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By Jim Rouse, BRP Media (9-10-12) Ocala, FL – This week-end's 2-day show is the 2nd annual PJ Wiggins Memorial. Wiggins was an outstanding race-car driver but was, and still is, a great father figure to his children and even children who watched him win with a smooth and graceful technique; more importantly, he was always a very thankful man. A victim to skin cancer, he is sorely missed in the racing community so we honor him with the 2nd annual PJ Wiggins Memorial for the Scorpion Racing Products Open-Wheel Modifieds. Racing alongside them Friday night will be the Buddy's Home Furnishings Limited Late Models, Hobby Stocks, 1-800-ASK GARY Thunder Stocks, and the Rent-N-Roll Gladiators.
The Modifeds are actually going to race twice as they make-up the Florida State Modified Championship race from July that was rained-out. So, Kyle Bronson and Dalton Lanich will have twice as much wear on the equipment (though both could drive 2 different cars) as they chase a championship. Of course, defending PJ Wiggins Memorial champion Rich Pratt isn't out of either hunt and the Anthony, FL driver knows a trick or two around Bubba Raceway Park. The driver we call "4-Time" is in 4th as he chases #5; Jeff Mathews, however, has work to do if he wants it. Jim Passino went all Brett Favre on the sabbatical and was back behind the wheel of the 34A last time out. You can't count any one out and don't forget this- David Reutimann isn't on any of the NASCAR entry lists.
JO Nobles has been a little nicer recently as he hasn't won since the night of the rain-out, July 21st. Nobles' main championship rivals aren't getting those all-important wins, though, as Forrest Gough, David Showers, and the McGillivray brothers aren't winning. Showers was the heat race driver of the summer season but he'll need to win features in the fall if he wants to take home the trophy. The McGillivray brothers, Caleb and Christian, have been impressive in 2012 and 2013 looks to be a wonderful year for them and a championship could be their's. Interesting stat on Nobles- he seeks to be the first driver to win a title in 2 different divisions since the conversion back to dirt in 2008.
Talk about a fight for a championship between Trevor Gamble and Rodney Wright! I mean, Gamble gets a top-3 and he lost a ton of points? Rodney Wright and the Sheffield Motorsports team have been consistent all year and it's paying off; the pressure is now on Rick Friend's #12 team and Gamble is a great driver to have in that situation! Mike Stalnkaer is so comfortable in 3rd that they have installed a sofa in the #9 machine. Of course, Stalnaker is never comfortable as he is yet to win in 2012, a rare occurence for the Ocala driver. The battle for 4th is a 2nd-generation driver with family ties to the leader, the defending Thunder Stock champion, and a Hobby Stock rookie. They are Mark Maresca, Brian Shea, and Hunter Gustafson, respectively and all have been close to Coors Light Winner's Circle but have never visited; that could change by season's end as Gustafson is ever-improving and Maresca and Shea are smart drivers with fast cars.
So, with 25 races down and 13 different feature winners (plus 35 heat winners) including 3 first-timers it truly is anyone's game in the 1-800-ASK GARY Thunder Stocks. Brian Mullins and Jonathan Appleby are great title fighters as both entered 2012 with plenty of laps led, races dominated, and 0 trophies. Appleby won race 9 then peeled off 4 of the next 8 while Mullins didn't win until 19 races in. Mullins, however, has scored at least 24 points in every feature while Appleby has missed a couple of features! Jason Gamble, Bubba Durbin, and Brandon Elwood are in the top 5 and have been impressive with consistency and, for 2 of them, race wins. It's a 3-man title fight and Chad Scranton's part of it as he has won 7 features in 2012 (a winning percentage of 28% and he hasn't entered every race!) which leads the way. Throw all of these guys in- Shane Nichols, Eddie Kilbury, Jr. (who will return this week according to brother Rick), Mark Trexler, Grady Christian, Mike Tovet, Robert Ray, Ray Wheeler, and James Erickson- with Mullins, Appleby, Gamble, Durbin, and Scranton and you have 13 very good drivers and there are plenty that haven't won a points race in 2012!
You want a battle for the ages and you have it in the Rent-N-Roll Gladiators! Tony LaPorta, an older gentlemen from the North, has been the class of the field while the hard-working Steve Johnson slowly earns points every week. Those 2 are the experience in the field. A driver with little, if any, high school experience is Jordan McMillon but you couldn't tell from the way he drives as he's smooth and quick. A driver who has impressed the racing community with his recent dominance is Brandon Haseleu. Yet to earn his driver's license, he shows what youth can do and was actually the first driver to win in a rear-wheel drive car since Matt Shea on October 22, 2010. Kody Fisher came to life as he won his first ever heat race and looks to pull away from the battle for 5th and maybe join the title fight!
Gates will open at 5, grandstands at 6, and we are scheduled to start at 8:00 on Friday night! For more information you may go to www.bubbaracewaypark.com or call the Speedway at 352-622-9400!


