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STATEMENT Since 1982, Steve Ford has worked for some of the industries leading board makers, and has shaped under his own label Ford Surfboards, since 1996. Steve, who has been surfing since 1971, still surfs and competes at an amateur level, and spends a lot of time in the water researching, and developing his shapes and designs. In his prime at 51, he is surfing harder than when he was a grom! Having a chance to travel to many different countries; these include Indonesia, Australia, Japan, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Hawaii, riding, and testing his shapes, and designs. Experience and unsurpassed craftsmanship set Ford Surfboards apart! These proven designs are tested by our team riders and by Steve himself. Each board is crafted with the highest quality materials on the market. We offer resin color tints, opaque's, abstracts and custom airbrushes.
Standard Poly or Eps construction using only the finest quality materials and craftsmanship!
Standard Poly or Eps construction using only the finest quality materials and craftsmanship!
Custom Hand Shapes
Short boards, Long boards, Fishes, Hybrids, Retro, Stand Up, Kite, & Wake
- All boards are shaped by Steve
- Our goal is quality boards and satisfied customers
- We use only the best foam and materials
- Our boards are built by surfers for surfers


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Are you waiting for Labor Day sales to finish your back to school shopping? Good luck. If stores have their way, pickings in the clearance racks will be slimmer this year than in the past.
Knowing this back-to-school season would be weak, retailers cut back inventories and shopped more carefully for merchandise, hoping to have fewer leftovers that need to be marked down as the first day of school draws near. But parents are pinching pennies, which leaves the two sides playing a game of retail chicken -- probably until after Labor Day.
But there will be markdowns this season because sales have not materialized, even given retailers' lowered expectations in this recessionary year, says Anne Brouwer, senior partner at Chicago-based retail consultant McMillan/Doolittle LLP. "But I do think that retailers are trying not to push the panic button," she says.
Merchandisers may hold off on marking down too much, especially since their sales for the next quarter will look good compared with last year's disastrous third quarter. The panic following the stock market crash in late September wrecked sales, blew apart projections, and left retailers drowning in overstock during the crucial holiday season.
This year, retailers are determined not to get caught again. "Inventory control" has been the name of the game everywhere from Saks Fifth Avenue (SKS) to JCPenney (JCP). Even a low-price leader like Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), the world's largest retailer, reduced its inventory by 6 percent in the last quarter.
Target Corp. (TGT) has been working on reducing its assortment of products by 5 percent, executive VP of merchandising Kathryn A. Tesija told analysts this month. Target is editing its assortment to get items out of the back room and hold off on markdowns, she said.
Gregg Steinhafel, Target Corp.'s CEO, said Target's back to school pricing has been "slightly more rational, or less deeply negative than it's been." But he acknowledged the tug-of-war between retailers and shoppers during the back-to-school period. "Inventories have been exceptionally well-managed this season," he said. "On the other hand, consumers have been exceptionally price sensitive."
A survey by consulting group Retail Forward found 24 percent of shoppers plan to spend less this year on back-to-school shopping than last year, compared to 19 percent this time last year; another 49 percent plan to spend the same amount, up from 44 percent last year. Only 24 percent of shoppers plan to spend more this year, and that's down from 33 percent last year.
The main strategy for saving money? You guessed it: Look for sales. Fifty-nine percent of shoppers said that's how they will save on school supplies, and 45 percent said they will do that to save on clothes and shoes. It was the leading strategy for saving money on supplies and second only to "buying only essential items" to save on apparel (49 percent).
Andrea Deckard, a stay-at-home mother of three and blogger in Cincinnati, says she heard other parents at football practice say they were not buying new shoes for their kids for back-to-school. The old ones still fit and they planned to buy new ones around the holidays, she says: "I think more parents are seeing what current items will work to get them through the next sale period."
Deckard, who writes about money-saving tips on mommysnacks.net, says her own strategy is to reuse old clothes and supplies and wait for sales after the schoolyear starts. That way, she has the money set aside to take advantage of the clearance prices, she said. "I'm willing to wait -- actually, I'm looking forward to it," she says. "If the stores do get desperate and discount items, that will be a win for us."
But in the end, the game of chicken may not be between shoppers and stores, as much as retailer against retailer, Brouwer says. The landscape is over-retailed, with too many stores selling too much similar merchandise to shoppers who are going back-to-basics, turning away from conspicuous consumption, she says. With the ability to compare prices online, shoppers have a lot more control over their choices and they have become more conditioned to buying on sale than they used to be.
"Retailers have to do their jobs better," Brouwer says. "There's so much out there, so much duplication. What will break the cycle of sale and cleareance is offering consumers much more of what they're really looking for. People will spend on what's good value for the money."
In back-to-school shopping, big retailers play tug-of-war with parents

subset: commoncrawl


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Best of all, you can find just about any type of tableware, decorations, and even toys to fit your theme, making sure that your child has the birthday party of their dreams. As well, you can mix and match different items with various party themes, depending on color and design, allowing you to create something unique for your own party. With our large selection of party decorations, costume accessories, tableware, and party favors, we think you will find exactly what you need to create the party theme of your child's dreams, allowing you to create picture perfect memories with our unique and fun collections.
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On the shoulders of a black rainbow…. .*
At least Death wasnae 3 fortnights Late like ER customer service...lost under strawberry city sidewalks. It stares and reaches up from a center in the grey grave iced over lake with scrawny ribbed 12 foot arm into your red August heart. Going down like a Sumerian Sun into the warm distance of the ocean's simmering edge.
I waited all my Life.
At train stations, airports, Hospitals, in front of the quivering hush pink lips of the disappointing ice blue eyeless answer...
I waited my whole Life Long...and my ships drove me out, into a circle and docked again at port and left me colder than when we first sailed off...
Talked into dragging the lights...left alone under the eccense of meat and it's waverly laughter...black strobes outlining my shivers, 9 different hues of black rainbows.
I can see the laughter and hear the ugly faces
I can see my disappointed tombstone embarassed at
me neglecting soft night time quiet hours for loud electric and plastique Rain
I hold on alone with a buzz going around me tilting of
blond hornets
and blood red chemical mimiographs
filling up my
boots oceanbed full of mildew
sirens with broken mouths leaking in towards the shore
I ain't even close to Home
when the black owls
dive into my short black song
This world had nothing for purchase in the first place
the swimming was always given...from your winter eyes
the reflecting wolf grows silver
there is a better place to be
angelique arrow heads in the palms
under frozen waters with Faustus
under becomes over
my black Rainbow.
Born again
Living upside


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Disaster In Japan Touched Close To Home Court
Gregory Castillo
When the phone rang at 2 a.m. on March 11, Yukie Futami didn't think much of it.
"I thought, 'what the hell'?" said Futami, 20, a defensive specialist on the Miami Dade College women's volleyball team. "I hung up and went back to sleep."
Everything would soon change.
The next morning, Futami's phone was bombarded with text messages, phone calls and Facebook notifications.
Her homeland—Japan—had been struck with 9.0 magnitude earthquake followed by a tsunami that devastated the country.
Futami looked for comfort. She woke up her friend and teammate Mima Hajdukovic.
"She was stressed out thinking about her family," Hajdukovic, 22 said. "I was doing my best to keep her out and not having to think about it."
Futami had to wait until she got to Wolfson Campus to gather details about what had happened.
"I opened the door to my class and my professor was showing students what had happened on CNN," Futami said.
Frantic and worried, Futami tried to reach her family.
"I had to call my mom, but the phone wasn't working. I called them 10 or more times. I called my grandparents' house, no answer," Futami said. "Then I tried to call my dad at his cell phone but I got nothing."
Futami was fortunate, her family was unscathed.
But the damage to her country had been done.
The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami took the lives of more than 12,000 people and damaged or destroyed thousands of buildings and homes.
A homeland she had last visited two weeks prior. Her family's home was also badly damaged. But things have not been easy.
"The hardest time so far was when my mom asked me, three days after the earthquake, 'why don't you come and stay here with me? Why don't you come back and stay here and help,' that was the worst," Futami said. "I'm 20; I'm supposed to work and help my parents. I have three younger sisters and they have financial problems but I can't help."
Despite the devastation, Futami said her family was fortunate. Their home will be fixed. It was insured.
That has done little to console Futami. When her heart lies 10,000 miles away, she can't help but feel helpless.
It has affected her school work. Her professors have been lenient.
"When you're ready to take the tests, you can take the tests,' they told me. I still haven't taken one of them," Futami said, with a slight smile.
Futami has attempted to follow her normal routine.
She attends team practices, regular conditioning, works for media services at the Wolfson Campus and has not lost track of her love for volleyball.
"I want to be No. 1 and play in division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association," said Futami, who is a first team All-Florida selection.
Meanwhile, Futami will continue to lean on her friends and family for support.
"She's a strong kid; she's coping," said Origenes Benoit, the head volleyball coach at MDC. "Little by little she's moving on. She's a fighter."
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Biography for
Rising from the Ashes : The Return of Indiana University Basketball
Cardinal Pub Group
Terry Hutchens has worked as a sportswriter for the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis News since 1991, and is beginning his 13th season covering Indiana University basketball. Hutchens has been honored as Indiana's Sportswriter of the Year three times in the last four years by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. He is the author of three books including Hep Remembered.


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May 6, 2016
A former New Bern Middle School teacher has been charged with distributing child pornography.
The U.S. District attorney's office in Raleigh says David Alan Knowles, a former baseball and football coach at Grover C. Fields Middle school, has been charged with interstate transportation of child pornography.
The charges were made after weeks of an FBI investigation. Authorities say if Knowles is convicted, he will face no less then five, but no more then 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and lifetime supervised release.
Knowles' arraignment is scheduled for May 2 at the federal courthouse in Greenville.
Click Here to access the online Public Inspection File
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or email@example.com.


