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I travel a lot. Like, a lot. As in: On a plane almost every week. Most of the time I try and travel light, as checking in a bag when you fly often means waiting ages after you've landed to get your suitcase back, and anyone who's had their luggage lost on a trip to a foreign country with literally everything in it will know how stressful it is not knowing if you'll ever get your things back. A few things I have learned over the years are: If you can, travel with carry on luggage only. If you need to check in a bag, make sure you have at least one change of clothes, your toothbrush and any toiletries which you might need to get you through one or two days without your luggage in your carry-on luggage.
The other thing I have learned is: Suitcases all look the same, and for most of them unfortunately that means they look quite boring. Customising your luggage is a fun and cheap way to make your bag look cool, and make sure you never confuse it with that other suitcase on the luggage belt that looked just the same, because it will be unique.
All you need to transform your luggage is:
- An old suitcase
- Spraypaint
- Clear top coat (optional)
- Masking tape
- Stencils (I used lace curtain)
- Fine sandpaper (optional)
- Newspaper (optional)
If your suitcase is made of plastic, it would be wise to get a spray paint that is made to adhere to plastic, or a primer that will make your regular spray paint stick. My suitcase is made of a strong cardboard-like fiber, so I bought univeral spray paint in two different colours: A matte grey for the background and a neon yellow for the highlights.
If your suitcase is made of cardboard like mine, or fabric, there isn't much you need to do before you can start. It is a good idea to clean the surface you want to paint to make sure the paint will stick properly. I used a damp cloth first to get any bits of dust and dirt off, and then wiped it down with a little bit of alcohol. If your suitcase has a plastic shell, it would be a good idea to lightly sand the surfaces down and clean with alcohol afterwards.
Next, cover anything you don't want to spray with masking tape and/or newspaper. I am lucky enough to have a garden, but I still used newspaper to cover the ground I was working on.
Use your base colour to spray on a thin first coat. Hold the spray can about 20cms away from your case and spray evenly. I let the first coat dry for about 15 minutes before doing a second coat. All in all I did 3 coats with the base colour.
If you don't want to add any highlights or patterns, you're almost done. You can cover the case with a clear top coat which will make the colours last longer, but if you'd like your case to look worn and a bit battered, I recommend skipping this step.
I wanted my suitcase to be a bit more interesting though, and slightly girly. If you are good at painting, you could either paint something on, or use a stencil. You can buy stencils at any craft store, or make your own from a bit of cardboard.
I really like the current trend of all things lace and doily, so I used a bit of lace curtain as my stencil. You can get small scraps of lace curtain from any fabric or interior design store for very little money.
Cut your lace the size you want the pattern on your case to be and make sure to leave a bit of allowance on the sides. Use the allowance to fix your lace to the suitcase with a little tape to make sure it doesn't move while you work.
I was very shy with the spray paint on the bottom of the case as I wanted it to be delicate and didn't want to ruin the pattern by heavily layering on the colour, however when I removed the lace it was a bit too faint for my liking.
So for the top half I sprayed the pattern on just like I did the base coat, and used about 2 layers at the top and 3 at the bottom of the pattern to give it a bit of a faded look. Make sure to not move your lace during the process, I know it is tempting to just have a quick look, but you will never get the lace back into the same position and that will make your pattern look blurry.
Let it dry for a few minutes and then carefully remove the lace without touching the wet lace or pattern. You don't want the lace to dry on the pattern as it will stick to the surface and smudge the delicate lines.
You can see that my pattern is a little bit blurred in places, especially around the wooden decorations, due to the lace not lying entirely flat on the surface. I don't mind as I quite like how it looks, but if this bothers you, make sure your suitcase has an even surface.
Let your suitcase dry thoroughly (you will find instructions how long your paint needs to dry on the spray can), and either leave it as it is, or spray on some clear top coat to give the colour some extra protection. You'll never have problems finding your suitcase on the luggage carousel from now on!


text: i am new to the game, wondering how to play it still confused. I don't see allot of interaction between the players, like I remmeber in a game called tribalwars alliances would work together to occupy other areas and so on. or is it becouse I am a member of a unactive country. i chose saudi arabia when i started I see there are 200 + people but hardly anyone talks. : )

subset: commoncrawl


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We knew what we wanted, we knew what we were willing to pay and we did not have much time to dedicate to buying the house, so we needed everything to flow efficiently. Keith was great working with us, he made sure we were informed about what was coming up and what we needed to do. Considering out circumstances, it was easy for us to buy a house. No hassle and no time wasted, just the way my husband and I like to shop. And I'm glad Keith saw that and worked with us the way we prefer to. We got our new home in the right time frame and the price of the house was in our range. Everything worked out great!
Honestly believe that helped them better understand what types of real estate and areas would better fit me over that of just pure amenities and radius questions. This made a real difference in both the experience as well as their ability to help me find the right place.
He was always available with good knowledge and advice. We recommended him to my parents because we were so pleased with his services! Also, he set us up with all top-notch referrals for all of the other team members; it truly was the Charleston dream team!
Keith took the time to get to know us and truly understand what our home-buying goals were to make sure we found the right fit. Once we did find the right fit, he helped us through a longer than anticipated close where we encountered some unexpected challenges. Keith's industry knowledge, local network, and focus on customer satisfaction makes him a true advocate and consultant for all his clients. We will definitely use The Keith Lucas Team for our next purchase or sale and we highly recommend them to any of our friends and family.


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When black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam, May luck be yours on Halloween!
Happy Halloween! Yep, it's almost here again. Soooo, what or rather who are you gonna be this Halloween?
I've decided to go with my usual fall back out fit and dress as a fortuneteller. Or rather what we've come to think a fortune teller should look like. Basically, a boho lagenlook kind of out fit.
(What? Never heard of Lagenlook? Hmmm, I'll have to do a little blog about it.)
Anyhoo, I'll actually be telling fortunes! What fun!
So, since I know I'll be telling some fortunes I decided to look up some interesting and fun ones. I also thought about making Halloween Fortune Cookies but that was waaaaay too much like work! :-P
Here are some of the fortunes I found and a recipe for Halloween Fortune Cookies if you're interested.
Classic Dark & Scary Halloween Quotes & Fortune Cookie Sayings:
Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees, "Tonight is Halloween!"
At first cock-crow the ghosts must go
back to their quiet graves below.
~Theodosia Garrison
'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn
and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.
~William Shakespeare
From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties
and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!
~Scottish Proverb
Double, double toil and trouble;
fire burn and cauldron bubble.
The witches fly across the sky, The owls go:
"Who? Who? Who?" The black cats yowl
and green ghosts howl: "Scary Halloween to you!"
Halloween wraps fear in innocence,
as though it were a slightly sour sweet.
Let terror, then, be turned into a treat.
One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing material place.
~Emily Dickinson
You wouldn't believe On All Hallows Eve
what lots of fun we can make, with apples to bob
and nuts on the hob and a ring-and-thimble cake.
There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. ~George Carlin
There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery. ~Joseph Conrad
'Tis the night of the grave's delight, and the warlocks
are at their play; Ye think that without
the wild winds shout, but no, it is they, it is they.
If a man harbors any sort of fear,
it makes him landlord to a ghost.
~Lloyd Douglas
Halloween Jokes
How do witches keep their hair in place when flying?
They use 'scare-spray'.
How do monsters tell their fortune?
They read the 'horrorscopes'.
Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers?
No. They eat the fingers separately.
Where does a witch park after flying?
In the broom closet
What does a child monster call his parents?
Mummy and Deady.
What fairy tale do ghosts like best?
Sleeping Boo-ty.
Why do vampires need mouthwash?
They have bat breath.
What do ghosts eat for breakfast?
Ghost Toasties and evaporated milk.
What doesn't a vampire order at a restaurant?
A stake sandwich.
What is a vampire's favorite holiday?
What is a baby ghost's favorite game?
Adult Themed Halloween Fortune Cookie Sayings:
I'll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight
make me a child again just for tonight!
True love is like a ghost, which everyone talks about but few have seen.
Clothes make a statement.
Costumes tell a story.
There is nothing that gives
more assurance than a mask.
Fortunes/Sayings found here
Eat, Drink and be Scary!!!
Halloween Fortune Cookies
By The Paula Deen Test Kitchen
(check out the link at the bottom to see the cookies being made)
Here's what you'll need:
Nonstick spray
2 egg whites
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons water
Pinch salt
Fortunes written on strips of colored paper
6 drops orange food coloring
Special equipment: Silpat, coffee mug, and muffin tin.
Here's how to do it:
1. Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F. On a half sheet tray, spray a silpat with nonstick spray.
2. In a medium bowl whisk egg whites until foamy. Whisk in 6 drops orange food coloring. Add the flour, sugar, almond extract, water, and salt to the egg whites and beat until smooth, about 30 seconds.
3. Pour or spoon 1 tablespoon of batter onto prepared silpat and spread with the back of a spoon into a very thin 4-inch circle. Repeat on the other half of the sheet, making only 2 cookies per sheet tray.
4. Bake the cookies on middle rack of oven until golden brown around edges, about 8 minutes.
5. Remove from oven and working very quickly, with an offset spatula, remove cookie from baking sheet and place a fortune in the center of the round.
6. Fold to create a half circle.
7. Using the rim of a coffee mug, bend pointed edges of cookie toward each other. This should be done quickly since the cookie will become hard and brittle within 10 seconds.
8. Let cookies cool in the wells of a muffin tin.
To see pictures of the cookies being made go to <http://www.pauladeen.com/article_view/halloween_fortune_cookies/>


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- The Devil's Right Hand. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005.
- Good Day in Hell. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2006.
- Safe and Sound. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007.
Jack Keller, a veteran of the first Gulf War, still experiences violent flashbacks and other symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, but he has found a job that suits him. As a bounty-hunter for H&H, a Fayetteville-based bail bonds company, he earns his paycheck tracking down fugitives. In each book, Keller not only tangles with bail jumpers on the lam, but also gets drawn into stopping murderers and kidnappers. The series also features Keller's boss–the reclusive but beautiful Angela–and local sheriff's deputy Marie Jones.


