text:
The Love Boat
Obsmama and Maxandmo and carenl and mtneer05 and GeekChic12 and Kikki007 and Meg...it takes a harem.
Now do you all have your heartfail hankies out? Here we go...
Chapter 15 Pirate
Bella hid behind her hair, her eyes never leaving the floor as I led her through the hallways to the elevator. Once the doors closed and it was just the two of us, she let out a sigh of relief.
"Bella, are you okay?"
She nodded. I turned to stand in front of her and slid my hands up and down her arms. "I know it was a little embarrassing…"
"A little?" She scoffed.
I leaned down and pressed my forehead to hers. "Bella, let it go. Please? I don't want this to be one more thing that sets us back." I knew some of her hesitance had to do with insecurity, and I was worried that being caught in the spa had the potential to make her doubt herself even more.
"That's what you're worried about? That I won't want to have sex with you?" she asked tentatively.
Hell yes. I was going to be the only guy in history to actually die from blue balls— and on a ship full of sexual libertines. Oh god, the irony. "No—well not entirely. I don't want us to be uncomfortable and awkward again. I like being with you; I like us. Don't let this be something that messes that up."
She relaxed slightly, but there was still a sadness in her eyes. "But, those women, they're going to think I'm a—slut." She dropped her chin and whispered the word "slut."
"They're not, Bella. First of all, we probably won't even see them again for the rest of the cruise, so who cares? Second, they think we're married. And lastly, look where we are. That was nothing compared to what's happening everywhere else on this ship! They've probably been rubbing out sex-swing charley horses and cricked necks from bad rounds of 'swallow the leader' since the ship left Port Canaveral."
She giggled. It was so much better than seeing the humiliation on her beautiful face. "Swallow the leader?"
"Yeah. It's like sixty-nine, but with—more people."
She tilted her head in confusion. "Sixty-nine?"
"Shit. Really?"
She looked at me blankly.
Jesus Christ, did she just walk out of a convent? "It's where a guy and a girl eat each other out, at the same time."
"Like at Applebee's?"
My jaw opened and closed a couple of times, and I ran my hands through my hair before looking at the ceiling, completely exasperated.
She burst into a sharp peal of laughter.
"Oh, my God. You knew, and you made me try to explain it?"
She bit her lip and nodded. "The look on your face… it was priceless."
"Very funny." I couldn't help but smile myself. She was adorable, and I was relieved that she wasn't really that naive.
The elevator dinged, and I pulled her down the hall to our cabin.
As soon as the door closed, Bella turned to face me. "Thank you. You were right. I just needed some help getting over the shock, know what I mean?" She tugged on my shirt a little and looked up at me with her big, chocolate eyes. It made me want her in a primitive, 'Ugg want Ayla' way that was unacceptable for a modern, enlightened man like myself. I wanted to finally claim her, to mark her and make sure everyone knew she was mine.
I nodded and took her hands to bring her closer. Her toe caught the carpet or air or something, and she fell into my arms, pushing me against the wall. I chuckled and took a half-step back, sliding up the wall to stand straight, pulling her upright as well. "Are you okay?"
She started to nod, but then her eyes caught mine, and she stepped forward to press herself against me. She reached up on her toes and grazed her hands along my sides to rest on my shoulders for leverage. "Do you remember that first night?"
"The night you told me you thought I was gay?"
She nodded.
"And made me your bed-making slave?"
She blushed and bit her lip, nodding again.
"And you offered to share your shoulder blanket?"
As I bent down for a kiss, she leaned to the side and tapped the wall next to my shoulder. "Do you remember what happened right here?"
"This wall?" I looked up at the ceiling and squinted my eyes, as if I were trying to remember. "I'm not sure."
"Maybe this will remind you," she whispered as she pressed her lips to the base of my throat. "What about now?"
I shrugged. "Maybe."
She rose on her toes to leave a trail of kisses along my neck. It took everything in me not to throw her on the bed when she lightly grazed my throat with her teeth and started gently sucking my Adam's apple.
I palmed her ass, groaning as I squeezed.
My head snapped to the door with the sound of three sharp knocks.
Fuck. I banged the back of my head on the wall. "I swear to god, if that's Alice, I'm stuffing her in your fucking trunk."
Bella giggled as she went to the door, but I reached for her arm, halting her movements. "Go away," I yelled toward the door.
"Edward?" Alice asked through the door. "Is Bella in there with you?"
"I'm here. We're…um…we're busy," Bella answered back, shrugging at me while biting back a giggle.
"Oh my god. Are you two knocking boots?" Alice wailed.
I bellowed, "Yes!" at the same time Bella admonished, "Alice!"
Bella looked at me and burst into full-fledged giggles.
I let out a resigned sigh as I looked at the door. "I'll be over there in twenty minutes, Alice."
"Twenty minutes?" Bella questioned. "I'm not sure whether to be impressed or disappointed."
"Oh, you'll definitely be impressed, and it's going to take much more than twenty minutes," I said, backing her toward the bed.
"Oh really?" She reached for my collar and pulled me down with her.
I nodded into the crook of her neck as I peppered her shoulder with kisses.
Bella moaned softly, her hands twining in my hair. "But, I didn't even bring boots," she said in a soft, raspy whisper that only kindled my need for her, despite, or maybe because of her silliness.
I raised myself on my forearms to hover over this beautiful woman below me. I really didn't have a barometer for the feeling she stirred inside me, but I knew I wanted more of her and more with her. I cradled her face in my hands and let myself get momentarily lost in her expressive eyes. She smiled sweetly at me. "Let me take you on a date tonight."
"A date?" she asked with a trace of confusion.
"Yeah. I got some ideas from the cruise director, Julie. I was thinking maybe we could try that fancy restaurant on the promenade, maybe go for a walk on the deck. There's a movie theater on board too." Why did I feel like that lame middle schooler again?
Bella blushed and looked away for a moment before she turned her head back to me and met my gaze. She gave me a dazzling smile. "I'd love to go on a date with you tonight."
I felt myself relax, and a broad smile crossed my face. We just stared at each other in silence.
"Did you think I was going to say no?"
I shrugged.
"I'm not sure there's anything I could refuse you." She brushed her hand in a lazy circuit on the back of my arm.
"I'll have to keep that in mind," I said with a wink.
She scoffed playfully. "Especially with that 'I can get anything I want' wink."
"Nice to know," I said with another wink.
She chortled. "Here, all this time, I thought you were winking at me, and you really just have a tic."
"I'll give you a tic," I teased, sucking on the soft dip of her shoulder.
She giggled and writhed as if I were tickling her, so I thought I might as well. She squealed and slapped my shoulder. I finally let up when she warned she was about to pee her pants.
I kissed a trail to her perfect lips, keeping the final kisses as chaste as I could, otherwise, I might not be able to stop. "Can you be ready in an hour?"
She nodded, trying to pull more of my weight onto her.
"I'll be back in an hour then." I gave her a quick peck and quickly stood.
She raised up on her elbows and looked at me like I was crazy. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to get ready at Alice and Jasper's so I can pick you up like a real date."
"A real date?" One eyebrow rose. "So will there be a goodnight kiss at the door after this date?"
"I fucking hope so," I said, winking as I headed for the door. I pulled the door open, and Alice practically fell into our room. "Were you standing there with your ear to the door?"
"Nooo," she drew out, defensively.
I glanced at Bella and then to her trunk. Her eyes followed mine, and as we looked back at each other, we shared a wicked grin.
Exactly an hour after walking out our cabin door, I was knocking on it to pick Bella up for our date.
She opened the door, and my eyes zeroed in on the top of her dark blue, sleeveless dress, and then the bottom of the skirt just above her knees, and back to her tits. After four days of near constant torture, I wanted nothing more than to push her back into the room and tear away the two-foot band of fabric keeping me from what I wanted most.
"Um…hi?" Bella said.
My head shot up to hers with a guilty grin. I silently admonished myself for those thoughts. Even though part of me wanted nothing more than to throw her over my shoulder and drag her into my cave, the bigger part of me wanted more than that. I had this feeling that meeting Bella again was the start of something— something bigger than a quick and dirty fuck. This "date" was what I needed to show her that.
"Hi. You look stunning," I said.
Bella blushed and looked at her feet for a moment before looking back up at me. We stood there, with the door open wide, half in the hall, making moony eyes at each other until I remembered the flowers.
"Shit. I meant to get you flowers." I should have had plenty of time to swing by the florist, but I didn't realize how distracting Alice would be, sharing her constant buzz of advice, as I tried to get ready. "Stay right here," I said, holding her in place by her shoulders before turning down the hall. "I'll be right back."
"No, no, no." Bella grabbed my wrist and pulled me back in front of her. She didn't let go when she added, "I don't need flowers."
"But, I wanted to do everything right. I'm usually better than this. I don't know why I'm so discombobulated."
"I like you—discombobulated. I think this is pretty right." She looked at our linked hands, a shy smile spreading across her face. "Plus, you already know I'm kind of a spaz. I can't really judge."
"You're not—"
"Uh, I am. The bed. The fan. The sunscreen," she counted off on her fingers. "I can own my crazy. You should see me eat Lucky Charms."
"Lucky Charms? How do you eat Lucky Charms?"
"On average, there's six cereal pieces for every marbit."
"Those are the marshmallow pieces. They're called marbits."
I smiled at her matter-of-fact explanation.
"I can tell you're just humoring me, but that really is the perfect ratio to eat them. If you have a disproportionate number of marbits, it's too sweet and you run out of them at the end of the box, and who wants to eat a bowl full of Lucky Charms without the marshmallows?"
"Makes sense." I nodded. "So you eat one marbit and six regular pieces per spoonful?"
She wrinkled her forehead and looked at me like I was crazy. "Don't be silly. I'm not that crazy." She smiled brightly and announced, "Sometimes I have two marbits and twelve cereals pieces."
She cracked me up. "I find your crazy adorable."
"Well, I rather enjoy your discombobulation. So I guess we're the perfect pair."
"Told you so!" Alice's voice chirped behind me.
I looked over my shoulder and heard Alice swear. I didn't think she meant to call attention to the fact that she'd been spying on us. "Don't you have a roping class to get ready for?"
She squeaked and shut the door quickly.
I turned back to a snickering Bella.
"Shall we?" I said, offering my arm.
"Let's!" she giggled.
The table for two in a dimly lit corner of Athenodora's on the Promenade was much more intimate than the main dining room, and it seemed to be miles away from the lifestyle theme. Bella and I fell into an easy conversation, catching each other up on the last twelve years of our lives. Her passion for teaching was almost contagious, and I wondered what she'd look like in action with a room of five year olds hanging on her every word.
It was almost enough to make me forget how much I wanted to just drag her back to the room and finish what we started before my high ideals interrupted us. Almost.
After dinner, we walked hand in hand through the promenade, careful to avoid those kiosks that catered to this specific cruise. The conversation shifted more toward me. Bella admitted that she had always thought I was a "serial dater," which was really just a polite way to say she thought I was a skirt-chasing douchebag. It made me wonder what my mother and aunt said about me, and even more if they really thought that of me. I'd had a couple of semi-serious relationships, and in between, I dated. But I never cheated. The women I dated had mutual expectations, and I was always truthful and respectful. That didn't make me a player, did it?
"I think your impression of my love life is greatly exaggerated." I chuckled, trying to keep the topic light while still defending myself.
"Oh really?" She tilted her head and smiled mischievously. "So no rapid succession of flavor of the month? No random, last call hook-ups?"
I couldn't say never, but I couldn't exactly admit it either. "Not as many as you seem to think."
Her smile seemed to falter just a bit; it was almost imperceivable, but I still felt it in my chest. "It doesn't matter, even if there was," I added smugly.
"Ah, there's that smirk again." Her eyes danced as she pointed to the corner of my mouth. "You must think you have an awful good reason why it doesn't matter."
I shrugged. "I'm reformed."
She raised an eyebrow. "Reformed?"
I nodded confidently.
"You're a reformed lothario?" she asked doubtfully, biting her lip. "And when did that happen?"
I waited until her eyes met mine. "Four days ago, when you ran to the library, a woman came on to me. She was attractive, and she offered me pretty much anything I wanted. But all I could think of was how I had to find you."
She silently looked at me, searching for the truth. "That's what you were talking about the first night, when I asked you why you weren't looking at other women," she said quietly.
I nodded without breaking my gaze from her beautiful eyes.
Her brows furrowed as she considered what I'd said, and I saw acceptance cross her face with a pretty smile and a blush.
I leaned down and placed a tender kiss on the corner of her mouth, and before she could react, I tugged on her hand in the direction of the theater. "We'd better hurry if we don't want to miss the movie."
Bella followed, shaking her head to clear it. I did that to her. The primitive part of my brain grunted with pride. "What if I want to miss the movie?"
"We can't miss the movie. This is a real date; a real date is dinner and a movie."
She laughed brightly. "Then I guess we better go to the movie. What are we seeing?"
I stopped in my tracks for a moment. What movie was it? I looked up the time the movie started, but I didn't pay attention to what movie it was. "Um…I don't know," I admitted hesitantly.
"You don't know?" Bella looked around, and lowered her voice. "What if it's a porno?"
My first thought was how fucking awesome it would be to watch porn with Bella. Then, I thought about it being Bella, and I was pretty sure she wasn't into that. At least not yet. I had a feeling she might be less inhibited than even she knew, but she definitely wasn't there yet. And even if she was, we certainly wouldn't want to do that in a theater full of people.
"Edward?" Bella's voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
"Why would they be showing a…" I trailed off as I looked around, and my eyes landed on the Four-play, The Rubber Dicky and Masturbation Station kiosks, "…I'm pretty sure it's not a porno." Please don't let it be a porno.
I let out a relieved breath as we rounded the corner and I could see that the latest mainstream romantic comedy was showing today. "See?" I pointed at the sign. "Told you it wasn't a dirty movie."
"Uh-huh. Sure," she said, giving me a playful side-eye.
The theater wasn't crowded; there were only two other couples seated. Bella and I took our seats just as the lights dimmed. She was enthralled with watching the movie, and I was enthralled with watching her laugh, sigh and bite her lip when it looked like the haphazard couple may not end up together at the end of the movie. It was amazing to still see some of that awkward bookworm I knew growing up in the smart, funny, sexy woman next to me.