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The X Factor
Simon Cowell: I Won't Be Changing My Baby's Diapers!
Simon Cowell is a harsh critic of a lot of things, and apparently changing diapers is one of them.
The X Factor judge is expecting a baby with girlfriend Lauren Silverman, and he has numerous reasons to be excited about having a little tyke. "Going to Disneyland," Simon tells E! News about what he's looking forward to. "I get an excuse to go now. And watching more cartoons."
But there's also something he's not psyched to be doing. "Someone mentioned diapers," he says. "I couldn't do all that."
Wait, what? Does Simon think that some people actually like changing diapers? You gotta suck it up and help out, dude! Then again, we suppose Simon can hire all the people he wants to do his dirty work for him.
Rumor has it that Simon and Lauren are having a baby boy, but Simon wouldn't address the baby's gender. "I can't," he said when asked to comment on what they're having.
And speaking of genders, how does Simon feel about the all-female judging panel this year on The X Factor? "I've always had my ex-girlfriends around, a lot of my friends are girls — working with three girls on the panel is just a natural extension of that," Simon says.
So to summarize, Simon likes Disneyland, but he doesn't like dirty diapers? Big shocker.
Source: E! Online


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Edit Article
How to Look Like the Devil's Daughter
This article will guide you step by step, on how to look like the devil's daughter.
1Dye your hair a dark or fiery tone. Earthy hair colors like brunette and blonde, make our intended look unconvincing. If anything, theses colors give off an angelic and pure feel. To achieve a fiery hair tone, dye your hair scarlet (red), auburn (reddish-brown) or a ginger-color. To achieve a darker tone, dye your hair purple, black or blue.
2Wear more Gothic makeup. Your makeup should consist of darker colors. For example, a smokey eye will look great along with dark red lips. Contouring your face will also give a more defined and seductive look. Just remember, to not cake or overdo your makeup because it should look somewhat natural in a sense.
3For your wardrobe, most of your clothes should be darker colors, including reds. Here are some outfit ideas: velvet dresses and skirts, tank tops of black and purple, fisher nets, leather jackets, lace dresses and black, purple and red jeans.
4Now for the shoes, here are some ideas. Black sneakers, high heels, high legged boots, combat boots and converses if you'd like.
5Be mysterious.
Community Q&A
Answered QuestionsAdd New Question
Ask a Question
- Black and red nail polish is great too.
- If it is Halloween, you could wear tiny devil horns and a tail.
- Don't let yourself get carried away.
Things You'll Need
- Dark or fiery hair tone
- Gothic Makeup
- Darker wardrobe
- Shoes
Article Info
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VANCOUVER, Wash. – Washington State University Vancouver will host "Southwest Airlines in a Nutshell" as the spring installment of its MBA Stakeholder Series. Southwest Airlines Director of People, Shari Conaway, will present from 7 – 8 p.m. April 9 in the Undergraduate Classroom building, room 1. The event is free and open to the public.
Founded in 1967, Southwest Airlines is home to more than 45,000 employees and operates more than 3,000 flights per day. At the heart of this success is the company's dedication to its employees and the corresponding benefit to its stakeholders.
"Southwest Airlines' commitment to treating its employees with respect ripples out to the company's interactions with other stakeholders, particularly the treatment of customers who fly with Southwest," said Jerry Goodstein, director of the MBA program at WSU Vancouver. "Conaway will help event attendees learn about the kinds of practices an organization can develop to build tremendous loyalty and commitment among employees, which in turn inspire positive and productive relationships with other stakeholders."
A company member for more than 18 years, Conaway understands Southwest Airlines' team values and stakeholder culture. She will expound on the company's dedication to business practices guided by the Golden Rule.
Conaway's own story, of working her way through the company from the ground up, provides her with a uniquely qualified perspective to share insights into Southwest Airlines' relationships with its employees and customers. Conaway started as a company recruiter then worked her through several different positions before rising to her current role as director of people. In this position, she is responsible for staffing, compliance, the No Limits Internship Program and the Drug and Alcohol Program. With more than 20 years of human resources experience, her focus has always been on leading, guiding and serving both external and internal customers.
WSU Vancouver's MBA Stakeholder Series brings business leaders to campus once a semester to highlight and discuss how corporations are engaging their stakeholders.
WSU Vancouver is located at 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave., east of the 134th Street exit from either I-5 or I-205 and is accessible via C-Tran bus service. Parking is free for event attendees.
# # #
Jerry Goodstein, College of Business, 360-546-9755, firstname.lastname@example.com
Brenda Alling, Office of Marketing and Communications, 360-546-9601, email@example.com


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Seymour Duncan SH-14 Custom 5 Humbucker Pickup
Sku #300419000001000
Seymour Duncan
Humbucker Pickups
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More vintage with less distortion.
The SH14 Custom 5 Humbucker Pickup was developed by visitors to the Seymour Duncan web user group who replaced the ceramic or Alnico 2 magnet in an SH-5 Custom or SH-11 Custom Custom pickups with an Alnico 5. Compared to the SH-5 and SH-11, the Custom 5's tone is more vintage, with less distortion, but it's still very strong and powerful. Clean sounds are rich and full with enhanced presence. Comes with four-conductor hookup cable. Like a higher output '59 Model with a deeper bottom end and expanded output. Perfect for pop, country, blues, classic rock and heavy rock. For balanced and warm instruments. Works especially well with rosewood fingerboards.
Order yours today and get the tone you need!
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Comments about Seymour Duncan SH-14 Custom 5 Humbucker Pickup:
I recently bought the Seymour Duncan SH-14 and installed it in the neck position of my Ibanez RG series, and couldn't believe my ears. This humbucker preserves the natural sound of the guitar and also adds a vintage tone to both the clean and distorted channels with amazing ease. If you want the ultimate pick-me-up for your tone without breaking the bank, this pickup is essential to you. I mainly play metal, but have used this pickup for blues, jazz, and even surf-a-billy, and it still gives me the vintage tone in each that I so desire. A very versatile pickup, and well worth the price.
Comments about Seymour Duncan SH-14 Custom 5 Humbucker Pickup:
I have an Epiphone LP and tried everything in it to make it sound "Pro." I tried Gibson 490 and 498s, Bill Lawrence, DiMarzio, among others. This SD in the first ones I've kept in. They rock big! I've even managed to get a Les Brown and B B King sound. I do switch between my Polytone, Vox and Mesa Boogie to get these sounds, but these SD Custom Vs are the only ones that can hang with the many styles I throw at it. I've even gotten good acoustic sounds out of them!


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So far so good
This review is from: Tripp Lite SR2POST25 25U 2-Post SmartRack Open Frame Rack
Pros: Decent little rack for home use. Sturdy once assembled. Came with decent amount of extra nuts/bolts/washers.
Cons: None yet.
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Great 25U Starter Rack
This review is from: Tripp Lite SR2POST25 25U 2-Post SmartRack Open Frame Rack
Pros: - Numbered spacing (not shown in picture)
Cons: - Assembly
Other Thoughts: Very easy to assemble, took me 10 minutes with no extra hands to put it all together and tighten the bolts.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you?
Excellent American Product
This review is from: Tripp Lite SR2POST25 25U 2-Post SmartRack Open Frame Rack
Pros: I realized when it arrived that i would need 1 more of these for my needs,,, as this is my first server rack build i was guessing,,, sadly they were out of stock after i bought 1 and had to get 2nd one from another online buying site who's name starts with an A. but other then that it Excellent American Made Product or so i assume. I am happy :) I was using a simple metal rack from walmart not made for servers,, but years ago it was cheap for my needs now i have grown beyond that with the funds to do so. Great price from what i found out.
Cons: None other then i need 2 for my server, but that is my bad for not reading up on the idea first. my impulsive ideas to update my servers and equipment always gets the best of me.
Other Thoughts: I will assimilate all data.
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Diplo's Major Lazer adventure continues apace with the video for "Get Free," the single from his upcoming album Free the Universe. Directed by sometime Kanye West collaborator So-Me, the flick throws up images from spots around the world where Diplo has (presumably) collected passport stamps. Dirty Projectors vocalist Amber Coffman guest stars, and the whole shebang is sparked by a mural proclaiming "We'll Free the People With Music." So, consider it a musical travelogue — with a little extra ass-wiggling.
Free the Universe is out November 6 on Mad Decent.


