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By Carl Wilson
The slogan of B2TW is "Untimely Talk About Culture," so while we like doing year-end best-of lists, we like to wait a while with them, like till after Chinese New Year so everyone's more on the same page. Sorry that's so inconvenient for Christmas shopping. Margaux posted hers last week, Carl's is today, and Chris's will be next week. Hope you enjoy.
1. BackStory podcast
I'm pleased this list begins with maybe the geekiest thing on it – what's more, not produced in any conventional cultural capital but at the University of Virginia.
The M.O. of the weekly podcast and public-radio show BackStory is simple: It seizes on a topic in the recent news (or an occasion such as Thanksgiving or the election) and squeezes it through the wringer of American history. The chatty and casual hosts are three UV history professors, the "American History Guys": "18th-Century Guy," "19th-Century Guy" and "20th-Century Guy." The latter has the rawest deal because the other two are kinda automatically fascinating. Though they are all white men, they invite female historians most often as their guest experts and they are highly conscious of the racial dimension of American history, as how could you not be.
Drugs, gun control, voting, infectious disease, the postal service, attempts to control the weather, presidential inaugurations, courtship, public education – just start with whatever most gets your attention. You will find out that colonial Americans were basically drunk all the time and Christmas was illegal. You will fill up your store of "Did you know?" stories for any dull moment in conversation. And you will be trained painlessly in historical thinking: that it was never "ever thus," that most stories have so many sides that they are smooth ungraspable spheres and that common knowledge is often neither. This should comfort you in the bleakest moments and vice-versa.
2. Borgen, Season 1 (TV series, Denmark, 2010)
The glut of great Danish television is no secret by now; the country seems to be picking up from HBO's 2000s in the 2010s. This drama about Birgitte Noyberg, who nearly by accident becomes the first Danish female prime minister (which proved prescient), is tense, enlightened, funny and human. The acting is as good as the furniture and the political analysis better than most journalism. ("Borgen" means "the Castle," which is what Danes call the main government building.) The episode in which Noyberg has to deal with a scandal in Greenland – which is basically to Denmark what Nunavut is to Canada – treated aboriginal issues more perceptively than I could ever hope for on a Canadian series. It was wrenching.
3. Dead Authors Podcast, Chapter 12, with Laraine Newman and Paul F. Tompkins
Character comedian Paul F. Tompkins is the single funniest person to hear on any of the endless flood of comedy podcasts that come from L.A. now. I was disappointed at first with this literary-history series, in which the conceit is that H.G. Wells (Tompkins) uses his time machine to kidnap writers from the past (played by other comedians) and interview them in the 21st century. It seemed flat and mumbly early on. But then I heard this episode, with a live audience, and with first-generation Saturday Night Live comedian Laraine Newman impersonating Mary Shelley, discussing feminism and Frankenstein and what pricks the Romantics were. And more recently, the latest one with Jen Kirkman gender-bending into the role of Abbie Hoffman going on endlessly about "pigs." Again, with a live audience.
It seems difficult to do really good improvisation without an audience or at least more participants – it's difficult to keep a two-person feedback loop going in a vacuum unless you are Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, or having sex (or both). In any case I love the tension between mockery and respect here. Kids would get more out of books in school if we told them their writers were not only great but also nuts, and had lives that were amazing and also ridiculous. Just like theirs.
4. James R. Gaines, Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment (published 2005)
I'm excited about the upcoming first book by my friend John Shaw in Seattle, which is about the intertwined histories and meanings of the songs This Land is Your Land and God Bless America. He told me many times that Evening in the Palace of Reason is the best book about music he ever read. This summer, I finally started it, on a stay at my friend Julia's cottage. I read it all night and all day; I don't think I even stopped to go swimming.
Like John's book, it's a double-threaded story: It weaves together the backgrounds of two Prussian dynasties, the Bach family and the Hohenzollern line of rulers, leading of course to J.S. and Frederick the Great, climaxing in the famous "Musical Offering" in which Bach composed a series of ever-more-complex fugues on a theme supplied by the hobbyist-musician king (which Frederick had assumed would be impossible).
You might see why I didn't rush to read it when John suggested it.
But it's about so much more. For one thing Frederick's father and grandfather were insane assholes – his grandfather, for instance, literally had a collection of "giants," tall men whom he had abducted from their home villages and held captive so that he could fetishistically enjoy watching them walk up and down the courtyard. The Bachs were strange in a whole other set of ways. And James R. Gaines has the most compulsively readable prose on Earth. But along the way he also makes subtle arguments about the relationships between faith, art and the Enlightenment. I think the implication is that art is a bit like A.A.: It doesn't have to be a god, but it helps to serve a power higher than the self.
5. Title cards of Girls, designed by Howard Nourmand
There are many other things I could name to admire about Lena Dunham's inexhaustibly discussable HBO show – Adam Driver's performance and character arc is the first to come to mind for me; Margaux pointed out several others – but they all coalesce at the beginning of each episode when after some pungent set-up, the screen clears and we see, for a brief moment, the stark colour-on-colour card that says GIRLS.
It has so many simultaneous pleasures. I can think of one for each letter.
G: It respects the way we often watch television now, in multi-episode saved-up or downloaded or streamed bunches of episodes, which means you don't want to sit through some long credit sequence repeatedly. (When I rewatched all of The Sopranos in the early winter – it held up remarkably well by the way – I couldn't fast-forward through the credits quickly enough, even though I love that theme song.)
I: Instead it's like a silent-film title card, a cheap solution, a low-tech necessity. It could be held up on a square of construction paper. Girls does have a silent-comedy feel, if a silent film were really, really talkative; Lena Dunham is a little like Charlie Chaplin, if Charlie Chaplin were naked all the time. It's a rebuke to the expectation of realism, a tip of the bowler to the potential for farce.
R: Of course it's also a hashtag-style punchline to whatever's just happened or is about to happen: Hannah is eating a cupcake in the shower? #girls. Shoshana is describing a reality show where people reveal their "baggage" and saying hers would be "that I'm a virgin of course"? #girls. Or, best, Ray and Charlie, rehearsing their stupid indie band, ransack Hannah and Marnie's apartment and steal Hannah's diary? #girls. It's self-deprecating and disarming but simultaneously sardonic, kissing the stereotype off blithely.
L: It's oddly soothing and utopian. The colour contrasts pulse like an orb from space or a Brian Eno iPhone app or a pricey sex toy. This goes nicely with the theme music, composed as far as I can figure out by Michael Penn (Sean's brother btw), which is just slightly more elaborate than the sound your computer makes when it powers up. So it is like the show, like Girls as a technology, is powering up. (On Windows the startup sound was of course itself composed with Brian Eno.)
S: Finally, there's also a cumulative effect: The trivial-but-felt suspense of wondering what the colours will be this week. The instant-dopamine rush of familiarity and celebration: Yes, it's here, it's on, it's that time again, the all-too-short season has not ended. And the anticipatory awareness that soon you will be echoing it in some conversation or another: "Did you watch this week's G I R L S yet?"
Here's a nice set of pictures from the designers showing all the stages they went through to get there. I don't like a single one of them better.
6. Aimee Mann, Charmer
In the past I've always liked but perhaps underrated Aimee Mann, former singer for 80s Boston synth-pop band 'Til Tuesday, married to the aforementioned Michael Penn, and composer of the main music for Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. I might have compared her unfavourably for instance to Sam Phillips, who makes equally pretty (you've likely heard her sighing la-la's on Gilmore Girls or more recently Bunheads) but more obviously barbed and painful songs. But this album kept resurfacing and insisting on itself, at a time when I wasn't even listening to that much music.
I liked the theme that runs through it, of either being or dealing with the charming person, who may or may not also be a functional or decent person. I'd become aware that Mann is friends with a lot of comedians I admire, and I could detect a comic knowingness in the voice of her writing, almost as if each piece were a sketch. But most of all, and this is odd because I never say this, it was the craftsmanship of it – the way that each proficient melody was fitted perfectly to the words, and rhyme to rhyme, and structure to theme. It's like a meal of fresh ingredients perfectly cooked, though there's nothing exotic about the dishes. Just exquisite care, to be savoured.
Yet you didn't hear people talk about it the way they talked about, say, Grimes (whose video for Oblivion would be on this list if I hadn't mentioned it on this site already – I hope it wins the new Prism Prize for Canadian videos next week). This is the curse of the mid-career artist these days and I think even more so the female mid-career artist. That's the not-so-funny joke behind the Portlandia sketch in which Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein hire Mann as their cleaning lady, keep telling her what big fans they are, but then keep scolding her for how she does the laundry.
It's good to see her comedy friends helping her out in real life though, as when Tom Scharpling directed the videos for Charmer, including the one for "Labrador," which remakes shot-for-shot the minor-80s-iconic Til Tuesday video "Voices Carry," featuring among others Mad Men's Jon Hamm.
7. Kacey Musgraves, "Merry Go Round" (from the upcoming album Same Trailer, Different Park)
From a veteran singer-songwriter to a great newcomer: My friend Jody Rosen turned me on to the wordplay and emotional wallop of Nashville's Kacey Musgraves last year – "Merry Go Round" was a minor radio hit this fall, and her first major-label album is just about to come out in March. I had hoped Taylor Swift might mature into this kind of voice as she grew up, which doesn't really look to be happening. But Musgraves simply begins from there, doing with country music what it often seems only country music can – address white people who have much more to worry about than "white people problems."
(Or so I say in the middle of this very damn white list. There are a couple of exceptions coming up, but just wanted you to know that, yeah, I see it.)
8. The Music Box: A Shantytown Sound Laboratory, New Orleans
This I mentioned quickly on B2TW in the summer but it deserves note again. You know the old line that writing about music is like dancing about architecture? Here's the architecture you can dance to. A collective led by street artist Swoon and others turned a set of dilapidated structures (not exactly hard to come by in New Orleans) into a playable, amplified, megaphoned, wind-driven, synthesized, climbable, jammable, avant-gardable, neighbour-kid-interactable structure called the Music Box, on a none-too-affluent NOLA block. It was full of horns you could blow into and weather vanes that played chimes and organs and drums and looping devices embedded in all kinds of crannies. I visited it the last day it was open and wished I could spend many more days there with the local children and teens who were enchanted with it and the vital spirits who built it. Luckily, though it's over, it's not over: The Dithyramblina , like the Hacienda, must yet be built.
9. Eddie Pepitone at the Dark Comedy Festival, Toronto
I could name instead Maria Bamford's set at the same festival, which was a lot like her amazing special that she performs for just her parents; or Kathleen Phillips volunteering as a foul-mouthed sacrificial "virgin" in a lame Satanic ritual in a Halloween comedy show at Double Double Land, but I have talked a lot about those two hilarious women. Eddie Pepitone was new to me this year. Not sure how that happened, it just did.
And I don't think I've ever laughed so cripplingly continuously – while being moved and politically challenged and thinking about psychoanalysis and the entertainment-industrial complex, and slightly frightened because he would bomb out into the crowd to sit in any empty seat and heckle himself (because who else could heckle him so effectively?) and I had an empty seat beside me – in my life. I could try to repeat jokes to you but that never works. Pepitone also had a very affecting interview on the Marc Maron podcast, talking about his mother's mental illness and his father's frustrated ambition and growing up on Staten Island. I'd like to see the documentary about him, The Bitter Buddha.
10. Jerzy Pilch, My First Suicide, translated by David Frick (Polish 2006, English 2012)
A stroke of serendipity: John Darnielle (aka the Mountain Goats) mentioned Polish novelist Jerzy Pilch on Facebook one day last spring, and I asked him which book he'd recommend. He told me a different one, but literally a day or two later there was a charity book sale at work and this was there for $5. I read it the next weekend on a beach.
This is basically the biography of the viewpoint character – apparently autobiographical though the deviations are difficult to plot – in linked short stories, in what turns out to be the distinct counterculture of Calvinist Poland – like Garcia Marquez, but with Eastern European dour humour, he creates an entire world.
And then he tears it down, with a crash of vodka bottles, deactivated cellphones and dubious liaisons. The only lesson one could take from it is never grow up.
But it is fiction that is indelibly itself, with a voice that gets right into your duodenum and I will read anything he writes that I can find. The lesson I take from that is, sometimes you get lucky.
11. Three dances on the This American Life live special, The Invisible Made Visible
Last May the Chicago radio show did a live concert that was simulcast into theatres all over the continent. I couldn't make it to any of the screenings but I downloaded the show later. There are lots of nice things in it but three great ones, all dances: Ira Glass was inspired to do the show because he sensed his audience would love the blend of virtuosity and clumsy dailiness in the work of choreographer Monica Bill Barnes, but of course he couldn't put a dance company on the radio. This turns out to have been a very smart instinct: I'm no dance expert but I've seldom seen anything (though Toronto choreographer Ame Henderson's work with Public Recordings comes close) that posed such effective solutions to the issues of the form's artificiality – an artificiality that we desire because it's beautiful, but might also find irrelevant because it is rareified. One Barnes dance here was based on audience behaviour at a James Brown concert; the other involved having a lot of cardboard suitcases being stacked by and then thrown at a dancer. (I took it to be about moving house.) They were gorgeous and funny and breathed a recognizable flavour of air. I told a friend they felt like a Trampoline Hall lecture in dance form. I couldn't take my eyes off them.
The other dance was by David Rakoff (who was from Toronto by the way) talking about the cancer that cost him the ability to dance, and then doing it anyway. This performance is already kind of famous. He died not long later and a lot of people who didn't know him are still heartbroken about that, including me.
12. Reggie Watts at the Mod Club, JFL42 festival, Toronto, Sept. 21, 2012
A continuing theme of the comedy-related items here is that I am not quite sure how to write about them. I can do it in the immediate wake of those experiences, but retrospectively they have an elusive quality. That's both more and less true of Reggie Watts. In a sense I am on firmer ground with him because he's also a musician, but what happened in his show was hard to keep track of even while it was happening – he would begin speaking about soda or about some street name he saw that day, and it would become this involuted R&B riff and a keyboard solo and then a falsetto rap about the constellations. He is a virtuoso in a form that doesn't exist until he creates it, and then demolishes it. Like the best comedy and in a way the best music, it is at once profoundly intellectual and boldly stupid. The best way I can communicate it I think is to let you watch his TED Talk, which also operates very gratifyingly as a demolition job on the whole once-promising and now-bloated phenomenon of the TED Talk.
13. Your Sister's Sister, a movie by Lynn Shelton, 2012
I guess I didn't see that many movies in 2012, considering that I have only seen one of the nominees for Best Picture in the Oscars next week. But one that stuck with me is this film written and directed by Lynn Shelton, who made the quizzical but compelling Humpday, also starring Mark Duplass, in 2009. Her ken for sexual farce is carried forward here but into a much darker, sadder place. The funny thing is that there are things terribly wrong with this movie, including at least one chokingly bad and unbelievable twist on which the whole story hinges and a resolution that seems completely pat and again hard to swallow considering the ordeal the film's just put you through. But the acting and the dialogue in the rest of the film make that completely unimportant. Duplass, Emily Blunt and my current favourite actor in the world, Rosemarie DeWitt, are completely present and incarnate in every frame and every second of their inappropriate triangulation, such that I felt like I was breathing and aching right in rhythm with them. The story is minute and intimate and dwells on the completely central but not-often-enough-grappled-sincerely-with subject of how people can be remotely decent to each other when they need so much and are so basically fucked up from the first dice toss. I almost wonder if the hard-to-credit happy ending is simply a vote on the side of, "Let's say we can, even if that's probably a lie, because otherwise, ouch." Which is a violation of logic and form and honesty that I will take from a movie, if it's already convinced me we are copacetic. How are you supposed to end a story, anyway? It's always a feint. True stories don't really end so much as stop. Like this.


