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Saturday, January 25, 2014
Snowshoe (West Virginia)
Our timing could not have been more perfect for a daytrip to Snowshoe. The snow fell all day long and we could simply NOT find a single patch of ice on the slopes!
We learned an important lesson on our first run - stay away from the BallHooter High Speed Chair. We stood in that line one time, and that was plenty to motivate us to find another lift to make runs under for the rest of the day.
Rebecca is new to snowboarding and Ian had never gone before, so we spent the majority of the day on blue and green runs. They both improved significantly just over the course of one day.
The drive home was harrowing, but we eventually made it back to Richmond without incident.
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Posts on Cloud,DevOps, Citrix,VMware and others. Also tracking my Continuous learning from Wintel to open source and development. Words and views are my own and do not reflect on my companies views. Disclaimer: some of the links on this site are affiliate links, if you click on them and make a purchase, I make a commission.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
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Dog of the Week: Louise Cook, Owner 'Ruby'
Today we take a look at the Carin Terrier breed. We have a special announcement about a new contest with Barking Dog Bakery. Plus, details on Haven of Hope.
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Gaming Technology - What Next??
Posted by
on 2005/01/02 08:31:57
Gaming technology seems to have progressed quite a lot recently, certainly this year has witnessed some impressive game engines being released. I think both graphics and physics are getting to a stage where they are generally very convincing (although there's a long way still to go).
So where do people think the next progressions are to be had?? Will technological progression stay in the same traditional area of improving graphics, or will developers start to focus on other areas given that good looking game engines are pretty much standard now??
And, for that matter, where do you think gaming technology SHOULD progress to next??
My Thoughts...
#1 posted by
on 2005/01/02 09:31:08
Current technology...
Physics - HL2 / Havok physics, enough said. Does like physics stuff. Combine this with a structure-damaging feature like in Red Faction, and you've got a pretty good physical world. (Although one thing Friction, I think, was talking about was more realisticly behaving fluids, like flow, viscosity and stuff - that could be a good progression).
Graphics - Combine Doom3 lighting / shadows and skinning, HL2 water and amount of detail onscreen, UT2KX detail textures, Far Cry terrain and foliage, and you're on to a real winner. Oh and add some good art direction too (e.g. HL2) All the main engines are great in their own right but tend to specialise in some areas and be weaker in others. If all the best aspects were combined, it could make damn convincing graphics.
Sound - blah. Sound is always good. Doesn't need to be much technological improvement there.
So I reckon current technology is enough to make a world that looks great and feels great.
Future technology...
I don't know where companies will go, but I do know where I think they should go - not necessarily my personal choice but the obvious weak point of gaming technology: AI. I think this where the biggest advances are still to be made, populating the currently convincing worlds with equally convincing beings. I don't mean enemy that take cover and sometimes through grenades - that is OLD. I mean enemy that vary tactics, I mean different styles of combat for each enemy, and different interactions between them. And I mean interesting AI behaviour outside of combat, beings that do stuff, that are programmed with variable behaviours, that will act from a list of possible options and behaviours in a way that gives them the appearance of personality.
It is an issue that I often wonder about, how hard it can be to give game beings a weighted list of behaviour options (including how they interact with other objects in the world), and then randomise what they do from that list, and let them get on with it. Obviously it's either damn hard, or games developers haven't put the effort in yet (at least not with FPS games). But I think it's the next big step to take (I think Stalker has been p1mping this??).
(At a slight tangent, I think more freeform gameplay will be another big next step in gaming, but that to me doesn't seem like a technological feat, more one of sheer grinding effort to have the game take into account a variety of possible user actions.)
Fluid Dynamics
#2 posted by Friction on 2005/01/02 10:02:24
(Although one thing Friction, I think, was talking about was more realisticly behaving fluids, like flow, viscosity and stuff - that could be a good progression)
Indeed, this would make some rather interesting ideas possible. Especially if the physics engine extends to the liquid dynamics simulation. Just think what happened recently over at Asia.
Minor Note
#3 posted by
on 2005/01/02 10:07:19
(Although one thing Friction, I think, was talking about was more realisticly behaving fluids, like flow, viscosity and stuff - that could be a good progression).
You might find Mercury interesting:
#4 posted by
on 2005/01/02 10:24:09
Stalker has me really interested with creature life cycles, social groups, higher level of social interaction among the AI all that stuff... I'd like to see that most of all, in other games. I think we've pretty much got some things down well, like physics and graphics.
#5 posted by
on 2005/01/02 11:53:13
I think a really interresting area of gaming that hasn't really been explored is control devices. How we interact with the game. A keyboard and mouse works well but we can do better! :)
I geuss what Im getting at is something akin to virtual reality machines but better. I was watching the extended edition of lotr: fellowship of the ring and in the extended "making of" feature it showed how Jackson had a virtual camera for filming the moria mines troll fight. basicly we could walk around a mo-cap studio with this camera and actually see all the characters doing their actions in realtime while filming.
SO translated to gaming, with the addition of a headset or something so you can see the gameworld, you basicly have complete control of your characters moves and stances. combined with a new type of per-polygon hit detection for character models and you have a totally nwe-generation beat-em up where u dont need to animate punches/kicks because the player does it all for you. And more etc...
Obviously its still far far away, and would require every home to have a "games room" with mo-cap technology (heh) but it sure is interresting to think about.
Enemy AI...
#6 posted by Scragbait on 2005/01/02 15:01:22
...has the most room to grow IMHO.
However, Warren Specter did make a good comment about AI. He mentioned that it isn't necessarily about making an AI that is realistic, it's about making one that is fun for the player and sufficiently convincing.
If you have to take out 100 enemies, you don't want them all to be as smart as the player.
What!? Non-realism!? Not In MY FPS!
#7 posted by
on 2005/01/02 17:32:09
By god man, if a first person shooter isn't realistic, how will we immerse the player!? Without physics that perfectly show how a toilet rolls down a hill that happens to have sticks poking out of it like a retarded plinko experiment in the wild, how will gamers truly feel they are in the world!?
Certainly, we could add more shader effects and AI and/or scripting and cinematics to our award winning engine to make the player play the game exactly how we decide he should play it. If we add enough perpixel lighting, they'll never relieze they're not actually 'playing' anything. And isn't that the point of games now? To be 'art' and 'interactive cinimatic wonders'?
/rant off
While, I'm mostly going on about gameplay issues, I'm hoping you can kinda see the point... game (well, FPS game mainly) technology seems to be making this march toward realism that I feel is helping to brush aside the games we gamers fell in love with in the first place. Playing Doom and Quake back in the day, you didn't care that the architecture, lighting, or pixelled textures weren't perfectly real and awesome. You just wanted to play a damn game... go blow shit up, lasers rocket explosions. Sure you kinda mighta cared what the overall mission was (SAVE THE WORLD WIN THE GAME), but god knows you weren't sitting down to shoot 10 baddies then be lead through 20 minutes of beautifully rendere cgi cinimatics or in game scripting wonders before being realistically sent to the next mini-game of soundbyte action.
In a way, Doom and Quake's technology heralded their own destruction, making it very possible to start building worlds that could be seen as plausible entities... but not plausible enough that a runic castle, or techy base stlyed enviroments seemed 'cartoony' or 'fake' in their world. With all the advancements made since, and maybe this should be posted in the Quake V thread, I completely doubt such locales could be pulled off nearly as well. They're too vague to be remade as realistic realities that newer tech demands without losing some of the non-euclidean luster they had. A true Quake sequel will never be seen in the eyes of the Quake fan.
I feel we may be in for only a few more FPS games with non-realism combat... the future with all it's technology only holds Half-Life and World War 2 sims... battles against similarly equipped humans, complete with the ability to hide behind crates and push things over in scripted symphonies... until the PC market crashes and we're left with movie liceances and EA Sports games.
Lord help us all.
Interesting Thread
#8 posted by
on 2005/01/02 18:01:26
We had a good dialog with my friend a while ago about the same thing that we discuss here. My point about visuals/physics is that games' engines need realistic dust effect to look more realistic. All those texture effects (bump mapping etc) that exist today still don't give a feeling that I look at a real wall/rock, everything looks too ''good'', clean. All objects in game should be covered by dust that should interact with the player. It should raise up when player drops a crate, it should change when player moves near/touches things, it should move in a windy place, player/things should leave footsteps and so on. This dust can be used in some gameplay situations, e.g. when player comes back to the room he had visited before he can see that dust is reduced in some places, so he can realise that monster has come here and is hidden there.
And that dust should be not that decals or fog effect we have now, but should be something brand new.
#9 posted by
on 2005/01/02 21:57:53
This thing you mention about dust somewhat reminds me of a post by lead designer of Fable (a very big 3D RPG) on some forums. Basically, players wanted the world to have "dynamic trees" as in trees that would grow like a real tree would, get new leaves, drop old ones and die of old age or bad water and stuff. They tried to pull it off, but no matter what algorithms they use for the tree calculations, out of 100% CPU time used by the game, up to 10-15% would be used by those calculation ALONE, which was too big of a perfomance hit to take.
The Buzz Word For 2007 Will Be
#10 posted by
on 2005/01/03 01:12:16
Cinematography; after Unreal 3 based games come out, designers will realize that the harsh, ungodly lighting of the real world is not all that desirable.
An RPG based on Igmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal will be declared The Myst of the year 2008. It will be such a milestone, Roger Ebert will declare The Film as an artform dead and devote the remainder of his career to reviewing games. Quake mappers will be shocked to descover that the lead developer is none other than our own Wrath.
Later that same year, Carmack will declare it the end of the line for engine development. Quoted in Ipod News Daily, 'Oh for piss sake, how much more do you need? If a level designer can't recreate an accurate representation of Manhattan Island in 10 million polies or less, you know what I do? I show him the door."
#11 posted by
on 2005/01/03 05:09:23
There's a difference between something being realistic as in a real-life style, and something being realistic as in being convincing whatever it's style is.
You can have a fantastic enviroment that is nothing like a real-life enviroment, but is still convincing and "realistic" (i.e. a true representation of whatever it's trying to represent). In fact, it's crucial to do so - the more fantastic enviroments have some laws of existence that they obey, the more convincing they are, the more they make the player feel like that are in that place, rather than merely watching it on a screen. This was something that Clive Barker stressed in an interview about Undying - and one could say he's fairly experienced in fantastic enviroments AND that Undying did a good job of using it's technology to make it's enviroments convincing and all the more damn cool for it.
So I don't think the technology per se is a problem at all, I think it's a benefit, you can make fantastic-style games more fantastical and better because of it. The crucial point is how - or even whether - developers choose to do that. And this year, Painkiller and Doom3 did at least (Doom3 could have gone further into sci-fi enviroments, admittedly, but I really felt like I was playing through a sci-fi TV serious when I was playing it).
And of course the gameplay is a different issue...
#12 posted by
on 2005/01/03 07:43:56
You can have a fantastic enviroment that is nothing like a real-life enviroment, but is still convincing and "realistic"
I usually differentiate these two with the words
. It's also worth quoting one of the Valve guys from an old interview about TF2:
realism is a tool, not a goal
The best example I usually cite in regards these definitions is the depiction of spaceships in movies: the Odyssey in 2001 is intended to be, as Ridley Scott put it, 'a Nasa object' i.e. gravity created through centrifuge, engines are off even while traveling at immense speed etc.
Conversely, the Nostromo in Alien looks far more familiar to us with its grubby platecrusted hull and industrial-strength interiors, even though such a vehicle would have a hard time actually working.
A quote from another Valve guy, Marc Laidlaw, is appropriate here:
"As far as the narrative goes, I lived by two rules: Poe's "Totality of Effect," which has to do with maintaining consistent atmosphere and tone, and another unnamed rule expressed by the science fiction writer, James Tiptree, Jr., which I'll quote loosely since I can no longer find the quote: "Start your story 500 feet underground on a dark day and then...don't tell them."
It doesn't matter what your diagesis is based on - whether it be period medieval realism, WWII or the gibbering horror of the Chthulhu Mythos - as long as all the design elements conspire towards convincing the player of the same thing.
Realism Is The Future! : /
#13 posted by
on 2005/01/03 09:22:26
Simply because the more a game world deviates from the world we live in the more it will cost to produce. A realistic title will be able to make extensive use of existing tools, code and content libraries to cut production time and keep the number of people directly involved in the project down.
#14 posted by
on 2005/01/03 11:41:40
I think realism is more common because it's easier to sell.
#15 posted by
on 2005/01/03 11:49:05
I think the trend seems to be towards semi-realism, i.e. near future enviroments that are fairly real-life, but with slight sci-fi / gothic tinges. E.g. Far Cry, HL2, Stalker, FEAR.
Not that I approve of that. More Undying / Wheel Of Time / Painkiller / Enclave / Q2 etc enviroments would be preferable IMHO.
One Reason Why Humanoid Monsters/characters Dominate So Much:
#16 posted by
on 2005/01/03 14:20:19
Motion capture.
#17 posted by
on 2005/01/03 14:48:10
for skelatal animation, it is easier to rig bipeds to the same base armatures than it is to figure out the motion of several different monster types. Dragon fligh, versus copter hover versus scag flight; they all need a different set of motions.
#18 posted by
on 2005/01/03 16:01:59
heck, even switching between animating normal bipedal leg movement versus the extrajointed goat leg leg movement is a fair bit of change.
#19 posted by
on 2005/01/04 21:04:42
