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Let's Talk Counseling gives our providers a Virtual Office to help manage their online business. The Virtual Office provides tools to help with scheduling, session fees, and analytics including revenue tracking and page hits.
The Virtual office also includes a public page that will appear in client search results. This page will detail your areas of expertise, and help prospective clients learn more about you prior to requesting an appointment. Our providers can use this page to help promote their business.
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When you're an established director in British television it must be important to time your leap into films. It could be a matter of waiting for the right opportunity to come along. You might have a brainchild of your own to nurture into life. However you go about it, mistakes could be fatal for your aspirations. Do you stick to what you know or strike out boldly to get yourself noticed?
Colm McCarthy adopted the practical approach of a bit of both. Born in Edinburgh, his debut feature is set in the city and packed full of bleak, grey vistas. They're similar to the gritty tone of one of McCarthy's previous credits, Murphy's Law. And McCarthy relies on the star of that show, James Nesbitt, to head up a strong line-up of British acting talent in Outcast. The director also co-wrote the film, which is a shocking and dramatic departure from glossy programmes like Hustle, The Tudors and Spooks which also adorn his CV.
Outcast is the tale of Mary (Kate Dickie) and Fergal (Niall Bruton), a mother and son pair that find themselves settling into a dingy, dirty flat on a rough estate on Edinburgh's outskirts. As the film progresses it's clear that Mary is fiercely protective of her son and that she and him are running and hiding from something dark in their past. Connections which link them to Cathal (Nesbitt) gradually surface, who arrives in the city on a primal hunt to kill. It doesn't take long before members of the recognisable British cast start dropping like flies, but the culprit remains ambiguous right up until the climax of the story.
From the start Outcast tries too hard to establish its weird, horrific credentials. Rather than subtly revealing the occult aspects to the story, the clunky script hammers them home. We watch as Nesbitt's character endures the application of painful ritualistic carvings to his back and immediately afterwards, Dickie's mysterious mother drawing blood from her own naked chest and daubing ancient symbols over the walls. Later when Fergal's teen love interest Petronella (Hanna Stanbridge) barges into the flat and discovers these odd images, Fergal simply explains his mother has different beliefs, rather than panicking or struggling more realistically (and interestingly) to keep the secret burden from his friends. Equally bizarrely Petronella isn't fazed.
With so much blood and gore on show, Outcast needs strong, engaging and believable characters to be watchable. Unfortunately a weak script again lets down the cast. Most of the characters are nothing more than stereotyped caricatures. The highly sexed yobs on the estate are entirely predictable, as is Doctor Who's Karen Gillan's small role as an estate slut. Petronella's simple brother is also a cardboard cut-out of a character. Her relationship and eventual love for Fergal, a key pillar of the plot, is not at all convincing. Another faulty key ingredient is Nesbitt's miscasting as the menacing pursuer. Most of the time he appears baffled and far from frightening. Christine Tremarco gives a good performance as a rather pointless housing inspector and Dickie's genuinely mysterious mother is just about the only character with the capacity to deliver proper scares. She does so a number of times, springing out from nowhere on her wandering son, issuing warnings and cursing Tremarco's character so that she loses her mind.
For a horror film Outcast is far too predictable and its execution is heavy handed. All the pieces of a really gripping, frightening story are there but they simply don't fit together in the right order. The crucially important occult influences are both overused and not ever satisfactorily explained. Grand themes like repressed sexual desire, forbidden fruit and ancestor's sins returning to haunt the next generation, never quite come off. Brutal sacrifices and attacks, potentially original elements of the story, are uncomfortable to watch but never truly shocking. When more traditional scares arrive in monster form, the special effects look amateurish and almost laughably like a parody of a classic.
Most of the praise heaped upon McCarthy's debut feature seems severely misguided in my view, although one review is right to hail the project an "ambitious" one. Sadly for the British film industry, Outcast lacked both the polished script and the resources to pull off what it was attempting. Throughout the whole thing you're never quite sure what's going on, but you're never shocked or scared either. Outcast's two dimensional plotting and characterisation means that a handful of sexy scenes, the charms of rising star Hanna Stanbridge and continuous gore are all that's left to endear it to the (I suspect male) teenagers keen to get hold of it on its release, despite the 18 certificate.

