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A manufacturing process is migrated from an existing operation to a configure-to-order (CTO) system. As the CTO operation will eliminate the "machine-type model" (MTM) inventory of the existing operation, the emphasis is shifted to the components, or "building blocks", which will still follow the build-to-stock scheme, due to their long leadtimes, and hence still require inventory. The solution involves an inventory-service trade-off of the new CTO system, resulting in performance gains, in terms of reduced inventory cost and increased service level. Other benefits include better forecast accuracy through parts commonality and risk-pooling, and increased customer demand, as orders will no longer be confined within a restricted set of pre-configured MTMs.
1. A method of managing manufacturing logistics of end products comprising the steps of:
maintaining an inventory of components, which components, termed "building blocks", are built to stock, each said component having a cost;
configuring-to-order end products using said components;
establishing a base-stock level for each of said components; and
replenishing said components from suppliers in accordance with said base-stock levels so as to reduce a total cost of inventory of said components,
wherein said cost of at least one component differs from said cost of at least one other component, and wherein said difference determines the result of said replenishing step.
2. The method of managing manufacturing logistics of end products recited in
3. The method of managing manufacturing logistics of end products recited in
4. (canceled)
5. A system for managing manufacturing logistics of end products comprising:
means for maintaining an inventory of components, which components, termed "building blocks", are built to stock, each said component having a cost;
means for configuring-to-order end products using said components;
means for establishing a base-stock level for each of said components; and
means for replenishing said components from suppliers in accordance with said base-stock levels so as to minimize a total cost of inventory of said components,
wherein said cost of at least one component differs from said cost of at least one other component, and wherein said difference determines the result produced by said replenishing means.
6. The system for managing manufacturing logistics of end products recited in
7. The system for managing manufacturing logistics of end products recited in
8-15. (canceled)
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computer assisted manufacturing processes and, more particularly, to a model for re-engineering a build-to-stock operation to a configure-to-order operation centered around "building blocks", thereby keeping inventory only at the component level.
2. Background Description
A configure-to-order (CTO) system is a hybrid of make-to-stock and make-to-order operations: a set of components (subassemblies) are built to stock whereas the end products are assembled to order. This hybrid model is most suitable in an environment where the time it takes to assemble the end product is negligible, while the production/replenishment leadtime for each component is much more substantial. Personal Computer (PC) manufacturing is a good example of such an environment. By keeping inventory at the component level, customer orders can be filled quickly. On the other hand, postponing the final assembly until order arrival provides a high level of flexibility in terms of product variety, and also achieves resource pooling in terms of maximizing the usage of component inventory. Therefore, the CTO system appears to be an ideal business process model that provides both mass customization and a quick response time to order fulfillment.
Such a hybrid model is often referred to as an assemble-to-order (ATO) system in the research literature. In an ATO system, usually there is a pre-fixed set of end-product types from which customers must choose. In contrast, a CTO system takes the ATO concept one step further, in allowing each customer to configure his/her own product in terms of selecting a personalized set of components that go into the product. Aside from checking that the product so configured must "make sense", there is no "menu" of product types that limits the customer's choice.
PC manufacturing traditionally has been a build-to-plan (or build-to-forecast) process, a process that is sometimes referred to as the "machine-type model" (MTM) operation. There is a set of end products, or MTMs. Demand forecasts over a future planning horizon are generated for each MTM, and updated periodically for each planning cycle, typically, a weekly cycle. A "materials requirements planning" (MRP) type explosion technique is then used to determine the requirements for the components over the planning horizon, based on the bill-of-materials (BOM) structure of each end product. Because of the random variation involved in demand forecasts, safety stock is usually kept for each end product, as well as at each component level, in order to meet a desirable customer service level. However, holding finished goods inventory for any length of time is very costly in the PC business, where product life cycle is measured in months and price reduction takes place almost every other week.
Y. Wang, "Service Levels in Production-Inventory Networks: Bottlenecks, Tradeoffs, and Optimization", Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 1988, applies an asymptotic result in an optimization problem to minimize average inventory holding cost with a constraint on the order fill-rate. J. M. Swaminathan and S. R. Tayur, "Stochastic Programming Models for Managing Product Variety", in Quantitative Models for Supply Chain Management, S. Tayur, R. Ganeshan and M. Magazine (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, 1999, pp. 585-624, use stochastic programming models to study three different strategies at the assembly stage; utilizing component commonality, postponement (the "vanilla box approach"), and integrating assembly task design and operations. Other related recent works, not necessarily in the CTO setting, include Y. Aviv and A. Federgruen, "The Benefits of Design for Postponement", in Quantitative Models for Supply Chain Management, S. Tayur, R. Ganeshan and M. Magazine (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, 1999, pp. 553-584, A. Garg and H. L. Lee, "Managing Product Variety: An Operations Perspective", in Quantitative Models for Supply Chain Management, S. Tayur, R. Ganeshan and M. Magazine (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, 1999, 467-490, L. Li, "The Role of Inventory in Delivery-Time Competition", Management Science, 38 (1992), 182-197, and S. Mahajan and G. J. van Ryzin, "Retail Inventories and Consumer Choice", in Quantitative Models for Supply Chain Management, S. Tayur, R. Ganeshan and M. Magazine (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, 1999, 491-552.
The problem solved by the present invention is to migrate a manufacturing process from an existing operation to a Web-based CTO operation where customer orders will be taken from the Internet. As the CTO operation will eliminate the MTM inventory, the emphasis will be shifted to the components, or "building blocks", which will still follow the build-to-plan scheme, due to their long leadtimes, and hence still require inventory. The solution involves an inventory-service trade-off of the new CTO system, with resulting performance gains, in terms of reduced inventory cost and increased service level. There are other benefits: There will be better forecast accuracy through parts commonality and risk-pooling. Customer demand is expected to increase, as orders will no longer be confined within a restricted set of pre-configured MTMs.
Whereas most studies in the literature focus on certain segments of the supply chain, modeled as simple stand-alone queues, the present invention aims at modeling large-scale, end-to-end enterprise supply chains, such as those in the PC industry. The centerpiece of the invention is a network of inventory queues, which integrates inventory control with the delay-capacity features of queues. The network configuration is determined by the bill of materials (BOM) structure of the end products. The solution approach is a decomposition-based approximation, coupled with nonlinear optimization using conjugate gradient search. The model can be used not only to study the inventory-service tradeoff, but also to compare the effects on inventory and service performances through changing the network configuration; i.e., the supply chain structure, and to identify the best configuration.
