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Again, like the Summer schedule, we are very late on the draw on this, however, here's the full scoop on all of the programming for SyFy for 2011 – 2012. There's not a whole lot more that we can say about this that we didn't say in the article about the Summer schedule, except that new scripted drama is represented by a grand total of two shows this season, Alphas, premiering in July, and the highly-anticipated Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, which does not have an official announced date for release but we expect it in early 2012.
Although we don't subscribe to the nonsense that there is no Science Fiction on the former SciFi network anymore, it is very curious that there are only two new scripted dramas (and SyFy has picked up the first two seasons of the Canadian hit, Lost Girl although they haven't announced a premiere date for it as of yet) and three, what appear to be science fiction-themed comedies (seriously?). The rest of the programming is made up primarily of goofy Saturday movies and reality series. This disappoints us and seems a little odd as well, considering that every other network out there has drastically cut the amount of reality shows from their schedule and cut the amount of reality shows that they have ordered and put into development status. This schedule is VERY reality-heavy and it's not a matter of this not appealing to science fiction audience, it's a matter of it not appealing to any audience. Seriously, how many reality shows can an audience take? For preview videos and trailers of the shows that will be airing this summer (including some full episodes) check out the our article on the SyFy summer schedule.
CORRECTION: Due to the obnoxious length of SyFy's press release below, we completely missed the announcement regarding the new live-action, scripted action series/massive multiplayer online game (MMOG), Defiance. Due to this development, we are a whole lot less disappointed in the lack of new scripted drama. Read all about it, here.
Via Press Release:
NEW YORK – March 22, 2011 – Continuing the sizzling momentum of the Syfy global brand evolution, which has sparked imagination-driven hit series and double-digit growth in younger, upscale audiences as well as diverse new business ventures, Syfy President Dave Howe today will introduce the largest original programming slate in the channel's 18-year history, highlighted by 14 new original series and events comprising more than 100 hours.
The 2011 Syfy Upfront will be presented at the Foxwoods Theatre, where the channel is hosting a live performance of SPIDER-MAN Turn Off the Dark for the advertising community. Syfy is the official media partner of the Broadway show.
Remarking on Syfy's announced development slate, Mark Stern, President Original Content, Syfy, and Co-Head Original Content, Universal Cable Productions, said, "Our ambition in development is to push the boundaries of imagination, creativity, and story-telling. We want to transport our audience with high-quality, thought-provoking experiences that allow them to explore the un-explorable, to believe the unbelievable, and to truly… 'Imagine Greater.'"
Riding high on 15 consecutive years as a Top 10 channel among Adults 25-54, Syfy's viewership has continued to grow in 2011. In January prime, Syfy rose 12% in Adults 18-49/$75K, while experiencing a significant drop of two years (46) in the median age.
During First Quarter-to-date (vs.1Q'10) prime, Syfy has jumped 17% in Adults 18-34, 13% among total viewers and seven percent among Adults 18-49, led by the freshman hit series Being Human and Face Off, both of which have been renewed.
In July, Syfy launches four scripted series in the same month — for the first time ever — when Alphas premieres along with returning powerhouses Warehouse 13 (Syfy's most watched series ever), Eureka and Haven.
The second season return of the heralded reality show Hollywood Treasure kicks off Summer 2011 unscripted programming in June, paired with the premiere of Haunted Collector (working title), followed by the debuts ofLegend Quest in July and Paranormal Witness in September.
The robust reality development slate includes projects from unique perspectives such as rock musician Tommy Lee, author Deepak Chopra and photographer Tyler Shields, along with a family that creates movie monsters and the world's top stunt artists.
On the scripted side, Syfy is developing Battlestar: Blood and Chrome, set in the 10th year of the First Cylon War. As well as three single-camera, half hour comedies including the Lee Majors vehicle Me and Lee from the creator of Weeds, In the Dark featuring a team of wannabe paranormal investigators, and a new adaptation of Three Inches.
Keying the latest roster of popular Saturday Original Movies will be Red Faction: Origins, based on the highly successful video game franchise; 1970s TV icons Barry Williams and Danny Bonaduce butt heads in Bigfoot; Shannen Doherty headlines a re-imagining of the classic fairy tale Gretl; Roswell, the story selected by fans through the Syfy and IGN.com B Movie Mogul contest; and in Jersey Shore Shark Attack, who knows who might be a victim?
This October, Syfy will become the first ever, official sponsor of the city's Halloween celebrations, partnering with NYC & Company for 31 Days of HalloweeNYC. Then in December, Syfy celebrates the holiday season with its second annual Countdown to Christmas Week (highlighted by the movie event Neverland with Keira Knightley asThe Voice of Tinker Bell).
Syfy Ventures is launching a new publishing business of completely sponsorable genre games under the SyfyGames banner. Available initially on Facebook in the United States, the suite of high quality games will embrace the sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, action/adventure, and superhero genres, ranging from original content to games based upon Syfy programming. These first round of games are scheduled for launch later this year. As well, Syfy is partnering with game developer Trion Worldwide for a new entertainment franchise, Defiance, that will seamlessly pair a primetime series with an online video game, scheduled for 2011.
Among the new opportunities for advertisers to partner with the Syfy brand is Imagination Spotlight, a groundbreaking, multi-platform brand initiative celebrating the world's imaginative achievements and innovative ideas. Advertisers will have the opportunity to join the celebration through an array of multi-media partnerships that showcase imagination.
Syfy is currently available in 75 countries, reaching nearly 150 million households globally.
Alphas – Premiering in July – Alphas follows a team of ordinary citizens whose brain anomalies imbue them with extraordinary mental and physical abilities. Taking the law into their own hands, the unlikely team, led by Dr. Leigh Rosen (Emmy Award-winner and Oscar nominee David Strathairn) investigates cases that suggest other Alpha activity to uncover what the CIA, FBI and Pentagon have not been able, or willing, to solve. These gifted individuals must balance their quirky personalities and disparate backgrounds with their not always visible powers as they work to solve crimes, stop the ticking time bomb and catch the enemy.
Alphas also stars Malik Yoba, Warren Christie, Laura Mennell, Ryan Cartwright and Azita Ghanizada, and is a production of Universal Cable Productions and BermanBraun Television. Executive Producers are Gail Berman, Lloyd Braun and Gene Stein for BermanBraun, Zak Penn and Ira Steven Behr.
Haunted Collector (working title) — Premiering in June — Ghosts and spirits inhabit more than just homes and buildings — they can also live in objects. John Zaffis and his family are renowned paranormal investigators, tracking down haunted items like paintings, guns, jewelry and dolls. Once identified, the items are collected and stored in their museum, helping John's clients bring normalcy back to their lives. Produced by Gurney Productions. Executive producers: Scott Gurney and Dierdre Gurney.
Legend Quest — Premiering in July — This fast-paced action-adventure series follows Ashley Cowie, a real-life symbologist, as he travels the world in search of some of history's greatest relics and artifacts, all of which are believed to hold hidden powers and mystical significance for ancient and modern cultures. Each episode will include Indiana Jones-type adventure and Da Vinci Code-style connections as the hidden truths and alternative theories of these mythical objects are explored. Legend Quest is executive produced by John Brenkus and Mickey Stern for BASE Productions, and is a co-production with Universal Networks International.
Paranormal Witness – Premiering in September — From Raw TV, the acclaimed creative team behind Locked Up Abroad and Gold Rush Alaska, this tense, filmic and high-octane drama-documentary series brings to life the stories of people who have lived through paranormal experiences that defy explanation. Using the mixture of intimate first-hand testimony and grittily realistic drama that Raw TV is known for, Paranormal Witness will transport the audience into a world turned upside down by extraordinary and terrifying events. Paranormal Witnessis produced by Raw TV. Executive producers: Dimitri Doganis and Bart Layton.
Battlestar: Blood & Chrome – Luke Pasqualino (Skins-UK) and Ben Cotton (Hellcats) star in Battlestar: Blood & Chrome, which takes place in the 10th year of the first Cylon war. As the battle between humans and their creation, a sentient robotic race, rages across the 12 colonial worlds, a brash rookie viper pilot enters the fray. Ensign William Adama (Pasqualino), barely in his 20's and a recent Academy graduate, finds himself assigned to one of the most powerful ships in the Colonial fleet…the Galactica. The talented but hot-headed risk-taker soon finds himself leading a dangerous top secret mission that, if successful, will turn the tide of the decade-long war in favor of the desperate fleet. Executive producers: David Eick and Michael Taylor. Written by Michael Taylor from a story by David Eick, Taylor and Bradley Thompson and David Weddle. A production of Universal Cable Productions.
Three Inches – In Three Inches, professional daydreamer and underachiever Walter Spackman is struck by lightning and develops a unique "super" power — the ability to move any object using just his mind… but only a distance of three inches. He's soon immersed in a world of extraordinarily ordinary people like himself and learns that "super" is just a state of mind. The pilot is written by Harley Peyton (Twin Peaks), who also serves as executive producer. Fox Television Studios is producing with executive producer Robert Cooper, through his company Landscape Entertainment.
In the Dark – In the Dark follows a misfit group of third tier Ghost Hunters whose misguided efforts tend to highlight their incompetence rather than any paranormal activity. From Universal Cable Productions, In the Darkis executive produced by Dan Taberski through Idiot Box Productions, Michael Davidoff and Bill Rosenthal. Teleplay by Michael Davidoff & Bill Rosenthal.
Me and Lee — Me and Lee is about a down on his luck 20-something who goes in for back surgery, but the procedure doesn't go well. Enter Lee Majors, who claims he has the perfect solution. He entices the young man into his ultra high-tech lab and makes him bionic. Majors becomes the unlikeliest of mentors helping the young man get his life back together. Jenji Kohan, the executive producer and creator of Weeds, serves as the executive producer of Me and Lee along with the writer Matthew Salzberg, Allan Loeb and Steven Pearl. Produced by Lionsgate.
Culture Shock with Tommy Lee – This one-hour investigative travel show follows Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee as he attempts to uncover the various rituals, symbols and other mysteries of secret societies around the world. Tommy Lee will dig into the history behind the secret society, search out its meeting locations and members, and meet with former members to reveal the society's rituals and deepest secrets. A production of ITV Studios America. Executive producers: Tommy Lee and Carl Stubner. Supervising producer: Jenna Barnes.
Monster Man – When Hollywood studios want a bizarre creature, monster prop or out-of-this world alien, they turn to Cleve Hall and his very unique, family business. This series goes behind the scenes of Cleve's workshop, where the craziness of this fun family is matched only by the insane monsters they build. Produced by Gurney Productions. Executive producers: Scott Gurney and Dierdre Gurney.
Stunts Unlimited — Stunts Unlimited is an elite and exclusive fraternity of artists committed to a very imaginative, creative, unique and dangerous craft — movie stunts. This series takes audiences behind-the-scenes into a world rarely seen, unveiling the innovations and problem solving necessary to accomplish the most spectacular stunts in Hollywood. With their lives on the line with every stunt, the members of Stunts Unlimited form a close-knit work family, helping them balance the challenges of their jobs and their families. Executive producers: Ric Roman Waugh and Gary Binkow.
Hi Tech Hoaxes — The series where the supernatural, the mythical and the astonishing leave the big screen and step into people's everyday lives. Each week two teams will go head-to-head to provide a once-in-a-lifetime experience for an unsuspecting pair of people, who are about to have their world turned upside down for a brief, thrilling moment. Teams of engineers, tech geniuses and pranksters will draw their inspiration from requests sent by ordinary people who want to execute the hoax on friends, family, colleagues, customers, kids, parents or even pupils. They'll rely on the technical know- how and the resourcefulness of the teams to make it happen. But it needs to be hyper-convincing because these hoaxes are going to be happening in the real world In Plain Sight. Produced by North One Television.
Dinner with Deepak — If you could invite three people to dinner, who would they be? Best selling author and spiritual teacher Dr. Deepak Chopra dines and joins in conversation with some of the greatest minds and creators in the world today. In every episode, Chopra brings together a group of noteworthy guests to share a meal and a conversation ranging in topic from the spiritual, political and scientific to supernatural, designed to challenge our standard conventions and push the boundaries of viewers' imaginations and intellects. Executive producers: Deepak Chopra, Gotham Chopra, Tim Piper and Sharad Devarajan.
Tyler Shields – A docu-series featuring unconventional photographer Tyler Shields and his team as they create worlds that are always surprising, shocking, and totally surreal. This Los Angeles-based artist is one of the most creative and original photographers working today. His subjects are celebrities, actors, models, and everyday people captured in magical, beautiful, and often dangerous situations. His eye-popping, jaw-dropping photos are designed to elicit the subject's purest emotion right in the moment using no special effects. A production of RelativityREAL. Executive producers: Tom Forman, Tyler Shields and Zach Quinto.
Overthunk — A one-hour series that follows two teams of four talented creators as they compete to design, build and set off massive chain reaction machines. The best gizmo gladiators across America will face off in a weekly contest testing their mettle through gears and metal. Each week visits a new city, where natural rivals race against the clock and each other to brainstorm and build a fantastic apparatus that completes a specific task and keeps viewers holding their breath to see if these contraptions will actually work. Along the way, surprise "monkey wrenches" will challenge their minds and their patience. Produced by 25/7 Productions. Executive producer: Dave Broome.
Change the Day You Die — Change the Day You Die is an inspiring new reality series that uses state-of-the-art science to dramatically transport its participants into the future to face their own self-inflicted demise. Each of the seemingly healthy, unsuspecting candidates — nominated by friends, family and loved ones — will go on a 10-week transformational journey where they must master a series of mental and physical challenges designed to reverse their bad habits and add back valuable lost years to their lives. Through medical-condition simulators, life-enhancing technology, unique graphics and special effects, each participant will experience firsthand the grim reality of their potential future so that they have the opportunity to change their ways before it's too late. Produced by 3 Ball Productions/Eyeworks USA. Executive Producers: JD Roth and Todd A. Nelson (3 Ball Productions/Eyeworks USA) and Danny Fenton (Zig Zag Productions).
Imagination Nation — The innovators behind Hammacher Schlemmer, America's oldest continuously published catalog that offers imaginatively unexpected and innovative products, go on the road to meet inventors from all walks of life to find fresh offerings for their inventory. Produced by North South Productions. Executive producers: Charlie DeBevoise and Mark Hickman.
America's Smartest Kids — A thought provoking, reality competition show where the country's most imaginative, innovative teenagers are challenged to invent a better future while competing for the title of America's Smartest Kid. Executive producers: David Zelon and Michael Sardo.
Red Faction: Origins — 2011 — Robert Patrick (Terminator 2), Brian J. Smith (Stargate Universe) and Kate Vernon (Battlestar Galactica) star in Red Faction: Origins, based on the hugely successful Red Faction video game franchise. Twenty-five years have passed since Alec Mason (Patrick) led the Martian Colonies to freedom …and 12 years since vengeful enemies killed his wife, kidnapped his daughter Lyra (Tamzin Merchant), and left a broken hero in their wake.
Jake Mason (Smith), Alec's only son and an officer in the Red Faction Militia, has his world turned inside out when he discovers that now, 12 years after her kidnapping, his sister is still alive. As a powerful new enemy swarms across the planet, Jake goes out to find her, only to learn that his lost sister is one of them…a cold-blooded soldier sworn to destroy the Red Faction. Red Faction: Origins is produced by Universal Cable Productions and UFO Films.
Zombie Apocalypse (working title) — October 2011 — Months after a zombie plague has wiped out 90 percent of the American population, a small group of survivors fight their way cross-country to a rumored refuge on the island of Catalina. A production of The Asylum.
Gretl — November 2011 — As an adult, a witch hunter (Hansel) returns to the village where he lived as a child to find and kill the witch who killed his sister, Gretl (Shannen Doherty), only to find that Gretl is not dead and danger lurks around every corner. Produced by Chesler/Permutter Productions & Vesuvius Productions.
Snowmageddon (working title) – December 2011 — A story about a mystical snow globe that makes very bad things happen in the real world when it is shaken. A production of Cinetel.
Bigfoot – 2012 — 1970's pop culture icons Danny Bonaduce (The Partridge Family) and Barry Williams (The Brady Bunch) face off in the hunt for the legendary mountain creature. A production of The Asylum.
St. Patrick's Day Leprechaun (working title) — St Patrick's Day, Saturday, March 17th, 2012 — An evil leprechaun who has been imprisoned within the roots of a majestic old oak tree, is accidentally set loose on St. Patrick's Day. Once free, he takes out his bloody revenge on the descendants of the people who originally imprisoned him. A production of After Dark Films.
Roswell — June 2012 – The story selected by fans for Syfy and IGN.com's B Movie Mogul project, 65 years after the original UFO crash at Roswell, another ship from the same far-off civilization comes to rescue their downed comrades – and continue their preparation to invade the earth. Directed by Jason Connery (Area 51, The Devil's Tomb). A production of After Dark Films.
Jersey Shore Shark Attack — 2012 – While everyone else runs scared, vacationing Jerseyites fend off shark attacks on the shore. A production of ARO Entertainment.
Dungeons and Dragons 4 (working title) — September 2012 – A princess and a rogue knight become reluctant heroes inside a magical kingdom. A production of After Dark Films with Silver Pictures.
Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 99 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBCUniversal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies. (Syfy. Imagine greater.)