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Because of a rare quirk in the calendars, this year Thanksgiving and Hanukkah overlap, giving rise to the once-in-a-lifetime holiday of "Thanksgivukkah." The unusual occurrence has inspired riffs on the holiday like "menurkeys" (turkey-shaped menorahs), funny T-shirts (a turkey holding a sign that says, "Eat latkes"), pithy sayings ("Gobble tov!") and of course fun food combos (latkes with cranberry applesauce and pecan pie rugelach).
Thanksgivukkah — now that's meshugenah!
Not only is Thanksgivukkah fun to say, it's fun to celebrate, as well. There is something to be said for enjoying both holidays with family and friends, honoring liberty and latkes at the same time. (Disclaimer, it may be more fun for me, because I am not hosting it at my house. Thanks, Josh and Jonna!) And with Hanukkah out of the way early, I'm looking forward to taking December easy, relaxing while others are stressing out about shopping, and— best of all — avoiding stores with cloying Christmas songs on a continuous loop.
Consider getting into the Thanksgivukkah spirit with meals that combine some traditions of each holiday. While nothing will take the place of potato latkes, try mixing it up with these gluten-free Thanksgivukkah corn pancakes. The corn pancakes are cooked in a little bit of oil, recalling the oil in the Hanukkah story, yet feature the Thanksgiving staple of corn.
Topped with sour cream and black beans — or for a non-dairy option, a mix of black beans, corn and salsa — the festive pancakes can be served as appetizers before a Thanksgivukkah meal, or for a Hanukkah lunch or brunch.
On this one-and-only Thanksgivukkah — baby's only Thanksgivukkah! — have fun and be a little silly. In the words of the Dirty Sock Funtime Band, "Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, come light the menurkey. Let's have a party, we'll eat lots of turkey!"
The challenge for the Kosher Connection this month was to create a Thanksgivukkah mash-up recipe. Check out the many other creative Thanksgivukkah recipes, by clicking the frog icon below. (Please be aware that not all recipes are gluten-free.)
Let us know what you are doing to celebrate Thanksgivukkah by leaving a comment.
Gobble tov!

subset: commoncrawl


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Weekend Links: The Accuracy of an Internet Self-Diagnosis
The New Yorker's Atul Gawande shared a link for us self-diagnosers to consider: a study of Googling for medical advice reveals that in tests, 1/4 of sites offer outright wrong / unsafe information, and only 40% are indeed accurate.
Who is better known, the world's most powerful woman, or a 90s sit-com character? It's Merkel vs. Urkel!
"This video is eight and a half minutes long. It is also a beautifully shot, hypnotic look inside a DSLR lens, which is easily worth your time. Oh, and it's a follow-along hack, too, if you have the guts."
Not sure how to use a phone? This 1917 guide shows you how (I would say it's still necessary!)
Inspiring profile piece on Edwina Grosvenor, the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Westminster, "but rather than indulge in her wealth Edwina Grosvenor has dedicated herself to the often thankless task of prison reform."
Settle in for this one (and prepare for some graphic depictions) a murder-suicide in the Keys unravels a doctor's decades-long mystery.
I don't know what exactly this is because it's in Russian, but it's a lot of photoshopped photos that are worth a scroll.
Another brain game: Einstein's Riddle Game of description and instructions. This is an oldie but goodie -- to win you need to put in all 25 correct answers.
A big thanks to everyone who sent in links this week -- keep it up! Send your Flossy finds to email@example.com


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(Cross-posted from http://evilbrainjono.net)
I wrote a Thunderbird add-on to make the email interface I've always wanted — one that helps me remember to stay in touch with people I really care about, instead of always distracting me with the newest incoming trivia.
The add-on is called Lovebird and you can download it here.
The rest of this post is about the philosophy behind Lovebird and why I designed it the way I did.


