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Flash CS5.5 TrainingLearning247
Informação importante
|Campus online
- Curso
- Online
- Duração:
- Campus online
O que se aprende nesse curso?
PC training
Flash Video
• Format: DVD or Instant Download
• Duration: 10.5 Hours (147 lessons)
• Instructor: Andy Anderson
• Platform: Windows PC or Mac
In this Adobe Flash CS5.5 Training Video, expert author Andy Anderson explains the ins and outs of using this powerful animation and video creation program. Adobe Flash has become a web standard for animations, video and even gaming. In this training video, Andy introduces you to the basics of Flash, preparing you to utilize it in many different fashions, including a review of the new features for the 5.5 update to the CS5 suite.
Andy starts with an introduction to the new features available in CS5.5, including asset sharing with projects, converting vector images to bitmap, publishing to iOS devices and much more. You will then get into the basics of creating your Flash documents and projects, this video tutorial covers topics ranging from working with text, graphics, animation and video. You will learn how to work within the Flash timeline, utilize layers, create shapes and use the pen and other drawing tools. You will be taught how to import graphics, save symbols to the library, work with masks, and even introduce audio into your Flash documents. Andy teaches you using a unique combination of humor and instruction, which is extremely effective in allowing you to retain what you are taught.
By the conclusion of this computer based training video, you will have all the necessary skills to create your own flash movies, animations and web documents or even full websites! Andy has included working files to allow you to use the exact same files he is using, increasing your ability to replicate the examples and learn Flash at your own pace.
Benefits of this Software Training:
• Tuition by expert tutors.
• Narrated training videos demonstrate the key tools and professional techniques
helping you to work faster and smarter.
• Learning is fast as the trainers guide you using simplistic terms and minimal jargon.
• Personal Tutoring - Step-by-step video training from your own desktop.
Delivered via DVD/CD training or online tuition.
• The tutor transfers knowledge to you quickly and effectively.
• All the concepts of each application are explained clearly and precisely.
• Course works on PC and Mac.
• Alternative to a boring book or manual and expensive training courses,
seminars and amp; classes.
• Jump to and from lessons - learn at your own pace.
• The visual and practical nature shortens the learning curve compared to standard
training manuals.
The following sections are available for free viewing. Click on the links below to get started.Free Videos From This Course The Flash Timeline Working With Color Using Predefined Shape Tools Working With Gradients Working With Graphic Symbols Working With Fonts, Colors and amp; Size Building A Frame-By-Frame Animation Morphing Object With Shape Tweening Animating A Flash Mask Flash TV - Part 3 Working With Effects And Motion - Part 2 Using Flash To Access Web Sites Using Flash To Load External Images Using Macintosh And Windows Projectors Whats New In Flash CS5.5 Chapter 1 Introduction Working With Enhanced Scaling Assets Adding Pinning Support For IK Objects The Improved Snippets Panel Sharing Assets With The Projects Panel Cache As Bitmap, And Export To Bitmap Converting Vector To Bitmap Publishing To iOS Devices Conclusion Introduction To Flash Chapter 2 Intro Opening and amp; Saving Flash Working Documents Modifying Flash Preferences Controlling Document Settings Creating A Flash Project Basics Of Flash Publishing Quick Tip - Running The Animation Within Flash Quick Tip - Customize Tools Panel Working In The Flash Environment Chapter 3 Intro The Flash Timeline Working With Layers Controlling Layer Complexity With Folders Working With Layer Preferences Understanding Flash Scenes Quick Tip - Utilizing Flash File Info Quick Tip - Quick Access To Scenes Working With Colors - Gradients And Shapes Chapter 4 Intro Working With Color Using The Flash Deco Tool The Line Drawing Tool Understanding The Pencil Tool Working With The Brush and amp; Scatter Brush Tools Using Predefined Shape Tools Working With Gradients Quick Tip - Changing Colors With The Eyedropper Tool Quick Tip - Adding Strokes And Fills To Objects Quick Tip - Controlling The Edges Of Objects Working With The Flash Library Chapter 5 Intro Working With Flash Objects Understanding The Flash Library Working With Graphic Symbols Using Movie Clips Working With Flash Buttons Generating Graphic Symbols Creating A Movie Clip Making A Simple Button Working With External Libraries Swapping Library Symbols Quick Tip - Converting Strokes To Fills Working Flash Text Chapter 6 Intro Classic Versus CS5 Text Working In Classic Flash Text Working With Fonts, Colors and amp; Size Tracking, Kerning And Leading Spell Check and amp; Find And Replace Working With Rotation And Alignment Embedding Fonts Breaking Text Apart Multiple Text Boxes Quick Tip - Breaking And Reconnecting Column Text Quick Tip - Working With Special Characters Quick Tip - Formatting Columnar Text Importing Graphics Into Flash Chapter 7 Intro Bitmap Versus Vector Dragging And Dropping From An Application Dragging And Dropping From The Desktop Using The Flash Import Command Editing Bitmap Images Compressing Bitmap Images Converting Bitmaps To Vector Quick Tip - Setting Selection Preferences Working With Flash Animation: Frame-By-Frame Chapter 8 Intro Building A Frame-By-Frame Animation Modifying A Frame-By-Frame Animation Working With Alignment And Distribution Editing Tips Working With Classic Tweening Chapter 9 Intro Understanding Classic Tweening Setting Up The Document Creating A Classic Tween Rotating A Tween Object Working With Gravity Changing The Shape Of A Tween Shape Using Guide Layers Morphing Object With Shape Tweening Working With Shape Hinting Quick Tip - Working With Multiple Spans Quick Tip - Fading With A Tween Working In The Motion Tween Panel Chapter 10 Intro The Motion Editor Panel Setting Up The Document Creating A Frame-By-Frame Movie Clip Simulating Ground Using A Gradient Adding Mountains With A Motion Tween Creating A Phone Pole Adding Motion Tween Clouds Quick Tip - Centering Objects Using Shortcuts Quick Tip - Adding A Curve To A Motion Tween Working With Masks Chapter 11 Intro Generating A Basic Mask Animating A Flash Mask Adding To The Animated Mask Shape Changing A Mask Working With Complex Masks Adding Layers To An Existing Mask Quick Tip - Adding Layers To A Mask Working Audio In Flash Chapter 12 Intro Working With Audio Adding Audio To A Slide Show Creating A Stop Audio Button Playing and amp; Pausing Audio Syncing Audio To The Timeline Adding Audio To A Button Using Audio Editor In Flash Quick Tip - Controlling The Height Of A Timeline Layer Working With Video In Flash Chapter 13 Intro Using The Flash Media Encoder Adding Video To A Flash Document Controlling Flash Video Properties Customizing The Video Interface Flash TV - Lesson 1 Flash TV - Lesson 2 Flash TV - Lesson 3 Working With Effects - Filters And Bones Chapter 14 Intro Working With Effects And Motion - Lesson 1 Working With Effects And Motion - Lesson 2 Working With Flash Filters - Lesson 1 Working With Flash Filters - Lesson 2 Understanding The Bone Tool - Lesson 1 Understanding The Bone Tool - Lesson 2 Quick Tip - Letting Your Users Control The Animation Using Components And Snippets Chapter 15 Intro Using Flash To Access Web Sites Controlling Movie Clips With Components Modifying The Flash Cursor Using Flash To Load External Images Quick Tip - Whatever Happened To Behaviors Publishing A Flash Movie Chapter 16 Intro Debugging And Publishing Basics Bandwidth Profiler And Simulate Download Working Through Publish Settings Exporting To Other Formats Exporting To The QuickTime Format Using Macintosh And Windows Projectors Saving Publish Settings Quick Tip - The SWF History Log Quick Tip - Setting Publish Settings Conclusion Conclusion
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Hard Reset Review
It's very rare to come across shooters quite as old school as Hard Reset these days, but when you look at its pedigree it's not entirely a surprise. Polish developer Flying Wild Hog is comprised of former members of developers People Can Fly and CD Project Red who were responsible for games like Painkiller, Bulletstorm and The Witcher 2.
It's always interesting when you know a little about the heritage of a game and sort-of-like family DNA, can see traits leaking through. In the case of Hard Reset it's left us with a frantically fun but flawed twitch shooter that's an impressively atmospheric throwback to the likes of Serious Sam and Painkiller from the nineties shooter scene.
Even its name – Hard Reset – evokes a mid-nineties action movie vibe – it wouldn't feel strange if it had a 'starring Jean Claude Van Damme' tagline.
That's especially fitting given how its lead character cyborg detective, Major James Fletcher, talks like a straight-to-video action hero as he traverses the cyberpunk megacity of Bezoar.
Quite why he's fighting this invading army of malfunctioning robots is a murky tale told in cool looking comic book cut-scenes that get crazier as the game progresses.
To say that Hard Reset aesthetically pays homage to Blade Runner would be something of an understatement. Its brooding neon city skylines, deep dark alleyways lined with flashing vending machines and various tech-filled warehouses are overflowing with cyberpunk style, but anyone expecting the sort of deep ethical navel gazing of a Deus Ex: Human Revolution is barking up the wrong tree.
Hard Reset isn't really about story. This beautiful, dark world and the impressive engine that drives it are all here to support its hard paced pyrotechnic and explosive shooting.
Make no mistake, this is a very traditional sort of shooter: as you gather ammo and health packs scattered in its corridor style levels, and fend off waves of robot foes that come relentlessly at you.
Hard Reset prides itself on frantic blasting action and isn't afraid of being tough as nails. Thankfully you've a wide set of tools to survive with, and Hard Reset's approach to weapons is almost sandbox-like as your two transforming guns each have five types they morph into.
The game's bespoke engine really is stunning.
