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It's always girls night plus one guy.
Women are easily distracted during sex and if you're worried about keeping your balance, you're not going to be able to focus on the sensations. If there's a piece of furniture that you're draped over, hold onto it. On the bed? Grab onto the sheets or put one of your hands against the headboard for support.
When he digs his hands into your hips, it can hurtespecially if he has a killer grip. Have him use a towel to keep you close to his bod. Just loop it around your hips and give him the ends to hold onto.


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Bill Davis, Dash Rip Rock
1. Releasing our first country punk rock opera Hee Haw Hell
Jon Weisnewski, Akimbo
TOP TEN OF 2007 (Akimbo and otherwise):
10 - Going 5 kicker games undefeated against germans in Aachen.
Jared Power, Alternative Tentacles Intern
01.) Stormcrow / Sanctum - split
"Dude, I totally navigated the bronze last night!"
What does that sentence mean to you? This elusive phrase has not been explicitly defined by Akimbo, the band who created this mysterious album title. Many theories have been informally offered, none to our satisfaction. However, we want to make "Navigating the Bronze" as ubiquitous as "Ghostriding the Whip" or "Oh no you dih-ent!" in the youth lexicon.
We leave it up to you, the creative AT fan, to fill in semiotic gap left wide by our well-coiffed Seattle trio. Stretch those vocab muscles and enter to win a signed vinyl copies of said album Navigating the Bronze. We have two LPs, both signed and embellished by all three members of Akimbo.
1. Define the phrase "Navigating the Bronze"
4. Akimbo will judge the entries. Two winners will receive signed Navigating the Bronze LPs, and we will publish the winners and honorable mentions on the Alternative Tentacles site.
Rest assured, we won't use the e-mail/postal address provided other than to notify winners and mail them their prizes.
Some Thanksgiving-related reading for you...
Reactionary right-wing lunatic magazine The Free Republic has a slightly different, pro-free market take in this article, originally printed in 1985.
The New York Times published a great article on The Plastic People of the Universe as well as Tom Stoppard's play Rock 'n' Roll, about Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s. Jello has been a fan of the Plastics and in the 1980s, signed Life After Life featuring members of the Plastic People of the Universe to Alternative Tentacles.
You can find a great selection of Plastics releases we carry in our mailorder here. Also check out Life After Life's full length Just Trip (Virus 192).
SF City Hall is located at 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, directions and map are here. The hearing will take place in Room 263.
You can also send letters and e-mails of support:
Board of Supervisors
Supervisor Aaron Peskin:
Supervisor Tom Ammiano:
As we posted earlier, Lance Hahn of J Church and Cringer passed away on October 21. There will be a memorial event in his honor at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco.
What: Lance Hahn Memorial
The event will feature music, art, flyers, and videos featuring J Church and Cringer. There will be a potluck at the event, so if you want to bring food to share, please do.
There will be a similar memorial event in Austin, TX on November 18 at the Mohawk (912 Red River) between 4-8pm.
Visit lancehahn.blogspot.com to contribute your Lance Hahn memories. More info at www.lancehahn.org.
On September 20, Gary King Jr was tasered, then shot in the back by Oakland police officer Patrick Gonzales. Every Thursday (until further notice) between 3-5pm at Frank Ogawa Plaza, there will be weekly gatherings organized by King's family to protest police brutality and to demand justice for Gary King Jr. For more info, please visit SF Bay Area Indy Media website.
Lance Hahn of J Church and Cringer passed away yesterday, October 21, due to complications from kidney disease. Before he moved to Austin, TX, Lance was an integral part of the Bay Area punk community. We are very saddened by this news and offer our deepest condolences to Lance's family and friends.
There is a great write-up on Lance at Austin360.com. You can also leave a comment on the J Church MySpace page.
We all know that Zolar X is the Greatest Zolarian Band, but are they the Next Great American Band? Here's what Jello Biafra has to say about that:
Yo! Hey, Everyone.
We're not normally into plugging network TV, especially for a Fox show from the same culture-poisoners as American Idol. But wait--this Friday, October 19 (8pm, 7pm Central), on the premiere of The Next Great American Band, their "weirdest bands ever" section features none other than our own Zolar X!
Tune in! Tell your Friends! Gather a group of people who have no idea what they're about to be subjected to. Like seeing Wesley Willis or GWAR for the first time, half the fun is watching the reactions on other people's faces.
Or you can judge for yourself by checking out Zolar X's latest album of all-new material X Marks the Spot (Virus 379) or their anthology Timeless (Virus 319)...or both!
"Hardcore Punk Legend Mikey Offender Dead At 46
Some of our bands are getting on the Web 2.0 bandwagon, gracing us with the miracle of embedded videos.
We're putting two videos below. First is Zolar X
with their song "Oveon Triopp"/"Retro Rockets" from their brand new album
X Marks the Spot (Virus 379). Second is a
video from The Evaporators for a new song called "Gassy Jack"
from their upcoming album on Mint Records titled Gassy Jack and Other Tales. Enjoy!
ZOLAR X Oveon Triopp-Retro Rockets Music Video
09/24/07: Buy Local in Berkeley and world-wide!
In the spirit of the expanding "Buy Local" movement, locals can celebrate the new Buy Local Berkeley campaign! Meet and mingle with Berkeley merchants and community partners who support independently and locally-owned businesses- it's all Thursday, September 27 from 4-7 at Jupiter (2181 Shattuck Ave) in downtown Berkeley.
Check out Sustainable Table on Food Miles, Buy Local Day on why it's a good idea, and Breaking The Chains on the connections between buying local, fair trade, & organic food.
7:30-10 p.m. Berkeley- The 1st Green Monday program features former Oakland City Councilmember Wilson Riles on "American Empire, ecological wisdom, and the Green Party." Your Mail Male Jesse Townley will introduce Wilson. All ages with full bar, all at Anna's Jazz Island, sponsored by the Berkeley Green Party.

subset: commoncrawl


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The page you requested requires Essential access
Southern Hemisphere GFS Longwave 500hPa Height Analysis Chart
- location
- Southern Hemisphere
About GFS
Global Forecast System. The operational numerical weather forecasting model run by NCEP. The GFS superceded the AVN and MRF models, on which it is largely based. Forecast data from the GFS is available out to 180 hours at full resolution and 16 days at a reduced resolution.
Weather News
Canberra's run of cold still running
Canberra has chilled below freezing every morning this month, and a few days have been quite cold as well.
A breath of fresh air for Sydney
Over the last week, much of the southeast has been treated to cold, cloud-free nights with light winds.
Hughenden students find their green thumbs in kitchen garden despite the drought
There have been a few hiccups along the way but the school garden at St Francis' Primary School in Hughenden continues to grow despite the on-going drought.


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For Immediate Release: January 4, 2013
On December 11, 2012 City Council authorized City Manager Rashad M. Young to contract for the acquisition of the property at 5325 Polk Ave. for $1.9 million. The City's purchase of this 2.34 acre property used the $1.5 million provided by the Department of Defense to mitigate loss of open space in the West End, as well as $0.4 million in City Open Space funds. The Beauregard Rezoning Advisory Group recommended the acquisition of this site in October 2012 after reviewing 8 sites in the City's west End which had been nominated by City residents.
Acquisition of this property was contingent on the December 4, 2012 approval by Alexandria's Planning Commission, who reviewed the proposed purchase at their regular meeting. Following the purchase of the property, staff will initiate a public process this winter to consider the future use for the new park. This public process will include community outreach to provide input on any future improvements to the site.
For additional information, contact Laura Durham, Open Space Coordinator, with the Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities at email@example.com or 703.746.5493.
Find neighborhood parks?
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1108 Jefferson St.
Alexandria, VA 22314703.746.4343Fax: 703.838.6344Email: Information
Office Hours
8 am - 5 pm
James B. Spengler


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For first-year and transfer students.
Associate and bachelor's degree programs for men and women 4 full years out of high school.
Elementary, middle level and secondary certification for men and women with a bachelor's degree.
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CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. – Three Wilson College equestrian students competed at the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (ISHA) regional competition held Saturday, March 17, at Briarwood Farm in Readington, N.J.
DATE: March 21, 2012
CONTACT: John Tukey, Director of Equestrian Studies
Phone: 717-264-4141, Ext. 3296
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
The students, all members of Wilson's Hunt Seat riding team, are:
Middleberg won the walk/trot class and will go on to compete in the zone competition to be held April 1 at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown.
Giacomini placed fifth in the intermediate flat class and sixth in the intermediate over-fences class. Veach competed in the advanced walk/trot/canter class but did not place.
The students' achievement in reaching regionals is quite an accomplishment, according to Dr. John Tukey, Wilson director of equestrian studies. He said unlike the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), where schools compete against others of similar size, ISHA competitions pit riders from institutions of all sizes. Wilson College competes, for example, against institutions such as Penn State.
Hunt seat is an English riding style that includes riding over jumps at higher levels. The ISHA tests riders and horses on the quietness, grace and flow of movement on the flat and over fences relative to the ideal horse for a hunt seat rider. Riders accumulate points in their division to qualify for regionals. The top two riders in each division compete in zone competitions and the top two in each division at zones go on to nationals.
Wilson's hunt seat team is coached by Gina Hall.
For more information, contact Tukey at 717-264-4141, Ext. 3296, or email@example.com.
Founded in 1869, Wilson College is a liberal arts college dedicated to the education of women. Affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and located in Chambersburg, Pa. Wilson offers bachelor's degrees in 30 areas and master's degrees in education and the humanities. The college's 2011-12 enrollment in the College for Women and the Adult Degree Programs is 746 and includes 21 students from 10 foreign countries.