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Early scores 16 to lead Wichita State over Northern Iowa 66-41
WICHITA, Kan. – Cleanthony Early scored 16 points to lead Wichita State to a 66-41 win over Northern Iowa on Sunday in the Missouri Valley Conference opener for both teams.
Early was 6 of 11 from the field.
Malcolm Armstead had 14 points, and Demetric Williams and Tekele Cotton had 12 points apiece. Jake White had eight rebounds for the Shockers (12-1).
Wichita State led 30-18 at halftime. Wichita State shot 46 percent from the field for the game, while Northern Iowa shot 32.6 percent. Wichita State also led Northern Iowa in rebounds 40-22.
Jake Koch led the Panthers (7-6) with seven points. Austin Pehl had four rebounds.


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If you have managed to download a copy of Windows Vista and get it installed, then you have definitely encountered the new User Account Control (UAC) feature. Just in case you haven't, UAC is a security foundation in Windows Vista which limits the tasks which a user can perform without administrative authentication. According to Microsoft, it is described as a way "to reduce the exposure and attack surface of the operating system by requiring that all users run in standard user mode and by limiting administrator-level access to authorized processes." In other words, it's the pop-up windows that keep coming up asking for permission to do something like install software or change a system setting.
The concept behind UAC is fantastic; a malicious task cannot be performed without proper allowance or user interference. The problem is that the pop-ups become incredibly annoying, and they really do have a negative effect on Vista's usability. Nevertheless, there is hope. So before you decry that you've clicked "Contine" on your last "A program needs your permission to continue" dialog box, keep in mind that Microsoft is planning on refining the UAC process.
According to Russell Humphries, senior product manager for Windows Vista security, Microsoft plans to polish UAC for future Windows Vista releases, hopefully decreasing the frequent requests for authentication in order to perform a task. When asked if future versions of Vista would persist selected choices and credentials, Humphries responded by saying that Microsoft has no intentions of adding that feature. The reason being was because that would open the door for attacks on the operating system, and ultimately bring all processes back to running under administrative privileges.
By the time Microsoft releases Windows Vista Release Candidate 1, one would expect that the UAC infrastructure should be less intrusive but still implement a high level of security. I'd also be surprised if Microsoft sticks to its word and doesn't implement
a way an easy way to suppress UAC dialog boxes. I just can't see the average PC user as being thrilled to have to constantly permit certain administrative tasks to be run.
Edit: UAC can be turned off via System Settings. Obviously, this is not a great idea because it leaves your computer vulnerable to attack, but nevertheless, it's there.


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A full moon is rising for lovers on Valentine's Day, and it will be a Snow Moon.
If weather permits, look up on Friday (Feb. 14) to see the full moon shining brightly in the winter sky. The moon turns full phase at 6:53 p.m. EST (2353 GMT) when it is exactly opposite to the sun in the sky. To most casual observers, however, the moon will appear full a day or two before and a day or two after Valentine's Day.
This February full moon is known as the "Snow Moon" because the heaviest North American snows fall during this time of year. By coincidence, a major snowstorm is currently battering the U.S. East Coast today, just one day ahead of the lunar event. Friday's full moon is also known as the "Full Hunger Moon" because food was scarce and hunting was difficult for ancient tribes during this month.
"A full moon shows up to Earthly viewers when the moon's orbit takes it around to the point where sun, Earth and moon line up," Space.com's Dave Brody said in a video about the moon and its effect on Earth. "The onrushing sunlight fully splashes the Earth-facing face of the moon."
February holds other skywatching treats for avid stargazers who will brave the cold. Venus shines brilliantly in the morning sky this week, and on March 9, Jupiter and the moon will appear in the same part of the night sky, as they did earlier in February.
A host of spacecraft will spend their Valentine's Day with the full moon. Among them, NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer probe (LADEE for short) will orbiting the moon on its mission to collect data about the natural satellite's thin atmosphere. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been making new discoveries about the moon's nature from lunar orbit since its launch in 2009. China's first moon lander and rover, Chang'e 3 and Yutu, will spend the holiday on the lunar surface.
Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of February's full moon, or have any other night sky view you'd like to share with Space.com for a possible story or image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at email@example.com.
Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.


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PHILADELPHIA – Bitter cold or not, several Eagles aren't going to need sleeves when they burst out of the tunnel in their green uniforms Saturday night to play their first playoff game in three years.
This is a team that cannot wait to get to the kickoff, at which point it will begin to determine how good it is and whether Drew Brees can do his Superman routine outdoors for the New Orleans Saints (8:10 p.m., NBC10, WYSP 94.1-FM).
'Everybody is so excited to be here, but we should be here,' Pro Bowl running back LeSean McCoy said. 'We prepare hard for this game. We have so much talent on this team, man. I'm sure the Saints are a good team. But I think with the guys in this locker room, and the coaches that we have we can get the job done.'
You can throw out a chunk of the stats in wild-card playoff situations. The Eagles (10-6) and the Saints (11-5) have explosive offenses, opportunistic defenses, capable quarterbacks and, in Chip Kelly and Sean Payton, head coaches who coach just a little differently than the guys who aren't in the postseason.
Other numbers are impossible to overlook, including the Saints history of never having won a road playoff game.
Brees is Superman in the Superdome. In the climate-controlled environment, he and the Saints went 8-0 and averaged 34 points this season.
Away from the dome, Brees was Clark Kent with a 3-5 road record and losses in five of the last six, including one to the New York Jets and rookie Geno Smith, of all quarterbacks.
For all of their records and accolades, including a Super Bowl championship, Brees and Payton are 0-3 in road playoff games. They've lost to San Francisco and quarterback Alex Smith, Seattle with Matt Hasselbeck and Chicago with the immortal Rex Grossman. None of those will appear on Pro Football Hall of Fame ballots.
Payton minimized the road issues saying, 'We just were asked that question about 15 times' during a conference call.
For the 16th time, the Saints lost five of eight road games this season, averaging just 17.8 points along the way.
Moreover, the Saints haven't known cold this season. In their only sub-50 degree games, they were beaten by the Jets and Seattle. The Seahawks drilled them, 34-7, when it was a balmy 41 degrees.
The forecast for the kickoff against the Eagles is 25 degrees.
'It kind of plays into our favor being at home at the Linc and being in our environment with our weather and our fans,' Eagles linebacker Najee Goode said. 'We're going to use that to an advantage. The weather is something we're used to playing in. They're not used to playing in it. That's something their coaches are probably saying to them and our coaches have mentioned it to us. We need the crowd to be the 12th man and the weather to be the 13th man.'
Payton dismissed the idea that the Saints would make changes to get out of the road rut, as well as weather-related adjustments. His one-liner about new warm-ups being the key came off as nervousness, not humor.
Brees was a bit more forthcoming.
'I feel like we're doing some things from a preparation standpoint this week to prepare ourselves for that,' Brees said. 'We've changed some things up. And we'll see how it goes.'
For the Eagles the game boils down to Nick Foles stretching the field against a Saints defense with a good pass rush but vulnerabilities in the secondary. The Saints have no one to run with DeSean Jackson (9 touchdowns). They could use more size to deal with Riley Cooper (8 TDs) and Brent Celek (6 TDs).
Above all, McCoy (11 TDs) is a nightmare matchup. The league's leading rusher is on a roll coming off NFC offensive player of the month honors.
The Saints can tear a page out of the Cowboys playbook and zero-cover the Eagles to augment pass rushers Cameron Jordan (121/2 sacks) and former Temple star Junior Galette (12). Foles was sacked five times last week, one of the worst beating he's taken all season.
Foles is making his first playoff appearance. He won a road playoff game of sorts last week when the Eagles beat the Cowboys in a winner-take-all contest for the NFC East title.
If Foles thought that tempo was fast, may be amazed Saturday.
'Last week was like a playoff game, but it will step up a little bit,' Eagles veteran Connor Barwin said. 'The opening kickoff will be a little bit faster. And the next couple plays. But it will get back to how it is normally and then it will maybe pick back up at the end as the game gets close.'
In contrast to Foles, Brees, who threw 39 touchdown passes this season, and Payton are in their eighth year together. The duo has experienced almost everything. Their trust is obvious each time the Saints line up.
'Really he was the one who came after me when not a lot of people were trying to sign me,' Brees said. 'It was after my shoulder injury, and I was only two months into an eight-month rehab. There were still a lot of questions as to how I would come back. He had a lot of belief and confidence in me. That told me really to have a lot of believe and confidence in myself. Sean gave me a lot of input very early on in this offense. … On game day we're very much on the same page.'
Defensively, Barwin will take turns with the other linebackers trying to slow down Jimmy Graham, the 6-7 265-pound tight end who produced an NFL-best 16 touchdowns this season.
The Saints will be missing running back Pierre Thomas, scratched with a chest injury.
Anything the Eagles can do to disrupt Brees' timing will be helpful. From Trent Cole, their top pass rusher with eight sacks, to Cary Williams, their most physical cornerback, the Eagles have enough experience to understand what's ahead. And for defenses these days, it's mayhem.
Don't try to argue with Williams that quarterbacks win titles in the quarterback-driven NFL. Sure, Joe Flacco was the Super Bowl MVP on the defending champion Baltimore Ravens. But Williams, who also has a ring, says it was the fourth-down stop late in the game that beat the San Francisco Niners.
'Defense wins championships,' Williams said. 'And defenses win championships. If you play good defense against quarterbacks in this league, you win games.'