The kinetic based CLN changes into an Assault rifle, Shotgun, Grenade launcher, Proximity mine gun and Rocket launcher, while your NRG energy based gun is a rapid Plasma rifle, Shock Blaster , Electric Morter, homing Smart Gun and Railgun.
You also have combat equipment that increases your health or enables you to slow down time when injured to survive until you can grab the next health pack.
Each gun or piece of equipment, bar the basic assault rifle and plasma gun, has to be unlocked, and all have three upgrades apiece. These can be bought at upgrade stations using NANO points, which are scattered around levels or gained by spectacularly killing enemies. It's an upgrade system that eventually lets you tailor your tool kit, and is fun to explore but can feel quite limited early on.
But for all the crazy weapons you have in Hard Reset none quite match the explosive environment around you. Every area is crammed with things for you to shoot that will decimate foes: explosive barrels that shatter robots to bits as they go up, electrical junction boxes that send arcs of electrical current into robot crowds, signs and rubble that will drop on their head.
The physics engine in Hard Reset is an impressive one, with key bits of the world being destructible. Mastering the art of environmental destruction is key, because your various robot foes are tough, and when they swarm you mere weapon damage often isn't enough to thin the metallic horde.
Shooting then becomes all about switching between the various weapons you've unlocked and using the environment to destroy foes. Swathes of those horrible rotor blade bots swarming you? Switch to shotgun at short range or blow up a nearby junction box.
Missile bots firing at you from a high vantage point? A steady stream of cumulative plasma fire should do the job, and of course, when you have a big bad charging robot barrelling down at you nothing beats a niffy side step and a chunky rocket in it's back.
What's great about Hard Reset is that you pretty much throw the concept of reloading out of the window, all you need to do is make sure you have ammo and you can keep firing.
It makes for an intense experience that doesn't let up, and when you're caught up in the moment it's fine, but that 'in the zone' feeling does wear thin.
Using the environment around you as a weapon is often the only way to survive.
There aren't a great many robot types and as you get deeper into the game it just throws more of the ones you've encountered at you, often in overwhelming numbers. Hard Reset has no quick save feature, which seems very unusual for a PC game of this style, and many of its console style check points are a little frustrating.
You find yourself learning the patterns of the enemies each time you die, (they're always the same) almost as if this were a scrolling shooter, and that can be addictive, but eventually gets a little grinding.
That's especially true later on, when some of the scripted events can lead to instant deaths, and while boss fights are visually impressive there were times it reminds you of perhaps why many developers have abandoned the boss concept.
Let's just say, if you haven't kept up your circle strafing skills honed you're done for in Hard Reset. Every game has an element of repetition in it's play, the trick is making those mechanics engaging and breaking them up, but Hard Reset doesn't quite have enough variety to manage that, and while levels are well designed they're extremely linear.
That said, while Hard Reset is a bit of a one trick pony it does that trick quite well, and looks really good doing it. An increasing number of PC gamers are hooking up their PC's to large screen TV's to take advantage of the graphics their rigs can pump out so it makes sense that Flying Wild Hog included support for the Xbox controller in its game. We can attest to the fact that if any game was worthy of being big screen treatment it's Hard Reset.
While Hard Reset is an enjoyable experience, it often feels like an impressive tech demo, especially with it's raft of environmental and physics based effects. We really do hope Flying Wild Hog licences out its tech.
It's an amazing engine, especially given its ability to shine so impressively even on mid-range systems, but Hard Reset's game play range isn't quite up to the standard of its engine and aesthetics. But for all its flaws there's plenty to admire and enjoy here if you just want a brief old school adrenaline rush and fireworks galore.

subset: commoncrawl


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On Thu, 29 May 2003, Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote:
> I've seen this happen when the voltage drops below 6.5 volt or so. But not
> in any production soekris.
I forgot to say that I tried two different power supplies: a simple
electronically regulated 12 V / 1 A power supply and a 16 V / 2.2 A
switching power supply. My buddies use yet another type, and one of them
even has it connected to an UPS. I thought about a power supply or
brownout issue, too, but the fact that it all works with the same power
supply and the old net4501 won't let me believe it anymore.
- Manuel


text:
The hunters become the hunted. . . .
Driven from their hometown of Mystic Falls, both Stefan Salvatore and his brother, Damon, arrived in Europe looking for a fresh start. But Samuel, a wealthy and cunning vampire, has other plans for them. First he ruined Stefan's peaceful existence and now he's framing Damon for the most gruesome murders London has ever seen.
United against their common enemy, Stefan and Damon are stunned when they realize that the source of… (more)
Publisher: HarperTeen (January 17, 2012)
Format: EPUB
Page count: 256 pages
File size: 1.9 MB
Protection: DRM
Language: English


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Azura A101 review: Azura Cruise Review by 38anchor
Overall Member Rating
Azura A101 review
Destination: Southern Caribbean
Embarkation: Barbados
First off, a bit of background. I was celebrating my 40th whilst onboard, and although both myself and my partner have cruised before we have never been with P&O. Previous cruises have all been on Royal Caribbean out of USA to the Caribbean and Mexican Riviera. We have sailed on Freedom, Mariner and Oasis so Azura was going to be the smallest ship we had ever sailed. Undoubtedly, because of this, comparisons were made against RCI throughout. I also should say that we totally love RCI and were trying P&O just to see what an alternative line would offer. We knew there would be differences but we did book the holiday with an open mind.
Flights - we were flying from Manchester with Thomas Cook and had pre-booked our seats (1A & 1B) in Premium. I was a little concerned about the weight restrictions and More size of cabin luggage but careful packing meant we were just about OK. Personally I do find the 23kg a little restrictive and the ability to purchase more would be a welcome addition. There were a few initial problems at check-in as the plane had been changed and so the booked seats had not been transferred over. This meant we now had people sat in the booked seats. It did get resolved, but there were a few irate customers at the airport who were now being moved to less desirable locations and being split up. There were also a few customers who did not realise you could pre-book seats and they were also less than happy. Not sure if the fault for that should lay with P&O directly or the TA's they had booked through.
The flight itself was excellent - food just OK but the crew were fab - really friendly and helpful. Also helped having row 1A & B as it meant we had loads of room.
When we landed I did recognise one thing that goes in P&O's favour - bussed straight to the ship with no bother about reclaiming luggage. This was done very quick and we were onboard by 2.30pm.
First stop was to book the Retreat and speciality restaurants. I did think that you could do both in the Atrium, but the Retreat could only be done at the Spa so off we went and managed to get 2 sea days at a cost of £20 each. Back down to the Atrium where we booked Sindhu, XVII and the Supper Club (held in the Glass House) - we only knew about this by reading the forums although Nestor, the Glass House Manager did also mention it to us as he was dealing with the restaurant bookings. We managed to get the nights and times we wanted, although it was quite difficult to discuss the booking as a steel band was playing right next to us, so you did have to shout to try and get any communication going. I did also wonder how people on later flights and Saturday flights would fare - we were OK as we were the first flight in and one of the first people onboard.
Next was a visit to the cabin to drop off hand luggage. Again, we had spent quite a bit of time choosing our cabin and had decided on a Superior Deluxe on deck 9 - we went for D732 which was the very last cabin on the port side. This meant we had the extended balcony which was contained within the white superstructure of the ship. First impressions were very good - great size of both cabin and balcony and a good layout. We have had deluxe balconies and grand suites on RCI and this is definitely better than a standard deluxe balcony - probably equivalent to a Junior Suite. It was also good to see the tea and coffee facilities - and once we met our Cabin Steward Manish we placed our order for a bottle of Gin. Again, we only managed to do this as we already knew about it as there was no information in the cabin about this, or on the interactive TV. I think the TV did get updated with the information a day or two later. As it was we ordered without actually knowing the price as Manish had no clue either although we had a rough idea it would be around £11. Also another bonus was the ability to bring alcohol onboard. As it was my birthday we had bought a couple of bottle of Veuve Clicquot Rose with us, as we knew we couldn't buy it on board. To be fair, they did have yellow label at a very reasonable price - as was all the alcohol and drinks onboard.
We then had our first wander and this is where I have to say I was a bit disappointed - although it is a new ship it did feel rather dated in its dEcor and design, with none of the wow factor that the RCI ships have. The layout was difficult to navigate, and I wasn't that keen on having to go through one venue to get to another. There was a lift broken (which never got repaired) and although we did try to use the stairs as much as possible, when we did need to use the lifts there was inevitable a long wait. I was most disappointed with the public bathrooms - they did remind me of those found on a public ferry and the bins were constantly overflowing with paper towels etc. They were also quite hard to find, and when they were being cleaned it was always at the most inappropriate times eg outside the MDR during dinner or outside Manhatten just after a show - there seemed to be no thought about the best times to close them, and this often meant a long search to find one that was useable.
Food - first night was open seating but from then on we were assigned a table of 8, late dining in the Oriental. I have to say we had wonderful table mates that really made the cruise for us, which was a good job as we didn't have a good time of it with the dinner itself. Our waiter seemed to be quite new and didn't have a clue. On some nights it did look as if he was trying, but on others he was just surly with a bit of an attitude. I did mention on the first night my love of vegetables, especially broccoli and I would be extremely grateful if he could try and get me some most if not all nights - this never happened even if it was on a particular meal which I hadn't ordered. I did try and request this again but just seemed to be going no-where. The food most nights was warm at best, and one night we just refused to eat it and it all got sent back. The replacement was not much better. We were constantly the last to be served, and have a feeling this may have gone towards receiving lukewarm food most nights. We did complain the maitre d' quite a few occasions, but again he seemed just so disinterested! I would have thought he would come back to our table to see how we were getting on, but this never happened either.