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StopTech Unveils New Line of Racing Brake Pads
(Industry, Calif. – September 10, 2012) - StopTech®, the ultra performance and racing brand from Centric Parts®, introduces a new line of StopTech® Racing Brake Friction that brings the company's "Brake Late, Finish First"® philosophy to a wider range of racing disciplines. The new racing pads complement the company's extensive range of high performance brake component and system upgrades - and help turn any StopTech® system into a dedicated race system.
Available in four formulations, the new StopTech® Racing Brake Pads are engineered to provide optimal friction levels for a variety of different racing applications. All StopTech® Racing Brake Pads provide shorter stops, increased control through superior pedal modulation, and fade-free performance at extreme racing temperatures. StopTech® Racing pads are designed to provide superior performance in any racing brake system, and match the outstanding performance capabilities drivers have come to expect from all StopTech® Racing Brake Systems and components.
StopTech's® unique metallic compounds are blended with carbon and graphite particles to provide an optimal high temperature race friction material. The result is smoother, more predictable and more consistent brake engagement along with exceptional release characteristics not found in most other racing friction materials.
StopTech® engineers work directly with race teams, often trackside, to gather valuable experience in dynamic real world conditions. Data is immediately integrated into the research and development process, resulting in optimized brake systems for individual racing programs.
StopTech® Racing Brake Pads Provide:
• Optimized friction levels for shortest stops
• Engineered for extreme temperatures
• Superb modulation and release characteristics
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Pad Compound Characteristics
SR34 Compound
• Superior pedal feel and modulation characteristics
• Formulated for high initial bite
• Slight torque rise with temperature
• Extremely low pad and abraded disc wear
• All purpose pad for high grip, high power applications
SR33 Compound
• Slight reduction in torque compared to SR34 Compound
• Excellent pedal modulation for applications requiring a medium friction level
• Flat torque curve with temperature rise
• Extreme fade resistance
• Great for rear applications that require less friction but same level of control as SR34 Compound
SR32 Compound
• Similar friction levels to the SR34 Compound
• Linear torque curve with temperature rise with excellent release characteristics
• Superb abraded disc wear
• Maximum high-temperature stability
• For medium to high horsepower applications that require higher friction levels
SR30 Compound
• Medium to low friction levels with linear torque curve with rising temperature
• Extreme high temperature fade resistance
• Excellent modulation and release characteristics
• Repeatable performance
• For Touring Car rear applications and others requiring lower torque
StopTech® Racing Brake Friction products are available now. For more information about any StopTech product, visit www.stoptech.com.
About StopTech® Racing:
StopTech® Racing (www.stoptech.com/racing), part of the ultra performance division of Centric Parts®, was born to service dedicated race applications. The StopTech Racing division provides the stiffest calipers and best airflow rotors to race teams in several production-based racing series, as well as circle track and off-road competition. StopTech Racing sales and engineering support is unparalleled in the industry, with personalized service available to customize winning race solutions for your needs. Whether it's in SCCA Pro Pirelli World Challenge, Grand-Am Continental Tire, Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing Series, or grassroots circle track, NASA, SCCA, Time Attack and drifting competition, StopTech Racing has complete racing solutions to cover most forms of production-based racing needs.


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The Daily Agenda for Sunday, April 27
Jim Burroway
April 27th, 2014
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Philadelphia, PA (Black Pride); Potsdam, Germany; Tokyo, Japan.
Other Events This Weekend: Rodeo in the Rock, Little Rock, AR; AIDS Walk, Miami, FL; Side By Side International LGBT Film Festival, Moscow, Russia; White Party, Palm Springs, CA.
TODAY'S AGENDA is brought to you by:
According to Outhistory.org:
In the early 1960s, the Golden Horseshoe became Seattle's first regular-hours bar where men could dance openly with men. In exchange for this "privilege," the owners had to pay the police $50 per week, plus $15 a night for a cop to monitor the door on Fridays and Saturdays. Police pay-offs were common in this time period, a means of fending off harassment and keeping the bars open. In the late '60s, a group of bar owners joined forces with the FBI to expose the pay-off system; scores of Seattle police were dismissed and some were sent to prison.
At one time, Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood was the center of gay nightlife before it all moved to Capitol Hill. More recently, the Golden Horseshoe's former location housed an art gallery.
"A Closer Union Than That Of Most Marriages": 1892. Mary Grew was the daughter of the Baptist preacher Henry Grew of Boston, who, after moving to Hartford, co-founded the Hartford Female Seminary and the Hartford Peace Society, which became a part of the larger New England Anti-Slavery Society. The elder Mary followed her father in his abolitionist footsteps. In 1840, she accompanied her father to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. But the convention's most severe debates centered not on slavery, but whether women should be permitted to participate in the conference. The elder Grew sided with the conference organizers who demanded that women be excluded. Mary's exclusion, which was supported by her own father, opened her eyes to the need to join the cause of women's suffrage.
Grew dedicated her life to feminism and abolitionism, the latter cause shifting to civil rights for African-Americans following the civil war. Her lifelong companion, Margaret Burleigh, also joined Grew in both causes. They shared a home and bed together until Burleigh's death in December, 1891. The following April, Grew responded to a sympathy note from fellow suffragist Isabel Howland, herself involved in a relationship with another woman. That may explain Grew's opening lines in her thank you note:
Your words respecting my beloved friend touch me deeply. Evidently you understood her fine character; & you comprehend & appreciate, as few persons do, the nature of the relation which existed, which exists, between her & myself. Her only surviving niece, Miss Ella Jones, also does. To me it seems to have been a closer union than that of most marriages. We know that there have been other such between two men, & also between two women. And why should there not be. Love is spiritual, only passion is sexual. …
Why do we speak of those who have "gone up higher," as though they were of the past? They live more really, more fully, than ever before; & they love us with a firmer, tenderer, nobler love. …
And I have the comfort & confident hope that my time on earth is nearing its end; for I am eighty-seven years old. I try to wait patiently. I do not feel wholly separated from her who was so large a part of my life.
[Source: Jonathan Ned Katz. Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary (New York: Harper & Row, 1983): 230-231.]
Eisenhower Signs Executive Order Banning Gays from Federal Employment: 1953. By the time Dwight D. Eisenhower began his first term as president, an anti-gay witch hunt had been going on steadily for three years. When Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy, testifying before the US Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Department, revealed that 91 employees "in the shady category" had resigned since 1947 (see Feb 28). Republican Senators took that admission to allege that President Harry Truman's administration's employment of "sexual deviants with police records" was recklessly endangering the country's national security. The Republican Party's national chairman sent a warning to 7,000 party members that, "Perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists are the sexual perverts who have infiltrated our government in recent years." (See Apr 18).
So when Eisenhower took office, he was keen to demonstrate that he wouldn't be soft on the pansies. Three months after taking office, he signed Executive Order 10450 mandating that all federal employees who were determined to be guilty of "sexual perversion," among other offenses, be fired. As The Los Angeles Time described it, the "tough new loyalty-security program (is) designed to rid the government of homosexuals, alcoholics and 'blabbermouths,' as well as employees deemed subversive and disloyal. The Executive Order deemed all of those categories "security risks," regardless of whether they were actually disloyal or not. It didn't matter how low or innocuous their position was; their mere presence in a government office was deemed a threat. ONE magazine, the first national gay magazine in the U.S., worried about the order's far-reaching consequences:
Every item in the new standards can be used to hound and harry not only every homosexual in government and in basic industry, but all his friends, acquaintances, and associates, be they homosexual, homosexually inclined, bi-sexual, or heterosexual. Further, every name breathed as fact or as rumor, whether they be National Security employees or not, goes into the National Security files for cross-referencing to Armed Services Files and the local records of the Communities in which they live, towards another day of total mobilization, or a National Registration Act, whichever is first.
For the homosexual, to be loyal is not enough. The homosexual is required to be 100% anti-homosexual as well. He must agree, by taking a loyalty oath, to subvert the Constitution of the United States (which is not his to subvert) and testify against himself. Then, as a homosexual, he must testify against his own decency and integrity thereby making possible acts of aggression against every person he has ever known. Then, having destroyed himself as a person not only to the community but to his own conscience, he is to be tossed aside as a basic security risk by one or all of the five standards of the Security Program.
The homosexual's life is no longer a private matter to himself. It has become political by Presidential order.
More than 640 federal employees would lose their job because of allegations of homosexuality over the next year and a half. Unknown numbers of others resigned quietly. State and local governments and government contractors followed suit, tossing countless more innocent Americans out of their jobs.
Unintended consequences are funny things though. In 1957, a young astronomer by the name of Dr. Franklin Kameny was fired from the Army Map service because of his homosexuality (see Dec 20). After all of his court appeals were denied, he founded the Washington, D.C. Mattachine Society. In 1965, Kameny and Daughters of Billitis organizer Barbara Gittings (see Jul 31) organized demonstrations in front of the White House (see Apr 17, May 29), the Civil Service Commission (see Jun 26), Philadelphia's Independence Hall (see Jul 4), and the Pentagon (see Jul 31), all to demand an end to the federal employment ban. This demand remained a key component of the whole gay rights movement from the 1950's through the 1970's.
The Civil Service ban on gays and lesbians would continue for the next two decades. In 1973, a federal judge ruled that a person's sexual orientation alone had no bearing on an individual's ability to perform his or her job, and it could not be the sole reason for termination from federal employment. But even with that ruling, the U.S. Civil Service Commission held out until 1975 before finally notifying Kameny that they had changed their policies and were now allowing gay people to work in federal jobs (see Jul 3).
[Additional source: Anonymous ("R. Noone") "You are a public enemy." ONE 1, no. 5 (May 1953): 5-7.]
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don't forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What's happening in your world?