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Who's the Real Revenue Leader in Cincy?
We've got a profile of the Cincinnati market this week, where the Bengals look like they're for real, Issue 3 related to casino gambling was passed, and the revenue race between WCPO and WKRC really could not be any closer.
I wrote of WCPO: "Scripps' ABC affiliate won an extremely close revenue race in 2008, according to BIA Financial, its $41.28 million just nosing out CBS outlet WKRC. The latter–part of the batch that Newport acquired from Clear Channel in 2008–had won the revenue race for years."
That prompted a call from WKRC's Les Vann, politely asking for, in the parlance of the season, a recount. WKRC, he said, was Cincy's revenue leader in 2008.
BIA had WCPO with 26.9% of the market share ($41.28 m), and WKRC with 26.5% ($40.65 m). Keep in mind BIA provides "estimated" revenue.
But according to an audit from Miller Kaplan, Arase & Co. that WKRC was good enough to share, WKRC was ranked #1 in Cincy station revenues with $40.675 mil and a 26.7% share.
Why the difference? WCPO's Bill Fee says Miller Kaplan only reports time sales–local, national, political–and not ancillary revenue such as network comp, tower rental, etc., which BIA presumably counts.
Furthermore, Fee says WCPO is winning the 2009 race through Q3 by Miller Kaplan's count.
The year-end title remains up for grabs. This much I know–it'll be a race to the finish.
The television industry's top news stories, analysis and blogs of the day.
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Imagine a bookcase filled with old magazines – dusty and scratched. You grab one on games and relish in the old memories that come with it as you read its quality articles. Slowly your eyes settle on a single word next to a review: "genre: shooter". Back then games were seriously categorized with their brothers. Painkiller's gothic extravaganza was every much a "shooter" as Delta Force's attempt at realism. While games have always dabbled with combining multiple genres, like with the original Metroid, it wasn't until Deus Ex and Metroid Prime that the term "shooter" just wouldn't suffice anymore. This took another step in 2010 when director Shinji Mikami wished to make a modern iteration of the "arcade shooter" after having completed God Hand's ode to the classic "beat 'em up" genre. Looking to other modern titles for inspiration he quickly noted that they 'lacked speed' and that he wished to break these rules, subconsciously having his game represent both "action" and the classic "shooter". He had tried to revive the "arcade shooter" before with P.N.03 with little success and wished to take those lessons learned to realize the vision anew with a bigger budget and wider deadline to back it up. The result is Vanquish.
During development Vanquish went through a lot of phases. At one point it was about a set of pilots who each had their own robot suit with distinct mechanical traits. One suit would be the slick shooter for instance and the other a brawler. But these elements were eventually scrapped for a more streamlined approach; there are no menus, upgrade-trees or stores to visit just like the arcade games it pays homage to. This extended to the multiplayer which was dropped as they felt that splitting resources between the two led to a worse singleplayer and a worse multiplayer – they wanted their love to show on every frame.
The result of this love is the Action Reaction Suit. The suit runs on energy and can be used to slow down time to make a tactical retreat, see bullets fly in mid-air and dodge them effortlessly or get that critical headshot while under pressure. Once the heat is off you can pump the juice into your legs to boost across the screen and start a lighting fast offensive to finish them off. Taking small breaks allows the suit to refill but when pushed too far it'll overheat making your dodge slower while disabling other abilities like the boost. As a result the game becomes one of meter management with you always pushing the suit to its limits, squeezing out just that little fraction of a second longer to land that perfect shot or boost just that inch further. Other times you'll want to keep a reserve in case you need to make a quick getaway. And should you really be in danger or wish to style one can insert the whole bar in one melee attack strong enough to put a serious dent in even the strongest boss. Having the player lose all their juice by using a melee attack keeps Vanquish from shifting away from a balance between action and shooting to full-on action. Yet not all attacks are equal in strength and utility, leaving some unused. Clearly everything is built around energy-bar, making it the most important thing there is and why a traditional health-bar is omitted, to prevent confusion.
The suit is complimented by a small selection of weapons ranging from typical machine guns to shotguns. The Assault Rifle has high accuracy but once you get used to the knockback both the Heavy Machine Gun and its downloadable brother the Boost Machine Gun outshine it; each weapon has its uses but some are innately better than others. More interesting to note are the novelty weapons such as the LFE which fires a purple orb that kills all minor enemies in its wake but can also be used to give your grenades a distance boost, push larger enemies off cliffs or stunlock the biggest of the bad. Aside from that variation is lacking though and more obscure weapons would have been welcomed. Upgrading weapons doesn't fare much better, generally being ammo-capacity enhancements before the tenth upgrade which gives a special power-up like increased firing speed or shooting through cover. Thankfully the combat is enhanced by the presence of various tricks and abilities that are hidden from plain sight. For instance when firing a machine gun you can cancel the shot into a shotgun shell by switching weapons while firing, opening the door to new combat tactics. There are more neat tidbits like this that can show the difference between a new and veteran player – Vanquish has more to master than just aiming.
Said shooting is done in a pristine future environment. Like our favored suit the locales are white with small nudges of green giving the feeling of a chrome-like future. In juxtaposition to these stand the enemies which have edgier designs embezzled with gold and red colors, sometimes a light green or blue. As a result they immediately stand out making targets easy to spot – design supporting the gameplay. These foes vary from small foot soldiers named Gorgies who spurt binary just as they're about to smack you with their gun, large Romanovs that make a grunt as they try to engage their flamethrower to an agile boss which warns you to "aim carefully" as he reveals his hidden weapon. Each enemy has a tell and a purpose behind its moves, some merely seeking to distract you from the bigger threat while others try to slow you down by overheating you. Removing randomness from attacks makes the player more aware of how the enemies work and how to counter them. Pair this with the constant eye on the energy bar and you're slowly getting a game that is as much about balancing strategy and on the fly thinking as it is about balancing genres. Encounters consist of you quickly eyeing the radar while boosting across the battlefield, you prioritize a Gorgie – and take him out. Just as he erupts into particles you hear a distinct sound and timely dodge, using slow-mo afterwards to get an overview of the situation. You adapt your strategy to what's in front of you and push on while your suit is put to the test – that is Vanquish's combat in a nutshell. But the nuances in how this works in detail can differ from player to player due to the plethora of mechanics in place. One might have a blast disregarding the audio-cues and playing it defensively from behind cover, another might zip from one side of the battlefield to the other forever searching out that last magic pixel of energy. Both styles are supported and preferably mixed into one final style of play.
What's surprising though is that this all takes place on a horizontal plane, rarely offering more combat depth in height. Enemy weakspots are always in their back which you can take advantage of by boosting out of cover and into the fray, but the game rarely asks you to deal with multiple levels of elevation such as enemies on different heights or weakspots located at different altitudes. It does try this with snipers on a catwalk or a mission that is at an angle, like a hilltop, but never pushes it farther. The target you are looking for is always in front of you and in clear view which could be due to the game's roots as a console-shooter. This is also evident in the speed at which foes move, while playing with a controller you can keep up but when played with a mouse and keyboard you'll notice even the fastest enemies becoming easy targets. Vanquish has the design of an action game in a shooter, but the shooter elements are outdated in some regards.
All the systems we just discussed are put to the ultimate test on "God Hard" difficulty. Before it even truly opens up you'll have realize that this mode is only for those who thought they'd reached perfection and needed a stern lesson in humility. All fallbacks are removed: enemy encounters are remixed, upgrades are disabled and most importantly your meter drains more than twice as fast when slowing down time. Add slower health regeneration, sturdier enemies, increased enemy aggression and no achievement as a reward and you've got a setting that is only for the elite. It urges you to master the game and to push the suit beyond known limits – to truly wear it. "God Hard" demands excellence and with every try you will look to improve, this is a game that wishes to be replayed.
If you manage to best "God Hard" you'll notice just how low your score is and how high those on the leaderboards are. The scoring-system was built in memory of its arcade roots and aimed to reward fast players and punish deaths. Yet by pressing "return to title screen" at any time all recent mistakes since the last save are deleted. This turns score-runs into a scenario where a player presses restart until the perfect run is achieved instead of a tense experience where one mistake could mean the end. To add insult to injury the system relies on giving you point-bonuses for killing enemies via their weakspots. A shame as the game's design pushes you towards mastery of two playstyles and yet the scoring system pushes you towards one pre-defined playstyle – a harsh oversight. This lack of attention is also felt in a certain little things. Despite small out of place set-pieces trying to break up the monotony, low-enemy variation set in quick. While from a combat perspective each fight offers something new they are visually less varying in their presentation, and lots of possible enemy combinations aren't used. Other small omissions like the lacking ability to change shoulder while aiming or having your cursor abruptly move if you aim out of cover are little annoyances that hold the game's shooting elements back from perfection. A lack of Mikami style unlockables is also noticeable. Unlike his previous games Vanquish is severely lacking in novelty modes and/or costumes – again emphasizing that streamlined approach. A shame, busting up robots dressed as Platinum Games star Bayonetta would have been a great pleasure. Vanquish's entire design philosophy is built around replaying the game yet, outside of mere enjoyment, there is no reward.
And that was also what Vanquish got, no reward. While the old magazines and websites spoke fondly of it the lack of multiplayer, short runtime, launching the same week as Fallout: New Vegas and the combinations of genre's didn't hit home with consumers. Vanquish wanted to be an "Action" title but use the tropes of that genre with the flavor of a "Third Person Shooter". Everything it contains is in the service of gameplay, to give the most pure and fun experience possible. That is sadly not enough anymore. But its influence will always be felt: how it sped up a slow genre, how it presented a game whose sole quality was to be infinitely replayable and which could be experimented with forever. As we put the magazine back into the shelf we will often see Vanquish close-by, tucked away in a closet to sometimes be revisited for that glimpse of a time when gameplay was the most important ingredient. Those that touched Vanquish and understood what it tried to be instead of what they expected of it will never let it go and became part of a larger community. So to you dear reader, who enters the community: welcome. To Vanquish.
鑒 reflection style 鑒
In this short section I reflect on the article from my own viewpoints as a gamer and lover of the genre instead of a critic.
Writing this piece was easily some of the most challenging I've done. When I was writing my piece on Ninja Gaiden I was distanced – while I think highly of the series I never finished any entry more than six to ten times. Vanquish on the other hand was a title that I finished more than forty times and counting with a new replay happening at least once or twice a year. And ever since I started up Stinger Magazine I kept notes of elements or minor grievances I had with the title but never dared structure them or write them down because I was in too deep. As I write this the Opinion Style the article isn't finished yet, held back by a plethora of nitpicking notes hanging on every sentence which I would have approved long ago had it been on another game: but this is Vanquish.
How I got into Vanquish is something I can't quite recall. I had originally gotten Bayonetta as part of a subscription to an, admittedly, bad gaming magazine. I liked the title and beat it on the highest setting and earned the Platinum Trophy (yes, I played the horrible Playstation 3 release). Some time later I think I noticed Vanquish on a store shelf which was heavily discounted due to its bad sales. I completed it in one single day and immediately delved into the Challenge Maps afterwards. I was stuck on Challenge 4 for two days; memories return of me walking through museums with classmates while I thought up strategies. Challenge 6 took longer until I decided that Saturday would be the day. I'd put on the song "You're The Best Around" by Joe Esposito and went at it until it was done – and I did it. This situation would play out again exactly the same years later a certain handicap-run of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. "God Hard" difficulty wasn't finished until much later, during the PSN outage which forced me out of my online Street Fighter addiction.
Vanquish introduced me to many players I still talk to today and it is a title that gave me enough self-esteem to delve into other action titles like Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry where I met even more of those people. It is a game I will forever cherish and I pray I did it justice with this article. Vanquish, here's to you old friend – may we grow old and dusty together.
★ wishful thinking ★
With this little section, I'll explore what small things could easily be added in a patch that would improve the game.
- Auto-AR mode is disabled on "God Hard" difficulty;
- "Skip all watched cutscenes automatically" checkbox added to the menu;
- This also skips the forced walking segments, some are replaced by loading screens;
- Pressing L3 while aiming switches the shoulder from which the camera is positioned;
- Very Hard difficulty is added in between Hard and God Hard, to make the jump from Hard to God Hard less painful. This difficulty has the damage output and enemy setup of God Hard, but reduces the AR-time by 150% and still allows upgrades – but less are available;
- Dying also resets your stock of cigarettes;
- Dying in God Hard no longer resets your stock to max;
- The Laser Cannon's visual effect when hitting an enemy is reduced, increasing visibility while firing;
- Infinite Grenade glitch fixed;
- Dying saves your current data;
- Pressing "Return to Title Screen" saves your current data;
- Aiming out of cover no longer repositions your cursor in certain situations;
- Each melee-attack now has a use, be it due to some costing less meter or others having unique properties to them like stuns or juggles;
- Boosting out of cover can now be canceled immediately by dodging as intended;
- Beating God Hard with a positive score unlocks the abilities to play as Unrestricted Sam from the final chapter, using this costume disables score-recording;
- The score-system is revised to promote different playstyles.
斬 postscript notes 斬
- As noted above, I was highly intimidated by this article. As such it suffered heavy rewrites until I was absolutely one hundred percent happy with it. If you are reading this, that means the impossible happened;
- I once invited a friend over to play some games and he was visibly shocked to see Sam having a different animation when taking cover in a wall that is lower than chest-height. And rightfully so, it's not something seen often;
- Vanquish actually had an official tournament held in Japan, on who could beat the Challenges the fastest, even Inaba was present himself. You can read more about it here;
- Though omitted in the article, Vanquish pulls heavy inspiration from old anime like Casshern! Worth a look;
- This is the first article to feature "wishful thinking".
源 sources 源
- Parkin, Simon (May 28, 2017). Vanquish remains the pinnacle of cover shooters. Eurogamer.net.
- Gamespot (September 17, 2010). Shinji Mikami Interview. Youtube.com
- Famitsu (November, 2010). Article on the Vanquish tournament. Famitsu.com


