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Gay Place: Cheer Up, Goth
Austin's gay summer is off to a bright and sunny start: It's World Goth Day
Fri., May 16, 2014
It's World Goth Day (see Thursday, May 22).
CHURCH OF THE PASSIONATE CAT Underbelly and Rude Fusion present this jazz-age film noir detective whodunit. Thu.-Sun., May 15-18, 8pm, Sat., second show at 10pm. The Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo, 512/476-7833. $15, $10 students. www.fb.com/underbellytheatre.
PATRICE PIKE Thursdays, 8-10pm. Saxon Pub, 1320 S. Lamar. www.fb.com/patricepikeband.
HIP-POP CO-ED STRIP OFF DJ Deftone and hostesses Rachel Mykels and Nadine Hughes take you to bareness. Thursdays, 10pm. Castro's Warehouse, 213 W. Fourth. www.fb.com/castroswarehouse.
THE CHESTNUT THEATER PARTY Pink Miss Liss & the Sea of Strings and Minor Mishap Marching Band put out to benefit the Chestnut Theater. Fri., May 16, 8pm. TBA. www.fb.com/chestnuttheater.
COME OUT FOR JIMMY Show your support for (and learn how you can help) Austin City Council District 6 candidate Jimmy Flannigan whilst enjoying bevvies and hors d'oeuvres at a lovely home. Fri., May 16, 4-7pm. Private residence; contact campaign for details. email@example.com, www.fb.com/flanniganforaustin.
WHAT'S GOIN' ON? Inspired by Brecht, found objects, and Anne Bogart's Viewpoints, and starring Morgan Robyn Collado, Kannou, Olivia Jimenez, James McMaster, Smalls McCoy, Saray de Jesus Rosales, and Wendy Vastine. Directed by kt shorb. Fri.-Sun., May 16-19, Thu.-Sun., May 22-25 and 29-31. The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd., 512/478-5282. $20, $30 priority seating, $10 student/senior/artist. www.vortexrep.org, www.genenco.org.
c.l.i.t. Fest D.I.Y. and P. U.N.K. Hey ladieeeez! Fri.-Sun., May 16-18, various times. Cheer Up Charlie's, Museum of Human Achievement, & Hotel Vegas. www.fb.com/austincf2014.
CONTEMPORARY COUPLES CONFERENCE 2014 Not just for LGBTQ couples, but also for singles, swingles, and minglers, and the pros who serve us: therapists, psych pros, social workers, clergy, counselors, and anyone invested in our hearts. Sat., May 17, 8am. Bethell Hall, St. David's, 301 E. Eighth. $169, $99 students. www.contemporarycouples.com.
ARTS & CRAFTS WITH QUEERBOMB She's gettin' ready to blow! It's the fifth year of QB, and each year it takes a village to pull together all the artness for one of Austin's largest (if not the largest) annual nighttime processions. Expect "crafting, painting, cutting, drying, hanging, crying, drinking, eating, laughing, loving, and hefty amounts of cardboard, glitter, and glue." Sun., May 18, 12-6pm. Cheer Up Charlie's, 900 Red River. www.fb.com/QBATX.
TINA CANNON MEET & GREET Jesse Lunsford hosts this candidate meet & greet for Cannon, City Council District 10 candidate. Sun., May 18, 2pm. 2922 E. Cesar Chavez. www.fb.com/electtinacannon.
FLIP CUP FOR A CAUSE The National Karaoke League puts down the microphones to raise money for a member's top surgery medical expenses. Sun., May 18, 3-8pm. Rain on 4th, 217 W. Fourth. $30 per team, $10 individual. www.fb.com/nationalkaraokeleague.
FREE BURGERS Drink specials start at 2pm followed by free food at 4pm. Sundays, 4-6pm. Bout Time II, 6607 N. I-35, 512/419-9192. Free. www.bouttime2.com.
SUNDAY CHURCH Althea Trix wants to get an AMEN. And some men. Burlesque, drag, and a Champagne train. PREACH! Sundays, 6-9pm. Castro's Warehouse, 213 W. Fourth. Free.
MERMAID CONCERT CRUISE High Cs on the high sea! Or at least Laura Scarborough's Musiklandia experience on Lady Bird Lake. Oh, and mermaids! Sun., May 18, 6:30-8:30pm. Capital Cruises, 208 Barton Springs, 512/480-9264. $46.50. www.fb.com/laura.scarborough.musik.
SUPER SUNDAYS DIVA SHOW Join divas Kelly Kline and Jenny McCall for a night of divinity often featuring special guests, each week, a new Ru queen from RuPaul's Drag Race. Sundays, 10:30pm. Oilcan Harry's, 211 W. Fourth, 512/320-8823. Free. www.oilcanharrys.com.
FREE BUFFET It's about time someone served up some yummy free grub all week long to soak up all those drink specials. Mon.-Fri., 5-7pm. Bout Time II, 6607 N. I-35. Free.
'GOD LOVES UGANDA' tv PREMIERE Compelling and harrowing doc debuts right there on your American TV. Mon., May 19, 9pm. See your program provider for channel location. www.klru.org, www.pbs.org/independentlens.
GEEKS WHO DRINK QUIZ GAME Be a geek. Be a bear! Buy a drink! Win cash prizes! Mondays, 8-10pm. The Iron Bear, 121 W. Eighth. www.theironbear.com.
DRINK-N-DRAG Xacora Cayne hosts. Weekly performers include: Jame Perry, Mai Flirt, Brandi Williams, Cici Carerra Ortiz, and Kara Foxx Paris. Tuesdays, 11pm. Mister Tramps Sports Pub & Cafe, 8565 Research. Free. www.eventsxtreme.net.
QUEER RIDE Search QR on Facebook for up-to-date details about and stops for this weekly social ride. Wednesdays, 7pm. Long Center for the Performing Arts, 701 W. Riverside. Free.
NETWORKING HAPPY HOUR Netwerk! Wed., May 21, 6-8pm. W Hotel, 200 Lavaca. www.startout.org/events/networking-happy-hour.
WORLD GOTH DAY The gays love the goths and the goths love the gays, and many, if not most times, the twains meet. The first phase is dinner and drinks at the Dog & Duck with the afterparty at Elysium. Thu., May 22, 6:30pm-2am. Dog & Duck Pub, 406 W. 17th; Elysium, 705 Red River. www.worldgothday.com.
LISA MARSHALL & BABY ATLAS Soul and roots on SoCo. Thu., May 22, 10pm. Continental Club, 1315 S. Congress. $7. www.fb.com/lisamarshallmusic.
The Gay Place loves you; keep those cards and letters comin'.


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This novel is a Great Pretender. At first I thought it was going to be about a friendship between women who shared a childhood but took distinct paths in adulthood. Liz, from a stable family with loving parents, marries and has two kids; Sarabeth, her friend from across the street --- who came to live with Liz's family when her own mother killed herself and her father left town --- is a single freelancer who, after a year, is still mourning a failed affair with a married man.
Gradually, though, I realized that Ann Packer's true theme is darker. As Sarabeth says (with an odd, Yoda-like cadence) of two of her favorite novels, madame bovary and anna karenina, "Suicide, these books were about. Not adultery." SONGS WITHOUT WORDS, to my mind, is also about suicide, not friendship. Both Sarabeth and Lauren, Liz's teenaged daughter, hear the "distant music, familiar and sad" of longings that are impossible to articulate; both are subject to furious tears, days spent in bed, the lure of non-existence.
I don't think it is giving away any secrets to tell you that the main event of the book is Lauren's suicide attempt and the way that the family is changed by it. Liz and her husband, Cody, are devastated by guilt and pain; Sarabeth, meanwhile, is unmoored both by memories of Lorelei, her lost mother, and by Liz's sudden absence from her life. The two friends are strangely unable to connect over this crisis --- or perhaps not so strangely, because they are accustomed to a dynamic in which Sarabeth is almost like the family's second daughter. At one point Liz says angrily, "I'm not your mother." But later she acknowledges that Lorelei had been "some kind of not-mother, some kind of anti-mother" and that "it was almost criminal, that Sarabeth had been forced to do without."
The irony of this, of course, is that Liz, following the pattern of her own devoted mother, has paid every attention to her kids --- or so she thought --- and Lauren still falls into a near-fatal chasm of depression and self-loathing. Is Packer saying that mental states have a life of their own, or that parents can never entirely protect their kids?
Either way, SONGS WITHOUT WORDS is a book whose characters are divided as clearly as a two-lane highway. Liz, Brody and their son, Joe, are "normals" who have been blindsided by Lauren's suicide attempt and shocked into an altered state, less warm and fuzzy. Sarabeth and Lauren, in contrast, have always had to struggle for happiness, clarity and meaning; they must fight against a constant undertow of isolation and despair (Lauren's high school agonies are particularly vivid). Sarabeth doesn't toy with suicide --- her memories of Lorelei are too disturbing --- but she does succumb to a numbing retreat from reality; with no school to drop out of, she drops out of her own life. While I think Packer meant to give each side equal weight, for me Sarabeth and Lauren dominate the novel --- they are easily the more substantial, engaging characters. Liz is too earnest, even in her grief, to move me much, while Brody and Joe are too opaque.
One of the compelling things about THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN'S PIER was the stark moral choice that confronted the heroine when her fiancé was confined to a wheelchair after a swimming accident. SONGS WITHOUT WORDS doesn't have that sharpness of focus, which is why, more than the earlier novel, it sometimes gets bogged down in the sheer density of prose. The characters' lengthy internal dialogues, peppered with rhetorical questions, attempt to achieve texture through the cumulative effect of many words rather than the dead-on rightness of a few. I think a stern editorial hand would have been useful to help the good "bones" of the book emerge more effectively.
On the other hand, the very generosity of Packer's vision --- the meticulous details of family life, adolescent crushes and professional subcultures (Brody and Sarabeth's jobs are described with care and intelligence) --- has a certain emotional power. It is a leisurely approach to storytelling, more like a 19th-century novel in some ways (classic fiction is a constant reference point for Sarabeth) than a 21st-century one. Absorbing rather than suspenseful, it draws us into its universe and persuades us that it is real.
Come to think of it, it was kind of interesting to read a book in which the central friendship is absent (for a good two-thirds of SONGS WITHOUT WORDS, communication between Sarabeth and Liz are stalled; they don't even speak on the phone). So often we assume that friends can survive anything without much mutual nurturing; Packer implies that these relationships are more fragile than we think. She also seems to suggest that friendship, at its best, gives us a sense of ourselves that is irreplaceable --- as important as the love we get from a spouse, child or parent, and somehow purer.
I don't think I'll let on whether Sarabeth and Liz find their happy ending. Read the book and find out for yourself.
Reviewed by Kathy Weissman on January 23, 2011
Songs Without Words

subset: commoncrawl


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Dashboards are interfaces for users to view data, create ad hoc queries, and print reports. Developers use templates, charts, pivots, and so on to create user-friendly sections. These sections are the hypertext, push-button interface to the entire query and reporting process. A dashboard section-level action is initiated when the OnActivate or OnDeactivate events are fired in a section.
In sections, JavaScript controls the action and behavior of objects such as command buttons, lists, and graphic controls. Typically, objects are scripted to perform actions based on events, such as OnClick, OnSelection, or OnDoubleClick.