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I Can't Help Hating Chris Bangle
It's in my genes!
Do you think, like the NYT, that Democratic "Frustration Over Iraq Vote Unlikely to Trouble [Hillary] Clinton"? Think, with Ron Brownstein, that the main threat to Hillary from the anti-war left in the presidential primaries will likely come in the form of the little-known, noncharismatic Sen. Russell Feingold? Well, think again! 12:06 A.M. link
Maybe it would be good for Bush if Karl Rove were indicted--Rove seems to have given bad, conventional advice on how to turn the President around the polls, at least according to the aides who dished to WaPo (which, by the way, is unlikely to endear them to Bush):
Rove, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman and White House strategic planning director Peter H. Wehner urged the president to dust off the 2004 election strategy and fight back, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. White House counselor Dan Bartlett and communications director Nicolle Wallace, however, counseled a more textured approach. The same-old Bush was not enough, they said; he needed to be more detailed about his strategy in Iraq and, most of all, more open in admitting mistakes -- something that does not come easily to Bush.
Although Rove raised concerns about giving critics too much ground, the younger-generation aides prevailed. ...
If I were a paranoid homophobe or a blogger locked into a rash prediction I might be suspicious that BoxOfficeMojo has no figures for how Brokeback Mountain did Tuesday, 12/27. They have Tuesday results for Kong! They have Tuesday results for Geisha. They have Tuesday results for the hapless Producers and tiny little Bee Season. But nothing for Brokeback. According to the B.O.M. site, this means the movie's "studio is no longer tracking it on a daily basis." But that begs the question ("Why?") doesn't it? If this universal love story is capturing the hearts of mainstream America as Frank Rich said it would, Focus Features should want to tell us! (Do they actually not know the results? Or are they just clamming up? [They might be on vacation--alert reader S. That's what they'd like you to believe!]) ... 12/30 Update: Estimates now up, showing a non-huge 12/27 drop. 10:59 P.M. link
Das Gloat:
When I or virtually any other mainstream journalist writes something, it goes through several filters before the reader sees it. At least four experienced Times editors will have examined this column, for example. They will have checked it for accuracy, fairness, grammar, taste and libel, among other things. -- The late David Shaw, Pulitzer-winning L.A. Times media critic, 3/27/2005
I almost hate to write this item--the LAT has been getting livelier recently, and if it goes into a fit of fact-checking in response to its latest round of screw-ups that will only put the bloodless twits back in charge. But you had to wonder where were those fabled four layers of experienced editors these past few days when a) the paper ran an April Fool's press release in a front-page story as if it were actual news and b) publisher Jeff Johnson's Sunday opinion section ran a piece charging that "the Rev. Jerry Falwell claimed that Ellen DeGeneres played a role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina because she was the host of the Emmy Awards ceremony preceding both events," something the paper now admits Falwell didn't say. Update: Reader B.Z. notes that the bogus Falwell tale seemingly also started as a joke on Dateline Hollywood--about Pat Robertson, not Falwell. And B.W. notes that April Fool's release was pretty hard to not recognize as a joke. ... [Maybe one of the four editors took a buyout, two were on vacation and the last was the sort of turkey that comes to roost in any large organization over the years--ed More likely the Times was faced with the standard end-of-year newspaper dilemma--it has to generate lots of stories to wrap around those lucrative Christmas sale ads, while at the same time everyone's taking time off for the holidays. The result is you publish a lot of junk. Blogs don't have that problem! We don't need to generate lots of copy during the holidays because nobody's reading us then anyway!] 10:35 P.M. link


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Mickey Mouse Platy...not sure if injury or disease
1. What is the size of your tank? 29g
2. What are your water parameters? State the brand of test kit used. API Master Test: 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 20ppm Nitrate, pH: 8.1
3. Is your aquarium set up freshwater or brackish water? Freshwater
4. How long the aquarium has been set up? About 4 months, set up on 12/22/12
5. What fish do you have? How many are in your tank? How big are they? How long have you had them? 9 female bettas, 4 platys, 6 corys (3 melini and 3 punctatus), 2 otos, 4 amano shrimp and a bunch of MTS and Ramshorns. Platys are the newest, got them 2 weeks ago. Everything else has been in there for over 2 months. I'm pretty sure everything is full grown, the largest female betta is 2.5 inches.
6. Were the fish placed under quarantine period (minus the first batch from the point wherein the tank is ready to accommodate the inhabitants)? No
7. What temperature is the tank water currently? 80F
8. Are there live plants in the aquarium? Yes, heavily planted
9. What filter are you using? State brand, maintenance routine and power capacity. Eheim 2213, cleaned once a month
10. Any other equipment used (aside from heater and filter which are two very important components of the tank)? Bubble wand
11. Does your aquarium receive natural sunlight at any given part of the day? What is your lighting schedule (assuming you do not rely on sunlight for our viewing pleasure)? Lights are on from 10:30am-10:30pm, minimal sunlight exposure
12. When did you perform your last water change and how much water was changed? How often do you change your water? Do you vacuum the substrate? I do weekly ~50% water changes with the last being Thursday. I vacuum the substrate with every water change.
13. What foods do you provide your fish? What is the feeding schedule? Feeding everday, rotate between a variety of frozen foods (blood worms, brine shrimp, tubifex, daphnia), live daphnia about once a week, fresh zucchini for the otos and platys a couple times a week, shrimp and algae wafers for corys, and NLS betta pellets
14. What unusual signs have you observed in your fish? Fish seems to be acting normal and eating very well, just has a white spot/sore on dorsal fin. When I bought the fish, one of them got stuck in a hole in the net and that MIGHT be what this is. She's had this spot since I brought her home 2 weeks ago and has not gotten worse, but hasn't gotten better either. Not sure if I should be treating her with something or not...the only QT tank I have is 2.5 gallons, which is a bit small for her? Here's a pic so you can see what I mean by sore -
(excuse the poop, lol)
15. Have you treated your fish ahead of diagnosis? If so, what treatments did you use? State your reasons for planning ahead of proper diagnosis. No treatment other than adding extra stress coat during water changes.
How is your fish now??
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jasch (aka: J & J's) Garage
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1955 Ford F-100
Comments on this Vehicle
jasch (aka: J & J's) Garage
April 21, 2008 at 10:45 PM
Real Nice truck!
Droppin' 60's Garage
April 23, 2008 at 12:28 AM
I agree! The wheels look real good too.
aj's Garage
May 12, 2008 at 07:18 AM
Great weed-eater!
Bob and Kameron Maynard's Garage
May 21, 2008 at 12:25 AM
woody's Garage
June 07, 2008 at 03:08 AM
Thats awsome ! great work on every thing!
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June 19, 2008 at 12:09 AM
I have to say it: "WOW!!!"
Great truck… and fantastic interior, too!
Tommy's Garage
September 10, 2008 at 03:10 PM
Saw a Big-Window mod for the f-100's. That truck was a nice design from the beginning.
KB SPEED & custom Garage
December 03, 2008 at 01:33 AM
Good Job! Love the work
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April 20, 2009 at 07:49 AM
53-56 Fords.. are the best looking trucks ever built. You've done them proud!
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October 01, 2010 at 12:31 AM
1 Bad Ass Garage
October 03, 2010 at 06:21 PM
Wow….Awesome work on your '55 Ford F-100. One of my very Favorite Trucks! I can appreciate all the hours and hard work. Great stance and Luv the colors. Exceptional Job, Just Beautiful…..Bob
Alien Custom Garage
June 10, 2011 at 01:22 AM
Beautiful truck all the way around. Nicely done.


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Rodgers Named Player Of The Month
Green Bay Packers quarterback [intlink id="25″ type="category"]Aaron Rodgers[/intlink] has been named the NFC offensive player of the month.
In three games, Rodgers has piled up 917 yards and thrown for eight touchdowns and only one interception. His quarterback rating is 120.9 and he's completed 71.8 percent of his passes.
Buffalo quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick won the AFC award. Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee took the NFC's defensive player of the month award and Browns linebacker D'Qwell Jackson took the AFC's.
Special teams honors went to kickers Jason Hanson and Sebastian Janikowski.
Monty McMahon is one of the founders of Total Packers. He is probably the most famous graduate of UW-Oshkosh next to Jim Gantner.
The Patriots haven't won a postseason game for a while. True, but it hasn't been that long. They won a couple after the 2007 season, which means it was 2008, so less than 4 years ago.
What rarely seems to get mentioned about Brady is that he has all day to throw the football. You SHOULDN'T ever throw any INTs when there is never any pressure on you.
let me exaggerate the Patriots in the negative spin once & awhile LOL!! I know it hasn't been that long; BK on ESPN radio was pointing out a couple of weeks ago it had been a bit over 1300 days since they're last poast season win, which would equal around 4 years ago, I know….just so sick of no matter what happens with a season, Brady is GOD. I am so SICK of hearing how he is the best QB in the league…
The 4 interceptions were an embarrassment (although I found myself laughing, not feeling bad for the guy), and nice point about how you shouldn't do it with no pressure. Can you IMAGINE how cowherd et al would verbally tear up A-Rodge if he threw 4 in ONE GAME???


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"These earrings have an effortlessly chic feel because of the organic shape. The double drop is fun and playful, and I always feel great wearing these."
— Shoshanna Gruss
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Show your chic side with these bold earrings. They're fashioned from two free-form, faceted stones, bezel-set within a hammered border. A smaller stone rests at the post, while a larger one dangles below. From Shoshanna.Black, Purple, or Turquoise.
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J155160 — Shoshanna Freeform Shape Drop Earrings
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Math Facts (K-4)
by Steve Kraft
Developer Notes
I'm an engineer with a child in elementary school. The math fact programs available for Android did not meet our needs, so I wrote my own. What I wanted was a math facts program that was very simple to setup, but at the same time gave a lesson that exercised the exact skills that my student was...