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First of all, in general I don't really like to complain (okay, that background noise is my friends laughing). But seriously. I hardly ever send anything back to the kitchen in a restaurant, for instance. I figure: they are doing their best back there, and who knows what all they have to deal with. And also, they might spit in my food (or worse). So if it's edible and there aren't any bugs or severed fingers in it, I won't bitch. I might grumble a little, but that's usually it. However, dear readers and fellow unfortunate fans of old Hindi cinema, I am really fed up.
Who is mistreating the Memsaab so? Indian DVD manufacturers, that's who!
I recently watched an unsubtitled (as usual) VCD of Shammi's lovely film Rail Ka Dibba, released by Friends Video. Friends presents us with this at the beginning:

subset: commoncrawl


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The Crown has scored a small victory in the case of Curtis Sagmoen.
Justice Alison Beames ruled Monday morning that statements the accused made in police interviews will be admissible in trial proper.
Defence lawyer Lisa Helps had been seeking to have her client's statements deemed inadmissible.
Beames ruled Monday that Sagmoen's statements were made of his own free will, and not coerced by police investigation techniques.
Sagmoen has been accused of threatening a sex worker at gunpoint while wearing a mask in a 2017 incident. The video interviews with RCMP were conducted on Sept. 5 and 6, 2017, shortly after Sagmoen's arrest.
He pleaded not guilty to five charges on Sept. 9, which included uttering threats, careless discharge of a firearm, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, concealing his face and possession of a controlled substance.
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n for a dangerous purpose, concealing his face and possession of a controlled substance.


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Zen in the Martial Arts
Bantam, June 1990. Mass Market PaperBack. Used - Good. Item #274290
"A man who has attained mastery of an art reveals it in his every action."--Samurai Maximum. Under the guidance of such celebrated masters as Ed Parker and the immortal Bruce Lee, Joe Hyams vividly recounts his more than 25 years of experience in the martial arts. In his illuminating story, Hyams reveals to you how the daily application of Zen principles not only developed his physical expertise but gave him the mental discipline to control his personal problems-self-image, work pressure, competition. Indeed, mastering the spiritual goals in martial arts can dramatically alter the quality of your life-enriching your relationships with people, as well as helping you make use of all your abilities.
Used Book
Price: $5.00


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1. I love, love, love the ::facepalm:: of Plaid Girl here. Combined with the "WTF?" expression on Green Stripe Girl, I really, really wish we could see what they are seeing. What could it be? I'm assuming it's some kind of really embarrassing male display behavior, but I'd love to hear your guesses.
2. Why can't I find shoes like Green Stripe Girl's? Seriously. Those are some darn cute shoes.
3. Thanks to Emma for the link to this pattern! (It's for sale, click on the image to visit the Etsy listing.)