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Tuesday, May 03, 2011
I disagree.
For a decision to be meaningful, there must be a right choice and a wrong choice. Taking the right choice makes it easier to be successful. Taking the wrong choice makes it harder.
Players optimize because there is a chance of failure, and no one wants to be the guy who is deliberately handicapping the rest of the team. The game is already hard enough. Why make it harder on the rest of your group?
Trying to stop optimization is futile. Removing the ability to inspect or dps meters just means that you don't get any feedback and can't see what's going wrong.
You can remove the decisions entirely. Remove talent points and different stats on armor. No more optimization. But that makes the game less interesting.
You can make the game easier. If there's no chance of failure, there's no point in optimizing.
You could make content less predictable. But this is no guarantee of optimizing. PvP still has optimal builds and, more egregiously, optimal group compositions. It just changes the focus on optimizing to be the most damage for the most situations.
And I don't think that PvE players like unpredictable content as you think they would. Faction Champs in ToC and Prince Malchezzar in Karazhan had unpredictable elements, and there was a lot of grumbling about those.
As well, unpredictable content can still be optimized. Think of Blackjack or Poker. It's unpredictable. Yet there are still strategies and optimizations for those games. Only now you have to take probability into account, which makes the optimizations far harder to execute.
You could rotate content such that the "optimal" build in Fight 1 becomes sub-optimal in Fight 2. Which is promptly followed by the playerbase replacing the players from Fight 1 with different players for Fight 2.
In reality, I think that most people who are against optimizing aren't really against optimizing per se. Rather, they are against other people optimizing for them. If they were the ones to come up with the "optimal" build and reveal it to the world, then they would be happy.
But it just doesn't work that way. My rule of thumb is to assume that there are people who are ten times better at this game than I am. And there are people who are ten times worse. The better people are going to come up with optimizations faster than I will. The worse people will not see what I see, and just perform at a much lower level, making grouping with them destined to failure.
For any meaningful decision in a game, someone will determine the "right" answer sooner or later. The good players in the game will figure it out pretty quickly. The bad players will never figure it out.
The best an MMO company can do is make sure that each "playstyle" is close enough to the optimal so that it is viable. But otherwise, it is impossible to have meaningful decisions in group play, and yet not have optimizations.
18 comments:
- Anonymous10:59 PM, May 03, 2011
I think the real issue is that people take the minmaxing out of all proportion. If your group is failing on a boss, it's not necessarily because you don't have the minmaxed possible spec and gear, it might easily be execution. But people don't seem aware of the idea of 'good enough' gear/spec. For them it's either theorycrafted minmaxed or else it's rubbish.ReplyDelete
But (for example) you don't need minmaxed raid specs or rotations or full top level enchants to beat heroics (not talking about the new ones). You also don't need dps who do 15k. This won't stop players from complaining if their companions don't have them.
I'd compare with LOTRO where however rubbish I may or may not be on my main (and I'm pretty rubbish), it never stopped us killing bosses in raids and no one ever asked me to optimise further because the raid group in general is good enough. And also, no one uses damage meters, so utility and execution sides of the fights are more emphasised.
I fully agree that we (or I at least) play in a manner which is optimised toward my goals, and that optimal is desireable. However some of my goals are "social" goals which would be viewed as wasteful by Gevlon and some of the other folks who dislike the peripheral game activities. Progression raiding should be optimal...always.ReplyDelete
The "unpredictable content" is however still frustrating. There is a significant difference between an encounter which has rules and guides, scripted actions; vs an encounter that has so many random events in layers that its just a mess. Blackjack is random, not chaotic - it has a ruleset which it must apply, and by consistent application a player can develop a strategy.
Prince in Kara was borderline, but the Infernals(!) sometimes made the encounter impossible - and that is a design mistake. The challenge should be rational for PvE, else we'd embrace the chaos and play against other players.
I didn't like Faction Champs in ToC, but it was still an encounter where a combination of strategies could be developed; therefore acceptable. It took a lot longer to get used to, a lot longer to skill up for if you had not done pvp, but players were able to learn.
In this discussion about optimal performance, where is the place of forgiveness?
Is it acceptable for a player to make a single mistake in a boss encounter? Miss an interrupt. Not CC fast enough. Not taunt, etc. In 10 man it seems there is less forgiveness than 25 man, and therefore the players must be closer to the ideal optimal performance to succeed. Is that the correct way to design encounters?
I agree that railing against optimization in videogames is dumb, for all the reasons you listed.ReplyDelete
A scenario in which Tobold would be correct, however, is in good ole fashioned D&D. The pejoratives for optimizers are all there: munchkin, min/maxer, rules lawyer, etc. "Optimization" was bad in there because the point was not to blow through encounters the fastest possible way - indeed, the DM's job was to generally scale encounters to always challenge you regardless of power - but rather to X... where X is socialize with friends, roll some dice, kill some time, roleplay, etc.
With MMOs though, it does come down to efficiency, by design. You are being metered by month. I don't know about you, but in single-player games (or multiplayer games without a subscription) I try to stretch out the enjoyment as much as possible, perhaps by deliberately not optimizing, looking up FAQS/guides, etc. Meanwhile, in WoW I know that it will take X number of Valor Points to get Y gear, meaning Z number of hours for dungeon runs, etc.
It may simply be a psychological thing. If I make a one-time purchase of a Zelda game for $40 and play for 80 hours, that would be $0.50/hour. Meanwhile, playing 80 hours of WoW in a month would come out at around $0.18/hour. And yet I would feel more freedom to explore in Zelda than WoW.
Then again, everything in WoW is designed around planned obsolescence. If I took a break for 2-4 months, it's unlikely any of the work I put into gearing beforehand would allow me to progress once I returned - I would need to re-grind those items to be a useful contributor with my peers.
Azuriel has breached the actual underlying cause of it, which everyone so far has ignored by large. The actual reason for optimizing is a simple desire to get the most out of it. If that is only possible by optimizing it to hell, then that's what players do. Personally, I call this a design flaw, others might find it the perfect game. If you are pushed to optimize because otherwise you can't keep up, or if you take a break you would be completely lost, then that is bad design, pure and simple.ReplyDelete
Yes it might keep players playing, just as they keep playing Farmville and many other things. But it feels to me more like another Job than actually having fun.
> For a decision to be meaningful, there must be aReplyDelete
> right choice and a wrong choice
I couldn't disagree more. You only have a real choice if all choices are valid.
It's like democracy. Just because you're allowed to vote doesn't mean you also have a choice. You only have a choice if there are multiple good and relevant parties.
Back to WoW. It isn't a relevant nor a fun choice to pick your talents as mentioned on EJ. The only choice you take is to follow a guide.
But there are choices left in the game:
- Do you level a paladin healer or priest healer?
- Do you level a mage or a warlock?
- Do you play your druid as tank, healer or DD?
Those are good choices BECAUSE they don't matter. Neither a paladin nor a priest is "the right choice" or "the wrong choice". It's a matter of taste.
We need more irrelevant choices! You shouldn't decide between destruction, affliction or demonology based on the Simulationcraft thread. You should decide based on which play style you like. And to get a real choice, all choices must be right.
I agree with you and actually made a post about it even before having read yours ;)ReplyDelete
Nils linked it again in his latest post, but in case you haven't seen it, this Extra Credits video basically elaborates on what Kring said above: Situations where there is a clearly right and a clearly wrong solution are calculations, not choices. For a choice to actually be a choice, it's got to make you choose between things where no option is clearly superior - or between different things that you both want.ReplyDelete
There is something that I don't think you are including in your equation. People being able to inspect and look at you on armory certainly does give you better feedback and better chance of meaningful feedback to improve your chance of success EXCEPT that end-game encounters are created and modified. End-game is made harder because players are better, because they got this good feedback. If armory and inspecting never existed, average player's ability from equipment alone would be lower, and encounters would be made less challenging also. At first, you may say, "Well that's good!", but I say, it's not good, it's all relative, and all the same EXCEPT that everybody spends more time looking at the armory, inspecting each other, spending extra gold on changing gems and enchants, and reforging, to reach the heightened "optimum", and then having the exact relative experience. It's not good, it's a meaningless, relative treadmill that we don't need to be on. It also fails to reward the outstanding player who can figure out all the optimization of gear according to their team's goals WITHOUT feedback from gearwhore players.ReplyDelete
Something I think we are missing in the discussion is the fact that game designers cater to the min/max-ers. All the damage meters, all boss spells that are data-mined, all the underlying numbers that players are able to calculate are given to us by the game's developers. As long as the player base is given these things to analyze, there will always be the group that theorycrafters for fun. The group that tries to munchkin the hell out of their spec simply to be the best. I don't think we can fault the community for this "epidemic" without faulting the game developers more for letting it happen.ReplyDelete
I think you missed the point. In a game where it is not unlikely to be booted from a group because one talent point is in the wrong place the Devs have propped up and supported the "cult" of efficiency.ReplyDelete
I suspect if they'd remove the armory at least half the complaining and angst would go away. Of course raid leaders and guild masters would scream but I think they'd be surprised to find out that without that tool they'd end up with better players because they'd have to pay attention like we did in vanilla.
- Hyperian6:43 AM, May 04, 2011
The Infernals in kara..... (flashbacks begin) man i hate those things.ReplyDelete
One thing that always upset or annoyed me is when people confuse "optimal" with "possible." Because something is not optimal it's seen as not being possible or not worth doing, even when you can still do a thing at equal or slightly lower capacity.ReplyDelete
For example, I'm a holy priest and I love to tank heal. I've done it on various 25 mans and 10 mans and I have done it a few times on H Halfus. I do it well and feel that I can do it and it can be done, by priests at large. I feel that we have been given the tools to do it, with our spells and talents and there is no reason why we shouldn't.
However, if you take a look at various priest resources and specifically Elitist Jerks, there is a vast concensus and a very vocal majority that feels because discipline is better or stronger at it that holy has absolutely no place tank healing. I couldn't disagree more. The argument that people toss around a lot for this is that it's not optimal, so it shouldn't be done. I don't feel the two go hand in hand and it makes me sad that people feel that way.
I guess I see nothing wrong with the concept of something being optimal, but not to the extent where nothing else will do or to the extent where people refuse to entertain the notion of something else being worthwhile.
It sounds like Rohan and Nils believe that the end goal is to make sure your gear is setup correctly. I believe your gear is just a tool to help you complete your goal.ReplyDelete
When fighting the Lich King, or Nefarion, or whomever else, they could care less about which gems you have in your gear, and exactly what talents you have. All that matters is who dies first.
If you have the "optimal" setup, and I have a "sub-optimal" one, but I do more damage than you (with equal gear), then I am more valuable to the raid. But since my setup is considered to be "inferior", I may not even get an invite to the group in the first place.
Additionally, nearly any failure in a raid (read: death, wipe) is not caused by gear in the overwhelming majority of cases. Think about what caused the last wipes your group had. Standing in fire, not dispelling, not picking up adds, failure to "dance" correctly. None of these are solved by gear nor talents, thus making your gear and talents meaningless for their ability to help prevent a wipe.
Judge players by their performance - their ability to act or react to what can actually cause a failure (wipe) in a raid(crazy, idea I know) - including their DPS or healing output.
Quit perpetuating arbitraty definitions of skill.
Well, someone beat me to it, but I think you're wrong about the meaningful choices. Most choices are far more complex than just right and wrong, and meaning can come from the variances between the types of right and the shades of wrong. I'm no big proponent of "gray areas" arguments, and I like moral certainty as much as the next guy, but if there's a "right" and a "wrong" choice, then really there's no choice at all, whereas if there's choices that benefit X at the cost of Y and choices that benefit Y at the expense of X, well, that's when the cost-benefit analysis comes in, and it's that which makes a choice "meaningful."ReplyDelete
Take smoking for example; it's clear that choosing to smoke is the wrong choice for your health, yet many people do it anyway. These people aren't just flat stupid; some are incredibly intelligent, but they've simply analyzed the cost and the benefits and come to a conclusion that doctors disagree with. That doesn't make the doctors wrong or that they think the doctors are wrong, it's just them making a choice that's "wrong" in the eyes of a group with different priorities (health). The benefits of anyone's particular choice may be hidden from others, but that doesn't mean there aren't any benefits.
At any rate, when it comes to WoW, a person's priorities are what determine the benefit in any cost-benefit analysis. Just because some don't want to hear about them doesn't mean there aren't other priorities than raiding. That doesn't make these priorities any "healthier" than smoking, but the people who choose them do so because of perceived benefits (which is true of raiding, too), and no amount of discussion is going to change what they like. You might as well try to argue the spots off a leopard.
Nor does any of this mean that optimization is "bad." For a majority of players (admittedly, I'm only guessing it's a majority, but I think it's a safe guess), optimization is a very positive element of the game, and their priorities shouldn't be derided, either.
As Spinks said, I think it's the imposition of one group's priorities onto others that creates the problem. "Bad players" are only "bad" if they're imposing their un-optimized play on a group of people looking to raid. They're only "bad" if they themselves want to raid but can't due to lack of information, skill, or effort. Someone who doesn't care to raid nor does heroics with groups who wish to raid is in no way a "bad" player. In fact, by their own standards, they may be an excellent player, and if they're not interacting with people of different priorities, then that's the only standards that matter.
Great post, interesting discussion.
If I want a cabinet built, I go looking for a carpenter. If said carpenter is using a flamethrower or a broken saw to build this cabinet, I'll take my business elsewhere.
Gear is just a tool, but using the correct tool and ensuring the tool is in good condition are important to getting a job done.
I agree with you that most wipes aren't caused by a lack of gear, or a really poorly optimized spec, but as a raid leader, I only have so much criteria to judge potential raiders on. If I'm digging around for a PUG player because someone in my raid got sick, if I don't do the appropriate research, then I risk wasting the rest of my raiders' time because the PUGger I recruited could not contribute in a meaningful way.
The only such criteria that I have is looking at the tools of the potential raider. The gear, talents, glyphs, enchants, and gems that player has. Now, one could be "perfectly" optimized and still play poorly, but chances are if someone has a completely off-the-wall spec with wacky (or no) enchants, gems and glyphs, there is a high probability that player doesn't understand their class well enough to contribute, and potentially cause wipes.
If the gearing/spec/whatever is a little sub optimal? Eh, I personally won't care. There's so much to tweak between talents, glyphs, enchants, gems, gear and reforges that I doubt there's one be-all end-all optimal setup (and even if there were, individual skill levels would likely wipe out any such advantage).
If a player wants to try something completely wacky, or they don't want to take the time to put some effort into playing the game better, or their class better, all the power to them. They can play however they like, and they're happy and I'm happy.
But if they're trying to be in my raid, then I expect a certain level of competence and I can only measure that in so many ways without throwing them into the deep end of the pool and watch them sink or swim. When I have 8 other people to consider in my raid, I'm sorry, but I don't have the time nor my raiders' time to do that.
- Anonymous10:47 PM, May 04, 2011
@Talarian: If I wanted a cabinet I'd go to IKEA. Why do you feel you need a master cabinet maker for every single cabinet? What's wrong with just grabbing a functional one and going with it?ReplyDelete
> I disagree.ReplyDelete
> For a decision to be meaningful, there must be a right choice
> and a wrong choice. Taking the right choice makes it easier
> to be successful. Taking the wrong choice makes it harder.
I agree with you to some degree, but I think you're missing the point. I think it might be easier to think about this if you take a step back and think about games in general. Think about games that have stood the test of time like chess or go. Both of these games support different styles of play. Some players are more aggressive, some prefer to lock down the board, others are clever. Each of these are valid play styles and I would argue that's part of the reason the games are long-lived. They have relatively simple rules that allow for complex interactions that may take a lifetime to master and importantly, there is no one best style.
I believe this is where Ghostcrawler and the team want to take WoW. It's a tall order, but if you listen to the devs comments, they're in-line with this goal. They'd like WoW to be a game that lasts for a very long time. I believe they understand that in order to fufill that goal, they need to create a system that allows for meaningful choices, not simply optimal choices and sub-optimal choices. I believe it's an incredibly tall undertaking, one that I don't know if they'll be successful with, but one that I appreciate them attempting.
- Adrian7:10 AM, June 01, 2011
well my two cents fly by, watch out or youll get hit ;)ReplyDelete
I think kind of all of you are right. You do have the choice to use the "not-quite-optimum-but-still-doing-the-job"
You really DO have the choice, given your raidlead accepts it. It's all a matter of who you play with. Me as a raidlead myself do expect my guildies to use the optimal specc, the optimal lineup will be chosen if available and all that min-maxing stuff. But hey, that's fine, my guildies know that and they knew when they signed up for raiding. So that's how I like to do the encounters, and if they do not want to do it my way, they're not the players I want to play with.
That doesn't mean I don't respect their decision or think they're stupid for playing BM for example.
They just have other goals than me, and that's fine.
People tend to want all and everything but still don't contribute to it. I've seen soooo many players in my guild that wanted to down tier endbosses, but they refused to even gem or enchant, because they didn't want to. Well it's your decision not to gem, but you wont down the boss with a bunch of non-gemmed, non-enchanted players because it's not designed that way.
The fail really is that they want everything but are not willing to invest what they need to, a general failure in our society I think...