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STDP4328DisplayPort 1.2a concentrator
- Active
The STDP4328 is a high-speed DisplayPort dual mode concentrator IC that facilitates routing of multiple HDMI or DP audio-video streams on a single DP connector. This device is targeted for audio-video routing and multiplexer applications in digital signage, universal docking stations and high-end 4K2K cameras, recorders, etc. Enterprise universal docking station designs can make use of STDP4328 to route video from multiple sources such as notebooks, Smartphones, and tablets to share the desktop monitor space. High-end consumer products such as 4K2K cameras, recorders and players can make use of STDP4328 to transport a 4K2K 60 Hz uncompressed video and audio stream, which otherwise requires up to four HDMI connectors and cables. STDP4328 consists of two dual mode input ports and one dual mode output port, configurable as DisplayPort or HDMI/DVI. This device has VESA DP Standard Ver. 1.2a compliant receivers and transmitters supporting advanced features such as MST, HBR2, 3D formats, and GTC assist. Designs based on STDP4328 have the flexibility to offer either DP or HDMI/DVI connectors on its end product to interface with commercial and consumer video sources and displays. In addition, STDP4328 based products with a DisplayPort output connector are DP++ compliant which work with any HDMI or single link DVI displays through passive dongles (level translators).
The STDP4328 uses ST's latest generation DisplayPort dual mode receiver and transmitter technology that supports both DisplayPort and TMDS signal format. In DisplayPort configuration, the device receives either SST or MST streams through the two input ports and combines them as one MST stream at the output port: in MST mode, it supports up to 8 AV streams. For example, it can receive two 2K x 2K 60 Hz streams on each of the input ports and send as one 4K2K 60 Hz SST or MST output to drive a 4K2K display. The DisplayPort receiver and transmitter supports HBR2 speed, a data rate of 5.4 Gbps per lane with a total bandwidth of 21.6 Gbps link rate. In HDMI mode, this device supports a link rate up to 3.2 Gbps that corresponds to a pixel rate of 320 MHz, adequate for supporting video resolution up to FHD 120 Hz including 3D formats. Two independent HDMI inputs can be converted into one DP MST output. The device is also capable of delivering deep color video up to 16-bits per color. It allows audio transport from the source to the desired audio rendering devices over the video output port or through the SPDIF port.
The STDP4328 supports RGB and YCC colorimetric formats with color depth of 16, 12, 10, and 8 bits. The device features the HDCP 1.3 content protection scheme with embedded keys for secure transmission of premium digital audio-video content. It also operates as an HDCP repeater for downstream sink.
The DDC ports allow the upstream source to access EDID and exchange MCCS commands with a downstream sink when the physical ports are either HDMI or DVI type. If both the upstream source and downstream sink are DP type, I2C transactions take place over the AUX CH. If the upstream is DP type and the downstream is either HDMI or DVI type, the device bridges DP AUX CH with downstream DDC port for all I2C-based transactions. The device has an on-chip microcontroller with SPI, UART, and I2C interface. It uses an external SPI Flash ROM for storing device configuration firmware. It has an I2C slave port for external host communication. Other system interface signals include general purpose IO for source, sink communication, detection, monitoring, etc.
Errata Sheet
Key Features
- DisplayPort® dual mode receiver
- Two receiver ports
- DP 1.2a compliant
- Link rate HBR2/HBR/RBR
- SST or MST (up to eight streams)
- 1, 2, or 4 lanes
- AUX CH 1 Mbps
- HPD out
- HDMI/DVI operation (320 MHz)
- Functions as eDP and MyDP receiver
- DisplayPort dual mode transmitter
- DP 1.2a compliant
- Link rate HBR2/HBR/RBR
- SST or MST (up to eight streams)
- 1, 2, or 4 lanes
- AUX CH 1 Mbps
- HPD in
- HDMI/DVI operation (320 MHz) with external level translator
- Functions as eDP transmitter
- SPDIF audio output
- Two SPDIF port pins
- 192 kHz/24 bits
- Compressed/LPCM
- Conversion from DP SST to TMDS format and vice versa
- HDCP repeater with embedded keys
- AUX to I2C bridge for EDID/MCCS pass through
- Maps on DDC ports
- Device configuration options
- SPI Flash
- I2C host interface
- Deep color support
- RGB/YCC (4:4:4) – 16-bit color
- YCC (4:2:2) – 16-bit color
- Spread spectrum on DisplayPort interface for EMI reduction
- Bandwidth
- Video resolution up to 4K2K @ 60 Hz
- Audio 7.1 Ch up to 192 kHz sample rate
- Low power operation
- Standby 30 mW
- Package
- 172 LFBGA (12 x 12 mm)
- Power supply voltages
- 3.3 V I/O; 1.2 V core
Design ResourcesTop
Technical Documentation
Product Specifications
DB1766: DisplayPort 1.2a concentrator


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There are services which stream at 1080p, which is good enough for most people. I think the "it must be of ultimate visual quality, 20.1 channel audio" crowd is pretty small these days.
Zune stream 1080p at very high bit rates, any perceived difference the average person sees is mostly imaginary.


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Women's Lanz Tossed Floral Print PJs
Lanz Soft Cotton Knit Pajamas in a Summer Fresh Garden Print
Women's Lanz Tossed Floral Print PJs
Lanz Soft Cotton Knit Pajamas in a Summer Fresh Garden Print
Beautiful blooms set against a buttery pin-dot ground highlight these supremely soft, 100% cotton knit pajamas. Lace trim, pintucking, and cap sleeves provide plenty of style to this comfy cotton pajama top, while the button front allows for ease of dressing; approx. 26" long. The elastic-waist bottoms are finished with an adjustable drawstring and side-seam pockets; approx. 30" inseam. Machine wash and dry. Imported. Available in both Misses' and Women's sizes.
- 100% cotton knit pajamas
- Trimmed with lace and accented with pintucks
- Button-front top
- Elastic-waist bottoms with adjustable drawstring
Love Lanz of Salzburg cotton pajamas? At The Vermont Country Store you'll find many Lanz pajamas in a variety of prints. These cotton knit pajamas with a tossed floral print will surround you with beauty and comfort long after summer blooms are gone.


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Posted 10 April 2012 - 09:56
Posted 10 April 2012 - 13:00
Posted 07 May 2012 - 05:58
I thought the Mikael (Daniel Craig)'s dock looked like tiger (2005-2007), and that would fit with an early timestamp on a website dated to 2006 (forgotten details of the site)
having said that, the macbookpro he was using was clearly unibody, and he was using gestures so that would imply hardware from 2008
the iTunes logo in both docks was last used in iTunes 6, so up until around septemper 2006, and the iPhoto was earlier than 07 I'd say, but he was still using the gestures to navigate photos
Posted 21 June 2012 - 21:18
A movie that requires supplemental reading or research beforehand is absurd.
Posted 21 June 2012 - 21:31
^^ The book is better than the film... I watched the original version and it was good.
However watched the US version and turned it off in 5mins. I felt it was a frame to frame copy of the original version in that five minutes.
Posted 21 June 2012 - 21:35
The so called "shock parts" are an integral part of the Lisbeth character. You REALLY need to read the books. Never watch any movie "based on a book" before reading the book.
Why would you say that?
I enjoyed the movie, but haven't watched the original film yet for comparison. I'm still not sure why they needed all the 'shock' parts with her and the case worker unless that is a plot point in future films. I plan on reading the books this summer.


