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Train Marseille → Nice
Duration 2h31 - From NZ$41
- Departure station : Marseille st char (Square Narvik 12232 Marseille cedex 1)
- Arrival station : Nice ville (Avenue Thiers BP 1463 6008 Nice cedex 1)
Marseille, the oldest city of France
Marseille, the capital of Provence region Marseille is the oldest French city and the second most important city in France after Paris. Marseille is located on the southeast coast of France in the Provence region. The city is known for its harbour, sunny climate and beautiful coastline. The natural beauty of Marseille is reflected by its parks and calanques. This explains why Marseille has retained a particular village feel. From the historic Panier district to the Romanesque churches, the city is full of treasures. The famous Notre Dame de la Garde, which overlooks the city from the top of a hill, is not be missed. Learn more about Marseille
Nice, a combination of sea, city and mountains
Nice, the capital of the French Riviera Nice, capital of the French Riviera, is the place to be whether you are an art lover, a shopping addict, night clubber or just fond of the Dolce Vita lifestyle. Nice is a creative, dynamic and cosmopolitan city. The city is a symbol of Mediterranean art of living, with a perpetual invitation to travel and relaxation. Its surroundings also provide various opportunities for cultural discoveries. Nice has an exceptional microclimate, open to the sea and protected from the winds by the surrounding hills. Learn more about Nice
Book your journey from Marseille to Nice From NZ$41 NZ$49
Practical information
Reviews & ratings
Overall appreciation
"The TGV train is a great way to travel, comfortable and great price. The only issue we had was working out where to go at the station, as they have numerous halls and the signage wasn't easy to distinguish, and with many staff not being able to speak English this didn't help. But overall, we were extremely happy. "
"Even we booked the 1st class France pass, it is still hard for us to reserve the seats. From Bordeaux to Strassbourg, we paid 72 Euro for the reservation. "
Value for moneyConvenience
"Another comfortable train journey in Spain. "
Value for moneyConvenience
"We recently travelled from Avignon to Montauban transferring at Montpellier. Train service was on time. Montpellier station is being renovated and was quite difficult to get on and off platforms due to crowds. For short trips, second class travel on French trains is perfectly adequate. "
"I think trip was value for money. Because we are ladies of 'a certain age' -probably with too much luggage. Going up and down steps at all stations and changing platforms was a difficulty. Some very kind people helped us. In this day and age you should really have elevators to take you up and down as necessary. There are many unfit young people as well in the population. Other than that we did work out the tickets and the posting of the the tracks on the monitors in the end. "
Value for moneyConvenience
"In General, the TGV train is good, except the delay of the trains and the standing passengers. In my trip in France, I used about 5 trips of TGV train and experienced 2 delays in the trips. About 20 minutes delay for each trip. I heard that the train in Europe were very punctual. So, I was disappointed by these delays. Another point, I'd like to comment is... there were always some (4-5) passengers standing in front of the toilets in the walk way. This caused the inconveniece for me and other passengers who needed to use the toilets. Why didn't those passengers find their seats to sit down? Or they didn't pay for the tickets? That's why they had to stand in the walk way in front of the toilets. "
"Great trip "
Value for moneyConvenience
"Air conditioning failed to start up, train delayed for over 20 minutes. No broadcast in either French or English noticed therefore we know nothing,, just feel very hot in the cabin. Finally we can only go out for fresh air and return only when staff notice us to do so. "
Value for moneyConvenience
"We took first class for this 5 hour trip, believing the First Class description of being provided with food/drinks. There were none provided for a journey that started at 8.30 and ended, after a train change, at 3.30pm. That is essentially all day! How many hours do you have to travel to get the whole deal for first class? The pictures also show people sitting at a table doing cool things. However, there are only 2 tables per carriage, so most people get to sit in a seat that is virtually identical to 2nd class. "
Value for moneyConvenience
"A bit struggle to have enough space for the lugguages. Overall, comfortable. "
Value for moneyConvenience
"thank you very much for this opporinuty staff was really help full but there could be meal service ( a selection or the menu back of the seats ) instead of us going to the restaurant. "
Value for moneyConvenience
"We had been delayed for 2 hours from Paris to Marseille due to bad weather. SNFC compensated us a supplement box which contains some food. "
Value for moneyConvenience
"The train was comfortable and good to have sufficient racks for travellers to put their suitcases. However, there was at least 35 minutes delay on arrival to my destination, Avignon. My second ride on the train also had the same problem but delay was less serious. A bit frustrated as trains are supposed to be on time as there is no traffic jam that can affect its schedule. "
Value for moneyConvenience
"Nice train journey, but the ticket information centre staff is not nice, when we want to activate our train pass, she pertained don't know English, which is wasting our time to catch on the train. It made us so angry :( "
Value for moneyConvenience
"Booking through Rail Europe worked well as as SCNF website would not accept NZ credit card. The train was on schedule and comfortable, and very convenient for our itinerary. "
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Product 75/128
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Speedo 8051203 Mens Rapid Spliced Male Brief Black/Gold 24 - B0052PKFOY

subset: commoncrawl


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Skyline Conference Semifinals
Men's and Women's Soccer
Stevens, 7
Farmingdale, 0
Stevens, 3
Farmingdale, 0
Hoboken, NJ - The Farmingdale State men's and women's soccer teams both matched up against Stevens on Wednesday night, November 1st, for semifinal soccer games in Hoboken, NJ. The men's team fell to Stevens 7-0 and the women's team fell 3-0. Both of our teams will now await a bid to the ECAC tournament which will be announced next week.
The men's game kicked off at 5:00pm. Freshman forward Todd Sheridan (Egg Harbor, NJ) opened the scoring for Stevens in the 19th minute off a long breakaway pass from senior defender Brandon Schaefer (Albuquerque, NM). Stevens scored one more in the first for a 2-0 lead at halftime, before Sheridan netted three more for the Ducks in the second half as they ran to a 7-0 victory. Freshman goalkeeper Joseph Caccavale (West Islip, NY/West Islip) made seven saves in defeat in his first collegiate post-season game for Farmingdale. Stevens now moves ahead to the Skyline Finals for a chance at an automatic NCAA bid. The Ducks host #2-seed Merchant Marine on Saturday, November 4th at 7:00pm.
In the women's game which began last night at 8:00pm, the Rams matched up well to the top-seeded Stevens squad with a scoreless game until the 43rd minute of play. Junior forward Gina Crifasi (Staten Island, NY) took a shot in front of the net which was initially stopped by freshman goalkeeper Kimberly Sontag (Lynbrook, NY/Lynbrook), but freshman midfielder Leslie Kallberg (Mission Viejo, CA) jumped on the rebound for the score to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead going into the half. Farmingdale kept in the game after only trailing 7-4 in shots through the first, but Stevens added two more goals in the second half to make it a 3-0 victory and move onto the Finals for the 4th year in a row. Freshman midfielder Amanda Biondi (West Islip, NY/West Islip) controlled the middle for the Rams the entire game and finished with a team-leading four shots, while Sontag finished with seven saves in defeat. The Skyline finals will be played against #2 Manhattanville on Saturday, November 4th at 1:00pm in Hoboken, NJ.


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Keep it playful with these large circular shaped sunglasses which feature colourful transparencies on the frame and tone-on-tone shades on the lenses. The flattering rounded design suits every face shape. The MAX&Co. dot adorns around the arms. Option of prescription/sunglasses lenses.
Product name: OSTUNI
Product code: 4804039803004
Distributed by Manifatture del Nord S.r.l. Unipersonale, with registered office in Reggio Emilia (Italia), Via Mazzacurati n. 6, 42122
Sunglasses acetate.
No special treatment is required to take care of our accessories. Normal care is sufficient to maintain their appearance and functionality over time.


