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"King of the Beach" and "Food Enthusiast" Now Live on DisneyChannel.com/Coppertop
DisneyChannel.com is launching a new original short form video series, "The Coppertop Flop Show," today featuring rising star Calum Worthy, who portrays Dez, Austin's loyal and funny best friend in the hit Disney Channel original series "Austin & Ally."
Covering everything from his enthusiasm, or rather over-enthusiasm, for meatballs and epic "bro battles" to how to rule the beach "rocking socks and sandals," "The Coppertop Flop Show" features Worthy's unique and creative take on the world. Approximately 1-2 minutes long, the shorts will premiere weekly on DisneyChannel.com/Coppertop Friday mornings, followed by a broadcast debut on Disney Channel the following Friday evening. The first two episodes "King of the Beach" and "Food Enthusiast" are live now.
"Our audience loves short form video and this series with Calum, who is so talented and naturally funny, is a great fit for them," said Lauren DeVillier, vice president, digital media, Disney Channels Worldwide. "I think kids will really respond to his humor and unique point of view."
Worthy began his acting career at the age of nine and made his film debut in "Night Visions," before landing the starring role in the BBC-Canadian award-winning mini-series "I Was a Rat." He has since appeared in more than 50 different film and television productions, including HBO's "Out of Order," "The Days," "Reunion" and "Psych." He also appeared on Disney Channel's "Good Luck Charlie," as well as "Stargate Atlantis," "Flashpoint," "Prepped," "Kyle XY," "Caprica," "Smallville," A&E's "Longmire," "Supernatural" and "Stormworld," which earned him the 2010 Leo Award in Canada for his performance.
In addition to his early feature films, "The Last Mimzy," "Dr. Dolittle 3" and "Deck The Halls," Worthy appeared in the independent film "The Odds" and "The Big Year," starring Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Steve Martin.
Worthy's longtime collaborators Derek Baynham and Kelly May are producing, along with Corey Moss at Principato-Young Entertainment. The team films with a skeleton script and crew to allow for the humor to emerge organically. They keep the process nimble by letting the camera roll and getting as many options as possible.


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Less than a two-hour drive from the rolling hills of Rwanda's capital, Kigali, is Volcanoes National Park. Also known as Parc National des Volcans, it spans 77-miles in the Virunga Mountains.
Bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, Volcanoes National Park is made up of lush rainforests, volcanoes … and gorillas.
It was the first park created in Africa and has overcome struggles to become the tourist attraction it is today. In 1992, it became a battlefield for the Civil War, halting it's tours because of the dangerous times. It did not open to tourists again until 1999, when it was once again safe for visitors to explore the mountainous region.
Today, visitors come from around the world to catch their own glimpse of a family of mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. With eight family groups in the park, each day guides take visitors on treks up to high altitudes so they can enjoy an hour watching the families interact with each other. Treks to and from these animals can last anywhere from one to four hours, depending on the family's location.
The treks begin with a climb through farmland.
En route to the next leg of the journey, children emerge from their huts and working to watch the tourists.
After the farmland, trekkers enter the thick bamboo forest, where day turns to night and shoots tower high into the air.
And then … after a strenuous trek … come the gorillas.
Planning a trip?
Only 64 visitors are given permits (which cost around $500 each for non-nationals) each day to trek for gorillas. To request a permit, people must go through the Rwanda Tourism Board and make reservations. For more information, e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com.
For those trekking, it is important to pack right. Sturdy shoes and long pants (to protect against ant bites and nettles) are a must. Comfortable clothing (that can get dirty) and layers are ideal, as the climate will change from the base to where the gorillas are located.
Ruhengeri is located near the park and offers a variety of lodging options for different budgets.
Want a first-hand experience? Click here to read about my trekking adventure.
How do you get from place to place? There are plenty of options to get around, like deciding on a cheap car hire on holiday.