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Hope everyone is having a good start to the week. My 16 year old son is down for the count with the flu. Poor guy. I did manage to eek in a workout this morning before I took him to the doctor and myself to the dentist - then off to work. Glad I got the workout in early - because now I am pooped.
My hubby is at the store now picking up a few vegan essentials and chicken noodle soup Have a healthy evening all! K
Sorry your son is sick Hope he feels better quickly.
But I'm still going strong on my kickstart! A full 7 days completely vegan! I have also not had any candy or other processed foods nor any compulsive eating with unhealthy junk.
We can do this together, be strong!
- AmandaBe the change you wish to see in the world...
All three of my boys are home sick with the flu. I got up early this morning to wipe down every surface I could think of with lysol... I suppose I am too late.
I have struggled to stay on track this week - but am hopeful today will be a better day. I hope it is a good day for all of you too! K
Hi ... just checking in and catching up on the posts!
K - sorry to hear your sons are sick. I bet you can manage to fend off the germs and stay healthy!
Minivegan - you rock for not straying! I wish I can say the same but it's a work-in-progress for me. I've mostly stayed vegan (with the exception of a few slips) but unfortunately I had some crappy processed food here and there.
I'm going to watch fat, sick and nearly dead this weekend and hopefully get some inspiration!
I'll try to catch up on posts more this weekend!
Continued success to everyone!
minz wrote:
Thanks! Still completely vegan on day 10! I had been about 80% vegan before this and a vegetarian for 11 years prior so I've had some practice. Having these strict guidelines for such a healthy lifestyle is a saving grace. I'd been struggling with compulsive eating for over a year - including up until 1/1/13 - and this change has so far stopped my binge eating.
I also watch such videos for inspiration ALL the time! I'm constantly on youtube watching Dr. McDougall, Dr. Barnard, Dr. Esselstyn, etc. "Sick, Fat, and Nearly Dead" is a good one. My favorite though is "Forks Over Knives", I need to buy it so I can watch it anytime and have it on hand for others to watch too.
Keep going everyone. Half way there!
Hi all,
Can I join you? Years ago I belonged to a vegetarian/vegan group locally (no longer exists) which would meet once a month and everyone would take a vegan dish along so we could all share some delicious food; it was a great way to support one another too. Sadly I can't seem to find an active local group anymore and we all need support on this journey because although things have got easier in shops, it can still be hard to find healthy options. So many temptations around!
I'm a week behind on the plan because it took me nearly a week to get organised!!
Welcome Claremus! I'm glad you found us
I agree, this is a lot of cooking. Especially if you are also cooking for a non-vegan family. This has really been a stumbling block for me.
I am shopping and prepping today for a vegan week. My only challenge will be a party on Thursday - but I will follow the advise given here and eat before I go. Who am I kidding, that will hardly be my only challenge - but it will be a biggie.
I have a buddy lined up to walk with at lunch everyday next week. I'm so happy about that. Hopefully the weather will hold. I'm still learning how to use the total gym. Once I know what I'm doing, it appears to be a very efficient way to workout at home.
Have a healthy Sunday everyone. K
Of course you can join in! Welcome Claremus! I wish I had a local vegetarian/vegan group here. Maybe I should start one!
Never2Late wrote:
Yes, it is a lot of cooking. So I don't follow what they suggest - I eat left overs a lot I simply stick with my meals being free of animal products, processed foods, and added oils. I do save the recipes however for later. When you go to the party, bring a vegan dish with you! Eating before you go will make you less hungry there plus you know you'll have one thing you can definitely eat.My schedule got on funky on me lately so I too am struggling with getting a workout routine set. But diet is around 80% of it so I figure that has top priority right now. Exercise will fit in after some more planning.
Day 16... How are we all doing?
I was going well until the last few days. I ended up wanting and eating chocolate (vegan but still chocolate). I thought about it later and realised it was because I wanted comfort food. I have not been well - my asthma has been playing up a bit and today I also feel like I could be heading toward a head cold or something. I need to find new comfort foods for those days when its needed. Today I got home from work and ate a little left over vegan macaroni cheese. Also a good comfort food when not well.
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food - Hippocrates.
Dr. McDougall has a line of healthy vegan soup cups that I've been using as my I-don't-so-hot foods. Keep trying though. You are doing great
Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to check in and see how everyone is doing. I finally watched Forks over Knives and I am very inspired to stay vegan. Amazing!
I have a lot of travel coming up - including time in Spain - and am worried it will be difficult to stay vegan while I am there. I will try to bring a few things with me, but will be very limited what I can bring. I will be traveling as a chaperone for my son's soccer team - so not a lot of choice for me where I dine... Oh well, I will just do the best I can.
Anyone have any experience with this? I'd appreciate any tips.
I hope you are all doing well. I am getting over the flu - and feel good, but the headache has really hung on. I'm glad I am treating my body a bit better - at least I know I am doing what I can.
Hope to hear from you soon! Kay
You should be able to get beans & rice type fare in most places - you may just need to skip the entree and go for a couple of the side dishes as your meal. Staying low fat will probably be more difficult than vegan actually.
Everything is going very well and I'm still happily vegan I signed up for the kickstart again just to see if there are different recipes and/or new information given. I'll be around on the forums too. I like this community of like-minded people.
Glad you finally saw "Forks Over Knives"! I need to buy a copy for myself, its great for inspiration and to share with others.
For Spain, look into what their native cuisine looks like (I'm honestly not sure) and from there you can prepare on how to tackle it. Also, learn Spanish food words so you'll know what to look for on menus.
"native cuisine" is very regional - lots of fish, rice, and vegetable dishes. Pork is big (as ham or sausage usually). But, you should be able to find dishes with vegetables and lentils or legumes (white beans seem to be popular). I just did a wikipedia search on Spanish cuisine and they had a lot of information including traditional dishes from the various regions. If you're going to be someplace like Madrid, it'll probably be easier to get something vegan since it's more metropolitan area as opposed to small towns out away from the population centers.--DebR
Thanks Deb! Especially for the research. The biggest problem will be the 'all inclusive' trip won't allow my any choice of where to dine. I'm just going to do the best I can without going hungry. Hopefully I'll discover some great new vegan dishes!
Have a great weekend everyone! K
Be sure to stash some portable snacks in your bag (whatever you'll be carrying with you - camera bag, small purse, fannypack, etc). See if you have some 'off' time (non-tourist time) that you can go to a local grocery and pick up some granola bars or even some bags of nuts and dried fruit. Whatever you can find that is portable, stable, and will help fill you up if dinner is just salad. Or, pack some on-the-go snacks in your suitcase to have with you on the trip. Oh, and if you can at this late date, request a vegan meal on your flights.
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The Sheep Shop knitting group
Friday 31st October 2014
Venue: The Sheep Shop
Category: Art & Exhibitions
One Liner: Knitting group
Price Info: Free
Time Info: 10am - noon
Knitting and crochet group. All welcome - bring whatever you're making using Sheep Shop yarns. Just drop in, it's free (donation welcome for tea and biscuits), and a chance to meet lovely new friends. You do need to know how to knit or crochet already. We do classes if you need them.
Error Reporting: Contact thesheepshop, the publisher of this event.