I disagree with Mr Shambler, there's a long way to go here. Sound can be very deceptive - I spent the first half of my life listening to cassette tapes and didn't care, but now I'm used to CD's I could never go back. You don't really notice poor until you've heard good.
Take Doom3. Knock a metal box over onto a metal floor... "clang!". Good enough? Try pushing it.
Where's the scraping that varies according to surface and speed? Run it over some rivets. Where's the "tink! tink!". Drop it in an airduct and then a cavern. Where's the different acoustics?
You could argue that solving this doesn't require much in the way of technical improvement - just more sounds for every combination. But I think that the implied demand there is exponential, especially when combined with advances in physics, and sooner or later people are gonna have to start managing it by doing some proper simulation. That's a huge and largely unexplored technical challenge.
The problem is that most people don't even realise there's a problem. In all the hype about next-gen stuff, I don't think I've seen a single mention of sound.
I have a hunch that the situation will continue stagnate for a while, probably well into the next-gen consoles, and then some backroom genius will suddenly come out with a system that blows everything else away.
In conclustion, I look forward to gently rubbing my (virtual) hairy flaming dildo over a (virtual) ewe, and hearing the exact combination of "fsssssh", "crackle!" and "BAAA-AAA-AA!" that I expect.
#20 posted by
on 2005/01/04 21:23:47
we're you also talking about sounds that are generated in realtime, or just having lots of recordings for different events?
#21 posted by
on 2005/01/04 22:05:12
Generated in realtime, although that generation might be just taking a bunch of recordings and combining them in some novel way to make an "original" sound.
Arguably, almost all game sounds are generated to
degree. There's almost always distance attentuation, and often reverb and occlusion.
I'd really like to see something more fundamental, where the surfaces involved and the
they're interacting all combine to generate an infinitely variable sound.
I vaguely remember some siggraph papers about this kinda stuff... will dig them up tomorrow.
#22 posted by
on 2005/01/04 22:17:19
what animation software are you using?
Episode Idea
#23 posted by
on 2005/01/04 22:28:51
A spinoff of Ikka's AMAZING "Hall of the Shambler God" map, the episode basically deals with where Shamblers come from (the birds and the bees, eh?) Elder-worldish/other styles would probably be prominent, mixing in some ruins of temples, possibly Greek/Roman in style. Other ideas to flesh out the style as appropriate, no real solid idea as to how it should actually be. Generally more open-ended maps, as Shamblers are rather big.
The final boss of the episode would be the Shambler God itself, some sort of badass mofo no doubt. I have some ideas of what he would look like, and they're all of a huge twisted Shambler with a bunch of mouths coming out of different body areas (shoulders, chest, hands.) But then again, maybe not.
The thoughts popped into my head of what a Quake V episode could be.
#24 posted by
on 2005/01/04 22:29:55
I totally misclicked the wrong forum? I was reading Quake V stuff, and then poof. Disregard this, eh?
#25 posted by
on 2005/01/05 02:21:00
AI And Mirrors
#26 posted by
on 2005/06/21 23:07:13
I got to think about AI due to this scenario in Hitman 3:
Notice I am hiding in the bathroom stall, and there are guards ahead of me. They didn't know I was in the stall, yet you can see that they can see me. The problem is, the AI wasn't written to see the player or other people reflected in mirrors.
This should be done in Hitman 4 (among other games), it would make things that much more interesting/challenging.
#27 posted by
on 2005/06/22 01:20:02
Good point there phait!
New Engines Etc
#28 posted by
on 2005/06/23 01:47:54
While it will pretty much always be graphics that are the most noticeable improvement in each new batch of game engines, there is work going into other areas to make things more realistic, currently its physics and animation (hl2, etc) but we need more.
1) A.I ffs! Go stalker show them how it is! Phaits example is a classic one, A.I compared to where everything else is these days is just fucking shit! Its one area where HL2 fell down I think, the A.I just felt the same as in HL1 with maybe a few tweaks to understand the physics objects. It could have been so much better. What if combine actually threw grenades to try and dislodge piles of stuff to fall on you (unscripted) and actually pick up and throw objects at you, block passageways with debris etc. But no they stand there and shoot while YOU do all that. A.I really needs to understand the purpose of everything in the game world and be able to take advantage of that in a clever way. Its the next logical step (mirrors included!).
2) Animation, its gotten much better in last year or so, ragdolls and inverse IK make the character movements much more realistic, but its the basic character movements and actions that still need work. They still move very "digitally" if u know what I mean, always moving in straight lines, if u move into something they will just kind of "strafe" out of your way. What if u could actually barge past someone, what if when someone is hiding behind objects they actually take up a posture that fits the object they are hiding behind. This is actually a culmination of animation and physics I geuss. Also, while ragdoll deaths can be quite realistic most of the time, they just have no personality. I do miss the days of animated deaths, where people would spasm on the ground, or die holding their necks etc. This needs to be brought back and conjunction with ragdoll. so say, an animation is played in the arms of something flailing around while the rest of the body is ragdoll if u see what I mean.
3) Freeform worlds. Engines can do it now, developers should fucking use it. "on rails" shooters should start fading away and freeform worlds will be getting bigger. See Operation Flashpoint, Stalker, etc.
Nice One Daz.
#29 posted by
on 2005/06/23 01:53:28
3 good points there.
IK As A Technique
#30 posted by
on 2005/06/23 07:29:00
makes it easier for the animator to organize the bones of his model and move them about as such, but it doesn't necessarily mean that what the player will see in game is any better.
Realistic axial restraints coupled with a more accurate physics simulation of actions/reactions at a per pixel level of accuracy (instead of the good old bounding box) is what we are seeing as applied in HL2, Doom3, etc..
Except It Can Mean Exactly That
#31 posted by
on 2005/06/23 08:15:58
In Doom 3 for example, an IK solver is used to ensure that a characters feet don't float above the ground, but conform to the terrain. This isn't perfect, but it is an example of procedural technology addressing the fake appearance of game animations.
#32 posted by
on 2005/06/23 08:40:40
I dont see #2 happening any time soon -
thats really tricky to make model movement that acts according to both the pre-made animations and world geometry.
Now it feels like prefect moment to mention handless Gordon Freeman that drives the vehicles and moves barrels by the mean of TheForce (� LucasArts)
I like how you say 'see stalker', when its not out yet.
"On-rails" shooters have its appeal too. Not everyone wants to play big open-world game. And making such game good quality is a lot of work not every dev can afford.
Yeah, I Left That Part Out
#33 posted by
on 2005/06/23 10:29:20
so as not to muddy the point.
IK is typically used in modeler to rig a model that is, again, typically not dependent upon a particular engine to function (so you can use the same model in Quake, Q3A, Unreal Tournement with minimal changes). In engines with built in skelatal animations, this is less true.
I Was Referring To
#34 posted by
on 2005/06/23 15:32:17
what Blackdog said, about the characters legs etc conforming to terrain for a more realistic pose. You can see this in Farcry but im not sure if other games use it... Actually I think the spider bots in Doom 3 use it, bleh u know, sorry for confusion :)
Ah, It's My Fault
#35 posted by
on 2005/06/23 16:18:54
for splitting hairs that did not need to be split. 600 years in a Franciscan order arguing about how many angels can dance on a pin can do that to a man.
#36 posted by
on 2005/06/23 19:40:21
had feet adjusting to terrain in some occasions...
...i recall a point when some debris was flung at alex and she lifted her leg to prop her foot ontop of it while she fired her pistol back. It was a nice detail that helped the believability.
Isn't That IK?
#37 posted by
on 2005/06/24 17:02:04
it's a basic thing that has been in a few games for a long time. Hell, even Zelda: Ocarina of time uses it on the N64 (unless it's just the GC port that has it). Links feet always touch the floor.
I don't understand why more modern games don't have it.
It would be nice if characters looked more natural walking up stairs in more games though.
#38 posted by
on 2005/06/26 16:51:47
It can also be used for doing little shuffle steps and moving a character accurately, which is a pain to do with normal animations.
Daz, I've read that Max Payne did some stuff with combining animation and ragdolls - the example was someone hit with an explosion would play a windmilling animation on their arms while the rest of them was ragdolled. Also, Havok is pushing this kind of stuff as a big feature now, so it's likely more games will have it.
#39 posted by
on 2005/06/26 21:01:55
I was having this discussion with Lunaran in #tf until he accused me of being a pessimist and told me to get a job :(
Anyway, my thoughts were that I don't think that games are going to be graphically innovative for a while now, so the important thing is to use the technology we have in the most resourceful manner possible.
For example, games should use the current engines in entirely new ways (like Anachronox did with Q2's engine) instead of just cosmetic facelifts (like Quake 4 is doing with Doom 3's engine)
FPS especially will get stale very quickly if we just have games built on D3 and UT2Kwhatever without any sort of new gameplay or creative ways of using the engines/technologies offered.
Also, the trend of making things more realistic has been going on for the past 10 years, and Phait made a good point -- that no matter how realistic games get graphically, we'll always have little things like he mentioned that sort of ruin the sense of immersion in a realistic world. I think this trend is hitting a wall as games get to the point of being almost photo-realistic, and I think because of that, there will be a surge towards surrealism and more artistic uses instead of just a straight recreation.
To give you an example of being resourceful with the current engines, I want to bring up HL2. HL2's physics system is quite good (though not perfect). It was used minimally in terms of gameplay in HL2, but I think a mod team, or even someone else licensing the Havok engine could really come up with some interesting uses for it. Perhaps we could even have entire games based around solving physics puzzles -- coop games online where you need to work as a team to anchor things down or launch things using planks and see-saws or whatever.
Pope said he liked my metaphor when I was talking about this in #tf, so I'll give it again here.
The current state of games is analogous to the way Native Americans and European settlers of America used the buffalo, and nature in general:
Mod teams and developers who create an entirely new game from existing engines are like the Native Americans.
The Natives would kill the bufallo, eat the edible parts, make coats from the fur, tools from the bones, slippers from the testicles, (ok I'm getting silly but you get the idea) and just generally used the world around them as resourcefully as possible.
The big companies who are just looking to pump new content out ASAP, and uninspired mod teams who think a few new textures will suffice are like the Europeans.
The European settlers just killed the bufallo and ate it, and probably sold the fur to buy whiskey.
So even if graphic technology slows down for a while, we still have some really complex engines and current technologies to use. The problem is we need more people to be like the Native Americans, and less to be like the Europeans.
#40 posted by Mike Woodham on 2005/06/26 23:25:58
I think it worth mentioning that the main problem with the European settlers is that generally they didn't eat the buffalo they killed: the animals were skinned, the pelts shipped east and the carcasses left to rot.
Not that I'm arguing with your point.
OK Cheers Mike
#41 posted by
on 2005/06/26 23:48:25
(PS if you ever derail a thread like that again I will hunt you down and skin
#42 posted by
on 2005/06/27 00:53:07
Stop being such a pessimist.
Also, get a job you hippy.
#43 posted by
on 2005/06/27 01:07:42
Iv read some woes that we even need to stop the hardware race for a while and fully use what gfx technology we have now.
But that wont happen, and consoles will take over
#44 posted by
on 2005/06/27 01:14:57
Oh, and HL2 is great example.
Basically, quake engine with added features to make it cool and modern and nice looking.
Some call it 'hacks', but who cares -
game looks good, and runs smooth on pos machines.
#45 posted by
on 2005/06/27 02:18:52
Interesting post, well up to the buffalo bit whcih lost me really.
But I also agree with speedy, HL2 is a good example of evolving tech that gets used well.
#46 posted by
on 2005/06/27 03:08:59
Good post, I agree with you.
#47 posted by
on 2005/06/27 03:55:28
Good post, I agree with you.
#48 posted by
on 2005/06/27 05:11:27
Worst post evar, someone close this thread.
#49 posted by
on 2005/06/28 01:31:02
Good post, I agree with you.
So, uhhh yeah...games and stuff :} Well, I've been playing a lot of 3rd person action games on the Xbox over the last few weeks, and it's really struck me just how much more cinematic these games try to be, in terms of the number of scripted sequences/cinematics etc, compared to the FPS stuff I've been brought up on. I guess that makes sense, as it seems more logical that an "interactive movie" would adopt a 3rd person perspective. So, yeah...actually I don't really have a point here and I guess this isn't really a comment on gaming tech, so I'll shut up now :}
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Guys! My husband won a competition* and is getting sent to the finals in Bordeaux, France at the end of November! We JUST found out. I'm coming along, and we decided to spend a whole week over there. He has 3 days of scheduled activities that I can't/don't want to participate in, and he wants to spend most of the rest of the week in Bordeaux, which sounds good to me.
Since I have to fly separately, and can't stay with him, I'm going to fly into Paris and dick around somewhere in France for a few days while he does thing, and then go meet him in Bordeaux. I want to spend that time in some smaller towns in between Paris and Bordeaux.
I'm thinking: first Orleans (apparently about an hour train ride from Paris). Then I am thinking to head to La Rochelle, and then finally Bordeaux. I would rather go down to Bayonne but that's a much, much longer journey and I am trying hard not to waste too much time doing that (like, an 8.5 hour journey vs. <4 to La Rochelle).
Unfortunately, most wineries will be closed at that point for harvest, so the typical wine tour stuff may be out of the question.
Things I want info/ideas about:
- Any tips for traveling solo as a woman in Europe (bonus points for France, specifically)? I am not doing hostels and probably going to stay mostly out of nightlife for this reason (which is fine with me).
- Anyone who knows the area want to comment on my itinerary?
- Anyone been to Bordeaux? What did you like about it? How long should we stay there?
- I haven't actually used trains in Europe since 2006. I remember you could just kind of show up and get on the train. I plan on buying all tickets ahead of time online, but has anything else changed (so I take into account when I schedule)?
- I know a bit of French but want to freshen up. Good news: I have a long commute everyday where I can listen and practice. Anyone got some advice for audio French-learnin'? Cheap would be AWESOME....
- I want to buy a fairly decent gift for my friend who will be keeping my two dogs. I am thinking a nice bottle of wine - can/should I take that back on the plane with me? Any other ideas?
*I think it might doxx us if I give more details about this, haha. Sorry folks!