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Top 10 Early Pregnancy Signs & Symptoms
What are the very first signs of pregnancy?
Some women experience many signs and symptoms very early in pregnancy, while others experience very few or even none. If you think you may be pregnant, or hope you may be, review the most common symptoms below and compare your symptoms. To confirm pregnancy use a home pregnancy test - if the result is positive be sure to see your healthcare provider as soon as possible. Good lifestyle choices, healthy diet and proper prenatal care will give your baby the best start in life.
Based on analysis of all data reported by our members, the following list shows the top 10 most common very early signs and symptoms during the first 22 days of pregnancy (ovulation day to 21 days past ovulation).
#1. Overall: Fatigue/Exhaustion
#2. Abdomen: Mild/Dull Cramps/Pressure
#3. Abdomen: Gas/Flatulence
#4. Abdomen: Bloating
#5. Back & Legs: Backache
#6. Chest: Tender Breasts
#7. Stomach: Nausea
#8. Chest: Sore/Sensitive Nipples
#9. Pelvis: Increased Cervical Fluid
#10. Chest: Breasts Feel Heavy or Full
Start tracking all of your symptoms and pregnancy tests now!
Sign up for your free Countdown to Pregnancy account


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From monday to friday: 9h00 - 18h00 (non-stop)
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Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition: Review Roundup #2
Here are a new bunch of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition reviews.
The fog of war, rare in RPGs but common in strategy games, and the contiguous nature of the map are possibly a unique combination in RPG history. That seems odd because they work very well together. It's possible to crawl through the world of Baldur's Gate and explore every nook and cranny, feeling confident that you've mastered the Sword Coast. At its best, Baldur's Gate ties narrative progression, geographical progression, and character progression together better than any role-playing game before or since. That's enough to recommend Baldur's Gate as a game i…More information.
"but gamers after a more casual or relaxed diversion may find it more frustrating than fun."
relaxed diversion… It made my day. Let's translate that: casual gamers who find talking, reading, paying attention, making long conversation and pause need too boring to care - well Bioware delivered - DA2.
I have my criticism about EE but when I think what BW became with their awesomnesssss, and more recent ignorance about story building (guess whats on my mind), I cannot say harsh words about Oster's work.
Now BG:EE, in future Project Eternity.. there are lights about RPGS future. Both in story telling and the gameplay.
Bioware made such lights in the past;
in 2007 there was Mass Effect - with great plot, unfortunately the potential was wasted
later was DA:O, which needed to be polished, which had its idiotic solutions like questbags, but tried to remind tactic rpgs… but then DA2 came.
Dunno what mr Laidlaw or Hudson think - but relying only on IGN or other a**lickers is not the best way to keep the pride of once great studio.
Does anyone know what the sales have been like so far? It would have been really nice if the graphics could have been bumped up a bit, but I am still happy with what they have done.
Although BG needed a dressing-up, BG II is a more polished product. I wonder what will be done to make their mark. I really hope these enhanced editions build the way to a BG III…
"Stat crunching is good. Slow paced combat is good. Dungeons & Dragons is good. And combining all three seamlessly together remains very good indeed."
"There are no achievements to unlock, few second chances and plenty of completely unfair challenges to stumble into. I firmly believe everybody who loves RPGs should play Baldur's Gate; that's a given."
I pitty the fools who think that role playing is all about stat crunching, slow paced combat (a.k.a. dice rolling and number crunching in P&P RPGs) and Dungeons & Dragons and no second chances and unfair challenges. The real problem with Baldur's Gate isn't the outdated graphics and UI, the outdated game mechanics and the scarce voice acting (though all these are problems that come with the age…). The real problem with Baldur's Gate and all the other "good old fashioned cRPGs" is that they captured the worst side of P&P role playing games, which is the aspects mentioned on the reviews above: number crunching, slowness, a strategic approach to action and combat, lack of real immersion in the game world (having, instead, immersion in the game mechanics and the strategical aspect of gaming), an uncanny love for the kind of lame fantasy portrayed in most Dungeons & Dragons scenarios and (and this one is the big thing for everybody who is loving the resurrection of dead cRPGs) is the difficulty. The difficulty, by Jove! As if being more difficult had anything to do with role playing, interpreting characters and immersion in a fictional universe. On the good old days combat was hard, enemies were tougher, all happened in appalling turn based slow motion and there were no pointers to your objectives, so you had to spend hours dwelling on dungeons or whatever, searching for something you might not even know what it was. Great role play, indeed… Granted, they did the games like that because the multimedia and interactive aspects of emulating the "real" role playing experience was beyond them at that point, either for technical or monetary reasons, or both most probably. The easiest way to do it was to simulate the dice rolling and strategy parts of games like Dungeons and Dragons.
But guess what? Many role players hated that concept for many years - ever since other games and other concepts came out in the world of P&P. I'm sure that modern cRPGs have much more in common with first person shooters than Baldur's Gate had, but they also have fast paced action, interesting storytelling, nice voice acting (at least when compared to the "good ole' days"), rather nice looking graphics and emphasis on storytelling and interaction with NPCs- and that is the best way to emulate a good role playing experience ("role playing" meaning interpreting characters in a fictional story and not "roll playing"…).
It's a shame that this kind of hipster-geek fashion wave of good old games seems to be announcing the end of evolution of cRPGs. Maybe not the end, but the beginning of a cycle of repetitive retro bullshit, which, because is low-cost and have a solid base of fans desperate to throw away their money at kickstarters for projects that don't even exist yet. I really hope Bethesda and Bioware and other companies still interested in investing in cRPGs don't move to greener pastures when all those kickstarters start showing that a guy who lives in his parent's garage can make a cRPG (comparatively) almost as successful as a big budget game. Sigh.
Don't you think there's room for both? I love games like skyrim or the witcher, with action combat and great immersion. I get lost in skyrim for hours exploring and meeting npc's. especially with pc mods but…
I also enjoy the strategic party based games with slow methodical number crunching combat. I guess I see room for both and hope both continue. I see no reason to get rid of one just to have another.
Btw, I own my own company, have loads of cash (which ive invested some in kickstarters)and live far from my parents basement. So your demographic for people that like old school games might be a bit off.
There's definitely room for both types of games… and I personally will enjoy the diversity.
In other news, for those interested, the iPad version of BGEE is now available.
D&D 2e is a particularly poor choice for a cRPG due to its development heritage ("Let's toss this in too!"). Things are ill thought out with different resolution systems for different tasks, it's all unbalanced, the classes are all over the place in usefulness at various times in the game, … The BG games made this worse by showhorning in some 3E stuff. A good table top DM makes this sort of mess less messy but in a cRPG it tends to slap you in the face at every turn.
And note that I still loved most of the D&D cRPGs.
Therefore computer games that include those features do not capture the worst side of P&P RPGs because that does not belong to RPG. Those video games are simply war games.
As to the other things, there are no shortcut for certain activities. Getting lost means getting lost and allocating time being actually lost. Kind of a problem for present days' games when gamers claim they want to experience getting lost but refuse to allocate any time while playing to actually be lost.
It would be clearer from them they do not want to experience being lost.
For narrative games, it is another story: the story is central and essential to this kind of games.
So basically, it is wargamers versus narrative players, none being interested in RPGs for their content, only for the label.
I find the fear that these old school RPGs might somehow be able to kill AAA games pretty laughable. They cater to a rather small audience, too small to make AAA-style games viable. While there may be some people who object to modern graphics, most simply see that this is not affordable for makers of what you call "old school" RPGs. If you love RPGs, like I do, you just watch in horror how this whole genre is of the way of dying a slow death. Not everyone loves these ever more rule-free hiking simulators a la Skyrim or soap operas a la modern Bioware. These games don't only lose features all the time (what you consider the tedious rule set), but actually also roleplaying aspects that you claim to hold that high, in the sense that most of your deeds are without consequence and therefore meaningless.
Obviously, non-tactical battles with hardly a chance at losing in pretty scenery or elaborate pixelated "relationships" of the embarrassing kind are very popular, but not everyone loves them. You know, I like to have some game in my game.
To make this clear: I'm not a rabid old school fan who wants everything to look like in the late 90's. I loved BG and BG II, and Morrowind is also one of my favorite games. They are all pretty easy games, and Morrowind has lots of warts (also in the "lack of consequences" department), but they still had at least some gaming elements and worlds that had some thought behind them. I wouldn't mind games of this kind with pretty graphics. It's just that nobody has the money for it.
So old school games have well thought worlds, have "some game in their game" and lots of consequence? Well, it's nice when strategy games have a well thought world, and of course they are true games, not interactive movies, they are strategy games, after all. And there are consequences, of course, you win or you loose (which is not a role playing thing, this wining or loosing bit).
I'm not trying to sell you anything, but most point-and-click adventure games have more of a RPG feeling to them than your average "old school role playing game". That's why "old school" aren't really role playing games. Just as playing D&D in pen and paper form. Most of the time D&D gamers are practicing their arithmetic and map making skills, while making tactical decisions about their party of characters, while they are supposedly role playing. Just supposedly… As in the "old school" kind of games, where the tactical aspect, and the win or loose kind of mentality rules. That's why most non-professional reviews (and some of the professional too) are focused on that nostalgic "where are all the difficult games gone?" kind of discourse. And the usual speech that consists of "I hate all this modern games that have objective pointers, and maps with markers" and "Devs are always dumbing down the games for kids to buy them". I frankly don't give a damn about difficult games, but if I did I would turn up the difficulty of the game. I play for the story and the immersion, not to feel bright for beating the computer or clever for wining the game. Role playing games aren't about difficulty, although there has to be goals with a certain amount of difficulty, else the game gets boring easily, and they aren't about tactical maneuvers, wining or loosing, they are about playing a character, immersing in a world and having fun doing it. Saving and reloading all the time because we are trying to beat the PC in a tactical win or loose situation is a chore, not fun.
Story is non essential in a RPG. All it takes in a RPG is situations.
P&P RPGs rely on scripted stories because there is barely no other way to introduce RP situations and string them together.
RPGs in other fields do waste time with scripting. A RP situation is handed down and players role play.
