text:
Christopher Buckley
Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-1976by Hunter S. Thompson, Douglas Brinkley (Editor), David Halberstam (Foreword by)
- Overview
- Editorial Reviews
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- Meet the author
Brazen, incisive, and outrageous as ever, Hunter S. Thompson is back with another astonishing volume of his private correspondence, the highly anticipated follow-up to The Proud Highway. When that first book of letters appeared in 1997, Time pronounced it "deliriously entertaining"; Rolling Stone called it "brilliant beyond description"; and The New York Times celebrated its "wicked humor and bracing political conviction."
Spanning the years between 1968 and 1976, these never-before-published letters show Thompson building his legend: running for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado; creating the seminal road book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; twisting political reporting to new heights for Rolling Stone; and making sense of it all in the landmark Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72. To read Thompson's dispatches from these yearsaddressed to the author's friends, enemies, editors, and creditors, and such notables as Jimmy Carter, Tom Wolfe, and Kurt Vonnegutis to read a raw, revolutionary eyewitness account of one of the most exciting and pivotal eras in American history.
Provocative and revealing, Fear and Loathing in America cements Hunter S. Thompson's reputation as one of the great literary and cultural icons of our timethe only man alive to have ridden with both the Hell's Angels and Richard Nixon.
Editorial Reviews
Christopher Buckley
The title is the only thing that works, as he relates in dozens of letters charting its lack of progress. The book doesn't exist, not even in Thompson's mind. It is both his sophomore jinx and his Great White Whale, an obsession that he realizes could either elevate his reputation as the outlaw sage of American socio-surrealism or reduce him to the authorial equivalent of one-hit-wonder. The more committed that his editor becomes to the project, the more Thompson realizes that everything he not only writes but thinks, breathes, eats and ingests could be subsumed within the topic.
"I have no idea what I'm going to write, but if nothing else I expect to learn a lot, and that's the only part of writing I enjoy," he explains in a 1968 letter to Sue Grafton, a former Louisville, Kentucky, neighbor and devoted fan (now a bestselling mystery novelist). "The actual workthe typewriter horrorsI approach with fear and loathing."
The O. Henryish twist, of course, is that the letters he's been writing to avoid writing the book are, in fact,that book. Here is the death of the American dream; eventually Thompson's twisted idealism turns to cynicism and his main concern becomes haggling over expense checks. His primary topic becomes himself, the icon as caricature, more famous for not writing than for anything he has written in the quarter-century after this collection ends.
As with the earlier volume of Thompson's coming-of-age letters, the sheer bulk of his correspondence makes it a marvel that he ever found time to write anything else (and editor Douglas Brinkley assures that for every letter included, another five were omitted). There are letters that he acknowledges are "drafts for later thingstest-runs of a sort," such as the voluminous exchanges with editor Jim Silberman over the American Dream project. There are letters that give Thompson's take on "new journalism" (which he insisted was older than Jack Kerouac), "Gonzo journalism" (a blurring of fact and fiction to achieve a truer truth) and Raoul Duke (his surrealistic alter ego, who could tread even further beyond the bounds of responsible journalism than Thompson dared). There are letters offering assistance to various liberal politiciansfrom Eugene McCarthy and Teddy Kennedy to Jimmy Carterand there are others concerning his unlikely bonds with Richard Nixon and Pat Buchanan.
Then there are hundreds of pages of letters chronicling the rise and fall of his relationship with Rolling Stone, with the magazine's publisher, Jann Wenner, playing Felix to Thompson's Oscar. Through this cataclysmic period in modern American historyfrom Vietnam through Watergatemost of Thompson's concerns are variations on a theme of "Where's the money?" If Wenner really canceled the writer's insurance after sending him to southeast Asia and refused to cover his expenses on a London assignment, such treatment was unconscionable, though we're never given the magazine's side of the story. One senses that these two made each other's reputation and that they deserve each other.
Yet Rolling Stone was by no means the only magazine where Thompson felt persecuted. Take his description in 1971 of working on assignment for Sports Illustrated, then largely considered something of a writer's paradise: "I hate to give those doomed corporate castratos a good, first-rate piece & watch them cut it up for captions. I understand perfectly why they can't use it as an article: It's too rude & weirdbut I hate to just shrug it off like a pound of used meat-writing that didn't fit SI's bridge-club format & so had to be butchered down like offal."
In the early years documented in this collection, there is much to admire about the writer beyond the outrageousness of his prose. There's an almost heroic dimension to his moral code as he castigates a New York Times editor for assigning a piece to him when he didn't really want a Hunter Thompson piece, when he refuses to accept a much-needed $500 to write a ten-word blurb for a novel he deems offensive and when he advises a young fan who wants to follow the Hell's Angels to find his own path ("You sound like you have more sense than any six Angels I can think of, and I can't quite understand why you want to defer to them").
Soon enough, however, the writer who was once so fully engaged with the world seems to retreat into a world of one. Ultimately, these years of letters start to feel like dog years to the reader, who slogs through them in retrospect.
"I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work," confesses Thompson. "I suspect it's a little like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling." When the threatened third and final volume of letters arrives, don't expect a ton a giggles.
Don McLeese
New York Times Book Review
Product Details
- 9780684873152
- Publisher:
- Simon & Schuster
- Publication date:
- 12/13/2000
- Series:
- Fear and Loathing Letters , #2
- Edition description:
- Pages:
- 784
- Product dimensions:
- 6.60(w) x 9.56(h) x 1.64(d)
Read an Excerpt
From Chapter One
1967 was the year of the hippy. As this is the last meditation I intend to write on that subject, I decided, while composing it, to have the proper background. So, in the same small room with me and my typewriter, I have two huge speakers and a 100 watt music amplifier booming out Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." This, to me, is the Hippy National Anthem. It's an acid or LSD song and like much of the hippy music, its lyrics don't make much sense to anyone not "cool" or "with it" or "into the drug scene." I was living in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district when the word "hippy" was coined by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen who also came up with "beatnik," in the late 1950s so I figure I'm entitled to lean on personal experience in these things. To anyone who was part of that (post-beat) scene before the word "hippy" became a national publicity landmark (in 1966 and 1967), "Mr. Tambourine Man" is both an epitaph and a swan-song for the lifestyle and the instincts that led, eventually, to the hugely-advertised "hippy phenomenon."
Bob Dylan was the original hippy, and anyone curious about the style and tone of the "younger generation's" thinking in the early 1960s has only to play his albums in chronological order. They move from folk-whimsy to weird humor to harsh social protest during the time of the civil rights marches and the Mississippi summer protests of 1963 and '64. Then, in the months after the death of President Kennedy, Dylan switched from the hard commitments of social realism to the more abstract "realities" of neo-protest and disengagement. Hisstyle became one of eloquent despair and personal anarchism. His lyrics became increasingly drug-oriented, with double-entendres and dual meanings that were more and more obvious, until his "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" was banned by radio stations from coast to coast...mainly because of the chorus line saying "Everybody must get stoned...."
By this time he was a folk hero to the "under thirty generation" that seemed to be in total revolt against everything their elders were trying to believe in. By this time, too, Dylan was flying around the country from one sold-out concert to another in his private jet plane, worth about $500,000. His rare press conferences were jammed by reporters who treated them more like an audience with a Wizard than a question and answer session with an accidental public figure. At the same time, Dylan's appearance became more and more bizarre. When he began singing in Greenwich Village about 1960 his name was Bob Zimmerman and he looked like a teen-age hobo in the Huck Finn tradition...or like the Nick Adams of the early Hemingway stories. But by 1965 he had changed his last name to Dylan & was wearing shoulder-length hair and rubber-tight, pin-stripe suits that reflected the colorful & sarcastically bisexual image that was, even then, becoming the universal style of a sub-culture called "hippies."
This focus on Dylan is no accident. Any culture and especially any sub-culture can be at least tentatively defined by its heroes...and of all the hippy heroes, Bob Dylan was first and foremost. He appeared at a time when Joan Baez was the Queen Bee of that world of the young and alienated...but unlike Joanie, who wrote none of her own songs and preferred wistful ballads to contemporary drug anthems, Dylan moved on to become the voice of an anguished and half-desperate generation. Or at least that part of a generation that saw itself as doomed and useless in terms of the status-quo, business-as-usual kind of atmosphere that prevailed in this country as the war in Vietnam went from bad to worse and the United States, in the eyes of the whole world's "under thirty generation," seemed to be drifting toward a stance of vengeful, uncontrolled militarism.
The fact that this viewpoint wasn't (and still isn't) universal deserves a prominent mention, but it has little to do with the hippies. They are a product of a growing disillusion with the military/industrial realities of life in these United States, and in terms of sheer numbers, they represent a minority that doubles and triples its numbers every year. By 1967 this minority viewpoint had emerged, full-blown, in the American mass media...and it obviously had a powerful appeal at least to the publishers, editors and reporters who measured the public taste and found it overwhelmingly ready for a dose of hippy articles. The reason for this is the reason the hippies exist not necessarily because of any inherent worth of their own, but because they emphasize, by their very existence, the same uneasy vacuum in American life that also gave birth to the beatniks some ten years earlier. Not even the people who think all hippies should be put in jail or sent to the front-lines in Vietnam will quarrel with what is usually accepted as the Hippy Ethic Peace, Love, and Every Man for Himself in a Free-Wheeling Orgy of Live and Let Live.
The hippies threatened the establishment by dis-interring some of the most basic and original "American values," and trying to apply them to life in a sprawling, high-pressure technocracy that has come a long way, in nearly 200 years, from the simple agrarian values that prevailed at the time of the Boston Tea Party. The hippies are a menace in the form of an anachronism, a noisy reminder of values gone sour and warped...of the painful contradictions in a society conceived as a monument to "human freedom" and "individual rights," a nation in which all men are supposedly "created free and equal"...a nation that any thinking hippy will insist has become a fear-oriented "warfare state" that can no longer afford to tolerate even the minor aberrations that go along with "individual freedom."
I remember that pre-hippy era in San Francisco as a good, wild-eyed, free-falling time when everything seemed to be coming out right. I had an exciting book to write, and a publisher to pay for it, and a big chrome-red motorcycle to boom around the midnight streets wearing a sweatshirt and cut-off levis and wellington boots, running from angry cop cars on the uphill blocks of Ashbury st, doubling back suddenly and running 90 miles an hour up Masonic toward the Presidio...then gearing down, laughing, on the twisting black curves with the white line leading through the middle of that woodsy fortress, past the MP shack out to the crowded lights on Lombard st, with the cold Bay and the yacht club and Alcatraz off to the left and all the steep postcards of cable car San Francisco looking down from the other side. Getting off Lombard to avoid the lights and roaring down Union st, past the apartment where that girl used to live and wondering who's up there now, then around the corner by the dentist's office (and I still owe that man two hundred and eleven dollars. Pay him off, pay all those old debts...who else do I owe? Send a bill, you bastards. I want to flush those beggar memories...).
Around the corner and down a few blocks on Union to the Matrix, a blank-looking place on the right, up on the sidewalk and park between those two small trees, knowing the cops will come around yelling and trying to ticket the bike for being off the street (Park that motorcycle in the gutter, boy...). Maybe seeing Pete Knell's orange chopper parked in that gutter. Pete was then the talking spirit of the Frisco Angels and later president of that doomed and graceless chapter...sometimes he played a banjo in the Drinking Gourd up on Union, but that was before he became a fanatic.
The Matrix, womb of the Jefferson Airplane. They owned part of the club when it still served booze, and maybe they own it all now. They've rolled up a lot of points since that night when I reeled through the door with no money, muttering "Jerry Anderson invited me," and then found Jerry somewhere in back, listening to his wife Signe wailing out in front of the Airplane's half-formed sound. Signe with the trombone voice, and Marty Balin polishing his eternal signature song that he titled, for some wrong reason, "And I Like It." I recall telling Jerry, while he paid for my beer, that this Jefferson Airplane thing was a surefire famous money bomb for everybody connected with it...and later calling Ralph Gleason, the Chronicle's special pleader, to tell him the Airplane was something worth hearing. "Yeah, sure," he said. "People keep telling me about these groups; I try to check em out you know how it is." Sure, Ralph...not knowing if he remembered that about a year earlier I'd pushed another group on him, a group that almost immediately got a record contract without help and then exploded into oblivion when Davy, the lead singer, choked to death on his own vomit in an elegant house on the beach in Carmel.
But about a year after the Airplane opened at the Matrix, Gleason wrote the notes for their first record jacket.
The Jefferson Airplane is another key sound from that era like Dylan and the Grateful Dead. And Grace Slick, who made even the worst Matrix nights worth sitting through. In that era she was carrying a hopeless group called The Great Society, which eventually made it by croaking the group and going off in different directions. But Grace Slick was always my best reason for going to the Matrix. I would sit back in the corner by the projection booth and watch her do all those things that she later did with the Airplane and for LOOK magazine, but which seemed so much better then, because she was her own White Rabbit....I was shocked to learn she was married to the drummer. But I got a lot of shocks in that era...my nerves were pretty close to the surface and everything registered. It's hard to understand now, why "things seemed to be coming out right." But I remember that feeling, that we were all making it somehow. And the only one around who had already made it was Ken Kesey, who seemed to be working overtime to find the downhill tube. Which he eventually did, and I recall some waterhead creep accusing me (in the L.A. Free Press) of "giving away" Kesey's secret address in Paraguay when he fled the country to avoid a marijuana rap. That was about the time I kissed off the hippies as just another failed lifestyle.
All these veteran heads keep telling me to get off the speed because it's dangerous, but every time I have something to say to them late at night they're passed out. And I'm sitting up alone with the music and my own raw nerves hearing Balin or Butterfield yelling in every corner of my head and feeling the sounds run up my spine like the skin of my own back was stretched across a drumhead and some burning-eyed freak with the Great American knot swelling up in his head was using my shoulderblades for a set of kettledrums. So I guess I should quit this speed. It tends to make me impotent, and that can be a horrible bummer when it comes with no warning. Like a broken guitar string. A gritting of teeth and thinking, Holy shit not NOW, you bastard. Why? Why?
Speed freaks are unpredictable when the great whistle blows. And boozers are worse. But put it all together with maybe sixty-six milligrams and nine jolts of gin on ice and maybe two joints...and you get the kind of desperate loser who used to crawl into the woods on the edge of Kesey's La Honda compound and drop some acid for no real reason except that the only part of his body that would still work was his mouth and his swallowing muscle. And the ears, the goddamn ears, which never quit...the terrible consistency of the music mocked the failures of the flesh. That too-bright hour when you know it's time for breakfast except that only the pure grassmasters are hungry and you want to come alive again because it's a new sunshiny day, but the goddamn speed is doubling back on you now, and although you're not going down, you can't go up either, but just Out, and stupid. An electric eel with a blown fuse. Nada.
So maybe the heads are right. Forswear that alcohol and no more speed...just wail on the weed and go under with a smile. Then get up healthy and drive up the road for breakfast at the Knotty Pine Cafe.
But despite the nature-healthy prospect of a legal grass-culture just around tomorrow's corner, I think I'll stay with the speed...even with the certain knowledge of burning out a lot sooner than if I played healthy. Speed freaks are probably the junkies of the marijuana generation. There is something perverse and even suicidal about speed. Like "The Devil and Daniel Webster." Buy high and sell low...ignoring that inevitable day when there's no more high except maybe a final freakout with cocaine and then down the tube. A burned out case, drunk and brain-crippled, a bad example for Youth. The walking, babbling dead.
And why not. Speed is like sandpaper on the nerves. When all the normal energy is down to dead ash and even the adrenaline starts to vaporize in the dull heat of fatigue...there's a rare kind of brightness, a weird and giddy sensitivity that registers every sound and smile and stoplight as if every moment might be the next to last, memories carved with a chisel....
That's what I see and hear when I look back on those pre-hippy days in San Francisco. I remember a constant excitement about something happening, but only the fake priests and dingos called it the wave of the future. The excitement, for that matter, was all done in by the time the big-league press got hold of those "hippy" spokesmen and guru caricatures like Tim Leary and the press-conference Diggers. By that time the Haight-Ashbury had become a commercial freak show and everybody on the street was selling either sandals or hamburgers or dope. The whole area was controlled by "hippy businessmen" who wore beards and beads to disguise the sad fact that they were actually carbon copies of the bourgeois merchant fathers whom they'd spent so much time and wrath rejecting.
But despite all that, and probably because of it a sense of doom generates a weird, intense kind of light that whole pre-hippy scene lent a special kind of élan to everybody who blundered into being a part of it. And the root of the excitement was the black certainty of a time limit, a euphoric, half-wild fatalism about the whole thing coming to a bad end at almost any moment. But this was the special light, and it was good while it lasted.
Although he admired Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, Thompson had turned on the President for escalating America's military involvement in Southeast Asia. By 1968 Thompson was so drawn to Senator Eugene McCarthy's anti-Vietnam War candidacy that he offered his services to the Minnesota Democrat's long-shot presidential campaign.