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Periodically we'll feature one of our real estate professionals here to let our readers know about some great Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, and Other Real Estate Professionals.
Gay Friendly Las Vegas Realtors and Real Estate Professionals
Transplanted from Israel over ten years ago, I have called Las Vegas 'home' for the past decade. In that time, I have seen the dramatic growth and change that has impacted the southern Nevada market. Real Estate is my full time focus and you, as my client, will receive the level of dedicated service and guidance necessary in this constantly changing environment. My experience ranges from high-end to starter homes….short sales to foreclosures…buying to selling. This is my career and passion; I am dedicated and always available for my clients to educate, negotiate, and make their experience as memorable as possible.
Also, I am fortunate to be part of the highest producing team in Las Vegas, the Shapiro & Sher Group of Prudential Americana. I have consistently been one of the top 3 agents on the team, so when you call me, you are benefitting from this extension of expertise, professionalism and marketing strength.
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Let me be your Realtor.
See the Avi Dan-Goor Expanded Listing on Gay Realty Network Here


text: The Leslie J. Nickels Trust, operator of the Nickels Soils Lab (NSL), is requesting proposals for research and/or demonstrations projects for in-kind supported field work (no per acre fee) for the 2015 growing season. NSL is a unique hybrid research farm (private facility supporting public research) providing a commercial orchard (almond and/or walnut) setting for applied research and demonstration projects just off Hwy 5 less than an hour north of Davis, CA. Simple, two-page proposals are due by November 26, 2014. Projects will be reviewed by the Nickels RAC by mid-December. For lab history, more detailed information and instructions plus project proposal form please visit: http://cecolusa.ucanr.edu/Pomology/Nickels_Soil_Lab_Projects/.


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3,707 executive-education courses at your fingertips
Important: This course is expired. Good news: you can find other courses like it here.
Disruptive Strategy with Clayton Christensen
- SchoolHarvard Business School Online
- FormatOnline
- All dates January 22 - March 4, 2020
- Duration 6 weeks
- Price $1,600
- CategoryStrategy
About the course
Disruptive Strategy enables you to make innovation a reality. Created by Clayton Christensen, who coined the theory of disruptive innovation, this online course will equip you with the skills and techniques needed to develop executive-level strategy, organize for innovation, and discover customer jobs to be done.
Who should attend
- Innovative Leaders
- Forward-Thinking Strategists
- Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Learning outcomes
- Become fluent in disruptive innovation theory
- Assess new opportunities and potential threats
- Discover jobs to be done and develop frameworks to better understand customer needs
- Acquire techniques for executive-level strategy development
- Organize for innovation and maintain a disruptive scope
- Gain confidence articulating complex viewpoints
Course information from Harvard Business School Online
Please note that instructors are subject to change and not all instructors teach in each session of the program.
Clayton M. Christensen
Faculty Cochair
Clayton M. Christensen is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School; and is regarded as one of the world's top experts on innovation and growth.


