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March 27, 2007
Ian McEwan: On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwan has reached the status of a British John Updike or Philip Roth, where the publication of each new book is a notable event. It is an appropriate accolade for a writer who has matured from enfant terrible to elder statesman: from edgy stories of sexual irregularity and dramatic violence, to richer investigations of the social and psychological makeup of a people.
Chesil Beach in Dorset is famous to any geography student as being an example of the phenomenon of longshore drift, and drift of a sort is what McEwan's new book is about. It tells the story of Edward and Florence, and their first night of marriage in July 1962 (the year before "sexual intercourse began," as Philip Larkin told us), staying in a hotel near "Chesil Beach with its infinite shingle."
Both are virgins: Edward has first night nerves, and Florence worries that by marrying him she has brought on the physical intimacy she most fears. What McEwan does terribly well is to invigorate old staples that we thought we knew, such as Edward's reciting of political analysis to (as Alan Partridge would put it) 'keep the wolf from the door,' which seems both fresh and funny.
Less successful are the pieces of the couple's past which McEwan gives us: the scenes set before they met seem particularly unnecessary, and have the air of having been spliced in later to fill the book out from story to novella. And there is a danger of imbalance, when the meticulously detailed account in the first nine-tenths of the book suddenly switches pace and rushes to a conclusion. Overall, On Chesil Beach is more Amsterdam than Atonement.
But at its best, McEwan's great achievement, here as in Saturday, is to make the reader feel that nothing could be more important, or urgent, right now than to read about whatever his chosen subject happens to be. In this case, he makes a vital cause out of a transitional period, for two anonymous young people, for a generation, and for a country; the era when "to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of the cure," the time when "being childlike was not yet honourable, or in fashion."
March 26, 2007
Yukio Mishima: The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
In an ideal world, a book could be read without your knowledge of the author influencing the experience. But when the About the Author blurb ends with "On the day he completed his last novel, Mishima committed ritual suicide by disembowelment," it can't help but add a certain … frisson.
And Yukio Mishima's life and personality is all over The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, the story of a thirteen-year-old boy who takes exception to his mother's new lover and exacts a terrible revenge. Wikipedia says, "Mishima's sexual orientation remains a matter of debate." That is one way of putting it. In the book, one might not be perturbed to see the male body ("His broad shoulders were square as the beams in a temple roof, his chest strained against a thick mat of hair, knotted muscle like twists of sisal hemp bulged all over his body") described just as lovingly as the female ("Her haughty breasts inclined sharply away from her body; and when she kneaded them with her hands, the rosy nipples danced apart. He saw the trembling belly"). More surprising is the fact that the last description is the teenager, Noboru, spying on his mother. And when we factor in the explicit connections made in the book between sex and death, and of "contempt" characters feel for those whose suicide attempts have failed, the picture of a 'debatable' sexuality is pretty much complete.
Not that this is surprising. The other Mishima novel I have read, Confessions of a Mask, was a similarly humid, troubled tale, all nihilism and misanthropy, although The Sailor… has a much more straightforward plot. The sailor of the title is Ryuji, who meets Noboru's widowed mother on shore leave and has an affair with her (while continuing his love-hate relationship with a life at sea). Noboru, however, is a self-regarding young man who associates with a gang of youths who share his hardline beliefs:
At thirteen, Noboru was convinced of his own genius (each of the others in the gang felt the same way) and certain that life consisted of a few simple signals and decisions; that death took root at the moment of birth and man's only recourse thereafter was to water and tend it; that propagation was a fiction; consequently, society was a fiction too: that fathers and teachers, by virtue of being fathers and teachers, were guilty of a grievous sin. Therefore, his own father's death, when he was eight, had been a happy incident, something to be proud of.
That Mishima allows Noboru's beliefs to remain unchallenged, and even to prevail, suggests that this sort of solipsism reflected his own views. And knowing what we do of his life, that seems a reasonable conclusion.
The Sailor… is then a genuinely perverse book, and worth reading because of the insight it gives into a mindset that is alien to most of us. Those who are looking for empathetic characterisation will be disappointed, and cat lovers will be nauseated, but there are some fine turns of phrase to be found, like "the darkly heaping sea."
March 23, 2007
Brian Moore: The Luck of Ginger Coffey
Brian Moore, who died in 1999, was one of the few twentieth century novelists from Northern Ireland of real stature. He is sometimes referred to, inaccurately, as under-rated (in fact he's highly rated, but woefully under-read); and as a writer's writer, which is only true if the writer in question is Graham Greene, who considered Moore "my favourite living novelist." In fact Moore is a reader's writer through and through, marrying a real skill at storytelling with social insight and a giddy diversity of subject matter. All he needs is the readers.
The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960) is saddled with a bulky title but turns out to be one of the very finest among the dozen or so books of his that I've read. To begin with, it is far lighter in tone than much of his work, from his earlier personality-driven pieces like The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne or I am Mary Dunne to the later taut Booker-shortlisted thrillers The Colour of Blood and Lies of Silence.
The humour comes from the central figure of James Francis 'Ginger' Coffey, a fool and dreamer who has emigrated from Ireland to Canada (as Moore himself did in 1948). He tries to scam his way into jobs, he daydreams of a better life, he tries the patience of his long-suffering wife Veronica and daughter Paulie. When he loses a job:
[h]e economized by giving up their flat and moving to this cheap dump of a duplex. But he did not tell Veronica. For two weeks he sat in his rented office, searching the want ads in the newspapers, dodging out from time-to-time for half-hearted enquiries about jobs. But the trouble was, what his trouble always was. He had not finished his BA, the army years were wasted years, the jobs at Kylemore and Coomb-Na-Baun had not qualified him for any others. In six months he would be forty.
It's difficult to explain what makes this novel so appealing. There is no fancy prose, no outlandish occurrences, no sense of boundaries stretched. And yet this is what makes it a success: it is an intimate story, perfectly done. It is full and satisfying by the end, and the only flaws I could detect were a couple of unsurprising plot developments. It is entertaining and page-turning but also rich in character: not only the central figures (and if there was any justice, the term 'Walter Mitty character' would by now have its own subset, the 'Ginger Coffey character') but the teeming hordes of minor figures who remain memorable despite their brief appearances. And Moore is adept at turning the mood to intense poignancy, such as when Coffey learns how much his fourteen year old daughter has grown up, when she threatens to leave home to live with her boyfriend:
He felt dizzy. He backed away from the door and sat down in the first chair his hand touched. In his mind, a child's voice spoke: Do you like big elephants best of all, or do you like horses best of all? He remembered her asking that. Or: why do my dolly's eyes stay open when she sleeps? Conversations which ended with him telling her something she did not know. Now, she had told him something he did not know.
I should add that it's possible I got a further layer of pleasure from the feel of the Irish vernacular – not just the words, but the way they are delivered – which others might not share. Nonetheless, with The Luck of Ginger Coffey, Brian Moore has proved again his protean brilliance, and shown that a practically unknown book by a virtually unheard-of novelist can hit harder than the best loved and most well known. Only around a third of his twenty novels are in print in the UK, which in a better world would be close to a national scandal. Get them while they're here.
March 20, 2007
Warwick Collins: The Rationalist
I was delighted by Warwick Collins' slim novel Gents recently, and so I leapt at the chance to discover some of his more substantial fare. Prominent among these are the two novels in his unfinished trilogy set in his home town of Lymington at the close of the 18th century, The Rationalist (1993) and The Marriage of Souls (1999). My general low tolerance for historical fiction meant I approached The Rationalist with fingers crossed in trust.
It concerns Dr Silas Grange, an ascetic man of reason and controlled appetites. He treats his patients, he lives comfortably with the assistance of his housekeeper Mrs Thompson, he gazes out over the Solent to the Isle of Wight beyond. His life is orderly, like the calm and quiet Hampshire landscape on which the story rests. A man of the Enlightenment through and through, he is (as he puts it) 'not devout' – or to put it another way, his polemic on religion would put Richard Dawkins to shame:
'Reason does not proceed by confirmation, but by contradiction. We know nothing of our arguments until we have heard the opposite. That is, sir, where I disagree with the religionists, who in the main are infuriated by any statement which is the opposite of what they themselves choose to believe. If I may draw a difference between myself and them, it is not simply a case of my believing something else, but the methods I use to ascertain the truth of what I believe.'
(And the relevance today of references to the battle between reason and religion can hardly be missed, perhaps even more so than in the fourteen years since the novel was published.)
But Dr Grange is about to find that when it comes to reason against emotion, the body has a mind of its own. This is achieved through the medium of Mrs Celia Quill, a lady of 'grace' and 'very fine intelligence' who has recently moved to the area. The extraordinary transformation in Grange's behaviour which she not so much persuades as seduces him to undertake, cannot be revealed without spoiling the story, though fans of Alan Bennett will have seen his Miss Fozzard experience a similar awakening in Talking Heads.
There are two features of The Rationalist which particularly impress. First, Collins eschews the usual pastiche of language of the period, preferring a plain style which better reflects both the serene beauty of the ever-present landscape, and the calm expansiveness of Grange's mind. And yet what's remarkable is that this detached and cool prose twists its way into the reader's soul with almost embarrassing ease. The early scene of crude surgery will have you clenching the pages in tightened fists, and when Grange sat down to his meal of 'rich bloody beef' with his colleague Hargood, I had a piercing hunger by the end of their gluttonous feast.
Hargood is the second outstanding quality of the book, or rather his combative relationship with Grange is. The two are fast friends, and sworn foes on philosophy, ethics and even branches of medicine. And it is their long conversations, inevitably over those endless banquets of blood-dripping meat, which provide the greatest intellectual food of the novel. They balance one another out:
'Think of it, Hargood, to conduct one's life by means of logic, rather than the emotions. If that were only possible. To be driven by the intellect, rather than the senses.'
'But without the senses, there is no intellect. That is the mistake of those revolutionaries on the other side of the Channel. The intellect alone is a loose gun. It ends up by destroying those who would deploy it.'
I could easily have devoured another book's worth of this fine combination of ideas and energy. And, with The Marriage of Souls awaiting, I hope I shall have the chance to do so very soon.
March 18, 2007
Hilary Mantel: Fludd
The critical success of Hilary Mantel's recent novel, the bizarre psychic comedy Beyond Black, invigorated her publisher to dust down her back catalogue and give them a no-expenses-spent rejacketing.
Fludd was first published in 1989 but is set – and styled – in the 1950s. Indeed, while Mantel cites Beryl Bainbridge as an influence (and the book certainly shares her idiosyncratic air), it reads most of all like the early novels of Muriel Spark. However, where Spark had a tendency to toy mischievously not only with her characters but with her readers, Mantel is a more traditional storyteller.
Which is not to say that Fludd is a run-of-the-mill novel. It's a witty and offbeat exploration of various aspects of religious experience, all dealt in a coolly detached authorial voice. The style is best represented by the prologue, describing a painting of the raising of Lazarus from the dead:
His grave-clothes are draped like a towel over his head, and people lean towards him, and seem to confer; what he most resembles is a boxer in his corner. The expressions of those around are puzzled, mildly censorious. Here – in the very act of extricating his right leg from a knot of the shroud – one feels his troubles are about to begin again. A woman – Mary, or maybe Martha – is whispering behind her hand. Christ points to the revenant, and holds up his other hand, fingers outstretched: so many rounds down, five to go.
It's a perfect introduction to a novel which takes a sly, questioning look at the traditions of faith, and asks us to consider the merits of seeking to apply theological (in this case Catholic) doctrine to all aspects of modern life. ("Lenten regulations," asks one character to the priest, "and Fridays throughout the year. Does dripping count as meat? Or does it count as butter?")
All of this is within the following context. In the northern town of Fetherhoughton, the priest is being challenged by his bishop to make his church more 'relevant' and 'real', not only by changing the mass into English (the subject of Brian Moore's slim, piercing Catholics), but by removing the statues of saints from the church. The priest balks at this, and places his trust in his housekeeper and in Fludd, a mysterious curate who has arrived unannounced. Fludd, who moves in mysterious ways, will be at the heart of the transformation that occurs in the church and its inhabitants, including the personal journey of a disillusioned nun which takes the ecstasies of Black Narcissus a step or two further. The story also builds to an impressive pace at the end without ever losing its poise.
All of this is not only entertaining, but fascinating to a reader like me who has no religious affiliations but an abiding interest in the subject of faith. Graham Greene with jokes would be not unfair but not adequate either. In its weaker moments however, the humour seems needless and cruel, as in Mantel's caricaturing of the inhabitants of the village as all chip fat and shared lavatories, a place where "to wash would have been thought an affectation." But at the same time her ability shines through when she pulls off effortlessly descriptive flourishes like "in recent years her face had fallen softly, like a piece of light cotton folding into a box." Fludd is awash with such brilliance.
On the poorly reproduced author photograph in the "P.S." section at the back of this new edition, Hilary Mantel looks startled, as though surprised to be enjoying this revival of interest. She really shouldn't be.
March 15, 2007
James Salter: Light Years
Before now, James Salter was known to me only as the author of the slim novel A Sport and a Pastime which, in one of those odd cross-pollinations, came to my attention through being praised by a character in a John Irving novel (maybe A Son of the Circus). A Sport and a Pastime had the reputation of being 'erotic,' and if erotic comprises memorable phrases such as "he comes like a bull," then it had that. But I recall not much more of it, and it was less Salter's reputation than my feeble addiction to Penguin Modern Classics that made me pick up his 1975 novel Light Years when it was reissued this month.
