text:
Our Opening Hours will be:
Wednesday, 12th October 2016 - evening session only
Thursday, 13th October - through to - Saturday, 15th October (inclusive) - open all day
Tickets information
* * * * *
*Stop Press * Stop Press * Stop Press *
Calling All Volunteers
Putting on the biggest & best Beer & Cider Festival in the UK means we need a lot of help & volunteers. Nottingham Robin Hood Beer & Cider Festival currently has nowhere near enough bar staff for the event... Can you please help? Or do you know someone who can?
We are specifically looking for more volunteers on Friday 5pm onwards up to closing and all day Saturday.
Are there any publicans or pubs who would be willing to come along and volunteer? We're offering a great opportunity for you to promote your hostelries by wearing your own pub T-shirts behind the Festival bars! [All we ask in return is that all volunteers follow the NRHBCF Festival Rules and code of conduct.]
Festival Fringe Fortnight - updates here
A number of pubs have signed up to FFF (Including Hand & Heart; Barrel Drop; Crazy Crow) and details of events will start to appear from 16th September. The Five Canning Circus group of pubs are undertaking 'Jack and Jill Went up the Hill' complete with collecting badges and a chance to win a hamper of goodies.
Beer Prices have been 'held' yet again ! What does this mean? £3 a pint for all but the strongest beers and ciders!
The Answer can be found here ....
|When is the Festival?
|Wednesday 12th to Saturday 15th October 2016
|Where is the Festival?
|In the grounds of the historic Nottingham Castle more
|What are the opening hours?
|11am-11pm Thursday - Saturday / 5.30pm-11pm Wednesday
|How do I get to the Festival?
|Nottingham Castle is a short walk from the railway station and both bus stations. The tram is about four minutes walk away. Map
|Let's get down to business - what is there to drink?
|In 2015 we offered 1,270 different draught real ales and well over 200 real ciders. Soft drinks, teas & coffees and country wines are also available. See the 2015 beer listings here / and the cider list here. The lists for 2016 will be posted when available, usually about ten days before the start of the festival.
|What are the admission prices?
|Advance tickets & Pay at gate - details for 2016 are now available here
|Why do I have to pay to get in?
|The festival costs a massive amount to stage, with large costs for marquees, lighting, toilets etc. not to mention the beer.
|Do I have to buy a glass?
|You can bring your own glass, as long as it carries a government stamp. If you wish to drink thirds or halves your glass must have the necessary lines. Glasses are included in ticket prices and are refundable for £2.50 each on exit if you wish. If you have your own glass we will give you £2.50 worth of beer tokens (refundable) in lieu of a glass.
|Are there Beer Tokens or is it a Cash Bar?
|It is strictly a token-only festival. A number of refundable tokens are included in admission prices.
|Can I buy more beer tokens once inside the festival?
|Yes there are token booths where you can purchase as many tokens as you need. They are refundable but only in small numbers, so don't buy too many at a time.
|How much is a pint?
|Prices have again been held this year, which means that all but the very strong beers and ciders will be £3 a pint
|Do you sell drinks in a third of a pint?
|Yes we do, our glasses are half pint tankards but also have a third line on them.
|Will there be a programme available?
|Yes programmes are available free of charge. Pick one up on your way in - or have a look at what 2015 had to offer here - 2016 will be found on this page when available.
|Will all the beers listed be available all the time?
|Around 800 beers will be on sale from the start, as these run out they are replaced by beers marked as RES (reserve) in the programme. By late Saturday evening we usually still have a few hundred beers on sale, more than most festivals start with. By the way we never run out, rumours that this has happened in the past are merely urban myths.
|Do you sell lager?
|We sell some cask conditioned lagers i.e. real ales
|Can I bring my own beer?
|Not really, that would be like taking coals to Newcastle!
|Can I bring children?
|Children are allowed on site until 5pm, at the discretion of the Castle staff. However all under 18s must leave site at 5pm.
|Will I be able to buy food at the Festival?
|There are numerous catering stalls offering a wide selection of world cuisine more
|Is there a designated smoking area?
|Smoking is permitted in an area behind the upper marquee, this is partly covered.
|Is parking at the venue available?
|No parking is allowed on site, there is no space available and vehicle movement is not permitted when the festival is open. There are numerous public car parks situated nearby.
|What is the policy about bringing dogs?
|No dogs are allowed in the Castle grounds, except assistance dogs. This is a city Council ruling that applies at all times of the year.
|Will there be live entertainment?
|There is a full programme of live entertainment on the Victorian bandstand at all times. Limited updates are now available and can be seen here and will continue to be posted until the programme is finalised. For those who prefer their festival to be music-free there is no music in the large upper marquee.
|What if it rains?
|The festival has several very large marquees so there is plenty of cover if it rains.
|Will I have to queue to get in?
|We do all we can to keep queueing to a minimum, particularly for ticket holders.
|Can I buy tickets in advance?
|Advance tickets go on sale on 1st June 2016 from the Nottingham Tourism centre in the Market square and online. Friday and Saturday tickets sell very quickly so make sure you get to purchase them early. However it is possible to pay on the gate although this is dependant on space being available, for 2015 it was possible to pay on the gate at all times, but we cannot guarantee this.
|Do you still need bar staff?
|We rely on a large group of volunteers to staff the festival. Applications are now being taken - the closing date has been extended - forms here
|Can you recommend accommodation?
|Nottingham has a very wide choice of hotels, varying in price from budget upwards. We would recommend using the established hotel search engines such as booking.com
|Are you on Twitter and Facebook?
|We have dedicated feeds/accounts on both Twitter and Facebook
|Is there an app?
|The app will be available prior to the start of the festival and a link will appear on this page.
|Do you have any gluten free beer?
|We aim to have the widest possible choice of gluten free real ales as we can possibly obtain. The number available nationally has increased significantly in recent months. A list will appear on this web site about ten days before the festival. All vegan beers are listed in the programme and identified on the signs on each cask. All of our ciders and perries are gluten free. 2016 update here
|Do you have wine?
|Country wines are available in both the upper and lower marquees.
|What if I have an allergy or food intolerance?
|We attempt to show all allergen information on our beer signs, but if in doubt please ask our bar staff.
|Do you offer a Student discount?
|Card carrying members of the Nottingham Trent University and University of Nottingham Real Ale Societies are given additional beer tokens on entry, in line with those given to CAMRA members. No other discounts are available.
|Can I get a pass-out and come back in?
|It is not possible to obtain a pass-out to leave the festival at any time, following serious abuse of the system at earlier festivals. In the case of an emergency please speak to the steward on the exit gate.
|Do you have vegan friendly beers?
|We aim to offer a good range of beers that are suitable for vegans. The number of such beers has increased considerably in recent months and it is probable that around 5% of the total number of beers on sale will be vegan friendly, hopefully more. All our ciders and perrys are vegan friendly.
|How can I contact you?
|See Contact page and/or below.
|Can I pay on the gate?
|None of the sessions are 'ticket only' and there will be a number of 'pay on the gate' admissions available daily - for full details download word or .pdf file or visit the ticket page
|What if I have a disability?
|We aim to make the Festival accessible to anyone with long-term or permanent disabilities, mobility, sight and/or hearing impairments and hope you will find the answer here
|Do you provide Braille or Large-Print literature?
|Large-print or Braille versions of the programme can be made available if requested in advance – please contact festival organisers at least 3 weeks prior to the start of the event.
|How do the beer prices compare to 2015?
|Beer prices have been held yet again for 2016, which means just £3 a pint for all but the strongest beers and ciders.
|What is FFF?
|The Festival Fringe Fortnight involves several pubs who offer an 'extended' Festival flavour around the Robin Hood Beer & Cider Festival - details of Ales, Beers, Ciders, Entertainment & Food can be found here
|We've left room for more questions ....
|Watch the spaces above fill out .......
Tickets and admissions - firstname.lastname@example.com
Catering, stalls etc. - firstname.lastname@example.com
Entertainment - email@example.com
Beer Ordering - email@example.com
Brewery Bars - firstname.lastname@example.com
Bar Managers - We are always looking for experienced volunteers to act as bar managers, if you are interested please email email@example.com
Cider - firstname.lastname@example.com
Volunteers/Staffing - email@example.com - Phone : 07887 476173
All other enquiries - firstname.lastname@example.com - Phone : TBA
Frequently asked questions here
Updated : 30th September 2016 (226301/242764/247523/250761/253631/263020/267427/267427/269674/271980)


text: I realized some time ago that while I run my own successful PR and image consultancy and I do the worst PR for myself. I put the needs of my clients first and before I know it … it's been weeks since my last blog entry, industry reading or fresh networking effort. Sigh … I … Continue reading

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Tech Tuesday Live Twitter Chat at the Bellevue Microsoft Store
- Posted: Oct 10, 2011 at 12:11PM
- 2 comments
Loading user information from Channel 9
Something went wrong getting user information from Channel 9
Loading user information from MSDN
Something went wrong getting user information from MSDN
Loading Visual Studio Achievements
Something went wrong getting the Visual Studio Achievements
Right click "Save as…"
Join Windows Tuesday Oct. 11th for our Tech Tuesday Live Twitter Chat at the Bellevue Microsoft Store to talk about PCs and IE9.