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View Full Menu
Annie's Breakfast
All breakfasts served with country potatoes and your choice of toast or biscuits & gravy.
Open year round 7 days a week.
Annie's Original
2 eggs cooked to order with country potatoes.
Annie's Favorite
2 eggs cooked to order with country potatoes and your choice of bacon or sausage.
Outlaw Omelet
3 eggs, with your choice of four items: ham, bacon, sausage, onions, bell peppers, cheese, mushrooms.
Skillet Breakfast
Gold Miner's piled high with country potatoes, Bacon, sausage, ham, scrambled eggs topped with cheese.
Annie's Chicken Fried Steak
2 eggs cooked to order with country potatoes and our famous chicken fried steak smothered in country gravy.
Breakfast Burrito
Grilled 12" flour tortilla stuffed with scrambled eggs, onions, bell peppers, bacon, cheese and country potatoes served with salsa & sour cream.
Short Stack or Full Stack. (Add Apples)
1 Egg - 2 eggs - Biscuits & Gravy - Toast or Biscuit - Country Potatoes - Bacon - Sausage - Ham - Steak.
Steak and Eggs
Cooked to order and served with country potatoes. (Does not qualify for seconds)
French Toast
French Toast (Add Apples)
Annie's Lunch
All Sandwiches served with your choice of: Seasoned fries, mashed potatoes, cottage cheese, fruit cocktail, soup, or salad.
The Deluxe
1/3 lb Angus beef patty piled high with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and red onion. Served with special sauce on a toasted bun. (Add Cheese, or Bacon)
The Dip
Thinly sliced roast beef, stacked high on toasted French roll smothered with melted jack cheese, grilled onions made for dipping in rich and flavorful au jus.
The Veggie Burger
Topped with mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, red onion, fresh green spinach and served with special sauce on a toasted bun.
The Traditional BLT
Crisps strips of bacon with lettuce, ripe tomatoes and mayonnaise on your choice of bread or toast.
The Ultimate Grilled Cheese
A delicious 3 cheese grilled sandwich stuffed with grilled onions and tomatoes served on golden grilled sourdough bread. (Add a burger)
The Chili Size
Size 1/3 lb beef patty served on our fresh baked homemade bread, grilled and smothered in our home-style chili topped with cheese and onions.
Cold Turkey Ham or Roast Beef Sandwich
Thinly sliced piled high on a French roll with lettuce and tomatoes and mayonnaise.
Beefeater Melt
Thinly sliced roast beef, melted jack cheese and tomatoes served on golden grilled sourdough bread.
Grilled Chicken Sandwich
Tender chicken breast on a toasted home-made roll with fresh lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, and mayonnaise.
The Frisco
1/3 lb Angus beef patty and bacon on grilled sourdough bread with jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, red onion and mayonnaise.
Annie's Favorites
Add a cup of soup or salad to any meal.
Annie's Home-Style Fried chicken
Our famous home-style recipe, served with mashed potatoes or seasoned fries, coleslaw and homemade bread.
Fish N' Chips
Crisp and tender fish filets deep-fried to golden perfection. Served with tartar sauce, seasoned fries and coleslaw.
Peasant Lunch
1/2 a cold turkey, ham or roast beef sandwich with your choice of soup of the day or slice of apple pie. Served with seasoned fries.
The Rustler
Our famous chicken fried steak, served with creamy mashed potatoes and smothered in a country gravy.
Cali Sandwich
Apples (Granny Smith) tomatoes, grilled onions, olives, lettuce, mayonnaise and Jack cheese piled between two pieces of bread. Served with seasoned fries.
Chef or Chicken Salad
Chef or Grilled Chicken Salad, a bed of fresh greens, piled high with cheese, ripe tomatoes, red onion, black olives, egg and croutons with choice of Grilled Chicken Breast or Ham and Turkey with your choice of dressing.
The Bread Bowl
Our fresh Homemade baked bread bowl filled with your choice of soup or Home-style chili topped with cheese and onions.
Soup & Salad Combo
Our green garden salad and bowl of Today's soup served with cornbread.
Turkey Club
Fresh sliced turkey stacked with bacon, lettuce, and tomato, on toasted sourdough bread served with seasoned fries.
Fish Sandwich
Served with lettuce, tomato, onion, lemon & tartar sauce.
Hot Roast Beef or Roast Turkey
Served open faced with creamy mashed potatoes and gravy.
Bowl of Soup or Chili & Cornbread
Annie's Dinner
Served after 2p.m. All Dinners served with your choice of soup or salad and dinner bread.
Served with marinara sauce, 2 meatballs and toasted garlic bread.
Hamburger Steak
Cooked with onions & topped with mushrooms. Served with a vegetable, mashed potatoes or seasoned fries.
Country Roasted Turkey
Served with a vegetable, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes or season fries.
Chicken Fried Steak
Served with a vegetable and mashed potatoes smothered in country gravy.
Home-Style Fried Chicken
Our famous home-style recipe served with a vegetable, mashed potatoes or seasoned fries.
Seniors Menu
These items do not qualify for the seconds policy
Senior Favorite 1 Egg Cooked to Order
Served with country potatoes and your choice of toast or biscuit & gravy.
Healthy Breakfast 2 Egg Whites
Served with cottage cheese, tomatoes and toast.
Cheese Omelet
Melted cheddar cheese inside an omelet, served with seasoned country potatoes and your choice of toast or biscuit & gravy.
Pancake Sandwich
Two Pancakes served with warm syrup, 1 egg with your choice of sausage or bacon.
Home Style Chicken Dinner
Annie's famous home-style recipe. Served with 2 pieces of chicken, coleslaw and cornbread. Your choice of seasoned fries or mashed potatoes.
Country Roasted Turkey
Slow roasted turkey and stuffing served with mashed potatoes, gravy and dinner bread. Your choice of soup or salad.
Hamburger Steak
Topped with grilled onions, mushrooms and gravy. Served with mashed potatoes and dinner bread. Your choice of soup or salad.
Chicken Fried Steak
Served with mashed potatoes, smothered in country gravy. Your choice of soup or salad.
Apple Annie's Bakery
Twin Pastry
Cinnamon Roll
Apple Bread
Apple Pie Slice
Apple Empanada
Apple Bettie
Apple Dumpling
Apple Turnover
The Original 5lb Mile High Home-Made Apple Pie
Annie's Original Mountain Cherry
Old Fashion Apple Pie
Pig Out of Pie
Cherry Pie with Large Cherries
Whole Pies
Home Made Apple Pie
The Original 5lb. Mile High Home-Made Apple Pie
Annie's Original Mountain Cherry
French Crumb Apple Pie
Old Fashion Apple Pie
Pig Out Apple Pie
Topped with Pecans & Spiced Apples
Cherry Pie With Large Cherries.
Old Fashion
The Sugar Free 5 lb Mile High
Annie's Wine & Beer List
Apple Wine
(Our Signature Wine) White wine with flavors of Green Apples
Wine Margarita
Wine Bloody Mary
Corona Beer
Hard Cider Beer (Granny Smith)
Bud Light
Apple Beer
Cran Chi Chi
Pink Wine - Rose wine chilled has the taste of crisp cranberries.
Cabernet Sauvignon
A blend of noble grapes exudes Oak.
Big Red
Rich bold flavor of Black Cherry
Autumn Splash
A Delightful flavor of Cranberry & Apple (White Wine)
White Satin
(White Wine)
A light refreshing taste with hints of Oak. (White Wine)
Kid's Meal
(Under 10)
Chicken Fingers
Served with choice of Season Fries or Fresh Fruit & Drink
Peanut Butter & Jelly
Served with choice of Season Fries or Fresh Fruit & Drink
Grilled cheese
Served with choice of Season Fries or Fresh Fruit & Drink
Acorn the Squirrel's Jr. Breakfast
One egg, county potatoes, toast and drink
Oakie the Bear's Jr. Breakfast
One pancake served with one egg, bacon or sausage & drink
Mac' n' Cheese
Served with choice of Season Fries or Fresh Fruit & Drink
Beef Sliders (2)
Served with choice of Season Fries or Fresh Fruit & Drink
Annie's Beverages
Apple Annie's Blend Coffee
Regular or Decaf
Hot Tea or Herbal Tea
Ice Tea
Coke, Diet Coke, Root Beer, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, Pink Lemonade, Raspberry Tea.
Apple Soda or Bubble-up
Creme Soda
Blue or Vanilla
Root Beer Float
Apple Cider Float
Apple Beer
Orange Juice
Apple Cider
Chocolate Milk
Hot Chocolate
Tell A Friend About This Page
39062 Oak Glen Rd., Oak Glen, CA 92399 TEL: 909-797-2311 FAX: 909-797-4521
Display Menu
School Field Trip
Visitor's Guide
About Us
Contact Us
Mailing List
Copyright � 2020 Apple Annie's. All Rights Reserved.