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This video is a trivia game that can be used to assess children's understanding of receiving Communion at Mass.
This video demonstrates the "dos" and "don'ts" of receiving Communion.
This video is a trivia game that can be used to assess children's understanding of the Introductory Rites.
The song/video "Come Worship the Lord," by John Michael Talbot, is available on YouTube (7:58). Point out that this song is based on Psalm 95. Commentary includes an explanation of the liturgy as a dance, with gestures. You may want to try following the instructions for the gestures. It is best used on day 3.
The song/video "I Lift Up My Soul," by Tim Manion and the Saint Louis Jesuits, available on YouTube (3:00) with lyrics, shows views of Catholic liturgy and prayer as well as natural scenes. It is best used on days 1 or 2.
The song/video "The Kingdom of God," like many Taizé songs, is available on YouTube (4:15) and is a meditative chant that would work well as an introduction to chant and an opening prayer. It is appropriate for use on day 4.
The song/video "Blest Are They," by David Haas, available on YouTube (5:08), works best on day 2.
A short video explaining Ash Wednesday and Lent.
Correlation to Curriculum Framework Course IV: Jesus Christ's Mission Continues in the Church from The Church: Christ in the World Today.
The Catholic Mass, and what each of us brings to it.
A personal story about discovering how Catholicism is truly universal.
A quick, two-minute video from Busted Halo that explains why we celebrate Advent and wait to celebrate Christmas.
A personal story about seeing the Church as a wise elder sitting on a porch.
A personal story about being committed to God.
A personal story about being present in the memory at the Eucharist, and for the memory to be present in us.
A personal story about the wonderful power of the Liturgy.
A short video explaining the Holy Trinity and the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity.
A short video explaining the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity.
A self-quiz, or self-assessment, on faithful citizenship.
Father Barron expounds upon the importance of Eucharistic Adoration.
A short clip about the meaning of Good Friday.
A short clip about the meaning of Holy Thursday.
A short clip about the significance of Holy Week.
A documentary discussing the historical/theological precedents for celibacy.


