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"Thor" is waking up on Monday morning with a bit of a curious hangover. While most critics seemed to give the Marvel comic adaptation a shrug of approval (including us — we gave it a B- and called it "mostly entertaining" though around the offices, most of us were split on the film, and audiences were a bit more cagey about seeing the mighty hammer up on screen. The film opened to a conservative $66 million. Yes, it was the second highest first-weekend gross this year so far, but for May, this is considered a soft summer opening if you look at the past ("Iron Man" movies and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" both did higher numbers). This could make rival studios quiver in their boots about bringing lesser-known, expensive comic films to the big screen (you can bet Warner Bros. execs are meeting today to figure how to avoid a similar opening for "Green Lantern," again not a bad one, but not quite the numbers they want to see considering the expensive budgets).
And yes, while "Thor" is diverting enough, the film is not without its problems. Full credit to the cast who elevate a lot of bad writing and keep things engaging for most of the runtime but there are some things not even Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman could save. Here's what we felt worked and what didn't in Marvel's latest comic film adaptation.
The Good
Chris Hemsworth: Unlike the other superhero movies of the summer that have placed proven talent in the lead roles — Ryan Reynolds, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Chris Evans — Marvel rolled the dice on Chris Hemsworth, a fresh face best known Down Under for his stint on the soap "Home And Away." And the gamble paid off. Given the unenviable task of making the otherworldly Thor human, Hemsworth is effortlessly charming, displaying both the superhero bravado and Earth-world foibles of his character with ease. Even as the film is uneven, Hemsworth admirably remains a strong anchor throughout.
Embracing the absurdity: At its core, the mythology of the Thor comic is somewhat absurd and had it been played too serious, the film would've come right apart at the seams. So kudos to Marvel for realizing the best way to play the story is as a fish-out-of-water tale. Having Thor wander completely out of his element provides some of the best moments of humor and drama in the film. And that whimsical tone in the first half allows the heavier moments of the second half to land with some heft.
Kat Dennings: Through rehearsals, Kat Dennings — who had signed on without reading the script — found her role expanded, and thank goodness for that. Inserted as an audience surrogate more than an actual character, her easily delivered quips, observations and one-liners reassure moviegoers when they are less-than-convinced about what is happening up on the big screen that yeah, Thor is a pretty fucking weird story.
Clark Gregg: Once again, reprising his annual role as Agent Coulson, this excellent character actor seems to be coming in from a much classier movie. As a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson is both aware of how strange his job is, but also takes it on with the utmost seriousness. Gregg often outshines the more central figures of the Marvel world, which makes us ask — when is Marvel gonna give him his own movie?
The Bad
The first 30 minutes: Unlike Batman, Spiderman or even Iron Man, the comic world of Thor is not in the pop cultural consciousness to any great degree. How Marvel would introduce audiences to this world without spending the whole movie constantly explaining who everyone is and how they relate to each other was a big question. And as you can see from the film's opening twenty minutes to half hour, the studio struggled with it. Combining a lengthy flashback, clunky exposition and a sleep-inducing, forgettable voiceover, this gets the film started at an awkward, boring snail's pace that almost derails the movie completely. It's easily the worst part of the film and maybe the most hamfisted portion of any Marvel film to date.
The romance: Seemingly treated like an afterthought for the girlfriends in the room who might be dragged by their nerd boyfriends to the movie, the romance between Thor and Jane Foster at no moment ever feels real. Jane seems attracted to Thor's ripped physique, while Thor seems attracted to Jane being Natalie Portman and it never develops much beyond that. When their inevitable kiss arrives it seems more like something ticked off on a checklist than the culmination of anything real. If Chris Hemsworth is the film's secret weapon, Portman is the Achilles heel. Clearly out of her element slumming it in this tentpole flick, the actress doesn't seem to know what to do with herself playing a variation on "exasperated" for most of the proceedings. Though, to be fair, it's not like she was given much to work with either.
The 3D: Once again we have another movie slicked over in three dimensions to the detriment of the picture. Adding absolutely nothing, the format manages to take away from a film that needs all the grandeur it can get, only serving to make Asgard look dimmer and more absurd than it already does. And when the film shifts to Earth, the process is barely used at all to any real effect.
Ok, that was funny once: Like we said above, the fish-out-of-water elements worked well, and yes, led to some genuinely funny moments in the first half of the film. But by the later stages, the writers seemed to be wheezing for ideas. While Hemsworth and Dennings do a great job knocking those jokes out of the park, when it extends to folks like Stellan Skarsgard or the forgettable trio of Sif, Hogun and Fandral, it felt like a Saturday morning cartoon — we half expected Scooby Doo to show up.
The Ugly
Fight Choreography: Director Kenneth Branagh has never really directed a big action film and boy, does it show. The climatic showdown between two Norse gods — Thor and Loki — should be as epic as it sounds, but instead, Branugh shoots like a boxing match as filmed by TMZ. Shaky, shot way up close so we can't actually see what they're doing and utilizing fast cutting, most of the fights are just flashes of body parts. With no sense of geography or even where to put the camera, Branagh shouldn't have been too proud or shy to ask for help.
Loki — a wimp or genocidal maniac?: It seems the writers disagreed on how ruthless Loki should be and never quite sorted it out on the page. Initially a simpering weak-willed brother who is too timid to kill anybody himself, at the end of the picture, Loki is pretty much ready to commit genocide on a mass scale. It's an abrupt shift with little explanation and on the whole Loki is never believably a threat to the clearly physically and mentally stronger Thor (which is too bad considering Tom Hiddleston is great in the part).
Asgard, the Land of Iambic Pentameter: "Thor" vacillates between Earth and Asgard for much of the film, and unfortunately, when the picture leaves our planet, it grinds to a halt. The stuffy, stodgy faux-Shakesperian line readings of Asgard are dry as fuck (and not helped by the wooden dialogue the actors are given to work with) when not being unintentionally hilarious. And it certainly doesn't help that everyone is doing this while standing around one of the recycled sets from "The Phantom Menace."
Hawkeye Cameo: The extended, already spoiled but still highly anticipated cameo by Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye ultimately goes nowhere and is the worst sort of cocktease. Spending three minutes in a basket on a crane in the rain with his bow raised ready to fire, Hawkeye says about two lines of inconsequential dialogue and then doesn't do anything. The audience we were with audibly groaned at the wasted opportunity.
The post-credits sequence: In a word, the now-standard after-credits scene was painful. Truly emphasizing the episodic nature of the Marvel world film series, the scene felt like a cable television ad for an upcoming episode of "Heroes" or "The Further Adventures of Buckaroo Avengers." Revealing, somewhat cornily, that Loki — SHOCK! — is still alive and up to his mischievous ways, it's not worth sitting through seven minutes of credits for. Hell, it's barely worth being an extra on the eventual DVD.
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Photos and Quotes From Gisele Bundchen in Vanity Fair May 2009
Gisele Strips Down and Talks About Tom, John, and Leo
Gisele Bundchen shows off all of her glowing skin on the May cover of Vanity Fair. In the interview, the supermodel has a lot to say about her new husband Tom Brady and her stepson John. While her words might cause some controversy, it sounds like it's all coming from the love in her heart. Here's more:
- On falling in love with Tom: "I knew right away — the first time I saw him. We met through a friend. The moment I saw him, he smiled and I was like, That is the most beautiful, charismatic smile I've ever seen! We sat and talked for three hours. I had to go home for Christmas, but I didn't want to leave. You know that feeling of, like, you can't get enough? From the first day we met, we've never spent one day without speaking to each other."
- On finding out Tom's ex was pregnant: "It was definitely a surprise for both of us. In the beginning you're living this romantic fantasy; you're thinking, This can't be true, it's so good! And then, Whoops—wake-up call! We were dating two and a half months when he found out, and it was a very challenging situation. Obviously, in the beginning, it's not the ideal thing . . . I think it was a blessing, because otherwise I don't think I would have known what he was made of, and he wouldn't have known what I was made of . . . Our relationship has become so much stronger, and I think I wouldn't be as certain as I am today if it weren't for that."
- On John: "I understand that he has a mom, and I respect that, but to me it's not like because somebody else delivered him, that's not my child. I feel it is, 100 percent. I want him to have a great relationship with his mom, because that's important, but I love him the same way as if he were mine. I already feel like he's my son, from the first day."
To read what she has to say about her ex Leo and her plans for a big family, just
- On Leo: "Leo is a really wonderful person. We still speak sometimes, and I'm friends with his mom. He still has one of my dogs. He's done a lot for the environment, and I admire what he's done. We know what we had; we were very young, and we grew together in a lot of ways. We were just not meant to be boyfriend and girlfriend, but I respect him enormously, and I wish him nothing but the best."
- On her future: "I would like a big family. I love children. When you come from a big family, you see that growing up you're learning how to share. Your sisters have got your back; you're not alone in this—'We all support you!' Your family provides that; it gives you a sense of safety, and it's a very grounding feeling. That's why I feel I can fly away, because I have those roots and they're so deep. This is what I want to have in my life. This is why you get married—you want to create those roots together; you want to give that to your kids. I would also love to adopt a child from Brazil. When you come from São Paulo, you see five-year-olds sniffing glue on the corner. You think, If you make a difference in the life of one of them, that makes your time on this earth worthwhile. I will have a colorful family, like a rainbow. I have dogs from rescue; they are all my dogs. Children are like little angels—there's no way you can't love them."
Gisele also reveals that she was engaged a lot longer than people suspected, while raving about Tom throughout the interview. The couple have a second wedding coming up this Friday, and it sounds like newlywed bliss came even before they said "I do."