subset: commoncrawl


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4 Irish-Style Brews for St. Patrick's Day Sipping
In Portland, St. Patrick's Day mustn't be ruled by a generic pint of Guinness. With the most microbreweries per capita, Portland takes pride in what it crafts and drinks—and a holiday tailor-made for beer is no exception. Here, we spotlight four Irish-style brews that are anything but green.
Irish Stout, from Kells Brew Pub
St. Patrick's Day must begin with an Irish Stout, and no brew fits that need better than Kells Irish Stout. Hitting the local beer scene only a month ago, this new brew is a welcome addition to Portland's stout offerings. While dry (like all traditional stouts), Kells' take also leans towards the dessert end of the flavor spectrum with notes of coffee, chocolate, and fig. Try it as a post-meal treat—or, since it's St. Patrick's Day—as a breakfast beer.
Drink it Here: Kells Brew Pub, 210 NW 21st Ave.
Paulie's Not Irish Red, from Old Town Brewing Co.
A twist on an old Irish staple, Paulie's Not Irish Red adds a heft dose of hops, offering a bitter edge that's sorely missing in most Irish Reds. What results is a unique ale that coats the mouth with a rich body, that also puts a spark on the tip of the tongue. Purists shouldn't despair—there are still familiar Irish red characteristics, from caramelized sweetness to malty notes.
Drink it Here: Old Town Brewing Company Brew Pub, 5201 NE MLK Blvd.
Breakside Dry Stout, from Breakside Brewery
For a solid staple that wont tire the palate, try Breakside Brewery's authentic Irish Stout—it won the 2012 World Beer Cup for good reason. Perfectly dry with British malts and low in carbonation, this stout slides back easier than a glass of chocolate milk. It isn't defined by sweetness, however, as subtle notes of ash and coffee provide a complimentary balance.
Drink it Here: Breakside Brewery, 820 NE Dekum St.; 1570 NW 22nd Ave.; or 5821 SE International Way, Milwaukie).
Kales Irish Style Lager, from Rogue Ales
After all those filling stouts and ales, a palette cleanser might be in order. Ease through the end of St. Patrick's day with a Kales Irish Style Lager from Rogue Ales; a perfect session beer that balances drinkability with Irish authenticity. A pale orange lager made with European malts, this brew has a slightly sweet and hoppy flavor that pairs great with a boiled dinner of corned beef and cabbage.
Find it Here: Any beer distributor carrying Rogue products.
What will you be drinking this St. Patrick's Day? Tell us in the comments!


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Blood supplies were running low at Mulago Hospital in the Ugandan capital of Kampala Monday morning; oxygen tanks were, too. The emergency ward was full, its hallways lined with the broken victims of twin bomb attacks at a sports club and a restaurant where patrons had crowded to watch the World Cup final.
Meanwhile, in Somalia, a world away from the bars and cafes of Kampala, Sheik Yusuf Isse celebrated the bombings as if his team had just vanquished the Dutch at Johannesburg's Soccer City Stadium. "That is the best news we ever heard," he told Reuters after the blasts.
"Uganda is a major infidel country supporting the so-called government of Somalia," said Isse, a commander of the Taliban-like Somali militia known as al-Shabaab. "We know Uganda is against Islam and so we are very happy at what has happened in Kampala."
Isse knows nothing about Uganda, a struggling democracy perched on the northern shore of Lake Victoria, with one critical exception: Around 2,700 Ugandan troops are in Somalia, defending the weak U.S.-backed central government in Mogadishu against the forces of al-Shabaab and its foreign jihadist allies.
On Sunday night, Ugandans were made to pay for their country's muscular and at times adventurous foreign policy, with at least 74 people dead and many more wounded.
President Yoweri Museveni has long sought to project Uganda's influence beyond the borders of his Minnesota-sized country. I've dined in mess tents with Ugandan troops and police officers serving as peacekeepers in Darfur, and I've crossed Ugandan checkpoints in the hinterlands of southern Sudan, where the Ugandan People's Defense Force is pursuing the last murderous elements of the Lord's Resistance Army into the remote Central African Republic.