subset: commoncrawl


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Idea for more exciting posters:
We cut and paste relevant pieces from other out of date flyers onto the advertising, making it much effective, more fun, more artistic, more eco-friendly.
Why stop there? Why just promote events? We could promote concepts. FUN. Using entirely re-cycled materials, one letter one entire poster. It could get stapled out onto the railings outside. FUN with and maybe even a wee map pointing in the direction of the Fabulous Fabled Forest Kindgom. What would a map of the Forest World look like from outside? And why stop there? We could have fun pieces of writing out there and MUSIC. I'm thinking fabulously funky folk fantastic enthusiastic over the top happy-hop reggae-roots-rock-out there..
Repost Recreate Represent
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Blog Archives
Company Girl: An Original Short Story For Download
A week or so ago I talked about how a short story of mine was published through a company called Ether Books. Well, today it's available for download!
How do you download it? If you have an iPhone, it's a simple as searching for Ether Books and downloading their app for free. If you don't have an iPhone you can go here to download the app via iTunes for your computer. Once you have the app installed, just search for "H.T. Sundance" or "Company Girl" and download the story for only $0.99!
Not convinced? Well here's a little teaser.
He'll kill you, Johnny.
The asphalt felt like jagged teeth against the balls of my feet. Clawing, digging, biting at my bare calloused flesh with each hurried footfall. The chill breeze nipped at my skin, goosebumps pouring down my spine. How long do I have? I couldn't see the moon in the sky. Clouds veiled the luminary like shadowy fingers—as if someone jumped me from behind; a bag thrown over my head as they pulled me into the darkness. I could hardly see my own hands in front of my face. How did I get myself into this mess?
The rustling obsidian walls at either side exhaled a devilish howl, the icy wind clinging to my bones …
It's only $0.99 to read the rest, so what are you waiting for?
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Sick Again, Seriously?
Apparently no matter what bug happens to be going around, I'll get it. Last time it was the stomach bug, and I got that. Then a cold went around, and now I've got that. I still feel pretty terrible, but it's getting better as time goes on. The last few days I've literally felt like a zombie. Everything hurt and when I walked around it was more like "trudging", complete with the occasional grunt and moan. My skin might not have been rotting off the bone, but it sure felt like it.
The worst thing about being sick is that my brain seriously does not work. Most would think "Hey, you're sick, you have nothing better to do, you can write!", and I can't. I try, but nothing comes. I just can't think well when I feel like that, and the most I can do is force out an article for my job. Even then, that probably looks like crap, but oh well.
So what do I do while I'm sick? I lay on the couch and watch things on TV that I would never watch otherwise. On the worst day, I watched about 3 hours straight of The Next Great Baker and Cake Boss. And I wanted to eat cake all day. I got really sick of loud Italian voices though. It kept me busy though, so I can't really complain. When it wasn't on anymore, I didn't know what to do with myself. Sad, right?
The one creative thing I've been doing is some drawing. I'm terrible at it, but I'm on a friend's art forum and they're doing this little "Feb-A-Thon" thing where you upload something you've drawn everyday. It's fun, and I decided to play along, even though in comparison to the other artists there my stuff looks like a 3-year-old drew it. It's better than nothing though, because I need to keep my brain working somehow.
Since I know you're wondering how badly I draw, here. It's a character from something I'm working on, so while it's garbage, at least it helps me visualize and keep writing.
Related articles
- Who Won 'Next Great Baker'? (huffingtonpost.com)
The Tale of a Poor Garage Salin' Boy
Once upon a time, I told a girl I liked going to garage sales. She laughed at it and made fun of me. Why am I telling you this? Well, first I'm trying to make you pity me just a bit (to soften you up a little). And second, I'm hoping that same garage sale discrimination won't happen again.
(This is a long post, and I apologize in advance, but I think it's interesting [although that's coming from someone with what might be considered a very boring life].)
I'll be frank here—I've never had money. I've grown up in a lower middle class family, with the occasional hand-me-down and trip to the thrift store. Not a privileged life, but not a terrible one. Get it? Good. Point is I've grown up driving around with mom and dad on Saturdays hitting all the garage sales. We don't do it all the time (especially not anymore), but when we do, it's awesome.
Awesome? Well, maybe that's a little too dramatic, but it's cool. Some people think that paying full price for something is some kind of privilege. Those people are stupid. I'll buy something lightly used and a fraction of the price over something brand new and full price any day. You're saving money, being green (whee), and it's fun.
It's fun because of the hunt. You never know what you're going to find. I've been looking for a stand-up CD case holder (you know, like tower with all the little slats to store your CDs) lately, and I haven't found it. It's funny, because I used to see those all the time at garage sales when I wasn't looking for one. That's the fun part about garage sales. You can't anticipate exactly what you're going to discover, and it becomes sort of a treasure hunt.
As a child, most of my "cool" toys were from garage sales. Maybe the majority of my clothes were purchased new, but the toys were all garage sale finds. If you're a parent, then you know how expensive toys can be. Go to a garage sale and you can get the same thing for 25¢ instead of $15. Worried about germs? Use a Lysol wipe. See how much you can save? You can thank me later.
But why did I mention toys? Well, as a kid I said most of my toys were from garage sales. The truth is that most of my toys now are from garage sales. Yes, I'm twenty and I still have "toys", but then again I'm talking about my video game library. Listen, I have a lot of games. Since I was little, I don't (or hardly) get rid of games. Therefore my collection has become something of a literal library. I've got games for the NES, SNES, N64, Wii, Genesis, Dreamcast, PSX (Playstation), PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360. I had a PS3 as well (as well as games for it), but I sold it.
I said it before, I'm a gamer. I don't play as much anymore, but I'll always be a nerd. Don't like it? Tough. Thing is, I've gotten most of my games from garage sales or thrift stores. The only things I didn't buy secondhand are my Wii, PSX, PS2, and Xbox 360. Buying so many games used means they were dirt cheap and I have a lot of them. I've never counted, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had 50 NES games, or 100. That's the beauty of garage sales.
So now that you get the idea behind me and my garage sales, I can continue with this little story. I haven't been garage saling (yes, that's the proper term) for a very long time. Months and months, I don't know. Well this past Saturday I convinced my parents to go and we struck off on the adventure at 7:30ish. People are crazy about garage saling, so you've got to get a pretty early start if you want to find good stuff. 7:30 is good, but 7 is better. Either way, we were off.
Exhibit A: Sale
I made three "large" purchases that day. I hardly find much most of the time when I go. My dad ends up finding all sorts of crap, while I find very little. This time it was a bit different. The first garage sale we hit, I came across a big cardboard box full of game consoles and a tangle of wires. There was a PSX, PS2, and an Xbox inside. I've got two of those three, so I didn't pay too much attention to it, but just out of curiosity, I decided to ask how much they wanted for the whole box. The little boy it belonged to said $10, so I figured why not. Were all the wires in there? Did the consoles work? It was cheap, so I just bought it, threw it in the car and moved on.
Exhibit A: Aftermath
It's ridiculous how I'm organizing this post, right? Oh well. Once I got home, I began untangling the mess of cords and cables. First up was the Xbox, and I quickly found it had all the proper cords, one controller that looked worn but usable, and another controller that was broken. Armed with nothing but kitchen wipes, I sent off on cleaning it up.
All of this stuff was dirty. I'm not talking a little bit of dust, I'm talking dirt. A fine layer perhaps, but the cords had that nasty thin layer of mold on them, and the consoles were covered in a fine dusting of slightly caked on red dirt. Not cool, but kitchen wipes can clean anything. I cleaned it up nice, plugged it in, and it worked like a charm. One down, two to go.
Next up was the PS2. It received the same treatment, and it was just as dirty as the Xbox. The only controller it came with was broken in half in the back. It looked like it worked, but yeah. I have PS2 controllers, so I wasn't too worried about it. I cleaned it up and turned it on, no problems. Two down, one to go.
Last up was the PSX. It wasn't as dirty as the others, ironically, and only took a bit to clean up. All three of these consoles were in good shape, but this one looked the best even for being older. Unfortunately, while it turns on fine and seems to work, it has a very hard time reading games. It acts like your discs are too scratched to play, and when they do play, they freeze on loading screens way too often. It seems like—while it works—it has a difficult time reading the actual discs. I'm not sure how to fix that, but at the moment it seems like the only bust in the buy. Do you know how to fix it?
So in the end, I nabbed two working consoles for 10 bucks. PS2s go for around $40 on eBay, and I think Xboxes are about the same. I'll probably end up keeping the Xbox, and a friend of the family had his PS2 break, so I might give him a deal on it. Point is that the $35 or so I spent all day is pretty much completely made back with just one item. Isn't garage saling cool?
Exhibit B: Sale
The next item I came across is a little weirder. Like you see above, there's a picture of it at the bottom of this section. I tend to buy weird little things, so this odd little straw basket with tiny people in it came into my possession for 50¢. Why did I buy it? I don't know, but I did. It's interesting.
Exhibit B: Aftermath
Aftermath? There is no aftermath on this one. It's tiny and weird and maybe someday you'll see it on some obscure little item in my hypothetical Etsy shop. I collect these trinkets, you see. This isn't the first time. Will I ever do anything with them? Probably not, but who knows.
Exhibit C: Sale
This was probably the coolest buy of the day. The odd thing about this day of garage saling was the lack of music CDs. Usually whenever I go garage saling, people are selling off their old CDs. At any given sale, they're there. It's so common, that most days when I can't find anything, I at least get a CD or two. However this time, there were none. None at all, all day. Instead, it seemed that everyone collectively decided to get rid of all their old PSX games.
Usually I don't find those at all, so it was fun I suppose, but at one sale I found a whole book of them. You know the CD case/books? I don't know what to call them, but you get the picture. It was full of them, so I just decided to ask "How much for the whole thing?" Bundling up had gone well so far, so why argue with success? The lady thought about it, and said $20. That probably was fair, technically speaking, but half of the games in this thing I didn't even want. I offered $10, and she said "It's too early, maybe later."
That might sound silly, but you'll find that sometimes when garage saling. Things sell good in the morning, and as the day wears on, it's smart to price things down, because fewer and fewer people start showing up. That's what she was thinking, so I just asked "When can I come back and buy it for $10?" Rude? A little, but it was all in good fun. She laughed and said after lunch. Fair enough, so I went and put it back. The thought crossed my mind to hide it, even though it was doubtful that anyone would buy it, but before I could decide to be a douchebag about it or not, she called out "Okay, $10."
Exhibit C: Aftermath
This purchase was hit and miss. A lot of the games inside, I don't even want. Is there anyone looking for the 102 Dalmatians game? I didn't think so. Still, there were quite a few cool games inside, and many that I haven't even checked out yet. So far I've been impressed with a game called Einhander. Sounds like sound crazy German word, but upon playing it, it's a side-scrolling shooter (like Xevious).
The biggest disappointment was Legend of Dragoon. It's a pretty epic RPG, and I think it's worth a bit of money, but upon closer inspection I found that the CD book only had disc 2, 3, and 4. It happens, and who knows, maybe I'll go back to the same garage sale and get lucky, unless anyone's looking to sell disc 1? In the end, I know I could get a couple bucks out of a lot of the games. There are 50 or so of them, so at $10 that's like each disc was 20¢. I think that's fair.
Exhibit D: Sale
Last one—promise. At one of the last sales we stopped by, I came across a little appointment book looking thing; the ones that zip up and whatever. It caught my eye because it looked like it was leather, and it was Fossil. Cool, but it had a $20 price tag on it. Thinking that was ridiculous, I opened it up and found a palm pilot inside.
I'll admit that palm pilots are so outdated, but they're still cool. My dad has one (that he used to use for work), and looking at this one, it looked exactly the same. Unfortunately it didn't have a charger, but it looked like it was in amazing shape, and it also came with a few SD cards. I talked the lady down to $10 and bought it.
Exhibit D: Aftermath
Even though it didn't have a charger, it looked the same as my dad's one and he agreed. The idea was that I could just use his charger. No sweat. Once we got home and check though, we discovered that mine was one model newer than his (the Tungsten E2, as opposed to his Tungsten E) even though both models look identical to each other. His charger didn't fit for mine, so I was up a creek.
On the bright side, I looked everything up on eBay and picked up a data cable/charger (along with some universal USB adapters for wall charging and car charging) for $6 with free shipping. Altogether, I spent $16 on it, and it looked like Tungsten E2s are still going for $30-$40 on eBay.
So what's the moral of this story? Garage sales are awesome—that's what. Half the fun is reselling things and making your money back so you can do it all over again. You're jealous now, aren't you? Well in that case, go out there and do it yourself!
One man's trash is another man's treasure, right? Well get out there and find some treasure.
Related articles
- Garage Sale….check! (crazybusybee.com)
- First Weekend Finds (Part One) (livinginaction.wordpress.com)
Tekken: Movie Review
A movie review? Yes, I don't know. This isn't a movie review blog, but I warned you that I can be random. This is one of those times.
The other day, I caught the movie Tekken on TV. It was never in theaters (at least not in the US), and it's adapted from the classic fighting video game, so I really didn't expect much. Movies based on video games almost never work. Still, I had nothing better to do, so I sat down with my dad and watched it.
Simply put, I didn't hate it. I was a child who played Street Fighter, Fighter's Destiny, and Marvel Vs. Capcom. I never once played Tekken, and I while I immediately recognize the old dude with his white hair spiked up on both sides, I'm not familiar with the game or the story. As is typical with most movies adapted from existing stories, Tekken was not original to the game's storyline. I'm sure it generally was, but when it comes to details, it only took a two minute search to find people complaining "That's wrong!" Personally, I don't care about that. That's how movie adaptions are. If you judge them based on how different they are, you can never give a fair rating.
Still, the movie wasn't amazing. The story is very cliche: Evil totalitarian militaristic "factions" take over a post-apocalyptic Earth, slummy terrible environments ensue. A massive fighting competition is endorsed by Tekken (a prominent faction) because… that's what you do when everything goes to pot I guess. The main character lives in the slums, and was taught by his mother the ways of karate and whatnot. Violence ensues, the bad guy kills his mother, and he enters the Iron Fist (the fighting competition) to kill the bad guy ruler and avenge his mother's death.
I won't spoil anything. Even though the movie was full of weak dialogue, corny flashbacks, and a plot-hole here and there, I'd still recommend it to anyone who just wants to sit down to a heavy helping of good old fashioned badassery. The fight scenes might be corny sometimes, but the stunts aren't bad. It's all very entertaining if you come at it from the right perspective. You're not going to find a gripping, well written, emotional movie that will leave you thinking. You are going to get a lot of sweaty bleeding dudes, revenge, and a couple scantily clad young ladies thrown in for good measure.
It's a guy movie. It accomplishes that role, but not much else. I give it 3 bloody fists, because bloody fists are cool.
Old Habits Die Hard
I've been writing for a pretty long time; I've brought that up before. A problem I always faced as a young writer was lack of focus and commitment. One day I want to write about something—and I've got the ideas all up top—but the next day, I'm bored. Maybe not bored with the idea, but bored with writing it. Something else would steal my interest, and I'd move onto that.
It was hard for me to focus on a single project, basically. I start something; I don't finish it. I did that a lot, if not always. A lot of people have that problem. I know I have that problem, but I thought that I grew out of it a bit.
Seems I haven't quite ditched the habit. It's difficult, because while I am able to embark on a project and focus on it, I have so many ideas! I'm working on two novels and one serial. Those are all time-consuming projects. Amidst those things, I need to update this blog more often. I need to sit down and write articles for my job. When I do take the time to work on a personal writing project, I don't know where to start. I don't know which project to work on. Then the thought comes to mind that I should start writing something entirely new. A short story, or flash fiction. Something I can submit to places and possibly get published and paid for.
As much as I talk on this blog, and try my best to help people (mostly with their virus problems, as it seems from my 100+ hits a day on my "System-Check" Virus post), I have problems myself. I know I have the skill and ability to do useful things, but more often than not I just don't know where to direct my figurative blows.
Old habits die hard, and I'll still have to grapple with them for control. In the meantime, it's good to take a step back and remember that everyone is always learning. As a writer, you never stop growing, and I've only just begun my journey.
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Breathe Life Into Your Writing! Part IVb: Dialogue
If you just sat down to read this and haven't read part A of this installment yet, please click here. This installment will talk more about how you can use dialogue to augment your writing, while the last part explained how to create strong, believable dialogue.
So how can you use dialogue to your advantage? Dialogue is just dialogue, right? You need it one way or another; it isn't an extraneous addition. That's completely true, but that doesn't mean you're required to think inside the box. Like anything, dialogue is a tool, and tools are there for you to use in a variety of ways. Before I get into anything fancy, though, I want to bring out one more point that I believe is key to creating quality dialogue.
First off, note that what I'm going to say here isn't what your writing teacher told you. It isn't what the "experts" will tell you. In spite of that, I'm right. That sounds more than a little conceited, but I'm deadly serious here, and I'm by far not the only one who holds the same view on this. What am I talking about?
"When writing dialogue attributions, almost always use said."
It's likely you've heard that before. The argument behind this "staple writing rule" is that said is invisible to the reader, and that using other verbs for dialogue is distracting and useless to your reader. There is merit behind this mindset—I don't deny that. However, it's a very robotic way of thinking. How should you look at it? Well that's up to you, and in the end, your personal writing style is what matters. Let's dive into this a little deeper.
There are pros and cons behind using only said. I'm not going to draw up a list here, because it's not that clear-cut. When you use said, it is generally invisible. It's the simplest attribution there is; it's telling the reader who just "said" the last chunk of dialogue. There's nothing wrong with that, however as a writer, you should never overuse a word. It doesn't matter what that word is—said is subject to that rule just like anything else.
Said is not invisible when you use it too much.
Some might argue against that train of thought, but you can't argue against what a reader sees when they read your work. I was a reader before I was a writer, and when I read a "well respected" author and saw said used over and over and over… I saw those attributions. It bugged me, and that was back when I was fairly young. It bugs me even more so now. It's lazy. It's a cop-out that uses the "expert opinion" as a fallback crutch.
But what if you don't use said? What if you use screamed, or cried, or whispered? What if you take into account what's happening in the scene before choosing what attribution to use? There's nothing exactly wrong with that, however you don't want to be redundant.
If your story just read … "What's wrong with you? I know you did it!" Sally accused. … you've got a problem.
Why? Because there was no need to tell the reader that Sally was accusing someone of something; she just said "I know you did it!", so why do you need to state that the dialogue there was an accusation? You don't, and that's a prime argument that any writing teacher will give you for the exclusive use of said.
That's only looking at one side of it, though. It's perfectly possible to find an attribution in most cases that isn't redundant, and isn't spelled s-a-i-d.
If your story just read … "It's okay, I believe you." Sally whispered. … do you have a problem?
No, you don't. If you simply put said in place of whispered there, the true intent of the dialogue wouldn't have been portrayed. There are a lot of instances where this is true, and sadly that's something that a lot of teachers completely ignore in their discourse. I argued quite a bit with an instructor of mine about this subject (I can be a bit too difficult for my own good), and after a long discussion, he basically backed down and said that there are many different ways to write.
The fact is, you can indeed distract your reader if you continually force a synonym for said into your dialogue. As with anything, you need a balance. Your writing should flow and incite your reader's interest, so just the same as using synonyms of said again and again, using said again and again is not going to make your reading flow. Striking that balance between the two can be difficult, but in the end it's usually pretty apparent what attribution fits each piece of dialogue. If someone asked a question, asked is a perfect attribution. If someone said something in a harsh, quick tone, barked is a workable attribution. If someone just said something… you can still use said. You know your writing better than anyone else, so make a concerted effort to piece your dialogue together correctly.
How can we break this all up though? Well, we of course do not need a "he said/she said" after every spoken phrase. In a two-way conversation, it's often clear who is saying what after you've established who is speaking in turn. This might seem like a very basic principle, but it's a key component of writing dialogue that is enjoyable to read. Make sure you don't confuse your reader, though.
What I want to talk about more deeply here is something called a beat. Beats are very simple, but at the same time, when you utilize them correctly, the effect is drastic. Let me illustrate.
"What am I supposed to do?" Tom asked.
"Well I don't know," Mary replied. "Have you tried talking to her?"
"Absolutely not! She doesn't even know I exist, Mary."
"That's the problem, silly. It's up to you to change that!"
There's nothing wrong with this. In fact, pick up a book off the best seller rack and you'll likely read a passage of dialogue that is structured just like this. That's just lovely, but it's boring. It's weak. It's lazy! How can we use beats to make it better?
"What am I supposed to say?" Tom asked.
"Well I don't know," Mary shot him a knowing look. "Have you tried talking to her?"
"Absolutely not! She doesn't even know I exist, Mary."
She laughed and slugged him in the shoulder. "That's the problem, silly. It's up to you to change that!"
See how that works? There's only one attribution in that exchange. A beat is extremely simple, but it goes a very long way towards livening up your dialogue. The first example was boring, simple, and told you very little about either character. Even though this is an extremely short example of dialogue, in the example above you can at least immediately see Mary's personality a little. There's more life in your dialogue when you use beats.
In technical terms, a beat is a sentence of a character's action, before, after, or in the middle of a line of dialogue that shifts the reader's focus to that character. It eliminates the need for an attribution, and it gives us a much better image of the scene.
The key is to use balance. Don't become a mindless drone of the "expert's" creed. Pull from each practice, mix it up, and make your writing flow. That means you shouldn't be afraid to use said, synonyms of said, or beats. One thing I will suggest is that you make pretty heavy use of beats. Don't be stingy with them. It's much cleaner to the eye to read actions than it is to constantly wade through he saids and she saids, including any synonyms thereof. It might take a little bit more effort, but you should never sacrifice quality for ease of writing. That's another thing I've heard from teachers. "Just use said. It's invisible to the reader, and it's easier on you." Easier on you? I think the silliness behind that idea speaks for itself.
We've finally come to the end of this installment of Breathe Life Into Your Writing! I hope you were able to get a good idea of how you personally can create strong, well written dialogue. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.
There will be more to come soon, but in the meantime, be sure to read up on the other parts you might have missed!