One night my partner and another diner ordered the Pigeon off the menu. After waiting for our main courses for over 10 mins the waiter came over to tell my partner (but not the other diner) that they had 'run out' so would he choose something else. We all laughed saying that my partner had lucked out and the other diner had got the last of the Pigeon. As it turned out, the other diner got nothing - he had been forgotten about and had to re-order as we were all eating.
One night I did actually get my plate of broccoli but it was stone cold - having asked for it to be replaced I was given another stone cold serving. This was passed round the table for everyone to feel, including the waiter. He took it way, eventually bringing back THE SAME SERVING we had all touched saying he had put it in the microwave for 5 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!! Not the type of service expected within a main Dining Room aboard a modern cruise ship!
I did enjoy looking on the interactive TV to see that evening menu's but invariable found it had slightly changed once we got to the dining room which was annoying. Example, 3rd formal night was meant to be a fish plate to include lobster tail, prawns etc. When I saw the actual menu it was prawns and cod. When I queried this with the waiter I was told the lobster had all gone, but the prawns were just as good..... Sorry but I know which I prefer...........
I also got food dropped down me on the last formal night by our waiter - very nice! No dry cleaning on board either. I did get offered £20 credit against dry cleaning when I got home, but if the dress was ruined and the stains wouldn't come out then P&O take no responsibility and I would have to claim against my own insurance. This was said to me after I went to see guest services - bear in mind I initially mentioned it to them at 9am the next day, and after going back repeatedly I was only told this at 7pm. They were supposed to get back to me during the day but had 'forgotten'!!!!!!!!!
Back to the Dining Room food - apart from the terrible service we received I would say the menus were very hit and miss. I realise that it has a very British theme, and some meals were very good, but some were plain awful. The Beef Wellington was wonderful whereas I have had better battered fish from a frozen Birds Eye packet! No one had a clue what type of fish it was - the TV said haddock, the menu said Perch. Even the waiter didn't have a clue (surprise, surprise) and just said 'fish is fish - does it matter!'
The portions were small, which personally I don't find to be a bad thing, and you could request more. The vegetables and potatoes however only ever seemed to 'go' with one of the meals on offer that night, and some combinations seemed very odd. My partner also found the choices very limited compared to RCI, although I didn't find it too bad and could always find something I thought I would like.
So how about the buffet........... I'm afraid to say this was even worse in our eyes and we tried not to go as much as possible, both for lunch and breakfast.
The layout of the venues was awful, and it was just always busy. The serving stations were small with such limited choice - I couldn't believe the same hot meals being served in the dining room were also being served in the buffet - I would have expected the choices to have been different. I also didn't like the recycling of food - coq au vin for dinner and then back on the next days lunch menu. This happened a few times!
Personally I do try to eat healthy so the poolside grill serving pizzas, burgers etc wasn't really an option, although I did find out they did baked potatoes, beans and cheese which I liked.
Maybe I wouldn't have minded the buffet choices so much if I hadn't been so spoilt on RCI. They always had so much choice with carveries every day, amazing salad selections, pasta etc....... I also found the ability to move around in RCI's Windjammer just so much easier than having to queue and wait with your tray on P&O.
It was the little things that annoyed me, like not replenishing sauces and rolls etc, or not even having bowls and spoons next to the porridge, so I would have to go right back to the entrance to pick these up.
One time I did ask where I could find some tomato ketchup - I was shown where the correct location was but they had run out. When I asked could they get me some the assistant actually sighed at me like I was putting her out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I guess this sort of sums up the attitude I found most of the crew to have - just 'can't be bothered'. Having been used to RCI and the 'nothing is too much trouble' / 'can do' attitude I found this severely lacking on P&O, especially with the dining staff. There was no interaction, and when we did try to interact and have a chat or a laugh with someone we were just met with blank stares!
An example being that I needed a plastic glass from one of the deck bars for some water. I went up and asked if I could take one and I was told no. When I asked why, and told them what I wanted it for I was told they didn't have many and they were only for beer anyway!!!!!!! The guy then just turned away - how rude!
Anyway, on a more positive note the 'pay for' dining experiences were fabulous.
The Glass House itself was a great place to go, and probably our favourite on the whole ship. It was really nice to be able to get such a variety of wines by the glass, and they even had these miniature glasses so you could try a small amount of each wine for free. The staff serving here were lovely and so friendly, especially Nestor the manager who was fabulous.
We did try the tasting plates (3 for £4.95) which were great - everyone seemed to the love the prawns but for me the best was the bean and chorizo cassoulet.
We also did the supper club here one night (its only held on a formal night) and the meal was outstanding with each course matched with a wine. Before the evening Nestor made sure we were happy with the set menu, and on the evening was very entertaining, giving us a commentary on the food and wine we were having.
We also dined in XVII (on my birthday) and this was just amazing. Everything from the food to the service couldn't be faulted and Tony had even arranged for a bottle of champagne to be presented to me by and officer, and a cake to be delivered to the table. Wonderful experience, not to be missed.
The final dining option was Sindhu, which again we tried for an evening meal and the tasting plates during the day. Both meals were superb although we did have long waits inbetween courses during the evening meal. Again talking to other passengers this did seem to be the norm, and for some it did actually spoilt the experience. Thankfully not for us.
I should also mention here that the alternative dining options booked up extremely fast, and many people were left not being able to get in anywhere. If you want to try them - book as soon as you board as you may be left disappointed!
So now onto the Retreat which was another aspect of the ship I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately I was again left quite disappointed. We had booked sea days and I knew from reading various forums that you had to get their early to get a lounger in the sun. Well people started to get there and queue from about 8.30am and I saw on both occasions people getting quite angry as they couldn't get a bed in the sun. There are just over 50 spaces in total and I would say that 75% are in the sun, the rest in the shade.
On our first visit we were given a booklet which explained the 'use' of the Retreat and loungers. Now one of the first things the booklet stated was that you could get breakfast and lunch within the Retreat. Breakfast was served from 9am - 10.30am and on both visits we never did get offered anything. When I did query this I was told it is up to the guest to request it from one of the 2 stewards, not the other way round.
Lunch again was a bit of a strange one. From about 12pm I saw the stewards wandering round asking certain people what they would like to order - there seemed no system to who they were asking. Even though we were one of the first people in the retreat I had to call the Steward over about 1pm to ask what was happening with lunch. I was told he would be back in the next 20 mins (it was more like 45) and then lunch would take another 20 mins as they were so busy. I think the problem is that they only have 3 or 4 tables to serve lunch from (that only seat 4), for all 50+ passengers. The 2nd time we did say we were happy to eat at our lounger but it was still a wait. You wouldn't mind but they were only serving wraps and fries (and only one bowl of fries per couple, as apparently fries are classed as a complete meal so it should only be a wrap OR fries!!!!!!!!)
Another issue I had was although this was meant to be a 'quiet' area we had quite a large group near us who got quite boisterous - it would have been good if the stewards had dealt with it themselves. As it was, I got chatting to this (actually very nice) group, who had actually booked every day of the whole cruise at a discounted rate. This wouldn't have bothered me that much but we knew plenty of people who had wanted to book into the Retreat but it was fully booked. This group also seemed to be able to add 'friends' at a last minute notice, and certainly received preferential treatment. This included having their towels laid out in prime positions (as we realised on our 2nd visit) by the stewards before the Retreat was open to anyone else!
The retreat itself was very nice, although the Lavender smell must have long gone. I never saw anyone having treatments, and no-one ever came round offering them. The loungers were very comfy, although the towels were looking very sorry for themselves considering how long the ship has been in service - stained and fraying. It was great having use of the pool and 2 hot tubs but I do have to question the whole concept of the Retreat. On sea days it was absolutely jam packed out on deck, and times it was hard to get from A to B. A wheelchair user I befriended said it was nigh on impossible moving round on deck on a sea day and I can understand why.
So, what other views have I got on Azura and P&O........... Well I thought the laundry was excellent - much better than having to rely on RCI to do your pressing and washing. I also enjoyed the varied ports and the cruise did seem more port intensive than RCI.
More importantly, even though I love cruising with an international passenger list, I found the all British pax wonderful. We met some fabulous people, and even though we had quite a few gripes we did have a wonderful time and met some lovely people.
Now I know that everyone has their own opinions on a cruise and you may think that it was only us that found Azura to have a few problems, but we did speak to many, many other passengers and the general consensus was that it just wasn't up to scratch. On the last morning we went to the main dining room for breakfast. During our meal the captain came over the PA system to wish us all a good flight home, and to say how pleased he was to receive so many 'excellent' feedback forms. Everyone around us either started to roll their eyes or commented on how it wasn't them who had submitted that form................ Less
Published 02/15/11
Cabin review: CC Superior Deluxe Balcony StateroomSuperior Deluxe Balcony Stateroom (CC) Reviews >>
Read Cruise Critic's Azura Review >>
Fun, relaxing, great vacation!
Awesome Itinerary and Ship Exp...
Amazing ship
First timers with P&O ....... ...
If this is a taster cruise.......
Good but not great, ship was a...
Fabulous Cruise
Sad drop of standards at P&O
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ARM Mali Technologies have been developed to allow ever increasing graphics complexity within the thermal limits of mobile devices. The technologies provide significant system-wide bandwidth savings across all formats to ensure that end-users are able to experience the latest in graphics quality on any device.More information about Mali Technologies
Imaging and computer vision
Through the acquisition of Apical, ARM is able to provide cutting-edge imaging and computer vision IP that is based on fundamental research into human vision and visual processing. The technology enables electronic devices to capture visual inputs and produce high quality user viewing experiences, and increasingly to understand and learn from their environments, just like we do. ARM Mali Camera and Assertive Display IP powers many cameras and displays today, from smartphones to embedded and IoT devices.