The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be better understood from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which:
We consider a hybrid model, by which each end product is configured to order from a set of components, which, in turn, are built to stock. In other words, no finished goods inventory is kept for any end product, whereas each component ("building block") has its own inventory, replenished from a supplier following a base-stock policy.
Referring now to the drawings, and more particularly to
First, consider the traditional ATO environment. That is, there is a pre-specified set of end products (i.e., machine type models), with each type indexed by m ε M where M denotes the set of all product types. For each product type, there is a corresponding demand stream.
Time is discrete, indexed by t, with each time unit called a period. Let Dm(t) denote the demand of type m in period t. Each unit of type m demand requires a subset of components, denoted Sm ⊂ S, possibly with multiple units of each component. From the BOM structure of the end product, we can identify Mi as the subset of end products that all require component T as part of the assembly. That is, Mi={m: i ε Sm}.
There are two kinds of leadtimes; those associated with the components, and those associated with the end-products:
We can now express the demand at store i in period t, for any i ε S and any t=1, 2, . . . , as follows:
The above analysis is now adapted to the CTO environment. In this environment, there is no pre-specified product menu; in principle, every order can require a distinct set of components. Hence, we use M to denote the set of product/demand families that use the same set of components S. For instance, M={low-end machines, high-end machines, servers}; or M={individuals, small business, corporations}.
Suppose Dm is the demand associated with product family m in a certain period (for simplicity, the time argument t is omitted). Suppose each unit (order) in Dm requires a random number of units from component i, denoted as Xmi, which takes on non-negative integer values. The sets M and Mi are still defined as before, but they now take on the following form:
We can then translate the end-product demand into demand for each component i (per period).
Therefore, equations (1) and (2) can be generalized as follows:
As mentioned above, suppose each store i follows a base-stock policy. Let Ri(t) denote the reorder point (or, base-stock level) in period t. Express the reorder point as follows:
To facilitate implementation, it is often desirable to translate Ri(t) into "days of supply" (DOS), or more precisely, periods of supply. To do so, note that the μi(t) part of Ri(t) simply translates into periods of demand. In addition, we can turn the ki(t)σi(t) part of Ri(t) into
Note the intuitively appealing form of equation (11), in particular the safety-stock (or rather, safety time) part, which is equal to the product of the safety factor and the coefficient of variation (i.e., the ratio of standard deviation to mean) of the component demand over the (in-bound) leadtime.
For the inventory performance measures, the expected on-hand inventory and back-order level are as follows:
Next, suppose demand is stationary, i.e., for each demand class m, Dm(t) is invariant in distribution over time. Then, the mean and the variance of demand per period for each component i follow the expressions in (3) and (4). Consequently, (8) and (9) reduce to the following
Sometimes it is more appropriate to adjust the demand distribution to account for non-negativity. Specifically, instead of D=μ+σZ, where Z is the standard normal variate, we should have {tilde over (D)}=[μ+σZ]+. The adjusted mean follows from equation (13) as follows:
From equations (7), (17) and (18), it is clear that to identify the base-stock policy is tantamount to specifying the safety factor ki for each component inventory. In the following sections, we discuss how to set the safety factor values so as to achieve the best inventory-service performance as specified in the optimization problems below.
For ease of exposition, we shall focus on stationary demand. For non-stationary demand, we can simply solve the optimization problems below period by period.
To start with, consider the special case of each order of type m requires exactly one unit of component i ε Sm. Let α be the required service level, defined here as the off-shelf availability of all the components required to configure a unit of type m product, for any m. Let Ei denote the event that component i is out of stock. Then, we require, for each end product m ε M,
There is another way to arrive at the above inequality. Suppose we express the service requirement as follows:
In the general setting of CTO, consider demand of product family m. Let A ⊂ Sm denote a certain configuration, which occurs in this demand stream with probability P(A). Then the no-stockout probability, Πi εA Φ(Ki), should be weighted by P(A). Hence, the service requirement in (22) should be changed to
Note that in the CTO environment, in particular when Xmi≧1, the stockout at component i should occur more often than {overscore (Φ)}(ki) due to the batch size associated with each order. In particular, (15) should be modified as follows (omitting the time argument t):
We can now relate the above off-shelf availability requirement to the standard customer service requirements expressed in terms of leadtimes, Wm. Suppose the required service level of type m demand is:
Consider type m demand. We have the following two cases:
Clearly, with the assumed inequalities in (27), the first probability on the right hand side of (26) becomes one, and the probabilities under the summation all become zero. Consequently, the leadtime service requirement in (25) reduces to the off-shelf availability π0m, and a lower bound of the latter is the left hand side of (22), as we explained earlier.
Our objective is to minimize the maximum stockout probability among all end-products subject to a given inventory budget. In view of equation (21) and the more general service contraint in (24), the problem can be presented as follows:
To solve the above optimization problem, we first apply a transformation of variables. Let
Several remarks are in order:
The Lagrangian corresponding to the above optimization problem is:
As there is no easy way to solve the above system of non-linear equations, we propose a greedy algorithm, which works as follows: We first discretize the problem—let Δ be the step size. For instance, set Δ=0.01% (one basis points), and start with xi=0 for all i. At each step, we identify the variable xi*, such that increasing xi * to xi*+Δ will yield the smallest increase in the objective value. This corresponds to identifying whether the maximum, over all m ε M, of the left hand side of inequality (30) will either (i) remain the same or (ii) increase by a positive amount.
Consider case (i) first, i.e., there is a subset, denoted A⊂S, such that for any i ε A, we can increase xi to xi+Δ, without affecting the current β value in the algorithm. In this case, we pick the index i*ε A as follows:
The above procedure is continued until the inventory budget constraint is satisfied; i.e., until the left hand side of inequality (31) is brought down to B or less.
The main computation involved in each step of the above algorithm is to evaluate the increment
To summarize, the algorithm is implemented as illustrated in the flow diagram of
For each i ε S, set xi:=0.
For each i ε S, set rmi:=P(Xmi>0)
For each m ε M, set βm:=0.
Set β:=0.