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Are tacos good as dinner food?
Are tacos good as dinner food?
Also, do tacos have sauce or not? Because we didn't have sauce.But it still tasted good.
http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/Probably old, but gold anyway.
I kinda wanna make an "Unpopular Opinions" thread. I feel like it'd be asking for a fight, but if I make it clear opinions are not to be argued 'til the cows come home, I feel like it'd be nice to just express unpopular opinions all in one thread. Just get stuff off our chests.
The problem with the "Unpopular Opinions" thread tends to go these ways:1. Flame wars, arguments, those fun stuff2. Opinions aren't really that "unpopular"3. Can get touchy on certain subjects4. IMO, not very interesting nor its healthy for my mood (or anyone's really)I used to read that kind of topic on Serebii and it didn't end that well. It's so 'bad' that the thread was locked. There's the manga version of that, but I don't care for the manga series anyways.
I have an unhealthy habit of reading Youtube comments and even worse, imo... Yahoo News comments.
I keep telling myself, "Grace, YouTube comments are bad for your mental health and they degrade your faith in humanity, stay away." Then I read at least a hundred of them anyways.
Then again, reading any negative stuff on any social media are bad for anyone's mental health unless you found them funny. Come to think about it, I should exercise some more to steam off my negativity because my mood is getting worse and it's making me tired.
A very true sentiment.My favorite way to exercise is through Just Dance. If you actually play it RIGHT, you really start to sweat.
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Ellen Ruppel Shell has been studying the price, the value and the cost of things — all sorts of things, bookcases and summer dresses and plastic wrap and key chains and tube socks and hammers. And shrimp, the subject of a brief, appalling tale that illustrates what she's up to in this important book. Until the 1970s or so, shrimp was a luxury for most Americans. Thanks to a huge boom in shrimp farming, especially in Thailand, supplies soared during the '80s, and prices started to fall. Now, Ruppel Shell reports in "Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture," we eat shrimp as casually as we eat tuna fish — more casually, in fact, since our consumption of shrimp actually outstrips our consumption of canned tuna. If you order shrimp at a midrange restaurant like Red Lobster, you get a hefty portion for about $16 — and if you're there during the annual "Endless Shrimp" promotion, you can keep on ordering until you topple right over into the garlic butter. It's still only $16.
The downside? According to Ruppel Shell, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, it's all downside, and billions of rubbery shrimp are the least of it. For a while, there were some newly affluent shrimp-farmers along the coast of Thailand as traditional operations were transformed into gigantic factories with the help of international lenders and investors. Massive onslaughts of chemicals made the factories productive, but fish — like cows and pigs and chickens — do not flourish in the long run under such extreme, artificial conditions. They get sick, and their ponds become black holes of pollution and toxic waste. "What followed was ruinous debt, environmental degradation, horrifying human rights abuses and violence that left millions destitute," Ruppel Shell writes. Moral: Despite what's jotted down on the restaurant check, there's no such thing as cheap shrimp.
And as Ruppel Shell makes clear in a brisk, persuasive set of examples, a great many other price tags are deceptive as well. At the big discount stores, most discounts are applied to everyday necessities like toothpaste and lettuce. Brand-name clothing and appliances may be no bargain at all. "Wal-Mart actually has higher than average prices on about one-third of the stock it carries," Ruppel Shell writes. "On those items for which prices are lower, the average savings is 37 cents, with about one-third of items carrying a savings of no more than 2 cents. The lower food prices, however, do impress a number of economists, who argue that the discounts benefit everyone by forcing down food prices all over town. "Even if you never shop at Wal-Mart, you are still better off with Wal-Mart nearby," the M.I.T. economist Jerry Hausman told Ruppel Shell, and he judged that effect to be "the equivalent of 25 percent of food spending." Yet his study compared only the cost — not the quality — of largely generic items. "How are consumers to know whether the lower price of chicken breasts at Wal-Mart" signifies "a good deal on a superior product or a bad deal on an inferior product?" Ruppel Shell wonders. Plainly it would be awkward to advise a struggling homemaker that she really ought to be spending more on her daughter's new shoes, and Ruppel Shell doesn't go that far. But she does show that the impact of rock-bottom prices on a stringent family budget is to some extent illusory. "Discounts don't compensate for the staggering and rising costs of essentials — housing, education and health care," she emphasizes.
Cheap chicken, cheap shirts, cheap sneakers — they're all being paid for by somebody, even if it's not the person taking them home. More than a third of the working poor, Ruppel Shell notes, have jobs in retail, where the annual mean wage for a department store "associate" is $18,280. That's one reason we pay so little for those shirts and sneakers. We're also being subsidized by a distant labor force we never see, the Chinese and Mexicans and Vietnamese who work under well-documented Dickensian conditions. As Ruppel Shell acknowledges, sweatshops represent a step up from the miserable rural poverty these young men and women left behind. But the workers themselves have no leverage to demand higher wages or more humane treatment, since manufacturers can go almost anywhere in the world to find a more compliant work force. Of course, American companies claim to investigate and audit their overseas factories, but most abuses are never uncovered. The local bosses are very good at hiding offenses and falsifying documents. "We lecture our kids on social responsibility and then buy them toys assembled by destitute child workers on some far-flung foreign shore," Ruppel Shell writes. "Somehow the Age of Cheap has raised cognitive dissonance to a societal norm."
Robert Pollin, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, told Ruppel Shell that raising the wages of a worker in Mexico by 30 percent would add only 1.2 percent to the price of a shirt — that's 24 cents on a $20 shirt. Most companies won't hear of it. Cost-cutting is the only value they recognize, in part because profit margins are so narrow that companies can't afford to compete on any basis except ever-lower prices. An American dream once fueled by ideas and entrepreneurship has been reduced to laying off workers and reducing risk. "When prices are kept too low, innovation is nearly impossible," the Harvard economist Robert Lawrence told Ruppel Shell. Apparently we're not even building better mousetraps anymore — just cheaper ones.
Ruppel Shell doesn't conclude with any grand ideas for reshaping the world's economy, though she praises Wegmans and Costco, arguing that they manage to thrive without doing a lot of damage. But she doesn't need to formulate grand ideas here. She's delivered something much more valuable: a first-rate job of reporting and analysis. Pay full price for this book, if you can stand to. It's worth it.


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International Costumers Guild
The International Costumers' Guild (the ICG) was formed in 1985 in the wake of Costume-Con 3, when groups of costuming aficionados formed and subsequently united in a common cause. It now runs Costume-Con.
The purpose of the guild is "to bring hobbyist and professional costumers from around the world together, and to foster, through its chapters, local educational and social costume events."
The ICG exists on two levels: 1) as an affiliated group of chapters and 2) on the International level to provide advice and expertise on a larger scale.
The ICG Newsletter is provided to all members of the ICG as part of the annual membership dues in both a print and an on-line edition.
|Website(IA) Search: Fanac, Fan, Pro, SFE, Wikipedia, Reasonator 1985—
Also involved: - Bjo Trimble - ICG - Icg - International-costumers-guild - Marjii Ellers - New England Costumers Guild
|This is a club page. Please extend it by adding information about when and where the club met, when and by whom it was founded, how long it was active, notable accomplishments, well-known members, clubzines, any conventions it ran, external links to the club's website, other club pages, etc.
When there's a floreat (Fl.), this indicates the time or times for which we have found evidence that the club existed. This is probably not going to represent the club's full lifetime, so please update it if you can!


text: 0 0 By Jennifer Stinnett In Educational eJenn Solutions, Ideas For Your Business, UncategorizedPosted May 27, 2012Not All Facebook Pages Are Created EqualAre you posting content to multiple Facebook pages? It's easy to get into a flow and just post content to get content up on a site. This is especially true for those of us that have so many [...] READ MORE


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Many of us are whores from something, do you recognise anyone….
She is basically vain as hell, every time she looks at a mirror she has to stop and seduce it.
2. The Attention Whore
She will say and do anything to have eyes on her. Basically any bitch like Giovanna Plowman
3. The Social Networks Whore
She is always on facebook or twitter, or instragram or whatever the hell. The only life she has is in cyber world, she would move there if she could.
4. The Sight Whore
She looks like a tragic accident, as if all the mirrors in her house done broke. She is does not live the original whore's lifestyle but parades herself in the attire.
5. The Material Whore
Now, she doesn't want the world, oh no, she wants Mars and Jupiter in the deal. Designer this. Designer that.
6. The All Things Fake Whore
This bitch buys her mirror image from a shop. She can go and be like " I want, that ones eye colour, that ones hair, that ones nails, that ones lips, that ones bone structure, that ones eyebrows, that ones butt, her skin tone…." When she gets ready in the morning, she becomes a whole other person.
7. The Product Whore
Jenna Marbles calls this disease goo hording. Let her elaborate… Things I Don't Understand About Girls
8. The Make Up Whore
Now, she feels the need to slap on approximately 27,520,603 layers of make up on her face.
9. The Internet Whore (Cyber Slut)
She puts pictures on the internet looking like a street walker & she talks like a porn star to anyone who will listen – on the internet.
Bitches like Rihanna, Kim K, Katie Price, Kat Stacks. These creatures have little to talent so they have to rely on sever attention whoring to make a name and money. In some cases these creatures have something to offer but they fall off the sanity wagon e.i. Amanda Bynes


