nockamixon State Park is perfect for a day of boating, across more than 1,450 acres. Once the site of Revolutionary War encampment, Valley Forge is now a historical park dotted with monuments and statues. The trails in the Valley Forge National Historical Park connect to both the Schuylkill River Trail and the Horse Shoe Trail, for a total of 75 miles of freedom. Without even nearing the Philadelphia city limits, you can get a taste of both nature and history, such as at the Girard Fountain in Historic Philadelphia, which boasts a bust of Benjamin Franklin. Fairmount Park, stretching 9,200 acres along the Schuylkill RIver, is the largest landscaped urban park in the world.


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Efforts continue to stomp out bullying. Parents and students are encouraged to report any situation of disrespect and/or bullying to a teacher, counselor, or administrator. Students may chose to print out, complete, and turn in the District Harassment Report Form, or they can complete and submit the Online Report Forms for each school.
By reporting an incident of bullying, students empower our trained teachers to assist with bully prevention. It takes courage to stand up for yourself and/or others. We strive to provide a caring and welcoming learning environment for ALL. Please browse through the rest of Bully Free Zone section for additional information.
Bullying is a repeated written, verbal, physical, or sexual act that physically or emotionally harms, threatens, insults, or puts down another person or damages the person's property.
How do you know that you should make a report? Below is a list that may help you report an event when:
You feel that someone is threatening to beat you up in school, on school property, or on the bus
You have reason to suspect someone of taking something of yours without permission
You learn that someone is spreading rumors about you or your family
You have experienced someone embarassing you in front of others by calling you names, knocking books out of your hands, pulling chairs out from under you, etc
*Do not feel that you're limited to reporting just these examples. If someone is bothering you, Report It!*
To stop bullying on school property
Give students a way to feel safe when reporting an incident
Help the staff and the principals monitor bullying in the schools
Please do not make up a report in order to try to get someone in trouble
Tell them to "Please Stop!" first, if that does not work, report the incident


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Although FOURTH ROTOR is over (see 2 posts replica watches below), Kammy and Douglas are playing together in a new band, called 97-SHIKI. Check it out at 97-shiki.com or on MySpace at www.myspace.com/97shiki. Jake is still doing CANADIAN RIFLE, and Douglas is still doing DAYS OFF as well.
Although FOURTH ROTOR is over (see post below), we're doing a few other projects now...
-- Jake has been writing songs for, playing guitar and singing in CANADIAN RIFLE It was a on again/off again "side project" band he'd started years ago, but since the summer of 2006 he's been going at it full time.
-- Douglas joined the band DAYS OFF and plays guitar. DAYS OFF had been a band for about a year when their guitarist Adam Bebe had to leave, and Douglas filled in starting the fall of 2006. Now it's sort of stuck, and he's "in the band".
-- Kammy and Douglas are working on starting a new band together, and are looking for people to play with. They hope to have something going by the Summer of 2007.
After a hiatus over the summer, we've now decided to stop doing the band. It was a very hard decision for all of us to make, but we made it. The hardest part is that there's no bad blood -- we're all solid friends. So why? Jake has been feeling his creative energies pulled towards other things, and he's been feeling like he doesn't have the energy to put into Fourth Rotor like he once did. We all felt that unless we were all 100%, that it wouldn't be the same, so regrettably, we've decided to end it.
There's so many things to be said about what we'll miss by not being in Fourth Rotor anymore. The list is long. This is the longest each of us have been in a band (6 years!). The biggest thing has be that we all had such a great freakin time in this band, and all got along so fantastically. Nothing was a chore, everything was fun. No matter if something on a tour went wrong, or a show got screwed up, or something else -- we never freaked out -- we just dealt with it, counted on each other, and kept having fun. THAT we're all going to miss, and we all know it will be hard to ever find like this again.
And we'll miss all the people who really, genuinely supported us, were inspired by us, put out our records, went on tour with us, booked and played shows with us, and said some really nice things. We've always done this band for ourselves, to get our own ideas, frustrations, and reactions out, but it was always awesome when someone said they got something deep out of it too. And lots of you did. We thank you all for that.
Bands come and go, and so this one went after a great run. We were lucky to have been able to enjoy it the whole time, achieve lots and lots of things that we're very proud of along the way. But none of us are close to done making music. However, instead of the challenge of making more Fourth Rotor music, we're going to head out, find other challenges, and make new music in new projects and bands. So look for us out there.