Midway through the book the female lead, Nedra, who reads biographies of great achievers, reflects that "the power to change one's life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark."
The lines that penetrate us are slender, like the flukes that live in river water and enter the bodies of swimmers. She was excited, filled with strength. The polished sentences had arrived, it seemed, like so many other things, at just the right time. How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of the lives of others?
And while reading Light Years may not be a life-changing event (but then again), illumination of the lives of others is precisely its achievement. The light of the title is present everywhere, and few chapters open without a reference to the light: of Rome, of New York, of Paris ("In the morning the light came in silence" … "The room filled with light" … "the river is spilling light"). And Salter illuminates the lives of his characters, the happily-unhappily married Viri and Nedra, with astonishing stylistic brilliance.
Viri and Nedra, prosperous and envied, are not faithful to one another, and their move from marital bliss to domestic blitz and beyond carries echoes of Yates (and has his ultimate tragedy), with prose less plain than his but equally unflinching and honest. The characters are not always sympathetic but when an author can set them wriggling on a pin like this, who cares? So relentlessly seductive is Light Years that each time I returned to it I felt like a teenage suitor: giggling, nervous, hot-faced with intimidation.
Salter's ability to despatch a character in a few lines is extraordinary. Here he is (through Nedra's biographies again) on Barcelona's celebrated architect Gaudi, "who lived to that old age which is sainthood":
In the end he was struck by a streetcar and left unattended. In the bareness and odor of the charity ward amid the children and poor relations a single eccentric life was ending, a life that was more clamorous than the sea, an everlasting life, a life which was easy to abandon since it was only a husk; it had already metamorphosed, escaped into buildings, cathedrals, legend.
Elsewhere, the writing put me in mind of Updike or Bellow without that restless density which can make their stuff a chore at times. However beautiful Salter's flexuous prose (and it pretty much always is), the story remains open and fluent, full of air – and light. The narrative proceeds in jumps, impressionistically: a scene here, a set piece there, covering twenty years. Salter seems keen to show what he can do, demonstrating his wit early on with an exchange between Viri and a bespoke shirtmaker, then switching to reflective mood, social satire, and making some scenes impressively erotic without being explicit (particularly in Viri's horribly realistic obsession with his sometime mistress, Kaya Doutreau).
Most impressive of all, perhaps, is a scene where a character's father dies in a wrenching and arduous two-page stretch. It puts the tin hat on any questions about Salter's ability and virtuosic brilliance, or about this being my book of the year so far. It begins like this.
It took a long time, it took forever; days and nights, the smell of antiseptic, the hush of rubber wheels. This frail engine, we think, and yet what murder is needed to take it down. The heart is in darkness, unknowing, like those animals in mines that have never seen the day. It has no loyalties, no hopes; it has its task.
March 11, 2007
Russell Hoban: Linger Awhile
Russell Hoban, who published his first adult novel in 1973 at the age of 48, has enjoyed an extraordinary late flowering. Of his fourteen novels, eight were published since 1996 (with another due later this year). I'll have what he's having. And yet after enjoying some of his earlier novels, I found that his later ones seemed to be developing not quite a formula – a writer as unpredictable as Hoban could never be accused of that – but what Detective Inspector Hunter in Linger Awhile might call "certain similarities." Older men and younger women; cultural esoterica; technology and sex; and modern day London. So it was with hope and trepidation that I approached Hoban's latest.
Hoban describes it as a "vampire farce" and that pretty much sums it up. The great revelation is that it tells a much more linear and straightforward story than most of his books – though 'straightforward' might not be precisely the word for a novel where a group of three middle-aged to elderly men conjure up a dead star of Hollywood Westerns out of the electronic ether and she sets about a little light bloodsucking. Or as one character puts it to himself: "Nothing would be simple from now on, and I was wondering if I mightn't be too old for reactivating dead women from videotapes."
But it combines these welcome qualities with Hoban's usual charm and likeability – even when he's being a little too whimsical, you can't help enjoying yourself – and produces dialogue that one would never have expected to see in a piece of modern literary fiction, such as this exchange when the man who brought actress Justine Trimble back from the dead tries to persuade his friend to join the conspiracy:
'If you want to join the Justine club you'll have to give her some of what it takes. As the fellow said, "The blood is the life".'
'And in return?'
'You get what you've been craving for. Justine is a treat to look at when she's been haematologically refreshed and she'll be very affectionate, I promise you.'
'My God, you're pimping for her.'
'Needs must when the Devil drives. You can take the moral high ground or you can follow your heart.'
'My heart, for Christ's sake!'
'Or whatever part is leading you. We're talking pragmatism here.'
If this all sounds a little silly, well, it is, but the book is also littered with Hoban's deep literary intelligence, and gives us plenty on frustration, loss, late regrets and growing old disgracefully. It has a magical, winning tone which sets Hoban apart from pretty much anyone else now writing, and it seems truly rare – and almost guilt-inducing – for such a beautifully executed literary achievement to be as much fun as this.
Douglas Adams, writing about P.G. Wodehouse's unfinished novel Sunset at Blandings, commented that "At the age of ninety-three, I think you're entitled to have your best work behind you." Maybe so: but Russell Hoban, eleven years younger, is still producing his best books.
March 9, 2007
Michael Fishwick: Sacrifices
Michael Fishwick is a non-fiction editor at publishers Bloomsbury. So one might be forgiven for assuming that his path to publication was easier than most. (It reminds me of the competition run by the New Statesman in the 1970s, which asked readers to suggest the most unlikely book title. The winner was My Struggle by Martin Amis.) Fortunately, his second novel Sacrifices stands handsomely on its own feet, and would – or should – have been published even without its author's connections.
In a roundabout way it tells the story of Christopher Hughes, a public school headmaster whose funeral is beginning at the start of the book. His daughter Anna, defensive and reflective, argues her father's case now that he is no longer there to do it. She needs to do this because it's pretty obvious that he was a nasty piece of work, and at the outset there are dark hints not only of the various natures of the nastinesses, but also how they may have led directly to his death.
What makes the book interesting beyond the story is Fishwick's extraordinary control of the way he tells it. The book is in five voices, each people who have been adversely affected by Christopher Hughes, and the information and aspects of his personality drip-drip through the pages. By far the strongest are the first two sections, told from the points of view of Anna and her ex-boyfriend. Anna's voice in particular is a brilliantly brittle, bitter performance:
What I should be thinking about is the occupant of the oaken box as it sails along, polish flashing in the sunlight. What does sunlight do in the presence of sorrow? It does not animate, it is metallic somehow; I can almost taste the sour, hot glare. The newness of the box from which it glints is the most offensive thing. It's a here-today-gone-tomorrow, mass-produced factory affair, it doesn't look like the one I thought we chose. Someone has put a lot of elbow grease into polishing it, though, and the polish magnifies the grain, brings the curling ruddy-brown lines that crowd in upon each other like the contours of a weather system up to the surface. There are knots in it. It is new, it is now, it gleams like Las Vegas.
To be honest, it is catastrophically vulgar.
It is passing me. It is passing. He is passing. Over the threshold.
They all avoid my eye.
These sections have a lingering melancholy which is shudderingly addictive, and by the end of the second part I was breathless in anticipation to see how Fishwick would take it from there.
He doesn't quite manage it, and parts three and four are much weaker – in his defence, they were bound to be – and only in the final part, as seen by Hughes's widow Deborah, does the book regain its force, and bring the whole to a satisfying conclusion. It's about mismatched families, repression, squandered lives and the various forms of despair. Not a comedy then, but for at least half its length Sacrifices so frequently approaches greatness that the vigour of enjoyment easily transcends the gloomy subject matter.
March 6, 2007
Jim Crace: The Pesthouse
Jim Crace is an orderly, methodical writer (his friend Will Self said: "I wouldn't dream of saying that Jim's study demonstrates anal retention, but his marker pens are colour-coded and the distance between his keyboard and chair is painstakingly measured out"), so it's a surprise that the wait for his new novel, The Pesthouse, doubled the usual metronomic two-year gap between his books. It had better be good.
In fact, it had better be better than Cormac McCarthy's recently lauded The Road, because superficially the two have a lot in common. Both are set in a post-apocalyptic America, with straggling survivors battling against the collapse of civilisation and doing their best to evade marauding bandits. Like McCarthy's unnamed man and boy, the characters in The Pesthouse are heading for the coast, where they hope for… what? "We go. We carry on. That's what we have to do."
But where McCarthy produced an immersive, devastating fable, Crace has set his sights wider: and lighter. There are some threats in his story, but few real moments of terror, and his world is more colourful, because his language is too. Anyone who has read Crace before will know what to expect: a rhythmic and mythic prose, full of off-kilter but just-so detail. Dawn is "at the very moment that the owl became the cock;" seagulls are "stocky, busy, labouring, their bony wings weighted at the tips with black;" the ocean is "one great weeping eye. On clear days, we can see the curve of it."
One difficulty with this rich style is that often the drama, emotion or other engine of the story can be blocked out by it. You are so conscious of the beauty of the words that they stay on the surface of your mind without always sinking in. And sure enough, Crace's tale of Franklin, big and shy (and a bit of a muddler, like his earlier 'heroes' Aymer Smith and Felix Dern), and Margaret, left by her family as a victim of plague (or "the flux"), to begin with lacks weight, and for the first half or so the book meanders along with going anywhere much. The feel is not particularly American, and more like a straightforward medieval setting than a future dystopia, or the sort of parallel world Crace has conjured before in Arcadia or Six (which, like The Pesthouse, showed us how well he writes about cities). Occasionally though, the glimpses of an industrial past do cut through and when they do, they work remarkably well:
Colossal devastated wheels and iron machines, too large for human hands, stood at the perimeter of the semicircle, as if they had been dumped by long-retreated glaciers and had no purpose now other than to age. Hardly anything grew amid the waste. The earth was poisoned, probably. Twisted rods of steel protruded from the masonry. Discarded shafts and metal planks, too heavy to pull aside even, blocked their paths.
And it's around the halfway point that the story really begins to gather itself. Franklin and Margaret face separation, rape, death, and encounter a ripely painted series of characters. Allegories rise up reminding us not only of America's recent past but our own: immigration, prejudice, slavery, the scattering forms of family life. Crace even stops to have fun with some (literally) ineffectual religious cult members. By the time we reach the coast, he has fashioned most of all a remarkable love story out of the unlikeliest elements. And by the end it is moving and elegiac, altogether a warming and compassionate thing, and easily Crace's best book since Being Dead or even Quarantine.
March 3, 2007
Jay McInerney: The Good Life
Jay McInerney has always seemed to me to be the comic who wants not so much to play Hamlet as to write Gatsby. His comic novels of moneyed, privileged, damaged New Yorkers – from his debut Bright Lights, Big City through to Story of My Life and Model Behaviour – are matchless in their ability to meld wit and social observation. But he keeps stretching his efforts toward the sober and the epic, with mixed results. Brightness Falls is the best of those. Ransom was a disaster. Last of the Savages alone among his novels has fallen out of print in the UK, which probably says all we need to. And now, in the post-9/11 era, he has written a post-9/11 sequel to Brightness Falls, called The Good Life.
And it's… OK. Russell and Corrine (shouldn't it be spelled 'Corinne'?) Calloway from Brightness Falls are still alive, still together, and suffering middle-aged malaise. The early chapters alternate between them and Luke McGavock, a former Wall Street trader who's trying to convince his wife Sasha (a Tom Wolfe 'social X-ray' if ever there was) that taking a sabbatical from his job is a good idea, despite the diminution in status and income. But this is the modern Fitzgerald era of McInerney's New York, and without status and income, what else is there?
The answer to that comes off-stage, between parts one and two, when two planes are flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. We take the story up again the next day – "Ash Wednesday" – when Luke finds himself walking up Broadway, shellshocked at having missed death by minutes, after he rearranged a breakfast date. He blunders into Corrine, and they console one another. We know that people thrown together in highly stressed circumstances will typically form a bond, and you don't need the gift of clairvoyance to see that when they both go to work at a soup kitchen, there's much more than mere companionship on the menu.
This at least rescues the novel from the meandering opening – all drinks receptions and relentless new names to learn – and sets up a couple of soapy zingers of plot turns in the second half of the book. Still, they don't seem quite enough, and McInerney's decision to restrain his comic gift as usual seems like a treading of water rather than progress. Too often he insists on expressing all the thoughts in his characters' heads, when sometimes we might like to work them out for ourselves. Worst of all, for significant stretches of family to-and-fro, it's just dull. A recurring motif in The Good Life is discussion of Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter, which just made me keep thinking that if you're going to write a book that isn't funny, that's the way to do it.
Still, McInerney can sketch a character deftly enough -
Russell almost collided with his former boss, Harold Stone, who was standing forlornly beside his wife, clutching a drink, looking more than ever like a great horned owl, with his beaky lips and unkempt late-life eyebrows that rose into twin peaks halfway up his forehead. At this point, Harold was such a monument, you could almost imagine the dandruff on his shoulders as pigeon shit.
- and the old wit surfaces from time to time, usually in bitter spousal arguments.
As a novel, The Good Life has its moments. But as a response to 9/11, it's got nothing on McInerney's own raw yet polished account of seeing the twin towers fall from the window of his apartment, published in the Guardian on 15 September 2001 ("Everyone I have spoken to is feeling indiscriminately compassionate. And furiously vengeful"). In that piece, he visits his friend Bret Easton Ellis, who lives nearby. McInerney sees a flyer for a book launch lying around and tells Ellis (and us) with striking honesty: "I'm glad I don't have a book coming out this month." Ellis is relieved: "I was just thinking the same thing."