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Arkbauer – Software Development and IT Solutions
SIA Arkbauer develops bespoke business software for companies in Latvia and Germany.
SIA Arkbauer develops bespoke business software for companies in Latvia and Germany.
CakeHR is an award-winning SaaS based Human Resource management software that integrates core features like 360 Feedback, Workforce management, Performance appraisal and Attendance tracking with Scheduling that supports Time-off policies and Black-out days.
Our custom applications utilize browser-based software to take paper-based processes, and streamline them into an online application.
"Kafijas Draugs" is a salon shop where you can buy coffee machines and coffee from all over the world and also taste it!
Civitta is a leading independent management consultancy in the Central and Eastern Europe with offices in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.
"Baltic Pine Films" - production company that provides professional services in filming process of organizing foreign advertising, television and feature film projects
The aim of Latvijas Koncerti is to form and develop Latvia's professional concert life
Spikeri Outlet is not just a liquor store. Regular seminars and tastings this store has turned into a place to meet wine lovers and just lovers of a good drink
Galerija Baltik - leader in the supply of goods for beauty care since 2001
Lighting fixtures and commercial interior design
One of worlds best chamber choirs, a professional group of musicians
Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum: education, tolerance, memory, inter-cultural dialogue
SALON LINE is a stable and reliable business partner for more than 13,000 masters for beauty care, salons, spacenters, medical facilities, schools in the Baltics and Scandinavia.
State Chamber Orchestra
House where music lives


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Exploring different retail intersections in Minneapolis is always an adventure.
These small-scale commercial nodes allow us city dwellers easy access to things we need rather than having to rely on suburban-style big-box retailers. Store owners are friendly and often know people by name, the sense of scale and sidewalk amenities are oriented to pedestrians instead of cars and shopping local helps keep jobs and dollars in our communities.
We all have our usual patterns of errands, so venturing into a new store in a different neighborhood bumps us out of our routine. That's good for the brain and exposes us to new and different things.
East Lake Street has been evolving and changing at a rapid pace. I usually head through the area on my way to somewhere else, but this time I decided to stop and get out. It was easy to spend the afternoon there.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with thousands of comics in plastic sleeves line the perimeter of Nostalgia Zone Comic Books, 3535 E. Lake St.
Established in 1993, this store sells not only comics but all kinds of related merchandise, including collectible action figures, "The Simpsons" TV show room settings, vintage games, a "Lost in Space" robot and Pee Wee Herman's "fun pack" from 1988 that contains traditional trading cards, a temporary tattoo and games — the store manager says they're his "favorite cards ever." Regular shoppers here join the store's membership for a 10-percent discount, shopping points, advance notice of sales and "tons of street cred."
You've still got time to get in shape for ESPN's X Games, coming to Minneapolis July 13. The four-day event features skateboarding and other competitions.
MXKskate, 3543 E. Lake St., has been on Lake Street about six months. The very contemporary store is filled with visually appealing merchandise, and the giant letters spelling the store's name on the back wall are large enough to read a block away.
Skateboard decks are covered with patterns ranging from artful paintings to printed graphics and typographic statements. Some come with wheels attached, but many are available for customizing. Wheels and trucks (to hold the wheels to the decks) come in all sorts of colors and designs.
The current speed record for longboarding is 90 mph — about three times the legal speed limit on Lake Street. It's fun to look, but leave the records for the professionals.
I've always loved old hardware stores — the worn wood floors, neatly piled merchandise and ability to buy one or two of something rather than a package of 50. When I asked store owner Jim Logan of River Lake True Value Hardware, 3605 E. Lake St., how long he'd been there, he replied, "Since 8 a.m."
The store opened on Lake Street in 1944. Logan started working there in 1972, then bought it two years later. It's the third longest running business on Lake Street. Along with another partner Logan also owns a small engine shop a few doors down.
If you ever need a key made, Logan is an expert. He made 20,000 in one year alone. He also has a wide selection of hard-to-find skeleton keys for old houses.
Logan said he's never had a day he didn't want to come into work. Logan was in the 86th airborne in Vietnam and goes back several times a year to help build houses, lead tours for veterans and buy decorative wooden dragonflies to give to his women customers on Lake Street. It's things like that that keep customers coming back.
In business since 1977, Elsa's House of Sleep, 3540 E. Lake St., is a second-generation family owned discount furniture store. Elsa Rezene originally sold mattresses but expanded the store's products to include all types of home furnishings.
The store sells major national brands of sofas, dining room tables and chairs, bookcases, desks and office systems. They offer delivery, assembly and layaway. The store prides itself on providing honest bargains and great customer service.
Creativity also lives at this intersection.
Prairie Woodworking, 3535 E. Lake St., makes radiator enclosures and handmade custom furniture such as tables, kitchen cabinets, built-ins and fireplace surrounds in any number of finishes or to match existing woodwork.
Room 34 Creative Services, 3011 36th Ave. S., is an independent web developer for small to midsize businesses, nonprofits and cooperatives.
Miller Upholstering, 3614 E. Lake St., has been recovering vintage and antique furniture with designer fabrics since 2001.
292 Design Group, 3533 E. Lake St., provides architectural services for community-focused projects as diverse as churches, education and assisted living facilities and the Crooked Pint Ale House in Chaska's Curling Center.
I've always believed that the more you learn about something the more interesting it becomes. That works with neighborhoods too. It was nice to go somewhere new. I'll be back.
Sorry, but this intersection is too busy for one lunch tip! Depending on your mood, here are your choices:
— Savory Bake House, 3008 36th Ave. S.
Baked brioche sandwiches and pies with vegetarian and meat fillings are the bakery's specialty. Their motto is "reinventing the idea of bakery." Look for popular homemade soups on colder days.
— Merlins Rest Pub, 3601 E Lake St.
Even while boasting the Midwest's largest selection of single malt Scotch whisky and Irish whiskey, this longtime neighborhood joint is known for good food. Try their British Isles' classics: fish and chips, bangers and mash or steak and stilton pie, then stay for trivia, music and pub singing events.
— Tim Hortons, 3600 E. Lake St.
We've seen other major donut chains come and go in Minnesota but that didn't stop Tim Hortons from giving it a try. Founded in 1964 by an Ontario, Canada, hockey player, this chain is beloved by northerners. Known for "donuts and coffee," Tim Hortons also serves soups, sandwiches,] and salads. This store opened just last January when it replaced White Castle.
— International Cuisine Bar and Grill (3508 E. Lake St.)
The aroma of foods from Ecuador and Peru fill this modern twist on a neighborhood restaurant. Stop in for their popular lomo saltado, a Peruvian stir-fry with sirloin steak in a spicy sauce alongside a neat pile of rice topped with avocado. South American sodas and exotic smoothies share counter space at the bar.
Mark your calendar for the upcoming Longfellow Neighborhood Garage Sale, 9 a.m.–3 p.m. June 9–10.