Oops, something didn't work.
Umm... time on Tuesday?
I would be interested in hearing about high end tablets/slates (ie running core i5 ASUS EP121 etc) that are on the sales floor or expected soon.
Sub text: I am looking for the current best platform to develop WINRT apps on (I didn't go to BUILD so the Samsung BUILD tablet isn't an option)
Thanks and good luck with the chat.
Comments have been closed since this content was published more than 30 days ago, but if you'd like to continue the conversation, please create a new thread in our Forums, or Contact Us and let us know.


text:
firstname.lastname@example.com wrote:
> On my recent cups upgrade to 1.2.10 my main server ceased to function as
> a network printer. Files would print locally but files printer remotely
> would stay in queue there. I see no errors in the cups logs etc.
> I need to elaborate or perhaps it is a given that it was setup as browse ie
> broadcasting to my other machines. That appears to work as the printer
> shows up remotely and is selectable and usable.
> I did notice that the overall layout of the cupsd.conf file did appear
> to change. I just mimicked what I had in the previous conf in terms of
> turning on browsing etc. I cannot figure out why these printed files do
> not go to the server.
> Any ideas?
> Thanks.
> -Walt
First step is to turn on debugging (LogLevel debug in your cupsd.conf
file). Then study the log, google for the messages and post the relevant
bits of the log to the newsgroup if you have no joy.


text:
Hello everyone, I just gotten my dream setup. Question is how do I set this up?
I have 2 XTI4002 amps, 2 JBL Srx718 subs, 2 JBL 722 (tops) & a Drive Rack PA Plus. thanks
Need Help Setting up new equipment
Started by Lowell2k9, Oct 11 2011 06:05 PM
1 reply to this topic
Posted 11 October 2011 - 06:05 PM
Posted 12 October 2011 - 10:36 AM
The best thing to do would be to connect the subs to one amp, the tops to the other, and let the Driverack do the rest. Just run the amps in stereo bypass, i.e. use the DSP OFF preset. That's the way they come out of the box. The only exception might be to put the sub amp into INPUT Y mode.


text:
Melodese Tunnell, 93, of Levelland, died Saturday, April 2, 2005 at Potter House in Amarillo. Services will be at 2 p.m. Monday, April 4, 2005 at the First United Methodist Church in Levelland with Rev. Jesse Hodge, pastor, officiating. Burial will be in City of Levelland Cemetery under direction of George Price Funeral Home.
Born on Aug. 14, 1911 in Bonham, to H. L. (Lee) Brady and Zora Fortner Brady, she moved to Levelland as a child and lived most of her years there. Melodese was an avid violinist, learning to play at age six. She studied music at the Fort Worth Conservatory after completing high school in Levelland. In 1928, she left the school of music to return to Levelland where she married her best friend and the love of her life, Joe Tunnell. Melodese taught violin and played with the Lubbock Symphony for many years. She was a charter member of the Levelland Music Club. She was also a youth leader and dedicated member of the First United Methodist Church in Levelland. She and Joe fulfilled a lifelong dream by building a home for the boys of Boys Ranch in 1973.
Melodese was a kind, gentle-hearted Christian, whose sweet spirit touched everyone she knew. She always said she had the most wonderful life. She loved traveling, music, her cats, her family and friends, and most of all her husband of 64 years. She is preceded in death by her father, Lee Brady, in 1917, her brother, Jimmy Greenway in 1957, her mother, Zora Westmoreland in 1979, and her husband, Joe Tunnell in 1993.
Melodese is survived by her nephew, Jim Ray and wife Kathy and children of Amarillo, and many dear friends, and extended family members.
The family suggests memorials to the Boys Ranch or the First United Methodist Church of Levelland.
© 2016. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


text: Charles Donald Imler, 91, Claysburg, died Wednesday. He was born in Juniata, son of Sewell and Clara Imler. He married the late Ora Benton. Surviving are four children: Karen Wensel, Robert and Kendall Imler and Charles Wood; 10 grandchildren; four stepgrandchildren; and a sister, S. Beryl Mowry. He was preceded in death by four siblings: Hazel, Thomas, Clifford and Melvin; and a daughter-in-law, Terresa Wood. He was a U.S. Army veteran of WWII. Friends will be received from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. today at Leslie-Miller Funeral Home, Claysburg. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012, at St. Paul United Church of Christ, Imler.


text:
An emotional Andy Murray wins second Brisbane International crown
- From: The Courier-Mail
- January 07, 2013
ANDY Murray held back tears as he dedicated his second straight Brisbane International crown to a stricken friend.
The world No.3 was determined to keep his privacy, but shed some light on his personal anguish just moments after his straight sets final victory against Bulgarian youngster Grigor Dimitrov.
"I dedicate this to one of my best friends back home. You're going to pull through," an emotional Murray said.
It was a telling moment for the Scot, who was questioned over his lack of emotion last year after his grand slam breakthrough at the US Open.
Murray's mate reveals cancer fight
Murray revealed a little more by signing a broadcaster's camera lense "For you Perched", but would not elaborate when asked about his friend later at a media conference.
The dedication was a touching conclusion to a clinical performance by Murray, who gave 21-year-old Dimitrov a 2-5 head start before powering past an opponent playing his first ATP singles final.
"When he has to play good, he plays good," Dimitrov said.
"He puts himself into a great state of mind that he didn't miss one ball after that.
"There's not much you can do."
The win was Murray's 25th career singles title, and the sixth time he has won back-to-back crowns.
Murray now heads to Melbourne with an unfamiliar feeling, that of a grand slam champion.
For the first time, he will not be pestered by questions about his inability to win a major.
There will be no swagger from the 25-year-old, but he admitted he is a changed man.
"I do feel more relaxed one week out from slam than I have done previously, that's for sure, so I hope that's a good sign," he said.
"Nerves are a good thing, shows you care."
It has been a year since Ivan Lendl joined Murray's team, with the US Open champion crediting the new coach with bringing simplicity to his game.
"He tries to keep things fairly simple and not overcomplicate things," Murray said of Lendl.
"That's something that I think especially at the beginning of my career I struggled with was having a lot of variety and not knowing how to use it."
Have your say
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text:
Family Medicine at Dunwoody
Emory Healthcare Family Medicine has been serving the Dunwoody community since 2004. We offer the full breadth of health care for all family members including children, newborn through young adult, maternity care and adult medicine. Our goal is to serve as patient partners to assure that each patient's health needs are met. We also can serve as a gateway to specialists and hospital services, when needed.
Our clinic gives back to the community by training excellent physicians through the Emory University Family Medicine Residency program. As a training site for Emory University, our clinic is staffed with a team of healthcare professionals including Resident Physicians and Faculty Physicians, Faculty Psychologists and nurses to provide you with optimal care. Our Family Medicine Residents are successful graduates of college and medical school, and provide patient care under the supervision of our onsite physician faculty. Serving as a training site for Family Medicine residents enhances access for our patients to our practice in person, by phone or electronically in a timely manner, and provides additional resources for our patients. Our providers are fluent in multiple languages and have a wealth of experieces in multiple settings. Additionally, our practice offers hospital in-patient and labor and delivery services at Emory University Hospital Midtown.
Our approach to providing health care is consistent with the Patient and Family Centered Medical Home model described here: http://pcmh.ahrq.gov/page/defining-pcmh. We are proud to have obtained recognition from the NCQA as a Level 3 Patient Centered Medical Home. Additionally, the following link provides a brief video explanation of why the Patient and Family Centered Medical Home is needed to improve health care delivery: http://www.emmisolutions.com/medicalhome/pcpcc/?width=800&height=500&iframe=true
We love our patients and seek to provide the highest quality care in an efficient manner that is sensitive to the needs of each individual patient. To accomplish this we hope that our patients will be active partners in their health care.
With the help of our patients' feedback, we continually strive to improve the efficiency of our practice and to assure we deliver the highest quality of care that is sensitive to individual patient needs.


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Kym Tolson, LCSW, CSAC, NBCCH
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Type Your Mental Health Question Here...
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I have been diagnosed with bipolar type II, adhd mild, avoidance
This answer was rated:
I have been diagnosed with
type II, adhd mild, avoidance behavoir, sleep apnea, and resless legs syndrom, also severe depression. lastly a reading disorder 3rd grade level, with passive aggressive behavoir. One specialist's, one therapist, one psychologist belive this to be mostly true. Additionally, with low averages in CAPD ranges from: audiotory/visual deficits, and visuospatial skills, just to name a few. I'm confused about what are my next steps in my life that I need to do to fix all these problems. I knew that I had most of these problems most of my life, but I
not have a "name " for them, now I do. Your professional opinion, where do I need to go and get the help I need,etc...
Share this conversation
Kym Tolson, LCSW, CSAC, NBCCH
replied 6 years ago.