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Washington to Start Selling Pot in June
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Washington State has confirmed that it will begin sales of recreational marijuana this June. Brian Smith, communications director for the Washington State Liquor Board said the group will be issuing the first licenses in March and that the first retail stores will open in June.
Once Initiative 502 was approved, the state had one year to build a system tracking cannabis from seed to sale and gave itself a year to do so. The Washington State Liquor Board began accepting license applications in November of last year and closed the window for applications on Dec. 19, 2013.
The state is creating three different types of license - producer, processor and retailer. The licenses cost $250 and then $1,000 for renewal. There is no limit to the amount of producer/ processor licenses issued, but there are limits on which can be held simultaneously. Retail is separate from the producer and processor. A person or company can't be both; they have to choose between being a retail outlet or the production side of the business. The Board received a total of 7,046 applications with 2,821 requesting producer licenses, 2,019 for processors and 2,206 for retail outlets. They will limit the retail stores to 334.
Home grown marijuana is illegal and any recreational marijuana must be purchased from a state -licensed retailer. Out-of-state tourists will be allowed to buy, but they can't leave the state with it. Customers should be aware though, that I-502 does not preempt federal law and the federal government could still prosecute if they choose.The cannabis will be priced at $3 per gram for a producer price, $6 per gram for the processor and a pre-tax $12 per gram retail price. The board anticipates tax revenue of up to $2 billion during the first five years as a result of a 25% tax on each level. That's right, ultimately this cannabis will have been taxed 75% by the time it reaches the customer. Thr producer, processor and retailer outlet will each pay 25% tax. I-502 doesn't address medical marijuana and the two will remain separate. Medical marijuana in Washington was approved in 2011 and is overseen by the Department of Health. A licensee can't be both recreational and medicinal, they will have to choose between the two. Written by Debra Borchardt in New York. Follow @WallandBroad
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National Symphony Orchestra: Emmanuel Krivine, conductor/Yundi Li, piano, plays Ravel
Yundi Li performs Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major conducted by Emmanuel Krivine. Also on the program: Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.
- Jan. 22 - 24, 2009
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- Yundi Li, piano
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Metalindo Youth Desk
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Elements International offers a wide selection of quality bedroom furniture ranging in every style from traditional to contemporary. In addition to an extraordinary bedroom line up, we also carry popular and fashionable styles in upholstery, electric fireplaces, and youth bedroom furniture. With a distribution/customer service center located in Rockwall, TX, we are able to offer unbeatable, top of the line service and support. Make Elements your furniture supplier today!