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"They think their future is real. They don't know it's still up to you."on November 25, 2013 at 5:13 AM
Surely just about everyone who wanted to see the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who has done so by now, but just in case you haven't, I've put a cut link below. Without spoiling anything, this is a fun time full of callbacks to previous eras in the show, from cameos via recut footage to images, to casual remarks.
If you've never seen the classic-era aliens called Zygons before, and you think they're a tad on the dippy side, you're not alone. Even this show's script makes fun of them just on how they look, including the word "rubbery," so feel free to roll your eyes at them and concentrate on the other aspects of the story. I know I did, though that could be due to flashbacks from their previous invasion attempt which involved a hand-puppet that was supposed to be the Loch Ness Monster. Onward…
When the three principal Doctors come together for the first time, we get a line from John "The War Doctor" Hurt: "Why are you pointing your screwdrivers like that? They're scientific instruments, not water pistols!" Finally someone calls the Doctor, or perhaps, the writers, on using the Sonic Screwdriver as a pointy-wointy-solution-through-confusion device. However, three of them are used in concert later on to propel a Dalek through a time-painting's event horizon, so I guess old habits die hard. Hurt's Doctor gets to play the role that Q often did on Star Trek: The Next Generation, poking fun and lampshading the foibles of the main characters that we're familiar with. He disdains the use of the phrase "timey-wimey" and asks Smith's Doctor if it's possible for him to talk without waving his hands about, among other things.
The main thrust of this episode is the oft-referenced Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks. Up until now, we've been told that the Doctor played a key role in that war, destroying both Gallifrey and the Daleks in the process. It turns out it came down to the use of a Omega-category weapon known as "The Moment." It's a time-based macguffin of ultimate destruction, but it has a sentient operating system that morally judges the person who wants to use it. In this case, the OS takes the form of Rose Tyler, the 2005 Doctor's first companion. She also allows the many paradoxes and violations of (semi-)established canon (like how many times the Doctor can visit a given part of the past, cross his timeline, alter fixed points in history, etc.), which is necessary for the story to proceed.
Meanwhile, the Zygons are invading Earth, slowly. They're using Gallifreyan art to do so, where points in time are portrayed as 3D oil paintings. The Zygons came to Earth in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, encoded themselves into these time-paintings, then waited until our present day to emerge and invade. The paintings are suspicious, of course, so they're kept in UNIT's "Undergallery," a place established by Queen Elizabeth to store art "too dangerous for public consumption." I assume this is meant in the same way that the SCP Foundation stores some items classified as "cognitohazards."
The impending Zygon invasion involves them taking hold of UNIT's own stash of forbidden and dangerous artifacts/weapons, which will make their takeover unstoppable. This gives us a kind of parallel setup where the daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is in charge of UNIT and has ordered the London UNIT base to self-destruct via a nuclear bomb so as to thwart the Zygons' plans. If that sounds similar to the Doctor's dilemma regarding Gallifrey, you've correctly spotted the anvil in this story.
To make a long story short, this results in the Doctor(s) eventually deciding to not use their doomsday weapon to stop the time war, but instead to put Gallifrey in a kind of pocket dimension using thirteen TARDISes (piloted by every other Doctor, including the next one), resulting in the Daleks planetary bombardment turning into a kind of circular firing squad. The Daleks are blown up as usual, and the three Doctors say their farewells, and we get a tribute to the Doctor's legacy as well as potential groundwork being laid for where the show will go next: To Gallifrey. Maybe. All in all, it's a rollicking good time full of loads of in-jokes, quotable moments, and dramatic beats that should leave most fans satisfied and ready for the saga to continue.
That said, I found the ending coda a bit confusing. It's dramatically satisfying, of course, but it's at the expense of continuity, which is usually the case anyway. They've changed their own timeline, so as they leave the Black Gallery, the Doctor(s) will forget that this whole thing ever happened. Basically, as I understand it, Doctors Eccleston, Tennant and Smith don't exactly exist anymore, at least, not as we saw them… I think. Because the timeline has altered dramatically. Gallifrey may have not been destroyed by the Doctor, but it existed/exists in another dimension now. Which means… does the Lord President as played by Timothy Dalton not exist? Did he never actually "happen?" Eccleston's Doctor is notably absent, even in what "Bad Wolf" Rose tells Doctor John Hurt about the effect his decision regarding the Time War will have on his future selves:
This also doesn't address the thirteen-life limit that the show set on Time Lords so long ago. All thirteen incarnations make an appearance to shunt Gallifrey into whatever universe or macguffin-hole it now exists in, so either only thirteen Doctors were needed to pull it off or we have yet to see how the Doctor gets more lives. Some say River Song gave him more regenerations when she used hers up to save him previously, and others point to the Doctor saying he drank from the Fountain of Youth or somesuch event. We all know he's going to regenerate forever (as far as TV defines "forever"), the question just remains as to how he's going to do it. If Steven Moffat has any say in it, I'm sure it'll involve a detail from a previous episode more than 40 years ago along with ignoring or overruling lore set down in previous shows.
Then there's who the curator of the Undergallery actually is, and someone still needs to work out where the Valeyard figures into all of this. 🙂


