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Itau made a profit of 14 billion reais (around US $7 billion) last year.
Here's one of the reasons why.
A couple of weeks ago I spotted an unfamiliar charge on my bank statement. It's hard to know what Brazil's banks are charging you for because they deliberately make the statement unintelligible.
For example, instead of writing: Payment for Private Health Plan – 601,94 reais, they write AG. PAG TIT 236431171236362 – 601,94.
After taking a closer look I saw they'd been taking 20 reais out my account every month since the start of the year. I knew it couldn't be a monthly charge for running my account because I'd last year specifically asked Itau not to charge me the monthly fee and they'd removed it.
(Banks won't tell you this but you are not obliged to pay a monthly fee. As long as you're not using a certain number of checks or withdrawals, banking is free.)
So I went to the bank and asked about the mysterious charge. They opened an investigation and promised to call back within a week. They didn't so I went back and complained again. A few days later I got a phone call.
After half-heartedly trying to shift the blame on me the bank eventually admitted they had illegally reinstated the monthly charge. For seven months I'd been paying them 20 reais a month even thought I had specifically asked them to remove it.
The bank apologised (in their own unapologetic way) and promised me they would reimburse me the 140 reais.
Excellent, I thought and celebrated one of life's tiny victories.
I told a friend about this triumph and he laughed. They're still screwing you, he said.
How's that, I asked.
The answer is this:
When a bank or utility illegally charges you or overcharges you they are obliged not just to pay you back what they owe but pay you back DOUBLE.
I checked. He's right. Here's the Defesa do Consumidor page saying exactly that.
So I went back to Itau and asked them if I was entitled to receive double. They said Yes, and promised to begin the process to pay me the extra 140 reais.
Why didn't you tell me that under the law I was entitled to receive double, I asked.
We only pay double to those that ask, my bank manager responded.
So even though you know the law says you should pay back double, Itau doesn't do that unless customers ask specifically for the letter of the law to be applied.
She hummed and hawed and told me that was the culture here and that all banks did it this way.
I told her Itau were nothing short of thieves.
She shrugged her shoulders and looked sheepish.
I will now wait and see if Itau pay me double as they're supposed to. But I at least established another reason Itau's profit last year was the second biggest in Brazilian banking history.
By deceiving their customers.
The Economist's recent Brazil report started a huge debate that in Brazil at least centered on criticism of both the report's style (the flashy cover) and its substance (impeccable reporting and reasoned analysis that dared to suggest Brazil is far from perfect).
The magazine asked "Has Brazil Blown It?"and over 14 pages wrote about where Brazil is doing things right (agriculture, social policy) and where it is doing things wrong (education, infrastructure, politics).
I've lived in Brazil for more than a decade, and written about it for dozens of magazines and newspapers and I long ago realized that if you write 10 nice things about Brazil and one not-so-nice thing Brazilians and Brazil-lovers will seize on the not-so-nice thing and presume you hate their country.
It's a sign of Brazil's immaturity and lack of engagement with the wider world as well as an indication of how passionately people (including expat residents) feel about the place.
For far too many Brazilians and Brazil-lovers, pointing out that there's too much corruption, or red tape, or that the judicial system only works for the rich, or that the banks are nothing short of thieves means you hate Brazil.
Because in Brazil, if you criticize something it means you're against it.
I think the opposite is true.
Here's my question for all those who think there's a conspiracy against Brazil:
Who loves Brazil more? A corrupt Congressman who siphons off money that should be going to schools and hospitals? A young businessman whose drink driving kills an old age pensioner out walking her dog? A banker charging interest rates of 238% a year?
Or the person who denounces the corrupt Congressman, the young businessman whose drink driving kills and the banking system that allows bankers to rob (and stunt growth and investment) with their criminal bank charges?
To criticize doesn't mean to hate. Sometimes it means exactly the opposite.
A Brazilian Congressman was found guilty of embezzlement and organized crime earlier this year and sentenced to 13 years in jail, thus becoming the first parliamentarian in almost three decades to be imprisoned while holding elected office.
Last night, his colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies voted that Natan Donadon should not lose his parliamentary perks.
Brazil's hated political class could not have sent a clearer message to their citizens.
Your protests against corruption, abuse of power and impunity were a waste of time. Their vote last night said, "We don't care what you think." It screamed, "Business as usual."
The mass protests that shook Brazil in June lasted just a few weeks and only a hard core have continued protesting in the weeks and months since. (I explain some of the reasons here.)
But if Brazilians really want change, then this is the time to act. It is at moments like this they must make their voices heard. They must tell their politicians that such decisions are unacceptable.
Impunity is the grease that oils the wheels of corruption. It is time to take to the streets again and say, once again, Enough is Enough.
The protesters who took to the streets of Brazil's biggest cities last night are to be congratulated on a significant victory.
Few people imagined that after the violent police crackdown on Sao Paulo's protesters last Thursday an even greater number would come out in sympathy just four days later.
But they did just that and across Brazil hundreds of thousands of people, most of them peacefully, expressed their dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Exactly how many people took part in the protests is impossible to know. But estimates suggest 65,000 people took to the streets of Sao Paulo, almost twice that in Rio and smaller, but still considerable, numbers made their presence felt in Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Porto Alegre and dozens of other towns and cities.
The big question is what happens now. The protesters have the wind at their backs, so what will they do? They have called another march (in SP at least) for Tuesday night. Will they call more? Enter in to talks with authorities? As yet no one knows.
A lot of that depends on exactly what they want.
The unrest was originally sparked by a hike in bus fares and many of the protesters come from the Free Fare Movement, a group that wants free public transport for all. That's an unreal demand. No serious country provides all its citizens with free public transport.
But since then the demonstration has expanded to include broader issues. One major complaint is the cost of hosting the World Cup and the Confederations Cup, the second of which kicked off in six Brazilian cities on Saturday.
The government is spending more than $3 billion on stadiums, some of them obvious white elephants but it hasn't carried out many of the essential public transportation projects it promised.
One of the challenges facing the movement's leaders is articulating a message beyond that of, 'We want better treatment and more rights.' And until they do that it will struggle to achieve anything concrete.
Anyone who has spent any time in Brazil knows that people are treated abysmally. As I said here last week, Brazilians pay first world taxes and get third world services. No one respects no one. Complaining is futile and the deck is heavily stacked against anyone who raises their voice in anger. (Which is one of the reasons a more generalized outrage hasn't taken hold until now.)
Brazil deserves great credit for lifting 40 million people out of poverty over the last decade. But ironically, that class of newly enfranchised people might be a cause of the unrest.
– More people can afford to buy cars and hundreds of new cars pour onto the streets of Sao Paulo each day. But the government hasn't invested in infrastructure like roads or highways and public transport is underfunded and inefficient and an unappealing alternative.
– More people can afford health insurance but the companies selling them not only provide a risible coverage, they fight tooth and nail to stop their clients from getting the treatment they are paying for, sometimes with tragic consequences.
– More people have cable television but just try calling up and complaining about the service or trying to cancel it. The companies sadistically force their clients to jump through online hoops in order to hold them to costly contracts.
– More people have cell phones and Brazilians pay some of the highest rates in the world. But calls frequently cut out, the signal is patchy, and after sales service is a joke.
– More people have banks accounts but banks charge abusive interest rates – 237 % a year for credit cards – and they sneak additional charges onto bills, and treat customers more like waling wallets than valued customers.
– Education is a joke. A tragic joke.
In short, there are lots of reasons why Brazilians should be angry.
The other big question is how politicians will deal with the crisis. What possible answers can they provide? Not only are they discredited, they cannot hope to provide quick solutions to resolve long-standing infrastructure issues.
They are in bed with the multinationals and conglomerates whose consistent mistreatment of and disdain for their customers is a complaint I hear every single day from Brazilians.
It is hard to see how they can provide quick and satisfactory answers to the questions above.
And last but not least, Are Brazilians going to see this through to the end?
Brazil is not a politicised society nor one where memories are long or protests lasting. In neighbouring Argentina, hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets to protest graft and they do it again and again and again.
Brazil's media will play up the violence and they will play up the fear. If political parties try to hijack the movement it will lose its credibility. The middle class must get involved and stay involved.
If Brazilians really want to see change they will need stamina and resolve. They may have to shout themselves hoarse over and over and over again. If this is really going to turn into something lasting then Monday night is not the end. It is only the beginning.
Brazil is not a country where people protest. It is not a country of revolutionaries.
As Mauricio Savarese explains in this clear and didactive blog, Brazilians abhor violence and they avoid it all costs. If your cause embraces violence then you've lost. The only way to win in Brazil – and that means by getting the larger public behind you – is through peaceful protest and negotiation.
That's one of the reasons the reaction to last Thursday's protest and police violence in Sao Paulo are so interesting.
Lots of people are asking whether this wave of protests can really be over a 20 centavo rise in bus fares. (20 centavos is about 10 cents or 7 pence.)
Phillip Vianna in this CNN blog says "it is the uprising of the most intellectualized portion of society." Marcelo Rubens Paiva in today's Estado de Sao Paulo says the protests are "a collective revolt against the state that treats individuals as a nuisance, the enemy." And the RioReal blog suggests that "the twenty centavos could represent a tipping point in Rio's general panorama, as citizens wake up to authoritarian government and a longtime lack of dialogue."
I'd love them to be right. Rubens Paiva's definition of how the state treats its citizens is certainly spot on.
Brazilians pay first world taxes and get third world services in return. Their politicians represent big interests and treat voters with little more than contempt. Corruption is ingrained, a part of the country's culture and fabric.
No one protests. No one gets angry. Anti-corruption demonstrations rarely unite more than a few thousand people. (Clicking a button on facebook doesn't count as anger, or protest.)
Brazilians can't be bothered taking to the streets because they know that unless the protests gain nationwide scope they will be ignored. And they know that won't happen because most people don't see the point. It's a vicious circle. "Why bother demanding change; nothing changes so why bother."
But there's an awful lot of wishful thinking going on in some of the analysis. It is way too early to say last week's protests mark a turning point. They could very easily peter out. If there is more violence then support will erode and the protesters will be marginalised.
Is this the start of something? Are Brazilians waking up? Have they finally decided enough is enough?
I certainly hope so and I do think it is inevitable, sooner or later. As incomes grow, people will start demanding better treatment.
When enough Brazilians can make the trip to Miami and see they can buy a white tshirt in GAP for $8 dollars, rather than pay $30 for the same inferior quality garment in Sao Paulo and Rio they might be shaken into action. Last week's protests might be the first sign of that.
But I am not convinced that moment has arrived.
A lot will depend on the character of the next week's protests. If they are hijacked by the same extremists, who often glob onto anything anti- then they will fail. The middle class will take fright and abandon them. And without middle class lending their voice en masse they are doomed.
If they can get lots of people out on the streets, from all sectors of society, and if they can demonstrate peacefully, even in the face of police provocation, then they might be on to something and the optimistic predictions of a paradigm shift might be realised.
Next week is going to be very interesting.
I don't normally publish emails on my blog but this one is worth sharing, especially after the furor that erupted over this case involving the Atlantic.
This is the sort of insulting thing that occasionally appears in my inbox, cheekily (to put it mildly) asking me to give away my work for free.
William Barns-Graham, the Editor of New York Daily Sun and Content Editor at Allied Newspapers, should be ashamed.
I don't think he'd ask a plumber to fix his bathroom sink for free and neither would he have the guts to even suggest to a taxi driver that he drive him around gratis.
Does he go to restaurants and ask chefs to whip him up a salad or pasta free of charge?
Does he go to shoe shops and ask for free pairs of shoes?
No. He wouldn't have the balls.
And yet he feels perfectly at ease asking journalists to give up their time to write 'original content' that will help him sell newspapers and online ads.
And people wonder why journalism is in a state….
Hi there,
I'm writing to you from a global network of newspapers called Allied Newspapers – a network of newspapers including 'New York Daily Sun', 'South American Herald' and 'Hong Kong Morning Star'. As a network we have already attracted 100,000 views this year despite our relative youth but we're looking to expand this further.
We are looking for freelance writers to help increase our network via interesting content and word of mouth exposure as well. In return your writing would gain greater exposure as part of our network – we have in the past had articles receive over 10,000 views individually and this is something that will increase as the network becomes bigger.
Judging by your blog, you could be an ideal writer for one of our titles. We only accept original content and cannot at this stage pay for articles, but we can offer you exposure and a string to your writers bow in that you will be writing increasingly respectful titles.
We are interesting in all sorts of articles ranging from world news to sport to academic expertise on specific areas and so on. We are libertarian so we are interested in being a platform for all political motivations and opinions but we do draw a line at anything that may be termed extremist or that may incite hatred of some sort.
If you're interested, please feel free to respond us at firstname.lastname@example.com and check out some of the titles posted in the postscript.
Yours truly,
William Barns-Graham
Editor of New York Daily Sun
Content Editor at Allied Newspaper
(Skype: william.barns.graham)
The catalyst for my story on Time.com today was the closure of Rio's 2016 Olympic games stadium because it is in danger of collapse.
The Joao Havelange stadium was inaugurated just six years ago but was so poorly done it is already in an advanced state of disrepair.
My editors at Time made tweaks to my story on the grounds it was too opinionated.
What I wanted to say loud and clear, and have been saying in conversation for years, is this: The people who ran Rio's 2007 Pan American Games and who are organising the next Olympics are guilty of either deceit or bad planning or both.
For the Pan Ams they promised the city of Rio 54km of new metro, a light railway line and a new highway.
They did none of it.
The games were at least six times over budget and the justification was that the venues and facilities were expensive because they were of Olympic standard.
They are not.
The track and field stadium is in danger of collapse. The aquatics park is not big enough to be used for the Olympics and a new one must be built. The brand new cycle track can't be used because it is not good enough. The Maracana is undergoing its third reform since 2000 at a total cost exceeding 1 billion reais.
Rio's Pan Am experience is more about how not to prepare for a major sporting event than how to.
It is nothing short of scandalous that the organizers are being given a second chance.
I almost went to a balada this weekend but instead arrived home early having went through one of those small but telling experiences that reinforce my belief Brazil is still a long way from ever fulfilling its true potential.
I arrived at the door to the Trackers club around 1 am with half a dozen friends, both foreign and Brazilian. Voodoo Hop, an otherwise admirable group that seeks to rejuvenate the city centre by running clubs and cultural events in abandoned buildings, were organising another of their successful club nights.
After waiting half an hour to edge up the queue and get in the door, we discovered that there was another queue inside the building to get into the actual club.
My friends – most of whom were a good deal younger than me – took it in their stride. I was outraged. After another 10 minutes waiting in the second queue that snaked up two flights of stairs, I left.
Brazil has problems with lots of things that won't change overnight. Corruption, antiquated infrastructure, a putrid political system, and the obscene amount of power leveraged by multinationals and construction companies are all ingrained in the culture and will only improve with government intervention or massive pressure from society, neither of which looks like happening any time soon.
But the stupid invention of bureaucracy for simple tasks like getting in a night club is easy to resolve. One queue, fine. Two queues, pointless and self-defeating.
The big worry I have here – and this is the part that reinforce my belief Brazil is still a long way from fulfilling its potential – is that I was the only one who saw anything wrong with this.
Not only were the organizers of this young and hip nightclub happy to carry on with the same old bureaucratic and non-sensical rules imposed on them by an older generation. (If there's a good reason from this, I'd be happy to hear it, VoodooHop…)
What was worse was that the young kids waiting in line accepted it as normal. There was no outrage at being made to stand passively in two different queues, much less being made to stand passively in two different queues for the right to hand over a 30 real entry fee.
Instead, anyone who complained was "uptight", "stressed out" or "whining."
I voted with my feet. Unless more people do the same, the bureaucracy and BS is never going away.
The Brazilian Senate just elected Renan Calheiros as its president, thus making him the third highest ranking politician in the country after the president and vice president.
Calheiros resigned this post in 2007 in order to avoid impeachment after he was accused of using money from a lobby group to pay alimony to a former girlfriend and of using false documents while lying about the scandal.
He currently faces fresh charges, with the country's top prosecutor accusing him of bribery and using false documents to justify illegal payments he was receiving.
The Senate chose to ignore those accusations – and his dubious past – and this afternoon elected him by a margin of 56 votes to 18.
Innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental principle of democratic societies and Calheiros has the right to defend himself and to run for office.
But if they had rejected his bid for the presidency, Senators would have sent out a positive sign that ethics and morals are important factors when choosing those who will lead the nation.
Instead, they gave Brazilians one more reason to loathe their politicians.
When asked to name their most corrupt institutions last year, Brazilians put 'Political Parties' and 'Parliament and Legislature' together in a tie for first place. (See the full study here, by Transparency International.)
The election of Calheiros is a perfect example of why.
The Santa Maria disco fire is now officially the worst disaster in Brazil for half a century. But it would be wrong to interpret the tragedy in which 233 people died as just one more example of incompetence.
The mistakes made at the Kiss nightclub are disgustingly common and have been made repeatedly the world over. This list of the 10 deadliest modern nightclub fires includes several from the US, as well as from France and Argentina.
I've written and broadcast a lot recently about Brazil's culture of impunity and how the mensalao trial indicates that this could be ending. (Some of Brazil's best-known and most powerful politicians were last year found guilt of political corruption and they face considerable jail time.)
What happens in Santa Maria will give us a clear signal as to whether that culture of impunity really is coming to an end.
Many mistakes were made and many questions must be asked.
- – Were there enough emergency exits?
- – Were they big enough?
- – Were staff trained in evacuation and crowd management?
- – Why was the band allowed to use fireworks in an enclosed space?
- – Why was cheap and flammable acoustic foam used on the roof?
- – Why were the windows barred?
- – Did the club have the proper safety and fire certificates?
- – If they didn't, who signed the papers that allowed the place to keep opening?
The issue now is addressing those questions and bringing those responsible to justice.
Brazil has made huge strides in recent years but only if those responsible for the deaths are brought to justice can it maintain that progress. Anything else would be a massive travesty and a slap in the face to the families of those who died.