Bella didn't move to get up as the credits rolled, and she told me we had to wait until the credits were at least halfway through so we didn't miss any extra scenes or bloopers. But as soon as the slow strains of the third song played, she stood and announced there probably wasn't any.
I followed her down the steps. The singer's sultry voice started as we stepped onto the landing, and on an impulse, I stopped in my tracks. "Dance with me?"
Bella looked at me questioningly as I slowly reached for her and drew her into my arms. We began swaying to the music as the credits continued to roll behind us.
A smile pulled at her lips as she rested her head on my shoulder. I couldn't stop myself from drawing her closer, enjoying the way her warm body fit so perfectly into mine.
Bella lifted her head, studying my face. "You know, you don't have to do all this, right? I'm kind of a sure thing."
She still didn't quite seem to get it. "I'm not doing all this just to get laid."
She tilted her head and cocked a doubtful eyebrow. "Are you going to hold out on me again tonight?"
"Definitely not," I chuckled. "I don't know what it is, but I feel… more with you. It's too early to profess my undying love and to make promises about the future, but what if?"
My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. Even in the dim light from the projector, Bella's eyes sparkled. I continued. "What if meeting you again, here, really is kismet?"
Our swaying slowed to a near stop. Bella's eyes fixed on mine.
"What if all this is just the start of all that?" I whispered. "What if this is the story we tell our grandkids?"
Bella drew back slightly, her eyes still locked on mine. She didn't say anything, and I had no idea what she was thinking. My arms tightened around her instinctively, to keep her there.
A small smile crossed her lips, and her arms snaked around my neck, pulling me to her. My body sagged in relief. Just before our lips touched, I had to confess. "You scared me. I thought you were going to run."
I felt her smile broaden as her lips grazed mine. "As if I could outrun you."
Both of our heads snapped to a loud wolf-whistle at the entrance of the theater where a uniformed theater attendant was leaning on his lobby broom.
I groaned, and Bella hid her face in my shoulder. "I didn't think we'd get interrupted with Alice… all tied up."
"Did you— just joke about Alice taking her rope bondage class?"
She rocked back on her heels and nodded confidently, despite the deep blush that stained her cheeks.
"Saucy. I like it."
She chuckled, and I took her hand to lead her past the attendant. "You no have to stop for me," he called out in his slightly sleazy, broken English. "I likes to watch."
We made our way out of the theater and back to our cabin, and Bella looked surprised when I stopped at the door to face her. "I had a wonderful evening, Bella."
Bella opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Her eyebrows knit together, creating a cute little wrinkle between them. I gave her my most charming smile. "I'd like to see you again sometime." I knew I was being a little cheeky about this whole date thing, but every time I sort of went over the top about it, her eyes sparkled with amusement, and that was quickly becoming one of my favorite expressions of hers.
She looked down the hall and back to me. That cute wrinkle became more pronounced as she tilted her head. "What are you doing?"
"This is a real date. I'm being a gentleman and seeing you to your door." I winked.
Her smile lit up her entire face. She took a half a step closer. Her voice was nearly a whisper. "Real date. Right. So am I going to get a good night kiss?" I felt weak in the knees as she looked up at me through her lashes.
Her eyes swept from my lips to my eyes and back. I moistened my bottom lip before I took half a step nearer to her and lowly admitted, "I didn't want to make any assumptions, but I was hoping."
"Do you think I'm the kind of girl who kisses on the first date?"
I dipped my head toward her ear, brushing her arm with the back of my finger. "If you think about it, this isn't our first date."
"It's not?" she whispered.
"Nope, there was that time you took my breath away at Rusty's."
The back of my finger slid up her arm to caress the bare skin of her collarbone. "And our library rendezvous."
"Hmmm." Bella leaned into my hand as I grazed the column of her neck. She caught on to my plan and added, "Remember the romantic walk on the beach in Coco Cay."
"Yeah, but I'm surprised you do." I winked and leaned a little closer, stroking her cheek. "But I'll never forget that dance at the pajama party."
"Wow, that's like five or six dates. I guess I really am a good girl."
"Maybe I don't want you to be good," I murmured against her lips.
"No?" she asked breathlessly.
"No." A smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth. I shook my head.
"Good," she whispered, so close that I felt the tip of her tongue as she moistened her bottom lip. "I'm tired of being good."
She took my bottom lip into hers, tentatively at first, but quickly becoming more fervid as she flung her arms around my neck, pulling me down to her and pressing herself more into my body at the same time.
Any control I had snapped. I picked her up by her waist; her legs wrapped around my hips as her back slammed into the door. In that moment, it wouldn't have mattered if Alice and Bob and Joham and the guy in the theater were all watching because I needed more of her. I groaned into her mouth as her fingers twisted and tugged at my hair, urging me to press into her harder and harder until we were fused together.
Her soft moans reminded me of the sounds she made while she was lying on the massage table and I couldn't touch her. I wanted to touch more of her, feel more of her. My hands stroked the smooth skin of her thighs, bunching the hem of her dress.
I felt Bella's heart racing against my chest as she broke the kiss, panting into my mouth as my fingers wrapped around the inside of her thighs, grazing the soft material there. Her head thumped against the door, giving my lips access to her neck.
"Oh god, Edward," she said breathlessly. "Open…open the door. Please."
As soon as we were through the door, Bella was back in my arms. She reached back behind herself awkwardly, before sighing into a kiss and giving up. Against my lips she asked, "Can you unzip me?"
My lips brushed hers as I nodded and snaked my arms around her torso to pull at the tiny tab of her zipper while walking her backward until the backs of her legs hit the bed.
My knee pressed into the bed at Bella's hip, but she pushed back against my chest with one hand and wrapped the other around her dress, keeping it in place. "This isn't right."
Part of me wanted to say fuck no, this is happening, but the saner part of my brain prevailed. I slid off the bed and stood upright in front of her, waiting for an explanation.
"It's not fair." She looked at her lap, biting back a smirk as she played with the hem resting against her thighs. "You have all those clothes on, and I just have this."
Relief washed through me. She wanted to tease me. Challenge accepted. In my lowest, most seductive voice, I reminded her, "I know you're wearing panties, because they were the only thing between these," I said, wiggling my fingers, "and your pretty little pussy in the hall."
Her mouth fell open into the cutest little gasp, but the excitement in her wide eyes belied any offense. "Still, you have on your shirt, pants, belt, socks, shoes. I just have this dress and the aforementioned panties that saved my virtue out there," she said, pointing at the door.
"Easily fixed," I said, toeing off my shoes and socks. Her eyes nervously flitted around my body before locking with mine. I took off my watch and raised an eyebrow. "Better?"
She blushed and dropped her eyes back to her lap. I reached for my belt, but she still sat on the edge of the bed, holding her dress to her chest, completely focused on its hem, the bedspread, or anything else but me.
"It's okay to watch, you know. That's kind of how this whole strip-tease thing works."
Her eyes shot back to mine. "Strip-tease?" She reddened even more and dropped her chin back down, but her eyes stayed on mine, watching me through her lashes.
Her eyes followed my hands to my waist. I pulled the tab of my belt against the buckle especially slow, exaggerating the action, before releasing it to hang at my hips. Her breathing quickened, exciting me even more. I unbuttoned my shirt in a flash, discarding it on the floor at my feet. "Now?"
She shrugged again, but this time with a coy smile. I wasn't sure if it was an act or her inexperience, but either way I couldn't help but tease her. So I slipped my hand in my pocket, and pulled out a condom. "Here, why don't you hold this," I said, winking.
Bella broke our gaze to look down at the foil packet in her lap.
"You're missing the show, Bella," I said as I unzipped my pants and lowered them with my boxers. Her eyes snapped up just in time to see me stand in all my naked glory.
Bella's mouth fell open as she ogled me.
"Your turn." I closed the distance between us, pressing one knee into the bed beside her.
She leaned away from me, bracing herself with one arm behind her, the other still clutching her dress. Her knee bent, grazing my hip, she set her heel on the bed to lift her ass and scoot further up the mattress. Thinking quickly, I grabbed the hem of her little blue dress, pulling it away as she slipped out of the loose fabric and landed in the middle of the bed in nothing but those damn panties.
"You did that on purpose!"
"Yep," I said as I crawled over her almost bare body. If it were physically possible for me to get any harder, seeing her laid out under me would have done it. "You're so fucking beautiful."
She smiled sweetly as her hands blazed a path up my arms to my shoulders and back. I swept my hand down her neck, across her shoulder, following the soft curve of her side to her hip. I tugged at the little scrap of material there, and she dropped one of her hands to pull down the other side as she lifted her hips and wiggled out of her panties.
I moved between her legs, pushing them open with my knee against her thigh. Every pass of our heated tongues took more of our breath. I lowered more of my weight onto her body as Bella's hands found their way back to the fine hairs at the nape of my neck.
I traced the soft curve of her breast to her side and over her hip, trailing my fingers behind her knee. Her moan deepened as I lifted her leg over my hip. Bella writhed under my hand as it smoothed a circuit from the back of her knee to her ass and back.
My lips dropped to her neck, gently sucking as my cock found a rhythm, sliding against her.
Bella's panting was broken by her soft moans. "Oh god, Edward...please tell me you're already wearing the condom."
Shit. I shot up on my heels, frantically patting the bed. "Condom…condom…where's the fucking condom?"
Bella giggled. I shot her a dirty look, but the sight of her, naked, propped up on her elbows with her legs spread on either side of mine snapped me out of my irritation. I spied the packet near her ankle and reached for it, tearing it open as I returned to my haunches. I wanted to stare into Bella's eyes, to see the desire pooling in them as I slowly rolled the barrier over my length; but Bella wasn't looking into my eyes. Her gaze was trained my cock.
"You like that?" I stroked myself more than necessary. She bit her lip as her blush returned, but she didn't look away. "Do you want the honors? I love the feel of your sweet little hands on my dick."
She shook her head, and I made a show of squeezing, pinching and rolling it down my shaft.
"Edward," she pled, in a low, raspy tone, "stop torturing me…please."
Her soft, throaty "please" almost killed me. I'd give her anything she asked for like that, but this I needed as much as she did. I pulled her leg back over my hip, lined myself up and pressed against her center. "As you wish."
"Westley!" Bella's gasp dissolved into a long moan as I slid into her for the first time.
"Who. The. Fuck. Is. Westley?" I punctuated each word with a thrust.
Her hands raked down my sides and back up in the same rhythm, as she arched into me. "From The Princess…oh god…never mind."
"Never mind? Never mind?" I asked with mock irritation. "You call me by some pirate's name, and you say never mind?"
"Pirate?" Her eyes widened, then her expression lightened and she laughed fully. Her hands went to my hair, tugging me to her lips, so close that they brushed mine as she whispered, "You're a dick," and crashed her mouth to mine.
"But you like my dick." She nodded emphatically, and brought her other leg over my hip, locking them behind me. I groaned at the feel of her heels pressing against me. I dropped more of my weight onto her, bracing myself on my forearms under her shoulders.
I brushed my thumbs against her cheekbones, holding her sweet face. "Bella, are you close?" I breathed into her mouth. "Please say you're close."
I pushed into her harder and faster, urging her to come with me, but the more I tried to give her hers, the harder it was to stave off mine. "Come with me, Bella?"
She squeezed her eyes closed in concentration, giving up and slightly shaking her head. She kissed my throat and my jaw, bringing her lips to the shell of my ear. "You feel so good inside me." She gently bit on my earlobe and tightened her grip on my hair.
I groaned in defeat, stilling as I released. I pulled out of her, rolling to my side and brought my hand to cup her cheek as I kissed her tenderly and came down from my orgasm. "I'm sorry."
She brushed my hair out of my eyes. "It was amazing."
"But you didn't come." She shifted to lie on her back beside me, with her head resting on my bicep. I reached out to draw lazy circles around the outside of her breast to her hip.
Her fingers traced the ridge of my eyebrow, circling around my ear. "Some women just can't. It wasn't you. I've never during." She lowered her eyes, as if she were swallowing her shame and repeated, "It wasn't you."
I leaned over her, fondling her breast, and dragged my hand down her body. "It's not too late," I said, flicking her folds with the back of my finger.
Bella gasped, her hand flying to my wrist. "You don't have to, Edward. I always just do it later. It's okay."
"But I want to see it." I tilted her chin to look into her eyes.
She jumped when I played with her entrance with the tips of my fingers. "It's still sensitive," she explained.
"Good." I kissed her, sucking her tongue roughly as my fingers plunged into her. She moaned against my mouth, hissing as my thumb found her clit.
Her hand slid over my shoulder to my forearm and back, her writhing setting the pace for my ministrations. Her muffled whimpers became more erratic, and I broke the kiss to rest my forehead on hers.
"I should have lasted longer."
"I even took care of myself in the shower earlier."
"You? In the shower? You…"
"Every fucking time since we boarded this boat."
The circuit she rubbed on my arm became shorter and more frantic. "You take a lot of showers."
I nodded against her forehead. "Because you make me so fucking hard all the time."
Her breathing hitched into a low keening.
"I wanted to fuck you over the table at Rusty's."
"Oh god…" Her hand flexed against my shoulder, gently tapping as she started to lose control.
I curled my fingers, searching for the spot that would tip her over the edge. "And on the island."
Her legs began to quiver.
"And every fucking time you throw your leg over that damn body pillow, I want to turn you over and fuck you into next week."
"Eh…oh god..." her words were lost in a primal scream. She pushed my hand away from her pussy with so much force, I lost my balance and was falling to the floor.
Before I could realize what happened, she scrambled across the bed and over the edge, straddling me on the floor and peppering my face and neck with kisses between rambling.
"Oh my God, Edward. Are you okay? I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"
I stroked her thighs. "I'm fine."
"I'm so sorry." Holding my face, she alternated between kissing my cheeks and lips.
"I'm fine." I chuckled, sitting up. "How are you?"
"Edward, that was...it was amazing. Thank you...No one has ever given me one before...they've all been self-service." She looked away from me, avoiding eye contact.
I pulled her chin to face me. "Not anymore."
She smiled brilliantly. "Yeah. Not anymore."
Did I say heartfail? I was just teasing. There is no heartfail on The Love Boat. Ever. :)
Also, Edward's wish to lock Alice in Bella's trunk came courtesy of a lilsunnysaunt from chapter 13. It was so perfect; I just had to use it. ;)