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Tips on how organizations can develop diversity in the workplace
Diversity is a word that can define many characteristics when it comes to hiring employees. Diversity encompasses race, age, gender, cultural background, religious affiliations, sexual orientation and even the ways an employee may apply thoughts to decision-making situations.
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Original Link: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2856
AMD's Radeon HD 5770 & 5750: DirectX 11 for the Mainstream Crowdby Ryan Smith on October 13, 2009 12:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- GPUs
4 chips in 6 months.
This is the schedule AMD's GPU engineering teams committed themselves to for the launch of the Evergreen family. The entire family from top to bottom would be launched in a 6 month period.
Last month AMD took the first step of that plan with the launch of Cypress, the forebear of the family and the source of the Radeon HD 5870 and 5850. Today AMD is taking the next step in the launch of the Evergreen family by delivering the 2nd and final Evergreen chip of the year: Juniper. Or as the products based off of them are known as, the Radeon HD 5770 and 5750.
|ATI Radeon HD 5870
|ATI Radeon HD 5850
|ATI Radeon HD 5770
|ATI Radeon HD 5750
ATI Radeon HD 4870
ATI Radeon HD 4850
|Stream Processors
|Texture Units
|Core Clock
|Memory Clock
|1.2GHz (4.8GHz data rate) GDDR5
|1GHz (4GHz data rate) GDDR5
|1.2GHz (4.8GHz data rate) GDDR5
|1.15GHz (4.6GHz data rate) GDDR5
|900MHz (3600MHz data rate) GDDR5
|993MHz (1986MHz data rate) GDDR3
|Memory Bus Width
|Frame Buffer
|Transistor Count
|Manufacturing Process
|TSMC 40nm
|TSMC 40nm
|TSMC 40nm
|TSMC 40nm
|TSMC 55nm
|TSMC 55nm
|Price Point
|$129 / $109
In our 5800 series launch article, we briefly discussed Juniper and the other members of the Evergreen family. With Cypress a bit too big and a bit too expensive to hit mainstream prices, a new chip was introduced in to AMD's usual 3 chip stack to cover that segment of the market, and that chip was Juniper.
What's Juniper? In a nutshell, it's all of Cypress' features with half the functional units (and no Double Precision for you scientist types). DirectX 11, Eyefinity, angle-independent anisotropic filtering, HDMI bitstreaming, and supersample anti-aliasing are all accounted for. For more information on these features, please see our Radeon 5870 launch article from last month.
With half of the functional units left behind, we're left with 10 SIMDs, giving us 800 stream processors and 40 texture units, while the ROP count has also been cut in half to 16, in turn giving us a 128-bit memory bus. If Cypress was 2 RV770s put together, then Juniper is the closest thing you're going to see to RV770 coming out of the Evergreen family.
With the reduction in functional units, Juniper becomes a leaner and meaner core. The transistor count is 1.04 billion, a little less than half of Cypress and about 100 million more than RV770. The die size of this resulting core is 166mm2, significantly less than both Cypress and RV770, the latter due to the smaller process size. RV770 for comparison was 260mm2.
From Juniper we are getting the 5770 and the 5750. The 5770 is a full Juniper, with all of Juniper's functional units enabled and the card running at what amounts to a full speed of 850MHz (the same as 5850). The 5750 is slightly cut down, much like 5850 is compared to 5870. Here we have 1 SIMD disabled, and the core clock reduced to 700MHz. This is a notable departure from how AMD handled the 4870/4850 split, where 4850 was differentiated using a slightly slower core and much slower RAM, without the need to disable any SIMDs.
The smaller Juniper core also affords these cards lower power usage than the 5800 series. The 5770 is 108W at load and 18W at idle, meanwhile the 5750 is 86W at load and 16W at idle.
As an interesting aside, when AMD started sampling Evergreen cards to game development houses and other 3rd parties, they were Juniper based, and not Cypress based. The Juniper team was rather proud of this, particularly since Juniper came back from TSMC second. They also had less time to get their GPU up and working than the Cypress team did, since they had to wait on Cypress before being able to finish work on some elements. This is what makes AMD's 6 month rollout all the more impressive, since it means the non-Cypress teams had less time to get their work done than they have in previous product cycles.
Meet The 5770
We'll start our look at today's cards with the 5770. As we mentioned previously the 5770 is the full speed Juniper card, with all 10 SIMDs enabled, and clocked at 850MHz for the core and 1.2Ghz (4.8GHz data rate) GDDR5 for the RAM. As has become the current standard for just about every card over $100 these days, the card is equipped with 1GB of RAM. Attaching this RAM to the GPU is a 128-bit bus, giving the card 76.8GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The use of such fast RAM strikes our interest in particular, since it means vendors are spending just as much to equip a 5770 with RAM as they are a 5870.
For cooling, the 5770 uses the same general plastic shroud as the 5800 series cards, which AMD's 5700 team told us is called the Phoenix. Here the shroud hangs over the rear of the card by just less than half an inch, making it more like the 5870 than the 5850 where the shroud stopped at the edge of the card. The length of the card is 8.25", adding the shroud brings it to just shy of 8.75".
5870, 5850, 5770
Interestingly enough, we've been told that the Phoenix shroud isn't going to be sticking around for long. The first wave of cards launching today and for the near future will be using the shroud, but once AMD's vendors begin using their own designs, AMD doesn't expect most of the vendors to stick with the shroud. XFX has specifically been named as a party that will keep using the shroud on products, but anyone else is subject to change. With a TDP of only 108W, the Phoenix shroud is probably overbuilt and certainly more expensive than vendors would like, where mainstream products come with thinner margins. We would expect the vendors that do switch to move to more traditional dual-slot coolers, likely ones that aren't shrouded at all and would not blow hot air outside of the case.
While we were fine with the shroud on the 5800 series, we do take slight issue with it on the 5770. Because the single 6-pin PCIe power connector on this card is on the rear of the card, the shroud is in the way of the PCIe power connector. This wasn't an issue on the 5870 since the power connectors were on top, and on the 5850 the shroud stopped at the end of the card. But here the extra shroud makes it much harder to see what you're doing when it comes to plugging in a PCIe power connector unless you're looking at the rear of the card, and it makes it a bit harder to remove a PCIe power plug once placed.
AMD made it clear to us that they did consider this in the design of the 5770, and to their credit the shroud never makes inserting/removing a PCIe power plug impossible, but that doesn't mean we have to like it. We would have liked to see the shroud go the same length as the card, so that it would be just as easy to use as the 5850.
At any rate, along with keeping the 5800 series shroud, the 5770 keeps the port configuration. 1 DisplayPort, 1 HDMI port, and 2 DVI ports make up the card's output options. This is intentional on the part of AMD, as they want to push Eyefinity on these cards just as much as they do on their high-end products, which means they want to use the same ideal configuration. We wouldn't be shocked to see this modified at the same time as vendors dropping the shroud though; 1 DVI, 1 HDMI, and 1 DisplayPort with a flexible HDMI->DVI adapter is a likely configuration.
The price of DisplayPort->DVI dongles rears its head once again here, and even more severely. DisplayPort monitors are still rare, so the most likely Eyefinity configuration is going to be 3x DVI, which is going to require a dongle. Those dongles are still going for $100+ right now, which is a significant fraction of the price of the card itself. We talked to AMD about this issue, but it's something that's out of their hands for the moment.
AMD is pricing this card at $159. This puts it in competition with the cheapest GTX 260s from NVIDIA, and AMD's 4870, the latter of which tends to sell for only $10 less for the 1GB version. AMD wouldn't give us a clear idea on how long they expect the 4870 to last, but it seems clear that they intend to phase out the 4870 with the 5770. This may not be such a great idea, but we'll get to that after we take a look at performance.
Notably, this leaves a $100 pricing hole in AMD's 5000-series product lineup, since the next card up is the $259 5850. AMD pointed out to us that this is by no means unprecedented (the 4800 series launch saw a $100 gap between the 4870 and 4850) but we're not used to seeing such a gap in recent times. This price gap makes a little more sense with AMD's target demographics: the 5800 series is for 2560x1600 gaming, while the 5770 is targeted for 1920x1200/1080. So as far as they're concerned, there isn't a demographic gap to make the price gap a problem.
Anyhow, for the time being, the 4890 will function as a slight bridge on that pricing gap. It will continue to occupy a range around $180-$200.
For today's launch, availability is expected to be in the "tens of thousands" of units. We suspect that the situation is going to mirror the 5870 launch (tight availability at first) but we'll see. For this launch period, AMD is also extending the DIRT 2 freebie offer to vendors that want to include it with their 5770 cards. So most if not all cards will come with a voucher for this game to get it in December.
Meet The 5750
Below the 5770, we have the 5750, the other card being launched today. This is a 700MHz card with 1 SIMD disabled, and the memory clock at 1.15GHz(4.6GHz effective). This represents an 18% decrease in core clock and the performance of all units tied to that clock, and a 10% further reduction in computational and texturing power due to the loss of a SIMD, for a total theoretical performance reduction of 26%. The ROP count remains unchanged at 16.
The 5750 will come with either 512MB or 1GB of RAM, depending on the target price, with no change in memory clocks. As is the case with 5770, we find the choice of memory speeds interesting since vendors still have to use the same speed RAM on the 5750 as they do the 5870 (boy this stuff must be cheap). No one makes 1.15GHz GDDR5, so vendors have no choice but to equip it with something faster. Our samples are using Hynix 1.25GHz modules, which means the 5750 and the 5770 should be capable of some easy memory overclocking (bus capabilities withstanding). At the moment no one makes 1.2GHz modules, so this may persist for some time.
Compared to the 5770, gone is the expensive Phoenix shroud, replaced with what we're calling the "egg". The egg is a simple circular heatsink with a 2-pin fan embedded in it, which sucks in air and pushes it out along the fins. The egg shape is brought about by the plastic cover at the top of the heatsink – we're not sure if it's just for looks or if it's accomplishing some specific function. The card length is 7.15 inches, with no shroud to extend that.
Once again we'll see the same Eyefinity port configuration here; 1 DisplayPort, 1 HDMI, and 2 DVI. There's still a half-slot vent here, but since the design of the cooler means that the card is blowing hot air in to the case instead of out the rear, it serves more as a window to look at the card. As a card with this performance level isn't a good choice for gaming with Eyefinity, AMD is shooting at professional users with the Eyefinity capabilities of this card. We expect that this will be a bit harder of a sale, since Single Large Surface capabilities aren't as critical with windowed programs, and the high price of DisplayPort->DVI dongles means that the dongle is as much as the card.
We should also note that it's the desire to keep the Eyefinity port configuration that lead to the use of the egg cooler. For the second generation of cards, vendors are likely to drop the egg cooler for a single-slot cooler. Certainly the 5750 is cool enough at 86W TDP that it doesn't need a dual-slot cooler.
For pricing, AMD is putting the 1GB version of this card at $129, and the 512MB version at $109. This puts it in competition with NVIDIA's GTS 250 cards, and AMD's 4850 cards. Unlike the 5770, the price here is certainly right, as we'll see later.
As is the case with the 5770, the 5750 is expected to have "tens of thousands" of units available at launch, with any supply constraints likely to be the same between the two. The 1GB cards will come with DIRT 2 vouchers if the vender participates, the 512MB cards will not.
The Test
For the 5700 series launch, AMD issued some new drivers as the previous 8.66 driver set did not include support for these cards. The driver set we used for these cards is 8.66.6, which is from the same branch as the earlier drivers. In our own testing, we haven't seen any performance differences between these drivers and the previous ones on the 5800 series cards, but AMD did note that certain configurations might see a small performance boost. As such our results are still using the original 8.66 driver for the 4000 and 5800 series.
Also, as AMD sent us a pair of 5770s, we have tested these cards in a Crossfire configuration. This configuration is largely academic, as 2 5770s is just shy of the price of a 5870 and brings with it all of the limitations of multi-GPU scaling as compared to single-GPU scaling.
On a final note, our 5750 sample is a 1GB card.
|Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz
|Intel DX58SO (Intel X58)
|Chipset Drivers:
| Intel 184.108.40.2065 (Intel)
|Hard Disk:
|Intel X25-M SSD (80GB)
|Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3 x 2GB (7-7-7-20)
|Video Cards:
ATI Radeon HD 5870
|Video Drivers:
NVIDIA ForceWare 190.62
|Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Crysis: Warhead
Kicking things off, we'll start with Crysis: Warhead. Warhead is still the single most demanding game in our arsenal, with cards continuing to struggle to put out a playable frame rate with everything turned up.
Update: As a few of you pointed out, there was something a bit off with our Crysis results; we had a Radeon 4850 beating the 5770. As it turns out we wrote down the maximum framerate for the 4850 instead of the average framerate. None of the other results were affected, and this has been corrected. Sorry, folks.
There are a few different situations we're going to be interested in. The first is the matchup between the 5770, the 4870, and the GTX 260. The second is the matchup between the 5750, the 4850, and the GTS 250. The third is the 5770 as compared to the 5800 series, in order to see what another $100 or $200 is buying you in the Evergreen family.
Unfortunate for the 5770, this is not a game that treats it well. In spite of the clock speed advantage over the 4870, and the architectural advantages (extra caches and what-not), it underperforms the 4870 by about 15% here. AMD had once told us that they believed that they weren't memory bandwidth constrained on the 4870/4890, but when that's the only significant difference between the 5770 and the 4870 that would explain the performance difference (certainly Juniper wouldn't be slower than RV770), we are beginning to doubt that. Meanwhile the GTX 260 outscores the 5770 here too.
Looking at the 5770 compared to the 5850, $100 buys you roughly 50% more performance.
The 5750 fares much better here. It beats the 4850 by 10%-20%, and beats the GTS 250 by a similar margin.
Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 is another foliage-heavy game. Thankfully it's not nearly as punishing as Crysis, and it's possible to achieve a good framerate even with all the settings at their highest.
Update: When we first published this article, we had some anomalously high results for the 5770 at 1680 and 1920. We have found the reason for this and corrected it. This brings the 5770's scores down by 10fps or so.
Compared to Crysis: Warhead, Far Cry 2 paints a better picture for the 5770. Here it just manages to beat out our 4870, which may be slightly disappointing for those of you that are expecting a decisive victory over the 4870, but it's better than a loss like in Crysis. The GTX 260 is also neck-and-neck with our two Radeon cards here.
Far Cry 2 also paints an interesting case for the 5750 in comparison to the 4850. Far Cry 2 likes RAM, particularly on AMD cards. With the 1GB on our 5750, it doubles the terrible performance of the 4850. This is going to be the exception to the norm here though.
Finally, with the solid performance of the 5770, a 5850 buys around 40% performance improvement here.
BattleForge is EA's card-based online-only RTS. As the first DirectX11 title it's of particular importance for the latest rendition of DirectX, although in this case we aren't using any features that would be impacted by it. Even without ambient occlusion, BattleForge manages to be a rather punishing game for GPUs.
BattleForge is another game that punishes the 5700 series. The performance hit coming from the 4870 starts at 25% at 1680, and ends at just 18% at 2560. This also means that the 5770 loses to the GTX 260.
As for the 5750, it loses at 1680 by 7%, but eeks out a very slight win at 1920. Apparently being memory bandwidth starved isn't so bad when your competitor is too.
Finally, this gives us one of the larger gaps between the 5770 and 5850. $100 buys you 60%-70% more performance.
HAWX is another game that's not particularly GPU-bound, which means we can turn in some high numbers.
The 5770 fares better at HAWX. Not good, but better. As compared to the 4870, we lose around 10%. The situation versus the GTX 260 isn't very good however.
With the 5750, we have a break-even proposition. It loses one resolution and wins another by roughly the same amounts. It also does rather well here against the GTS 250 at 2560.
Meanwhile that $100 more on a 5850 only gets you 30%-40% more performance. We're probably approaching a CPU-bound situation here.
Dawn of War II
Dawn of War II is our other RTS benchmark. It's among the more challenging games in our collection, leading to there being a definite cutoff for playability.
And the 5770 finally wins at something! It's a couple percent over the 4870 at best, but it's something. The GTX 260 still claims top honors though.
As for the 5750, it pulls off a respectable lead as compared to the 4850, by about 5%. The GTS 250 again loses here.
As for that 5850, $100 buys you up to 56% more, at the highest resolutions.
Resident Evil 5
As is often the case with console ports, the latest installment of Capcom's popular survival horror series is not particularly GPU starved, and can crank out high numbers on just about anything.
The 5770 goes back to losing, but this time it's only by a few percent. The GTX 260 wins here yet again though.
It's another win for the 5750 though; 6-10%. It and the GTS 250 are virtually indistinguishable above 1680.
Finally, another $100 on a 5850 buys you 40%-50% more performance.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Batman: Arkham Asylum is another brand-new PC game, and has been burning up the review charts. It's an Unreal Engine 3 based game, something that's not immediately obvious from just looking at it, which is rare for UE3 based games.
As Batman: Arkham Asylum implements anti-aliasing differently between AMD and NVIDIA cards, this is the one title that we do not test AA on, as doing so produces results that can't be compared.
The 5770 goes back to losing by a wider margin compared to the 4870, roughly 10% this time. The story of it compared to the GTX 260 is also the same, with another GTX 260 win.
Meanwhile the 5750 gets another win over the 4850, although this is one of the only times it loses to the GTS 250.
Finally, a 5850 will buy you another 45%-55% in performance, for $100.
Left 4 Dead
Valve's venerable Source engine continues to roll on with Left 4 Dead, their co-op zombie shooter. As the Source engine is CPU limited, this is once again going to be a collection of ridiculously high frame rates.
More losing all around. The 5770 and 5750 here lose against their 4800 series cousins by roughly 10% and 5% respectively. The GTX 260 and GTS 250 are also winners here.
Meanwhile a 5850 comes in at 40%-55% faster.
Power, Temperature, & Noise
With the 5700 series being built using TSMC's 40nm process, and with their low target power, we should see some interesting results here.
We do need to note however that thanks to some badly timed broken hardware, we're using our secondary test rig for noise and temperature data, so the results are not directly comparable to our 5800 series reviews. As a result we also only have power data for the 5770; we weren't able to get power data on the 5750 in time for this article.
Thanks to the 40nm process and relatively simple nature of Juniper, the 5770 turns in the best idle power usage of all of our mainstream and high-end cards. At 135W it edges out the GTS 250, the 3870, and its bigger brothers the 5800 series. Coupled with a good CPU, and this should result in a system with very good idle power usage for the performance levels it provides.
We can also see the low power usage of an individual 5770 in our 5770 CF usage. There's a 16.5W difference, as the slave card gets to power down even further than 18W.
At 256W for load power, the 5770 isn't quite the winner here like it is for idle power. The 3870 beats it by 14W at the cost of a significant degree of performance, while the 8800GT is neck-and-neck with the 4770, again with a decent-sized performance gap. Everything past here approaches 300W and beyond. As a result, even if it's not the least power hungry card we have, it's very close, and it's certainly among the best for on a power-to-performance ratio.
Meanwhile looking at the Crossfire results, we see that there's a 134W difference between cards. As the Evergreen architecture allows us to go higher so long as the VRMs are safe, this appears to that situation in action.
World of Warcraft gives us similar results. The 5770 still doesn't come out on top, but its bested only by the 3870 and its significantly lower performance. The gap on the other side isn't particularly large either, but the first card that can beat the 5770's average gaming performance doesn't show up until we hit the 5850.
The 5700 series turns in some of our best idle temps, tying or beating everything besides a 5850. In fact we're a bit surprised to see a 5850 win here given the lower idle power usage of the 5700 series, but the data doesn't lie.
It's load temperatures where all of the action is at. Again the 5700 series do quite well here, only losing to the 5850 and a very loud 4890. Compared to the rest of the 4800 series in particular, we're a good 6C-11C cooler for a set of cards that offer similar to slightly less performance. Aren't smaller manufacturing processes great?
However in spite of the 5750's lower power consumption, it doesn't do so well here in terms of temperature compared to the 5770, coming in 4C hotter. We're going to chalk it up to the egg cooler being unable to match the 5770's shrouded cooler. This of course makes the fact that the 5770's shrouded cooler is going to eventually go away all the more meaningful, as conceivably the replacement coolers would end up being less effective.
As is the case for most of the cards we test, at idle they're virtually all the same. The 5700 series are no exception to this rule.
With the low power consumption of the 5700 series, their coolers don't have to work very hard to reach their already low load temperatures. At 51dB, these are the quietest cards we've tested at this level of performance; we would need to drop down to something slower yet (like yesterday's GT 220) to find something quieter.
We also can't rule out the possibility of the 5750 going passive in the future, given its already dainty cooler. We've seen it done before on an 8800GT, which has a similar thermal envelope. This certainly has all the makings of the fastest passively cooled card on the market, if someone can build the right cooler.
This also leaves the door open to the idea of using the 5750 as an HTPC card. With bitstreaming audio support it's the best HTPC card we've tested yet from a features standpoint, but we're not convinced that it's going to be the best thing out there given it's >$100 price tag and the fact that it's still power-hungry enough to need a PCIe power connector. In the long-term the 5600 series may be a better replacement given the same features and lower power consumption that a lower-performing part will offer, but that's something we won't be able to test until next year.
When we were looking at the Radeon HD 5800 series cards, writing a conclusion was rather easy for us. We didn't need to talk about intangibles like Eyefinity or DirectX 11, because the 5800 series brought better performance at better prices for existing games. This made recommending the 5800 series a straightforward thing to do.
But we don't have that luxury with the Radeon HD 5700 series. The value of the 5770 in particular is clearly not going to be in its performance. Compared to AMD's 4870, it loses well more than it wins, and if we throw out Far Cry 2, it's around 10% slower overall. It also spends most of its time losing to NVIDIA's GTX 260, which unfortunately the 4870 didn't have so much trouble with. AMD clearly has put themselves in to a hole with memory bandwidth, and the 5770 doesn't have enough of it to reach the performance it needs to be at.
If you value solely performance in today's games, we can't recommend the 5770. Either the 4870 1GB or the GTX 260 would be the better buy.
But don't mistake that for a wholesale write-off of the 5770. As a 40nm product it's cooler running and quieter than a 4870 or a GTX 260. As a DirectX 11 product it has longer legs to run on for future games and/or applications using DirectCompute 5.0. Eyefinity is also there, but with the performance of the card, (not to mention the cost of more monitors) it's not something we'd seriously expect to see used on a 5770.
Our jobs would be made much easier if AMD had either made the 5770 perform at parity with the 4870, or made the 5770 cheaper. Right now on a good deal we can swing a 4870 for $140, while the 5770 will be sticking to $160. That's 14% more for a card that performs 10% worse. If we take a linear extrapolation, the 5770 needs to be at around $130 to win on performance alone, or at the very least $140 so that we can talk solely about the 10% performance loss versus the extra functionality of the 5770.
AMD believes that DirectX 11 is the key to the success of the Radeon 5700 series, and in a way they're right. If DirectX 11 takes off quickly, then buying a 5770 over a 4870 or GTX 260 right now would be a wise buy. But that's a future that's hard to predict, and something we got burnt on somewhat with DX10 and DX10.1.
So here's the bottom line for the 5770: Unless you absolutely need to take advantage of the lower power requirements of the 40nm process (e.g. you pay a ton for power) or you strongly believe that DirectX 11 will have a developer adoption rate faster than anything we've seen before for DirectX, the 1GB 4870 or GTX 260 is still the way to go. Or to put things another way, outside of those two circumstances we're still at status quo. A 1GB 4870 will continue to be a better choice until the price difference between one of those on sale and a 5770 drops below $10-$15, at which point we could justify rolling the dice and paying a bit more for the 5770. AMD is their own enemy here, which means we aren't going to be very surprised if we see the 4870 go away very quickly once the 5770 is plentiful.
There is a brighter side today, and that's the 5750. It wins as much as it loses, and overall it's just as good as the 4850 when it comes to performance. The pricing is no different either, which means you're paying the same amount of money for a card of similar performance, better features, and better power characteristics. It's a no-brainer. Along the same lines the GTS 250 and the 5750 end up going back and forth enough that there's no consistent performance difference. We'll take DirectX 11 and 40nm over PhysX and CUDA any day of the week, so the GTS 250 becomes the next Evergreen victim. NVIDIA would need to shave the price down to justify its purchase once more (something they have not done on the GTX series in response to the 5870 and 5850).
The 5750 also whets our appetite for a great HTPC card with its excellent power characteristics and bitstreaming audio support. However it's at risk of being overkill for that market with its performance and still too-great thermals for a market that, seeing as how the HTPC doesn't need great performance and always could use lower thermals. A passively cooled 5750 in particular would make a good HTPC card, but we'd look at the Radeon HD 5600 series next year for our perfect HTPC card. If you can wait that long.
With the launch of the 5700 series, AMD finally gets to take a breather. 2 of their 4 Evergreen chips have launched, and nothing else is scheduled in the near future. Look for the release of the X2 series (Hemlock) late this year, and then next year the final 2 Evergreen chips will drop. But for now half of the job is done, with AMD having pushed out DX11 parts to $110 and above in the very short span of 3 weeks. It's a pace that makes the slow proliferation of DX10 parts absolutely glacial in comparison.