subset: commoncrawl


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U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
Women Sexually Harassed and Older Men Fired, Federal Agency Charged
DENVER – Arapahoe Motors, Inc., doing business as Ralph Schomp Automotive (Ralph Schomp), has agreed to pay $1.505 million and furnish other relief to settle a sex and age discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today. Ralph Schomp, based in Littleton, is one of the highest volume BMW, Honda, and Mini dealers in Colorado.
According to the EEOC's lawsuit (EEOC v. Arapahoe Motors, Inc., d/b/a Ralph Schomp Automotive, 09-cv-02961 REB-MJW), five women were subjected to sex discrimination and a sexually hostile work environment while employed by the car dealership. The unlawful conduct allegedly included offensive verbal comments and physical touching, demotion, refusal to transfer, salary reduction and failure to promote.
The EEOC also alleged that five older male employees were terminated because of their ages and replaced with younger, less experienced workers. Additionally, a manager in his twenties allegedly made age-related comments prior to the terminations and younger employees with lower sales numbers were retained.
"Sexual harassment and sex discrimination against women in traditionally male-dominated industries, such as the auto industry, are still unfortunate realities," said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. "Likewise, older workers continue to experience age discrimination, despite their experience, productivity and qualifications. Employers should remember that the EEOC is here to find and fight this kind of unlawful mistreatment."
In addition to the monetary settlement to be distributed among the 10 former employees, Ralph Schomp has agreed to enter into a two-year consent decree requiring it to post its anti-discrimination policy, provide training about anti-discrimination laws to its employees and managers, and make periodic reports to the EEOC.
EEOC Regional Attorney Mary Jo O'Neill of the Phoenix District, which includes Colorado, said. "We commend Ralph Schomp for addressing this case head-on, for being willing to work with our Denver Field Office to resolve it, and for its commitment to better educate its work force. We believe this consent decree will help foster a discrimination-free workplace going forward."
The EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.
The EEOC's Denver Field Office, located at 303 East 17th Avenue, Suite 410, in Denver, enforces federal anti-discrimination laws in Colorado and Wyoming.


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ORLANDO, Fla. - Anger and heartbreak has spread across an Orlando neighborhood after police said a burglar stabbed and killed a family's dog.
Late Wednesday evening, Orlando police released a sketch of the suspect, who they said broke into three houses along King Street in College Park and killed the 2-year-old boxer in the process.
The dog, named Wilson, was a puppy when he was given to the children of the family as a Christmas gift two years ago.
Cleanup crews spent the evening inside the home, as neighbors tried to understand why a burglar would kill the family's dog. The break-ins happened around lunchtime Wednesday, while most families were away at work, police said.
Leonard Mobley was one of the few neighbors home at the time. He told Local 6 he watched the man he described as "careless" walk casually between the homes.
"It's bad enough to be in the house, break into the home, but to kill the pet? That's pretty low," said Mobley, who watched the burglar back his car into one driveway and open the trunk.
Mobley said he had no idea the man inside was about to stab his neighbor's pet.
"The dog, there's no excuse for that. The guy, he didn't have to stab the dog. I don't think the dog would really have hurt him," said Mobley. "That really upsets you, you know. He might have killed someone else if they had been human."
For whatever reason, the dog at the neighbor's house was spared. The dog's owner told Local 6 he is grateful his dog survived, but angry another dog died. He said he suspects his dog survived because it rarely barks.
As police investigate the crime, the families affected are left to wonder why it happened.
Mobley's thoughts are on the family who lost their pet.
"They have their 10-year-old. They have to tell him something tonight. I don't know how they're going to approach that," he said.
OPD described the burglar as a white man in his late teens to early 20s with a thin build and blond hair. Police said he was last seen driving a newer model four-door car, possibly a Chevrolet Malibu. Anyone with information about the culprit is urged to call Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS.
Local 6 has learned another home was burglarized a few blocks away on Fairway Lane, where the dog was also harmed. Police said they're looking into the possibility that the two burglaries are related.
The American Bulldog, named Sweetie, suffered a cut on her head and her side, and her owner says he believes the same burglar struck his house.
"That would be the place to hit her, right in the face," said owner Tom Andrews. "I'm sure she was checking him out."
Andrews said his wife discovered the dog wandering loose outside their home when she returned from work. He said he also sympathizes with the family whose dog was killed.
"I feel bad for those other people who had their dog killed," said Andrews. " If I came home and she was dead, it would be very, very difficult for me to deal with."
Andrews said the burglar shattered a window to get into the kitchen and took jewelry, TVs and other valuables from his home.
"He stood on my air conditioner, which kind of bent it, and then went through the window here," said Andrews.
Watch Local 6 News and stay with ClickOrlando.com for more on this story.
Copyright 2013 by ClickOrlando.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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The Drama of Redemption
Today's passage contains the beautiful imagery of justice and peace (or mercy, as other translations put it) kissing each other. Our Father graciously restores peace between Himself and us in Christ Jesus. This peace is permanent, for it is not ...Read More
Redemption's Drama
Other people may treat us unjustly, but the Lord never does. His justice is perfect and will never condemn the righteous, nor will He let the sinner go unpunished. In Christ, the Father has judged His sinful people so that ...Read More


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Rotorua's Tarawera Trail
Deemed as one of NZ's next great walks, walking the Tarawera Trail is the perfect way to explore Lake Tarawera's Hot Water Beach.
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Rotorua's Tarawera Trail helps to make the picnic and camping spot of Hot Water Beach at Lake Tarawera easily accessible for walkers and hikers – albeit with a little effort.
The one-way walk is expected to take moderately fit walkers around 4-5 hours to complete. It winds around the lake from the Te Wairoa car park to Te Rata Bay (Hot Water Beach) for 11km.
Tarawera Trail Trust trustee Te Ohu Mokai Wi Kingi says the trail is set to become one of New Zealand's greatest walks.
"The volcanic backdrop, geothermal features of the lake, surrounding bush and cultural and historic stories make this trail one of a kind.
"We're expecting 33,000 people a year to walk the trail – or around 90 people per day."
Panels along the trail will educate walkers and hikers about the history and ecology of the area.
"The trail is a perfect addition to the region as it has a low impact on the environment and ensures tangata whenua, as kaitiaki of the area, continue the stories of their forefathers."
The Tarawera Trail was built in partnership between the Department of Conservation and several private Maori land blocks that border Lake Tarawera and the Te Wairoa Valley.
In October 2013 the trail was honoured by the gift of a carved wooden Pou, Ohomairangi, by Tourism New Zealand and Te Puia|NZMACI, acknowledging the local hapu, Ngati Hinemihi and Tūhourangi's significant contribution in establishing New Zealand's tourism industry.
Ngati Hinemihi and Tūhourangi were New Zealand's very first hosts, welcoming and guiding domestic and international visitors to the Pink and White Terraces on Lake Tarawera.
The Tarawera Trail is the first of the proposed network of trails, planned for development in the future, involving DOC and Maori private land owners to connect the 14 Te Arawa Lakes in the Rotorua region.