text:
Green Envy
|Green Envy
| [[Image:
|Background information
|Years active
|Tulane University
|New Orleans, LA
|Organization Type
[edit] Biography
As the first a cappella group founded at [[Tulane University|Tulane\\, Green Envy is Tulane's original and premiere a cappella group on campus. Currently comprised of 18 students from across the country and representing diverse aspects of life at Tulane, Green Envy is a completely student-run a cappella group that meets a few times a week simply for the love music.
The group alternates every other year between a tour somewhere around the country and recording a CD. In the 2010-2011 school year, they released their second professionally recorded CD, "Greenest Hits," now available on iTunes[Citation needed | add]! They also took a trip to Atlanta, GA, and spent the weekend with Georgia Tech's a cappella groups publicizing their CD.
The majority of their songs are arranged by their own members and come from a broad range of musical styles.
[edit] Members
- Ani Carlson
- Brian Silver
- Caroline Campbell
- Caroline Webster
- Chase Treadaway
- Clayton Thomas
- Ethyn Samuels
- Jake Sussman
- Julien Hohenlightner
- Meghan Lydon
- Patrick Clark
- Talia Lipkind
- Carly Schindler
- Adam Burstain
- Lane Klossner
- Micah Bernhard
- George Henderson
[edit] Discography
[edit] Greenest Hits' (2011)
- Use Somebody
- Dark Congregation
- In the Still of the Night
- Halo's Gone
- Foolish Games
- I'm Yours
- Goodbye Earl
- Hit 'Em Up Style
- Proud (Live)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The British
legislation states the cloned embryos would have to be destroyed
after 14 days, but right-to-life groups are fighting the legislation.
Opponents say there are loopholes in the law that could lead to
the creation of cloned babies.
Explore More: Genetic Engineering
Copyright 2004, Iowa Public Television
The Explore More project is supported by funds from the
Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust
and the USDE Star Schools Program.