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Saturday, May 09, 2009
Badminton 60th Anniversary Horse Trials: The View from Below
In England this weekend, the 60th galloping of the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials is well underway in Gloucestershire. The photos are a little slower than the news is getting to me, but when they get here, they're wonderful.
Badminton is the world's most prestigious three-day event, rate four-stars, and this year is even having decent weather, except for high winds during the dressage that ruined some people's well-laid plans.
These photos are from Wednesday, at the first vet inspection. In this photo, you see a horse's hooves being oiled to insure that the vet will not pick them up. But they'll look nice. Other horses looked to have a hard, high-sheen coating applied, rather than the classic oil. Whoever is at work here is a confident woman who doesn't fear getting hoof oil on her expensive bracelet. So it's true what they say about event riders being fearless.
The hooves of experience shown here are those of the famous Toytown, who has had such bad luck lately. The cowboy boots belong to Zara Phillips, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth. The former World and European champion event horse under Phillips, Toytown's 16-year-old hooves look like they have been around the block, and he's had more than his share of lameness problems, including being knocked out of the Olympics last year. Sadly, he was retired on cross-country today after bobbling some fences and getting hung up. Zara did the right thing. Her second horse, Ardfield Magic Star, went lame on cross-country and was also retired. Zara's father, US eventing coach Captain Mark Phillips, won Badminton four times.
Here's Emily Llewellyn with Society Spice, who made it through cross-country. I went through all the preliminary horse inspection photos and it looks like a much smaller percentage of horses is shod with toe clips this year, although it seemed that most of the horses in the top 20 after cross-country were predominantly shod with toe clips, which is interesting in itself. There looked like some glue-ons, too and lots of very highly manicured hooves for the inspection--I wonder what they look like now. Last year's best-shod horse, Valdemar, did not pass the first inspection.
The fashions that some of the riders don for the horse inspection are pretty wild (but fun). Both of these riders chose clothing that, when you look closely at their horses' legs, which is what the ground jury will do, their clothing does not distract from the horses' action or coloring. Smart move.
Check back on Sunday (or maybe Monday, depending on when they supply the news) for announcements about the Best Shod Award and the ultimate winner.
Note: These three photos are provided by ©Kit Houghton/Mitsubishi Motors. Thanks to Kit for not cropping the feet out of the photos.
© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.
Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).
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6 comments:
Interesting how the old boy was landing heel first both front and hind, while the second horse is going to definitely land toe first on that right fore. The handler is going to land heel first....guess that's what's important ;)Both have some torque going on in the hind end as they are landing on the outside first...glad those shoes are going to flex and allow them some concusion relief (tee hee)>
- Sunday, May 10, 2009
- Fran Jurga said...
Heidi, thank you for your comment. I went through 189 inspection photos and they virtually all looked that way behind, very consistent at the top level of the sport of eventing.
It is considered normal in sport horses; more than 90% of warmbloods have some degree of lateral landing. (And I'd consider these horses, many of which are Irish sporthorses, to be warmblood-type.)
A great paper to read on the subject is Dr Meike van Heel's summary of landing patterns for hoof trimming in the Equine Veterinary Journal; it is available for download here:
These horses don't compete or train on stone dust alleyways like this, so this is the only opportunity over five days to get a good look at the feet.
- Sunday, May 10, 2009
Did you pick up upon the two horses wearing hoof cuffs??
- Sunday, May 10, 2009
- Fran Jurga said...
Hi Peter,
Not sure what you mean by hoof cuffs, I thought I saw a couple were wearing Sigafoos shoes. Were they hoof casts?
I also thought I saw one horse with Andrew Poynton's sport-model Imprint glue-ons and I thought maybe one of the Italian horses had on 3-D flying saucers. (How do you screw studs into those?) Am I correct?
They have posted all the winners except the Farriers Prize!
- Sunday, May 10, 2009
A new technology developed a year ago in the racing industry, and formally launched yesterday at our ATF conferance. Hoof casts/cuffs look like "Vetwrap" fitted around the hoof and under the shoe, it is actually a very tough shell formed from a Balistic Grade Polyester bandage which prior to application to the hoof is impregnated with a air/water hardening cement.
When fitted to a hoof, the shoe is nailed to the cuff and not into the hoof horn, thus avoiding the nail trauma of penetrating into the tissues of sensitive/degraded horses feet.
Shoes with studs or stud holes are fitted as normal.
Hope this helps,
Regards, PNB.
- Monday, May 11, 2009
Hoof cuffs/casts look like "Vetwrap" nailed under the shoes, the shoe is actually nailed into the cuff and not the hoof horn!! alievating aggrevated nail trauma, by nailing into sensitised and or degraded hoof horn.
The cast is actually made of very tough balisitic grade ployester, previously impregnated with an air/water hardening polyeurthane cement. The cuffs/casts are then glued and/or screwed onto the animals feet!! prior to the reception of its shoes, [stud holes and all].
Hope this helps, Regards,
- Monday, May 11, 2009