Thank you for using JustAnswer! I'm really sorry to hear all of this you are going through. Your situation is unique but the problem of 'not knowing where to start' is very common. It sounds like there is so much going on that your feeling overwhelmed. Usually with situations like these you will need to begin by prioritizing which issues are the most important to deal with first. For example, If
is the most pressing issue right now, I would say focus completely on the issue related to sleeping with the cognitive therapist or even with a sleep specialist for a c-pap machine for the apnea to help with the sleeping. Once this issue is somewhat improved move on to the next issue that is the most pressing or troublesome in your life. Prioritizing and dealing with one thing at a time will help you feel less overwhelmed and that all of these problems are more manageable.
So to summarize, I would suggest sitting down and making a list of all of the problems you are experiencing right now in your life. I would then suggest going through the list and prioritizing which issues need to be dealt with first. Choose the issue based on a rating scale of sorts that can let you know which is the most detrimental to your overall well-being. Choose that one and work on it until another issue seems more pressing.
I hope this answer helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions or if you need clarification of this answer.
Take care,
Ask Your Own Mental Health Question
replied 6 years ago.
Hello, kym, I do not know what lcsw, csac, etc. means. Please tell me. Also, already on a cpap machine. I need to know if I should be getting further help with an auiologist/pathlogist. I understand about the prioritizing method. What I need from you is what do you think is my next step. I really do not know what an audiologist does, or how a speech pathologists has to do with me. I need you to tell me if I'm on the right tract with disability? And would I even qualify for it. My fears are: Qualifying for disability, getting rehabilitated at my age, and the costs in doing that (Retired Military) Basically, who do I need to see next. One thing is, I also have problems with communicating my thoughts? please be patient with me?
Kym Tolson, LCSW, CSAC, NBCCH
replied 6 years ago.
Hi again,
Thanks for these questions. LCSW stands for Licensed Clinical Social Worker. CSAC stands for Certified
Substance Abuse
Counselor. An audiologist would be seen for someone that has hearing problems. A speech pathologist would evaluate speech and language problems. I am guessing, not really sure, that someone has referred you to them because you have either a speech or hearing problem and that either of these is effecting your ability to communicate with people or it could have something to do with your learning disability. Since you said, I have trouble communicating my thoughts, I'm guessing that is why you have been referred.
I would suggest, continuing with the disability application and process. While you are waiting for approval continue following the recommendations of the specialists already treating you. Having the disability in place would give you room to work on the rehabilitation efforts through the VA or the department of rehabilitative services. If you improve through the rehabilitation and therapy you may not need the disability anymore. I would see the audiologist and the speech pathologist to see if they are able to identify any thing they can do to help with your communication problems. I would also take the advice about seeing a cognitive therapist because they could help with the sleep but also with the communication problems. After seeing all of these people you will have more information about which way to go next.
To summarize:
I would continue with the disability.
Schedule with and see the audiologist and speech pathologist. See what they recommend.
Schedule with the cognitive therapist.
After or while waiting for the results from these professionals explore options with VA or Department of Rehabilitation Services for help.
All of these services should be at low cost to you if you use the VA and the Dept. of rehabilitative services. You may even be able to have the audiologist and speech pathologist evaluation as part of your disability application process.
I think you are on the right track. I believe all of these steps will lead you to a clearer path. I hope this answer helps. Please let me know if you need clarification.
Take care,
Edited by Kym Tolson, LCSW, CSAC, NBCCH on 1/2/2010 at 4:43 AM EST
Kym Tolson, LCSW, CSAC, NBCCH, Therapist
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Ok, soĀI have a few friends that are having baby's a few months after mins and when listening to some of her name choices I couldnt help but point out that her baby's initals would be WTF... HAHAHAHA. I mean seriously, who's going to know your kids fullĀname other than you and close family but I just found this hilarious.
Are any of you giving your babies "odd" initials and just dont care?ĀI mean I wouldnt care what other ppl thought if I liked the names and they flowed well together,Ābut then again my LO will be MLL which means nothing.
Come on ladies....ĀI need some laughs to end the afternoon with. Im SO antsy, its finally ALMOST my last week of work!


text:
Frog Land
a plot summary of the story now running at
might somehow be possible
Our tragedy so far: The tragic playwrights Euripides, Aeschylus, and others, have died and gone to Hades. All to further sadden the dreary backdrop of the Peloponnesian War.
Dionysus, the god of wine and theater (in that order), has traveled to Hades to find his favorite tragic playwright, the shlock-artist Euripides.
When he gets there, a committee of ignorant louts (now posing as our chorus) are championing the former holder of the title "Greatest Dead Tragic Playwright", Aeschylus.
They commanded Euripides, the presumptive challenger, to debate Aeschylus. Dionysus referees the contest, planning to take Euripides back to Athens. Because it's currently mired in a 20-year stalemate of a war, and does not need any more tragedy.
But Aeschylus' skill has unnerved Euripides, who now begins to suspect he might loose the contest and gain no reprieve from Hades.
As they debate, they neglect to count how many demonic louts from purgatory are watching them. The chorus has grown large as the debate got funnier. This is, after all, Dionysus, the god of partying, on stage.
Dionysus wants to bring Euripides back to Athens which, in 405 BC, has sufficient tragedies of its own!. But first, Euripides challenges Aeschylus, another deceased tragic playwright, to compete for his Chair of the Greatest Dead Tragic Playwright.
Dionysus, as patron god of theater, judges the competition. But whenever Euripides tries to recite the poetic opening to one of his plays, Aeschylus points out it's written in "iambic tetrameter". "da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM." This implies Euripides simply "stenciled" each play onto the next one, without actually varying its accouterments. This irritates Euripides, who keeps trying to prove he has ever written a play in a different meter, and failing.
(The modern equivalent would be pointing out Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" is nothing but the Eagles' "Lyin' Eyes" with the measures shifted over, or "Wild Thing" by the Trogs is just "Louie Louie", as performed by the Kingsmen, with the accents changed around.)
Scholars often translate Aeschylus's accusation, "ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν" (
li-KEETH-i-ON ap-OWL-ee-SEN
, or "little-oil-flask depleted"), as "lost his little oil flask". But this translation puts accuracy above meter - AND it moves what's missing from the oil to the flask. So my version pushes up the sexual connotation. An oil flask is what you'd bring in your hip pocket to a tryst. The translation "he LOST his LUB-ri-CAT-ing OIL" is the correct meter, and it allows - as usual for Aristophanes - our imaginations to run riot. Especially when the first line of an Euripides play lands in a very unfortunate place...
Dionysus finally manipulates Euripides into going on the offensive and challenging Aeschylus's music. I apologize in advance y'all can't hear what I do here.
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Staff Reporter
The second day of the nationwide 72-hour road-rail-waterway blockade, enforced by the BNP-led 18-party alliance, was marked by stray violence at different parts of the country on Sunday.
According to reports, at least 135 people, including cops, were injured as the blockaders clashed with law enforcers and the ruling party men.
Besides, over 50 crude bombs were blasted while 55 vehicles either vandalized or torched and some 30 opposition men arrested on the second day of the protest program.
In the capital, opposition activists blasted crude bombs and brought out processions in different parts, including Uttar Badda, Naya Bazar and Basabo. Blockaders also set a bus ablaze at Matuailam.
Incidents of violence were also reported from different districts, including Sylhet, Sunamganj, Jhenidah, Sirajganj, Thakurgaon, Laxmipur, Chuadanga and Narayanganj.
The third-spell blockade started at 6am Saturday and it will continue until 6am Tuesday if it is not extended further as done during the previous two spells.
Besides, a 12-hour shutdown, enforced by city unit BNP, protesting the arrest of its convener Sadeque Hossain Khoka, passed off amid the blockade program on Sunday.
The first day of the blockade was marked by stray incidents like clashes, arson attacks, bomb blasts and vandalism in different parts of the country.
After the end of the 131-hour blockade program protesting the election schedule, BNP joint secretary general Salauddin Ahmed on Thursday announced the 72-hour nationwide one through a video message sent from an undisclosed location.
The opposition combine earlier enforced 202 hours of road-rail-waterway blockade across the country in two spells -- 71-hour and 131-hour ones -- after the announcement of the election schedule for the 10th parliamentary elections that left at least 45 people dead.
On November 25, the Chief Election Commissioner announced that the 10th parliamentary elections will be held on January 5 next.
2nd day blockade marks violence
Staff Reporter


text:
GameStop (NYSE:GME)
Q3 2011 Earnings Call
November 17, 2011 11:00 am ET
Robert A. Lloyd - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Michael K. Mauler - Executive Vice President of International
J. Paul Raines - Chief Executive Officer
Tony D. Bartel - President
James Hardiman - Longbow Research LLC
Anthony C. Chukumba - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division
William R. Armstrong - CL King & Associates, Inc.
Seth Basham - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division
Michael Hickey - National Alliance Capital Markets, Research Division
David G. Magee - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division
Gary Balter - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division
Mark-Andre Saucier-Nadeau - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Good morning. Welcome to GameStop Corp.'s Third Quarter 2011 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I'd like to remind you that this call is being covered by the Safe Harbor disclosures contained in GameStop's public documents and the property of GameStop. It is not for a rebroadcast or the use by any other party without prior written consent of GameStop.