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My hands hurt. Like a motherfucker. I hope Cinderella didn't have arthritis; otherwise, scrubbing the floors had to be extra hard work.
So. Me no typey much today. Me piccy. Here, me show you. (Me no know why me talk like Cookie Monster now. But me likey.)
And now. For the real purpose of this post.
Happy 4th of Monkeys!


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I used Eclipse for a long time. Now I have to manage multiple running instances – mostly for the development branch and the production branch of our project. The problem is distinguishing the running instances by their task icon/window title. I search a little bit and found how to customize the branding or the -showlocation startup parameter. But after looking at the Eclipse preferences I found a very nice way: General | Workspace | Workspace name
This results in a nice and short solution to this problem – in the task bar
and in the Eclipse title bar


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MOBILE, Alabama — A Mobile County judge this morning denied bail for a teenager accused of killing Wendy Fisher on the street outside her home on Racine Avenue in west Mobile.
That means that Trayon Omar Washington, 17, will be jailed pending trial on a murder charge.
For now, Washington is charged with murder, but Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich said it could be upgraded to capital murder depending on the circumstances.
"The investigation is continuing," she said.
Under state law, murder can be a capital offense if it occurs in or from a vehicle. Witnesses have said one of the men inside the car got out after Fisher had yelled to slow down. If the shooter was completely outside the car when he fired, it could not be a capital offense.
Even if Washington was inside the car at the time, Rich said, prosecutors would not automatically seek a capital murder indictment.
"We don't necessarily charge capital murder in every case where it could apply," she said. "That's something we decide after considering all the circumstances. It's just too early to make that determination."
Rich said she does not anticipate arrests today of other people who were inside the car with Washington.
"Not at this time," she said. "But as I said, the investigation is continuing."
If Washington ever does face a capital charge, his age would limit the punishment he could face, thanks to a string of U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the past decade that have carved out differences in the way the criminal justice system treats juveniles and adults.
Murderers whose crimes occur before they turn 18 cannot be executed. The high court built on that line of reasoning last month in a decision banning automatic life-without-parole sentences for juvenile killers. Under the ruling, a judge could still impose such a prison term, but only after a hearing in which he or she could consider lesser options.
Follow Brendan Kirby on Twitter.


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Although writer/director Rowan Joffe's Brighton Rock, the second attempt at a big-screen adaptation of a 1938 Graham Greene novel, never introduces us to the parents of its sociopathic main character, it's safe to assume they sucked at child rearing. Maybe genetics alone determined that their offspring would become a brain-bashing, knife-wielding savage, but naming him Pinkie Brown couldn't have helped.
Brighton Rock is all about Pinkie, played here by Sam Riley, who sort of looks like a paler, younger Michael Bublé. We're introduced to him precisely at the moment he goes from no-good to evil, when he decides to up his game from petty thug to murderer. Unfortunately, a bookish waitress named Rose (Andrea Riseborough) becomes an accidental witness. When Pinkie introduces himself to her in an attempt to keep her from ratting him out, the two fall in love … ugly, stupid, inexplicable love.
The only explanation we're given as to why Rose would be ensorcelled by Pinkie's knife-gashed face and complete absence of charm is that he's "bad" and she's "good," so they're drawn to each other. This is a remarkably bad foundation for a romantic union. While Pinkie faces off against the violent advances of a competing mob boss (Andy Serkis), he gets drawn deeper into the vile relationship with the deeply religious Rose. Despite the best efforts of the friendly Ida (Helen Mirren) to protect her, the young lass ties Pinkie around her neck like an albatross.
Brighton Rock is a discordant and dour thing, despite being set in Britain in the 1960s during the height of the Mods versus Rockers conflict. From start to finish, the film is relentlessly dark and foreboding, taking place in a world where the only decisions that are made are bad ones. It helps that the actors sell the material so urgently, from Riseborough's doe-eyed, simple-minded damsel in self-made distress, to Riley's baby-faced brutality. Mirren, as usual, lends an air of credibility to the whole proceeding, even if her character is fairly useless.
Joffe's methodical pace joins with some honest, unflashy cinematography to compose an underworld tragedy that may not be transcendent but is far from limp. Oddly enough, the biggest gripe is the funereal score, which pumps copious amounts of macabre into nearly every scene. It all becomes a bit too heavy, even while the film remains largely compelling. And so long as we're nit-picking, around about the thousandth time Riseborough calls out Pinkie's name, one feels compelled to make a risky drinking game out of it.
Without knowing how much justice it does to the surely great source material, Brighton Rock is an infrequently captivating minor work buoyed by a few rich performances. It is hell-bent on morbidly driving towards an expectedly ugly conclusion. It's the sort of film that nobody is likely to watch twice, but few will regret watching once.
Grade = B-


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Have you been outside lately? No? Good. Don't do it.
I'm not sure where you live, but if you live in the Northeast like me, specifically in New York City, then you know that this winter has officially been the worst. I'm no stranger to cold weather, I lived in the Adirondack mountains for several years, but New York City isn't used to this amount of snow, especially not when it sticks around and piles up instead of melting after a day or two. The infrastructure of this great city is not designed to deal with this kind of build up and, much like the city's inhabitants, there's nowhere for it to go but up. The narrow strip of sidewalk between the road and the walkway carved out of the snow is the only place to put it, and in some places its reaching several feet high at this point.
To make matters worse, the weather has been pivoting back and forth between two stages lately. One day you'll have complete white out snow coming at you from angles you didn't know existed. Then the next day will be just warm enough for the piles of snow to start to melt, while simultaneously blocking all the storm drains, creating giant slush ponds at every cross walk in the five boroughs. Then we go back to white out conditions, the slush ponds freeze over, and we start the process all over again. When you consider that this is a city where most people who live here depend on public transportation and their own feet to get around, I'm sure you can imagine how all this snow and slush is starting to wear at people.
A few days ago it was looking pretty outside so I tried to wear a pair of less-than-waterproof leather boots to work. Call it hubris. Call it naiveté. Call it idiocy. Whatever you call it, I was out the door less than three minutes before my left foot was completely soaked. By the time I made it to work both my feet were soaked through and remained so for the entire day. If you've never tried to wear leather boots and thick wet socks while working on your feet for an eight-hour shift, I wouldn't recommend it. If you're considering it, trust me, it's not what you might think. It's not nearly as thrilling or dangerous as, say, spelunking, nor is it as relaxing as sitting in the sand and dipping your toes in the ocean.
As you can imagine, these past few weeks have left me wanting warm, hearty, filling meals when I get home and wring out my socks. That's what led me to this soup. I love a creamy traditional squash soup in cold weather, but the way things have been going I wanted to brighten that concept up with some summery, fresh flavors and a bit of citrus and spice. I thought that something about this combination of flavors might help me forget about the frozen hellscape outside, and boy was I right. There's something so hearty, homey and comforting about a thick, creamy winter squash soup. Rather than flavoring it with traditional autumn or winter flavors though, the tropical flavors of coconut and lime take this to a totally different place. Since these traditionally Asian flavors are usually associated with thin brothy soups, I was a bit worried that the two concepts might clash, but they actually work really really well together. When you take your first spoonful, if you close your eyes and taste the chili, coconut and lime, you can almost imagine you're somewhere warm and tropical. So, I cranked the heat in my apartment, put on some flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers, and did my best not to dive into the bowl face first.
Because I have to be difficult, I couldn't just find a recipe online and leave it at that, I had to make some changes to make it my own. The original recipe called for butternut squash, but I thought it would be fun to try a mix of different squashes for a depth of flavor. Along with butternut, I also used a pretty green kabocha squash. The flavors work really nicely together, but even with small squashes, twice the squash meant twice the soup. The recipe below feeds eight people so, unless you're feeding a crowd, feel free to cut the recipe in half and choose one type of squash or the other. Both would be great on their own, so I'll let you be the one to decide. The good news is that this soup freezes really well so, if you're indecisive and want to make the full recipe, you can freeze your leftovers and pull a portion or two out on especially cold and crappy days.
Another small change I decided to make was to use strips of ginger instead of grating it. Not only does this mean you save yourself the steps of peeling and grating the ginger, but it also means the finished soup has a slightly subtler ginger flavor. I love ginger but it can sometimes be a bit intense, so this way the strips steep in the soup as it cooks, and you pluck out them before you puree everything. I'd recommend that you count how many strips go into the pot so that you know how many need to come out at the end. If one or two elude you though, and make their way into the blender, it's not really anything to worry about.
You will want to have a strong blender or immersion blender to make sure you get your finished soup completely pureed. For this soup you want the squash to add a creaminess, but don't really want to have any chunks left since they'll be kind of mushy. Since the finished soup is so silky, smooth, and almost drinkable, I think a garnish of fresh cilantro and chopped roasted peanuts or cashews adds a bit of texture and interest. Garnish or not, this soup is seriously delicious.
Oh hey friends! One last thing! If you're as big a fan of Brooklyn Homemaker as I am, please vote for me for "Best Daily Read" cooking blog on theKitchn's "The Homies". If I'm still in the top five at the end of the week, I'll make it into the finals next week! So so exciting! Even if I don't win, the exposure brings in lots of new readers, which is essential to the health of any good blog.
You'll need to sign up for an account, but it only takes a second, and it means a lot to me. If you havent' already, please show your support and vote for me here. And, seriously, THANK YOU!!! I never imagined I'd be doing so well so quickly when I started this blog last year. To be nominated, and to be doing so well, is such a honor.
Okay, without further ado, the recipe…
Thai Coconut Curry Squash Soup
2 tbsp coconut oil (or olive oil in a pinch)
1 onion, diced
6 garlic cloves, crushed or minced
1 four or five-inch piece of ginger, thinly sliced length-wise
4 tbsp red curry paste
6 cups vegetable (or chicken) stock
1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into rough cubes
1 small kabocha squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into rough cubes
2 (14-ounce) cans coconut milk
juice of 3 limes, about 1/2 cup
1 tsp sriracha (less if you're scared, more if you're feeling spicy)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
chopped cilantro, if desired
chopped roasted peanuts or cashews, if desired
Heat oil in a large pot over medium-low heat, add onions and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the onions are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add in the garlic, (counted) ginger slices and curry paste, stir until it is incorporated, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour in the stock and add the cubed squash. Cover pot and increase the heat to medium. Cook until the squash is soft, about 30 minutes.
Once the squash is fork tender, turn off the heat, cool slightly, and very carefully pour the entire mixture into a blender, in batches. Blend until the soup is smooth and pureed. You could also do this with an immersion blender but be careful not to miss any squash. Pour the soup back into the pot and turn the heat to medium low. Add the coconut milk, lime juice, and sriracha. Stir well and cover, and cook for 10 minutes until it's completely warm. Taste and season with salt and pepper if desired. If you're feeling fancy, Garnish of chopped cilantro and roasted peanuts.