text: Traveling long distances with your bike in tow can lead to headaches well beyond your control, regardless if they're TSA- or rickshaw-related. The Helium bike case was created to give you, and your bike, some added confidence that your two-wheeled steed will make it to your destination in one cush piece. Aside from the burly wheelset, compact dimensions and organized pocket layout, the real genius is its air-inflatable padding to protect the goods while in transit. ( $600)


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Red Sox manager Farrell would like expanded replay
BOSTON (AP) — Boston manager John Farrell is certainly on-board with expanding the use of replays in baseball after an admitted blown call cost the Red Sox the potential tying run in a loss a night earlier.
Speaking to reporters at Fenway Park on Tuesday night about three hours before Boston opened a three-game series against Seattle, Farrell said he believes that with better technology baseball can get more "out or safe" calls correct.
Trailing by a run in the eighth inning of a 2-1 loss to Tampa Bay on Monday, pinch-runner Daniel Nava was called out by home plate umpire Jerry Meals attempting to score on a fly ball. After watching the replay, Meals later admitted to a pool reporter from the Associated Press that he was "wrong on my decision."
Major League Baseball is looking at a vast expansion of video review by umpires for the 2014 season and is examining whether all calls other than balls and strikes should be subject to instant replay.
Currently, baseball uses replay only for home runs, but Farrell thinks the game would be better served by expanding its use.
"In plays like last night, I think it furthers the debate," he said. "I've always felt that the advances in technology, how it's come into the game, there's no reason to think that it can't be used to a greater extent without prolonging the time of the game, particularly on plays that are not continual plays. That was out or safe. There's really no other continuance, such as a play that's in the gap with multiple men on and less than two outs."
The use of replay has been in place for home run calls since August 2008. Commissioner Bud Selig initially wanted to add trap plays and fair/foul calls down the lines for 2013, but change was put off while more radical options were examined.
In Monday's game, replays showed that Nava slid into the top portion of the plate before Rays catcher Jose Molina came across to make the tag. Farrell and Nava argued, with Farrell getting ejected.
About 25 minutes after the game, standing in the umpire's room, Meals said: "What I saw was Molina blocked the plate and Nava's foot lifted. But in the replays, you could clearly see Nava's foot got under for a split second and then lifted, so I was wrong on my decision. From the angle I had, I did not see his foot get under Molina's shin guard."
With the loss, the Rays retook first place in the AL East, jumping over Boston to grab a half-game lead.
The same umpiring crew was in town for the series opener against the Mariners.
Farrell just wants to see the calls made correctly and understands that the lengthening of games is an option that the league is likely trying to avoid.
"I know it's an ongoing conversation with the commissioner's office and those that are on the field committee," he said. "How it's ultimately implemented, I think that's the challenge in all of this. I know there's a lot of sensitivity in the overall time of game to not slow things down. In situations like last night, I think the most important thing and the overriding thing is to call things the way they should be."
When discussing the options other professional leagues use, Farrell even had a solution.
"I think there's a limit to how many times you can challenge a call," he said.
When asked if "once" would be OK with him, he said: "I'd be in favor of it."
The first-year Boston manager even had an idea.
"There could be one guy in New York that could monitor all the games."
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- Yankees get Soriano from Cubs, put him in lineup
- GM says Braves 'willing to pay' for pitching help
- Yankees angered, order more rehab for Rodriguez
- Archer, Rays shut down Yanks
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- Too many incentives for ballplayers to dope
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- Lester, Ortiz carry Red Sox over Orioles 5-0
- Jeter gives Yanks jolt, Soriano gives them win
- Red Sox's Ortiz won't be suspended for phone abuse
- Rays' Price stops Sox again
- Scribner waiting for turn
- Rays' Joe Maddon a real player's manager
- Red Sox manager Farrell would like expanded replay
- Answering all of the questions about A-Rod
- Mets win in 10th on Buck's single
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- Palladino: Will the Globe become a shill for the Sox?
- A-Rod: Promise of greatness ends in scandal


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WelcomeWelcome to Bar-El Farm Off Track Thoroughbreds. Located in Montgomery, Alabama, Bar-El Farm, is owned by Elaine Bodine Carroll.
Bar-El is dedicated to bringing quality, sound, upper class horses from the track to the show ring. All horses are fairly priced and we have something for everyone's budget. We are connected with top breeders, owners and trainers to bring you the very best.
You are visitor number: 7835


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Rochester, Minn.
The investigators goal is to evaluate the role of XOLAIR® in treatment of Acute Tubulointerstitial Nephritis (AIN) with the goal of shortening the duration and dose of prednisone for treatment of drug-induced AIN. Currently there is no good treatment for drug-induced AIN. Prednisone is the standard treatment but is associated with many side-effects when used long-term and at high doses.
Inclusion Criteria:
1. Adult subjects > 18 years old of both genders
2. Biopsy proven acute interstitial nephritis in the native kidneys without evidence of ischemic or glomerular pathology in the biopsy
3. Normal baseline creatinine defined as estimated GFR ≥ 60 ml/min/SA based on MDRD calculation within 1 year prior to renal biopsy
4. Serum creatinine elevation of > 0.3 mg/dL and/or doubling of serum creatinine compared to most recent documented creatinine available (at least within the last year)
5. No immunosuppressants in the last three months including prednisone
6. Women of childbearing potential not using the contraception method can be included as this is a one time dosing and has no known long-term effects.
Exclusion Criteria:
1. Unwillingness to give consent
2. Patients who are Pregnant (positive serum pregnancy test for females) or breast feeding
3. Documented history of an autoimmune disease
4. Inability or unwillingness to take prednisone for the prescribed duration and/or dose
5. Subjects suspected to have non-drug-induced AIN
6. Subjects not meeting the inclusion criteria
7. Subjects with contraindication to administration of omalizumab
8. Prior use of omalizumab
9. Severe hypersensitivity to omalizumab or any component of the product
10. Known elevated IgE level from other disease processes
11. Subjects taking (nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug) NSAIDs chronically
12. Use of any other investigational agents in the last 30 days
13. Patients with severe medical condition(s) including metastatic cancer, terminal congestive heart failure, severe ischemic heart disease or any other medical condition in which life expectancy is less than 6 months.
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Tennis phenomenon Fred Perry launched his legendary line of polos at the end of the 1940's. The brand soon caught on with the fledging Mod movement and made the Fred Perry polo a fashionable option to wear out all night. With the addition of tipping to the collars and sleeves, the Fred Perry shirt instantly became the first crossover brand from sportswear to streetwear. To this day, the tipped Fred Perry polo has been one of the most enduring and affectionate relationships between British youth culture and a sportswear brand.Shop Women | Shop Men | Shop All
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Becca wrote:
> We met some friends in New Orleans for a 3 day weekend. An Italian
> restaurant on Decatur Street is one of my favorites, Cafe Giovanni.
> http://cafegiovanni.com/menu.htm
> It was a beautiful night, full of wonderful entertainment and good food
> with excellent presentation. We dined while listening to a pianist and a
> few opera singers. One of the men at our table kept using his
> BlackBerry. I woulda smacked him in the head with a roll, but I was
> trying to be a lady, dammit. :-P
> The menu looks a little pricey, but hang onto your hat. Just say "Feed
> me" and the chef will bring 6-8 delicious "tasting items" to your table.
> This was only $65 per person, plus tax and tip. We had:
> Oysters Giovanni
> Crabmeat Sicilian Salad
> Veal Ravioli
> Pesce Venetian
> Seafood Gumbo (I could not find it on the menu)
> Fire Roasted Filet
> Tiramisu
> Coffee
> You never know what you are going to get, it could be duck, rabbit,
> veal, etc. You have to like just about everything, to order the "Feed
> Me" dinner. The filet of beef was small, it was a little larger than a
> silver dollar, but tender enough to cut with a fork. The Crabmeat Salad
> was outstanding, but so was everything else. It was a wonderful
> experience and I can not wait to go back.
> What I am doing now, is trying to recreate some of the sauces that were
> included in the entrees. Anyone else do that, or is it just me?
> Becca
I like the idea of a "feed me" option Certainly a good choice for
those of us who like just about everything.
One of these days I'll take a weekend trip to N.O. I was thinking about
it when I moved to TX, then they got leveled before I got a chance to
go. Is it finally getting back together?