subset: commoncrawl


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Oh crap.
They don't need to sing, but we all knew they needed to keep Mushu.
Oh crap.
They don't need to sing, but we all knew they needed to keep Mushu.
I really hope this kills the Live Action Remakes deader than dead.
Well I know for the most part they're not getting good reception with critics and possibly also audiences but aren't they still making money?
Don't a good number movies do reshoots? I say wait and see.
I was interested in seeing something different so I hope the reshoot don't make it too similar.
They'll never stop doing live action remakes of Disney classics
the only way that would happen is if they stop making money, but seeing how well Live action Lion King did, I don't think that's happening anytime soon
The problem going forward is that they've already done most of the really big Disney films with only a few of that Disney Renaissance tier left and the rest being films along the lines of Dumbo and Pete's Dragon. Most of the remaining films wouldn't promote themselves the way just the idea of remaking, for instance, Aladdin did. Further there's the problem of the spinoffs and sequels not doing nearly as well; the Alice sequel didn't come close to the first film's box office, Mary Poppins Returns roughly broke even, and the opening weekend for Maleficent's sequel didn't quite reach industry forecasts. So when they finish cannibalizing the hits, where do they go from there?
--- Update From New Post Merge ---
Complicating things since 2009.
Go back to making more theatrical updates of old TV shows,Radio Serials, or books (pulling a WB in the process) or making live action adaptations of things like Atlantis, Home Over The Range, or start raiding Pixar's library for them?
Or remake stuff like Blank Check?
Remaking Pixar films seems like a dicey proposition as well since those already do excellent box office but would be massively expensive to remake because of how special effects intensive they would be. On the other end, going cheap or redoing lesser known titles seems unlikely to create the kind of box office they'd need to replace the revenue from bigger films.
Doesn't help either that Star Wars has had diminishing returns as well.
Complicating things since 2009.
Ditching Mushu and the songs was what was making me actually interested in the film... it showed they were actually doing something *new* and not just a shot for shot re-enactment. If the reshoots are all to just add back in elements from the animated film I dunno.
If they're to give big impressive battle scenes, well... maybe? The Hobbit had a multi-month break so they could work out their action in the last film but that didn't actually help the film really.
To support Viz hosting all Jump manga for FREE and day of release, Arlong Park will now support the official release.
Official chapter discussions now start Sundays at Noon, EST.
Please do not post threads when scan sites release their version, and just discuss those releases in the spoiler thread.
I didn't need the songs, but I was a little sad that Mushu wasn't in it. He didn't need to be Eddie Murphy 2.0 again, but randomly putting a phoenix in instead seemed a little off.
If they do put songs back in we know the only ones they really need are Reflection and Make a Man Out of You.
Today is the 25th anniversary of Gargoyles.
I did a thing.
To support Viz hosting all Jump manga for FREE and day of release, Arlong Park will now support the official release.
Official chapter discussions now start Sundays at Noon, EST.
Please do not post threads when scan sites release their version, and just discuss those releases in the spoiler thread.
Very nice.
And god damn, I am old.
Oh, watching Coco. I needed a good cry.
--- Update From New Post Merge ---
But I had another Ratatoulie moment (not what it seems, for me is the moment that all the rats started cooking, and my reality bias broke me, as it was something that I couldn't accept in movies) with all the fucking candles! Fire safety people! keep one in those glasses, or floating in water, or the small ones in a can! But that was just at the begining, and could move on.
With my Disney+ subscription, I finally saw Black Cauldron for the first time. It's...okay, which is about what I expected. It's not an overlooked classic, but it's not terrible either. Granted, there are very few Disney films I would describe as outright bad.
The plot is fairly standard for a medieval fantasy story, and the characters are pretty unremarkable. But, as everyone has said the Horned King himself is pretty cool, even if there's not a whole lot to him either (style over substance). And the movie does have some incredible art and animation at parts, I'll give it that.
Also, I have the same problem with this movie that I had with The Last Unicorn in that the entire presentation just feels...off. I mean, I understand the story, but all the events and set pieces just feel sort of random. And the audio feels unrefined, sometimes making it hard for me to understand what the characters are saying (not helped by Gurgi's voice). It almost feels like there's a distortion filter over the entire film. Like the filmmakers weren't entirely confident about what they wanted to convey. I dunno, maybe it's just me.
Black Cauldron would probably be better if Katzenberg hadn't insisted they cut 12 minutes from the run time, due to not understanding that unlike live action, you dont get B footage to play with and get alternate takes.
The team did what they could and trimmed six minutes, than Katz went in and cut even more.
Like, okay, cut down the horrific violent imagrey in the finale some since it was terrifying children, (but come on, so did the Queen in Snow WHite) but the rest came from cutting little character bits and transitions, stuff that remained intact in the audio read-along version.
It seems likely that original footage still exists, so its kind of surprising it never got an "original cut" treament as a selling point somewhere along the way. I know it wasn't a success and its a black sheep release they were hesitant to ever even put out on tape, and would cost a little money to restore, but they put new abomination song numbers into Lion King and Beauty and the Beast that wreck their flow, (and restored the song that MAKES Pocahontas work) so I can't see why it would be that bad a prospect unless something really wanky went on back then.
The actual The Chronicles of Prydain books are much better, and they put out the money to re-option them a few years back and I think we're getting movies/tv series out of that, so hopefully that works out this time.
Last edited by Robby; November 18th, 2019 at 03:08 AM.
To support Viz hosting all Jump manga for FREE and day of release, Arlong Park will now support the official release.
Official chapter discussions now start Sundays at Noon, EST.
Please do not post threads when scan sites release their version, and just discuss those releases in the spoiler thread.
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text: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Mark William Strange (born October 8, 1973) is an English actor, film producer and martial arts action performer. Strange has worked on a number of feature films including The Medallion and The Twins Effect along with Jackie Chan and Batman Begins to name but a few. He has also produced and co-produced feature films, including Displaced, Underground, and Bodyguard: A New Beginning released in the US by Lionsgate. Description above from the Wikipedia article Mark Strange, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia


text:
Have a look at this beautiful ceramic "Grass" vase. Grass is crafted by design duo Claydies, in thier words: "Grass has a very naïve ceramic expression that is both uplifting and amusing".
art Bird House birds Bloesem blogs Bunny cake Cakes cape town cat ceramics chairs Charity cheer chocolate Christmas cloth bird collage collections craft crafts Crochet Cuckoo Clocks cup cakes danish design decor decorations delicious design dutch design earings Etsy fabric feathers Felt Toys festive flower girls flowers Food French Design furniture giraffe Handmade holidays illustration Inmybackyard Jewelery Jewelry kelly smith knitted necklaces Nel normann copenhagen ornament paper art Paper Cut Outs Paper Lace paper sculpture Patches photography Print Rabbit rabbits rings sculpture Serendipity Silver Tea Set swap tearose workshop Toys Tracemyface vase wedding wings yellow


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Friday, October 19, 2012
Out of the Mouth of Babes!
We all know kids say the darnedest things! Well, my classroom is definitely no exception! Hopefully these adorable little moments will put a smile on your face! :)
This week has been all about bats (more about this later). Well today the kids and I were brainstorming for our bats "can, have, are" chart. We got to "are" and one of the kids announced that bats are mammals (My thought, she's right--- yay!).
Child 1 chimed in with: "What's a mammal?"
Child 2 replied: "It means they give birth to live babies and the mommy feeds the baby her milk (Right again, yay!)."
Child 3 gets this look of total confusion and says: "But how does the baby come out of the tummy?"
Child 4 (his mom had a baby a week ago) says: "AWK....WARD!"
Child 5 then announced: "the bat has a c-rection and gets baby is cut out of its stomach."
Child 4: Slaps his forehead and shakes his head.
I quickly asked "What else are bats" and the subjects is changed for good (thank goodness)! It was all I could do to keep from laughing though! I quickly grabed my notebook and recorded this cute moment! :-)
Cute moment number 2:
Boy 1: Mrs. Cason---he is going to tattle on me!
Boy 2: "Mrs. Cason, he said he didn't like me!"
Boy 1: I told you he was going to tattle!
Me: "Did you say you didn't like him?"
Boy 1: "Yes, but I told him it was opposite day!"
Me: "Did he tell you it was opposite day?"
Boy 1: "Yes."
Me: "Do you know what opposite day is?"
Boy 1: "No."
Me: "Ok, I want you to go back to your seats, and he can explain what opposite day is to you."
::boys walk off::
Once they left a sweet girl chimes in: "That's why you can't trust boys, they never just say what they mean!!!"
I hope my kiddos insane cuteness put a little smile on your face!
11 comments:
So funny! I love hearing what crazy things kids say.ReplyDelete
Don't Let The Teacher Stay Up Late
I love it! I love to just listen to my kids...even though it can be tough with all that is going on!ReplyDelete
You are all set up for the huge giveaway at Rockin' Teacher Materials! Thanks so much for offering a product! Make sure to let your readers know so that we can all benefit from the exposure!
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Rockin' Teacher Materials
So funny! They always say the cutest things! Thanks for sharing!ReplyDelete
Thanks for donating something neat to the Rockin Teacher Materials giveaway and for making me smile with your stories :-DReplyDelete
Rockin Teacher Materials sent me.ReplyDelete
I am a follower and a fan! Thanks for being a contributor to Rockin Teacher Materials giveaway! email@example.com
I love your stories. How cute! Thanks for contributing to Rockin Teacher Materials giveaway. I hope I win!ReplyDelete
This is very cute! I love first grade!ReplyDelete
Tooooo cute!!! Happy to be your newest follower!ReplyDelete
Growing Firsties
That is too funny! Made me laugh out loud:)ReplyDelete
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text:
Here at Paperchase, we realise that what we do can have an impact on the environment so we're committed to sourcing products in the most sustainable way possible.
We have a rigorous sourcing policy across our entire supply base, and our ambition is to make sure our own-brand timber products are either certified under a sustainable forest management scheme, contain recycled content or carry eco credentials.
We work closely with our suppliers too. This is so they understand the values and importance behind our objectives, but if they don't share our commitment to the environment, we won't work with them. And we regularly review our processes to make sure we're always improving and meeting our high standards.
As of February 2017, around 90% of our timber suppliers hold Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. The FSC is a global organisation that works to promote the practice of sustainable forestry worldwide. It sets standards for forest products and independently certifies that these standards have been met, before allowing their logo to feature on products that qualify.
The number of FSC-certified products in our ranges is growing fast, so when you see the FSC logo, you can be confident that buying it won't mean harming the world's forests.
And around 2% of our products are made from recycled fibre, which can also reduce overall pressure on natural forests and other important natural resources. Check out our core range of Kraft products - they all contain materials manufactured from recycled fibre.
Our timber sourcing policy also supports our due-diligence requirements in accordance with the European Union Timber Regulations. Effective since 2013, these regulations aim to address the global trade of illegally harvested timber.


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MyFrenchFilmFestival: 8th edition!
January 19, 2018 / February 19, 2018
The 8th edition of MyFrenchFilmFestival has started!
You can now sample the best of new-generation French cinema, from your home or wherever you may be, anywhere in the world. The principle is simple: 1 month, 30 films, subtitled in 10 languages, accessible for viewing on some 40 platforms around the world.
The 2018 film selection
This year we offer you 30 new, unreleased films organized into 6 thematic sections: Wacky and offbeat stories in WTF…rench!?, life-changing journeys in Hit the Road!, the sometimes painful, or comical, transition from childhood to adulthood in Teen Stories, the (at times homicidal) obsessions of disturbing characters in French and Furious, love stories of the kind you only find in France in Love "à la Française", and, finally, a selection of innovative works in New Horizons.
More info : http://www.


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It has been a year since my last visit to our family doctor. What had happened to his office during that year took me aback. Everywhere you looked, on every throw-away item, was the prominent logo of a well-known and highly marketed drug. You don't have to wait very long in the waiting room before yet another drug rep shows up with a sample case at the window. Feeling depressed while walking in the door? Not to worry. There's the check-in clipboard brought to you by Cymbalta. Fumbling for a pen to jot down your personal information for the umpteenth time in the office? Not to worry. There's a cheap pen on the counter brought to you by the concerned folks at Vytorin who worry about your elevated cholesterol levels. Nexium has given the office a nice wall calendar so that you can easily find a date for your next appointment. Feeling a little stuffed up? Not to worry. The good folks at Cialis have placed a small box of tissues on the end table next to the couch in the waiting room.
It doesn't end there. If your doctor's visit is anything like mine, you are ushered into the exam room where you wait for another long stretch of time. (and you wondered why they call us 'patience'?) But no longer are you forced to endure the sterile white surroundings while you wait. No, the marketers of Mucinex and Ambien have outfitted the room with colorful desk pads for the doctor's notes and tissues for the exam table. And, finally, at the counter to pay your bill you are greeted by a counter-top pad from Pfizer's family of drugs.
What's next? Just think of the possibilities . . . .doctors wearing sponsorship logos from the various drug companies and medical supply industries, just like NASCAR drivers. Perhaps medical office complexes selling naming rights to GlaxoSmithKline or Merck. Wouldn't you like to be treated to revolving ads for Parke-Davis on digital signs in the waiting room just like at an NBA game?
The omnipresence of drug ads in the doctor's office is incredibly tacky and insulting. But there are more serious reasons to be concerned about these ads. Are we to believe that the ubiquity of these drug logos has no influence on the prescriptions doctors write? Have no patients asked for a particular drug after seeing the ad and logo? We're not talking about a simple quid pro quo. No, it's not as simple as that. I believe the influence is far more subtle and disturbing.
Both my wife and I have become cynical about the ease with which our doctor reaches for his prescription pad — or offer a free sample — in response to virtually any medical difficulty we are having. He's a pill pusher. And where does he get his information about the effectiveness of the drugs he prescribes? From the peer-reviewed research in medical journals? Hardly. (and who pays for that research anyway?) If the studies that have been done on this are anywhere close to accurate, doctors receive the majority of their information from the drug reps who ply them with free lunches, seminars in exotic places, and bundles of throw-away stuff.
Even if the doctors protest that the freebies make no difference in their prescriptions, surely the drug companies would not continue pouring billions of dollars into this strategy if they did not see a huge pay-off in the bottom line. Who is in the best position to know whether the strategy is working? Are the doctors so blinded by the drug company gifts that they fail to see the intimate relationship between their pile of freebies and the dramatic rise in drug prices? And we haven't even gotten into the junkets that drug companies invite doctors on explain the benefits of their drugs.
Please, please, doctors, give me back the dignity of a sterile white logo-free office. I'm coming to be restored to health, not to be assaulted by drug company ads and logos everywhere I turn reminding me of every conceivable weakness I have, will, or could endure. Naomi Klein, we need your help on this one, too.