Computers can deliver stories in different ways: through scripting or by letting the player string by himself narrative events that the game world produces. While the second is usually better done than the first, and totally appropriated to developp a RPG around. Unsurprisingly, RPGers by title prefer the first option over the second.
Immersion is too vague a concept to mean anything.
Certain players consider this feature does not immerge while they dismiss another feature of the same wood, that is as immersion breaking as the previous one.
Developping a game requires direction and one defined, north stays north, east stays east, south stays south and west stays west.
Changing directions every day might end with people going round. Which might be the case in terms of RPG on computer games.
A good tool to part this from that is when NPCs are involved.
In a RPG, NPCs act according to their role. it means that they should be partially to totally independent of the PC.
So it goes to the the famous party-based games.
The idea of role playing a party is mind crushing. It might be possible but heavily stressing.
Anytime, a party is potentially playable by one player only, big chances the game is not a RPG but a war game, skirmish level. You are just the strategic commander of a small band of adventurer.
When looking at BG, the devolution on this side is clear. BG made the choice of trying to import RPG to computers by emulating table experience and bringing proxies for the other players involved in a P&P game(since online gaming was not that available) The idea was that as technology allows, the emulation of the other party members would get better.
BG has some dimension of that, with NPCs acting by themselves on certain opportunities, leaving what could not be delivered properly to the PC.
FO has also a similar dimension.
As years passed, the slider did not go toward making NPC involved in a party more independent of the PC but more dependent, going to give all control to the player.
I expect Dead State on that point. They stated they wanted to go on the partially controlled party members way. Probably not for RPG concerns by the way as they want to deliver a game expressing the tension that can exist among a group of people in apost apocalypse settings. Giving total control on the NPCs will allow to game the tension management easily. A member is near the breaking point. If partially controlled, he might snap during the next mission, jeopardizing the outcome. Fully controlled, it is all up to the player to succeed in the mission to rebuild confidence.
They also stated they know they will have to patch to adjust that dimension. For RPG players, this dimension is no concern as it is essential in a RPG. For war gamers, it is unbearable as the deployment of the strategy(the essential in war gaming) is spoiled by this dimension.
Also P&P RPGs DO NOT rely on scripted stories. If they do, then you are doing it (very much) wrong. Just read the rules for beginners in any RPG core book and it's all there, clear as water. Scripted stories are know as "railroading", and even if it happens sometimes, the players will not be satisfied to be just playing pawns in the game masters own script… In cRPGs, of course, it's different.
Unfortunately NPCs acting their own way, independent of the main character doesn't make a role playing game, other aspects must be there. Or are you telling us that although you do not accept the label of RPG on most modern computer games that use it (as I recall you already said that the Mass Effect trilogy, both Dragon Ages, FO3 and FONV, both Witchers, all Deus Ex and Skyrim are not RPGs), you consider old school to be true RPGs? Is that so? For you, Baldur's Gate is adequately labeled as RPG because NPCs sometimes do something that the main character didn't? Hope not, because old school games are very closely related to strategy games in most aspects, and that is a very non-RPG thing.
An RPG is a game where you replace your own capabilities by those of one or several characters, the role(s) of which you take over. To make this possible, your own capabilities are replaced by sets of numbers that play out in conflict resolutions of any kind. This is a problem with many modern RPGs that implemented shooter mechanics, as they suddenly fall back on player skill for fighting, which is a loss of an RPG element (you use your own "stats", not those of the role you play). Story is secondary, though nice to have to keep you interested in playing. Actually, a good story is very difficult to reconcile with the idea of an RPG, as a good story tends to set you on rails, or it's not a good story. That becomes clear if you think of Planescape:Torment, which has an excellent story, but with very mediocre gameplay elements. The old Fallouts are the opposite case.
It's actually the same with PnP games. The good games are the ones where the DM recognizes when to abolish the story he had in mind and just let the players do their thing. A good DM accepts the deeds of the players as story and doesn't force the grand story he had in mind on them. All in all, story is a completely unimportant aspect of RPGs and often enough gets in the way. Of course, a computer can never replace a human being in this regard, so some railroading becomes necessary.
Really, the closest you get to real RPGs (like D&D) are all these old games that you try to redefine as strategy games, because it fits your agenda. A game like Baldur's Gate manages to capture the mood of a real life RPG session quite well. You don't even have to rely on me: Bioware made it very clear that the Mass Effect series isn't really pure RPG anymore, but an RPG/shooter hybrid.
I started playing role playing games (the P&P variety) in the early 90s, mostly as a game master, but many times as a player. I stopped playing them about a couple of years ago because life got in the middle. I played and game mastered a wide variety of games and genres, from horror, to cyberpunk, from fantasy, to hard sci fi. I can mention some of the games I played, among them Kult, Vampire, D&D, World of Darkness (and before that Vampire the Masquerade), Conspiracy X, Pendragon, Traveller, Trinity, Underground, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica. The list goes on and on…
I know that this doesn't make an expert out of me. But please, do not try to teach what a role playing game is. I know, I had the time to learn it, I guess. No matter how stupid I may be, almost 20 years of hobby are enough to grasp it's basic meaning.
I also know that cRPGs are not the same thing as P&P. But, in my opinion, the more recent games (even though they mix other genres with role play - shooter, as you mention about Mass Effect, and I agree) are much closer to my experience as a P&P gamer and GM than the good ole classics. There are exceptions, naturally. I like Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, though it's a bit old by now, and I could like Morrowind if not for the motive that most people like it - the strange environment. But that's just a matter of taste. Deus Ex has rather bad voice acting, but in it's time was a great game nonetheless. Both KOTOR are great games. All these ones have nothing to do with strategy or tactical mentality. Baldur's Gate and all D&D inspired games have. And those I do not like.
Anyway…. Mostly, the good ole' classics were restricted by technical limitations, and it was easier to implement mechanics that emulated the rules of a P&P game than all the rest. And by all the rest I mean the creation of an environment that substitutes the players' imagination around the gaming table (this replacement is supposed to happen in a video game, even if the players imagination is still necessary), and that recreates the role of the game master - not just as a referee, but also as the one responsible for all the NPCs and the interaction of the gamers' characters with the imaginary space they are sharing. Good graphics, good music, good voice acting, are essential for all this - in my opinion. Good stories also, and those do not change because of technical issues. But it is my firm believe that the narratives and dialogues of the old school games were not better (I would even say they were normally much worse) than recent games. There are exception, of course.
Story is not secondary (though "story" is not the linear story which you seem to imply that it is the only one possible in RPGs), mechanics are not the most important thing in role playing. In fact, they are only tools for achieving a purpose. Role playing, as in "interpreting a character", is the most important thing, as the name "role playing game" implies. If you do not agree with this, then it is your agenda that is mixed up.
Well, I'm still playing in D&D games and GMing a Star Wars game. Just to get that out of the way.
Regarding narratives, do you still find PS:T or Fallout level stuff nowadays? Most of it is so dumbed down that I have to ask myself why I have to listen to that garbage. I mean, with a story like in ME3, you have to just forget about logic and try to enjoy the game despite the awful narrative, not because of it. But that happens when you have to broaden your audience to an extent that you have to be careful to be "all-inclusive".
Sure, there were "old school" games where narrative didn't matter much. Goldbox games, for instance, which are quite primitive in this regard. With the Wizardries or M&Ms, narrative played also mostly second fiddle. But that's fine, they were first and foremost games, not soap operas where you press a button once in a while.
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Family tribute to Alan Drennan who died in Ibiza
Memorial is unveiled year after tragedy on holiday
Alan Drennan fought back tears as he paid tribute to his "fun-loving" 21-year-old son at a special memorial event one year on from his death in Ibiza.
Dozens of family and friends of "young Alan", as his father affectionately calls him, gathered at the sun-drenched shore in Jordanstown yesterday where they marked the first anniversary of his passing.
A bench dedicated to the popular Newtownabbey man overlooking Belfast Lough was unveiled at the service.
It sits between two other benches erected for those who have lost a loved one and in memory of Kevin Bell, who died in New York in 2013, and whose name now fronts a family-run charity that helped repatriate Alan's body. Last night many more attended the shorefront, where they released lanterns in tribute to the mechanic who died in controversial circumstances while on holiday with a group of his close friends. Alan snr (56), mum Verona (53) and brothers Lee (24) and 16-year-old Karl were comforted by family members as Rev Nigel Kirkpatrick conducted a short prayer service for Alan.
His devastated father sobbed as he spoke proudly of his son and how the bench will keep his memory alive.
"I'm glad we got to do this today because he made an impact on so many lives. A lot of people have realised that life is too short, that this can happen, and his friends have also changed their ways," he said.
"This (memorial bench) will go on forever."
Two trees will be planted in the area this November in tribute to Alan, who was found dead in his hotel room in Ibiza less than 24 hours after arriving there for a holiday.
"We wanted to help the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust as they helped us bring young Alan home and I owe everything to that family for what they did," Alan snr added. "Alan used to come to this shore with his friends and have a bit of fun. All the kids got together and have started doing banners and stickers and raising money for the trust. So far they have raised about £13,000.
"This is how well Alan was thought of, he was a super lad and we just miss him so much.
"He made an impact on people's lives and it's nice to think that so many people have a piece of Alan in their heart and I'm so proud of what he did in his 21 years of life."
Many of his friends, including those who were in Ibiza, attended yesterday's events.
Stephen McKee, Stephen Bell, Adam McKee, James McKinney, Connor Kerr, Cameron Snow and Matthew West spoke about the impact of Alan's death on their close-knit group and how nights out "just aren't the same".
Stephen Bell said: "It's a weird feeling today because this day last year we were all sitting on the beach planning on meeting up with everyone else and a couple of hours later we found out what happened, and today we are all together again at these benches.
"It means we can come here in our own time and help each other through it."
He added: "This past year hasn't been the same without him, partying hasn't been the same, nothing really has been the same."
Belfast Telegraph