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Intro Wp Rocket Coupon 2016
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Today, I will be taking an comprehensive look at a few of the primary caching plugins around. WP Rocket. In the following review, I will show you by exactly how much — and how easily — it can speed up your website (using real-life tests and actual data).
What is WordPress Caching?
Caching Involves generating — and storing — a ready-made static (i.e. unchanging) version of your site on your own server ready to show to visitors at a minute's notice. This decreases the demand for your site (and/or the user's browsers) to communicate back and forth with the host to assemble the behind-the-scenes information that creates your website's webpages.
With less Communication happening between servers, and much less data being loaded each time your site is obtained, the time necessary to load your posts and pages is significantly reduced.
WP Rocket Will potentially.
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· optimise Google fonts
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You might Be wondering what happens if you publish a new blog article on a cached website, because, paradoxically, an unchanging cached version of your website wouldn't take this newly created data into account.
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With WP Rocket, you get page caching, cache preloading, gzip compression, browser caching, Google Fonts optimization, picture and video Lazy Load, minification, and a great deal more.
The Fundamental SETTINGS
If you do Choose to explore the further settings and options WP Rocket supplies, you will see it's a couple of tricks up its sleeve for possibly improving speed much further, like the choice to simply load media files (such as images) when the visitor reaches them on a page (a feature known as Lazy Loading).
One of The highlights of WP Rocket is its simple installation process, which makes it a pretty much fool proof caching option for active WordPress webmasters. It's called being'childishly simple to set up' — something users who just need to get the work done and proceed will almost surely appreciate. Wp Rocket Coupon 2016
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In fact, When the plugin was uploaded and activated on your website, the cache will be automatically generated when someone visits the website. Everybody visiting your website thereafter should immediately start experiencing significantly faster loading times. Simple!
WP Rocket Aims to eliminate all such confusion by being mechanically up-and-running right out of the box — without being so rigid that it's not able to deliver excellent results. After activating WP Rocket, you'll see only a few tabs on the admin panel, each with only a couple of easy-to-understand settings.
You can See the rest of the basic settings display here. While there are a few more options to work with, the plugin works just fine without any of them empowered. This truly is plug'n' play with caching for WordPress!
Of Course, it is recommended that you browse the online documentation to actually determine what this plugin can do and just how much additional performance you can squeeze from it, however, for those in a rush (or using a zero technical interest in the ins-and-outs of caching), it is safe to say speeding up your website using WP Rocket couldn't be made much easier.
The primary Selling point of WP Rocket is how simple it makes allowing caching on your site. With many other caching plugins, you are faced with the sometimes daunting task of understanding — and filling out — multiple pages of settings and options. Depending on how you configure them, you could easily end up inadvertently doing something somewhat screwy (and even, in rare cases, inadvertently breaking up your website ).
WP Rocket Can be compatible with content delivery network (CDN) services. If your site is large enough to warrant distributing its documents to multiple servers around the world for faster loading times, you'll find WP Rocket over accommodating.
There's Also the choice to alter the default cache expiry interval. But, unless you are displaying especially fast-changing or important external dynamic content onto your own website (such as critical content from societal media feeds), the default option 24-hour lifespan ought to be fine.
Cache — Basic Cache Options
The Cache tab lets you control How your webpage caching functions at a basic level? you're able to. Wp Rocket Coupon 2016
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The Majority of the timeyou can Render these as the defaults.
Media — Lazy loading + More
In the Media tab, you can empower Lazy loading for images and/or videos, as well as disable WordPress emojis and embeds.
1 feature That is really nice here's your option to substitute YouTube movie iframes using a static preview picture. If you embed a lot of YouTube videos on your website, this is a excellent way to speed up your website without sacrificing much, if anyusability.
Document Optimization — Minification And Concatenation
The File Optimization tab is Where you can set up WP Rocket's minification and concatenation functionality.
· Minification — shrinks the size of your site's code by removing unnecessary characters (like whitespace) without changing any functionality.
· Concatenation — minimizes the amount of documents on your site by blending multiple CSS/JS documents into one.
You can also install some other Settings such as.
· Remove gender-blocking CSS/JS (PageSpeed Insights is notorious for yelling at you about this problem ).
· Combining Google Fonts documents (useful if you use multiple Google Fonts on your website ).
· Eliminate query strings from static sources (this you won't have a major effect, but it might enhance your GTmetrix score, if you care about that).
I urge Enabling as a number of these configurations as possible. I state as possible because some of the settings for CSS or JS might cause issues with your site (this is not WP Rocket's error — it's always a possible problem with minification/concatenation).
What I like is that WP Rocket Makes this clear when you go to activate one of these settings.
Three cheers for great UX Design!
Preload — Preload Your Cache File
Without Preloading, your website only"assembles" the cache for a page when someone actually visits the page. That means the first visitor following the cache lifespan expires does not see the cached version (because the cache has not been built yet).
Cache Preloading enables you to ensure all visitors view the quick-loading cached page by"warming" yourself, rather than waiting for someone to see the webpage.
One of the Benefits of WP Rocket is that it provides you two distinct strategies to preload your cache, whereas a few caching plugins do not even offer one.
· Sitemap preloading — Reload your cache based on each of the pages in your sitemap.xml file. It's low impact, however the disadvantage is that it does not cache freshly edited or published posts.
· Preload bot — mechanically crawls URLs once you publish/edit a post to make sure that newly edited/published content is also preloaded. The only disadvantage is the fact that it's a little bit more resource intensive, which could cause difficulties on"weak" web servers. Wp Rocket Coupon 2016
You can choose to use zero, One, or both approaches to preload your cache, depending upon your needs.
Database — Clean Up Your Database
As your website ages, your Database will pick up all kinds of"gunk" from the form of revisions, trashed comments, transients, etc..
This area helps you wash out All that unnecessary junk from your database with one click.
Personally, I find this to be The least exciting area of WP Rocket since there are plenty of free plugins that do a fantastic job cleaning your database. But I guess the main advantage here is that WP Rocket eliminates the need for you to put in a separate plugin.
CDN — Integrate With Your CDN
If you use a CDN to accelerate The worldwide delivery of your website, WP Rocket can assist you.
· Rewrite your URLs to use your CDN
· Exclude certain files from the CDN
As You can find complimentary Plugins to perform the first part, the next part, plus the fact which you're able to book CNAMEs for particular file types gives you more flexibility than most of these free choices.
For example, you may use one CNAME to your pictures, and yet another for the remainder of your documents.
If you are using Cloudflare, WP Rocket also includes a committed Cloudflare add-on that could help you get set up using Cloudflare and control certain facets of this Cloudflare service right from the WP Rocket interface.
And that pretty much sums up The brand new WP Rocket 3.0 interface!
Through The plugin configurations, you can even enable caching for both mobile users and logged-in users — all with a simple click. After moving to the'advanced' tab, however, things start to get a little more complex.
To give you even greater control over how caching Works on your site, you're also free to exclude pages in the cache by adding their URLS into the'never cache the following pages'
Through The CDN tab, you can configure the plugin to work with your content delivery system of choice, whereas the tools section gives you fast access to the clear and preload cache programs.
What's More, should you get stuck, the FAQ and support tabs make it exceptionally simple to access the online documentation, and even open a service ticket from inside your WordPress dash — a lovely touch!
In General, WP Rocket intends to be all things to all people. On the other hand, it's very easy to prepare and start using on your site with default settings which actually create good results, yet, on the other hand, there's also an appreciably large selection of settings and options to cater to more advanced users with particular needs, or those who demand more control over how caching functions on their site.
By Default, each time you print a new article or add new content to your website, WP Rocket will regenerate that portion of the cache. Not only that, but will also refresh the associated parts of the cache (such as the archive pages( menus, or widgets). Wp Rocket Coupon 2016
Should You need to refresh everything from the cache, however (not just newly updated or altered content), you can force WP Rocket to regenerate it from scratch. Going a step further, you'll also find choices to have unrelated components of your website automatically regenerated if a new post, page, merchandise, remark, or another kind of content gets added.
field. (Note. Shopping cart and checkout pages are automatically excluded in the cache as part of their eCommerce service of WP Rocket.)
Documentation And Support
Even though Utilizing WP Rocket from the box is quite straightforward, in the event you get stuck or wish to know more of the intricacies of how it works, there is quite a bit of high tech documentation provided — including a getting started section, various tutorials, helpful FAQs and a handy troubleshooting section.
As long As your license is still active, you may also open tickets with assistance to receive whatever WP Rocket-related help you need.
My WP Rocket Testing Outcomes
As Mentioned at the peak of this article, I had excellent results from using WP Rocket to cache my WordPress site. By analyzing the rate of my site with GTmetrix — with the default settings of WP Rocket and simply uploading and activating the plugin prior to creating the cache and running the tests — the average page loading times dropped from 2.2 seconds to 0.9.
The site I tested the plugin on was a WordPress blog using the free Twenty Twelve theme, with approximately 80 articles and 37 active plugins. The website is hosted on a entry level shared hosting plan in HostGator, and has no CDN in drama.
No two WordPress sites will be the same, though, so these results might not be common for many websites. They do, however, show that a very basic WordPress blog on the cheapest hosting will almost certainly be able to achieve significantly improved load times together with the plugin.
Other Methods to Accelerate Your WordPress Website
Whether You opt to use WP Rocket in your website or not, there are a range of other means to accelerate your WordPress site that are worth mentioning, such as.
· Deactivating all redundant plugins (many plugins will significantly slow down your site)
· Assessing and optimising all images
· Employing a CDN support
· Updating to a WordPress-specific high-performance web host, such as WP Engine or Flywheel(if your budget allows).
All of These are well worth trying if you haven't already.
WP Rocket Pricing
With Prices starting at only $39 to be used on a single WordPress site, WP Rocket is an affordable alternative for most. Additionally, there are some other powerful free selections available — such as WP Super Cache, and, for the technically minded, W3 Total Cache (to mention but two of many. If you're looking for something which's exceptionally easy to set up and use, however, and also provides access to an extremely helpful premium support desk, WP Rocket is a powerful competitor.
The full Pricing choices are as follows. Wp Rocket Coupon 2016
· Personal. $39 (1 sites)
· Company. $99 (3 websites )
· Pro. $199 (unlimited websites )
All Options include a year's access to plugin upgrades and support. After this period of time, you can continue using the plugin unsupported or renew your permit to keep access. There is also a 30-day refund available if you are not entirely pleased with the plugin later purchase.
WP Rocket Is really very impressive. Not only is it extremely easy to use, it also delivers great results.
Most of The tasks you can carry out to optimise the rate of your website take substantial time and effort — whether that's optimising media files, reviewing and consolidating your plugins, then migrating to a different web host or changing themes. WP Rocket, on the other hand, can be implemented to your site in just a few clicks.
What's More, if you're a WordPress freelancer, whether helping customers with their existing websites or creating websites from scratch, having something like WP Rocket in your toolkit may be of huge benefit. In just a couple of minutes, you will be able to accelerate a client's site and provide them tangible outcomes (in the shape of'before and after' online speeds tests), also, when the best way to distinguish yourself from the competition would be to provide more value to this customer, things like this will really help.
As a Data-backed article over on Moz sets it. "Quick websites have more visitors, who visit more pages for longer periods of time, who come back more often, and are typically more inclined to purchase goods or click advertisements."
Due to Its quick set-up process, speeding up your website with WP Rocket really is an easy triumph in the war against slow load times.
click here to begin using WP Rocket now!


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Skype chatbots now work in group chats
Developers can also access bot building resources through the Framework's hub. This aims to make it easier for users to keep interacting with different businesses without the need to log in constantly. Microsoft is also working on enabling single sign-in on cards so that users will have to authorize their credentials only once. The updates to Skype bots are exciting, and we're sure to see more new features in the near future.
#EURO2016: Didier Deschamps Says France Have No Excuse
The French came agonisingly close to winning it normal time when substitute Andre-Pierre Gignac skipped around Pepe before beating goalkeeper Rui Patricio, only to see his scuffed shot rebound back off the inside of the post. In addition, they were the first team to play three extra-time matches at a single European Championship. "When he said he couldn't go on, I tried to tell my teammates that we have to win it for him".
Biden: Assassinations of Dallas police 'touched the soul of a nation'
Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, who represents a district that includes suburbs west of Dallas, took solace in remarks from Ryan, R-Wis., and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., both of whom called for reconciliation. Almost eight years ago, there was optimism that the election of America's first African-American president would foster better understanding and relations.
Who Won the Portugal vs. France Match in Euro Final 2016?
Again France went on to win the continental crown while Portugal were left to rue the officials' decision to penalise Abel Xavier for a handball in the box as a shoot-out again loomed. They also overcame them in the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup, before losing on penalties to Italy in what was their last major tournament final.
Would like to avoid killing of youth, says J&K Police
Despite restrictions, a large number of people gathered in Tral for Burhan Wani's funeral yesterday. Wani represents the disenchanted new generation youth in the Valley and made calls through social networking sites to take up arms against the Indian government.
Attorney: Officer Who Shot Philando Castile Reacted To Gun, Not Race
Sterling was shot Tuesday outside a Baton Rouge convenience store after an encounter with two police officers. Richmond went on to say that Castile had done the right things by having a license to carry a concealed weapon, and by telling the officer that shot him he was carrying a gun.