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- Official Stork Craft Website - http://storkcraftdirect.com -
Tuscany 4 in 1 Fixed Side Convertible Crib
Posted By admin On January 10, 2011 @ 5:24 am In Convertible Cribs,Products | 4 Comments
All four sides are stationary and include an adjustable three position mattress support base to add to the security and stability of this versatile crib. It has a well built construction made of solid wood and wood products, offered in a selection of non toxic, durable finishes. Designed for multiple stages of life; it converts from a full size crib to a toddler bed, to a daybed, to a full-size bed (full size bed rails not included). Complete your nursery look by adding an assortment of matching accessories: a changing table, chest, dresser or Tuscany glider and ottoman by Stork Craft. Set-up this extravagant piece effortlessly with it's easy to follow directions into a crib that's perfect for your babies' sweet, delicate slumber.
Article printed from Official Stork Craft Website: http://storkcraftdirect.com
URL to article: http://storkcraftdirect.com/products/tuscany-4-in-1-stages-crib/
Click here to print.
Copyright © 2010 Stork Craft Manufacturing Inc.. All rights reserved.


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Leave comment if you're interested in my listing:
Sorrento Apartments 2 bed 1.5 bath for sublease
Spring Quarter till 8/31/10 (when lease ends)
Note: You must be logged in to add comments
2010-01-26 17:54:01 Hello, my friends and I are interested in your listing. Could you give us more information and possibly could we visit your place? My phone number is (510) 637 9093 and my email is firstname.lastname@example.com. Thanks! —trentyou


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Jasvin visited the exotic Baltic country of Estonia and gives you recommendations on what to eat when you're there! Read More»
Touted to be the "coolest little capital in the world" by Lonely Planet, we bring some of the top things to do in Wellington when you travel with friends! Read more »
Take a child's messy crayon drawings and ask him or her to colour you some mountains, and the masterpiece might actually look something like this. Only that, this isn't! Do you know where this is? Read more »
Make your honeymoon a romantic yet exciting one with luxurious the suite features of Banyan Tree Bangkok - this is the perfect beginning to your love story Read More»
Combining nature & contemporary designs, Banyan Tree Club & Spa Seoul is a first of its kind, 3-in-1 resort complex with The Hotel, The Club & Festa. We bring you on an image tour of the beautiful resort set against the majest Mount Namsan in Seoul, S. Korea Read more »
In the enchanting hills of the Greater Tibetan region lies Banyan Tree Ringha, an exotic and luxurious lodge the blends both lavish Tibetan designs together with unspoilt natural beauty. Read more »
Take some time off to restore and rejuvenate your senses in the sanctuary of the Banyan Tree Spa Pool Villa. Read more »
Looking for a different dining experience with your loved ones? In today's SPOTLIGHT, we share with you Banyan Tree Bintan's experiential outdoor dining alternatives. Read More»
We tour around Taiwan as we follow in the footsteps of Singaporean traveller, Meiyan, on her vacation. Read More»
Singapore-based photojournalist & travel blogger Mithila Jariwala (mithilajariwala.com) shares her trip to Northern Vietnam in this amazing photo essay. Read more »
SPOTLIGHT on a traveller's recommendation for a unique Asia holiday to experience the rich culture of Silk Road in China. Read more »
This Spotlight has Adrian Pang, a Singapore Celebrity & Club Med's Snow Ambassador sharing why he loves ski holidays with his family at Club Med Snow Resorts. Read more »
We put the SPOTLIGHT on Athens, Mykonos and Patmos with our suggested 10-day multi-city itinerary so you can unravel the charms of Greece. Read more »
The travelling food blogger shares with us some of the delicious finds he savoured on his Malacca trip and also highlights the city's attractions that earned it its UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. Read more »
The Catalonian capital, Barcelona, brims with a vibrant sports, arts and design scene. We suggest a list of activities for arts and culture lovers to explore whilst in the metropolis. Read more »
Today's SPOTLIGHT is on a mythical land. Guess where this is! Oh, here's a clue, See Read more »
A SPOTLIGHT on Great Flower Fields in Asia where flowers bloom and shine with vibrant colours. Read more »
Hokkaido through the eyes of traveller, Eugene, as he wandered around the land filled with picturesque sceneries. Read more »
We feature Singaporean traveller, Hasyna, who shares with us her journey to Pasay and her takeaway from this quaint little city. Read more »
A interesting SPOTLIGHT on the Top 10 Must Eats for Travellers to Hong Kong, contributed by Travellers. Read more »
Nestled in the North Ari Atoll against the backdrop of the waters and skies, Banyan Tree Madivaru - a private island set in the Indian Ocean is a haven for travellers. Read more »


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I hope my friends and neighbors will join me in support of Don Mafrige for mayor of Galveston.
Mafrige has years of experience working for the city of Galveston. He is former member of the city council, park board, planning, finance and transportation committees, and has been working toward the efficient operation of our city for many years. It is amazing to me that he has not already served as mayor but, if he is ready to do the job now, I hope we can give him the chance.


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Delivery and returns
Collect in store
- FREE Collection in store* to your chosen participating UK store.
- Choose your collection date at checkout when placing your order. We recommend that the delivery date you select is 24 hours before your special occasion. Food to Order can only be collected in store. Food orders are not able to be delivered to UK or international home addresses.
- More about collecting food orders >
- *Collect in store exclusions:
- What can and can't I collect in store? >
- We'll carefully prepare your food order just for you, so please consider our preparation time when placing your order. Some food orders take than longer to prepare than others. Please take a look at each product for more details. Orders can only be amended up to 24 hours before we begin to prepare your food.
- More about preparation times >
Returns and refunds
If you'd like to speak to us about your food order call us on 0333 014 8222, our lines are open 8am to 7pm every day.
It's really important that you collect your food order from store on the arranged date. As food orders are perishable, we don't keep them until the next day. If you don't collect your food order, you'll receive a 30% refund.
More details
A tempting handmade selection with black tiger prawns: eight prawn baguette toasts; eight prawn and coconut bites; and eight crispy prawn and potato balls.
Item details
- Weight: 600 g
- Suitable for Freezing: Yes
- No artificial colours, artificial flavourings or preservatives used
- Not suitable for vegetarians
- Collect order in 5 days from ordering
- Consume Within: 8 days
- Serving dish pictured is not included
Ingredients Listing: Prawn and sweetcorn string dumplings: tiger prawns (33%), potato pastry (25%), sweetcorn (10%), sunflower oil, water chestnuts, straw mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic, sugar, red chillies, shallots, basil, cornflour, salt, onions, ground green peppercorns, dried oyster mushrooms, ginger, dark soy sauce. Potato pastry contains potatoes, wheatflour, salt. Dark soy sauce contains: water, soybeans, wheatflour, sugar. Prawn and coconut balls (tonkin): tiger prawns (41%), ground coconut (13%), sunflower oil, pumpkin, rice vermicelli, sweetcorn, wheatflour, cornflour, chinese chive flowers, tapioca starch, salt, sugar, shallots, lemongrass, garlic puree, garlic, coriander, red chillies, sawtooth coriander, ground green peppercorns, ground white pepper. Rice vermicelli contains rice flour, water, salt. Prawn baguette toast (tonkin): tiger prawns (56%), baguette bread slice (19%), sunflower oil, water chestnuts, courgettes, chinese chive flowers, tapioca starch, sugar, black cap mushrooms, onions, shallots, salt, coconut, garlic puree, garlic, ginger, spring onions, dark soy sauce, shao xing rice wine, red chillies, coriander, ground white pepper. Baguette bread slice contains wheatflour, water, yeast, salt, flour treatment agent: ascorbic acid, emulsifier: soya lecithin. Dark soy sauce contains water, soybeans, salt, wheatflour, sugar. Shao xing rice wine contains rice, water, wheat
- Contains
- Gluten
- Soya
- Shellfish
- Wheat
- Nuts
- Not suitable for sesame allergy sufferers due to manufacturing methods used
Preparation and serving
- Cooking Instructions: Preheat oven 200°C / 170°C Fan / 400°F / Gas 6. Remove all packaging, place on a preheated baking tray. Cook for 12-14 mins, from frozen 15-17 minutes. Check that product is hot before serving as oven temperatures vary and a full oven may require a few extra minutes for products on lower shelves. Do not reheat
- Preparation required: Ready to cook
Not available for international delivery.