subset: commoncrawl


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Where to find amazing photo backgrounds or textures?
If You are a graphic or web designer, great texture always becomes handy in your workflow. You can create amazing effects just combining those textures together and playing with them. I just took a look around and thought that I need to make a list of amazing textures, because quality images and textures are never enough. There are many great resources all around the web, I just tried to select those most better known web pages and those with great collection and quality of textures. All of those textures are free, so You can use them freely in your personal or commercial works.
Free texture web sites
1. More than 17GB Huge collection of textures and reference photos for artists.
2. Stylish collection of free textures and photos ( for now 415).
3. Freebies from Kave Wall stock.
4. Maybe most popular one with the biggest set of textures, at this moment 878 textures:
5. Also very good known web-site with great collection:
6. Design is not very encouraging, but textures are:
7. Folks from Designviver.com summarized nice pick of textures too:
10. Design is very simple, but sometimes less is more ( more than 10 000 textures!):
11.Lost and taken thinks so big, I cant even fill all logo in the page:
12.Web site with stylish design and textures:
13. Fabio Sasso from abduzeedo.com has made some nice collection too from 36 textures:
14. Great texture web site and even their logo is texture! Original!
15. Textures will be enough there for all Your life!! Maybe not, but for now there is 7292 textures
I just love all those vintage, grunge, rusty textures and so the last ones are hand picked 5 great texture packs which I like the most. Hope You enjoy.
1. 5 nice old scratchy paper textures :
2. Even more 6 interesting textures with some more neat text effects taking action.
3. Nice paper textures with clouds in the background:
4. All those 4 texture packs comes from amazing artist Princess-of-Shadows, I really love her work.
5 more great textures.
5. Great selection offers fellows from bittbox:
That's all for now my friends. And Yes, maybe You see great textures all around and don't know how to really use them?
Then I am here for You to tell this one - just create new document, make some nice gradient or fill color effect and then easily open some texture, export on image and just play with opacity, levels, color balance and mainly layer styles. With those styles You can get unbelievably great results! Just try it out - it's really not that complicated!
via :1stwebdesigner
Labels: Design, Design inspirations


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Professional Guidelines For Choosing Major Aspects Of Doctor Home Loan Melbourne Victoria
What does doctor will tell you about the final decision regarding the surgery. Concerned physician is the best person but it is most common in late summer and fall. While surgery is said to not that effective, Message In some cases, especially if you are a service provider or have something pending with the contacting party, your absence might not be well-received. What can medical doctor home loan Oak Laurel 0430129662 oaklaurel.com.au I do to aid in to have no difficulty in breathing. How can support... Read more


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GAYLORD - In light of the recent alleged anthrax hoax in Gaylord - during which the post office and law enforcement agencies were accused by one of the suspects of not having the proper protocol to handle such situations - Otsego County Sheriff James McBride was quick to assure there is indeed a plan of action.
McBride explained that a "summary of guidelines for handling any suspicious packages, substances or threats" was handed down to local law enforcement agencies Oct. 15 by the emergency management division of the Michigan State Police. The policy was further discussed locally at a 911 meeting Thursday, Nov. 1.
"It just spells out here what you're supposed to do, and we did it," said McBride, referring to the recent incident. "We had to go by protocol."
McBride noted that other than the most recent incident, the only other cause for concern was a group of letters sent to public officials from the Grand Rapids area the week after the policy was handed down. None of the letters had a return address, but each eventually was found to be correspondence supporting the legalization of certain drugs.


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Anti-war groups battle for survival
1 Comments in Response to Anti-war groups battle for survival
Obama made a fool out of the anti-war peace movement organizations throughout the country. These dolts running the movements are now ashamed of their stupidity for allowing Obama to trick them into believing that he was against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Too late for them to realize that Obama was interested only to ride their politics like a duped horse in a race that made him president; he was never interested in their cause for peace that they foolishly believed Obama was obsessed about, even when Obama had encouraged them to spill their blood in the streets to achieve their ghoulish objective or Machiavellian goal.


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Red Lentil Soup with Spinach
20 hours ago
Oh my goodness, those look and sound so good! As a kid, I didn't 'get' my mom's coffee. Then, I went through a period where I drank so much espresso my blood probably was caffeinated. I'm down to one cup a day, but boy do I love that cup! And coffee-flavored things are heavenly!
I'm not a huge coffee drinker, but I love it as a flavor enhancer.
These sound lovely! What great combination of flavours!
Chocolate chips and coffee bring out the best in each others. These must be delicious.
These would be perfect with my morning cup of coffee.
These look terrific.


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Well, I worked all weekend, but I accomplish one thing at work today....
I managed to create this at work, between dispatching ambulances and taking 911 calls..hehehe! As you can see I was not that busy today at work, which is always a good thing in my type of work.
My supplies were limited at work, I had only brought a few things with me, but really I dont' think it turned out all that bad, the pic isn't very good, cause it's night time now (almost bedtime)....but hey, I still like it! He's just so darn cute!! In this pic it was the first time ever ate yogurt alone, without my help...LOL and then he wanted "O"'s (cheerios), so thats the little O face he is making...I just wanna squeeze him all the time. He's growing so fast, and he has such a personallity..ok I'm rambling now..hehehe.
Anyways, this was created for the LCOM Sketch Blog Birthday Bash challenge #1...so which means I get a piece of the pie!!!
Well, it's come that time of night, hubby is watching the hockey game and I am tired...baby's (have to stop calling him that) in bed, animals are fed, clothes are in the dryer...so the next best thing to do is Scrap...I wish! 4:45am comes really fast...so gonna head over to LCOM to read a few more posts on the forum, then off to bed!!
Have a good night!


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1 option(s) to choose from.
Alvarez presents the AD70 Rosewood Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar. It gives you the lush, rich tonal textures that only rosewood can produce but with a price you can afford. Its large dreadnought size gives you a great fit whether you are practicing or performing. The AD70 has hand-sanded scalloped bracing at its heart, which allows the top to resonate easily without compromising stability or strength. Alvarez's bi-level bridge is made of rosewood and puts more down-pressure on the bone saddle, making a more efficient energy transfer from the strings to the top. This allows the AD70 to give you more volume than you could have ever thought possible from a guitar in this price range.
The AD70 acoustic guitar has hand-selected rosewood back and sides that give you all that big, warm bottom-end rosewood is known for at a groundbreaking price. Alvarez also refined their neck profile, with a thinner, faster neck that plays easier, yet still feels solid in your hands. The AD70 is a tone machine that's just waiting to kick your playing up a notch.
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What started as a simple string and pedal sales catalog has grown exponentially over the past thirty years. The early days were a time where catalogs didn't have much of a presence in the industry, but what began as a college dorm room operation grew rapidly. In 1986 we moved to a full product offering and 64-page catalog, which over the years has grown to 162 pages. Join the AMS family and get your free catalog now!
Copyright © 1996-2018 American Musical Supply, Inc. All rights reserved. American Musical Supply reserves the right to correct pricing and/or product specifications in the event of typographical errors found in our print catalog or on our website. If a product is listed at an incorrect price due to such errors or because of inaccurate information received from a supplier, American Musical Supply shall have the right to refuse or cancel any orders placed, whether or not the order has been confirmed and your credit card charged. If your credit card has already been charged for the purchase and your order is canceled, American Musical Supply will issue a credit to your credit card account in the amount of the charge.


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Hi there. My name is Dren Asselmeier and I am a campus organizer for Center for Inquiry. I was hoping to connect with even more freethinkers and atheists via Atheist Nexus, but there isn't a spot that is specifically set up for students to speak generally. I just decided I would post my own discussion.
I love hearing stories that students have about their own faith-related/godless experiences on campus. Anyone care to share? Even if you're not a student anymore.
Also, we have been getting a lot of hits on our blog lately because of the high school students that have been standing up for church/state separation. You can check it out here: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/oncampus/blog/archive/
Let me know if I can help you with anything! :)
Views: 144
Hi, thanks for posting this up I cant remember how many times ive been ridiculed for being so anti-theist. Im an incoming freshman for the fall and I hope that it goes better than my highschool experiences. I remember that the last experience I had was when we had presentations of ourselves and lives as a final for my Economics class and I decided to express my atheism to the whole class, now they didnt react there and then seeing as my parents had been invited and they didnt wat to make a scene but I wasnt so lucky after. I of course received the glares of hatred and disgust but what really bothered me is how some of the people I had really gotten along with just completely refused to acknowledge me. Some others went as far as to mark all over the atheist badge that I had chosen to place on my mask (which is basically a mask that was meant to represent our personality and lifestyle for the project). I am frankly surprised that the intolerance is so high as to destroy someone elses property in the process.
Not to mention that Ive also lost alot opportunities with woman after they find out I dont believe in god and my last relationship was with an active christian and ironically she ended up cheating on me... just goes to prove the hypocrisy doesnt it?
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text: Turkish forces are attacking Kurds along its border with northern Syria in a move that could threaten to unravel the progress made on the Syria war. On our show today we'll turn to Kani Xulam of the American Kurdish Information Network to find out why this is happening and what the consequences could be. Then, … Continued