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By Lucy Cohen Blatter
I have a confession to make: I'm not crazy about chicken breasts. Okay, I realize this isn't a major revelation, but for a cook/blogger who's trying to stay healthy, it's a bit of a challenge. Sure, I love breaded and fried chicken schnitzels — who doesn't? But I much prefer dark meat, and often find skinless, boneless chicken breast recipes to be dry and boring.
That said, I have a lot of faith in Mark Bittman . The former author of the Minimalist column for The New York Times (and current op-ed writer) is all about simplicity. Like me, he often embraces substitutions, too.
And his recipe for Chicken with Coconut and Lime does not disappoint.
The recipe includes an optional addition of nam pla, or fish sauce. To keep this recipe strictly kosher, I omitted that. To up the healthiness of the dish I went with light coconut milk (canned, of course :)).
As an added plus, if your are looking for some new kosher recipes for your Purim Seuda, then this one is a great choice as a main dish!
You'll see in the recipe below how I changed things up a bit (I discovered I was out of cayenne pepper right before I started cooking). Next time I might sprinkle some peanuts on top to add a little bit of crunch.
All in all, it was a great dish. Served with coconut rice (made with leftover coconut milk and water), and steamed broccoli, I felt transported to Thailand. And that's a good thing.
This recipe had seven ingredients including salt. That's my kind of dish.
The coconut milk, lime zest and salt just kinda hang out on the stove for a while.
Bittman advises against flipping the chicken breasts over in the broiler. The tip must have worked because the chicken was moist, but brown and crispy on top.
Pouring the creamy sauce on the chicken. YUM!
The final product. Paired with coconut rice and broccoli, it was perfect.
Mark Bittman's Broiled or Grilled Chicken with Coconut and Lime* (with Lucy's edits)
Time: 20 minutes (I'd say it's more like 25-30 minutes when you take into account reading along with the recipe)
- 2 limes
- 1 to 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts in 4 pieces
- 1/2 cup canned or fresh coconut milk (I went with canned because on weeknights I'm looking for time savers)
- Salt and ground cayenne pepper (I didn't have any ground cayenne, so I substituted red pepper flakes. Totally fine.)
- 1 teaspoon nam pla, fish sauce (optional) (It's difficult to find kosher fish sauce, and if you're making chicken, forget about it. If you substitute fish for the chicken, though, and decide to use fish sauce, I'd hold off on adding salt. Nam pla is very salty)
- 4 minced scallions
- 1/4 cup minced cilantro.
1. Remove the zest from the limes, with either a zester or a vegetable peeler (if you use a peeler, scrape off the white inside of the zest with a paring knife). Mince the zest, and juice the limes. Marinate chicken in half the lime juice while heating broiler; adjust rack to about 4 inches from heat source. (Or grill the chicken if you prefer.)
2. Warm the coconut milk over low heat; season it with salt (hold off on this if you are using nam pla) and a pinch of cayenne. Add the lime zest.
3. Put chicken, smooth side up, on ungreased baking sheet lined with foil, and place the sheet in broiler. Add about half the remaining lime juice to coconut milk mixture.
4. When the chicken is nicely browned on top, in about 6 minutes more, it is done (if you want to be sure, make a small cut in the thickest part and peek inside). Transfer chicken to a warm platter. Add the nam pla, if you are using it, to the coconut milk; taste, and adjust seasoning as necessary. Spoon a little of the sauce over and around the breasts; then, garnish with the scallions and cilantro, and sprinkle with the remaining lime juice. Serve with white rice, passing the remaining sauce.
Yield: 4 servings
*Recipe from the New York Times