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Sanskrit Quotes. Sanskrit translation is done by a human Sanskrit Translator and can be used as an online Sanskrit Dictionary.
It is offered free of cost for up to 3 English words including numbers and initials for the first time only.
For Translation Requests, please send an email to email@example.com
Donors get high resolution image of the translation done in calligraphic fonts which you can print and take to the tattoo artist.
17 September 2013
Sanskrit Translation of English Name for Tattoo of Sita Bhatt
Bhatt = भट्ट
Posted by Kiran Paranjape at 8:53 PM
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The ultimate cup of Joe on the go is here! This campfire mug is double walled for insulation keeping your beverages hot on the coldest of peaks. Featuring a red carabiner handle that will clip onto your belt loop or backpack. Weighing in at 6oz it adds minimal weight to your trek.
Functional Red Carabiner Handle
Double Walled For Insulation
Ultra Lightweight
Features a permanent infused photograph
1-3 business days
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On the majority of our products showcased here on Etsy we can personalized with a photo of your own. To send a photo: Send us a 'seller message' and include the highest resolution of your photo possible. Within 24 hours we will message you back with a free mockup template for final approval. If we find an issue with image size or resolution we will reach out for an alternate photo. We do not want to make you something you will not absolutely love! Custom orders take 5-7 days.
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The Brush City Council approved a trash rate increase at its Monday February 24. The increase will result in an approximately $2.50 increase per month for a typical household and $2 increase for commercial locations.
The increases were approved in a motion to approve Resolution No. 2014-3 –Modifying rules and regulations for the collection and disposal of municipal solid waste by the City of Brush and establishing charges therefore.
Dale Colerick, Brush City Director of Utilities & Public Works, told the council the reason for the increase is that revenues have not kept pace with expenses. The resolution also includes the city changing its policy of requiring businesses to purchase their own dumpsters and instead implement a $5 per month lease charge with the option to purchase. They also want to give businesses the option of using a commercial hauler who does not require the purchase of a dumpster once the dumpster is no longer useable.
Colerick said that recent moisture and cold weather has damaged some parts of Brush city roads resulting in pot holes. He said city road crews have been trying to get around to fix them and urged residents to contact the city if they are aware of potholes that need to be fixed.
The council approved a grant that will allow the city to finish work on the downtown street improvement project. The grant for $792,500 is from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs for phase four of the downtown project – the two blocks off of Clayton street on Edmunds and for the stormwater pond east of town. City Administrator Monty Torres said it's too soon to have a timeline for completing the project, and said once the agreement is signed by the state the city can begin the engineering work and put out bids on the project.
"This is going to be a pretty good project for the city of Brush – we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel," Torres said.
Council approved a resolution that will allow the City of Brush to slurry seal the Brush airport runway. The resolution supports a grant the city received from the Colorado Department of Transportation, Colorado Aeronautical Board, Division of Aeronautics. The grant is for $90,000 with the City of Brush kicking in $10,000 of its own, a requirement for the grant.
The council approved two additional resolutions: 1) Agreement to Amend/Extend English Feedlot Contract purchase agreement.
According to minutes from a special meeting about the purchase "the property has approximately 140 acres and various water shares. The Water Fund and Wastewater Funds would be paying for this purchase and they are financially sound. The primary use for the property would be bio-solid land application and water. There are also many potential secondary uses." 2) Proclamation No. 2014-1 Affirming Common Values for A Diverse Community that was originally drafted by One Morgan County.
At the last city council meeting on February 10, the city heard a request to build an augmentation pond on Hospital Road and Mill Street, where Castle Rock Construction is currently staging its I-76 construction project.
Assistant City Administrator Karen Schminke said zoning ordinances in Brush have been around for some time, but several years ago were modified to become pro-economic development. She said when considering making changes you "want to make sure you don't set up other issues for yourself. It should be thoughtful process." She said it's also important to maintain integrity and obtain public comments from all sectors of the community.
After some discussion, council opted to look at draft ordinance change that would zone a portion of the commercially-zoned property as environmental preservation and to look at a special permit for the pond.
Council members once again stressed they wanted the pond to be a multi-use area with a trail and that they want the pond and surrounding area properly maintained.
Marketing Specialist Tyler Purvis said the votes have been counted for a new logo and slogan for Brush and will be revealed soon.
The city also is continuing its work on its second bid to become an All-American City and will submit its initial application in mid-March. He said he is confident the city will this year meet its goal of becoming an All American City.
The next meeting of the Brush City Council is Monday, March 10, at 6 p.m. in Council chambers.
Council approves trash rate increase
The Brush City Council approved a trash rate increase at its Monday February 24. The increase will result in an approximately $2.50 increase per month for a typical household and $2 increase for commercial locations.


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M. Parker Givens, former acting director and professor emeritus of the University of Rochester's Institute of Optics and a renowned teacher to generations of students, died peacefully on Jan. 11, 2013 at age 96. Givens was a professor at the University since 1947.
Although Givens "officially" retired in 1981 at the mandatory age of 65 (at that time a federal law), he continued to teach for another 22 years, being primarily responsible for the senior laboratory course.
Professor Robert Boyd, who held the M. Parker Givens Chair from 2001 to 2011, recalled Givens as an inspirational and dedicated instructor, "He truly believed in educating students."
The chair was endowed in 2001 by James Wyant '69, a University Trustee, professor at the University of Arizona and a former student of Givens. "Givens was a fantastic professor and I was very fortunate to have him as my major professor," Wyant reflected. "He seemed to know everything and he could explain the most difficult subject in simple, clear terms, and he was always willing to help the student."
The Givens Chair is currently held by The Institute's director Xi-Cheng Zhang. Zhang described how during a visit last year they had "shared stories of research and of Givens' enjoyment of teaching." Zhang added that "Givens' contribution to The Institute was instrumental in helping us to earn and retain such a stellar reputation as the Institute has become known for."
Right up until his final retirement, "he was loved and respected by the students," writes Carlos Stroud in A Jewel in the Crown, a history of The Institute. "Even in the last year, students were in awe when he walked over to the balky experiment that they had unsuccessfully toiled over all afternoon, and with one little tweak of a knob he made it work."
On the occasion of this final retirement, Givens reflected on his time at the Institute and teaching. "I don't think we ever had the attitude at the Institute that research came first and teaching second," he said. "We tried to do the best we could at educating the students, and we were willing to talk to them outside the classroom, and they seemed to appreciate that. It was no big deal as far as we were concerned. I think we just thought that was the way it ought to be."
Givens credited the high caliber of his optics students over the years with providing the push to constantly expand and deepen his knowledge of the field.
A native of Richmond, Va. he graduated in 1937 from the University of Richmond. Givens received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1942, where his fields of interest were the optical properties of metals and vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy. After his Ph.D., he became an instructor of physics at the Pennsylvania State College from 1942-46. Prior to joining the University of Rochester he also spent a year with the proximity fuze group of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. During his time at the University he also served as Acting Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science in 1984-1985.
His initial appointment in 1947 was "apparently met with considerable skepticism" because he was primarily involved, at least initially, in pure research, notes Kenneth Teegarden, former Institute director in A Jewel in the Crown. This was a "radical departure" from the "applied" direction of the Institute at the time. However, Brian J. Thompson, former Institute director and provost emeritus, wrote that Givens "brought a broad point of view to the full range of physical optics knowledge and research problems."
Along with former director Robert Hopkins, Givens received a 1963 NSF grant to develop new teaching experiments and demonstrations using the then newly developed optical laser. Hopkins, Givens and others equipped a traveling unit thus the origin of the "laser road show" that was taken to several universities and an NSF institute for high school teachers.
A 1963 visit to Nantucket, Mass., resurrected a childhood fascination with bees, and he kept bees for the next 30 years. Each season, Givens harvested several hundred pounds of honey, most of which he used himself or gave away at the Institute.
He is survived by his daughter Jean F. Givens of Lexington, Ky. He is predeceased in 1979 by his son Robert P. Givens, in 1989 by his son R. Wayne Givens, and in 2007 by his wife of 65 years, Gene M. Givens.
The University will be lowering the flag on Jan. 16 in honor of Givens.
He will be interred in Crewe, Va. A memorial service will be held at Community Christian Church, 2647 Chili Ave., on Wednesday, Jan. 16 at 5:30 p.m. A reception will follow. To share a memory of Givens or to send a condolence to the family visit www.anthonychapels.com.


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News and events
Workshop on People Value Canvas – and Empathic Business Opportunities
A multidisciplinary team developed the People Value Canvas during the Express to Connect project, addressing loneliness in the life of retired people. It is meant as a supplementary tool and framework for building the core element of a Value Proposition reflecting people's real needs, motivations and the desired outcomes. During the AAL Forum, on the 24 September at 15.30 – 17.00, there is a workshop which we invite you to attend and share our knowledge and ideas.
Looking ahead - Towards People Value Company
Based on what we learnt in the project, the E2C Consortium has decided to continue collaborating in the form of People Value Company (PVC). It is built on the belief that we can help solving tomorrow's problem by collaborating with today's problem owners – those that are elderly today. The ageing society is causing a vast variety of new business opportunities that have been underutilized until now. PVC aims to change this by disseminating the knowledge and experience gained in the E2C project in a way that has a social and economic impact.
Storyville games available now on AppStore!
All three storytelling games developed in the E2C project are now available on AppStore. By playing these storytelling games on iPad, players enhance the social connectedness among themselves. To download Pic My Choice, PicturePong and PhotoBluff, visit the iTunes store. The game apps are available in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands in local languages as well as in English. For more information on Storyville games, visit also the Storyville studios and view the summary of WP3 outcomes.
View the E2C Webinar
If you missed our People Value Company launch event at the Laurea University of Applied Sciences in February 2013, you can still access the presentations and the additional materials via the Webinar page. The videos can be found under the Program tab and the presentations under the Materials tab. Our seminar received a lot of positive feedback – visit our Webinar page and find out why!
Last E2C Newsletter out now!
Even though the Express to Connect project has been completed, this is not the end of the E2C story but rather the beginning of a new,exiting chapter. Read the E2C Newsletter to learnthe reasoning behind the People Value Company and the future plans of this new business entity. The final newsletter also gives a full report on the People Value Company launch event and shares the latest developments on the Storyville games.


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See all materials in the Panama and the Canal Digital Collections. >>
See all of the stereograph images as animated GIF images. >>
Panama and Panama Canal Stereographs
The Panama and Panama Canal Stereographs Collection includes over 200 stereographs of Panama and the Panama Canal from the Keystone View Company, Underwood and Underwood, and E. and H.T. Anthony Company. The Panama and Panama Canal Related Stereograph Collection began as a pilot project for creating a model for digitizing important resources from the Panama Canal Museum Collection while leveraging the talents of an eager group of knowledgable volunteers for record creation. The 200 stereographs selected for the initial project meet teaching and research needs of various faculty and 2014 Panama Canal Centennial Celebration exhibit requirements. The project also builds on previous educational initiatives undertaken by the Education Library in order to publicize and encourage wider use of this collection by K-12 educators.
Specific goals of this project are as follows:
- To digitize 200 stereograph cards, front and back, so that they are widely available via the Panama and the Canal digital library for use by people interested in the study of Panama, including researchers, students, professors, K-12 teachers, and the general public.
- To process the stereograph scans into animated gif files so that users can view the images, without the aid of a stereoscopic viewer, in a manner that simulates the originally intended 3-D effect.
- To engage a geographically diverse population of volunteers who are eager to continue actively working with the collection.
- To promote use and interest in the collection by various UF departments through the construction of a variety of resources-educational training modules lesson plans, additions to the Panama and the Canal digital library, and associated exhibits of stereographic materials online and in displays around the UF campus.


