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Visual Studio Code + Neovim
Google Summer of Code, June-August 2020
June and July were pretty busy. I was on vacation the majority of August. Interns and other mentors were busy even then. For more introduction, read my post Blog Post: Google Summer of Code, February-May 2020.
CI now updates your deployment-charts
If you're making changes to a service that is deployed to Kubernetes, it sure is annoying to have to update the helm deployment-chart values with the newest image version before you deploy. At least, that's how I felt when developing on our dockerfile-generating service, blubber.
Google Summer of Code, February-May 2020
In February 2020 I've noticed an e-mail that Wikimedia is participating in Google-Summer-of-Code. Unfortunately, I've ignored the e-mail and soon forgot about it.
Production Excellence #23: July & August 2020
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
RPKI Origin Validation
Since the late 90s, databases named Internet Routing Registries (IRR) have been trying to fulfill that (single) source of truth role. Unfortunately, they are subject to a lot of issues: fragmentation (many existing databases, not all equally well-maintained), security (some databases allow anyone to "claim" a prefix) and complexity (for the network operators). They also contain a lot of inaccurate data that have accumulated over time.
Internal anycast
This project brought two major changes to our infrastructure. Firstly, servers that used to be fronted by LVS for load balancing are now peering directly with our routers. Secondly, we have started using IP anycast for a highly critical service: recursive DNS.
Phabricator Search Backend Changes
Phabricator upstream has implemented a search engine that does not depend on an external full-text index service. It's been the default in Phabricator for quite some time, however, we have been using the ElasticSearch engine for a few years now due to previous issues with the old engine. Specifically, the old phabricator fulltext engine depended on MySQL's built-in fulltext index functionality. Unfortunately, the fulltext engine in MySQL had inconsistent performance and often returned low quality search results.
All code is built
HEADER CAPTION: The head of the Statue of Liberty on exhibit at the Paris World's Fair, 1878. The statue was built in France ahead of time, shipped overseas in crates, and then assembled in New York. Image by Albert Fernique / public domain.
Production Excellence #22: June 2020
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Fanboying Cypress
Software development is pretty agile in its nature in that things normally tend to move pretty quickly. However, the faster you move, the more things break. As a codebase grows in size, its pieces become more and more complex, with every line adding a potential bug. In Wikimedia Foundation, we keep a handle on this through rigorous amounts of testing. Manual testing requires a lot of effort especially when you have a large core repository with a plethora of plugins and extensions that need to be tested. One of the hot frameworks on the scene is Cypress, a complete end to end testing solution.
GSoCpedia: The journey so far
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."
~ Wikimedia Foundation
Addressing bug from 2019: information about private, security-related Phab tickets
Today, we are writing to share the discovery and squashing of a bug that occurred earlier this year. This particular bug was also one of the rare instances in which we kept a Phabricator ticket private to address a security issue. To help address questions about when and why we make a security-related ticket private, we're also sharing some insight into what happens when a private ticket about a security issue is closed.
Faster source code fetches thanks to git protocol version 2
In 2015 I noticed git fetches from our most active repositories to be unreasonably slow, sometimes up to a minute which hindered fast development and collaboration. You can read some of the debugging details I have conducted at the time on T103990. Gerrit upstream was aware of the issue and a workaround was presented though we never went to implement it.
Production Excellence #21: May 2020
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Celebrating 600,000 commits for Wikimedia
Earlier today, the 600,000th commit was pushed to Wikimedia's Gerrit server. We thought we'd take this moment to reflect on the developer services we offer and our community of developers, be they Wikimedia staff, third party workers, or volunteers.
Production Excellence #20: April 2020
How are we doing on that strive for operational excellence during these unprecedented times?
Moving Milestones
This week a long-standing "bug" has been fixed in Phabricator.
Production Excellence #19: February 2020
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Coming to Terms with Change
We are dropping the wb_terms table, you might ask why we are doing it and why it's such an important endeavour.
The best documentation automation can buy
HEADER CAPTION: Screenshot from Wikimedia's famous Visual Editor. The typo "documenation" has a red squiggly line under it indicating the spell checker has automatically detected a spelling error by the author.
Production Excellence #18: January 2020
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
New names for everyone!
The Cloud Services team is in the process of updating and standardizing the use of DNS names throughout Cloud VPS projects and infrastructure, including the Toolforge project. A lot of this has to do with reducing our reliance on the badly-overloaded term 'Labs' in favor of the 'Cloud' naming scheme. The whole story can be found on this Wikitech proposal page. These changes will be trickling out over the coming weeks or months, but one change you might notice already.
Parsoid in PHP, or There and Back Again
Authors: S.Subramanya Sastry, C.Scott Ananian; Parsing Team; Wikimedia Foundation
Changes to Security Team Workflow
In an effort to create a repeatable, streamlined process for consumption of security services the Security Team has been working on changes and improvements to our workflows. Much of this effort is an attempt to consolidate work intake for our team in order to more effectively communicate status, priority and scheduling. This is step 1 and we expect future changes as our tooling, capabilities and processes mature.
Why does building a skin require PHP knowledge?
One of my longstanding pet peeves is that skin development for MediaWiki is so hard. I propose a radical change to how skins are installed and ask for feedback.
14 January 2020 security incident on Phabricator
On 14 January 2020, staff at the Wikimedia Foundation discovered that a data file exported from the Wikimedia Phabricator installation, our engineering task and ticket tracking system, had been made publicly available. The file was leaked accidentally; there was no intrusion. We have no evidence that it was ever viewed or accessed. The Foundation's Security team immediately began investigating the incident and removing the related files. The data dump included limited non-public information such as private tickets, login access tokens, and the second factor of the two-factor authentication keys for Phabricator accounts. Passwords and full login information for Phabricator were not affected -- that information is stored in another, unaffected system.
Production Excellence #17: December 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence in November and December? Read on to find out!
The journey to Prometheus 2
In July 2016 the SRE team at Wikimedia Foundation began investigating Prometheus as a modern metrics framework. The experience has been very positive and has provided benefits both for technical debt elimination—such as deprecating Ganglia and Diamond—and adding support for newer technologies like Kubernetes.
WikimediaDebug v2 is here!
WikimediaDebug is a set of tools for debugging and profiling MediaWiki web requests in a production environment. WikimediaDebug can be used through the accompanying browser extension, or from the command-line.
Phabricator Status Update
You may have noticed that Phabricator's real-time notification service ("Aphlict") is currently disabled. This means that you will not see real-time notification popups in Phabricator and workboard live-updates aren't happening.
Production Excellence #16: October 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Production Excellence #15: September 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Integrating code coverage metrics with your development workflow
In Changes and improvements to PHPUnit testing in MediaWiki, I wrote about efforts to help speed up PHPUnit code coverage generation for local development.[0] While this improves code coverage generation time for local development, it could be better.
Introducing Phatality
This past week marks the release of a little tool that I've been working on for a while. In fact, it's something I've wanted to build for more than a year. But before I tell you about the solution, I need to describe the problem that I set out to solve.
Production Excellence #14: August 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence in August? Read on to find out!
Wikipedia's JavaScript initialisation on a budget
This week saw the conclusion of a project that I've been shepherding on and off since September of last year. The goal was for the initialisation of our asynchronous JavaScript pipeline (at the time, 36 kilobytes in size) to fit within a budget of 28 KB – the size of two 14 KB bursts of Internet packets.
Cloud-vps Puppetmasters Moved to VMs, thanks to Krenair
Last week, we completed a piece of long-neglected work relating to Puppet, the tool that manages the configuration of every virtual machine in our cloud. Historically, each VM has received its configuration from a physical, production server (the 'puppetmaster'). This meant that there was a constant chatter of traffic back and forth between each VM and unrelated networks and hardware sitting in Wikimedia production. Now, the puppetmasters are located on VMs, so all of that chatter is internal to Cloud Services.
Production Excellence #13: July 2019
How're we doing on that strive for operational excellence? Read this first anniversary edition to find out!
Production Excellence #12: June 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Phabricator Features, July, 2019 Edition
This will be a brief introduction to this new feature which appeared recently on Phabricator workboards.
Changes and improvements to PHPUnit testing in MediaWiki
Building off the work done at the Prague Hackathon (T216260), we're happy to announce some significant changes and improvements to the PHP testing tools included with MediaWiki.
Production Excellence #11: May 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Tracking down slow event handlers with Event Timing
We're taking part in the ongoing Event Timing Chrome origin trial, in order to experiment with that API early and give feedback to its designers. The goal of this upcoming API is to surface slow events. This is an area of web performance that hasn't gotten a lot of attention before, but one that can be very frustrating for users. Essentially, when slow events occur, users are trying to interact with the page and it's being unresponsive. Not a desirable user experience.
Performance perception: correlation to RUM metrics
When we set out to ask Wikipedia visitors their opinion of page load performance, our main hope was to answer an age-old question: which RUM metric matters the most to users? And more interestingly, which ones matter the most to our users on our content.
Performance perception: the effect of late-loading banners
Unlike most websites, Wikipedia and its sister projects are ad-free. This is actually one of the reasons why our performance is so good. We don't have to deal with slow and invasive third-parties.
Production Excellence #10: April 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Performance perception: how satisfied are Wikipedia users?
We've recently published research on performance perception that we did last year. The micro survey used in this study is still running on multiple Wikipedia languages and gives us insights into perceived performance.
Introducing the codehealth pipeline beta
After many months of discussion, work and consultation across teams and departments[0], and with much gratitude and appreciation to the hard work and patience of @thcipriani and @hashar, the Code-Health-Metrics group is pleased to announce the introduction of the code health pipeline. The pipeline is currently in beta and enabled for GrowthExperiments, soon to be followed by Notifications, PageCuration, and StructuredDiscussions. (If you'd like to enable the pipeline for an extension you maintain or contribute to, please reach out to us via the comments on this post.)