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I built a trailer about 4 months ago and all the paint is starting to flaking off. ho do you guys normally paint yur projects? I used tremclad and I didn't think you needed to prep the metal but it donst seem to stick too good for me. how do you guys prep you projects for paint?
No announcement yet.
how do I paint properly?
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Painting prep...
Hey hit-em,
You are only going to get good painting results if you prep the metal properly. Metal has to be clean, chemically clean, to have optimum results. The best method is to sand any residual paint, rust, or grime from the metal, or use a nasty wire wheel. By scoring the surface of the metal, sanding or wire wheel, you leave a texture that the base primer will adhere to very effectively. After that, you must chemically clean with a thinner, toluene, acetone, or any good solvent. A day in direct sunlight, preferably 75+ deg., low humidity, will warm the metal and dissipate most moisture. Now you will be ready to prime, 2 coats for the best results. Then, you are ready to paint if the temp. and sunlight are still present. Hope that helps a bit....Denny* Complete welding, machine, & fab shop *
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paint prep
I have built a few hundred trailers over the years and the best thing I have found so far is plain ol' Rustoleum. After cleaning up and grinding any thing that needs it, I wipe all the metal with paint thinner on a rag. I use the Rustoleum rusty metal primer and let it dry for a few hours. I thin the rustoleum about 20% with thinner and spray the trailer frame. Depending on the color most times you can get away with one or two coats. The rustoleum seems to resist fading and chips for quite some time. I am attaching a picture of a trailer I built about three years ago for my neighbor,( he's a carpenter and uses it about 3 times a week), I took the picture this afternoon. By the way rustoleum is pretty darn cheap as well, about 20.00 bucks a gallon. DaveAttached FilesIf necessity is the Mother of Invention, I must be the Father of Desperation!
sigpicJohn Blewett III 10-22-73 to 8-16-07
Another racing great gone but not to be forgotten.http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...modified&hl=en
Senior Member
- Feb 2006
- 103
I have used expensive and I have used Rustoleum. I think it last just as good as the expensive paint. Always prep like the guys say and temperature is very important.
Senior Member
- Sep 2006
- 75
Painting is the easy part, its prep work that makes a difference.
If you want to learn more about about painting, click the link:
Senior Member
- Sep 2005
- 142
The last two dyno trailers I have built were washed with PPG metal prep, sprayed with epoxy primer, then topcoated in PPG's industrial line of enamel. Seems to hold up fine so far (1.5yrs old). I wish there was an easier way than PPG's metal prep, it's way too time consuming to clean off all the white powder it creates.Justin Starkey
Syncrowave 250 TIGRunner
Miller 210 MIG
Spectrum 375 Plasma
Ford and GM Dyno-tuning on the Moblie Dynojet trailer I built.
VMP Tuning.com


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Entwistle trial goes to jury, defense calls no witnesses
If prosecutors are right, Neil Entwistle is a cold-blooded killer who shot and killed his wife and baby and tried to run away to his native England.
But defense lawyer Elliot Weinstein painted Entwistle as someone who only wanted to protect his wife Rachel's memory by hiding the fact that she killed both herself and their infant daughter, Lillian Rose.
A jury of six men and six women will decide the question of Entwistle's guilt. It begins deliberations today (Tuesday). Prosecutor Michael Fabbri rested the prosecution's case Monday in Middlesex Superior Court. Weinstein did not call any witnesses.
Jurors are sifting through the testimony of 46 witnesses throughout the past 12 days and re-examine more than 100 pieces of evidence.
During closing arguments Monday, Weinstein and Fabbri presented very different versions of what happened Jan. 20, 2006, in the 6 Cubs Path, Hopkinton, home the Entwistles rented.
Entwistle ran errands that morning and returned home to a horrific scene, Weinstein said.
"Neil found Rachel and Lillian dead,'' he said. "Neil saw that (the gun) and knew instantly what happened, and in those moments, he knew what he had to do.''
Instead of calling the police, Entwistle decided to return the gun his wife stole from her parents' Carver home, Weinstein said.
"Foremost, his purpose was to protect Rachel's memory – to protect her honor,'' he said. "Neil committed to not betraying Rachel's memories. He could not do that to Rachel.''
Entwistle returned the gun to Carver and did what he thought was right – return to his parents' home in Worksop, England.
Investigators erred early in the investigation, Weinstein said. They immediately focused on Entwistle as a suspect and worked to prove that no one else was involved in the shooting.
But they ignored the evidence that Rachel Entwistle shot herself and the baby.
Gunshot residue, Weinstein said, was found on both sides of both hands, yet, chemists never tested for gunshot residue on her wrists, her clothing and other areas. No one, he said, told the medical examiner about the test results.
Also, her hands were underneath a pillow, yet they had the residue on them, so it was obvious she was moved after she died, Weinstein said.
Rachel Entwistle's DNA was found on the barrel of the gun, he said. She could not be ruled out as leaving DNA on the black gun case that housed the .22 caliber Colt revolver that shot her, he said.
Investigators also never looked into whether Rachel was depressed or possibly suffered from postpartum depression, he said.
Weinstein also hinted that Joanna Gately, a friend of Rachel's who spent the night in her car at the Hopkinton home on Jan. 21, 2006, because the Entwistles missed a dinner date, may have had an inkling something was wrong.
"What logical reason did Joanna have to stay?'' he said. "Maybe Rachel confided in her. Joanna's actions were consistent with someone who was concerned with a best friend's state of mind.''
Throughout the week prior to the deaths, someone used Entwistle's computer to search out suicide and murder. Weinstein contends that it was Rachel.
He said Entwistle, a computer engineer, could have easily erased that type of information. Although Entwistle frequented pornographic Web sites, that is not uncommon nowadays, Weinstein said.
His actions in the days before the deaths do not suggest murder, he said.
Entwistle, Weinstein said, searched Web sites for travel deals for his parents to fly to the United States for a visit in April 2006. The day Rachel and Lillian were shot, Entwistle went to Starbucks and bought two lattes – one for himself and one for his wife.
If the murder was planned, why was Entwistle's post-murder plan so disorganized, Weinstein asked. Entwistle had no cash and had to go from ATM to ATM to get money. He had to buy a plane ticket the day after the deaths.
"If Neil had planned and calculated for this day, as the prosecutor would lead you to believe, he would not have been utterly unprepared to leave the country,'' Weinstein said.
Rather than Entwistle committing murder, Weinstein said Rachel held Lillian Rose, lined up the gun to try to shoot herself and Lillian Rose through the heart. When the bullet got lodged in the fatty tissue of her breast, she shot herself in the head.
"Do not misunderstand us,'' Weinstein said. "No one is blaming Rachel.''
Weinstein asked the jury to look at all the evidence no one tried to collect and to find reasonable doubt in that.
"The deaths of Rachel and Lillian are an unimaginable tragedy,'' Weinstein said. "There is nothing that can be done to bring them back. Please do not compound this tragedy (by convicting Entwistle).''
Prosecutor Fabbri disputed Weinstein's argument that the deaths were a murder/suicide committed by Rachel Entwistle, saying it does not make sense.
"Why would Rachel commit suicide?'' he said. "She was back home, she had her home, she had her car, she had her family, and she thought she had a loving husband.''
Entwistle had two sides, Fabbri said – the one where everyone thought he was the picture-perfect husband and father – and the other, a man who was disappointed with his sex life and drowning in a sea of debt.
"They want you to think Neil is a loving, caring husband, but they don't want you to think about this being on his person when he was arrested,'' Fabbri said, holding up a British newspaper advertisement featuring several ads for escorts found in Entwistle's pocket when he was arrested in 2006.
The gunshot residue results are not important, the prosecutor said. Only four particles out of thousands were found on Rachel's hands.
The residue on her hands only proves she was in the same room, close to someone who fired a gun, he said.
"Gunshot residue is a red herring,'' Fabbri said.
He also challenged the idea that Rachel Entwistle visited Web sites dealing with death by knives. If she had a gun, why would she visit those sites, Fabbri asked jurors.
The manner of the proposed suicide is also hard to believe.
"The whole concept of committing suicide by shooting through another person makes no common sense,'' Fabbri said.
Entwistle, he said, began searching the adult swingers Web site, Adult Friend Finder, soon after Rachel and Lillian left England in August 2005.
Entwistle sent an e-mail on Jan. 4, 2006, to one woman he found on the Web site saying he was looking for a "bit more fun in the bedroom.''
When Scotland Yard officers arrested Entwistle, he had a notebook in his pocket. One page detailed the loss he felt for the deaths of his wife and daughter.
The next page had a detailed plan to sell the story to the highest bidder, saying it was not just a statement, but "enough material for a week,'' Fabbri said.
Entwistle was failing in the United States, he said. He had no job, he had no friends and no job prospects, and the family was falling further into debt.
"He got to the tipping point,'' said Fabbri, "his own tipping point, and he followed through and murdered his own wife and child.''