text:
Why the NCAA won't police itself
My bracket was busted on the first couple days of the tournament, but that's not the reason I'm switching allegiances. With only four teams remaining in the men's NCAA tournament, I know who I'm going for: the University of Connecticut Hustlers – er, I mean, Huskies. Until NCAA officials yank their heads from the sand, they deserve to deal with Heisman winners on the take, bowl champions with deep funding and Final Four teams who accept the NCAA's rulebook for what it really is: an idle threat.
Let's begin with an analogy:
In the city limits, Baltimore has more than 600,000 residents. To police this population the Baltimore Police Department employs more than 3,000 officers.
The NCAA oversees nearly 400,000 student-athletes. To police this population, the NCAA employs fewer investigators than Mayberry.
No, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it does speak to the NCAA's priorities. We know the NCAA likes coming up with rules, they've just shown little interest in actually enforcing them.
It reminds me of the classic Seinfeld scene in which Jerry derides the rental-car agent: "You know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them."
The way the NCAA chooses to divert its resources tells us exactly how much interest it has in enforcing its own rules.
By the last count I heard, the NCAA, which brings in more than a half-billion dollars in revenue each year, employed just three full-time investigators and about two dozen others who are used on a contract basis. This is a small part of the reason why the NCAA never unearths any wrongdoing. It waits for the news media (lately, Yahoo Sports), to force them into action.
Dan Wetzel is Yahoo's esteemed sports columnist and one of the two journalists who broke the UConn story (the other reporter was Adrian Wojnarowski). He says the NCAA uses 20 investigators.
"That isn't nearly enough," Wetzel said in an email this weekend. "They have the resources to do more, but not the will."
It'd all make for a really good sixth season of The Wire, where we'd find a group of men and women eager to bend the rules because another group of men and women see no incentive to enforce them.
Instead, the NCAA is more concerned with making sure kids don't get free T-shirts or rides home from practice. They make sure the bars and restaurants surrounding their tournament sites don't use their logo and they make damn sure reporters on press row drink from an NCAA-sanctioned paper cup. The truth is, it'd cost the circus too much money in lost revenue if it ever punished one of its clowns.
So why doesn't the NCAA police its schools better? The general explanation is money, but the simple answer is resources. A couple of investigators might be able to handle the Missouri Valley, but not all 300 member schools. So the real question is why doesn't the NCAA invest more in the enforcement of its rulebook? Again, the answer is probably simple: It goes against the NCAA's self-interests.
Forget the non-profit status, the NCAA is a business. And coming down hard on its member schools – particularly those from BCS conferences – is effectively pinching the NCAA's revenue streams.
The system is one giant conflict of interest. It's a kangaroo court of blindfolded marsupials. The infractions committee are made up of presidents from the member institutions. Punishing its member schools directly impacts the NCAA's own pocketbooks. And exposing wrongdoing undermines the sanctity of competition and the farce that is the NCAA's "amateur" status.
They don't want to find cheating; and when they do, they'd prefer not to acknowledge it.
I keep coming back to the mess at USC, another litany of wrongdoings unearthed by Yahoo. Granted, a public university such as UConn is different than a private institution like USC. (When public money is involved, an institution really has no choice but to investigate itself.) The case against Reggie Bush -- and by extension USC -- was so damning, complete with bank statements and audio recordings. But here we are, nearly three years later and the NCAA has still taken no action.
Here's why the UConn case will be different (and why it won't): The NCAA is very interested in setting precedents. UConn laughed at the NCAA's rules, skirted those rules and ultimately illustrated why the rules are inadequate. You can bet that the NCAA's challenge now will be to use UConn to set a precedent while punishing them as lightly as possible.
UConn will do what cheating schools do: They investigate themselves and then recommend a slap on the wrist. Of course, no school will investigate unless someone has the goods on them. They're not worried about the NCAA, but if a reporter has a source or some paperwork, then it's time to come (partially) clean. Unlike the NCAA, the schools will generally outsource the investigation, so there's at least the illusion of impartiality. (For example, UCF just paid $60,000 to have its football program investigated third-party. No major problems were found.)
It's such a joke of a process, akin to a rich father punishing his kid for breaking curfew. Dad doesn't want to come down too hard because the kid is the family and why rock the boat? So to avoid being grounded a month, the kid says, "My bad, Pops. You should ground me for a week." Problem solved.
(Another reason USC is still whistling Disney songs: As a private school, their records are protected and they felt no need to self-investigate. They asked the Pac-10 to investigate. Still waiting on those results…)
Another thing to keep in mind and a reason to keep a close eye on Tallahassee the next several months, where school officials are ready to go to war to make sure Bobby Bowden achieves sainthood: If a school doesn't like its punishment, it has recourse. A child might pout, but it has no choice but to accept its punishment. A university? It can sue. The result, as you can imagine is the NCAA investigators have to think twice before dropping a major punishment on rule-breakers.
Yahoo had the goods on UConn coach Jim Calhoun. The coach even acknowledges he "could have made a mistake." So how did Calhoun respond? Contrition? No, of course not. He blamed the NCAA, saying its 508-page manual is too big and cumbersome. (Never mind the fact that Calhoun has a staff of employees at the university whose sole job is to deal with compliance questions.)
The truth is, the NCAA shouldn't be in the investigation business. It should outsource the entire process and pay whatever it costs to bring dignity to the system. It'd be a huge undertaking, sure, but shouldn't the NCAA be interested in maintaining a fair playing field?
And shouldn't they be just as interested in enforcing their rules as they are in creating them. Otherwise – 500 pages or 5,000 pages – it's just another big book collecting dust on the shelf.
Cartoon: Bob Englehart / Hartford Courant


