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24 Nov 29 Ways to Show Unique Gratitude (and other Random Acts of Kindness)
"The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving."
-Albert Einstein quotes
Written by Scott Dinsmore
Average Read Time: 3.5 Minutes
Right now I'm with 17 family members in Maui for Thanksgiving. I am grateful. (And don't worry, I wrote most of this post last week so I could enjoy the beach).
Being away from the norm and with people you love, brings the concept of gratitude front and center. Every year I make it a point to dedicate time to giving back and letting people know what they've created in my life.
Last year I gave Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches to a dozen homeless people in Union Square in San Francisco. Throughout the year I give 10-20 of my most life-changing book to those who are in a big transition who could really use the nudge. This year I may spend a week in Costa Rica helping a community that has less than we could imagine. We'll see.
The smallest things can make all difference in your life and others.
You just need to remember to take the time to show your gratitude and spread your kindness. The world needs it. Thanksgiving is a good reminder that the below ought to be practiced all year.
29 Ways to Show Unique Gratitude
- Tell someone face to face how much they mean to you.
- Write a thank you note (via snail mail).
- Send a post card.
- Pack your lunch and then give it to those you come across who need it.
- Put a stickie note somewhere random that'll make someone smile (like Operation Beautiful).
- Leave a creative smily face for your spouse (I make mine with a banana and two apples in the kitchen).
- Smile ear to ear at everyone you see – it's contagious.
- Call someone you know is in a tough spot and just listen for as long as they'd like.
- Give your books a new home with a new mind.
- Call, email or write your closest 5 people in your life and let them know the unique impact they have on your life.
- Pay for the the guy's Starbucks who's behind you in line.
- Get a $100 in 2-dollar bills from the bank and use them as your tip money – guaranteed smile.
- Get a doggy bag no matter how small your leftovers are. Give it to the first person you see who needs it.
- Buy a dozen sandwiches and pass then out to homeless folks in a busy area (one of my favorites).
- Give a anonymous donation of whatever you can afford.
- Buy a lottery ticket for a homeless person.
- Take that coat or jacket you never wear and give it to someone on the street (do this with anything you haven't worn in the past 6 months).
- Make a friend their favorite meal.
- Or buy them a bottle of wine and drink it together, slowly, with no agenda.
- Share an experience with someone you love- perhaps a sunset or special walk.
- Send one of my articles to someone you know could use it.
- Open a door for someone.
- When someone's having car troubles, instead of speeding by frustrated, stop to help.
- Give genuine compliments to those you hardly know (like a waiter or bus driver).
- Leave a huge tip (I love doing this with breakfast, since the bill is usually low).
- Donate a week of your life to a good cause like Eric Shamas offers with One Week a Year.
- Leave an inspirational book on the bus.
- Leave a $2 bill (or $1) on a random windshield.
- Take a picture for a tourist.
- Send this list to to a few friends.
Ok so it looks like you got 30 instead of 29 – Consider it a Thanksgiving bonus.
Plenty more ideas can be found in Arvind Devalia' awesome kindness post (where I borrowed a few of the above), as well as RandomActsofKindness.org.
Writing the above makes me reflect on my life so I thought I'd share…
What I'm Grateful For (a shortened list):
- Having a wife who's my best friend.
- The 'dream job' I never got out of college.
- A business partner that perfectly compliments my strengths.
- A family that knows nothing but unconditional support for my ideas.
- My audience of over 1,500 who continue to listen, learn and teach me new things (that's you).
- My simple one-bedroom apartment – just enough but not too much for my family of two.
- Friends who keep me thinking big.
- Being a beginner.
- Having 17 family members close to me (in Hawaii no less!).
- My team in India who continues to get more over-my-head stuff done while I sleep than I can while I'm awake.
- The endless inspiration I have in my models for success.
- A body that can tackle most fitness challenges (or at least has the courage to try).
- Being able to work from anywhere – and do what I'm meant to do.
- The stack of 23 books on my shelf I've yet to read.
- This morning's sunrise
There is always something to be grateful for.
No matter what your circumstances, as dark as they can seem at times, there is always something worth appreciating. Often the most important times to be grateful are during the most difficult times. Gratitude is a powerful emotion. When you are truly grateful in the moment, it's impossible to feel fear or stress or anxiety, or any of those negative emotions that keep us for experiencing our potential. Allow gratitude to take over.
Flood yourself with gratitude today (and everyday).
Use the above as your guide to realizing how awesome you have it. Go on a walk or a run or just sit outside (ideally in nature), bring your journal if you have it, and start to flood your head with what is amazing in life right now.
- What have you created for yourself and others?
- What unique dent are you putting in the world?
- What are you truly grateful for?
These can be as big as selling your business or as small as seeing a smile or waking up above ground.
The simpler things you can find gratitude in, the more often you'll find yourself inundated in it.
What could you do for others to help them experience this? What simple things will bring a smile to those around you? Dedicated a small (or big) portion of your day and you'll begin to experience life on a whole new level.
This is how I start each day. It's awesome. Pair it with a workout (or something you're already doing) and there's no excuse.
Every purpose involves helping others.
We are not complete on our own. What makes life rich is the way we interact and serve others. The more you do it, the richer the results.
Go out and touch some people in a way only you can.
Start with the simplest (and most powerful) show of gratitude there is: Spend time with the people you love and those who love you. Simple as that. Be there with them and be purely present. There is no sign of love, thanks and kindness more genuine.
I'm off to the beach to do just that.
How are you going to show your gratitude this week? List at least one specific thing in the comments below.
Photo Courtesy of Operation Beautiful.


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Droughts are a part of life in California that seem to come back every decade or so.
Remember not flushing the toilet? Putting a bucket in the shower? It"s time to dust off those tips, as California finds itself in a brutally dry spell.
On Friday, following the lowest rainfall year in the state"s 153-year history, and with the Sierra snow pack at 17 percent of normal, Gov. Jerry Brown called a drought emergency and asked California residents to cut their water use by 20 percent.
That"s not so difficult, experts say. Fixing leaks in household faucets and toilets, and reducing lawn irrigation can get most families to the goal.
"It"s pretty easy to save 20 percent. You want to remember that your plants — even with it being dry outside — are not needing as much water this time of year because it is cooler than in the summer," said Chris Brown, former executive director of the California Urban Water Conservation Council, a nonprofit group in Sacramento. "The easiest way to save water is to save it outdoors."
In California, more than 50 percent of residential water use occurs outdoors. A typical lawn consumes about 57 inches of rain a year, according to the Association of California Water Agencies.
In an average year, the Sacramento Valley floor sees about half that much rain, while foothills get between 50 and 60 inches. But it all falls in winter when it isn"t needed.
Sprinklers make up the difference. A small lawn of 1,000 square-feet takes about 35,000 gallons of water per year, according to the association. Many homeowners overwater, particularly in the winter, and end up using twice that amount.
"If you aren"t really going to use a lawn, there are a lot of options, like native grasses and wildflowers, succulents and other plants," said Ruthie Gordon, co-owner of Mazingira Gardening Services, a Berkeley landscaping company that specializes in replacing grass lawns, installing drip irrigation and other water-saving strategies.
"Some people think they must have a lawn. It"s a cultural thing," she said. "But you really only need a lawn if you have kids or animals playing on it, or if you throw a lot of parties. If it"s just for aesthetics, there are a lot of options that look great."
The average home in California uses 192 gallons of water a day, according to a 2008 study by the state Department of Water Resources and the Urban Water Conservation Council.
Among other tips that experts recommend:
Taking a five-minute shower instead of a 10-minute shower saves 12.5 gallons with a low-flow shower head, and 25 gallons with a standard five gallon-per-minute shower head.
Turning the faucet off while brushing teeth or shaving saves about 10 gallons a day.
Using a broom to clean driveways, sidewalks and patios instead of a hose saves 8-18 gallons a minute.
Fixing the worn washers in a faucet with a slow steady drip saves 350 gallons per month, and 2,000 gallons a month if the leak is a small stream. Putting a new flapper in a leaking toilet can save 7,000 gallons a month. To test for leaks put food coloring in the tank. Don"t flush. Ten minutes later if you see color in the bowl, you have a leak.
Installing a water-efficient clothes washer saves up to 16 gallons a load. A water-efficient dishwasher saves up to eight gallons a load.
Soak pots and pans instead of letting the water run while scraping them clean.
Replacing a pre-1990 toilet, which can use 5 gallons per flush, with a newer high-efficiency model can save 38 gallons a day per toilet.