Why ARM in Multimedia
The Mali family includes the High Performance GPU Roadmap® which is designed specifically to bring the highest levels of performance to premium devices with a particular emphasis on maintaining energy efficiency. In addition, the High Area Efficiency GPU roadmap focuses on delivering high quality graphics within the smallest possible area, and the Ultra-Low Power roadmap offers high quality graphics within an extremely low power budget for extended device battery-life. The ARM Mali Video processors also adhere to these values, offering a high-performance, low-bandwidth technology that scales to deliver protected video to a wide range of smartphones, tablets and SmartTVs. This has subsequently been joined by the ARM Mali Display processors, which offer content protection from download to display at significantly lower SoC bandwidth consumption.
When the graphics, video and display processors are implemented altogether in an SoC, ARM architectural benefits such as AFBC and Transaction Elimination come into their own and offer exceptional bandwidth savings. Software integration effort can also be reduced as each processor's Android driver will work efficiently with any other ARM driver straight out of the box. This optimized Android multimedia stack addresses universally resource-consuming challenges such as integrating and optimizing processors from different suppliers or supporting regular Android updates. By taking advantage of ARM's pre-optimized software stack, partners have more time to differentiate their solutions and bring their product to market sooner.


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Neil Craig should be considered the clubhouse leader in the contest for the Melbourne coaching position. He has only played a round or two, and might yet land in the rough, but he is better positioned than anyone to wear the red and blue jacket.
This is not suggesting that Craig has the job, or a confident prediction that he will land it. Melbourne chief executive Peter Jackson, who really should be viewed as an AFL-appointed receiver-cum-administrator of a busted club, is not the type who makes snap decisions. He will weigh up all the options carefully.
But it is apparent that Craig is one of those options, and that he has some unique advantages. Paul Roos obviously would trump him if he wanted the gig, but this does not appear likely. The bookmaker who made Roos an odds-on favourite is surely guessing, based on Roosy's willingness to take Jackson's phone call.
That Jackson has not contacted either Rodney Eade or Mark Williams can be read various ways. One interpretation is that the Dees are focused on Roos and will move to the others only once they give up on him. Another is that Jackson, as he told this columnist, has no need to rush. Eade and Williams are not going anywhere. Jackson can also use the time to take a close-up look at Craig.
When Craig came to Melbourne as Mark Neeld's consigiliere (sage adviser in mafia-speak), he made it plain that he was no longer interested in coaching. He claimed that he was cured of that dangerous addiction.
The past couple of weeks shows that that he was still susceptible - a recovering coach in the throes of a relapse.
Craig has said he will wait to see what kind of coach the Demons want before deciding whether he is a candidate.
''It's absolutely important, first and foremost, that the Melbourne Football Club have got to decide what their next coach needs to look like, and the skill set that he needs,'' he said on Friday. ''Because that might be poles apart from what I've got, the skills I've got or how I see the game.'' This can be translated as ''I'll put my hand up it if they are willing to seriously look at me.'' As the incumbent caretaker, he will know whether the club has him in the frame.
Results will tell him, as much as anything. If Jackson prefers others, the ex-Crows coach can quietly withdraw. Craig differs from most nightwatchmen coaches in several significant ways. Not least is that the Melbourne Football Club has him contracted for 2014 on an estimated $400,000 or more. If the Demons don't want him, they either have to find him a new role or pay him out. Any payout would be funded by the AFL and - yes, we're running ahead of the play here - AFL second-in-command Gillon McLachlan (who oversees the Melbourne ''receivership'') would be entitled to ask why the club needs to pay another coach $500,000-$600,000 when it has Craig already on the books. Futhermore, it is unclear what role Craig can fill at Melbourne if he is not the senior coach. He will not be head of the football department in Melbourne's revamped, more conventional structure. Theoretically, he could remain in some mentor-like role, along the lines of Eade at Collingwood, Dean Bailey at Adelaide, supporting the new coach.
But it is never easy for the beaten candidate to work with one who won. In any case, the new coach might not want Craig at his side. Eade and Williams wouldn't need him, or if the Dees opt for an untried younger coach (eg Adam Simpson), Craig would be reverting to the same type of adviser-old hand role he had (officially head of ''sports performance'', whatever that means) when Mark Neeld was coach.
Craig is also atypical of caretaker coaches in that he is highly experienced, with a more than respectable record at the Crows, where his win-loss ratio over seven years exceeded 55 per cent, well above the median. His finals record, though, wasn't flash (33 per cent, and never further than a preliminary).
That his results sharply declined in his Adelaide twilight should not disqualify him. The Crows hierarchy is adamant that he never lost the players, although his time was definitely up. The negatives were that he overdosed on rigour and process, creating a well-drilled yet rigid team that lacked flexibility. Yet, in 2009, the Crows seemed exciting, positive and the verge of contention; by 2011, Craig's ''Crowbots'' had been rendered redundant.
Craig knows what went wrong at Melbourne in the Neeld era, and the major slight is that he was a significant part of the regime. That said, knowing precisely what went awry is a massive advantage over external candidates. He has a knowledge of the players, their recent traumatic history or sensitivity and an understanding of their needs.
In the remaining games, he has the opportunity to bond with them.
Released from a siege psychology, the Demons played with more freedom and initiative in their victory over the Bulldogs. Craig, the ex-sports scientist who planned and prepared so meticulously at Adelaide, showed a willingness to let his players loose.
What the Dees need is precisely what coach Craig 2.0 has to demonstrate: that he can foster a positive psyche among the players and boost confidence without sacrificing all the worthy disciplined stuff.
The job is not his to lose. He just has more of a chance to win it.


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Best Of :: Food & Drink
A friend of mine once said of Royal Thai, "Oh, THAT place is good." From someone who was born and raised in Thailand and who once claimed she would never eat Thai food if she didn't make it, her statement was as high as praise gets. She has a point, though. Ask someone who has ever been to Thailand, and more often than not they will tell you it's difficult to come back to the States and eat Americanized Thai food. This isn't the case for all Asian cuisines, and it puts Thai food in its own unique category. There are several restaurants in our city that try to re-create the distinctive qualities of old Siam, but Royal Thai succeeds at it. With its solid rendition of the classics, the neighborhood family ambiance and the exceptionally affable service, it is no wonder the restaurant commands consistently large crowds. Outside of that recent burger import that shall remain unnamed, you won't find a longer, more patient or eagerly awaiting queue that side of Central Expressway on a Saturday evening.
Sure, their bright-ass paint job is obnoxious, but the barbacoa, picadillo and pastor tacos at Cool & Hot are freaking delicious. And if the fact that they offer their tacos for just over a buck each isn't enough for you, the menu also includes snow cones and ice cream. That's right: tacos and snow cones, y'all. Welcome to the intersection of awesome and hell yes. The atmosphere at Cool & Hot is exactly what you want when you're eating a street taco: It's a little trashy, a lot shaded. This place isn't slick or manufactured like so many of the taco spots in Dallas; it's just a great, unassuming little taco shack. Most days Cool & Hot is open 24 hours, so next time you have a late-night craving for tacos, skip that nasty Taco Bell Bueno and get yourself some Cool & Hot with a side of Pimp Juice or a scoop of Rocky Road.
Spiral Diner, the kick-ass vegan restaurant in Oak Cliff, has more than just delicious veggie-monster-friendly meals: They have Oogave natural soda on tap. Oogave offers a variety of yummy flavors, including mandarin Key lime, cola and ginger ale. But none compare to their watermelon cream soda. It's sweet, pink, no-high-fructose-corn-syrup, all agave-sweetened hippie happiness. Watermelon cream soda from Oogave is about the best thing that this planet has to offer, non-alcoholic bev-wise, and it's pretty expensive if you buy it at Whole Foods in a bottle. So, when you're getting your herbivore on at Spiral Diner and you have access to free refills of the stuff, take full advantage of that situation, friends. Order your veggies, pass on the regular water and roll up to that self-serve Oogave soda fountain ready to chug some delicious watermelon-flavored agave angel nectar. Mmm.
The only thing better than the spicy basil rice from Thai 2 Go (not to be confused with Thai2go in the Medical District) is the spicy basil rice from Thai 2 Go when it's delivered straight to your doorstep. If you're buying a new house anytime soon and you're not basing that purchase on whether or not the house is in Thai 2 Go's delivery area, you're doing it wrong. The delivery from Thai 2 Go is always on time or early; they always get your order exactly right; and did we mention that for a small fee, they're bringing you freaking delicious dinner that they made for you so you could spend your evening watching Flipping Out instead of cleaning your dirty kitchen? When the delivery guy from Thai 2 Go knocks on our door, we run screaming toward him like it's Thai Food Christmas. "Sweet! Potstickers!!! Thanks, Spicy Basil Santa!" You should probably hug him. Or at least give him a good tip.
Waiting for your food at the counter of Lockhart Smokehouse is like something straight from the beeftacular dreams of Travel Channel host Anthony Bourdain. You're waiting, watching the barbecue masters cut through the bark of a hunk of meat, and then they hand it over — a slice of wax paper heavy in the center with fat-shimmering meat. If you've ordered right, you've ordered the shoulder clod. The clod is a lean cut from the shoulder, but don't let that fool you: Lockhart's shoulder meat has got bigger, better flavor and texture and is the same price as the brisket at $7.50 per half pound. If you're scared by ordering something with "clod" in the title: Suck it up, watch an episode of No Reservations and head to Oak Cliff's best meatacular for a sample.
Under moonlight, these onion rings may look like crispy wristbands. They sure don't taste like wrist-wear. Order extra. Like, 14 baskets extra (hey, they're only $5.25 per order). Paired with their creamy chipotle aioli and a ridiculously cold beer, the gates of heaven approach faster than you could ask. This is one of those dishes you buy for an out-of-towner because you want to look cool. Every year, we here at the Dallas Observer yammer about eating Lee Harvey's burger on the beautiful porch, and forget to mention its crispy companion. Everything needs a sidekick. Dallas Police headquarters is right next to Lee Harvey's, you know. The onion rings — they're no different. They're Robin to Burger Batman, and they come with plenty of aioli sauce.