We'll keep the main site, and the myspace site, up for the foreseeable future. And our @fourthrotor.com email will keep working for a long time too, so keep in touch. We'll post info about any of our new projects there as well. Things feel pretty shitty right now, but that'll pass. If it didn't hurt, then something would've been wrong, right?
-- Fourth Rotor
It took us a while to get to them, but we've posted the rest of our selected photos from our last tour in the photo gallery. Check them out here.
We're home. Our last show at the Alamo house went great, and it's always awesome to play there. Thanks Brad, Ryan, etc.
Not exactly, but we just finished our central Canadian shows. Edmonton, Red Deer, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. The countryside is flat with fields. Just like Iowa. But unlike Iowa, it is far away from home, somewhat off the beaten path. And it is also full of some great people who were glad we made the journey up there. The Edmonton show was small but fun at a German themed pub. And despite our Calgary show being canceled, we picked up a last minute punk bar gig in Red Deer, 1.5 hours south of Edmonton. It was an od show, but two local oi-ish punk bands opened up, the bar was a hotel that gave us rooms and dinner, and we met good people. The next night had us camping again for the last time, and then we were on to Saskatoon. Another smaller show, but all ages, with a wide mix of bands, but we went over well, and were put up by a friend in town. Last night's Winnipeg show was at a rock bar sort of place, but it was pretty well attended, and all the bands on the bill had women in them as well as men (a first in a long time) which was great.
We crossed the border into the U.S. today, and got to experience the U.S. government's ever growing cowboy strutting fascist bullshit hassle at the border. 20 questions, a van search, repeated questions, and trick ones, trying to get us to "slip up". Or maybe its just that they're trying to show off how much they're saving us from terrorism. Whatever - the reminder that the U.S. is a freaked out paranoid out-of-control renegade nation on a rocket sled heading into the crapper is depressing. That put us in a bad mood.
But were past that and on to our last show in Minneapolis tonight. We didn't upload more pictures like we said we were going to , so that will have to wait until we're home this weekend.
We've arrived in Edmonton, and for the first time in a long time, were out of the mountains, away from the threat of bears and moose, etc. Two nights ago we played Dawson Creek, BC, the end/start of the Alaska-Canada highway. It was a "farm" show in a machine shop shed next to a field of horses, etc. A whole bunch of crazy small town kids showed up, lit a huge bonfire, and moshed in the mud. We passed the hat for donations and had a good time. It was our last show with DEFECT DEFECT, who, after the show, had to drive all night to make a Vancouver show the following night (a 16 hour drive).
DEFECT DEFECT were fantastic to tour with, and we had a complete blast with them. They are a great band and we'll miss getting to see them every night.
Last night we played a little bar in Edmonton with local band ASS, who have also put us up and cooked for us at the Ass House. Showers, mattresses, washing machine, heat - we feel spoiled. The show was lightly attended, but cool, and we had fun. We were asking around about a show for today (Sunday) to cover for our canceled Calgary gig, and we may have landed a last minute opening slot in Red Deer, AB.
We're finally somewhere where can upload and edit some photos, so we'll be doing that soon.
We've played all our Alaska dates. With Myk of STUNTCOCK's place as home base, we played an all ages show in downtown Anchorage on Thursday, then down to Soldatna for a really weird skate rink show on Friday. On Saturday, we found out our Fairbanks show was canceled, and we were bummed out. So, we improvised a house show in Anchorage for Sat night, and everything came together. We played one of the best shows we've ever had anywhere that night. It was in a little garage in a backyard, and there we scores of punks, freaks, and weirdos who came out on their bikes to the show. Salmon and veggies were grilled, and several local bands opened up. It was kick ass. We then managed to put together a last minute show in Fairbanks for the following night, and headed up there on Sunday. It was in a bar called the Marlin, and although it was lightly attended, it was a fun time. That night we went out into the woods north of town and slept in a guy's cabin.
We then set out for Whitehorse, camping outside Tok, AK overnight. We all made it across the U.S./ Canada border with no problems, and got into Whitehorse for our gig. It was a bar show that went really well, and the place is a hotel too, so we were given a couple of room upstairs.