Nova-network is gone!
A couple of week ago we finally moved the last lingering VMs in our OpenStack platform from the nova-network region to the Neutron region (Blog Post: Neutron is here!). The bulk of the work had been done a month earlier, so the final nails in nova-network's coffin felt a bit anticlimactic -- nevertheless, this is a big step that represents a huge amount of work on the part of both staff and volunteers.
Production Excellence #9: March 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Evaluating Element Timing for Images
In the search for a better user experience metric, we have tried out the upcoming Element Timing for Images API in Chrome.
Quibble hibernated, it is time to flourish
Writing blog is neither my job nor something that I enjoy, I am thus late in the Quibble updates. The last one Blog Post: Quibble in summer has been written in September 2018 and I forgot to publish it until now. You might want to read it first to get a glance about some nice changes that got implemented last summer.
Quibble in summer
Note: this post has been published on 03/28 but has been originally written in September 2018 after Quibble 0.0.26 and never got published.
Switching production traffic to Apache Traffic Server
The plan to replace Varnish as the on-disk HTTP cache component of our CDN with Apache Traffic Server is starting to take shape.
Autonomous Systems performance report
Today we're publishing our first report of the performance experienced by visitors of Wikimedia websites, focused on the Autonomous Systems visitors are connecting from.
CI working group report, with recommendations of new tools to try
The working group to consider future CI tooling for Wikimedia has finished and produced a report. The report is at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Release_Engineering_Team/CI_Futures_WG/Report and the short summary is that the release engineering team should do prototype implementations of Argo, GitLab CI/CD, and Zuul v3.
Production Excellence #8: February 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence? Read on to find out!
Help my CI job fails with exit status -11
For a few weeks, a CI job had PHPUnit tests abruptly ending with:
Migrating code from MediaWiki's ResourceLoader to Webpack
The lack of tooling or support for tooling has been causing problems in complicated code bases like the codebase for our mobile site, so we carved out a proposal to create a bridge from our existing codebase to a more modern one using Webpack. I'll talk about what we did and why.
Work progresses on CI tool evaluation
The working group to consider future tooling for continuous integration is making progress (see previous blog post J148 for more information). We're looking at and evaluating alternatives and learning of new needs within WMF.
Choosing tools for continuous integration
The Release Engineering team has started a working group to discuss and consider our future continuous integration tooling. Please help!
Projects, Forms and Subtypes oh my!
Significant new functionality just landed in the wmf/stable branch of rPHAB Phabricator which resolves some minor headaches we've been living with for quite some time.
Phab Phebruary
After many months with only a few minor updates deployed to the wmf/stable branch of Phabricator, we were long over-due for a major update. With All-hands 2019 behind us I was finally able to find the time to merge and deploy a huge batch of upstream changes.
Minimal MediaWiki for frontend engineers
I use OSX. Vagrant has not been kind to me, but I'm hopeful that Docker will make development a lot easier for me in future.
Until then, I use MAMP which provides a pretty easy LAMP setup. I wanted to share it with other frontend engineers as this minimal setup works well for me - it's fast, it minimises the extensions I need to update and most importantly brings me closer to problems with frontend end-users are experiencing.
Debugging production with X-Wikimedia-Debug
In February 2018, a user reported that some topics created by users on Flow discussion boards were not appearing in the Recent Changes feeds, including EventStreams and the IRC-RC feed. Various automated patrol systems rely on EventStreams, so the bug meant a number of edits bypassed those systems on Flow-enabled wikis.
Perf Matters at Wikipedia 2015
This year we achieved another milestone in our multi-year effort to prepare Wikipedia for serving traffic from multiple data centres.
Production Excellence #7: January 2019
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Magic Numbers
Production Excellence #6: December 2018
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Gerrit now automatically adds reviewers
Finding reviewers for a change is often a challenge, especially for a newcomer or folks proposing changes to projects they are not familiar with. Since January 16th, 2019, Gerrit automatically adds reviewers on your behalf based on who last changed the code you are affecting.
Toolforge: Trusty deprecation and grid engine migration
Ubuntu Trusty was released in April 2014, and support for it (including security updates) will cease in April 2019. We need to shut down all Trusty hosts before the end of support date to ensure that Toolforge remains a secure platform. This migration will take several months because many people still use the Trusty hosts and our users are working on tools in their spare time.
Code Health Metrics and SonarQube
- Code Health
Migrating tools.wmflabs.org to HTTPS
Starting 2019-01-03, GET and HEAD requests to http://tools.wmflabs.org will receive a 301 redirect to https://tools.wmflabs.org. This change should be transparent to most visitors. Some webservices may need to be updated to use explicit https:// or protocol relative URLs for stylesheets, images, JavaScript, and other content that is rendered as part of the pages they serve to their visitors.
Why performance matters
There are practical reasons that web performance matters. From a user perspective, a site that's slow results in frustration, annoyance, and ultimately a preference for alternatives. From the perspective of a site operator, frustrated users are users who aren't going to return, and that makes it more difficult to accomplish your mission (be it commercial or public service). Optimizations keep people happy, keep them coming back, and keep them engaged[1].
Production Excellence #5: November 2018
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Production Excellence #4: October 2018
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Incident Documentation: An Unexpected Journey
The Release Engineering team wants to continually improve the quality of our software over time. One of the ways in which we hoped to do that this year is by creating more useful Selenium smoke tests. (From now on, test will be used instead of Selenium test.) This blog post is about how we determined where the tests should focus and the relative priority.
Bring in 'da noise, bring in defunct. It's a zombie party!
Halloween is a full two weeks behind us here in the United States, but it's still on my mind. It happens to be my favorite holiday, and I receive it both gleefully and somberly.
Wikimedia Release Engineering's 1st Annual Developer Satisfaction Survey
Machine learning: how to undersample the wrong way
For the past couple of months, in collaboration with researchers, I've been applying machine learning to RUM metrics in order to model the microsurvey we've been running since June on some wikis. The goal being to gain some insight into which RUM metrics matter most to real users.
translatewiki.net security incident
What happened?
On September 24, 2018 a series of malicious edit attempts were detected on translatewiki.net. In general, these included attempts to inject malicious javascript, threatening messages and porn.
Best friends forever
Neutron is here!
As promised in an earlier post (Blog Post: Neutron is (finally) coming), we've started moving a few projects on our Cloud-VPS service into a new OpenStack region that is using Neutron for its software-defined networking layer. It's going pretty well! The new region, 'eqiad1', is currently very small, and growth is currently blocked by hardware issues (see T199125 for details) but we hope to resolve that issue soon.
Production Excellence #3: September 2018
How'd we do in our strive for operational excellence last month? Read on to find out!
Performance testing in a controlled lab environment - the metrics
One of the Performance Team responsibilities at Wikimedia is to keep track of Wikipedias performance. Why is performance important for us? In our case it is easy: We have so many users and if we have a performance regression, we are really affecting people's lives. Maybe you remember our hiring tweet from a couple of years ago?
An introduction to Task Types in Phabricator
This blog post will describe a bit about how we are utilizing the "Task Types" feature in Phabricator to facilitate better tracking of work and to streamline workflows with custom fields. Additionally, I will be soliciting feedback about potential use-cases which could potentially take further advantage of this feature.
Additional details on OurMine
The guard rails I'll be following will be around the original blog post created by Darian Patrick in November 2016. I'll do my best to fill in what gaps I can.
Details of dictionary attack from May 2018
What happened?
Neutron is (finally) coming
Just as we were settling into nova-network (along with other early OpenStack adopters), the core developers were already moving on. A new project (originally named 'Quantum' but eventually renamed 'Neutron') would provide stand-alone APIs, independent from the Nova APIs, to construct all manners of software-defined networks. With every release Neutron became more elaborate and more reliable, and became the standard for networking in new OpenStack clouds.
Wikipedia goes 100% Forward Secret
On August 1st, we finished up a 6 week transition process which eliminated the last non-forward-secret cipher supported by our TLS termination, which was bare AES128-SHA. This change guarantees that all TLS connections to Wikipedia and its sister projects use cipher suites that provide forward secrecy. Wikipedia is the first major high-traffic site to take this step.
2017 Toolforge survey results
Between 2017-11-20 and 2017-12-01, the Wikimedia Foundation ran a direct response user survey of registered Toolforge users. 141 email recipients participated in the survey which represents 11% of those who were contacted.
Mobile web performance: the importance of the device
This week at our team offsite in Dublin, I looked at our performance data from an angle we haven't explored before: mobile device type. Most mobile devices expose their make and model in the User Agent string, which allows to look at data for a particular type of device. As per our data retention guidelines, we only keep user agent information for 90 days, but that's already plenty of data to draw conclusions.
mediawiki_selenium 1.8.1 Ruby Gem Released
It has been a while since the last mediawiki_selenium release! 💎
Quibble in May
[Quibble] is the new test runner for MediaWiki (see the intro Blog Post: Introducing Quibble). This post is to give an update of what happened during May 2018.
Technical Debt - The Contagion Effect
One particularly interesting topic discussed during the Hackathon Technical Debt session (T194934) was that of the contagious aspect of technical debt. Although this makes sense in hindsight, it's not something that I had really given much thought to previously.
Thank you for taking the survey!
I would like to share my deepest gratitude for everyone who responded to the Wikimedia Communities and Contributors Survey. The survey has closed for this year. The quality of the results has improved because more people responded this year. We heard from over 200 people who work in volunteer developer spaces like Phabricator, IRC, Mediawiki, mailing lists, and many others, which was a large increase from last year.
Status Update (May 2, 2018)
- We've started work on JADE in earnest, and the prototype is deployed to the beta cluster where it's available for testing and tool development.
- Draft topic prerequisites are mostly falling into place, so we should be able to get the initial model deployed this month.
- New, dynamic ORES support table shows up-to-date information about our progress for each wiki: https://tools.wmflabs.org/ores-support-checklist/
- ORES is served from its own cluster, which gave us a tremendous benefit in both performance and stability.
- More ORES support for Arabic, Bengali, Catalan, Hungarian, Latvian, Swedish Wikipedia
Run Selenium tests using Quibble and Docker
Introducing Quibble
Running all tests for MediaWiki and matching what CI/Jenkins is running has been a constant challenge for everyone, myself included. Today I am introducing Quibble, a python script that clone MediaWiki, set it up and run test commands.