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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #4995 on:
July 19, 2017, 06:13:49 PM »
Saw the live-action version of Beauty and the Beast. Sort of unnecessary, but decent nonetheless. I liked the direction it took with its casting and acting, with a combo of stereotypical-sounding French characters and neutral-sounding characters still indicative of its setting, something I wish Personas 3-5 did with their voicework so the acting didn't sound completely race-lifted (hey, this is an RPG site, so...).
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #4996 on:
July 26, 2017, 06:42:05 PM »
Saw Spiderman: Homecoming while on vacation. It was fun, and enjoyable, but it isn't hard to see how Spidey's fortunes have changed since the start of the MCU. Once he was the most popular Marvel character, and arguably even more popular than Batman and Superman, but now he has to be awesome just to hang out with the Avengers, otherwise he gets yelled at and ignored. The action was also a little hard to follow. I still think the first and second Spiderman movies with Tobey Maguire are the best, but I think Spiderman: Homecoming comes in third place. Even though I think Andrew Garfield was probably the best casting choice for the character to date, the Amazing Spiderman movies were mostly garbage.
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #4997 on:
July 31, 2017, 01:55:14 AM »
Saw Spider-Man, too, and had a great time with it. Nothing else to say really, so I'll just post the song that was stuck in my head on the how from the theaters:
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #4998 on:
September 11, 2017, 08:12:09 AM »
I saw Dunkirk a few weeks back. I thought it was good, but at times a bit disorienting.
Also saw the new It a few days ago. Some really good performances from the young actors (I haven't watched Stranger Things so I'm not familiar with any of them), but the movie was just kinda "meh" overall for me. The discussion I've seen generated as a result of is a nice reminder of how fucking weird Stephen King's writing is, though.
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #4999 on:
September 14, 2017, 05:08:55 AM »
Ok I finally watched the mummy as I said the last of the two movies I'll ever watch going forward (old movies are ok)
But yeah I kinda knew why... this was going to be a weird experience.
So basically it boils down to Tom Cruise and his whole career IMO, which of course has had some pretty great moments. A Few Good Men, the Mission Impossibles, quite honestly, and dozens of other things.
However, at the end of the day, he's still just all around carefree Americana which is nice, I like that about him and everyone else has. Heck even the Jack Reacher series was pretty entertaining.
So when he gets caught up in the whole egypt and England and everything and he's all "Wait leave me out of this!" It's a pretty great thing, but that said... well spoilers..
Yeah he picks the dumb blonde aryan bitch, in the end, over a genuine Egyptian goddess.
And that seems to be the choice of most Americans these days, quite a tragedy, really, but whatever, their adults and free to make their own choices... quite honestly he should of been ecstatic to see her drowning, I know I was.
Also as far as value goes it's sadly a bit limited, the psychotically racist/extremist arch New Zealand English dickus villain Russel Crowe, who's rampaging homoerotic overtones were certainly noted in this movie, somehow manages to "survive" and so then the fact that dumb blonde german aryan bitch cunt survives along with Anglo-Saxon fuckwad while yet more Middle Eastern culture is brutalized for no particular reason strikes me as well..
Yeah, fuck this shit, I was already on the way out before these things, and I'm glad this movie was made and had some value, but it's pretty much the sine qua non of all that's fucked in modern America.
But hey, there's one more, which is the ultimate expression of American fuckery, Transformers: The Last White, which I will be enjoying hopefully sooner rather than later...
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5000 on:
October 04, 2017, 09:53:18 AM »
I watched Moana. I wasn't crazy about how Maui looked on the poster, but in the movie itself I thought he was a really great character. His intro brought to mind a bit of how the Genie was introduced in Aladdin.
Similar to how I felt about Frozen and especially Zootopia, this movie again made me think that Disney's really been upping their game in recent years while a lot of Pixar's movies have been kinda "eh" for me. It actually got me interested enough to do a bit of reading on Polynesian culture.
Also saw Spiderman Homecoming. After two reboots I had a really hard time working up any excitement for this one, which is why I passed on seeing it in the theater. I gotta say it won me over though. I really liked the villain especially, would not mind seeing more villains like him in the MCU. If I had any problem with it it's that I felt like Spiderman wasn't in any real danger the majority of the time. Some crazy shit happens but it feels like he always comes out the other end with very few scratches. I'd place it just under Spiderman 2.
Finally, on the recommendation of a movie buff, I saw a movie called Farewell My Concubine. It's apparently a really well-regarded film, and it didn't take too long into the film for me to see why. Like a lot of great drama films it's hard to explain why it's great simply via a summation since the plot itself is pretty simple. Definitely not a movie to watch if you're not in the mood to deal with some heavy things though.
Reading about the film afterwards was pretty interesting by itself. In a headscratching but nevertheless typical decision, after initial screenings the movie was nearly banned in China but just ended up censored after international outcry. Don't think I'll ever understand the reasoning for this sort of thing. That aside, reading about the director was pretty interesting too. The fact that the director himself was a Red Guard in his youth adds so much significance to several scenes of the film for me.
EDIT: I saw some more movies and stuff. I saw the Lego Batman movie and I liked it enough. It got a couple good laughs out of me but there was this really weird "assembly line" feeling permeating throughout the film for me.
Blade Runner 2049 was one of my most anticipated films this year, and I was really excited when I heard initial responses were positive.
Visually, I liked it a lot. Thematically is where the movie dropped the ball for me, and that's what made the first movie exceptional. I really loved the movie at first, and it did set up some very strong symbols and themes, but it really lost me around the second half, where I felt it became a really generic scifi movie.
I'm writing this just after seeing it, so maybe I need some more time to process everything from it, but for me, I knew the first Blade Runner was one of my favorite films the instant I finished it. This was not the case for 2049.
Last Edit: October 07, 2017, 12:27:59 PM by Hathen
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5001 on:
October 14, 2017, 01:30:26 PM »
I feel thematically, Blade Runner 2049 is much more strongly about the relationship you see with K and Joi --- or just generally the ideas about love. I thought it was an incredible and incredibly successful film in most regards and I'd love to double dip on it.
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5002 on:
October 15, 2017, 04:28:10 AM »
It actually wasn't so much the "second half" of the film that lost me so much as it was the last 30 minutes or so. Still, after having some time to process the film I appreciate it a little more now. Some parts of it still bother me though. Guess I'll go ahead with the spoilers since the movie's been out for a while now.
The final action scene in the ocean was very visually striking, but I didn't get much from it beyond that. The final confrontation between Roy and Deckard, beyond just being pretty, was Roy teaching Deckard what it felt like to be hunted. Given 2049's focus on the womb and the supposed difference between being human and not to being born from one, as something of a follow up to the first film's obsession with eyes, I thought what was going to happen was some kind of action scene that would be visually reminiscent of a birth scene. Instead we have Luv declaring how she's the best, then K drowns her. I've tried thinking of how this sequence might've linked back to the themes or symbols the film was setting up, but I'm coming up with nothing.
There's also a part of me that thought Deckard's inclusion felt a bit unnecessary. The scene where he's talking to Wallace was the only one I felt was good (though strictly speaking I don't think you even really need Deckard in the room to pose that same question). I don't think it really matters if Deckard meets his daughter, plot-wise or thematically, so I thought it was a bit of an odd note to end the film on. On the other hand, the shots with the real/fake snowflakes on the hands at the end was really nice.
Also the inclusion of the resistance aspect of the plot was a bit out of left-field for me. It didn't feel like it really added anything at all and almost felt like a bad sequelbait scene.
Also I watched Donnie Darko and The Foreigner. I watched the former via Director's Cut, which I hear is some great blasphemy, but nevertheless I thought the film was fine. Kinda reminds me of Fight Club in that someone of a certain age will really love the film, but only because they completely misinterpret the point. The latter contains a hackneyed and convoluted conspiracy plot somewhat buoyed up by some good performances from Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan. If you have a burning passion to see Jackie Chan with a dead serious grimace on his face I guess this is the film for you. It did have a couple scenes of Jackie Chan beating the crap out of people though, which we all know is the only reason people ever watch him.
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5003 on:
October 15, 2017, 04:07:23 PM »
The Incredibles was on TV so I watched it. I feel like this is one of the more underrated Pixar films (at least among the general populace because critics really liked it), but man is it good. I love how it's more about the family dynamic than the superhero stuff and that it tackles more adult themes like the midlife crisis. I also liked the depth of the antagonist. Comic book and superhero films have evolved big time since The Incredibles, but even now I would have to say that The Incredibles remains one of my favorite superhero movies. (I know I raved about the Guardians of the Galaxy films, but I consider them "comic book" films rather than "superhero" films, since none of the GOTG characters are superheroes in the traditional sense.)
I hear The Incredibles is getting a sequel next year. I hope it's good. From what I understand, the creator had been thinking about doing a sequel for years, but didn't want to until he felt it was 100% "right."
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5004 on:
October 15, 2017, 05:30:49 PM »
(1922): This is one of the earliest vampire movies, if not the first. Being from the silent movie era, there are some aspects that might seem cheesy to a modern audience, but this film is still genuinely creepy. Count Orlok (portrayed by Max Schreck) is a monstrous character, more a daemonic predator than a well-dressed gentleman of class. Wherever he goes, he is accompanied by rats and pestilence. He does not turn his victims to vampires, but kills them outright.
Some elements which today would be considered cliche, even comedic, appear here with the force of originality; it's hard not to cringe when Orlok rises from his coffin. One of the more memorable scenes was Orlok walking through a town, carrying his coffin lightly under his arm like so much baggage, an almost absurd juxtaposition of the mundane and the eldritch.
There are technical issues here (I guess night scenes could not be shot at night with 1920's film technology), but the cinematography is remarkable for the era, especially in the use of shadow.
Here's a picture of the Count, to trouble your dreams.
(1931): This is acclaimed as a classic, but I have no idea why. This movie is boring. The pacing (and dialogue) are slow, the acting is uninspired, and the overall effect is about as frightening as a head of cabbage. Bela Lugosi's Dracula isn't even interesting enough to be a potential target for parody; but at least van Helsing occasionally slips into mad-scientist territory.
Even by 1930's standards, the special effects are pathetic. The bat is obviously being dangled from a fishing pole or somesuch (at least the wire wasn't obvious), Dracula passing intangibly through a giant spider web is implied by cutting away, and then back again (better to have left the scene out), and too much is done off-screen. Dracula bites someone? Off-screen. Dracula gets staked? Off-screen. Dracula turns into a wolf? We have to be
about it, second hand. Forget about seeing the transformation, we don't even get to see stock-footage of a wolf running away! When the subject of werewolves came up, Nosferatu at least provided a shot of some sort of wild dog.
Last Edit: October 15, 2017, 05:33:29 PM by ironmage
Posts: 143
Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5005 on:
October 16, 2017, 03:54:39 AM »
Finally got my Movie Pass card. I'm pretty sure it runs on dark magic but I cant wait to use it.
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5006 on:
October 24, 2017, 01:15:27 PM »
Saw Thor: Ragnarok because as usual, Marvel movies get an earlier international release.
I thought the first Thor movie was incredibly bland, even compared to other Marvel origin stories, so I never saw the second one...or at least I don't think I saw it, if I did it was so forgettable I forgot I even saw it. Hmm. Anyway I quite enjoyed this one. For some it might lean a little too much into the humor but I found it a lot more enjoyable than the first one. I don't think it was as good as Guardians 2 or Spiderman: Homecoming but I liked it went all-in with the silliness inherent to the Thor character so there's a lot more variety to the visuals and is generally a fun time. The former two balanced the more serious character moments with the fun bits a lot better than this movie did though.
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5007 on:
October 24, 2017, 03:59:46 PM »
Happy Death Day was a lot better than I was expecting. I was worried the trailer spoiled too much but there was a lot more to the movie.
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5008 on:
November 19, 2017, 05:50:12 AM »
I saw Doctor Strange, one of the MCU films I skipped on partly due to never hearing of the character. It has the same annoying cliches found in almost every Marvel movie, including a bad villain and throwaway female characters, but I will say that this movie is visually a lot more interesting than the other MCU films, and the ending action sequence and resolution were especially enjoyable.
Also watched the Power Rangers movie hoping for a movie I could endlessly make fun of, and was disappointed to find what I would consider a competently made movie. Was hoping for a cheesy/campy movie, but it played it more like a typical modern superhero movie. I feel that was a mistake since that puts it in competition with the oversaturated superhero market, and it falls pretty short in that light. It does have one hilarious line I remember though, but it was totally unintentional, along the lines of "You've done awful things, but that doesn't make you an awful person."
War For The Planet Of The Apes. Was hoping to see this in theaters but never got the time to when it was out. Not much to say other than that it was another great entry in a great series, though I personally liked Dawn a bit more. It makes me glad that this series has done pretty well because it shows there's still a way for the more serious and thoughtful scifi movies to do well, though I guess it helped that it's part of one of the most famous scifi IPs around.
Finally I also saw Looper. I honestly found it a bit predictable, but it was definitely one of the better scifi movies I've seen. It's also nice to see Bruce Willis in a relatively recent role where it looks like he actually gives a shit.
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Re: Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back
Reply #5009 on:
December 10, 2017, 04:22:14 PM »
I was clearing up some space on my PVR.
Annie Hall
(1977): This critically acclaimed romantic comedy won four Academy Awards (including beating
Star Wars
for Best Picture). I think these accolades undeserved. The characters were unlikeable, the relationship uninteresting, and the plot practically nonexistent.
The overall effect was that of a badly-paced, overlength Seinfeld episode, with most of the comedy edited out. Allen's one-liners consistently failed to amuse; although he tries to present himself as an intellectual, he comes across as more pretentious than anything else. (There's more insight into the human condition in the opening narration of a certain Monogatari episode than in this whole movie).
Perhaps if I stretch it, I could try to appreciate this as some sort of self-parody (a movie that mocks pretentiousness). But given how tedious it was as a whole, I think that would be giving it too much credit.
The breaking of the fourth wall was an interesting device, and admittedly done effectively here...and perhaps if I wasn't so horribly bored I might have appreciated it better.
The H-Man
(1958): This is a Japanese monster film by the same production team as
. H-bomb testing creates a liquid monster which consumes people, leaving nothing behind but their clothes (it occasionally assumes vaguely humanoid form, hence the "-Man"). Although there are some creepy moments, this isn't at the same level as
, and doesn't offer enough to make it recommendable. However, it easily outclasses
Annie Hall
for entertainment value.
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"Death at a Funeral"
Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan star in Neil LaBute's remake of the British comedy about a family whose secrets are laid bare when they gather to say goodbye to their father.
We don't waste our time on anything not worth your time. We celebrate the best of what's coming on film and TV. We cheer when our expectations are met and criticize when we're let down.