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Phuklub and Ha Ha Alternative Comedy
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Genius loves company: Blake Mitchell and Jordan Paris on stage at Phuklub
This is the story of the guys who run Ha Ha Alternative Comedy at the Roxbury Hotel - 182 St Johns Road, Glebe (starting up January 8 2012). Here's the line-up for the first night.
Meanwhile, read the story.
Two comics are already in a bar
I arrive at the pre-appointed pub a little after the pre-appointed time, so the comics are already deep in discussion. About some James Bond-related minutiae, it turns out.
"…Well, you have met Dalton," the tall, lean Indian says to the one best described as a kind of Aussie Fidel Castro.
"You've met Timothy Dalton?" I interrupt.
"Not officially," Aussie Castro says. He explains:
"I had to take drugs to deal with my family on Christmas day. I was so out of my god-damned mind at Christmas lunch that this guy I'd never met – a family friend – looked and sounded exactly like Timothy Dalton in Hot Fuzz."
I see. By 'not officially', Aussie Castro means, 'not at all'. This is going to be fun.
Aussie Castro is in fact Blake Mitchell, an imposing, baby-faced Anglo Australian who can come across quite scary – particularly when he's rockin' a shaved head. The tall, lean Indian is Ash Jattan. They are Sydney comics who regularly appear on the open-mic circuit and, though not officially a double act, they carry some of the classic hallmarks, from the way they complement each other physically – fat versus thin, white versus black – and stylistically: Ash, instantly likeable on stage, has been known to pull out a guitar; in-your-face Blake, meanwhile, won't sweeten the message and he doesn't pull any punches in his comedy of the abject. Despite their differences, they can finish each other's sentences seamlessly and ad lib the same line in unison.
Together, they're promoting Phuklub and Ha Ha Alternative Comedy, a couple of monthly comedy rooms they kind of run.
I say 'kind of' because Phuklub exists as a collective (some might say 'cult'). There's not really a single person in charge and the stalwarts of the room have healthy enough egos that nobody wants a title so much as they want to collaborate to ensure the room exists. It's alternative and 'out there'. In some ways, it's self-indulgent and a surprise it's still running; it hasn't lost direction or burnt itself out; the novelty still hasn't worn off.
The other, called Ha Ha Alternative Comedy is a harder room to pigeonhole. Founded by Jen Carnevale and Madeleine Culp AKA 'Carnevale & Culp' AKA 'The Cloud Girls' (of Triple J fame), it may have been 'alternative' when it began but now it's another one of the quality rooms running in Sydney with a high calibre of open mic comics featured. Which is why it's more difficult to make Ha Ha stand out – it's no longer as 'alternative' as Phuklub, even though it's not as weird. When the Cloud Girls decamped to the UK, rather than see the room end, Ash put up his hand to keep it going. It remains the one place you can dependably see a good comic on a Sunday night in Sydney… if it's the Sunday night that Ha Ha happens to be running.
Phuklub and Ha Ha are flip sides of the same coin: they take place in the same room of the same pub – the Roxbury Hotel on St Johns Road, Glebe (also the venue of Comedy on the Rox on a Wednesday night…). What both rooms provide is a space for comics to explore more freely what it is they do. There comes a time in a comedian's development where, rather than merely be funny, they might want to try to say something that matters. But while 'saying something that matters' may be a worthy goal, it isn't always an easy one to arrive at. The journey may include delivering material that says something, that happens to be less funny. And few audiences – the more comedy-savvy ones, really – have much time for the material that happens to be less funny, no matter how clever it might be. So comics trying to say something that matters have less opportunity to get good at it. Rooms that actually encourage it have to be able to pull off a balancing act in order to ensure there's still plenty of the totally funny stuff to accompany the material that's trying to say something that matters. That's why rooms like Ha Ha and Phuklub exist: to provide a dedicated space for comedians to explore what they do.
TOP: Blake & Ellwood, the Ooze Brothers. (Photo of Ben by Cassandra Lee Noad)
BOTTOM: Close your eyes and it's impossible to tell them apart.
The Ooze Brothers
Shut your eyes when he's talking – or hear him heckling from somewhere up the back – and it's easy to mistake Blake Mitchell for another Sydney comic, Ben Ellwood. Both comics sound similar, but Ellwood's line of humour, while trawling the same mucky vein of humanity's flawed underbelly, is more polished. Thus, Ben's more accessible and funnier. But for a time, they'd pal around the same gigs and when one of them chose to give the sub-standard pretender on stage a hard time, you'd actually need to look over your shoulder in order to see which of the two it was. Their love of exploring the more unsavoury aspects of the human condition and a seeming interchangeability enabled them to be considered a kind of single entity: Blake and Ellwood. 'The Ooze Brothers'. Blake finds this somehow flattering.
"That could spring from the constant 'gay chicken' we used to play with each other," he laughs. "You heard about the sitcom Ellwood was pitching, right? Two Gay Fatties? It's just him and me making out at the windows of 5-star restaurants, trying to get the guests to puke…"
Though he's back visiting, Ellwood relocated to the UK with the Cloud Girls late last year. In the time since, Blake's developed further and continued to find more of his own voice and persona. That is to say, he's much less 'apprentice Ellwood' than before. Particularly with his beard. Give him a cigar – or more appropriately, a 'Camberwell Carrot' (the jumbo spliff made notorious in Withnail & I) – and he is Aussie Castro.
"If he's Aussie Castro, I'm Subcontinental Che," Ash offers.
"Maybe," Aussie Castro says. "I hope you meet a similar end, being killed by Bolivian government troops."
They make each other snicker with their casual, freeform banter. It isn't 'roll in the aisles' hilarity, just leisurely play. Perhaps a kernel of an idea will be planted, a seed that, taking root and growing, will burst unexpectedly through the soil of their psyche as a more fully-formed joke somewhere down the track, without their being able to trace it back to the silliness that gave rise to it.
But perhaps some ideas that were meant to die here will instead fester and rot in a manner not intended for public consumption. We've barely begun and there have already been admissions of drug-taking and foolish nonsense that, out of context, will surely offend someone's sensibilities. But when I ask if anything should be regarded 'off the record', Blake responds with astonished laughter, appreciative that I'm polite enough to enquire, but intent that, even if we do exercise caution and err on the side of conservatism, we still won't cross the line so much as obliterate it as we lumber irresistibly beyond it.
"Ask whatever you feel you got to, man," Ash encourages. "Feel free to send a copy of this to NSW State Police."
"And to the CIA and ASIO," Blake adds.
Ash Jattan at Ha Ha.
Parody for the course
Ash came to comedy the way a lot of open mic comics do: as the funny guy at the water cooler at work and the joker at the pub whose colleagues and mates encouraged to "give it a proper go". But Ash also came to comedy via music. As a student at Sydney University, he'd play the occasional lunchtime gig in Manning Bar. He'd also busk occasionally, confessing that he'd sometimes make enough money to catch the last train home from Central!
So when he did give comedy "a proper go", entering Raw Comedy in Sydney, he established himself as a topical comic who could actually play guitar (not all guitar-wielding open mic-ers can) and write original, funny songs.
"The jokes I wrote got laughs," Ash acknowledges, of his early forays into stand-up "but the more I did it the more I realised just how f*cking sh*t I was. That didn't put me off, it only strengthened my resolve."
Ash realised he was trying to second-guess his audience, writing material in order to placate them so that he could 'make them love him' on stage – a phase of development common to most comics. He soon decided to move away from that, and the first step was to ditch the guitar and avoid writing "parody sh*t".
We all laugh at the self-deprecation that is warranted on some level. But credit where it's due: 'Weird Al' Yankovic hasn't done too badly with an entire career founded on so-called "parody sh*t". Ash concurs. His feeling is, there are a host of comics – yer Weird Als, yer Mick Merediths, yer Chris Franklins, who have done the parody thing better than him. "They're on top of it," he says. "If I had a single iota of that, I would be so happy."
Fact is, Ash has got the "single iota". More, in fact. Rather than base his shtick around it, however, he can use it to make his stand-up stand out. In the hour-long performance scenario, for example, around the 35 to 45 minute mark when, irrespective of the style or genre, something needs to happen to change the pace and create more tension before pulling all the threads together: that would be the perfect time to pull out the guitar, especially if everything that has gone before was spoken word.
Blake agrees: "Especially if you want an applause break. Because we're all conditioned to clap as soon as someone stops playing a song."
So true. That's the source of the guitar's contention in stand-up comedy. Invariably, an audience reacts with enthusiasm far beyond the level earned by a newbie comic who pulls out the guitar or a backing track for a half-baked song at the end of a set. Multiple verses of essentially the same punch line to a blues accompaniment in E can somehow undo the damage of a badly delivered collection of hackneyed and derivative observations and predictable reveals. But that was never Ash's method; he can actually play the instrument, and write real songs containing actual jokes. So why ditch it?
"There were times when the audience loved it, but I felt it was underserved," he confesses. "I felt sorry for the guys who didn't bring a guitar along and relied purely on their moxie and the ability to just spit venom…"
God bless Ash Jattan for being so pure of heart a comic. My position would be: lull the audience into a false sense of security with the guitar, and then spit venom.
"Yeah, okay," Ash agrees. "Every magic trick has three parts!"
"A false sense of security!" Blake pipes up. "I don't have a chance to lull people into a false sense of security…"
Too true. That's down to Blake's scary countenance. Particularly when he takes to the stage with a freshly shaved head. "It's like a Folsom Prison stand-off," he says of those occasions.
"You look like 'Aryan Brotherhood' material," Ash adds.
"'I shot a man in Reno to make an audience laugh'?" I suggest.
"And also cum," Blake confirms, ever the Ooze Brother.
And that reminds me of how I first encountered Blake. Not in person, but by reputation.
Blake as "Aryan Brotherhood material" – Ash
Rollins with me, Henry
There was this thing called Phuklub, a weird, alternative room started by comic Nick Sun, one of the legendary local open mic-ers who did amazing things: winning Raw Comedy nationally, going on to win the UK equivalent So You Think You're Funny, turning his back on the painfully safe, mainstream road to success by throwing up real challenges for himself, his peers and his audiences…
This is the Phuklub manifesto:
PHUKLUB is the brainchild of Nick Sun, who received a divine vision from a higher power one night when he ate too much blue cheese before bedtime. While lying in bed dressed in his superman pajamas pondering the possible contraindications of a high dose tyramine and MAOI medication interaction, a mediaeval dressed Alien being appeared him, and speaking in Über-camp ye olde English, transmitted the answers to the Weekend Cryptic Crosswords in an exhausting marathon game of charades. Upon waking up the next morning covered in baby filth in a drainage ditch in Hamburg, Parramatta, Nick realised he didn't give a sh*t about Cryptic Crosswords and resolved to instead start his own weirdo underground avant-garde comedy/variety night.
Blake, however, was – as far as I was concerned – some guy who popped up in one of the various Phuklub stories Ben Ellwood used to like to tell. Apparently Blake once attended Phuklub with an envelope containing two spent condoms – knotted at the top – which he presented to performance artist Jane Grimley. Jane was, along with Nick Sun, one of the Phuklub's prime instigators and Agent Provocateurs; she seems to come across in stories as somewhat of the Den Mother to whatever kind of cult Phuklub actually is…
Blake's provocative protein packages were unquestionably gross. Not to be outdone, however, Jane proceeded to put them in her mouth. You know this doesn't end prettily. Perhaps it's funny. It's certainly abject. Is it comedy? Doesn't matter. It wasn't comedy that Blake set out to do.
"I started because I wanted to be Henry Rollins," Blake says. Ash stifles a laugh. Blake continues:
"And then you realise Henry Rollins is a brand all his own…" Ash manages to continue stifling the laugh while Blake further outlines hindrances to his Rollinsular metamorphosis:
"And also, I'm not in shape…". Laughter nigh impossible to contain. Blake:
"And even though I have the anger, I'm too interested in pop culture to be too politically minded…"
There's no holding back now. Both explode, Ash with laughter, Blake with "Go f*ck yourself!"
"You wanted to be Henry Rollins!" Ash shakes his head.
Blake had genuinely set out to follow the Henry Rollins/Jello Biafra literate punk trajectory: in addition to doing 'anger', he played drums. The move to comedy was ultimately the result of laziness: "I got sick of lugging gear. I just wanted to turn up to a show and do it."
In addition to Rollins – "who isn't really comedy" – Blake was also into Bill Hicks. "Who, people argue, isn't really comedy," he says. The initial foray into open mic in August 2008 marked the beginning of "four months of nothing but hack b*llsh*t: Michael Jackson jokes, relationship cr*p, the usual thing." 2009 saw Patton Oswalt replace Henry Rollins as the performer Blake most wanted to be, followed by a break. After six months travelling, Blake returned and, "for the past year and a half," he says, "I've actually been slowly approaching something that's not someone else."
All of this explains the perceived role of Apprentice Ben Ellwood early on: not having a multitude of varied influences prior to starting, it was the comics closer to home who influenced Blake's development. There really was a time when Blake was on stage, but if you shut your eyes, it was Ellwood with as much anger but less punch lines.
"That's still a problem, I think!" Blake laughs.
Spot the difference: Blake Mitchell, Henry Rollins
Balls of Steel
What Blake doesn't tell you – not for any apparent reason – is that he went to film school and has worked on some choice features like Superman Returns, Gabriel, Australia, Wolverine and even a bit of Underbelly. But, he says, "for some reason, I feel my calling is to gain attention from strangers by talking about my dick and my depression on stage."
The other thing Blake has spoken of on stage at least once is the time he auditioned for the Australian version of Balls of Steel. Blake had initially pitched an idea for a character called 'Big Baby'. "It was just going to be me walking around in a diaper in public," he says, but it's hard not to assume that it was in fact a clever ploy to enable him to latch onto random strangers' breasts. Surprisingly, that idea was rejected.
Blake's next pitch involved him "turning up to places with a little tea party set, sitting down to have tea with stuffed toys, and then getting up to scream at people, 'You can't tell me what to do with my children!'" This idea was also rejected. "They thought that was a little bit 'art house'."
In the end, Blake auditioned for the part of 'Object Sexual', in which he'd find himself sexually attracted to everyday objects in public. The filmed audition took place in Hyde Park, where Blake spied a phallic rod protruding from a fountain. He decided it would serve as the ideal penis substitute and made for it, while a producer and cameraman filmed from a distant vantage point.
"I couldn't actually get to the dick-shaped object so I just jumped in the fountain instead," Blake says. After frolicking in the water for a bit, he was surprised to hear someone ask, "Sweetie, are you okay?"
"I turned around, shocked because someone was actually talking to me, concerned," Blake explains. "It was a woman who thought I was mentally ill…"
"She wasn't wrong, really," Ash suggests.
Cleverly, Blake decided to 'accept the offer', playing the role perfectly as the lady coaxed him out of the fountain and onto a park bench, all the while enquiring after his carer or parents. When the producer finally arrived, Blake gave him a dose of Steve Martin's Ruprecht the Monkey Boy, from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, falling onto him with a big embrace and demanding hamburgers. The great pity is that this footage didn't make the Balls of Steel DVD as a bonus feature. Maybe it'll turn up on the Two Gay Fatties DVD…
Subcontinental Che?
Nobody Wins
If, by now, you don't quite know what to make of Blake Mitchell, Ash Jattan does. "To be perfectly honest," he admits, "it was the Ben Ellwoods and Blake Mitchells and people like that who made me look at what I was doing. These guys are so fearless and raw, whereas I'm trying to get the audience to like me! Once I started seeing real people – the real grit of their performance – up there night after night, sometimes two or three nights a week, I knew I had to move on."
Blake takes the compliment, adding, "doing what I do doesn't get you booked, unfortunately. Which is why we had to start Phuklub!"
And there it is again. Time to address it.
"Quite frankly, Phuklub scares me," I tell them.
"Good," Ash says. "Mission accomplished."
Asking direct questions does not result in direct answers.
"What is Phuklub?" I demand.
"Isn't that the question?" Ash replies. "I think the answer will vary depending on who you ask because everyone's got such a unique experience of it. One of the best descriptions I've heard is from a guy called Dan Brown. He says, 'imagine there's a classroom, and then the teacher leaves, and the kids are just left to their own devices…'"
"Oh, now I get it. It's The Lord of the Flies of comedy!"
"Pretty much," Blake confirms. "It's kind of a free-for-all. Nick Sun started it originally in late 2008. In the very inception it was on twice a week."
"Yeah, but what is it? A collective? A workshop? Who gets to perform? Are people booked? Are their names pulled out of a hat? Is it a punishment?"
According to Blake, when it began it was more like "an experimental open mic anarchy anti-talent quest," and when I ask, "who won" he and Ash reply in unison:
While "Nobody Wins" could well be the theme of Phuklub, it's not as good as the motto Blake recently came up with: "Shut up and think of death while we do art at you".
"You know how crests have two animals on them?" Ash says. "Ours is going to have a unicorn blowing a gryphon."
"Maybe it should just be a man holding a microphone, crying," Blake suggests.
This isn't really getting us any closer to the nub of the gist, as it were, of what Phuklub is. "I don't know how to summarise it," Ash says. "It probably would have been a good idea to prepare a good definition for you…"
"The first rule of Phuklub: No one can define Phuklub," I offer.
Basically, it's a collective of comics with a core group that does not remain static. "At the moment it's us, Ben Ellwood and Dan Brown," Blake says. "In the past there's been Jane Grimley and Nick Sun. People sort of float in and out of that core group: Rodney Todd, Nick Capper…"
"We're like a sleeper cell!" Ash says, making Blake laugh. "We don't really have any organised leader. There's no one face you can point at and say, 'that's the guy who's in charge'."
"I think people get confused," Blake adds, "because there is no one person…"
"…Who you can blame?" I cut in.
"Literally, chaos reigns," Blake insists. "That's how its run."
"It's 'Occupy Comedy'," Ash concludes.
L-R: Aussie Castro; but also, Aussie Dude Abides
Zen and the art of complete and utter chaos
If I have misgivings or concerns about Phuklub, it's the way in which it comes across as a naughty boys' club. There's room for girls if they can hold their own, titillating with out-grossing antics. That's how it seems on the surface.
This isn't the case, however. Ash and Blake offer the example of Sue Thomas, a regular fixture on the Sydney open mic circuit and of Phuklub. By day she's a "librarian who used to stalk Paul McDermott".
"Sue's on virtually every Phuklub," Blake says. "She reads erotic fiction while we play the theme from Twin Peaks over the top of it."
That's not to say there aren't edgy, scary moments – but the audience seems to dig them. "People have come up after a show and asked if there are videos of past performances available," Ash says. "They genuinely would like to buy them."
"They're kind of like diet snuff movies," Blake says.
"It's 'I Can't Believe It's Not Snuff'," Ash says.
"It's 'I need to see the guy on stage break and drop the microphone, because the sound guy keeps drowning him out with the Seinfeld theme ever ten seconds'," says Blake.
Is that what it is: a deliberate deconstruction of stand-up comedy, a breaking it down and rebuilding it, so that practitioners can learn how to it better?
"That's part of it. It gives space to explore the kinds of areas that you're not going to have the opportunity to explore at other comedy rooms or on other nights. It's our therapy session, once a month," Blake says. "When the same old tired beige b*llsh*t in every other room stops making you laugh, turn up. When you're sick of hearing, 'So I was walking down the street the other day' as a set up – because, no you weren't, you f*cking idiot…"
Ash picks it up: "'A funny think happened to me on the way here…' No it f*cking didn't! 'I've got this friend who…' No you don't!"
Blake: "You're fabricating this whole thing. And talking about Harry Potter…"
Ash: "That is what drew me to that room. When I started out and I saw a lot of people doing comedy, I laughed out of politeness at a lot of the stuff, and then I got to the point where I thought, I don't think any of this is funny. Why aren't I letting them know that?"
Now I understand. There are times when you're in the audience thinking, 'What? You made them laugh with that?! I don't know who I hate more – the audience for falling for it or you for getting away with it!' That's when it's time for Phuklub, right?
"Yeah, that's right," Ash confirms. "When I first realised nobody was really funny, I thought, 'Hang on Ash, it's probably an ego thing; you're still very new to this, your opinion really doesn't matter…' – and I still don't think it matters that much. But when I came to Phuklub and I saw people who were just so happy to play at that level, it was comedy Zen for me. It was where you went to get the ego that you build up for yourself absolutely destroyed. Decimation of the ego was what it was all about for me, and I thought, 'I need to be a part of this'."
"Just because you are on stage with a microphone doesn't mean you deserve our attention," Blake explains citing "the first ever Phuklub as the best example of this point being illustrated.
"Nick Sun got on stage. He had the mic, and he had some effects pedals, and he just started talking: 'All right folks, tonight I guess what we're gonna do is…' and he kept talking, but he hit something on the effects pedals and it turned into noise. Just garbled nonsense. And he kept talking. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. That was the start of it."
So virtually anyone can get on stage at Phuklub. To stay on stage – and not be drowned out by heckles, voice-overs, audio stings, sound effects and the rabble, they have to have something to say that's worth hearing. That seems to be about it.
And even though it still seems like nebulous chaos, the collective – or cult – of comics who run it have "found their feet" when it comes to making it work. "Nick Capper is the Voice of God a lot, so he's on the microphone up the back," Blake explains. "I'll do sound if Ellwood's not in town."
"I've MC'd a couple," Ash offers. "MCing Phuklub is a very different experience to MCing a normal comedy room. It's more like being a fire-starter…"
"You're the captain on a burning Viking ship," Blake elaborates, "and it's going into the water, but you gotta ensure it goes down as nobly as possible."
"So you're effectively shouting, 'Row, you f*ckers'?" I suggest.
"Yeah," Blake says.
Ash illustrates it rather poetically:
"Row, you f*ckers! If this were to be our end, we'll meet this end with such glory that they will write about us. It will be such an end, worthy of remembrance."
So every Phuklub ends in flames, but everyone still makes it to Asgard?
"Ideally, yes," says Blake. "We made it to Asgard the last few times. But we had a run in the middle of the year where we didn't make it; we couldn't even see the Rainbow Bridge on the horizon. If we're to be honest, every room, no matter how good or bad, has good nights and bad nights. But with Phuklub, if we're being completely honest, it's how every single room should be: every night is a dice roll. Some are a little more certain than others."
"That, to me," says Ash, "has always been the beauty of it."
Well that's Phuklub explained. We're still no closer to explaining Ha Ha Alternative Comedy, unfortunately. But why should we? You know it's on, you know who's on. There's nothing better to be doing on Sunday at 8pm.