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Here's a quick reminder of the lesson… remember Congressman Stark? You see, when you're a twisted and conceded Keynesian Haaarvaaard trained criminal (errr, I mean politician), you learn that traditional math, as taught in elementary school, simply doesn't apply to you or your governmental decisions:
Yawwwn, he makes Larry Summers, Obama's chief advisor for the twisting of Keynes & proponent of never ending credit, look smart and awake…
To "thinkers" like these, when the economy is in trouble because people can't pay their debts, then surely the solution must be found in creating more debt! The never ending fiat kind of debt that ruins mere mortals lives, yet places bigger and bigger bonuses in the kitty for the maniacal math purveyors of Wall Street.
And that makes someone in this story nuts, as in INSANE, but lately I'm wondering who that is, exactly? Is it the ones who engineer the fantasy, or the ones who let themselves be raped by it? Just something to think about as you ponder the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) latest monthly Budget Review. Keep in mind that September was an important month, the end of our nation's fiscal year:
I have pointed out repeatedly that our government is spending more and more while taking in less and less. And yet one "expert" after another lines up on CNBC and CNN to tell Americans that they see the "structural" problems but that, "in the short term" bailing out the banks and spending more than we take in is a good and necessary thing to do. Oh, and there's never been a better time to buy stocks and real estate, but some day, in the future, we'll have to address those "structural problems," but just not today, that wouldn't be prudent!
Our supposed and much trumped up/ fluffed up GDP numbers have been running in the $13+ trillion dollar range and we see all types of reports comparing those goods and services to our national debts. Of course the amount of goods and services produced in our country has NOTHING to do with our debt, but that's what the "experts" like to talk about… it sounds good and important, like they know something you don't.
Trust me, they don't!
What you know is correct… namely that what matters to debt is YOUR income, not the production numbers of your neighbor!
Our nation takes in money through the collection of taxes, a mere formality if you listen to Congressman Stark. I'll bet that he and his Haaaarvaaard training had a tough time predicting that our country's revenues would be falling as dramatically as they have. This is a chart produced by CNN… the relationships are correct, however the scale on the left, supposedly trillions of dollars, is not correct for the current year (the figures are less), please refer to the CBO's revenue numbers above for the correct figures:
Note that our nation's INCOME (receipts) peaked at about $2.7 trillion and has since fallen back to only $2.1 trillion, a 16.6% plunge in the past year in overall receipts!
Personal income taxes are down a stunning 20.1% and corporate tax receipts are down a record setting 54.4%!! Wow! Note that all categories of income were down, including Social Security which fell by $9 billion.
Now, in YOUR family, when you lose your job and your credit is maxed out, the rational thing to do is to cut spending, right? Well not if you've gone to Haaavaaard, you stupid, untrained, American dolt! No, no, you see, you have to spend more to increase indebtedness and thus, well thus, "credit will be flowing nicely again," yeah, that's the ticket! How many times have you heard ex-President Bush or President Obama use the phrase, "...to get credit flowing again?"
And with that exact logic, your "leaders" have managed to spend ever increasing sums of money they don't have:
Notice that while total income has plunged 16.6%, total government outlays have zoomed 17.8%! Wow, it's a good thing they have the higher edumacation, otherwise us dolts might have ruined the country and actually balanced the budget!
Oh, and note that every single category of Government spending has increased except one – the interest on the public debt! Wow, Stark was right and Jan was wrong! How did they manage to spend less on interest? Why, by purchasing their own debt at zero percent interest, of course! There you go again, thinking with that "linear" math. Gee, I wonder what happens when interest rates go up? Hmmm… does not compute, that never happens.
At least not since 1980...
And so, with great fanfare, we have spent ourselves into the greatest deficit of any nation throughout the entire history of the planet! Another $1.4 trillion in the hole, here's how the chart of the official deficit looks for fiscal year 2009:
And if you think that's the stuff of great nations… Wait! There's more!
Least you think I'm whacko for adding it all up, as I did last year in Death by Numbers, using the most conservative numbers possible, this time I'm going to let Larry Edelson charm you with some figures of his own… it seems that Larry also owns a calculator or two, and can thus add up figures that nary a Haaavaaard trained economic "expert" can:
Washington's Tower of Debts
The total amount of U.S. government debts and obligations is far greater than what most people realize.
Uncle Sam is saddled with...-An officially recognized national debt of $11.8 trillion, which will likely exceed $12 trillion sometime this month.Grand total: $125.8 TRILLION of public debts!
-Unfunded national obligations of $104 trillion!
-Another $9 trillion in cumulative deficits over the next ten years.
-Plus another trillion dollars for health care reform, no matter what bill finally makes it through Congress.
All told, that means that each and every household in America is now indirectly responsible for more than 1 MILLION DOLLARS in government debts and obligations. And that assumes no new government spending, no new social programs, no new wars, no new economic disasters or bailouts. Worse, it assumes no new deficits in the meantime!
Put another way, even if the government could somehow pay off that debt at the rate of $100 million PER DAY, it would take 3,446 years before the total government debts and obligations are paid off.
Even if Washington were to pay off $1 billion per day, it would still take nearly 345 years to pay off those debts!
Patently unsustainable debts? Yes! Patently unpayable? You bet it is!
Of course, Washington will never default outright on its obligations. But it doesn't have to. By devaluing the dollar, Washington can effectively pay off its debts with a cheaper currency.
This is why the dollar is falling... and why savvy investors all over the world are beginning to lose confidence in Washington and our currency .. and why it's all leading to a massive renewed bull market in natural resources, especially gold.
Make no mistake about it: By doing nothing, your finances become a victim of a falling dollar — a currency whose purchasing power has already lost more than 36 percent of its value in the last decade... will lose a lot more purchasing power in the months ahead...
LOL, ONLY $1,000,000 for every household in the United States? Gee, I thought it was way more than that by now. You see, the tooth fairy came and whispered in my ear that Larry Summers has everything under control, and then the Cheshire Cat appeared but was quickly displaced by the Mad Hatter who, a graduate of Haaaraaard, kept yelling 2 + 2 EQUALS INFINITY, over and over…
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit:
When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said;
"Keep YOUR HEAD"
"Keep your head"


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3" Dee Designed to apply pressure to a horse's lip on the opposite side of the face. Excellent bit for young colts or older horses that need a little moe control. 5" Mouthpiece.
Reinsman Equestrian Products manufactures quality western riding equipment. Their experienced and skilled craftspeople take pride to assure each product is manufactured correctly.