subset: commoncrawl


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I am thinking of a father and his soon to be 10 year old daughter. He loves her very much and wants to give her the best birthday party ever. He has been planning it for months, considering every detail so that it will be a beautiful affair, to be remembered always. It is to be a surprise party, so when the day arrives, mom takes the little princess out to have her hair done and nails painted and a special dress purchased. Meanwhile, the doting father is hanging miles of party streamers, inflating dozens of balloons, and placing hundreds of flowers all over the living room and kitchen. On the dining room table sits a beautifully decorated cake, filled with icing flowers of all colors and 10 candles. Loading down the kitchen counters is an array of catered food, the likes of which few people have ever seen, along with plenty of chips, and five kinds of pizza. The fridge is filled with soda and the freezer with ice cream. On a nearby shelf sits the gifts the father has chosen for his daughter's special day. An i-phone, a Kindle tablet, a Blu-Ray player, and a 32" Sony LED TV, all wrapped up, waiting for his darling daughter to unwrap. He can almost hear her cries of delight and joy.
Her classmates, friends and family members, all decked out in their party best, begin arriving for the celebration at 1:3 p.m. for the 2 p.m. scheduled big surprise. At eight minutes past 2:00, the birthday girl and her mom walk through the front door and a thunderous cry of "SURPRISE – HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!" erupts. The young girl is blown away, overwhelmed by the decorations and love from family and friends. Music starts up from the live band out on the back patio and the party goes into high gear
The birthday girl rushes to her room to put on her new dress. Coming out of her room she runs into a 12 year old boy that she has a crush on. She is thrilled to see him at her party. He is looking at a red button on the hallway wall. He wishes her a happy birthday, and then asks her about the button. She tells him her house has a fire sprinkler system, and if there is ever a fire, all you have to do is to push the red button and the sprinkler system will go on. He tells her that sounds cool. He tells her that sounds like fun; just like playing in the sprinklers outside on a hot day. He tells her that she should push it; that it would be a great big joke on everyone and that everybody would laugh and dance around in the shower. She tells him that her dad said no one should ever push the red button unless there was a real fire emergency. He bets her that her dad would think this was a special exception, and that he would laugh and laugh and pick her up and dance around the room in the falling water, just like in the movies. She says that she will go and ask her dad first. He tells her that that would ruin the surprise. He gave you a big surprise party, and now it's your turn to surprise him.
She thinks about it for a few seconds. She looks at the older boy with a bit of doubt in her eyes. He looks at her pleadingly. She looks at the red button and imagines what fun everyone will have in the water shower. She also thinks about what her dad has told her. She thinks and thinks. The boy says he's getting a bit bored, and just remembered there was something he needed to do at home. He turns to go, and she pushes the red button.
Water gushes down on everyone and everything. It is all ruined. No one is dancing around in the water. No one is laughing . At first, all the guests look panicked – they look for a fire. They hurriedly make their way out to the front lawn or back patio. The party streamers turn soggy and drop from the ceiling onto party clothes and new carpet, which become stained. Frosting and cake slowly disintegrate. The pizza is inedible Some balloons drop and pop, adding to the chaos. Expensive electronic gadgets are flooded with water and become worthless. Firetrucks arrive and fire fighters rush into the house. All the people hoping for a happy, beautiful party go home upset. It was definitely one to remember.
The father is beside himself. He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry; yell or die. The good, loving father truly wanted the best for his child. The best decorations; best food; best presents. Now it was all ruined. Now it was all ugly and bad; all because of a lie. All because of disobedience and distrust. All that's left are regrets and remorse.
This story makes me think of our Heavenly Father. One time He prepared a great party for His children. It was a garden party. The garden was filled with the most beautiful flowers and plants ever seen. The variety of trees filled with good fruit was beyond description. All kinds of incredibly, beautiful animals roamed about freely. He invited His children to go in, and then yelled "Surprise!" His two children were overwhelmed with joy and the great. good, beautiful experience that they had. In the midst of their happy celebration, the Father walked them over to a tree. The name of this tree is "Knowledge of Good and Evil." There are hundreds of beautiful trees in this garden, loaded with juicy, tasty fruit that will dazzle your taste buds and energize your bodies. I want you to enjoy all of them. But this tree, "Knowledge of Good and Evil" you must never eat of. You should never even touch it. In fact, just to be on the safe side, you should never even come to this part of the garden. The reason is, is, that the day you eat from it you will die.
I looked up the Hebrew words and definitions for "good" and "evil".
Good is tobe:
good (as an adjective) in the widest sense; used likewise as a noun, both in the masculine and the feminine, the singular and the plural (good, a good or good thing, a good man or woman; the good, goods or good things, good men or women), also as an adverb (well): – beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, at ease, fair , fine, glad, good deed, graciously, joyful, kindly, kindness, like (best), loving, merry, most pleasant, pleasure, precious, prosperity, sweet, wealth, welfare, (be) well ([-favoured]).
Evil is rah, raw-aw'
bad or (as noun) evil (naturally or morally). This includes the second (feminine) form; as adjective or noun: – adversity, affliction, bad, calamity, + displease (-ure), distress, evil, + exceedingly, great, grief , harm, heavy, hurt (-ful), ill (favoured), mischief, (-vous), misery, noisome, sad (-ly), sore, sorrow, trouble, vex, wicked (-ly, -ness, one), worse (-st) wretchedness, wrong.
Without eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they had all the good, beautiful, fair, bountiful, cheerful, joyful,loving, pleasurable, merry life that they could ever want. Unfortunately they disobeyed God. They believed the lies of the Evil One. They touched the tree and ate the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Banished from the Garden, their right relationship with God dead, thus their spirits dead, they suffer daily with the curse and punishment of God and experience the bad, evil, adversity, affliction, calamity, displeasure, distress, misery, noisome, hurtful, sorrowful, trouble, and wretchedness that most people in this world experience on a daily basis. They gave up all the good, and began to experience all the evil, the day they believed a lie.
Yet, some beauty, goodness and truth have survived. G.K. Chesterton gives us the image of a shipwreck and survivors living on a deserted island, in his book Orthodoxy. The survivors cherish the things that have washed up on shore from the lost ship. In the same way, after Adam and Eve made a shipwreck of humanity, God has left us remnants of the beautiful, good party. His love. His true Word. His grace and mercy. Things to cherish.
So we cling to beauty, goodness and truth for the basis of our happiness and joy in God. Daily, ugliness, evil and lies intrude into our lives, and often we have to battle to hang onto the good and beautiful and true. We seek to share the truth, the beauty, the good with a hurting world. We want to share our treasured remnants of the crash with those around us who have given up on having a good, beautiful life full of truth.
The Father has planned another party, bigger and better and more beautiful than the first. It's called Heaven, or The New Jerusalem. Our invitations are found in the Bible. Have you RSVP'ed?
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Every component of our faith (worship, liturgy, creeds, theology, fellowship, spiritual formation, religious education, etc.), though in itself is valid and valuable, must lead to good works, good lives, good creativity, and goodness to help our world get back on the road to being truly and wholly good again, the way God created it to be. Brian McLaren in a Generous Othodoxy.
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Next blog – Purple Litter