Now that we made it into Canada, we can put our show details back up in the show section. It's been hard to make regular posts/updates, because most of the time between cities, and now in Canada, we're totally out of internet or cell phone connectivity. But we have seen lots of moose. More soon...
Hello all. We're in Anchorage after about a week of travelling up here from Bellingham, WA. We spent 4 days on the ferry along the Canada & Alaska coast, landing in Skagway, we then drove briefly into Canada, through the Yukon, on our way into Alaska, and through to Anchorage. Its been an absolutely fantastic journey. We had no internet/cell phone contact to make updates or post photos, but we took about a billion.
Tonight we'll be playing our first show in a week, the first of our three Alaska dates. Tomorrow's show in Soldatna should be really weird. It's a some skating rink, and people are saying something like 500 people might show up. There are radio jingles for the gig (which we haven't heard yet), a newspaper interview, and all sorts of strange things. We're at the home of Myk from STUNTCOCK, who will be playing with us for all the Alaskan gigs.
More soon
We're in Bellingham, WA today, about to play our last "lower 48" show. Since last post, we've played Portland and Seattle. Portland was at the awesome house, the Ranch. As it was DEFECT DEFECT's home town, and a few people remembered us, many people turned out. "Captured by Porches" beer vendor was there with tasty homebrew too. DRUNKEN BOAT played, and we actually played with them at the the Ranch two year earlier, which was their second show ever. They were great again, and we hope to be helping them in Chicago in a couple months when they come through on tour. Mikey Mind was in his element, making us two great meals in a row, and we stayed over at Mikey & Erin Yahnke's house, the Qwack House.
Seattle was a little weird, but utlimately good. A friend of Mikey's did a house show for us, and despite the fact that the foundation leaked, caused all the rugs to rot, and the place smelled like mold, it was fun (actaully, the carpet was removed, and the place was dry -- just stinky). A few brave souls made it down there to watch, inluding Dan & Amy, who are old pals of Kammy, and who put us up and fed us. Thanks!
After tonight's show, our roadie from Chicago, Augie, is flying in from Chicago and meeting us for the start of the Alaska leg. Tomorrow at 6pm we're on the auto ferry, looking at 4 days going up the inner passage to Skagway. We'll try and post on our arrival in Skagway on May 1st.


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Our darling little ice cream kiosk on the South side of the park got a major makeover earlier this summer. The sweet treats kiosk became the first NYC outpost to offer the 'Make My Magnum' experience with both custom-made and grab-and-go ice cream bar options.
If you're stopping in for a custom treat, here's how it works. You get to customize a stick of Magnum's vanilla bean ice cream with chocolates and delicious sundae toppings. Choose from two Belgian chocolates – either milk or dark. The 'naked bar' will be dipped into this chocolate to form a chocolate shell. As this hardens, you can choose up to 3 toppings from a selection of nine add-ons. Selections have included goji berries, sea salt flakes, toasted coconut, and crushed caramel pieces. They'll shake your custom toppings in a cocktail shaker, and then sprinkle them on top of the bar. They top the creation off with a drizzle of more Belgian chocolate. Give your concoction a second to harden, and the result is pure magic!
Even if you don't want to sample, stop by to see the theatrical preparation in action. There's also some beautiful details on the kiosk - a signature M made of ice cream bar sticks, model ice cream bars - ice cream really becomes an art form in Bryant Park.
The Magnum ice cream kiosk is open 12:00-8:00pm Monday-Saturday, and 12:00-7:00pm on Sundays, through September 30. It is located on the 40th Street Allée, south of the lawn.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Ice Cream as Art in the Park
Posted by admin at 5:40 PM
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Alice Neel
Edited by Ann Temkin
With essays by Ann Temkin, Susan Rosenberg, and Richard Flood
198 pages
224 illustrations (86 in full color)
12 x 9"
Cloth ISBN 0-87633-140-1
Alice Neel (1900–1984) was one of the greatest portraitists and most remarkable women in twentieth-century American art. This catalogue accompanies a landmark exhibition organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art to celebrate the centennial of the artist's birth. It reviews the full range of Neel's paintings from her early watercolors to the late work for which she finally achieved renown. Three essays by Ann Temkin, Susan Rosenberg, and Richard Flood examine Neel's indirect presence in her paintings, the roots of her work in the culture of the 1930s, and her portrayal of the contemporary art world. The transcript from a roundtable of Neel's sitters and a richly illustrated chronology provide much new information on the artist's life and work.