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LILLY, Pa. - A western Pennsylvania man who blamed his dog for causing an apartment fire has been jailed on charges that he set the blaze himself.
The Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown reports Wednesday that Cresson Township police have charged 58-year-old John Saparo with setting the July 12 fire, though police have yet to specify how.
What police did say is that they've determined the fire didn't start the way Saparo claimed. He allegedly told officers he was cleaning and had several fans running when his dog knocked over one of the fans, which, somehow, started the fire.
Saparo remains in the Cambria County Jail awaiting a preliminary hearing June 20 on arson and related charges. Online court records don't list an attorney for him.
Information from: The Tribune-Democrat, http://www.tribune-democrat.com


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Having examined the finances of all 43 presidents (yes, 43; remember, Cleveland was president twice), we calculated the net worth figures for each in 2010 dollars. Because a number of presidents, particularly in the early 19th Century, made and lost huge fortunes in a matter of a few years, the number for each man is based on his net worth at its peak.
We have taken into account hard assets like land, estimated lifetime savings based on work history, inheritance, homes, and money paid for services, which include things as diverse as their salary as Collector of Customs at the Port of New York to membership on Fortune 500 boards. Royalties on books have also been taken into account, along with ownership of companies and yields from family estates.
The net worth of the presidents varies widely. George Washington was worth more than half a billion in today\'s dollars. Several presidents went bankrupt.
The fortunes of American presidents are tied to the economy in the eras in which they lived. For the first 75 years after Washington\'s election, presidents generally made money on land, crops, and commodity speculation. A president who owned hundreds or thousands of acres could lose most or all of his property after a few years of poor crop yields. Wealthy Americans occasionally lost all of their money through land speculation–leveraging the value of one piece of land to buy additional property. Since there was no reliable national banking system and almost no liquidity in the value of private companies, land was the asset likely to provide the greatest yield, if the property yielded enough to support the costs of operating the farm or plantation.
Because there was no central banking system and no commodities regulatory framework, markets were subject to panics. The panic of 1819 was caused by the deep indebtedness of the federal government and a rapid drop in the price of cotton. The immature banking system was forced to foreclose on many farms. The value of the properties foreclosed upon was often low, because land without a landowner meant land without a crop yield. The panic of 1837 caused a depression that lasted six years. It was triggered by a weak wheat crop, a drop in cotton prices, and a leverage bubble in the value of land created by speculation. These factors caused the U.S. economy to go through a multi-year period of deflation.
The sharp fluctuations in the fortunes of the first 14 presidents were a result of the economic times.
Beginning with Millard Fillmore in 1850, the financial history of the presidency entered a new era. Most presidents were lawyers who spent years in public service. They rarely amassed large fortunes and their incomes were often almost entirely from their salaries. From Fillmore to Garfield, these American presidents were distinctly middle class. These men often retired without the money to support themselves in a fashion anywhere close to the one that they had as president. Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, and Garfield had almost no net worth at all.
The rise of inherited wealth in the early 20th Century contributed to the fortunes of many presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and both of the Bushes. The other significant change to the economy was the advent of large professionally organized corporations. These corporations produced much of the oil, mining, financial, and railroad fortunes amassed at the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th. The Kennedys were wealthy because of the financial empire built by Joseph Kennedy. Herbert Hoover made millions of dollars as the owner of mining companies.
The stigma of making money from being a retired president also began to disappear. Calvin Coolidge made a large income from his newspaper column. Gerald Ford, who had almost no money when he was a Congressman made a small fortune from serving on the boards of large companies. Clinton made millions of dollars from writing his autobiography.
We analyzed presidential finances based on historical sources. Most media evaluations of the net worth of presidents have come up with a very wide range, a spread in which the highest figure was often several times the lowest estimate. Most sources provided no hard figures at all. Most of these efforts have focused largely on the analysis of recent chief executives. That is because it is much easier to calculate figures in a world where assets and incomes are a matter of public record.
One of the most important conclusions of this analysis is that the presidency has little to do with wealth. Several brought huge net worths to the job. Many lost most of their fortunes after leaving office. Some never had any money at all.
|President and Term
|Estimated Net Worth
|1st George Washington (1789-1797)
|$525 million
|His Virginia plantation, \"Mount Vernon,\" consisted of five separate farms on 8,000 acres of prime farmland, run by over 300 slaves. His wife, Martha Washington, inherited significant property from her father. Washington made significantly more than subsequent presidents: his salary was two percent of the total U.S. budget in 1789.
|2nd John Adams (1797-1801)
|$19 million
|Adams received a modest inheritance from his father. His wife, Abigail Adams, was a member of the Quincys, a prestigious Massachusetts family. Adams owned a handsome estate in Quincy, Massachusetts, known as \"Peacefield,\" a working farm, covering approximately 40 acres. He also had a thriving law practice.
|3rd Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)
|$212 million
|Jefferson was left 3,000 acres and several dozen slaves by his father. \"Monticello,\" his home on a 5,000 acre plantation in Virginia, was one of the architectural wonders of its time. He made significant money in various political positions before becoming president, but was mired in debt towards the end of his life.
|4th James Madison (1809-1817)
|$101 million
|Madison was the largest landowner in Orange County, Virginia, with land holding consisting of 5,000 acres and the \"Montpelier\" estate. He made significant money as secretary of state and president. Madison lost money at the end of his life due to the steady financial collapse of his plantation.
|5th James Monroe (1817-1825)
|$27 million
|Monroe\'s wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of wealthy British officer. He made significant money during eight years as president, but entered retirement severely in debt and was forced to sell Highland plantation, which included 3500 acres.
|6th John Quincy Adams (1825-1829)
|$21 million
|Adams inherited most of his father\'s land. His wife was the daughter of a wealthy merchant. He devoted most of his adult life to public service, notably after leaving office.
|7th Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)
|$119 million
|While he was considered to be in touch with the average middle class American, Jackson quietly became one of the wealthiest presidents of the 1800\'s. \"Old Hickory\" married into wealth and made money in the military. His homestead \"The Hermitage\" included 1,050 acres of prime real estate. Over the course of his life, he owned as many as 300 slaves. Jackson entered significant debt later in life.
|8th Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)
|$26 million
|Van Buren made substantial income as an attorney. He was one of only two men to serve as secretary of state, vice president, and president. He owned the 225-acre \"Lindenwald\" estate in upstate New York.
|9th William Henry Harrison (1841)
|$5 million
|Harrison married into money – wife\'s father was prominent judge and landowner. When Harrison\'s mother died, he inherited 3,000 acres near Charles City, Virginia, which he later sold to his brother. He also owned \"Grouseland\" mansion and property, in Vincennes, Indiana. Despite his assets, Harrison died penniless, causing Congress to create a special pension for his widow.
|10th John Tyler (1841-1845)
|$51 million
|Tyler Inherited 1,000-acre tobacco plantation. His first wife, Letitia, was wealthy. Tyler bought \"Sherwood Manor,\" a 1,600 acre estate, previously owned by William Henry Harrison. He became indebted during the Civil War and died poor.
|11th James Knox Polk (1845-1849)
|$10 million
|Like his wife, Sarah Childress, Polk\'s father was a wealthy plantation owner and speculator. Polk made significant sums as speaker of the house and governor of Tennessee, and owned 920 acres in Coffeeville, Mississippi, as well as 25 slaves.
|12th Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)
|$6 million
|Taylor inherited significant amounts of land from his family, which at one point included property in Mississippi, Kentucky, and Louisiana. He made substantial money in land speculation, the leasing of warehouses, and investments in bank and utility stocks. Taylor owned a sizeable plantation in Mississippi and a home in Baton Rouge.
|13th Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)
|$4 million
|Neither Fillmore nor his wife had significant inheritance. He founded a college that is the current State University of New York at Buffalo, and his primary holding was a house in nearby East Aurora, NY.
|14th Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)
|$2 million
|Pierce\'s father was frontier farmer, and his wife was well-to-do aristocrat. He served as attorney for 16 years and held property in concord, NH.
|15th James Buchanan (1857-1861)
|less than $1 million
|Born in log cabin in Pennsylvania, Buchanan was one of 11 children. He was the only president never to marry. He worked for nine years as attorney, and spent 16 years in public office, including four years as secretary of state.
|16th Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)
|less than $1 million
|To the log cabin born. Lincoln served as an attorney for 17 years before his presidency. He owned a single-family home in Springfield, Illinois.
|17th Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)
|less than $1 million
|Johnson\'s father was a tailor, and his wife was a shoemaker. He served the public for 20 years, including as Governor of Tennessee and U.S. Senator. Johnson owned a small house in Greenville, TN.
|18th Ulysses Simpson Grant (1869-1877)
|less than $1 million
|Grant\'s father was a tanner, and his wife was the daughter of a wealthy merchant. He lost his entire fortune when swindled by his investing partner. Grant owned a modest home in Galena, Illinois. Although he died with little money, his autobiography kept family afloat.
|19th Rutherford Birchard Hayes, (1877-1881)
|$3 million
|Hayes\' father was a shopkeeper. He was an attorney for 15 years and owned \"Spiegel Grove,\" a 10,000 square foot home that sat on 25 acres in Fremont, Ohio. Hayes also served as Governor of Ohio and was a member of the House.
|20th James Abram Garfield (1881)
|less than $1 million
|Garfield was born in a log cabin in Ohio. He spent 18 years in the House of Representatives. Garfield owned \"Lawnfield,\" a home and small property in Mentor, Ohio. He died penniless.
|21st Chester Alan Arthur (1881-1885)
|less than $1 million
|The son of an Irish preacher, Arthur\'s wife came a from military family. He made substantial sums as Collector for the Port of New York. His townhouse in New York was well-appointed with furniture commission from Tiffany.
|22nd and 24th Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897)
|$25 million
|Cleveland\'s father was a bookseller and preacher, and his wife was the daughter of wealthy lawyer. Cleveland served as an attorney for twelve years, and also made significant sums on sale of his estate outside of Washington, D.C. He bought \"Westland Mansion\" near Princeton, New Jersey.
|23rd Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)
|$5 million
|Harrison had no significant inheritance of his own or from his wife\'s family. He was a highly paid attorney for 18 years, and served as attorney for Republic of Venezuela. Harrison owned large Victorian home in Indianapolis, Indiana.
|25th William McKinley (1897-1901)
|$1 million
|Mckinley had no significant inheritance. Served 30 years in public office, including local prosecutor and member of the House of Representatives. Went bankrupt during depression of 1893 while he was Governor of Ohio.
|26th Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)
|$125 million
|Born to a prominent and wealthy family, Roosevelt received a significant trust fund. He lost most of his money on a ranching venture in the Dakotas and had to work as an author to pay bills. Roosevelt spent most of his adult years in public service. His 235-acre estate, \"Sagamore Hill,\" sits on some of the most valuable real estate on Long Island.
|27th William Howard Taft (1909-1913)
|$3 million
|Taft\'s wife\'s father was a law partner of former president, Rutherford B. Hayes. Taft was president of the American Bar Association, an active attorney for nearly two decades, and only president to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
|28th Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
|less than $1 million
|Wilson received modest compensation as head of Princeton and Governor of New Jersey. He never served in any position that provided him with a reasonable income. Wilson had a stroke in office and died five years later.
|29th Warren Gamaliel Harding (1921-1923)
|$1 million
|Harding obtained wealth through marriage to his wife Mabel, daughter of a prominent banker. He owned the Marion Daily Star and a small home in Marion, Ohio. Most of Harding\'s net worth came from his newspaper ownership.
|30th Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
|less than $1 million
|Coolidge\'s father was prosperous farmer and storekeeper. \"Silent Cal\" Spent five years as an attorney, and almost two decades in public office, which included time as Governor of Massachusetts. His net worth derived primarily from his home, \"The Beeches,\" in Northampton, Massachusetts, the advance from his autobiography, and the money he made from his newspaper column.
|31st Herbert Clark Hoover (1929-1933)
|$75 million
|An orphan, Hoover was raised by his uncle, a doctor. He made a fortune as a mining company executive, had a very large salary for 17 years and had extensive holdings in mining companies. Hoover donated his presidential salary to charity. He also owned \"Hoover House\" in Monterey, California.
|32nd Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945)
|$60 million
|Roosevelt had wealth through inheritance and marriage. He owned the 800-acre \"Springwood\" estate as well as properties in Georgia, Maine, and New York. In 1919, his mother had to bail him out of financial difficulty. He spent most of his adult life in public service. Before he was president, Roosevelt was appointed assistant secretary of the navy by Wilson.
|33rd Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)
|less than $1 million
|Truman was a haberdasher in Missouri and nearly went bankrupt. He served 18 years in Washington, D.C. Despite his modest income, he was able to save some of his presidential salary.
|34th Dwight David Eisenhower (1953-1961)
|$ 8 million
|Eisenhower had no inherited wealth. He served the majority of his career in the military and five years as president of Columbia. Ike owned a large farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
|35th John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1961-1963)
|Although he never inherited his father\'s fortune, the Kennedy family estate was worth nearly $1 billion dollars.
|Born into great wealth, Kennedy\'s wife was oil heiress. His Father was one of the wealthiest men in America, and was the first chairman of the SEC. Almost all of JFK\'s income and property came from trust shared with other family members.
|36th Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963-1969)
|$98 Million
|Johnson\'s father lost all of the family\'s money when LBJ was a boy. Over time, he accumulated 1,500 acres in Blanco County, Texas, which included his home, called the \"Texas White House.\" He and his wife owned a radio and television station in Austin, TX, and had a variety of other moderate holdings, including livestock and private aircraft.
|37th Richard Milhous Nixon (1969-1974)
|$15 million
|Nixon was born without any inheritance, and was a public servant for most of his life including a term as a Senator from California. \"Tricky Dick\" made significant sums from series of interviews with David Frost and book advances. He sold his New York townhouse to the Syrian ambassador to the U.S. and purchased a large home in Saddle River, NJ. At various times, Nixon also owned real estate in California and Florida.
|38th Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (1974-1977)
|$7 million
|Ford had no inheritance, and he spent virtually his entire adult life in public service. Over the course of his lifetime, he owned properties in Michigan, Rancho Mirage, and Beaver Creek, Colorado. After he left the White House in 1976, he made nearly $1 million a year from book advances and from serving on the boards of several prominent American companies.
|39th James Earl Carter, 1977-1981
|$7 million
|Carter was the son of a prominent Georgia businessman. He was a peanut farmer for almost two decades. Carter left office deeply in debt, but made substantial sums from writing 14 books. Part of a family partnership that owns 2,500 acres in Georgia.
|40th Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-89 (Republican)
|$13 million
|Reagan had no inheritance, but his first wife, an actress, had her own money. He was a movie and television actor for over two decades. \"The Gipper\" owned several pieces of real estate over his lifetime, including 688-acre property near Santa Barbara, California. Reagan was highly paid for his autobiography and as a GE spokesman.
|41st George Herbert Walker Bush (1989-1993)
|$23 million
|Bush was the son of Prescott Bush, a Connecticut Senator and successful businessman. Aided by his friends in the financial community, he made a number of successful investments. One of his major assets is his home and 100+ acre estate in Kennebunkport, Maine.
|42nd William Jefferson Clinton (1993- 2001)
|$38 million
|Clinton was born with no inheritance, and he made little significant money during 20 plus years of public service. After his time in White House, however, he made a substantial income as an author and public speaker. Clinton received large advance from autobiography. His wife, the secretary of state, has also made money as author.
|43rd George W. Bush (2001-2008)
|$20 million
|Bush was born into a wealthy family. Over ten years, he made substantial sums of money in the oil business. The largest contribution to his net worth was the profitable sale of the Texas Rangers.
|44th Barack Hussein Obama (2008-present)
|$5 million
|Obama is the grandson of a goat herder. He is a former constitutional law professor and civil rights attorney. Book royalties constitute most of Obama\'s net worth.