January 3, 1968
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Senator McCarthy:
I just read William S. White's comments on your potential candidacy your "grandiose design," as it were and I thought I'd send a note to offer any possible help I could lend to this hideous plot you're unfolding.
I'm not sure how I could help, but given the fact that I make my living as a writer, it would have to be in that area. I see your efforts more as a tactical and not a determining factor in the '68 elections, so I don't feel any real compulsion to volunteer for Ward duty.
Any ideas about how I could be of help would have to come from you...but if you have any, I assure you I'll go out of my way to deal with them. At the moment I'm fairly loose, in terms of assignments, etc. but that changes weekly and even daily. I move around quite a bit, but I can always be reached here in Woody Creek (Aspen), Colo., at (303) 925-2250...or via Random House in New York (Selma Shapiro).
For your own information and perspective, I'm enclosing a copy of a book I wrote more or less recently. It might help you to know more about what if anything I might be able to do. In any case, good luck....
Hunter S. Thompson
The success of Hell's Angels had brought Thompson numerous high-profile free-lance assignments, including "The 'Hashbury' Is the Capital of Hippies," which he wrote in May 1967 for The New York Times Magazine. Walker, the assigning editor, next commissioned a piece from Thompson on the Nevada state prisons' new "therapy retreats," designed to teach guards and inmates to coexist more agreeably.
January 3, 1968
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Gerald...
Like I've been saying for months, this is a bad year all around. 1967 is the Year of the Overall Freak-Out. Which is neither here nor there...for now.
Anyway, I found out what my trouble was. I had a serious case of flu and I was trying to cure it with what those in the trade call "speed." This does not mean methedrine, despite what you read in Newsweek...and I suspect there are people over there who know better.
But back to the general badness....I talked to Paul Semonin the other night and he said the Times refused to publish the "Hell No, We Won't Pay" ad. I'm a bit surprised, for reasons I should probably examine...desperation makes for strange bed-fellows and a few strange prickteasers in the bargain. And how's that for a head on the Times' editorial page: "Desperation Makes for Strange Prickteasers."
And so much for that. You can apply the $10 I sent against the $366 expense money you sent me. It came on the same day, and in the same mail, with a letter from one of the NSP convicts, asking when the article would be published. That thing has become a terrible albatross around my neck...not a day goes by without somebody claiming that I let them down, and of course they're all right. That expense check from you was close to the final straw. I told my wife I was going to send it back and she began screaming. She handles the finances and knows our treacherous score. I sense it, but I'd rather not know the details. Things have been rather tense here since the Tahoe article crisis and my simultaneous derailing of two other projects totaling $3700. We are into another one of those nightmarish pregnancy scenes whacking God in the teeth again and that helps. Life should be made as difficult as possible...so that the victims might develop more character.
(...Jesus, I just went outside to piss and got whacked in the eyes by the results of what looks like a 7-8 inch all-nite snow, the first of the year...it's 6:45 a.m. here, with the sun just coming up...everything is fat white, even the sky is white. Dead silence, no color...this is what should happen in Vietnam. It gives you a sense of mortality...like if anybody was unnatural enough to drop a bomb in my clean white front yard this morning, I'd natcherly blow his head off with a 12 gauge shotgun. And then I'd eat all the flesh off his bones, just to teach him a lesson.)
Christ, it feels good to be out of the flu funk. I'd like to go out in the snow and fuck some corpse in the neck. I'm sure there's one out there. [Outgoing U.S. Secretary of Defense] Robert McNamara came last week to check on his new house; he arrived in a black car with six Secret Service men acting like some humanoid from another planet and since he had to drive through an area of dope-smoking construction workers who once tried to burn his house to the ground, I'm sure he created some corpses if for no other reason than to take them back to LBJ, who likes his erotic brunch.
And so much for that, too. The point of all this, I guess, is that those dirty bastards from Tahoe have loaded me with so much guilt about that failed article that I might, despite my better judgement, attempt to resurrect it. I don't know exactly how, because it's obviously no longer a news item and in fact it never was. But I still think it's one of the best subjects I've dealt with in several years. It reminded me of the first article I did, somewhat reluctantly, on the Hell's Angels which gave me an incredible amount of trouble because of all the confusing action it kicked off in my head which wouldn't fit into an easy 20-page article, and which eventually wound up as an 800-or-so-page manuscript that had to be cut in half (by me) to fit into book covers.
But...back to the point: How do we deal if I actually do a rewrite on that article? I assume you should have first reject rights...and I also assume it'll be rejected, since I don't have the vaguest idea how to make the thing work as an acceptably contemporary news item. But I might try, and I stress that word "might." Probably I will, so give me a guideline about how to proceed diplomatically. The only other markets that seem even possible right now are Ramparts and The Nation, but considering the circumstances and the onus that settled on me, I'd much prefer that any resurrected article appear in the Times if only because that's how I represented myself in the first place.
In any case, send a word or two as to etiquette. And obligations. And possibilities. My agent used to handle these things, but he's now suing me or at least forcing me to sue him for not leaving me alone. That's Scott Meredith, in case you're curious and even if you're not...that evil pigfucking skunk. For the past year he's been hounding me like some sort of cop out of [nineteenth-century Russian novelist Feodor] Dostoyevsky. It's a nightmarish story maybe even a book. Yeah: "Only You, HST Or, How to Make a Million Dollars by Taking Scott Meredith's Advice and Identifying with Norman Mailer, the Only Meredith Client Who Lives in the Black And Any Punk Who Don't Like It Can Sue." There's another good title for you. Maybe I should get a job with Time, eh?
Yours in deep snow,
A few days into the New Year Thompson flew to New York to negotiate a deal with Random House for a book on "The Death of the American Dream." At this early stage Thompson envisioned it as a scathing exposé of the U.S. armed forces' Joint Chiefs of Staff.
January 5, 1968
Delmonico's Hotel
Park Avenue at 59th Street
New York
Dear Mom...
I've just about finished here & things seem to have gone as well as possible although no contracts are signed yet. Wednesday night I had a five-hour dinner with the Vice-President of Random House, the editor-in-chief of Ballantine (& my lawyer) at the Four Seasons, the most expensive restaurant in N.Y. That's a good omen. Especially since nobody blinked when I wore my boots & my shooting jacket. I'm still being sued for $5.5 million in Calif. I thought that had collapsed. But the other legal problems seem manageable, at least for the moment.
In all, I have a hell of a busy year ahead of me three & possibly four books. The big one is being referred to as "The Death of the American Dream" which makes me nervous because it's so vast & weighty. Hell's Angels is past the 500,000 mark in printing, not sales but if they all sell, that's a lot of nickels for your black-sheep son. I keep borrowing against earnings to the point where I stay about even but after April I should be able to send Jim a few dollars if he gets in trouble.
The Xmas visit was good sorry my nerves were so edgy, but the miscarriage thing had me worried ever since we left Aspen that's why I decided at the last moment to go to Florida I didn't want Sandy to be alone in planes & airports if the thing was going to happen any moment.
Anyway, it was good seeing all of you I enjoyed the stay more than I expected to & it was good getting to know Jim again. It was even better to see that you've got the drinking under control. I'm proud of you.
That's it for now. I still have to re-write that N.Y. Times article.
While in New York, Thompson pitched his idea for a savage fictional attack on President Johnson to Bernard Shir-Cliff, who had edited the paperback of Hell's Angels for Ballantine Books. Shir-Cliff asked to see a written proposal.
January 12, 1968
Woody Creek, CO
Here's a Lyndon Johnson idea. I was talking to Peter Collier at Ramparts tonight, trying to buck him in on a Super Bowl bet...and somewhere along the line I mentioned our Johnson project. He suggested a serious, non-fantasy preview of the Demo convention, based on his "certain knowledge" that all manner of hell is going to break loose in terms of critical protests, demonstrations. Ramparts has numerous connections with SDS and other radical types, and Collier says they're going to freak out the convention. At first I said no, but then I added the fantasy element and saw a possibility...which is fading almost as fast as I can type. Maybe a good pamphlet, but probably not a book...unless you can figure out a new twist.
What I came up with, and this was just a few minutes ago, was a very straight-faced and very night-marish handbook for convention delegates. Like when the 10,000 rats are going to be released on the convention floor, and which organization is planning to kidnap an entire state delegation in order to degrade and humiliate them for the purpose of making an underground film. We have to keep in mind that various outrages are in fact being planned, and that I probably wouldn't have much trouble getting a vague battle plan...but of course that wouldn't be enough. I'd have to mix up fact and fantasy so totally that nobody could be sure which was which. We could bill it as a fantastic piece of root-hog journalism The Thompson Report, as it were. This courageous journalist crept into the sewers of the American underground and emerged with a stinking heap of enemy battle plans and just in time, by god, to warn the good guys what to watch out for. Oh, I could have a rattling good time with it....I could even compose a fictitious interview with Guru Bailey, the Demo chieftain, during which I try to warn him of this impending disaster and he reacts first in anger, then with tears, throwing down hooker after hooker of gin during our conversation. And a private chat with Johnson, who heard of my dread information and summoned me to the White House for a toilet-side interview with two recording secretaries a prancing fag and nervous old lady from New Orleans taking notes on a voice-writer(s) echoing my words, and Lyndon's, for the private record.
Yes indeed, I'm beginning to hear the music. Did you ever see the Walter Jenkins, Dean Rusk, drugs and leather cults section that I had, at one point, in the H.A. [Hell's Angels] manuscript? I don't think I ever sent it in. Some of the best parts of the H.A. book never made it past the first-draft because they wandered too far afield. (The Case of the Naked Colonel...did you ever see that? A fantastic story, and absolutely true...a Pentagon colonel found naked in his car, passed out on the steering wheel with a pistol in each hand...no explanation.)
The music, yes. I hear the sound of drums now...an interview with Richard Nixon, who calls me at my Chicago hotel, during the course of my research, and offers me $20,000 for my information...then a meeting with Nixon and his advisors, they want to exploit the freak-out...but an argument erupts when one of Nixon's aides makes a crude remark about his daughter undertones of drugs and nymphomania, Julie caught on the 14th green at Palm Springs with a negro caddy at midnight, the caddy now in prison, framed on a buggery count.
Well, I guess you have the drift by now. Sort of a "Report from Iron Mountain," as rewritten by Paul Krassner. I see it as a ding-dong seller, given adequate promotion, at least until the convention. But I'm not sure what kind of staying power it would have unless we could come up with a longevity gimmick. The key, I think, would be pre-convention publicity the existence of this frightful report by the well-respected, hard-digging author of Hell's Angels, a known confidant of all undergrounds, a man with his ear to the sewer at all times. But if we couldn't promote it fast and fat enough to sell 100,000 copies, I'm not sure I could work up the superhead of steam that I'd need to get the thing done. The idea of writing against a fiendish deadline, with $10,000 at stake, gets me high and wild just thinking about it. I hear gongs and drums and whistles all around me...not even the Green Bay Packers roll that high. The SuperBowl stake is only $7,500 per man.
What do you think? Any ideas for keeping the book alive beyond the convention? Needless to say, most of the fantasy content would be based on fact...and for that I'll need the 1964 Theodore White book, Nixon's Crises bullshit, and the Iron Mountain thing that I asked for quite a while ago. The more I think about this, the more I think in terms of fictitious interviews and bogus secret meetings with the principals. What about lawsuits there? If it rings any bells at all, let's ponder it on the phone...or if this idea kicks off any others in your head, let's talk about those too. Send word, make contact, etc....
Thompson rented his house in Woody Creek, ten miles outside Aspen, from a good-humored friend fortunately for both.
January 13, 1968
Woody Creek, CO
I came by the house twice last week and called tonight, so I assume you're off somewhere, and for god knows how long.
Anyway, in lieu of rent money, I'm sending another mean bitch about foul-smelling water backing up in the basement. This isn't directed at you, but I figure you can use my complaint as reason for refusing to pay those incompetent fucks a penny until they finish the job they agreed to do. I was going to call Holub tonight, but he disregards everything I tell him until you vouch for it, so I don't see any sense in calling him a lying pigfucker for nothing. In any case, this goddamn water scene is going to have to be cured eventually no matter who is, or isn't, living in the house. I've been waiting for months to make something out of that big room in the basement, but with all of Springer's gear in the way, and a flood of shit-water every night, it's impossible to do any work down there. Even the lumber I bought is getting wet and warped (the lumber for building in the room).
All this brings me to ponder a much longer view which includes the fact that I'm due, sometime this spring, for a fat royalty on the paperback Hell's Angels sales and I intend to spend it on some kind of real estate. So if you're at all inclined to think about selling either this property or the (east) mesa or any combination, we should probably talk seriously about it sometime soon. Because I've never been known to hang onto money and this next check will be no exception. So let's get together, when you get back, for a serious rumble about money, acreage, etc. And water rights. Which brings to mind that you still owe me a bottle of Old Fitz. But I might let you off the hook for some blue-chip ski instruction. I suspect we can work out a deal. Which leads me to the point of the whole rude note, to wit: give a ring when you get back; among other things, I have a Lord Buckley record for you.
Silberman had edited Hell's Angels for Random House, and would continue to provide Thompson with editorial guidance.
January 13, 1968
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Jim...
A late-rising thought: What happened to my Hell's Angels manuscript? I asked Margaret [Harrell] about it several times last spring, but it was always "somewhere else." I just read where D. H. Lawrence traded the ms. of Sons and Lovers for a ranch in Taos, so I'm naturally concerned about mine. I'm land-hungry right now, and maybe the ms. will come in handy if I want to buy a ranch from a dirty old rich woman. Which I might. Half the land around Aspen is owned by dirty old rich women who are also cousins of Paul Nitze and friends of McNamara. I suspect that my probing of the Joint Chiefs will reveal that one of them is the real owner of the house I live in. Anyway, send word on my manuscript or, better still, send the manuscript.
In its first year in print, Hell's Angels sold nearly half a million copies and generated a torrent of fan mail. Thompson occasionally replied to the most thoughtful letters.
January 15, 1968
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Kelly...
I just got back from New York and found your letter...and for a moment I was going to throw it in the fire because I found it depressing, but on second thought I decided to answer it.
First, thanks for the good words on the book. One of the best things about writing for publication is getting letters from people who read what you tried to put down...I think the shrinks call it "communication." Anyway, it's a good feeling to know that somebody in Herrin, Ill. is hearing my music, however weird or warped it might sound at that range.
But I'll be flat goddamned if I can understand how a guy like you, who sounds pretty bright and on top of things, can take the Angels seriously enough to want to go to all that trouble to Join Them. What the fuck would you want to do that for? You sound like you have enough going for you, as an individual, so that you wouldn't need some kind of bogus identity like a H.A. jacket. Do you really need Sonny Barger's O.K. to do what you feel like doing? If so, here's the last address I have for him, which is at least a year old: 9847 Stanley, Oakland Calif. I doubt that he still lives there, but he might. You can try.
As far as I know, Sonny is still pres. of the Oakland chapter, but I haven't followed that scene for a long time. As for the rest of your questions, Sonny could answer them better than I could...especially since I view your whole notion of getting "approval" from the Angels as a bad joke. I'm not trying to put you down here; if that was the idea, I wouldn't have bothered to answer your letter, so don't take it that way.
The thing is that you sound like you have more sense than any six Angels I can think of, and I can't quite understand why you want to defer to them. But that's obviously none of my business, and that's why I'm sending the only address I have for Sonny. But I'm also sending my own ideas on the subject which you didn't ask for, but which you can't keep me from laying on you anyway and the main one is, "Play your own game, be your own man, and don't ask anybody for a stamp of approval." For the past two years the Angels have been creatures of their own publicity; I wouldn't get fucked up with them any more than I would with the FBI or the Lyndon Johnson Fan Club. To hell with organizations. There's a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It's a goddamn luxury, and if I were you, I'd take advantage of it while you can.
Hunter S. Thompson
Copyright © 2000 by Hunter S. Thompson
What People are Saying About This
Meet the Author
Hunter S. Thompson was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. His books include Hell's Angels, Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, The Rum Diary, and Better than Sex. He died in February 2005.
Brief Biography
- Date of Birth:
- July 18, 1937
- Date of Death:
- February 20, 2005
- Place of Birth:
- Louisville, Kentucky
- Place of Death:
- Woody Creek, Colorado
- Education:
- U.S. Air Force, honorably discharged in 1957
Customer Reviews
Average Review:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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For those of you with an unabashed knowledge of the great Dr. Gonzo, Hunter S Thompson, this is the book for you. Not really a journalistic stance, not really an anthology, this book follows Hunter S through the most influential and heavy times of his life. Through his own personal letters to/from people like President Jimmy Carter, George McGovern or Allen Ginsburg, one can get a grasp on the man that is Gonzo better than ever before. Although many points that are made throughout his books of that time (Hell's Angels, F&L in Las Vegas, F&L on the Campaign Trail '72) are emphasized and defended in this great work, I do not recommend it to a first time Thompson reader, as you must already have at least a rudimentary idea of what he is all about before diving into this one. Otherwise, I would've given it 5 stars, as it is an incredible groundwork book for those of us who know. A fine piece of biography, shown through the eyes of Gonzo and weirdness...