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Want a sweetie tree covered in your favourite sweets? Look no further. Our sweetie trees are great for every occassion; birthdays, exhibitions, weddings, or just a big treat for yourself or as a thank you. We create a topiary shaped tree covered with your favourite sweets and also fill the pot with your choice of sweets too. Comes together with a label of choice which can be personalised (please let us know).
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Rockefeller family member among six BC seniors charged with trashing a Brighton apartment
Six Boston College seniors are accused of trashing an apartment in Brighton and severing a gas line in the basement on the night before Saint Patrick's Day, endangering a sleeping tenant as the building filled with gas, prosecutors said.
The men all pleaded not guilty at their arraignment Wednesday in Brighton District Court on charges of breaking and entering in the nighttime and willful and malicious destruction of property over $250, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley's office said in a statement.
Conrad J. Bletzer, a lawyer for one of the men, defended his client in a phone interview.
"I think that when all the evidence comes out, it will be shown that he is not guilty of all charges,'' said Bletzer, who represents Christian Rockefeller, 22, of Pleasantville, N.Y.
Rockefeller normally "would have been welcome'' at the apartment in question, Bletzer added. He would not elaborate.
Rockefeller is a great-grandson of Nelson A. Rockefeller, a former US vice president and New York governor, according to the Associated Press. Rockefeller could not be reached for comment, and a family spokesman had no comment.
Lawyers for the other defendants could not be reached or declined to comment.
According to prosecutors, the men forced their way into a Gerald Road apartment at about 11:30 p.m. on March 16 and "punched holes in the walls, urinated throughout the apartment, and threw eggs, milk, and other food'' inside the premises, the statement said.
Tables and speakers were also damaged, prosecutors said.
The men then proceeded to the basement, where they allegedly ripped a gas line from a clothes dryer and fled, "failing to provide any warning to the resident who continued to sleep as the building filled with gas,'' Conley's office said.
Total property damage was estimated at $25,000.
A call to National Grid alerting the utility to the situation was traced to a phone that belongs to one of the defendants, Arthur Pidoriano, 21, of Courtlandt Manor, N.Y., according to the statement. He later admitted to Boston police in the presence of his attorney that he and the other men vandalized the apartment, prosecutors said.
All six defendants were released on personal recognizance and ordered to stay drug- and alcohol-free, among other conditions, the statement said.
Authorities identified the other defendants as Charles Howe, 21, of Pleasantville, N.Y.; Timothy Orr, 21, of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.; David Rogers, 22, of Providence; and Matthew Tolkowsky, 22, of Morristown, N.J. They are all due back in court on May 16.
Jake Wark, a spokesman for Conley, said that "alcohol may have played a part, but it certainly provides no excuse.''
He said there is no evidence that the men knew the tenant or the owner of the building, a two-family house.
Jack Dunn, a BC spokesman, said in an e-mail that the men "face sanctions within the university'' but would not discuss possible penalties.
Be civil. Be kind.Read our full community guidelines.


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Locations|Contact Us|Careers
The site navigation utilizes arrow, enter, escape, and space bar key commands. Left and right arrows move across top level links and expand / close menus in sub levels. Up and Down arrows will open main level menus and toggle through sub tier links. Enter and space open menus and escape closes them as well. Tab will move on to the next part of the site rather than go through menu items.
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Horizon Bancorp, Inc. is an independent, commercial bank holding company serving Indiana and Michigan through its commercial banking subsidiary, Horizon Bank. Horizon Bancorp, Inc. may be reached online at www.horizonbank.com. Its common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol HBNC.
It's National Scholarship Month! If you or one of your family members is planning to begin college in the next year, this is a good time to start looking into scholarships to help fund higher education. In fact, even current college students may be able to find new scholarship opportunities each year.
Why scholarships matter
The biggest benefit offered by scholarships, is that, unlike student loans, they do not need to be repaid.
Scholarships can vary in amounts, from hundreds to many thousands of dollars. And they're offered by everyone from individuals who want to give a helping hand, to large corporations funding the educations of potential future employees.
But no matter what their size, scholarships can help keep out-of-pocket expenses and student loans to a minimum — and can even open doors to colleges you may have thought were out of reach.
Where to find scholarships
Scholarships are available for a wide variety of students and courses of study — with goals of promoting the arts, developing entrepreneurial talents, rewarding athletes, and more. Whether you're an adult returning to school after years of work, or a high school senior preparing for your first year in college, chances are there's an opportunity available to you.
Here are a few places online you can search and apply for a broad range of scholarships:
Current high school students should also talk to school counselors to see if any local or state scholarships may be available to reward academic performance, or to support particular courses of study.
Additionally, your chosen college or university will have a database of scholarship opportunities that are available for students in your major. But you may take the initiative to ensure that you're being considered — so be sure to talk with your advisor for details during the registration process.
Start now
At this time of year, scholarship providers begin rolling out new details about scholarships for the next academic year. Because many have lengthy application and approval processes, it's a good idea to start early. And remember, the competition for many scholarships can be tough — so apply for multiple opportunities, to improve your chances of obtaining valuable funds for your education.
If you need help managing your finances as you or your family member heads to college, 888-873-2640 today. Horizon Bank is committed to providing you with the Sensible Advice you need to plan for your future.


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Heading out of fall's impending darkness
One day in October every year, I leave my home valley and make a pilgrimage up into Oregon's Cascade Mountains. I am not seeking enlightenment, exactly. I am seeking simply light.
My birthday falls on Oct. 10, long enough past the fall equinox that the ever-growing darkness of autumn can no longer be denied. Every day the sun rises later from behind the valley's eastern wall, and every day it drops sooner behind the black ridges to the west. During the lengthening nights, summer's stored-up heat leaves the valley and radiates toward the stars, which glitter ever more brightly. Our tawny-shouldered hills shiver in the morning breeze, and the day always comes when the sky is filled with vultures, rising up on the last weakened thermals until they reach the north wind that carries them away to California, summer's ragged soldiers in full retreat.
Soon, I know, will come the rain, and then the snow. Soon, the serious dark. This end of nature's year is also the end of my own -- another birthday, another milestone of my mortality. In the bleak gray October dawn, it can be hard to take.
At the same time, I enjoy melancholy, and autumn is my favorite season. Yet, before I embrace that dark, I need one day of perfect light, light reflected off a forest of brilliant autumn leaves. This can't be found in my town, where the dominant hardwoods are oaks, whose leaves turn, at best, a somber orange-brown, and where the blazing color of the occasional non-native sugar maple or box elder seems garish and forced. So on a weekend near my birthday, I point my battered Subaru up the Crater Lake Highway, higher and higher, past the last town, past the last dam, into the towering, almost black conifer forests, where the Rogue River runs cold.
For about 50 weeks of the year, this great mountain forest of Douglas-fir, hemlock, and pine is dark green, a place of shadows, large silences and puritanical sobriety. But sometime in October, all is changed, and the huge trees seem to step back as the humble hazels and maples at their feet begin to glow, and glow brighter, and finally blaze with the intimate incandescence of candle flame, until the mountains are filled with a light unlike any other -- warming, piercing, purifying and breathtaking. This is the light I come to seek.
A trail runs along the river here, and this is the route of my pilgrimage. A hundred feet back into the forest, the sun-loving little hardwoods are shaded out, surrendering the spongy ground to mushrooms and deep-forest herbs like vanilla-leaf and pipsissewa. There, the dark conifers remain in shadow. But in this brief season, they merely provide a black backdrop to the brilliance of the hazelnuts and vine maples that line the riverbanks, spreading their leaves in the sun that fed them all summer long, and now illuminates their dying glory.
The hazelnuts grow in dense thickets, and are so beloved by the squirrels that in all my years of hiking through their groves, I have only found a handful of their nuts. It is a mystery how they replace themselves. Their autumn leaves are delicate, first turning a subtle yellow-green, and at their peak attaining a yellow whose translucent pale purity rinses the air with cleansing light.
Vine maples are far more flamboyant. Even as they begin to turn, their star-shaped leaves glow a deep golden yellow, and with the advance of frosty nights, they flame into scarlet, a color the hazels never dare to attempt. The brightest maples always seem to be at the water's edge, where their colors are stirred by the restless river, a fluid rainbow carried away past the towering conifers, which appear to lean forward for a better look, but say nothing.
I walk through these wonders wide-eyed, and as I breathe, I feel nourished by the light, literally fed until my stomach grows full, electrified until I tingle to my fingertips. This magic never fails, a gift of nature as reliable as the turning of the earth itself. After my day in the forest of light, I return homeward strengthened and prepared: ready for another year, ready for winter, ready for the night.
Pepper Trail is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News(hcn.org). He is a biologist and writer in Ashland, Oregon.