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Need a book or screenplay? Hire me. Know someone else who does? Send him or her to me, and for the first year I'll give you a referral fee of 10% of payments received. To learn about my writing and developmental editing services, please visit BookProposal.net.
Please note that these listings are updated frequently. The best way to be instantly notified about new show postings is to subscribe to this BestNewYorkComedy.com blog and allow for email notifications. Other ways to keep up are to follow me on Twitter (@hybender) or Instagram (@hybenderny), and/or to visit the desktop version of this site at HyReviews.com.
In addition, you can use the links below to explore the schedules of all the major comedy venues in NYC; and you can find excellent live comedy recommendations weekly via The New York Times.
That said, my top NYC comedy recommendations for March 2018 (with more to come soon) include:
Friday 3/23: Delightful stellar improvisors Dana Shulman & Adrian Sexton play Clairee Belcher & Ouiser Boudreaux, the sassy supporting characters from 1989 film Steel Magnolias about charming but tough Southern women. In this show, they're "fresh graduates from the one-day improv workshop at The Chinquapin Parish Senior Center and are ready to show you everything they've learned at the NYC Improv Fest. You'll be enchanted by their improvisation skills, their witty banter, and their ability to make grown men cry. If you're lucky, they might give you their signature offer, 'Come and sit by me, Ouiser and Clairee:'" Ouiser and Clairee Go to an Improv Festival (7:00 pm, $10, The PIT Loft at 154 West 29th Street; part of the Seventh Annual NYC Improv Fest)
Friday 3/23-Sunday 3/25: Three more nights to see a brand new hour-long stand-up set by Nikki Glaser (host of You Up on SiriusXM Comedy Central Radio; star of former Comedy Central series Not Safe; film Trainwreck; hour-long special Perfect; Jimmy Fallon, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central Half Hour, Inside Amy Schumer, @midnight; NBC's America Ninja Warrior: Celebrity Edition; podcast You Had to Be There) headlining through Sunday at Carolines: Nikki Glaser (7:30 pm & 10:00 pm Friday & Saturday, 7:30 pm Thursday; $35 plus 2-drink min.; Carolines Comedy Club at 1626 Broadway)
Friday 3/23: The lovely Natalie Wall (above right) hosts the best sexy storytelling show in NYC, which tonight features Kevin Allison (legendary MTV sketch series The State, HBO, Comedy Central, VH1, host of award-winning storytelling show and podcast Risk!, owner of The Story Studio), Mary Beth Barone (above left; Viceland, Mary Beth's Sex Tape), and Sydnee Washington (above middle; MTV2's Vidiots, co-host of podcast The Unofficial Expert) telling tales of erotic encounters gone awry: Awkward Sex…and the City (8:00 pm; $16.62 if purchased in advance online (otherwise $20)—which includes free beer and wine; The Pleasure Chest at 1150 Second Avenue between 60th & 61st Streets)
Saturday 3/24: Emma Carmichael (above left; former Editor-in-Chief of Jezebel), Ashley Brooke Roberts (above right; energetic, enormously likeable stand-up, sketch comic and actress; stellar co-host of Fresh Out and Camp; former writer for Nat Geo Explorer and MTV's Guy Code; UCB Maude sketch groups The Prom and Absolutely),and Celisse Henderson (singer/songwriter/musician; recently performed with Ke$ha at the Grammys) sing or tell jokes, then enthusiastically endorse some product they love…which will be handed out to lucky members of the audience! Hosted by the wonderful Chris Duffy (staff writer for NatGeo Explorer, host of You're the Expert), who makes this promise for one audience member per show: You Get A Spoon (4:00 pm, $10, LES' Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)
Saturday 3/24: Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO's Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix's Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central's Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers; Conan O'Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Django Gold (writer for Stephen Colbert; The New Yorker, The Onion), Ziwe Fumudoh (writer for The Rundown with Robin Thede), Milly Tamarez (The Story Pirates; co-creator of the Diverse as Fuck Festival), and Eudora Peterson (visiting from New Jersey) perform stand-up hosted by Ethan Beach (MTV) & Josh Nasser (The Story Pirates): Oh, Such a Good Show, Oh (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn's Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)
Saturday 3/24: Seven comics—tonight including Rob Haze (Jimmy Fallon; from Atlanta), Kimberly Dinaro (Reductress; from Massachusetts), and Darius Davies (BBC; from England)—tell stories of where they originally came from and the journey that led them to NYC, all performing at Astoria Queens' QED: A Place to Show & Tell (27-16 23rd Avenue) hosted by the charming Katie Boyle (above; from Ireland): Transplants (7:30 pm, $10, Astoria Queens' QED: A Place to Show & Tell at 27-16 23rd Avenue)
Saturday 3/24: Eight performers from the Ten Bones Theatre Company attempt to recreate the 1996 Michael Jordan & Looney Tunes cinematic collaboration Space Jam, with each comic using only what he or she can remember from seeing the movie just once. To add to the fun are a few rules: "Performers must incorporate lines written by the audience; performers must incorporate any sound effect played by the tech booth; one lucky audience member will be given a bell that they can ring three times—once rung, the actors must create a scene that has no business being in Space Jam but makes perfect sense given where they are in the story:"Space Jam…Entirely From Memory (8:00 pm, $10, The PIT Mainstage (Striker) at 123 East 24th Street; part of the Seventh Annual NYC Improv Festival)
Sunday 3/25: David Cross (comedy legend; Mr. Show, Arrested Development, Modern Family) tries out new stand-up material in Brooklyn tonight, and also on 3/29: David Cross: Still Shooting the Shit, Still Seeing What Sticks (8:00 pm, $15, Brooklyn's Littlefield at 635 Sackett Street; take R subway to Union Street)
Sunday 3/25: Comics perform for the approval of a panel of moms and dads in Parental Approval; and then comics randomly paired into duos (e.g., a stand-up with an improvsior) compete for your laughs in The Lethal Lottery, with tonight's twosomes Clare O'Kane & Sandy Honig, Sydnee Washington & Wes Haney, Stavros Halkias & Nathan Min, and Sonia Denis & Sarah Lazarus, all hosted by Brett Davis (HBO, TruTv, Manhattan cable TV show The Special Without Brett Davis; winner of the 2015 Andy Kaufman Award) & Colin Burgess (host of Strangers and Late Mic): Double Feature Comedy: Parental Approval and The Lethal Lottery (8:00 pm, Free!, Brooklyn's Alphaville at 140 Wilson Avenue; take L subway to Jefferson Street)
Sunday 3/25: In a parody of comedy roasts, comics roast vegetables. Can Mitra Jouhari, Danny Groh, Eliza Cossio, Halcyon Person, Jason Gilbert, Meaghan Strickland, and Tommy McNamara stretch this one-joke idea into a fun hour? You won't know unless you join them and host Zach Zimmerman for The Roast of Vegetables (8:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn's Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)
Monday 3/26: Stellar comics and game nerds Anthony Atamanuik, Josh Gondelman, Alison Leiby, Mitra Jouhari, Ziwe Fumudoh, Mike Brown, and Dan Ryckert play and make merciless fun of some of the worst video games of all time (e.g., Shaq-Fu) hosted by Mike Drucker (hilarious stand-up and staff writer for The President Show; previously wrote for Jimmy Fallon, SNL, Bill Nye Saves the World, The Onion, McSweeney's): Shit Arcade (9:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn's Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)
Monday 3/26: Lena Hall (Tony Award winner and Grammy nominee as Yitzhak in 2014 Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Nicola in Broadway's Kinky Boots; lead singer of rock band The Deafening) is the guest of this NPR comedy trivia show taped live in Brooklyn and hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC's The Today Show, CBS' The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Ask Me Another (7:30 pm, $25, Brooklyn's The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)
Monday 3/26: Adira Amram and The Experience (Adira, above middle, is a spectacular comedic writer, singer, and dancer; HBO, Funny or Die; album Hot Jams for Teens; co-host of Ophira & Adira), Giulia Rozzi (Comedy Central's This Is Not Happening and The Jim Gaffigan Show, Chelsea Lately, writer for MTV's Girl Code, VH1, TruTV, Playgirl Magazine, host of First Set, comedy album True Love), and more perform for this weekly Brooklyn stand-up show hosted by Jo Firestone (staff writer for Jimmy Fallon, co-author of #1 bestselling Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers), Aparna Nancherla (co-star of HBO's Crashing, Netflix's Master of None, and Comedy Central's Corporate), and Maeve Higgins (Maeve in America, co-host of Nat Geo's Star Talk): Butterboy with Jo, Aparna, and Maeve (8:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn's Littlefield at 635 Sackett Street; take R subway to Union Street)
Tuesday 3/27: UK comic James Acaster is famed for the delightful one-hour solo comedy shows he's developed over the years for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Today Netflix releases filmed versions of the four productions, titled Recognize, Represent, Reset, and Recap, packaged under the umbrella titled of Repertoire. Stream and enjoy: James Acaster: Repertoire
Tuesday 3/27: Mike Birbiglia (writer/director/star of feature films Don't Think Twice and Sleepwalk with Me; actor in numerous films and TV shows, including Trainwreck, Inside Amy Schumer, and Orange is the New Black; multiple appearances on David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, etc.; three Comedy Central specials; comedy CDs Two Drink Mike and My Secret Public Journal—Live), Hari Kondabolu (David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Comedy Central Presents, @midnight; former writer & correspondent for FX's Totally Biased), Cipha Sounds (Chappelle's Show, MTV, Hot 97), Eudora Peterson (Jezebel, Huffington Post), and more perform stand-up for this show by The Comedy Resistance, "a nonprofit headlined by comedians, run by professionals with decades of experience in talent and campaign management, and fueled by anyone who wants to make an impact in our country by getting out the vote and boosting activism. Laugh, learn, and resist:" An Evening with The Comedy Resistance: Mike Birbiglia, Hari Kondabolu, and More (7:30 pm, $40, Brooklyn's The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)
Wednesday 3/28: Fifty comics tell dick jokes for this show raising money to support gun control, featuring Jo Firestone, Josh Gondelman, Emmy Blotnick, Roy Wood Jr., Ashley Brooke Roberts, Mike Drucker, Christi Chiello, Clare O'Kane, The Reformed Whores, Janelle James, Kat Radley…and many more, hosted by long-time Daily Show staff writer Matt Koff. Cocks Against Glocks: 50 Comedians Tell Dick Jokes To Benefit Gun Control (8:00 pm, $15, Brooklyn's Littlefield at 635 Sackett Street; take R subway to Union Street)
Thursday 3/29: David Cross (comedy legend; Mr. Show, Arrested Development, Modern Family) tries out new stand-up material in Brooklyn: David Cross: Still Shooting the Shit, Still Seeing What Sticks (8:00 pm, $15, Brooklyn's Littlefield at 635 Sackett Street; take R subway to Union Street)
Saturday 3/31: Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO's Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix's Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central's Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers; Conan O'Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Josh Gondelman (Emmy & Peabody Award-winning writer/producer for HBO's phenom Last Week Tonight with John Oliver; Conan O'Brien, The New Yorker; stand-up comedy album Physical Whisper), Abbi Crutchfield (Broad City, MTV, VH1, Witstream), and Mamoudou N'Diaye (MTV's Decoded) perform stand-up for this show that each month raises funds for a different worthy cause—this time it's The Ali Forney Center—hosted by Mike Brown & Sam Grittner: The Feel Good Show (7:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn's The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)
Saturday 3/31: Hosts Catherine Cohen & Mitra Jouhari "are gals who just don't get 'guy stuff.' They've invited comics to give them lectures on guy stuff so that they can finally fit in," with tonight's bearers of wisdom Marie Faustin, Lily Marotta, Martin Urbano, Emily Panic, and sketch group Please Don't Destroy: It's a Guy Thing (8:00 pm, $8, Brooklyn's Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)
You can find the vast majority of notable NYC live comedy shows by using the links below to explore the schedules of the following top NYC comedy venues:
Best Inexpensive Stand-Up, Improv, Sketch, and Storytelling
Upright Citizens Brigade Hell's Kitchen
555 West 42nd Street; 152-seater; one of the most respected comedy showcases in the world; especially strong on improv, sketch, solo shows, and one-act comedic plays; shows free-$12
Upright Citizens Brigade East
153 East 3rd Street; 99-seater; a top comedy venue that focuses more than sister theatre UCB Hell's Kitchen on stand-up and screenings, and on experimental shows taking big risks; shows free-$12
The PIT Striker (Upstairs) Theatre
123 East 24th Street; 88-seater; a top venue that's a powerful rival of UCB, and often surpasses UCB when blending comedy with music and/or theatricality; shows free-$20
The PIT Underground (Downstairs) Theatre
123 East 24th Street; 40-seater; often more quirky & experimental than upstairs Striker; shows free-$10
The PIT Loft
154 West 29th Street; 50-seater; the third of The PIT theatres, located separately on the West side, hosts a wide range of comedy, but is especially effective as a home for intimate solo and/or theatrical shows; free-$20
The Magnet
254 West 29th Street; 60-seat theatre; strong on improv, musical improv, sketch, and energy; shows $5-$10
The Creek and the Cave
Queens' Long Island City; 40-seat theatre upstairs, 25 downstairs; virtually all weeknight shows free; weekend shows free-$10
Union Hall
702 Union Street in Brooklyn; R to Union Street; 50-seat theatre; shows $5-$20
635 Sackett Street in Brooklyn; R to Union Street; 100-seat theatre; shows $5-$20
Bell House
149 7th Street in Brooklyn; R to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Ave.; 200-seat theatre; shows $10-$25
QED: A Place to Show & Tell
27-16 23rd Avenue in Astoria Queens; N/Q to Ditmars Boulevard; 40-seat theatre; shows free-$10
Best NYC Stand-Up Comedy Clubs
Comedy Cellar
117 MacDougal Street; among the finest daily stand-up lineups in the world; 2-item min.
Village Underground
130 West 3rd Street; Comedy Cellar's larger sister venue, just around the corner with the same top comics; 2-item min.
The Stand
239 Third Avenue; recent competitor to Comedy Cellar; no drink min.—support this policy!
Carolines Comedy Club
1626 Broadway; focuses on the world's top headliners, who perform hour-long sets; 2-drink min.
Gotham Comedy Club
208 West 23rd Street; headliners on weekends, specialty & lineup shows weekdays; 2-drink min.
Eastville Comedy Club
85 East 4th Street; strong weekend lineups; no cover using code HyReviews; 2-drink min.
Greenwich Village Comedy Club
99 MacDougal Street; convenient if Comedy Cellar's sold out; no cover using code HyReviews; 2-drink min.
Comic Strip Live
1568 Second Avenue, off 81st; Upper East Side club with typically solid lineups; 2-drink min.
Stand Up NY
236 West 78th Street, off Broadway; Upper West Side club with typically solid lineups; 2-drink min.
The Standing Room
4738 Vernon Blvd., by #7 train; Queens LIC club; no drink min.—support this policy!
NYC Stand-Up Open Mics & Improv Jams
If you want stage time, you can find one or more stand-up open mics virtually any night at Manhattan's The PIT, Eastville Comedy Club, and Stand Up NY Comedy Club, and at Queens LIC's The Creek and Astoria Queens' QED.
In addition, at the East Village's UCB East you can typically find a stand-up open mic Thursdays at 6:00 pm, an improv jam Wednesdays at 11:15 pm, and a rare bring-your-own-group improv/sketch open stage Sundays at 11:00 pm. And in Chelsea, The Magnet offers an improv jam on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm, and a rare musical improv jam on Tuesdays at 6:00 pm.
All of the venues above typically provide you the stage time either for free or for $5.
There are also numerous other open mics throughout the city. For a more comprehensive list, please visit FreeMicsNYC.
Contact Hy
From legendary NYC comedy site Brooklyn Vegan: Thank God for Hy Bender's religiously updated show bible Best New York Comedy (and HyReviews.com). He is literally the only person in NYC providing daily summaries of what's happening comedy-wise. It must be exhausting keeping that monster of a website alive. It is your daily comedy itinerary and it scares me how on top of his shit this guy is.
From comedy & rock goddess Lane Moore (host of smash hit Tinder Live; lead singer of Brooklyn band It Was Romance): Hy Bender lives and breathes comedy. He knows what he's talking about. Listen.
Please feel encouraged to reach out to tell me about comedy shows, provide feedback on my cross-genre short story anthology Ghosts on Drugs, hire me to develop your book or screenplay (please visit BookProposal.net or HyOnYourScript.com), or for any other reason by emailing me at email@example.com.