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The NFL's Knowledge Gap
The read-option left defensive coaches with no choice this offseason—they went back to college to catch up fast
From now until the opening of training camps, The MMQB will run a series of our Greatest Hits from the site's first year. From July 2013, Greg Bedard on how the rise of the read-option forced NFL coaching staffs to go back to school…
STANFORD, Calif. — After learning the hard way that dual-threat quarterbacks like Colin Kaepernick, Robert Griffin III and Russell Wilson can't be spied with a linebacker or bull-rushed by an end, defensive coaches across the league went back to school this offseason seeking an enlightenment that would make Aristotle proud.
A few landed at the usual college football factories, like Alabama, Clemson and Texas A&M, looking for a blueprint on how to stop the read-option. But a sizeable cluster sought counsel at an institution better known for addressing problems in fields such as climate change, molecular genetics and computational science. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the campus likely has more students with perfect SAT scores than football players who can run a sub 4.4 40. Yet at least a half dozen NFL teams, including the Vikings and Raiders, signed up for a lecture at Stanford.
Across the way from the Graduate School of Business, go up two shiny wooden staircases in the Arrillaga Family Sports Center, turn right at the tree mural, meander through two hallways framed with floor-to-ceiling glass and arrive at the school's modest football offices. Here sits 43-year-old defensive coordinator Derek Mason, a onetime undersized cornerback at Northern Arizona who still looks like he could take a few nickel snaps. Close the door, dim the lights, fire up the game-film computer program. The professor has a lot to cram in during this two-hour session.
Mason doesn't view himself as an expert on the read-option, but he's a rising star. In their last two meetings with Oregon before the 2012 season, the Cardinal surrendered 53 and 52 points to Chip Kelly's high-octane offense. And Stanford barely escaped with a 54-48 overtime victory against Arizona at home last year. It was that narrow win five weeks into the season that forced Mason back to the drawing board, determined to get better.
By the end of the season Stanford led the Pac 12 in scoring defense, total defense, rushing defense, sacks and tackles for loss. The seminal moment was a 17-14 overtime victory in November over No. 1 Oregon. The 10-0 Ducks hadn't been held under 42 points all season and led the FBS with 54.8 points per game. Their rushing attack averaged 325.1 yards, but the Cardinal held them to 198. The win helped propel Stanford to the Rose Bowl, where it won for the first time in 41 years.
Total number of Stanford defensive players drafted in 2013: zero, same as the year before. So why did so many NFL coaches seek out Mason for advice?
Stanford's players might not rival Alabama's in terms of athleticism, but they execute a pro-style, two-gapping 3-4 defense and have football IQs on par with NFL veterans who are trying to adapt to the read-option. What coaches learned from Mason, a Vikings assistant from 2007 to '09, should make offensive coordinators think twice about letting their thoroughbred QBs run wild this season.
He won't win a Nobel prize for his work, but as all great teachers do, Mason simplifies the problem to its root cause: Mobile quarterbacks who can throw on the run with the casualness of delivering newspapers create an extra gap that defenses rarely had to account for before last season. Closing it requires a defense that is Stanford to its core: equal parts arts and science.
* * *
The two biggest adjustments being made in professional football will ramp up once the pads are strapped on in training camp. Teams that favor a 4-3 single-gap defense are going to need a backup plan, meaning they'll have to become a 3-4 team against the read-option. And all edge defenders will need to be retrained, if not brainwashed, on how to play their position.
But before jumping into the Sanskrit of X's and O's on Mason's whiteboard, let's take a step back and go over a few basics.
A defense letters the gaps in an offensive line. The spaces between the center and both guards are called the A gaps; the B gaps are between the guards and tackles; C gaps are between a tackle and a tight end; and D gaps are just beyond a tight end's outside shoulder. Most defenders are assigned a gap on every snap. If a defensive tackle shoots the A gap, for instance, a linebacker would take the B. When you hear TV analysts saying a player is being undisciplined, it's often because he's chasing the flow of a play instead of minding his gap.
The best defense to stop a traditional running offense is the 3-4. With three down linemen responsible for the interior and two outside linebackers covering the edges, all the gaps are covered. The two inside linebackers react to the flow of a play and help form a wall, meaning a properly defensed running play should yield no room for a back to break through the line of scrimmage.
"If you're playing single-gap defense, you're going to be one gap short every time," Mason says, pausing at the whiteboard and turning around to make sure this important point is understood.
In a single-gap scheme, often a 4-3, a lineman is tasked with clogging one hole and making a tackle if the ballcarrier comes his way. In a two-gap scheme, often a 3-4, he's responsible for the gap on either his left or right. His main job is to engage blockers so the linebackers behind him can make tackles. The 3-4 alone won't stop the read-option, because it creates an extra gap, but it allows for the easiest adjustment.
Against a pocket passer in a traditional offense, gap responsibility stops at D. And the defense has the upper hand in such matchups, essentially playing 11 against 10 because the quarterback isn't a threat to run. But when you introduce a QB who has the ability to fake an inside handoff and then scoot around the weak end of the defense, the E gap is created in an area that is typically left unguarded. The game now becomes 11-on-11, the new math of the NFL.
Mason starts rolling film of Oregon against another opponent. From their split-back pistol set, the Ducks run a play similar to the ones Kaepernick used to victimize the Packers in the 49ers' 45-31 divisional-round win in January. In that game Green Bay surrendered a season-high 579 yards of total offense, including an eye-popping 323 on the ground. Kaepernick himself rushed for 181 yards, the most by a quarterback in an NFL game and more than 14 other teams' total against the Packers in 2012.
Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota fakes a handoff to the running back on a dive, then rolls to his right with De'Anthony Thomas in the triple option. A defender gets a wicked shot on Mariota, but only after he delivers the pitch to Thomas, who scampers nearly 40 yards for a touchdown.
"What do you see, just in terms of numbers?" Mason asks.
"The defense is one short on the outside?" his visitor says.
"That's right," Mason says. "They actually wound up with two guys on the quarterback and nobody on the pitch."
Pointing to a defensive back in the slot, Mason adds, "This guy has no business squeezing down on the quarterback. That's not his play. He's really the pitch guy."
But the defensive back isn't the only one to blame. The left outside and inside linebackers both entered the same gap. One of the two should have taken the quarterback, but the outside backer crashed down and the inside backer failed to use the scrape technique (moving laterally to cover for the outsider backer when he shoots inside.) When two linebackers blow up the same gap, it's a recipe for disaster. The slot defender has to jump into the D gap, which leaves the E gap vacant. Thomas ran through this alley to find open field—the same floodgate that sprung Kaepernick, RG3 and Wilson into NFL secondaries last season.
* * *
The first thing a read-option quarterback looks for when he gets to the line of scrimmage is to see if the defense has left itself short somewhere. That is, is the E gap being accounted for? The easiest way to take away the E gap is to play a 3-4 (because everything else is covered) and rotate a safety into the area that would normally be unguarded. But it's not a perfect solution. This forces a defense to become more vanilla in its pass coverage, because a lone safety lined up deep doesn't allow for convincing presnap disguises.
Most of the Packers' blown yardage in that playoff game against the 49ers came when they were employing man coverage with help from two safeties over the top. In this schematic wrinkle, cornerbacks position themselves as close to receivers as possible while staying between the quarterback and his target. This, however, requires them to play with their backs to the line of scrimmage, which might as well be a Bat-Signal for QBs like Kaepernick to take off running.
By watching film of college teams, and that of the Steelers—Pittsburgh held Griffin and the Redskins to a regular season-low 255 yards of total offense in its 27-12 victory last October—you quickly realize that defenses should play the percentages when defending the pass … and hope the quarterback has moments of inaccuracy.
To account for the quarterback as a runner, defenses should play mostly quarters (facing the play, two corners and two safeties are each responsible for one of four vertical columns in the secondary) or single high safety, with the other safety providing run support. The latter leaves defenses susceptible to deep shots, which the Patriots learned against the 49ers last December. Trying to attack the E gap isn't new in football—think of a naked bootleg around the weak side—but what makes the read-option so groundbreaking is that it's being orchestrated by quarterbacks who can throw as well as they run. Pure option quarterbacks have never thrived in the NFL, but when Kaepernick throws the deep ball with accuracy, the 49ers are virtually unstoppable. As a defensive coordinator you need to pick your battles.
"Our goal is to stop the run and defend the pass," Mason explains. "You can't stop everything. But if they can run, that sets up the play-action pass, and they're rolling at that point. That's what they want."
The read-option not only limits a defense's coverage, it deflates the pass rush as well. Players who predominantly line up with a hand on the ground in a 4-3 will now be drilled to use a two-point stance (that is, to stand up). They'll be instructed to read and react to a developing play instead of going straight for the quarterback—a tactic that allows them to crush pocket passers, but one that makes them look like bystanders as read-option QBs react to their impulsive moves.
Mason, whose arm seems to be surgically attached to the dry-erase marker, draws a straight line signifying an instant rush from a defensive end—the unblocked one opposite the tight end side of the formation—to the quarterback. If the unblocked end charges in this fashion, and if you don't have an inside linebacker or safety moving into the vacated gap, good luck stopping the read-option.
This hard-charging end is left unblocked for a reason. He's like a basketball player trying to defend a pick-and-roll by himself. In other words, he's powerless. If he comes at the quarterback, the running back takes the handoff. If the end angles his shoulders toward the dive back, the QB pulls the ball back from the handoff (also called the mesh point) and takes off around the corner, forcing the end to turn back and give chase.
Mason depicts a solution on the whiteboard, showing the unblocked end first going upfield, at no one, and then squeezing down on the running back once he gets the ball. The idea is to let the quarterback make a decision without giving him all the information he wants.
"The quarterback wants a fast read all the time," Mason says. "If you don't give him a fast read, then things start to break down and he starts to panic because everything is predicated on him being able to make a fast read. Especially in the NFL, because they don't want to get that guy hit. If you come up the field and then try to squeeze, it's now hard on the quarterback."
* * *
A slow read forces the quarterback to think more. In football, thinking equals slow, and slow equals disaster. Slowing down the read won't just stop the quarterback, it's also important in wrapping up the running back. A week after running roughshod over the Packers, Kaepernick was held to 21 yards on two carries by the Falcons in the NFC title game. But the 49ers still advanced to Super Bowl XLVII with a 28-24 victory because tailback Frank Gore had 90 yards on 21 carries and scored the game's final two touchdowns.
On each of Gore's TDs, the Falcons attacked Kaepernick but didn't have anyone covering the inside gap. Thanks to strong play from the offensive line, Gore was able to slip through. Atlanta kept Kaepernick in check, but the read-option isn't solely about the quarterback. There's a reason why Alfred Morris, a sixth-round rookie out of Florida Atlantic, finished second in the league in rushing with 1,613 yards playing alongside RG3. Read-option offenses don't care for whom the gap is opened—they're going to exploit what you give them.
Not surprisingly, the Packers and Falcons both took courses on college campuses (Green Bay went to Texas A&M and Atlanta to Clemson). Even so, defenses across the league might still be a step behind. At the college level, Mason has seen offensive coordinators using faster tempos by going no-huddle, and they're creating ways to make reads off interior defensive lineman, not just edge players. Offensive coordinators in the NFL might use as many as 15 formations with the same personnel grouping in a game, but a defense isn't going to have as many schemes to confuse an offense. Stopping the read-option is about knowing how and where to line up, and being on the same page about how to attack the formation. One blown gap and Kaepernick is sprinting 60 yards for a touchdown.
"There's no magic elixir playing against those schemes," Mason says. "It's being fundamentally sound in terms of your keys. That's it. If you don't understand your fits, or where your eyes go and where your help is, you're at risk. You're just out there playing ball, and they're always going to be one step ahead of you."
And with that, Mason wipes the whiteboard clear. Can't give away all the secrets.
NFL defenses often looked foolish against the read-option last season. Their biggest problem was rooted in surprise. Robert Griffin III and Russell Wilson were rookies, and Colin Kaepernick, a second-year pro, didn't become the starter until Week 11. Once a season begins, there isn't much time for a defense to properly study and adapt to a previously unknown scheme. Even if there was, it would have been impossible to re-program 4-3 defensive linemen (the single-gap players) who make a living getting upfield and wreaking havoc as quickly as possible.
Going into a new season, defensive coaches have had months to take lecture notes from college coaches like Mason and become teachers themselves. Expect any 4-3 team that plays against a read-option offense in 2013 to employ modified version of a 3-4, two-gapping scheme.
Mason may know how to slow the read-option, but the best advice comes from a different Stanford classroom. Across the Oval and Main Quad, where they teach applied physics, you'll be reminded that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
NFL defenses have taken action, and offenses will soon react. Whoever studied the best this offseason will ace the test. The loser will have to enroll in summer school again.
Peter King caught up with two of last season's biggest read-option stars, Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson. See what both are up to, and what both are thinking as a new season looms.
Great article! I love reading about connections from college to pro outside of draft talk.
Great deep dive article on a very topical NFL subject. Thanks & keep up the great work.
More articles like this SI. The best article I've read all year. This is the type of thing that real football fans are hungry for.
Not that the Rams are going to make it to the playoffs or anything, but they had success against the read option last year, defeating the Redskins, 49ers and the Seahawks. Perhaps there is something that can be learned by how the Rams defensed those teams.
A really well done article covering a complex topic in the kind of detail that I don't often see in NFL coverage. Maybe one of the most interesting and well written items of football journalism I have read this year. Has the ability to affect the average fans appreciation and understanding of the game. If this is the type of work I can expect from Mr. Bedard then sign me up! Wel done.
I feel like this article was lacking. Yes, ends can "slow play" the mesh, but there is a LOT more to the zone read in the NFL and NCAA. The 49ers arc block to the play side alley with their FB - who can also kick out or just bury a DE that sits and waits to read the mesh, making this strategy a challenge. OT/TE's can base block reading ends, who then get burned but an outside zone or even the power play. Carolina and others ran "dash", an inversion of the play where the RB runs wide and the QB pulls and hits the D-gap only if the end runs wide after the back - which also exposes a "sitting end" strategy. There is way more to defending a zone read than this article suggests. I'd like to see diagrams or clips of Stanford's strategy vs Oregon in 2012 vs 2011, or even NFL clips of how some teams employed these strategies in the NFL. The only real enlightenment from this article is that assigning a safety to the QB restricts some pre-snap coverage looks, which can help a QB diagnose a defense and audible if they over commit. Still, I expect more from the new MMQB.
Forward passing will never work in the NFL. It's far too risky--do you realize how many quarterbacks will get hurt trying? NFL defenders are just too fast and athletic. Just hit the quarterback and the receiver and after a few plays they'll be too afraid to throw the ball anymore. I mean, you can have the QB pump fake and use play action, but you can't fool great defenses with trickery. Sooner or later they'll always catch up. There's a reason most NFL games end up 0-0 ties.
The techniques necessary to defending zone read are totally counterproductive to defending outside zone or rushing the passer on drop backs. The more well balanced a team is and the more formations/motions/shifts they use, the less they will have to use zone read and the more successful it will be. Zone read is the equalizer play for defenses that are too exotic/aggressive.
After watching the 3-4 2 gap defense of the Cowboys get dismantled by the Skins last year, I'm not so sure of the validity here.
"Stanford players might not rival Alabama's in terms of athleticism..." WHAT? What about Shayne Skov, widely regarded as the best ILB in the country, or Ed Reynolds, widely regarded as the best safety in the country, and Jordan Richards, Stanford's other safety, who is right behind Ed Reynolds? What about Trent Murphy, Ben Gardner, and Alex Carter? These are all NFL prospects, and they all play on Stanford's defense. Derek Mason is amazing, but don't get the wrong idea about Stanford. Those kids can play ball.
The key to stopping anything in the NFL is players that make plays! Everyone is over-complicating this. If you don't have the players... they won't make plays.
The key to defeating the read-option is simple: discipline. That's it. Everybody play your assignment, no freelancing. If you have the pitch, take the pitch even if the QB is right there. What gets these defenses is that a) they've never seen anything like this and b) they think they can catch the QB since they are used to playing against the Peyton Manning of the NFL. So they end up flailing around looking like a fool.
Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc2p1jjZ6UE
@QuakerKid yes you are right. im a redskin fan of 40 yrs and was so frustrated by the rams defense last year. seemed a little rough play and the refs missed some dirty play also, but as you put it, they did win the hard fought game. Fischer has always played like that though.....
@trev_russell @@trev_russell I was at that Oregon game. Oregon didn't play well and Stanford played nearly flawless. One thing that I noticed, and I don't know all the reasons, but Stanford was playing their linebackers 3-5 yards deeper then normal. Having the the DE come up and then down the line seems to me to be a great way to make sure he can cover neither option. And Oregon has advanced their options and and the way they disguise them each year. The player being read by the defense is often not the DE but one of the LB's.
@trev_russell @trev_russell In the college game there's ten years of defensive counters to the read option, followed by offensive adjustments to those counters, followed by more defensive adjustments, and so on. You can't expect them to cover it all in one article and a short video. Especially when many NFL "experts" and writers with national gigs are still saying idiotic things like the eagles spent the entire day in the "read option formation"...which isn't even a thing and shows a total lack of understanding of what's going on.
@trev_russell It'll be interesting to see if teams start to implement "dash" concepts with power/counter schemes. We had a ton of success running these at the HS level with a tough, athletic Qb. I also see college teams doing it. Newton is the only guy that I think can get away with this in the pros because he is so big. I saw the 49ers do it with Kaepernick a few times, and it was pretty sketchy. Running your Qb into the teeth of the D is always a concern. Defending sweep/fly and power/counter in the same play is extremely difficult for a defense though.
@trev_russell he lost me when the Ducks aligned in 'Pistol' formation; which even Chip Kelly would take offense too. The Ducks ran a 'Wishbone' formation similar or exactly the same as the "SI book Blood, Sweat, and Chalk" noted in chapter four The Texas Longhorns 54 Veer. I remember Chip Kelly correcting a reporter who asked him about the Ducks running the Pistol offense and obviously the meant the zone read. I also felt the article was lacking many intangibles to what defensive scheme would work against the read option. I agree with your observations on the Oregon Stanford game as well.
In fact, the only sound play is the QB Kneel--unless you're playing the Bucs; then you'd better just forfeit.
Don't even get me started on the dangers of handing the ball of to a tailback. Good lord, NFL defenses will destroy those guys!
@zkinter36 I think you are right about how it will be used going forward. It will be used at times, but not too much. Keep a defense worrying about it but don't over do it.
@zkinter36 i agree
@PhillyPenn To oversimplify things like this is kind of ridiculous. There is a reason that the same coaches are always successful, and it has a lot to do with their art of war.
@PhillyPenn That being said, must stink to be an Eagles fan. :(
@tundey That is the first step. But the spread also is designed to create bad matchups so that even if a player is in the correct place he has a bad match up
@tundey You should be selling your knowledge to NFL teams for a very large sum of money. Because there are plenty of guys getting paid millions and working 80 hour weeks to figure out how to stop this, and it hasn't happened. Preaching discipline and having all eleven members of your defense practice it every snap are two completely different things.
@TheFFInformer @trev_russell You are correct. In the pistol formation the QB is closer to the line of scrimmage. Oregon's spread has the QB in the full drop back position.
Which, people forget, is exactly what happened this year. The Skins used to R/O the most of the three, and they still only used it about 13% of the time. Just because defenses see the pistol doesn't mean they ar seeing the R/O
@Ilovemesomeme, it does right now. that's for sure
@Ilovemesomeme @tundey Dude, I totally agree with you! I should be selling this knowledge for big money...in fact, I am willing to sell it for less than millions...but for some reason these coaches aren't calling my number. Maybe I should switch to Verizon
@Ilovemesomeme @tundey I know how to stop the read-option. You crush their QB until they split in two.. then they won't be running anymore. If they run, you punish them, no other way to crush the dreams of the idea of the running QB.
@Ilovemesomeme @tundey Baltimore stopped it. FACT!
@Ilovemesomeme @PhillyPenn LOL. Right back at ya.
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme Aight man, be easy, just keep my name outcha mouf, and my familes name outcha mouf.
@PhillyPenn @randomdeletion Yeah, but then McNabb was your QB for over a decade. And he was just unbearable to listen to.
@PhillyPenn @randomdeletion Haha I don't even know the incident people refer to where that happened, I just threw it out there for why he would have a problem with Philly. I don't. I don't really care.
@randomdeletion Booing Santa was in 1968. Get over it.
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme I'm a Redskin fan friend. ;)
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme boo santa?
@Ilovemesomeme @PhillyPenn What they ever do to you?
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme Well, it couldn't have happened to a better group. :)
@destrusdominate @Ilovemesomeme @tundey You gotta catch him to crush him, right? Watch this youtube again to see the Giants premier pass-rushers trying to catch RG3...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc2p1jjZ6UE It's not that easy.
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme @tundey ummmm, go back and watch the REDSKINS vs RAVENS game and tell me that!
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme I feel you. It's what we do man. Shoe was the other foot for most of the past twenty years.
@Ilovemesomeme You could be right. What else am I gonna do, they're my team.
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme @tundey It's okay friend, either way, we're still far better off than the Eagles right now. Looks like that trophy case is going to be barren for at least another decade. And Chip Kelly? Ouch.
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme @tundey That Cousins pick that everyone ripped Shanahan for is looking like a pretty genius pick at this point.
@Ilovemesomeme @PhillyPenn @tundey Whatever dude. Good luck with RGKnee this year. Hope Cousins kept in shape over the off-season.
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme @tundey They didn't stop the 9ers offense. The 9ers defense just didn't stop theirs.
@Ilovemesomeme @PhillyPenn @tundey 9ers scored fewer points. Ravens stopped it just enough.
@PhillyPenn @Ilovemesomeme @tundey The Redskins moved the ball and scored at will on the Ravens in a win. The Niners are still scoring TD's in the second half of this past SB. The Ravens didn't stop it at all.