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2020 Jeep Cherokee Latitude Plus 4WD
WHI-BRT White
Dealership Information
Wells Motor Company
Michael Linkenbach
1600 US Hwy 27 South
Avon Park, FL 33825
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- Child Safety Door Locks
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All new vehicle prices include standard rebates only. You may qualify for additional rebate money from Chrysler. Prices on all vehicles does not include sales tax, tag, or title fee. We do not charge any dealer fees. We try our very best to display correct pricing on all our vehicles and we not responsible for any errors in pricing due to rebate changes or mathematical errors. Call or email us with any questions you might have.


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Try this: Bouillabaisse
Ingredients for six
- 1kg mixed small fish, gilled, gutted, scaled (see notes)
- 100ml extra virgin olive oil
- 12 green prawns, peeled and deveined, shells reserved
- 2 large brown onions, chopped
- 2 leeks, washed well, white part only, chopped
- 1 bulb fennel, bulb and stems diced, fronds reserved
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 tablespoons chopped chervil, stems reserved
- 2 litres water
- 400g canned Italian tomatoes, diced
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 fresh bay leaves
- 2 sprigs thyme
- 2 sprigs French tarragon (see notes)
- Pinch saffron strands
- 1 x 2.5cm strip dried orange peel
- Salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 18 blue mussels, debearded
- 400g leatherjacket fillets, skin off, bones removed, cut into chunks
- 400g loligo squid, cleaned, hood sliced, tentacles chopped
- 1 sourdough baguette, sliced and toasted
Rouille (makes about two and a half cups)
- 1 red capsicum
- 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 1⁄4 teaspoon ground cayenne
- 1 teaspoon salt flakes
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
- 2 cups olive oil
- Make Rouille: Roast capsicums over a flame, or in a 250C oven for about 30 minutes, until skin turns black all over; place in a plastic bag until cool enough to handle then peel and discard seeds and membrane. Place capsicum, garlic, cayenne, salt, egg yolks and vinegar in a food processor and pulse to combine. With motor running, slowly drizzle in oil until thick and emulsified. Set aside.
- Wipe out the belly cavities of the fish to remove any trace of blood, chop into 2-3cm pieces, including the heads.
- Heat a large saucepan over medium heat, add oil and, when hot, add pieces of whole fish and cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes, until lightly coloured. Add prawn shells, onion, leek, fennel, garlic and chervil stems and cook for a few more minutes, until shells are red and vegetables are soft, crushing shells occasionally.
- Add 1⁄2 cup of the water to the saucepan and stir well to remove any bits on the base of the pan. Add tomatoes and their liquid, tomato paste, bay leaves, thyme, tarragon, fennel fronds, saffron, orange peel, remaining water, salt and pepper to the saucepan. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Remove orange peel, bay leaves, thyme and largest pieces of fish bones (it doesn't matter if there's some left behind). Blitz the soup with a stick blender to roughly chop then pass through a mouli food mill (using the finest disc) into a clean saucepan, discarding solids. Bring to a very gentle simmer, add mussels, prawns, leatherjacket and squid and cook for a few minutes, until mussels just open. Stir in chervil, remove from heat. Taste and add salt and pepper.
- Ladle into warmed soup bowls, sprinkle with chervil leaves and serve with Rouille and toasted baguette.
- Use a mixture of small fish such as flathead, red gurnard, goatfish, scorpionfish and whiting for this recipe. If French tarragon is not available, omit it, do not replace with tasteless Russian tarragon. Rouille keeps refrigerated for up to 4 days.
- Alternative species: any small, white fish for the soup base; add prawns, vongole, cuttlefish, john dory, mirror dory or snapper to the finished soup.


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Accessibility: How to Produce Accessible Documents - An Introduction (Workshop) New
Bookings for this course are placed on hold in response to the rapidly changing events due to COVID-19. The status of these courses will be reviewed towards the end of April 2020. See the University's COVID-19 page for up to date information.
This course will show you basic principles and processes for creating accessible documents in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and PDFs.
Target audience
- Anyone needing to produce Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents
- Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available
Topics covered
- Overview of Document Accessibility
- Screen readers
- Images, Hyperlinks, Contrast & Colour
- Headings in Word
- Lists & Columns & Tables
- Layouts, Reading Order, & Principles of Accessibility in PowerPoint
- Using Accessibility Checkers
- Manual Accessibility Evaluation
- Creating PDFs
- Presentations, demonstrations and hands-on exercises
ThemeAccessibility & Assistive Technology
Events available


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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sweet Nostalgia (Updated!)
-Scouting around in the 'drawers' of my computer I run into these three.
I thought it would be cool to compose them together as they are the three stages (not stooges) of page 19 of old Mrs youknowwhat's adventures.
-By the way, around the time I was publishing my graphic novel in this blog we went one day on a sketchclub session, and guess who was there eating at the restaurant. That young lady looked so much like the character in the comic I couldn't believe it.
-YES. Even nostalgia can be updated.
As Shuku was mentioning in her comment about 'El Diablo's" italian shoes, here is another key moment in what happened 'that night in and around Hollywood' (©) to our young and daring friend... entering the "Palm Reading" shop.
Posted by Marcos Mateu at 11:03 PM 32 comments:
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Trains, trains and automobiles
Automotive sketchclub we had yesterday with Marcelo, Noelle and Craig (Grace and Gloria too as guest stars!!).
It was a beautiful day outside so we headed for 'Travel Town' at Griffith's Park and I have to say it's been one of my most exciting sketchlubs to date!
Posted by Marcos Mateu at 8:54 AM 35 comments:
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This guy was staring at me at the parade in Waikiki. I wasn't worried because he seemed harmless. Maybe he never saw a person without bug eyes before...
Monday, March 23, 2009
Posted by Ka`iana at 7:13 PM
1 comments:
- Anonymous said...
that's a ghost
- March 24, 2009 at 4:30 AM
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$800 Million Recovered for our Clients
Hablamos Español
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We love Steam almost as much as we love sales. Perhaps your wallet (or, hey, let's not forget about purses) has combusted due to overuse.
Over the years we've come to trust Steam, but that wasn't always the case as my video above shows.
Music: Atlantean Twilight Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Have words you want to tweet at me? I can be found @laserfrog