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After Hiatus, U.S. Launches Drone Attack In Pakistan
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene.
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning. The United States appears to have resumed drone attacks in Pakistan, specifically in Pakistan's tribal areas, where they've been used to target militants operating along the border with Afghanistan. This strike comes after at least a six-week break in drone strikes.
NPR's Julie McCarthy has just finished three years as NPR's Islamabad bureau chief. She's on the line to talk about this. Hi, Julie.
JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: So what do you know about this attack?
MCCARTHY: Well, government officials in Pakistan say that this particular drone strike happened in North Waziristan - where a lot of them take place - shortly after midnight, in the area around the main city of Miranshah. At least three suspected militants were reported killed.
The attack targeted the home of a local tribal elder, who government sources say rented out a portion of his house to quote-unquote, foreigners. That usually means militants. And in this case, the strike is reported to have killed Uzbeks.
But the significance of this attack is not that foreigners were taken out in it, Steve, but more to the point that it does mark the resumption of drone strikes here, in this area.
INSKEEP: Well, yeah. Let's remind people about that, Julie McCarthy. There was a time - maybe a year ago - when there were so many drone strikes that this wouldn't even be news. But there had been no strikes for weeks as relations got very, very bad between the U.S. government and the Pakistani government.
MCCARTHY: That's right. The U.S. appeared to have backed off of drone strikes, after a NATO attack along the border ended up killing some two dozen Pakistani soldiers. A very incendiary event to Pakistan and it caused a plunge, really, in U.S.-Pakistan relations.
The U.S. investigated, called it a tragic mistake. The Pakistanis rejected the finding. And after their soldiers were slain in that incident, Pakistan shut down all routes for NATO supplies transiting from Pakistan into Afghanistan. And those routes still remain closed.
There were anti-U.S. demonstrations that erupted across the country. The military called for a total review of military-to-military relations. The government did the same thing. Talking on the street was all about, our sovereignty being violated. And in an apparent attempt to draw down all that tension, the U.S. quietly and unofficially appeared to have suspended the drone attacks.
And of course, all of this tension in the relations comes after a great deterioration since the U.S. secret raid on Osama bin Laden. Deep suspicions there were opened out into the public. And then this November attack was just seen as another serious blow to these already teetering relations.
INSKEEP: Well, given all that background, now we have to wonder what the response is going to be to this resumption of drone strikes.
MCCARTHY: That's right. It's unclear so far. It's early hours; very little has been said about it up until this point. It did happen late last night. We may be seeing an effort to downplay this, Steve. The military had nothing to offer on this today.
The government in Pakistan, for its part, has many things hanging fire. And a re-igniting of anti-American protests on the street is really, not what they need now.
In fact, all of this - you know, the NATO supplies, the drones, the Pakistani backlash on the street - has everything to do with the endgame next door in Afghanistan. And the militants, and the government, are each trying to figure out their role in that.
INSKEEP: Did you say the militants are trying to figure out their role?
MCCARTHY: Well, something very interesting has happened in the past couple of weeks. Al-Qaida has called for unity with the Pakistani Taliban in their fight, in their struggle. They're saying, look, let's have a united front against one thing: American troops next door in Afghanistan.
Now, in recent weeks we've had a lot of militant activities directed against the Pakistani security forces. They've been executed; dead bodies have been turned up. We've had a terrible bombing in Pakistan just in the past 48 hours. So there you see a split within the militancy - those who want to join common cause with al-Qaida and say yes, we will fight the Americans; and those who say no, simply not, we will continue to fight the Pakistani state.
INSKEEP: NPR's Julie McCarthy - we find her today in New Delhi. Julie, thanks very much.
MCCARTHY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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The T-Test
The t-test assesses whether the means of two groups are statistically different from each other. This analysis is appropriate whenever you want to compare the means of two groups, and especially appropriate as the analysis for the posttest-only two-group randomized experimental design.
Figure 1 shows the distributions for the treated (blue) and control (green) groups in a study. Actually, the figure shows the idealized distribution – the actual distribution would usually be depicted with a histogram or bar graph. The figure indicates where the control and treatment group means are located. The question the t-test addresses is whether the means are statistically different.
What does it mean to say that the averages for two groups are statistically different? Consider the three situations shown in Figure 2. The first thing to notice about the three situations is that the difference between the means is the same in all three. But, you should also notice that the three situations don't look the same – they tell very different stories. The top example shows a case with moderate variability of scores within each group. The second situation shows the high variability case. the third shows the case with low variability. Clearly, we would conclude that the two groups appear most different or distinct in the bottom or low-variability case. Why? Because there is relatively little overlap between the two bell-shaped curves. In the high variability case, the group difference appears least striking because the two bell-shaped distributions overlap so much.
This leads us to a very important conclusion: when we are looking at the differences between scores for two groups, we have to judge the difference between their means relative to the spread or variability of their scores. The t-test does just this.
Statistical Analysis of the t-test
The formula for the t-test is a ratio. The top part of the ratio is just the difference between the two means or averages. The bottom part is a measure of the variability or dispersion of the scores. This formula is essentially another example of the signal-to-noise metaphor in research: the difference between the means is the signal that, in this case, we think our program or treatment introduced into the data; the bottom part of the formula is a measure of variability that is essentially noise that may make it harder to see the group difference. Figure 3 shows the formula for the t-test and how the numerator and denominator are related to the distributions.
The top part of the formula is easy to compute – just find the difference between the means. The bottom part is called the standard error of the difference. To compute it, we take the variance for each group and divide it by the number of people in that group. We add these two values and then take their square root. The specific formula for the standard error of the difference between the means is:$$ \textrm{SE}(\bar{X}_T-\bar{X}_C) = \sqrt{\frac{\textrm{var}_T}{n_T}+\frac{\textrm{var}_C}{n_C}} $$
Remember, that the variance is simply the square of the standard deviation.
The final formula for the t-test is:$$ t = \frac{\bar{X}_T-\bar{X}_C}{\sqrt{\frac{\textrm{var}_T}{n_T}+\frac{\textrm{var}_C}{n_C}}} $$
t-value will be positive if the first mean is larger than the second and negative if it is smaller. Once you compute the
t-value you have to look it up in a table of significance to test whether the ratio is large enough to say that the difference between the groups is not likely to have been a chance finding. To test the significance, you need to set a risk level (called the alpha level). In most social research, the "rule of thumb" is to set the alpha level at
.05. This means that five times out of a hundred you would find a statistically significant difference between the means even if there was none (i.e., by "chance"). You also need to determine the degrees of freedom (df) for the test. In the
t-test, the degrees of freedom is the sum of the persons in both groups minus
2. Given the alpha level, the df, and the
t-value, you can look the
t-value up in a standard table of significance (available as an appendix in the back of most statistics texts) to determine whether the
t-value is large enough to be significant. If it is, you can conclude that the difference between the means for the two groups is different (even given the variability). Fortunately, statistical computer programs routinely print the significance test results and save you the trouble of looking them up in a table.
The t-test, one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and a form of regression analysis are mathematically equivalent (see the statistical analysis of the posttest-only randomized experimental design) and would yield identical results.


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Hello there. Hope all is well in your world. Things have been a little crazy around here – good crazy – that is…but it hasn't left me much time for my blog. I was grateful to find a slow afternoon last week and a bright Autumn sun in the sky. Our sunny days are numbered now, so I knew this might be my last chance to get out into the garden and take pictures of all the gorgeous Fall color.
Are the leaves still turning where you live?
Have a beautiful Wednesday.


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Southern Alberta buffeted by gale-force winds, as large grass fire forces hundreds to evacuate
Dozens of buildings were damaged as strong winds uprooted trees, blew out windows and spread debris around downtown Calgary. The winds also caused several vehicles to overturn along Highway 2, and fueled a large fire northeast of Nanton.
Disaster Calendar 2011 – November 28
[November 28, 2011] Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016. SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,570 Days Left to the 'Worst Day' in Human History
- Alberta, Canada. Dozens of buildings were damaged as strong winds uprooted trees, blew out windows and spread debris around downtown Calgary. The winds also caused several vehicles to overturn along Highway 2, and fueled a large fire northeast of Nanton since last Tuesday, which forced hundreds to evacuate their homes.
- "Alberta Tourism, Parks and Recreation closed portions of Fish Creek Provincial Park because of tree damage and public risk of power lines falling down," said a report.
- Strong winds have been wreaking havoc in southern Alberta from Okotoks to the American border since Tuesday.
Other Global Disasters
- Indonesia. A 720-meter bridge linking the towns of Tenggarong and Samarinda in East Kalimantan province in central Indonesia collapsed killing at least 13 people and leaving dozens more missing, presumed dead. The bridge over the Mahakam river in central Indonesia was built to resemble SF's Golden Gate Bridge.
- About 2 dozen others were injured in the incident, 10 of them critically.
- Indonesia. The recorded number of HIV/AIDS patients in Indonesia (population: 240 million) has climbed to at least 200,000.
- Yunnan Province, SW China. The SW China province of Yunnan registered about 84,000 HIV carriers and AIDS patients as of the end of l2010, one of the worst among Chinese provinces or regions, a report said.
- Global. At least 34 million people around the world had HIV in 2010, up from 33.3 million in 2009, the UNAIDS reported.
- Some 2.7 million new HIV infections were reported worldwide in 2010.
- About two-thirds of new HIV infections in 2010, and more than a third of AIDS-related deaths, occurred in sub-Saharan Africa.
Related Links
- The First Wave of World's Collapsing Cities (EDRO Forecast)
- 2011 Much More Disastrous: FIRE-EARTH Forecast
- Global Disasters in 2011 Could Impact 1/3 to 1/2 of the Human Population (FIRE-EARTH Forecast)
- Back to the Primordial Future
- Mass Die-offs (FIRE-EARTH Forecast)