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The Twilight Zone: Volume 10 DVD
$9.97Add to Wish list
- Additional Details
- Format: DVD
- Rating: Not Rated
- Number of Discs: 1
- Run Time: 100 Minutes
- Aspect Ratio: Fullscreen
- Studio: Image Entertainment
- DVD Release Date: April 3, 2001
- Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Mono
- Cast: Rod Serling
- Genre: TV Series
- Color: Color
- Includes:
Animated Menus
Twilight Zone Trivia
Cast Information
Season-By-Season Commentary
- Release Date: 1961
The Twilight Zone episodes in The Twilight Zone Volume 10 include Cliff Robertson as a Western settler who sets out in 1846 to find medicine for his son, and stumbles into modern-day New Mexico. In The Last Flight, (Episode 18, February 5, 1960), a World War I flying ace flies through a mysterious cloud and lands at a modern U.S. air base in the year 1960. But, the strangest part is yet to come in another Twilight Zone episode. In the CBS episode Once Upon a Time (Episode 78, December 15, 1961) included in The Twilight Zone Volume 10, Woodrow (Buster Keaton), a janitor living in the year 1890, accidentally activates a time-traveling helmet that transports him to 1962, after which it promptly breaks down! Finally, included in The Twilight Zone videos is The Trouble with Templeton (Episode 45, December 9, 1960), in which Booth Templeton (Brian Ahern) is an aging actor who longs for the old days when his wife was alive. Miraculously, he is given a sobering glimpse of the past he holds so dear.
Buy authentic The Twilight Zone DVDs Volume 10 for hours of the twisting and turning suspenseful plot lines of these eerie episodes.