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Earlier this week at MWC, HTC took the wraps off of a trio of smartphones that feature both its One branding as well as the new Sense 4 user interface. One HTC executive has used the occasion to touch on previous versions of the Sense UI and how things will be different with Sense 4 and the One series. Speaking to Pocket-lint, Kouji Kodera, HTC's chief product officer, has said that the company simply "added too many things" while moving from the original Sense up to Sense 3.5, explaining that originally Sense was meant to be simple but that eventually the experience become "cluttered." Kodera continued:
"There where too many things in there. Even on the home screen we had four or five icons before consumers got a chance to add things themselves. For the HTC One range we have taken it down to Sense 2 again."
Kodera also said that HTC didn't try to change everything about stock Ice Cream Sandwich with Sense 4. Instead, HTC worked to find keep several ICS pieces intact in order to find a good mix between Android 4.0 and the new Sense.
Back in January, HTC said that it plans to simplify things in 2012 by releasing fewer devices and focusing more on a small lineup of hero devices (something that Kodera reiterated), and this new, refined take on Sense seems to go hand in hand with that decision. HTC's Sense overlay has been criticized in the past for being a tad "in-your-face," so it's good to hear that the company is working to change that and make things a bit simpler for the end user. If you'd like a quick peek at Sense 4 in action, check out the video below, which shows HTC's custom skin in action on a One S. What do you all make of Sense 4 so far? Does it indeed look like HTC has made the overlay simpler to use?
Via Pocket-lint


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Athens-based Zaxby's restaurant uniform designs received the Image of the Year award from the National Association of Uniform Manufacturers and Distributors at the organization's recent annual meeting in Las Vegas.
The uniform line was designed to showcase the chain's signature sauces. The entire uniform line, including crew and manager shirts, pants, caps, visors and fleece jackets, was recognized at the awards ceremony, where winner's uniforms were showcased in a fashion show.
The uniform line was produced by Blade Sportswear of Macon, and the sauce logos and descriptions were created by St. John & Partners, Zaxby's advertising and public relations agency.
A panel of apparel and fashion image experts, independent of the national organization, judged the entries.
- Staff reports
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'Saudization' win-win for government
The Saudi government is planing a process of 'Saudization' to increase work opportunities for domestic workers.
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Saudi Arabia's private sector is expected to pay the Ministry of Labor about SAR 10 billion in expatriate fees for this Hijri year, according to ministry sources
The fee, which has been raised from SAR 100 to SAR 2,400 per person, will be imposed on about 4 million expats. Domestic workers and companies with more than 50 percent Saudis are exempted from this resolution, according to Asharq Al-Awsat, the Arabic language newspaper.
The contracting sector will pay most of this bill. Mushabab Mubarak Al-Saad, assistant secretary-general for National Committees in the Council of Saudi Chambers, said that a report on the negative consequences of the resolution of the Ministry of Labor is being prepared.
"Workshops studying the effects of the resolution found no positive trend," Al-Saad said. "All recommendations are about the negative impacts on the Saudi business sector as well as the Saudi subjects."He also said that the rate of inflation will go up in some areas of the Kingdom as a result of this.
The decision came out abruptly, complained Al-Saad. "The Council of Saudi Chambers was absolutely not informed before the resolution was passed," he said.
"The business sector collectively refused the resolution because it was quick and abrupt." Saudi businessmen in the contracting sector refused to comply with the resolution although it came into effect last week. They held a meeting in Riyadh to send a protest note, which will be submitted to object to the ministry's resolution.
Heads of contracting sector committees in the Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Saudi Arabia agreed not to comply with the resolution until it is canceled or closure of their companies, and discharging their employees will be the next step. In addition, Fahd Alhamadi, head of the contractors national committee, said that they took a collective decision not to comply with the resolution.
He told Asharq Al-Alawsat: "Contractors will not pay the new fees because they are illogical and have negative impact on both small and medium companies."Alhamdi said that the closure of many companies is expected.
"We have Saudi employees, but most of our employees are non-Saudis because of the nature of work in this sector."
He also added: "Inflation is rising and such resolution will make it even worse."Meanwhile, protests against the expat fees have flared up in various sectors. Private schools are insisting that citizens bear the burden of this resolution by adding all the expenses to school fees.
A source in the Ministry of Labor, however, said: "Saudization rate in private schools should be more that 50 percent, and their protest against this decision proves their failure to comply with the national policy in a sector largely dominated by expatriate teachers."
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- US universities to lose over $5M as Saudi students stay away after mistreatment
- Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade, and Handicrafts fights nationwide unemployment levels
- Here are the top 20 most in demand MENA employers, according to LinkedIn
- Thomson Reuters annual cost of compliance survey shows regulatory fatigue, resource challenges and personal liability to increase throughout 2015
- Dulsco conducted recycling awareness campaign with students of Al Khansaa
- Major Bahraini businessmen express anger over expat levy
- First Saudization, now 'womanization'? More women to occupy top government jobs, says Saudi government
- Expensive Saudization: Labour Ministry asks for $4 billion in labor reforms
- 'Saudization' of smaller businesses in plans to boost employment
- Saudi Arabia to pay government employees according to Western calendar


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Savannah Lee will celebrate her 2nd birthday April 6, 2013. She is the daughter of Brandon and Christi Lee.
Grandparents are Chris and Vanessa Douglas, Louis and Brenda Lee, Jackie and Peggy Lee and Marvin Cecil. Great-grandmother is Estelle Hubbard.
Savannah has three brothers, Dylan, Michael and Brandon.
John and Natalie Hamilton of Louisville announce the birth of a 6-pound, 3-ounce daughter, Sophia June Hamilton, born Sept. 28, 2012 at Baptist Hospital East.
Maternal grandparents are John Henry Elliott of Lebanon and the late June Elliott. Paternal grandparents are Bob and Sue Hamilton of Aurora, Colo. Great-grandparents are Del and Betty McKee and Earline Hamilton.
Sophia June has a brother, Eli.
Monday, April 8: Pancake and sausage on a stick w/maple syrup and toast or assorted cereal and toast, peaches, variety of juice, milk.
Tuesday, April 9: Granola breakfast cookie and two toast or assorted cereal and two toast, fruit cocktail, variety of juice, milk.
Wednesday, April 10: Scrambled eggs and two toast or assorted cereal and two toast, grape cluster, variety of juice, milk.
Thursday, April 11: Milk gravy and biscuit or cereal and toast, orange edges, variety of juice, milk.
The following Glasscock Elementary students achieved the honor roll for the third nine weeks of the 2012-13 school year.
All A Honor Roll
• Second grade - Ciara Brady, Wesley Followell, Makhia Gunn, Olivia Ibarra, Jacob Kehm, Keegan Milby, Charleigh Browning, Memphis Curry, Kaileigh Ervin, Kyleeia Hayden, Timothy Sherrell, Bryan Flores, Ericka Hoppes, Bailey Jeffries, and Kaylee Leake.
First Baptist Church on N. Depot Street will be having their annual Spring Musical to kick off their Spring Revival. It will start at 4 p.m. Saturday, April 6 with music from the male, senior, solos and youth choirs. Refreshments served after the musical. If you are interested in attending call John Body at 692-0403 or (270) 402-3804.
Bass tournament
It is the policy of The Lebanon Enterprise to publish public records as they are reported by various agencies.
This policy has been established to preserve the fairness and impartiality of The Lebanon Enterprise.
Names appearing in public records and documents published by The Enterprise will be published without exceptions.
Public records are published as a news service to our readers.
Dillis Berryman III, 34, of 29 Parrish Street in Lebanon was ordered to serve the balance of his five-year sentence in Marion Circuit Court recently for underlying charges of first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance and trafficking in a controlled substance within 1,000 yards of a school.
Berryman was found in violation of his probation because he failed a drug test.
In other circuit court matters:
Copyright © 2017
The Lebanon Enterprise is your source for local news, sports, events, and information in Marion County and Lebanon, KY, and the surrounding area.


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We have updated our Privacy Policy and encourage you to read it by clicking here.
My email was sent to the suggested "urgent†address and responded to 12 hours later. Overall down time for the site is 16-18 hours. What the hosting company decided to do was disable access to the directory hosting the RSS button tool as well as rename the .htaccess file. In their email they only stated "disabling†a script. They never mentioned anything about making changes to the htaccess file. They did this without notifying us first that there was any issue. Source: Top Rank Blog.com
Looks like when the server was restarted the PHP extensions remapped to the CGI version. We've updated your site to run FastCGI.