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- CAMFashionAsked on August 12, 2014 at 10:48 PM
Estimados, tengo un listado en excel con informacion que quiero incorporar al formulario, como puedo importar esos datos. De antemano muchas gracias, saludos cordiales.
- JotForm SupportTitusNAnswered on August 13, 2014 at 06:26 AM
Would you like to add the data you have on your excel sheet to your form submissions?
If so, you can import data to form submissions using our data import app.
The app will import the information on your spreadsheet into your form as new submissions.
It however requires the use of a template so that the information can be imported without an error - we can generate one for you.
Which is the form you would like to update with the spreadsheet data?
Looking forward to your response.


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What a fun week we had! It was the usual crazy busy week with preschool, art class, dance class, gym class, Sunday Arabic class and to top it all, it was Halloween! Alya loves Halloween and she made me become fond of it too. I am blessed because she does not care about eating the Halloween candy at all...at least for now. Instead she is content counting, sorting and matching the pieces, and playing candy store with us. Sometimes, she asks for permission to eat a piece of candy after lunch and she usually eats only half.
|Notice the look on her face
She enjoyed carving the pumpkin and attended during the weekend a Halloween party at our Little Gym. She insisted on wearing the cowgirl hat from her birthday party. She had a blast and visited the haunted house 6 times!
Did I mention that I am the room parent at my daughter's preschool? (and also at her sunday Arabic Language school) yeah...a lot of work goes into these! If one more person asks me what I do all day long since I don't work, I think I will stop being polite!
So Alya's preschool organized a Spook-tacular classroom contest, every room was decorated by teachers and parents and on the Harvest Halloween Parade, parents voted for the best decorated room. three emails later, I and another parent showed up in addition to the teacher and assistant teacher. The other parent could not stay for long. I ended up staying for four hours. I packed a lunch for Alya and a cup of tea for me. Alya was a super duper helper! I was pleasantly surprised to see her come up with ideas, and execute them. I also agreed with the teacher to incorporate every craft the kids make in the decoration, which was absolutely wonderful!
The teacher decorated the majority of the room, I did the following:
A Spook-tacular board: I asked the teacher to take scary pictures of the kids. I drew the shape of a scary spooky haunted house on brown paper. I wanted it to be black but they did not have any left by the time I came. I glued the pictures in the shape of window panes. I added some glittery grass, a flying witch, some tombs with glittery RIPs, glittery pumpkins and scary cats. Alya made a purple moon and I made few black bats with the construction paper. Alya added her own rainbow scary cat few glittery pumpkins of her own. She adores everything rainbow-y and glittery.
|Look at this scary face!
|Alya colored and cut this purple moon
|She also made the cat and pumpkins
I made these from scraps of paper
|Glittery pumpkins
|the witch with glittery outfit and boots
|scary cat with purple eyes
|Witches Boots
|Just add glitter on elmer's glue
I also made this ghost out of simple A4 white photocopier paper. Just cut them in 4 long equal strips and make paper links chain out of them. Hang the main paper link chain from the ceiling and add layers and layers and play with the length until you get the shape of a ghost. I added black eyes and mouth of out a black streamer. You can use paper. I used what I had.
|Halloween paper link chain ghost
|That is how you do it!
I also made these cute hanging swirling ghosts. I used white cardboard paper that I found on the heavy side. I think thinner paper would be better. Just trace the shape of a spiral and cut it out. Add eyes and mouth and hang it.
|Hanging Swirling Ghosts
On the day of the parade, Alya was dressed up as Jessy from the movie Toy Story. It is her all time favorite movie. She is still going throughout the cowgirl and everything horses phase. Remember her last birthday? Read about it here. Yeah, we are still going throughout that phase. She played the role and asked me to called her Jessy or Cowgirl Alya all day long. Did I mention that we won the contest? yes we did! the Kids won a brand new wooden puppet set for their classroom! When I picked up Alya from preschool today, I saw her and her friends playing with it and she was screaming..you will not eat me..I will run away from you! made my day and every minute of those four hours spent decorating paid off! This is why motherhood is all about..those 2 seconds made it all worthwhile!
|Howdy Partner!
Psssssst..by the way, do you ever take candy from your children's candy bucket behind their back and eat them? just asking ;)
Happy Halloween!


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School teachers in the southern parts of the State will have access to an exciting education program with the re-release of Bushfire Patrol, a resource to assist students in years 4-6 understand and prepare for the dangers of bushfire.
Like the North West Bushfire Patrol program launched earlier this year, the program has been developed with geographically and culturally appropriate resources for the region and will be a great resource for teachers to use in the 2019 school curriculum.
The teaching resources are available for all primary schools in the area from Geraldton down to Augusta and across to Esperance and can be found on the school education page on the DFES website.
Bushfire Patrol will help reduce the number of preventable bushfires throughout the south west parts of the State and provide engaging, hands on activities enabling students to:
• know how to identify safe and unsafe fire behaviour;
• understand bushfire risks, including bushfire weather;
• develop a range of skills to help respond to bushfire;
• develop personal behaviours and strategies to stay safe when there is a fire;
• understand the impact of deliberate fires on communities and the environment;
• know where to access information about a location's risk, the Fire Danger Ratings for the day and bushfire advices and warnings; and
• initiate a five minute Fire Chat and create a bushfire plan with their family.
DFES Assistant Commissioner Resilience and Recovery Rick Curtis said these programs are a vital part of educating the community to take a shared responsibility and be prepared for bushfires.
"With much of our State being bushfire prone it is important we educate and support the community to prepare themselves and their family members for bushfire," Assistant Commissioner Curtis said.
"An important part of that education is teaching primary school students to understand how they can stay safe during a bushfire and equip them with the skills and knowledge to prepare for and take appropriate actions during a bushfire.
"Bushfire Patrol is fun and engaging, with students completing a bushfire plan with their family, gaining understanding of their bushfire risk and taking part in school bushfire emergency drills.
"By sharing their new skills with their family it increases bushfire preparedness and safety throughout the community."
For further information about the program contact firstname.lastname@example.com or visit the school education page.
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© 2020 Government of Western Australia. All rights reserved.


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SYSTEM OF A DOWN has scheduled the following North American headlining shows:
May 10 - Edmonton, AL - Rexall Place
May 12 - Vancouver, BC - Rogers Arena
May 13 - Seattle, WA - Key Arena
May 15 - Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre
May 18 - Denver, CO - Comfort Dental Amphitheatre
May 19 - Albuquerque, NM - Journal Pavilion
May 22 - Las Vegas, NV - The Pear
GOGOL BORDELLO will also appear on the bill as "special guests."
SYSTEM OF A DOWN officially announced its return on November 29, 2010, with the band confirming that it will headline or co-headline several prominent European festivals this summer. A dozen or so gigs across Europe have been announced so far.
Bassist Shavo Odadjian told The Pulse of Radio a while back that he could never envision SYSTEM OF A DOWN going away permanently. "We're brothers, man, we'll take bullets for each other," he said. "So it's like, you kind of miss each other after a while and you, one guy makes the first move, then another starts making phone calls....this is a juggernaut, man. SYSTEM OF A DOWN is my lifeline. It'll never go away. We could not make a record for 10 years — that's not gonna happen, but I'm just saying we could — and we'll come back strong."
Odadjian hinted in a 2010 interview that financial problems and creative differences led the band to take a break and prevent a permanent split.
There is no word yet on whether SYSTEM plans to record a new album.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN went on hiatus in late 2006 after touring behind its two 2005 albums, "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize". All four members of the group expressed a desire to work on separate projects.
Singer Serj Tankian has issued two solo albums, while guitarist Daron Malakian and drummer John Dolmayan launched a short-lived band called SCARS ON BROADWAY in 2008. Odadjian worked on a project with RZA from the WU-TANG CLAN called ACHOZEN, but no music from that has surfaced.


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Designed by Morten & Jonas for Norway's Northern Lighting, 'Say My Name' is a multi-functional light that can be hung from the ceiling as a pendant or placed in an upright position like a table lamp.
Each light is mouth-blown in Italy and made entirely from Venetian glass. Says Northern Lighting, "Although the skill required to transform such a large mass of molten glass into a hollow sphere could only be found among the master glassblowers of Venice, the design is distinctively Nordic."
"Say My Name's streamlined shape and unembellished surface are hallmarks of contemporary Scandinavian style. The subtle colours in the glass reflect the hues of the Nordic night sky, the light of the fjords and the smooth surface of calm water."


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Volkswagen Quantum Tires
Find Volkswagen Quantum tire sizes, prices & brands
Get the best Volkswagen Quantum tires at the best price from your nearby Firestone Complete Auto Care store. Shop our wide array of Quantum tires and compare by tire size, price, type, and brand. Whether you're looking for tires built for speed, versatility, or fuel-efficiency, you'll find the right ones for your car or truck and your budget. Shop online anytime, and schedule a convenient appointment with a certified technician today! When you need new tires, we're ready. We're open late and on weekends!