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What a progressive out look, what next, lap dancing, stripping, you will get more people visiting, but I do not think looking through or reading library books is what they will have in mind. But at least it will bring in more or different people, but some regulars may stop coming, but it will be more bums on seats.
Library offers pole-dancing lesson - National - The Star
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Here's a bit of what you'll find in the Summer 2011 issue.
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Main Street Empire: J. C. Penney in Nebraska - David Delbert Kruger
The April 1914 opening of downtown Grand Island's J. C. Penney store was as significant for the company's thirty-eight-year-old founder as it was for the crowd waiting along the Third Street sidewalk. For James Cash Penney, the Grand Island opening marked not only his first store in Nebraska, but also the closest he had come to operating near his hometown of Hamilton, Missouri. Nebraska's first J. C. Penney store was also, arguably, the first of the franchise's stores in the entire Midwest, as the next closest location was over three hundred miles away in Fort Morgan, Colorado. For nearly a decade, Penney had been creating a chain of sixty stores, but until 1914 his commercial reach extended no farther east than Colorado. The name "J. C. Penney" was almost unrecognizable to Nebraskans at the time, particularly in the shadows of established retailers like Brandeis, Miller & Paine, Herpolsheimer's, Louis Bergman, and Rudge & Guenzel. The Grand Island location had been planned from the company's first headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, but by the time it opened, Penney had already persuaded his board of directors to relocate the headquarters to New York City for better access to manufacturers, distribution lines, and financial institutions. If James Cash Penney and his company were moving east, it seemed logical that many additional J. C. Penney stores in Nebraska would soon follow. Within fifteen years, James Cash Penney was able to saturate more Nebraska towns- large and small-than any other retailer before or since, with most of his stores serving their respective main streets for more than fifty years.
Although Penney never resided in Nebraska, he understood its largely agrarian culture and had spent considerable time living in its border states of Missouri, Colorado, and Wyoming. Growing up in northwest Missouri, Penney had taken up farming as a teenager before health concerns forced him to migrate to Colorado and later Wyoming to pursue a career in retailing. However, even as he changed professions, Penney continued to be most comfortable in small towns and rural areas that were largely dependent upon agriculture. As he later reflected:
"For me, innately, cities were places to keep away from. Small towns were where I was at home. I knew how to get close to the lives of small town people, learning their needs and preferences and serving them accordingly."
Despite Penney's move to New York City in 1914, he still identified with farmers and ranchers, and believed that he shared their values and understood their needs. As a fundamentalist Christian, Penney also believed that a J. C. Penney store in their rural communities could be the embodiment of what a retail institution should be: an honest neighbor that operated by the golden rule "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." Penney had opened his first stores as cash-only Golden Rule mercantiles, primarily for sheep ranchers, miners, and their families, allowing them to maximize quality with minimum prices. Similarly, he also embraced thrifty farmers and railroad workers in Nebraska. The newspaper ads for his first Nebraska store featured headlines such as "Grand Island's Cheapest Store" and "We Cater to Railroad Men." While J. C. Penney stores did sell complete lines of fashionable apparel for the entire family, Penney never envisioned his department stores emulating the flair of J. L. Brandeis or Miller & Paine. J. C. Penney stores were simply a value-based mercantile for common Nebraskans who needed Pay Day overalls and quality linens as much as they needed a Towncraft suit or a Marathon fedora.
Within a year of the Grand Island opening, the company opened additional J. C. Penney stores in Hastings and Beatrice. Expanding throughout Nebraska was very much in line with Penney's aspirations. "If I had insisted on keeping personal control of the Penney Company," Penney later reflected, "we would still be merely a small chain of stores scattered through the Middle West." Clearly, Penney would have preferred gradually opening new stores using existing store profits and associate partnerships. Doing so had enabled him to expand his chain without borrowing money, but the process took too much time for rapid nationwide expansion, something that his partners and associates increasingly wanted. Six years after moving to New York City, the J. C. Penney Company was able to expand from 48 stores in seven states to 197 stores in 25 states. Over the same period, annual sales had mushroomed from $2.6 million to $28.7 million.
The chain grew rapidly throughout the nation and continued to expand its presence in Nebraska. In 1916, new stores were opened in Falls City, McCook, and Ord. Within two years, North Platte and David City also welcomed J. C. Penney stores to their downtown business districts. Amazingly, the company was able to find additional new locations with little more than manager recommendations, personal visits, census figures, and crude marketing data. From its New York headquarters, eight scouts were assigned to perpetually visit, investigate, and report on potential sites across the United States. From the J. C. Penney perspective, bigger cities were not necessarily better locations. Although Grand Island had a population just over 10,000, none of the other Nebraska store locations at that time had populations larger than 5,000. In its first twenty years, the company didn't even have a store prototype large enough to serve a city the size of Lincoln, much less Omaha, so locations in those cities were not even considered.
The entire essay appears in the Summer 2011 issue.
Courtship of Two Doctors: 1930s Letters Spotlight Nebraska Medical Training - Martha H. Fitzgerald
Joe Holoubek trained to be a country doctor in Nebraska. Destiny-and a young physician named Alice Baker-took him 1,100 miles away to Louisiana.
But his later success in life-as a consulting cardiologist, co-founder of a medical school, and half of north Louisiana's best-known medical couple-springs from his five formidable years of training in Omaha. The emphasis in the late 1930s was primary care, and the level of responsibility Nebraska medical students shouldered was awesome. He spent his senior year treating patients in their homes, diagnosing ailments with little more than a stethoscope and a battery of questions.
We have firsthand accounts of those days in training through Alice and Joe's courtship letters. His letters to her and her letters to him, written from 1937 to 1939, reveal divergent philosophies of clinical training in Nebraska and Louisiana. They also expose the health risks of internships in the years before World War II.
Joe and Alice met in 1937 during a summer fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and courted long-distance. Both were senior medical students, he at University of Nebraska College of Medicine and she at Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans. Joe was twenty-one, born on a farm in Colfax County. He was the grandson of Bohemian homesteaders, and English was his second language, learned when he started school.
Truth be told, Joe was dismayed when he first met Alice-there was a girl in the class! A "hen medic," as he called her, with a soft Southern drawl. But fascination overcame his prejudice, and he took her out dancing. He posted a letter to Louisiana the first week he arrived home from Rochester.
Letters flew back and forth twice a week their last year in school and every day their internship year. Alice and Joe wrote about professors and fellow students in Louisiana, Nebraska, and Minnesota, about physicians and patients, illnesses and treatments, family and friends, songs and movies.
Most of that correspondence was preserved. Nearly 800 letters, transcribed and footnoted, now constitute The Holoubek-Baker Letters, 1937-1939: An Annotated Collection. Both alma maters have copies of the collection in their medical archives, as do Mayo Clinic, LSU Shreveport, and LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport.
The letters are a treasure of primary source material on 1930s medicine and medical training. They recreate the era before antibiotics, when tuberculosis ran rampant and hospital workers were at risk of serious infection. Illness felled both Joe and Alice their internship year, and their career plans collapsed. But their long-distance courtship sustained them and formed a deep bond that took root and flourished in Louisiana. Dr. Alice and Dr. Joe, as they became known, married and started their professional lives in New Orleans, relocating to Shreveport after World War II. Joe adapted well to his new home. Two years of letters from Alice had prepared him for Louisiana's different approach to medical training.
In 1937, when the letters began, LSU New Orleans was six years old. Founded by Governor Huey Long to provide an affordable medical education, it was already a Class A school, drawing professors from around the world. Students trained for research and practice in the South, with its warm-weather diseases and widespread poverty. As at most medical schools in the country, they worked in clinics their junior year and hospital wards senior year.
House calls were rare, reserved for obstetrics, and students had little autonomy. After four years of training, they received only a bachelor's degree in medicine. The M.D.s came a year later, Alice wrote Joe in February 1938:
"I can't imagine the hospital here really letting us decide anything definitely for ourselves. And I surely feel that loss, too, for I fear I might be sadly lacking at an emergency. That is one reason I so prefer to interne [sic] here. There must be so much more for us to learn from our instructors during our interne year. All of us students have been complaining because we have been given so little therapeutic. . . . They really mean it when they call our interneship our fifth year of Medicine."
In Nebraska, self-reliance was a given. The school, which dated to 1881, readied its students for rural practice hundreds of miles from a major medical center. They would be expected to treat everything from ear infections to major trauma. Students started clinical service their sophomore year, learning how to take histories and make a physical diagnosis. They took on hospital service their junior year and staffed the outpatient clinics their senior year. Seniors also had "outcall" duty, making house calls throughout greater Omaha, under supervision.
Medical training across the country was far more standardized in 1937 than it had been a quarter century earlier, but variations lingered. Second-rate schools had closed in the wake of a 1910 landmark study, Abraham Flexner's Medical Education in the United States and Canada: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Others moved toward the higher professional standards Flexner pushed, with Johns Hopkins Medical School as his model. Specifically: stricter requirements for admission, affiliation with university hospitals, full-time professors in the basic sciences, two years of clinical training, and financial support from foundations or state governments.
The report was largely complimentary of Nebraska, which already had two years of clinical training. But it helped convince legislators to consolidate the two campuses-students had taken basic sciences in Lincoln, then moved to Omaha. University Hospital opened in 1917, accepting patients for teaching purposes from throughout Nebraska. Clinical teaching staff and hospital staff comprised local physicians volunteering their time.
The entire essay appears in the Summer 2011 issue.