At this point, the process enters the outer one of three nested processing loops. The first step is to initialize the set of active building blocks, A, to A={ } in function block 202. Then the second processing loop is entered in function block 203 which considers each i ε S, followed by entering the third processing loop in function block 204 which considers each end product m that uses component i in its bill-of-material. In function block 205, set βm:=βm+rmiΔ, for all m such that i ε Sm to perform the processing in the third nested processing loop. Then, in function block 206, compute δi:=maxm{βm}−β. A determination is made in decision block 207 to determine if δi≦0. If so, then add i to the set of active building blocks, A:=A+{i}, to complete the processing in the second nested processing loop. In function block 208, determine if the set of active components A is non-empty; if so, set B:=A. otherwise set B:=S where B is a set of component indexes. In function block 209, find i*:=arg maxiεB{−ciσi/rmig′(xi+Δ/2)}, where −g′(�) follows equation (37). In function block 210, set xi*:=xi*+Δ to update the no-stockout probability of component i*. In function block 211, compute β=maxmεMβm, and in function block 212, check whether inequality (31) is satisfied. If yes, stop; otherwise, in function block 213 update βm for each m ε Mi*, set βm:=βm+rmiΔ, and go to function block 202 to complete the first processing loop.
When there is only a single product type, the above algorithm is guaranteed to yield the optimal solution (modulo the discretization). For multiple product types, to solve the problem to optimality would require, at each step, the examination of all subsets of S, instead of just the individual components i ε S. For instance, if components i and j are involved in two different product types, then it is possible, at some step, to increase both xi and xj to xi+Δ and xj+Δ A without increasing the objective value.
Another case of interest is when each end product has (at least) one unique component, which we denote as im for product m. That is, Mi
The "dual" to the above optimization problem is to minimize the expected total inventory cost, subject to the stockout probability of each product no greater than β, a given parameter. That is,
The purpose of this section is to illustrate numerically the effectiveness of the model and the algorithm developed above.
Problem Data
Consider a family of desktop computers that consists of six different end products, denoted PC 1-PC 6, which are configured from a set of 17 different components, or building blocks. The components are obtained from external suppliers with different supply leadtimes. Table 1 summarizes the data used in the numerical study, including the unit cost of each component and the supply leadtime (including time for shipment).
Each end product is configured from a set of building blocks as defined by its bill-of-material (BOM). The BOM structure is displayed in Table 2. The final assembly process, for each end product, takes no more than 1 to 2 hours, which is order-of-magnitude shorter than the component leadtime. So this fits well with the scenario discussed above.
We remark that the data provided in Tables 1 and 2 are based, on real data from the PC assembly system of a major computer manufacturer. To protect company confidentiality, we have altered the values of the data. The modified values, however, are still relatively close to a realistic product representation.
We examine the performance of our model under several parameter settings. The parameters varied include the budget limit on the expected inventory cost, demand variability (in terms of the coefficient of variation), and the BOM structure. We also investigate the performance of the model when applied in a non-stationary demand environment. We check the results obtained from the optimization against Monte-Carlo simulation. Simulation point estimates and confidence intervals were constructed from twenty independent replications with 1,000 time periods in each replication.
We first study the effect of demand variability on the service level, inventory budget, and optimal base-stock levels. Assume that demand for the six end products is independently identically distributed among the products and over the time, with a mean of E(Dm)=100 per period; the coefficient of variation is 0.2, 0.4, and 1.0. The budget limits are varied so as to obtain service levels (no-stockout probabilities) at about 90%, 95%, and 98%. The basic time period in all cases is one day.
Tables 3 to 5 summarize the numerical results for these cases. The column labeled "opt." shows the optimal no-stockout probabilities of the end products for t e given inventory budget. The column labeled "sim." shows the corresponding 95% confidence interval obtained from simulation. Input to the simulation are the base-stock levels for the building blocks generated by the optimization model. The base-stock level of each end product is zero, since each end product follows aft configure-to-order operation.
Observe that the no-stockout probabilities returned from the optimization model is generally conservative; i.e., lower than the simulated values. This is expected as the off-shelf availability of each end product used in the optimization model is a lower bound of the true value, as explained above. Also observe that the bound becomes tighter as the service level increases, along with the increased budget. Furthermore, the bound appears to be closer to the simulation results as the coefficient of variation (of demand) increases.
Among the six end-products, PC 5 is the only one that does not have a unique component. Observe that it alone achieves a higher service level than the other five end-products, which all have the same service level. In other words, all end-products with unique components have binding constraints in inequality (24), whereas PC 5 exceeds this service level.
For the same cases, Table 6 summarizes the comparison for the expected overall inventory costs. It is interesting to note that while the simulation runs result in higher service levels, the associated inventory costs are also slightly higher. (The relative error, however, is still well below 5%.) This suggests that in applications, when the inventory budget is a "hard" constraint, we need to input into the optimization model an inventory budget limit that is about 5% lower than its real value.
Table 7 displays the solution found by the optimization model for the case of cv(Dm)=1.0. For every component, the optimal solution is shown in three forms: base-stock level Ri*, safety factor ki*, and days-of-supply DOSi. Clearly, these (optimal) values all increase as, the overall budget increases. The results also illustrate the effect of risk pooling: the higher the degree of commonality of a component, the lower the amount of safety stock required to maintain the service level. For instance, the safety stock for the 64 MB memory module, which is used in all six products, varies between 3.86 and 4.48 days-of-supply, whereas the safety stock for the ethernet card, which is unique to PC 3, is roughly twice that amount.
Next, we illustrate the special case that each end-product involves at least one unique component, in particular, the verification of the optimality equations (26) to (29), as discussed at the end of the last section. Recall, in the above example, PC 5 is the only end-product that does not have a unique component. To obtain a scenario where each end product has at least one unique component, we modify the original bills-of-materials structure by letting PC 3 and PC 4 both use the 6.8 GB hard drive, while reserving the 13.5 GB hard drive as a unique component for PC 5. This way, PC 5, like all the other end-products, also has unique component.
We run the greedy algorithm on this modified BOM structure fo the case of cv(Dm)=1.0. The results are summarized in Tables 8 and 9. Notice that the six end products now achieve the same service level because they all have unique components, and thus all constraints in inequality (24) become binding.
When comparing the results for the original and modified BOM structures as shown in Tables 7 and 9, we find that the optimization produces similar days-of-supply targets for all components except the two hard drives. The safety stock of the 13.5 GB hard drive increases from 5.42 to 8.19 days-of-supply whereas that of the 6.8 GB hard drive decreases from 6.17 to 5.05 days-of-supply. This again is a consequence of risk-pooling because modifying the BOM structure increases the commonality of the high-capacity hard drive, and at the same time decreases the commonality of the low-capacity hard drive.