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Security Staffing
Here is a listing of the job functions in the Security Staffing Industry we source candidate for:
Security Guards
Security Officers
Investigation Staff
Body Guards
Event stewards
Door security
Crowd control
Traffic marshals
Security industry is a highly respectable industry responsible for maintaining peace and smooth functioning of day – day life of people, trade & commerce and industrialization. The rapid increase in the population in the GCC states, heavy commerce & industrialization and migration of people from all over the world has also created threat of various crimes resulting into large number of security jobs through the Gulf region. It is the security industry that takes care of maintaining peace, law & order within the GCC countries. The industry is a large recruiter of trained workforce across all the levels including security officers, investigation staff, traffic marshals, body guards and so on. The demand for security personnel comes from residential societies, commercial establishment, manufacturing units / factories, events, educational institutions, hospitals, political meetings, personal safety and so on.
There are various security training institutes that have come into existence throughout the region to fulfil the job openings created in the industry; however, there is huge disparity between demand and supply often met through Gulf recruitment agents based in India. A large no. of Gulf recruitment agents work as just intermediaries of a handful of organized overseas consultants with poor infrastructure and lack of professional approach. This leads into supply of poor quality of security personnel and often delivered beyond stipulated timelines.
We at Angel Gulf Jobs are fully equipped to provide the best of qualified & trained security personnel to the industry within stipulated time limits. We primarily source candidates through our own comprehensive job portal equipped with a large size updated database of candidates. We also make the best use of our external contacts to source the required candidates. In short, we, at Angel Gulf Jobs act as trustworthy referral agent and enable the clients throughout the Gulf region to have an access to the best talented security work force.
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As far as job seekers are concerned we take utmost care that we only keep the latest jobs in the security industry in our database and help them with the most rewarding career in the industry. Job seekers may register with us for FREE Click Here


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TGIF! Hope everyone has had a very nice week and has nice plans for a good weekend!
SU!'s 2017 Occasions Catalog is out and I just received my order :) Great timing too because this week's Sisters In Stamping theme is to create something from the catalog. Head on over to the blog to check out the other projects this week!
I fell in love with the Birthday Blast stamps set and matching die. I had to have them! I also really liked the Urban Underground DSP and Embellishments. They are perfect for masculine projects. I actually bought a lot of things from the new catalog, but I'll get to those things later :)
For this week's card, I wanted to make some masculine birthday cards because I have a lot of men's birthdays coming!
Here they are. I ended up making two of similar designs. I didn't know which of the DSP sheets I'd like, so I cut several :)
I really like this first one - both papers are from the Urban Underground DSP set. I like the visual texture of the die cut sheet. I love the matching embellishments too - they look like screws and seem to match the background paper. I stamped the sentiment and framed banner from the Thoughtful Banners stamp set and punched it and the framed banner piece using the matching Duet Banner Punch.
The second card needed a solid background because the die cut piece is pretty busy. But, I still really like it - that paper is great! I used the stars from the Urban Underground embellishment pack. These cards came together pretty quickly. Love matching things; makes it so much easier!
Well, thanks for looking and have a wonderful weekend!


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Best Foot Forward
by Jennie Norris, ASP Master, IAHSP-Premier,
Owner, Sensational Home Staging
Helping Sellers & Realtors in the Denver Region
When I was looking for photos to include in this blog post and Googled "ugly feet" the images made me want to retch. There are some UGLY and totally disgusting feet out there! However, I wanted to use the analogy of "Best FOOT Forward" for how we want to sell houses so I am saving you the nasty images of what I saw (blech!) and instead chose one that gets the message across without grossing you out.
The truth is in life we do only have one chance to make the best FIRST impression so we want to have, as they say, our BEST foot forward! When a house is listed for sale and a buyer looks at it online or in person - the house either sells itself or sells the competition. They either want to see more and make an offer or they walk on to the next option.
Buyers compare houses online and in person. When one looks great and the other is not prepared for sale - dirty, dated, cluttered, too dark, smelly, etc. - a Buyer will naturally compare that house to the one that is ready to show and buy. So your choice as a Seller or as a Listing Agent is simple. You either Stage up front to get the positive attention and offers or you don't and you just SOLD your competition.
As a Listing Agent you have to ask yourself, "Why would I want to market an ugly foot?" You invest a lot of your time, energy and dollars to get a house sold. The house reflects on YOUR reputation. When it does NOT sell you are often held responsible and blamed by the Seller - and word gets around the neighborhood. Aren't you in this business to get referrals from happy clients? Of course. So YOUR best foot forward is to make it a requirement that all your listings are Staged BEFORE they are listed for sale. Or else you just help sell YOUR competition because the neighborhood is watching who gets the pending sign out first and at what price the house sold.
Yes I know Sellers can resist change and it can be hard to tell them their house has warts or corns. Yet you are not doing them (or yourself) any favors by marketing their house "as is." I know there are special circumstances that can exist, but for the most part, a Seller wants ALL the money from the sale of their house. Not just some.
Putting an ugly foot on the market guarantees they will not net the most from their house and it guarantees their house will be USED to sell the houses that put their BEST foot forward. Even in a hot market, a Buyer does not want the hairy foot with warts and icky toenails when they have the option of buying the beautifully manicured foot with pretty color and jewelry. Those two houses will NOT sell at the same price and the ugly foot will be used to sell the pretty one.
The changes a Seller needs to make to get their foot from ugly to pretty are usually simple and very effective. In most markets a Staging Consultation where the Seller is given a detailed summary of what to do room by room is an average of $250. That small investment can yield thousands of dollars in return. Anything a Seller can do UP FRONT to help their house show better should be recouped in the sale and help their house sell at the best price.
Best Foot Forward. Get the house Staged by a professional Stager to ensure the house truly has the best opportunity to get the best price. Then when the house closes at the BEST price, treat yourself to a manicure! After all the running around we do for our clients we deserve it!
For help putting your best foot forward in the greater
area, give Jennie a call 303-717-7918.
www.SensationalHome.com Denver


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ICP Electronics Australia has released of the ACT-412A 12.1" EM/Mifare Access Control Terminal from IEI suitable for Home, Office and Factory Automation, Boardroom Management, Healthcare and many other applications.
The tough design is ideal for indoor and outdoor applications, with the housing of the ACT Access Control Terminal constructed from durable plastic with an IP64 front panel protection making it water & dust resistant. The ACT-412A Access Control Terminal features anti-shock and anti-vibration shields, as well as an extended temperature range of 10ºC~50ºC making it resistant to extreme environmental conditions. Using an in-wall mounting box allows you to achieve "picture frame" style installations, making it blend in perfectly with the environment.
Further features:
- The ACT-412A Access Control Terminal includes a 45 nm Intel Atom processor N270 which has a 1.60 GHz CPU and a 533 MHz FSB with a 512 KB L2 cache, resulting in ultra-low power consumption.
- A 12.1" TFT touch colour screen with full interface display, an Intel 945GSE graphics memory controller hub (GMCH) which is interfaced through a high-speed direct media interface (DMI) to an Intel Mobil ICH7-M I/O controller hub (ICH).
- This Access Control Terminal provides impressive functionality with built-in 3W speakers and microphone for bi-directional voice communication or voice messaging, a 300K pixel web-camera for real-time image/video access for capture or facial identification.
- The ACT-412A Access Control Terminal features 4 channel DI/DO devices to enable direct control of equipment. This allows you to control motors, heaters, valves and lamps with the ACT-412A Digital I/O interface.


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Meet The Team Monday: Bria And Chrissy5:43 AM
Bria and Chrissy are conversation creators at VProud. They are a lesbian couple and YouTubers singing and entertaining for equality. They make music videos, skits, and advice videos that inspire. The duo works hard to encourage self-love and acceptance amongst their viewers. Recently, Chrissy came out as a victim of revenge pornography and they are now using their platform to advocate for justice for victims and for laws criminalizing revenge porn around the world.
Join Bria and Chrissy's honest conversations on VProud.


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Scrumptious General Tso's Chicken, Broccoli, & Lemon Slices
Time needed
Serving Size / Yield
- For Chicken:
- 3 lbs. of boneless, skinless chicken, cut into chunks
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- For the Cornstarch Mixture:
- 1/4 cups of soy sauce
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 cup of cornstarch
- 2 cups of green onions, sliced
- For Sauce:
- 1/2 cups cornstarch
- 1/4 cups water
- 1 1/2 teaspoon of garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 teaspoon of ginger, minced
- 3/4 cups of sugar
- 1/2 cups of soy sauce
- 1 can of condensed of chicken broth
- 1/4 cup of white vinegar
- For Sides:
- 1 cup of broccoli, washed and dried
- 1 lemon, sliced
Our Readers Also Loved
In a large bowl, mix all the cornstarch mixture ingredients gradually, and stir. The texture should be thick. Then, add the chicken pieces so they marinate.
In a small bowl, mix the sauce ingredients gradually, and set aside.
Put the 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet. Cook the chicken in 350 degree heat until they become crispy. Cook 7 pieces of chicken at a time for efficiency. Once the chicken is cooked, blot the excess oil on paper towels. Repeat pattern until all the chicken is cooked.
After you clean the same skillet, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil and heat to 400 degrees. Add the green onions and the sauce mixture to the skillet. Add the chicken to the combined sauce.
Serve with fresh broccoli and lemon slices as a side dish.


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Nicole Johnsen Photography.
Keep that special moment in your life with professional photography.
Our photographers work their hardest to capture that life time moment of your event. Whether you are having a wedding, engagement, birthday party or a Christening we produce professional, beautiful, quality images that will tell your story every time you look back on them.
Nicole Johnsen Photography have been capturing memories of all types of events.
With 10 years experience in the photography industry Nicole has taken capture of Europes city skylines, to weddings in London.
A perfectionist in her field when it comes to her work.
You can be guaranteed that your event would be captured from start to finish, giving one of a kind life captured moments.
Nicole Johnsen Photography 2010. Copyright. All rights reserved.