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Let's Talk About Rich Hill
It's clear the Yankees need help with their starting rotation for 2017. Is veteran Rich Hill the answer?Read More
It's clear the Yankees need help with their starting rotation for 2017. Is veteran Rich Hill the answer?Read More
The Yankees are going to need a veteran or two to fill out the roster while they wait for the NWO to fully arrive. Is Mike Napoli one of those guys?Read More
Whether you loved it or hated it, the end of this year's Survivor Series main event between Goldberg and Brock Lesnar has everyone talking.Read More
Let's find out more about Albert Abreu, Jorge Guzman and Zack Littell, the prospects the Yankees got from the Astros and Mariners this week.Read More
The Yankees have traded Brian McCann to the Houston Astros. Here's what I think about it.Read More
Dear Roger Goodell, Either stop having games in London, or stop pretending you're not having games in London.Read More
Bill Goldberg, made his triumphant return to Monday Night Raw this week to accept a challenge from Brock Lesnar. Is this good or bad?Read More
Should the Yankees cut ties with Austin Romine in favor of having a potentially more impactful bat in the backup catcher role?Read More
Buck Showalter's bullpen gaffe in the AL Wild Card game was inexcusable, and it should cost him his job.Read More
Despite coming to the big leagues so late in the season, could the Yankees backstop earn himself the prize?Read More