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Let us know when your receive great advice so we can thank our lawyers and point others with similar questions in the right direction.Got it!
After 18 years marriage and 2 minor kids and domestic violence (only restricted reported) and recently found proof of adultery (in the same unit).
Had to leave out the state to be safe and I am still scared to file for separation or divorce and to loose benefits for me and my kids (married to a member of the Armed Services) .
Also if you are found guilty of adultery and married as a service member, shouldn't the spouse be still eligible and keep all her benefits and if or when the service member requests divorce to include retirement pay to the spouse too?
The military recognizes various rights for spouses that have been married for a long duration. If you file in California while he resides though you will get half of the community interest in his retirement if he gets one from the military.
This is just my opinion and not a comprehensive answer. You assume the risk because this answer may not apply to your situation depending on the facts.Ask a similar question
Thank you very much for quick response. I am the one who moved to California, he is stationed in a different state. I don't want to make any mistakes, not that we have any assets but to ensure to survive with my kids.
If a member of the military commits adultery, it is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. If this can be proved, and your Husband's Staff Judge Advocate for the unit wants to prosecute him, then he can be disciplined by the military in a variety of ways. However, pursuing this option while you are still married to him may also hurt you as well if your husband is your sole source of support because he stands to lose pay or benefits, or maybe even be discharged. If you or your children are at risk of domestic violence then you should seek immediate assistance from your local court or the legal services office of the military branch that your Husband is in. The California Superior Court has a domestic violence clinic that offers free services. Also, most military bases and posts offer free legal services to servicemembers and their families. Try to get a hold of the Staff Judge Advocate and ask if you can speak in confidence about your situation. There are many issues and options that need to be addressed in your situation that require face to face legal advice and full knowledge of the facts. If you are truly living in fear and feel that it is in the best interests of your children and yourself to get a divorce, then you need to speak with an attorney, preferably one who is experienced with military families. You should not worry too much about support because in a divorce, the court will make orders for child and spousal support. Yours is a long term marriage so spousal support is practically guranteed. In addition, you are entitled to half of the property and assets acquired during marriage, including retirement benefits, regardless of adultery. If your Husband is planning on getting out of the military soon or moving to a different state, you should consult an attorney immediately.
DISCLAIMER - The materials provided in this answer are informational and should not be relied on as legal advice. Nothing in this email message creates an attorney-client relationship. You should always consult a lawyer in your state regarding your specific legal matter.Ask a similar question
I would like to thank you very much for time and the effort in writing me back. In my case I should have been receiving help from his command, since someone from his unit has send me all the documents from the police department about the adultery and I have other documents of proof, but things are always very easy on paper as they are in reality with the help we should receive. Was all on my own with my kids to get the help that I needed, to be secure and to be able to survive. It's a very hot topic, and so many officials within the military (even with proof of documents) have hard time to provide help. However somebody send me documents that can be entitled for life long Benefits in case of domestic violence even if he would be terminated and had to leave and even if he would loose his retirement pay. I am trying to gather information on how and where to file. Is there any one who would be able to lead me in the right direction?
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This item is noncancelable and nonreturnable
You Pay: $197.99
Savage Prestax Mount Board was developed for the professional photographer, picture framer and color lab. ProCore is an extremely dense, rigid substrate that when combined with Filmtax and Prestax adhesives creates the best mounting board on the market.
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Ezra Levant's 'Gypsies' Comments Condemned By Broadcast Standards Council
Sun News host Ezra Levant violated the broadcasting ethics code when he portrayed Gypsies as being criminals, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has ruled.
In a segment of Sun News' "The Source" that aired in September, 2012, the always controversial Levant described the Roma as "a culture synonymous with swindlers."
At another point in the segment about an organized crime ring in Ontario that involved some Roma, Levant declared: "Gypsies are not a race. They're a shiftless group of hobos. They rob people blind. Their chief economy is theft and begging. For centuries these roving highway gangs have mocked the law and robbed their way across Europe."
Levant's comments were "in violation of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code," the CBSC announced Monday.
Levant's segment was "abusive and unduly discriminatory against an ethnic group, and violated other provisions of the [code] regarding negative portrayal, stereotyping, stigmatization and degradation," the CBSC said.
But the council did not order Levant to issue an on-air apology, because Levant has already done so twice.
Story continues below slideshow
Controversy surrounding the Sun News Network began even before the network went on the air in April, 2011. The Globe and Mail reported in the summer of 2010 that CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein was under pressure from the Prime Minister's Office to resign, in order to pave a smooth path for Sun News to be granted a licence by the regulator. Finckenstein denied the allegations.
With concerns swirling about the possibility of a PMO-driven political agenda at Sun News, the activist site Avaaz launched "Stop Fox News North," a campaign to pressure the CRTC to deny a licence to the news network. The network responded by citing Avaaz's U.S. roots and noting that left-wing billionaire George Soros has contributed to the group, in an apparent effort to discredit the petition as a "U.S. import."
Future Sun News personality Ezra Levant went further than most in his criticism of Avaaz and its links to George Soros (pictured above). Levant suggested in a column that Soros, who is Jewish, aided the Germans in the Holocaust as a teenager. After receiving a letter from Soros' lawyers threatening to sue, the Sun newspapers ran a retraction.
Sun News was on the air for only about six weeks when its first major controversy erupted. The CRTC received a record 6,676 complaints from viewers after host Krista Erickson aggressively challenged dancer Margie Gillis over the issue of whether artists should receive taxpayers' money in the form of grants. The Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council eventually ruled Erickson was within her rights to express her opinions during the interview.
Sun News has made the CBC's public funding a signature issue, repeatedly attacking the network for taking $1 billion per year in taxpayers' money while competing against private-sector broadcasters. But the CBC is fighting back. It put out a press release noting that Quebecor, Sun's parent company, enjoyed $500 million in subsidies over five years, and argued that -- unlike the CBC -- it is not publicly accountable to taxpayers.
Ezra Levant got himself in trouble again in December, 2011, when he responded to Chiquita Bananas' declaration it wanted to avoid oil from the oil sands. "Chinga tu madre," Levant said to Chiquita -- a phrase that translates as "f--k your mother." The Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council declared Levant's outburst a violation of ethics standards.
Canadian journalism reached an embarrassing nadir in the spring of 2012 when it emerged that a citizenship reaffirmation ceremony broadcast on Sun News had been partially staged. Six federal bureaucrats had posed as newly-sworn Canadians during the event that had been reportedly requested by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. Kenney's office apologized to Sun News. Government officials later alleged Sun News was aware of the bureaucrats posing as new Canadians.
Sun News applied for a "mandatory carriage" licence in the fall of 2012 that would require cable and satellite operators to carry the network as part of their basic cable package. Though neither CBC News Network nor CTV News Channel currently enjoy mandatory carriage, they did when they first started out, as Sun News has pointed out.
Sun News reported in January, 2013, that it lost $17 million in 2012, due to weak revenue because the channel is only carried in 40 per cent of Canadian homes. Parent company Quebecor is saying the network will continue to lose money unless its request to the CRTC for mandatory carriage on basic cable is granted. Pictured: Quebecor CEO Pierre-Karl Peladeau
Sun News personality and well-known right-wing pundit Ezra Levant issued a formal, on-air apology after a September, 2012, segment in which he declared that the Roma were not a race, and were rather "a shiftless group of hobos" who "rob people blind" and whose "chief economy is theft and begging." The Toronto police reportedly even launched a hate-crimes investigation into the segment, at the request of a local Roma group.
In August 2013, the CRTC, Canada's telecom regulator, rejected Sun News' application for mandatory carriage. The network had asked the CRTC to make them a mandatory part of all basic cable services, arguing it would not survive financially without it. Though the CRTC rejected the Sun News application, it also launched a review of the rules surrounding cable news networks. Among the possible outcomes are a realignment of channels so all news channels are grouped together on the dial, and the possibility of a "must-carry" order for Sun News, which would mean that all TV service providers would have to at least offer the network. Pictured: CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais
On Friday, Feb. 13, 2015, Sun News went off the air, less than four years after its debut broadcast. Sun News personalities blamed the failure on the CRTC's decision not to grant the network mandatory carriage, and on cable companies' reluctance to give the network prominent placement on the dial, but analysts said the network's poor ratings and annual losses were the driving factor in the decision.
"There were some criticisms after that show, but I dismissed them as coming from the usual soft-on-crime liberals and grievance groups," Levant said during a broadcast in March.
"But when I look at some of the words I used in that show — like "the gypsies have gypped us" — I must admit that I did more than just attack a crime or immigration fraud problem," he continued.
"I attacked a particular group, and painted them all with the same brush. And to those I hurt, I'm sorry."
The CBSC said it received 38 complaints about Levant's comments in the weeks after the broadcast, 26 of which were actionable.
At one point shortly after the broadcast took place, it was reported that Toronto police had launched a hate-crimes investigation into Levant's comments.According to the Toronto Star, police said there was enough evidence to lay charges, but "permission from the Ontario attorney general was not forthcoming."