text:
We all desire serenity and hope;
Life can be like walking a fine tight rope.
We need to look beyond the present.
Do not look back at lost time spent.
We look for good things tomorrow
A day that brings sunshine, never sorrow.
Wherever we are we can always find hope.
It provides the tools to be positive and to cope.
The house of hope lies within our hearts.
Wave goodbye to despair and watch it depart.
Look deep within for the hope that can be yours.
You will notice it will open many doors.
© Andrew Pell 20/02/10


text:
For locals, few things say "home" as much as poke. Here's the story of the evolution of this quintessential Hawaii food.
About 50 years ago—Sam Choy remembers being less than ten years old—Choy and family friends threw a net into Hukilau Bay and ended up catching a few moi. His mom's friend decided they would make poke, so they sent him to pick limu manauea from the river mouth. Then they had him digging out roasted kukui nuts from ashes, cracking the hard shells and taking the meat out as they scaled and gutted the moi, sliced them crosswise—"poke" cuts—bones and all. They seasoned the fish with salt harvested from the ocean, threw in the chopped limu and sprinkled the crushed kukui nut ('inamona) over it all. After letting the mixture sit a moment so the flavors would meld, Choy recalls, "I took a mouthful of it and went 'wow'…Right at that moment, I knew that this was my love. Something as natural and pure as taking a fish out of the water, creating some magic to it."
Whether it was the work he had put into creating that bowl of poke (he remembers the long walk to the river mouth to gather limu and the seemingly endless number of kukui nuts that had to be fished out of the ashes, cracked, the meat scooped out), the romance of the setting—sitting on the beach with friends and family, or whether it was the natural appeal of fresh, just-caught fish paired with the crunch of seaweed, whatever it was, that moment tipped Choy's passion, a passion that would influence the future of poke.


text:
Pa Isaiah Ademola, the father of top Yoruba actor, Muyiwa popularly known as Muyiwa authentic has died. The Ibadan-based role interpreter lost his dad at the early hours of today, Monday, July 30, 2012.
According to information gathered, a source close to the actor confirmed that Pa Isiah died after a brief illness. When asked what nature of sickness he was suffering from before his death, the source did not disclose that to us.
Pa Isaiah was a Christian before his death, the source disclosed. He was said to be a disciplinarian. He was aged 88 before he gave up the ghost.


text:
Leading economists have urged the federal government to review the increasingly complex and costly family payments system in the budget.
They have also agreed that fixing the structural hole in the budget requires broader reforms.
University of Melbourne economics professor
Professor Freebairn said the government should consider the Henry review proposal for "one simple comprehensive package".
"The whole convoluted mess of income tax being based on the individual and most of those family benefits and social security based on the family creates pretty high effective tax rates for about a million women. That's stuff that needs to be seriously looked at."
University of Sydney professor
"I don't think you can look at them in isolation . . . they are almost trivial in the context of where things are going."
A report by Macroeconomics, released last week, predicted decades of deficits unless spending was cut.
It listed a host of possible budget cuts including reducing the eligibility for family tax benefit part B to $120,000, a move that would save about $811 million in 2013-14. It also proposed cutting federal expenditure on irrigation.
Professor Freebairn agreed. "The Productivity Commission has shown all that investment in irrigation is a very costly way to get indirect water from irrigation to the environment," he said.
But he said the problem was broader than a simple focus on cutting programs. "You have to go back and ask yourself what do you want government to do," he said.
Professor Freebairn said the reason for overpopulated bureaucracies was a lack of clear responsibilities.
"The big issue is Commonwealth-state overlapping," he said. "You've got bureaucrats in both places playing games with each other.
"Instead of really asking how should we improve our hospital or health outcomes . . . it's games about how we can con the Commonwealth to give us more money without strings attached, and vice versa."
A former Department of Finance deputy secretary and consultant at ACIL Allen,
"What is driving costs in the public service is the proliferation of programs and the proliferation of regulation. Both of those are decisions by ministers that increase costs. If ministers were to decide to have less regulation and fewer programs then we would have need for fewer staff," he said.
The Macroeconomics report questioned why the federal health and education departments each need more than 4500 staff, given the states deliver these services.
Mr Bartos objected to singling out departments with large staffs for cuts.
"The reason why AusAID staff has grown is that government has had this aid expansion target. If you are doubling your spending, you need additional staff to administer it."
Mr Bartos was involved in preparing the pre-budget submission of the Business Council of Australia. That report recommends an independent review of "the size, scope and efficiency of government".
The Australian Financial Review


text:
Cher says in a series of Twitter posts that she is 'ashamed' of criticizing Miley's MTV VMA performance, adding that she should have kept her 'big opinionated mouth' shut.
Cher has backtracked her comment about Miley Cyrus' performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, saying that she should have kept her "big opinionated mouth" shut. The "Woman's World" singer took to Twitter on September 18 to say that she was "ashamed" of blasting the 20-year-old singer in public, but she told her followers that she was not apologizing.
Referring to Miley as "Miley S", the outspoken singer wrote, "Re: Miley S... I Think What I Think, but Having Said That...I'm a little ashamed...I didn't keep my big Opinionated mouth Shut.WTF is MY PROBLEM ! I'm 2 (too) Old to fall prey 2 (to) 'Tell us, Oh wise 1 (one),What did YOU think of M.S (sic)?' What I should have said (is), 'I didn't like it that much, but she's Pushing The Envelope, being an ARTIST! She's Talented, & DIDNT (sic) COMMIT A FELONY.' "
Cher continued, "But somehow my ego had 2 (to) get ITS 2 CENTS IN!... I DIDNT (sic) SUPPORT A FELLOW ARTIST. TRUTHFULLY SHE WAS Fkng (f**king) BRILLIANT.. CAUSE... WE'RE STILL TALKING ABOUT IT. Ps this is Not an apology 4 (for) what I Thought, its (sic) a Reminder, that if I don't practise (sic) my principles, I loose (lose) Them."
Cher previously criticized Miley's performance in an interview with USA Today. "I'm not old-fashioned," she said. "She could have come out naked, and if she'd just rocked the house, I would have said, 'You go, girl.' It just wasn't done well. She can't dance, her body looked like hell, the song wasn't great, one cheek was hanging out. And, chick, don't stick out your tongue if it's coated."


text:
Welcome to the Rockton School District
What's happening at our schools:
Congratulations to the newest Stephen Mack inductees into the National Junior Honor Society! Rockton School District
The Rockton School District welcomes 2 new board members, Chad Papke and Brett Lundsten! Some familiar faces are returning for another term as well. Stephen Mack Middle School
Congratulations Mrs. Kelly on being name WREX Teacher Of the Week! Stephen Mack Middle School
Kindness Kindness Baby! SMMS staff all wearing their Kindness shirts. Rockton Grade School
Alyssa Connors, a first grade student at RGS, is featured in one of our Superkids library books, A Splendid Trip. Whitman Post Elementary
Go Cubs Go! Staff and students celebrate a historic World Series win. Rockton School District
"You can be my wingman any time". Rockton School District Administrators show their team unity with a "Top Gun" theme at the Welcome Back Breakfast. Rockton School District
RSD Admins and Board Members at the Welcome Back Breakfast. Rockton School District
RSD staff supports Kris Grahnke in his fight against ALS.
Superintendent's Welcome :
The Rockton School District is a pre-k through 8th grade district serving approximately 1,500 students. We are known for our academic excellence and our commitment to developing the whole child. We are extremely proud of the great things our students accomplish every day. A great educational system is created by having a dedicated staff, involved parents and community, and a strong Board of Education which exemplifies leadership. Rockton School District has all those elements which makes it a dynamic learning environment for students. We also have a strong commitment to partnering with the excellent surrounding feeder schools, as well as Hononegah Community High School, to continually improve the educational experience of our students.
Again, welcome to the Rockton School District!
Other News
Notice Of Proposed Property Tax Increase For
Rockton School District No. 140
Quick Links
Important Dates &
Upcoming Events
Our Schools
Grades K - 2
Principal: Mrs. Kindyl Etnyre
Phone: 815.624.8585
Fax: 815.624.1002Rockton Grade Staff
Whitman Post Elementary
Grades 3 - 5
Principal: Mrs. Megan Forsythe
Phone: 815.624.4006
Fax: 815.624.2125Whitman Post Staff
Stephen Mack Middle School
Grades 6 - 8
Principal: Mrs. Autumn Czizek
Asst. Principal: Mr. Matt Roer
Phone: 815.624.2611
Fax: 815.624.5900Stephen Mack Staff


text:
Sickness, you are right about the torrent downloads and also about the offensive labs, but I can't help think about vmware and the possibilities with it.
I mean, if everything comes configured, where is the fun in learning how it works, why it works and how to patch it? I know we all like it easy, no matter who we are.
I am sure you got my point in my previous post, but all that the class is, is just condensed material from a few books, that's how I see it. In the OffSec 101, the only hard time I had was with the buffer overflows and fuzzing, which one can easily find books on those topics and read up on his own, without thinking that he's got 30 days to finish the whole class. I meant, for a busy guy like myself, I hate that time restriction. If I spent the money, I want to be able within 6 month, let's say, to go through all the labs, because it's what I pay for and I want to take advantage of the whole package. If it's a self study, and mostly is nowadays, then I need time to really understand the class and not just fly through. You got to work around my time, I shouldn't have to work around yours. Right? That's why I pay you. And 30 days, I think, it's not a lot of time to immerse yourself in the whole class and understand it too, and go through all the labs and document everything. I am sure you could, if that's all you do, but I think I would find myself with shallow knowledge and not completely understand it.