subset: commoncrawl


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Preds Select 9 Players At 2012 NHL Entry Draftby Press Release / Nashville Predators
- Preds Select six forwards, two defensemen and a goaltender -
PITTSBURGH, Pa. (June 23, 2012) – The Nashville Predators made nine selections on Day Two of the 2012 NHL Entry Draft at the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pa., taking six forwards, two defensemen and a goaltender. Sweden, the United States and Finland were once again on the Predators draft radar – the franchise has now selected at least one Swede in seven consecutive drafts, at least two U.S.-born players in each of the last seven drafts, and a Finn in nine of the last 10.
"We took a variety of different players and different styles from scorers, to power guys, to a guy we have talked about for three years, in addition to a couple big defensemen," Predators Assistant General Manager Paul Fenton said. "We were trying to fill in the slots that we have more-or-less lost the last couple of years making trades with our draft picks. To be able to pick up nine players and fill the cupboard back up, we feel really good about things."
The Predators used their first selection (37th overall) of Day Two to select, Pontus Aberg from Djurgarden of the Swedish Elite League (Elitserien). After being slowed by injuries in 2011-12, the Stockholm, Sweden native finished the season rated sixth among European skaters on Central Scouting's final list. Aberg posted 15 points (8g-7a) in 47 games with Djurgarden this past season, earning an Elitserien Rookie of the Year Nomination. The 5-11, 189-pound forward also saw time with Djurgarden's junior club in 2011-12, amassing six points (4g-2a) in six games. Aberg becomes the Pred in the system to hone his skills with Djurgarden – current Predator Patric Hornqvist and prospect Patrick Cehlin both played with the club.
"He plays a two-way game, but looking at him he is probably more offensive than anything," Predators European Scout Lucas Bergman said of Aberg. "He has one-on-one ability, he can challenge the defense, he gets pucks off of his stick quick and all of those things are very attractive."
The Predators stayed on the offensive side with their second pick (50th overall), selecting Colton Sissons of the Western Hockey League's Kelowna Rockets, the same junior club that produced Predators Captain Shea Weber (selected 49th overall in the 2003 NHL Draft).
The Rockets captain and 14th-rated North American skater notched 41 points (26g-15a) for the second consecutive season in 2011-12. Sissons' 26 goals – including a team-high 13 power-play tallies – ranked second on the team. The dynamic, hard-working forward – who models his game after current Predator Mike Fisher – posted two points (1g-1a) in four WHL playoff games after being injured during the 2012 CHL Top Prospects Game.
"Colton Sissons is a hard-playing forward, who played both center and winger with Kelowna," Predators North American amateur scout Glen Sanders said. "He is a bit of a grinder, he can score goals and we liked the fact that he plays a lot like Mike Fisher. They made him the captain of the Kelowna Rockets at 17 years old; that was a big step and it shows the character that he plays with."
Nashville selected U.S.-born Jimmy Vesey with its first pick of the third round (66th overall). The Reading, Mass., native played in his first season with South Shore of Eastern Junior Hockey League in 2011-12. He finished the season as the EJHL's Most Valuable Player and earned Offensive Player of the Year honors after leading the League in points (91) and goals (48). The 6-1, 194-pound winger led his team to the EJHL's semifinals, posting eight points (5g-3a) in six playoff games. Vesey's performance late in the season saw him move from the 164th-rated player at the mid-term to the 77th ranked player on Central Scouting's final rankings. He is expected to return to Boston to play for Harvard University in 2012-13.
"He has great hands, a great shot and his skating has really improved," Predators North American amateur scout Tom Nolan said. "We see him as an offensive contributor – a top-six forward. He is going to Harvard where he is going to get a lot of playing time. We really see him as a goal scorer and offensive producer."
The Predators traded their 2013 third-round pick to the New York Rangers to acquire a second third-round selection, and grabbed Brendan Leipsic of the WHL's Portland Winterhawks with the 89th overall pick. The winger was unranked on NHL Central Scouting's mid-term rankings, but a strong 2011-12 campaign saw him move into the final rankings (114th). In his second full season with the Winterhawks, Leipsic nearly doubled his point total (28g-30a-58pts) from the season prior. The 18-year-old center ranked among the WHL's Top 15 players in the 2012 playoffs after notching 15 points (7g-8a) in 20 postseason games as the Hawks fell to the Edmonton Oil Kings in the WHL finals. Leipsic played alongside fellow Predators prospect Cam Reid in Portland during the 2011-12 season.
"We are very excited about getting Brendan," Sanders said. "He is another hard-working kid. He's not on the big side – he's only about 5-9 and will play at about 5-10, but he is very much like Brad Marchand of the Boston Bruins. He just plays, he's in your face and he is just one of those guys you hate to play against but you love to have on your hockey team."
Zachary Stepan became the fifth straight forward to hear his name called by the Predators when they selected him 112th overall (fourth round). The cousin of New York Rangers forward Derek Stepan played his 2011-12 season with Shattuck St. Mary's, posting 65 points (22g-43a) in 50 games for the Sabres. The Hastings, Minn., native is expected to play with the Waterloo Blackhawks of the United States Hockey League next season before heading to Ohio State University.
"If you watch Zach play, he plays like a Predator," Predators North American amateur scout David Westby said. "He knows how to play the game, he's got great hockey sense, he competes and he has a great work ethic. He really plays our style. He knows how to play the game and he competes. He takes hits to make plays, but at the same time he can pass it and he can shoot it. We were thrilled that he was available."
After a run on forwards, Nashville looked to bolster the blue line as they selected Finnish-born defenseman Mikko Vainonen with their second pick of the fourth-round (118th) and took Swedish defenseman Simon Fernholm with their first of three sixth-round picks (164th).
Vainonen played at nearly every level in the HIFK system in 2011-12, spending most of the season as the assistant captain of the HIFK junior squad (Jr. A SM-Liiga), notching 18 points (7g-11a) as one of the youngest players on the team. The 6-3, 205-pound blueliner added an assist in 10 playoff games as HIFK Jr. went on to win the SM-Liiga Jr. Championship. As a 17-year-old, Vainonen also saw time with HIFK (SM-Liiga) and HIFK's under-18 (SM-sarja) club in 2011-12. His performance in 2011-12 saw him finish as the 11th-ranked European skater on NHL Central Scouting's final list.
"He is a big defensive-defenseman," Predators European scout Janne Kekalainen said. "He plays hard and he is able to make a good first pass to launch attacks. He keeps things simple and his game is very effective. He is a big kid who still needs to develop as an athlete to become a professional player."
Fernholm is a big, stay-at-home defenseman who played 47 games for Huddinge of the Swedish junior league in 2011-12, posting 15 points (3g-12a). The Stockholm, Sweden native also saw time on the Swedish U-18 World Championship team in 2012, posting three points (3a) in seven games for his country. Fernholm is expected to move to Frolunda of the Swedish Elite League for the 2012-13 season.
"His hockey IQ and hockey sense are very high," Predators European scout Lucas Bergman said. "He is extremely poised under pressure and he has a really good first pass. He was signed by Frolunda of the Swedish Elite League. They will have him as an eighth defenseman in the Elite League next year, so that will be good for him."
The Predators selected their sixth forward of the 2012 draft when they took Max Gortz's with the 172nd pick. Though he was the final forward selected by Nashville, Gortz is the largest of the Predators 2012 forward class at 6-2. Gortz spent the majority of his 2011-12 season with Farjestad Jr. (Sweden Jr.), tallying 35 points (17g-18a) in 28 games. The 19-year-old forward played 18 games with Farjestad's Elite League club (Elitserien) this past season, posting five points (2g-3a) in those contests. The Hoor, Sweden native suited up in four games for his country at the 2012 5-Nations Tournament, posting three points (3a) in those games.
"Gortz is a big-bodied winger, who has good puck protection down low," European scout Lucas Bergman said. "He plays a two-way game but most of all he is a big body that is hard to contain and he likes to shoot the puck. He is well orientated away from the puck. He played center growing up with more emphasis on defensive play. He moved out to the wing this season and he started to push offensively with that big body. He is very good down low and that is going to be his game."
Nashville rounded out the day by selecting goaltender Marek Mazanec with the 179th selection. Mazanec played his 2011-12 season with HC Plzen of the Czech Elite League (Extraliga), posting a 2.96 goals-against average and .900 save percentage in 19 games with the club. The 6-4 netminder backstopped Plzen in five playoff games in 2011-12, recording a 2.15 goals-against average and .919 save percentage.
"Marek is a very talented and skilled goalie" Nashville's European scout Martin Bakula said. "We have been watching him for the last three years in the Czech Elite League. He has the size we like in our goalies, he is very talented and he is very skilled in every way. There is a very good chance he will be Plzen's number one goalie next year, He is very excited about coming to Nashville – I see it as a fresh start for him. He has been with Plzen his whole career, so this is a fresh start and he is very excited."
For more quotes and comments from the Predators Hockey Operations staff regarding players chosen in this weekend's draft, visit Predators Draft Central at nashvillepredators.com.
The Nashville Predators' top prospects, including several of this year's picks, are expected to participate in the club's 2012 Development Camp, officially opening on Tuesday, June 26 at Centennial Sportsplex.


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First Scandinavian Agile Conference is taking place in next week.
We have over 200 hundred registered agilists/to-become-agilists and good bunch of excellent speakers coming. I can't wait for the corridor talks with various people. It seems that Agile Finland's vision of having real agile conference in Finland is really going to happen!