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What is
the soccerstop.com policy on returns and exchanges?
Where do
I send returns?
Please understand that we cannot accept COD's. Please
keep the receipt or tracking number of your returned package in the
event it is delayed or lost in transit. All refunds will be for
merchandise only; we cannot refund shipping costs unless the item was
sent in error.
Please remember to completely fill out the returns
section of the invoice you received with your package and ship your
return package either UPS or insured U.S. Mail (remember to keep your
receipt and tracking number) to:
What if I
receive the wrong item?
If I
receive a defective item, what is the return procedure?
Every item that we sell meets our highest standards
for quality and performance. Many of the items we sell have special care
instructions. Through proper care and normal use, almost all defects
will be evident in the first 60 days after purchase. For this reason,
you may return any defective item for 60 days after the date of purchase
for an exchange or store credit.
How long
will it take for my return/exchange to be processed?
Returns are usually processed within 7-10 business
days after they arrive at our location.


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Why Facebook Likes are important for your products and services promotion ?
Facebook has become increasingly popular as a social media website. Over the years, Mark Zuckerberg's college time venture resulted in one of the most powerful transformations all across the world. People today have become really obsessed with Facebook and use it for practically everything.
It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that Facebook has vanquished our real world social lives and created an all new virtual world social life for each one of us! Being 'Liked' on Facebook has become one of the main essentials of our daily lives. We sometimes go on an endless 'Liking' spree without even understanding the importance of being 'liked' on Facebook.
Are you one such Facebook user who can still not understand the importance of your Facebook 'Likes'? If yes, read along to know more about this Facebook Like system and understand how to take the maximum advantage of these Likes!
What does a Facebook like indicate?
I'm sure every one of us has always wondered about the significance of 'Like us on Facebook' at some point of time in lives! Googling down information on the same often leads us to a hierarchy of contrived and mismanaged information that is more or less the same stuff that is spun in different complex ways but yields nothing great at the end!
After going through these endless pieces of information, I came up with my own interpretation of "Like us on Facebook". I feel every such icon on Internet should have an addendum that throws light on its hidden meaning. Find some of these below:
- Recognize our brand: We're here to promote ourselves and we need your help. Help us by acknowledging our existence. Start by hitting a Like!
- Engage with us: We need followers and we'll be needing people and queries to enhance the Social mentions of our name. Help us by giving us feedback and interacting with us.
- Spread the word: Every 'Like' of yours counts. We spread our presence with the help of your Likes. The more likes we have, the more people know us. We hope you'll help us by encouraging your friends to like us too.
- Share our posts and make us popular: We expect some generous 'Likes' on our posts and we'll try to come up with some creative ones that you can promote by sharing!
When hitting that simple 'Like' on Facebook, you're mentally agreeing and acknowledging the above mentioned terms and conditions. That's just how it actually goes like. If you're wondering how Liking or obtaining Likes for yourself is going to benefit you truly, here's what you need to know:
- Brand power: Having some good number of 'Likes' on your Facebook pages is going to indicate your popularity and brand power. You definitely need to have a decent number of these expressions of affinity- that is how I've begun to define Facebook Likes!
- Get recommendations: If you're into business, I'm sure you understand the benefits of getting recommendations. These recommendations make major impact to your online presence and help you amass greater profits. Recommendations are online gifts you get from your most loyal customers or followers who are your direct marketing tools to achieve online stardom!
- Wider viral syndication: Do you have something to spread and circulate? I'm sure you'd love to have your content or video syndicated across wider audiences. Obtaining these Facebook likes can be a useful tool towards having your content circulated across greater audiences.
- Effective advertising: Facebook pages have many interesting advertising components integrated with them. These just lead to a more effective advertising, which comes as an outcome of better Lead Insights, nodes on trending Facebook graphs and greater traffic. This popularity comes for a really low investment and is every bit worth the same!
- Greater conversion rates: With more popularity, greater number of visitors and fan following, sales just come across more effectively. You can easily have your visitors and online followers convert to sales. Spell sales now with Facebook! That is definitely worth the 'Like us on Facebook' effort that goes into creating these online icons.
These Facebook likes have just become the latest marketing tools to ameliorate your online rankings and positions. Have your Facebook likes keep increasing steadily with innovative content, exciting videos and some creative thinking!
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Blind rapper wanted for violent robbery in Snohomish Countyon March 11, 2013 @ 7:03 am (Updated: 7:44 am - 3/11/13 )
He says a bullet took his sight. Now, a man claiming to be a blind rapper is wanted for a series of violent attacks in Snohomish County.
He goes by the name "Mac Wayne" in the music world. Wayne Frisby describes himself as "the Ray Charles of rap, 100 percent blind and 100 percent raw" in a video posted online.
"Times were kind of hard, and I was on the run. I was a 17-year-old boy and I shot myself in the head with a pistol," says Frisby as he explains his loss of sight.
Frisby was arrested last month in a bizarre armed robbery of a woman that cops say revolved around drugs. A woman told police she was called to meet up with another woman in Marysville. When the victim arrived, she got into the second woman's car.
Frisby then allegedly opened the car door, used a knife to slice off a chunk of the woman's hair, and threatened to do more harm if she didn't hand over the keys to her car.
When Frisby was arrested later that night, The Herald reports he had methamphetamine, cocaine and heroine hidden in his clothing.
Frisby made bail on the robbery and drug charges, but now he has skipped town. Detectives think he may be in California and possibly headed for Las Vegas.
It could be that Frisby knew he would face serious jail time if convicted of the latest charges. He has prior convictions for drug crimes and he was arrested in January for illegal possession of a gun. He is also believed to be tied to the stabbing death of an 82-year-old Marysville man.
Kim Shepard is a news anchor and reporter for KIRO Radio and the office optimist. She's energetic, quick to laugh and has a positive outlook on life.
Return to Dominance
The Seahawks beat Arizona 35-6 to move into tie for NFC West lead
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Cheetahs, penguins and Santa make it in this week's photos
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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.comments2014-11-21T09:10:32.469ZMansa Banko (THE KINGDOM) YOU ARE THE FIRST TO KNOWMamadou Edrisa Njiehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-56772198573438070502014-07-04T15:29:25.186Z2014-07-04T15:29:25.186ZGreat blog!! If you like, come back and visit min...Great blog!!

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Thanks,
Pablo from Argentina Pablo (yo)http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-11632494288748889252014-06-15T01:38:02.488Z2014-06-15T01:38:02.488Zthis is my testimony to everyone on how i get my e...this is my testimony to everyone on how i get my ex back with out stress. i left my ex since 5years now and i love him very much, i was trying my best to get him back but he refused my apologies, my heart was almost down when a friend of mine took me to a great doctor, dr.elebe, i explain every thing to him, i told him i was the cost of everything that happen now i have apologies for my mistake but he refused me and i love him very mush doctor, he only told me to have faith that everything works with faith which i believed, he told me to provide the necessary items which he will used to prepare the casting of spell and i provide everything he require from me and he told me to go back that he will come and please for the mistake i did. i obey 4days after email@example.com told me that everything is done, i received i call guess who my ex pleasing for me i don't know what to say anymore is to say yes, i am happy my heart is full of joy, now i am happily married to him with one kid.contact firstname.lastname@example.com if you are still in love with your ex and you don't want to lose him email: firstname.lastname@example.com or you can call him direct with his mobile number on +2347068897198.