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There you are, standing in the driveway, staring into the garage at your first new/old car. What a deal. You picked it up for only $1,900 and it runs, too! If you're anything like the typical car guy, images flash through your mind of cruising on a warm summer night with one hand on the wheel and the other doing the "Orangutan Hang" out the window. Sure, it's rough around the edges, but what can you expect from a $1,900 car, but hey, it's yours and you can't wait to get in and cruise it.
Before jumping in and running full throttle down the highway, there are some mechanical items begging for attention before any action is performed-sorry to burst the bubble of imagination there. Indeed, basic diagnostic evaluations can save you a world of hurt and even some money. There are also a few cool tools that should be added to any automotive collection. For those tools, we turned to Equus for help, (but more on that later).
Back when I was in high school, I was saving every nickel and dime to buy my first car. My grandfather saw me working hard and stocking away my money, and decided to help me out with the automobile situation. He did so by handing me the keys to his '73 Camaro! How's that for a 17-year-old kid in school? My dad, however, wasn't so thrilled. About a year later, the small-block started running rough, and shook like a dog passin' peach pits. I was perplexed as to how I should handle it. I had no mechanical skills, and no idea how to check the timing, compression, vacuum, or anything else for that matter. My father, being a "Ford man," never did help me spin wrenches on the Camaro. Gradually, the car got worse, and eventually stopped running all together. Giving in to frustration, I eventually sold the Camaro for $400, and I never saw it again-a decision I will always regret.
For some of the new guys just getting into this lifestyle/hobby, there is nothing like looking back with regret over selling a car-when you didn't have to-due to the lack of mechanical skills. For you fellas who have just sent your last kid off to college, and are looking to recapture your youth and buy the car you have always dreamt about, we hope that getting back to basics helps you achieve your automotive pursuits.
While we've got the wheel off, take a closer look at the tread. Look at your tires and check for uneven wear patterns and tread depth. Uneven wear patterns can be indicative of misaligned steering. Apparently, the previous owner put on a new set of tires-hoorah for us! For the time being, that's one less thing to worry about.
Now let's pull the drums off all four corners and make a visual inspection of the drum lining. Check the drums for any deep wear patterns or cracks; in our case, the drums were just fine.
After checking the drums, let's take a look at the brake shoes and wheel cylinders. Inspect the wheel cylinders to make sure there is no leaking fluid and all the seals are in order. Also, check the backing plates. If any brake fluid is present it'll usually translate into a greasy, wet mess on the backside of the backing plate and surrounding suspension components; replace them immediately. Wheel cylinders are inexpensive to replace.
Next up on the list: let's pull the wheel hubs off and check the wheel bearings. Make sure they have plenty of grease and repack them if necessary. True story: I once had to spend the night in a tiny out-of-state town on account of dried-up wheel bearings that had gone bad. The new bearings arrived the next day via overnight delivery (not cheap). If you hear a metallic chirping noise from your wheels or vibrations, stop and take a look for safety's sake.
A quick visual inspection of the spindle is also on the list. Look for any worn or shaved spots on the spindle where the bearings sit.


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Hello as the title says I'm pretty obsessed with the idea of identifying and possibly seeing again these early 90's action figures.
All I remember is a blurry 1992-93's TV ad where some kids were torturing an overweight screaming woman with some soft rubber squishy monsters that squirted ooze, booger or some kind of gooey substance through their nose, mouth, bellybutton and eyes. Each of them squirted through a different place, one was brown with an oversized rat like nose and had green ooze, and the one I had was a big headed dark blue stitched zombie that emanated a sort of pinkish substance through the eyes.
They were really hideous, and thus I loved them, but the fact that makes them so hard to remember is that the TV ad was in spanish and they were called something like "La Onda Guacala" which translates into "The Nasty Wave"... so the memory is not quite useful while googling. As far as I remember they were five to six inch tall, made by Mattel, and they are not Madballs since they had an attached kind of deformed body.
Well I hope you guys have any clue of the name of these action figures, or anything that can lead me to find a picture.
Thanks in advance


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Jo of the Gates wrote:Big changes in my life! I've been laid off after ten years on a job I really enjoyed. But the job was really doing a bad number on my spine since an injury a few years ago, so the down-time is a blessing - a chance to rest and recover and read a whole lot more. It took 5 weeks for unemployment insurance to find its way to my bank account, and it's about 2/3 what I was earning. But my pain is so much less now that I think I may just flat out retire and learn to make do with less.
It takes a while to get used to living like that, Jo. But it sounds like you are better off as far as your health is concerned. Good luck for the future!


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Engage physicians in support of organizational goals
Develop and implement strategies to build trust and create sustainable partnerships with your medical staff during times of change.
You'll Learn:
Presented by:
Seminar leader Joseph S. Bujak, MD, FACP, speaker, facilitator and consultant, provides solutions to the frustration and disillusionment that often accompany attempts to engage physicians in partnerships.
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Continuing Education Credit
In addition to the 12 ACHE Face-to-Face Education credits assigned to this seminar, ACHE is accredited by other organizations to provide continuing education credit. View complete information about these organizations.