To verify the optimality equations, recall from the discussion above that we first determine the Lagrangian multipliers, λm and η, based on the solutions returned by the algorithm, and then check the equations in (26) for all the non-unique components. Table 10 lists the gap, labeled "abs.err.", between the left hand side and the right hand side of the equations in (26) for all the non-unique components. The gap is indeed very small, on the order of 10−8 or below. This clearly indicates that in this case the greedy algorithm has returned an optimal solution. (That there is a gap at all is mainly due to discretization.) The other two cases, with the coefficients of variation being 0.2 and 0.4, yield similar results.
We next examine the effectiveness of the algorithm in handling non-stationary demand. For instance, when the demand forecast changes weekly, we can run the optimization model at the beginning of each week using the demand offset scheme described above. The base-stock levels are then updated weekly, based on the outcome of the optimization.
To illustrate this approach, consider the product structure described in Table 1. Consider a planning horizon of 100 weeks, over which the mean demand for each end-product changes weekly, while the coefficient of variation (which measures the forecast error) remains constant. Specifically, we randomly generate the weekly demand from a uniform sample over the interval [525,875], while maintaining the coefficient of variation at 2.646. Using the algorithm that solves the "dual" problem described in (31) and (32), we minimize the total expected inventory cost subject to a set of target no-stockout probabilities, 90%, 95%, and 98% (corresponding to β=0.10, 0.05, and 0.02). Table 11 compares the achieved service levels and the total expected inventory cost between simulation and the optimization model. Input to the simulation are the component base-stock levels, by week, generated by the optimization algorithm.
For 90% and 95% service level targets, the simulated no-stockout probabilities do exceed the values returned by the optimization. At 98% service level, the simulated values are slightly below their analytical counterparts. This is largely due to the weekly update of the base-stock levels: whenever there is an increase in demand, and hence an increase in base-stock levels, from one week to the next, there is a time lag in building up the inventory, due to the supply leadtime, and the available stock may be insufficient to accommodate the increase in demand. This shortfall can be eliminated if the base-stock levels are updated more frequently, say, daily. We further observe that the analytical estimates of the expected total inventory cost are within 5.5% of the simulated values.
Here we describe the study mentioned earlier, which was part of a larger project aimed at the re-engineering of an existing business process from a build-to-stock operation to an assembly-to-order operation centered around "building blocks" (i.e., keeping inventory only at the component level). To carry out the study, we have developed two basic models: the "as-is" model that is a reflection of the present operation, and the "to-be" model that is based on the optimization model described in the previous sections—in particular, with the component inventory levels generated by the algorithm. For both models, we aggregate the business' production-inventory system into two stages, the first stage consists of the components, or building blocks, and the second stage includes the assembly and the order fulfillment.
Three-factors have been identified as focal points of our study:
To study the first factor, we select a major product family at the business, which consists of 18 end-products configured from a total of 17 components. We use the business' existing data—including BOM, unit costs, assembly and procurement leadtimes—to run a detailed simulation model. The demand for each end-product is statistically generated, based on historical data. The days-of-supply targets are set to meet a required service level of 95% (for all end-products). Following the business' current practice, these targets are determined using a combination of simple heuristic rules and judgement calls from product managers, and verified by simulation (via trial and error).
We then feed the same data, including the same statitically generated demand streams, into the optimization model, which eliminates the finished-goods inventory at the end-product level and optimally sets the base-stock level for each component inventory. The optimization model minimizes the overall inventory cost while meeting the same service level of 95% for all end-products. We take the optimal base-stock levels, and rerun the simulation to verify the analytical results.
Note in the above study, both models use the same demand forecast, at the end-product level. The "to-be" model, however, can easily switch to forecasting demand directly at the component level. This will result in improved forecast accuracy, as we can take advantage of parts commonality, as each component is generally used in several end products. Hence, in our study of the second factor, we evaluate the effect of forecast accuracy through a sensitivity analysis.
Our study of the third factor aims at analyzing the impact on inventory when the system supports a richer product set, in terms of product variety. The motivation is to support mass customization. In the Internet-based, direct-sales environment, for instance, the number of different product configurations that customers want to order can be significantly larger than what is currently supported in the build-to-stock environment.
Observe that as the product variety increases, a significantly higher level of inventory is required in the "as-is" model. This is because forecast accuracy will deteriorate when the end products proliferate (i.e., larger varieties at smaller volumes). On the other hand, in the "to-be" environment, the increase in inventory cost is very modest. This is because the proliferation of end-products will have minimal effect on the forecast accuracy at the building-block level, due to parts commonality. This strongly supports the fact that the building-block model is the right process to support an internet-based, direct-sales operation.
The examples given demonstrate the advantages of the invention applied to the business of manufacturing personal computers (PCs). However, the invention has applications to other configure-to-order (CTO) manufacturing systems and is not limited to manufacturing PCs. Thus, while the invention has been described in terms of a single preferred embodiment, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention can be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
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At Midamar we want you to be absolutely thrilled with your purchase. So simply put, if your order does not meet your expectations for quality, value, and service, then we want to know about it so we can make it right. If you're not satisfied, neither are we. In addition, if we have met or exceeded your expectations we would like to hear from you as well. Thank you and we look forward to being of service.
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With the January transfer window looming, the 20-year-old striker was recently linked with the Gunners.
But when a journalist asked Holloway on Friday about reports of his possible departure from Selhurst Park, Holloway was having none of it.
He said: "I'm fed up talking about Wilf. We have some great players here.
"Why not talk about Andre Moritz or Mile Jedinak or Yannick Bolasie.
"Wilf's our player, he's on a four and half year contract and it would take a lot more than one player to de-rail us.
"We have many good players. It's all because he was called up by England lately."
The Eagles are currently second in the Championship table and Holloway added: "I thought it was unprofessional of Arsenal to mention Zaha.
"I like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. He would help our promotion push. And what about Theo Walcott, he's out of contract at the end of this season.
"I bet you wouldn't start the speculation that way around."


text: You are not going to find real life amateurs that have chosen to live the alternative lifestyle of everyday slaves. I personally document their desire to make one another slaves and have them live out their erotic pleasures. Come see the high quality footage I have put together of these couples that live to make one another their personal sex slaves. I am sure you are going to enjoy these ladies restraining their men to the bed before the grind their hot wet pussies down ion their faces till they unleash their creamy cum into their mouths.