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Proposed tobacco settlement excludes Black media
George E. Curry | 1/16/2014, midnight
It is ironic that the tobacco industry is bypassing Black media while complying with a federal order to disclose its deception when in the past it used the Black media to target African American consumers.
"The tobacco industry has gone to great lengths to target the African American community over the past 30 years," the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids stated. "Through market research and aggressive advertising, the industry has successfully penetrated this population. The industry's 'investment' in the African American community has had a destructive impact: African Americans suffer the greatest burden of tobacco-related mortality of any ethnic or racial group in the United States."
The anti-smoking group also explained, "…There is compelling evidence that tobacco companies not only advertise disproportionately in communities with large African American populations, they also create advertising specifically targeted to these communities. Cigarette ads highly prevalent in African American communities and publications are often characterized by slogans, relevant and specific messages, or images that have a great appeal among those in the Black community, or that depict African Americans in an appealing light. Contrary to how Blacks are typically portrayed in the media, cigarette ads portray images of African Americans who are happy, confident, successful and wealthy, in love, attractive, strong and independent."
The tobacco industry was among the first to make inroads into the Black community by contributing to Black causes and developing close personal relationships with Black leaders.
For example, A. Shaunise Washington, president of executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, was Vice President for Government Affairs, Policy and Outreach for Altria. Prior to joining Altria, she was Director of Washington Relations for Philip Morris. In addition to serving on the CBC Foundation's Corporate Advisory Council, Washington was chairwoman of the CBC Foundation Board of Directors from March 2012 to February 2013.
Jim Winston, Executive Director of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, told Target Market News: "The health of the African American community has suffered disproportionately from the advertising campaigns of the tobacco companies, and Black owned media has been demonstrated to be the best way to engage the African American community. Yet, now that the tobacco companies are being required to educate the public about the harm that tobacco products have caused, the companies and the DOJ have no plan to direct any educational advertising to our communities."
Both Winston and Cloves Campbell said they plan to contact the Justice Department and ask it to direct tobacco companies to include Black-owned print and broadcast media in their public education buys. If that fails, Campbell said, NNPA will take stronger action.
He said, "If our newspapers aren't good enough to advertise in, their products – including the non-tobacco ones – aren't good enough for us to consume."


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Spigit API
Use the Spigit API to quantify social network exchanges, improve innovation, extract ideas from employees, and see who major contributors to the enterprise's social sites are. Spigit's core products, InnovationSpigit and IdeaSpigit, are used by Fortune 500 companies to aid both internal and external innovation and idea management initiatives. No public docs, so fill out their API form to obtain the docs: www.spigit.com/documents/api.html.