Postcards from Long Pine
As described elsewhere in this issue, Long Pine, Nebraska, became a tourist destination in 1910 with the founding of Long Pine Amusement Park, later known as Nebraska's Hidden Paradise. Some travelers bought picture postcards to commemorate their visit. The Nebraska State Historical Society has a number of these in its collections; others circulate through antique shops and online merchants.
In 1907, the U.S. Postal Service began allowing personal messages on the address side of postcards. This was the beginning of "divided back" postcards, and their brief and sometimes pithy messages can make the back of the card as interesting as the picture side. Taken together, these four cards provide glimpses of recreational travel in the 1910s and '20s.
Intersections of Place, Time, and Entertainment in Nebraska's Hidden Paradise - Rebecca A. Buller
During the Roaring Twenties, visitors found a wide variety of entertainment at Hidden Paradise, an eighty-acre resort-like area near the north-central Nebraska community of Long Pine. One could spend the day whooshing down the slide at the Plunge, swinging for a hole in one, fly fishing for a trophy trout, tubing the cool waters of the natural spring-fed creek, catching the latest flick at the theater, meeting friends for drinks and a steak, spending a quiet evening reading in a rented cottage, or dancing the night away at the Pavilion.
Hidden Paradise began in June 1910 when three local entrepreneurs created what was then known as Long Pine Amusement Park. Much of its success in the early twentieth century was due to its situation near Long Pine, a town that boomed economically, developmentally, and socially because of its association with the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad (C.N.W.R.R.).
Like almost all Great Plains towns, Long Pine was founded near a fresh water source, but also had distinctive natural features. Long Pine Creek, which starts a few miles southwest of town and flows north to the Niobrara River, is a clear spring-fed watercourse with 55ºF waters that run year-round. It is the state's longest self-sustaining trout stream. Its narrow, deep canyons, densely lined by large oaks and ponderosa pines, stand in stark contrast to the surrounding short grass prairie rangeland. It is an ecotone, where Eastern ecosystems meet those of the West-for example, it is home to both mule deer and whitetail deer. The canyon is a natural oasis amidst the semi-arid Sandhills that contain only the occasional cottonwood or ash. This setting attracted people to the area and, ultimately, led to the Park's creation.
From 1910 through the 1960s people flocked to Hidden Paradise to enjoy dances and live bands, local restaurant specialties, summer holiday celebrations, outdoor recreation, and family vacations. The Park drew local people from the nearby towns of Ainsworth, Bassett, Valentine, and O'Neill, and also vacationers from Norfolk, Omaha, Fremont, Lincoln, South Sioux City, and Chadron, and even people from around the country. During the 1940s, the Park's owners lived at their home in Rosalind, California, from October through March, and at Hidden Paradise while managing the Park the rest of the year.
Hidden Paradise is prominent in many people's memories, and portions of it are active to this day. Its story reveals how people experienced outdoor recreation and related activities during the early- and mid-twentieth century. Leisure activities are revealing because they are often in some ways unique and in other ways reflective of larger trends. Available entertainment reflects aspects of social life, sense of place, and place attachment. By examining the intersections of place, time, and entertainment in Nebraska's Hidden Paradise, we can better understand the historical geographies of individual and collective human experience, and recognize how entertainment reflected trends of race, ethnicity, gender, age, class, nationality, and religion.
Nomenclature depends upon time and place. Nebraska's Hidden Paradise has been known as the Long Pine Amusement Park, Hidden Paradise Resort, and Hidden Paradise Park. Today, the entire region, including private cabins, is known simply as Hidden Paradise. In the past, when people mentioned "the Park" they were referring to the Long Pine Amusement Park Company and/or the business Hidden Paradise. In the early days, "the Park" mainly consisted of the Plunge, restaurant, dance pavilion (known as "the Pavilion"), and cottage rental properties. From the 1960s until today, "the Park" refers only to the restaurant/Pavilion structure.
Long Pine's Beginnings
Long Pine was one of thousands of Great Plains communities created during the late nineteenth century. Settlers moved in to take advantage of free lands by way of the Homestead Act (1862), Timber Culture Act (1873), and Kinkaid Act (1904). In the early 1880s cattle ranchers and workers from the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad were among the first settlers in present-day Brown County. A cycle of boom-and-bust settlement characterized the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Construction of the town exploded during the 1880s, and then faltered during the drought of the 1890s. The town's population declined from over 800 in 1895 to 151 by the spring of 1898. The Kinkaid Act of 1904, an enlarged homestead act offering 640 acres free, enabled another (albeit brief) settlement boom.
People had long noticed the special features of Pine Creek canyon. Earlier in the nineteenth century, fur trappers preferred the beaver pelts from the banks of the creek. And-as with locations such as the natural springs near Paddock, Nebraska, to the east in Holt County-the town's early entrepreneurs had big ideas about capitalizing on the potentially medicinal properties of the waters. Some individuals wanted to name the community Seven Springs for the source of the creek (five miles south of the town), while others argued for Long Pine. The Omaha Bee described the creek as "remarkable," with an average velocity of seven miles per hour, width of twenty-five feet, and depth of three feet, and promised that the effort to travel to see the waters bubbling from the earth at the seven springs would be well repaid.
Despite periodic droughts and resulting loss of population, early settler C. R. Glover promoted the little town from 1881 to 1893, arguing that it "was the only place in Nebraska worthy of being called a 'summer resort'." An Omaha Daily Republican newspaper reporter known as "The Frontiersman" visited the area and penned a description that appeared in the paper's January 5, 1882, edition. He estimated that the "creek forms a strong body of waters, and affords in its gradual falls a force of at least thirty horsepower," and noted that a meticulous adventurer might even discover petrified wood, bone (such as the skeleton of a recently discovered mastodon), moss agate, and stones along the banks of the creek. Prophetically, he remarked that the beautiful creek and canyon had the makings of a "grand summer resort." Three local entrepreneurs established the Long Pine Amusement Park twenty-eight years later.
The entire essay appears in the Summer 2011 issue.
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This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
International climate policy over the last 7–8 years has been characterized by the increasing involvement of developing countries. While COP-13 at Bali marked a stronger willingness to participate in mitigation efforts in principle, there are now numerous examples of domestic programs for mitigation by this group of countries. Brazil has gone furthest among developing countries, with a substantial voluntary commitment to reduce its emissions proclaimed in 2009. The dynamics behind the change in Brazil's position are discussed, with a particular eye to the effects of international influences. In conjunction with important domestic changes, a set of interacting influences through a variety of pathways both changed preferences among important interest groups in Brazilian society towards favoring some kind of commitments and helped to change the structure of government forums and decision-making rules in a way that empowered reform-minded ministries. It is argued that this perspective, drawn from Peter Gourevitch's idea of the "second image reversed", is increasingly relevant for understanding the influence of the broad "regime complex" on climate change on politics in developing countries.
Scholarship on the forces that shape climate policy in developing countries, including positions in international negotiations, is modest. The main reason for this is of course that emissions from the non-Annex 1 countries are not limited under the Kyoto Protocol. However, recent developments merit a closer look at the dynamics of position development among some of the major developing countries. Since COP-13 at Bali, there has been a surge of national programs aimed at limiting the growth of emissions among developing countries [
This is certainly linked to the stronger call for action by developing countries that came out of COP-13, but factors, like new markets for renewable energy, as well as a weakening of the North-South conflict in the wake of strong economic performance by developing countries can also have influence on position development [
Inspired by Gourevitch's [
Partly, I claim that the change in domestic politics took place because international impulses assisted changes in societal actor preferences. Landowners and agriculturalists, who traditionally profited from deforestation—what Sprinz and Weiss [
These trends were accompanied by and reinforced by crucial changes in bureaucratic politics at the federal level, also facilitated by international influences. From 2003, the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) started engaging more strongly with Brazilian climate policy. When the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations started to focus on curbing emissions from deforestation from 2005, this opened a policy window for the MMA—with its superior competencies and expertise on deforestation—to push itself into the core of the bureaucratic politics of decision-making on positions in Brazil, challenging the traditional monopoly of the Ministry of External Affairs (hereafter the Itamaraty) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (hereafter, the MCT). This development was stimulated by the outcome of COP-13 at Bali, which encouraged voluntary action by developing countries. Successful moves by the MMA to increase its influence over Brazil's position compounded the effects of coalitional politics outlined above and gave a substantial contribution to the change of the Brazilian position in November 2009.
The paper falls into six parts. In the next section, I outline my theoretical approach mainly dealing with aspects of Gourevitch [
The paper is based on 17 interviews with important actors in the Brazilian government, environmental NGOs and business organizations during the period 2010–2011. Policy documents and newspaper stories are also important sources.
Analyses of international climate policy have typically been split between domestic level (second image) and international level (third image) analyses. However, with the emergence of broader set of international incentives for policy change through UNFCCC mechanisms, like Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and REDD+ and broader incentives linking climate policy to energy and technology cooperation [
While there are many ways of categorizing second-image reversed explanations, Krasner [
Bernstein and Cashore [
For the sake of order, I still distinguish between effects of international influences through the mentioned pathways on coalitional politics and governmental authority structures. In real life, these certainly interact. However, it may also be useful to see them as analytically distinct, as the effects of changes in coalitional politics on climate policy—in the following international positions—may be blocked by intransigency linked to organizational and institutional inertia in the bureaucracy.