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ducduc's austin crib is handmade from 100% locally sourced hardwood. It has a timeless design that satisfies the need to customize your child's nursery. With eight color choices from baby blue to energetic orange, you can easily create the look you want.
ducduc has thoughtfully handmade their nursery furniture with sustainable wood sourced close to their New England factory. The crib has non-toxic finishes and adhesives, and contains no particle board or MDF, both of which run the risk of containing formaldehyde. Also available in wood/white with four different hardwood finishes. The versatile Austin crib converts to a toddler bed with ducduc's toddler rail conversion kit (sold separately).
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Just wondered if any celebs browsed the site, come on don't be shy, it can't just be raving nutters who enjoy the sounds of the state....out yourselves.
Does anybody know of any famous people who like and buy 808state music ?
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Alumi-Lock Ramp Attachment Brackets
Discount Ramps brings to you the Alumi-Loc Ramp attachment brackets! These brackets allow ramps with hooks to positively lock into a loading surface and prevent ramp kick out. These Alumi-loc kits are the future of ramp loading, as they are by far the safest possible way for people to load and unload their UTVs/ATVs, sleds, bikes, golf carts, and anything else that needs to go in the bed of a truck or, in the back of a vehicle, or storage. Using a ratchet or cam straps to hold ramps in place can be a hassle to set up and maintain; not to mention having to lay on the ground or crawl under the car and ramp to get them safely hooked up. The Alumi-loc ramp attachment brackets make this very safe and easy, as you just unfold the ramps, hook them into the channel, and get ready to start loading. Securing the ramp to the tailgate or trailer is super easy. The Alumi-Loc comes in multiple sizes: 48 inches, 52 inches and 60 inches, and fitting most tailgates or trailers on the market today. Just in case one of the three do not fit, custom sizes are available and can be made to your liking for .75 cents an inch. Also, the mounting kit for the attachment brackets is available.
Discount Ramps model numbers ALUMI-LOC-48, ALUMI-LOC-52, and ALUMI-LOC-60 are the Alumi-Lock ramp attachment brackets. These tailgate or trailer, ramp attaching brackets are made from a heavy duty, all aluminum material so they will not pit or rust. The Alumi-Loc brackets eliminate the need for safety straps when loading and unloading. With three sizes to choose from, or simple way to have attachment brackets custom made, there is no reason to use anything else. The mounting kit for the Alumi-Loc system is also available to help make installing the attachment bracket even more simple and upfront. This all comes with a one year manufacture's warranty.
Please note that the ramps must have hook ends for use with the Alumi-loc system and some drilling is require for installation. To view more Tie-down devices please visit Discount Ramps.
The model numbers of the ramps that come pre-fitted for the Alumi-Loc system:
Big Boy II Ramps
Whiteout Snowmobile Ramps
Multi-Purpose Heavy Duty Loading Ramps
Tags: Attach ramp to tailgate, Ramp attachment bracket, secure ramp to Tailgate, Secure ramp to trailer, tailgate ramp bracket, trailer ramp bracket


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Learn to develop HDR photos with Photomatix.
Photographer Ben Long describes and demonstrates high dynamic range (HDR) photography, a technique that broadens the luminance or range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image.
"There are quite a few things that make lynda.com the best online learning platform. One of the greatest is that you guys listen and respond to your audience and I can't thank you enough for doing so." —Nathan
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For Sale: 1948 Cadillac Series 61
Ad #181994349 Posted:2015-02-23 06:50:03
This ad expired 78 days ago.
Very cool is the best way to describe this 1948 Cadillac series 61 4 door custom. It has been meticulously restored and features all the modern comforts you could want. The body is very straight and solid with no rust. It is covered in a beautiful base coat clear coat Lilac paint that has been color sanded and buffed to a deep luster. It really looks outstanding. The factory chrome is all in place and good condition. The lights are all in great condition and the left rear housing opens up to expose the gas filler. The doors have been shaved and operated with electric poppers controlled from the key bob. The glass is all in excellent condition and all the manually operated windows operate flawlessly. It has new weather-stripping throughout as well as new body welting. The interior is a thing of beauty. The factory dash is very cool and as been painted a suede white and filled with white face Autometer gauges. It even has a new white face clock. The seats are done in Lavender and White Ultra Soft leather. The door panels and headliner have been covered with the same fine materials. The front bucket seats feature 6 way power and the rear seats feature very nice armrests for extra comfort of your passengers. Tunes are provided by a nice AM/FM/CD stereo system. There is a nice overhead console with courtesy light and a custom center console with storage and cup holders. The AC system works great and will keep you cool even during those hot summer days. Driving is a pleasure with a tilt steering column with a LeCarra wheel. It has cruise control, power steering and power brakes. The trunk area has been finished out to match the interior and features a nice hidden compartment for the cars spare tire and jack. Plus there is still plenty of room to carry those cleaning supplies in the compartment for when you pull into the cruise in or car show and want to give it that once over detailing. The drive train consists of a late model Buick 455 sitting in a detailed engine compartment. It has a slight cam to give it just the right sound out the dual exhaust, an Aluminum radiator with electric fan and painted valve covers, etc. to match the cars overall appearance. The motor is bolted to a 700R4 4 speed automatic overdrive transmission that enables the car to cruise down the highway without running the RPMs up at all. Approximately 2,000 rpms at 70 mph. That helps on gas mileage which we estimate to be around 15 to 18 mph on the freeway. Plus it runs great on regular unleaded fuel so there is not need to pay extra at the pump for premium. It has new shocks all the way around and rides on American Racing Torque Thrust wheels. (P215/70R15 in front, P215/70R16 in rear) The brakes are power front disc and rear drum. There is a 3rd brake light in the rear window to help keep those other people that are staring at the car from running into the rear. This car is one that has to be seen to appreciate the quality and attention to detail. And it is a car that is a consistent show winner that will provide miles of care free fun while continuing to appreciate in value. A great classic at a price well under its construction cost. Make it your own for the Reduced Price of $46,950.00! NOW REDUCED DOWN TO $39,250.00!