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According to the government's decision, all kinds of production will be resumed in the country from May 11, Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Gakharia said.
PM Gakharia explained that all shops, except of clothing and shoe stores, from the next Monday.
"From May 11, we will reopen all kinds of production. In addition, we will open all kinds of retail and wholesale stores that have outdoor entrances and do not sell clothes and shoes," the Prime Minister said adding that the reopening does not apply to malls.
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text: Fly to 53 destinations across Italy and Europe Video has no narration, no audio description Etihad Airways and a redesigned Alitalia take to the runway with the highest levels of service in the air and on the ground. Alitalia has launched a new brand campaign, 'Made of Italy', which showcases their stylish new crew uniforms and service. 'Made of Italy' stands for unmistakable style, elegance, love for art and discovery; these are also what make Alitalia unique. Every single detail of the new Alitalia experience comes from the collaboration with great Italian brands who contributed with their skills, their care and their passion. Alitalia's new uniforms have been designed by Ettore Bilotta, the same designer who fashioned Etihad's stylish crew uniforms. When you fly to Europe or Italy with Alitalia and Etihad Airways you can enjoy a consistently outstanding, and of course fashionable experience, with guaranteed flat beds and dine on demand in long-haul Business Class. One ticket can take you and your luggage to your final destination, whether it's Milan for Fashion Week or Rome for a week of inspiration. As a frequent flyer member, you will also be able to earn and redeem miles with Etihad Airways and Alitalia.We look forward to welcoming you on board an Etihad Airways or Alitalia flight soon. To discover Alitalia's renewed travel experience, visit Alitalia.com. More choice and broader travel opportunities to business and leisure travellers into and out of Italy. Learn about the partnership ►