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Not it was not the Wolfman either. In the movie Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, Lon Chaney is resurrected from the dead. He says, "Every full moon I turn into a werewolf." I just wanted to tell him, "Sir, those are some serious problems." But in this photo he looks like a New Yorker getting cabin fever after days of being at the mercy of Frankenstorm.
In this case the evil gypsy woman is not telling the New Yorkers that they cannot get out. It is Bloomberg who shut down our subways and Frankenstorm who is keeping us in. But the thing with horror movies is, when the gypsies begin to mobilize you know things are bad. Just like in real life. By the way Maria Ouspenskya was a famous Method Acting Teacher. Her claim to fame was the mother of Bela in the original Wolfman, the man that screwed Lon Chaney over making him a wolf every full moon.
That being said, what could have rescued us this Frankenstorm? It came so close to Halloween. I was doing BJ Thorne's show at the PIT, it is a talk show set in hell,and they were interviewing me about my book. BJ in the character of Vincent the host asked, "Does this book have no portal?" When I said no he said, "Then it is no use to me." Afterwards, his character then reads a book that he thinks will rescue him from hell only to realize it is a copy of Plan Nine from Outer Space. Then that got me thinking, "Plan nine from outer space, resurrect the dead." That sounded like a brilliant idea.
But Frankenstorm found me thankful. Throughout I didn't lose power or electric and still had running water. One man I know walked from the East Village to the McDonalds at Midtown to charge his cellphone. That is commitment. Not to mention friends and family banded together to make sure no one went without. It was very sweet. Still, there was all this hype. I found myself a little disappointed. In my neighborhood there was noncommittal wind, noncommittal rain, just like Kato Kaelin and his testimony in the OJ trial. Hell, he had more commitment than the storm in my neighborhood.
In some areas though it was terrible. The Jersey Shore is basically under water. What will Snooky do? Get her weave wet. Between her fat ass and her syphillis I am sure she will find some way to swim. With all the diseases she has she would only pollute the water more.
With the tanning beds wet tanning mom can't get skin cancer so perhaps this is a good thing.
But look on the bright side, New York City is now ready for things like a zombie invasion. Hey, if the dead hipsters all rise from the grave we are all screwed. But now we have a plan.
Still with all the hype I wanted to see Godzilla.
Or maybe King Kong. And maybe I could ask them all why does Hollywood always want to destroy my city?
Rest assured though, one thing about New York City is that since the dawn of time, no matter how close we come, we always win against the aliens.
Last night I went out and saw my old friend and classmate F. Michael Haynie. He is currently in Wicked on Broadway as BOQ. You should check him out. He looked good and sounded good. Then I remembered the Wizard of Oz took place as a result of a twister. Yes, Dorothy Gale created an international incident by killing a dictator and accidentally overthrowing a fascist regime, but who couldn't help but oppress a munchkin?
Twisters are usually good luck for me. After a big storm in high school I got the role of the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Then a few years later I did the best set ever in the same show as Kristen Shaal. After that, when there was a real bad twister in Queens I was asked to do a show called My Strange Addiction with my little puppet children. Then during Irene I did one of many drafts of a book called I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl. What will this twister bring? Maybe some fan art by Libby Jay.
Maybe a change to hang out on the Coney Island Boardwalk with Bob Greenberg
Maybe Snoop Dogg or Snoop Lion or whatever he calls himself will blow back into town. Will he be so gracious as to share his gin and juice with this shorty?
Maybe May Wilson and George Dudley will get their own reality show at the chagrin of April Brucker and Otto Petersen, detailing the nitty gritty of their tryst including love child.
Maybe my puppet children will clean my house
Speaking of munchkins and puppets, maybe Bruno Mars will drive up, serenade me, and take me to his Beverly Hills Mansion where I can abandon all notions of Women's Lib and never have to work again only to be a kept woman. Wait, that is May Wilson's fantasy.
Or maybe a book called I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Performer will start to get picked up my stores. As I begin to schedule my book tour here's hoping.
Either way my gym is closed because of water issues which meant no kickboxing. The highways are jammed to hell cause there is no public transport. The gas stations had people fighting as early as five in the morning. I havent delivered a telegram in days because of the transport issues. I believe that the chaos is behind us though. But just as Frankenstein had a bride, does Frankenstorm have a bride?
All jokes aside sometimes we need a Franksenstorm to show us how truly blessed we are, and how we don't know what we have until it is gone. I know right now this is a hard time for all of us and know that in our hearts we are being taken care of. That with a little faith we can navigate through these challenges before us.
I wrote this blog because I figured we could all use a little laugh.
Love April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl


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It is notable that blockchain technology is built of neutral objects known as blocks. Each block is interconnected in a network, which is known as a chain of blocks. The way the blocks are formed and an entry in them (the transaction) that passes through the chain must have the correct value in each previous block. This leads to a much higher level of fairness (neutrality) and accuracy, as well as transparency.
There are numerous bitcoin gambling sites that also accept other popular cryptocurrencies. It is necessary to know about them in order to understand whether it is relevant to use them. At the same time, it is a good possibility for the new players to enter the game and receive various bonuses.
LTC is one of the most famous alternatives to bitcoin cryptocurrency. It was launched in 2011. Having common roots with bitcoin, litecoin has become an excellent option for many players who have gathered to attack the advanced online casinos. The rapid confirmation of transactions, the constant technical update, and the close relationship with bitcoin – all this definitely added to the cost of LTC in 2018.
Bitcoin Cash
BCH appeared only a few months ago, due to the modifications of the classic Bitcoin – thereby creating a frenzied demand for crypto exchange platforms. The interest in this cryptocurrency is that the size of its blocks is larger, which makes it possible to conduct more transactions with lower fees more quickly. The essence of Bitcoin Cash is the creation of a competitor to PayPal and VISA. Perhaps, that is why the demand for it has grown so much among gamers.
Ethereum is the leading alternative cryptocurrency in the world, giving way only to Bitcoin in the ever-growing amount of the cryptocurrencies. And although the growth of the ethereum may not be so stunning, nevertheless, it has become one of the most powerful cryptocurrencies in the world. Using the main advantages of the blockchain, as well as the principle of decentralization, ethereum occupies a very stable position in the market.
In turn, Doge also has a lot of fans in the world of cryptocurrencies. This is an open source cryptocurrency, combining bitcoin and a well-known meme about a sad doggy. Being just a joke, this funny coin is not inferior in popularity to bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, and other tokens. A sparkling combination of game and humor did not allow the bitcoin gambling site to lose sight of it when adding to the constantly growing list of cryptocurrencies.
Thus, while many projects cease to offer the ability to pay with cryptocurrencies, online casinos, on the contrary, expand their portfolio, offering 24-hour support and instant payments. In that way, it is relevant to pay attention at the possibility to use cryptocurrency for gambling online.


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Articles on psychopathy, some of which use Franklin as an example.
Sociopaths - They Prey on All of UsBy Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
He constantly asks for sympathy, takes risks , lies to you and when caught shows no remorse. It is unsettling, frightening. Somehow it is your own fault. But why would anyone do these things? There is an answer.
He constantly asks for sympathy, takes risks, lies to you and when caught shows no remorse. It is unsettling, frightening. Somehow it is your own fault. But why would anyone do these things? There is an answer. MORE
"STALKING MICHAEL JACKSON-PSYCHOPATH IN ACTION": HOW MELINDA PILLSBURY-FOSTER'S IMPORTANT ARTICLE CAN HELP US TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE CRAZINESS OF MICHAEL JACKSON'S LIFE-LITERALLY! - by Raven
[Article was picked up by AllForLove, a Michael Jackson Fan site]
"From Movie Stars To Us Ordinary Folks, Everyone Is At Risk From Those Without Conscience"-Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
Michael Jackson stood trial for a crime. He was found to be innocent, but the cost exacted on Jackson's career and on him emotionally, financially, and physically, was enormous. Jackson was an unusual man, uniquely talented, whose art changed the world. He was victimized by those without conscience who saw his vulnerabilities and were determined to victimize him. As bad as it was, it could have been worse.
You have heard about the Arvizo family. But another man Jackson trusted, and invited into his home, also lied without conscience. If the Duke of Manchester had had just a little more credibility Michael Jackson might not have avoided being unjustly convicted of a crime he did not commit. MORE
The Ethics of a Drone Contractor – Green Hills Software, Inc.
May 19, 2013 ·
Around January 21st1998 a meeting, or series of meetings, took place at Green Hills Software, Inc., between Dan O'Dowd and Glenn Hightower. The meeting included on their agenda approval of a false stock option agreement to replace the award of shares made to Craig Franklin in 1996. This was the final step Dan needed to take before exercising the sudden death partnership agreement between himself and Hightower, who had provided the original funding which allowed Green Hills to open its doors in 1982. More on Hightower Dan... Read article
June 6, 2011
The Case of Craig Franklin and Dan O'Dowd
By Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
Photo obtained from Anne Fisher
While we are coming to recognize the acts of individual, lone psychopaths in crime, business, politics and our personal lives as the source of tremendous trauma, and the monetary costs, arguably in the trillions today, we have failed to grasp the full magnitude of the problem.
As with all other segments of the population psychopaths run the spectrum of abilities and intelligent. According to Dr. Liane Leedom, a psychiatrist specializing in the study of the condition, at any time there are 20,000 psychopaths with IQs over 180 at large in the United States. This is cause for an entirely different degree of concern for several related reasons.
First, the condition is not presently curable or even treatable. It is a neurological, not psychological condition.
Professor Declan Murphy and colleagues Dr Michael Craig and Dr Marco Catani from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London have now published findings which move further in the direction of placing the source psychopathy as an organic malfunction of the brain itself. Differences in the brains of normal individuals and psychopaths point to this conclusion. MORE
Psychopaths – What Can An Individual Do About Them? Announcing PsychoBusters
August 2, 2012
"Psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations and empty wallets. Completely lacking in conscience and feelings for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret. - Dr. Robert Hare, Above is the unvarnished opinion of the man who is, arguably, the world expert on the subject, who also provides... Read article
The Highly Intelligent Psychopath - Achieving Deviant Goals
by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
Understanding how psychopaths manipulate their victims, and even work together to prey on others, is a subject, about which, the public needs to be informed. Additionally, Americans need to understand the gravest threat to our personal autonomy and freedom, highly intelligent psychopaths. While less intelligent psychopaths also exact monetary costs, more intelligent ones destroy our institutions, using these for their own ends. These are the ones who work their way up the corporate ladder and into Congress, after all.
Psychopaths were estimated by neuroscientist Kent Kiehl to cost Americans 460 billion every year.
The series of stories you are about to read move from the personal to the corporate and political, following the acts of individual psychopaths.
This is a story using my own, real life, experiences, and those related to me by other victims. This series of articles will examine the strategies and so illustrate how psychopaths think.
These stories illustrate how psychopaths operate together and how and why others tolerate what is happening, in business and personally. MORE