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When Andrew Wilkinson started the year in his new job as advanced education minister, he knew B.C. universities hired lobbyists to pitch expansion plans to government.
Wilkinson was one of those lobbyists in his role as a lawyer in private practice, before being elected MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena in 2013.
Under attack for the second day in question period at the B.C. legislature, Wilkinson said Tuesday the practice of universities hiring expensive consultants to speak to the government that funds and regulates them should come to an end.
"It's been abundantly clear since I took this role that access to my ministry and to me is unlimited for all the institutions," Wilkinson told the legislature. He said he will advise all B.C. post-secondary institutions that they don't need lobbyists, but as independent institutions it will be up to them to decide.
On Monday, opposition critics produced records showing Kwantlen Polytechnic University had paid consultant Mark Jiles $177,000 for "relationship building" with the government over several years. Jiles also worked on executive compensation for Kwantlen, where school administrators were paid unreported bonuses that broke government salary caps.
That controversy led to Wilkinson switching cabinet jobs with Surrey-Tynehead MLA Amrik Virk, who was involved in the overpayments as a member of the Kwantlen board. The cabinet shuffle took place quietly in December, after emails surfaced that contradicted Virk's claims he was not involved in the overpayments.
On Monday, NDP advanced education critic Kathy Corrigan described Jiles' compensation as "$15,000 a handshake." On Tuesday, NDP leader John Horgan went further.
"The $177,000 to Mr. Jiles translated into a $50,000 contribution to the B.C. Liberal Party from Mr. Jiles," Horgan told the legislature. "The minister [Wilkinson] lobbied for Simon Fraser University. Is the minister okay with $50,000 coming from the public back to the B.C. Liberal Party?"
Corrigan said Tuesday a similar arrangement saw lobbyist and "Liberal insider" Don Stickney paid $75,000 by Vancouver Community College.
Wilkinson is a former president of the B.C. Liberal Party who served as deputy minister for economic development and intergovernmental relations with former premier Gordon Campbell.


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[The US-backed genocide against the Palestinian people continues. — NP]
Palestinians mark their 1948 displacement
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Tens of thousands of Palestinians marked the 65th anniversary of their mass displacement during the war over Israel's 1948 creation, marching in the streets and in some parts of the West Bank clashing with Israeli security forces.
Every May 15, Palestinians hold rallies to commemorate the "nakba," or "catastrophe" — the term they use to describe the displacement, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the fighting. The dispute over the fate of those Palestinians and their descendants, now numbering several million people, remains at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The United Nations General Assembly approved a partition of British-ruled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states in 1947. In May 1948 Israel declared independence.
Israel views the Palestinians' return as demographic suicide and expects the displaced and their descendants to be taken in by a future Palestinian state. But intermittent Israeli-Palestinian attempts to agree on the terms of such a state have so far failed.
Across the West Bank on Wednesday, sirens wailed at noon for 65 seconds to commemorate the 65 years since the "nakba." Thousands marched in Ramallah from the grave of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to the city center. Many wore black in a sign of mourning, holding Palestinian flags and large keys symbolizing the homes they left behind.
"The right of return will not die," chanted the protesters. Schools closed at midday and parents brought their children to the demonstration.
In Ramallah, 38-year-old Manwal Awad brought her 11-year-old twins to the protest. "Every year I bring them with me to inherit the story of our nakba, and to keep the dream of return," she said.
Rallies were elsewhere in the West Bank as well, and in several places demonstrators throwing rocks clashed with Israeli security forces, who responded with tear gas, Israel's military said. Near the volatile city of Hebron, a fire bomb hit at an Israeli military vehicle, causing it to overturn and injuring four soldiers, the military said.
In east Jerusalem, Israeli police used water cannon and officers on horseback to disperse an "illegal march," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Nineteen protesters were arrested for throwing rocks and bottles at police that injured three police officers, he said.
Seven other Palestinians suspected of attacking several Jews as they walked to the Western Wall in the Old City were also arrested, he said.
In Gaza, around a thousand people marched to the U.N. headquarters in Gaza City, where the demonstrators chanted: "We shall return. We will never give up or compromise over our land."
Militants in Gaza, which has been under the control of the militant Hamas group since 2007, fired a rocket into southern Israel that exploded in an open field causing no injuries, Israel's military said.
In a televised speech on Tuesday night, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian cause earned international acceptance last year with the United Nations' de facto recognition of a Palestinian state in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"We won the support of the world," Abbas said, adding that Israel's policies toward the Palestinians are "condemned internationally."
Last year, Abbas created a stir when he told Israeli media that he himself has no wish to live in Safed, the city of his birth, in northern Israel.
Although widely condemned by Palestinians, Abbas' remarks were seen as a reflection of a decades-old understanding among Palestinian officials that likely only a limited number of refugees would ever be able to return to their original homes in Israel as part of a compromise that would result in a future peace agreement.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying to renew Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which collapsed four years ago over the issue of Jewish settlements. Palestinians insist they will not resume talks unless the construction of settlements in territories they want for their future state ends first. Israel says negotiations should resume without preconditions and that settlements will be resolved through talks along with the other issues.
In efforts to jump-start the talks, Kerry has managed to persuade Arab leaders to reissue their 2002 peace proposal with new incentives, including a suggestion that final borders between Israel and a future Palestine could be modified from the 1967 lines through agreed land swaps.
The 2002 initiative, which at the time was endorsed by the Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, offered Israel normalized relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories captured in 1967. However, it was overshadowed by Israeli-Palestinian fighting and was greeted with skepticism by Israel.
Israel has been mostly quiet on the proposal so far.
On Wednesday, the Palestinian statistics bureau in the West Bank issued a statement saying the number of Palestinians today has reached 11.5 million. Of those, 4.4 million live in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza; 1.4 million in Israel while the remainder live in the diaspora.
Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak contributed to this report from the Gaza Strip.


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TV Show info
Seasons: 4
Episodes: 41
Subtitles: 258
Downloads: 65237
The series centers on 17-year-old Joshua "J" Cody, who moves in with his freewheeling relatives in their Southern California beach town after his mother dies of a heroin overdose. Headed by boot-tough matriarch Janine "Smurf" Cody and her right-hand Baz, who runs the business and calls the shots, the clan also consists of Pope, the oldest and most dangerous of the Cody boys; Craig, the tough and fearless middle son; and Deran, the troubled, suspicious "baby" of the family.
- Christina Ochoa
- Ellen Barkin
- Scott Speedman
- Shawn Hatosy
- Ben Robson
- Jake Weary
Animal Kingdom
Season: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
01. Janine 02. Angela 03. Man Vs. Rock 04. Tank 05. Reap


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Maryland Injury Guys
Maryland Injury Guys Woodlawn - Personal Injury Attorneys
Maryland Injury Guys Law Firm, Woodlawn, is made up of personal injury and negligence attorneys who fight for the compensation their clients deserve. Our personal injury lawyers handle cases such as slips, falls, car accidents and workers comp and disability, medical malpractice cases, birth injury cases and sexual assault. Our services extend to Woodlawn, MD. Randallstown. MD. Lochearn. MD. Milford Mill. MD. Ellicott City. MD. Security Square. MD. Franklintown. MD. Westview Park. MD. Winsten Estates. MD. Westerlee. MD. Dickeyville. MD. Granite. MD. Adil Meadows. MD. Windsor Terrace. MD. Howard Park. MD. West Forest Park. MD. Mt. Holly, MD. Wakefield, MD. Leakin Park. MD. Hebbville. MD. Gwynn Oak. MD. Windsor Mill. MD. Woodstock. MD. Woodbridge Valley. MD
Business Name:
Maryland Injury Guys
6666 Security Boulevard #4Woodlawn Maryland 21207United States
(410) 762-3030
About Woodlawn
Woodlawn is the name of some places in the U.S. state of Maryland:
Neighborhoods in Woodlawn, Maryland
Academy Heights, Adil Meadows, Allendale, Ashburton, Bentalou-Smallwood, Bolton Hill, Booth-Boyd, Bridgeview-Greenlawn, Burleith-Leighton, Callaway-Garrison, Carrollton Ridge, Central Forest Park, Cheswolde, Coppin Heights, Dorchester
Things to do in Woodlawn, Maryland
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There's a fascinating new survey conducted by the Gallup Organization for the Atlanta Opera that says, in essence, we opera-types don't really understand what drives our customers to make that all-important ticket purchase. Here are some of the more interesting/controversial findings:
Current and former subscribers (in Atlanta, remember) say that it doesn't much matter to them whether the opera venue is located downtown or outside the central district. What clearly matters is the length of the drive, from start to finish.
Easy access to good food and drink, however, is extremely important to those surveyed. An abundance of nearby restaurants is considered a huge plus in promoting ticket sales.
And — most controversial of all — expensive international singing stars aren't a draw for most subscribers and former subscribers. Even those with big names aren't recognized or considered particularly influential in prompting a ticket purchase.
So, my question to everyone out there is: What matters most to you, as a patron of The Dallas Opera? You must have your own internal list of what you want out of your Dallas Opera experience (and what you are eager to avoid), please share it. And I'd love to hear your reactions to the Gallup findings, too.
Suzanne Calvin, Assoc. Dir. of Marketing, The Dallas Opera


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If you're like us, and choose to wait until the very last minute for, well, everything, you're probably freaking out about V-Day being just a few days away. Whether you're the kind of person to go all out and gift-give like it's your job, or prefer a more subtle approach and pick up a little something for your sweetie, it's about time you got with the program — time's ticking!
And since we know how important scoring locally sourced presents is, we have culled 16 handy-dandy, Bay-centric gifts to give to your S.O., and they will never suspect that you waited until the 11th hour. Trust us, we wouldn't leave you hanging. Click away to see our stellar picks you can nab right here in S.F. and snatch them up before it's too late!