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'How to value chains for local development'
Veladictory lecture by Professor A.H.J.(Bert) Helmsing
On Thursday 21 April 2016, ISS professor A.H.J.(Bert) Helmsing held his valedictory lecture entitles 'How to value chains for local development'.
In his lecture Professor Helmsing examined processes through which global value chains interact with the local territory and produce context-specific developmental outcomes.
You can download the full lecture by clicking on the link below.
Missed the lecture?
If you were unable to attend the lecture or follow it on ISS livestream you can now watch it on the ISS YouTube channel.
Take a look at some of the photographs taken during the event.


text:
Shalie Day
Shalie Day is a 2010 graduate of Ashdown High School, a 2015 graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University, and a 2017 graduate of Texas A&M, Texarkana. Shalie studied business throughout college receiving an Associate of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and finally a Master of Business Administration Degree in 2017.
Shalie previously worked at Kilgore College in the residential department. She was also a member of the Behavioral Intervention Team and Drug Task Force Committee working to educate students on the potential damage caused by drugs and alcohol. Shalie also served on the coaching staff for the Kilgore College Rangers softball team.
Shalie enjoys giving softball lessons to young athletes, hunting and fishing, and spending time with her family on the weekends.


text:
Corporate Info
Mr. Sataporn Amornvorapak
Policy Governing Company Secretary
The Board of Directors has stipulated a requirement for Company Secretary. Appointment of Company Secretary takes into considerations relevant rules, regulations and good corporate governance. The Company Secretary is required to have background in laws or accounting, and preferably been trained under relevant programs. The Company Secretary is expected to provide legal advices to the Board of Directors in conjunction with supervising activities of Board of Directors. In addition, the Company Secretary is required to organize meetings, prepare relevant documents, and ensure that resolutions of the Board of Directors have been carried out.
In 2019, the Company Secretary is Mr. Sataporn Amornvorapak - Executive Director, Member of Enterprise Risk Management Committee and Chief Finance Officer, on the ground that he has relevant experience and is qualified for such position. The required attributes and roles and responsibilities of Company Secretary are as follows:
Required Attributes for Company Secretary
- Has a thorough understanding on the Company's business, roles and responsibilities of Company Secretary, responsibilities of the Board of Directors, and possesses knowledge of relevant rules and regulations
- Performs roles and responsibilities according to applicable rules and regulations, codes, article of associations with the utmost care, honesty, integrity, and commitment with the aim to achieve the Company's objectives under good corporate governance
- Strictly adheres to integrity and good conducts and always takes into consideration every stakeholder, in addition to refraining from any activities that might negatively affect the Company's reputation
- Ensures the Company's confidentiality and does not seek any personal benefits or gains from any type of business dealings
- Has excellent interpersonal skill and is capable of coordinating with various internal and external parties
Roles and Responsibilities of Company Secretary
- Provides preliminary advices to the Board of Directors in relation to rules and regulations of the Company as well as ensures that such rules and regulations are being enforced
- Coordinating and facilitating shareholder and Board of Director meetings as per stipulated by the Company's rules and regulations
- Organizing, preparing agendas for and taking minutes of board meetings and annual general meetings as well as ensuring that all resolutions either by shareholders or by the Board of Directors are carried out
- Organizing and preparing statutory books including: Register of Board of Directors, Annual Reports, Invitation Letters for shareholder and Board of Director meetings
- Bookkeeping of report of conflict of interests whether by Directors and/or management as well as ensuring that such report is submitted to relevant authorities
- Overseeing information distribution and disclosure to relevant authorities as per applicable rules and regulations


text:
Back to all reports
Reported via iOS in the Street cleansing category anonymously at 19:20, Fri 26 July 2019
Sent to Brighton and Hove City Council 5 minutes later
A black plastic box has been abondoned adjacent to Stanford Court in which prople are depositing litter.
Provide an update
Please note that updates are not sent to the council. Your information will only be used in accordance with our privacy policy


text:
The April 2009 police beating of Michael DeHerrera continues to be a matter of debate, with the Office of the Independent Monitor and former Manager of Safety Ron Perea coming to very different conclusions about whether officers at the scene used excessive force or were justified in their actions. Now, Denver Police are looking for a possible new witness to the incident.
The photo provided by the police is far from sharp -- but anyone who recognizes the person in it is encouraged to call the DPD or the Office of the Independent Monitor at numbers provided in the release on view below. While Perea resigned after rejecting prosecution in the matter (even though DeHerrera could be seen in a video of the incident talking on a cell phone just before he was sapped), the officers involved still have not been charged with any wrongdoing.
Denver Police Department release:
Denver Police Looking to Identify Possible Witness
(Denver) The Denver Police Department is asking for your assistance in identifying the person in the attached photograph. This person may be a witness to a police arrest and use force that occurred shortly after midnight on April 4, 2009 in the area of 15th Street and Larimer Street. The photograph has been professionally enhanced in an effort to provide the best possible image for identification purposes. We are asking that the person in the photograph, or anyone who may know this persons identity, call the Denver Police Department, Internal Affairs Bureau, at 720-913-6019 or the Office of the Independent Monitor at 720-913-3306.
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Support Our Journalism
More from our Follow That Story archive: "Michael DeHerrera police beating: Photos from today's call to action by LGBTQ community."