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I first posted this back in March. Since that time, I have all but given up on Heroes. A great graphic accompanied this Racialicious post to show just how much characters of colors have lost ground on the program. In fact, the Racialicious rountablers have traded in Heroes for Flash Forward—a series I have seen only one episode of and now feel as thought I may be too far behind to get on board with. I did have a post about Prince alumni Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman's music for the show. Maybe I'll get to that, but I'm not holding my breath.
I still have some Nip/Tuck episodes on DVR, but I'm not that enthusiastic about watching them. There's a new prison storyline with Matt, an older woman-younger man story line with Julia's mother, and a serial killer wife storyline. There was an especially disturbing episode involving Sean and Julia's daughter's Trichophagia—put me off of my food for the rest of the evening. But no more characters of color and continuing clumsy treatment of LGBT issues.
I'm holding out hope for the new season of True Blood. There will be a storyline featuring a (gay) vampire king. Oh—and it was not Lafayette who was found dead in a car! In the meantime, during my recent trip to San Francisco, my college roommate hipped me to Epitafios. But I have been unable to find the subtitled versions of the first season for rent anywhere. Other than that, I haven't found any new shows to get excited about, so my TV viewing has been severely curtailed. You'd think that'd mean I'd be getting a lot of work done.
You'd think.
There are only a handful of TV shows that I watch faithfully, week in and week out. For one, I like being in on the start of a television phenomenon, seeing a series unfold in real time. Thus, it is not likely that in mid-series I will start watching, say "Lost" or "The Wire," even when friends whose opinions I respect assure me I would love them. But mostly, I am kind of commitment phobic when it comes to TV shows, thinking they are bound to let me down as other shows have in the past.
Three of my favorite recent shows have been prime examples of this tendency of TV shows to disappoint.
"Heroes" began with a bang, and I watched it religiously. The concept was great. The cast was a virtual rainbow coalition of heroes and villains. The story lines were engaging. But over time, more and more characters of color either (a) were killed off, or just (b) disappeared from the story lines. (Racialicious has been keeping up with these developments.) This White-washing is all the more troubling because of how often White killed-off characters—but not the POC—have seemed to have the ability to come back to life. Not to mention how the few remaining characters of color have been treated: one gets his memory wiped back to his 10-year-old state; one, after his beheading, appears only as a magical Negro spiritual guide to a White character; one–known only as "The Haitian" (even in Haiti, apparently) just…kind of…falls off the script, but not before being revealed to be less powerful than what he was previously portrayed as.
My only hope for Heroes is that the mysterious "Rebel" character is the biracial little boy who can talk to and control machines. It'd be nice, though, if we could see him, instead of just his text messages.
Besides Heroes, there is in my DVR cue the FX network series Nip/Tuck. In this case the offense is not so much "White-washing"—though my favorite character from the past (played by Sanaa Lathan) has never returned despite this show's tendency to bring back characters from past seasons. Instead, in this case we get a "Straight-washing" of the characters: One of the main female characters who used to be married to one of the male leads finally finds love in a relationship with Ellen's real-life spouse. But…she ends up back in the bed of the other male lead…then loses her memory…then her partner (played by Portia de Rossi) unceremoniously dies on the operating table. What? Past seasons have also not been kind to sexual minorities: they are frequently mixed-up, conniving, and even (literally) murderous. Can't just one of these characters be well adjusted?
Well, actually there was one such person. The one character who was a strong, proud lesbian from the start gets sexually and romantically involved with one of the main male leads (the same one who led Portia's girlfriend back to the straight side—guess his organ really does have magical powers). And, in the season finale—marries him! Perhaps this is meant to be a political statement on the unfairness of California's Proposition 8. (The series is now set in California.) But if that is the case, they probably needed to be a little less subtle with their statement.
Finally, "True Blood." I have been a sucker (hee-hee) for the vampire genre ever since I was a child and first saw Bella Lugosi's intense, sexy stare. So, needless to say I had high hopes for a modern-day vampire tale, set in Louisiana, that appeared to be a parable of the Black and LGBT civil rights struggles. And early episodes of the series did not disappoint. In fact, I was hooked by just the opening credits. But. But. More recently we get a combination, double-whammy, twofer of White- and straight-washing. The sexy Creole guy turns out to be the Vampire-lover killer (and, actually, not Creole at all). Okay. Fair enough. But then the strong-willed ironically named Black character, Tara, seems to undergo a transformation that is not making me optimistic about her further development. Oh, and there is the very interesting shy, gay vampire character who gets killed off.
And the biggest outrage: the disappearance of the hands-down most interesting character: a smart, witty, enterprising gay male character, Lafayette. In the season finale an apparently Black character who we only see from the painted toenails ends up dead.
This. Better. Not. Be. Lafayette.
Really, the main story line–a "Twilight"-like romance between a virginal White heroine and a Civil-War era Southern gentleman vampire–is the least interesting. But it is not likely that the writers will drop it, since that is what the novel series on which it is based is all about.
So, will I continue to give my love to TV programs that don't love me? When the new seasons of these shows start up again will my feelings be spared the disappointment of my failed TV relationships of the past? Will I decide to write a work of fan fiction in which all the deposed characters of color and LGBT characters from my (previously) favorite programs appear together in their own series where they are all the stars?
Stay tuned, boys and girls…


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Hi Everyone,
Yeah I have my first new blog post up on my new blog. Come and check out 10 day old Baby X, he's so cute.
Hi Everyone,
Yeah I have my first new blog post up on my new blog. Come and check out 10 day old Baby X, he's so cute.
This is the very cute Hayley. She was about a week old when I took her photos.
I tell you what she made me work hard to get the photos of her but it was so worth it. The poor little thing just didn't like me touching her, every time I did anything to her she stirred and then cried. I like to think that I'm usually pretty darn good with babies, they fall asleep great for me, I absolutely adore shooting them, and I just love being around them, but this day she just didn't want a bar of me. I felt like such a meanie. Anyway we ended up with some great photos so I am definately not complaining.
Thanks so much to her lovely Mum for being so patient. Hope you guys like the photo. What do you think the portrait or landscape photo?
Sorry to everyone who usually follows my blog on a regular basis, I had been unwell for a week and then my daughter was really crook so I have not had a chance to get onto the computer let alone post anything. Finally all is going great again and I have some new things to post on the blog, Yeah I'm starting to catch up again.
My cousin Tracey and her hubby Shane had the most gorgeous baby girl named Kalani and I am so lucky that I was able to do some newborn photos of her.
I haven't seen Tracey in so long it's ridiculous, you loose touch with family so easily as you get older and you all have your own family to take care of. We were talking and how bad is it that her hubby met all of us for the first time at a funeral. I decided that getting together for a new baby is way better and thought bugger this we're having a cousins get together, why not? It's a good way for all of us to keep in touch and get to know each other again.
Anyway here is one of the shots I got of the gorgeous Kalani, she was the best baby to shoot. She didn't really stir at all and I was finally able to get a baby in this pose. I am so excited, this pose is quite difficult to get as babies don't always want to be put into some poses and recently ever bub that I tried just didn't want a bar of it so we did other things instead. You ALWAYS have to listen to what the baby does and doesn't like, and I can tell you they will certainly let you know if they don't like it.
Anyways what do you think? I think this shot looks great and Kalani is just adorable?
Here are the last couple of photos of Storm. I wasn't going to put up any more of her but I just thought they were so cute.
I just love this photo of my daughter. It is now my most favourite shot of her. She is such a great model for me, she's just so natural and relaxed. I don't think I really have many bad photos of her at all. It sux because I am so not photogenic and my husband and daughter are, lucky things.
You know some people are just good in front of a camera, I'm not sure if it's confidence or what it is that makes a person photogenic. Photogenic doesn't even mean that you are drop dead gorgeous, it's just something that you have, for some reason that means that you look good in photos.
What do you think it is that makes a person photogenic?
Here are a few more photos of Ruby. Just about all done, yeh. Can't wait for Mum and Dad to see them.
This is the very cute Ruby. She was only a week old when I took these photos of her and she was such a great baby. She slept beautiful and let me do whatever I wanted once she'd had a feed and had a nice full tummy.
I can't decide between the original shot or the desaturated. I think the desaturated looks kinda cool because of the wooden box and the old feel it gives it but I like the saturated one as well with all the colour to it.
What do you think? To saturate or not to saturate?
Here are some shots from the same day that I did the photo's of Izzy. Her Mum's friend and her baby. Apart from getting upset because he was hungry he was great to shoot, very bright and bubbly once that tummy was full.
This is a sneak peak of a gorgeous little bub that I did some photo's of when she was a newborn and now again at 3 months old. She is such a little cutie and it's always fun with her and her Mum and Dad.
Here are some storyboard designs that I did as well.