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Christopher Nolan seems to be hard at work casting Batman 3. Just two weeks ago he nabbed Tom Hardy for his final Batman movie. And now he's reportedly looking for a leading lady — but who will she play?
Movie Hole is reporting that Nolan has quietly meeting actresses in their late 20s and early 30s for a secret, but substantial, role in his third Batman movie. Sorry to disappoint, Megan Fox/Catwoman photoshop enthusiasts, but Nolan is allegedly steering away from casting a big A-list celebrity. The new member of Nolan's Gotham will most likely be a new face.
Of course, everything is being kept under wraps, even the character's identity, but Movie Hole suggested that the part might be revealed within the next few weeks. Who could this character be? We've already seen two different actors play Rachel Dawes, but it's unlikely that this character will make a surprise resurrection with a new face. Plenty of fans have expressed interest in seeing Harley Quinn, but can you have Harley without the Joker? It could be Talia al Ghul, the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul, a character Liam Neeson introduced us to in Batman Begins. But our money is riding on Catwoman. She's a classic character who's begging for the Nolan touch. Plus we need someone to help us burn away any lasting images of Halle Berry's Catwoman interpretation.
[Image by Josh McMahon


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Posted by Editor on 12/26/06
Grand Tour of the Bruce
The Grand Tour of the Bruce will run from July 23rd to July 27th, 2007. It is a four day bicycle and camping tour. The tour starts in the scenic city of Owen Sound, Ontario then cyclists ride along backroads and railtrails throughout the beautiful Bruce Peninsula. The Bruce Peninsula is in Bruce County, Ontario and is situated between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay (250 kilometres northwest of Toronto). Spaces are limited to 250 cyclists.
The tour is the brainchild of local cycling enthusiast, Bill Haley. Bill is a retired teacher who ran a bicycle touring business on the Bruce Peninsula for 11 seasons. Assisting Bill is Tom Hakala. Tom has written two books on cycling in the region and is an executive in the Owen Sound
Cycling Club.
The Grand Tour of the Bruce is a project developed and managed by the Tom Thomson Trail Group as a fund-raiser to assist in finishing the Tom Thomson Trail. The Tom Thomson Trail is a non-motorized multi-use trail that will eventually link the trail systems west of Owen Sound and the Georgian Trail east of Meaford, Ontario. The Grand Tour of the Bruce is part of the Owen Sound Homecoming in 2007, which celebrates the city's 150 anniversary.
For more information about the tour go to the website at: www.brucebiketour.com
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com or call Bill Haley Toll Free at 1 866-571-9449
|Return to Canadian Cyclist homepage | Back to Top


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In addition to the following, more detailed information regarding the English language and Mathematics placement tests is available from the Department of English Language and Literature and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics respectively.
With the exception of applicants who demonstrate English language proficiency under the regulations, English Language Proficiency Requirements, English Language Secondary Institution and English Language Post-Secondary Institution, all other applicants will be required to write a placement test in English language. This test must be taken prior to the commencement of classes to determine the appropriate English course for which an applicant should register. For further information concerning English language proficiency requirements refer to English Language Proficiency Requirements.
Students whose performance in the placement test in English language indicates that appropriate placement is in English 102F will be required to register in, and successfully complete English 102F before registering in higher level courses in English.
Applicants intending to register for the first time in any 1000 level mathematics course must submit a score for either an Advanced Placement Calculus Examination or other standardized tests acceptable to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
Students whose score in the Advanced Placement Calculus examination or other standardized test is not acceptable to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics will be required to register in a mathematics course determined by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.


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Offered with support from the American Express Foundation, the IGNITE Fellowship is a nine-month program that each year will focus on 35 mid-career women of color in nonprofits across the US.
The Research Center for Leadership in Action at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service (RCLA) is announcing the launch of the IGNITE Fellowship for Women of Color in the Social Sector, an initiative that will celebrate and cultivate the leadership skills of women of color at major nonprofit organizations.
Offered with support from the American Express Foundation, the IGNITE Fellowship is a nine-month program that each year will focus on 35 mid-career women of color in nonprofits across the US. The Fellowship will provide fellows with exposure to best practices, processes for building personal and organizational leadership, opportunities to build and strengthen core management capacities, and a national network of women of color who are leading their organizations.
"Women of color who are heading up nonprofits are doing some of the most groundbreaking, complex and too often, under-recognized, work in the field. We are thrilled to support them at this mid-career stage, giving them space to reflect back on what they have accomplished and equipping them to reach the next level of impact going forward," said RCLA Executive Director Bethany Godsoe.
The IGNITE Fellowship begins with a five-day Institute in New York City. During the Institute, Fellows will meet with innovators in the nonprofit arena, learn from these and other experts in leadership and management, and participate in action-oriented, peer-to-peer, and experiential learning sessions. They will also have space to step away from day-to-day management duties to engage in reflection and rejuvenation. Over the ensuing nine months, Fellows will participate in peer mentoring, coaching, and webinars to advance their personal and professional leadership goals with the support of cohort members and Fellowship managers.
"American Express has long invested in developing robust and diverse nonprofit leadership," said Timothy J. McClimon, President of the American Express Foundation. "We are excited to continue our commitment to celebrating and enhancing the critically important work spearheaded by women of color across the social sector."
Applications for the IGNITE Fellowship are being accepted online through noon EST on Friday, May 24, at http://bit.ly/100ayMo.
The Fellowship is a program of RCLA's People of Color Leadership Network, which aims to strengthen communities of color by supporting leadership by and for people of color. This work in part seeks to address the dearth of positions of authority held by people of color in contrast to major demographic and workforce shifts. People of color make up one of every three people living in the US, a figure projected to increase to more than one of every two in the coming decades. Recent research data show that only 10 percent of nonprofit and foundation CEO positions are held by people of color.
About the Research Center for Leadership in Action
The Research Center for Leadership in Action builds knowledge and capacity for leadership to transform society. Housed at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, a nationally top-ranked graduate school, RCLA conducts breakthrough research on leadership for the public good and offers customized leadership development and capacity-building programs. Over the last decade, a cornerstone of RCLA's research and programming has been recognizing and developing diverse and inclusive leadership at all levels of public service organizations. Learn more at wagner.nyu.edu/leadership.
About American Express
American Express is a global services company, providing customers with access to products, insights and experiences that enrich lives and build business success. Learn more at americanexpress.com.
American Express: Developing New Leaders for Tomorrow
One of American Express' three platforms for its philanthropy is Developing New Leaders for Tomorrow. Under this giving initiative, which recognizes the significance of strong leadership in the nonprofit sector, American Express is making grants focused on training high potential emerging leaders to tackle important issues in the 21st century.


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Myson Whispa III Wall Mounted Convector Heater - 9000WM / 9000 WM
- Complete Unit - 3308 to 11750 Btu
Product ID • WHISPA3WM900
Myson's Whispa III 9000WM Fan Convector Heaters have set a new standard for reliability, heat output and design flexibility. The flush mounted wall heating unit fits between standard wall studs, providing high heat output with out-of-the-way positioning. With Convector Heat, you get rapid output - faster than traditional baseboards. Myson Whispa Heating Fan Convectors enameled face combines both the intake and output in an easy to clean faceplate that can be mounted at any height for true flexibility to blend with any decor. Whispa III Wall Heaters with Fan Convectors simply last longer, stay quieter and produce heat more efficiently, with lab-certified output.
Here's why:
Myson Whispa III 9000WM has a compact design. Myson's UltraHeat Hydronic Wall Heater design uses a special low head, high flow heat exchanger, proven to deliver it's high output rating, yet requires little space for room heating.
Whispa III 9000 WM Convector Heaters are engineered to last. Porus bronze sleeve fan bearings keep the Hydronic Heater Wall Heater quieter and last longer than conventional roller bearings. The rugged two-piece motor with permanently lubricated sealed bearings quickly delivers the BTU's you expect without strain, and that means less wear and longer life.
Whispa III 9000 WM's performance is guaranteed. These room heaters have been thoroughly tested and certified by an independent testing lab to deliver 100% of it's rated heat output. Myson's ISO 9002 certification recognizes a tradition of consistent high quality manufacturing.
The Whispa III 9000WM also comes in a Hydronic Floor Heater (Recessed).
Manuals & Docs
Technical Specs
Myson Whispa III 9000WM Hydronic Wall Heater Techs and Specs
- Height
- 19 1/8 Inches
- Width
- 19 1/2 Inches
- Depth
- 3 5/8 Inches
- Wall Opening Height
- 17 7/16 Inches
- Wall Opening Width
- 17 15/16 Inches
- Grille Color
- White
- Low-limit thermostats
- close 109 degrees and reopen at 91 degrees
- Btu/hr. Range
- 3308 to 11750
- Wiring
- Hard Wired
- Replaces
- up to 19 feet of baseboard
- Weight
- 21 pounds
- Warranty Heat Exchanger
- 10 years - 3 years for the Fan Motor
Info & Links