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I went to my regular restaurant, the one I favor over all others. I ordered my favorite dish only to be disappointed. It lead me to wonder why it wasn't as good as usual. In my head I worried the quality of the restaurant was slipping, are they ordering a lower quality product that isn't as flavorful? To be fair I stopped and thought it might be me, maybe my taste buds were off that night. It happens.
I think a lot about taste, not so much about the five taste receptors; bitter, sour, sweet, salty, and umami but more about the law of diminishing returns. Take for instance today, I am making a tomato soup that clearly states in its recipe title it's the only recipe I will ever need. I hope it's that good and it may well be delicious but I also know after I eat it 5 or 6 times I will more then likely move on to another recipe for tomato soup, say, the world's best tomato soup. Knowing my taste buds become familiar with tastes, if the food on the plate in front of me becomes to familiar at some point it is less likely to excite me. I also know there are people who don't care. They eat simply to survive, their interest lies elsewhere, or they want the familiar. I don't.
How many times have you eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Are you ever excited to eat them anymore? As a kid I could eat them breakfast lunch and dinner if my mother would have let me but they began to wear thin and I started to eat ham sandwiches or turkey, sometimes a grilled cheese. As an adult there are times I get a kick out of eating a PBJ but they never seem to match the intensity and joy of eating them as a child. I compare it to going back to the neighborhood sledding hill as an adult only to find what at one time seemed like the Rocky mountains now looks more like a speed bump. Childhood can make experiences larger then life.
Peanut Butter, Butter, and Lingonberry Jam Sandwiches
While I am and always have been enamored with simple foods that use honest ingredients it doesn't mean I don't stray from time to time. My cooking has become more about good technique and nurturing rather then showmanship. In a way simple food is like going back to my childhood experiences without fear of being disappointed.
1 brioche hamburger bun or 2 slices of brioche, toasted almost burnt
1 1/2 tablespoons Skippy Natural Peanut Butter
2 unsalted butter pats, about 2 teaspoons at room temperature
1 tablespoon lingonberry jam or red currant jam
Maldon Sea Salt (this is a big flaky sea salt meant for finishing dishes)
- When the bread has cooled enough not to melt the peanut butter spread the peanut butter evenly across the bottom bun. On the top bun smear the butter and top it with the lignonberry jam.
- Sprinkle the peanut butter with Maldon salt to taste. Smush the top bun onto the bottom and serve.


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Milk: It does a bus station good
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the California Milk Processor board is infusing select bus stations with the scent of chocolate chip cookies. The hope is that the aroma of cookies will entice riders to go out and buy a gallon of the white stuff. Of course, all sorts of concerns are cropping up around the novel milk campaign—from whether all people like the scent of chocolate chip cookies, to how the scent will affect people with chemical sensitivities. The other pervading concern is how the fragrance of vagrants will blend with the chocolatey scent. Surprisingly, this isn't the first time scents have been used at bus stations as part of an advertising campaign. British bus stations used a lemon scent last year to promote a new citrus drink. Click here to read more, via Adfreak.