text:
§48-1-243. Spousal support in gross defined.
"Spousal support in gross" means spousal support payable either in a lump sum, or in periodic payments of a definite amount over a specific period of time. A spousal support award is "spousal support in gross" only if the award grants spousal support in such terms that a determination can be made of the total amount to be paid as well as the time such payments will cease.


text:
The Wall Street Journal's John Fund on Friday night had a number of interesting battles with Bill Maher as well as Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).
During the panel segment of HBO's "Real Time," Fund found himself needing to defend Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Clarence Thomas's wife from the at times totally illogical attacks by the perilously liberal host and Congressman (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER: As long as you brought that up about people not learning, there's been a lot of talk this week about maybe the anti-intellectual forces in this country, and I speak specifically about Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, have peaked. You know, they seemed to be going up for a while, and this seemed to be the week when Glenn Beck went off the rails. I mean, even Fox viewers I think were embarrassed at what he was saying. Sarah Palin seems to have jumped the shark. Do you think the fever has broken on crazy in this country?
REPRESENTATIVE ANTHONY WEINER, (D-N.Y.): Well, he has -- he has less than 300,000 viewers. So that's about 150 shoes in his audience. You know, I think that frankly what's happened is that
MAHER: Wait, I don't
WEINER: I was going to go, I could have gone two ways: the number of teeth or the number of shoes. I wasn't sure what kind of audience we had.
JOHN FUND, WALL STREET JOURNAL: I'm interested in more math education.
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, ASTROPHYSICIST, DIRECTOR OF HAYDEN PLANETARIUM: Yeah, we need a, new math.
Readers are advised to recall the absurdity of Weiner's comments above as well as his abysmal math skills as they watch and/or read what ensued:
WEINER: You know, but there really is, I think there's a limited, there's a limited universe and a limited number of people who are just into crazy right now. There are too many important problems to solve.
MAHER: It has gone down, though, right? I feel like that fever has broken.
FUND: Glenn Beck's audience is 2.5 million households a night, not 300,000. It has gone down. I think the best explanation is the election in November convinced a lot of people, oh, you know, Obama's going to move, probably moving to the center. You find this deal extending all of the tax cuts. He brought in Bill Daley, Bill Clinton's commerce secretary. There's less angst, there's less fear of Obama. Therefore the fever goes down.
Indeed. Beck's audience was 2,359,000 on Thursday. Where Weiner came up with 300,000 is anyone's guess, although those familiar with him know he makes stuff up whenever he feels the truth will get in the way of the point he's making.
I only wish someone would have asked him to explain what kind of math he learned in school whereby 300,000 people equates to 150 shoes. But I digress:
MAHER: Yeah. That's partly true. Yeah, I don't say they're right, but you're right. Let me ask about Clarence Thomas because this to me is outrageous. Clarence Thomas, last week his wife, she's some piece of work. She's the one who called up Anita Hill a few months ago at seven in the morning asking for an apology on her phone machine. Okay, turns out that she has worked for the Heritage Foundation a right-wing think tank for many years getting almost $700,000 in compensation. Clarence Thomas, there's a box right on the tax form that says, you know, outside income from your wife. He said he didn't know about it. Should he really be on the Supreme Court if he can't even check the box?
[Cheers and applause]
Okay, she wrote, she wrote an editorial…
TYSON: Don't underestimate how much a man does not know about what his wife does.
MAHER: Very scientific, Doc.
TYSON: I'm just trying…
WEINER: Is it a news flash there's a lots of stuff that Clarence Thomas doesn't know. That's pretty clear.
This from a man that moments earlier underestimated Beck's audience by over 2 million viewers while demonstrating deplorable math skills. But I once again digress:
MAHER: No, but to me, to me this is, I mean this borders on corruption.
WEINER: Well he, I gotta tell you this, he should definitely recuse himself from any decision about the healthcare plan, because he's clearly in the tank.
MAHER: His wife wrote an editorial called, I mean, she's extremely political, called "ObamaCare Unconstitutional." And her husband is one of nine people who's going to vote on it.
So if a judge's wife writes an opinion on a controversial issue coming before his court, he should recuse himself? Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?
Fortunately, Fund was there to provide some sanity:
FUND: But Bill, since the 1960s and the feminist revolution, we judge people's careers independently. Now, obviously…
MAHER: So if Elena Kagan got married and her husband was working for MoveOn.org, you'd be cool with that?
FUND: There is a, the leading senior judge in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals here in California, Stephen Reinhardt, his wife was the head of ACLU in Southern California for 30 years. He heard lots of cases about the ACLU in those 30 years.
WEINER: Hold on a second. But there's a reason they ask on the form, what is the income of your wife. And that is because they want to be steer clear of conflicts of interests. She is a walking conflict of interest. He should recuse himself from these cases plain and simple.
[Cheers and applause]
TYSON: Wait, wait, wait. Just to analyze this with full disclosure. Suppose he did say I know about the $700,000. What would you then have said in that sentence just there?
WEINER: I said he should recuse himself in this case because his wife is making enormous amount of money trying to defeat a healthcare plan. That money is not going into some kitty in their living room. It's going into their household.
FUND: So should the judge whose wife works for the ACLU, which has cases before the court, also recuse himself?
WEINER: He does the questions, buddy. Let him do the questions.
FUND: Because you won't give me answers.
Exactly. Weiner would never answer that question because the hypocrisy would then be apparent for all to see. At least Maher was willing to:
MAHER: Yes, I'll give you the answer, yes.
FUND: You won't give me an answer.
MAHER: Yes, he should.
FUND: Yeah, okay. So then we're done.
MAHER: So, you think, so you're good for this, too?
FUND: No, because I believe careers could be judged independently if there's a clear conflict of interest in a specific case.
MAHER: Wait a minute. She's now heading a firm Liberty Consulting. It brags on its website it is "using her experience and connections to help clients with governmental affairs efforts." She says she met with nearly half of the 99 Republican freshmen in Congress. She calls herself an ambassador to the Tea Party movement. So, okay, she's sleeping with 1/9 of one branch of government. She's sharing a coke can with a guy…
FUND: I don't remember these complaints when Hillary Clinton was in the White House as first lady.
MAHER: But Hillary Clinton…
FUND: She should have recused herself…
MAHER: Everybody assumes the President is sleeping with his wife, although it's actually rare.
FUND: Hillary Clinton had a problem, because, at some times she would march into court and say, "I'm not a federal employee, therefore I don't have to give you records, and I don't have to be transparent." And other times she would say, "I should be treated like a federal employee so I can hold my meetings secret." The point is I agreed with Hillary Clinton then. She should have had, she had her own independent life. She had her own independent policy decisions. She was running the healthcare task force. That was fine. Just like it was fine for Hillary Clinton, it's fine for Ginni Thomas to have her Tea Party activities.
Exactly, but this matter isn't going to die here. As we move closer to the Supreme Court hearing the case concerning the constitutionality of ObamaCare, the Democrats and their media minions knowing full well it's going to be a 5-4 decision are going to push harder and harder to force Thomas into a recusal.
Fortunately for the future of this nation, I seems very unlikely Thomas will cave into the pressure.
Nicely done, John. Bravo!


text:
1 Vehicle Found
Used 2009 Pontiac Torrent Torrent FWD
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- Medina Auto Mall
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text:
|Roman Kononov <roman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
|Re: WARNING in xfs_lwr.c, xfs_write()
|Dave Chinner <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
|Mon, 24 May 2010 11:19:07 +1000
|xfs@xxxxxxxxxxx, linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|<20100523002023.41f5a5c8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <20100523101856.GL2150@dastard> <20100523092344.0fcaab42@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
|Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14)
On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 09:23:44AM -0500, Roman Kononov wrote: > On 2010-05-23, 20:18:56 +1000, Dave Chinner <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > You've got some workload that is mixing direct IO writes with some > > form of buffered or mmap IO on the same file and they are racing. > > Mixing different types of IO on the one inode is also known as A > > Really Bad Idea because there is no guarantee of coherency between > > them.... > > > > Can you find out what the application is triggering this? > > This is severely modified Postgresql, which does mix direct IO with > buffered one. I hope you keep plenty of backups, then... > You say "they are racing". Do you mean that this can cause file system > corruption? ... because it's Not filesystem corruption you need to be worried about, it's *silent data corruption* that these races can cause. > Doest it simply warn that direct user data races with > buffered user data and one of them wins? Yes, that's right. No guarantee of who wins is given, though. > This warning "taints" the kernel. Yup, the application is doing something dangerous, and this warning is there to let us know that the data corruption is the user's fault, not the filesystem... > Should it be safe to do different types of IOs on different > non-overlapping 4-KiB-aligned regions of the same file (I am unsure > if this is what the application really does)? Yes, it should be safe, but the kernel code can't know whether this is true or not - there are no specific interlocks with direct IO to prevent concurrent buffered IO to the same region while a direct IO is in progress. XFS does best effort attempts to maintain coherency does not provide any guarantees, hence the warning when known race conditions are tripped. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Chinner david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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text:
How to stop the beeping sounds in Host On-Demand 3270 sessions
Technote (FAQ)
How do you stop the beeping sounds in IBM Rational Host On-Demand 3270 sessions?
The Host On-Demand administrator and Host Access Client Library (HACL) programmers can code a session parameter to disable the beeping sounds in the 3270 sessions.
To allow users to start a 3270 session without beeping sounds, including error conditions, add the following parameter to the 3270 session configuration:
- Follow these steps if you are using standard or default installed Host On-Demand files such as HOD.html or HODCached.html or Deployment Wizard pages that use the Configuration Server.
1. Start a Web browser and open HODAdmin.html.
2. Go to the Users/Groups section and find the 3270 session to be modified.
3. Right click on the session and select Export the session and save the session in a file.
4. Open the exported file with a text editor like Notepad.
5. Search the file for the text string [Terminal].
6. Add SESSION_QUIETMODE=true on a new line after [Terminal].
7. Save and close the file.
8. Using HODAdmin.html again, import the session. You can delete the old session and import the modified session.
- If you created with the Deployment Wizard as html-based, follow these instructions:
1. After creating the client with the sessions define, find the client and open the following folder:
<directory with client page>/HODData/client page name/
For example: ../hostondemand/HOD/HODData/deploypage1/
2. In this directory, one or more cfgx.cf files should exist, one for each session defined. These are the session configuration files. Edit the cfgx.cf for the 3270 session that needs modifying.
3. Search the file for the text string [Terminal]. Type SESSION_QUIETMODE=true on a new line after [Terminal].
4. Save and close the file.
- For HACL programmers using the Host On-Demand Java beans:
Add SESSION_QUIETMODE property to the session as in the example below:
Properties p = new Properties();
p.put( ECLSession.SESSION_QUIETMODE, ECLSession.SESSION_ON);
Terminal t = new Terminal( p );
Document information
More support for:
Rational Host On-Demand
Software version: 11.0
Operating system(s): AIX, HP-UX, IBM i, Linux, Solaris, Windows, z/OS
Reference #: 1041008
Modified date: 06 December 2014
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Stop the presses! These headlight chrome trim rings are just too hot! These bezels are custom injection molded to the contours of your 2008 Toyota Land Cruiser's headlamps. Manufactured from automotive grade ABS chrome composite plastics, they are impact resistant, durable and a perfect match for exterior OEM chrome accents or fog light covers. Installing these bezels could not be easier, simple...
Price: $143.99
Retail: $157.55
2008 Toyota Land Cruiser Dash Kits
2008 Toyota Land Cruiser Window Tint
2008 Toyota Land Cruiser Headlight Tint Covers