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Duegaarden is is a converted property is an ideal Konferencenter, courses and meetings. It is located on North Mors in a scenic conservation area.
Ideal for courses / conferences for staff groups, therapy and other personal development-oriented themes and parties (up to 58 overni...
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Ministry Of Sound are back with the eagerly anticipated follow up of the best selling Dubstep album of the year, cunningly entitled Dubstep 2.
After creating the art work for the first album, Engine Creative went back for round two, this time with some special spiked infusion.
This must have album is out on 27th December so make sure you grab/download a copy with some well earned Christmas pocket money.
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Holiday Inn Pattaya
Select your stay dates to check availability
Holiday Inn Pattaya
About the hotel
Property Location
Holiday Inn Pattaya is in the heart of Pattaya, walking distance from Tiffany Cabaret Show and Next Fashion Tailor. This 4.5-star hotel is within close proximity of Tiffany's Show and Art in Paradise.
Make yourself at home in one of the 567 air-conditioned rooms featuring refrigerators and minibars. Rooms have private furnished balconies. Cable programming provides entertainment, and wired and wireless Internet access is available for a surcharge. Bathrooms have complimentary toiletries and hair dryers.
Relax at the full-service spa, where you can enjoy massages and body treatments. You're sure to appreciate the recreational amenities, which include 4 outdoor swimming pools, a sauna, and a 24-hour fitness center. This hotel also features wireless Internet access (surcharge), concierge services, and complimentary babysitting/childcare. Guests can catch a ride to nearby destinations on the complimentary area shuttle.
Grab a bite to eat at one of the hotel's 4 restaurants and 2 coffee shops/cafés, or stay in and take advantage of 24-hour room service. Relax with your favorite drink at a bar/lounge or a poolside bar. Buffet breakfasts are available daily for a fee.
Business, Other Amenities
Featured amenities include high-speed (wired) Internet access (surcharge), a business center, and complimentary newspapers in the lobby. Event facilities at this hotel consist of conference space and meeting rooms. Free self parking is available onsite.
Hotel Facilities
- Children's pool
- 24-hour front desk
- Free self parking
- ATM/banking
- Total number of rooms - 567
- Arcade/game room
- Bar/lounge
- Accessible bathroom
- Luggage storage
- Children's club (free)
- Conference space size (feet) - 2040
- Breakfast available (surcharge)
- Supervised childcare/activities (free)
- Business center
- Concierge services
- Airport transportation
- Safe-deposit box at front desk
- Full-service spa
- Tours/ticket assistance
- Designated smoking areas
- Rooftop terrace
- Laundry facilities
- Roll-in shower
- Free area shuttle
- Children's club
- 24-hour fitness facilities
- Wired (high-speed) Internet access - surcharge
- Year Built 2009
- Poolside bar
- Computer station
- Number of coffee shops/cafes - 2
- Garden
- Gift shops or newsstand
- Spa services on site
- Number of outdoor pools - 4
- Conference space
- Snack bar/deli
- Multilingual staff
- Free newspapers in lobby
- Meeting rooms 10
- WiFi (surcharge)
- Elevator/lift
- Number of buildings/towers - 2
- Dry cleaning/laundry service
- Number of restaurants - 4
- In-room accessibility
- Babysitting or childcare (free)
- Sauna
Room Facilities
- Phone
- Free toiletries
- Air conditioning
- Wired high-speed Internet access (surcharge)
- Desk
- Cable TV service
- Daily housekeeping
- In-room climate control (air conditioning)
- Minibar
- Free bottled water
- Refrigerator
- Television
- Free newspaper
- Iron/ironing board
- Soundproofed rooms
- In-room safe
- Hair dryer
- Slippers
- Room service (24 hours)
- Bathrobes
- WiFi (surcharge)
- Coffee/tea maker
- Furnished balcony
Hotel Policy
Know Before You Go
- One child 11 years old or younger stays free when occupying the parent or guardian's room, using existing bedding.
The following fees and deposits are charged by the property at time of service, check-in, or check-out.
- Fee for buffet breakfast: THB 706 per person (approximately)
- Fee for in-room wireless Internet: THB 696 per day (rates may vary)
- Fee for in-room high-speed Internet (wired): THB 696 per day (rates may vary)
- Fee for wireless Internet in public areas: THB 696 per day (rates may vary)
- Fee for high-speed Internet (wired) in public areas: THB 696 per stay (rates may vary)
The above list may not be comprehensive. Fees and deposits may not include tax and are subject to change.Show all hotel policy Show less hotel policy