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Tempo SC Ultra
Buy Now
Laura from Rockland, Ma writes,
How much Tempo SC Ultra do I add to one gallon of water to kill clothes moths?
You want to use 16mL of Tempo SC Ultra into 1 gallon of water.
Answer last updated on: 05/31/2013
2 of 2 people found this answer helpful. Was it helpful to you? Yes No


text: Yes they did Nige. Tbh, I must say they were great. Stuart is a nice guy and they kept bringing me coffee all the time, and let me watch what I wanted to on the tele. I just wish they were closer, because I would use them all the time if they were. They just show up my local dealers to be the useless thick monkeys I have always thought they were


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Will there be a third wave of the H1N1 pandemic?
It depends on whom you ask. Three out of the last four flu pandemics did occur in three waves. But according to an informal poll of flu experts by TIME magazine, only half said there would be another H1N1 wave this flu season.
Was the threat of H1N1 exaggerated?
The Novel H1N1 virus hasn't infected as many people as some experts predicted. The Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, for example, estimated that up to one-half of the U.S. population could be infected with the virus and as many as 90,000 deaths could occur. Conversely, the Centers for Disease Control recently estimated that there have been 15,000 deaths and one-sixth of the U.S. population infected.
That said, I would argue that the threat of H1N1 wasn't overblown. We've learned that unlike Seasonal Influenza, the Novel H1N1 Influenza Virus is more dangerous to children and young adults.
For example, the pediatric death rate from H1N1 is 10 times higher than that of Seasonal Flu. It's more severe in pregnant women. A study of 94 pregnant and eight post-partum hospitalized women published in the New England Journal of Medicine this month revealed an 8 percent death rate.
The public response.
The vaccine is now readily available to the public. There have been more than 60 million doses of the various formulations of H1N1 vaccine administered in the U.S., with an estimated 40 percent of those doses administered to children. The adverse event rate has been no different then that of the Seasonal Flu vaccine.
National Influenza Vaccination Week was Jan. 10-16. Given the safety of the vaccine and the irrefutable benefits of vaccination to ourselves and our loved ones, we should all do our civic duty to stop the spread and get vaccinated.
Dr. Mark Tosca is a family practice physician at Kachina Family Practice (www.Kachinafamilypractice.com) and is writing about the flu monthly. For more information on the swine flu, visit www.cdc.gov or contact Tosca at email@example.com.


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You can try these similar gifts instead.
Natural Baby Skin Care Starter Kit
Gaia Skin Naturals
Keep your baby's skin soft and healthy with this travel set that holds 50 ml bottles of natural baby bath and body wash, baby shampoo, baby moisturizer, skin soothing lotion, and baby massage oil, perfect for the diaper bag.


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The Potential for Dramatically Increasing Bicycle and E-bike Use in Cities Around the World, with Estimated Energy, CO2, and Cost Impacts
Executive Summary
Cycling plays a major role in personal mobility around the world, but it could play a much bigger role. Given the convenience, health benefits, and affordability of bicycles, they could provide a far greater proportion of urban passenger transportation, helping reduce energy use and CO2 emissions worldwide. This report presents a new look at the future of cycling for urban transportation (rather than recreation), and the potential contribution it could make to mobility as well as sustainability. The results show that a world with a dramatic increase in cycling could save society US$24 trillion cumulatively between 2015 and 2050, and cut CO2 emissions from urban passenger transport by nearly 11 percent in 2050 compared to a High Shift scenario without a strong cycling emphasis.
The report builds on the 2014 study A Global High Shift Scenario: Impacts and Potential for More Public Transport, Walking, and Cycling with Lower Car Use. That report provided a global assessment of the potential for increasing travel on sustainable, efficient modes while concurrently developing cities that are far less car-dependent. However, the role of cycling in the previous study could be considered relatively minor, with the global average urban mode share increasing by three percentage points in 2030 (from 3 to 6 percent of total travel). A number of supporters/ users and contributors to the previous report felt that the role of cycling might have been understated in that study. The authors recognized that those comments might be valid because within the wider study there was limited capacity to consider cycling in detail. This report explores just how much is possible if we study cycling in more detail using the same approach. The result is the most comprehensive picture ever of global urban cycling activity.
Both the 2014 study and the High Shift Cycling Study focus on urban areas, which are projected to have the greatest growth in demand for travel. Given the higher densities of people, services, and jobs that are possible in cities, as opposed to rural areas, cities inherently have the greatest potential to direct the growing demand for travel to sustainable modes and to cycling in particular.
This study uses the same basic methodology as the previous study, including the development of business-as-usual and high shift scenarios. However, it provides a number of new contributions over the previous study.
We have:
- Undertaken a bigger effort to collect and tabulate data on cycling and electric bicycle (e-bike) ridership around the world, finding higher ridership levels than previously estimated;
- Developed better estimates of recent cycling trends by region;
- Created the new High Shift Cycling (HSC) scenario for 2030 and 2050, taking into account cities that currently have high cycling levels, typical trip distances, and other factors;
- Reestimated the potential impacts of high cycling and e-biking levels on energy use, CO2 emissions, and a range of cost factors
Cycling and E-biking: Status and Potential
The extensive data collection undertaken for this project reveals that more cities and countries than previously considered already have high cycling (and e-bike) mode shares. Based on our new database, it is estimated that in 2015 bicycles/e-bikes account for about 6 percent of urban trips worldwide. However, more than half of documented cycling trips occur in China, Japan, and a few European countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark. In the United States and Canada urban cycling is estimated to account for only about 1 percent of trips. (These values include only utility trips such as commuting or shopping— not recreational cycling.) Recent trends suggest that mode shares and cycling levels per capita are at best increasing slowly in most of the developed world, and are declining in many industrializing countries. These trends are preserved in our BAU scenario, leading to a mode share that is relatively unchanged worldwide by 2030.
Yet in considering the bigger potential for increasing cycling levels in the future, the more successful cities today can serve as models. Cities such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen are well known, though York in the United Kingdom; Davis, California; and many cities in India, China, and other countries around the world have cycling mode shares well over 15 percent of trips. Not all cities may be able to reach such levels, but there is one fact that suggests that the potential is large: in cities and countries where data is available, typically more than half of all trips are less than 10 kilometers. Even in the United States more than 35 percent of trips are less than 5 kilometers, a distance typically covered in twenty minutes or less. A number of such trips should be "cyclable" for many, or at least amenable to travel via e-bikes. The question becomes how to unlock this potential. If it can be unlocked, the benefits will be substantial.
Key Results of the New High Shift Cycling Scenario
Through a range of policies and investments described in this report, the HSC scenario achieves an 11 percent combined cycling/e-bike share of urban passenger travel distance worldwide by 2030, compared to a base share of 6 percent. By 2050 in the HSC scenario, cycling and e-bikes should account for 14 percent of urban kilometers of travel, ranging from about 25 percent in the Netherlands and China to about 11 percent in the United States and Canada. Figure ES-1 presents the mode share results for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries, cycling and e-bikes, in 2015, 2030 BAU and HSC, and 2050 BAU and HSC. This shows strong increases in both OECD and non-OECD in the High Shift Cycling scenario compared to slow growth (OECD) or decline (non-OECD) in the BAU.
We have quantified three important aspects of the high shift to cycling and e-bikes: energy use, CO2 emissions, and direct costs to travelers (including vehicle purchase, operation, and related infrastructure costs). This is, however, an incomplete picture of total societal costs and benefits from increased cycling. There is a wide range of other impacts that can be expected from this scenario, many of which are difficult to quantify and have not been included in this report. Increased cycling is associated with higher rates of physical activity, reduced air pollution, lower traffic congestion, and calmer urban traffic that can reduce road-crash-related fatalities and injuries. These benefits could be investigated and quantified in follow-up research.
In summary, the increase in cycling/e-biking around the world by 2030 in the HSC scenario cuts both energy use and CO2 emissions from the entirety of urban transport by about 7 percent compared to a High Shift scenario without a strong cycling component, rising to a near 11 percent reduction by 2050. Under current trends CO2 from urban transport will soar from 2.3 gigatonnes of CO2 in 2015 to 4.3 gigatonnes by 2050. Under the HSC scenario, including the impact from increased public transport use, this figure could be cut in half, potentially resulting in a 2 gigatonnes reduction in CO2 emissions per year by 2050.
The increase in cycling and e-bike use would save the world a cumulative US$6 trillion between 2015 and 2030, increasing to US$24 trillion between 2015 and 2050. Thus a future with a dramatic increase in cycling would not only reduce CO2 emissions and energy use, but would save the world an enormous amount of money compared to a BAU future.
Download full version (PDF): A Global High Shift Cycling Scenario
About the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy works with cities worldwide to bring about transport solutions that cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce poverty, and improve the quality of urban life.
Tags: Bicycle Product Suppliers Association, BPSA, ECF, European Cyclists' Federation, INSTITUTE FOR TRANSPORTATION & DEVELOPMENT POLICY, ITDP, UCI, Union Cycliste Internationale, University of California Davis


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This board allows the connection of multiple sensors and communication modules. It is perfect for short-term workshops willing to go through issues like analog vs. digital, wireless communication, accelerometers, and ultrasound. It has been created by Marcos Yarza, assisted by D. Cuartielles, during his Master Thesis at K3.
The board is currently under test and will be presented publically at Cuenca School of the Arts in Spain, Helsinki's Medialab in Finland, and at the Arduino events for Salone del Mobile in Milano - Italy.