text:
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Mike Likes Cake - Recap
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The episode begins with Molly looking through her wedding photographs. She isn't happy about how Mike is looking in the pictures. Mike comes in just then with a cake on his plate. Turns out, it's their wedding cake. Molly reminds him that, they are suppose to save the cake to eat in their first anniversary. Mike claims he only had one piece during the wedding. Molly quickly disproves that, when she shows him photographic evidence that he had much more than one piece. Mike as a result reluctantly puts the piece of cake back in the freezer. Later at the diner, Mike tells Carl about the cake, and also how he is back on his diet, now that he has had a few bites of the cake.
Carl tells Mike he is trying to rush Christina in to marrying him, so she doesn't have time to figure out how much better she can do. "Taking time has never worked in my favor" he tells Mike. Morris shows Molly her marriage video that he has compiled. She isn't happy with the outcome and tells him to work on it further. "You are not leaving until you capture the magic that was my wedding" Molly tells him. Carl and Mike arrive at Christina's workplace with her lunch. Carl feels getting her lunch is a romantic gesture, and shows how much he loves her. The two at the store a meet a guy called James Turner, who was a pro athlete and is now a lawyer. Christina comes in just then.
She tells Carl she is going out to lunch with James her ex-husband. "Oh my God you divorced James Turner; how high is your bar lady?" Mike says. Later, Mike tells Carl how James Turner is class act. Carl though isn't too crazy about the guy, and feels he is full of himself. Carl is visibly jealous of James's achievements and doesn't like it when Mike lauds his accomplishments. Later at home, Mike shows Vince and Samuel the picture that he took with James. Vince looks at James's suit and concludes that he is really rich. Morris arrives with the reworked wedding video, and Molly calls her mother and sister to watch it, along with the rest of the gang. "Just prepare to relive the magic" she tells everyone.
They all then do tequila shots, each time Mike is seen having a piece of the wedding cake on the video. Carl receives a text from Christina telling him that, she can't make it to the viewing. Carl then loses it and begins cursing Christina on seeing her in the wedding video. He then goes into the kitchen sobbing and yelling Christina's name. Next day, Carl tells Mike "last night wasn't all about Christina, I always get weepy at weddings". Mike tells Carl "I'm sure Christina had a very good reason for not showing up". Carl agrees with him. He then tells Mike how his relationship with Christina is a mature relationship built on trust. Carl while saying all of this is busy circling Christina's block.
In the night, Mike and Molly discuss about their relationship, and Molly assures Mike that she will always love him come what may. "If Christina can get tired of James Turner, you might get tired of me one day" he tells Molly. The two though, get past that issue and end up kissing each other. Carl leaves a message on Christina's voice mail and asks her to come clean with him, if she is "done" with him. His grandma tells Carl "the woman is clearly trying to put a space between you and the more you push it, the more you are going to push her away". Carl is worried that if he doesn't "push it", he might lose her.
She feels Christine is trying to let him down easy and that is the reason why she hasn't returned 15 of his calls. Carl feels his grandma is wrong and decides to go to Christine's place to confirm this. Later, Christine is surprised to find Carl at her door. "Carl I wanna talk to you but now is not the right time" she tells him. Carl then sees James coming out of Christine's home. "James can you give us a minute?" she says.
James then goes back in, and Christine apologizes to Carl and tells him that she didn't mean to hurt him. "I still care about you very much Carl" she says. "I don't believe you" he says with tears in his eyes and walks away. Next day, Carl tells Mike that, he is just fine and is ready to date other women. Then suddenly he begins to sob and asks Mike "why can't she love me?" The episode ends at this point.
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