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|This is a discussion on Full Tilt to ban Datamining Sites within the online poker forums, in the Poker Rooms section; Bodog announced recently that they were planning to block datamining sites and now Full Tilt may do the same: http://www.onlinepokernews.org/poker-news/future-of-online-poker-tracking-in-jeopardy/2535 As of late, it seems that
Full Tilt to ban Datamining Sites
Bodog announced recently that they were planning to block datamining sites and now Full Tilt may do the same:
As of late, it seems that Full Tilt Poker may be moving to prohibit datamining sites from collecting information from Full Tilt players. After complaints were filed last year against PokerTableRatings and their coverage of Full Tilt games. Sites like PTR, known as dataming websites, track real money cash game data at online poker sites. Some data is free to those who subscribe, but some is not free and must be paid for, such as hand histories.
In a post on the 2+2 poker forum, a Full Tilt rep suggested that the online poker room had taken measures to prevent PTR from collecting data from their site, which explains why there has been little reports released by PTR regarding Full Tilt players and games. There has not, however, been any official statement made by Full Tilt regarding this issue. Nor has PTR released a statement, though they have acknowledged that this is a problem, especially for their paying users.
The problem with the datamining lies with those players who do not subscribe to a tracking site and who do not rely on these types of advantages. They say it is unfair to the everyday player that online poker sites ultimately markets to. The available data is very valuable to those players who do use it, especially at the mid to high stakes levels where the same players ¬¬¬return again and again. It is also useful in poker coaching and staking.
Since little is known about the extent to which Full Tilt Poker and other big online poker sites like PokerStars will go to prevent datminers from collecting information off of their sites, it is hard to say whether or not it may soon be something of the past. While the online poker industry is still young, but continues to grow and advance in light years, it must adapt and amend itself along the way to compensate for fairness and the overall security of its players. This may be a big step for the industry as a whole that site after site will follow, or it may prove to be just a passing issue. However, the latter is unlikely, as once a big force like Full Tilt takes something on, it doesnt usually get swept under the rug.
An argument can be made that sites shouldn't allow online players to compile data on opponents that they wouldn't have available to them in a real card house or in-person tournament. (Not saying I necessarily agree with that argument; only that an argument can be made.)
But you can bet there's some hardcore players who make big deposits to these online sites that would take their business elsewhere to somebody who continues to allow the practice.
In my view, those who don't know about it aren't going to be putting big money into the poker sites, they will be casual lower stakes players, not mid to high stakes regs.
I don't use PTR much, I will occasionally look a player up on Sharkscope. My issue would be that if HUDS were outlawed, I would struggle to multi table on cash games like I do, it just wouldn't be possible to do it profitably, IMO.
PTR is the only site they actually name, I'm assuming sites like Sharkscope would be included as well.
I wonder about a reporting site like HighStakesDB though, would they still be allowed to operate? It's not so much a practial resource as it is a billboard reading "Full Tilt = high stakes action" so I'm wondering if they'd let that one slide?
Ninja edit: maybe not, they're reporting problems with their tracking on Full Tilt games as well.
About damn time, these computer programs and their stats are cheating plain and simple. If these poker rooms plan on expanding they need new entry level players. If they continously are getting cheated out of their money by people with tracking systems they won't reload as ofter, or perhaps ever again. It's amazing how many people are willing to sign off on cheating as ok, because it makes them money.
I think it seems like a great time to go post questions in the software forum for our local PTR rep. I'm sure he'll be very forthcoming with details.
re: Poker & Full Tilt to ban Datamining Sites
I like the fact that they will be banning the data mining. If you collect info on players thru your software i.e. PT3, HEM thats cool by me but purchasing HH on players thru 3rd party info just doesnt seem right to me...
Yep, consider me on the "about time" bandwagon.
RE: SharkScope (not their HUD which does work on datamining, but their SnG/MTT results), OPR, and the like. Those are scraping tournament result lobbies, not HHs, and I'm okay with that. It's the same results any of us could compile by looking up the tourney's ourselves, unlike HHs that you weren't dealt in.
Not sure what you are trying to say - or maybe I am. But, do you mean cheating as far as players go, or superuser cheating?
Cause I dont think any site as big as they are want any kind of superuser scandal, it would crush trust in the site and consequently their player base. And they are very observant of player cheating.
Was a misstake to create all type of helping tools from the start. Its doing more damage then it help us who try make a living on poker. Nowdays u have to use them. They make alot money and we loose alot because everyone learns stats winning play etc. I vote to take away everything that give players information about others. Notes would be only thing allowed
Datamining is bad. I don't mind seeing peoples profits from tournaments as it doesn't give in dept knowledge about how people play certain hands and so on..
Don't get me wrong, I do check peoples stats on PTR purely from a respectful aspect. If there is someone like nanonoko, I like to check his graph and winnings every now and again but I have no interest in wanting to collect hand history or anything like that.
It isn't fair at the end of the day, you don't get to see it live in cash games or tournaments (unless of course it's a big event) and people willily and knowingly accept their hole cards being shown up but even still that's just the odd hand here and there unless it's the Final table and even then, it's acceptable.
Good work FT...I hope all other sites do something like this.
A friend of mine (total fish), cashed out of all poker sites around 6 months ago and swore never to play online again once he discovered datamining sites. He looked himself up and discovered he was down in the region of 5K.
I was telling him this today, looks like he is going to redeposit on FT......
I actually know 2 guys who had their wives look them up on PTR. Apparently we were talking about it one night while playing at one of their houses and his wife over heard from the other room. When she looked him up (I guess she either already knew or later found out his screen name) she saw that he was down a few grand. He was forced to stop playing online (he actually is breakeven to a small winner in our live games so that was allowed to continue). The real tragedy though was that she told on of the other guy's wife about PTR. This guy was a HUGE degen and was down over 10K in cash games alone (likely at least that in SnGs). He doesn't get to play online at all anymore and what's worse he rarely gets to come out and donate to the home games.
The death of PTR will be too late for them, but hopefully it will still die.
On a side note and total different path all together and it has just crossed my mind billy, your friend who has lost 10k...I guess he was recreational? It was just a thread I started a couple of week about the recreational player and how the USA players had a different front on them..I'm guessing he was more like me except worse in terms of gambling high.
The real degen guy was great for me because I used him as a way to cash out. He'd call me up and want a few hundred at a time transferred and he'd tell me he ship it back the next day if he won (this never happened) or I could go pick up the cash whenever. He'd sit with whatever I transferred to him. He actually stopped playing cash after a while because his $$s didn't last long enough so he'd play HU SnGs as high as he could afford the BI for because they suited his "style" more (playing every hand is a style right?). If he won he'd move up until it was gone.
One night in particular he kept calling me for more $$s, I think it ended up near a grand, because he was playing some "donk" at $300+30 HU SnGs. He'd win a couple and lose it back. He called my cell at like midnight that night and left a message that he was up to ~$2700 and that he would send me my $$s back. Well the next day the money wasn't back so I went out to his business to pick up my money. When I got there he handed me a stack of bills which was $100 more than I had sent him. I said what's the extra $100 for and he goes "Figured I'd go ahead and get another $100 transferred?".
Lol so between midnight the night before and noon the next day he'd dropped $2700 and he wanted more. God I love playing with him. When he comes to the home game he averages losing probably $800 (200nl game).
re: Poker & Full Tilt to ban Datamining Sites
I suppose if he has a business he can afford to play these stakes, I just don't understand how someone obviously who is so bad carries on playing. He must really enjoy the game lol.
Why don't you get online and play him? Surely you would make a killing from him lol.