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RRS Ernest Shackleton Research Ship Webcam
The webcam on RRS Ernest Shackleton is situated in the Conning Tower (see the Virtual Tour for an image of the Conning Tower). It generally looks forward, but if something of particular interest is going on, it may be moved to look aft or to either side. This is a particularly interesting webcam as (when not on long sea passages) the scenery changes regularly. During the Antarctic summer, it is possible to see stunning polar scenery, icebergs and mountains. During the Antarctic winter, the Shackleton undertakes survey work in the North Sea so you may catch a glimpse of an oil or gas platform. It updates approximately once every hour.
November 23, 2012 at 07:00
Images on November 23, 2012
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Home » Braises and Stews
Two roasts make up our Wagyu Briskets, each so abundantly marbled that this delicious beef slow cooks in its own juices to produce the most succulent and the tastiest brisket you will ever find! Braised Wagyu - a treat for gourmet cooks and Wagyu lovers alike!
ORIGIN: USA BREED: American Wagyu BONE: No WEIGHT: 5-6lbs each; approximately 11 lbs total PACK SIZE: 2
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This season's FA Cup final will take place on Saturday, 11 May - 24 hours before Wigan were due to play Arsenal.
The Latics will now travel to the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday, 14 May - the same night City travel to Reading for their rescheduled fixture.
City's game against West Brom, which was due to take place last weekend, will now be played on 7 May.
City's FA Cup semi-final opponents Chelsea will entertain Swansea on Sunday, 28 April because of their Europa League semi-final with Basel the previous Thursday.


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Staff Picks: Burger Places with Great Beer
Sometimes all you want is a great burger and the beverage that goes alongside it isn't too important. But other times, access to a wide variety of awesome beer is equally crucial to eating a delicious burger. For those times, we've compiled a list of a few favorite spots across the nation to simultaneously satisfy a craving for an exceptional pint and a delicious beef patty. Click through the slideshow to see all of our picks. More


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Hoofddorp, Netherlands
End Content Chaos – How to improve customer service and differentiate your business though the use of secure cloud collaboration
This session looked at how companies can use a combination of Kofax, Alfresco on-premise and Alfresco in the cloud to automate key business processes. Using the example of an insurance company to demonstrate how mobile and web-based technology can come together to connect and inform all participants in a complex motor insurance claim to deliver the optimum outcome for all the affiliate participants (the insured, legal, financial and technical teams, and third parties).
View all presentations and demo from the seminar below:
Alfresco: Ending Content Chaos
Kofax: Data Capture at the Point of Origination
Alfresco + Kofax demo: Adaptive Case Management solution
Case management demo (video)


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Many homes have at least one sliding door leading to the backyard, a balcony, deck or patio. While vertical blinds are the traditional choice for these large sliding glass doors, there are other choices for adding privacy and controlling light with your sliding door window treatments. Here are the pros and cons of each type to help you select the right window treatments for your sliding glass doors.
The three main types of window treatments for sliders are vertical blinds, panel track blinds and vertical cellular shades. Each type has features to make them suitable for different needs and styles.
Vertical blinds are the most common type and have multiple hanging slats. Verticals for sliding doors work the same way as for other windows, with one control for rotation of the slats and one for opening and closing.
Panel track blinds for doors also have hanging panels - the difference is that they are very wide and lie 'flat to the window' and slide back and forth in channels. Available in a wide selection of materials normally found only on shades, including woods, matchstick grasses and other materials and patterns.
Vertical cellular shades are the third and least commonly known option for sliding door window treatments. Made from a honeycomb shaped material that expands and collapses, both the left and right side are moveable with handles, allowing the shades to open left or right, or to gather in the middle.
All three types of sliding door window treatments offer privacy. Vertical blinds offer near-total privacy when closed, with the possible exception of the small gaps along each side (resulting from the space between the slats and the window). For typical applications, this is not an issue. Panel tracks privacy varies by the material selected, and can range from an open weave to a total blackout. Vertical blind offer maximum privacy, with full coverage over the window and solid material.
Made to measure window treatments fit better, work better and look better than off the shelf, off-brands do, and the options are much more diverse. Also, if you need any help with your choices, you can call our experts for direct assistance.
Patio blinds, patio doors window treatments, sliding doors, sliding glass doors and sliders. All the same thing, depending on which part of the country you're from! How ever you say it, we've got it.
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with Beata Chapman
Thursdays, January 30 - March 20, 2014
(8 classes)
7:30 - 9 pm
As Zen practitioners, we all want to end suffering for ourselves and others. In this class, we will explore in-depth the 12-fold chain and its implications for everyday practice of the Bodhisattva Way. The Wheel of Dependent Co-Arising is an ancient Buddhist cosmology that explains in detail how we and other beings, in each moment, "become" again and again. It explains why beings suffer and how we can personally end suffering moment by moment.
Participants will be invited into the Wheel of Life through reading and dialogue. Each student will express his or her own personal wheel of dependent arising by creating an individualized wheel based on his or her own life experience. This class is also helpful for focusing on a specific hindrance or obstacle in one's life and applying the practice of turning the flower in that particular area.
Fees: $120; $108 current SFZC members; $96 limited income. Some partial scholarships available. (About Registration, Scholarships and Cancellations.)
To Register: Use the ticket table below to register online. Or call our toll free number (888.743.9362) or our local number (415.475.9362).
About Registration, Scholarships and Cancellations


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todd joins celebrity effort to fight lou gehrig's disease
'Lou's Team' to be Unveiled May 18 in Washington, DC
Monday, May 08, 2000
Todd Joins Celebrity Effort to Fight Lou Gehrig's Disease
'Lou's Team' to be Unveiled May 18 in Washington, DC
May 8, 2000
The ALS Association has named Todd McFarlane to its newly formed "Lou's Team," an active sports council honoring Lou Gehrig comprised of professional athletes and celebrities with an impact on the sports and ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) communities. Lou's Team will officially be announced May 18 in Washington, DC, during ALS Advocacy Day and will work together to raise public awareness of ALS and the work of ALSA to advance the fight against this fatal disease that currently affects some 30,000 Americans.
Other confirmed team members include Carolina Panthers quarterback Steve Beuerlein; ESPN's Dick Schaap; current and former baseball stars Steve Garvey, Kent Hrbeck, George Brett, Curt Schilling, Ernie Banks and David Cone; golfer Tom Lehman; Helen Hunter (Jim "Catfish" Hunter's widow); plus other sports and Hollywood celebrities.
"Todd McFarlane and The McFarlane Collection have brought an immeasurable amount of increased awareness to ALS and the work of the ALS Association," said Mike Havlicek, president. "We are privileged to have Todd join our effort to fight Lou Gehrig's disease in Washington. His appearance will truly make a difference."