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Frequently Asked Questions
We'd like to use Bellweather's technology. What is the resource intensity to support this on our side?
Very low. At the outset, we will cooperate with you to design a process of collecting your data (using APIs or a file-drop process) and creating outputs that will meet your specific needs. Once the process is designed, it takes no work on your end to receive outputs from our system. Everyone is already accounting for weather in some way, so by relying on Bellweather for weather analysis, your overall workload will go down.
We are currently using a few weather stations and averaging them. How is Bellweather's approach to weather data different?
We begin by finding the relevant geography—a service territory map or an electric market territory. We then choose a distribution of weather stations; in the past we've used approximately twice the number of station clients used previously because our automated process for analyzing data removes the constraints of using many stations. Once we have selected stations, we use population maps and other factors to assign dynamic weights for the stations.
We don't collect hourly energy data. Can Bellweather's technology still benefit us?
Absolutely. Data restrictions are a part of the job and there are a variety ways we can work around those restrictions. Some clients have hourly data samples that we can extrapolate to learn about the whole data set. Bellweather also has generic hourly profiles that can be adapted for use in situations that no hourly data is available.
What type of techniques is the model using?
The model uses a non-parametric modeling technique in conjunction with a control algorithm. The algorithm creates a dynamic, adaptive model that optimizes for both common and extreme weather conditions.
Is there anyone else using Bellweather's modeling approach for weather?
No, but there is a wide variety of academic literature advocating for non-linear hourly based modeling. Tao Hong from UNC is the best-known advocate for this practice.


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Here's what's new over at http://redpanda.etsy.com this week!
(Click picture to view larger)
In order from left to right:
1. Triple Orbit Chainmaille Earrings
2. Sterling Silver JPL Necklace
3. Rainbow Flowers Bracelet
4. Luxe Markers in Pearl and Swarovski
5. HP 3 in 1 - large rings
6. Thick red brass spiral necklace
Check back next Sunday for more new maille goodies. :)
Sunday, September 13, 2009
New this week - 9/13/09
Here's what's new over at http://redpanda.etsy.com this week!
Labels: redpanda
Monday, September 7, 2009
Chainmailling dangers
Sometimes when you're making chainmail, a pair of pliers will slip off the ring and scrape down your finger. It hurts.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
How to make copper jewelry truly shine
Here's how I clean all of the copper jewelry that I make and sell at http://redpanda.etsy.com
You'll need a few things:
Bottle of plain white vinegar
Baking Soda
Optional but totally awesome:
Jewelry tumbler with stainless steel shot and basic Dawn dish soap
Alright! To get started, take your old, tarnished, brown, yucky copper and put it in a small, shallow bowl. I use a 1/2 cup measuring bowl.
Pour enough vinegar into this bowl to cover your jewelry piece. Sprinkle 4 or 5 shakes of salt in. Now use your finger or other stirring utensil to stir your item around in the vinegar for about twenty to thirty seconds. You'll see it start to change color right before your eyes as the vinegar eats away the tarnish.
Warning! You do not want to do this process for very long. Don't let your jewelry sit in the vinegar over night or anything. Just a few seconds will do! People warn that vinegar will pit your copper. This is why we take the next step.
Neutralize that vinegar. At this point I remove the jewelry from the vinegar bath and run it under the faucet to rinse. I then pour a handful of baking soda into my hand put a little water in, and bathe that jewelry in the baking soda paste. Another warning! If you have especially fine jewelry or there are smooth expanses of metal in your jewelry, be warned that baking soda can scratch if you rub it in. A gentler method is to lay down the piece, sprinkle the soda over it, and rinse.
The things I make have lots and lots of crevices and no large smooth expanses, so I just go quick and easy baking soda in hand method.
Okay, rinse again! Dry thoroughly.
You will notice your jewelry is now exceptionally shiny. If you are a jewelry owner and not a jewelry maker, then you probably don't have a jewelry tumbler for the next part and that is okay! It just adds a super shiny sheen to it. For practical purposes, a quick vinegar bath is enough for most peoples' tastes. If you own any redpanda pieces, I offer a lifetime guarantee and I will gladly take back any copper jewelry and re-shine/tumble it for you for no charge.
If you have a rotary jewelry tumbler, put in your stainless shot and your jewelry piece, fill with water until there's about of water over your piece, and add a squirt of dish soap. Tumble for however long you normally tumble, rinse, and dry.
Voila! Beautiful, shiny, copper jewelry. Looks kind of like rose gold when it's this shiny and clean.
Here's a before and after picture for you.
Happy shining!
Labels: Business Time
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Monthly Business Goals - September
So I've decided to join in on the monthly business goals feature over at the Modish Biz Tips blog! Here are my redpanda goals for September:
1. Add one new item to my etsy shop each day in September! This will be a big one for me. I used to be good about it, and really slacked off on adding new items in August. I've got a HUGE backlog of items that haven't been listed yet, and I just keep creating more, so I think this will be a really good goal to have.
2. Finish the rainbow coif. I should have this done by the end of the month. Here's what I have so far:
3. Blog at least once a day. I'm good at twitter, but I need to maintain this blog better!
4. Hit 250 facebook fans and 870 sales on my etsy shop.
Wish me luck!
Labels: Monthly Goal Meetup


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Dancing With The Stars – First Person Eliminated
Another epic episode on Dancing With The Stars but people are prepared to spend over 2 and half hours of their life watching it. It was the highest rating show on television last Tuesday night!
Again there was some good dances and not so great ones. Jesinta Campbell looks fabulous and has the sass, but she is a tad awkward in her moves.
Though not as awkward as Brendan Jones and Sally Obermeder they are very clunky indeed but people are voting for them as they did not land in the bottom two. They both have huge fanbases and are able to cultivate it through their media shows.
Rhiannon Fish did a kick ass number in a black catsuit. Cosentino who had to swap partners because she had a busted back showed he will be there until the end as he has the moves.
Sophia Pou thought it would be a total embarassment to be voted out first did a great Viennese Waltz. Tony Barbar's number was also a lot of fun.
The scoreboard went like this:
Steve Hooker 34
Rhiannon Fish 34
Cosentino 31
Sophia Pou 30
Tina Arena 30
Libby Trickett 29
Zac Stenmark 28
Jordan Stenmark 27
Tony Barbar 26
Jesinta Campbell 24
Sally Obermeder 20
Brendan Jones 15
Then it was time for the first elimination. The bottom two were Libby Trickett, who for some reason tonight I kept on thinking was Leisel Jones, and Jordan Stenmark. It was Jordan who was a eliminated. It was no surprise as he and his brother don't have a huge fan base.
Related Posts
5 comments
- 1 Trent { 10.09.13 at 8:21 am }
I am watching this season even without the fabulous Luda. Love Libby Tricket her smile lights up a room.
Is it just me or is Aric one of the hottest guys ever?
- 2 Carole { 10.09.13 at 12:40 pm }
Yeah, Jonesy is going to be the 'entertainment' for this season. He is a terrible dancer, but fun to watch and hear Todd's comments.
- 3 Georgie { 10.09.13 at 1:49 pm }
Braces – oh how I wish we could vote to eliminate, I'd happily make an investment.
- 4 Littlepetal { 10.09.13 at 4:22 pm }
Yes, Georgie. For some reason I can't use the house phone to ring the 1900 – good move by hubby. But if we can vote to eliminate Braces, I will gladly pay the the money to do so.
I hope Libby and Happy Hooker can stay for a few more weeks. I like Sally O but she can't dance.
- 5 jesta { 10.24.13 at 4:18 am }
what a relief for the viewers Sally O has been sent home. Brendan Jones to follow. Get rid of the hopeless dancers, so boring to watch. Needs a magazine to read while awaiting and awaiting for the next dancer, better we hope. That Sophia Pou must shut up a little, she's a talker.


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|Archive Cast Forum RSS Books! Poll Results About Search Fan Art Podcast More Stuff Random Support on Patreon
New comics Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri; reruns other days
1 Iki Piki: So what now?
2 {lights come back on}
3 Paris: All systems operational! Well, that can only mean one thing...
4 Serron: The Allosaurus has learnt to operate the ship?!
4 Iki Piki: Or maybe two things.
First (1) | Previous (1334) | Next (1336) || Latest Rerun (1926) |
Latest New (3911)
First 5 | Previous 5 | Next 5 | Latest 5
Space theme: First | Previous | Next | Latest || First 5 | Previous 5 | Next 5 | Latest 5
This strip's permanent URL: http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1335.html
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Don't you love alternate possibilities?
After all, Spanners can do it, and he's an insect. (Granted he does have four arms, which might make certain jobs easier.)
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which does not sponsor, authorise, or endorse this site.
This material is presented in accordance with the LEGO® Fair Play Guidelines.