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Beauty Research Releases Top 10 Gifts for Valentine's Day 2013
Beauty Research, a beauty blogging web site, released this year's list of Top 10 Valentine's Day Gifts. The extensive list includes choices for him and her and features fragrance sets, candy and snack combinations, candles and more. The list also includes details about each gift along with recommendations about where to purchase. Every year both men and women struggle to find the perfect give for their loved ones for Valentine's Day. Top 10 lists have become popular because they are assembled by experts, taking the guess work out of purchasing gifts.
"Looking for great gifts for your honey? Well, have we got the scoop for you. Just turn on your computer and head straight to Beauty.com and you will have your special Valentine smiling from ear to ear! Fellas! Virtually every lady loves beautiful, quality makeup and Stila Cosmetics is a popular brand that virtually every woman adores. You'll have her gushing with delight if you choose the fabulous STILA Valentine's Day Palette 2013. It's the perfect pairing along with a nice dinner and flowers. The colors are beautiful and your woman will be flattered by the message of love written right into the eye shadow. Another top gift choice from beauty.com is the philosophy i heart you gift set. It contains a gorgeous scented lotion and a silky shampoo and body gel that will leave her feeling as luxurious as she truly is." Writes Karen of Beauty Research
See the full blog posting featuring the Top 10 Gifts for Valentine's Day 2013 at BeautyResearch.com.
Top 10 Gifts for Valentine's Day
Beauty Research covers a variety of topics on the subject of beauty and health. Check out these recent blog postings:
Shine from Head to Toe - Frederic Fekkai and Fusion Beauty
"Feeling shiny and beautiful from head to toe is not only a lovely thought...it's highly doable thanks to two professional brands known as Frederic Fekkai and Fusion Beauty! Fabulous Frederic Fekkai offers a special line of products known as Frederic Fekkai Brilliant Glossing. And Fusion Beauty long known for their exploding mega shine lip plumpers and glosses are just what you'll want to keep your face brilliant with radiance and shine. Get sexy, shiny, luminous brilliance with Frederic Fekkai products and Fusion Beauty lip care." Writes Karen of Beauty Research
10 Yummy Snacks that will Keep you Thin
"Most Americans these days find that they are always on the go. Just like everyone, even the busiest of us get hungry and would love to grab a quick and easily accessible snack. Unfortunately, the quick grab-and-go snack is most likely chockfull of calories and saturated fats. Although, there are some great options out there for people who want to stay thin; but don't want to sacrifice flavor or go hungry. While on the road, the best snack option would be something that fits easily in a plastic baggie that you can bring from home...as opposed to getting fast food or take out." Writes Karen of Beauty Research
Beauty Research is a beauty blogging web site started by two experienced skin care enthusiasts wishing to share tips and suggestions. The Top 10 Gifts for Valentine's Day 2013 article as well as a Top 10 Gifts for Valentine's Day 2013 forum can be found at BeautyResearch.com.


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Listing the best affiliate programs online can be trivial. You are doing your research and you would like to have a nice list displaying all of the links you like to click on to start up your online business in affiliate marketing. Unfortunately, no such list exists. At least not a true, comprehensive list. There are just too many programs and affiliate opportunities out there to compile such a list. Companies are changing and adding affiliate programs all of the time. The best affiliate programs are out there, you just need to know what to look for.
I assume you are researching affiliate marketing and are wanting to know which programs are the best and which affiliate programs provide you with the most income. Just like all people searching for ideas to make money online, you come across articles that talk of the benefits of one program and how it is a no-miss situation. I can tell you now, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Affiliate marketing can be very lucrative. It is also a good bit of work. It is something that you can learn and do part-time. To be successful at it, you just need to tell yourself to keep at it. It takes perseverance, dedication and a salesman attitude. You are ultimately trying to get people to sign up or purchase something online.
Now what do the best affiliate programs available offer you as a potential business partner? The best programs will not only provide you with links to sign up and introduce you to the affiliate programs they ultimately want you to join. (They want to make money off of you as well.) The best programs will also educate you on how to be successful in affiliate marketing. Why would they do that? Because ultimately in affiliate marketing, the goal is to build a team of marketers that will go out and sell the same products that you do. That is where you can begin to make residual income and basically make money while you sleep. That is where all of your upfront efforts in bringing people to your website will eventually pay off.
Another sign of the best affiliate programs on the web is transparency. You need to trust that the money and time you are spending is worth it. If you can see the process and understand how the programs work, you will ultimately be more invested in the business. You do not want to work for a company that hides its practices and does not allow you to have insight into how the programs work. Just think if your normal day job operated in such a manner, you would not last two weeks. Being open and honest is the only way to go. If the person or company you are working with in affiliate marketing is not willing to answer personal emails or allow you the opportunity to talk to them on the phone, you probably do not want to get involved.
This brings me to my last sign of the best affiliate programs on the internet, support. Affiliate marketing is all about building a team of marketers and working with others to help sell products. Therefore, it would make sense that most of these programs have a large following or sales force that can be considered a small community. If you do not see support or feel supported by a larger community of like-minded folks who are also selling the program, then I would not consider them to be in the list of best affiliate programs out there.
All in all, find something that fits you. Find something you enjoy writing and talking about. Learn the technology behind internet marketing and you will be able to build your own affiliate marketing empire and you just might be able to add yourself to the list of best affiliate programs out there.


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Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles to Host Another 'CMA Country Christmas'
When country's finest return to Nashville's Bridgestone Arena to film this year's 'CMA Country Christmas' special on November 10, there will be some familiar faces on stage — starting with the event's host.
As she did last year, Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles will emcee the evening, which finds country stars sharing personal stories and performing some of their favorite holiday songs.
"I love holiday traditions and am so excited to add hosting 'CMA Country Christmas' to my new list of traditions now!" Nettles said. She added, "I'm gonna have to up my game this second time around, so I'm putting Brad and Carrie on speed dial for hosting emergency consulting services!"
"Brad and Carrie," of course, refers to Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, who will be doing their own repeat performance as hosts of the CMA Awards the night before. Paisley was one of last year's 'CMA Country Christmas' performers, though no lineup has been announced for this year's event.