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Analysis of mRNA expression in tissue or cell culture is often done by Northern blot or ribonuclease protection assay (RPA). Northern assays require the total RNA to be resolved on a denaturing agarose gel first, then transferred to a membrane and immobilized for subsequent hybridization. Nonisotopic RPAs, which utilize probes labeled with modified nucleotides (e.g. biotin, digoxigenin, fluorescein, or suitable hapten), are transferred to a membrane from denaturing polyacrylamide gels for detection by a secondary detection scheme (e.g. streptavidin/avidin conjugates, or anti-digoxigenin and anti-fluorescein antibodies).
Since different types of gels are used for these techniques, the mode of transfer is different in each case. Agarose gels are used for Northerns because of their wide range of resolving power and large loading capacity. Their porosity allows efficient passive transfer of nucleic acids onto a membrane. Polyacrylamide gels characteristically have much sharper resolution, but lower loading capacities. The nature of polyacrylamide gel matrices does not permit efficient transfer by passive diffusion, thus an electroblotting method is used instead.
Choice of Membrane
There are several types of commercially available membranes suitable for RNA analysis, composed of different materials and carrying different charges. The common ones are made of nylon and nitrocellulose, and may be neutral, negatively or positively charged. Nylon (polyamide) membranes are made of the most durable material, but can shrink or warp if exposed to organic solvents. Nitrocellulose tends to tear easily in washing steps and becomes very fragile and brittle if baked. It is also incompatible with secondary detection steps, since protein easily absorbs to the surface and does not specifically bind to the hapten on the probe. The surface of neutral membranes actually comprises equal amounts of positive and negatively charged molecules. The overall net charge is zero, but spotty background can result due to areas of with higher densities of positive charges. Negative membranes give the cleanest background, but result in poor specific signal. Positively charged membranes give the best signal of all, but they also result in higher background. Although the signal-to-noise ratio is lower on positively charged membranes than on other membrane types, the lower level detection limit they permit offsets that disadvantage. For this reason, we recommend using Ambion's BrightStar™-Plus membranes, which are positively charged nylon and have a high affinity for nucleic acids.
Optimal Transfer Conditions
Denaturing Agarose Blotting
The best low-tech method for agarose transfer is a passive, slightly alkaline, downward elution. This procedure, in comparison to upward transfer, is much faster, and therefore results in tighter bands and more signal.
The composition of the transfer buffer is usually a 5X SSC/10 mM NaOH solution. These mildly alkaline conditions shear the RNA into smaller fragments and denature it as it is deposited onto the membrane. A brief protocol for assembly (see Figure 1) and transfer is as follows:
- Remove top end of gel by slicing through wells with a razor blade. For orientation purposes, cut a small notch in the upper right hand corner of the gel.
- Cut paper towels and filter paper to roughly the same dimensions of the gel. The top sheet of filter paper is wetted with transfer buffer before the membrane is placed on the stack.
- Wet the membrane and lay it on top of the paper stack. Notch the membrane in the upper right hand corner. Use a glass pipet to roll out any air bubbles between the membrane and the filter paper (nucleic acids do not transfer through air).
- Wet the bottom of the gel and lay on the membrane, aligning the notches. Again, smooth out any bubbles between the gel and membrane.
- Wet another filter paper piece and lay on top of the gel, smoothing out bubbles. Lay a few more pieces of filter paper on top of the stack.
- Use a few lengths of 3MM Whatman chromatography paper to create a bridge from the buffer tank to the paper stack.
- Cover the stack with the gel casting tray to keep the stack wet. Do not add weight to compress the stack.
- Check to be sure the buffer bridge is not touching the paper towels below the gel, and that all buffer transfer is only possible through the gel.
- Continue transfer for 1-2 hours. Do not attempt to check progress, or else the alignment may be disturbed.
- Disassemble and proceed with the crosslinking method of choice, discussed later.
Polyacrylamide and Agarose Gel Blotting
Transfer from polyacrylamide gels requires more force than is offered by passive elution. The highly crosslinked matrix does not allow passive transfer in efficient, quantitative, or reproducible yield. Thus, polyacrylamide gels should be transferred by electroblotting. This method has shown that a 32P/biotinylated RNA probe is transferred at 100% efficiency to Ambion's BrightStar-Plus membranes, with no material left behind in the gel and none passing through the membrane:
The protocol is simply that of the manufacturer's recommendations for their apparatus. The method described here has been developed with the Owl transfer blotter:
- Cut six pieces of filter paper to the size of the gel to be transferred.
- Prepare 100 ml of 0.5X TBE electrophoresis buffer for wetting the papers.
- Wet two of the filter papers and place them on the cathode plate of the electroblotter. Use a glass pipet to roll out any air bubbles that may inhibit transfer.
- After gel electrophoresis, separate the glass plates and immobilize the gel onto a piece of filter paper. Lay the gel/filter paper on top of the wetted papers, gel side up.
- Cut the upper right-hand corner of the membrane for orientation purposes, wet the membrane, and place on top of the gel. Smooth out any air bubbles with a glass pipet.
- Wet the last three filter papers and place on the stack. Take care to squeeze out any trapped air.
- Wet the general area of the anode plate that will be in contact with the paper stack.
- Place the anode plate on top and secure firmly, but not so tight that contacts will occur outside of the stack.
- Electrophorese for 30 min. at 200 mA (constant current setting).
- Disassemble and proceed with the crosslinking method of choice, discussed below.
Crosslinking Methods
There are two common methods for immobilizing RNA on a membrane; both work equally well. These two options are given based on the availability of equipment in your lab. UV crosslinking is one of the most popular methods, using either a hand-held UV lamp at short wavelength, or a commercial crosslinking device. The other common method baking the membrane in an oven at 80°C
UV Crosslinking
Shortwave UV light causes the nitrogenous bases in RNA, mostly uracil, to become highly reactive and to form covalent linkages to amine groups on the surface of the membrane. Damp membranes require an exposure of approximately 120 millijoules/cm2. This is usually equivalent to the "auto-crosslink" feature on commercially available, calibrated UV crosslinkers. If a calibrated instrument is not available, it is possible to use standard laboratory equipment such as transilluminators and handheld ultraviolet lamps to fix RNA targets to a membrane. Care must be taken not to under or overexpose the RNA to UV light — both of which will decrease hybridization signals. Usually a one minute exposure with 254 nm light or three minutes with 302 nm light is sufficient. To ensure maximum sensitivity, however, the following experiment should be carried out.
- Prepare a gel with five identical lanes containing 1 µg of RNA each. Run the gel and transfer it to the membrane.
- Carefully cut the membrane into identical strips containing one lane each. Wrap these individually in a single layer of UV-transparent plastic wrap.
- Put the strips face down on a transilluminator (or face up if using a handheld light source). Be sure to wear UV-opaque eyewear.
- Expose individual strips to UV light for 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, and 5 minutes. Be sure the strips are treated exactly as they will be during actual use, especially the degree to which they are allowed to dry before irradiation.
- Probe the blot for an abundantly to moderately abundantly expressed message, according to your Northern blot protocol.
- The strip having the highest intensity signal corresponds to the optimal exposure time for a particular membrane with a particular UV source. This experiment should be repeated occasionally, as the energy output of a particular device may change over time.
Baking works by heating the membrane to drive out all water solubilizing the RNA. A large component of RNA is its hydrophobic nucleotide bases, which make hydrophobic contacts with aromatic groups on the membrane. This interaction is affected by heating in an oven at 80°C for 15 min. The only danger in baking is that the membrane can be damaged if the heat is not regulated to prevent temperatures from rising much higher than 100°C.


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This is a 300mm (11.8") ribbon cable with two 6 Pin Micro Match connectors on either end.
It can be used to connect I2C or SPI devices together. For example, our range of Serial LCD displays to one of our Single Board Computers with a Micro Match connector.
To pay via PayPal Express Checkout, go to Cart! Paying via this method is very fast, no sign in or registration is required. Your address information at PayPal is used.


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This is KWKPromes' Safe House, a palatial modern home that transforms into a doorless monolith. It's perfect for keeping up with the Jones (and keeping out the Jones when they try to steal your kerosene and Labrador to fricassée).
Safe House stands outside of Warsaw, Poland. Here are the home's specs from World Architecture News:
The sliding walls (both 2.2m high, 15 and 22m long) are not the only mobile elements of the building. Apart from these, there are large shutters – all 2.8m high, with width ranging up to 3.5m, and a drawbridge, leading to the roof terrace above the swimming pool. A giant roll-down gate closing the southern elevation also functions as a movie projection screen. All the movable elements are based on built-in electric motors. The whole building is a concrete monolith, while its mobile parts – for the sake of considerable size – are light steel frameworks filled with mineral wool. As a result, the building is excellently insulated when closed.
The home also contains a series of gates and limited entry points to keep out unwanted guests. Check it out on lockdown.
For more abodes that scream "no solicitors," see Tower Y and this anti-zombie barge.
[Spotted on Boing Boing]


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| 2.6°C Belfast
Two masked gunmen stormed one of London's most fashionable hotels and tied up a member of staff before fleeing with cash and mobile phones.
The raiders, speaking in Eastern European accents, burst into Dean Street Townhouse in Soho just after 3am, where they threatened an employee with a long-barrelled gun and demanded money, police said.
No shots were fired and no one was injured but one man was treated for shock.
The hotel in Dean Street is popular with celebrities, and Kate Moss, Anne Hathaway and Brian Ferry are all said to have stayed there, while Gwyneth Paltrow cut the ribbon at its opening.
Met Detective Superintendent Jess Ruddell said hotel staff had been left "very shaken" by the raid and urged witnesses to contact police.
She said: "This is a very serious incident and we are working around the clock to identify those responsible.
"It was a very frightening experience for staff, who were threatened with a long barrelled weapon and were very shaken.
"The suspects are two men who were described as speaking with Eastern European accents and were wearing white hoodies.
"I want to appeal to any witnesses or anyone with information to contact us."
Dean Street Townhouse is part of the Soho House Group chain, which boasts a string of boutique hotels and private members clubs all over the world, including in New York, Hollywood and Berlin.
The four-storey Georgian townhouse has 39 bedrooms which are all individually designed with hand-painted Georgian wallpaper, according to the hotel's website.
It also has an impressive art collection which includes works by Turner Prize winner Tracey Emin, Mat Collishaw and Peter Blake, and is hung across the lounge and restaurant areas.
Staff at the hotel declined to comment on the raid.
Anyone who witnessed the incident or has any information is asked to call Metropolitan Police officers in Westminster on 101.
A Soho House spokesman said: " We can confirm that an incident took place in the lobby area of the Dean Street Townhouse in the early hours of this morning.
"Two male members of staff were on duty and no one was hurt in the incident. The matter is currently being investigated by the Metropolitan Police."