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The federal government is telling us our accumulated national debt is somewhere around $16 Trillion. Sorry, but I am just not buying it – not even for a second. Of course, estimates of our real accumulated national debt are all over the map, and just trying to research this unpleasant and complex topic can leave your head positively spinning as you pull out of the driveway and head straight for your local liquor retailer – credit card at the ready.
Personally, I have settled on a figure of about $134 Trillion. I do not have any hard data to back that number up – perhaps it is coming from my gut, I do not know, but it is a number a little north of the mean of the estimates I have seen – the highest of which was an eye-popping $222 Trillion. The truth, after all, is often times somewhere in the middle. Besides, I doubt there there is anyone out there that knows exactly what our accumulated debt actually is.
Of course, the actual amount we are in hoc for is not nearly as important as how we came to this sorry point in our short 236 year history as a nation. Since WWII, America has been on a spending binge with no end in sight, and it gets worse as each year passes.
I may disagree with the numbers, but I am confident the rate of our hideous national debt increase illustrated in the above graph is dead-on.
(Note also that WWII saw the introduction of payroll withholding to help speed up funding for building the war machine that ultimately defeated Japan and helped to crush Corporal Hitler. Only problem is, congress failed to do away with it after the war. What a surprise).
This out-of-control growth in federal spending cannot go on for much longer, as at some point (and I believe it is coming sooner rather than later), America's financial and economic house of cards is going to come crashing down literally overnight.
Yeah, I know many are saying that we are putting our children and their children in the poorhouse and thus relegating them to a much lower standard of living.
That is, of course, correct, but we are also screwing ourselves in the here and now.
FY 2013 Appropriations Tracker Update: Continuing Resolution Spends Even More
Emily Goff September 28, 2012 at 11:42 am
Members of Congress left plenty of unfinished business as they hustled out of town last weekend, but they did manage to boost spending through another half-baked legislative measure.
The fiscal year (FY) 2013 Continuing Resolution (CR), H.J. Res.117, now on the way to the President's desk, funds the federal government for six months at an annualized rate of $1.047 trillion—an $8 billion increase. Thus another dose of spend-as-you-go from a Congress that has all but given up on serious budgeting.
The Heritage Foundation's FY 2013 Appropriations Tracker has been updated to reflect the annualized spending amounts in the CR and compares the agreement to House and Senate versions of the 12 regular appropriations bills as well as an FY 2013 base level and the amounts spent in the pre-stimulus year of 2008.
Usually a CR spends at the same level as would result from continuing the previous year's policies—in this case, $1.039 trillion. This CR's additional spending, however, pushes the rate of spending to that consistent with the total spending level of $1.047 trillion provided in the Budget Control Act of 2011.
You will find the rest of the article at this link.
I do not have much to add here, other than "our side" is clearly not in our corner.
The House of Representatives is the only government entity that is constitutionally authorized to introduce spending bills of any kind, but for whatever reason, they do not have it in their DNA to just say no – and they have had nearly two years to do so.
I am sorry, but John Boehner & Co. are all out of excuses, and we as a nation are pretty much out of time.
(h/t: boortz.com)


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There was 39.6 seconds left to play, and the Ohio Bobcats were down, 67-64. Point guard Bean Willis walked the ball up the court, and, after coming off a screen, he released the ball from the top of the key.
His shot came off the rim, and, after Buffalo missed an easy layup to increase the lead to five, Ohio still had an opportunity to force overtime. It was TJ Hall who had the open look on this occasion, but his shot did not hit any part of the hoop.
The Ohio Bobcats saw their seven-game win streak against the Buffalo Bulls come to an end in a 69-64 defeat at the Convo on Wednesday night.
"We feel like we let one slip away," redshirt sophomore Treg Setty said. "Coach (Christian) tells us to cut it (playing poorly in the first half) out. We weren't able to overcome it."
Down 48-31 with 16:30 left, Ohio was looking for someone to provide a lift, and Setty was the player who made the plays Ohio coach Jim Christian was looking for.
Setty went to the basket and got fouled, which resulted in two free throw makes, and his next drive to the basket produced a layup and made the score 48-35 in favor of Buffalo.
Setty failed to record a steal with 14:30 left, but, a minute later, he played solid defense on Javon McCrea, which led to a missed shot.
Following the missed shot, Willis found Hall in the right corner, and his 3-pointer cut Buffalo's lead to 48-43 with 13:05 left in the game.
Down by seven, Setty had the ball at the top of the key, and his one-handed pass found a cutting Travis Wilkins, whose reverse layup made the score 50-45 with 12:21 remaining in the game.
Fresh off a pair of Nick Kellogg free throws and a dunk from Jon Smith, Setty was at it again. This time, Setty hit a 3-pointer from the left corner to halve Ohio's deficit to three, 58-55, with 7:26 left to go.
With Ohio (19-9, 9-6 MAC) trailing by five, Setty attacked the basket yet again, and he drew the foul and buried two free throws to cut Ohio's deficit to 61-58 with five minutes left to play.
McCrea hit a jumper to increase Buffalo's lead to 63-58, but Willis answered back with a deep 3-pointer to cut Buffalo's lead to 63-61.
McCrea hit his second consecutive jumper to give Buffalo (17-8, 11-4 MAC) a four-point lead, but Kellogg hit a 3-pointer from the right wing to cut Buffalo's lead to one with 1:10 remaining in the game.
"If you have a chance to control your own destiny, you have to take advantage of it," Christian said. "If you are trying to get a top-4 seed in the MAC Tournament, you have to play well for three straight games, and we have yet to do that."
McCrea was then fouled on a drive to the basket. He made his first free-throw attempt, Christian called his final timeout, and McCrea hit his second attempt to make the score 67-64.
"We wanted to call a timeout to ice him (McCrea)." Christian said. "We wanted to extend the game and look for Mo (Ndour) in the post, but they were playing a zone."
With the loss, Ohio is now 24-8 in its past 32 MAC games; Ohio's home record now stands at 11-5 this season.
Ohio will play its final regular-season home game on Saturday when it faces off against Kent State at 2 p.m.


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Whose Mortgage Do You Want to Pay? Yours or Your Landlord's? There are some people who haven't purchased homes because they are uncomfortable taking on the obligation of a mortgage. However, everyone should realize that unless you are living with your parents rent-free, you are paying a mortgage. It is either yours or your landlord's…. Read more
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Forumwarz is the first "Massively Single-Player" online RPG completely built around Internet culture.
You are currently looking at Flamebate, our community forums. Players can discuss the game here, strategize, and role play as their characters.
You need to be logged in to post and to see the uncensored versions of these forums.
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You have a tiny male reproductive organ.
|Posted On: 10/15/2011 12:55AM
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America may move one step closer to a full on Western European style economy.
Politico reports on a new bill to mandate paid vacation
Rep. Alan Grayson was standing in the middle of Disney World when it hit him: What Americans really need is a week of paid vacation.
So on Thursday, the Florida Democrat will introduce the Paid Vacation Act — legislation that would be the first to make paid vacation time a requirement under federal law.
The bill would require companies with more than 100 employees to offer a week of paid vacation for both full-time and part-time employees after they've put in a year on the job. Three years after the effective date of the law, those same companies would be required to provide two weeks of paid vacation, and companies with 50 or more employees would have to provide one week.
The idea: More vacation will stimulate the economy through fewer sick days, better productivity and happier employees. Read the full thing at Politico
The thing is, it's not even the silliness of the idea that bothers us (we'll just pass on that for now) it's the way our politicians conduct business.
The dude thought of this idea at Disney World? And then he's all "Ok, now I'm going to make this a law"? In terms of yes, this is what your politicians do with their jobs, this is one step below the Senate holding hearings on a playoff system in college football.
And then finally there's the gossamer thinking. Hey, burnout sucks! This will stimulate the economy!


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Here are a few photos (out of 1,800) of my travels in Arabia.
First up is Ski Dubai. It is an indoor ski resort. For $50 I got two hours of skiing, boots, poles, pants and jacket (no gloves or hats--I thought I was tough but it was pretty cold) . A woman from the Philippines help me get my clothing, an Egyptian man helped with equipment and lift attendants were from India and Bulgaria. I rode up on the lift with someone from Ireland, England and Alabama.
The rental skis and the groomed corduroy snow. The possy would have enjoyed the ski conditions. It was 40 degrees centigrade (104 F) outside with high humidity
The view from the top.
Mid mountain. The skiing was actually better than expected. I even got some air on this dog leg curve and bump.
From the bottom.
Local Emiratee parents watching their kids in the tubing and tobogganing part of the resort.
The upper part of the "mountain"
A Lebanese restaurant at the base of the resort. My colleague and I treated a former Jordanian student (Sulaf) of mine who now lives in Dubai to a wonderful late lunch.
The huge and lavish Mall of the Emirates that includes Ski Dubai
Burg Dubai. A seven star hotel on a man-made island. We had a seven course afternoon tea in the large atrium of the hotel. This time Sulaf treated (ouch to her pocketbook, but there was no way to turn down Arab hospitality).
Main street Dubai. All of the buildings are less than 10 years old and it goes on and on along the Gulf coast.
The almost completed royal mosque of Abu Dhabi. The Emir wants it to rival the Taj Hahal.
Inside the mosque.
Camels and dunes on the edge of the empty quarter in southern United Arab Emirates
the dunes of Arabia
Southern Oman near Salalah. One of several possible sites for the land bountiful.
Kor Rori--another possible site of Bountiful. I am standing on the edge of the archaeological remains of a tel (hill) of one of the main cites of the famed frankincense trade. The inlet would have been a great place to build a boat and the cliff in the distance would have been a possible place for throwing righteous brothers into the sea.
A frankincense tree with two amber droplets of frankincense oozing out (which I harvested)
The Thursday camel market in Sinaw Oman
The Sultan Qaboos mosque in Muscat Oman
Four wheeling up an over the Rock Mountains of Oman
Petra Jordan.