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Kearns' hamstring not yet 100 percent
Kearns' hamstring not yet 100 percent
"To be honest with you, I don't think he was 100 percent," Guillen said. "You're never 100 percent, but I think he looked a little slow. We'll see, it's going to take time, it was his first game back."
Kearns started in left field Friday night, and at times it looked like his hamstring may still be sore, including the third inning, when the Rays' Matt Joyce hit a blooper to shallow left off that turned into a double when Kearns was slow to get to the ball.
Guillen said Friday he would be cautious as he eased Kearns back into action, and the Marlins' skipper didn't plan on playing him in left field on consecutive days because of the hamstring, which caused Kearns to hit the 15-day DL on May 24. Guillen stayed true to his word Saturday, starting Donovan Solano in left for the third time this season.
Kearns was still in the lineup, though, starting at first while Logan Morrison sat out another day as part of a short mental break to help clear his mind of his struggles at the plate.
By once again sitting Morrison, moving Kearns to first and putting Solano in left and Justin Ruggiano in center field, the Marlins had seven right-handed hitters and two switch-hitters -- Jose Reyes and starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano -- in the lineup against Rays lefty Matt Moore.Kearns went 1-for-4 in Saturday's 13-4 loss.


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We can help our defense out by sustaining drives. Hopefully that will put us in a position to win the game. —BYU quarterback Riley Nelson
ATLANTA — BYU has ventured into Atlantic Coast Conference territory looking to snap a two-game losing streak.
Only once in eight seasons has coach Bronco Mendenhall's team lost three consecutive games — and that was part of a four-game losing streak in 2010.
The Cougars, whose last two setbacks have been at the hands of top-10 teams, are also seeking their first road victory of the season when they visit Georgia Tech on Saturday (1 p.m. MT, ROOT Sports).
For BYU to halt its losing skid, it will need to score points — something that has not come easily for the Cougars this season.
Because the Yellow Jackets' option offense has a penchant for holding on to the ball for prolonged stretches, BYU will have to capitalize on its scoring opportunities by converting trips to the red zone into touchdowns.
"We need to mount drives. We can't have any three-and-outs," said quarterback Riley Nelson. "We can't have any short drives because that will allow (Georgia Tech) to chew the clock and wear our defense out. We can help our defense out by sustaining drives. Hopefully that will put us in a position to win the game."
Nelson said this week in practice the offense has "put in some different wrinkles" to give him time to throw the ball downfield to receivers Cody Hoffman and Ross Apo.
While Nelson added that the goal in every game is to score at least 24 points, the Cougars are averaging just 15.6 points in their last three games, including six points against Utah State and 17 points a week ago at Notre Dame.
Georgia Tech, on the other hand, has had defensive issues this season, surrendering 42 points to Miami (Fla.), 49 to Middle Tennessee and 47 to Clemson.
Is Saturday's game an opportunity for the BYU offense to turn in one of its better games?
A couple weeks ago, Yellow Jacket coach Paul Johnson fired defensive coordinator Al Groh. In the first game under interim defensive coordinator Charles Kelly, Georgia Tech held Boston College to 17 points and allowed the Eagles to convert on only 1-of-9 third-down attempts last week. Kelly simplified the defensive scheme and allowed his players to use their athleticism to rely on their instincts. The Yellow Jackets forced two Boston College turnovers.
"Typically, with a midseason coordinator change, they don't come in and try to get fancy because there's not enough time to install a bunch of bells and whistles," Nelson said. "So we'll probably see some base defense, mostly zone defense. Other than that, they're just trying to play good defense, relying on their offense to chew the clock. They play a bend-don't-break style."
Johnson said he would like to see his defense put pressure on Nelson.
"With some (quarterbacks) you'd like to keep them in the pocket and see them throw it instead of pulling it down and running with it. He is pretty good at both and will kill you if you don't contain him. He's got great speed, is a great athlete and really hurts people when he gets out of the pocket."
Coach Bronco Mendenhall said he saw improvement from BYU's offense against Notre Dame. Nelson wasn't so sure.
"I'm not one to take moral victories," he said. "We didn't do what we had to do to get the win. In my mind, that wasn't a good enough effort. It may have been a good effort, but it wasn't good enough. We're looking to be good enough this week."
After playing Georgia Tech, BYU has a bye. The Cougars then close out the season with three games against Western Athletic Conference foes. So Saturday marks BYU's last chance for a victory over a high-profile program.9 comments on this story
"They're an ACC team and they're battling the same thing we're battling as far as injuries," Nelson said. "They're a good, quality opponent. It's on the road. So we want to put a good showing in. We feel like through Oregon State and Notre Dame we have been on a gentle uphill climb. But it has been an uphill climb. We have been getting better and hope to continue to do that through Georgia Tech and on through the rest of the season."
Cougars and Yellow Jackets on the air
BYU (4-4) at Georgia Tech (3-4)
Saturday, 1 p.m. MT
Bobby Dodd Stadium, Atlanta, Ga.
TV: ROOT Sports
Radio: 1160 AM, 102.7 FM


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A Taste of Life Personal Chef Services offers superior, personalized service in Southeast Oakland County and surrounding areas. If you are looking for a high-quality personal chef and professional services, you've come to the right place! Take a look around and see what we can do for you.
Learn more about our highly professional and reliable personal chef services. With over ten years experience and many satisfied customers, we look forward to working with you! Contact us to learn more and check out our tastemonials from our clients.


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Scenic USA - Tennessee
Greeter Falls
|Photos by Ben Prepelka
Scenic USA Artist Website
Starting off on a nice wide pathway, waterfall fans find trail markers indicate it's just a half mile to Greeter Falls. While descending to the falls, the trail quickly narrows and eventually leads along a high rock ledge. Somewhat of a surprise, a metal spiral staircase descends down the face of a cliff, leaving one to wonder how the crew first set it up. Once at the bottom, it's easy to locate Greeter Falls from the thundering roar below.
Here in the Savage Gulf State Natural Area, one of Tennessee's most scenic wilderness areas, backcountry explorers will find both upper and lower Greeter Falls, Blue Hole and Boardtree Falls. Here, Big Creek, Collins River and Savage Creek drop 800 feet over a five mile stretch forming gulfs (ravines) in the soft limestone. Spread over 15,590 acres, this rugged wilderness is shaded mostly by a second growth forest. One large section of old growth mesophytic forest is covered in oak, hickory, yellow poplar, hemlock and pine. Under the canopy expect to find a tangle of vines, wildflowers, mosses and ferns.
Named for the Greeter family, this photo captures a rain-enhanced full-flowing Lower Greeter Falls as it drops 50 feet into a large plunge pool. Regarded as foolhardy and dangerous, this couple walks across the stream right above the nearby Upper Greeter Falls (inset).
Area Map
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Recent Posts
Category Archives: David Duke
David Duke says Jews, not guns, caused the Sandy Hook tragedy
Another prominent anti-Semite has blamed Jews for the tragic massacre at Sandy Hook. In a long monologue on his Dec. 17 radio broadcast, former Klansman David Duke alleged that Jews, out of hatred for non-Jews and Western values, have consciously … Continue reading
Posted in Anti-Semitism, David Duke, Kevin MacDonald 2 Comments
Kevin MacDonald: "Jewish identity is hating Christianity"
Another quote from Professor Kevin MacDonald, who was speaking with former Klansman David Duke on his November 12, 2012 radio show (about 30 minutes in): Kevin MacDonald: "[Jewish] people hate us. [They have] this sense of persecution going back to the … Continue reading
Posted in American Third Position, David Duke, Kevin MacDonald 6 Comments
Cal. State University professor endorses, fund-raises for David Duke
Has anyone else noticed that for the past several months, Professor Kevin MacDonald of Cal State-Long Beach has been a regular guest on the Internet radio show of former Klansman and perpetual anti-Semite David Duke? This began in early March 2012, … Continue reading
Posted in Anti-Judaism, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, David Duke, Kevin MacDonald, Talmud 3 Comments
Germar Rudolf says Judaism is Nazism
There's hardly any need for additional evidence that, in addition to being a proud Holocaust denier, Germar Rudolf is an outright anti-Semite. (I've written before about Rudolf's overtly anti-Semitic comments.) However, as a followup to my post about Mr. Rudolf … Continue reading
Posted in Anti-Judaism, Anti-Semitism, David Duke, Germar Rudolf, Holocaust denial 2 Comments
Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf spreads hate from Pennsylvania
Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf is back in the United States, reporting on his website that he is living with his wife somewhere in Pennsylvania. He had kept a low profile for a while as he wrangled out legal complications preventing … Continue reading
Israel Shamir calls Spanish Holocaust denier a "wonderful man"
Israel Shamir, a Jewish convert to Christianity who espouses medieval-style anti-Judaism but who defends himself by claiming he is merely an anti-Zionist, called my attention to an article in in the Spanish newspaper El Pais about Pedro Varela. Varela is a … Continue reading
Posted in David Duke, David Irving, Holocaust denial, Israel Shamir 5 Comments
Germar Rudolf: Still trying to get into the US
Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf has resurfaced. In a letter that is circulating online, Rudolf writes that he is "somewhere in Mexico," waiting for a ruling on his application for a green card to enter the United States. Rudolf had moved to … Continue reading