At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Paul Raines, CEO of GameStop Corp. Please go ahead, sir.
J. Paul Raines
Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to GameStop's third quarter earnings call. Thank you for joining us. Before we get started, I want to thank our team of over 50,000 associates worldwide for another quarter of giving power to the players. GameStop associates, true to our values and with a passion for gaming, delight customers in 17 countries around the world with the absolute best service, assortment, value and digital offering.
The third quarter continues the transformation of GameStop into a hybrid retailer of physical and digital gaming and electronics products. Our strategic plan developed over the last 3 years is on track and providing tangible results, and our investments in digital businesses continue in a disciplined way. As you read in our release, we achieved our earnings forecast although the quarter presented some challenges in top line due to a cash-strapped consumer that could not afford all the good titles released during the quarter.
Comps in the United States was slightly positive and negative 2.2% in our international market. Globally, new software grew 4.8%, driven by 3 titles that sold over 1 million units in the first week of their release. Meanwhile, our digital businesses are significantly contributing to our gross margin expansion.
Given the amount of strong titles available in holiday 2011, it is clear to us that consumers will make choices on which titles to purchase among the unprecedented quality of offering. At the same time, hardware was flat year-over-year, reflecting some strength in Sony and continued weakness in handheld. As we get through a strong launch schedule and into the holiday shopping season, we believe that our ability to place currency in consumers' hands through our buy-sell-trade model is the most effective way to support consumers.
If you are a PowerUp Rewards member, you know already the types of innovative promotions we are using to help you fund your holiday game shopping through the trade-in of your pre-owned video games, consoles and the electronics.
The pre-owned business grew at 3%. While we saw double-digit growth in the first 2 quarters of this year, the third quarter grew slower due to the investment gamers made in new titles. As we have seen in prior cycles, strong new title releases tend to attract dollars from pre-owned buyers into the new category. We are excited, however, about the work we were able to do on building inventory in the quarter through innovative use of the PowerUp program to drive trades and bring inventory into our stores in preparation for holiday. Our margin rate in the pre-owned business during the quarter reflects some investment in trade promotions. And we are pleased to say we achieved record trade volume at GameStop during the third quarter. This trade volume sets us up for the holiday shopping season where we will use PowerUp Rewards to promote and merchandise our pre-owned assortment of high-quality games, consoles and electronics.
On a competitive note, we continue to watch competitor experimentation in pre-owned closely, and the data indicates no impact in our domestic store base from those competitors' efforts.
As we continue evolving our strategic plan, we launched an extension of our buy-sell-trade model in pre-owned iDevices nationally during the third quarter. We now accept the trades of those products in all domestic stores and are currently selling them on our website and in 260 stores. The early read on consumers is that, as we expected, the trading of pre-owned electronics at GameStop feels natural and is convenient to consumers. While it is early on in this new business model, we estimate that re-commerce market in North America is approximately a $700 million to $800 million market and growing very fast in the mobile handset, MP3 player and tablet categories. The market is highly fragmented and without a clear leader, and retail stores are the best channel to acquire inventory.
We also estimate that there are over $7 billion of used iDevices in homes in the United States. Our investment in refurbishment technology and efficient in-store trade processes is paying off in a rapidly growing emerging category. GameStop is uniquely qualified to integrate these new categories into our buy-sell-trade ecosystem. And the same competitive modes that apply to video games apply in the consumer electronics segment.
We also recently launched a gaming tablet assortment in over 200 stores. Once again, GameStop has created an innovative business model by focusing on gamers and thinking outside the box. Our GameStop-certified tablets work with the Android operating system, come with preloaded games and have a proprietary controller available for console-like game play on cool game. Tablet manufacturers and game publishers are excited by the possibilities we have brought to the market and are meeting with GameStop teams weekly to create innovative products for launch in the upcoming year. By the way, the tablets we carry are eligible for trading at our stores as newer technology tablets become available. We are only beginning to do some work on a market model of what the upgrade cycle on tablets might look like and how we can merchandise and launch immersive tablet games in-store and online and how big a refurbished tablet business could be.
On the digital front, our progress is energizing the organization. Downloadable content is proving to be the killer app our managers told us it would be as gamers love the idea of getting more content on the games they love at launch. Kongregate and GameStop PC download platform are on target, and we are spending lots of time playing the Spawn streaming beta and getting ready for market launch.
We are also seeing the console and PC digital businesses are accelerating internationally as our teams work together with publishers around the world to grow the digital business. Tony Bartel will provide additional color in his remarks.
PowerUp Rewards continues its extraordinary ride as the most compelling CRM program in retail. Membership now stands at 14.5 million. The game library includes 218 million games, and renewals continue ahead of plan. Our promotional offerings, digital and paper Game Informer magazine, Epic Rewards and personalized discounts continue to delight consumers. Publishers tell us they want to use the data asset we have built in more ways, and our team continues to scramble to keep up with the growth of the program. This program represents over 60% of our transactions. And Pro members who have been in the program for a year shop us every 21 days. PowerUp Rewards, more than print or electronic media, will be our primary weapon in the competitive marketplace during this holiday season. I hope you are a member.
On the real estate front, we continue to make great progress using our PowerUp data to consolidate store volume on closing. And in fact, we'll see a net decline in our square footage in the United States. The program is ahead of the targets we have previously outlined and we are modeling several scenarios for 2012, both in the U.S. and around the world that we will share with you in the first quarter. Creating value from the real estate portfolio as it consolidates is becoming meaningful to us. Rob Lloyd will give you some color on that in his remarks.
In the international business, we continue our work around transferring best practices, and the cost reductions in challenged markets continue. We saw a stronger performance in our European markets, reflecting in particular our market share dominance in France, Italy and the Nordic region. We believe we are gaining share in most European countries.
As a very strong highlight on best practices, I would like to call out our launch of the Australia version of PowerUp Rewards, known locally as the EB World Program. This program launched in September and already has over 100,000 members in Australia. In addition, both our Australian and France businesses accept trades of iDevices with Australia piloting sale of new Apple products and Red Bull phone service. Mike Mauler, our EVP of International, is with us on the call and can provide color on our international performance.
In conclusion, we would like to point out that GameStop is a very different company from those competitors that may imitate our strategies. In the last 3 years, we have grown new software market share consistently. We invented in-store DLC while making efficient acquisitions in a casual game platform, a PC download engine and a game streaming technology. We have built a dominant loyalty program that represents over 30% of all video game consumption in the United States. And all of this has been accomplished while buying back close to $1 billion of our shares and debt.
We have demonstrated a unique ability to drive change in an evolving market. Our early read on the fourth quarter is strong, and we expect a good holiday.
I will now turn the call over to Rob.
Robert A. Lloyd
Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin my remarks today with an update on our capital allocation program. During the third quarter, we repurchased 1,925,000 shares of GameStop stock at an average price of $22.09 for a total of $42.5 million. We also retired $125 million of our senior notes. We ended the quarter with $442 million in cash, up $260 million from last year.
As we indicated in the earnings release, our Board of Directors authorized a new $500 million stock and debt buyback plan. This new authorization replaces the $180 million remaining on the previous authorization and allows us to continue to buy back our shares over the next 12 months. In addition, we have called the remaining $125 million in senior notes, and when they are retired in December, GameStop will be debt-free. As Paul mentioned, since January 2010, our stock and debt buyback have totaled just under $1 billion. This represents approximately 86% of our free cash flow in the last 24 months.
Now I'll recap our third quarter financial results. Total sales were $1.95 billion, an increase of 2.5% compared to the third quarter of 2010. There were a number of very strong new titles released in the quarter. We had 3 titles sell in excess of 1 million units domestically, and software sales grew 4.8% during the quarter. However, a few of the new releases fell short of our expectations, and as a result, total company comparable store sales were down 0.6% with plus 0.2% in the U.S. and negative 2.2% internationally.
Given concerns about Europe involving economic turmoil and competitor results, I want to take a moment to point out that our year-to-date comps in Europe are slightly positive. Pre-owned sales during the quarter grew 3.1%. As we expected, consumer dollars shifted from pre-owned to new software during the strong title slate. Our efforts this year to improve awareness of the buy-sell-trade model had paid off as pre-owned sales increased 8.3% compared to the same 39-week period last year.
Our digital business increased 59% over the third quarter of last year, with strong growth in both console digital and PC digital. GameStop's fiscal 2011 digital sales year-to-date have now matched the digital revenue from all of fiscal 2010. Digital gross profit grew more than 50%, contributing approximately 1/3 of the increase in gross profit over last year. Tony will provide you with more details on our digital strategies.
Net earnings were $53.9 million and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.39 in line with our guidance range. During the quarter, we continued to spend on our strategic initiatives including expenses to support our PC download platform and the Spawn beta test. These expenses amounted to approximately $0.03 per share.
Gross margins for the quarter were 29.4%, up 60 basis points from last year with the increase driven primarily by digital growth. Q4, we expect to see similar improvement over the fourth quarter of 2010.