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Once you have a pair of these babies on, Colonel Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, wouldn't have much on ya'. Compact and lightweight, Walker's Tactical Ear III W-C, by Walker's Game Ear, gives military special operators, LE tactical operators, and serious shooters two-way communications ability, a noise reduction rating of 29 decibals against loud bangs, and ambient sound …Read More »
Tag Archives: new eagle headset
New Eagle Tactical Headsets for Special Operations. It's in the Bones.
Every well-funded Special Operations team on earth, whether it be military or law enforcement, currently utilizes some form of tactical communications headset. Communication between team members and between the team and their command structure is one of the most important aspects of any tactical op. One of the most highly respected companies currently fulfilling this need is New Eagle, of …Read More »


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I made these on request of my 5 year old who said to me that he hasn't had these little treats in a very long time!
I altered my recipe a little and removed the sunflower oil therefore there is no added fat in this recipe.
Have a go! They taste good and the children love 'em!


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This is the continuation of Part I of my musings about the 2017 Gramophone Awards.
I had a to-do from this entry, which was to check out Hervé Niquet´s latest Cherubini album.
Cherubini / Plantade: Requiems – Hervé Niquet – Le Concert Spirituel (Alpha 2017)
Not surprisingly for a Hervé Niquet album, this one is really good. I´m not such a big fan of Cherubini in general, but this one is really with checking out.
My rating: 4 stars
I´ll skip the opera section, as I´m not really an opera expert in the first place, and didn't find anything too interesting in this section to try out.
Haydn: Il Distratto – Haydn 2032 no. 4 – Giovanni Antonini – Il Giardino Armonico
Antonini´s Haydn is as good as ever. This has the potential of being the reference Haydn cycle of the 21st century (but we´ll have to wait another 15 years to find out). See my review of vol. 3. My rating: 4 stars (this is absolute 5 star playing, but I just can´t get myself to give a Haydn symphony 5 stars…)
I'm going to skip Mahler´s 10 by Dausgaard. I´m not enough of a fan of the 10th (which isn't a complete symphony in the first place) to be able to give a proper judgment here.
Shostakovich Symphonies No. 5 and 9 – Nelsons – Boston Symphony (DG 2017)
This was part of my own top 5 albums of 2016, and yes, this is true 5 star territory!
I´m going to skip again over Sibelius 3 & 6 by Vänskä, I´m not familiar enough with Sibelius symphonic work to really be able to judge. But everybody I know that knows something about Sibelius tends to recommend the Vänskä cycle, so I assume there must be something to it.
Vasily Petrenko´s Tchaikovsky get´s a second recommendation here (after the violin concerto which didn't impress me much). And sorry, the Pathetique again isn´t my cup of tea, so no comment from my side here. Same comment applies to Bychkov´s recording of the same work, you´ll have to look elsewhere for a review of this.
I´m going to skip over Recital and Solo Vocal categories as well. The only album that appealed to me in the former is Anett Fritsch´s Mozart album, which is quite well done, but for me no match to Sabine Devielhe´s solo album last year.
And in the Solo Vocal, Goerne´s Brahms album is a no brainer, as I love his voice, but again I don't feel comfortable enough properly reviewing Lieder, this is still a territory I need to explore slowly and cautiously. I´m sure I´ll get there eventually
So, there you have it. As you can see from my two posts here, I´m not fully convinced by this year´s selection.
Is there anything you must buy?
I´d say, the only must-haves in this selection are the Shostakovich with Nézet-Séguin, Perahia´s French Suites, and Suzuki´s c-minor mass (with Gardiner´s Matthew Passion just behind).
Faust´s violin concertos, Antonini´s Haydn, and Niquet´s Cherubini are a very good recording of only nice to have (to my ears) music.
I´d probably pass on most of the others.
What do you think? Am I completely off? Anything I´ve missed? Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments!


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Editor's Note: Jeffrey Kargel is a hydrologist at the University of Arizona and for the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space project. This is his account of the research he did during the aftermath of a deadly flash flood in Nepal's Seti River Valley to determine its cause. You can read more about the event here.
On May 5, 2012, I was attending a conference at ICIMOD (the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development). I heard about the terrifying disaster that day. A flash flood—what geologists call a hyperconcentrated slurry because it was thick with suspended silt—had torn through some villages along the Seti River, in north-central Nepal, just north of the country's second largest city, Pokhara. It was immediately recognized as a very deadly event, but the death toll—and a tally of those who remain missing but were clearly also killed—was not known exactly for several months. Seventy-two souls lost. Though not large on the scale of global disasters, this event was terrifying for the fact that it seemed to come from nowhere—literally from beneath a blue sky. Furthermore, there was no immediately evident cause. Nobody and no camera captured the whole event, but there were bits and pieces that had to be spliced together, and missing parts of the story had to be built from the ground up—literally from the rocks and sediment involved in the disaster.
Seeing that the disaster occurred at the foot of the Annapurna Range, within the Greater Himalaya, probably every expert's first thought was "glacial lake outburst flood" (GLOF), because these were common in Nepal's Himalaya, and the news accounts of the disaster event resembled accounts of GLOFs from other parts of the country. It took me 10 minutes to examine recent satellite imagery enough to see that there were no lakes, at least not in the images I examined, that could have burst out like this. So either there was a hidden glacial lake somewhere—maybe under the glacier ice—or a glacial lake developed very rapidly and then drained that tragic day, or—far more probable—this was not a GLOF at all. It was, however, clearly a disaster that had its source in a high Himalayan amphitheatre-like bowl, a glacially-carved structure called the Sabche Cirque. This structure was rimmed by some of Nepal's most famous, picturesque mountain peaks, including the storied, holy Machapuchare (the "fishtail" peak) and Annapurna IV, a 24,688-foot (7525 m) soaring metamorphic buttress of metamorphic rock.
One of the most important pieces of information on the cause of the disaster was obtained from wingtip cameras mounted on a tiny 2-seater tourist plane. The pilot, Captain Maximov, had observed what was obviously a giant avalanche—bigger and browner than any snow avalanche he had ever seen before; he then he saw a massive flood wave pouring down the Seti River valley. It was evident immediately that this brown cloud of roiling airborne debris was connected to the trigger for the disastrous flood.
This distant view provided in the tourist plane's video, in addition to later observations I was able to make from the Sabche Cirque itself, led to a confident sourcing of the brown cloud and the disaster's trigger on a ridgeline near Annapurna IV. Apparently part this ridge—probably initially the glacier ice— collapsed, dropping ice and rock over 3000 m almost vertically (about 10,000 feet) onto unconsolidated rock debris (glacial moraines and ancient glacial lake silts and gravels) resting unstably in the deep bowl of the Sabche Cirque. Some of that loose debris was also swept up by the avalanche, and the mass flowed an additional 1,500 meters (about 5,000 feet) into the Seti River gorge.
The triggering avalanche—though enormous and bigger than almost any normal avalanche—was the easy part of the explanation of the disaster. The hard part was identifying the source of the water, because there was no glacial lake or no known lake at all in the area. Somewhere a large amount of water had been stored and then suddenly released. Speculation centered on water contained within unseen and unknown caves, or within the deep gorge of the Seti River, and last of all, possible subglacial lakes or lots of little ponds that acted like one big lake. This flood appeared to behave like a glacier lake outburst flood, and the news media can be pardoned for having assumed that it was. From that first day, I and other experts tried to counter the media view that it was a GLOF, but anyway, it was a lot of floodwater.
Since I was in Nepal, I immediately contracted for a helicopter to fly me and some colleagues over the Sabche Cirque. We observed directly evidence of the avalanche—boulders and dust and snow-like pulverized ice in a huge sheet, and streamers of debris emanating from the base of Annapurna IV to the head of the enormous Seti River gorge. We helicoptered over the glaciers and found some small ponds, but nothing that could explain the volume of water; and besides, the ponds were in the wrong place to have been strongly affected by Annapurna IV's ice/rock avalanche. The pathway of the avalanche became ever clearer after post-disaster Landsat and ASTER images showed clear details of the avalanche deposits.
Speculation was now focused toward the gorge. Could something have blocked it? Well corroborated resident eyewitnesses interviewed by our team indicated that one to three weeks prior to the disaster, the Seti River had slowed to a mere trickle of clean water, unlike the usual turbid, sediment-laden "glacial milk." (Seti means white, so it is the White River.) These various observations and ideas had already started to coalesce when my assistant, Greg Leonard, observed a speck of change that had occurred in "before" and "after" ASTER satellite images. We had a specific spot to look for a rockfall into the gorge. Then looking at our helicopter-borne photography, we found it. It was indeed a fresh rockfall straight into the gorge, right at a place from which it appeared a backed-up reservoir had issued a flood. Furthermore, Greg showed that the gorge had experienced many smaller rockfalls or other erosional events over the previous decade, but this bigger one seemed to be fresh. The gorge now seemed the likeliest culprit, but at first it seemed difficult to comprehend how much water could be stored in the gorge behind a rockslide dam.
In the days after the disaster, I examined amateur video of the event taken from Pokhara, a couple dozen kilometers downstream from the gorge. I watched as the flood reached Pokhara and as floating trees trunks poured over a dam. It provided the first best opportunity to measure the speed of the floodwaters and its depth and width, and thus measure the volume rate of flow and estimate the total flood volume. The flood came in waves, and the first wave alone was around a quarter of a million cubic meters in just a few minutes. There were about 27 waves in all over the next hours, according to eyewitnesses, so several million cubic meters overall.
At first it seemed a stretch for any one of the suggested water sources to explain the water volume, and this still is a part of the challenge to provide the full explanation of this event. Even my grandson, also intrigued as well as horrified by the disaster, brought his 7-year-old intellect to bear and suggested that it was friction that melted snow and ice that had tumbled off the peaks. Indeed, the conversion of gravitational potential energy to heat could have melted roughly a tenth of the falling snow and ice by the time it reached the Seti River. Nothing seemed quite sufficient; every potential source at first appeared an order of magnitude insufficient to explain the water volume. It seemed that all of the possible sources together might explain the floodwater volume. Yet one source seemed to be definitely involved, and that was a rockslide-dammed reservoir in the gorge.
I returned with colleagues to the Sabche Cirque three more times, and we were able to land and set up camp and undertake detailed geological observations. The Sabche Cirque is a violent but beautiful place, with rockfalls, snow and ice avalanches, and flood dangers abounding, and evidence of big and recent geologic activity everywhere we walked or flew. We sampled and later chemically and mineralogically analyzed the dust fallout from Captain Maximov's brown cloud, and linked it to the sediment deposited by the flood on the ravaged villages downstream. We analyzed the bedrock, the boulders of the avalanche, and searched for other evidence of floods and debris flows. That evidence is everywhere. However, the more we searched, the more it became evident that this was definitely not a GLOF, but was caused by a rockslide into the Seti River gorge, formation of an impoundment reservoir over a several week period due to damming of spring snow and ice melt, and then the final triggering event of the mighty rock and ice avalanche off Annapurna IV. On our most recent trip we used a laser device to determine the depth and width of the gorge and discovered that it is so immense that it alone might account for the required water volume.
Although this was a terrifying and deadly event, by geologic standards it was not particularly huge. The death toll was due foremost to people living in harm's way on the lowest terrace and even on the lowest floodplain. Our findings do not bode well for the future of the small settlements scattered along the riverside, and there would seem to be a strong case for resettlement.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This sequence of events was pieced together from many data sources, and many people were involved, among them my colleagues and myself, but also Captain Maximov, local villagers, landslide blogger David Petley and his associates; research staff and my field assistants from ICIMOD, especially Sharad Joshi; my other Nepalese colleagues, including Dr. Dhananjay Regmi and Dr. Lalu Poudel; our chief climber, JB Rai and his Sherpa assistants; and two doctoral students, Khagendra Poudel and Bhabana Thapa, who are investigating the geomorphology and sociology of the disaster. I also need to give special thanks to my tireless assistant, Greg Leonard, who was the prime satellite image analyst as well as my chief field assistant. Finally, I express gratitude to the NASA/USAID SERVIR Applied Sciences Team, NASA's Cryosphere Program, and the USAID Climber Science Program, who funded different aspects and phases of this work, and the U.S.-Japan ASTER project, which provided the ASTER imagery. This work will be presented in more complete detail within an upcoming peer-reviewed scientific publication.