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Waitsfield Annual Meeting - March 6, 2012
The Town of Waitsfield, Vermont extends to all an invitation to the Town Meeting to be held at the Waitsfield Elementary School Auditorium, Route 100, Waitsfield, on Tuesday, March 6, 2012. The meeting will begin at 9:00 a.m. and will continue after lunch, reconvening at 1:00 p.m., with affairs of the Waitsfield Town School District. While only legal residents on the Checklist are allowed to vote on issues, all are invited to come to our Town Meeting and to meet the town officials, citizenry, neighbors, landowners, and visitors to become more familiar with our Town of Waitsfield, Vermont and its constituents.
Early or Absentee Voter Ballots
Abstentee Ballots are available at the Town Clerk's Office. Voters who would like to vote early or expect to be absent on Town Meeting day may vote at the Town Clerk's Office at 9 Bridge Street, or call the Town Clerk at (802) 496-2218 and have a ballot mailed. Ballots MUST be received by 7:00pm on March 6, 2012, the close of the Annual Town Meeting.
The latest voters can request ballots for the Presidential Primary is 4:30pm, March 5, 2012.
Ways of voting early or absentee in the 30 days before the election:
- Vote in the Town Clerk's office before March 5, 2012.
- You may take the ballot(s) out of the Town Clerk's office for yourself (or another person if you are authorized person to request a ballot) and return in the same manner as if the ballots were received by mail.
- Have a ballot mailed and retun it to the Town Clerk's office before electiond day or to the polling place before 7:00pm. on election day.
- If you are sick or disabled, you may ask the Town Clerk on or before March 5, 2012, to have two justices of the peace bring a ballot to you at your home on any of the eight (8) days preceding the day of the election.
Voter Registration
Wednesday, February 29, 2012, at 5:00 p.m. is the deadline for applying to be added to the voter checklist for the March 6, 2012 Annual Meeting.
Waitsfield 2011 Town Report
The full published 2011 Report can be downloaded HERE
Town of Waitsfield
- Warning
- Special Town Meeting Bond Warning
- Condensation of 2011 Annual Meeting Minutes
- Town Officers 2011
- Selectboard Annual Report
- Planning Commission Annual Report
- Development Review Board Annual Report
- Conservation Commission Annual Report
- Energy Committee Annual Report
- Statement of Taxes Raised
- Statement of Delinquent Taxes
- Delinquent Tax List
- 2012 Proposed Budget
- Capital Budget and Program
- Long Term Indebtedness
- Town Reserve & Other Funds
- Town Capital Projects
- Town Clerk Statement of Fees Collected
- Vital Statistics
- Waitsfield Fayston Volunteer Fire Department Report
- Road Department Report
- Emergency Management Report
- Waitsfield Cemetery Commission Report
- Cemetery Trust Funds Report
- Joslin Memorial Library Report
- Joslin Memorial Library Budget Report
- Joslin Memorial Library Trust Funds Report
- Independent Auditor's Report
Town School District
- Warning
- Condensation of Annual Town School District Meeting Minutes
- Waitsfield School District Report
- Waitsfield Elementary School Assessment of Student Performance
- Waitsfield Elementary School Budget
- Report from Washington West Central Office
- Washington West Summary Budget
Agency Reports
- Waitsfield Historical Society
- Mad Bikes of Waitsfield
- Mad River Valley Planning District
- Mad River Valley Recreation District
- Mad River Resource Management Alliance
- Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission
- Mad River Valley Senior Citizens, Inc. & Meals on Wheels at Evergreen Place
- Mad River Valley Health Center
- Mad River Valley Ambulance Service (MRVAS)
- Mad River Valley Public Access Television Channel 44 & 45
- Friends of the Mad River
- Mad River Path Association
- Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce
- Washington County Sheriff's Report
Other Agency Reports
- Central Vermont Adult Basic Education
- Central Vermont Community Action Council
- Central Vermont Community Land Trust
- Central Vermont Council on Aging
- Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation
- Central Vermont Home Health & Hospice
- Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission
- Family Center of Washington County
- Good Beginnings
- Green Up Vermont
- Green Mountain Transit Agency
- Northern Vermont RC&D Council
- People's Health & Wellness Clinic
- Sexual Assault Crisis Team
- Vermont Center for Independent Living
- Vermont Department of Health
- Vermont Trails & Greenways Council
- Vermont League of Cities & Towns
- Washington County Youth Service Bureau


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Meet the Woman Who Farts for a Living
Faced with the desperate prospect of not being able to afford her own insurance and $15,000 per annum in additional specialty medication and expensive co-pays for hospital visits, Jacki could have given up. But ever the entrepreneur and optimist, she did not dwell on the failings of the U.S. healthcare system (although fail it did). Instead, Jacki realized that she would have to give her fledgling forays into fetish a full-time shot. As a seller of fetish items, Jacki had a flexibility that most nine-to-fivers would give an arm and a leg for.
Seriously, go read the rest.
Previously here:


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(NOTE: UFC matchmakers Joe Silva and Sean Shelby are featured in MMAjunkie.com's commemorative yearbook, "The 25 Most Powerful People in MMA," and are ranked No. 2. You can purchase the publication at usatoday.com or on newsstands nationwide. A condensed version of this story appears in today's edition of USA TODAY.)
* * * *
At first I thought the UFC matchmakers were just being paranoid.
As soon as they showed up for their USA TODAY photo shoot in the bowels of Winnipeg's MTS Centre before UFC 161 in June, Zuffa executives Joe Silva and Sean Shelby couldn't stop joking – half-seriously, it seemed – about the possibility that this was all an elaborate setup.
After all, they don't do interviews, much less photo shoots. The fact that we'd gotten the chance to talk to them on the record for our look at the most influential figures in the sport (available now in a special commemorative yearbook on newsstands and at usatoday.com) was a minor achievement in itself. The question on Silva and Shelby's lips as they showed up to be photographed and interviewed was, "Are you sure this is legit?"
As I would learn during my hour-long conversation with the two, the paranoia wasn't unfounded. Turns out that the last time someone told Shelby he had to have his photo taken was when Zuffa needed new ID badges for all employees in the Las Vegas office. So Shelby did his part, sat for his headshot, then went about his day.
Only later did he learn that there were no ID badges, that it was all a ruse set up by UFC President Dana White, who had planned to use Shelby's photo for a "40-Year-Old Virgin"-themed billboard in Vegas. You know, as a prank. Which White was willing to spend $12,000 on, according to Shelby. It was only the legal team that stopped him. Apparently they thought it was the kind of prank that might get them sued, an assumption that seemed to hurt Shelby's feelings just a little bit.
He can take a joke, he insisted. In this case, he was also glad that he didn't have to.
'The public, they think these guys are just chess pieces'
What intrigued me the most about the chance to interview the UFC matchmakers was the opportunity to learn how they work. They are quite possibly the most powerful and least understood people in all of MMA. They hire and fire UFC fighters, put together fight cards, scramble for injury replacements, and, as Shelby put it, act as "the camp counselors to, like, 400 grownup kids."
And yet what do we know about them, about what they do and why they do it? On one hand, as Silva pointed out, staying out of the spotlight and away from interviews cuts down on the amount of public criticism they receive, or at least limits their ability to react to it. That's probably a good thing. Because Silva? He loves to argue. Not in a mean way, mind you. More like an intellectually curious, captain-of-the-debate-team kind of way. He'd do it all day if you let him, so it might be a good thing that the UFC doesn't let him.
The downside to that is that we – and here I mean media, myself included, as well as fans – don't know nearly as much as we think we do about what Silva and Shelby are up to. But not knowing doesn't stop us from assuming or criticizing or playing armchair matchmaker with what little information we do have. As Shelby put it at one point, "The public, they think these guys are just chess pieces. You move them however you want. And it's not like that."
He's right about that. We do think that most of the time. I know I've wondered, sometimes even in print (or Internet print, if that's a thing), why they made this match instead of that one. What was this guy doing on the main card? Who thought that guy had any business in the cage with this one?
A good recent example is the Chad Mendes–Cody McKenzie fight at UFC 148. You remember. Mendes steamrolled McKenzie in a bout that seemed so obviously lopsided in retrospect that even White wondered aloud at the post-fight press conference how it ever got made in the first place.
Shelby took the heat for that one. He's the one responsible for all the UFC's weight classes from 145 pounds on down, as well as the women's bantamweight division.
The story with Shelby is, he started out working with small promotions such as the IFC in California, where his wife was a commentator, then helped promote an event in Hawaii called "Shogun," which happened to be where Dana White first fell in love with the work of Robbie Lawler, whom he then signed to the UFC as a "Christmas present to myself," according to Silva.
Eventually, Shelby got to know Silva, and after the two had talked shop often enough for Silva to see that he was "a sharp guy who could do this job," Shelby was hired on as the matchmaker for the WEC after Zuffa bought the organization. When the bulk of the WEC roster was absorbed into the UFC, Shelby was too.
But handling the featherweight class proved to be a full-time job in itself at first, mostly because so many existing UFC lightweights wanted to move down in weight as soon as it was a viable option.
McKenzie was one such fighter. He went to Silva and told him he wanted to switch weight classes. Silva told him to talk to Shelby since, as Silva put it, "We don't cross the streams." The way the matchmakers see it, it's important that one person knows exactly what's happening in each division, and only that person is responsible for managing it. According to Silva, that's a mistake other MMA organizations sometimes make.
"They'd have someone from their promotion call up a manager and say, 'We're interested in your guy, and here's what we're offering,'" Silva said. "Then two hours later a different guy from the same company calls offering more money. … People will sometimes try to go around Sean, because I've done this longer and am more of the known guy. But when they try to come to me, I tell them, 'Look, it's his world. You deal with him.' For 145 [pounds] and down, I've got nothing to do with it."
So when McKenzie wanted to come down, initially Shelby wasn't sure he could use him. Then Bart Palaszewski pulled out of a fight with Mendes, and suddenly the situation changed.
"What people don't understand is, it's not like I could just remove Chad from the card and say, 'Sorry, I can get you a fight four months from now,'" Shelby said. "We understand. You spent money on a camp. You've got bills to pay. We will do our best to find you a fight. I bend over backward to keep guys in fights, to keep the machine moving. You have to."
That's another part of the process that outsiders don't always get, Silva and Shelby said. Fighters are promised a certain number of fights within a certain number of months. Keep them on the sidelines too long, and the UFC could be in breach of contract. Beyond that, they'd also risk turning the UFC into the kind of promotion they hate.
"You hear fighters [in other organizations] complain, 'I haven't fought in eight months, and they won't return my calls,'" Silva said. "We don't want to be like that, but to do that we have to keep a tight rein on how many people you have under contract."
Ideally, the UFC would like to have most fighters stepping in the cage once every four months or so, for an average of three fights a year. Injuries only complicate the picture, especially when you're trying to find a replacement to face one of the division's top fighters, which was exactly the situation Shelby faced with Mendes.
"I can't pull people out of other matches to fix this one," Shelby said. "Then you're just kicking the can down the road. But imagine trying to get someone to fight Chad Mendes on two weeks' or even a month's notice."
Then Shelby's phone rang. It was McKenzie.
"He called me, and I remember this very well, and he said, 'I want to commit to 145 (pounds),'" Shelby recalled. "I told him I didn't have any room, but I do have this one opening. I told him, 'I don't think you should take this fight, but…'"
You can imagine where it went from there. McKenzie's a fighter, after all. He jumped on the opening, all but pleading with Shelby to give him the fight. Shelby was reluctant at first, he said, but, "I had nobody."
"I mean, nobody," he said. "It's not like I can sign some random guy. I've already got all the top 10 in the world [at 145 pounds]. I had no other choices."
And so the fight got made, McKenzie got dropped with a body shot, and Shelby got the blame. That's how it goes when you're a matchmaker. With the benefit of hindsight, everyone's an expert. They'll all say they knew exactly how it was going to go down and you'd have to be an idiot to make that fight in the first place.
But that's after. Before the fight, there's a lot more guesswork involved. The matchmakers know that just from their own experiences.
"The thing is, there's so many different combinations of styles and martial arts, you really don't know," Silva said. "Some fights you think will be boring, they turn out to be 'Fight of the Night.' Some fights you think will be good turn out to be boring. Our thing is, are we creating legitimate contenders?"
And that, in a nutshell, is how they view their role in the UFC. As Shelby put it, the job of the matchmakers is "to bring challengers to the champion." That, and to monitor the frustrating math problem that comes with a constantly changing 400-fighter roster.
The worst part of the job
Nobody, with the possible exception of corporate sociopaths, likes firing people. Silva and Shelby are no different. If you ask them, they'll say it's by far their least favorite part about their jobs, and they have to do it frequently.
"That's the worst," Silva said. "It's the absolute worst. I've almost quit this job multiple times because of that. People have broken down and cried."
"It never gets easier," Shelby added. "We realize that these are human beings with wives, kids, and this is their dream. It's a dream to become the best in the world at something. … It's not like looking for someone to come in and work for some company and just be average. We're not looking for that. We're looking for the single best person on the planet in their respective weight class. You're obligated to cycle through in search of that person, to find these challengers."
Cutting people in the UFC is especially unpleasant, because while the matchmakers usually inform fighters of the decision through their managers, some fighters represent themselves. Others they see on a regular basis, either when that fighter shows up at an event next week to corner his training partner, or sometimes just in their personal lives. Shelby said he still regards Fredson Paixao, whom he trains jiu-jitsu with, as one of his best friends. Still, when the time came to cut him from the UFC, he had to pull the trigger.
"I read an interview recently with a fighter talking about the depression that comes on after being cut," Silva said. "It's impossible to read that and not feel responsible, but the job dictates it. It's not like we decided, this would be fun. It's that this is the only way it can work. Nobody new can come in until somebody old goes. If you're tired of seeing rematches, then you've got to clear space and bring in new people."
The reason it has to work this way is, as Silva put it, "a simple math problem." The math is the part that Shelby and Silva are always arguing with White about. When White declares that every member of a certain "Ultimate Fighter" cast will get a contract, for instance, or when he buys out a rival like Strikeforce, it's the matchmakers who have to figure out how to deal with the influx of fighters.
"Dana's Captain Kirk, and we're Scotty," Silva said. "Dana's always asking for crazy, impossible stuff, and we're going, 'Captain, we can't go any faster!' He's the one saying, 'Dammit Scotty, make it happen!'"
Silva's something of a special relic in the UFC. He's one of the few employees who worked for the company back when it was owned by SEG, before Zuffa bought it in 2001. Before that, he was a manager for a software retailer, but really, he said, "I didn't care what I did as long as I could do martial arts and hang out with my friends."
He loved the first UFC but saw problems on the horizon. When SEG took out an ad in "Black Belt Magazine" that included the office phone number, he called it just hoping to share what he thought was good advice.
"I didn't think I'd get a job out of it or anything," Silva said. "I just said, 'Hey, I love this [stuff], but here's the problems you're going to have.'"
And they listened to him. Silva became a kind of an unofficial advisor, then an official employee. The problem was, SEG didn't pay very well. He went into debt just from holding onto the job. When Zuffa bought the company, Silva was one of the few employees who came highly recommended to the new owners. They wanted him to relocate to Vegas, which he did for a short time.
"I hated it there," Silva said. "But I thought, this is my chance to get out of debt."
The thin line between mean and honest
The thing a lot of fans know about Silva – or think they do, anyway – is that he's, in the words of White "a mean little f—er." That just happens to be Silva's least favorite description, which might be why White loves to needle him with it.
"I really don't consider myself a mean person at all, but I am very honest," Silva said. "I won't lie, and I put things very straight. And fighters, they have a lot of buffers around them, sort of 'atta boy' guys. They're not used to someone telling them, 'No, this is how it is.'"
That's especially true when it comes to contract renegotiations and bout offers. Fighters, like most people, aren't terribly fond of having a dollar value put on their worth. They also don't always like Silva's ideas for whom they should face next. When they hear his no-nonsense explanation, which some managers say can be Vulcan-like in its unvarnished appeal to cold, hard reason, some might understandably come away feeling like he's a little bit of jerk.
But then, as Silva sees it, that's kind of the way it has to be when you're offering one person a chance to make money fighting someone else in a cage.
"If everybody only took fights that they thought they had a really good chance of winning, nobody would ever fight," Silva said. "When you look at the odds, they almost always favor someone, even if they end up being wrong. But if you're in the UFC, you're here to fight who I have. If you're going, 'I don't think I can beat that guy,' then maybe you should be doing something else."
If you want to know who really feels Silva's wrath, talk to the managers. They're the ones most likely to get verbally eviscerated for trying to overstate their pull with the UFC when wooing prospective clients, and they're also the ones most likely to take the heat for late-notice injury withdrawals, which are a constant issue in the UFC.
According to Silva, injuries are "irritating," but he tries not to voice his irritation to the fighters themselves because, "If you're an a–hole about it, they will take it as you pressuring them to fight, and if someone got injured that way, that would be a very bad thing."
"You cannot find a single fighter ever in UFC history who will say that they told me they were injured and I gave them s— about it," Silva said. "Not ever. … The only time I've ever yelled, and I have done this, but you'd be shocked how many times I get a call where they say, 'Hey, sorry, but he's got to pull out of the fight. Two weeks ago he really messed up his knee.' It's like, really? Two weeks ago? Why didn't you tell me then? I wouldn't have pulled him from the fight, but I could have started thinking about a replacement. It's always, 'Oh, but we thought he'd be OK.' You thought wrong. And you thinking wrong screwed the show, screwed me, screwed his opponent. Don't think. If he's got a hangnail, just let me know."
Solving problems, one phone call at a time
These are the things people don't think about when they talk wistfully about the so-called dream job that Silva and Shelby have. That, and also the long hours. Listening to both of them describe recent "vacations" they took is essentially like listening to two men describe a time when they got on a plane to go work in a different city for a little while.
Shelby went to Italy recently, he said. While his wife and daughter slept, "I was in the bathroom of the hotel on my computer on Skype every night from about midnight to 5 a.m."
Silva went down to Key West, Fla., with his wife for their anniversary. It just so happened that the night of their actual anniversary, there was a UFC event in Brazil. While he was glued to a screen, his wife went to dinner with friends.
That's because this job? It never stops. Neither does the criticism. Especially when they have to fill gaps left by injuries, fans don't always realize what a scramble it is just to keep a card together.
"It's amazing the number of phone calls we go through when we're trying to solve a problem," Shelby said. "It's not like someone drops out and I call one guy and say, 'You want this?' And then it's problem solved."
"How many matches do we want to make that never get made, just because of timing?" Silva chimed in. "You wouldn't believe it. It's like, this guy has to fight on this show because his contract is up, and this would be the perfect fight for him, but the other guy has something else going on. People want to know why we wouldn't make a certain fight? We probably tried to, but couldn't. It just didn't work out. That happens all the time."
When they go searching for a replacement, Shelby said, "On average you get down to about your third pick."
With bouts lined up months in advance to accommodate advertising and training schedules, when one piece falls out, it can throw off plans for the entire division. Then the matchmakers are on the phone, trying to find a taker.
"If the guy agrees to it, you're a genius and life is good," Silva said. "If they don't, what are you going to do? We've made the matches and done our jobs, but if someone gets injured it doesn't matter. Fix it. Now you're desperate."
But despite the headaches and the stress that come with being a UFC matchmaker, the passion these two have for their jobs is palpable. Both are lifelong martial artists, and both seem like men who would rather talk about fighting than anything else.
That makes it easy to see why Silva was willing to go into debt just to keep his job, while Shelby was content working for minor regional organizations back when "you had a small promotion and everybody would fight their asses off and then go party in the parking lot of the motel."
Now they might spend their days scrambling to fix one problem after another, but at least they're doing it in the biggest MMA organization on the planet. At least when they're being hounded to make the ship go farther, faster, it's the top ship in the fleet that they're pushing to its limits.
"And we're good at that," Silva said. "We make it happen, but a lot of times it's just barely."
Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie.com's lead features writer and USA TODAY's MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @benfowlkesMMA.