GOOD luck

john email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-30192155764740781632014-06-08T22:49:03.707Z2014-06-08T22:49:03.707Z BE CAREFUL HERE NOBODY CAN HELP YOU HERE OR EVEN ... BE CAREFUL HERE NOBODY CAN HELP YOU HERE OR EVEN SUGGEST HOW YOU CAN GET YOUR EX OR LOVE BACK,ANY TESTIMONIES OF MOST SPELL CASTER HERE MUST BE IGNORE.BECAUSE MOST OF THEM ARE SCAM I MEAN REAL SCAM WHICH I WAS A VICTIM AND I GOT RIPPED OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS BECAUSE I WAS SO ANXIOUS TO GET MY WIFE BACK AFTER SHE LEFT ME FOR OVER 2 YEARS WITH MY 7 YEARS OLD SON JERRY,I HAVE APPLIED TO 7 DIFFERENT SPELL CASTER HERE AND ALL TO NO AVAIL THEY ALL ASK FOR SAME THING SEND YOUR NAME YOUR EX NAME ADDRESS AND PICTURE PHONE NUMBER ETC WHICH I DID OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND MOST OF THEM WERE FROM WEST AFRICA UNTIL I SAW A POST ABOUT Dr IGODO SPELL AND I DECIDED TO GAVE HIM MY LAST TRAIL.HE ASK ME FOUR THINGS MY REAL NAME,MY EX AND MY EX MOTHER NAME AND $180 AND SAID MY EX WILL COME BACK IN 24HOURS, I HAVE PAID OVER $3000 ON SPELL CASTING AND COURIER AND NOTHING HAVE WORK FOR ME AFTER 3 DAYS I WAS THINKING ABOUT HOW MUCH I HAVE LOST SO FAR SO I SAID LET ME GIVE HIM A TRY SO I CALLED HIM AGAIN AND SEND MY REAL NAME,MY EX AND MY EX MOTHER NAME AND THE $180 BECAUSE I SWEAR IT WAS MY LAST TRY SO I WAS WAITING AS HE
 TOLD ME TO WAIT TILL NEXT DAY AND I COULD NOT SLEEP THAT NIGHT BECAUSE I REALLY LOVE MY WIFE AND WANT HER BACK AT 9PM THAT DAY I SAW MY WIFE ON LINE ON FACE BOOK AND SHE SAID HI AT FIRST I WAS SHOCK BECAUSE SHE NEVER TALK WITH ME FOR THE PAST A YEAR AND 9 MONTH NOW I DID NOT REPLY AGAIN SHE SAID ARE YOU THERE? I QUICKLY REPLY YES AND SHE SAID CAN WE SEE TOMORROW I SAID YES AND SHE WENT OFF-LINE I WAS CONFUSED I TRY TO CHAT HER AGAIN BUT SHE WAS NO MORE ON LINE I COULD NOT SLEEP THAT NIGHT AS I WAS WONDERING WHAT SHE IS GOING TO SAY, BY 7.AM THE NEXT MORNING SHE GAVE ME A MISS CALL I DECIDED NOT TO CALL BACK AS I WAS STILL ON SHOCK AGAIN SHE CALL AND I PICK SHE SAID CAN WE SEE AFTER WORK TODAY I SAID YES SO SHE END THE CALL IMMEDIATELY I GOT OFF WORK SHE CALL ME AND WE MEET AND NOW WE ARE BACK AGAIN I CALL DR IGODO THE NEXT DAY THANKING HIM FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE IN FACT I STILL CALL HIM AND THANK HIM AS MY LIFE WAS NOT COMPLETE WITHOUT MY WIFE PLEASE BE CAREFUL HERE I HAVE BEEN SCAM THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IF YOU WANT A TRUE LOVE SPELL THEN CONTACT Dr IGODO via his e mail,email@example.com
email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-46359347344440652912014-06-03T22:37:12.868Z2014-06-03T22:37:12.868ZHave you ever considered about adding a little bit...Have you ever considered about adding a little bit more than just
your articles? I mean, what you say is important and everything.
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Feel free to surf to my web blog Personals Ads Pennsylvaniafirstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-29470781519221616732014-04-06T08:49:25.711Z2014-04-06T08:49:25.711ZInteresting articles in blog, greeting from Belgiu...Interesting articles in blog, greeting from Belgiumretrieverhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-31868649063080724082014-03-21T01:22:19.280Z2014-03-21T01:22:19.280ZThe spell caster who helped me to get my lover bac...The spell caster who helped me to get my lover back,(firstname.lastname@example.com) I looked so surprised,cried out loudly,wiped day and night, have sleepless night severally, thinking that i have lost Avila Rudy my lover, my boyfriend,my soul mate,forever after 2years of Relationship, but it all come to me as a dream that i was still able to be with him and he is with me for good, for love, for care,and i am so happy, and i thank the powerful spell caster who helped me out in getting and achieving these great joy and happiness,Dr Igberase of email@example.com,indeed Dr you are powerful,although i doubted these at first stage but you still make it real to me and i am happy today and i say thanks be to you and i promised to always share your good and how powerful you are around the world and in the internet,Dr Igberase is a good and helping spell caster who help to get Ex lover or lost Husband, if you need a spell caster that can help you with your lost lovers Kindly email Dr Igberase on his email.(firstname.lastname@example.com) thanks so much Dr for your help and wonderful thing you have done for me,yours Daughter, Alicia Weaver From Alabama United State Of America

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-70280395442298620562014-03-20T10:18:24.769Z2014-03-20T10:18:24.769ZThe evolution of development in communication is a...The evolution of development in communication is a generation of opportunities depending on accurate usage. you are a role model for the youths working on a right path and i hope the youths will follow your foot step by regarding social media as opportunities to fulfill their destinies.Rohey email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-60401801278888361932014-03-07T11:21:37.557Z2014-03-07T11:21:37.557ZGreat! Thanks Mansa Banko for spreading the messag...Great! Thanks Mansa Banko for spreading the message on this wonderful cause. Modou S. Joofhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-28990753006889572952013-06-17T15:37:11.095Z2013-06-17T15:37:11.095ZBTW There are no social media buttons to share you...BTW There are no social media buttons to share your article.Jessica Foumenahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-8462322122724346982013-01-15T18:43:34.667Z2013-01-15T18:43:34.667Zyeah!little gambia, the smiling coast of west afri...yeah!little gambia, the smiling coast of west africa...email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-86814527399676498082012-08-27T07:35:26.591Z2012-08-27T07:35:26.591ZBuon inizio settimana...ciaoBuon inizio settimana...ciaoGiancarlohttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-81626301002483058152012-08-27T07:35:07.426Z2012-08-27T07:35:07.426ZBuon inizio settimana...ciaoBuon inizio settimana...ciaoGiancarlohttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-41299631224939201042012-07-10T23:15:22.111Z2012-07-10T23:15:22.111ZI am jeannet used every single spell worker on the...I am jeannet used every single spell worker on the internet, spent untold amounts of money and discovered they are all fakes…i was the fool though; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In the end, I decided that I wanted a tarot reading to know what my future held for me; I contacted a woman who lives locally to me and she told me about a man named (priests sangojagaban); he does not advertise on the internet, has another job for income, has no set prices, makes no false promises and refuses to help anyone that cannot be helped and even helps for free sometimes, he will give you proof before taking money. He is a wonderful man and he was the only person who actually gave me real results. I really hope he doesn't mind me advertising his contact on the internet but I'm sure any help/ extra work will benefit him.contact him as email@example.com He travel sometimes.love marriage,finance, job promotion ,lottery Voodoo,poker voodoo,golf Voodoo,Law & Court case Spells,money voodoo,weigh loss voodoo,any sicknesses voodoo,Trouble in marriage,it's all he does Hope this helps everyone that is in a desperate situation as I once was; I know how it feels to hold onto something and never have a chance to move on because of the false promises and then to feel trapped in wanting something more.jeannet stillhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-75193092404387501162012-07-07T19:55:02.817Z2012-07-07T19:55:02.817ZMagical spells really work!! I never thought there...Magical spells really work!! I never thought there were still honest, genuine, trustworthy and very powerful spell casters until i met the spiritual helper, MERUJA OWO. last week he did a love spell for me and it worked effectively and now he just casted another healing spell for my friend who has fibroid and family problem and now she is totally free and she is presently the happiest person on earth, she keeps thanking me all day..
I just thought it would be good to tell the whole world about his good work and how genuine he is, i wasn't thinking i could get any help because of my past experiences with other fake casters who could not bring my husband back to me and they all promised heaven and earth and all they are able to do is ask for more money all the time until i met with this man. he does all spells, Love spells, money spells, lottery spells e.t.c i wish i can save every one who is in those casters trap right now because i went though hell thinking and hoping they could help me.i recommend MERUJA OWO for any kind of help you want.
his email address is: firstname.lastname@example.com
if you want to ask me anything my e-mail is: email@example.com
Kind Regards!Dorispinto1001http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-13541924053308264332012-06-27T14:08:28.313Z2012-06-27T14:08:28.313ZA friend recommended me to your resource. Thnx for...A friend recommended me to your resource. Thnx for the details.
Look at my website :: IT Network Support Sydneyemail@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-27308489237064386242012-03-30T07:29:40.218Z2012-03-30T07:29:40.218Zi feel a lot pleasure to hear about your NGO,which...i feel a lot pleasure to hear about your NGO,which is working for rural areas i am nasir bashir from azad kashmir district bhimber, i have completed BS honr in computer system engineering, i want to work in IT field in my rural area.i need your support.
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00923335812982nasir bashirhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-1111558479686157022012-03-28T21:04:25.532Z2012-03-28T21:04:25.532ZIt was such a struggle catching up with Swaebou Co...It was such a struggle catching up with Swaebou Conateh. I combed the internet very patiently until it dawned on me that I had mis-spelt his name. When I eventually got it right, voila! my friend's mug popped up. I hadn't seen him since we left graduate school at University of Lagos, Nigeria in the 80's. Conateh was such a good ambassador of The Gambia. I plan visiting The Gambia in April 2012 and I hope I can get to share quality time with the highly cerebral icon of Gambian journalism once again.Wole Olaoyehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-7287472638362431352012-03-28T21:03:05.135Z2012-03-28T21:03:05.135ZIt was such a struggle catching up with Swaebou Co...It was such a struggle catching up with Swaebou Conateh. I combed the internet very patiently until it dawned on me that I had mis-spelt his name. When I eventually got it right, voila! my friend's mug popped up. I hadn't seen him since we left graduate school at University of Lagos, Nigeria in the 80's. Conateh was such a good ambassador of The Gambia. I plan visiting The Gambia in April 2012 and I hope I can get to share quality time with the highly cerebral icon of Gambian journalism once againWole Olaoyehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-1822694348267549872012-03-04T05:59:56.956Z2012-03-04T05:59:56.956ZThis is horrible news. It really seems like freed...This is horrible news. It really seems like freedom of the press is under assault in more and more countries, big and small. And its even become more physically dangerous to be a journalist. Just look at those who have died in Syria.farmland investmentshttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-43195399120246817902011-11-29T21:28:28.207Z2011-11-29T21:28:28.207ZWell let's fasten our belts and see wht will b...Well let's fasten our belts and see wht will become of Jammeh's regime in d next five years to come!!Amathttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-63205210406452187152011-11-29T21:25:27.596Z2011-11-29T21:25:27.596ZLet's tie our belts and see wht will become of...Let's tie our belts and see wht will become of Jammeh's regime in d next five years.Amathttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-38865699461972035672011-11-27T01:16:27.349Z2011-11-27T01:16:27.349ZThis is amazing result. But i know it's no a s...This is amazing result. But i know it's no a surprising to many gambians. Another five years term for president jammeh....laminlisahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-65239202228907614392011-11-12T12:41:13.687Z2011-11-12T12:41:13.687ZThe DeSai Group is an innovation leaders ,innovati...The DeSai Group is an innovation leaders ,innovation Management consulting firm, helping clients with innovation strategic consulting, organizing innovation training workshops and leadership development programs.Adam Thomashttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-60023560285853911702011-11-11T12:57:46.931Z2011-11-11T12:57:46.931ZMr. Desai research and consulting has focused on i...Mr. Desai research and consulting has focused on innovation workshop ,leadership development program,leadership development workshop,corporate leadership development programs,innovation consultants, and effective collaboration, both within and across organizations.Adam Thomashttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-7970825624268025410.post-35551707847317520742011-10-06T22:04:58.436Z2011-10-06T22:04:58.436Zboy am happy for you. keep up the momentum. wish y...boy am happy for you. keep up the momentum. wish you all the best at benin.laminlisahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com