The margin rate on pre-owned during this quarter declined slightly from 2010. We were more promotional in an effort to provide PowerUp members with additional trade credit to buy the multitude of titles released during the quarter. As a result, we had record trades for the quarter and built inventory for the holidays. The margin rate on the other category grew 710 basis points from last year. Over 60% of this increase resulted from digital growth with the remainder attributed to margins earned on the PowerUp Rewards Pro membership and a shift in sales mix away from boxed PC software.
SG&A expenses, as a percentage of sales, increased from 21.5% of sales in the third quarter of 2010 to 22.8% of sales. This reflects our planned investment in digital initiatives, deleveraging from negative same-store sales and swings from currency exchange rate. We demonstrated expense control in light of sales trends as SG&A, excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, was less than budgeted.
The profit contributed by our store closing sales transfer process, driven by PowerUp Rewards data, continues to increase each quarter. We continue to refine the data from this program to help shape our future store portfolio strategy.
The tax rate this quarter was 30.1% due to accounting for uncertain tax positions and was comparable to the third quarter of last year.
Total company inventory decreased 8.5% as we continue to focus on disciplined purchasing and inventory management. Inventory turnover was comparable to the third quarter of last year.
We ended the quarter with 6,627 stores. We added 20 net new stores in the U.S. after opening 51 and closing 31. Year-to-date, we've opened 126 stores in the U.S. and closed or divested 202. We no longer expect to open 200 stores in the U.S. this year. We will have a decline in net square footage in the U.S. for this fiscal year, and our early plans are for fewer openings next year.
Internationally, we added 25 net new stores, opening in better performing markets such as Italy and France. We expect to open approximately 50 net new stores internationally for this year.
Now for the fourth quarter outlook. We forecast same-store sales to range from flat to 2%. During this quarter, we are overlapping the Kinect launch and selling Wii and PS3 at lower price points than last year.
We expect fully diluted earnings per share to range from $1.66 to $1.76. This compares to $1.56 per share in the fourth quarter of 2010.
During the quarter, we will continue to invest in our strategic initiatives with the impact expected to be approximately $0.03 per share. As we've told you in the past, the payoff for these investments is beginning to come now and will come in future years.
We'll continue to prepare Spawn for a service offering in 2012 and continue our other digital and PowerUp improvement.
We expect that the tax rate for the fourth quarter will be approximately 100 basis points higher than last year.
We are reiterating our previously announced full year 2011 earnings per share guidance of a range from $2.82 to $2.92, representing an EPS growth rate of 6% to 10% based on 2010 EPS of $2.65. We are revising our full year comparable store sales guidance to range from down 1% to flat and our full year revenue guidance to range from plus 2% to plus 3%. This change reflects the top line results of the third quarter and the uncertainties surrounding the consumer in today's economy. Earnings guidance does not include the effect of additional buyback.
Now I'll turn it over to Tony for his comment.
Tony D. Bartel
Thanks, Rob, and good morning, everyone. As mentioned earlier, we had expectations for stronger sales due to the great title lineup and record reservations. But we found that consumers were unable to fund the products that they wanted as these strong titles rolled out week after week. As we head into the fourth quarter, we are pleased with the performance of Activision's Call of Duty, Modern Warcraft 3, Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Revelations, THQ's Saints Row 3 and Microsoft's Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, all of which met our very high expectations. Recent launches are strong and we are not seeing new titles falling off.
We are outpacing market growth on each of these launches and have driven over 1/2 of the total U.S. growth that these titles have experienced. We have equally high expectations for several strong titles yet to release, including EA's Star Wars: The Old Republic and Nintendo's Mario Kart 7 and the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
From a digital perspective, we exceeded our expectations as we continue the fast paced growth in all of our digital initiatives. Total digital revenue grew 59% in the third quarter, with console digital growing 63% and PC digital growing 51%. We have grown digital revenue 61% year-to-date and are on schedule to exceed our $450 million annual digital revenue goal.
With the strength of 14.5 million PowerUp Rewards members, the support of our publishing partners, making digital content available as a simple gifting solution and the multichannel integration of our digital strategy, we are very excited to see the growth that we will garner during the holiday season.
By integrating downloadable content into our presell programs on major title launches, we are driving significant incremental purchase of downloadable content. We are averaging double-digit attach of the sale of downloadable content with recent major releases. In the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, we work closely with Activision, Sony and Microsoft to preorder and deliver nearly 600,000 instances of the Modern Warfare 3 ELITE DLC today. This places the launch of ELITE as one of our top 10 launches of the year so far. We have found that consumer demand for downloadable content is very strong at the point of launch and our ability to presell and deliver in real-time to a PowerUp Reward member's digital locker gives us a unique competitive advantage.
Based on our research, we know that 1/2 of the DLC that we sell is to customers that had never purchased DLC before. So we are driving strong incrementality by helping people discover and fund this add-on content. Customers note the ability to earn PowerUp Rewards points, the knowledge of our associates and the fact that they can use non-credit card sources of currency as the top reasons that they purchase from GameStop. As mentioned last quarter, we continue to see that over 70% of the currency used to purchase digital assets are non-credit card.
Our cloud gaming subsidiary, Spawn Labs, completed a successful private beta proving the viability of our technology in a data center environment. As previously announced, we plan on scaling our model by launching a nationwide private beta before the end of the year that will take place in 6 data centers located throughout the United States. We continued to see this as a great way for gamers to experience and trial actual game play to drive additional sales of console games and digital add-ons, and we are targeting a launch of our trial service in the first half next year. As a reminder, our business model is a pro-publisher model that requires no additional build or additional investment to use our cloud gaming service.
On PC downloads, we re-branded our Impulse client to the GameStop PC app and are now selling digital PC content in our stores alongside our physical PC offerings. We are also using the Impulse platform to download PC titles from GameStop.com and are awarding PowerUp Rewards points for PC downloads. As with DLC, the use of trade credits and gift cards is fueling the growth of this digital content. The GameStop retail engine is working to drive both traffic increases to our download engine as well as additional installs over client on gamers' computers. Fueled by strong titles such as EA's Battlefield 3, we saw 158% revenue growth in PC digital downloads during the quarter.
Kongregate continues its rapid growth in the quarter as well, increasing revenue by 181% over last year. Our focus on adding free-to-play games to our site along with in-store promotion is working and is accelerating our growth. Our Game Informer Magazine, in addition to being the fourth largest magazine in the U.S. with over 7 million paper subscribers, continues to grow its digital offering with more than 800,000 digital subscribers, adding over 330,000 digital subscribers during the quarter.
Finally, as Paul mentioned earlier, we recently launched 3 gaming certified tablets at over 200 GameStop's in the U.S. We worked closely with OEMs to find tablets that would satisfy gamers' high standards and shows the Acer's 7-inch ICONIA, the 10-inch Asus Eee Pad transformer and the Samsung 10-inch Galaxy tab. All run on the Android operating system and come pre-installed with 7 free games, Kongregate arcade, digital Game Informer and a GameStop web app that provides relevant product advice as well as a curated list of immersive games that can be purchased through the Android marketplace. In addition, we also offer a proprietary Bluetooth wireless controller that allows for a more immersive gaming experience. Four of the 7 preloaded games that we offer support the new wireless controller, and we have additional controller-enabled games listed in our GameStop web app.
We also announced this quarter that we are accepting iDevices as trade currency, and this has been a key accelerator of tablet sales in our pilot stores.
Finally, we will also be a launch partner for the new Asus Eee Pad Transformer prime, which runs on that new NVIDIA Integra 3 quad-core chipset.
To date, we've been very pleased with our tablet sales and are executing our second replenishment order. We believe that we can drive the adoption of Android tablets as a great gaming device and are excited about the opportunity to participate in a non-e-reader U.S. Android tablet market that Gartner estimates over $1.5 billion in 2010.
With that, I'll turn it over to the moderator.
Question-and-Answer Session
[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question today from Bill Armstrong with CL King & Associates.
William R. Armstrong - CL King & Associates, Inc.
The other category, gross margin up 700 basis points. You mentioned -- is digital just in the other category? Do you have certain digital revenues in the software category as well? How should we think about that?
Robert A. Lloyd
This is Rob. Digital is just in the other category.
William R. Armstrong - CL King & Associates, Inc.
And is that -- are we looking at the 100% margin where you're basically getting a commission on these sales? Is that how we should think about that?
Robert A. Lloyd
Well, that is a component of what's in that other category. There are a lot of things going on in the digital margin world. We have various digital offerings and the margin characteristics of them are somewhat different. Some of them are the 100% that you described.
William R. Armstrong - CL King & Associates, Inc.
Okay, so digital sales were obviously up very strongly, but the overall other category actually was down 4%. What was the offset there? What declined in the other category?
Robert A. Lloyd
It's principally boxed PC products. There were a couple of strong titles in the third quarter of last year selling PC.
William R. Armstrong - CL King & Associates, Inc.
Okay. Used game margin is down 140 bps. Was that just your efforts to acquire more product?