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SIA launches project to standardise ID schemes
Open Source API for identity programs will help remove barriers to ID introduction
A new project aims to make it possible for civil identity programs to work together.
The Secure Identity Alliance (SIA), an association of public, private and non-government organisations working in the sphere of legal identity and ID registration, has launched its Open Source API for identity.
The Open Source API project will deliver technical interoperability between civil registration registries and civil identification registries. The API is intended to provide standardisation for identity programs and remove vendor lock-in.
The SIA was formed to promote the provision legal, trusted identity for all which in turn will enable the development of inclusive digital services for growth.
The API is endorsed by the world's leading identity system vendors and is intended to support an industry-wide commitment to breaking down the technical barriers to achieving the United Nations goal of establishing a legal identity for every citizen.
By allowing multiple identity registries and systems to 'talk' to one another - independent of technology, solution architecture or vendor - the Open Source API will solve the interoperability challenges that have hampered the evolution of national identity systems. Governments can invest with confidence - preserving the value of existing systems while evolving their environments without the fear of vendor lock-in.
The Open Source API will be shared on Github from the beginning of the project. Anyone wishing to contribute is welcome to do so.
Debora Comparin, who leads the Open Source API for the SIA, commented: "This initiative is all about making a difference for governments and implementing bodies across the world. It not only reflects how fast the identity market is maturing, but also the commitment of its major players to solving legacy proprietary challenges through ever deeper levels of collaboration and openness. The publication of the Open Source API on GitHub is the first step and we welcome contributions from all players in the identity value chain."
Welcoming the announcement. Dr Joseph J. Atick, Executive Chairman of the ID4Africa Movement, said: "The importance of initiatives of this type cannot be underestimated. A poll of delegates during the recent Annual Meeting of the ID4Africa Movement identified vendor lock-in as the biggest concern for those tasked with delivering national ID schemes. As the ID market matures, governments and implementing bodies must be free to select the most appropriate solutions without commercial or technical restrictions. The SIA's Open Source API is a key enabler and a major step towards harmonising identity schemes across Africa."


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Survey Says: Energy Productivity Important to States and Cities Nationwide
The Alliance is building a new initiative called Energy 2030 On the Road: A State and Local Campaign that will launch in May 2014. The purpose of this campaign is to build awareness of the Energy 2030 policy recommendations and goal of doubling energy productivity by 2030. In order to design a roadmap for the campaign, we sent an Energy 2030 survey to nearly 400 state and local officials to assess the current landscape of energy efficiency policies and programs.
The results are in from a diverse mix of cities and states, representing all parts of the country and both sides of the political spectrum. Despite the range of ideologies, backgrounds and geographical locations of the respondents, there was a clear consensus on the campaign.
Cities and states responding to the survey ranked energy productivity as a high priority. However prior to the survey, the majority of cities and states were unaware of the nation's goal to double energy productivity by 2030 – indicating there is a need to create an awareness building campaign for the goal and the Energy 2030 policy recommendations. Even the cities and states that had never heard of Energy 2030 before the survey expressed strong support for the Energy 2030 goal and interest in participating in the campaign.
The survey also unearthed some very useful information about existing policies and programs, the challenges and barriers that jurisdictions face in developing energy efficiency programs, success stories, and biggest needs. This input will prove invaluable as the Alliance seeks to galvanize action at the local, state, and regional levels by engaging stakeholders in a national, shared commitment to achieving the Energy 2030 goal.
Thank you to all of the cities and states who took the time to share their stories and fill out the survey. We are looking forward to working with all 75+ respondents—and many more cities and states across the country—as we continue advocating for the goal of doubling U.S. energy productivity by 2030.


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My Biggest Secret
I'm about to let y'all in on a goldmine. But let me start at the beginning: I love to thrift. For both environmental and sartorial reasons. And I don't mean go to a curated vintage store and buy pretty things. I mean dig through racks of donated clothing at a Goodwill or a Savers or a Salvation Army and discover epic hidden gems. I've even found vintage Fendi, Moschino, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel on my hunts. But designer finds are few and far between.
We all know trends are cyclical, and therefore you're bound to find an ultra trendy piece whose trend-turn is back on deck. You've just got to have a little patience and an eye for potential. See this blog post for my biggest thrifting tip.
Anyways, back to my secret. Because I live in New York City, actual thrift stores are difficult to find, so I often rely on vintage shops (future blog post coming on the difference between the two) to get my fix. Cue online vintage retailer to the stars: Noir Ohio Vintage. Noir Ohio is my absolute go-to for vintage. I can't tell you how many pieces of theirs I've purchased over the years.
This romper is my newest score. I can't wait to take 'er on my upcoming honeymoon next month.
Romper: vintage via Noir Ohio, similar here | Shoes: Via Spiga, similar here | Bag: vintage, similar here | Hat: similar here | Scarf: similar here | Sunnies: similar here


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No one in either kingdom could remember why they had so many spears, rock throwers, bows, arrows, daggers, and slingshots. And they had been making them for so long that everyone had forgotten how to do anything else, like gardening, weaving, or playing games. This was just as well, because there really was no room left even to bounce a ball, let alone plant a garden or set up a loom. All the food came in cans, and people wore armor (which was extremely uncomfortable) instead of suits and dresses.
William Wondriska, The Tomato Patch. Discovered thanks to Michael Dumontier / stopping off place.


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All FAQs
Each year we see cases about storm damage and flooding, involving issues like a dispute about the root cause of damage to property or where a consumer is unhappy that their insurer took too long to get their property repaired.
Our approach to cases involving flood damage to property is set out on this website. And if you have questions, or would like to talk to us about how we can help, please get in touch.


text: SAT March 13th - Holliday - First Offical 2010 Pr. Mar 5, 2010 10:57:09 GMT -5 Quote Select PostDeselect PostLink to PostMemberGive GiftBack to Top Post by Sir Nichtmar on Mar 5, 2010 10:57:09 GMT -5 Be there at Noon peeps. Get ready for the slaughter house. We have a lot of winter dust to shake off. Lets get it started. Plan on some fun in the woods too.I might have a little story battle planned. Here is Holliday Park


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Whether your focus is an internal group who are having difficulties sharing with and learning from each other, or an external group that deserves the chance to share and communicate with you and each other, a virtual community of practice should be on your radar as an intelligent solution that excites and inspires.
What is a community of practice? This term describes a group of people who share an interest, craft, and/or a profession. Think back to medieval guilds of craftsmen, and you get the idea – communities of practice form (or are formed) to address members' common interest in a particular domain or area, and to facilitate broad knowledge and experience sharing. A rather good idea in a time when knowledge is rapidly multiplying and isolation is dramatically increasing!
Sandbox has solutions! Our advanced portal and intranet platform, OASIS, lends itself ideally to the creation of an online community of practice. It's been put to the test, and succeeded. With rich features such as community forums, home page customization, the evolving playbook platform, and resulting from a modular design that can be easily expanded by custom components, OASIS by Sandbox is an affordable solution on which to build a community of practice.


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Your data insights team. Also known as the "don't shoot the messenger team". The team who have to impart the good, and the bad, when it comes to the success (or lack thereof) of your marketing campaigns.
In the Content Marketing Institute's Budgets, Benchmarks and Trends UK report 2016, 66% of marketers consider their content marketing to be ineffective, yet only 54% of marketers in the report said they knew what effective marketing looked like in their organisation.
So it's easy to see where the problem is for data teams. Marketers aren't being clear about their goals and expectations, and in most cases, are mindlessly pushing out content without monitoring analytics to determine success. And then complaining that their content marketing isn't effective. Probably to their data insights team.
(Don't have a data insights team? Find out why you should outsource).
So how can you make the most of your data insights team and really use their knowledge to make the most of your content marketing efforts?
Here's what your data insights team want you to know…
Your data insights team are not oracles
As awesome as your data insights team are, they can't see into the future (let's be honest, if they could they'd be relaxing on their private island after winning the lottery, not working in data insights). Data insights is about looking back on the past and predicting how things might turn out, but there are no dead-certs when it comes to human behaviour. That huge spike of time-on-page? Could just have been one person who left their desk to go on lunch for an hour while browsing your blog.
It's important to understand that sometimes there won't be a pattern, and that sometimes you can do everything "right" and the results still won't be what you expect. Marketing is all about trial and error, and sometimes you need to trial more than others.
You need to have a goal
As mentioned above, nearly half of marketers have no idea what effectiveness looks like, but they know they aren't effective. This reminds me of those blog posts aimed at insecure women in their mid-twenties (yep, I'm one of them) called things like "20 signs you're not doing as bad as you think you are". If you don't know what your goal is, how do you know you're not hitting it?
We love Simon Sinek's Golden Circle to help us to really understand what we're trying to achieve – by starting with "why" it's much easier to really get to the bottom of your purpose and from there set relevant goals.
Once you have a goal you need to think about the strategy you need to take to get there (need help with strategy? Download our ebook "Content strategy made simple"), and how you'll measure if you're on the right track. These KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) need to be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based.
These goals and KPIs need to be distributed around everyone working on a project to ensure everyone is working towards the same goal. Your data insights team in particular need to be aware of and understand your KPIs so they can measure your success throughout your campaign.
You can't do everything
Do you want more new visitors to your site, or more returning visitors? Do you want more Twitter followers or more whitepapers downloads? Different goals require very different strategies, but if you try to work towards too many goals at once they will start to dilute each other.
There are obviously going to be lots of goals you want to achieve, but it's important to work on each one of these at a time instead of running yourself into the ground trying to improve several factors at once. Having one clear goal ensures everything you do can be focused solely on achieving that goal. Then once that is hit you can move on to your next challenge,
You have to set smaller goals along the way
One of the main reasons marketers might be feeling ineffective could be that they're not breaking down their big, lofty goal into smaller targets along the way.
For example, say your goal for the quarter is to get 100 quality leads passed to sales. If you're currently only get a few leads a week, this can be a daunting task, And we've all been in a situation where a goal seems so lofty that we feel utterly demotivated.
So it's important to set smaller goals along the way. Set a point where you want to hit 20 leads and celebrate when you hit that goal, then 30 leads, then 50. Smaller goals are easier to achieve, and making a milestone of them keeps you motivated.
Sometimes you can lose sight of yourself when working towards a big goal, so it's important to have, and celebrate, mini goals along the way to see if you're on track. And if not…
Your goals cannot be set in stone
At the start of a campaign it's natural to be really, really excited about what you are going to achieve and set ambitious goals however, as time goes on, things can change. So keep an eye on your campaign and adjust your goals where necessary, instead of waiting until it's too late and declaring everything you've done a failure.
Adjusting a goal does not mean you are not succeeding – it's merely an important element of ensuring your marketing is realistic and takes into account the unpredictability of human behaviour.
Failure is not the be-all and end-all
As marketers we often live in fear of failure. What if this email goes out at the wrong time and nobody reads it? What if this ebook doesn't do as well as last time? But as mentioned earlier, marketing is all trial and error. There is always a reason why something didn't work and you are only ineffective if you don't evaluate what went wrong and make changes for next time.