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2017 NASFM Annual Conference
Support the mission of the National Association of State Fire Marshals to protect life, property and the environment from fire and related hazards.
The National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM) comprises the senior fire safety officials in the United States. Our members' responsibilities typically include code adoption and enforcement, fire and arson investigation, fire incident data collection and analysis, firefighter training and safety, public education and advising elected and appointed government officials on public safety matters. In order to network, and to learn about issues of common interest and strategize for the future, each year NASFM convenes State Fire Marshals and other public safety officials from around the country at the NASFM Annual Conference. Your contribution is critical to the continued work of the organization and the success of the 2017 NASFM Annual Conference!
Exhibitor Opportunities
7' x 8' Booth Display......$1,250.00*
Register online or download form
12:00 PM - set up
2:30 PM - Exhibit Hall Opens
4:30 - 6:30 PM - Exhibitor Reception
6:30 - 9:30 PM - Tear down
A few photos from the 2016 NASFM Annual Conference Exhibitor Reception:
Sponsorship Opportunities
Additional Opportunities
Fire Marshal Attendees Keepsake Item (shirt)............................$5,500.00
Custom NASFM Conference Challenge Coin.....................$4,000.00
Conference Name Badges and Lanyards................................$3,000.00
Flash drive w/Conference Presentations.......................$2,000.00
Break Sponsor Monday (two available)...............................$1,500.00
Break Sponsor Tuesday (two available)...............................$1,500.00
Break Sponsor Wednesday (two available)...............................$1,500.00
Daily Agenda (one per day)...$750.00
Conference Program, 1/2 pg in size (limited availability)..............$500.00
Conference Program, 1/4 pg in size (limited availability)................$250.00
Custom Sponsorship (contact us with your ideas)..........................$TBD
*The above list of sponsorship opportunities are limited in availability, and have deadlines for purchase.
Prior to selecting one these opportunites, please contact Phil Oakes at email@example.com or 202.737.1226 ext 4, then download form to register.


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"The guides were terrific, knowledgeable and accomadating. Tanya H., Australia – See more reviews
What To Expect
Discover the old and new Jakarta at a glance in this half day city tour!
The Jakarta Metropolitan City, with a population of around 10 million people, is one of the biggest cities in Far East Asia after Tokyo, Shanghai, and Bangkok.
One of the most popular sites in the Jakarta is the Old Batavia City, as most of the ancient buildings during the Dutch colonization are located in this area.
The first China Town in Indonesia can be found in Glodok. Just north of the town is the ancient Jakarta port called Sunda Kelapa, where the roots of Jakarta can be traced. Built during the Hindu Kingdom of Pajajaran, or Pasundan, this 500-year-old harbor was a vital link to markets of the outside world at the time.
As Jakarta is a historical city, relics of the ancient city is preserved at National Museum including old maps, antiques, Chinese porcelains, and under water prison. A drive passing the Presidential Palace, National Monument, and the Cathedral, can be arranged at the preference of the guests.
Fully air conditioned car / van / coach
English speaking guide
Entrance tickets
Meals and drinks
Personal expenses
Tips and gratuities
Refreshments and/or lunch in the area of Old Batavia can be arranged at extra cost. Please inquire.
All our card payments are protected by thawte to give you peace of mind.
5 hours and 30 minutes
E-voucher accepted


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The PS3 version of BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma will be updated to version 1.1 at 12:00 a.m. (PST) this Wednesday, according to Aksys Games. The patch will focus on improving the challenge and training modes. The PS Vita version will be released as 1.1 when it launches on June 24.
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantsma is available in stores and online for PS3. The PS Vita version will be available on June 24.
Official Site: BlazBlueUniverse.com


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ty_po, text_r & NYC
Hell yeah! New York Comic Con is next week, October 11-14, and myplasticheart's booth 3313 will be the home for my latest round of custom art toys, which I refer to as the "kinda blu" series.
This new ty_po 3" dunny series is a limited edition of 7 blind boxes for $75 a piece. Each one is crafted with dry transfer instant lettering but 1 chase version has a hint of my [O8STACLES] style popping out of the head.
I will also present my first custom Fonzo in my crispy clean text_r style. This little Freak Store figure entiteled "hint hint wink wink" is designed using di-cut vinyl letters and will be released into the NYCC wild for $150.
Along with Fonzo, I have customized my first Mega MUNNY. Experimenting with my latest styling, x-text_r, which uses matte and glossy spray paints with dicut vinyl letters as a mask, this 18-inch vinyl beast is a one-of-a-kind and is going for $750.


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Guidelines for the BrokerCheck Dispute Process
The BrokerCheck® dispute process (FINRA Rule 8312(e)) allows eligible individuals and member firms to dispute or update the accuracy of information that is disclosed in their own BrokerCheck reports.
Who Can Submit a Dispute?
Any current FINRA firm, former FINRA firm, and associated persons of a FINRA firm or persons formerly associated with a FINRA firm for whom a BrokerCheck report is available (an eligible party) may submit a dispute. An authorized individual may submit a dispute on behalf of a current FINRA firm.
With respect to former FINRA firms, a dispute must be submitted by an individual who served as the former FINRA firm's Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Legal Officer or Chief Compliance Officer, or a person with similar status or function, as identified on Schedule A of Form BD at the time the former FINRA firm's registration with FINRA ceased.
How Do You Submit a Dispute?
An eligible party may initiate a dispute by submitting a completed BrokerCheck Dispute Form along with all available supporting documentation. FINRA will review the dispute and determine whether it is eligible for investigation. To be eligible for investigation, the dispute must pertain only to factual information, and not to information that is subjective in nature or a matter of interpretation. In addition, certain disputes, even if they involve factual information, will be deemed ineligible for investigation. These include, but are not limited to, disputes that:
- involve information that was previously disputed under this process and that do not contain any new or additional evidence;
- are brought by an individual or entity that is not an eligible party;
- do not challenge the accuracy of information contained in a BrokerCheck report, but only provide an explanation of such information;
- constitute a collateral attack on, or otherwise challenge, the allegations underlying a previously reported matter such as a regulatory action, customer complaint, arbitration, civil litigation or termination;
- consist of a general statement contesting information in a BrokerCheck report with no accompanying explanation; and
- involve information contained in the Central Registration Depository (CRD®) that is not disclosed through BrokerCheck.
If FINRA determines that a dispute is not eligible for investigation, it will notify the individual or entity in writing of the decision and the reason(s) underlying the decision.
If FINRA determines that a dispute is eligible for investigation, FINRA will, unless the matter involves a court order to expunge information, add a notation to the eligible party's BrokerCheck report stating that the matter is under dispute. If the dispute form and documentation that the eligible party submits are sufficient to change the information that is the subject of the dispute, FINRA will make the appropriate change.
If the dispute form and documentation submitted by the eligible party is not sufficient, FINRA, under most circumstances, will contact the entity that reported the disputed information (the reporting entity) to CRD and request that the reporting entity verify that the information, as disclosed through BrokerCheck, is accurate in content and presentation. If a reporting entity other than FINRA is involved, FINRA will defer to the reporting entity about whether the information being disputed is accurate. If the reporting entity acknowledges that the information is not accurate, FINRA will change the information, as appropriate, based on the information provided by the reporting entity. If the reporting entity confirms that the information being disputed is accurate in content and presentation, or the reporting entity no longer exists or is otherwise unable to verify the accuracy of the information, FINRA will not change the information.
Once the investigation is concluded, FINRA will notify the eligible party in writing that the investigation resulted in a determination that:
- the information is inaccurate or not accurately presented and has been updated, modified or deleted;
- the information is accurate in content and presentation and no changes have been made; or
- the accuracy of the information or its presentation could not be verified and no changes have been made.
In addition, FINRA will remove the dispute notation from the eligible party's BrokerCheck report.
To initiate a dispute, mail a completed BrokerCheck Dispute Form and all available supporting documentation to:
Regulatory Review and Disclosure (RR&D)
9509 Key West Avenue
Rockville, Maryland 20850-3329
Note: FINRA will not accept requests sent via facsimile.
Contact the Gateway Call Center at (301) 590-6500.


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June 20, 2012 at 01:30:52 Jun 20, 2012 @ 01:30
For sale is a VNDS Tan Supreme Andrei Molodkin t-shirt in size Medium from 2004. No odors, No cracking, In VNDS condition. Very rare t shirt! Mostly looking for trades, looking for camps, other tees, offer me anything! Since i need a BIN i guess i'll say $90 because i'm not really looking to sell.