text:
Being closer to home never felt so good for Ashland's Daugherty
SAN ANTONIO -- Senior forward Kari Daugherty has gone from a Dayton Flyer to an Ashland Eagle.
Prior to last season, when Daugherty decided to leave the Dayton for Ashland -- crowned as the new NCAA Division II champion Friday with a 71-56 victory against Dowling -- the Eagle fans couldn't have been more excited.
A Fresno, Ohio, resident, Daugherty helped lead Ashland to the NCAA championship game in 2012 (Ashland lost 88-82 in overtime to Shaw.). She was named an All-American, and elected as the WBCA Player of the Year, as well as leading the nation in rebounding and double-doubles.
This season was not much different for the 6-foot-1 Daugherty, except that Ashland emerged as the national champion. Daugherty was named the national player of the year, and also was selected as the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player for the second consecutive time. In Friday's victory versus Dowling, Daugherty registered her NCAA-best 25th double-double of the campaign, with 26 points (11-19 shooting) and 12 rebounds. Prior to the championship matchup, Daugherty was ranked third in scoring (22.2 points per game) and second in rebounds per game (13.8 per game).
But why did Daugherty decide to leave the Division I Dayton team, and transfer to Ashland? She had success at Dayton, being named to the All-Atlantic 10 Rookie Team her freshman season. Her sophomore year, Daugherty was elected to the CoSIDA Second Team Academic All-District. In addition, Daugherty's older sister, Kristin, had been a teammate. She finished her career as Dayton's fifth all-time leading scorer.
"I picked the University of Dayton because of my sister," Kari Daugherty said. "She graduated after my sophomore year, and I had a hard time. I got homesick a lot. I also had grown in my faith, and I felt isolated. I wanted a place where I could grow in my faith, and a place that was closer to home [ an hour away]. Being able to watch my two little siblings grow up meant a lot to me. Ashland was the perfect fit, just the way coach [Sue] Ramsey runs her program. God aligned things up pretty nicely."
Daugherty comes from a basketball-playing family, including her sister. Her dad, Bill, played basketball at Wilmington College (1982-1986) and is a member of the school's hall of fame. Her mom, Caroline, played at Ohio University and is also a hall-of-famer at the school.
Later this spring, Daugherty will graduate from Ashland with a degree in middle grades education. She is not sure exactly what she will do - because of the matter of focusing on the championship season - but would like to play basketball.
Daugherty does have an appointment with Brad Pickens in July, however, as the two will marry. As Daugherty said, "I am getting married to the most wonderful man I have ever met."