J. Paul Raines
Yes, Bill, this is Paul. We are using the PowerUp program pretty extensively in the pre-owned business in 2 ways: One is to market and sell pre-owned games as we've described before. The other is to bring in inventory and maximize trade. So a lot of our activity in the quarter was, in anticipation of holiday, was in unique promotions to consumers, sort of individualized promotions to drive trades on popular games and stores. So fair to say, Rob, you want to add anything to that?
Robert A. Lloyd
I think that covers it well.
William R. Armstrong - CL King & Associates, Inc.
Okay, one last question. On your iDevice program, obviously, you've got a very rapid product cycle in iDevices. And I guess the question is who are you going to sell 3- or 4-year-old iDevices to? And how do you address the risk of product obsolescence?
J. Paul Raines
Great question, Bill. It's interesting, as we've gotten into the end of this, there is tremendous consumer demand. If you look at video game consoles, one of the things GameStop has learned through the years is the pre-owned business is not a substitute for the new business. It actually is a market-expanding business because if you look at our pre-owned consoles, we are hitting newer price points and lower price points than on the new. If you put this around iDevices, there's a large segment of consumers who don't have access to a new iDevice. And so the people who are buying them -- to answer your first piece of your question, the people who are buying those older devices are the aspirational consumer who is looking for something, maybe can't afford a new phone, et cetera, or wants to replace another branded phone with an iDevice. That's one point. The other point is our velocity, thanks to our refurbishment center and our ability to understand how fast these devices can turn. We are -- we feel pretty confident around the velocity we can turn this product. And of course, we're looking forward around upgrade cycles and everything else that we hear about and read. But you'll see that our ability to marry these upgrade cycles to new tablets, new consoles, new software launches will become more and more efficient. So we don't have a lot of heartburn around that.
William R. Armstrong - CL King & Associates, Inc.
Okay, and I think you said before you're going to be selling these -- you're now selling them about in about 200 stores. When will you roll it out through the entire chain?
J. Paul Raines
Well, we're in 260 stores and we're on our website. And really the governor on that is inventory. If you look at other players in this industry, it's all about the inventory. So as that builds, you'll see us move to more stores. We're learning a lot about where, fair to say, Tony, where people shop. We have certain tourist markets, for example where we get a lot of international tourists who have tremendous appetite for these devices, so we're learning a lot about where, but you'll see us expanding the footprint version.
Tony D. Bartel
And this is also a of very strong seller on GameStop.com.
J. Paul Raines
It's very strong on GameStop.com, that's right.
[Operator Instructions] We'll go next to Gary Balter with Credit Suisse.
Seth Basham - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division
It's Seth and Gary. A couple of quick questions. First a question on the holiday. We're starting to see some aggressive discounts out there on some new titles and some console bundles. How are you thinking about the promotional environment this year? And what are some of the things you're doing to leverage PowerUp to get that traffic this holiday?
J. Paul Raines
A couple of things I would point out. I'll start it off and then Tony has probably some thoughts on it as well. The first point we would make is if you look at last year, one of the things we learned was we faced an extreme discount environment, but we were able to gain share through the holiday. If you recall, it was the first holiday we had gained share in multiple years. I don't remember if it was 6 or 7. Usually, we gain share through the year and then in holiday, when other players jump in and discount, we tended to lose share. Last year, we gained share. What we learned last year was that our strategy around leveraging buy-sell-trade with PowerUp is a pretty powerful tool. We will, of course, be in the market with print, FSIs and we'll do some electronic media. But more and more we see the effectiveness of our marketing around individualized offers to PowerUp. So this year -- last year, I think, guys, we were in the market with 4 million to 5 million PowerUp members, I think, at holiday. This year, we are at 14.5 million and counting. So the first point, Seth, is the power of the program is significantly enhanced through greater membership. Many of those already have a year under their belt. The second point is, is that the types of things you'll see us do is identifying individual consumer's buying behaviors. If you buy X game, there's DLC available or add-on for it. Or if you have Y game, there's a similar sports genre title that you may like and you'll see us doing individual offers around that. You'll also see us do some things around exclusivity of certain times and places when you can shop, but all of that's going to be happening on an individualized, personalized basis for competitive reasons and what we're finding is consumers react far more favorably. Tony, maybe you want to talk about how you're going to use this on new software?
Tony D. Bartel
Yes, absolutely. And I think, Seth, what we're going to see is that there will be some deep discounts and obviously most of the FSIs are already out there so you can see where it's taking place. We do believe that just like last year, these will be very deep for a very short amount of time and then they'll be pulled back. And what we believe is that the consumer is looking for ways to fund a lot of great product. And to be quite honest, we believe that this great product is worth a tremendous value. So we think that our trade program, buy-sell-trade program, is one of the best the things that we can execute during the holiday season and now you add iDevices to that mix, so you can think about ways that we are going to be using PowerUp Rewards to offer some very strong incentives to our PowerUp Rewards members including the use of trading in their iDevices to purchase a lot of these games. So to us, it's all about giving the consumer a way to be able to fund the games that they want to buy. We believe there are some great titles out there that are worth the amount of money that folks are -- the price that they're offer at. You can also see on our FSI that we have some very strong discounts for Black Friday as well. But our main emphasis is going to be making sure that the consumers have the funds available so that they can buy the games that they want.
Gary Balter - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division
Okay. This is Gary. Can I just follow up on you have a competitor in Europe and you mentioned that your European businesses is positive. Who said that one of the bigger problems they're facing right now is that after the title release, they sell it and the drop-off is much greater. Could you talk about what you're seeing if you're seeing -- is that similar trend? Because you mentioned that these -- you mentioned some of the new titles in November and how strong they are, but have they been strong initially and then a quicker drop-off? Or are you seeing some continuity in it?
J. Paul Raines
Gary, there's a lot there. I would say, one -- a couple of things and I'll let Rob comment on the numbers and what he's seeing. We don't agree with that view. We have seen titles sell sustainably well that have launched in the third quarter through the fourth. We do not share that point of view around the drop-off. Remember also when you have these many titles hitting all at once, there is going to be some consumers who can't buy them all in the first day and they're going to come back and shop. The other side is we have a very strong trade system that drives currency for people. I mean our value proposition is unrivaled by any competitor anywhere. I mean the last year we put over $1 billion of trade credits in people's hands. So we think that's what's sustaining us. Rob, any color you want to give on individual sort of sales rates or...
Robert A. Lloyd
Yes, I guess I would say that our experience was in the third quarter with the title launches, the initial sell-through did not meet our expectation. That is not the case with the fourth quarter titles. As Tony has said, they have met our very high expectations.
Gary Balter - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division
And the ones like we're seeing, as Seth mentioned, we're starting to see these ads that are discounting some of these titles significantly. Are they pass -- are they able to do that under the map rules?
Robert A. Lloyd
Yes. They are able to do that under the map rules on the game so far that we've seen in the FSIs, so we have seen that. Gary, one other thing that I might add that is also extending the game play, given our extensive focus on selling downloadable content in our stores, I think we've mentioned earlier that over half of the sales of DLC that take place in our stores actually have a physical game attached to it. So what we are seeing is that DLC is coming out on a monthly basis or on a quarterly basis on these games, that's actually prolonging and extending the tail on new games as people are coming in, excited about the DLC and are actually buying the game when they hear about the DLC.
J. Paul Raines
The other point, Gary, as you know, on the discount side, what we've learned in previous cycles of this is, particularly on software, is there's frequently a lot of media buy that goes into this, but there's not as frequently depth of inventory. And of course, we have to be deep on inventory, and we are deep. We've seen a lot of these promotions will be very short-lived as consumers flock, take all the markdowns and then they're out of stock and we're right back into the environment we're in. So we're looking hard at both what the markdown activity is but also how much inventory are people buying.
We'll take our next question from David Magee with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.
David G. Magee - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division
A couple of questions. One is when you talked about the title release schedule being almost too concentrated and too good in the third quarter and having some impact in terms of what people could afford, but then in November it seems to be better in that regard. Could you just sort of tell us why that's -- maybe you'd gotten better here in recent weeks with more recent titles than it was last quarter?
J. Paul Raines
Well, hey, David, I think a couple of things we look hard at is the percent of trade credit supplied to new games, et cetera. We're doing a lot of analysis. Are some games getting more trades against them than others? There is some built-up expectation around certainty key titles where we think some consumers -- we do a lot of consumer work. Some consumers were waiting on A title or B title. We also, of course, know there's varying degrees of quality of titles out there and some genres and some specific titles have more demand than others. I think it's early yet, right, guys, to tell, Tony?
Tony D. Bartel
Yes, I think it is. I'm not exactly sure why things have opened up. We had strong reservation performance. I don't think it's ironic that we did really ramp up our iDevice program, which has accelerated very quickly and thrown more currency into the equation as well. But I do think that there were great partnerships, great marketing campaigns driven on the launches that have taken place recently. But we had high expectations for many titles and they have met those in the November launches.
J. Paul Raines
Yes, the real analysis now is, for us, as we look forward through holiday, you have a bunch of great quality content out there and how many consumers are going to come back and look for those as maybe gift items versus buying them at launch, which is what we traditionally see. So that's where a lot of the work we're doing, trying to understand these early strength signals we're seeing in November.