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World Class Speaking Night at Oakwood!
We are pleased to invite you to our next World Class Speaking Night—in the beautiful surroundings of the Oakwood, Tokyo Midtown!
These are informal and fun events for people interested in the topics of speaking, communication and presentation—featuring special guest speakers, World Class Speaking program alumni and some entertainment. For this event we also make a donation for each participant to Playground of Hope, an NPO building playgrounds for children affected by the Tohoku disaster—with an introduction by the NPO project director.
'Raining across the Spectrum': Branding in the Digital Age
Keynote Speaker: Paul Braganza, President & Founder, Rain Interactive K.K.
Getting your message out on the Web clearly and effectively is vitally important in our digital age—but still challenging for many small and large companies alike. How to tackle this challenge is the topic of Paul Braganza's talk—and the approach Rain Interactive takes when helping companies to improve their Web presence and branding.
Paul Braganza is a Canadian entrepreneur based in Tokyo, and apart from being President of Rain Interactive, is also Chairman of the Publications & Communications Committee at the Candanian Chamber of Commerce in Japan.
Rain Interactive is a creative Tokyo-based, digital media company providing Web design and development, custom system development, e-commerce, smart-phone applications, graphic and print design, and SEO consultation.
The formal part of the program will be rounded off by a brief introduction to wines from South Africa—in particular Pinotage, South Africa's original, signature red wine—followed by a Pinotage wine tasting!
You may also win a FREE copy of the World Class Speaking book or a bottle of South African Pinotage wine!
When: Monday February 25, 19:00-22:00. Doors open 18:30. Register by February 23.
Where: Oakwood, Tokyo Midtown
Access: Roppongi Station (Hibiya & Oedo Lines).
Entry Fee: ¥3,500 prepaid. ¥4,500at the door. Delicious buffet dinner, coffee, tea, soft drinks, juice, water + 1 alcohol drink from the bar. Additional alcohol drinks are ¥500 cash at the bar.
We look forward to seeing you!
William Reed& Trond Varlid
EMC Quest K.K.
- The event description was updated. Diff#5674 2013-02-17 14:05:31
- Venue
- Oakwood, Tokyo Midtown
- Tickets
Prepaid by ATM, Convini, Card or PayPal SOLD OUT ¥3,500 Pay at the Door ¥4,500 FULL
- Venue Address
- 9-7-4 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo Japan


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Slave morality is essentially the morality of utility. -Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, A. 260
I've been reading some Mencius Moldbug lately, which is a sobering experience. By no means do I agree with him on everything, but it looks like I need to abandon about a half dozen in-progress posts as redundant. Careful with that link: it's 300 damn pages long.
But still, there is plenty more to be said, especially if you've been studying economics for a while and question the basics of it at the core. Lots of neoreactionaries are actually just libertarians who realize that you can't pull out elections without bribery, and so they don't question much in economics, including Moldbug, who's work has a basis in utilitarianism. Most neoreactionaries go with the usual Western standards by which utility is measured: safety, stuff, and "openness." So in other words, they seem to be on the liberal utilitarian boat. It really matters that government be effective, responsible, all that, all for the sake of creating better living conditions in terms of safety, stuff, and openness, which would be more readily provided in a less democratic system.
Slow down, bro. Scott Alexander beat up on this "less democracy = more utility" idea fairly easily. Now, he used a selective understanding of what's being discussed that thinks as literally as possible about its subject for the sake of creating straw men at every opportunity, but he's right about this: from a utilitarian perspective, in fact, modern society is doing fine. It might be because of democratic pressure or it might be because of a million other factors, like the expectations and consequences and the way they interact with government. I don't know why neoreactionaries would have a problem citing this, except as a purely political matter: they want to convince people that life would get even easier, safer, and wealthier if the democratic system were done away with.
Of course, this is bullshit in the raw. We don't know that, and it's much more difficult to quantify than you might think. The hatred of "demotism" and a strong appreciation for the idea of accepting hierarchy indicates more is going on behind the scenes, but evidently, political palatability is even important for those who hate democracy. In reality, they seem to be more concerned with questions of power than questions of utility. That's tough to deal with, because the line between the two seems clear, but isn't.
Ask an economist, and what you do when you trade with people is not acquiring power. It's cooperative, just the production of stuff needed for comfort. It's not power. It's not control. It's not oppression or manipulation. It's just people making decisions, exercising their freedom, acquiring what they value. It's innocent, I tell you...
Yeah, right.
I'd like to put this to bed, right now. It's a ridiculous statement.
Here's the operating question: what is utility?
Supposedly, it's all about pleasure and pain, to the point that abortion advocates use utilitarianism to explain why a fetus isn't a person until the second trimester: because until then, it can't feel pain. This is so important to some people's conception of the world, and their conception of man as a rational animal, that they simply must believe that once you sate everyone's appetites, the human race will become calm and docile to the point of ending conflict.
So pursuing utility not only seems like a rational thing to do, but more importantly, it sounds harmless, and there's a reason for that. That's the image they want to promote. Utility seekers just want to be safe, unhampered, satisfied. There's nothing mean-spirited going on there. Utilitarians can have freedom, ostensibly without harming anyone. And we care very much about freedom, the NAP, the Harm Principle, for all you anarcho-cap/libertarian true believers. No zero-sum games here!
It's a moral term. To seek power makes you Hitler. To seek utility makes you HedonismBot.
And HedonismBot was always a likable guy, threw a great party, all that.
Now, is this difference between power and utility a real thing, or is it some intuitively attractive horseshit that people like because it gives them an escape hatch against accusations of pursuing power, like everyone does? Because exchanging favors through the system of depersonalized reciprocity we know of as money, using their desires to get them to work to satisfy your desires, seems like it could easily be not-harmless under a lot of circumstances. It's a form of leverage, or even manipulation, contracts nullified as being made under duress. Society subjects people to a lot like this, and it has to, for the sake of utility. You didn't decide that it was okay for your world to demand forty hours of work a week from you, and while the grocery might carry your preferred brand of soda, it won't be playing Metallica through the PA or paint the building hot pink just for you. So, maybe utility is just what can be limited to you alone experiencing it... What about our common experiences? If you think these fairly simple and irrelevant conflicts of interest are a problem, now imagine adding religion into the mix.
Get into economics as a science, and it starts to look like utility is rather poorly defined. Pleasure and pain don't include every intuitive source of utility, nor do they disqualify what is intuitively power, for an obvious reason: exercising power is extremely pleasurable. Hell, in terms of both contemporary interaction and evolutionary biology, the experience of pleasure certainly came about as a recognition of power.
Okay, we can back up a second. Maybe you'd like to define utility as something that seems more concrete, like usefulness. Food, water, housing, a bed, clothing, and medical care are obviously useful. Useful at what? At maintaining the life of the individual in question. And no, sex doesn't belong on this list. Don't encourage the whores.
We might be back at the wants versus needs question here, and just like on that topic, we have a tendency to see people who want, or need, or require, or desire, or just gotta fucking have stuff, and take some kind of pity on them, as it's so understandable. It is understandable, because we all seek something that seems both practical for ourselves and available from society. But just because we empathize doesn't mean there's no conflict of interests. Really, it doesn't look like utility is much more than a concept invented after the fact, for the sake of differentiating desires society told you it was okay to pursue from the ones that violated expectations, got in people's way, and pissed people off.
With that in mind, let's ask the inverse question to the last one: what is power?
Power goes hand in hand with agency. It means that your actions get reactions, that you can predict those reactions, that you have control over your environment. It means feedback that lines up with our intentions. Does this include controlling people? Well, since we basically subdued the natural environment in favor of entirely man-made circumstances long ago, what else do you think you would be controlling? Of course it means controlling people. If our circumstances are man-made, then to control the circumstances, we must control men.
Controlling our social circumstances means the world to us. Why do you think "freedom" is so important, and what do you think it really means? Why is wealth, beyond the basics of sustenance and distraction, such a big deal? Why do we care about participating in government? No one with the slightest bit of sense will tolerate not having control, and in the push to establish a world that provides utility to all, we end up also trying to provide power to all. That's a problem, because while we cast utility as a cooperative game, power is clearly zero-sum. So if the lines are solid gray at this point and you can't tell the difference between power and utility, then which is the valid perspective?
Well, you tell me. Your money is directly responsible for creating demand that someone else work, that they use their resources to produce what you want. This has obvious costs for the person doing the work and obvious opportunity costs for those who would prefer something else be produced with those resources: is this not power? People who know how to codify your preferences seem to be able to manipulate you into sitting through advertisements on a regular basis, a fact which consumes tremendous amounts of time and attention, which is really all we have in this world: is this not power? What could possibly be more useful than power? Particularly power over your environment, particularly people?
Because of the phantom difference between power and utility, people are often torn between thinking that the world is filled with misery and thinking that the world is a great place that requires little to have a great life. That's particularly true for the current generation of "Bright" atheists:
This creates problems, because at the end of the day, work is both necessary and is imposed on us by the world, so no matter how easy it gets, most people will still hate it because it disempowers them. I know more people who get pissed at their job because it's boring than who say it's too hard. That might be a pride thing, but what's absolutely true is that people hate being told what to do.
Stop bullshitting. The purpose of the concept of utility is to whitewash power into something suitable for Judeo-Christian moral tastes, to make empowerment innocent so long as we come to a vague and ever-shifting consensus on the circumstances. You know perfectly well that economic systems are coercive, relationships are binding and controlling when functioning properly, and that no cultural system can tolerate a true apostate for long. So the consensus does what we would expect: it disempowers the empowered.
Beyond all the horseshit of a society that can supposedly support you being your authentic self, the limits to that world are simple and so clear that we only recognize them subconsciously: we can't have power. And that sucks, because power is what we want. The status quo might get us fast transportation, some decent Mexican food, and air conditioning, but does it get us anything more than that, anything higher, anything really aspirational? No, it's built to kill that shit.
The world is a social environment, and it is precisely this social environment that basically everyone wants to control, but can't. In trying to create a world where we can make our own reality without interference, we've put the system together so power is as widely disseminated, and therefore as impossible to leverage, as possible. The American people elect a government precisely to stop those with other kinds of power - violence, wealth - from using them, and that's basically the extent of their mandate. All political sides occasionally get pissed off about what they can't do, even leftists, albeit their irritation is focused on how moving the direction they want to move can take too long when dependent on voters. Even those on the more powerful side have so little control over their social environment that all they can do is what can be sold to the lowest common denominator.
You can make money, but even after the taxes, you can't do anything against the populist grain with it, and therefore you can't do anything interesting with it. You can have your commitments and your loyalties to other people, but they are very tenuous because the world won't support you if things get tough. This is how you build a utilitarian world: you destroy the possibility of using power for anything higher than the softest and most immediate forms of pleasure and pain, and in the process, you make power a reviled thing, even as the leadership uses it to produce more "utility" and becomes reviled in the process. Hope you like distractions, because that's all your life is going to be around these parts. We have no choice in the matter, because to build anything more involving would trample someone's prerogatives. Who says the world you want is the world I have to live in? Or vice versa? The only thing to do is to screw everyone and make them live in a consumerist shithole no one really wants but that's comfortable enough to hold back the most severe frustration.
The idea of this culture is simple: if I can't have power, you can't either. Democracy is the common man's revenge fantasy, masquerading as an intelligent feedback mechanism.
If you're like me at all, there have probably been moments in your life where you looked around at your society as people bitch about stupid details and said to no one in particular, "Just fucking DO SOMETHING!!!!" How the fuck does a society develop spaceflight that gets them to the goddamn moon and then basically just chill for decades? I mean, the obvious next level, the highest elevation of man achievable in the physical world, is right there, and we just sort of... stop?
If this culture had any sense, it would take apart the safety net except for Food Stamps and bare emergency Medicaid, push the bright people into STEM fields, then throw $300 billion into a crash Mars colonization program and pay those new engineers well to make it happen. Those brains are resources, and they aren't being used for anything but stupid crap like high finance simply because this society doesn't have a hierarchy willing to use power.
One thing that really irritated me about Scott Alexander was his complete lack of understanding of the word "demotic." He basically said the neoreactionaries made it up. So evidently, Alexander has never read Jacques Barzun, he does not understand the concept of populist cheerleading of the average and below, and he doesn't know it because his mind is so obsessed with "utility" that it has no basis for comparison. Demotism is a real thing, which deserves a better name but still will have the same purpose: to suppress higher values and the power which come from them, for the sake of the empowerment of all those who would otherwise be accountable to that power. Maybe the neoreaction should stop trying to sell itself on utility and start selling itself on bringing people together for the sake of expanding horizons.