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For the most part, we are finding that the inventory restocking cycle has been working its way through the economy. With the help of stimulus funds, there has been a definitive restart to the manufacturing industry. This has helped to show that this :statistical recovery is doing well.
But, as we are keenly aware of, without a significant increase to the workforce, this will come slow halt sooner than later.
The Chicago PMI, which is compiled by the Institute for Supply Management – Chicago and Kingsbury International, Ltd., posted a surprise increase from 61.5 in January to 62.6 in February. The consensus estimate called for a decline to 59.7. The index remained strong on all fronts. While the rate of growth in production and new orders declined in February, the indices both remained above 60 at 65.2 and 62.2, respectively.
Even if growth continues to slow at its current pace, it would take at least 6 months before production and new orders turn negative. Employment growth slowed, but remained above the 50 threshold at 53.0. Backlogs posted significant growth for the third consecutive month as the index increased from 54.3 to 58.5.


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Good morning everyone and thanks for stopping by!
Time for another of our design team blog hops and today we're giving you some inspiration for using our latest products which will be available to buy on the website from midday (UK time) on Monday 24th February
There are 6 gorgeous paper pads, 5 new art pads and also another set of the popular sentiments tags for all your family members
Just 'hop' from one blog to another following the links and leave a comment on each post, hopefully we can give you lots of ideas along the way
As always we have some hidden prizes, we don't know where they are so do be sure to visit and comment on every blog
I will let you know on Monday morning which were the 'lucky' blogs and the winners will be drawn at random from all the comments that were left on those blogs
We have a full set of the 6 new papers to give away, 2 lucky winners will each get 3 pads
...and there will be a 3rd prize of a set of the new family tag sentiment stamps
Ideas To Inspire (start here)
To kick us off I have a few cards to share using the new art pads, our lovely Dawny made these for us…
This is James from the James and Jenny pad
The banner is blank for your own message (how useful!) and Dawny used a verse from our Set 10 which fits perfectly
A cute washing line now from the Little Ones pad, there is also one in blue for a boy
The sentiment is from pad 8 General Sentiments and the papers Perfect Pair (Dawny loves this collection!)
The James and Jenny pad again and this time our cute Jenny Bear
Dawny used Perfect Pair papers on this card too and some of our Sentiment Tags
Finally a lovely image from the English Charm pad, these are perfect for new home/thank you cards or for older people who don't really do cute!
The papers are from our new Timeless Victorian and a greeting from the General Sentiments pad
Gorgeous cards, I hope you like them all!
My blog is the next stop ....and if you get lost you can start again here at the beginning and pick up the links
Finally, don't forget to stop by here on Monday morning when you can find out who the lucky winners were of the prizes before the new products go on sale
Enjoy the hop everyone, good luck!


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Welcome to Gooseberry Fool
A collection of limited edition handmade pieces. Our products are unique, traditional and handmade in the UK. We pride ourselves on producing classic, long lasting quality clothes and gifts for babies and children. Our designs have a simple and honest feel to them, and we only use 100% pima cotton, so they are natural, comfortable and easily washable. Each baby gift comes beautifully wrapped and ready to gift.
Our ethos is to design and produce pieces that are durable and timeless. It is our aim to be as sustainable as possible, by creating long lasting quality products that can be passed through the family, thereby reducing the effect on the throwaway society. Current turnaround time is 7 working days, however if you need something sooner than that then you can pay for expedited delivery at checkout.
As featured by OK magazine, Baby magazine, Gurgle and Silver Cross Prams.
Proud to use Three Bears Yarn produced in the UK and bearing the 'Made in Britain' logo.
Featured Products
Featuring the current best selling baby and toddler products for Gooseberry Fool.


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- All prices are in AUD |
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Top 5 composting tips:
1: Get the carbon to nitrogen ratio right. We want 30 part carbon to 1 part nitrogen, or simply 1 third green to 2 thirds brown matter. Don't forget to include manures in the green part.
2: Get the air right. To produce high quality aerobic composts which limit the production of human and plant pathogens, turn the compost often.
3: Watch the temperature, if it gets too hot your biological microbes can die and quality compost production will stop. Turn the compost regularly and monitor it with a thermometer probe.
4: Compost is alive and it needs water. There should be enough water to squeeze out of a handful, but not so much as it drips on its own. Top up the water if necessary at each turn and use a moisture meter if you are not sure.
5: Watch your inputs, the pile is alive so limit the inputs of known biocides such as onion, garlic, citrus, ashes and plants treated with fungicides/herbicides/pesticides or other agricultural chemicals.


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The Lakes Distillery is an award winning manufacturer of premium handcrafted spirits based in the heart of the Cumbrian Lake District. Following a £9m investment and three years in development, The Lakes Distillery opened in December 2014 in the Lake District National Park, with the vision of producing world class spirits that would become global brands recognised and respected around the world.
Initially, our team worked closely with the client to ensure we understood the vision, aspirations, appetite and ambition of the brand. All Visualsoft in-house marketing departments worked collaboratively to produce a three month marketing strategy focused around seasonal campaigns.
The client's new flavoured liqueurs were key to Q3 so we had to ensure we generated a huge wave of excitement and awareness around the products. We assisted with the pre launch of the products, and displayed these on site as 'pre-order' items, enabling us to capitalise on sales and generate excitement ahead of the products arriving in stock.
Using targeted audience insights our marketing teams created content, ads and imagery to appeal to the audiences identified. We produced a series of emails to their database to create awareness of the new products and drive sales, and included an exclusive launch for their founding members only, then a week later we launched to the wider audience.
Our SEO and CRO teams worked collaboratively with the client to ensure the products were easy to find once on site, overhauling the category pages and site navigation. Our PPC and Affiliate Marketing teams then worked together to drive visits to the site, focusing on new customer acquisition, using content affiliates to expose The Lakes Distillery to a new customer base. We also delivered social media consultancy and created targeted ads utilising content and graphics from other channels to ensure a cohesive message was portrayed throughout the online journey.
We launched our first campaign for the client in October 2017, shortly after launch, The Lakes Distillery's Baubles went viral via the LadBible on Facebook and soon, other publishers were hot on the tails to cover the story.
The recent launch of Crowdcube also resulted in The Lakes Distillery exceeding their £1million target in just four days.


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Looking for me?
Click here 😀
So it's done…
I decided the other day that I wanted to move this cookbook back to Blogger. The only reason I came to WordPress was because I could have multiple pages. I didn't like having everything crammed onto my sidebar over there. It was too difficult to find the things you were looking for.
Now Blogger has taken their Pages from Blogger In Draft and made them available to all Blogger users. Awesome Blogger! Way to go! Sorry WordPress. The only thing you let me do was have multiple pages. You didn't let me have my pretty templates. You didn't let me have my Google Friend Connect. You wouldn't even let me put my button here without me having to trick you.
So, with all that being said, my cookbook is back where it started out and it's going to stay there this time. Click here to see it….go ahead…I'll wait…
See? Isn't that pretty? 🙂 I like it so much better!
So if you are following me here, please follow me there. All you have to change in my URL is one little word. It's not too hard is it? I don't want to be a pain but I really, really, really love visitors and don't want to lose any of you because I changed sites. My URL here is http://theeatfoodnotmoneycookbook.wordpress.com and my URL there is http://theeatfoodnotmoneycookbook.blogspot.com. K? Will you follow me to my new/old home? Please…
I guess the only other thing I want to tell you here is that I'm leaving this site just the way it is and for two reasons. 1. I just can't bear to delete something I created and 2. There is the Foodista contest that I worked so hard to link my recipes to….my recipes that have the URL from THIS site.
I hope to see you at my new/old site. There is a page there at the top of the sidebar that says "Follow Me". It would make me extremely happy if you did that. Have a great weekend everyone and as always, Happy Cooking!
Wow. I'm crazy.
To read today's post, click here
Fried cheese balls
A super simple recipe that is surprisingly delicious. Remember to allow your egg white to come to room temperature before beating it.
What you'll need:
- 1 egg white
- 2 c grated parmesan cheese
Beat egg white until stiff and tripled in volume. Mix together 1/3 of the beaten egg white and 1 cup of the parmesan cheese. Beat well. Alternate mixing in the remaining egg white and cheese until it is all mixed together. Drop marble sized balls off the end of a teaspoon and fry @ 365 degrees until lightly browned. Makes about 3 dozen cheese balls.
eggs (18 count) -$1.47
parmesan cheese – $2.88
Total – $2.96