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text:
MF Javier Morales Claims Most Valuable Player Honor;
DF Nat Borchers Named Defender of the Year;
MF Jean Alexandre Earns Club's Humanitarian Award;
FW Álvaro Saborío Garners Golden Boot Award as Team's Top Scorer
SANDY, Utah (Friday, November 12, 2010) – Real Salt Lake today unveiled the team's annual season-ending award winners in three categories, which were based on voting by RSL players and team's Technical Staff. Midfielder Javier Morales took home the team's Most Valuable Player for a second time during his tenure with RSL, Nat Borchers was also a repeat performer after earning his second Defensive Player of the Year nod in three seasons, and second-year midfielder Jean Alexandre received the squad's annual Humanitarian of the Year honor. In addition, forward Álvaro Saborío, who was Wednesday named MLS 2010 Newcomer of the Year, claimed RSL's Golden Boot Award at the end of the regular season as the club's top scorer during League play.
MF Javier Morales: RSL Most Valuable Player
The Claret-and-Cobalt's midfield maestro had another brilliant season pulling the attacking strings for the League's highest-scoring offense, Morales' steady campaign causing some pundits to sing his praises as a legitimate contender for the MLS MVP honor. The Argentine tallied seven times and provided a team-leading nine assists, but, while his stats were impressive, it was his ability to control the midfield, navigate through defenders with flair, and make the unlocking pass that came to the forefront every time he stepped onto the field.
"This is a wonderful honor because we have a great team with really, really good players, so I am very thankful to my teammates for voting for me," said Morales, who also earned the RSL MVP award during his first full season with the squad in 2008. "This season was really important for the players, for the club, for everyone. We had a very good season and played some excellent soccer, but that is all over now. I'm already looking to focus on next year, to keep our team going and to try and make it even better."
After a 2009 campaign in which he was often left bruised and battered by the opposition – including in the team's 2009 MLS Cup triumph – Morales saw his production jump in 2010, his bright start to the season leading to a spot on the 2010 MLS All-Star Team's First XI squad and a subsequent showcase performance against legendary English Premiership side Manchester United. Morales' bounce-back season began immediately at San Jose in the season opener, the midfielder notching a brace on a pair of highlight-reel goals from distance that led the Utah side to a dominating 3-0 result. That performance led to the first of Morales' two MLS Player of the Week nods this season, another brace in a high-profile 2-0 victory against Columbus on August 14 helping him to earn the Week 20 award as well.
DF Nat Borchers: RSL Defensive Player of the Year
The commander of the Real Salt Lake backfield, Borchers saw his leadership role on the field expand in 2010, as the Colorado native took on the role of Captain for two months following an injury to Kyle Beckerman in May. The "Ironman" of the squad, Borchers was the only RSL player to start all 30 regular season contests and saw 2,673 minutes of action, also tops on the team and ranking as the fifth most across MLS in 2010. The 29-year-old was a key cog in a defensive unit that was statistically the best in MLS history, as RSL shattered the MLS goals allowed record by letting in only 20 goals in 30 regular season contests, set another League record by allowing just seven goals at home, and posted the second most shutouts by a team in a single season with 15 clean sheets.
"I'm very humbled by this award. As a unit we were very good defensively all year long, and we wouldn't be as good defensively if everybody on the field didn't buy into that mentality," said Borchers. "To be fair, my job is made easier by my teammates. I say that quite honestly because I look in front of me, beside me, and behind me and see an incredibly talented group of players that make my job look very easy."
Borchers – who also garnered RSL Defender of the Year honors in 2008 – also provided a flair for the dramatic on the offensive end, as his first goal of the year – and first score in MLS play in 41 games – in the final minutes of stoppage time on Sept. 25 against archrival Colorado saved Real Salt Lake's MLS-record home undefeated streak, which now stands at 25 games. Apparently his taste for scoring wasn't satisfied, as he duplicated his backward header from the Rocky Mountain Cup affair a week later at New England, kicking off RSL's scoring in an eventual 2-1 road win against the Revs.
Receiving the RSL Defender of the Year was not the only good bit of news in recent days for the center-back, as Borchers was yesterday named to the U.S. Men's National Team roster that will travel to South Africa for next Wednesday's Nelson Mandela Challenge in Cape Town. Borchers is in line to make his first appearance for the United States since 2005, when he made both of his previous "caps" for then-head coach Bruce Arena.
MF Jean Alexandre: RSL Humanitarian of the Year
As a native Haitian in Major League Soccer, Alexandre was in a unique position to serve in a humanitarian role after a devastating earthquake rocked his birthplace's capital of Port-au-Prince in January. The midfielder sprang into action, raising awareness locally in Utah for the millions of lives shattered by the event in the Caribbean by taking part in charitable drives for clothing and soccer equipment. Those items were then sent to his birthplace of Verrettes, Haiti, the donations going directly to the families of children attending the Jean Alexandre Football Academy, a program he established with his father back in 2007 that helps teach teenaged youth in his hometown valuable skills both on and off the field. Alexandre also lent his voice to the ongoing "Shoes for Haiti" donation drive being sponsored by RSL and KUTV2, in addition to serving as RSL's co-spokesperson for MLS W.O.R.K.S.' "Nothing But Nets" anti-malaria campaign.
"It's a great honor and a blessing to receive this award," said Alexandre, who also leaves Utah today to join his Haitian National Team mates for their international friendly next Wednesday in Qatar. "I want to thank my teammates for voting for me, but most importantly I want to thank God for giving me the opportunity that he's provided me, and only through that opportunity am I fortunate enough to be able to help others."
FW Álvaro Saborio: RSL Golden Boot
Saborío stormed onto the MLS scene in 2010, immediately commanding the attention of the opposition with his classic target-man skills and the ability to put the ball into the back of the net in a variety of ways. The Costa Rican international would lead the squad with 12 goals in League play – five better than second-place Morales – the first of which helped the Claret-and-Cobalt to a dramatic 2-2 draw with Seattle Sounders FC in the squad's home opener on April 10. After continuing to pour in the goals at Rio Tinto Stadium – his first nine League tallies all came in Sandy – Saborío would take his goal-scoring show on the road late in the year, as he notched a late game-winner in a 2-1 win at New England on Oct. 2 before single-handedly allowing RSL to keep the Rocky Mountain Cup with a stoppage-time brace that forced a 2-2 draw at Colorado in the season finale on Oct. 23.
Saborío's 12 goals in League play placed him 8th on the MLS Golden Boot chart in 2010 and were tied for the second most in a single season by an RSL player, equaling Robbie Findley's goal haul from 2009 and ranking behind only Jeff Cunningham's MLS Golden Boot-winning 16-goal campaign back in 2006. In addition, Saborío's veteran presence in CONCACAF Champions League play paid off handsomely for the Utahans, as his six goals in five contests paced the squad during the competition and were tied for the second most in the 2010 portion of the regional club championship.
Real Salt Lake All-time Team Award Winners
RSL Most Valuable Player: Javier Morales (2010), Nat Borchers (2009), Javier Morales (2008), Nick Rimando (2007), Jeff Cunningham (2006), Andy Williams (2005)
RSL Golden Boot Award: Álvaro Saborío (2010), Robbie Findley (2009), Yura Movsisyan (2008), Robbie Findley (2007), Jeff Cunningham (2006), Jason Kreis (2005)
RSL Defender of the Year: Nat Borchers (2010), Jamison Olave (2009), Nat Borchers (2008), Eddie Pope (2007), Carey Talley (2006), Pope (2005)
RSL Humanitarian of the Year: Jean Alexandre (2010), Robbie Russell (2009), Nat Borchers (2008), Carey Talley (2007), Seth Trembly (2006), Brian Kamler (2005)
www.RealSaltLake.com / www.RioTintoStadium.com / www.RSLtotheCore.com / www.ESPN700Sports.com