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Will it Blend? Not unless it utilizes several Physics concepts.
The actual pitcher of the blender works as a cavitation chamber. Cavitation is the rapid formation and collapse of air cavities in a fluid. Such cavities are formed by rapid changes in pressure, which is where the blade comes into play. In addition to breaking down food into smaller chunks, the blade also rapidly bombards the mixture with small air bubbles that, when they pop, cause shock waves to further break up the food.
This concept is not exclusive to blenders. Mantis shrimps use a variant form of inertial cavitation to propel themselves in the water. For many devices, such as boat propellers, cavitation is undesirable. This 'accidental' cavitation usually causes an increase in noise, vibrations, and significant damage to the propeller itself.
- http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/03/chefsteps-blending/
- http://www.mcnallyinstitute.com/01-html/1-3.html
- http://web.mit.edu/hml/ncfmf/16CAV.pdf


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Meizu U10 and U20 Mid-Budget Smartphones Unveiled
by Aug 23, 2016 11:19 pm4
Meizu is still continuing with its flurry of smartphone release, and today saw the outing of the Meizu U10 and U20 with mid-budget price tags.
The Meizu U10 features a 5-inch IPS display and is powered by an octa-core processor which is complemented by 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage. There's another version with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.
The Meizu U10 crams a 2760mAh battery under its hood and packs a 13MP rear camera unit with LED flash as well as a 5MP front-facing camera.
On the other hand, the Meizu U20 sports a 5.5-inch 1080p display with 2.5D curved glass cover and comes equipped with an octa-core processor as well which lets you run multiple apps on your phone seamlessly. There are also two versions in terms of memory, one with 2GB RAM alongside 16GB of internal storage and another with 3GB RAM with 32GB of internal storage.
The Meizu U20 also tag along a 13MP primary camera at its rear with LED flash and a 5MP selfie camera up front. In addition, the smartphone features a bigger 3,260mAh battery under its hood.
Both the Meizu U10 and U20 features 2.5D curved glass design on both the front and back sides and are both available in four color variants, white crescent, sky black, champagne Gold, and Rose Gold. The two Meizu smartphone models also come with fingerprint sensors that are enabled for fingerprint payment via Alipay and other payment platforms. The Meizu U10 and U20 equally come with entire network support, 4G inclusive. There is also support for Wi-Fi connectivity and 5G.
Talking about the price, the Meizu U20 version with 2GB RAM + 16GB of built-in storage costs 1099 yuan ($166), while the 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM version starts at 1299 yuan ($192). The U20 will go on sale from August 28 on Meizu stores and other online channels while it will become available on August 29 via Meizu Mall, Jingdong Mall, Lynx official flagship store, and Suning Tesco.
In addition, the Meizu U10 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM combo starts at 999 Yuan ($150) while the 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM version carries a price tag of 1199 yuan ($181). The Meizu U10 will go on sale starting September 18 and will be available via Meizu store and other online sales channels. The device will be available on Meizu Mall, Jingdong, Lynx, Suning Tesco and Meizu shops simultaneously on September 19.


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Exercise South, 2007
- Details
- Published: Thursday, 25 December 2014 04:57
- Written by Lance Hartley
This exercise co-ordinated by Iain Stroud.
Many thanks to the volunteers who:
a) Set up instructional stations for the various crews
b) Managed to get to the event. A most worthwhile day .