David G. Magee - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division
And just a follow-up, in the past, it seems like there's been sort of a lot of strength in November or around Black Friday and then maybe it softens a bit in the first half of December. You mentioned that you can keep the PowerUp members more engaged this year just by the sheer numbers and doing what you did last year. Is there a way you can keep this for the non-bulletin members also engaged in the first half of next month than maybe than in the past?
J. Paul Raines
I think what we're learning and if you listen to most retailers, what we're learning is Black Friday is a big event, brings people in. Then dotcom becomes a very significant channel through the next 2 to 3 weeks. So we had huge growth last year. If you recall, we comped over 100% in dotcom. We have built out significant capacity there and expect dotcom to be strong again. It gives us a real good gauge around traffic. And then you will see us do some very interesting things around PowerUp in those gaps where we know folks are starting to build their Christmas shopping list and so forth. PowerUp member, by the way, is very much a multichannel shopper. They'll shop us in-store, online. They'll hold online, pick up in store. They'll do a variety of ways and we'll see their traffic in multiple channels.
We'll take our next question from Mark-Andre Saucier-Nadeau with Goldman Sachs.
Mark-Andre Saucier-Nadeau - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
First one was about the drivers of the international acceleration, if you could give us all the details. It seemed that year-to-date that 2Q Europe was trending down quite a bit and now it's up so that means that last quarter it really accelerated a lot. So I was wondering if you could give us some color there on the drivers.
J. Paul Raines
Yes, maybe, Mike, you want to start that? Mike Mauler is here as well.
Michael K. Mauler
Sure. Obviously, there is an economic headwind in Europe and we've really been focused in 2 areas and it goes back in 2010 where we've decided really to focus on the basic: improving inventory managements, optimizing our buy-sell-trade model, driving reservations and rolling out best practices. And that combined with our activities in 2011 where we've been focused on cost control, we've closed 38 underperforming stores, we've completed headcount reductions in several markets and we're in the process of consolidating some operations. And so I think we put those 2 things together and what we've seen is some revenue growth up in Europe, a decrease in expenses and we've really done a good job, I think, at taking market share in most markets.
J. Paul Raines
Yes, Mark -- Mark-Andre, Mike and I were in June in France and Italy and Rob and Tony have recently been in Europe with Mike. I think if you look at our French, Italian, Nordic, Irish businesses where we have pretty dominant share, our ability to bring all of those things you've heard us talk about, RSV, loyalty programs, DLC, all those things we think are starting to come to bear and make us very different in those markets and that's, we believe, what's translating into share gains. Like everyone else, we watch the macro closely, plenty of headlines, et cetera. But our activity there, I think, fair to say, Mike, is reflecting a little bit of what we've been able to do with share growth in the U.S.
Michael K. Mauler
Yes, I think that's true.
Mark-Andre Saucier-Nadeau - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Great. One more in terms of share gains and when you look at new software, you clearly gain a lot of share in the third quarter. I was just wondering are you seeing any impact from your competitors as they're ramping up preorders, something they had not really done before. Or is that something -- in the same way that you're looking at what they're doing in used, maybe you can talk about what you're seeing in terms of what they're doing on preorders?
J. Paul Raines
Well, we see that. We see lots of competitor initiatives around preorders. We see the tremendous media buys that go on. But we also hear the volumes of what's happening on preorder, and I think what's often lost is the scale of what we do. And if you recall, was it the first quarter, Rob, we gave out our number on trades? We did $30 million trades in the first quarter. Our competitor is trying to do $1 million and some for the year as a target. So the scale of what we do is often lost. So yes, we see competitors' driving reserves. It's interesting, but what I think we are able to do uniquely is people don't understand what really drives reserves, which is the complete ecosystem of unique content, differentiated midnight launches, PowerUp points, trade credits against reserves, all of that, Mark, we monitor and do channel checks. We don't see great execution in the competitors on that.
Robert A. Lloyd
And I would say that their attempt to drive reservation is not a recent attempt. They've been doing this for years. So I don't think there's been a whole lot of change in their approach in the last few years.
Mark-Andre Saucier-Nadeau - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Okay, and if I may, just one last one, a quick one, on used. As we go into the fourth -- as we're in the fourth quarter, just wondering if you could talk about in the past year, you talked about recovering all of the margin hit from last fourth quarter and I was just wondering now with the investment in the trade, is that -- are we supposed to expect the same thing? Or should we think more as maybe margins today doesn't recover all of what it's lost last year and maybe sales pick up because of the inventory that you got this quarter? That'd be great.
Robert A. Lloyd
I think you can expect the used margins for the fourth quarter to get back into that normal 46% to 49% range that we typically have. Last year, fourth quarter being an anomaly.
J. Paul Raines
We know that pre-owned games are a great gifting item. I mean that's been proven several times. Given the quality of the release cycle, we know that we launched pre-owned games under 3s this year so...
We'll take our next question from Anthony Chukumba with BB&T Capital Markets.
Anthony C. Chukumba - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division
I had a question and maybe this is getting a little bit ahead of ourselves given the fact that we do have the crucial holiday selling season coming up, but just wanted to get your initial thoughts on 2012. Obviously, we'll have the Wii U come out, the Sony Vita. It looks like Grand Theft Auto V will finally come out next year. So just wanted to get kind of your high-level initial thoughts on 2012.
J. Paul Raines
Anthony, I'll let Rob give you maybe sort of his thinking around -- we're spending a lot of time modeling right now. We've got a pretty rich market model. There's lots of things going on there. We are excited about the Wii U, although we know Nintendo will not really be promoting that until we get through holiday because we've got to focus on this year, but Wii U going to be, we believe, a very exciting product than what we've seen. Vita looks dynamite in the demos and we're eager to see how that product plays out in the handheld market that, as you know, has been under pressure. We're also going doing quite a bit of market modeling around tablets and iDevices. Those are very large pools of, on one hand, a pre-owned inventory in homes, and on the other hand, emerging electronic categories that gaming will be a huge piece of. So that's another part of it. And then, Rob, maybe you want share some of your thoughts around the new software on console side, which...
Robert A. Lloyd
Well, yes, there's not much to add there. I would just say that it's certainly early for us to talk about what GameStop sees for itself in 2012. And, frankly, we need to see how this holiday comes in for the video game business before we talk about where we see the market in 2012.
J. Paul Raines
But if you recall, we've said previously in our market model, of course, we see flattish physical console business extending through 2014 with significant double-digit growth around console DLC. And I would say that, with a lot of confidence, we think DLC continues to grow. Every publisher, fair to say, Tony, has big, aggressive plans around DLC.
Tony D. Bartel
Right in there. We do see DLC as a continuing very, very strong growth vehicle.
J. Paul Raines
And that's one -- DLC is an interesting one because our retail share of DLC is extremely dominant. We don't have perfect data on that, but the data we do have says we have a very unique defensible mechanism through the digital locker of PowerUp Rewards members. So our modeling around DLC is really important one and it's one that publishers really like the profit characteristics of for themselves. Fair to say, Tony?
Tony D. Bartel
Yes, absolutely.
J. Paul Raines
DLC is a great product for them and a great product for us.
Tony D. Bartel
And they like the discovery and the ability to fund it with unique currency in our stores, so all of those are working together.
J. Paul Raines
So we'll be spending a lot of time on that piece of the model.
We'll go first to James Hardiman with Longbow research.
James Hardiman - Longbow Research LLC
I wanted to follow up on a question earlier in the call surrounding the other category. It seems to be a pretty big X factor here. You mentioned that all of the digital numbers are in there. Obviously, you've seen exponential growth in digital. But that I think you said that it was PC games that are in there that were down pretty dramatically year-over-year. I guess as I look forward -- and maybe if that's the case, maybe it was lapping the StarCraft release from last year, which should actually make sense. But if I look forward, how should I think about that other business? I mean, obviously, digital should continue to grow due to comparisons and the other piece of other get any easier here in the fourth quarter in terms of what you're selling and were some of the add-ons in terms of Kinect and MOVE last year was that all on the hardware side or does that show up as a difficult comparison for other in the fourth quarter?
Robert A. Lloyd
Let me first start by saying with respect to the PC software side of things, a year ago, we were not extensively in the PC download business. So what we sold in terms of PC was boxed product. We had a World of Warcraft launch in December, so I think that you'll see comparisons to that when the numbers come out at the end of the fourth quarter. And that will drive some of the movement in the other category. The MOVE accessories were in the other category last year and are still this year. The Kinect hardware, however, was in hardware for GameStop.
James Hardiman - Longbow Research LLC
Okay, that's very helpful. And just real quick, I was wondering if you could comment -- you talked about some games did really well for you in the third quarter. Some games fell short of expectations. Can you give us any color on what games sort of did great and which games were maybe a little bit short of your expectations?
J. Paul Raines
Probably early, James, to do that. We like to let the publishers make their own commentary. But I think you would say that the ones that we call out as million unit sellers, those are big blockbuster titles and I think we'll -- fair to say, Tony, we'll defer to the publishers?
Tony D. Bartel
Yes, fair to say. And I think, yes, I'd rather address that comment after the publishers have had a chance to.