In 1997, rebels and irregulars backed by Uganda and Rwanda, including numerous children, walked more than 1,200 miles across the continent to depose aging dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Just a year later, Ugandan and Rwandan forces again stormed the country, now renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in a failed bid to remove Mobutu's successor (and Museveni's erstwhile ally), Laurent Kabila. Over the next several years, Ugandan and Rwandan forces looted billions of dollars' worth of the Congo's diamonds and timber.
None of these interventions had much to do with the majority of Ugandans.
Even the two-decade reign of terror by the predatory shaman Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army was something of an abstraction to all but the few northern tribes who bore the brunt of the LRA's mad violence. After 20-plus years of fighting and more than 20,000 children kidnapped by the LRA, most Ugandan legislators still have never visited the affected northern region, even though it's just a 20-minute flight from Kampala.
It was only in Somalia that Museveni found opponents with the means, motivation, and opportunity to strike back at Uganda's relatively prosperous capital—and they did so with a keen sense of the symbolic.
The first explosion Sunday night was at the Ethiopian Village, a restaurant popular with Ugandans and expatriates (the food is great) who'd been flocking to its big-screen World Cup telecasts. It was Ethiopia that, in 2007, invaded Somalia to remove from power the Union of Islamic Courts, of which al-Shabaab was a part.
The second attack took place at a World Cup party co-sponsored by Vision Voice FM, the radio station of the New Vision newspaper, a parastatal entity controlled by the government and Museveni's ruling National Resistance Movement. It was there, as hundreds of people watched the match from lawn chairs on the crowded pitch of the Kyadondo Rugby Club, that most of the casualties took place.
"We will carry out attacks against our enemy wherever they are," Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, an al-Shabaab spokesman, told the Associated Press.
Museveni has for years supported U.S., European, and African efforts to prevent Somalia from falling completely to radical Islamist forces. After a U.S.-backed coalition of warlords was pushed out of Mogadishu by the Union of Islamic Courts in 2005, he took part in an aborted plan to use American mercenaries to retake the capital for Somalia's internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government.
Today it's Ugandan lives on the line in Somalia. Twenty-two Ugandan soldiers have been killed there since 2007, and more than 50 have been wounded or brought down by disease. By taking part in the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, the Ugandans are helping to prevent Somalia's takeover by al-Shabaab and its friends in al-Qaida. But AMISOM forces have also engaged in heavy shelling of the capital that has killed many of the civilians the peacekeepers are sworn to protect.
By sunset on Monday, shells were again falling on Mogadishu, collective punishment for a population that has endured nearly 20 years of pillage and chaos. (More than 3.2 million Somalis rely on emergency humanitarian aid to survive.)
Back in Uganda, Museveni swore revenge. "We shall look for them and get them, wherever they are," he told reporters.
The Kampala blasts will surely be used to bolster a crackdown on the Ugandan opposition—a quadrennial election-year squeeze that has helped keep the president in power since 1987. Terrorism and security will, more than ever, be used as justification for the arrest of activists and reporters.
Museveni is a Western favorite. The United States and Europe seem content to look past his authoritarian streak in exchange for Uganda's contribution to operations in Sudan and Somalia.
Uganda is also home to more than 4,000 Somali refugees. These migrants will find themselves the objects of intense suspicion and hatred in a country that woke up this morning to the realization that punching above your weight doesn't mean you can't still be bloodied.
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Prime-Time Health
Prime-Time Health is a simple healthy-aging program to help adults and seniors uncover the secrets of aging well. Whether you are a fifty-year-old in the prevention mind-set or a senior already in repair mode, with this plan you will:
- Understand how your body changes during prime time
- Prevent disease and unhealthy aging
- Boost your energy, stress less, sleep better and sharpen your thinking
- Reduce the risk of cancer and the "highs"(blood pressure, cholesterol)
- Become fit, strong and flexible
Many people spend their entire life investing in their IRA (Individual Retirement Account) to ensure they can enjoy their prime time years. However, many don't take the time to invest in their IRAH (Individual Retirement Account for Health). What's the point in having a large savings account if you don't have the health to enjoy it? Not everyone can save as much money as they'd like or have as much free time as they want. But you can work to save your health.
Participate in a Prime-Time Health workshop and learn about:
- A Nobel Prize winning medical breakthrough and its effect on healthy aging
- The most effective way to communicate and partner with healthcare providers
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- How to decipher the many parts of a packaged food label
- Eating strategies that will help shed those unwanted, extra pounds
- How to help the mind stay strong and sharp as you age
- And much, much more!