text: Hi all, hoping for some help! This will be our first time to the Villas at Wilderness (our home resort) and 2nd DVC trip!! We are staying in a one bedroom for 4 nights! I want a nice view, either of the water (if possible) or the wilderness. What should I request and when? Thanks!!


text:
We continue to learn words and phrases useful when you travel in China. The dialogues are based on real-life situations and the language that you hear in these dialogues can be used right away, it is the language that people actually speak. The dialogues are recorded several times, with English translation and then only in Chinese as a part of the conversation with a native Chinese speaker. Please signup and become a registered member to download ALL 276+ audio lessons with full PDF transcripts.
7 comments
Nihao Serge,
thanks a lot for your quick response.
I have come across another grammatical question which is not clear to me – couldn't find an answer on your website:
How can I find out which zuò (做, 作) to use, the meaning seems to be quite similar. E. g. in lesson 20, you have the sentence: 小姐,哪里可以做按摩?
Best regards
Thank you so much. I'm really learning this language because of you, the way you teach us is very good, slow pronunciation, remarking important words. thank you so much
I want to thank you for your lessons! I have been a podcast subscriber for some time now, and I recently subscribed to your transcripts and worksheets. My husband and I are adopting a child from China, and I want to learn as much Chinese as I can to ease my daughter's transition to her new home, and so I can continue her appreciation and understanding of her culture.


text:
Men's Filson Original Deerskin Gloves - Dark Brown (X-Large) - $66.00
Filsons deerskin gloves are constructed from the highest quality, midweight deerskin. They feature a winged thumb design with seamless palms for maximum flexibility. Elastic wrists make for easy on and off. Hand rubbed for comfort. Made in USA.Sizes: S-XL.Color: Dark Brown. Type: Gloves. Size: X-Large. Color: Dark Brown. Size Xl. Color Dark Brown. - $66.00


text:
Join The BHS
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Freelance coach experienced and well trained with riders if all ages on all horses. Experienced up to professional level event, show, showjumping, young and ex race horses. Currently competing in British Dressage and British Eventing. Accredited Coach, Schooling Breaking, Competition groom, holiday livery. Top class turn out and discipline.
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text:
Malta Air Traffic Services Ltd (MATS) is the Air Navigation Service Provider for Malta. MATS provides a variety of services primarily aimed at ensuring that aircraft flying in the Malta Flight Information Region (FIR) are safely separated in accordance with international civil aviation regulations.
The task of ensuring safe operations of commercial and private aircraft falls on air traffic controllers. They must coordinate the movements of thousands of aircraft, keep them at safe distances from each other, direct them during takeoff and landing from airports, direct them around bad weather and ensure that traffic flows safely, smoothly and with minimal delays.
There is an open vacancy for Air Traffic Safety Electronics Officer Trainees and interested parties are to send the required details via e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com at MATS by not later than 1600hrs of Friday the 31st of March 2017. Full details can be found HERE.


text:
Battleground: Criminal Justice [2 Volumes]
€ 187,99
Bisher € 198,44
Besorgung - Lieferbarkeit unbestimmt
November 2007
BeschreibungProvides an overview of the most controversial issues in criminal justice today.
PortraitGregg Barak is Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology at Eastern Michigan University.
Pressestimmen"The 100 alphabetical entries in this two-volume set provide readers with a comprehensive, balance view of controversial subjects in criminal justice... The format allows readers to grasp quickly the pertinent issues in understanding a topic, or to focus on a specific section of a topic. Sidebars often provide quirky tidbits concerning entries. The information is concise, clear, and well balanced. Useful tools include a guide to related topics, and comprehensive and subject indexes. Cross-referencing, a bibliography, endnotes, and further reading lists help readers locate additional material. These volumes are indispensable to an understanding of the nuances of frequently divisive issues in criminal justice. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/ researchers; general readers." - Choice Reviews Online ShelfLife: Criminal Justice Reference Resources
Untertitel: New. Sprache: Englisch.
Verlag: GREENWOOD PUB GROUP INC
Erscheinungsdatum: November 2007
Seitenanzahl: 872 Seiten
Format: gebunden


text:
Learn why, despite high unemployment and intolerable conditions, people flock to London. Tuesday, May 23 at 8 PM
On Second Thought is a one-hour, daily news talk show that airs at 9 a.m. ET weekdays.
High-Demand careers in the Three Rivers area include manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare occupations.
The GHSA state championships for football are right around the corner. There are 16 teams left on the road to the Georgia Dome and by late Saturday night all eight champions for 2016 will be... MORE
GPB Passport is the new member benefit that provides you with extended access to an on-demand library of quality local and national public television programming, including tens of thousands of hours of your favorite programs.
Tue., November 19, 2013 10:09am
Big Tobacco 15 Years Later: Where the Money's Gone
Fifteen years ago this month, tobacco companies agreed to pay states billions of dollars in the largest civil litigation settlement in US history. Georgia has received about $2 billion from the settlement. So, where did that $2 billion in tobacco settlement money go?
Full Story
Fri., April 5, 2013 8:00am
Hospitals See Partnerships As Future
The CEO of a struggling South Georgia hospital says it must partner with a larger institution or shut the doors. Evans Memorial Hospital in Claxton this week announced an agreement with the larger Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah. C-E-O Martha Tatum says the partnership will keep the rural facility under local control while finding savings in Savannah-based personnel.
Fri., March 9, 2012 9:58am
Rattlesnake Roundup Ends
The Evans County Wildlife Club is holding 45th annual festival. Snake roundup is not longer part of the festivities. Just two Eastern Diamondback roundups remain in the U.S.
Wed., June 8, 2011 1:46pm
As Customers Flee, Latino Grocers Worry
Georgia's new immigration law is affecting businesses beyond those in agriculture and other industries that rely on immigrant labor. Shops catering to Hispanics say, their customer base is drying up, leaving them worried about their future. One such store owner says, she might close up shop -- leaving her town with one more shuttered small business.
Fri., August 20, 2010 10:22am
'Lazy Little' US301 Towns Boomed Before I-95
This special feature is Georgia's contribution to NPR's series taking a look at Interstate 95. In it, we look back to more prosperous times along US 301, built to be the shortest route to Florida, before the Interstate came. Can the state continue to support its welcome center?


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Mphasis Walk-In Any Degree / Diploma freshers 2016 for International Voice Process (Banking Customer Relations) at Bangalore. Candidates who have completed Any Degree / Diploma can apply for this job from Mphasis.
Company Name: Mphasis
Position: International Voice Process (Banking Customer Relations)
Education: Any Degree / Diploma
Experience: 6 Months-2 Years
Salary: Not specified
Total No of Vacancy: NA
Location: Bangalore
Company Profile:
Mphasis is a leading IT solutions provider, offering Applications, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Infrastructure services globally through a combination of technology knowhow, domain and process expertise.Mphasis Limited (then, Mphasis BFL Limited) was formed in June 2000 after the merger of the US-based IT consulting company Mphasis Corporation (founded in 1998) and the Indian IT services company BFL Software Limited (founded in 1993).
Candidate Profile:
Graduates and Under graduates with minimum 6 Months of International Call Center Experience are welcome to apply.
You must possess Excellent Communication skills in English and should be willing to work in rotational shifts,including night shifts.
Selection/Interview process:
Aptitude Test
Technical and HR Interview
Document Required (Original and Photocopies):
SSC Marksheet
HSC/Diploma Marksheet
Graduation & Post Graduation all yearsí mark sheets
Photo ID proof (Pan Card/ Passport / Driving License / College ID)
2 photographs
How to Apply:
Walk-In Date :- 23 January 2016 to 5 February 2016
Walk-In Time :- 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Walk-In Address:- Mphasis Limited, Bagmane World Technology Center-4, 4th Floor, Opp.Total Mall, Near EMC Square, Marathahalli Outer Ring Road, Doddanakundi Village, Mahadevapura, Bangalore.
Get Daily Job Updates through Email – Click here to Subscribe


text:
Forex trading plan for April 14
By Elizabeth Belugina
Chinese trade balance have diminished traders' concerns about the economic outlook for Asian and global economy. Even the reduction in the IMF's world growth forecast didn't seem important in these circumstances.
US dollar index reversed up and has potential for further growth. Although American retail sales came below forecast, the previous reading was revised to the upside. US inflation data is due at 12:30 GMT on Thursday, the forecast is rather good.
European currency breached support levels versus US dollar and British pound. The euro area's industrial production fell by 0.8% in February, making the biggest decline in 18 months. The region will release March inflation figures at 09:00 GMT. Focus on support at 1.1260 and 1.1210/00 for EUR/USD. The next important level is at 1.1140. Resistance is at 1.1330 и 1.1385.
GBP/USD was very volatile in the 1.4200/1.4300 area. British pound is positively reacting to oil prices growth. Yet, the results of the Bank of England's meeting are due at 11:00 GMT on Thursday. No changes in the regulator's policy and no hawkish statements are expected. Support is at 1.4170 and 1.4050, while resistance is at 1.4350 and 1.4400.
USD/JPY managed to recover as the market's risk sentiment improved. The pair may test resistance at 109.50 and 110.00, by the way up won't be easy. Support is at 108.50.
AUD/USD once again tested levels above 0.7700. There was a bearish engulfing at H4, so Aussie is vulnerable for decline to 0.7630/00. Australia will release labor market data at 00:30 GMT. The forecast is mixed.