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For context: My grandfather served aboard the YMS-299 in the Battle for Okinawa. I have several of his photos and am trying to figure out where they fit into his training/tour. Is this a graduating class from boot camp, or a group he would have served with? Would it include the crew of his YMS, or would each of these men have gone into different assignments? How would someone try to get a list of names for a photo like this? The back says: "1943 after boot camp San Diego, CA navy base 80 men to a platoon, with 2 platoons 160 men" (NOTE: I only count 150 men, not including the officer.)
Click image for Comments.
Browse All Photos


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Saturday, September 3, 2011
Blogville Back-to-School Bash
The BOUNCE HOUSE is OPEN for your bouncing fun - let's get this party started!!!
There are NO RULES about the Bounce House BUT a couple of friendly suggestions might prevent delays for clean up and repairs - if you know what we mean.
* Think about eating those hotdogs AFTER bouncing
* A little nail trim BEFORE bouncing is a good idea
Other than that - have FUN!!! If you bonk your head or somebody else bonks it for you, the FIRST AID TENT is nearby!
And hey! The BOUNCE HOUSE is also a COMMENT-A-THON for Sammy Andy & Shelly aka SAS, some of Blogville's favorite kitties who are famous for their hats and awesome graphics! We missed out on their auction and the Blogville Comment-A-Thon, so we thought we would do one today! SO, for every BOUNCE (COMMENT) during the Labor Day weekend, we will donate 10 cents to the SAS. These kitties and their Mom contribute so much to Blogville so help us give a little back, won't you?!
There are more activities here in Blogville this weekend than you can shake a stick at, so head on over to SARGE'S, SUGAR'S or FRANKIE'S to check out the schedule and get your game plan ready so you don't miss a thing! HAVE FUN EFURRYBODY!
27 comments:
- Frankie Furter and Ernie said...
Hey Road Dogs!
Wow, your Bounce House is so much fun! I decided to come here first today...mostly so I can chow down later without any accident worries! BOL This is a boinging blast!
Grr and Woof,
Sarge, Supreme Munk Mocker
- September 3, 2011 at 6:07 AM
- ♥♥ The OP Pack ♥♥ said...
We got up extra early today so we could get that breakfast down and settled. We are all here ready to jump and bounce away.
Woos ~ Phantom, Thunder, Ciara, and Lightning
- September 3, 2011 at 6:09 AM
- Sweet William The Scot said...
WoooHooooo ~ I am the first one in!!
Sweet William The Scot
- September 3, 2011 at 6:46 AM
- Oskar said...
Oh man, I bounced my nubbin off!
Nubbin wiggles,
- September 3, 2011 at 6:48 AM
- Alasandra, The Cats and Dogs said...
Oh, we can't wait to bounce. The bounce house is so much fun. MOL, Poor Arty flys all the way up to the ceiling when we bounce.
- September 3, 2011 at 6:49 AM
- Frankie Furter and Ernie said...
Hey.... I think this is a BLAST. I am REALLY glad that I had that Pawdicure... I think I can bounce EVEN HIGHER...
PeeS... that furst comment was REALLY from Sarge... we are sharin stuffs this weekend... and sometimes we furget to SWITCH over.
Watch that Sweet William, He was drinkin a bunch of water a bit ago.
Miss Maggie may and her crew are all set in the Em. Med. Tent!!
- September 3, 2011 at 7:25 AM
- Two French Bulldogs said...
Benny & Lily
- September 3, 2011 at 8:22 AM
- Wyatt said...
After seeing the way every puppy is behaving in class, they need to spend some time in the bounce house and burn off some energy!!
Heehee, see you at the pawm!
Wyatt and Stanzie
- September 3, 2011 at 8:37 AM
- Beans4Biscuits said...
Whew, we sure hope some bouncin will helf our brains that got fried from our stolen pawlitical learnings at Frankies!
Maybe this time Hannibal won't throw himself outta the bounce-house just to get Maggie Mae's attention!
Sugar the Who
- September 3, 2011 at 8:56 AM
Wooooooooooooooooooooo Hoooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
I just LOVE your Bounce House! This time I made sure not to eat and I had my nails done for the Pawm so I am havin a blast!
See you at the Pawm!
woos, Tessa
- September 3, 2011 at 9:01 AM
- Maggie Mae and Max said...
I am sure lookin' forward to my next break so I can come over and go on da bouncy bounce! :)
Woofs and Licks,
Maggie Mae
- September 3, 2011 at 9:34 AM
- The Adventures of the LLB Gang said...
Woo Hoo..this is SO MUCH FUN!!! Watch out for Bilbo Jakey!!!
Dory, Jakey and Bilbo
- September 3, 2011 at 9:44 AM
- George The Lad said...
PARTY, OK lets have a bounce, hang on better just take my tie off first, don't want to get tied up, O Stanzie are you coming on with me :) no stop that, I don't like my paws being tickled!!! its a bit crowded in here, I feel a drink coming on, Stanzie we'll come back later.
- September 3, 2011 at 9:53 AM
- Asta said...
BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE wheeeeeeeeeee!
AThis is sooo much fun
I'm so glad I got a pawdicoowe befowe I got in hewe, some pup(who should wemain nameless) punched a hole in the othew section..thank dog you had an inflatew and gloo to fix it.
And that advice about not eeting befowe..hehehe many a pup lost theiw lunch cleanup in faw cownew, heheheh
thank you fow the fun
smoochie kisses
- September 3, 2011 at 10:56 AM
- Angels Amber and Max DaWeenie and Mom said...
Ok's..{insert deep breath} mee will be brave and try dis again. Da last time me got bounced out right on me teenie weenie head and had to spend da rest of da day in da furst aid tent wit nurse Maggie.
- September 3, 2011 at 1:08 PM
- The Daily Pip said...
Well, I did just have some ice cream and cheetos, but I am sure it will be OK ...after all, I did manage to carry the world on my shoulders surely I can handle a little bouncing.
Your pal, Pip
- September 3, 2011 at 2:10 PM
- The Daily Pip said...
OK who moved the stool. Can someone give me a little boost into the bouncy house.
- September 3, 2011 at 2:11 PM
- houndstooth said...
Wahoo! We love the bounce house!
Morgan, your nose does NOT go there! *sigh* I'll try harder to keep her under control!
- September 3, 2011 at 2:56 PM
- Of Pit Bulls and Patience said...
Parker is extra excited to go in the bouncy house tomorrow for his birthday! He'll have Skye double bounce him to see how high he goes!
- September 3, 2011 at 4:24 PM
- Frankie Furter and Ernie said...
Hey..... NEXT year... you all remind me... do NOT do P.E. Class then spend 87 mins. it your BOUNCE HOUSE... and then try to DANCE in the EVENING... these ol bones and muscles aren't what they used to be... BUTT I wouldn't want to miss any Bounce House time... What a BLAST it is!!! Maybe we should open a Ben Gay booth next to the Bounce House!!!!
- September 3, 2011 at 6:33 PM
- K9 Katastrophie said...
BOL! This is fun!
- September 3, 2011 at 7:34 PM
- George The Lad said...
another day another bounce, that clears your head after a good night :)
- September 4, 2011 at 4:11 AM
I love that bounce house! Is there a limit on how many can be inside, that might help with the injuries a bit.
- September 4, 2011 at 4:25 AM
Ruh roh...where'd everybody go? Am I early or latte? Oh well...now I don't have to worry about bouncin on anyone else so...BOUNCE! BOUNCE! BOUNCE! WOO hit the roof on that one :D This is so much fun y'all Yippeeeeeeeee! Boucy boucy bouncy fun fun fun fun fun!
Waggin at ya,
- September 4, 2011 at 5:08 AM
- ♥Mona + Prissy + Angel Weenie♥ said...
I'm still dizzy from all that bouncing yesterday but it was great exercise for my Roachibng 202class on Monday.
I am so glad Weenie got out of the bounce house before he barfed everywhere.
- September 4, 2011 at 5:41 AM
- Frankie Furter and Ernie said...
Wow.. I was just HOPING that you would be open this early today. I wanted to get in and see if I could BOUNCE a few of these SORE MUSCLES back in shape... Oh YES... this is feeling better All READY... Sort of like a FUN Massage. BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE ROLL SCRAMBLE BOUNCE BOUNCY BOUNCE.
AHHHHHHHH much better.
THANKS. I just love the Bounce House... you are grrrrrreat fur doin this fur us.
- September 4, 2011 at 6:30 AM
- FiveSibesMom said...
Wow! Now that's a cool bouncy house!
- September 20, 2011 at 8:39 PM


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For the color-obsessed or interior designer on the go, Sherwin-Williams created the ColorSnap iPhone application to help sync up distinct palettes.
Quick and easy, it works by simply scrolling a finger across an existing photo or a new one to locate the exact point for color match up. ColorSnap then instantly offers up one of the 1,500 corresponding Sherwin-Williams paint hues and a list of their closest retail stores.
The color can be saved for later and the app suggests a list of coordinating colors to create a unified palette.
Relieving a lot of the time and stress from running back and forth to the paint store attempting to find the exact desired shade. the service is also just a fun way to play around with hues.
ColorSnap is free from iTunes and compatible with both the iPhone and iPod touch.