When Lou Gehrig died because of ALS in 1941, little was known about the disease other than it took the life of one of America's greatest sports figures, whose name now signifies amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Advocacy Day will kick off the Lou Gehrig Challenge/Cure ALS, a $25 million, five-year research initiative - the largest the association has ever undertaken. Todd will be part of a Subcommittee Hearing held by Sen. Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania, and will open The McFarlane Collection exhibit at the city's ESPN Zone Restaurant, among other activities and media interviews. The Collection will be at the restaurant through May 21, and is free to the public.
ALSA has been the national charity of choice for The McFarlane Collection tour, receiving 100 percent of all proceeds from fund-raising. Since June 1999, the tour has raised tens of thousands of dollars to fight the disease that has taken the lives of such notables as baseball hall of famer Jim "Catfish" Hunter, actors Michael Zazlow and David Niven, U.S. Senator Jacob Javits, heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles, jazz pianist Charles Mingus and NFL player Glenn Montgomery.


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Arizona welcomes above-average snowpack
PHOENIX -- El Nino -- which typically brings a dry, wet winter to Arizona -- pulled a disappearing act in the fall but climatologists are pleasantly surprised by what they're seeing.
"The Mogollon Rim is around 218 percent above the norm for snowpack, and the Verde System is at about the same level," said climatologist Nancy Selover.
Arizona's reservoirs, including Roosevelt Lake, are at 36 percent of capacity, which in this case is a good thing because they'll have room to hold the spring runoff. Meanwhile, the snowpack in Colorado is at about half of what it should be. That snowpack feeds the Colorado River, Lake Mead, Lake Powell and the Central Arizona Project, but Selover said she's not concerned about that yet.
"It would be 2015 or 2016 before we would get worried but we hope it doesn't come to that. We hope January turns the corner for Colorado," she said.
A drought has taken a huge toll on the Midwest. The mighty Mississippi River is at historic lows and some are wondering if we could see the same here. Selover said it's a totally different type of drought than Arizona has been in for almost two decades.
"They're more dependent on rainfall for crop irrigation," she said. "We tend to pump more groundwater as a normal course of business. They tend not to and we are used to this because we're a desert."


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|119 posts found
Originally posted by strangiato2112
There isn't a difference. It's one of those confusing parts of english grammer concerning nouns and verbs.
It's like this. If someone never walks down by the lake, you can't say they often walk down by the lake.. because they don't ever do it; they don't often walk down by the lake. If someone walks down by the lake most of the time you can say they often walk down by the lake.. they don't always walk down by the lake but they do walk down by the lake.
So if someone is hyping something, they often exaggerate (walk by the lake).. not always, but they do exaggerate.
If they never exaggerate.. how can they often exaggerate? How can they be hyping if they don't often exaggerate?
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Spotlight Poster
Joined: 9/21/12
Originally posted by Vannor
But its not just one person that walks, its many, many people walking. So someone often walks by the lake. That doesnt mean George ever walks by the lake. Storm Legion is one of millions of things that have been advertised intensively. Many of those millions of things advertised are exaggerated. So yes, often they are exaggerated. That doesnt mean that Trion did any exaggerating.
Apprentice Member
Joined: 7/17/11
They added so much content to the game that I was afraid the quality wasnt going to be there but I was so wrong. Its unbelievale to me they but this much stuff into an exapansion.
Advanced Member
Joined: 2/27/07
Instead of reading this long thread did anyone post what is so great about it? The OP starts a thread and says best ever with no information. The issues I had with Rift were poor crafting, poor replay do to only one path to level, repetitive bland quest hubs. No interest in raiding or pvp.
Hard Core Member
Joined: 5/29/04
Leader and founder of the Excessum Gaming Community
Originally posted by snapfusion
You can say that again, i played non stop with almost no sleep to hiy lv 60 and im very impressed with the new zones and the general feel of the expansion. Its actualy way better than the base 1-50 Rift gameplay. Almost no hubs apart from major cities or some npcs related to main story quests.
Visual quality and attention to details, diversity of mobs and objects. Esp if you run it with some injector like SweetFx it makes the game look jaw dropping. I recomend to get this http://sweetfx.thelazy.net/ At the cost of no performance cost you can make the game look twice as good.
Hard Core Member
Joined: 5/29/04
Leader and founder of the Excessum Gaming Community
Originally posted by Zeppelin4
Crafting didint change much, they added some variety but its still not much diferent (but have more usses, a lot more outside just making items)
You dont really have 1 path to lv now if you talk about main storylines you can follow 2 continents so you have 2 paths there. But its not all there are little to no quest hubs, quests are based on exploration, finding quests scattered somewhere, participating in events like rifts, hunt rifts, onlslaughts, zone events doing slaughter quests, Instant adventures in every zones with often very fun quests like the gauntlent in ardent zone.
Raiding is still main endgame but you can get gear close to raid lv doing outside zone events, and many tiers of the hunt rifts that are kind alternative to raiding. And are diferent from normal rifts. Zone events etc. PvP is more of an extra as it always was, then again rift never was pvp game.
Duno what you look more in endgame than that, no mmo invented other endgame yet.
Originally posted by strangiato2112
Do we really have to keep this going for another day?
Someone who is a lake walker often walks by a lake. If they never walk by a lake, they can't be lake walking.
Someone who is a hyper often exaggerates. If they never exaggerate, they can't be hyping.
If you don't get it by now then you probably never will.
I don't care whether you think Trion exaggerated or not. They didn't, so they were not hyping. It's just advertising. That's the difference between advertising and hyping.. if it wasn't.. then hyping and advertising would mean the same thing.. so why would we have both words? Aggressive advertising.. is aggressive advertising OR generating 'hype'. 'Hype' is a noun, not a verb. Hype is a thing, hyping is an action. Generating hype and hyping do not mean the same thing. Someone who puts out a lot of adverts is generating hype. Someone who is hyping puts out a lot of adverts which often exaggerate. Someone who is hyping is generating 'exaggerated' hype. Saying something has hype and saying something is hyped are different things.
Apprentice Member
Joined: 7/17/11
Originally posted by Khebeln
Your right about that. The Art work in places is amazing. My buddy came over who usually bags on the game when he sees me playing it. Walked in blind to the game and said. Wow, what game is that it looks awesome.