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These best-selling signs feature a brilliant white smooth gloss finish and long life UV-stability. The base assembly is fitted with extremely powerful but light weight rare earth (neodymium) magnets making this roof sign range one of the lightest on the market. The magnets are encased in rubber and the sign bases hand-finished to minimise the risk of damage to vehicle paintwork. However, for all our signs we recommend the optional rubber roof protector or protective vinyl roof film if not already fitted by your vehicle supplier. At extra cost we can supply this sign with LED illumination or can cut lettering from one of our stock reflective vinyls. You can select these options and accessories here.
Return Policy
Warranty & Returns
Returns: If you have decided not to keep an item you have bought from us online, and wish to return it, please complete the details on your delivery note and send it back to us in a new and unused condition within 14 days of receiving the item. If you simply do not like your purchase, you will need to return the item at your own expense. All goods must be in a new and unused condition and sent together with a copy of your original email receipt. We can only reimburse postage costs if on inspection we find the goods to be faulty or if we have supplied incorrectly.
Some goods including personalised products may not be returned. Please see our Terms and Conditions for full details.
Faulty or incorrectly supplied goods: If you think we have supplied incorrectly or believe a product is faulty please contact us before making the return. This will help us deal with the problem efficiently. If we agree an item that you have returned was faulty, we will exchange the item or refund the full cost including any delivery charges incurred where appropriate.
Refunds: We aim to process all refunds as quickly as possible, however, during busy periods this may take up to 14 days. Refunds can only be made to the card that was used at the time of purchase. Your card will be refunded as soon as we have processed your returned items.
We strongly recommend you use a recorded/insured delivery service as we regret that we cannot be held responsible for returned goods lost in transit.
Our Returns address:
Grade Six supplies Ltd (Returns)
60 Twentypence Road
Warrantee: Unless otherwise stated all products offered are covered by our 12 month return to base guarantee. This means we will replace or repair any item that has failed due to defective materials or workmanship for a period of twelve months from the date you receive it. The guarantee excludes normal wear and tear and fault caused by accident, neglect or misuse. Please be aware that faulty goods may have to be sent on to our suppliers and therefore any refunds or exchanges may take up to 14 working days.
Under The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 SI 2013/3134 you have the legal right to cancel your order up to 14 calendar days after the day on which you receive your goods (with the exception of any made to order items such as signage, stationery or promotional items). You do not need to give us any reason for cancelling your contract nor will you have to pay any penalty. Please see our Terms and conditions for full details.
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Monday, July 16: Mystery Main Streets
Red barns, white fences, and rolling hillsides really could be anywhere in New England. So the fact that they're all prominent features of tonight's undisclosed location is no big clue. Sorry (not really). We won't tell you where we are, but Ted Reinstein will show you how our mystery destination looks from three thousand feet up in the air. Plus … a local architect uses a very unusual material to build a house, Ted meets a man whose work is making sure people do know where they are, and he samples a vegan cookie that's been freshly baked at a booming new business.
Show Resources:
Want the best overview of The Mad River Valley ? Why not take it all in from aloft with Sugarbush Soaring?
The Archie Bunker -- a one-of-a-kind creation. And yours to rent.
The Madsonian Museum of Industrial Design in Waitsfield--chock full of cool, fun objects.
Impossible! Vegan and gluten free cookies that actually taste good from Liz Lovely!
Hand made Christmas ornaments at All Things Bright and Beautiful [plus some teddy bears] Waitsfield.
Don't know where you are? Try picking up a Discovery Map.
It's not just for skiing anymore--Sugarbush resort-- 4 seasons of fun!
The hills are alive with the sound of opera--the Green Mountain Opera Festival.
Dr. Sketchy wants you to get your doodle on--Cheers!
Mad River Antler -- impress your friends, tell 'em you got 'em on safari; go ahead, toot your own horn!


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- Details
- Reviews
- What's Included
The Cooper Wiring Devices PJS4A Screwless 4-Gang Toggle Wallplate appears to float freely on the surface of the wall and is designed for easy and fast installation. Mounting plate attaches to the wiring device and the wallplate is simply pressed into place. This wall plate is designed to fit standard toggle-style switches.
This product is also available in ivory, light almond, and white, each sold separately.
- 1x - 4-Gang Toggle Wallplate


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A Saudi newspaper says a ministerial committee is looking into formally dropping public beheadings as a method of execution in the oil-rich kingdom.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where a death sentence results in beheading in a public square.
The authoritative daily Al-Watan says in its Sunday edition that the ministerial committee is considering fatal shootings as an alternative.
There have been calls in the kingdom for replacing public beheadings with lethal injections carried out in prisons.
The kingdom executes anyone convicted of murder, armed robbery, rape and trafficking in drugs.
It has executed 15 people so far this year, 76 last year and 79 in 2011.
There was no official confirmation immediately available of the newspaper's report.