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We've been hearing that argument about public schools in the U.S. being modeled on factories more and more lately. You've likely heard it; it's summed up in the Prince Ea video "I just sued the school system!!!" The idea is that grade schools were meant to run like factories, brutalizing students by making them sit in rows and raise their hands to talk and move when a bell rang, all so they would be good factory workers. And we, sadly, continue to run them this way today.
Where to start. First, factory workers in the early 20th century did not need to know how to read or write or do arithmetic, so why would future factory workers go to school at all?
Next, children worked in factories at ages as young as four years old, so there was no going to school first, working in a factory on graduation. (See our post Why was there child labor in America?)
Last, factories and child labor within them were established long before the 20th-century version of public school education was created.
So let's look at U.S. public schools at the turn of the 20th century. These are the sort of images we find of them:
These schools developed in our early 20th century cities. It's not how schools in America have always been (the cherished one-room country schoolhouse was the norm). When immigration to the U.S. increased exponentially in the 1910s, we suddenly had millions of children in cities, and most of them had parents who wanted at least some of them to go to school. Sending all of one's children to school, not just the eldest son or smartest boy, was possible for the first time in America because school was free. If the parents were both working and didn't need their children to work, too, all of the children could actually go to school.
So because we were—and still are—the only nation on Earth to promise a free public school education to all, we built big schools with lots of big classrooms and put lots of desks in them. How else could a teacher manage a class of 30-40 students? And since classes had to be big to educate everyone, there had to be rules like raising your hand to talk and sitting still and moving only when the bell rang or it would be chaos. It wasn't to mimic factories. It was the only way at the time to educate everyone. Some big-city tenement blocks in the 1920s had 500+ kids living on them—just one block! The hundreds of neighborhood schools that were built to educate them all had to operate a little like machines just to get all their students through.
To try to shame present-day American schools for still following this pattern, to a certain extent, is ridiculous. First, most grade schools have abandoned sitting in rows at desks all day to allow students to work in small groups, have "rug time", and other ways of moving around during the day. To a lesser extent, many junior high and high schools do this as well. It's been a long time since most American students sat down in the morning, got up at lunch, sat down after it, then got up to go home. (In fact, students today are the ones who don't get recess—a once-standard part of the American school day.)
And another reason it's unfair to shame the U.S. is that one reason we still have rows of desks is that we are still one of the few nations trying to educate all. To compare us, as is always done, with Finland or Singapore is crazy. Those are small, racially and ethnically homogenous states with no vast income inequalities. It's easy to teach students who all start at the same place and have the same background and language. And in most of the world, education stops for most children after grade school; in those nations where it continues, by the time students reach the equivalent of U.S. high school, they are divided into students who are going on to college and those who aren't, and they are educated separately and pretty unequally. The test scores that Finland and Singapore present to the world are just from their college-bound students.
But that's not how we are. We still try to educate everyone, no matter the differences in race, income, language, ethnicity, and learning ability. We fail. But we still try. It's still our goal. So any solution we come up with has to work for our situation, which is unique in the world.
Can we change our public schools to make them better? Are there better ideas out there than rows of desks? Yes. But to Prince Ea and all the others, we say reform all you want, but don't tell people that American schools were developed by evil heartless people to indoctrinate and crush children when it was completely the other way around.
(That said, we liked Prince Ea's video debunking the concept of race, which is indeed completely made up and not real.)


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MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — When a small technology firm sets up next month on the grounds where thousands of mentally ill patients used to be treated, it will be a watershed moment in efforts to redevelop Georgia's Central State Hospital, a sprawling 2,000-acre campus on the brink of becoming obsolete.
For years, local officials have grappled with what to do with the massive property that includes some 200 buildings and encompasses a significant portion of this middle Georgia town where local officials cite a 13 percent unemployment rate.
They are not alone: Numerous state mental hospitals in the country have been closing in recent years in favor of a community-based approach to treat the mentally ill, which includes local housing and assistance programs.
"Big cities and small towns all have these huge institutions and are sort of struggling with what to do with them," said Tom Murphy, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute, which studies land use nationally. "It can be a challenge, but there is a huge opportunity."
What's left behind is often a large piece of land and property that once employed hundreds if not thousands of local residents. As efforts to redevelop these state hospitals have had mixed results, Georgia is taking an innovative approach: analyzing communities that have rebuilt following the closing of a nearby military base while bringing in an expert to lead the process of emulating them.
"In 1968, this was the largest mental institution in the world. In those days, this was the engine that drove our entire community," said Baldwin County Commissioner Henry R. Craig, a native of Milledgeville whose family has long been connected with the hospital. "Now that it is gone we're not looking backward, we're looking forward."
Built in 1842, Central State was Georgia's first public psychiatric hospital and once housed as many as 13,000 patients. At its height in the 1960s, it was like a small city with its own fire and police departments, school programs and a steam plant.
Today, the campus is filled with contradictions. Wide streets lined with elegant pecan trees lead to Victorian-style buildings with broken-out windows and crumbling exteriors. Juxtaposing that, on one road there are tidy houses occupied by state employees. On the edges of the campus, newer buildings recently used to house inmates are surrounded by wire fencing. Thousands are buried in nearby cemeteries.
The state has closed three major programs at Central State since 2009. The state Department of Corrections, which had taken over some of the buildings to house inmates, also moved out a few years ago.
The city took action around that time and began to form the basis of the redevelopment authority and hired Mike Couch, a native of Milledgeville who successfully worked on major redevelopment projects for communities surrounding Fort Benjamin Harrison near Lawrence, Ind., and Fort Sheridan in Lake County, Ill.
Both bases closed under the Base Realignment & Closure Commission process, also known as BRAC, and have largely flourished. Fort Sheridan has become a mostly residential community with townhomes listed for $500,000. Fort Benjamin Harrison was redeveloped into a residential and retail community as well as land set aside for Fort Harrison State Park and Golf Course.
Under the BRAC model, Couch says a critical first step was to get the community to accept that Central State was never coming back. Now, it's a matter of getting the state-owned land transferred to the redevelopment authority. Legislation to start that process is expected to be submitted next year.
"The way the mental health care industry has changed in this state, it was not worth us fighting a battle to keep those buildings open," said Couch, the authority's executive director.
Couch and others with the redevelopment authority are evaluating the property's assets, which include a 90,000-square-foot kitchen, once the largest in the world churning out 30,000 meals a day. Officials also know they will have to rebrand the site given its lengthy history. In addition, there's concern the property's historic buildings will slip into disrepair and could one day be impossible to save. The state currently spends $11 million a year to maintain the property.
The state isn't leaving completely. Up to 180 mentally ill individuals in the court system will continue to be housed at a building on campus.
Couch has made trips to Washington, D.C., to meet with lawmakers and officials from various government agencies, another lesson learned from the BRAC process. He hopes to pique the federal government's interest in stimulating private sector investment. At Fort Benjamin Harrison, the redevelopment authority went to the Department of Defense and was able to keep its finance and accounting system building at the property, and Couch said the office grew from 3,000 to 6,000 employees.
"It became the platform from which the whole place developed," Couch said.
For other state mental hospitals, attempts to repurpose them have led to mixed results. A plan for the Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, N.C., has been mired in delays in recent years. The Urban Land Institute evaluated the site back in 2006 and made various recommendations on land use, including a residential and mixed-use development and a city park.
The new owners of the former Mayview State Hospital site, south of Pittsburgh, have been tearing down buildings with plans to rebuild the area as a residential and commercial property. And a residential community was built on the former Metropolitan State Hospital site in Lexington, Mass., generating about $53 million from 390 apartments, about 25 percent of which are affordable units, according to the Urban Land Institute.
"While you may have various different uses, you have to have a strategic plan that connects all the various parts of the property," said ULI's Murphy.
Tom Glover with Cogentes, the firm about to open an office in the former Central State superintendent's house, said leasing space was an easy decision. It's convenient to the local college where the IT services and support company hopes to draw interns, and Glover appreciated the park-like setting over its current office on a busy commercial street.
He dismissed concerns about relocating to a place that treated psychiatric patients for years.
"I'm kind of excited to be one of the first ones over there and being established as other businesses come in," said Glover, who spent 20 years in Atlanta before returning to the area. "Especially in my line of work, business to business, that puts me in a good position."i