J. Paul Raines
We like to let them brag on their intellectual property before we do. But certainly, I think it is fair to say I mean for the bear case that says the console business is disappearing, you can't help but look at what's happening out there right now with these big blockbuster titles and go, wow, there is a tremendous market for high-quality, big-name properties, so ...
Our last question today will be from Mike Hickey with National Alliance.
Michael Hickey - National Alliance Capital Markets, Research Division
I've been a member now for over a year, and you talked about lapping into this holiday with a much larger bases of members. Can you talk about what you've seen in terms of member behavior, those of us that have been around for more than a year? Are you seeing more trade-ins, are you seeing more buys? Just curious if you can provide any thoughts there?
J. Paul Raines
Absolutely. Hey, Mike, boy, thank you for being a member. I've got to go back and ask the team, we've got to send Mike some special promotional activity. Well, as I shared on the remarks earlier, there's some very interesting numbers that are coming out. As I've said members who overlap into a 1 year, we now have measurement and visibility to their share of wallet, their spend, their frequency of visit. I mentioned earlier that a Pro member who's been with us the year shops us once every 21 days, which is becoming a very meaningful metric. Your frequency of shop for us is becoming a big deal because we know if we can inspire one more visit through a midnight launch, through an early visit, et cetera, it could be very interesting. We also know that member – pre-owned penetration is higher for members than nonmembers. And in fact, it's 3 points higher and getting higher. We've also shared with you before member trade penetration is significantly higher than nonmember. I think other than that, for competitive reasons, we've got to be careful with how much we talk about it, but I think you can expect that in future calls and particularly in the new year, we'll be talking a lot about spending and share of wallet because the whole goal of this program, I will remind everyone, is to drive share of wallet in a mass price category were everyone has the same retail price.
Michael Hickey - National Alliance Capital Markets, Research Division
Okay. And then on the PC download, it looks like when you think about the build in 2014 and your $1.5 billion guidance, it looks like PC download is kind of the critical inflection point in your growth medium term to get to that goal. And it seems to have the stranglehold in terms of market share and I realize that you guys have integrated Impulse into your GameStop.com e-commerce site. It looks phenomenal, but I'm just curious if you could share with us kind of key drivers to breaking down the market share stranglehold that team has.
Tony D. Bartel
Well, I think the key for our digital strategy is that's one part of it and I think we have a comprehensive digital strategy that we're going to build a platform like we've talked about in the past where when gamers want the game and on whatever platform they want the game, we are going to lead them there. So this is just one part of our digital strategy to get us there along with downloadable content, along with the plays we've made in the mobile space and the casual browser space. We've made several plays there, so there's one of them. I think if you look at how we've leveraged PowerUp Rewards, how we've leveraged our relationship with the publishing community, I think you can begin to get a grasp of how we plan on leveraging our new asset and really growing Impulse so that it is a very strong competitor in this space. So it's part of a broader digital strategy that we have. It is, like you say, a very important part. And as we talked about, we do plan on continuing to roll out improvements to it, some as early as first half of next year. So I think that you'll see those plans evolve and it's just a broader part of a larger digital strategy to allow people to game anytime, anywhere and on any device.
J. Paul Raines
There's a lot of appetite when we meet with publishers, there's a lot of appetite for broadening the channels for distribution of PC downloads. And if you can add trade credits and PowerUp Rewards points to that, we get a lot of welcome reception on that with publishers, so you'll see more from that -- more from us on that, okay?
With that, we will wrap up the call. We want to thank all of you for listening in and on the earnings call and look forward to talking to you again in the New Year. We are looking forward to a tremendous holiday season. I hope that all of you are PowerUp Rewards members so I can invite you in personally with unique promotions tailored to your taste level and hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving next week. Thank you, very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This will conclude today's conference call.
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text:
Created in this Craftsy class
Demure, but alluring. Sophisticated, yet sweet and easy to make! Christine Haynes shows you how to take one top in eight pretty directions.
Other projects made as part of this class:
Offer some kudos...
Join the conversation...
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|Here are some details about my project:
|Retro / Vintage
What are you most proud of? The pin tucks- I'd never made them before and was surprised how easy they were.
Love it! You and your top are clearly fun :) The fabric choice makes this top really look vintage, which I love! And I'm glad you found the pin tucks easy! They look fancy, but aren't hard at all. Great job!
I love your blouse AND your facial expression!! I'm short too and will be (nervously) adjusting the waist. I have very small hips - do I need to adjust that too? Considering that the blouse is not very long in length, maybe I don't need to worry about that.....?
I'm kind of curvy, so I marked the waist and flared the hip a bit. I would guess that if you are slim hipped the worst that could happen is that the hip will be loose--but that seems to work with the design of the shirt.
Love the fabric gives it a retro look
Looks great. Thankdsfor the heads up re length. Although most of it will be taken up by my busom lol
LOve this material!


text:
Ask Your Health Question and Get an Answer ASAP
It means that the alignment or the position of the bones or pieces of bones in a case of fracture is normal. The position of the bones relative to each other is normal and as according to the normal anatomy of the skeleton.
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Sectarianism and the Commonwealth
Deaglán de Bréadún
The old debate about this State rejoining the Commonwealth has started off again. I have already stated my view that, if it were necessary for complete and final reconciliation on this island, it would be worth considering.That complete and final reconciliation might or might not take the form of a United Ireland. Perhaps it would be a Federal Ireland. Perhaps it would be something else altogether, something that has not crossed our minds as yet.
At any rate, if it helped to draw a line under sectarian and community tensions once and for all, forging a renewed relationship with the Commonwealth seems like a very small price to pay.*
Eamon de Valera didn't agree with cutting our links as we did back in the late '40s. His grandson Éamon Ó Cuív takes a similar view, as I understand. After all, sovereign and imposing republics like India and South Africa are in the fold and have no problem with it. What does the Commonwealth do nowadays, in any meaningful sense, apart from staging its Games?
Of course we are geographically that much closer to Britain. And we would probably have to swallow some kind of link with the British royal family: Queen Elizabeth is titular head of the organisation.
As a person of republican outlook in the traditional, continental, anti-aristocratic sense, I could probably live with that, as I do with Bono's or Bob Geldof's knighthoods, or should that be "knighthoods", except for one aspect that has come to the fore in recent days again.
That's the sectarian requirement imposed on "candidates" for the throne. Anyone who is a Catholic or even married to a Catholic is ineligible for the job. And the eldest son has precedence even over an older sister when it comes to inheriting the monarch's role.
A private member's Bill is coming before the House of Commons to change the current law in important respects. But Gordon Brown's Labour Government is not giving it any support and, judging by an interview with a minister on the Today programme this morning (click here), Downing Street is quietly backing away from the issue – or putting it on the long finger if you prefer.
That really has to be dealt with. I am not sure if Ireland as an EU member-State could be part of an organisation where the head, titular or otherwise, was chosen on sectarian grounds.
*My views on this issue are outlined in The Far Side of Revenge: Making Peace in Northern Ireland, by Deaglán de Bréadún, published in a second edition last year by Collins Press, Cork (www.collinspress.ie)


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Top Definition
When a chick won't blow you
I think she wanted and ear fuck. I tried to stick in in her mouth and she turned her head really quick
โดย Spike 06 มกราคม 2005
Trending Now
Can you define these popular missing words?
When a woman (usually a "trick") won't give you her goodies, you are forced to put up with her talk instead, and instead of your cock, your ear gets fucked!
"Damnit homes! This trick aint givin' me nothin' but an ear fuck!"
โดย Gopal Patel 01 มิถุนายน 2005
1. When you can't get laid and you're forced to listen to a girl for hours
2. When someone sticks his finger or other object in your ear.
2. When someone sticks his finger or other object in your ear.
1. I went to a party just to get ear fucked by girls who won't take their pants off.
2. Aw gross!
You just got ear fucked!
2. Aw gross!
You just got ear fucked!
โดย David Li 15 กุมภาพันธ์ 2008
Introduction of the penis in a partner's skull via the ear. A relatively rare fetish but with dedicated fans, usually limited to non-realistic art (drawn or written).
In an ideal world, Jessica Rabbit would climb on stage and give us an earful. Then, Roger would climb up and give her an earfuck.
โดย bungakawa2000 05 มกราคม 2006
Annoying commercial advertisement with loud or piercing noise, over-emphasis on spoken words or otherwise excessively distracting to the point of inducing rage.
Source: Reddit
Source: Reddit
Have you seen the new car insurance commercial? It's such an earfuck that I had to mute the TV! I will hate that company forever.
โดย Morthandeus 23 ตุลาคม 2009
when a person (e.g. mum, dad) won't stop nagging you.
for fuck sake mum your such an ear fucker.
dad your giving me an ear fuck
dad your giving me an ear fuck
โดย david let 21 ธันวาคม 2006
Talking trash over the phone because your squeeze is somewhere else having sex.
"Hey, ear fuck me baby. Let's breathe heavily, ask what each other is wearing, and discuss how to get each other get off over the phone."
โดย Not-gonna-tellya 22 เมษายน 2005