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Home is a step for victims seeking to get selves free of sex trafficking
For decades, a two-story convent sheltered nuns ministering in the city's impoverished neighborhoods.
By month's end, the old building will open up to women working to be free of sex trafficking.
Its six bedrooms have brand-new linens, comforters and pillows. Each has a personal sink and space for cribs. The floors have new carpet.
The convent-turned-safe-house is the handiwork of All Things New, a Christian ministry based in Oklahoma City and founded by Linda Caswell in 2008. She's relocating headquarters here and joining a countywide effort to combat the sex trade.
"It's been a lot of work but I've seen so much of the community of San Antonio pull together to make this happen," said Caswell, 59, herself prostituted years ago. "It is a realization of a dream."
A second unit is set for completion here in June. The facilities are believed to be the city's only residences solely dedicated to help this population. Referrals will come from law enforcement agencies and other authorities nationwide, she said.
Human trafficking is estimated to be a $32 billion industry worldwide. Texas and local officials are working to protect victims, foreign and domestic, and raise awareness.
The Bexar County district attorney's office's prostitution caseload prompted it to form a human trafficking unit last year.
Many cases stem from teens and children not attending school and devoid of parental supervision, said Kirsta Melton, an assistant district attorney in the human trafficking unit.
"They are easy prey. They are the kids no one will miss if they don't show up at home," she said. "They are being trafficked in our city and our county and our neighborhoods. That's a message San Antonio needs to hear loud and clear."
The safe houses could not arrive here sooner, according to the South Texas Coalition Against Human Trafficking, a network of public and private agencies and individuals.
"I think it's phenomenal what (Caswell) is doing because we need everyone on board," said Elizabeth Crooks, founder of Embassy of Hope Center, a Christian ministry helping victims at a drop-in facility.
Its residential program had to close after three years for lack of funding, she said.
This issue for Caswell is personal.
As a younger woman, she was pimped in the French Quarter of New Orleans, she said, lured by cash, then forced by threats.
She escaped to rural Kansas and a new life with her two children. She studied to be a nurse, and through an instructor's influence, shed her atheism to attend church.
Faith and her own past typically opens doors to helping victims.
"There's an unspoken bond between women who've been sexually exploited," Caswell said. "You can't really explain it."
After working in prison ministries, she joined Concerned Women for America as the socially conservative organization's Oklahoma director. That job led her to start safe houses there.
Beth Saxton persuaded her 50-member Alamo Heights church, Kingdom Life Fellowship, to donate about $20,000 toward interior decorating at the old convent.
Her mom, Roxanne Spradlin of Temple, did custom paintings. San Antonio businesses have pitched in.
In the kitchen, fresh tulips rest in a Pellegrino bottle near pineapple and orange mint sprouts. On the counter is a new Keurig coffee maker and a pink Kitchen Aid mixer. In the dining room is a long table crafted from recycled red oak by local woodworker Attie Yonker.
"I just loved the idea of the house being something that could feel like a home rather than something mish-mashed together," said Saxton, 32, a stay-at-home mom and one of the many volunteers drawn to the project.
Protestant and Catholic clergy have agreed to lead worship and prayer. The ministry still needs professional counselors, Caswell said, for long-term healing and building trust.
The second-floor chapel gives her peace about the future. It has pictures of St. Mary and Mother Theresa. Outside on a light switch plate is an image of Christ and a prayer, left from the building's days of active convent life.
"Bless this house, oh Lord, we pray. Make it safe by night and day."


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Welcome to another challenge here at the CCC blog! As usual, we had some awesome entries last week. Thank you to all who were able to join us.
This week we have a great sketch, created by our lovely Peggy Toole. Please keep in mind that the challenge is optional. Any Christmas/Holiday/Winter card will do. You don't need to use a Sparkle Creations rubber stamp to participate, but we sure love it when you do.
I love her sketches. Here is a bigger view.
Our lovely design team definitely rocked this weeks sketch challenge. Check them out!
Please link directly to the blog post or gallery page where we can view/comment on your creation and not just the generic link to your blog. Generic blog links will be disabled or deleted. To get the full URL, click the title of your blog post (which will load a page that has just that post on it), then copy and paste the URL.
Don't forget to post a comment so we know you added a card! If you are uploading to an online gallery such as Splitcoast, please use the tag SCCC35, so that we can all enjoy your cards.
Have a great day!


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Billing and Coding in a nutshell- The pictorial section will help you understand the 'this and that' of billing and management. Go through the infographs for an understanding of process, in short.
Cancer being among the most common ailments in the US, radiation oncology is one of the most used medical services in the US with care providers of all types (independent practitioners to hospitals) involved in it. This means a sizable amount of medical resources (money and medical effort) spent on healthcare in the US is claimed by radiation oncology. Alas, most part of it goes unrealized given the demanding nature of insurance procedures.
The radiation oncology insurance procedure involves patient registering, charge entry, claim generation and transmission, payment posting, making appeals for denials and incorrect claims and collection management and electronic submission of claims to be HIPPA compliant.
Unfortunately, successful reimbursement of a radiation oncology episode requires more than careful adherence to policies, accurate handling of details and ability to transfer data electronically, it also needs:
Your practice can suffer with changing healthcare conditions and reductions in reimbursements can prevent you from retaining quality staff. At the same time maintaining the level of profitability for your practice can be quite a challenge.
Our Vermont medical billing professionals, with their exceptional expertise in billing and collections services can help you to streamline your daily operations as well as increase your practices' expansion and find more time to deliver your patients with the highest degree of care. These Billers are present in almost all major cities of Vermont like Burlington, Essex, Rutland, Colchester, and South Burlington.
Our Billers are specialized in providing the following Medical Billing functions:
Dealing with a variety of payers in Vermont while you concentrate on Patient care can be just one of those various advantages your practice can derive from these billing professionals. These Billers are also motivated to keep their certifications updated so as to help your clinic collect better revenue on the basis of their knowledge.
Training and maintaining administrative staff was never easy and in a situation where you loose them often, you must know a good place to get the best resource, fortunately we currently have a many experienced billers and coders in Vermont.
Our Billers in the state of Vermont are specialized to service medical practices as per the regulations of the state government. Their knowledge and experience has been acquired by years of efforts in perfecting medical billing procedures which they now leverage to help your practice collect more revenue.
The federal government's effort to reduce healthcare cost can only be supported by physicians in the state of Vermont by optimizing costs and enhancing revenue. Letting a specialist handle your medical billing can help you improve collections by 20%.
Accurate Coding and code audit along with timely insurance follow up and account receivables are the basis on which thesebillers in Vermont guarantee higher profitability for your clinic. Their experience in various software and certification in the medical billing processes will support your practice to grow steadily.
Needless to say, this leaves individual physicians, physician groups, clinics, diagnostic facilities, long term care facilities and acute care facilities with unrealized payments (ARs) and consequently ailing revenues.
MBC's billers and coders possess a comprehensive knowledge of radiation oncology billing and coding procedures. Our years of experience in handling intricacies of radiation therapy billing and coding procedures translates into a very sophisticated level of understanding of the diseases involved in radiation therapy versus the insurance procedures applicable to them.
We have been able to bring down claim denial rates for care providers across all the state of the US through accurate handling of data and rigorous follow-ups done in a methodical manner. Our quality consciousness is responsible for reduction in claim denials. Both during and after preparation of claims, we put them through various cycles of quality checks to make sure that they are completely error free when submitted.
Our service models are flexible, so that you can choose a model that perfectly fits your needs and setup. We offer two types of models:
Our consulting model involves a thorough study of your revenue management system to help identify areas of revenue leakage, outdated software applications and training needs. By helping you address these areas our RCM service will ensure a smooth revenue management process capable of handling the dynamics of radiation therapy insurance requirements and reduced rejected claims.
However, if you don't have an in-house billing and coding team, you can ship out your entire billing and coding responsibilities to MBC. Our outsourcing model includes the entire range of billing and coding activities starting from identifying insurance eligibility of the patient to submission of claims and post submission follow-ups.
Medicalbillersandcoders.com is a national network with our team spread across all states of the US with each state represented by billers and coders familiar with state-specific exceptions. This helps us to account for the fact that the rules applicable across the US are not uniform. MBC has helped care providers across US to improve their revenues as well as quality of radiation oncology treatment by allowing them to concentrate on their core services.


text: Offered is a water tumbler in the Butterfly and Berry pattern. The tumbler is amethyst in color and stands 4 1/4 inches tall. The tumbler is signed on the base, Fenton. This tumbler was made during the early 1970`s. The tumbler is in mint condition, having no chips, cracks, scratches, or stains.


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I realise I'm the second person to quote this, but you just put it so beautifully, Jazzy!Jazzy wrote:Kyle and Sunny's relationship, even though it was minor compared to the other couples, actually had a BIG impact with me.
Through the whole book, even with all the Mel/Jared, Ian/Wanda love, there were times when I felt something tighten in my chest whenever Wanda longed for Jared. Maybe because it was so IMPOSSIBLE, that made a small part of me root for them. My heart was pounding towards the end when Jared "lied" to Wanda and told her he loved her.
But I knew that would never work, cos Jared and Mel belonged together. But I was still conflicted. It's not fair for the souls, having the hosts memories of their love, their partner, and not being able to do anything about it. Just helplessly loving that person without a choice.
So when Sunny got to "keep" Kyle, it was like a nice replacement. In their own way, the soul finally gets the man it's body craved for. Does that make sense??
I think that because their relationship developed in such a short amount of time (comparatively – just the last section of the book), it actually makes it a bit more intense, and makes you realize how much they both needed each other.
Sunny needed Kyle in a way that she couldn't control: she had needed him for as long as she had been on Earth in Jodi's body – long before Kyle came and took her away with him.
I think that Kyle needed Sunny in a way he didn't quite understand, though… it wasn't really because she was in Jodi's body, but more because he was learning how to be open-minded, how to protect and care for someone, and how to love again. Remember how he said, "Jodi's dead," in that really savage way, right at the beginning of the book, when they're talking about what to do with Wanda and Mel? Well, this might sound weird, but I think that Kyle was coming to terms with his perceptions of the aliens, and his ideas about Jodi being dead vs. having her body taken over.
It seemed to me that Kyle was maturing as a person, which allowed his relationship with Sunny to grow the way it did.
~ Kat


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Iconic snack
Fresh instant soup – isn't that a contradiction in terms? Not at the workshops held at the Instant Ramen Museum in Osaka, which pays homage to the Japanese specialty. Invented exactly 60 years ago, it is now a cult snack all over Asia. Luxury hotels even serve it for breakfast.