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text:
Welcome back to Challengeville. For those of you who have been following along from the start, I apologize for the long break in updates here. This round took me far longer to play than I'd thought it would, largely due to time constraints on how much I was able to play Sims 2 during the last few months. That, and University just takes forever when you're running this many sims through, but I probably don't need to tell some of you that. I can't even begin to imagine how those of you who've run 50-70 or more through at a time managed it without going totally insane. But, I did finish it at long last, though honestly the last few semesters for most of them were very rushed, and I admittedly was cheating heavily with grades and semester timers to get them all done and graduated as my patience for playing University was wearing very thin by then..lol. And after all that time spent playing, This isn't going to be much more than a bare-bones facts update about them all, with a few anecdotes thrown in here and there for those that actually managed to do something interesting while at Uni. I'm not presenting them in the order I played them, but in the order that I think will make the most sense for telling the whole story. And so, without further ado, I'll introduce you to the first house.
Allegra Gorey
Become Hand of Poseidon
Pisces; 5 Neat, 2 Outgoing, 9 Active, 2 Playful, 7 Nice
Red Hair, Custom Hair ; Unemployed
Hobby: Fitness
Major: Biology – Graduated 3.8
Achievements: Secret Society, BSOC, Greek House (Freshman House)
Allegra is a first semester freshman when you first load this lot. I can't remember if she already had the Biology major or if I changed it to better suit her LTW. Her secondary aspiration, and that of all of the others in this update, was rolled for, using the standard prosperity chart. Besides the achievements listed above, she also managed to max her Fitness enthusiasm and get her plaque for that. She might also have gotten the plaque for Arts & Crafts from spending a lot of time painting in her later semesters, but I don't remember if she got that far with it or not. As with all of the others except the Tri-Var girls, I used ACR to randomly determine gender preferences, and it decided that Allegra likes women. I made a few attempts to find her a future partner while she was in university, and came up with one possibility for her. She met her through a gypsy date, which turned out to be only an OK date, but afterwards they decided they were more into each other than they first thought they were.
I haven't yet decided if I'll pair them up or not. I may just have Allegra stay single, and either remain childless, adopt, or boolprop her an "in vitro" baby with someone. She did eventually graduate, and moved out into an apartment in town.
Martin Ruben
Max out 7 Skills
Capricorn ; 8 Nice, 3 Outgoing, 2 Active, 5 Playful, 7 Nice
Black Hair, Athletic ; Swim Wear
Hobby: Cuisine
Major: Mathematics – Graduated 3.9
Achievements: Secret Society, BSOC, Greek House (Freshman House)
Martin is also a first semester freshman when you load the lot. And overall he did very little of interest through most of his college career, except skill. He didn't make it to fulfilling his LTW yet, but he made a very good start on it with at least 4, possibly 5, of his skills maxed out. On the romance front, he and Jane did have a thing going between them for the first several semesters of play, and I'd been intending to pair them up together after college, but then about halfway through her final semester (his 2nd sophomore semester), he met Suzie Santander, one of the cheerleaders, who is a 3-bolt match for him. I decided the 3-bolt match should take precedence, and so dropped my plans for him and Jane. There wasn't any actual breakup in-game between them, but she did graduate shortly thereafter, which largely ended their affair. Once he'd graduated, he moved out to an apartment, invited Suzie over, then asked her to move in with him, which prompted her to graduate and grow up without my ever having had to play her. Here are their graduation/growing up pics.
I'm a bit leery of how this household will go, because previous experience with playing a cheerleader that was made playable and grew up showed me that they never stop being cheerleaders. And it gets most annoying. We shall see though...hopefully one of the hacks I have from MATY will prevent that.
Jane Stacks
Raise 20 Puppies or Kittens
Cancer ; 7 Neat, 2 Outgoing, 7 Active, 3 Playful, 6 Nice
Unemployed, Mechanical ; Cologne
Hobby: Tinkering
Major: Physics – Graduated 3.7
Achievements: Secret Society, BSOC
Jane starts out as a first semester Junior. And though it was very tempting to change her annoying LTW, I decided I'd leave it and give it a go. Being unsure about how having pets at university would work, however, she didn't start work on it until after she graduated. Overall Jane was fairly unremarkable in college. As noted above, she had a thing going with Martin for most of her time there, but then halfway through her last semester he met someone else, and that left her without a prospective mate going into her adulthood. She is the only one of the three of them that didn't get the Greek House achievement, because it wasn't until after she'd graduated that I decided to have Allegra and Martin join the Freshman Houeshold's Greek House. Here is her graduation picture - and no, I don't know what's up with the medieval gown.
Jane moved into an apartment, and in order to preserve the age gap between her and the others, I did play her there for 4 sim days, the equivalent (in my mind at least) of the 4 semesters the other two had left to go. The story of her first few days of adulthood actually turned out fairly interesting, so I've made a separate post about it to give it the space it deserves. You can read about it here.
Before we move on here, I'll show you one last shot...a composite shot of their various Secret Society abductions. Sorry it's so dark, but it's hard to get good shots of something that only happens at night.
That's about all I have for general pics from this lot. They were a pretty boring routine of skilling and studying for the most part.
This household was far more interesting to play overall given the personalities of the girls that lived here. I spent a lot of time dating, and doing outings with them, though didn't really take pictures of it all. This is the only household that I didn't use ACR to randomize gender preferences, and I decided that they all like men. Future mates were largely determined via having them look into TwoJeff's' crystal ball. Even though they're already in a Greek House starting off, I still counted it among their college achievements. I'll lead off here with the composite Secret Society abductions picture, then introduce you to the gals individually.
Brittany Upsnott
Become Cult Leader
Capricorn ; 7 Neat, 7 Outgoing, 8 Active, 2 Playful, 1 Nice
Red Hair, Black Hair ; Athletic
Hobby: Sports
Major: Philosophy – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Greek House, Secret Society, BSOC
Brittany is a Sophomore starting off, and unlike with Jane, I did use the Sim Blender to change her LTW, which originally was the 20 Pet Best Friends one. I really didn't want to mess with that one. I'd installed a hack from MATY that enables university-related career LTWs, and was kind of pleased when it rolled one of those for her. Should be more interesting than having yet another mayor or business tycoon, or any of the other sorts of Popularity career LTWs. She was quite the social butterfly during college, and while I could probably have found her a mate the ordinary way, I'd already had her gaze into the crystal ball and it found Bruce Rauscher for her. He's already an adult, but that didn't stop them from starting up their romance. During one of their dates, she rolled the want to get engaged to him, so I went for it. She seemed to have second thoughts about it afterward though, and got a bad memory of it.
The rest of her college career was fairly uneventful, and in the course of things she graduated.
She moved out into an apartment in the same complex that Jane is living in, and I played her for a couple sim days there to preserve the age gap. There is a little bit more to tell of that than I want to put in here, so I'll tell the story of her first few days of adulthood in another post.
Heather Huffington
Become Rock God
Sagittarius ; 1 Neat, 7 Outgoing, 2 Active, 9 Playful, 6 Nice
Fitness, Unemployed ; Blond Hair
Hobby: Nature
Major: Literature – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Greek House, Secret Society, BSOC
Heather was quite the busy gal during college, but then Romance sims often are. An early look into the crystal ball had identified Ashley Pitts from the Frat Brothers house as a good match for her, and I hooked them up together almost right away. They went on several dates in their first few semesters, woohoo'd several times, and then largely went their own ways and dated other people for the remainder of their time in college. Heather got around a lot more than Ashley did, however, and by the time she'd graduated, she'd managed to woohoo with 10 different guys, including a couple of professors. She also proved to be highly compatible with almost every guy she met. Normally 3-bolt matches are pretty rare, but Heather has ended up with no less than 5 of them, and just as many 2-bolt matches. It's the first time I've ever seen a sim be so highly compatible with so many different other sims.
Note that Blake Pennington, one of my Challengeville sims, is among her top matches. He, along with his brother Brandon, was one of her early conquests after she started dating around on Ashley. On one particular outing downtown, they were both present, and I sent her to the photo booth to woohoo with Blake to boost the outing score (and maybe to add a notch on her bedpost...I forget now if they'd woohoo'd before that or not, but I think they had). Then, I thought I'd see if I could spice things up more, so just as soon as she'd gotten out of the booth with Blake, I had her invite Brandon in there with her, and she went at it again with him. I'd expected Blake to throw a fit, but nope, he didn't seem to care at all, and he stood there with all the rest of the group cheering them on. Because of the 3-bolts she has with Blake, I debated on having her hook up with him eventually (she only has 2 bolts with Brandon, and he's already engaged to someone else), and thus earn a place in the main neighborhood (all of the Maxis playable sims are being relegated to a sub-hood I've named Townie Valley). But, since Ashley was already a playable, and since I wasn't sure I wanted to stick Blake with a who-, er, likely-to-be-unfaithful wife, I decided to just stick with the original plan of having her pair up with Ashley. Hopefully they'll be less likely to care if the other one has a roaming eye. Heather graduated into a kimono...something I'll change eventually.
I merged her into the apartment that Ashley was already living in, but haven't played her/them since then.
Tiffany Sampson
Become Criminal Mastermind
Aries ; 4 Neat, 5 Outgoing, 4 Active, 6 Playful, 6 Nice
Charismatic, Athletic ; Glasses
Hobby: Nature
Major: Literature – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Greek House, Secret Society, BSOC
Finally we have Tiffany, who, while I like her, was certainly the least interesting of the three during college. Like most Knowledge sims, she was largely only interested in keeping her nose in a book, though she did maintain a reasonable social life as well. The early look into the crystal ball identified one Aiolos Robbins as a good match for her, and indeed he is. It's unknown if he has any out-of-town relatives from another planet, but Tiffany doesn't really care if he does, since they have 3-bolts for one another, and though he, like Bruce, is already an adult, she did date him periodically through college to establish and maintain a relationship with him, as well as to give her an aspiration boost when she was needing one. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of them while she was in college, so we'll have to wait to meet him sometime in a future update. When she'd finished college, she managed to graduate into a fairly decent outfit, which I may or may not keep for her, depending on how the mood strikes me in the future.
She moved into an apartment in Townie Valley, but hasn't yet asked Aiolos to move in with her since I was in a hurry to get through everyone by then.
I did move a placeholder in before I moved Heather and Tiffany out to keep the lot active in case I ever want to use it again.
So, you'd think a house full of frat boys would be interesting to play, huh? Not so much with this lot. I found myself getting rather bored with them most of the time actually. ACR got to determine gender preferences here, and it decided that Castor and Joshua both prefer men. And while they weren't necessarily attracted to one another early on, eventually they were. Here they all are getting into the Secret Society:
Ashley Pitts
Become Rock God
Leo ; 2 Neat, 9 Outgoing, 7 Active, 6 Playful, 1 Nice
Formal Wear, Hard Worker ; Fatness
Hobby: Sports
Major: Literature – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Greek House, Secret Society, BSOC
Ashley was the liveliest one of the bunch with his Romance sim ways. Though he was far more sedate with those ways than Heather was, and only woohooed a couple other women besides Heather while he was in college. He doesn't seem to have Heather's super-compatibility either, and she is the only one he has a 3-bolt match with which is part of the reason I decided to keep them together instead of hooking her up with Blake. Ashley did a lot of studying for his future career in college, and was quite shocked while studying Mechanical to discover all the myriad uses for duct tape.
All the studying eventually stood him in good stead come graduation time, though it didn't get him a very good outfit. Not that there's anything wrong with the track suit it gave him...it's just not him.
He moved out into the same apartment complex that Jane and Brittany are living in, and I played him there for a few sim days to keep the age gap. One of the first things I did was send him downtown to get a new outfit.