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Tired of South-East Asia? try this.
Tired of South-East Asia? try this.
Didn't know which section to put this but I felt, as someone who comes from Wales, that it should be seen by more people.
Wales, the only country in the world that you can walk unimpeded around its own borders including an incredibly beautiful coastline.
#1 sayadian has been a member since 15/1/2008. Posts: 1,557
Send sayadian a private message
The problem with Wales is it is in the northern Hemisphere and part of the western world. Cold winters, lots of rules, expensive... Sorry, no can do.
#2 MADMAC has been a member since 6/6/2009. Posts: 6,957
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Think it would be possible to cycle this trail, or parts of it? I've always wanted to take my bike to Wales.
#3 Tilapia has been a member since 21/4/2006. Location: Canada. Posts: 1,524
Send Tilapia a private message Where has Tilapia been?
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Matty's Mind
Monday, December 27, 2010
Marlboro Storm Photos
Had to break out the camera after today's storm.
My street Warren Ave at dusk:
Lake Williams at sunset
Northboro Road
Dowtown Marlboro
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Friday, December 24, 2010
Top 20 Christmas Songs
These are my favorite Christmas songs on the merriest of holidays.
20) You're A Mean One Mr. Grich- Thurl Ravenscroft
19) 12 Days of Christmas- Straight No Chaser
18) Jingle Bell Rock- Bobby Helms
17) Sleigh Ride- Leroy Anderson
16) Last Christmas- George Michael
15) Sarajevo/Christmas Eve- Trans Siberian Orchestra
14) Rockin Around the Christmas Tree- Brenda Lee
13) Holly Jolly Christmas-Burl Ives
12) Baby It's Cold Outside- James Taylor, Natalie Cole
11) That's What Christmas Means To Me-Stevie Wonder
10) 12 Pains of Christmas- Bob Rivers and Comedy Corp.
9) Blue Christmas- Elvis Presley
8) Most Wonderful Time of the Year-Andy Williams
7) Dominick the Donkey- Lou Monte
6) All I Want for Christmas- Lisa Layne, Vince Vance and the Valliants NOT Mariah Carey
5) White Christmas- The Drifters (Great version)
4) Mistletoe and Holly- Frank Sinatra
3) River- James Taylor
2) Christmas Song- Nat King Cole
1) Believe- Josh Groban
Merry Christmas everybody!!!
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Thursday, December 16, 2010
A Ride Up Route 103 in Vermont
My wife gets nervous when she travels with me for two reasons. First, she's a nervous person to begin with. Second, I tend to take in a lot of scenery while I am driving along back roads and two-lane highways in the country. This was the case as we drove up Route 103 in Vermont. It's probably not the best idea to gawk at barns, rushing rivers, and covered bridges while you're driving, but you can miss a lot if you don't slow down, or pull over and stop, and take in what's around you. Route 103 isn't recognized as much as some of Vermont's other scenic byways, but with four covered bridges, The Vermont Country Store, and the small towns of Chester, Rockingham, Cavendish, and Ludlow along the route, there's a lot to see and do. I always seem to to come across a number of outrageous places, adventures, or people during my travels, and this trip was no exception.
Holly and I took advantage of a great deal through the Living Social website in which we received two nights stay at the Castle Hill Resort near Ludlow, two $25 vouchers towards a massage, and a $25 voucher towards dinner at their high-end restaurant. The hotel is on Route 103, and I thought I would see what the small towns along this route had to offer. First up was the Vermont Country Store just outside of Bellows Falls. The store prides themselves on providing hard-to-find items in addition to local specialities. I have to say they deliver on that promise, even if there products are little steep in price. You can find anything from Fartless 16-bean soup to fine chocolates, or a sock monkey in a box to go with your bottle of Anti-Monkey Butt Powder. You get the idea. The selection of cheeses, candies, and syrups is extensive, if overpriced, but definitely worth checking out. There is also a covered bridge next to the parking lot that adds a little local flavor to this Green Mountain state original. I have always been amazed that these bridges still exist. Most of them are primitive, yet beautiful structures, that have withstood floods, storms, and other punishment Mother Nature can dish out. They remind you of a less complicated era, and serve as a perfect backdrop for photos of fall foliage, rolling rivers, or winter wonderlands.
The Worrall Covered Bridge is the first bridge you can see about one mile from the Vermont Country Store on Williams Road off of 103. Cross a railroad bridge and follow the dirt road past an old rustic auto repair shop and the bridge crosses the Williams River next to a railroad bridge. An open corn field surrounds Williams Road and the bridge, and the railroad bridge dominates the landscape about 100 yards downstream. My wife looked at me with bewilderment as she watched me stumble on the railroad bridge with uneven tracks and railroad ties and the rushing river below to get a better picture of the Worrall Covered Bridge. Such is the life being married to a curious and adventurous travel writer, and recreational photographer. On a side note, this bridge was just recently refurbished in 2009, and the Vermont Department of Transportation does a fantastic job preserving these architectural treasures that are not only aesthetically pleasing, but handle a large amount of traffic as well.
About a half mile upstream is the Bartonsville Bridge on Lower Bartonsville Road. At 159 feet, this is one of the longer covered bridges in the area, and was restored with major repairs in 1983. Photographing this bridge wasn't easy as steady traffic used the bridge, and the Green Mountain Railroad was passing in front of the bridge as well. There are a total of four covered bridges in the town of Rockingham, with Route 103 providing direct access to three of them.
Next up on Route 103 is the town of Chester, famous for its small historic village of houses made of local granite. Four of the houses are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A nineteenth century railroad station also gives visitors the ability to visualize a simpler time. After passing a number of local stores and churches, Route 103 leaves Chester, and takes travelers past some weathered barns with old business signs probably seen at filling stations in the fifties. The mountains and the Williams River provide a peaceful scenic vista as you enter the town of Cavendish and the village of Proctorsville. This is where I found some VERY unusual landmarks of Vermont's rural culture. Here are just a few examples.
There is an expression "pictures say a thousand words." That would apply to these photos and the village of Proctorsville. Our hotel the Castle Hill Resort is on the outskirts of this village, so I had to take a trip into town to find what local recreational opportunities were available to us. Singletons General Store attracted me right away as soon as I saw that they sell guns, ammo, and whiskey. Adding to the ambiance was a dead deer carcass on a scale in the parking lot. You can see it in the photo of the store's parking lot. I have some ultra-conservative family members in Maryland, so I thought I would check and see if they had any whiskey, guns, and ammo gift baskets in the seasonal section of the store. I came up empty on that quest. It actually looked like they made some pretty tasty sandwiches inside, although I chose not to partake as I am not a fan of venison. I particularly like the colorful shotgun shells posing as Christmas lights on the gift display case. Nothing says "Peace on Earth" and holiday cheer like colorful shotgun shells.
After leaving Singleton's, we took a short ride down Depot Street in Proctorsville where we crossed the Black River and passed a house with a giant spider made of hay that you see above. I'm not sure whether that family's calendar is stuck on Halloween, but it must have taken a long time to make. Up the street on the left was the Vermont Apple Pie and Cheesecake Company. Tucked in behind a couple of small residences on a gravel drive, this place serves the great breakfast you would expect in a typical country kitchen. Upon entering this establishment, we felt like we were dropping in on a family meal at a random house. You could actually hear someone lighting the gas burner on the stove from the dining area. The kitchen is adjacent to the dining room with shelves containing blenders, flour canisters, and scales, and the living room featured an old fashioned upright piano and pictures of family weddings, christenings, and vacations. The owner came to take our order clad in an apron, jeans, and a collared shirt with the collar stuck straight up in the air like in the movie
Pretty In Pink.
The meal started with the owner delivering a small dish of apples covered in freshly ground cinnamon. I have to say this was a nice touch before we ordered our Belgian waffles and blueberry pancakes. Holly ordered the whipped cream for the pancakes on the side, and as the owner brought the order into the kitchen, we heard someone ask"What do they mean by whipped cream on the SIDE?" We aren't their typical customers I guess. Anyway, the food was delicious and the owner was constantly in motion attending to his guests. Next time I go I'll order one of their pies. You can smell the freshly baked pies and goods as you enter the residence. Finally, I had to check out the business called Six Loose Ladies as we left Proctorsville. It is actually a yarn shop and fiber arts gallery that focuses on crafting everything from sweaters, socks, and shawls to quilted postcards, rugs, and handbags. I have to say I got a kick out of the highway sign directing drivers to Six Loose Ladies.
Ludlow is the next and last stop we made on Route 103. Ludlow is sophisticated enough to attract large numbers tourists and skiers with Okemo Mountain, yet it still maintains its small town charm with older mill buildings lining the Black River, and lots of art galleries, antique shops, bookstores, restaurants on Main Street. Sam's Steakhouse and DJ's were our favorite places to grab dinner. If you want to splurge, try the surf and turf option at Sam's Steaks with a dry aged sirloin topped with a fennel peppercorn crust and gorgonzola butter. Pair it with a crab cake and you have meal you'll remember for a long time. DJ's is a favorite local hangout with a good beer selection and a menu that's extensive if not inventive. The spicy meatball appetizer is fantastic. Ludlow offers snowmobiling and cross country skiing in addition to over 100 trails for downhill skiers and snowboarders in the winter. Spring, summer, and fall offer hiking, biking, fishing, swimming, and sightseeing in the middle of the scenic Green Mountains. Buttermilk Falls showcases three 15 foot cascading falls into a wide pool and swimming hole. It's a great place to spend a hot humid day in the summer. Our journey ended in Ludlow, but Route 103 moves further north to the towns of Mt. Holly, Wallingford and Clarendon on the way to Rutland. I'm sure there are more surprises to encounter on this underrated scenic road, but that will have to wait for another weekend or a longer vacation. Stay tuned.
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