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The Dragon Reborn
|Click to Show/Hide Spoiler
Rand: Shouldn't you be helping me figure out what to do?
Moiraine: The Pattern will guide you. You alone must decide what to do.
Rand: What if the Pattern wants me to run off in the middle of the night?
Moiraine: Then I will become furious. Now excuse me, I must speak with a string of incoherent refugees.
Perrin: That's odd. Must be because you're going insane. I must now be wary of you.
Ragan: The Soulless.
Masema: The Shadowsoulled.
Lan: The Shadow-eyed.
Moiraine: The Shadow-walkers.
Min: The Soul Brothers?
Uno: The Soul Masters.
Min: Oh, the Funky Shadow Dancers.
Moiraine: The Dark Soul Chorus.
Lan: The Dark One's Ensemble of Evil-Souled Dark Nightwalkers.
Min: I wonder if they'll show up later in the story.
Lan: Probably not.
Masema: The Sword That is Not a Sword.
Uno: The Sword That Cannot Be Touched.
Ragan: The Sword That Launched a Thousand Ships.
Lan: The Sword That Looks Like Crystal, but Isn't, Because It's Really Sharp, and Pointy, And Can be Used As a Male Sa-angreal to Destroy One's Enemies.
Nynaeve: But I'm tired of yanking my braid.
Verin: Try punching yourself in the stomach.
Nynaeve: Ahhh. Thanks.
Verin: In a minute. I must stare at this wall.
Perrin: That seems unfair.
Lan: Do, it sheepherder.
Perrin: Rand is "sheepherder." I'm "blacksmith."
Lan: Thanks. Do it, blacksmith.
Perrin: I'm only questioning her.
Loial: "To question an Aes Sedai is to fall down the mountain enough to get a few cuts and bruises."
Perrin: I'm really only asserting myself.
Loial: "To assert oneself before an Aes Sedai is to stare at the mountain until the glare from the sun causes serious eye damage."
Perrin: I think you're being foolish.
Loial: "To doubt the word of one warning you about Aes Sedai is to actually name your first child 'Mountain,' and have that child mocked and derided every day, and called names like 'Big Fat Mountain,' then have that child become a poorly funtioning adult who works long hours digging mud holes in the fields, and talking to himself."
Perrin: I talk to wolves.
Moiraine: Good luck with that.
Nynaeve: I'm a great Healer.
Elayne: I feel left out.
Egwene: I'm sure we'll find something stupid for you to do, like making ter'angreal.
Egwene: I hope my skirts are smooth.
Nynaeve: Me too. Smooth skirts are a must in today's world.
Egwene: Where's your brother?
Nynaeve: Yeah, where's your brother?
Gawyn: He's out buying more mirrors. I'll be crying under my bed.
Egwene: Since he only does right, he only hurts evil people, right?
Elayne: No, he mostly hurts good people. And that's what makes him so perfect.
Egwene: Wow. I wish I could be so perfect.
Elayne: Don't worry, you will be.
Nynaeve: Has he given his permission for you to bond him?
Elayne: Do you want me to raise my chin?
Nynaeve: Fine.
Nynaeve: Are you drunk?
Siuan: Yes.
Mat: I'm sorry, what?
Lanfear: Go Light.
Mat. Oh. Luckily no one warned me about an evil, beautiful woman who might have been in a Dark Prophecy in an earlier adventure.
Galad: Not the face!
Gawyn: Yes, the face.
Elayne: A trap-walking-into! Yay!
Egwene: Do we put ourselves in a sack like last time?
Elayne: I think the sack is waiting for us in Tear.
Egwene: Oh, good.
Mat: Doesn't the royal family or the White Tower have carrier pigeons?
Elayne: Nope. Fresh out.
Mat: Seems silly.
Elayne: See this chin? I'll raise it.
Mat: Fine.
Egwene: Bicker, bicker.
Nynaeve: Braid yank, braid yank.
Elayne: Chin raise, chin raise.
Ship Captain: Need help?
Nynaeve: How dare you! We'll be fine!!
Bandits: Put them into the sacks.
Egwene: Ahh. Trapped again by our own stupidity. Home, sweet home.
Underling: What if she raises her chin, milord?
Rahvin: She is a skilled chinmaster. Use the heron-marked chin I have given you.
Mat [Eavesdropping]: Good luck to that guy. Er..I should go save her. I guess.
Loial: "Wishing for an hammer is like climbing a mountain, and then slipping…"
Perrin: Oh, shut up.
Perrin: Why is that?
Lan: Our horses are actually statues of horses. Giddyup.
Hopper: Shadow brothers.
Moiraine: Four-footed Darkwalkers.
Hopper: Nightrunners.
Lan: Those Who Cannot Be Named, Other Than To Say They Are Evil Wolves.
Perrin: You made that last one up.
Lan: Yes, I did.
Faile: Okay, Shaggy-hair.
Perrin: Stop it.
Faile: Stop what, big man?
Perrin: Leave me alone.
Faile: Why, farmboy?
Perrin: I suddenly love you.
Faile: Good. Now wear this collar. I now own you.
Liandrin: Step this way, please.
Nynaeve: Certainly.
Bel'al: Step this way, please.
Rand: No.
Bel'al: Damn, he's on to me.
Nynaeve: We were happy in our prison, thank you very much.
Egwene: Yeah, now we have to actually do stuff. Thanks a lot.
Mat: Maybe you'll acknowledge my effort in four books or so.
Rand: What did you call me?
Aiel: Nothing. Go Rand.


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Sunday, 4 November 2007
5 lame things you love about me.
1. I don't drive. The last person you want cluttering up the roads is me. I live near 3 railway stations, umpteen bus stops and if it's under three miles, I'll walk it. Hell, most of the time I'm walking faster than the traffic.
2. I am chronically shortsighted but I will not, repeat NOT ever wear my specs in public. This is sheer vanity. I also have the start of cataracts which will probably ripen in 20 years. The consultant says that when me cloudy old lenses get whipped out, I'll have 20/20 vision! Is he insane? I'll be able to see myself in sharp focus for the first time in 40 years! The shock will kill me...
The great joy of myopia is that everybody looks about 23 to me, including my dear husband. At least there is some bloke in the front room with a remote control and a bike mag, I'm assuming it's my husband.
3. I know all the words to 'Oliver'. I can only aspire to Prince.
4. Never in a million years will you catch me with an ipod. Ipods and giving birth are a young woman's game. I have embraced other technology and love gadgets in general, though. I have inherited this tendency. My mother, who is 74, has to be surgically detached from her Gameboy as she is addicted to Tetris.
5. The C-word. Hmmm...I'm torn. It could be Chanel, it could be Christian Lacroix but actually it's Chazzing (charity shopping...pay attention 007!) Ah, the heady delights of having the housekeeping in your pocket as you head to the local gentrified high street.
So, I tag Jon, Far Away, and Tom.
7 comments:
- Near by said...
Ooooh I'm all nostalgic now for those Peckham charity shops....
- 4 November 2007 at 22:34
- Elinor said...
Oh my dear, don't get me started! I spend far too much time in them as it is...do you have any near you in SA?
- 4 November 2007 at 23:22
- Near by said...
Yes Elinor - but not with that intriguing mix of stuff..
- 5 November 2007 at 00:12
- DraconianOne said...
Very illuminating. Now, did you mean me-Tom or another Tom?
- 5 November 2007 at 01:55
- Elinor said...
Tom, there can be only one and that's you!
- 5 November 2007 at 03:04
- Jon Peacey said...
I've had a pre-emptive tag from Martin and the answers are at my lair (for which I would provide a nifty link thing but I'm computer illiterate and can't)! They don't seem anywhere near as lame as they first looked. Tut-tut. I may have to think up some more!
Not driving is eminently sensible while I'm on the road… I do not crash into other people but I do seem to attract them into me…
I know nearly all the words to The Wizard Of Oz and My Fair Lady and possibly Casablanca… how does that sit in the hierarchy? If this were The Frost Report… who looks down on me and to whom should I get a pain in the back of my neck. ;-)
- 5 November 2007 at 04:11
- DraconianOne said...
Okay, so I'm done. Jon tagged me as well so it was a double whammy.
Interested to see that a few people have all put in something about not being techie/gadget type people. And not driving.
- 5 November 2007 at 06:15


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Newer Wilmington Apartments Leasing WellBy
New apartment development is booming in the Wilmington market. There are now more than 900 units under construction and another 1,800 units proposed, according to the latest report published by Real Data. Most of the new development is occurring in the North submarket.
Demand for apartments in Wilmington has been strong over the last year, allowing the average vacancy rate to improve to 5.5%. Apartments that are one to five years in age hold the lowest vacancy rate in the market at 3.9%, which is good news for developers planning new apartments.
The average rent for an apartment in the Wilmington area has increased to $835 per month, as compared to $800 per month just one year ago.


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Brian LaRoche is Director of Outreach Marketing for CallMiner. Mr. LaRoche has a long-standing comprehension of Call Center operations as in the course of his career he not only designed and marketed the full gamut of call center technologies, he actually ran a multisite sale, customer service and lead development Call Center operation. Recently named to the CCW Advisory Board, LaRoche is responsible for outbound marketing activity at CallMiner including ABM and Event Management. He is also the host and moderator of CallMiner's popular Monthly Education Webinar series and is a frequent blogger, podcaster, guest speaker and author on a number of speech analytics, technical, collections, sales, customer service and leadership topics.
Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Brian.Download The Latest Agenda