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December 11, 2014
Dear friends, partners, and backers,
We are excited to announce the next phase of Sprout Pencil's growth. Today, Democratech has sold its Sprout Pencil business to our friends at Sprout World.
We invented Sprout as students in a product design course at MIT. Tasked with creating "eco-friendly office products for the future," we developed a patent-pending seed capsule technology, which when combined with a sustainably grown cedar pencil body, enables it to transform from a pencil into a plant. Sprout was born!
We launched Sprout on Kickstarter in the fall of 2012 and 2,086 amazing backers helped us turn our dream into a reality. Sprout grew faster and bigger than we ever imagined – to date almost 1 million Sprouts have been sold!
By planting Sprout in Europe's fertile market for sustainable products, Sprout Europe has been an important partner in this growth. Effectively immediately, they will be taking over all day-to-day Sprout operations, customer accounts, and intellectual property. They have a strong international growth plan for Sprout and we are excited to watch them put down roots in new markets worldwide.
The Democratech team is transitioning to exciting new projects, but we will always have a special place for Sprout at our desks, on our windowsills, and in our hearts.
Sprout Europe can be reached at www.plantyourpencil.com and through Michael Stausholm, at firstname.lastname@example.com and +45-21424758. They will be continuing operations at our Cambridge, MA facility and with our American suppliers and manufacturers. They are excited to get to know all of you!
Thanks for nurturing us during our germination, fertilizing us during our growth, and enjoying the fruits of our success!


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Some are simple screenshots, uploaded straight to the file host and linked into the web page. Some are heavily edited and even positioned for "coolest effect" on camera angle, etc. Some are posed, others are "as the boss died." Many large guilds boast at least one player who removes all gear and poses naked.
For my own, I do the following:
- Alt-Z is your friend. UI posts are for interface screenshots; kill pics look best without an interface, imo!
- Turn off player names. I just don't like having them floating over heads and cluttering the image! Some guilds like to have them on to put a name to each pixelated face.
- Crop and resize the image. I run a 1600x900px resolution, and certainly don't need all of it for the shot. I average Vortex's screenshots down to 770px wide to fit the max width of the front page news panel. This can be done with free programs such as MSPaint and GIMP.
- Add a title, guild name, and date of the kill. If your guild has a logo image or particular font they use for their name, that can help in labeling it as "yours."
- Sharpen parts (or all) of the image to further give it clarity.
- Use photoshop styles to make the text look good. I pick colors from the screen shot itself or that would compliment it well, or colors that I just feel like using on a given day. This is where photoshop pulls leagues ahead of GIMP and MSPaint: layer styles which can be downloaded, imported, edited, and saved for future use.
- Add some kind of border graphic to the image using similar/matching colors and styles as used for the text. It helps bring the image together and frame it. This can be anything from a simple solid or shadowed border to a full, faked magazine or comic book cover. Similarly, you can style it after newspaper articles, postcards, or wanted posters, though this may take more time and effort.
- Add anything else that you'd like.
- Loot Drops or achievements can be screenshot or print-screened off of tooltips, and added to the margins.
- Did something crazy happen during the raid? Was something funny said? Did you get a screenshot of it? Picture-in-picture can make for a memorable kill pic.
- Create a text box to add captions.
- Draw in some missing players, in case they accidentally hearthed out before the shot was taken or some other circumstance/emergency. Like AFKae here.
- Alternatively, use WoW Model Viewer to build a missing player and edit them in. If you do the lighting and cuts right, you can't tell they were not in the original.
- ...or draw in the boss, in case he despawned before you got a chance to get the screenshot. Your guild will laugh.
- Loot Drops or achievements can be screenshot or print-screened off of tooltips, and added to the margins.
- Save it in a good quality. I prefer .png as the filetype; jpegs can work well, too, but be careful with the compression when saving it as it can get grainy/pixelated. .gif is often very pixelated and low-quality, so I avoid using that type.
How about your guild? Do you spend much time setting up the "ultimate" kill pic before moving on to the new boss? Are you proud of your killpics, or do you barely notice them?