text:
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The rating process takes about two to three weeks, depending on the complexity of the assignment and the flow of information from the client. Ratings are assigned by the Rating Committee.
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CARE's ratings are an opinion on the relative ability and willingness of an issuer to repay debt in a timely manner. CARE considers one day one rupee missed payment as default, whenever CARE is aware of such delay occurring in respect of any of CARE-rated debt instrument/facility. This definition is uniformly applied both for capital market instruments and bank facilities.
Needless to say that while assigning rating to various types of bank facilities like Bill Discounting, Letter of Credit, Bank Guarantees, etc, CARE takes into account nuances of such facilities while determining missed payment which is consistently applied across all the issuers. For further details on treatment of default on bank facilities and other debt instruments,
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Rating fees are computed separately on each instrument issued.
Issuers are liable to pay rating fees, regardless of whether they accept CARE's rating or not. Full rating fee is to be paid upfront.
Out-of-pocket expenses, if any will be charged to the client on actual basis. CARE will not be obliged to disclose details of such expenses. In case of roll-over of CPs, no rating fee would be charged for any roll-over within one year of the original rating. For any increase in the amount of issue, additional fee at normal rate will be charged. For any roll-over after a year from the original rating, additional fee at the rate applicable for annual surveillance will be levied.
Service tax will be charged extra as applicable.
CARE reserves the right to make changes in the fee structure at any time.
For fee structure for other rating/grading products please contact CARE Head Office and Regional Offices.
Credit rating is essentially the opinion of the rating agency on the relative ability and willingness of the issuer of a debt instrument to meet the debt service obligations as and when they arise.
The great advantage of rating symbols is their simplicity, which facilitates universal understanding. Rating companies also publish explanations for their symbols used as well as the rationale for the ratings assigned by them, to facilitate deeper understanding.
Credit rating is an opinion expressed by an independent professional organisation, after making a detailed study of all relevant factors. Such an opinion will be of great assistance to investors in making investment decisions. It also helps the issuers of debt instruments to price their issues correctly and to reach out to new investors. Regulators like Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) often use credit rating to determine eligibility criteria for some instruments. For example, RBI has stipulated a minimum credit rating by an approved agency for issue of Commercial Paper. Credit ratings are also used for determination of risk weights for calculation of Capital Adequacy for Banks as per Basel II guidelines in India. In general, credit rating is expected to bridge information asymmetry in the market and establish, over a period of time, a more meaningful relationship between the quality of debt and the yield from it. Credit Rating is also a valuable input in establishing business relationships of various types.
It does not. The reason is that some factors, which are of significance to an investor in arriving at an investment decision, are not taken into account by rating agencies. These include reasonableness of the issue price or the coupon rate, secondary market liquidity and pre-payment risk. Further, different investors have different views regarding the level of risk to be taken and rating agencies can only express their views on the relative credit risk.
A credit rating is a professional opinion given after studying all available information at a particular point of time. Nevertheless, such opinions may prove wrong in the context of subsequent events. Further, there is no privity of contract between an investor and a rating agency and the investor is free to accept or reject the opinion of the agency. Nevertheless, rating is essentially an investor service and a rating agency is expected to maintain the highest possible level of analytical competence and integrity. In the long run, the credibility of a rating agency has to be built, brick by brick, on the quality of its services.
To answer the second question first, it is neither possible nor even desirable, to totally eliminate the subjective element. Ratings do not come out of a pre-determined mathematical formula, which fixes the relevant variables as well as the weights attached to each one of them. Rating agencies do a great amount of number crunching, but the final outcome also takes into account factors like quality of management, corporate strategy, economic outlook and international environment. To ensure consistency and reliability, a number of qualified professionals are involved in the rating process. Ratings are assigned by Committees, not individuals. Rating agencies also ensure that the rating process is insulated from any possible conflicts of interest.
The answer to both the questions is yes. In the well-developed capital markets, debt issues are, more often than not, rated by more than one agency. And, it is only natural that the opinions given by two or more agencies will vary, in some cases. But it will be very unusual if such differences are very wide. For example, a debt issue may be rated DOUBLE A PLUS by one agency and DOUBLE A or DOUBLE A MINUS by another. It will indeed be unusual if one agency assigns a rating of DOUBLE A while another gives a TRIPLE B.
A rating is an opinion given on the basis of information available at a particular point of time. As time goes by, many things change, affecting the debt servicing capabilities of the issuer, one way or the other. It is, therefore, essential that as a part of their investor service, rating agencies monitor all outstanding debt issues rated by them. In the context of emerging developments, the rating agencies often put issues under credit watch and upgrade or downgrade the ratings as and when necessary. Normally, such action is taken after intensive interaction with the issuers.
Yes. In a situation where an issuer is unhappy with the rating assigned, he may request for a review, furnishing additional information, if any, considered relevant. The rating agency will, then, undertake a review and thereafter indicate its final decision. Unless the rating agency had overlooked critical information at the first stage, (which is unlikely), chances of the rating being changed on appeal are rare.
The rating process is a fairly detailed exercise. It involves, among other things, analysis of published financial information, visits to the issuer's office and works, intensive discussion with the senior executives of issuer, discussions with auditors, bankers, etc. It also involves an in-depth study of the industry itself and a degree of environment scanning. All this takes time and a rating agency may take two or three weeks to arrive at a decision, subject to availability of all the solicited information. It is of paramount importance to rating companies to ensure that they do not, in any way, compromise on the quality of their analysis, under pressure from issuers for quick results. Issuers would also be well advised to approach the rating agencies sufficiently in advance so that issue schedules can be adhered to.
It is possible, but rating companies do not and should not indulge in competitive generosity. Any attempt by issuers to play one agency against another will have to be discouraged by all the rating companies. It may, however, be pointed out here that two rating companies may, and often do, arrive at different conclusions on the same issue. This is only natural, as perceptions differ.
Informed public opinion will be the touchstone on which the rating companies have to be assessed and the success of a rating agency should be measured by the quality of the services offered, consistency and integrity.
Both. Rating of instruments would consider instruments' specific characteristics like maturity, credit enhancements specific to the issue etc. Issuer ratings consider the overall debt management capability of an issuer on a medium-term perspective, typically three to five years. While issuer ratings are more often than not, one-time assessments of credit quality, instrument ratings are monitored over the life of the instrument.
By definition, credit rating is an opinion on the issuer's capacity to service debt. In the case of equity, there is no pre-determined servicing obligation, as equity is in the nature of venture capital. So, credit rating in the conventional sense does not apply to equity shares. However, of late, credit rating agencies offer grading of IPOs and Equity grading services which take into account the fundamentals of the issuer.
A credit rating is a professional opinion on the ability and willingness of an issuer to meet debt servicing obligations. It is an opinion on future debt servicing capabilities given on the basis, inter-alia, of past performance and all available information (from audited financial statements, interaction with company management, banks and financial institutions, statutory auditors, etc) at a particular time. While rating agencies make all possible efforts to project corporate business prospects, industry trends and management capabilities, many events are unpredictable. Hence, such opinions may prove wrong in the context of subsequent events. On the occurrence of such an event, a rating agency can only review and make appropriate changes in the rating. In other words, credit quality (and credit rating) is dynamic, not static and all rating agencies review their ratings periodically and make changes, wherever considered appropriate. Such changes are reported widely through the media. It is the experience of all rating agencies that some instruments initially rated as investment grade fall below investment grade or go into default, over a period of time. Having said this, CARE's ratings philosophy is based on the concept of 'through the cycle' assessment of credit risk. That is, the ratings assigned by CARE are aimed at withstanding normal industry cycles. Abnormal situations or unforeseen events which may impact the credit risk of an entity may, however, have an impact on the rating.
Further, it must be noted that there is no privity of contract between an investor or a lender and a rating agency and the investor is free to accept or reject the opinion of the agency. A credit rating is not an advice to buy, sell or hold securities or investments and investors are expected to take their investment decisions after considering all relevant factors and their own policies and priorities. A credit rating is not a guarantee against future losses. Credit ratings do not take into account many aspects which influence investment decisions. They do not, for example, evaluate the reasonableness of the issue price, possibilities for capital gains or take into account the liquidity in the secondary market. Ratings also do not take into account the risk of prepayment by issuer, or interest or exchange risks. Although these are often related to the credit risk, the rating essentially is an opinion on the relative quality of the credit risk, based on the information available at a given point of time.
'SO' symbol is attached in case of any arrangement or structuring as a result of which there is a "credit enhancement" which enhances the standalone credit quality of an issuer. 'SO' is attached only as long as the above arrangement/structure exists.
When a rating is assigned subject to fulfillment of certain conditions, rating symbol is prefixed with the word "Provisional". On fulfillment of the said conditions to the satisfaction of CARE, the final rating is assigned by CARE.
CARE's credit ratings are opinions on credit risk and are not recommendations to buy, sell or hold any security. Credit Ratings do not take into account many aspects which influence the investment decision such as:
CARE's ratings are based on information obtained from sources believed by it to be accurate and reliable. CARE does not, however, guarantee the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of such information and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such information. CARE does not perform an 'audit' in connection with the rating exercise nor does it undertake a forensic exercise to detect fraud. On occasions, CARE may rely on unaudited financial information.
Moreover, most entities whose bank facilities/instruments are rated by CARE have paid a credit rating fee, based on the amount and type of bank facilities/instruments.
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Digital Strategy by EvolutionCo


text:
classname: monster_bob
health: 150
size: small
ranged: laser volley ( 4 projectile burst )
melee: none
special: flying
A highly maneuverable flyer. He'll try to stay slightly above the player by flying upwards whenever he shoots. If the player is far below him, however, he won't fly up, choosing instead to go lower, down to the player's level. On Nightmare skill, the bobbot moves slightly faster when firing.
Necros says
Because of their maneuverability, fights with these guys may last longer than your typical quake monster fight would, and because of their small size, the SSG is mostly a waste against them. Keep this in mind that players will want to use nails the most to take them out, or if there is one bob alone, a normal shotgun should do.
Kell says
Aiming at bob is the hardest part of combat here, with dodging his laser volley coming second. Nail weapons feel the most natural against bobbots, but the RL makes for a good challenge because it only takes a couple of hits but those hits may take a bit of effort to score. As with other flying monsters, distance makes the GL and LG less effective. The PG will burn them down very fast, but if the player wields it in later areas of a map several bobbots can be used without overwhelming the combat.
Try to give bob a bit of space to maneuver. The simplest way to achieve this is to raise the ceiling height of a room.