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Amtrak turns 40 this week and it's throwing itself a year-long party with the debut this Saturday (which happens to be National Train Day) of an Exhibit Train at Union Station in Washington.
Two baggage cars have been revamped as display spaces for railway memorabilia and artifacts, including period uniforms, dinnerware and vintage advertising. The free exhibit will make two-day stops at various depots (for the first three-month schedule go to amtrak40th.com). Most locations also will have train-themed kids' activities at Chuggington Kids Depot.
Also in celebration of its 40th anniversary, Amtrak has announced a Kids Ride Free promotion, but you'll have to act fast. Children 2 to 15 accompanied by an adult paying the regular fare, ride free through June 9. But reservations (800-USA-RAIL) must be made by May 6 and at least three days before departure. Use discount code H859. Some blackout days and route restrictions apply.
Besides the unveiling of the Amtrak Exhibit Train at Washington's Union station on May 7, other programs and activities are planned at stations in Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
Amtrak started National Train Day in 2008 to commemorate the anniversary on May 10, 1869 of the transcontinental railroad.


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'These our nice although a bit wetter than I like. I like Earth Friendly baby wipes best but Kiddicare...'
Mum and Physio - Cambridge
We all know baby's health and wellbeing is parent's number one concern - that's why we stock an amazing range of babycare products to ensure your little one is cared for! Shop top brands Bambino Mio, Tommee Tippee and Summer and utilise our delivery offering - spend over £49.99 and delivery is free to mainland UK.
©Kiddicare 2014


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So this has been a developing story since yesterday, or should I say two years ago. In short, the fate of 38 Studios; the developer of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning hangs in the balance. Rhode Island governor, Lincoln Chafee has been meeting with 38 Studios, the video game company founded by former Red Sox player Curt Schilling. The developer has been under heavy scrutiny lately regarding its financial stability, yet they have declined to comment on the subject. Governor Chafee told WPRI.com Monday night "We're concerned and just doing everything possible to ensure that 38 Studios stays part of the Rhode Island community. We're working on different issues with them." Chafee was asked whether the studio can be stabilized, and he commented "We're working on it."
The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation gave 38 Studios a $75 million dollar taxpayer loan back in 2010 with strong support from EDC director, Keith Strokes and then governor, Doland Carcieri. As a result, the company moved its headquarters from Massachusetts to Providence in April 2011 and employed 450 people there. And it isn't the first time that 38 Studios has raised financial concerns.
According to a disclosure notice the company sent to bondholders, Pricewaterhouse Coopers audited the company last June and issued a "growing concern" opinion that expressed "substantial doubt" on whether the company would stay solvent. The disclosure also stated that 38 Studios had 379 full-time employees as of March 15, with 288 in the Providence studio, and the rest at Big Huge Games in Maryland. Big Huge Games developed and released Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning back in February this year. The $75 million dollar taxpayer loan did not fund this title, but is actually funding 38 Studios' other working title "Project Copernicus." "Copernicus" is an MMO that had a September 2011 projected release date. 38 Studios is not scheduled for E3 next month, has no release date for "Copernicus," and has declined to comment on all these concerns.
Now the biggest concern for 38 Studios and the state of Rhode Island, is that if 38 Studios cannot pay the $75 million dollar borrowed in bonds, R.I. taxpayers will be sorely responsible for paying it back. Considering the interest rates on the loan are from 6 to 7.5 percent, add that to the principal payments and the debt sums up to $112.6 million through 2020. 38 Studios is contracted to pay it back with the sales of its games. In any case, if the developer cannot pay, the governor will then turn to the General Assembly, who will do what now…?
Anyhow, the future looks dark for both 38 Studios, Rhode Island taxpayers, and the gaming industry as a whole. The industry is jeopardized because it could face repercussions in trying to obtain tax breaks in other states, according to Joystiq's sources in the industry. I also think this is more than your typical sociopolitical case, simply because it would greatly affect a small population and probably change the course of the gaming industry. We'll see how the plot thickens from here on out.


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WESTERLY – The Y stands for healthy living and to make sure all members continue to be involved wherever they may travel, YMCAs across New England have joined together to offer reciprocal membership through their "My Y is Every Y" program.
The program, which began June 1st, allows Y members in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont to access all YMCAs in these states at no charge when they present a valid Y ID card.
"Our members count on their local Y here in Southwest Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut for their health and wellness needs. Now they'll be able to take advantage of what Ys across New England have to offer. We're very excited to be able to bring this added benefit to members," said Maureen Fitzgerald, Ocean Community YMCA CEO. "We look forward to welcoming members from other Ys as we all stand together to strengthen our communities."
Through "My Y is Every Y", full facility/full privilege members will have access rights to all YMCAs in New England. Members should bring their YMCA ID card and a photo ID card to check into a partner Y. Some restrictions may apply depending on the YMCA, so members are encouraged to check with the Y they plan to visit ahead of time to learn the specifics.
YMCAs in Massachusetts and Rhode Island began "My Y is Every Y" in 2010 and with its success, the program expanded to all six states.
"The program was very successful in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, so we're pleased to be able to expand these benefits to members New England wide," said Lisa Drouin, Resource Director for YMCA of the USA. "No matter where our members travel in these states, they'll be able to stay connected to the local community and improve their health and well-being."
View more articles in:
For more information about the "My Y is Every Y" program, contact Scott McLeod at the Ocean Community YMCA: 401-539-2306 or firstname.lastname@example.com.


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+myConnections: Engage your community - connect to news, events and information you care about. View more information...
View your community's facilities and features online with the new Facilities Module.
Personalize your online experience to stay up-to-date on news, events and other information.
Projects for 2014/Click links below for additional information:
5900 South from Main Street to 725 East (General information)
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Five Below Announces First Quarter Sales; Raises First Quarter Earnings Guidance
PHILADELPHIA, May 14, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Five Below, Inc. (Nasdaq:FIVE) today announced sales results for the first quarter of 2013 and raised previously communicated first quarter earnings guidance.
The Company announced that total sales for the first quarter increased 33% to $95.6 million and comparable store sales increased 4.2%.
Thomas Vellios, Co-Founder, President and CEO stated: "Our fiscal first quarter played out much as we had expected. Once the headwinds we saw in the first half of the quarter began to dissipate, we saw our traffic and sales trends strengthen as we believe customers looked to Five Below for unique, trend-right merchandise delivered at great values."Mr. Vellios added, "We opened 14 net new stores in the first quarter, of which 6 were opened during the last 9 days of the quarter and we are on track for the planned 60 net openings in 2013." Outlook The Company is raising its first quarter fiscal 2013 earnings outlook provided in conjunction with the release of its fourth quarter fiscal 2012 results announced on March 27, 2013: GAAP net income is expected to be in the range of $0.8 million to $1.3 million, with a GAAP diluted income per common share range of $0.01 to $0.02 per share on approximately 53.4 million estimated diluted weighted average common shares outstanding. Excluding $0.9 million, or $0.02 per adjusted diluted share in tax-effected expenses related to the founders' transaction (1), adjusted net income is expected to be approximately $1.7 million to $2.2 million, or $0.03 to $0.04 per diluted share based on estimated adjusted diluted weighted average common shares outstanding of approximately 54.5 million. (1) Founders' transaction relates to the amortization of expense for options granted to the Company's founders in fiscal 2010 and their modification in March 2012, which cancelled the fiscal 2010 option award to purchase 2,020,620 shares of common stock and granted an equal number of restricted shares that vest through March 2014.
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Access the tool that DOMINATES the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500.
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