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December 14, 2018– We talk a lot about marketing around here given our educational background and rightfully so because it's imperative to your success as an author. A big part of marketing is branding and I'm talking about branding yourself! If you're a self-published author, this is even more important!
What is branding? Here's how entrepreneur.com defines it: The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets.
I think the definition is pretty straightforward, but I think it's missing some things too. I hope that when people think of me and my company, Pandamonium Publishing House, they think of, books, expertise, black and white, controlled chaos, reading, and writing, and literacy. My team and I put a ton of work into making this happen. From the colour of our tablecloths to our postcards, we make sure its fluid and on brand.
Branding your self and your company includes a synonymous flow throughout every single thing you do and here's how to do that effectively:
- Your business cards– Do your business cards convey the message that you want to convey? Do they display your logo prominently and are they the right colour?
- Your dress sense– Are you dressed in a manner that conveys your brand? Are you dressy or casual or quirky or colour coded? Does your sense of personal style shine through and compliment your brand or does it clash? I'm not asking you to change who you are, I'm asking if you're bringing out the best in yourself while promoting your brand. You will never see me at an event/show wearing any other colours than black and white; I made this decision at the beginning of the year in order to stay on track with my branding and the message that I wanted to send to my readers, customers, and clients.
- Your signage- Is it clear and the right colour? Does it convey your message clearly? Is it easy to read? Does it have your logo and tagline? Can it be seen from far away? Do people know what you do and what you're offering just by reading your signage?
- Your table display- When we first started out, we had a very colourful table display. Over the years, we've tweaked and pivoted our image and display. We are a boutique publishing house, so that means from the table display (which is you guessed it, black and white) to the way we wrap your purchase, to the tissue paper and bags that we use, it's all fluid. We let the book covers shine in their own right as they are the stars of the show. Anything else is just a distraction. What does your table display look like? Is it cluttered?
- Your swag- Are you using products with your company name on it? If you don't have a company are you using stuff with your book cover on it? Be your brand and make sure that you have the opportunity to display it every chance you get! Notepads, pens, coffee mugs, shirts, stickers, bags, they all need to showcase your brand. These are a great tool because if you have swag that your readers or customers use each day, they'll be constantly reminded of you and your brand/company.
- Your logo– Is your logo unique and simple enough? Is it easily recognizable? If someone saw it would they think of you?
- Your website-Is it the right colour? Easy to navigate? Is your logo displayed? Did you buy the domain name?
- Your social media pages– See all tips above:)
Each time you go out in public you have the chance to promote your brand, yourself, and your books. Each day is another opportunity!


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As 2013 comes to an end, there are plenty of positive developments to look back on regarding the F-35 Lightning II program, according to Loren Thompson on Forbes.com. In a recent article, Thompson praised the many achievements of the fifth-generation fighter program over the course of 2013, including increased testing and cost reductions.
As the program continues to make strides in the new year, Thompson stressed the importance of increased production rates to ensuring that costs reach levels similar to the fighter's fourth-generation counterparts.
From the article:
The program's growing success has huge consequences for America and its allies. Three U.S. military services — the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps — are counting on the F-35 to provide the bulk of their tactical air power through mid-century. A total of 2,443 planes will be purchased to secure hostile air space, precisely destroy enemy targets, and gather diverse reconnaissance. It is no exaggeration to say that the success of U.S. military operations in future wars hinges on the availability of the F-35, and the plans of many allies do too. Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Turkey and the United Kingdom have all signed up to make F-35 their next-generation fighter.
With the F-35 fighter successfully achieving new milestones every month, there is only one really big issue still confronting the program: whether budget constraints will allow the government to ramp up annual production to truly economical rates. The original business plan assumed big cost savings by accelerating production fast to a level where sizable economies of scale would be feasible, but as Lockheed Martin program manager Lorraine Martin pointed out the day the hundredth F-35 rolled off the line, rates have been flat at 30-36 planes for the last four years. Initially the rates were restrained by concerns about program maturity, but the issue now is government spending constraints.
Click here to read the full article, and visit F35.com for more information on the Joint Strike Fighter program.


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Review: The Big Book of Conflict Resolution Games: Quick, Effective Activities to Improve Communication, Trust and Collaboration
Brief Description
Excellent resource for team building, communication, trust building exercises for training programs. Also some activities that can be used in team meetings. Lengths vary.
Number Of Exercises/Games/Activites
60 exercises for different group sizes, and times
My Take - Pro's And Con's
Great resource for conflict and communication related activities and learning games. A wide variety of material that is organized in the following sections:
- Collaboration
- Emotional Intelligence
- Perspective
- Trust
- Diversity
- Communication
- Understanding Conflict
The explanations are clear and complete, and when approriate, each exercise comes with handouts, recording forms, almost everything you need to conduct the exercises "out of the box".
Reasonably priced at about $23.00 for the paperback and its also supposed to be available for the Kindle at a lower price, although that limits the use of the printable material.
Evaluation: ***** (five stars)


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Gentleman's Pride®
|Item # 070
|118 ml.
As a razor blade moves across your skin, it can cause nicks, scratches or razor burn, leaving your skin irritated and dry. Pamper and soothe your skin with the moisture of Gentleman's Pride, an alcohol-free aftershave in a clean, masculine scent. Feel the icy exhilaration of this unique blend of lubricants and moisturizers combined with pure, stabilized Aloe Vera gel.
In the form of a smooth, silky lotion, it doubles as a skin conditioner to soothe and replenish the skin after shaving. The Aloe Vera, mixed with special conditioners such as Rosemary and Chamomile, helps to gently soothe the skin.
Men will love the fresh, clean feel of Gentleman's Pride, and women will love its unique, masculine fragrance!
• Aftershave or anytime moisturizing lotion
• Alcohol-free formula
• Soothes and moisturizes
• Unique, fresh fragrance


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Joy Programming Language
The language Joy is a purely functional programming language that was created by Manfred von Thun. Whereas all other functional programming languages are based on the application of functions to arguments, Joy is based on the composition of functions. All such functions take a stack as argument and produce a stack as value. Consequently much of Joy looks like ordinary postfix notation. However, in Joy a function can consume any number of parameters from the stack and leave any number of results on the stack. The concatenation of appropriate programs denotes the composition of the functions which the programs denote. One of the datatypes of Joy is that of quoted programs, of which lists are a special case.
Some functions expect quoted programs on top of the stack and execute them in many different ways, effectively by dequoting. So, where other functional languages use abstraction and application, Joy uses quotation and combinators -- functions which perform dequotation. As a result, there are no named formal parameters, no substitution of actual for formal parameters, and no environment of name-value pairs. Combinators in Joy behave much like functionals or higher order functions in other languages, they minimise the need for recursive and non-recursive definitions. Because there is no need for an environment, Joy has an exceptionally simple algebra, and its programs are easily manipulated by hand and by other programs. Many programs first construct another program which is then executed.
Joy Programming Language
The programming language Joy my research in the design and implementation of a computer language. Joy is a purely functional high level programming language which eliminates lambda abstraction and function application and replaces them by program quotation and function composition.
Download Joy Programming Language webpage content and source files [ZIP 4.9MB].
Symbolic Processing in Pascal
Symbolic Processing in Pascal contains an unpublished book which is based on several courses I have taught. Programs range from very easy to quite difficult, dealing with parsing, translating, interpreting and some theorem proving.
Download Symbolic Processing in Pascal webpage content and source files [ZIP 473KB].
Contains information found on Manfred von Thun's website that did not fit under the previous two sections, including: Deductive Logic - Extended propositional logic written in itself; and Computation - A queue machine for evaluating expressions.
Download Miscellanea webpage content and source files [ZIP 30KB].
Further Information
If there are any concerns or issues accessing the above information, please contact the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Marketing Team.


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New York Jets linebacker David Harris is a very good player. Playing alongside the noisy and hard-hitting Bart Scott, Harris, a sixth-year man out of Michigan, quietly led the Jets with 65 tackles last season. His five quarterback sacks were second on the club.
But there's a difference between very good and elite. Harris is known as a run stopper who sometimes has trouble in pass coverage. He's made All-Pro just once, when he was a second-team selection in 2009. Solid as he is, you don't expect to see him making more than every other linebacker in the NFL.
And yet, that where Harris' $12 million in salary and bonus this season puts him. And so there's little choice but to include him on our list of the NFL's most overpaid players. He's got company from the Jets: wide receiver Santonio Holmes (one 1,000-yard season; $9.25 million) and cornerback Antonio Cromartie (one Pro Bowl five years ago; $8.25 million) also make the cut.
We came up with our list of overpaid players not through sheer stats – that makes little sense in football, where team systems and game plans drive many of the numbers -but by using basic common sense. We looked at all NFL players making at least $5 million in 2012 (there are 169 of them) and determined which have given back the least performance-wise over the past few years. Who's getting All-Pro money without making All-Pro? Who's been having trouble staying on the field consistently?
In addition to the Jets' trio, other members of the top 10 include Oakland running back Darren McFadden ($7.8 million), who's had one 1,000-plus rushing season since being drafted in 2008, and Jacksonville receiver Marcedes Lewis ($9.6 million), who had 10 touchdown catches in his lone Pro Bowl season of 2009, and a total of eight TDs in his other five seasons combined.
We'll admit that compared to other sports, the NFL All-Overpaid list isn't easy to put together. All the players on it are good. In fact, the thing that catches your eye about NFL salaries is the relative paucity of players who are blatantly overpaid. The NBA is sprinkled with big-money bench warmers averaging five points a game. Baseball has its unproductive, aging stars collecting mega millions on the back ends of long-term contracts (the Yankees are locked into 37-year-old Alex Rodriguez for five more years and $114 million, plus possible bonuses connected to his pursuit of Barry Bonds' career home run record - managing partner Hal Steinbrenner practically locked big brother Hank in the attic after that one).
The NFL has a knack for controlling such things -- one of the reasons the league stands as the most well-oiled business machine in American sports. Rarely are player contracts fully guaranteed. That headline number of $96 million that Peyton Manning signed for to join the Denver Broncos for five years? Only the first $18 million is guaranteed. If the Broncos were to cut Manning during next year's training camp, they save a boatload of money. The Yankees can only dream of doing that with A-Rod.
The result of all that salary flexibility is that for the most part, big money goes to the guys that produce. Traditionally, the one big exception was rookie contracts, where top picks got enormous bonuses based on potential. But even that annoyance was taken care of in the latest collective bargaining agreement The two latest No. 1 picks, Andrew Luck and Cam Newton, got about a quarter of the $86 million that Sam Bradford got from the St. Louis Rams, who drafted him first in 2010 (incidentally, we stayed away from young high draft pick like Bradford and Tampa Bay defensive tackle Gerald McCoy on the all-overpaid list, figuring they deserve a bit more time to live up to their rookie deals).
Still, within the framework of responsible spending, there will always be players who are relatively overpaid (or underpaid) for what they produce. David Harris can clearly play. But at $12 million, he's one of them.
The List:
1. David Harris (New York Jets, $12 million)
2. Karlos Dansby (Miami Dolphins, $10.7 million)
3. Johnathan Joseph (Houston Texans, $9.75 million)
4. Marcedes Lewis (Jacksonville Jaguars, $9.6 million)
5. Santonio Holmes (New York Jets, $9.25 million)
Click here to see more of the NFL's Highest-Paid Players