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Thursday, July 23, 2009
Hey everybody; I just wanted to update everybody on how my life is going, along with Anthonys&Tony's!! Anthony is missed deaply. ): Wish I could bring him backkk. So does Tony. ); things are getting harder and harder everyday. Wishing we could wake up in the middle of the night to Anthony crying because he is hungry. I really don't know what else to sayyyy. I juss wanted to let you all know how we are doing, and feeling. I am about to go to bed, so it is a short postttt. Message me on yahoo if you wanna talk, or myspace.. If you look me up on myspace it's under Karie Guinn!!!
Posted by Anthonys Mommy at 12:58 AM
3 comments:
There will be ups and downs and that's totally normal. I wish we could wake up in the middle of the night too. I don't have myspace anymore but I'm on FB.ReplyDelete
This comment has been removed by the author.ReplyDelete
Karie everything is going to be fine trust me when you go to sleep Anthony is right there with you!! I know it is hard girl but just keep your head high!!! And he loves you and he will make your life grand!! Just keep thinking Positive Just remember his smiles!!!! :) I wish I could bring him back for you I dont want to see neither of you go throw the Pain Of loving him and loosing Him!!ReplyDelete
Ilyy Girl and I am here!! :) ♥ ♥ ♥
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Having spent Christmas in Scotland, we decided to go see what a New Year was like in Reykjavik. My boyfriend Euan had told me how crazy Icelander's go at new year over fireworks but I did not really expect it to be so crazy. It was one of the most amazing sites I've seen.
We were lucky enough to be able to go to Euan's office at the harbour in Reykjavik, which has a balcony over looking the city. The view was stunning. From about 11 till 1 the skyline is just filled with Fireworks. There was snow showers throughout the night but it was clear for midnight and we could light some sparklers and enjoy the celebrations.


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The ifinity Group was working on a project Virtual Warsaw/Virtualna Warszawa. Project includes a knowledge game/fun play that iss operated via beacons placed in real world around certain parts of a couple of parks at the edge of Vistula river. The project's scope includes an application that allows to participate in the test/quiz questions (that are triggered by close proximity to specific beacons) and navigate around these places (two parks and a subway station) as well as taking under consideration needs of blind and vision impaired people.
I was asked to prepare an alternative solution for a part of navigation, since initial setup was having some issues (the GPS is still a fickle little thing — not that much of a problem in a car, but much more so when on foot AND unable to see).
So one of the directions that came up during discussing the problem was to describe the surroundings to the person using the app and let them make a more informed decision based on that set of descriptions.
This approach was tested with a group of people inside a subway station with a simple pen-and-paper diagram with routes/zones described as they are in reality. The navigation was limited only to exits/entrances (what else would you want to do on a subway station, especially when you can't see a thing?) so that removed the need to include any search options from that part of the application.
The idea was pretty simple: we know where you are, we assume you know from which direction you came in, so we know how to start directing you which way is which. After that is was a simple matter of taking your current position in correlation with your previous one and give you a description based on the assumption we know where you want to go (ie. if you came by train it was pretty safe to assume you want to get out of the station, not make a tour around it).
Turns out even without allowing you to search for a specific exit, giving you only a description was really enough for blind people to make a decision and navigate to the exit they wanted to navigate to. After that it was a simple matter of implementation of that solution into existing toolset.
The second stage was testing that idea on an open terrain (park). The same principle was applied here – assume we know where you came from and we know where you need to go to (the games in parks for the blind/vision impaired has a pre-set order).
After initial testing with describing each and every crossing it was pretty obvious it was overkill. Nobody has the time and even wants to listen to elaborate description of a path in a park -they want to get from A to B as fast and as hassle-free as possible – so the NAVIGATING part of the application had priority over anything else.
The solution to this part was just to describe the specific path person needs to follow rather than the whole area (ie. "On the next intersection turn left" rather than "You are at an intersection. The road leads to left, right and straight ahead").
This leaves the project in the "acceptable" state for now, but the doors are still open for improvement. Blind and vision impaired people all require a very specific approach when it comes to using smartphones – they STILL prefer phones with hardware keyboards as the tactile response offer much more ease of use for them than any text-to-speech/screen description tools that are available at the moment.


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Home Sweet Home Quilt Along
- Schedule
- Block 1 - My Home
- Block 2 - Lapacek's Orchard
- Block 3 - House by the Bay
- Block 4 - My Tilted House
- Block 5 - Two Trees
- Block 6 - Tree of Life
- Block 7 - Under the Moreton Bay Fig
- Block 8 - A Wonky Modern House
- Block 9 - Scrappy Trees
- Block 10 - A Home for the Birds
- Block 11 - The Happy Tree
- Block 12 - the little house
- Block 13 - Three Trees
- Block 14 - Under the Apple Tree
- Block 15 - A Home for Hoot
- Block 16 - Branch Sweet Branch
- BONUS - accuquilt home
- BONUS - Acid Cottage
- BONUS - Marcia's Crazee Patch House
- BONUS Block - Rippling Pond
- Flickr Group - Post your blocks here!
- BONUS - Acid Cottage
Project QUILTING
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Kim's Crafty Apple has MOVED to www.PersimonDreams.com
I'm re-branding myself from Kim's Crafty Apple into 'Persimon Dreams.'
You can now find me at:
(and my jewelry is still at www.theapple.etsy.com)
Making Music – A Closer Look, Part 5
1. When the Stars Go Blue - close up, 2. flickr.com/photos/54510738@N03/6783414131/, 3. Brighter Than the Sun, 4. projectquilting
The Challenge: Making Music
Quilter: Sweet Dreams by Sarah
When the Stars Go Blue
Inspirational Song: "When the Stars Go Blue" cover by the Carrs and Bono
I'm a quilter in Chandler, AZ, and chose to make this 24" square quilt for my 2nd Project QUILTING piece! It was inspired by the song, "When the Stars Go Blue." It was originally recorded as a country song, but the cover by the Corrs and Bono has always been one of my favorite songs!
I managed to find the perfect FQ for this project in my stash. It has a consistent pattern all through the fabric, but it changed in value from light blue to dark blue across the width of the fabric - perfect for "going blue." I pieced the stars using Oh, Fransson!'s sparkle punch design - so fun and easy to put together, I can easily see making a full quilt this way! I quilted it with simple straight lines, randomly crossing the quilt.
Quilter: Dashasel
Waltzing Matilda...far far away
Inspirational Song: Waltzing Matilda
Project Quilting Challenge 2
blogged: dashasel.blogspot.com/2012/01/waltzing-matildafar-far-awa...
For this challenge, I selected the song "Waltzing Matilda." The song is a popular Australian song apparently about itinerant workers who carried their belongings in a swag. To waltz Matilda means to travel with this swag. Another interpretation of the song is that these men used to dance with their swag bags since they did not necessarily have women to partner with.
With this in mind, I initially wanted to create a waltzing swag bag. My process was that first, I selected my fabrics. I thought about these men carrying these bags and what possessions they might keep in them. I also thought about how these were their worldly possessions and perhaps how they sometimes slept on these bags or as they carried them dreamed about their lives and future. With this is mind, I cut into my Far Far Away fabrics. I wanted these guys to have a fairy tale ending.
Next for the design, I decided on a dresden-ish template. Because the dresdens were a bit larger than the center circle, it helped me to create a wavy circle, like a dancing skirt. To actually quilt this, I pressed the waves into pleats (still not tired of these!).
I then quilted in a circle, with the thought in mind that people dance around and around.
The quilt was made by me in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and measures 31" x 31".
Quilter: NancysUniqueBoutique
Brighter Than the Sun
Inspirational Song: Brighter than the Sun by Colbie Caillat
I chose Colbie Caillat's song Brighter Than The Sun. I used bright colors and piecing and added machine quilting along with shiny lame fabric to make the 'lightening striking the heart'. The size is 18"x13" and it was made in DeKalb, IL. This is my first challenge to participate in and I finished it on Thursday but had computer problems and couldn't upload my photo until late. Funny how life goes sometimes! This project is out of my box by using bright colors and just being fun since usually I'm so serious.
Earlier Closer Looks:
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As the temperature drops, your heart rate is probably going up with the anticipation of traveling this holiday season. The thought alone probably stresses you out enough – but not to worry, we've got a couple quick tips to keep your head on straight.
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Travel Against the Grain
CRAZY CONCEPT: maybe this is the year you try a family-free vacation! Some of the cheapest days to fly are on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day, so if the thought of seeing family during the holidays makes your stomach turn, this is the option for you.


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GERMANY ISSUE 66 Feb 2007
Riess Foto Design Munich photographers
Here we show examples of architecture photography from Riess FotoDesign Studio, who are based in Garching close to Munich.
They use a special 'multilayer radiographic technique' to create the effects, which where not possible in the past.
The company focuses on advertising, industry, regional and international companies and their advertising agencies.
Tag your comment using @productionparadise to share with us!