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The Seahawks took care of Brandon Mebane in free agency last year. But this year, the free-agency arrow is pointing to the players on either side of him in the locker room: Red Bryant and David Hawthorne.
Brandon Mebane has a definite take on the start of NFL free agency and, yes, it has everything to do with where he was sitting while discussing the process that begins next Tuesday.
The Seahawks' defensive tackle got his last year, signing a lucrative multi-year contract to remain with the team that selected him in the third round of the 2007 NFL Draft. Mebane then justified the team's confidence in him by moving from the three-technique spot to nose tackle and leading all NFC interior linemen with 56 tackles last season.
But as Mebane sat in his cubicle in the locker room discussing the team re-signing leading rusher Marshawn Lynch this week, he couldn't overlook the obvious.
To Mebane's left was the cubicle belonging to Red Bryant, Mebane's best friend on the team and a player who blossomed into a run-stuffing, kick-blocking force in his first full season as a starter.
To Mebane's right was the cubicle of David Hawthorne, the middle linebacker who has led the team in tackles the past three seasons.
"I'm happy they were able to get Marshawn re-signed," Mebane said. "But they've still got some things they've got to take care of."
Glancing to his left, and referring to Bryant, Mebane added, "They've definitely got to take care of that."
Glancing to his right, where Hawthorne has been since the Seahawks moved into Virginia Mason Athletic Center in 2008, Mebane said, "And there's a decision to be made here, too."
Bryant and Hawthorne are among the 16 Seahawks who are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents on March 13. The club wants each player back, as well as Pro Bowl fullback Michael Robinson and tight end John Carlson, among others.
While fans are clamoring for the team to sign this free agent and that free agent – price be damned – the Seahawks' priority remains its own free agents.
"Our first concern is to take care of our team and take care of the guys that are unrestricted (free agents) on our football team and fit that back together," coach Pete Carroll has said on a couple of occasions this offseason.
"There's nothing we can do about the other free agents right now, until that date shows up. But cap-wise, we're in a position that we can operate – John has worked so hard to position us so that we can be competitive at this time, and that's what all of the activity in the first year was all about."
John, of course, is general manager John Schneider. And "all of the activity" has been well documented. In their first season together, Carroll and Schneider made 284 transactions. Last year, it was 231. The dizzying array of moves has been all about piecing together a group of players that will allow Carroll to play the game the way he wants to play it – fast, aggressive and physical.
But Carroll likes the team he has, and is looking to enhance it rather than continue to rebuild it. That's where the importance of retaining those Seahawks scheduled to become free agents comes back into play.
"We have some (salary-cap) room and we're going to be able to do some stuff," Carroll said. "But we really want to focus on the guys on our team right now and I want that to be a strong message that we believe the guys that we have put together here are the foundation of a championship team.
"These guys that are with us are the guys that we'd like to keep around and are crucial and we'll do everything we can to make all those decisions properly."
via Mebane in the middle.


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Mass Effect 3
Is a gold solo ever easy?
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Some people seem to be saying that DS is like one long gold solo, which scares the bejeesus out of me. Some also suggest that gold solos are easy. I'm not so sure - I know that I could not survive 99/100 gold solo attempts. Then again, I'm not very good at it.
Also, I realise that all this is all a bit vague and probably there's no good way to compare the two, I should just play DS and find out, etc, but there it is.
Gamertag: puremintoil
MetaIGearRex 3 years ago#2
Dark Souls isnt that bad, aside from a few spots. Its easy if you play a sword and shield build and just keep your shield up.
Its hard for me to compare difficulties but my first thought is that a gold solo is harder than most parts of Dark Souls.
"It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you've been playing all your life." - Mickey Mantle
SolidDroid 3 years ago#3
Gold solo is much harder than dark souls
Gamertag- DROlD
(I is a L)
TimeShinigami 3 years ago#4
My first was 33 mins against Cerberus on Giant with a Pihrana GI.
Also, Dark Souls is overhyped by kiddies who don't recall the classic era of gaming. Yeah, its real hard. Oh, wait, you have save points? Oh, well, then...
Not changing this sig until the Detroit Lions win the Super Bowl.
GT- ShinigamiOfTime
Gold solo can be really easy or really difficult depending on your skill level, your kit, and objectives. I believe most people could easily solo gold with a Kroguard+Reegar and level 3 equipment/ammo, but be hard pressed to last long with a TSol or QFE.
Got a minute? You might learn something.
Once you find an enemy, learn its attack pattern, and learn to counter it, DKS is easy. If you make a mistake you'll probably die more often than other games, but dying is a expected occurrence you have to prepare for by guarding your acquired souls.
The primary difficulty comes from the complete lack of guidance in the game. But this is part of what makes the game so fun. I very highly suggest you don't look at a single guide on your first play through. You only get one chance to experience the game this way, and its a very worth while expirience.
The games what you make of it. If you blaze through it you'll be done in a week, but you'll have no clue what going on story wise. Read the item descriptions and see what they say. Often they'll become relevant to an area or person later on.
Dig some more and you'll discover an complex plot from clues based upon the locations of an item, its proximity to in game characters and more. Its a very unique style of story telling, and it's made so much more interesting because your literally hunting it down a discovering it, often by following clues of someone's exploits until you find their final resting place. Which then starts you on a whole other trail based on their body's location/proximity to other people/events. Your not being told a story. Your the archeologist digging up the bones, translating the writings and discovering it.
I love the depth of DKS. Its a very deep and immersive game if you take the time to go out and find it. Nothing's spoon fed, your given no direction, plot, tutorial, and no mercy. If you want any of the above you have to go out and get it. They don't info dump your purpose, goals and aspirations in the first 2min and lead you by the hand. Your stumbling through a dangerous world where the next corner can hold everything from a merchant to a host of skeleton hordes you can only injure with specially crafted weapons. And that's literally the first fork in the road you make.
It's not for everyone, but if you really dig into a game and scrap away all you can from it, you'll still be finding new things every time you get on dks 5 years from now.
And then there's the PVP scene, but that's a whole other thing.
-ME3 stuffz
Soloing gold isn't something I consider difficult, but I've been doing it more than a year and a half now, so I'm pretty biased in that assessment.
TimeShinigami posted...
Ghosts N' Goblins was Dark Souls before Demon Souls was even a thing.
Got a minute? You might learn something.
SolidDroid 3 years ago#8
Listen to havoc.
Gamertag- DROlD
(I is a L)
Thanks, I'm really looking forward to it now. I love the idea of archaeological story-telling.
Gamertag: puremintoil
TimeShinigami 3 years ago#10
Dethuli posted...
TimeShinigami posted...Yes.
OMG thank you for the reference! I was going to mention it myself, but was afraid nobody would have any idea what i was talking about.
Not changing this sig until the Detroit Lions win the Super Bowl.
GT- ShinigamiOfTime
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) – The man behind "The Cat in the Hat" was born, and Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a single game! All this, including a White House visit 86 years in the making, and more in today's "This Day in History".
On this day in 1904, Theodor Geisel, was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. Though you may not recognize that name, you may know him better as Dr. Seuss, the author and illustrator of such beloved classics as "The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham." The good doctor wrote 48 books in his career, selling well over 200 million copies worldwide. In his honor, March 2nd has been dubbed "Dr. Seuss Day."
On this day in 1861, Texas secedes from the Union, becoming the seventh state to do so.
On this day in 2005, the World Champion Boston Red Sox visited President George W. Bush at the White House. The World Series victory, less than four months prior to the visit, was the team's first since 1918. President Bush had some fun with the team over the long drought between championships. He pointed out the last time they were in Washington, Woodrow Wilson was President. In regards to the improbable victory by the Red Sox, Bush quipped; "Now we just have to wait for the other six signs of the apocalypse."
On this day in 1962, Philadelphia Warriors star Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points against the New York Knicks. It was the first time a player had ever done so. The triple digit night by Chamberlain broke the previous record of 78 points…also set by him.
And, speaking of the NBA, on this day in 1951, the first NBA All-Star Game was held at the Boston Garden. The East All-Stars beat the West All-Stars with a final score of 111-94…or as this year's All-Star game would call it…the first half.
Copyright 2014 WIAT-CBS42


text: I've been having gear sads recently because my current GK rig is just not portable and my current Cab/Head combo is not working for me at all. I've got a wild idea that I think could be ok but I'm concerned that in actual fact I might just be punching a massive hole clean through my foot. Currently I'm running a GK1001 into a Trace 410. I had a thread recently where I was looking to upgrade from the trace to a better cabinet but I think I might have had a brainwave and I need to get some advice to see whether what I'm thinking will actually work. At present my biggest problem is my Cab and Head are not portable and I'm living in a much tighter arrangement then I used to be. Additionally I've got a much smaller car than I used to have. I've been looking at the BH250 for a while and I like it quite a lot because it's really simple and I'm mostly an idiot who can't get a good tone. I also really like the Toneprint because it adds a lot of versatility. I've done the mathematics and If I sell my Gallien Krueger and my Trace cab I will end up with more than enough money to buy a BH250, a BC410 AND an BC210. This will provide me with all the portability I require, essentially allowing me to take the 210 and head home with me each night after rehearsal but I'm really badly scared that I won't be loud enough. I've read here quite a bit that the BH250 is actually pretty loud; but I can't see any way that it would be able to compete with the 700w powerhouse I already own. I know I would essentially have 2 more sensitive cabs then I already own, plus an extra 2 drivers than I would normally have but is it enough? The other option would be to buy a pair of 410s but that greatly reduces the appeal of getting a more portable setup. Can anyone advise? Has anyone worked a BH250 with 2 cabs with a really loud and heavy low-tuned band before. Am I going to miss my GK? Is this a really stupid idea?


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The Approach
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Looking up at the nunatak that guards the ridge.
Just a lot of annoying scrambling, hiking across the talus.
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text: News tech 'If you don't leave, I'm going to kill you' The woman's social media accounts were stopped mid-standoff. EVERY now and then there's an event which highlights the power social media giant Facebook has. Sadly this week that come in the form of the tragic death of Baltimore woman Korryn Gaines. The 23-year-old mother barricaded herself in her apartment with her five-year-old son earlier in the week... #police #officers #gaines Tweet Source: www.news.com.au Read More


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October 28, 2010 BY John Kim
'Retroing' Nike SB Dunks is a hot-button topic of debate – but what's so bad about releasing the same colorways on different Nike SB models? We just showed you a November 2010 release of the Nike SB Blazer CS in a similar colorway to the Wheat SB Dunk High, and in following that throwback trend is this all-new Nike SB Zoom Bruin in Black and Midnight Fog. The Bruin also features a gum bottom sole (although not visible when planted on the ground) just like the 2005 SB Dunk High of the same colorway, but this surprising tit-for-tat match of the SB Dunk High could lead to more releases of familiar SB colorways of the past – remember, we already showed you a 'Mulder' Bruin for Summer 2011. Check out the SB Bruin 'Fogs' after the jump and hit up Premier for a pair.
Style: 366665-005
Color: Black/Midnight Fog
Filed under: Just Released Nike SB Skate


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MARSEILLE, France, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- A French man is in police custody after posting a video on YouTube showing him throwing a cat against a brick wall, officials said.
The matter was brought to police attention after about 40,000 people signed a petition sent to the nation's justice and interior ministers, demanding the man in the video be prosecuted, TheLocal.fr reported Saturday.
In the video, which has since been removed from the site, the man is seen hurling the feline against the outside wall of an apartment building in Marseille. The cat meows loudly after falling to the ground several feet away.
Police said the 24-year-old suspect, who was not identified, faces as much as two years in prison and a fine of $40,500.