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WooCommerce Price Labeller
Price Labeller is a WordPress plugin that gives you full control over your price text throughout your WooCommerce store.
It allows you to change your prices to more than just a number. Use it to boost sales, provide more information about a product's availability, or set as a call to action when there's no price available.
Some examples of common use cases:
- Call for price
- In store only
- $50 for 1 day only
- Cheapest in the world – $50
- $20 or we'll beat any price
- $30 + free delivery
Labels can include HTML so you have complete control over format, styling and adding links like a contact form.
Price Labeller also has a bulk editing facilty for quickly changing multiple products.
Control where your custom price labels appear, for example:
- An "In-store only" notice to only appear on the product's individual landing page.
- A "Buy it fast" slogan to appear on the home page and the main product listing pages to encourage users to click on it
Please feel free to ask me any questions about the plugin in the support tab.
Compatible with WooCommerce versions 1 and 2.
I am both a WordPress core and WooCommerce contributor. This plugin adheres to WordPress coding standards and good practice.


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Some of the dishes I post about here are created in a flash of inspiration and then written about shortly after, others are old family favourites that sit on my 'to be blogged' list, and others almost invisibly become part of the family reportoire before I suddenly realise I should really post this one…
This recipe, for want of a better word, is cooking technique, meal planning idea, and recipe all in one…you spatchcock chickens so they cook faster, coat them with a wonderfully fresh green marinade that leaves the meat beautifully flavoured and succulent, and cook two small chickens at once, leaving plenty of meat for another meal. You can obviously apply the same idea to different flavour combinations, but this combination is particularly nice for using the leftovers in a variety of SE Asian or even Mexican meals.
I have spatchcocked the chickens myself, and there are videos that show how, but I almost always ask my butcher to do it, making sure they save me the bones for stock, as they have much better knives and are immeasurably faster!
As an example of how this simple idea turns one meal into three, this is what we did this week. I cooked these chickens for Sunday dinner, and as a family of four we ate most of one chicken, accompanied by vegetables, in this case baked potatoes and green beans. I saved the bones from the chicken we ate, and after dinner removed all the meat from both carcasses, and put it in an airtight container in the fridge.
I made stock from the bones, including the bones from the butcher, and stored that in the fridge also. I always deglaze the baking pan with some boiling water, so all those lovely sticky bits are added to the stock. Later this week, I made a lovely herby fragrant chicken soup from the stock, adding udon noodles, corn kernels and about half the left over chicken (using mainly the smaller pieces from the thighs and carcass) and topping it with fresh coriander leaves left over from the stalks that went into the marinade. The basic technique for both chicken stock and chicken noodle soup is here, I just substituted udon noodles, corn and coriander for the egg noodles, carrot and parsley.
Last night, I sliced the remaining chicken breast, and added it to this Asian cabbage salad along with some hokkein noodles, for a light summer meal.
Very green marinated and spiced roast chicken
A mash up of a recipe in The Blue Ducks cookbook and one by Ros at Cooking up the Pantry – she got me onto cooking up two flattened chickens at once!)
- 100g fresh coriander (can use just stalks and roots)
- 50g parsley (can use just stalks)
- 3 garlic cloves
- 20g fresh ginger
- 1 red chilli, choose depending on preferred heat level
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 80ml flavourless oil (rice bran, canola, grape seed etc)
- 2 small chickens, spatchcocked (about size 15-16)
Wash the coriander and parsley well, roughly chop, and add to a food processor with the peeled garlic and ginger, seeded chilli, cumin, coriander and salt. Process until finely chopped, then add oil, and process again until a paste. Add a small amount of water if needed.
Put the chickens in a large baking dish, pressing to flatten if needed, and spread the paste all over, including under the skin of the breast and thighs. With the chickens spatchcocked, you should find it fairly easy to use your fingers to lift the skin away from the top of the thigh and breast, and spread some of the paste in the resulting 'pocket' with your fingers. Put the chickens in the fridge to marinate for several hours or overnight.
When ready to eat, take the chicken from the fridge to return to room temperature, heat the oven to 200C and bake the chicken for about 1 hour. It should be deep brown and if you put a skewer into the thigh joint, the juices should come out clear.
Serves four with enough for at least one other meal…
One year ago: Milk bread
For the other side of the world
Six months ago: Compost pesto


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In stock
1922 No D Strong Reverse Lincoln Wheat Cent - NGC VG8 BN
This coin would make a nice addition to your collection, or numismatic investment portfolio!
History: In 1922, the Denver Mint was the only Mint which produced cents for that year. Consequently, all 1922 cents should bare the D mint mark. However, since the Denver Mint was under extreme pressure to produce cents for that year, there was a lot of sloppiness in the production process.
The 1922 No D is believed to exist due to a pair of dies clashing with one another without a coin being in between the two dies. As a result, it is believed that a mint employee obtained an old obverse die and filed it down in order to improve its appearance. But instead, the mint employee ended up filing the D mint mark too much, and in return, created the 1922 No D Lincoln cents.
The 1922 No D Lincoln cent has always been recognized as a major variety within the Lincoln cent series. Due to its popularity this coin has always commanded a hefty premium.
Scarcity: The 1922 No D Strong Reverse Lincoln cent is very challenging to aquire due to its high value in any grade. Most examples are believed to have been certified since they command such high premiums. Therefore, the population figures should provide a good idea of this coins true scarcity.
Varieties:There are two additional recognized varieties for this date which are much less popular and command much lower prices. One of them is the 1922 Weak D mint mark variety and the second one being the Weak Reverse variety.
Authentication: An authentic 1922 No D Lincoln cent will display very sharp details on the reverse unlike the additional two varieties of this year. A 1922 No D cent should have the second 2 stronger than the first 2. Also the word TRUST is sharply struck. There are additional diagnostics which differentiate the more expensive and popular 1922 No D Lincoln cents. Therefore, authentication is highly recommended for this variety. (From PCGS Coin Facts)
1906 1C Indian Head Cent NGC MS64 RB
$99.00 *
1922 No D Lincoln Wheat Cent - PCGS F12
$775.00 *


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Hard-working college student strives to be more organized
DEAR ABBY: I am a 20-year-old college student. After attending a local community college for two years, I will be starting classes at a four-year school. I make excellent grades, but I struggle with organization. My mother has ADD, and I am certain that I also have it because I display all the symptoms. However, I have never been diagnosed.
My mother purposely didn't have me diagnosed as a child because she didn't want me to feel like there was anything holding me back. Now that I'm an adult, I keep wondering if getting a diagnosis along with some mental and emotional support might help me to become more organized and successful in life. Any advice would be appreciated, along with any resources you might know of for people who have ADD or ADHD. -- ANONYMOUS IN THE SOUTH
DEAR ANONYMOUS: Because you feel that receiving a diagnosis would be helpful, it's time to be evaluated by a mental health professional. If your college has a student health center, that's the place to start. If not, contact the psychological association in your state about a referral to a therapist who specializes in patients with adult attention deficit disorder. I wish you luck, because there is help for it.
DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend and I have been dating casually for about five months. He is busy and is often terrible about returning texts and phone calls. For his birthday, I bought him a gift that I had put a lot of thought into. We made plans to have dinner on his birthday, but when the time came to pick me up, he didn't show. Three hours after the agreed-upon time, he texted and canceled.
My question is about the gift. It wasn't extravagant, but I no longer have any interest in giving it to him when we do finally see each other (it's been a week since he canceled). Is it acceptable to simply pay for dinner? I'm hurt and frustrated with him, and that doesn't make me want to give him a gift. -- HURT IN TEXAS
DEAR HURT: If he had wanted to spend his birthday with you, he would have shown up. One of the ways people show they care about each other is by returning texts and initiating phone calls. Because your "boyfriend" hasn't done that, assume that he is not as interested in you as you are in him. Return the gift, if possible, and if he shows up again, do not buy the dinner. Shame on him.
DEAR ABBY: When my wife shops for clothes, she often returns something for exchange or reimbursement. Recently she bought an article of clothing and it shrank after she washed it, so she returned it. To me that was inappropriate. I think after a garment is washed it belongs to the buyer, and a return is wrong. Or am I wrong? -- RETURNED IN THE EAST
DEAR RETURNED: Personally, I agree with you – unless the item was supposed to be shrink-resistant. However, because the retailer was willing to exchange it or reimburse your wife, it appears we are mistaken.
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.