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That the conflict in Afghanistan wasn't an active issue in the election suggests that it is in danger of being regarded as a condition to be endured rather than a problem to be solved – much as the war in Iraq became before British troops withdrew. In their different ways, two new books – David Finkel's The Good Soldiers (Atlantic) and Sebastian Junger's War (Fourth Estate) – offer perilous insights into the nature of that condition. The Good Soldiers is the result of eight months spent with the US 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad, part of "the surge" confidently announced by President Bush in January 2007. War is an account of Junger's time embedded with a platoon of American soldiers at "the tip of the spear" in the lethal Korengal Valley in Afghanistan.
Writers are not obliged to deal with current events, but it happens that the big story of our times – the al-Qaida attacks on New York and the Pentagon, and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – is being told in some of the greatest books of our time. These books do not, however, take the shape and form often expected: the novel. So Finkel and Junger have their work cut out if their contributions are to squeeze on to a shelf of first-rate books that already includes Steve Coll's Ghost Wars; Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower; George Packer's The Assassins' Gate; Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City; and Dexter Filkins's The Forever War.
Lower the bar only slightly and room would have to be made for books by Thomas E Ricks, Jane Mayer, Evan Wright and Ahmed Rashid. And there's no sign that the supply is about to dry up. August sees the publication of Jim Frederick's Black Hearts, which investigates the disintegration, under intolerable pressure, of a platoon of American soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment in Iraq's "triangle of death" in 2005-06, culminating in the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the execution of her family by four members of the platoon.
As Packer put it in his recent collection of essays, Interesting Times: "The press redeemed in Baghdad what it had botched in Washington." Reportage, long-form reporting – call it what you will – has left the novel looking superfluous. The fiction lobby might respond: it's too soon to tell. A decade of literary silence followed the armistice of 1918. It wasn't until 1929 that a novel appeared that made imaginative sense of the first world war. Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front answered an unspoken need and helped to create the conditions in which other war novels might, in the words of the hopeful Richard Aldington "go big". Since then, however, the lag between a given war and the appearance of books about it has shrunk. Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead appeared in 1948. In terms of its timing, Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961) was a strange and fortuitous case: a novel about the second world war that seemed to anticipate the absurdity of Vietnam. The defining prose work to come out of that conflict was a book of reportage, Michael Herr's Dispatches (1977), while the first Gulf war received its most memorable prose expression in Jarhead (2003), Anthony Swofford's account of his time in the marines.
The precedent set by Herr and followed, in off-kilter fashion, by Swofford, seems unlikely to be reversed. If there were ever a time when the human stories contained within historical events – what Packer calls "the human heart of the matter" – could only be assimilated and comprehended when they had been processed by a novel (War and Peace is the supreme example), that time has passed. As David Shields put it in his recent manifesto, Reality Hunger: "A while ago the imaginative thing – the supposedly great thing – would have been to write a 'novel about Vietnam', but I just feel in my bones how little I could read that." You don't have to sign up for Shield's anti-novel jihad to feel that what he says about Vietnam holds good for Iraq – only more so.
What about character and story? The characters are there in the non-fiction accounts, fully realised in flesh and (often awash in) blood, in the way that we expect fictional characters to be. Lawrence Wright has spoken of how, in the process of researching the 9/11 attacks, he came to realise that certain people could serve as "donkeys" who bore the weight of larger historical drives or circumstances. Part of the success of The Looming Tower derives from the way that these donkeys are presented as complex and developing individuals, never simply as beasts of narrative burden. And while their destinies fatefully converge on the twin towers in a way that is almost novelistic, the book's suspense and momentum do not reduce the idea of narrative to page-turning compulsion.
Although Finkel was often in the thick of the action described, he removes himself absolutely from his own narrative. In this respect The Good Soldiers is like a traditional third-person novel, with a near-omniscient narrator – or an Isherwood-style camera, recording but not judging. What this camera records – what the soldiers endure – almost defies belief. The combat is dreadful, the immediate aftermath worse: "Someone, maybe a medic, was pushing up and down on his chest so violently it seemed every one of his ribs must be breaking. 'You need to go harder and faster,' the doctor in charge told him. The medic began pushing so hard that pieces of Reeves's shredded leg began dropping on the floor." The long-term aftermath is worse still as the book's central character, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, visits the ruined soldiers and their families – recovering and not recovering – back in the States. "There was so much of Duncan Crookston missing that he didn't seem real. He was half of a body propped up in a full-size bed, seemingly bolted into place."
In the course of the book you see Kauzlarich – "Lost Kauz", as he becomes known – and other good men "disintegrate before your eyes". Their efforts are heroic and futile. Wright's idea of the donkey is enlarged so that the experiences of one group of soldiers encapsulate the larger quagmire of the US in Iraq – a quagmire that is tactical, strategic, moral and political. (Frederick does something similar in Black Hearts.)
The starkness and magnitude of Finkel's material demand an unerring control of tone. Even at its most matter of fact, his prose finds a hypnotic calm in the repetition of exposure to extreme danger: "Eyes sweeping, jammers jamming, the convoy moved along route Pluto . . ." At times there is an eerie, damaged lyricism: "Hours later, as the sun set, the sky took on its nightly ominous feel. The moon, not quite full, rose dented and misshapen, and the aerostat, a grey shadow now rather than the bright white balloon it had been in daylight, loomed over a landscape of empty streets and buildings surrounded by sandbags and tall concrete blast walls." One of these details acquires hideous poignancy later when a soldier is shot in the head; he survives but his head assumes the "dented and misshapen" aspect of the moon.
With touches like this Finkel demonstrates how the chaos of events can be given narrative shape by scrupulous observation and phrasing. A lesser but still thrilling book, War plunges the reader into the adrenalin-mist of combat. Like the soldiers around him, Junger is less interested in "the moral basis of the war" than the immediate experience of combat and its "twisted existential" ramifications whereby "each moment was the only proof you'd ever have that you hadn't been blown up the moment before". Often his senses were so overwhelmed by the experience that it was only by consulting video footage he had shot during firefights that he was able to understand and write up what had been going on. This feeds into another of Junger's interests: the complex mixture of military training and biochemical processes – the body's emergency surges and shutdowns – that enable a person to function in danger while the instinct for self-preservation programmes him to curl up in a ball or flee. Actually, it turns out not to be so complicated after all. Courage, Junger learns, is love: a willingness to lay down your life for others who, you know, would do the same for you, because in certain situations there is no such thing as "personal safety" ("what happened to you happened to everyone"). There is also the fact that combat is so "insanely exciting" that "one of the most traumatic things about [it] is having to give it up."
War is written in the first person; unlike Finkel, Junger is present in the events he records, but discreetly, unobtrusively. The most extreme contrast to Finkel's narrative self-effacement is the style of Dexter Filkins, whose The Forever War operates at a comparable level of literary excellence. Filkins is obviously an heir of Herr – he is so bad boy, so gonzo, which can be grating at first. Apart from a few details of transport and costume, this early glimpse of the Taliban could have been lifted straight from Hunter S Thompson's Hell's Angels: "Man, they were scary. You'd see them rolling up in one of the Hi-Luxes, all jacked up, white turbans gleaming; they were the baddest asses in town and they knew it, too."
A man who has "lived through everything, shootings and bomb blasts and death", Filkins is the latest incarnation of the reporter as renegade, "untethered, floating free, figuring out the truth by a different set of standards". Like Junger, he is willing to get to the place of maximum danger, but tends, when he gets there, to drift into digressions that wind us more tightly into the scene. At which point, a still more illustrious antecedent comes to mind: Ryszard Kapuscinski. (Perhaps we can also glimpse the ghost of Alan Moorehead, the great Australian reporter of the second world war.)
This willingness to digress, to operate in territory that shares a border with fiction, does not meet with universal approval. Several years ago I went to a talk given by Jon Lee Anderson, who had just published The Fall of Baghdad. During the Q&A afterwards I asked if he felt any tension between the New Yorker's famous emphasis on factual accuracy and the urge to embellish – even if it tugged one away from an objective reporting of the facts – that made Rebecca West and Kapuscinski great writers (if potentially unreliable reporters). Anderson dismissed the question with magisterial impatience. With the bullets flying, any thoughts of literary embellishment were luxuries he couldn't afford; his only concern was to report things accurately.
Filkins, I'm guessing, would have been more sympathetic, as even an atrocious incident, such as coming across the head of a suicide bomber who has detonated himself in a crowded market, can become a source of horror-comedy: "They'd placed it on a platter like John the Baptist's, and set it on the ground next to an interior doorway. It was in good shape, considering what it had been through . . . The most curious aspect of the face was the man's eyebrows: they were raised, as if in surprise. Which struck me as odd, given that he would have been the only person who knew ahead of time what was going to happen."
It's not just a question of tone. As with Kapuscinski's The Soccer War, the pieces in The Forever War often have the narrative shape and moral resolution of fiction. "Pearland" recounts an episode from the assault on Fallujah in which Filkins and a photographer are responsible for the death of 22-year-old Lance Corporal William Miller. The story ends with multiple layers of dreadful, unresolved irony.