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RALEIGH — Neandertals are our closest extinct relatives. They diverged from a common ancestor with humans about 300,000 years ago. Mysteriously, they disappeared from the fossil record about 30,000 years ago. Join Dr.
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Learn why it's all in the reflexes when the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences shows "Big Trouble in Little China" on First Friday, February 3 at 7pm. Free.
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Very happy with the pickups, I bought the middle and neck pickups. I hadn't heard them before I purchased online, I was just going on info from the web that I read. I put them into a my Charvel Jackson with a EVH hum-bucker in the bridge. My aim was to create a guitar to swap between a EVH or a SRV sound. Mission accomplished.
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The Gingrich Fantasy
Our conservative readers (and yes, there are some) might be interested to know how liberals view the rise of Newt Gingrich to a clear lead in the race for president, and the answer is, we're gobsmacked. We just can't believe the Republican Party would be foolish enough to nominate a man who has so many weaknesses and is so plainly (from our perspective, anyway) repellent. We're not at all surprised to see the GOP establishment freaking out over the prospect of a Gingrich nomination (witness George Will employing every florid turn of phrase he can come up with to condemn Gingrich: "There is almost artistic vulgarity in Gingrich's unrepented role as a hired larynx ... His Olympian sense of exemption from standards and logic ..."). The fact that the average Republican voter now seems to think that nominating Newt will work out well for them just makes no sense.
Someone recently said that Republican voters are acting like they're auditioning not presidents but Fox News personalities. Primary voters want someone to channel their rage, their resentment, and their hatred of Obama in the same way that Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity do. Mitt Romney doesn't make the kind of television personality that the other candidates do. The key to delivering the contempt over the airwaves is that you have to believe it, and while Mitt is happy to serve up the red meat, it's pretty clear he doesn't actually believe it but is giving his audience what he thinks they want to hear. All the other not-Mitts, for all their modest talents, clearly believe it. And yesterday, conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat made what I think is an important observation about the latest not-Mitt, Newt Gingrich:
IN 2004, the Democrats were furious at what they considered the fraud to end all frauds: the selling of George W. Bush as a decisive military leader and all-American tough guy. So they nominated John Kerry for the presidency, hoping that having a real combat veteran as their standard-bearer — a bemedaled war hero, no less, who began his convention speech by announcing that he was "reporting for duty" — would finally expose Bush as the tinhorn chicken hawk that liberals believed him to be.
The conventional wisdom holds that Mitt Romney is the John Kerry figure (a Northeastern flip-flopper with good hair) in the 2012 Republican primary field, with his various challengers auditioning to play the more exciting role of Howard Dean. But Newt Gingrich's recent rise in the polls is being sustained, in part, by a right-wing version of exactly the impulse that led Democrats to nominate Kerry: a desperate desire to somehow beat Barack Obama at his own game, and to explode what conservatives consider the great fantasy of the 2008 campaign — the conceit that Obama possessed an unmatched brilliance and an unprecedented eloquence.
If you aren't tuned in to conservative media—the radio shows, television shows, and websites where the base Republican voter lives—you might not be aware of how powerful this impulse is. Many conservatives are positively obsessed with the idea that contrary to all appearances, Barack Obama is kind of a dolt. There's lots of talk about how Obama only got into Columbia and Harvard Law School because of affirmative action (you may remember noted highbrow intellectual Donald Trump making this claim), and endless jokes about Obama overusing teleprompters, with the idea that he's too dumb to give an extemporaneous speech sometimes implied and sometimes stated outright.
So many conservatives have a fantasy that if they nominate their own smart guy, he'll show the world that they've been right all along, that Obama is really a numbskull whom people only believe is smart because the liberal media sing his praises. Gingrich himself is well aware of this, which is why he's happy to play into it by challenging Obama to a zillion debates and saying, to the laughs and cheers of the crowd, "If he wants to use a teleprompter, that would be fine with me."
Newt may be, as Paul Krugman recently said, a stupid person's idea of what a smart person sounds like. But to many Republicans, Newt offers the opportunity to not just defeat Obama but to expose him as a fraud. In truth, he's probably capable of doing neither. But don't tell his new supporters that. In Newt they are beginning to see the possibility of Obama being humiliated. And that could be a fantasy too delicious to resist.
Mon, 2011-12-12 15:06
Then there are the Republicans who are so only because the Repubs are the only party that shows even a faint hope of a promise of nominating a president who will appoint to the SCOTUS someone who will put even the slightest crimp in the ongoing wave of grossly unConstitutional Fed bureaucrazies the Republic has been saddled with, starting early in the 1900's and metastasizing from the 1960's onward, rationalized by a ridiculous interpretation of the Commerce and General Welfare Clauses. These agencies have promulgated a host of economy-killing regulations that are doing us in. In this respect, Mitt and Newt are about as likely as any of the Repub contenders, and will probably pick from the same pool as GB did, eventually. We might get lucky and get another Clarence Thomas.
I'll admit, it's not very likely, but it's a hope; the only realistic one the Republic has, since the sovereign of the nation, We the People, are clearly uninterested in our own foundational Law. We couldn't care less what the Constitution says. This does not end well.
Mon, 2011-12-12 15:42
A Letter to the Editors of Thew New Hampshire Union Leader Newspaper:
Dear Union Leader,
When I heard on the news of your endorsement of Newt Gingrich for president, I was truly surprised. A couple of times over my long career in media production I have visited New Hampshire. The Yankee ancestors of our nation were always on the faces of the people there.
The people of New Hampshire deserve a candidate for president who strives for the good of the nation. The people of New Hampshire are proud, noble and independent.
It appears that the voice of the people of New Hampshire, the Union Leader is now only a crude follower. Fox News is your muse. The New York Post is your comfort. Rush Limbaugh is your panacea and your antidote for reality. Limbaugh's clone, Gingrich is clearly not interested in benefitting our America.
Over his entire career as a politician, Gingrich has never done anything but grandstand for whatever will gain him more money and cheap status. His record is identical to many other egoists in political history. Gingrich's malicious works can lead only to more dissolution of our democracy and our shriveling into irrelevancy in our perilous world.
How can you not see this? How insulated from the world you must be?
While America sleeps the Union Leader sleeps.
Good night my once dear New England friends,
Joyce Melton
Tue, 2011-12-13 00:47
What world does SOTMHK live in that he thinks LESS regulation would have prevented the global economic meltdown caused by deregulation of the financial industry? And the current SCOTUS is the one that has committed the sophistry of pretending that corporations have opinions that need First Amendment protection. He's wrong-headed on both of the points he attempts to make.
Tue, 2011-12-13 12:52
I think Newt is a tougher nut to crack than most Dems imagine. He's skilled at delivering the rhetoric that excites conservatives and I think he can rally the Republican base into a frenzy of working their fingers to bone for him. He'll remind them he led the Republican revolution of 1994 and he'll remind them he led the battle against the hated Clintons. He was the anti-Clinton and he'll be the anti-Obama. Unlike say Mitt Romney who is entirely too slick to be the anti-Obama, Gingrich's rough and ready style contrasts so markedly with Obama, the Republican base will eat it up. Newt fits into the pre-existing conservative narrative - they lost 2008 by nominating the not really conservative McCain, they won 2010 by running hard to the right so they'll win 2012 by being even more hardline conservative. Newt can be that man. He'll turn into an apocalyptic battle between good and evil, between freedom and socialism, and even if he turns off everyone except the Republican base, he still emerges a storied hero who led them into a losing battle against the cynical machinations of the secular socialist Muslim forces trying to destroy America. We'll hear stories of our how he lost due to massive voter fraud, or was destroyed by unfair tactics by Democrats.
The President's legendary no drama stance will reassure most Americans, but that's not what the right wants. They want to storm the Bastille, launch a revanchist revolution and roll back a century of history. Newt already sees himself as world bestriding figure, a modern Robespierre. Win or lose, he emerges a hero to the American right for daring to lead them in this crusade. Win and he vanquishes the hated Obama and reclaims America for the right. Lose and he becomes a legendary hero who led them when no one else would could in a valiant rearguard right against a nefarious enemy. And the election becomes cultural and political trench warfare.
It's going to be a rough year.
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Energies: Haines & Hinterding
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Aleks Danko
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David Capra is the 2015 Bella commission artist and to celebrate the installation of his new work Teena's Bathtime, we held a very special open day.
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On tour until October 2015
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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Pulse Room (detail) 2006Image courtesy and © the artistPhoto: Alejandro Biazquez
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Just what I wanted
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The print is a gift for a close friend who admired my own copy.
Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
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Reproduction of Pierre Bonnard Painting
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[...]I am very satisfied with this company.Theirinventory is unbeleivably huge.
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Colors are washed out
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The framing job was excellent. However, I have personally seen the original in the D'Orsay museum and the colors in this print are dull, washed out, basically ruin the artistic merits and the poster is totally unsatisfactory
Bottom Line No, I would not recommend this to a friend
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The $500 billion in automatic cuts to the defense budget that are looming unless Congress and the White House reach a budget deal would be devastating to Northwest Florida, economists and officials say.
The cuts, dubbed sequestration, would go into effect beginning Jan. 3.
"This would be a disaster for Northwest Florida," said David Goetsch, a local economist who is serving as the vice chairman of Florida's Defense Support Task Force.
He said in his 30 years working in Northwest Florida nothing has ever threatened the local economy as much as sequestration.
Local defense contractors likely would be the hardest hit and it would result in major layoffs at those companies and in the civil service, he and other officials say.
Congress passed sequestration last summer. It was created as a threat to hold over Congress and the White House to ensure a long-term agreement on how to reduce the deficit.
A so-called super committee was formed to come up with a plan. If the committee failed, nearly $1 trillion in spending cuts would automatically go into effect starting in 2013 – half coming from the Department of Defense and half from other government programs.
The committee failed.
The cuts, designed to be politically unpalatable on both sides of the aisle, were supposed to bad enough that most members of Congress would do anything to avoid them. With less than three weeks to go until the Dec. 31 deadline, the threat of sequestration is still at hand.
"We're playing this crazy game of chicken in Washington, D.C., and we're risking not only our national security and defense, but we're risking a huge impact to our economy," said state Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach.
Florida's congressmen say they are working to put a stop to sequestration, but their effort is embroiled in a debate over expiring tax cuts and other spending issues. If sequestration goes forward and the tax cuts expire, some believe the country will go off what is now known as the "fiscal cliff" and could be thrown back into a recession.
"We've been trying for a year to avoid this," said Dan McFaul, press secretary for U.S. Congressman Jeff Miller, R-Chumuckla, who was traveling Wednesday.
Miller said in a statement released last week that more than 1 million private-sector jobs could be lost if sequestration goes through.
"The defense cuts imposed by sequestration … pose a serious threat to our economy, and states like Florida, with a large military presence, would feel the brunt of the blow," he said in the written statement.
Florida's Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio also have opposed sequestration.
Florida is the most defense-dependent state in the country and Okaloosa, in turn, is the most defense-dependent county in the state, Goetsch said.
Military and defense-related activity make up 60 percent of Okaloosa's economy, said Jim Breitenfeld with the county's Economic Development Council.
Most of that economic activity is generated by companies researching, developing and testing new weapons systems or maintaining existing ones and these pricey defense contracts likely will see the brunt of the cuts, Goetsch said.
That means companies like Fort Walton Machining and Raytheon, which provide high-level, high-value jobs could be the most affected if sequestration goes through.
Breitenfeld, who heads the defense support initiative for Okaloosa's EDC, said contractors are already frustrated with the uncertainty sequestration has created.
"How do they go forward without knowing what forward looks like?" Breitenfeld said.
Bidding for defense contracts can be a time-intensive and costly process and the companies are not sure how many existing contracts will carry forward if sequestration occurs, he said.
The Pentagon has not released details of exactly how the cuts would be implemented.
The Office of Management and Budget has asked the Department of Defense to start making plans for the cuts, though, according to a news release from the Air Force's Public Affairs department earlier this week.
"We know what the potential impacts might be, and that helps us create a baseline for what we need to plan against," Dr. George Little, acting assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said in the release.
They are planning for the cuts, but are still hopeful Congress and the White House will come up with a resolution to avoid it, he said.
While some budget reductions are necessary, deep, across-the-board cuts to defense spending are not the right answer, Gaetz said.
"Everything we are learning around the world is that other superpowers are developing weapons systems faster than they have ever before," he said. "We can't curtail our research and development and testing. That's the most important work we do."
Goetsch said the state's defense task force lobbyist is in Washington, D.C., working to avert sequestration. The lobbyist says it appears there is a 50-50 chance of it coming to fruition.
"They're not encouraged," he said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Lauren Sage Reinlie at 850-315-4443 or email@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @LaurenRnwfdn.