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At Gemvara, we believe that the jewelry you wear should be as unique as you. Every beautiful Gemvara Platinum Multistone Rock Crystal Florette Jewelry design will be made just for you. Gemvara uses only the highest quality materials to craft your Platinum Multistone Rock Crystal Florette Jewelry with meticulous attention to detail. Our precious metals are recycled or responsibly mined. Rock crystal quartz has an icy sophistication.Pure, rare, and eternal, platinum is the most precious metal. Its density gives platinum unequalled durability, keeping gems secure.Our wide selection of Platinum Multistone Rock Crystal Florette Jewelry by talented designers means you can find rings, earrings, and necklaces that are exactly your style. You can also shop by style, choosing our Statement, Nautical, or Signet Collections. Each gem in our stunning multistone designs is carefully set by hand by our skilled craftspeople.When our work is done and you open that box, you'll see your design is even more beautiful when brought to life in the finest precious materials.
We can help right away. Chat with a jewelry expert now!


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Kitchen Backsplash for White Cabinets will give the special design for your modern kitchen. The high counter interior showed up by lots of kitchen backsplash pictures will give you a chance to make your kitchen feel bigger, spacious, glamour and elegant. Kitchen backsplash has the unique beautiful lighting set that make the room getting so splash by lights. The color of modern white kitchen gives the neutral feeling of sky and cloud. You will enjoy staying at your kitchen and make the kitchen become a good place to spend and gather all the family members.
Designing Kitchen Backsplash for White Cabinets
To set the room arrangement of kitchen backsplash for white cabinet is firstly need to understand the setting of the lighting itself. You can make the backsplash ideas white cabinets with neutral color that's won't take the dominant of the room. This color will collaborate well with the white cabinet's furniture you use in the kitchen. Setting the kitchen backsplash for white cabinet will be perfect if you are setting your kitchen area with sufficient lighting configuration like the number of ventilation and window.
Backsplash you can choose from the interior shop. Before you install it inside your kitchen you can test it with drawing the image of color combination between the backsplash you use and the white cabinet. You are recommended to use neutral color of backsplash because this color has good lighting reflection which will give the shining effect of the room. This perfect lighting will assist the performance of beautiful kitchen backsplash for white cabinet.
Managing Kitchen Backsplash for White Cabinet
Managing and designing the kitchen backsplash idea have truly different meaning. Designing word is using for you since the first time you plan to install kitchen backsplash into your kitchen and set the best performance of kitchen backsplash look combined with the dominant white furniture you put in your modern kitchen. Managing kitchen backsplash for white cabinet mean the maintenance and reset of the kitchen backsplash for white cabinets you have install to always look shining and beautiful.


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A Taste of the Divine Book Thong
Buy a book thong...because not even the Bible should have panty lines.
Product Information
Why is it called a book thong? It lays inside the spine of a book, holding your place like a bookmarker, well, like a thong. However, it won't accidentally slip out of place and you don't have to remove it while you read. Finally, it won't bend, indent, or mark your pages due to its slim design.
It makes a great gift. Think about it: you buy a book for somebody but that just doesn't feel like enough. Throw a book thong in there for that added special touch. Moreover, it makes a good gift for groups: book clubs, bridesmaids, children's classrooms, teachers, coworkers. If you're interested in buying several for a group or are looking for a certain theme, contact me first, as a discount may be available (depending on the supply).
Please note: this is a custom order. Please allow 1-2 weeks for your order to arrive.
- Cotton thread
- Pewter charm


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As a part of TALK: Canadian Art Foundation International Speaker Series, we were pleased to present the writer, historian and biographer Annie Cohen-Solal at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Cohen-Solal spoke about her bestselling biography on legendary art dealer Leo Castelli. Listen to audio of Annie Cohen-Solal's talk here.
The eighth annual Reel Artists Film Festival in Toronto was held at the beautiful new TIFF Bell Lightbox, with unprecedented audience-attendance records set during the weekend screenings. The opening night featured the world premiere of KOOP, director Katherine Knight's highly anticipated film on acclaimed Canadian painter Wanda Koop. We were pleased to offer free screenings to more than 500 secondary and post-secondary school students and educators. Watch our RAFF highlights video and the insightful festival exchange between Knight, Koop and critic Jane Perdue for more details, or check out our Flickr page.
For the third year in a row, we presented the Reel Artists Film Festival in Calgary in collaboration with the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Fourteen films were screened free of charge for students, faculty and the community at large. Check out our flickr page for more photos from RAFF Calgary.
As a part of TALK: Canadian Art Foundation International Speaker Series, the American curator and writer Dan Cameron discussed ideas behind Prospect.1 New Orleans at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal. Watch Dan Cameron's talk on our Vimeo site. The Images Festival was once again a partner for our annual School Hop in Toronto. Now in its ninth year, the School Hop enables secondary school students to engage with contemporary art and artists through free gallery tours and artist talks.
Gallery Hop Vancouver, presented in partnership with the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver featured free talks and tours at Vancouver galleries all afternoon, preceded by an engaging conversation between artist Myfanwy MacLeod and Presentation House Gallery director/curator Reid Shier. Listen in as MacLeod and Shier discuss The Birds to the beyond in our special audio feature. The day wrapped up with a screening of Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds and China, the Empire of Art?, two films that examine the state of art in contemporary China.
The summer edition of Canadian Art magazine was launched in Venice, featuring a profile by critic Sarah Milroy on Vancouver artist Steven Shearer, who represented Canada at the Venice Biennale. Find out who was on the scene this year with our Venice slideshow. Editorial Resident Tess Emondson was welcomed to our offices through MENTORS: Canadian Art Foundation Editorial Residency program, which provides a paid opportunity for an art or art history student to spend a summer honing writing and editorial skills while being mentored by our staff.
The 16th annual Gallery Hop Toronto took place with a day of free talks and tours at galleries across the city. The day began with a panel on the theme of Location3 featuring artists An Te Liu, Sarah Anne Johnson and Jed Lind. The annual Gallery Hop Gala Dinner and Auction at the Carlu showcased Toronto artist Jon Sasaki's specially commissioned art environment based on iconic national treasures like the northern lights. Fifty artworks were generously donated for auction by established and emerging Canadian artists, and Student Art Ambassadors engaged guests in conversations about the auction items on view. Now, the art and ideas of this year's Hop are available online. Both the video and photos are available in our Gallery Hop roundup, and are also accessible through our Vimeo and Flickr pages.
Montreal writer and curator Véronique Leblanc was awarded the third annual WORD: Canadian Art Foundation Writing Prize, an award created to encourage new contemporary-art writers. As the winner of this nationwide competition, Leblanc received a monetary prize and will write a feature story for an upcoming issue of Canadian Art magazine. On October 14, the poet, art historian, art critic and literary critic Michael Fried spoke at the Art Gallery of Alberta in conjunction with TALK: Canadian Art Foundation International Speaker Series. The author of the well-known essay "Art and Objecthood" focused on the subject of photography and its importance in contemporary art.
For the third year in a row, Canadian Art Weekly, our free email edition, was a finalist in the Canadian Online Publishing Awards' Best E-Newsletter category. Other COPA nominations included a canadianartschool.ca photography video in the Best Video/Multimedia Feature category, John Bentley Mays' article "Letter From Venice" in the Best Online-Only Article or Series category, and a commissioned series of articles by Nancy Tousley in the Best Online-Only Article or Series category. Read more about our these nominations in our COPA report.
Canadian Art Magazine won Silver at the Advertising and Design Club of Canada Awards in the Editorial Design division's Best Portrait Photography category. It was for Donald Weber's photo project "Interrogations," which appeared in the Fall 2010 issue: see this award-winning photo essay on canadianart.ca. In collaboration with the art-excursion group Variant Path, our Turin and Venice Art Tour, involved museum visits, private tours of foundations, and excursions to both the Artissima International Fair of Contemporary Art in Turin and the Venice Biennale. All patrons who donate $500 or more receive priority registration for these tours. For more information, visit our donations page.
Visit canadianart.ca/programs anytime to find out more about our year-round educational initiatives, and view canadianart.ca/support to find out how you can help promote the visual art across the country. Donation information can also be accessed by phone at (416) 368-8854 ext 110.


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Published on February 4th, 2014 | by Joseph Lo1
DIY speaker stand using Ikea Adils Table Legs
I removed the height adjustment portion of the adils table legs and attached the speaker base panel to the adils using a suitable bolt. No threaded rod is required. I then fastened the flange accessories of the adils to the base speaker stand. The entire assembly is neat and easy to achieve.
I have also blogged about this in my own blog.
One Response to DIY speaker stand using Ikea Adils Table Legs
Your post just proved that the plans I've had for speaker stands will work. Thank you!
(off to Ikea now…)


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Femme Luxe
Romancing the Home
Flirt with your feminine side with this collection of elegant furniture and decor. The collection is curated in soft neutral tones, and lustrous metallics, while boasting a lovely combination of glamorous Art Deco and shabby chic elements. Soft, natural and whimsical - with a hint of luxe, this range is perfect for styling your own private dressing room, boudoir or parlour. Fall in love with bedsides, stools, lighting, vases, candleholders, and much more, everything you need to romance the home.
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