For describing effects of international impulses on coalitional politics, I use Sprinz and Weiss' [
However, as mentioned, we know that changes in preferences among domestic societal groups can be of little impact if governmental structures thwart their access to decision-making. Therefore, it is also relevant to study how international pressures can contribute to changes in the domestic authority structure related to the shaping of international positions. In practical terms, such influences can be channeled through all the four pathways suggested by Bernstein and Cashore [
From the outset, the Brazilian climate policy position was largely consistent with the traditional G77 and China position. This position consists of two core elements [
Brazil's rejection of commitments was particularly pronounced when the world started focusing on deforestation in the Amazon region as a source of greenhouse gas emissions in the late 1980s [
The short-lived Collor government (1990–1992) denoted a departure from this hardline, nationalist position. Collor saw a softening of the country's position on Amazonia and climate change as a precondition for his planned opening of the Brazilian economy to foreign trade and investment [
After Collor, there was not a complete return to the previous hardline position. A softening of the Brazilian rhetoric on climate change took place under Fernando Henrique Cardoso's (1995–2003) presidency, which was marked by stronger presidential influence over foreign policy and the development of a more positive engagement with the North and global economic institutions [
The three first positions were also embodied in the "Brazilian" proposal, submitted at the seventh meeting of the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Berlin Mandate in May 1997 and subsequently refined [
Brazil's high level of activity in the negotiations is illustrated by the fact that the country was heavily involved in proposing and shaping the Clean Development Mechanism that came out of the Kyoto negotiations. Here, the Brazilian delegation departed from its G77 alignment both through its close cooperation with the US over a mechanism that could involve the developing countries and agreement with the US on the inclusion of all six major greenhouse gases in the Kyoto agreement [
The issue of land-use change and CDM re-emerged at COP-9 in Milan. Here, a group of Brazilian and US NGO staff and researchers presented the idea of integrating a mechanism for credits to compensate for "avoided deforestation" into a climate agreement [
The next notable change in the Brazilian position was a response to the momentum gained by the idea of "compensated deforestation" and the establishment of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations in March 2005. In a workshop under the Dialogue on Long-Term Cooperation Action to Address Climate Change by Enhancing Implementation of the Convention during COP-12 in Nairobi in 2006, Brazil proposed a funds-based solution for encouraging reduced deforestation. On the one hand, this represented the first opening to bringing tropical deforestation into the negotiations by Brazil. However, a rejection of integrating reduced deforestation into carbon markets and an emphasis by Brazil and South Africa that their proposals were meant to promote stronger action by developing countries under their existing Convention commitments rather than to suggest new commitments indicated the limits of change [
At COP-13 at Bali, Brazil gave active support to the Bali Road Map, which opens for more active "voluntary" mitigation efforts by developing countries and the establishment of negotiations on REDD as part of the climate negotiations. However, there were more significant changes in the Brazilian position at COP-14 in Poznan. In the context of a declining deforestation rate, Brazil pledged to reduce its deforestation rate further, meaning that the country would cut it in half (from a 1996–2005 baseline) by 2018. This promise came together with a traditional Brazilian request to recognize the efforts by developing countries and a continued denial to include avoided deforestation in carbon markets. The deforestation target published in Poznan was part of a domestic climate plan launched in 2008, demonstrating the emergence of broader domestic activity on climate issues by the Brazilian government. The changes of the position in Poznan indicated that Brazil had moved quite far from the hardline nationalism of the early 1990s. Nevertheless, Brazil's chief negotiator, Everton Vargas, still insisted on a rejection of commitments by Brazil and promoted the view that the North-South conflict still formed the basis of Brazil's involvement in the UNFCCC process [
That notwithstanding, as noted above, 2009 was marked by even more substantial changes in Brazil's position. MMA staff in favor of a more flexible Brazilian position note that the G8 meeting in L'Aquila in July 2009 denoted an important change, as Brazil and the other big developing countries (Brazil, China, South Africa, Mexico, India) agreed with the G8 economies to contribute to limit global warming to two degrees [
I now move on discussing how various impulses from the international environment contributed to this marked shift in Brazil's position on commitments.
The traditional set-up of domestic societal interests behind the intransigency of the Brazilian position on commitments was linked to a powerful coalition of polluter interests, again linked to Amazonian deforestation. The major element of this coalition was regional ranching and agricultural interests. These interests were involved the acquisition and clearing of forest land for herd expansion, crop production, land speculation and logging [
While ranching expansion fuelled by regional markets and land speculation were the traditional activities responsible for deforestation in the Amazon region in Brazil, there was strong growth of export oriented soya production in the region from the late 1990s mainly driven by soaring demand in the Chinese market. At the same time, exports of beef also gained importance [
These protests led to a reconsideration of business strategies by some of the mayor soya interests. Blairo Maggi, leader of the world's biggest soya producer, Grupo Maggi, symbolizes this reorientation. When assuming office as governor of the state of Mato Grosso (the state, which, together with Pará, produces the bulk of deforestation) in 2003, he appeared to reject any environmental constraints on soya expansion [
In the same period, the idea of "compensated deforestation" gained support internationally. REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) became an important part of the UNFCCC negotiations after the formation of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations in 2005. In Brazil, it became increasingly clear that REDD could become a profitable opportunity for Amazonian agricultural producers and landowners, who were already frustrated by the traditional Brazilian resistance against extending the CDM mechanism to also include projects aimed at avoiding deforestation [
As these interests started mobilizing, a key gathering took place in Mato Grosso in early 2009. This was the meeting on "Avoiding Deforestation in the Amazon through PES Markets" as part of the international Katoomba process on Payment for Ecosystems Services initiated by the mixed forest industry/environmentalist/donor organization "Forest Trends" as early as 1999. Here, governors from various Amazonian states participated together with top politicians and staff from the MMA, Brazilian NGOs and business representatives [
Mounting Amazonian interest in the new business opportunities connected to REDD translated into a formal request for changes of the Brazilian position during a meeting of Amazon governors in Tocantins in late June 2009. In this meeting, the Amazon states urged the Brazilian government to change its denial to involve avoided deforestation in carbon markets and established a taskforce to prepare a report on REDD in the Amazon and climate policy [
The mobilization of Amazonian interests was also facilitated by a more purely domestic achievement highlighted by Hochstetler and Viola [
To summarize, mainly REDD, but also to some extent environmental pressures from foreign soya and beef markets, were influences going through the market pathway that helped changing coalitional politics linked to climate change in Brazil. REDD essentially transformed polluter interests in the Amazon region towards becoming helper interests seeing large potential profits in selling emission reductions related to avoided deforestation.
With the election of Obama in 2008, US climate policy seemed to regain its momentum. The idea to impose "border taxes" on imports from countries without emission regulations was an important part of discussions in the United States. With the passing of the Waxman-Markey Bill on climate change by the House of Representatives in June 2009, this appeared as a credible threat for Brazilian business interests. Although ultimately failing to gain the necessary support from the US Senate, the bill caused alarm among Brazilian exporters, in particular Brazilian industrial exporters, who are crucially dependent on the US market [
In the words of Hochstetler and Viola [
Just a few days later, in early September, the Climate Alliance, an initiative formed by 14 organizations for companies involved in planted forests, bioenergy and agribusiness, published a position paper demanding commitments by Brazil, explicitly mentioning concerns for the threat of border taxes [
The Carta Aberta, the Climate Alliance and other initiatives [
To summarize, we see that the threat of US border taxes was an international market influence that clearly contributed to changing the position of industrial polluter interests from being rather negligent bystanders to Brazilian climate diplomacy towards becoming proponents of a change in the position.
The "climate alliance" also included a new set of helper interests, namely the booming biofuels industry. In Brazil, this industry came out of efforts to curb Brazil's oil dependence through subsidies to domestic bioethanol production following the first OPEC oil shock in 1973. After a bumpy trajectory for the bioethanol industry during the 1980s and 1990s, the extension of tax breaks to also include flex fuel vehicles able to run on various mixes of gasoline and ethanol finally led to a surge of production from 2003 [
The outlook of the domestic coalition resisting changes of Brazil's position on commitments and forests in the negotiations was initially well matched with the preferences of the agencies that made up the governmental authority structure defining the country's position in the negotiations. At the center of this authority structure was the powerful Itamaraty, whose perspective on cooperation with the North in many issues areas (trade, environment) was largely similar to the G77 and its perception of an unbridgeable North-South conflict. This perspective had been galvanized during by mounting conflicts with the US over trade, patents and debt issues during the 1980s [
The Ministry of the Environment, traditionally charged with dealing with deforestation and, thus, responsible for regulating the bulk of Brazil's emissions, was for a long time peripheral to decision-making on the Brazilian position. The Ministry held the position as vice-chair of the Interministerial Commission for Climate Change (CIMGC in Portuguese)—created in 1999 and chaired by the MCT)—c but funding problems, problems with staff quality and high personnel turnover provided the MMA with little capacity to use this commission as a platform for influencing Brazil's position [
However, this lack of involvement by the MMA in the bargaining over the position was certainly also connected to an important international factor; namely, the generally lacking attention to the issue of tropical deforestation and domestic action by developing countries in the UNFCCC negotiations and the international debate on climate change. Thus, the absence of international rules and norms related to domestic action in Brazil as a Non-Annex 1 country, and its main source of greenhouse gas emissions actually helped to marginalize the MMA in governmental decision-making on the issue of climate change.
When tropical deforestation assumed greater importance on the international climate policy agenda after the breakthrough at COP-9 and the formation of the Coalition of Rainforest Nations within the UNFCCC process in 2005, this opened a much wider space for the—with its strong competencies on deforestation—to involve itself in governmental discussions over the position. Domestic developments reinforced the ability of the MMA to exploit this new space. More stable funding and recruitment improved the ministry's capacities [ "When we won the fight inside the government in terms of the relationship between emissions and forests, Brazil started to be one of the most important and interesting actors in the negotiations."
"When we won the fight inside the government in terms of the relationship between emissions and forests, Brazil started to be one of the most important and interesting actors in the negotiations."