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Get right up close to
Namely: Are you insane?
"I hear that often," he said with a smile, over lunch one recent afternoon in Manhattan. "There are quotes from people like Arthur C Clarke and Gandhi saying that when people come up with new ideas they're called 'nuts'. Then everybody starts believing in the idea and nobody can remember a time when it seemed strange."
It is hard to imagine a day when the ideas championed by Itskov, 32, a Russian multimillionaire and former online media magnate, will not seem strange, or at least far-fetched and unfeasible. His project, called the 2045 Initiative, for the year he hopes it is completed, envisions the mass production of lifelike, low-cost avatars that can be uploaded with the contents of a human brain, complete with all the particulars of consciousness and personality.
What Itskov is striving for makes wearable computers, like Google Glass, seem as about as futuristic as Lincoln Logs. This would be a digital copy of your mind in a non-biological carrier, a version of a fully sentient person that could live for hundreds or thousands of years. Or longer. Itskov unabashedly drops the word "immortality" into conversation.
A sci-fi vision
Yes, we have seen this movie and, yes, it always leads to evil robots enslaving humanity, the Earth reduced to smouldering ruins. And it's quite possible that Itskov's plans, in the fullness of time, will prove to be nothing more than sci-fi bunk.
But he has the attention, and in some cases the avid support, of august figures at Harvard, MIT and Berkeley and leaders in fields like molecular genetics, neuroprosthetics and other realms that you've probably never heard of. Roughly 30 speakers from these and other disciplines will appear at the second annual 2045 Global Future Congress on June 15 and 16 at Alice Tully Hall, in Lincoln Center in Manhattan.
Though billed as a congress, the event is more like a showcase and conference that is open to the public, with general admission tickets starting at $US750. (About 400 tickets, roughly half the total available, have been sold so far.) Attendees will hear people like Sir Roger Penrose, an emeritus professor of mathematical physics at Oxford, who appears on the 2045.com website with a video teaser about "the quantum nature of consciousness," and George Church, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School, whose video on the site concerns "brain healthspan extension."
As these videos suggest, scientists are taking tiny, incremental steps toward melding humans and machine all the time. Ray Kurzweil, the futurist and now Google's director of engineering, argued in The Singularity Is Near, a 2005 book, that technology is advancing exponentially and that "human life will be irreversibly transformed" to the point that there will be no difference between "human and machine or between physical and virtual reality".
Kurzweil was projecting based on the scientific and intellectual ferment of the time. And technological achievements have continued their march since he wrote the book; from creating computers that can that can outplay humans (like Watson, the Jeopardy winner from IBM) to technology that tracks a game player's heartbeat and perhaps his excitement (like the new Kinect) to digital tools for those with disabilities (like brain implants that can help quadriplegics move robotic arms).
Scientific enthusiasm
But most researchers do not aspire to upload our minds to cyborgs; even in this crowd, the concept is a little out there. Academics seem to regard Itskov as sincere and well-intentioned, and if he wants to play global cheerleader for fields that generally toil in obscurity, fine. Ask participants in the 2045 conference if Itskov's dreams could ultimately be realised and you'll hear everything from lukewarm versions of "maybe" to flat-out enthusiasm.
"I have a rule against saying something is impossible unless it violates laws of physics," Church says, adding about Itskov: "I just think that there's a lot of dots that aren't connected in his plans. It's not a real road map."
Martine Rothblatt, another speaker at the coming conference and founder of United Therapeutics, a biotech company that makes cardiovascular products, sounds more optimistic.
"This is no more wild than in the early '60s, when we saw the advent of liver and kidney transplants," Rothblatt says. "People said at the time, 'This is totally crazy.' Now, about 400 people have organs transplanted every day."
At a minimum, she and others believe that interest in building Itskovian avatars will give birth to and propel legions of start-ups. Some of these far-flung projects have caught the eyes of angel investors, and one day these enterprises may do for the brain and androids what Silicon Valley did for the internet and computers.
Itskov says he will invest at least part of his fortune in such ventures, but his primary goal with 2045 is not to become richer. In fact, the more you know about Itskov, the less he seems like a businessman and the more he seems like the world's most ambitious utopian. He maintains that his avatars would not just end world hunger; because a machine needs maintenance but not food; but that they would also usher in a more peaceful and spiritual age, when people could stop worrying about the petty anxieties of day-to-day living.
A utopian future
"We need to show that we're actually here to save lives," he said. "To help the disabled, to cure diseases, to create technology that will allow us in the future to answer some existential questions. Like what is the brain, what is life, what is consciousness and, finally, what is the universe?"
Itskov's role in the 2045 Initiative is a bit like that of a producer in the Hollywood sense of the word: the guy who helps underwrite the production, shapes the script and oversees publicity. He says he will have spent roughly $US3 million of his own money by the time the second congress is over, and though he is reluctant to disclose his net worth; aside from scoffing at the often-published notion that he's a billionaire; he is ready to spend much more.
For now, he is buying a lot of plane tickets. He flies around the globe introducing himself to scientists, introducing scientists to one another and prepping the public for what he regards as the inevitable age of avatars. In the span of two weeks, his schedule took him from New York (for an interview), to India (to enlist the support of a renowned yogi), home to Moscow, then to Berkeley, California (to meet with scientists), back to Moscow and then to Shanghai (to meet with a potential investor).
When he isn't pushing his initiative, he leads a life that could best be described as monastic. He meditates and occasionally spends days in silent retreat in the Russian countryside. He is single and childless, and he asked to keep mention of his personal life to a minimum, for fear that he would come across either as an oddball or an ascetic boasting about his powers of restraint.
"In some ways, I'm a monk," he said. "Not entirely. Some monks struggle to stay monks. But I'm happiest when I live like a monk."
Maybe it's all his talk of androids, but Itskov has the kind of generically handsome face and perfect smile that seem computer-generated. He speaks English with a slight accent and wears Borelli blazers and an Audemars Piguet watch made of rose gold, both of which seem like extravagances to him now. Rubles that aren't ploughed into the initiative are, to him, a waste.
"I used to have a collection of watches," he says, grinning at how inane that now seems. "I gave most of them away, and I'm never buying anything like that again."
A few weeks ago, Itskov, wearing a Borelli blazer, travelled to the University of California, Berkeley, where a group of researchers and professors gave him a tour of their labs. The main point of his visit was to discuss a brain-related project that is now under wraps. That happened at a private dinner, and Itskov politely declined to say anything about it. But during the day, it was basically show-and-tell time for brain-tech fanboys, and it started at the Berkeley Wireless Research Center. The centre is sponsored by Intel, Samsung and other companies eager for a first look at whatever is being conceived there. The day ended on the other side of the campus, at the Swarm Lab, which is subsidised by Qualcomm.
At the Swarm Lab, Peter Ledochowitsch, a researcher with a thick red beard, described a minimally invasive brain implant designed to read intentions from the surface of the brain. So far, the device has been implanted in an anaesthetised rat; a prototype for alert animals is in the works. But eventually, he said, it would allow paralysed people to communicate, or to control a robotic arm or a wheelchair. It could also allow you to start your car if you think, "Start my car".
Commercialising cyborgs
Like other researchers on campus, Ledochowitsch has founded a company – his is called Cortera Neurotechnologies – that he hopes will eventually mass-produce and market this device. He has no expectation that Itskov will be an angel investor in the business, but angel investor money is what he will seek.
"We've talked to a number of venture capitalists," he said. "The problem is that they're spoiled by Silicon Valley, where six guys can turn around some stupid social networking software in six months. If your timeline is 2021, it makes them very nervous."
Itskov's timeline is even further out, but he is still eager for progress. He was mostly silent during the tour of the Berkeley labs, aside from asking variations on the theme of, "When will this be ready?" He could have discussed Berkeley's secret project over the phone, rather than flying from Moscow for a dinner, but he relishes visiting any place that could produce breakthroughs in cybernetic immortality.
"It's good to see the atmosphere," he said the next day over lunch at a restaurant in Berkeley. "I want my project to be international, a huge collaboration of different scientists. It's worth meeting, in person, everyone who is in this field."
Itskov has apparently never done anything halfway. He was raised in Bryansk, a city about 230 miles south-west of Moscow, with a father who directed musical theatre and a mother who was a schoolteacher. The father, Ilya Itskov, said through an interpreter in a phone interview that his son was a perfectionist who would not stop trying to learn a subject; be it a foreign language or windsurfing; until he'd mastered it.
"From the very beginning," he said, "we realised that Dmitry is not an ordinary person."
He attended the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics, where he met his future business partner, Konstantin Rykov. In 1998, Mr. Rykov started an e-zine with an English-language obscenity for a name, which was loaded with jokes about culture, showbiz and relationships.
Itskov came on board the next year, and the two began branding their collaborations as Goodoo Media. The company built tarakan.ru, a blog about the Russian internet, and an online newspaper, Dni.ru, a tabloidy take on sports, politics and entertainment. Online game sites and other online newspapers would follow, along with a glossy print magazine, a book publisher and internet TV channel. A media empire was born. In The Net Delusion, Evgeny Morozov, an expert on the tangle of Russian politics and the web, writes that Rykov became "an undisputed Godfather of the Russian internet".
The sites earned money through ads, Itskov says, but the company, renamed New Media Stars, also came to have very highly placed allies. At some point, Mr. Rykov segued from counterculture bad boy to friend of the Kremlin. Morozov writes that the company and its media empire have churned out "heaps of highly propagandistic video content" for the United Russia party of President Vladimir Putin. One of the company's sites was called zaputina.ru, which translates to "For Putin!"
Rykov declined a request for an interview. Itskov, whose principal roles were business development and managing New Media's roughly 250 employees, says the company never received money from the United Russia party. He has never met Putin, he adds, though he voted for him. "In Russia, the majority of people love him," he said.
Itskov was helping to build New Media Stars when he had an uncomfortable epiphany. It was 2005, and he was staring at his computer screen at the company's offices, then housed on a barge on the Moscow River. In an instant, he knew that a life spent accumulating money would not suffice.
"At the time, we'd had a very interesting proposal to sell some shares of the company," he recalls, "and I realised, given what the offer meant for the valuation of the company, that I could live very well. And then I realised that I wouldn't be happy, just working and spending money. I would just age and then die. I thought there should be something deeper."
An early midlife crisis
At the age of 25, he started to have the symptoms of a midlife crisis. He anticipated the regrets he might have as an old man; the musical instruments unlearned, the books unread. The standard span of 80 or so years suddenly seemed woefully inadequate. He soon was seeking out leaders from almost every religion, in a search for purpose and peace.
The more he contemplated the world, the more broken it seemed.
"Look at this," he said, opening his laptop on the table and starting a slide show with one heartbreaking statistic after another: Almost 1 billion people are now starving. Forty-nine countries are currently involved in military conflict. Ten per cent of people are disabled. And so on.
"That is the picture of this world that we created, with the minds we have today, with our set of values, with our egotism, our selfishness, our aggression," he went on. "Most of the world is suffering. What we're doing here does not look like the behaviour of grown-ups. We're killing the planet and killing ourselves."
To change that picture, he reasons, we must change our minds, or give them a chance to "evolve", to use one of his favourite words. Before our minds can evolve, though, we need a new paradigm of what it means to be human. That requires a transition to a world where most people aren't consumed by the basic questions of survival.
Hence, avatars. They may sound like an improbable way to solve the real problems on Itskov's laptop, or like the perfect gift for the super-rich of the future. But the laws of supply and demand abide in Itskov's utopia, and he assumes that once production of avatars is ramped up, costs will plunge. He also assumes that charities now devoted to feeding, clothing and healing the poor will focus on the goal of making and distributing affordable bodies, which in this case means machines.
For now, just acquiring a lifelike robotic head is a splurge. Among the highlights of the congress at Lincoln Center will be the unveiling of what Itskov describes as the most sophisticated mechanical head in history. It is a replica of Itskov from the neck up, and it is now under construction in Plano, Texas, home of Hanson Robotics, a company founded by David Hanson, who has a doctorate in interactive arts and engineering and who has previously fabricated robotic heads for research labs around the world. (Itskov said Hanson would not allow him to discuss price.)
Talking heads
"Most robotic heads have 20 motors," Hanson said in a phone interview. "Mine have 32. This one will have 36. So, more facial expressions, simulating all the major muscle groups. We've had four people working on this full time since March."
The even more remarkable expectation is that while Itskov is in another room, sitting before a screen with sensors to pick up his every movement, the head will be able to reproduce his expressions and voice. "He's controlling that robot, controlling its gestures, its expression and its speaking with his voice in real time," Hanson says. "It's somewhere between a cellphone call and teleportation."
Itskov's initiative is nothing if not forward-looking, but he sees it as a present-day end in itself.
"The whole problem with humanity is that we don't currently plan for the future," he said. "Our leaders are focused on stability. We don't have something which will unite the whole of humanity. The initiative will inspire people. It's about changing the whole picture, and it's not just a science-fiction book. It's a strategy already being developed by scientists."
It's also been dramatised by Hollywood. Itskov is a fan of Avatar and other films in the sci-fi genre, like Surrogates, a Bruce Willis vehicle about a world where people can interact with society through remotely controlled humanoid robots.
Surrogates, like so many films of its kind, contains plenty of terrifying, brink-of-extinction plot twists. And Itskov is well aware that few visions of a techo-Edenic future end well. That is one reason he recruits spiritual figures to his cause, with the idea that a project with such immense ramifications needs buy-in from various faiths and, more important, input about ethics.
Just because religious leaders will appear at the congress doesn't make them eager boosters. One of the speakers is Lazar Puhalo, a retired archbishop of the Orthodox Church in America, who has also studied physics and neurobiology. In recent telephone interview, he said avatars of some kind would almost certainly be part of our future, a notion that fills him with considerable dread.
"The creators of this 'something else' will have their own fears and prejudices," he says, "and you could produce those robotically. Which could be a real horror for humanity."
His goal in attending the congress is to stand up for human beings, which he sees as interesting precisely because of their shortcomings and foibles. And he'd like to make the point that immortality sounds like a ghastly idea.
"Life would get deathly boring," he says. "It's like talking to couples that want to divorce. The hormones have quieted down. You don't feel butterflies. The longer you're around, the duller it gets."
Do people want to live forever? If yes, would they like to spend that eternity in a "non-biological carrier"? What happens to your brain once it's uploaded? What about your body? If you could choose when to acquire an avatar body, what's the ideal age to acquire it? Can avatars have sex?
The sex question
These are just a few of the dozens of questions raised by the 2045 Initiative. (Yes, avatars can have sex, Itskov writes in an email, because "an artificial body can be designed to receive any sensations".) One point of the coming congress is to address such issues.
But a larger question hovers above all others: Should Itskov be taken seriously? Much about his initiative sounds preposterous. On the other hand, many of those conversant in the esoteric disciplines that would produce an avatar are huge fans.
So one can imagine two radically different legacies for this singular man. If he succeeds, history will remember Itskov as a daring visionary whose money and energy redefined life in ways that solved some of the world's most intransigent problems. If he fails, the word "cockamamie" is sure to show up somewhere in his obituary.
Andrew Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow.
The New York Times