Books of this kind make one feel thoroughly duped by Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker. As with the HBO adaptation of Evan Wright's Generation Kill (written by David Simon and Ed Burns), the viewer is immersed totally in the experience of the American military in Iraq. Both film and TV series are relentlessly gripping, especially The Hurt Locker, where every bit of trash – and there's a lot of trash – is potentially life-threatening. Indeed, the film is so nerve-shreddingly tense that it's only when you re-emerge into the safety of daylight that you realise how you've been manipulated, how shallow the experience has been. There is a thematic continuity here within Bigelow's work: The Hurt Locker serves up a military equivalent of the thrill-trips that Lenny Nero was hustling in her earlier Strange Days. Lenny sells virtual reality experiences of everything from a girl showering to armed robbery. And that – right down to the same camera techniques – is what we get here. The new twist is in the nature of the simulated environment: all the thrills and spills of combat and bomb disposal in the privacy and safety of your own home-entertainment environment. So impressive is the technical accomplishment that one forgets that the action, while ostensibly unfolding in the context of a real and recognisable war, is operating safely within the absurd liberties of Hollywood convention. As if life as a bomb-disposal expert were not adrenalin-inducing enough, we are treated to a Bourne-style interlude in which William James implausibly pulls on a hooded sweatshirt, takes a pistol and goes on a one-man search for vengeance/justice at night, in Baghdad – and makes it back in one piece.
The series Generation Kill is, along with everything else, a sustained critique of the structural and conventional fictions of The Hurt Locker. Taking no liberties with the facts of Wright's account, it follows a convoy of US marines as they make their way from Kuwait to Baghdad. Certain characters have more screen-time than others but there are no heroes. As in a platoon, everything comes down to teamwork and ensemble playing. The action is never contrived to assume the shape imposed by the demands of a good story. This is one of the reasons why, ultimately, the immersion in the experience of war is more complete than in The Hurt Locker. Despite their expertise and marksmanship, the extent to which the marines control their own destinies is minimal; it pretty much ended, in fact, before the series began, when they signed up. From the start we are sealed within the acronym-intensive argot and worldview of the USMC. Our point of view is absolutely that of the marines. The lessons dished out by their experiences are never moralistic but, as the situation deteriorates around them, the larger ethical and strategic impossibility of their position and purpose becomes unavoidable. We are back to the quandary observed by Finkel in The Good Soldiers. We are also back, more generally, to the relative strengths of non-fiction over fiction. Of course one could easily imagine a novelist doing without any of the liberties enjoyed by Bigelow – but we would be left, then, with a novel that was almost a carbon copy of the best of these non-fiction books. For the assumed skills of the novelist – an eye for telling detail, stylistic flair and so on – are deployed in abundance by many of these reporters, at least the ones who are (there's no dodging this bullet) American.
Within every comparable category or type of book on Iraq and Afghanistan the Americans do it better than their British counterparts. On either side of the Atlantic the books by journalists are, naturally, better than those by the people they are writing about. It is clear from Generation Kill that Lieutenant Nathaniel Fick is a remarkable officer and human being. In his partial autobiography, One Bullet Away, however, Fick is not able to impose his authorial personality on his version of the story from which he emerges with so much credit in Wright's account. Similarly, Desperate Glory – British journalist Sam Kiley's Jungeresque account of his time in Helmand with Britain's 16 Air Assault Brigade – is a better piece of writing than The Junior Officer's Reading Club, former soldier Patrick Hennessy's memoir of his tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is inevitable; we don't expect Wright and Kiley to be able to shoot more accurately or march further in full equipment than Fick or Hennessy. But once we start comparing like with like – soldier with soldier, journo with journo – the Americans come out unambiguously ahead.
The reasons for this are not hard to fathom. American writers are the beneficiaries of the deep pockets of the magazines that initially sponsored them. In this respect the situation has not changed greatly since Vietnam when the photographer Larry Burrows was working for Life. What his son Russell called "the real luxury" of that gig – that the magazine was "prepared to let somebody go and work for however long it took" – still holds true for print journalists lucky enough to be working for Rolling Stone (Evan Wright), Vanity Fair (Junger) or the New Yorker (Packer).
More generally, American journalists writing about the US military are the beneficiaries of the all-round flexibility and versatility of American English as deployed by the soldiers on whose lives they depend. Officers and non-coms alike share a common idiom which is varied and animated by the racial and cultural make-up of the army. In the British military, by contrast, the lack of this shared linguistic medium reflects the basic class division of the army, between officers and men, toffs and proles. Instead of variety there is a straight choice. And this applies not just to reported speech but to the register adopted by writers when operating outside the class perimeter of inverted commas. As can easily happen when choice is demanded, the worst possible result is compromise that rinses out everything that might make either idiom compelling.
Kiley is "mad keen" to get the job done, but even when the experiences he records are terrifying, the writing is always comfortably unthreatened, except by clichés which are often, as they say in the military, danger-close. "The air fizzes and crackles with bullets. There seems to be no space between them as if they are being poured from a hose. Rounds are smacking into the ground; the dust is leaping around their feet. Des can hear the fizzing sound made by bullets which are within a foot of his ear. He can feel the hot whip of them on his face." Junger is as experience-dependent as Kiley but his prose ("he saw a line of bullets stitching towards him in the dirt . . .") works like one of Lenny Nero's virtual trips, sealing us within the experience he describes.
This is not to say that, by turning their attention to Afghanistan or Iraq, American reporters and journalists are on to a sure-fire success. When Jon Krakauer became interested in the story of Pat Tillman he must have thought that he had found (in Wright's terms) the perfect donkey: all-American boy wins lucrative pro football deal but, after 9/11, chucks it in to join the army and goes to Afghanistan, where he is killed in an ambush. Even more of a hero. Then word begins to creep out that he was killed by friendly fire, and the military try everything in their power to conceal the truth.
It's a potentially great story, and even though Where Men Win Glory reveals Krakauer's limitations as a writer – for the historical background, he gulps down hunks of Steve Coll and Lawrence Wright without ever adequately digesting them – it remains an interesting failure in unexpected ways. Krakauer sees that the military want Tillman to fit into their own heroic narrative, both specifically (the ambush) and generally (football star sacrifices career to join army and then sacrifices himself). But it is clear that Krakauer has seized on Tillman as the latest incarnation of the ideal of rugged and tragic individualism that made his earlier books Into Thin Air (about a doomed Everest expedition) and Into the Wild (the story of Chris McCandless's death in the Alaskan wilderness) so compelling. Viewed in this light the book compounds the kind of exemplary appropriation that it investigates.
One of the Tillman family's grievances is that the army – specifically a commanding officer who was also an evangelical Christian – overrode Pat's explicit wish for a secular funeral. Later, after the family had refused to accept the findings of several investigations into Pat's death, that same commander gave an interview in which he suggested that the Tillman family's continuing dissatisfaction was due to its lack of religious faith.
In the larger scheme of Krakauer's book it's a fairly minor point, but the Christian commander turns out to be none other than Ralph Kauzlarich, the enormously sympathetic central character – the donkey carrying the heaviest load – in Finkel's The Good Soldiers. Just as characters interconnect with each other within a novel, so these non-fiction books and real-life characters interconnect with each other to form an epic, ongoing, multi-volume work in progress.
The biggest question mark about this proto-book concerns the way in which it is illustrated. As Packer wrote in the essay quoted earlier, the press may have excelled itself in Baghdad, but "Iraq has not been a photographer's war". Really? When there are so many strong pictures coming out of the current wars by Sean Smith, Michael Kamber, Tim Hetherington and others? (Hetherington was with Junger in Afghanistan and co-directed their forthcoming documentary Restrepo.) Perhaps these are the exceptions that prove the rule, for Packer, it's important to note, is talking about photographers, not photography. In Iraq and Afghanistan we are perhaps glimpsing the end of the era of the combat photographer as a special category of occupation, the twilight of the photographer as novelist in the way that Capa (whose famous photo from the Spanish civil war is now believed to be a fiction) and Eugene Smith were visual novelists. Current photography from the frontline is defined absolutely by what it is of rather than who it is by. No photographer has been able to stamp a visual identity on what he depicted in the way that Capa or Tim Page managed, respectively, on D-Day or in Vietnam. Perhaps photographs are now simply too ubiquitous for that. So ubiquitous that, in a passage of Finkel's book, "photographs" refers not to actual physical records of the kind collected by Wilfred Owen (who carried photos of the dead and injured in his wallet) but a way of seeing, a state of damaged mind. Suffering from post-traumatic breakdown, one of the most heroic of Finkel's soldiers explains that he keeps seeing "photographs . . . Like a picture of Harrelson burning, in flames. I can't get that out of my head . . . It's just a slideshow in my head."
The debate about current combat photographs is less about their quality than whether it is appropriate or in good taste to publish them. Last year the Associated Press caused a fire-storm of controversy by distributing a photograph from Afghanistan taken by Julie Jacobson. Lacking any of the formal elegance of Burrows, just about in focus, it was unremarkable in every way – except that it showed 21-year-old Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard in the process of dying from wounds after being hit in the legs by an RPG. Bernard's family were adamant that they did not want the picture published and were outraged when AP went ahead anyway on the grounds that it showed the human reality of war.
Filkins, Finkel and others witness events just as harrowing, and describe them in more explicit detail. Their verbal records of these events became tributes for which they receive the gratitude of the bereaved and maimed. Anyone who was there with a camera and an auto-wind could have taken a picture of the quality of Jacobson's. Only a few supremely gifted – and courageous – individuals could have recorded the deaths of Miller or Reeves with the skill and power of Filkins or Finkel. They are, to adapt a phrase of Martin Amis, "moral artists."
The phrase is from an essay in The Moronic Inferno in which Amis claims that the non-fiction novel, as practised by Mailer and Capote, lacks "moral imagination. Moral artistry. The facts cannot be arranged to give them moral point. There can be no art without moral point. When the reading experience is over, you are left, simply, with murder – and with the human messiness and futility that attends all death." The essay is an old one, and the point can now be seen to contain its own limitation and, by extension, refutation. We are moving beyond the non-fiction novel to different kinds of narrative art, different forms of cognition. Loaded with moral and political point, narrative has been recalibrated to record, honour and protest the latest, historically specific instance of futility and mess.