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I've never tried it before but do you have the UPC # handy? I'm not going balls out this weekend with the entire line, but I'd be happy just to have Jabba by my side, and to get the WM headache over with.
I've heard that Jabba has a very rubbery body, and that the inside is hollow - similar to the talking Yoda back in 2004. Is this true?
Quote from: Jayson on July 30, 2010, 04:15 PM065356950285I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass - but are we sure this is the number?I called four WalMarts this morning and all four of them told me that this number wasn't even in their system.
I work at Walmart and usually just the ten numbers will give us a reading on our portable Gemini computer inventory units.
Page created in 0.059 seconds with 19 queries.


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Hieromartyr Desan, Bishop in Persia, and 272 others with him
The Holy Martyrs Bishop Desan, Presbyter Mariabus, Abdiesus, and 270 others were put to death under the Persian emperor Sapor II. Imprisoned, they refused to turn away from the Christian Faith. In their number also was the Martyr Ia, who is commemorated also on September 11.


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For a brief history of why ELT (that is, in-box-data-processing) is even a topic of discussion, we must recognize that the high-powered appliances such as Netezza have not only made such implementation viable, but even desirable.
Just so we level-set on what one of these looks like, it's a SQL statement. Usually an insert/select but can also include updates and the like. Many of you recognize these as multi-stage operations inside a stored procedure. The sentiment of course is that such an animal can perform better inside-the-machine than to take it out of the machine (through an ETL tool), process it, and put it back. This may be true for smaller data sets, but you aren't reading this because you have smaller data sets, are you? Netezza users are big-game hunters. Pea-shooters are for small animals, but if we want big game, we'd better bring a bigger game with us, put on a bigger game face, and bring bigger equipment.
But is it really the size of the equipment? Netezza users know that the size and the architecture are keys to success. Dog-piling a bunch of CPUs together does not a power-frame make.
Okay, back to the storyline here - in-the-box SQL-transforms, in a traditional RDBMS platform, are the realm of small game. Once the game gets bigger, these transforms degrade in performance, and rather rapidly. Watch as a swarm of engineers tries to reconstruct and rebuild the procedures, the SQL, the tables and even upgrade the hardware in a futile attempt to achieve incrementally more power. Emphasis on incrementally-more. Not linearly more.
As they grow weary of this battle, the ETL tools start looking better and better. We reach a critical mass, and the ELT-in-the-box is summarily forsaken as we stand up the ETL tool.
Sometime after this transition, the data volumes once again overwhelm the environment. One thing leads to another, and one day the Netezza machine arrives on the floor. Hopes are high.
But notice the transition above - ELT was forsaken for ETL, likely never to return. But wait, now we really have the power to do the ELT SQL-transforms, but we've mentally and perhaps emotionally (yeah, verily even politically) moved away from SQL-transforms.
Some reading this might scratch their heads and think, What's he talking about? We've been doing ELT in the machines using (PLSQL, etc, name your approach here) for many years. Why would we shy away from it?
Several reasons:
- Hand-crafted SQL statements. They are easy to deploy but difficult to maintain and re-deploy. The moment we have to change the data model, this becomes painfully obvious.
- Proliferation of one-off operations, in cut-and-paste form, increasing inefficiency and complexity of the overall implementation
- Lack of overarching control - stored procs run and go "black" for an hour or more without any clue as to their status
- They don't scale in a traditional (SMP-based) RDBMS - the larger the data gets, the more the implementation will suffer
- ETL tools don't support them in the quantity and logistical quality we really need, but they are getting there.
Why not use an ETL Tool? I mean, they handle push-down SQL-generation right?
I can perhaps summarize this situation in a single conversation I had with a ETL tool vendor who was hawking the capability for his own tool, and after showing me the mechanics of making one of these little jewels operate with aplomb, I asked him, "So what about doing a few hundred of these in a sequence, or branching them into multiple sequences?" The vendor rep looked almost hurt. "Why would you want to do that?"
Well, if we're really talking about migrating transforms into the machine, this can grow into hundreds of operations rather quickly. This situation apparently overwhelms the logistical capability of even the most powerful ETL tool. But I have hope that they will solve this situation. Eventually.
I am not holding out hope that it will happen soon, or voluntarily. These tool vendors have invested millions in the performance boosting of their own products and will not likely toss this investment on the flames of the appliance movement, even if said flames are the exhaust flames of the appliance's rocket engines. This is why I say "eventually". They don't really have a marketable reason to embrace this approach.
Another problem of the ETL tool is that it is so divorced from the appliance's infrastructure that it cannot control the cross-environment logistics. This is especially true of the "virtual transaction" - that is - multiple flows arriving in multiple tables that are each in context of one another, yet are individually shared-nothing operations. If one of the flows should fail, how do we back out of this? Can we do a rollback of the tables where their flows succeeded? No we cannot. We could certainly implement an approach, but this is neither inherent nor intrinsic to the ETL tool. We need a shared-nothing virtual transaction that will control all of the flow in a common context, commit them in that context and faithfully rollback the results in that same context. ETL tools don't go there. Unless we implement the tool that way. As an application. Once implemented, how do we reuse this for the next application, and the next? We can see that it's not part of the tool itself.
If next-generation "ELT" scenarios are to be successful, they need several very important capabilities that are simply non-optional and non-trivial:
- Catalog-aware - the ELT management needs to be able to support hundreds of transforms
- SQL-generation - from templates that are tied to the catalog - If the table changes, we can propagate the changed automatically into the transforms.
- Proper handling of shared-nothing operations into the target, including virtual transactions that we can replicate to other databases, or rollback completely.
- Treat internal appliance databases as "waypoints" rather than "endpoints". That is, multiple databases are in play and used for various roles, such as intake, intermediate workspace, and persistence. These resources should be configurable and relatively transparent to the tool.
- Support of major patterns such as CDC, Dedupe, column-level scrubs and transforms, masking, column remapping, soft-delete, slowly-changing-dimensions and of course, analytic functions etc.
I am sure the visitors of this blog have even more aspects of a "wish list" that they have implemented (perhaps painfully so) and want more control over the data, its processing logistics and error control and recovery. Feel free to add your own comments and suggestions here.


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NEW YORK (AP) - A Liechtenstein bank will pay $23.8 million to resolve a probe into its use of undeclared accounts to help hundreds of U.S. taxpayers dodge taxes in the United States over a 10-year period, authorities announced Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) � A Liechtenstein bank will pay $23.8 million to resolve a probe into its use of undeclared accounts to help hundreds of U.S. taxpayers dodge taxes in the United States over a 10-year period, authorities announced Tuesday.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan and Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG, located in Vaduz, announced the agreement, saying the bank will forfeit $16.3 million, representing revenue it earned for maintaining the undeclared accounts, and will pay $7.5 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.
Bharara said the bank, also known as LLB Vaduz, will not be criminally prosecuted for opening and maintaining the accounts from 2001 through 2011 even though it helped a significant number of U.S. taxpayers evade their tax obligations and file false federal tax returns. He said the non-prosecution agreement demonstrates the "unprecedented nature of the bank's cooperation."
He noted that the bank in 2008 voluntarily implemented a number of measures to stop helping undeclared U.S. taxpayers in evading taxes even before the IRS and federal prosecutors began looking into it.
IRS official Richard Weber said the parliament of Liechtenstein, an alpine country between Switzerland and Austria, also changed tax laws to make it easier to identify non-compliant U.S. taxpayers to the United States.
Since then, Liechtenstein has transferred more than 200 files of U.S. taxpayers to the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a statement from Bharara's office.
The government said the bank held more than $340 million in undeclared assets on behalf of U.S. taxpayers in more than 900 accounts in 2006.
The bank said that the deal resulted from "intensive negotiations."
It noted that "U.S. authorities explicitly undertake not to impose a fine or penalty on LLB Vaduz beyond the payments for gross profit and lost tax revenue. What is more, they acknowledge that the bank voluntarily took measures even before the investigations began."


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Why a Google Monopoly is Bad for Search MarketersBlog Post: December 09, 2008
Some good comments here. Of course trying to optimise for Yahoo and Google could be tricky, imagine if they 50% market share each. Yahoo's algo is a mystery to me it throws up such obscure results so that would be a nightmare.
Equally though a monopoly is inherently bad, especially as it comes at a time when Google is doing everything in it's power to maximise ad revenues.
Maybe an open source engine is the answer - but who is going to fund it? Firefox has gained market share as it is a superior product IMO to I.E (and everyone else who uses it?) - But who is going to build a search engine that is better than or even close to Google?