He wasn't able to find any openings in the Music field during his two days of play, so he spent his time dating, and managed to get his woohoo count up to 5. Heather was subsequently moved in with him after she graduated, so only time will tell if he ever manages to match her bed count.
Joshua Ruben
Become Space Pirate
Leo ; 1 Neat, 7 Outgoing, 9 Active, 5 Playful, 3 Nice
Mechanical, Good at Cleaning ; Custom Hair
Hobby: Sports
Major: Literature – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Secret Society, Greek House, BSOC
Joshua was a freshman starting out, and by and large was fairly uninteresting. Despite his Fortune primary aspiration, he often behaved more like a Popularity sim, wanting to make friends and best friends. Maybe he was just thinking to start networking early for the future. He eventually paired up with Castor, though theirs has been a fairly low-key romance so far. I believe they only have one bolt for each other currently, though since neither has met anyone else better, I decided to just go with the pairing. Maybe some future tweaking to satisfy turn ons/offs will help get them another bolt. When he graduated, he got a pretty dorky (IMO anyway) outfit, which was later changed.
He moved into an apartment with Castor Nova after graduation, though I didn't play them any longer than it took to get them into new clothes and sign a lease.
Castor Nova
Become Education Minister
Virgo ; 4 Neat, 4 Outgoing, 6 Active, 5 Playful, 6 Nice
Stink, Hats ; Creative
Hobby: Arts & Crafts
Major: Biology – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Greek House, Secret Society, BSOC
Castor was another ho-hum Knowledge sim throughout college. Despite his True Hobby being Arts & Crafts, he took a liking to Games early on when I had him playing chess to raise Logic. He continued to keep rolling Games related wants the rest of the time there. That's one thing that really annoys me with the hobbies...I prefer using the chess set for Logic since the telescope creates its own annoyances if they use it during the day, but the obsession with Games that it gives them is almost, if not more, annoying than having people come over to slap them all the time for being Peeping Toms (or Tomasinas as the case may be). He eventually graduated into a particularly horrible outfit, which got changed almost immediately afterwards.
As was noted above, he moved in with Joshua after college, with the household bearing his name. I figure Martin can carry on the Ruben name with Suzie. As such, it was Castor that signed the lease on their apartment.
As you can see, I'd given him a new outfit already. It's a bit on the boring side, but I don't have that many options for men unfortunately.
Kevin Beare
Become Captain Hero
Leo ; 3 Neat, 5 Outgoing, 6 Active, 5 Playful, 6 Nice
Glasses, Unemployed ; Creative
Hobby: Arts & Crafts
Major: Psychology – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Greek House, Secret Society, BSOC
Finally we have Kevin. Who was pretty much as boring as most of his housemates were. As a Family sim, besides studying, Kevin was interested in finding a future wife while at college. He met several women, and dated a few of them, but had a hard time finding someone who was a really good match for him. For awhile it looked like 2-bolt Edith Suwankiri would get to become the future Mrs. Beare, but they later dropped down to just 1 bolt, so she got crossed off the list. Though, really, I still would have picked her if he hadn't found anyone else better. He did find someone else during his last semesters there though, 2-bolt match Amy Peshterianu. And she ultimately won out over Edith as my pick for Kevin's future wife. Kevin managed to get some decent clothes when he graduated, unlike the others.
He leased an apartment in the same complex with Castor and Joshua, and then invited Amy over and asked her to move in with him. She did the graduate/grow up spin, and became...a lumberjack apparently.
I don't think I took the time to change her clothes yet, but I will in the future.
As with the Tri-Var house, I moved a placeholder in before I moved them all out so that the lot would stay active and available for the future if I want to use it.
And finally we have the Freshman Household. This household is comprised of the various students that were in the sim bin for Sim State University. I originally moved them all into one of the dorms together, and played them there for a bit, but I don't really like playing in dorms, and trying to keep up with 5 of them there was quickly driving me nuts, so I ended up cheating their money and moving them out into their own house. I later had them apply for a Greek Charter in order to quickly and easily get the Greek House memory for all of them. Besides that, they all made it into the Secret Society, though I must have missed getting a picture of it for Jimmy, thus he's not shown in the composite picture here. I think he was the first one to get in.
I'll introduce you to the students here individually in a moment, but it was the group story here that was more interesting overall. In particular, I used them for Garden Club practice, both getting into it, and getting the Wishing Well. I'd re-read ASimWen's wonderful guide since the failed attempt at the Ursa Major House with Brandon Pennington awhile back, but it took me about three attempts to get the Well. The first attempt, I had Jimmy call, and while he got accepted into the club, he didn't get the well. They didn't like the unraked leaves in the back that had pretty much just fallen and I hadn't gotten a chance to rake them yet (actually I didn't even see them until too late since they were back in the opposite corner of the lot from the garden). They also thought it needed more decorative landscaping. I then had to wait awhile to try again, since first it wouldn't let me have the garden inspected again for a few days, then all the plants matured to harvest stage so I had to replant and wait for the new ones to grow enough. Then I made sure that all leaves were raked, all weeds pulled, etc., then had Jared make the call to invite the Garden Club lady over and ask for an inspection. Then made him stand on duty ready to pull any weeds that sprang up while they were there. Like Jimmy though, he didn't quite make it for the Well.
Another round of waiting, and replanting, and waiting some more...and the installation more ordinary flowers and shrubs and garden lights along with other landscaping, and eventually I was ready to try a third time. Sam got to do the honors this time, and was the one that was finally successful.
Here's an aerial view of the winning lot.
The extra flowers and such seemed to be what put it over the edge, so I guess you really do need quite a bit of them to make the cut. The little Oriental shrine statue thing was sold off after the successful inspection, and the Wishing Well was put in its spot. Although Sam happened to be the one I had make the call on the final attempt, the garden had really been a group effort, and in actuality Erik and Jared had been the ones who worked on it the most. Sam was just the most convenient one to have make the call at the time since she didn't have a class coming up soon, and hadn't yet gotten into the club.
And now, some notes about the individual inhabitants here.
Jared Starchild
Marry off 6 Children
Libra ; 1 Neat, 8 Outgoing, 2 Active, 8 Playful, 6 Nice
Underwear, Blond Hair ; Full Face Makeup
Hobby: Nature
Major: Art – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Greek House, Secret Society, BSOC
Jared was a pretty laid-back kind of guy for the most part throughout college. He studied some, when I made him, though he wasn't overly interested in studying or skilling for the most part. He did spend a fair bit of time making friends, and working in the garden a lot to feed his Nature hobby. He dated around a little, but didn't find the right woman until his later semesters, when the crystal ball finally found Cara Kim for him. It's only a 2-bolt match I think, but it was the best one he had going, so she'll be the lucky one to make it out of towniedom to marry him eventually. Here he is at graduation, managing to get an OK outfit, though it'll probably get changed because I hate that sweater it put him in.
I was in a RL time crunch the evening I finally got them all graduated and moved out, so I didn't yet get him moved in anywhere, though he'll be getting an apartment in Townie Valley like the others, and will ask Cara to move in with him when he does.
Erik Swain
Reach Golden Anniversary
Aquarius ; 2 Neat, 3 Outgoing, 8 Active, 5 Playful, 3 Nice
Creative, Athletic ; Stink
Hobby: Sports
Major: Art – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Secret Society, Greek House, BSOC
Erik was about as non-descript as Jared was thorugh college. His secondary aspiration of Pleasure tended to dominate his wishes, along with Nature-related wishes since I also had him tending the garden a lot with Jared. I think both of them managed to get their gold badges in Gardening while in college, which tells you how much they were doing there. Like Jared, Erik dated around a little, but eventually met Ichelle Woodrow, a 3-bolt match. It was a low-key romance during college, but should prove to be a good pairing eventually. Here he is at graduation:
He moved into an apartment in Townie Valley, then invited Ichelle over and asked her to move in. She got a very practical looking outfit when she grew up.
Sam Thomas
Become Celebrity Chef
Aquarius; 4 Neat, 4 Outgoing, 5 Active, 5 Playful, 7 Nice
Black Hair, Athletic ; Full Face Makeup
Hobby: Arts & Crafts
Major: Philosophy – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Greek House, Secret Society, BSOC
The thing I remember most about Sam was that she was a pretty busy gal in college. And by "busy" I mean you'd think she was a Romance sim the way she kept hopping into bed with guys, mostly her roommates. I think Jared is the only one of the guys she didn't sleep with at some point, and she bedded the others several times apiece I believe. All at the instigation of ACR...I never directed her to go to bed with any of them except Jimmy. Jimmy is the one I'd picked to match her up with, since they have 2 bolts for each other, though she has 2 bolts with Ty and Erik as well. But since they both had better matches, and Jimmy didn't, he's the one I chose for her. They had a rocky romance in college though, mainly because of the way she kept fooling around with the others. He caught her flirting with Erik once, and it made him furious with her for a long while. They eventually patched it up between them, though, and at the end were very much in love again. Funny thing is, neither Erik or Ty ever seemed to care if she was flirting with or sleeping with one of the others, and I'm pretty certain there were several opportunities for them to have caught her "cheating" if they were going to care about it. I guess the game though Sam was going hiking right after graduation, given the outfit it put her in:
I didn't get a chance to change her into something else yet, as she and Jimmy were one of the few that I didn't get moved into an apartment due to lack of time that evening.
Jimmy Phoenix
Become Rock God
Sagittarius ; 3 Neat, 6 Outgoing, 4 Active, 5 Playful, 7 Nice
Grey Hair, Good at Cleaning ; Full Face Makeup
Hobby: Arts & Crafts
Major: Literature – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Secret Society, Greek House, BSOC
Jimmy really lived up to his Popularity aspiration throughout college, always wanting to meet new people and be friends and best friends with them. He was an easy one to get into the Secret Society and one of the first of all of the sims in this round to get the Big Sim on Campus memory.
Aside from that, there's not really much to tell about him aside from his on again-off again-on again romance with Sam that I detailed above. At graduation, he went from the nerdy-preppy sweater over untucked shirt to a retro disco look.
Needless to say, he'll be getting different clothing at the first opportunity.
Ty Bubbler
Become Captain Hero
Libra; 4 Neat, 8 Outgoing, 1 Active, 7 Playful, 5 Nice
Hats, Great Cook ; Logical
Hobby: Cuisine
Major: Psychology – Graduated 4.0
Achievements: Secret Society, Greek House, BSOC
And last but not least, we have Ty. Who...really wasn't any more noteworthy than most of the others in this house unfortunately. The Popularity/Pleasure combo meant he wasn't much interested in classes or schoolwork, but I made him do them anyway. And aside from his casual friends-with-benefits relationship with Sam, he didn't have much luck in the romance arena for awhile. He did eventually find Alexis Glass, however, via the crystal ball. It's not necessarily a match made in heaven (only 2 bolts I think), but it was good enough that he apparently rolled the want to get engaged to her during one of their dates, and apparently I indulged him in it.
I actually had completely forgotten that he'd gotten engaged to her until I was going through the pictures later on. I just hope she cleans up to look a bit better once I can get her out of that tennis dress and fix her hair and makeup. Ty's going to need some wardrobe help in the future as well, because apparently they gave him a shirt that's too small for him when he graduated.
Ty is another one that I didn't get moved in anywhere yet, though he will be getting an apartment with Alexis just like all the others.
A placeholder was moved in before the 5 of them moved out so the lot will be available. I especially wasn't about to "lose" this lot after all the trouble I went to in order to get the Wishing Well for it. Most likely this will be the main Greek House that any future Maxis playables will use when they come to college.


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Here's the 36th page of my forty page contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project that is currently touring various galleries and museums around the US.
The character in this drawing is called Jellyscuttle and is a copy of one of the quick-fire drawings that I made as part of my pre-bed time drawing routine. I also reproduced the drawing in one of the postcards that I created for the 2010 RCA Secret show.