...is your guild photographer a slacker who hasn't posted the Valithria killshot (rescueshot) yet? /ducks


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Salaam and Greetings of Peace:
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing;
God only is changeless.
Patience gains all things.
Who has God wants nothing.
God alone suffices.
– Saint Teresa de Avila wrote these lines on a piece of paper and used it as a bookmark. May God grant that her words of wisdom find its way into the heart of all who read them. Amen. With gratitude to Sister Annie, poet extraordinaire, for pointing the way.
Ya Haqq!


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|Welcome to the Left 4 Dead Wiki!
Hello, Lucio 1995.
Thank you for your edits to the The Passing page! There's still a lot to do, though. We hope you'll stay with us and continue to help improving the best source for information on Left 4 Dead!
Where to start:
- Not sure what to do? Check out the recent changes page to see what's going on. It's a great place to start out on; you can see what articles people are editing the most, and see how you can help! You can also look at the to do list. It has a list of things that need to be done.
- Have any questions? Ask at our help desk or on the discussion page with each article. No talk page for a page you'd like to ask about? Feel free to make one! Still confused? The community portal has an outline of the site and links to pages that will help you learn how to edit.
By the way, be sure to sign in every time you edit! We'd like to be able to recognize you!
We're glad to have you here, and we hope that you'll keep editing this wiki. If still have any questions, feel free to leave them on my talk page. I'd be glad to help you out.
Happy Editing!
-- Jo The Marten (Talk) 21:51, February 12, 2010
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.


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NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- An executive from the company that was BP's cement contractor on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig testified Monday that he learned of some "irregularities" in tests that the contractor's employees performed after the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Timothy Probert, a Halliburton president who served as the company's chief safety officer at the time of the spill, didn't specify the nature of those irregularities during his testimony at a trial designed to assign fault to the companies involved in the deadly disaster.
However, an attorney for rig owner Transocean Ltd. asked Probert if he was angry when he learned in 2012 that "evidence had been destroyed."
"Yes," Probert said. "Obviously, it doesn't make you feel happy."
A plaintiffs' attorney who questioned Probert earlier Monday claimed Halliburton employees conducted "off-the-record" cement tests and didn't write down some test results because they feared how they could affect litigation spawned by the nation's worst offshore oil spill.
In a December 2011 court filing, BP accused Halliburton of intentionally destroying evidence from its cement testing. BP said Halliburton employee Rickey Morgan analyzed a cement slurry with the same composition as the foam slurry that was pumped at the Macondo well and verbally reported the results to a supervisor in 2010.
"He testified that the slurry 'looked thin,' which he explained implied lower-than-expected viscosity, a property that reflects how stable the slurry is when mixed and pumped into the well," BP attorneys wrote. "Significantly and remarkably, Mr. Morgan admitted under oath that he 'threw out' the slurry samples he tested because he was 'worried about' those materials 'being misinterpreted in the litigation.'"
Probert, who testified as the trial entered its third week, also testified under oath before Congress about the company's role in the drilling project shortly after the April 20, 2010, blowout of BP's Macondo well. Probert said Halliburton provided Congress with some "clarifications" about his testimony after the fact, but he said he didn't do that personally and didn't know what was clarified.
"I didn't know about any of the alleged testing until some considerable time after my testimony," said Probert, who now serves as Halliburton's president of strategy and corporate development.
Halliburton attorney Donald Godwin frequently interrupted and objected to some of the questions that plaintiffs' attorney Jeffrey Breit posed to Probert. Godwin complained that Breit had no basis for implying that Halliburton employees "threw out evidence."
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who is hearing the case without a jury, told Breit he was better off asking other witnesses about Halliburton's handling of evidence because Probert doesn't have firsthand knowledge of the tests.
"I don't know who threw away what or if anyone threw away anything," Barbier said. "My point is Mr. Breit has the wrong witness on the stand."
Probert said he didn't have anything to do with the Macondo drilling project before the well blowout triggered an explosion that killed 11 workers and spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.
A series of government investigations have concluded that the blowout resulted from a complex web of mistakes and spread out the blame among BP and its contractors. One of those mistakes was the failure of the cement job, which allowed oil and gas to flow from the well.
Barring a settlement, the trial is expected to last several months before Barbier could decide how much more money the companies owe for their roles in the catastrophe.