The growing linkages between climate change and deforestation both at home and abroad provided a justification for increasing MMA participation in Brazil's delegation to the COPs. Before 2003, the MMA had only sent junior staff to these events. However, in 2003, the Executive Secretary of the MMA participated and during the following COPs, the Minister of the Environment Marina Silva always participated and acted as leader of the delegation on several occasions. Other top staff also became involved. MMA's Capobianco presented Brazil's proposal for a funds-based solution for reduced tropical deforestation in a technical workshop promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at Rome in September, 2006, and at COP-12 in Nairobi. Capobianco's role in these events also demonstrates to what extent the ascent of forest issues on the UNFCCC negotiation agenda favored MMA involvement in intra-governmental bargaining over the position. More purely domestic factors and achievements were also of key importance. The declining deforestation rate, which was seen as strongly connected to more effective anti-deforestation programs led by the MMA [
The next move by the MMA was to change one of its old secretariats into the Secretariat for Climate Change and Environmental Quality with a separate Department for Climate Change in early 2007, thus challenging the scientific role of the MCT. This was a deliberate move to insert the MMA more strongly into government discussions on climate change both domestically and internationally [
In September 2007, President Lula initiated work with a domestic climate plan for Brazil. The plan was to be prepared by a new Interministerial Committee for Climate Change (CIM) consisting of 16 ministries and led by the President's office (Casa Civil). More important for the intra-governmental struggles over Brazil's position, the MMA was given the task of heading the executive committee charged with developing the climate plan. The idea of a fully fledged domestic climate policy in a non-Annex 1 country like Brazil was obviously assisted by the pathway of non-binding norms within the climate regime, namely the acceptance of voluntary mitigation efforts (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action or "NAMA"s) also by developing countries at COP-13 in Bali.
In turn, these domestic intra-governmental changes facilitated by international norm changes became a platform for increased MMA mobilization to change Brazil's positions in the following years [
Emphasizing the importance of previous changes in government authority structures for the shift of the Brazilian position, the final discussions that led up to the announcement of Brazilian "voluntary targets" before COP-15 took place in the Interministerial Commission on Climate Change, the very same body established in 2007 to deal with domestic climate policy. As noted, the MMA had a key position in this commission. In the final discussions, MMA representatives again demonstrated their skills in the game of bureaucratic politics by managing to convince ministries like the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of the Economy about the potential positive effects of a voluntary target [
Lula's decision to listen to this coalition of ministries (and behind them, a new coalition of societal interests) instead of giving in to the skepticism of the Itamaraty demonstrated the MMA's ability to fully exploit the changed institutional setting for Brazilian climate policy at this point. More fundamentally, the MMA's success in the game of bureaucratic politics was assisted by changes of international non-binding norms, namely the opening for, including avoided deforestation in the UNFCCC negotiations after 2005 and the opening for domestic action by developing countries in the wake of COP-13 at Bali in 2007. Together with the country's performance in actually cutting deforestation, these international norm-changes favored a change of the governmental authority structure on the climate policy issue; namely, the inclusion of the MMA in domestic bargaining over domestic climate policy and Brazil's positions in the negotiations.
However, it is important to note that success at this point was not the end of a linear process of uniform change. Indeed, as noted by Vieira [
Thus, to summarize, the argument brought forward when it comes to international influences on the governmental authority structure is the following: the rise of issues related to deforestation and climate change on the UNFCCC agenda made the MMA's competencies on deforestation much more relevant for Brazilian climate policy. This opened a policy window for skillful bargaining and maneuvering by the MMA, which systematically managed to increase its influence in intra-governmental negotiations over the position. Successful mobilization of societal actors and exploitation of preference changes by societal groups by the MMA certainly contributed to this success, as did the Ministry's ability to contribute to a declining deforestation rate after 2005 by launching more effective anti-deforestation programs.
Above, I have demonstrated how a set of impulses from Brazil's international environment—namely the increased UNFCCC focus on efforts to curb deforestation, the following prospect of payments related to avoided deforestation, the threat of border taxes in the US, the rise of a global, climate related market for the biofuels sector and the decision to open for domestic action by developing countries at Bali—contributed to the changes in Brazil's position in 2009. This happened both because influences through the market pathway transformed the domestic societal coalitions on climate change and because new norms on the role of deforestation and domestic climate policy also for developing countries in the UNFCCC negotiations legitimized a stronger role for the MMA in intra-governmental bargaining over the position. In this new and more favorable context, the skillful maneuvering by the MMA that both benefited from and contributed to the mobilization of reform-minded societal actors ultimately led to the changes of Brazil's position on commitments in November 2009. Thus, Bernstein and Cashore's [
Moreover, as noted in the introduction, a comprehensive explanation of the changes in Brazil's position relies on a conjuncture of international and domestic factors. Above, I have highlighted the MMA's skills in the game of bureaucratic politics as an important domestic factor contributing to the change. Moreover, the startling decline of the deforestation rate in the wake of more effective anti-deforestation programs by the MMA since 2005, a factor that is given prime importance by Hochstetler and Viola [
A domestic approach and a "second image reversed" approach could also end up with slightly different interpretations of developments after the change in 2009. On the one hand, domestic agribusiness interests have mobilized successfully against some of the environmental restrictions in the Forest Code, demonstrating the inherent tensions between environmentalism and developmentalist interests in agribusiness vividly outlined by Vieira [
While this paper offers a more internationally grounded explanation of domestic events in Brazil's climate policy, supplementing Hochstetler and Viola's more domestically oriented contribution, it is also important to point out that more purely international (or third level) events may have imposed limits on the changes in the Brazilian position. Hochstetler and Viola [
However, the existence of these second image and third image dynamics introduced to qualify my argument above does not preclude the core idea of this paper, namely that analyzes inspired by the second image reversed approach may provide important contributions to our understanding of the dynamics of international climate policy. The weak hopes for a binding global agreement on climate change forces us to explore how and through what pathways various non-binding norms and economic incentives can influence domestic climate policy. At the same time, it can be argued that the emergence of a vast "regime complex" on climate change [
The author would like to thank Eduardo Viola at the University of Brasilía for field work assistance, encouragement and comments. Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for essential comments and to Donald Sawyer (Institute for Society, Population and Nature, Brasilía) and Olav Schram Stokke (Fridtjof Nansens Institute, Bærum) for valuable advice. Support from The Norwegian Research Council through grant no. 196090 (QUANTIFY) and travel support from NORAD (The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation) are gratefully acknowledged.
See the comment of the Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Miguel Jorge: "Novo risco às exportações brasileiras",
In interviews with Tasso Azevedo and Branca Americano, May 2010, it emerged that the push for a change in positions was coordinated by a small group of dedicated employees within the MMA and in its subordinated agencies (Azevedo was head of the Brazilian Forest Service in these days).
While the Ministry of Economy was enthusiastic about the potentials for a domestic emission trading market, representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture saw potentials for Brazil in less emission-intensive agriculture. Interviews with Tasso Azevedo and Branca Americano, May 2010.


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Is there any quick way to find out if one of our items is in another author's collection? And if so, how/where does one search?
This page http://graphicriver.net/collections/500622-graphicriver-collection?page=1 shows a good number of file collections. I think it is not all collections on the marketplace(s) but just a good number of them.
Apparently, there is no way to search for our files in another author's collection but that would be a great feature to be implemented.


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%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1421020610064207600
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
[[quoteright:350:[[Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/9dc81f99f2ac346cd1051650d4f5fdb4.jpg]]]]
->''"Hey! Look! My stomach's distended! How great is that?"''
-->-- '''Mittens''', ''Disney/{{Bolt}}''
There often are times when people eat. For most a few times a day.
There are other times when people absolutely stuff themselves. This hopefully doesn't happen as often. But when animated characters do it, it goes right to their stomachs and increases their size and figure in a similar manner to filling a balloon. This new-found girth usually goes away pretty easily, but can stay around for a while. A usually-minor form of this is TruthInTelevision. [[RuleThirtyFour There is also a fetish for this]].
Also, there are times when people don't have anything to eat for a ''long time'', and then they play the trope exceptionally straight. They get [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwashiorkor kwashiorkor]].
The girth can also come from water, or even air or helium. In the case of the latter, one also receives other qualities of a balloon. Characters filled with liquids will often very audibly and [[JigglePhysics visibly]] slosh.
This trope is especially popular in {{Zany Cartoon}}s to the point where attempting to list every example would probably end up with its subpage being longer than all the other subpages together. A GiganticGulp drink is often a cause of Balloon Belly. May lead to TemporaryBulkChange. Its logical conclusion is PopGoesTheHuman. Compare DinnerDeformation, TravelingPipeBulge, and WeightTaller.
* BalloonBelly/AnimeAndManga
* BalloonBelly/ComicBooks
* BalloonBelly/FanFic
* BalloonBelly/{{Film}}
* BalloonBelly/{{Literature}}
* BalloonBelly/LiveActionTV
* BalloonBelly/MusicVideos
* BalloonBelly/NewMedia
* BalloonBelly/NewspaperComics
* BalloonBelly/VideoGames
* BalloonBelly/{{Webcomics}}
* BalloonBelly/WesternAnimation
[[folder:Asian Animation]]
* In Episode 40 of the original ''Mars Doll'' cartoon, the titular character ends up with this after eating too many hamburgers during a advertisement shooting. He ends up with a PottyEmergency in the very end.
* In the 20th episode of the 3rd season of ''Pororo the Little Penguin'', Poby the polar bear is inflated by Tong-Tong twice when Tong-Tong tries to bring Poby down from flying.


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Friday, March 29, 2013 12 p.m. to 12 p.m.
Location: Trinity Episcopal Church, 150 Perkins Street, Castine, Maine
For more information: Rev. Tim Hall; (207)326-9486; tcpoc.org
A Good Friday Interfaith Service will be held at Noon on March 29 at the Trinity Episcopal Church, 150 Perkins Street, in Castine. This service will include the telling of the Passion story in the style of reader's theater. All are welcome. Presented by the Castine Clergy Group.