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From Beatrix Potter's stories to the nervous family in the Wind in the willows; catching a glimpse of the European hedgehogs always feels like seeing an old friend.
This fascinating species of mammal is prevalent over large portions of Europe; ranging from the British Isles, to the Mediterranean islands and all the way to West Russia.
Across such a vast distribution they have heavily featured in a array of European folklore.
Some, simply humanise them as well-mannered workaholics with a penchant for mushrooms. While other stretch the imagination, one even suggests that it was a hedgehog that convinced the sun to call off his marriage to the moon.
While many have little basis in the real world, some hedgehogs have observed occasionally supplementing their diet with mushrooms.
In reality, these small omnivorous are closely related to shrews and moles and their bodies are relatively unspecialised. This is, of course, aside from their trademark spines which, numbering at around 6,000 per hog, act as a defensive armour.
A mechanism that they learn to use at a young age.
By the time they are thirty-six hours old, their second, outer coat of spines will have begun to sprout and by eleven days old they will be able to roll into a ball.
These young will usually have been born between June and August, and will be weaned for around six weeks by their mother. She will tend to them, offer them milk and keep them warm.
Eventually, as the cold shows signs of returning, they will part ways. All of them must eat enough to survive their hibernation. Many fail and after human-related deaths, their most common killer is starvation.
Alexander S. Howson
Along with a heavy interest in Aquatics, birds and ecology. Alexander now directs a large deal of energy attempting to re-educate the public about aquatics and promoting the conservation of a range of wildlife species.
Latest posts by Alexander S. Howson (see all)
- Meet the species: Rough-Legged Buzzards. - February 14, 2020
- Our Mission - November 27, 2019
- Meet the Species: Hedgehogs - October 6, 2019


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'Smallville' goes supernatural: A recap and a suggestion
At a time when TV is overrun with irony, sarcasm, and hip knowingness, one of the things Smallville does well is innocence and earnestness. The episode "Warrior" was a good example of this.
Comic-book conventions are usually played for cheap laughs (look at all the geeks!), and while the beginning of this hour had a little of that, the central plot — a boy steals a copy of Warrior Angel #0 and becomes a superhero himself — managed to play this out straightforwardly, frequently with a pleasing sense of youthful wonder. It was fun to see the kid turn into a young man (the latter played by Carlo Marks) capable of super-feats but still a gawky pre-teen at heart. The cleverly written (by Bryan Miller) episode had Chloe getting a tad turned-on by Stephen Swift's muscles, only to become sheepishly embarrassed once she figured out she'd been crushing on a boy who was more turned on by an Xbox than by a blonde inviting him up to her place. (Well, Carlo Marks did play Chloe's fiance in the "Apocalypse" episode… )
In addition to the reappearance of the Warrior Angel comic in Smallville, there was the return of Zatanna. She figured in the plot as the source of Swift's Warrior transformation — it was the result of a curse Zatanna's father had placed upon the heretofore unopened comic book, one designed to result in the hero turning into the villain Devilicus (the most frightening thing about that metamorphosis was an alarming increase in hair-gel).
Zatanna is a tricky character to pull off in live-action TV, mostly because her costume is so — well, as Lois derisively referred to her, "Lady Fishnets." But Serinda Swan really has a handle on this character by now; she plays her smart but not too smart-alecky, and her crisp dialogue with Clark made Lois' jealousy plausible. And speaking of costumes: What's the verdict on Lois Lane as Wonder Woman — or is it, as one Commenter suggests below, Xena, Warrior Princess? (She does refer to herself as "this Amazon princess," but I do see the Zena resemblance, and the episode was called 'Warrior'… ) Nonetheless, I come down on the side of less Amazonian than simply cute, a quality that suits this Lois well.
I guess when you direct the episode, as Allison Mack did, you get to put yourself in the final scene: The heck with Clark and Lois — Chlollie was in full effect, as Oliver guided Chloe in shooting an arrow, his arms enfolding her. One imagines that after the closing credits, they pulled out a boomerang arrow that would… well, fill in your own Valentine's Day/Cupid's arrow joke here.
Oh yes, my suggestion: Watching Smallville on Friday and Supernatural on Thursday, I thought, why the hell doesn't the CW pair up these two shows on one night, as they used to be? Vampire Diaries may be more successful (in terms of numbers) than both, but I'll bet ratings would increase for those two other shows if you brought their fan-bases together again; Vampire can hold its own by now, anyway. (This assumes, of course, that both Supernatural and Smallville will be back next season.)
What do you think of my idea? And what did you think about "Warrior"?
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It's a bird, it's a plane, it's the action and heartbreak of Clark Kent — before he was all things Super