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KISS Modellbahn Service announced two new items for 2017 (PDF): the RhB type ABe 4/4 III electric locomotive, and the Tm 2/2 111-118 diesel switcher. Both 1:22,5 scale models will be produced in a mixed plastic and brass construction. The locomotives will be available in multiple versions and road numbers. Prices for the ABe 4/4 III start at € 1.399,00, the Tm 2/2 costs € 695,00.
More information about both models:
KISS Modellbahn Service (KMS) is a company by Günther Kiss, that has been doing special paint schemes and repaints on request for many years. They didn't produce any models themselves, the ABe 4/4 III and Tm 2/2 are their first rolling stock productions.
KISS Modellbahnen (owned by Stefan Kiss, son of Günther Kiss) on the contrary, has been making high-end locomotives and rolling stock for 0, 1 and 2m scale for many years. In the past, KISS Modellbahnen offered a variety of models constructed in both brass and plastic. A few years ago, KISS Modellbahnen dropped their line of plastic models and shifted their focus to models in full brass construction.
ESU then took over KISS Modellbahnen's unreleased ABe 4/4 II, which was designed for a mixture of plastic and brass construction. ESU released the locomotive under the "Pullman" brand in 2015, with new versions coming out in 2016 as well.
With KMS now announcing the ABe 4/4 III and Tm 2/2 in a mixed brass / plastic construction, it's unclear whether they will be making these models themselves or if they maybe are cooperating with ESU.
Source: KISS Modellbahn Service


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Student Information
Hawai'i Pacific University Comprehensive Nondiscrimination Notice
Hawai'i Pacific University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution and prohibits discrimination against and harassment of any person on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, ancestry, marital status, disability, arrest and court record, or veteran status. This policy is intended to be consistent with the provisions of applicable Local, State and Federal laws and covers admission and access to, as well as participation and treatment in the University's programs, activities, and services. With regard to employment, the University is committed to equal opportunity in all personnel actions, policies, procedures, and practices. Inquiries regarding equal opportunity policies, access for disabled
persons, or complaint procedures, may be directed to:
Cissy Shaner
Acting Head of Human Resources
Hawai'i Pacific University
1132 Bishop Street, #310
Honolulu, HI 96813
Telephone: (808) 544-1188
E-mail: email@example.com
Inquiries regarding Federal law and regulations concerning nondiscrimination in education or the University's compliance with those provisions may also be directed to:
Office for Civil Rights, Region IX
U.S. Department of Education
90 7th Street, Suite 4-100
San Francisco, CA 94103


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Curious onlookers gathered to watch the first load of beer come off the truck and into Brier Island's new NSLC agency store. Jonathan Riley photo
People on Digby Neck will be able to stock up on cold beer for the August long weekend without coming into town.
The Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation officially awarded an agency licence to Walker's Convenience in Centreville on Tuesday, July 22 and owner Krissy Walker says her first order is scheduled to arrive Wednesday, July 30.
"The people here can't wait," she said. "It's going to be just like Christmas."
Walker has emptied some shelves at the back of the store and purchased a new cooler for the alcohol products.
She says she'll stock any product her customers want to buy.
She hopes the alcohol will mean more traffic through the store and increased sales for other products like ice, pop, lottery items and tobacco.
Because next weekend is a long weekend and because people may come in bigger numbers out of curiosity, she is staffing an extra person from 12 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
The Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation let a tender in June for an agency store on Digby Neck and one near Concession in Digby County, for the East Bay/Ben Eoin area of Cape Breton County, for the Cape North area in Victoria County, for the Port Bickerton area of Guysborough County, for the Brookfield area of Colchester County and one for the Peggy's Cove area.
The NSLC started awarding licences for private agency stores in 2000 and there are now almost 60 of them in the province.
The NSLC looks to establish agency stores in communities which wouldn't support a full scale NSLC store – typically these are smaller communities or in remote areas, at least 13 kilometres driving distance from the closest NSLC store and 10 kilometres from the nearest agency store.
Read the tender and more information about the agency store program.
[Related: Long Island and Digby want agency store too, June 2011]


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Monday, May 4, 2009 | 11:32 a.m.
Sun Archives
Landlord assault
Metro Police today identified a Las Vegas man suspected of beating his landlord to death in a southeast valley residence on Sunday.
The victim was taken to Sunrise Hospital with critical injuries and later died as a result of his injuries, police said. The landlord has not been identified.
Officers went to 4790 East Boston Ave. near Sahara Avenue and Nellis Boulevard, about 4:22 p.m. Sunday where they found a man covered in blood inside the residence, police said. The officers, who were investigating a report of a fight, found the 62-year-old man severely beaten by a pipe or other heavy object, said Lt. Ted Snodgrass.
Homicide detectives have identified the suspect as 35-year-old Jonathan Vanhook. Vanhook was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on one count of murder, according to detention center records.
Detectives said that the victim and Vanhook were involved in an ongoing dispute over money, which apparently led to the fight on Sunday.
The identity, exact cause and manner of death of the victim will be determined by the Clark County Coroner's Office.
Anyone with information about the homicide is asked to call the Metro Police Homicide Section at (702) 828-3521, or to remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at (702) 385-5555.