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After you've seen 2012, listen to our earth-obliterating Spoiler Special discussion:
You can also click hereto download the MP3 file, or you'll find this and dozens of other Spoiler Specials in our iTunes podcast feed here.
The physicist Robert Oppenheimer, upon witnessing the first test explosion of the atomic bomb he helped develop, famously thought of these words from the Bhagavad-Gita: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Gazing upon the far more massive destruction he wreaks on our planet in his end-of-the-world blockbuster, 2012, director Roland Emmerich must feel an analogous awe. But my guess is he'd express this feeling more pithily. "Rad," perhaps. Sixty-five years into the Atomic Age, the end of the world has become the stuff of mass entertainment and collective fantasy, to be enacted and re-enacted on an ever grander scale (perhaps to keep pace with the real-life political and environmental evils that keep giving movies a run for their money).
Emmerich has been Hollywood's foremost eschatologist for over a decade now: In Independence Day, he blew up both the Empire State Building and the White House (or had space aliens do it for him). In The Day After Tomorrow, global warming causes a counterintuitive Ice Age, burying the Statue of Liberty in ice up to her nose. But compared with the world-monument destruction in 2012, these look like trivial mishaps. If a flood-borne aircraft carrier threatens to crush the White House (and its occupant, President Danny Glover) in 2012, you'd best believe it's going to be the USS John F. Kennedy. That's not just any mountain about to get slammed by a tsunami: It's Everest! The chaos is strictly blue-chip in this movie. Emmerich has refined his technique as he ages, pruning away everything that's inessential to his art. No need for occult mumbo-jumbo about the ancient Mayan calendar, which, according to a popular misreading, predicted the world would end in 2012. A quick shot of the ziggurat at Chichen Itza and a 10-second voice-over about mutating neutrinos and solar flares will do the trick. Emmerich doesn't need no stinking Mayans or hostile space aliens. He can submerge the majority of the Earth's landmass all by himself.
Of course, the end of the world would be no fun without people to barely survive it, so Emmerich has assembled a large cast of characters as cannon fodder (or magma-geyser, tidal-wave, and falling-into-deep-crevasse fodder). Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Adrian Helmsley, the president's chief science adviser, who, because of an inside tip from a geologist pal in India, has an early scoop on the coming calamity. He busts into a black-tie event to press an urgent white paper about the situation on Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), the president's unctuous chief of staff. In your run-of-the-mill disaster movie, the powers that be would spend the first act doubting the word of the sensitive scientist hero, but Emmerich has no time for that; the Washington Monument isn't going to topple itself. So a cabal of world leaders gets right on the case, building a top-secret fleet of superships (or arks) in which to preserve the remnants of humanity.
In a soon-abandoned stab at social critique, Emmerich and his co-writer Harald Kloser (who also composed the score) make it clear that the ships' occupants will be drawn from the ruling classes—government bigwigs, Saudi billionaires, and Prada-bag-clutching Eurotrash—while the vast hordes of humanity will be left to drown. But one ordinary Joe, a divorced novelist named Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), gets wind of the plan after meeting a conspiracy-theory-spouting hippie (Woody Harrelson) on a trip to Yellowstone. After witnessing enough weirdness at the national park to take the crackpot seriously, Cusack heads back home to convince his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and her smug new boyfriend Gordon (Tom McCarthy) to leave town with Jackson and Kate's two children. Which they do—though Gordon's fledgling pilot skills are rigorously tested when the runway suddenly turns into a yawning abyss.
The first 20 minutes of world-ending action, as the Curtises make their way from Los Angeles to where the rescue ships are docked in the Himalayas, threaten to get redundant: How many times can a limo jump over a crater, or a single-engine plane shear the top floor off of a high-rise? But somewhere around the one-hour mark, the movie finds its voice—giddy, operatic, deranged—and becomes pure pleasure to watch. There's always a subplot bubbling on a back burner that Emmerich can cut away to—I was particularly fond of the one involving George Segal and Blu Mankuma as grizzled jazz musicians stranded on a cruise ship. There are also Tibetan monks, Russian gangsters and their Prince Charles Spaniel-toting bimbo girlfriends, and the president's foxy daughter played by Thandie Newton, who's helping preserve the world's art treasures for posterity. (Periodically, as characters are discussing escape strategies in the foreground, you'll see Michelangelo's David going by on a hand truck in the distance. Or, in a shot that's at once comic and sublime, a menagerie of zoo animals suspended from helicopters, en route to the Himalayan meetup point.)
As far as I'm concerned, with 2012, Roland Emmerich has sealed the deal. He's the Paul Verhoeven of disaster movies, a deliberately camp artist who's figured out both what our moviegoing hindbrain wants from the disaster-movie experience and how to give it to us uncut by mystical portent or ecological finger-wagging. 2012 isn't a bad movie that, out of sheer boredom, you might snicker at once or twice; it's a two-and-a-half hour laugh riot that plays on our expectations of the genre by anticipating and exceeding them. Like Alexander the Great, Emmerich may now be sitting down and weeping that there are no more worlds to conquer. But there's no need to restrict his destructive genius to one poor beleaguered planet, especially now that they've discovered water on the moon.
Slate V: The critics on 2012, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Pirate Radio


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Governor Quinn Signs Legislation to Increase Electronics Recycling in Illinois
Governor Pat Quinn today signed legislation that will take a major step to increase e-recycling in Illinois. The new law overhauls the state's Electronic Products Recycling and Reuse Act by requiring more electronic products to be recycled, increasing recycling goals for Illinois' manufacturers and strengthening penalties for those who do not follow the law.
"This law will keep reusable materials from filling our landfills, and it will help us put people to work giving those materials new uses," said Governor Quinn. "Today's action reinforces our commitment to a green Illinois that continues to be a leader in protecting the environment."
Senate Bill 2106, sponsored by Sen. Susan Garrett (D-Lake Forest) and Rep. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston), expands the types of electronic products that will be subject to the state's landfill ban. Current law requires computer monitors, televisions and printers to be diverted from landfills. Under the new law, the list of items required to be recycled is expanded to include keyboards, portable music devices, scanners, videocassette recorders, video game consoles and more.
"Governor Quinn has made the recycling of e-waste a top environmental priority for the state, which is why Illinois is a leader on removing electronics from our waste stream," said Sen. Garrett.
"This bill not only prevents toxic substances from entering into the ground," said Rep. Biss. "But it also encourages the continued rapid growth of the e-recycling industry, supporting small businesses around the state that have created thousands of new jobs in recent years."
The new law also increases recycling goals for Illinois manufacturers. For example, in 2012 manufacturers will be required to recycle 40 percent of the products they sold in 2010. According to the Environmental Law & Policy Center, the new goals mean that statewide e-recycling will increase from 28 million pounds in 2011 to over 50 million pounds in 2012. The dramatic increase in recycling efforts is expected to create jobs for Illinois residents.
"This legislation will keep toxins out of our air and water while conserving valuable resources and creating jobs," said Melville Nickerson, Policy Advocate for the Environmental Law & Policy Center. "The Environmental Law & Policy Center looks forward to working together with manufacturers to implement this recycling bill and create a cleaner environment in Illinois."
The fine for violations of the new law will increase $1,000 to $7,000. It also gives the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency greater regulatory authority for violations of the act. Additionally, the bill requires manufacturers to maintain consumer education programs designed to inform customers of proper disposal policies for electronic products. The new law takes effect immediately.
Governor Quinn also signed House Bill 2001, sponsored by Rep. Ann Williams (D-Chicago) and Sen. John Millner (R-Carol Stream), which strengthens penalties for criminal disposal of waste. The law, which takes effect immediately, reclassifies the initial and all subsequent violations as felonies, lowers the violation threshold and increases fines to $25,000, up from $5,000.