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Elliot Storey gently placed the mother of his four children on the sand. He had just lugged her through an obstacle course that included a pool and two log hurdles 30 inches high.
Giana Storey was less than pleased.
"I literally gave Elliot the silent treatment after we crossed the finish line," she said about their recent race at the 2017 Wife Carrying World Championship. "That's how real couples do it."
Not until Elliot finished vomiting several minutes later did his wife's anger dissipate. They missed finishing in the top three by less than a second, in large part because of pre-race advice given by her husband to another competitor.
The Storeys, who live in Westbrook, are accomplished performers in this arcane sport. In October, they won the North American Wife Carrying Championship at Sunday River in Newry, thereby gaining automatic entry to the World Championships, which have been held in Sonkajarvi, Finland, since 1992.
Last Saturday, they covered the 253.5-meter course – nearly the length of three football fields – in one minute and 12.95 seconds. That was good enough for fourth place out of 46 couples from 10 countries. The winners were six-time world champions Taisto Miettinen and Kristiina Haapanen of Finland, who finished in 1:08.65.
It was the runners-up – Mischa Freystaetter and Rie Takano of Florida – who had Giana all riled up. At a practice the night before the competition, Elliot saw how much Freystaetter kept slipping and suggested his footwear was at fault. Freystaetter, whose mother is Finnish, went out and bought the same pair Elliot wears, and Saturday carried Takano across the line in 1:10.94.
"I was fuming," said Giana, a 36-year-old aerobics instructor/coordinator at The Fitness Factory in Portland who played field hockey at Westbrook High and the University of Southern Maine. "I'm just extremely competitive. They wouldn't have gotten (second place) unless Elliot helped them."
She was able to laugh about the incident Friday while speaking by phone from San Sebastian in Spain, where the Storeys are in the midst of a long-delayed honeymoon. Theirs was a destination wedding, on a beach in Belize in 2009. They spent much of the past week in France and will wrap up their three-week trip in Italy.
Elliot, 32, was an all-state linebacker and tight end for the Westbrook High football team. He also played basketball and, for one year, baseball. He went on to Fordham University, where he became interested in Strongman competitions, and organized and won the first such event on campus.
Now a project manager for TRC Solutions, he was the impetus behind their first wife-carrying competition, at Sunday River in 2012.
"How did we get into it? I don't know," he said. "The Sunday River race has very good coverage."
"Before we were even married, Elliot used to talk about this wife-carrying race," Giana said. "Then we were perpetually pregnant. Finally he was like, 'Let's do Sunday River.' "
Last October, on their fourth attempt in five years, they completed the 278-yard course in 59.18 seconds to win five times her weight in cash ($665) as well as her weight in beer (11 cases of Goose Island Oktoberfest).
Because the Sunday River course is hillier and its lone hurdle is taller, the Storeys said they thought they could go faster in Finland. Of course, that was before Elliot, training in California near a project site, crashed his bicycle while speeding down Mount Diablo. He badly scraped his right leg and left elbow and sprained his right wrist a week before they headed to Finland.
"Normally when we hurdle, he uses a hand," Giana said. "This time he had to kind of leap over them."
The other difference in Finland was a water hazard, clear but longer and deeper, as the first obstacle. At Sunday River, a big mud puddle is near the end of the course.
"I think I need to practice with wet shoes," Elliot said, "because that is a factor."
Another factor is the woman's weight. Despite the title, International Wife Carrying rules stipulate that the couple need not be married, that "the wife to be carried may be your own, or the neighbor's, or you may have found her further afield; she must, however, be over 17 years of age."
The wife's minimum weight also must be 49 kilograms, about 108 pounds, and many of the top "wives" are near the minimum. Giana Storey said most competitors are not married, at least not to each other.
"We're always the first married couple in the awards," she said.
At 59 kilos, or a little over 130 pounds, she said her size increases the burden on Elliot, who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 242 pounds.
"I've actually begged Elliot to take out someone smaller," she said. "He won't."
Giana's usual weight is about 145. Before a competition, she tries to lose weight through High Intensity Interval training and by dieting. Teaching her aerobics classes also helps. In addition to lifting weights and riding his bike, Elliot runs with a weighted vest that can add up to 140 pounds. Their kids, who range in age from nearly 2 to 8, often accompany them on training runs.
As for technique, the Storeys employ what is known as the "Estonian carry." Giana wraps her legs around Elliot's neck while upside down on his back, and grabs hold of her knees or hamstrings so his arms can swing freely.
"I make myself into a human backpack so Elliot doesn't have to touch me," she said. "I can't squeeze too tight because I'll hurt his neck. But I can't be too loose because a good backpack is not bouncy."
"You'll see a lot of guys hold the wife's legs," Elliot said. "If we see that, no matter how good an athlete he appears to be, we write him off immediately."
"You have to be able to hold your own, be a good jockey," Giana said. "If I speak, something is wrong. It's all business once we saddle up."
For their efforts in Finland, the Storeys won some local gifts, including bedsheets, a blanket, a vase and a bandanna. Elliot also won a small statue for being "Strongest Carrier."
"He has 32-inch thighs," Giana said. "He just looks so massive."
They gave everything but the statue to a British couple who finished eighth because, Giana said, the Storeys brought only backpacks for their three-week excursion to Europe and theirs already were packed to the brim. Just before leaving the states, the Storeys also heard from producers of "The Amazing Race," a reality-adventure television series on CBS, asking the couple to apply.
"We had to fill out a 15-page form and submit a video," Giana said. "If they like us, we'll do a second interview in (Los Angeles). We have to wait to hear."
Meantime, relatives are watching the kids. The honeymoon continues. Next stop in Spain is Pamplona, for the Running of the Bulls. Giana is opting out.
"One of us has to survive for our four children," she said. "He has (reserved) a balcony for me to watch him run not once but twice."
Elliot still sounded tired from his ordeal in Finland.
"I honestly can barely walk right now," he said. "But you've got to give the bulls something. Otherwise, it won't be fun for them."
Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or at:
Twitter: GlennJordanPPH
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The FANFOOD 3 IN/OUT will be a quick and easy read to help you make that decision that has been bugging you all week.
Who to sit and who to start?
Check back here for information and my take on six players who can help or hurt your fantasy team in your matchup. This week also features a quick and strange (but good) blueberry crisp recipe.
First I have to give the premise. I am assuming your league starts (2) RBs (2) WRs & (1) W/R/T FLEX, to go along with the standard (1) QB & (1) TE. I will not get into kickers and defenses.
I also assume that the scoring is also pretty standard.
6 pts = TD (passing, rushing, receiving)
1 pt = 10 yards (receiving and rushing)
1 pt = 25 yards (passing and returns)
(-2) pts for every fumble and INT
.5 pts for every reception (PPR)
Based on the positions and settings above, your teams needs at least 110 points to have a chance of winning. Don't ever concern yourself with what your opponent is doing, focus on your team and getting the most possible points each week. Just like you can't control the weather, you can't control your opponent.
To get to this number and above, you will need at minimum 12 points from each of your starters and a few from your kickers and defense. This is the threshold for my IN/OUT predictions.
Last piece of business before we begin. There are players that you will start every week unless they are injured. Players like Rodgers, Brady, Brees, Megatron, Foster, McCoy, Rice, Andre Johnson and some more are set it and forget it players. They may not score you the dozen you need some weeks, but count on it for many. They will not be mentioned here, hopefully you have at least one of these players, so I won't include them. Here I will focus on your #2s and FLEX options.
Let's get to it
Here are the players that will get you more than 12 points; and some that will be busts
Julio Jones @ KC
Matty Ice is ready to show the world if he is the QB to talk about with his new style of offense. Julio is his best receiver and probably a must start each week. Count on over 14 pts.
Brandon Marshall vs IND
I got a good feeling about the new "battery" in Chicago. The Colts defense is not that good and Cutler will carve them up at home. Expect Marshall to be the go to guy scoring more than 12 pts for your team.
Matt Forte vs IND
Forte is a great option this week and if he is your RB2 you are in great shape. I don't think is a must start each week, but count on it in week1. 15 points is not out of the question.
Adrian Peterson vs JAX
You may have drafted AP as your RB1 and I hope you did it for the future not the present. I also hope you drafted his "Toby" my new phrase for handcuff. He will not play that much and will be a drain on your team. BENCH
Demaryius Thomas vs PIT
Ok I am biased here. I have him on my team and hoped he would be my every week FLEX starter, but I am going to wait until I see what he does on Sunday Night. I really think he is going to have a great year, but I think it starts week 2. I am expecting less than 10 points from him.
Maurice Jones-Drew @ MIN
He is back with the team, but don't be that manager that thinks he should be back in your starting lineup. He is going to be in a third-down rotation in game 1. This means he scores less than 7 points.
Some of our favorite FF links for you to use:
NFL Player News/Blogs:
|CBS Sports
|Fox Sports
|Fantasy Sports Portal
|Bleacher Report
|Fantasy Football Hub
|Fantasy Fools
SIT / START Advice:
|FF Toolbox
|Fantasy Pros
|Fantasy Football Hub
Injury Reports:
|Ask the Commish
|CBS sports (by team)
|FF Freaks (colorful)
|FF Breakdown
|Fantasy Pros
Easy Blueberry Crisp
1 pint of blueberries (washed)
1 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp Cinnamon
Spread the berries on in the bottom of a baking dish.
Mix the remaining ingredients and pour over berries.
Bake at 350 … 20 – 25 minutes or until topping is crisp and lightly brown.
Serve warm topped with vanilla ice cream.
Designed & Developed by
SilverTree Technology


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Friday Hot Soup with DeRosa and LoganThe lineup for Friday (4/22) night's show:
Joe DeRosa
Jared Logan
Jim Tews
Brendan Fitzgibbons
Rob O'Reilly
Andy Haynes
I am hosting.
Hot Soup!
Every Friday at 8pm
O'Hanlon's (back room)
349 E 14th St between 1st and 2nd Ave. (map)
Produced by Matt Ruby, Mark Normand, Andy Haynes, and David Cope
Permalink | 4/20/2011


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It is said that "Money is a tricky
Business". It is more applicable when
you have to make it for yourself. If you
are the owner of an online company then
you not only have to be sure that the
money transactions are secure but also
make sure that it makes sense. Before
signing up for any merchant accounts for
the purpose of processing money
transactions then you need to have a
clear idea of what you will be getting
when you sign of for a service.
The merchant account system allows the
customer to give his or her credit card
information to his accounting company.
They will then verify the information
before depositing the funds from the
customer's account to your account.
Being in between your account and the
customer's, they will not only help you
in performing secure and safe
transactions but will also facilitate
the smooth flow of money in to your
business account. However, before
opening a merchant account you will have
to watch out for these 5 things:
If you are the owner of a small or a
start up business then there is a high
probability that your company may not
have a good amount of cash flow.
However, a few merchant account
providers would charge you more fees
than you will be able to handle. With
every transaction that you make, you
will have to pay some fee for processing
which will add up to a sum larger than
your profit if you are not able to get
too many orders. Therefore, you should
have an idea of the number of
transactions that you will be able to
make before you negotiate the merchant
account rates with the provider.
Whenever any information is transferred
through the internet, there are chances
of it being stolen. This is truer when
it is financial information. Therefore,
you need to make sure that your merchant
account provider is up to date with the
security technologies available in the
Suppose there is a break down with your
merchant account system, just for an
hour, it will cause bad results for your
business, especially online, as you will
not be able to accept credit card
payments. Therefore, check to see if
they have a responsive customer care
unit to attend to your queries.
Before signing up with a merchant
account provider you have to check the
agreement to see the rate of
cancellation fees that you will be
charged if you decide to terminate the
There are several companies out there
waiting to cheat you of your hard earned
money. Therefore, be careful to check
the fees' and its rates before you sign
up for a merchant account. If you don't
understand something, ask the provider's
to explain it to you.
It is in best interest of your company
to do some research before signing up
for a merchant account.
one of our helpful account
representatives to assist you in the
setup of
high risk merchant account,
high risk ach account or
offshore merchant account for a
high risk merchant.