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Reg: Oct 6th 2005
Location: Scotland
Wednesday, February 11th 2009, 1:34pm
Wednesday, February 11th 2009, 6:04pm
Reg: Oct 6th 2005
Location: Scotland
Wednesday, February 11th 2009, 6:26pm
Wednesday, February 11th 2009, 9:14pm
Reg: Oct 10th 2005
Location: Wales
Thursday, February 12th 2009, 12:56pm
Reg: Feb 12th 2009
Location: London
Monday, February 16th 2009, 10:22am
Thursday, February 19th 2009, 1:30pm
Thursday, February 19th 2009, 1:34pm
Thursday, February 19th 2009, 1:51pm
This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "landi" (Feb 19th 2009, 2:03pm)
Thursday, February 19th 2009, 1:52pm
Thursday, February 19th 2009, 10:26pm
Thursday, February 19th 2009, 11:23pm
Thursday, February 19th 2009, 11:28pm
Friday, February 20th 2009, 5:11pm
Reg: Jul 13th 2008
Location: Hampshire
Friday, February 20th 2009, 5:25pm
Saturday, February 21st 2009, 12:09am
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Another year, another big weekend at Reading and Leeds festival. DiS sent along some of our finest scribes and asked them to scribble about their five favourites of the weekend. Here's what we got back from them...
Kev Eddy
Few of the rash of Eighties, Nineties and early Noughties bands that have recently reformed have endured quite as much vitriol for the act as Rage Against the Machine have. They've been lambasted for cynical money-grabbing, the betrayal of the anti-corporate principles the group originally espoused, and for not having any principles in the first place. However, none of it matters from the second they step on stage. From the opening chords of 'Testify', the sheer fury of their set makes you feel like you're 17 again, when things were simpler, when we were right and they were wrong. Who cares if they're just in it for the cash? It still sounds fucking awesome.
Saturday morning is, to be fair, a rather woolly-headed place on planet Leeds. Praise be for Cardiff's finest, Future of the Left, whose blistering set blow the cobwebs away with no remorse. Altogether now: 'Colin is a pussy, a very pretty pussy...'
Whatever happened to straight-up punk rock? Fucked Up know. A Ramones-esque riot that impels you to dance, jump and get your fist in the air.
Blimey. Someone's got a chip on their shoulder. Do you think Bloc Party came to Leeds expecting a fight? From Kele's sulky demeanor, it certainly seems that way. That attitude permeates the set – but if anything only makes it more edgy: first-album favourites like 'Banquet', 'This Modern Love' and 'So Here We Are' sounding better than they have for years.
Sleazy, dirty, nasty and drug-fueled: Queens of the Stone Age might be the perfect Reading/Leeds band. They're on top form tonight: it's not about individual songs, more about making a primal noise that hits you in the base of the stomach and makes you want to get naked – then strip the person next to you.
Rob Webb
MGMT's early evening set at Leeds on Saturday night was one of those festival moments when everything came together. The band, the songs, and the crowd all worked in perfect harmony to leave us beaming from ear-to-ear. My previous MGMT live experiences have been mixed (ranging from the atrocious at Primavera Sound, to their more-than-satisfactory Glastonbury set). This time even the stuff you might call 'filler' on their otherwise excellent debut Oracular Spectacular shone through. Where once their not-infrequent forays into wig-out territory sounded a little indulgent, now the band carry them off with aplomb. If only for these forty minutes, they elevated themselves into the same league as those great psychedelic pop bands that their recorded output suggests they'd love to emulate.
MGMT by Holly Erskine
Elsewhere, much of the excitement was reserved for newer bands, with the BBC Introducing and Festival Republic stages hosting their fair share of gems, including a triple header at Leeds of **Dinosaur Pile-Up* (Foo Fighters meets Weezer), Wild Beasts (right now, nobody else does interesting pop this well) and *Pulled Apart By Horses**, who delivered the most intense, raucous, and faintly ridiculous live performance we've seen in a while. Who in their right mind crowdsurfs off the Introducing stage?
Foals trashing the stage after their set got cut short was pretty funny too. Previously, they'd reminded us of the real reason why they're hated by so many people: namely they're very, very, very good, and your band, well, probably isn't. Justice, who followed them, were pretty perky - but isn't everyone a bit sick of 'We Are Your Friends' after hearing it, ooh, fifty billion times... this week. Apparently not, as it slays the dancefloor as usual.
Finally, everybody should go on the Ferris wheel at the fairground at least once. Preferably at 3am. Wearing a stupid hat. Next year? Go on then...
Sadie Gabriel
Metallica are a festival's best friend. They are loud, like to blow shit up, and generally crank out a greatest hits set with a couple of surprises. But it wasn't until the setlist from Friday's show in Leeds turned up in Berkshire, that we realised we were in for a special show. New songs 'Cyanide' and 'The Day That Never Comes' sound interesting and were well received. It might not have been in a tent (circa Download Festival 2003), but it was louder than anyone else on the stage this weekend and they still rip it up like it's 1985.
Alexisonfire are a tremendous gang of growls and guitars. Dallas Green's voice is their star strike, the reason they rise above the rest of hardcore world. Despite rumours of inner-band acrimony and a raft of suitably noisy side projects, Alexisonfire tear apart the main stage.
"Here it is again, yet, it stings like the first time…", sings Alkaline Trio boss Matt Skiba. Despite the fact that one of his best friends died this week of a massive brain hemorrhage, Skiba stuck it out and spat out his second splitting stories over his Mike Ness world of power chug guitars. The Lock Up stage was a richer place for having seen the dark, eyeball rock of Agony and Irony's Calling All Skeletons and the nailgun pop punk of From Here To Infirmary's Private Eye.
There is a certain affinity for Biffy Clyro 'round these parts... they've always been a consummate DiS band; full of angles, melodies and yells, slowly increasing in size over the years while continuing to appeal to their rabid community. This has, also, been the band's year as far as festivals are concerned. Their sixth Reading appearance (although it feels like it could/should be more) sees an accomplished late afternoon mainstage show. Smashing through the start with Puzzle's 'Saturday Superhouse' and pop guzzler 'Who's Got A Match?', the band end with the pounding drums and slow growing guitars of 'Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies' and Blackened Sky's oldie '57'.
Emmy The Great has a voice that will break your heart and sew it back together within the same song. Her world of indie folk has long been ignored by the industry and masses, while anyone she has ever spent an afternoon with has been lauded as a fully employed pop star (Noah and The Whale, Dev Lightspeed Champion, Johnny Flynn etc.). But this, her first official turn at Reading, is a great moment, a beautiful run of strings and harmonies. If this year's festival will go down for its major hardcore turns, Emmy should have had the biggest circle pit of the festival.
Foals by Holly Erskine
Kate Hewett
There are some definite organisational 'issues' at this weekend's Leeds Festival. Primarily the attempt to cram an unfeasibly large number of bands into an improbably short space of time. Nonetheless, it's the bands who face a certain amount of adversity who fare the best.
Take Yeasayer, for example, whose measly 15-minute turnaround leaves them electrocuting themselves on their own kit. Or Foals, who find themselves somewhat unceremoniously banished from the stage before the end of their set as a result of a delayed start.
Yeasayer play an absolute 'blinder', never letting on that anything is amiss, their sound perfectly pitched to wake up each and every bleary-eyed festival-goer who should happen to step into the now-gargantuan Radio 1/NME tent this Friday morning.
Foals, on the other hand, tackle their difficulties in a somewhat more petulant manner. Drawing on the crowd's enraptured enthusiasm for their set thus far, they stoically refuse to leave the stage, even after organisers begin turning their equipment off. Yannis darts around, mic in hand, in an attempt to beat the sound guy to every remaining switched-on amp, whilst Jack Bevan continues to batter his drumkit right up until his forcible ejection from the stage.
Similar goings-on abound on the BBC Introducing stage where, on Thursday night, Leeds-based label Dance To The Radio open the festival with a showcase of exciting new talent. Unfortunately, the stage's top two bands - Scottish ensemble Broken Records and Grammatics - have to contend with the eleventh hour inclusion of a 20 minute surprise set from the Pigeon Detectives. A definite crowd-pleaser, certainly, but when allowed to play on undisturbed well beyond their allocated set time, the new princes of ruffian-pop leave their more sensitive counterparts with little more than a quarter of an hour apiece to play with.
Lucky, then, that both bands are more than capable of cramming a set's-worth of imagination into little more than three songs each. Indeed, Broken Records' noisy, chaotic, multi-instrumentalism and Grammatics' thoughtful, intelligent art-pop serve only to remind us just what's great about the host city's music scene.
The spirit of triumphing over adversity extends, even, to the Main Stage, where British Sea Power find themselves facing a paltry crowd mid-afternoon on Sunday, following a somewhat bizarre scheduling decision.
A band who have spent a number of years cementing their live reputation, it seems nonsensical to take them out of their comfort zone rather than having them headline one of the smaller stages - a challenge they've proved themselves more than capable of meeting over the years.
As they embark on a Do You Like Rock Music-heavy set, though, it becomes apparent how unfounded our fears that they couldn't meet the dual challenge of the Main Stage and a somewhat lacklustre times lot were. Arriving at a stunning, stripped-down rendition of 'No Lucifer', the Brighton-based quartet have no trouble reiterating just why they're one of our great live bands.
And that's the impressive thing about this weekend: in spite of the numerous technical problems overcome throughout the course of the four days, and in the face of a largely uninspiring line-up, Leeds Festival once again manages to come up with more than enough to impress.


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Additional details were released Tuesday about a kidnapping Sunday evening that left a 23-year-old Niceville woman seriously injured.
Additional details were released Tuesday about a kidnapping Sunday evening that left a 23-year-old Niceville woman seriously injured.
Investigators believe Bethany Stanley was tied up, beaten and burned on her face with a cigarette before she was rescued by sheriff�s deputies late Monday afternoon, according to arrest reports from the Okaloosa County Sheriff�s Office.
Three people have been charged in connection to the crime. Investigators were trying Tuesday to find two other women Stanley said were involved.
Brittany Anne Plitt, 22, and Heather Marie Sutton, 23, have been charged with aggravated battery, kidnapping and robbery. Chase Brandon Stewart, 28, has been charged with being a principal to kidnapping.
The motive appears to be linked to accusations that Stanley stole �illegal drugs� from Plitt and Sutton�s home in Fort Walton Beach, the reports state.
Law officers were tipped off about the suspected kidnapping about 2 p.m. Monday when a babysitter met with Sutton and Plitt in a parking lot on Mary Esther Cut-Off to pick up a 3-year-old child. It was not clear in the reports whose child it was.
While there, the babysitter noticed Stanley �bound and beaten� on the floorboard of the truck Sutton and Plitt were in, the report said. The babysitter called authorities.
Deputies began searching for the truck described by the babysitter and found it about 2� hours later at Stewart�s home on Calhoun Avenue in Destin. Stewart, Plitt, Sutton and Stanley were there, according to the Sheriff�s Office.
The victim was treated and released from Fort Walton Beach Medical Center, according to Sheriff�s Office spokeswoman Michele Nicholson.
In interviews following the rescue, deputies pieced together a sequence of events.
According to the report, Stanley met Plitt and Sutton on Sunday evening at a convenience store on Racetrack Road in Fort Walton Beach and willingly went with them to a home on Hollywood Boulevard.
When they entered the home, Plitt, Sutton and two other women attacked Stanley, the report said. Stanley said she was tied up, beaten more and driven around until they arrived at Stewart�s house on Monday. While there, the victim said Stewart told her to �not look at him or he would kill her.�
Stanley said they took her purse, which contained $87.


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NEW YORK (AP) — A new report finds that President Barack Obama's re-election campaign has run more than twice as many TV ads in nine key states as has the campaign of his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.
The Nielsen Co. said Friday that Obama's campaign had run nearly 230,000 ads in Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire from the beginning of the year through early September, compared with about 87,000 for Romney. All are considered battlegrounds this year, with both candidates competing heavily in those states for votes.
The biggest disparity was in Ohio.
Obama's campaign ran just over 51,000 ads in the state compared to nearly 17,500 for Romney. No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio, and recent polls show Obama ahead there.
Wisconsin, the home state of running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, is the only state where Romney has edged the president in ads.
Nielsen said Romney's campaign had run 1,952 ads there compared to 1,391 for Obama.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.


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Maybe it is to the extent that Marc could read the message board and be offended by it.Johnny Guitar wrote:That's harsh and uncalled for.
Otherwise no - in my opinion, it is an accurate description of the trajectory of his playing career since he burst onto the scene in 2011 with 8 goals in 21 league games. He has only just turned 26 years and I hope he does brilliantly with Glenavon and revives his career - but I'm not holding my breath
That comment says more about you than me JGJohnny Guitar wrote: I would expect something like that from a kid but a fully grown adult of your vintage


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Unworthy at the Table
God truly loves His people, but there is nothing in us that makes us worthy of such love. He saves us on account of His promises to Christ and His love for Him. What a marvelous blessing! Because He loves ...Read More
David's Great Friendship
As the people of God, we must be especially careful never to show loyalty to the wrong people and we must be worthy of the trust of our friends and family. This can be easier said than done at times ...Read More
Saul "Troubles the Land"
Saul was something of a Pharisee—he required more from his men than God did. We, of course, are prone to the same sort of behavior, dreaming up guidelines for ourselves and others that God never lays upon us. Beware ...Read More
The Faith of Jonathan
In his faith, courage, and willingness to wait on God, Jonathan compares favorably to Saul. In human terms, it is a tragedy that Saul's sin prevents Jonathan from coming to Israel's throne. But Jonathan accepts God's judgment ...Read More