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"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness." (Dalai Lama)
It was just over three years ago when I started this blog. My intent at the time was to spend a year learning all I could about kindness—about what it is and isn't, how to live a kind life, why to live a kind life, and the science behind it all. My hope was that at the end of 2015 I would be a kinder person; if so, I would consider the effort to have been successful.
I'm happy to say the year was life-changing, though the changes may only have been evident to myself. I have not become a paragon of kindness. I can still be bitchy and cranky and oblivious, but those occurrences are less frequent. I am kinder, and I am so much more aware of kindness all around me. I am also happier.
While he's never actually admitted it, I believe my husband hoped when I wrapped up 2015 I would set a different intention for 2016: a year of learning to vacuum or a year of reading all the books I buy and surround myself with.
Many of you, who've been following this blog since the early days, encouraged me to continue writing about kindness. A few of you even suggested I take it a step further and write a book. I ignored my husband and listened to you—and for that, I thank you!
It's taken some time, but I am thoroughly elated to report that A YEAR OF LIVING KINDLY—the book—will be published in September 2018! I have signed with a wonderful publisher, She Writes Press, and am working with their amazing team to produce a book that I hope will contribute in some small way to spreading kindness and restoring civility on this planet we all share.
Whether you've been reading this blog since day-one or only since last week, I want to thank you for being a part of this journey. Those of you who have written comments or engaged in conversation with me have helped me to explore and refine my thoughts about kindness. You've challenged me to lean in and to dive deeper, and your presence has held my feet to the fire on more than one occasion.
As our worldwide need for kindness becomes critical, I look forward to sharing with you a continued commitment to kindness. We can counter the incivility, cynicism, and unkindness that pervades . . . one action at a time, one choice at a time.
A year of living kindly is not something one does and then moves on to the next thing. Kindness turned out to be a path, not a destination, and it's a path I want to continue to follow up until the day I breathe my last, probably surrounded by books.
"The way we live our life is our spiritual practice—no more, no less, nothing but, nothing else." (Robert Corin Morris)


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Between September & December, Great Barrier Reef / Cairns
Without question the 150 mile stretch of the Great Barrier Reef" between Cairns & Lizard Island" provides the finest fishing in the world for very large marlin.
The International Game Fishing Association (IGFA) keeps records of fish over 1,000 pounds captured utilizing equipment within the IGFA Rules. 70% of all marlin over a 1000 pound are caught off the Great Barrier Reef between Cairns and Lizard Island.
You have a better chance at catching a grander marlin in Australia than anywhere else in the world (by a significant margin). In fact, for every grander caught in the worlds big marlin destinations combined; the relatively small Australian fleet captures two. And the conservation ethic is very strong in Australia, so top-notch boats like Viking II release more1000lb marlin than they kill these days.
One can take day trips from the tropical tourist city of Cairns or from the exclusive resort at Lizard Island, and grander's are caught each year by anglers on day charters. In fact a 1,218 lb beast was taken by an angler on a split day-charter out of Cairns on the Viking with Capt. Bill Billson.
But you increase your chances at the biggest fish by chartering a multiple-day trip and living on the reef, snorkeling, reef fishing, and popper casting, before your day of Marlin fishing, and relaxing amidst the beauty and solitude of the reef at night.
Anglers can either live comfortably aboard the game fishing boat or charter a mothership from 60 to 120 ft and live in luxury comparable to a 5-star hotel.
This allows anglers to follow the fish with the freedom to move where the fishing is best on the reef at the moment.
Generally fishing is better to the north near Lizard Island early in the season. Then the main 'bite' moves south towards the Cairns area the latter half of the season. Names like the 10 Ribbon Reefs, Linden Bank, Agincourt, Opal Reef, St. Crispin's Reef, Onyx Reef, Euston Light, and Jenny Louise Shoals are legendary to the anglers lucky enough to have hooked into the giant marlin that populate the area.
The large fish are of course the main attraction, but Cairns are also famous for its diversity in light tackle sport fish. The morning's bait fishing can give the anglers great enjoyment on light tackle catching such species as Wahoo, King mackerel, various tuna species, Giant Trevally and mahi mahi. This ensures fresh fish for the table and fresh baits for the big marlin. Of course, there is also a chance of a small black marlin or sailfish even while bait fishing.


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(CNN) -- When South Africans open their wallets, they will be greeted by images of a smiling Nelson Mandela in various denominations.
This week, the nation launched banknotes featuring a picture of the former president and anti-apartheid icon on the front. The back of the banknotes retains images of the Big Five animals.
Big Five --- lion, buffalo, elephant, rhino and leopard -- refer to the most celebrated animals in African game reserves.
"Our currency is a unique symbol of our nationhood, with many of us handling banknotes every day," said Gill Marcus, the Reserve Bank governor . "The Reserve Bank is proud to be able to honor South Africa's struggle icon and first democratically elected president in this way."
Before the launch, a public awareness campaign helped familiarize citizens with the new bills, Marcus said in a statement.
Mandela, a Nobel peace laureate, spent 27 years in prison for fighting against Apartheid in South Africa. He became the nation's first black president in 1994, four years after he was freed from prison.
Though he has not appeared in public for years, he retains popularity for his role in reconciling a country torn apart by apartheid.
The new 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 rand banknotes will co-exist with the current bills as legal tender.
™ & © 2012 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.


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NFL regular season finishes with great stories, Ronaldo returns to Brazil
So, we're back. Sorry about the extended Christmas break. Let's jump right into the action of the past weekend, mainly with NFL football.
So, we're back. Sorry about the extended Christmas break. Let's jump right into the action of the past weekend, mainly with NFL football.
If Adrian Peterson, the running back for the Minnesota Vikings didn't show fans, writers, etc. that he is one of the best three running backs in the NFL this past weekend, what more can the man do? To me, he is the best running back in the NFL.
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As I've been struggling for the bulk of this past week with a stomach bug, I didn't get much reading accomplished. However, I did pick up my emails and blogged a bit… very little bit, lol… and in Friday's Shelf Awareness newsletter, there was a bookie-survey given to Robert Goolrick, author of A Reliable Wife. I love those kinds of things, so I snatched it, filled in my own answers, and made it my Sunday Salon post 🙂
BTW… those of you who've asked where us bloggers get out hands on ARCs, Shelf Awareness is one of my favorite sources 😀
1. What book is on your nightstand now?
lol… I don't actually have a night stand. I have one of those high-class, bedside-furnishings found in college dorm rooms everywhere.
The Ubiquitous Milk Crate
But… at any rate… upon said "nightstand" is a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that Maggie borrowed from the library and has YET to read, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, and Great Jewish Short Stories. They're not there because I'm working on reading them, however. Rather, they are there because I was sick and didn't carry them the three feet around the corner to Mt. TBR shelving unit 2 (as, the original book shelf filled up long ago).
I think the meaning of this question is more, "What are you reading now?" And the answer to that is: I am currently almost halfway through Brisingr by Christopher Paolini, Custard and Company by Ogden Nash, Neil Zawacki's How to Be a Villain, and From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz.
From the ARC-alanche on deck pile, I'm also reading Something Wickedly Wierd: The Icy Hand by Chris Mould… OH! and, as I glance over my shoulder, I see this one is actually ON the milk crate, too. I'm a little over 1/4 the way through it.
2. Favorite book when you were a child?
I was not a very prodigious reader as a child… I didn't really start becoming a reader until I was about 15… but there are a couple books I read until they fell apart.
One was called Nothing At All by Wanda Fag
another was How Fletcher Was Hatched by Wende and Harry Devlin
and Never Tease a Weasel by Jean Conder Soule
There's another that I read religiously, but I can't find the name of it. It had a girl chipmunk, I think her name was Suzy, and a toy soldier in it, but I can't find it on the net. It's particularly enmeshed with Never Tease a Weasel, and I can only guess I read over and over together.
To this day, I unconsciously quote from Nothing At All when I feel like I'm running around in circles, "I'm busy getting dizzy!" is what Nothing At All, the main character of the book, says.
3. Who's on your "top five authors" list?
Do I hafta limit it to five?!?! Waaaah! 'kay, I'll try: Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, C. S. Lewis and…. Dr. Seuss.
4. What book have you faked reading?
LOL… I'm guessing this means What book did I pretend to read for a grade or book club? Well, I didn't exactly "fake" reading it because I admitted to my professor that I didn't read it but it always sticks out there in my mind as a great "fake". In our 20th century American History class we were assigned Eleanor Roosevelt: A Personal and Public Life by J. William T. Youngs. Try as I might, I was never able to get into the book… I've always hated biographies, like I want to know a person's personal life! blech.
5. What book are you an evangelist for?
okay… those of you who've been to Mt. TBR before, say it with me: The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
6. What book have you bought for the cover?
Erm… None that I can think of, not for the cover art. I have grabbed a few for the titles, though. It's fun to tell people, "What am I reading? Talk to the Hand!" Actual book title by Lynn Truss, and very funny in that dry brit-wit kind of way.
7. What book has changed your life?
Any book worth the paper it's printed on cannot fail to leave its mark on the reader's life, however I'd have to say the book that has had the most effect on who I am would have to be The Bible. Second to that… I read a book that greatly helped me to stop cutting called Cutting: Understanding and Overcoming Self-Mutilation by Steven Levenkron.
8. What's a favorite line from a book?
I just came across a line from Brisingr that every book lover will agree with:
Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree?
erm… *glances at her shelves full of hoarded books and gulps* yeah… sure! I swear I'm gonna get to them all!! 😀
9. What book would you most want to read again for the first time?
easy, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Filed under: Sunday Salon | Tagged: Andrew Davidson, biography, Books, Brisingr, C. S. Lewis, children's books, Christopher Paolini, college dorm room furniture, Custard the Dragon, Cutting, Dean Koontz, Dr. Seuss, Eleanor Roosevelt, favorite books, Great Jewish Short Stories, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, library, life-changing books, Maggie, Markus Zusak, milk crate, Neil Zawacki, Never Tease a Weasel, Ogden Nash, reading, Saul Bellow, Something Wickedly Wierd, The Bible, The Book Thief, The Gargoyle, The Icy Hand, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, The Sunday Salon, William Shakespeare |


text: The cold clear water of the Shenandoah Valley's Dry River enveloped my waders from the knees down as I eyed the riffle upstream of my position. There was no hatch or surface activity visible, but on this brook trout stream the lie I was after looked to be a good bet. The little 3 weight glass rod flexed well into the cork as I put 20 feet of double-taper line in the air, then dropped the little #16 Elk-Hair Caddis within inches of my target.


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