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Emelia Desk
The streamlined, neoclassic design of our Emelia Collection finds its feminine grace with tapered legs, fluted sides and feet, and carved floral accents.
- Handcrafted of kiln-dried hardwood with fine veneers
- Finished by hand in a warm French grey using a 6-step process
- Includes glides and adjustable levelers on feet
- Oval hardware has an antique pewter finish
- Features 1 small top drawer and 1 larger drawer that accommodates hanging file folders
- Center drawer can function as a keyboard tray with a drop-down front and cord cutout in back
- Wood swatch is 6" square; free shipping
- GREENGUARD Gold Certified. Meets or exceeds stringent chemical emissions standards. Learn more.
Emelia Desk
- Overall: 46"W x 18"D x 30"H
- Chair Opening: 25"W x 17"D x 26"H
- Top Drawer Interior: 24"W x 14"D x 3"H
- Middle Drawer Interior: 13"W x 9"D x 2"H
- Bottom Drawer Interior: 13"W x 9"D x 10"H
- Weight: 79 lbs.
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I see a lot of interesting programs out there that can only be obtained by adding a "PPA" to the system but, if I'm understanding correctly, we should stay within the official "repositories" for adding software to our system. Is there any way for a novice to know if a "PPA" is safe or if it should be avoided?. What tips should the user know about when dealing with a PPA in the first place.
PPA (Personal Package Archive) are used to include a specific software to your Ubuntu, Kubuntu or any other PPA compatible distro. The "safeness" of a PPA depends mostly on 3 things:
Basically stick with this 3 and you will be safe. Always look for the maker/maintainer of the PPA. Always see if many users have used it and always see how updated the PPA is. Places like OMGUbuntu, Phoronix, Slashdot, The H, WebUp8 and even here in AskUbuntu are good sources to find many users and articles talking about and recommending some PPAs that they have tested.
Stable PPA Examples - LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Banshee, Wine, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, PlayDeb, GetDeb, VLC are good and safe PPAs from MY experience.
Semi Stable PPA - X-Swat PPA is a in the middle PPA between bleeding edge and stable.
Bleeding Edge PPA - Xorg-Edgers is a bleeding edge PPA although I should mention that after 12.04, this PPA has become more and more stable. I would still mark it as bleeding edge but it is stable enough for end users.
Selectable PPA - Handbrake offers here a way for the user to choose, do you want a stable version or do you want the bleeding edge (Also referred to as Snapshot) version. In this case you can select what you want to use.
Note that in the case of using for example the X-Swat ppa with the Xorg-Edgers PPA, you will get a mixed between the two (With priority towards Xorg-Edgers). This is because both are trying to include almost the same packages, so they will overwrite each other and only the most updated one will show in your repositories (Except if you manually tell it to grab the package from X-Swat).
Some PPAs might update some of your packages when you add them to your repository because they will overwrite with their own version a certain package to make the PPA software work on your system correctly. This might be some code packages, python versions, etc.. Other like the LibreOffice PPA will remove all existence of the OpenOffice from your system to install the LibreOffice packages there. Basically read what other users have commented about a specific package and also read if the package is compatible with your Ubuntu version.
As the comment below suggest by Jeremy Bicha, some bleeding edge (PPAs that stay very up to date including adding Alpha, Beta or RC quality software in the PPA) could potentially damage your whole system (In the worst case). Jeremy mentions an example of many.
To develop PPA's on launchpad, the contributor must have signed the ubuntu code of conduct. This signifies the the developer must abide to a minimum set of standards.
Usually people should then consult the ubuntuforums to see who has used particular ppa's and if they could cause any issues.
For a "novice" or "noob" - my best advice is to steer clear of PPA's until you feel confident that you understand a few things about the command line, potential error messages and a few things how to diagnose issues.
To remove ppa's causing issues, you can most of the time use "ppa_purge"
If you are feeling nervous, then consider an image backup of your computer with a tool like clonezilla. That way, if things go wrong and you cant resolve it, at least you have a quick means to restore your computer back to the way it was before you started playing.
Having said all that, ppa's are extremely useful to get the latest versions of software - especially for those that dont try to upgrade every 6 months and stick with the LTS version of ubuntu.
It isn't just a matter of malware, as has already been said. It is also that some of the software might really still be in the testing stage and not ready for production use. If you install it and rely upon it to get work done, you might find that it is buggy, unreliable, and can crash - leaving you without the work you have done.
Some of it might also not get along well with other aspects of Ubuntu, such as Unity or Gnome, causing problems that are difficult to trace, and perhaps even making your system unstable.
This is not because the software is bad, but because it has perhaps not yet been fully tested, or because it was made available so that people could test it, but not yet intended to be generally released as production software. So you should use caution, although some of it is really quite good.
A number of months ago I installed a recommended package from a particular PPA, and it trashed my system enough that I had to reinstall Ubuntu. I was a new user and didn't know what else to do; with a bit more knowledge I might have been able to solve the problem and restore it without doing a reinstall (although that, too, was useful to me in learning Ubuntu, but if I had worked saved on my machine I would have lost it).
So be careful, ask questions, make frequent backups (!!!), and know that malware is unlikely (though not impossible).
All the concerns listed by others here are extremely important to understand. That said, since this is open source, we can tell exactly what the PPA has changed from the version of the package in Ubuntu. We'll use the PPA from this duplicate as an example.
First we'll grab the source from the PPA
I found that link by clicking "View package details":
And then:
Next, we'll get the source of the package in the Ubuntu archive:
Finally, we'll use
The output of that command is about three hundred lines long, so I'll put it on a pastebin instead of directly into the window. Now, I can't vouch for how good the code is since I don't really know C++, but it seems to be doing what it claims and not anything malicious.
A PPA is a web folder that contains software you can install. It really isn't much more complicated than that. When you install a package, you do that with root privileges and the package has scripts that are run, so they are run as root. That means installing any software is dangerous and you do need to trust the developer or distributor.
An apt archive, PPA or otherwise, is polled regularly for updates to software you have installed. The "problem" with that, is that anyone can provide a newer package of software you have installed. For instance, you can add a PPA in order to get a nice theme and automatic updates of that theme. But once you have added that repository, the owner can add a patched openssh-server package, for instance, and it will appear as an update in Ubuntu. This can be done a year after you added the PPA, so you need to pay attention to updates.
The PPA system does prevent third-parties from tampering with the packages, however, so if you do trust the developer/distributor, then PPAs are very safe. For instance, if you install Google Chrome, then they add a PPA so that you'll receive automatic updates for it. They add "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main". If the DNS server you use was hacked to point dl.google.com somewhere else, then they could push patched software onto everyone who had installed Chrome. But Ubuntu would refuse to install them since they could not be signed with Googles private key. So in that regard, PPAs are very secure.
It is not possible to say that a PPA is safe or not. It depends on the people who use it to distribute software. With free software, people can look at the source and see if it is safe or not. When lots of people use an archive, like Ubuntu regular archives, then you have peer review. Small archives with few users don't have that, so they are less trustworthy. The main lesson is that no matter what system you use, you should take care when installing software.
The packages on PPA's aren't checked for things like malware. So while someone might be packaging something like XBMC for you, they could very easily also be adding some spyware/malware as well. This is why you shouldn't just add any random PPA.
Building upon Luis Alvarado's answer, you should be aware of these risks:
and you should be attentive to these factors:
When you add ppa and install a program through it.
Basically you give permission to reside that program in allowed executable area (/bin/ /sbin/ /usr/bin/).
Now if program itself is/has somehow a malware then system won't complain about it as you are the one who added ppa considering its trustworthy.
When program comes from the Ubuntu repositories they are first checked (I would like to say thoroughly but I don't know :P) so those from Ubuntu repositories are free of malware/spywares for sure.
For any other ppa its upto you/user to decide whether to trust it or no.