I coughed and said...Rift. Silence. I just laughted and said ahh remember this game sucks dont worry about it.
Hard Core Member
Joined: 5/29/04
Leader and founder of the Excessum Gaming Community
Originally posted by snapfusion
Aye, people will always complain, but content wise and art/fidelity this expansion is second to none other. As someone mentioned you could have easily sell it as Rift 2 and no one would see the diference.
I love how many quests and little treets are hidden and you really hav to be either lucky or damn persistent explorer to find them and get server wide first msg :D
Hard Core Member
Joined: 4/03/12
Originally posted by Khebeln
I have been playing Rift 2011 when it released, it hadn't ever really gotten to the place where playing it felt as it did when I was playing MMOs prior to 2008. (AO, SWG, WoW+TBC etc) All the games I played had gone down hill badly after 2007-2008. Rift was the next best thing after that. It had been good enough to play but it didn't bring me to the level of enjoyment I had previously.
Until now. It's back.
Spotlight Poster
Joined: 9/21/12
Originally posted by Vannor
Again, there can be more than walker or hyper. You keep ignoring that. You just don't get it, its ok the English language is tricky and everyone struggles with parts of it.
The fact that you think hype is not a verb (as well as a noun) just shows hat you really dont have a strong grasp on the subject.
I don't know why you are so intent in trying to prove SL wasnt hyped. I may have exaggerated when I said it was hyped 'beyond belief', but it certainly had a lot of hype around it, more so than games around Rift's population ever get.
Advanced Member
Joined: 3/05/07
my 2 cents..
Storm Legion may or may not be good.. But I'll most likely never know.. Why you ask? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.. Rift was released as a mini WoW linear end game gear grind.. The world was insanely small, mob density was crazy.. I and friends were bored after 3 months.. None of us are even talking about it or Storm Legion.. We moved on and Trion earned a bad reputation among us.. The day Trion goes OUT OF THEIR way to make right with us, is when we might give them a 2nd chance.. I don't see that happening anytime soon.. We NEVER once got email showing any concern of us leaving the game.. That says alot by itself.. doesn't it?
Originally posted by strangiato2112
What are you talking about? The problem 'you' are having is that you think the verb and noun version mean the same thing. Which I've said they don't countless times. You can't even read english properly, let alone understand it.
Is dancing the same thing as dance? Does dance and to dance mean the same thing? You can say "hey you, dance" which is really another way of saying "Hey you, start dancing". You can also say "I'm studying dance". They do not mean the same thing.
You can be into dance without dancing just like you can have hype without hyping.
Hyping and Hype have negative connotations and you, not understanding english properly, think hype and hyping (whatever they really mean) mean the same thing as aggressive advertising.
The fact it's taken this many posts to try explain this to you is pretty embarrassing for you. You probably won't even get it after this.
So... I'll leave you with the definition of the 'noun' hype from dictionary.com so we can end this (HINT: I've underlined a certain word for you):
5. exaggerated publicity; hoopla.
6. an ingenious or questionable claim, method, etc., used in advertising, promotion, or publicity to intensify the effect.
7. a swindle, deception, or trick. "
Do you see the word 'often' in there? Trion didn't exaggerate the games features in thier advertising for the game so it is not hyped. They told it like it is.
I really wish I'd just posted that definition from the start, then you might have understood it properly.
That's what you call a slam dunk. You may eat your hat now and can continue the rest of your days using the words hype and hyping properly.
I may have done a poor job of explaining it but, ultimately, your english is off mate.
Novice Member
Joined: 7/31/11
Originally posted by Vannor
Thanks for the humor you guys. And the winner is; Vannor
Novice Member
Joined: 10/31/08
What a cracking thread. Good 1 v 1 battle there.
Vannor did win but awesome just awesome read :)
Need more of that really.
For me Storm Legion so far from what I've seen is up there with the likes of the Burning Crusade and the Mines of Moria . The new continents appear smaller than I'd hoped for . This is only a first impression though and they could be a lot larger than they appear by looking at the maps . If I am right though I would say they have more than doubled the game world size but certainly not trebled it like many people thought they would .
As I say though that is only a first impression and I could easily be wrong . I'm sure if I am some kind soul will correct me of my mistake .
Originally posted by Rydeson
Who are the "us " and "we" you keep mentioning in your post ? You seem to be talking for a group of people but you never mention who they actually are ?
Made History
Joined: 7/11/11
Pink, it's like red but not quite.
Originally posted by roo67
We used to have a fellow 'round here who measured the size of game worlds', converting walking speeds to various 'lengths' and measuring 'areas'--a little dubious in that you'd have to swallow handfuls of assumptions whole to agree with him. Wonder where he went.
Anyway, we set off here into the facts A) and the reaction to them B). In the end dubious measurement systems don't matter to how you feel about value for your dollar. That's an emotional reaction at its core, and entirely subjective. So--there is no 'wrong'.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Originally posted by Deleted User
I'm pretty sure the expansion map is bigger, a higher resolution. You can zoom out further, so it looks smaller. That's why people are comparing the maps and thinking what you are thinking. There is also more water around the new continents that add to this. The original games map had very little water space at the top and the bottom, which made the graphic smaller.
Basically, the map image, the graphic, for the old continent isn't the same size as the expansion's.. it's smaller.
I'm not 100% certain of that, but that's what I think is going on from looking at them.
Novice Member
Joined: 5/12/10
It is a double pleasure to gank the ganker.
I agree completely with the OP. There is a huge amount of new stuff to do in the game and messing around with your own personal dimension is pretty awesome. There are also little things that I have found add a lot. For example there are propaganda heralds in one of the new zones that yell crap back and fort to try to encourage their troops or discourage the enemy sort of like in World War II. One of the anouncements went something like, To all of the troops, the priority for destruction is as follows: The ascended (your character), (a list of various enemies), and..... any form of mobile tree. I just started laughing because it is like this serious strategic sounding announcement and then they throw mobile trees on the list.
Props to Trion for pumping out quality.
Currently playing:


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Review Details
Suki Exfoliate Foaming Cleanser
- Product Review (submitted on July 16, 2012):
- I purchased this after reading a recommendation from a skin care specialist online. Unfortunately, she didn't say that it would not be good for someone that has sensitive skin. I assumed since it is made from all natural ingredients, it would be ok for my face, but it wasn't. My dermatologist said it is the lemongrass that irritated my skin –