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Brisbane Trike Tours offers an exciting, fun and unique way of seeing the real Brisbane as only locals know it. The choices are yours: a quick spin around town showing off the beautiful heritage buildings, or a longer tour to the World Heritage rainforests to the South, the spectacular Scenic Rim mountains to the West or the breathtaking mountain roads with ocean views to the North. Tours even extend to iconic Byron Bay along the tree-lined winding roads of the Northern New South Wales hinterland.
The riders are motorcyclists with decades of experience, a clean driving record, and are accredited, police checked and carry all necessary insurances. Helmets, jackets and gloves are supplied. Packaged tours are on offer, or can be designed just for you. Surprise rides for special occasions are a speciality as are events such as fundraising, photo opportunities, weddings, formals and corporate events.
The vehicle is a state of the art, fully imported Boom Mustang Thunderbird trike, kept in immaculate condition and regularly serviced and safety-checked for your comfort and safety. Riding on 'The Bling Queen' (as the Boom Trike is called) is a never to be forgotten experience you will cherish for many years to come.
See a part of living in Brisbane few tourists see. This is a leisurely longer tour through Brisbane's bayside suburbs visiting Redland Bay, Victoria Point, Cleveland Point and cruising along the water's edge through the bayside suburbs of Wynnum and Manly with time to stop for good old fashioned fish and chips by the bay if you wish. Brisbane's Moreton Bay is home to many islands and islets and the drive encompasses early bayside suburban dwellings, heritage sites along the foreshores, protected mangrove growth areas and a mountain drive with surprisingly extensive views.
Choice of either a slow-paced progression along the Old Pacific Highway which runs parallel to the new motorway, or the faster-paced ride along the Pacific Motorway itself before turning towards the mountains at Oxenford to wind your way up to lovely cool Tamborine Mountain, taking in the beautiful fresh air and views of waterfalls, ferns and towering gum-trees, listen to the tinkling sound of the Tamborine Mountain bellbirds. Arrive in style at Tamborine Mountain's boutique and gallery walk precinct full of interesting art, books, jewellery, antiques and cafes. Other places of interest in the area include wineries, boutique brewery, cheese factory, gardens, Rainforest Skywalk, O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat, Thunderbird Park.
Take a spin and be seen riding in style around Brisbane's Central Business District's major streets. See heritage buildings such as Customs House, Parliament House, Tower Mill and the earliest existing building from Brisbane's convict past, the Commissariat Store.
Touring on the trike provides a wonderful open air perspective to view the buildings and hear the sounds of the city (lots of people will be waving to you too!). Then its through the Ivory Street tunnel and over Brisbane's iconic Story Bridge to see Brisbane from the vantage point of the Kangaroo Point cliffs across the river.
Beautiful tour taking in mountains and the sea - Gold Coast hinterland and the Old Pacific Highway through the Burringbar Ranges before arriving at world-renowned Byron Bay, visiting the famous lighthouse at the easternmost point of the Australian mainland. Plenty of time for shopping and lunch and maybe even a swim!
This tour takes in Brisbane Central Business District's major streets featuring heritage buildings such as Customs House, Parliament House, Tower Mill and the old Commissariat Store. See the building where Douglas Macarthur had his office in World War Two and the nearby General Post Office, formerly the site of the old Female Factory (prison) during Brisbane's convict days.
You'll then leave the Central Business District and travel up the steep climb to Spring Hill and nearby Petrie Terrace and Paddington to see some of the earlier homes, before touring through the beautiful gardens of the Roma Street Parklands on the site of the old railway yards. The tour continues to South Brisbane to view the old dry dock at the Maritime Museum before taking in the view of Brisbane from the Kangaroo Point cliffs and returning to the Central Business District via the Story Bridge.
This tour encompasses much of the 'City Sights By Day' and 'Heritage Brisbane' tours, but then continues out of the Central Business District along Coronation Drive beside the Brisbane River to Mt Coot-tha lookout, taking time out for viewing and taking photos, and returning through some of Brisbane's quintessential inner city suburbs featuring super steep streets and iconic Queenslander homes on stilts clinging precariously to equally steep blocks of land where just driving to and from home is akin to a roller-coaster ride! Now from the perspective of a trike, that's something to write home about.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).


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London's leading specialists in booking bespoke entertainment for corporate events, private parties, weddings, product launches and more. Preferred supplier for around a hundred unique London venues, we know the acts you love and the ones you're going to love – you just don't know it yet.
We pride ourselves on being able to provide entertainment for every occasion - big or small. In fact, we'd go as far to say that if we haven't got the act you're after, it probably doesn't exist. However, we won't let that stop us, if what you want doesn't exist, we'll create it – just for you. We can create, change, choreograph, collaborate, costume and combine acts to suit your individual theme, brief, message and budget.


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You've heard all about Long Island merlot, but what about the Malbec? Merlot might rule this over-grown sand bar, but Malbec, the large, easy-to-ripen black grape best known as Argentina's premier variety, is showing surprising potential in Long Island's maritime environment.
It has been grown, and used, on Long Island for quite some time—usually ending up as a minor component in Bordeaux-style red blends. But now, as Long Island vintners continue to experiment with grapes and techniques, varietal Malbec bottlings are becoming available.
Macari Vineyards in Mattituck released its 2005 Malbec ($22) a couple months ago and it's impressive.
It's a bold, flavorful wine and the ripeness of the 2005 vintage is apparent. It's loaded with intense black plum and black pepper aromas. The palate is rich and slightly meaty with more plum, pepper and a slightly juicy note on the mid-palate. The finish lingers nicely with a hint of spice. This wine signals the arrival of Malbec on the North Fork. It will be interesting to see how quickly local producers start doing even more exciting things with this grape.
In the meantime, get a few bottles of this and try it will char-grilled steak this summer.


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Young children often suck on pacifiers or their thumbs to soothe themselves. However, pacifier use and thumb-sucking can cause problems with the growth and development of the mouth, including the alignment of teeth. Thumb-sucking can be a difficult habit to break. Here are some tips:
- Provide alternative comfort to your child if he or she is thumb-sucking for comfort.
- Praise your child for not thumb-sucking.
- Involve older children in developing a plan to stop.
- Ask Dr. Alina Bergan to explain how thumb-sucking affects teeth at your child's next visit.
After permanent teeth come in, sucking may cause problems with the proper growth of the mouth and alignment of the teeth. It can also cause changes in the roof of the mouth.
Unfortunately pacifiers can affect your child's teeth the same ways as sucking fingers and thumbs. Pacifier use is often an easier habit to break.
Please, note that determining factor for possible future dental issues is the intensity of the sucking. Children that rest their thumbs passively in their mouth are less likely to develop problems with their baby (primary) teeth. If you have any questions about your child's dental health don't hesitate to ask Dr. Alina Bergan at your next visit to our Cedarhurst office.
To make an appointment please call us at 800-223-0801 or go online and book at appointment on our website: http://www.alinabergandds.com/appointments/


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"Today, we do not need to convince the world that Reinventing Fire is necessary. Instead, we must work together to make it happen."
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Conference tables for boardrooms and auxiliary tables.
A vast collection of conference, auxiliary and coffee tables available in different finishes, shapes and sizes will perfectly match and furnish any kind of room.
More than 2 decades ago, MDD was born with the objective of bringing a fresh breeze to the office furniture sector.


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The Cafe Scientifique Network
Cafe Scientifique is a place where, for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, anyone can come to have a conversation about the latest ideas in science and technology. Meetings have taken place in cafes, bars, restaurants and even theatres, but always outside a traditional academic context.
The first Cafes Scientifique in the UK were held in Leeds in 1998. From there, cafes gradually spread across the country. Currently, some seventy or so cafes meet regularly to hear scientists or writers on science talk about their work and discuss it with diverse audiences.
Cafe Scientifique is a forum for debating science issues, not a shop window for science. We are committed to promoting public engagement with science and to making science accountable.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Cafe Scientifique? Cafe Scientifique is a forum for the discussion of current work and interesting scientific issues. They are informal and accessible.
Who else will be there? Cafe audiences are people who are interested in science. Anyone can participate; speakers are there to be questioned and talk about their work at all levels.
What happens at a Cafe Scientifique? Cafes start with a short talk (usually about twenty minutes) by the speaker, to introduce the topic. After this there is usually a short break to allow glasses to be refilled and conversations to start. This is followed by an hour or so of questions and answers and general discussion. Anyone can ask a question, and we positively welcome those which begin "This might be a stupid question, but ..." These questions are invariably not stupid and often rather insightful.
Where and when? Cafes Scientifique are hosted in a range of venues. Most are in bars or cafes, but some use bookshops, theatres or community spaces. Cafes Scientifique are held regularly (e.g. the last Tuesday or the second Monday of the month) and take place in the evening. The map on this page will show if there is a cafe near you.
What subjects will be discussed? Cafes Scientifiques cover a wide range of issues relating to science and technology. Since 1998, cafes have covered almost every conceivable scientific topic: AIDS, the Big Bang, biodiversity, cancer, code-breaking, consciousness, Darwinism, ecology, evolution, extreme life, foetal experience, genetically modified organisms, global warming, infertility, nanotechnology, the Public Understanding of Science movement, sports science, superconductors and more.
All Cafes Scientifique welcome suggestions from the audience about their programmes. If you want to find out more about a particular topic, go along to your local cafe and suggest it to the organisers.
Do I need to buy a ticket? Cafes are generally free and you can just turn up on the night. However, in some venues a small entry charge is made to cover venue costs and many cafes pass a hat round on the night for contributions towards the speaker's travel expenses. These are always voluntary.
Does Cafe Scientifique make a profit? Cafe Scientifique does not make a profit from events or pay fees to speakers.