text:
Orvin - Model FAUD Series - Single Disk Fertiliser Spreader
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text:
May 26, 2017 - 15:00 GMT
The United Nations condemned on Friday the rising death toll of civilians in Syria, urging all air forces operating in the country to take greater care to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians.
May 24, 2017 - 10:00 GMT
Eight Daesh militants were killed as the battle kicked off in the region where the Syrian, Jordanian and Iraqi borders meet.
May 23, 2017 - 20:00 GMT
Daesh claims two blasts in Homs and Damascus, Syria,
May 23, 2017 - 18:30 GMT
The Lebanese army has ordered the eviction of 10,000 refugees living in the Bekaa Valley, sparking fears that it could lead to forced returns to Syria - which would be a violation of international law.
May 23, 2017 - 07:00 GMT
The accused allegedly led a group that tortured and killed supporters of Assad, suspected spies, and Kurds.
May 22, 2017 - 08:00 GMT
Donald Trump's speech in Saudi Arabia struck a somewhat softer tone than previous remarks in which he stated, 'I think Islam hates us.'
May 21, 2017 - 17:30 GMT
A year after reaching a safe haven, refugees are suffering breakdowns as PTSD and depressive disorders go unaddressed.
May 19, 2017 - 12:00 GMT
The UN says Syria's warring parties have agreed to set up expert committees to discuss "constitutional issues" as part of efforts to facilitate a political resolution of the deadly conflict in the Arab country.
May 19, 2017 - 10:00 GMT
At least eight people died when US-led coalition forces carried out an airstrike against Syrian government allies near the Iraqi border on Thursday, a monitoring group has said.
May 19, 2017 - 06:00 GMT
More than 50 people were killed in an Islamic State group assault on two regime-held villages in central Syria on Thursday including women and children, according to reports.
May 17, 2017 - 20:00 GMT
Syrian opposition pledge not to walk away from a new round of peace talks in Geneva.
May 17, 2017 - 18:00 GMT
Housing and Construction Minister Yoav Galant went on to say that Assad's actions in Syria amounts to nothing less than a 'genocide.'
May 17, 2017 - 13:31 GMT
It is not yet known how many have been injured in the latest attack on the refugee camp.
May 17, 2017 - 12:00 GMT
Turkey's President Erdogan has called for the US' decision to arm the YPG to be reversed.
May 17, 2017 - 08:12 GMT
On Tuesday US officials claimed up to 50 prisoners a day were being executed and their bodies disposed of at Saydnaya Prison.


text:
This is The Secret Life of Pets and you are watching CineRill
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Genre: Animation, Comedy
Louis C.K.
Eric Stonestreet
Kevin Hart
Chris Renaud
Yarrow Cheney
Duration: 91 min
Quality: HD []
Release: Jun 24, 2016
IMDb: 6.4
When you see as many movies as I do (and you start writing reviews in your head while you're watching them), certain movies, parts of movies, plot points or characters remind you of other movies.
In my reviews, I often note those parallels, using them to comment on the movie I'm reviewing. Sometimes I note similarities between movies to say that the more recent film is unoriginal. Other times, it's just to help explain what the new movie is like. The animated adventure comedy "The Secret Life of Pets" (PG, 1:30) reminds me very much of two other animated features? but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Tell me if this sounds familiar: Someone's possessions (as he or she views them) actually have secret lives of their own which are only really apparent when the owner is not around. These anthropomorphic possessions relate to each other and form friendships. When a newer version of the original is brought into the group, jealousy emerges and the original tries to get rid of the interloper. This struggle results in both of the rivals being thrust out of the comforts of home into the little-understood big, bad world, a situation which requires their compadres to venture out of their own comfort zones to mount a rescue.
That set-up fits Illumination Entertainment's 2016 "The Secret Life of Pets" as well as it does the 1995 Pixar/Disney classic film "Toy Story". (Think, "Pet Story", or "The Secret Life of Toys".) But considering that the 2016 film is about animals rather than toys, maybe the better comparison is to another 2016 animated feature (also from Disney) by the name of "Zootopia". In both of those 2016 films, a couple of anthropomorphic animals (among many others living in a big city) form a partnership which develops into a mutually beneficial friendship. I guess it's not unfair to think of "The Secret Life of Pets" as a mash-up of "Toy Story" and "Zootopia". Nevertheless, this one charts its own unique course and is as entertaining as those other two? or the "Despicable Me" films, also from Illumination Entertainment.
Now that you know what "The Secret Life of Pets" is LIKE, here's what it's ABOUT: The movie focuses on a small brown and white terrier named Max (voiced by Louis C.K.) and his relationship with the other pets in his apartment building. Max lives in a small Manhattan apartment with his owner, a young woman named Katie (Ellie Kemper). When Katie goes to work each day, Max sits at the door wondering where she has gone and waiting for her to come back and play with him. Meanwhile, the pets in the building across the alley and above and below his apartment (and one guniea pig lost in the air ducts) are more active in their daily lives (and more mobile) than is readily apparent. (Thus, the title of the film.) Some of the neighborhood pets include an overweight white cat named Chloe (Lake Bell), a bulldog named Mel (Bobby Moynihan), a dachshund named Buddy (Hannibal Buress), a canary named Sweet Pea (Tara Strong), and Gidget (Jenny Slate), a white Pomeranian who has a secret crush on Max.
Except for missing Katie during the day, all is well in Max's little world? until one not-so-fine day when Katie brings home another dog she rescued from a shelter. Duke (Eric Stonestreet) is a large, shaggy, dark brown dog who has no problem throwing his weight around to get the best place to sleep, or as much food as he wants, or? anything else. Max starts scheming about how to get rid of Duke, but one such attempt while they're in the park with Katie's dog walker back-fires and sets both Max and Duke off on a wild and dangerous journey around the city. When Gidget realizes that Max has disappeared, she enlists their mutual pet friends, plus a caged hawk named Tiberius (Albert Brooks), and a few other neighborhood pets (including the Dana Carvey voiced "Pops"), to help her find Max. Meanwhile, Max and Duke have to try escaping from animal control workers, a disfigured alley cat named Ozone (Steve Coogan) and a small, but crazed and bitter bunny named Snowball (Kevin Hart), who was discarded by the magician he worked for and now leads a sewer-dwelling group of radicals called The Flushed Pets, who are bent on wiping out all the humans ? and who decide that Max and Duke are also their enemies.
"The Secret Life of Pets" is every bit as entertaining as you'd hope, based on its theatrical trailers, or its movie posters, or just its title. Co-writers Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio and Brian Lynch exploit many of the well-known quirks of different kinds of pets, but give each character in the film its own personality. Then, once the script clearly establishes who each of these characters are, it gives them plenty to do, but without making the story unnecessarily complicated. Co-directors Chris Renaud (who also voices the aforementioned lost guinea pig) and Yarrow Cheney bring this promising concept and excellent script to realization by keeping the plot moving and not overdoing any of the film's big ideas or overplaying any of the gags. Finally, with the film's impressive voice cast and the filmmakers' "Despicable" history, the performances and the visuals are excellent across the board. On the critical side, I found a subplot involving Duke's backstory and a "Grease"-inspired sausage-fueled dream sequence to be odd and unnecessary diversions, and I would've liked to see just a little more originality and inspiration sprinkled throughout the movie. However, there's no denying that "The Secret Life of Pets" is very well-done good, clean fun for the whole family. "A-"


text:
| x.keepingthemoon.x chapter 1 . 2/9/2013
that was cute :)
| xBroken-Glassx chapter 1 . 9/9/2011
I like a bitchier Ryan. I know he comes off as innocent, but there has to be an evil side of him somewhere. Even though he wound up being ultimately good in the movies, his persnickety behavior has to be in there somewhere.
I also love how you added everything up. Gabriella and Sharpay's discussion on love led to her being faithful to Zeke, Troy and Ryan's 'bite your tongue' thing, and even the idea of being more violent during their make out session all tied together in the end. It was cool to see, although I personally can't stand them being so harsh with each other. I guess it surprised me since Ryan stated earlier that he hated when the boys he made out with messed with his hair. And then the bruises. Either way, it was a fantastic fic!
| Pull-Marine chapter 1 . 9/6/2010
Well...that's an original Tryan, I must say !
This is very different than the other stories I've read. Not about the naughty Ryan (I knew him, I love him :p), but with all this strange atmosphere of foggy feelings...It was also realistic in a way, but I don't know, I'm kind of disconcerted. I should read it a second time.
Anyway, it was very well written ;)
[Sorry for the possible errors, I'm french]
| look at the stars chapter 1 . 4/3/2009
I love this.
| Lyrical Rex chapter 1 . 11/16/2008
This story? A WORK OF BRILLIANCE. Ryan playing devil's advocate, Troy and Gabriella's little bit, Zeke and Sharpay, especially the last part with them where Sharpay realizes she's in love. And. Everything. Great job.
| CrissCrossedHaiku chapter 1 . 10/23/2008
This rocked my world. xD Awesome work!
| Mrpointyhorns chapter 1 . 8/22/2008
Great job. I loved it!
| LadyAJ chapter 1 . 4/13/2008
Good story, but I would love to see a sequel! ::hint hint::
| KittyBlue chapter 1 . 11/24/2007
hm.. i luv the way you write! it left me wanting more! :P
| Damien Mortensen chapter 1 . 9/6/2007
Wow, one of the very few good fanfictions in High School Musical-you made my day.
| SunxMoon chapter 1 . 8/27/2007
A sexy, well-written Tryan story. Delicious. :D
| DoctorDarkAngel chapter 1 . 8/16/2007
Oh my gosh! I don't know how I ever missed this in the past! But I just found it and I absolutly loved it! Great job! :)
| StillThereForMe chapter 1 . 7/19/2007
CONGRATULATIONS! This fic is without a doubt THE most realistic portrayal I've read of Ryan Evans! (in my opinion anyway) And FINALLY someone else seems to notice that "I'm proud to call you my sister"! You are absolutely right, and I completely 100% agree with you on the fact that way too many fics make Ryan way too innocent and sweet. Awesome job, and for once I actually enjoyed SharpayxZeke. Oh, and I also loved the Gabriella rationalization "it was easier to be the perfect couple than it was to be in love". I completely understood and could relate to that (i've seen it happen with several other couples before, I've never actually been in that situation). Great, great job. One of the best fics I've read of High School Musical yet.
| Peppermint Smile chapter 1 . 7/13/2007
sexy. i love naughty Ryan ;)
| samgrabeel chapter 1 . 7/2/2007
loved it!