Prime-Time Health is taught through interactive workshops that include hands-on activities, workbooks, healthy snacks and recipes. Workshop topics include:
- Open Your Internal Pharmacy – Learn how your body can make it's own medicine!
- Make Health Your Hobby – Understand what causes unhealthy aging and how to reverse it
- Move Waste From Your Waist – Discover the #1 indicator of overall health and pre-diabetic indicators
- Live Without Pain and Inflammation – Learn ways to reduce inflammation and joint pain
"Prime-Time Health teaches how to add years to your life and life to your years." – Dr. William Sears
All Dr. Sears' L.E.A.N. Programs include instruction in the four pillars of health:
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- Attitude: How we think
- Nutrition: How we eat
Contact Me to learn more about how Prime-Time Health Workshops can benefit your hospital, medical center, senior center, church, retirement community, etc!


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This weekend, anti-obesity activist MeMe Roth took her anti-food, anti-human rhetoric across the Atlantic in an interview with the Guardian — and sounded more crazed than ever.
MeMe Roth has made her name "calling people fat" (example: Jordin Sparks) and throwing away ice cream toppings at her kid's YMCA. But that name is in fact "a brand extension." Her real name is Meredith Clements, but she uses MeMe, her great-grandmother's name, because it expresses her goal to "change the cultural MeMes that have ushered in this era of obesity." MeMe is a pretty strange name for someone who thinks our culture is self-absorbed, but, as the Guardian's admirably hard-hitting Gaby Wood reveals, Roth isn't too good at analysis, of herself or anyone else.
When Wood asks Roth whether government food subsidies play a role in rising obesity rates, Roth replies that "high fructose corn syrup" is the real enemy here — which is sort of like believing that the evil oil creature in FernGully is responsible for global warming. Even more wacked-out — and downright offensive — is this statement:
The defence has been made in the case of sex criminals that there is pleasure on the part of the victim. The same is true with what we're doing with food. We may abuse our bodies with food, but it's incredibly pleasurable. From a food marketer's point of view, when your quote unquote victim is so willing and enjoying of the process, who's fighting back?
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Anyone who thinks eating is like being raped probably has some serious food issues. Although Roth swears she's never been anorexic, or even been on a diet, her relationship to food and body image is clearly a pretty diseased one. She talks about being ashamed of her "fat" mother when she was in kindergarten, as though this shame were normal and appropriate. She also insists that Wood meet her "after lunch" at one p.m. When Wood asks what she actually ate for lunch, this exchange ensues:
She squirms visibly. "You're taking me where I don't want to go ... What works for me doesn't work for a lot of people."
Well, you've said that, I insist, so taking that into account: lunch? Roth hesitates. "I discovered when I was in college that I work best when I get a workout in and eat after that. Sometimes I'll delay when I eat until I get a workout in. But I don't let a whole day go by without running four miles."
OK, I go on, but supposing you couldn't work out until four o'clock in the afternoon - would you not eat until after that?
"I might."
I look at my watch. It's 3.30pm. Alarm bells start to ring in my head. How about today, I ask. Have you eaten at all today?
Roth is a little quiet.
"No," she says.
There is a pause.
"But I feel great!"
Roth may not be anorexic, and she may not think of what she does as dieting, but if "what works for her" is not eating anything until after 3:30, she's right that it's not going to work for most people. Nor should it. To liken the pleasure one gets from food to something as toxic as sexual assault isn't just illogical and insensitive — it also demonizes something that nourishes, brings people together, and produces some of the greatest and most uncomplicated joy in life. Rather than accept food for what it is — something that, like many good things, is wonderful in moderation and problematic in excess — Roth wants people to think of it as some kind of evil rapist who will make us fat and therefore shameful. It's a judgmental, unhealthy, and ultimately unsustainable way to live.
The Woman Who Hates Food [Guardian]
Earlier:Anti-Obesity "Activist" Tells Elle That Women Are Fat, Stupid


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Once a prep surface from a 1950s doughnut shop, this butcher-block table is now an impressive island in Shana Myers' kitchen. She found it at a local Tulsa, Oklahoma, garage sale for a cool $50.
What'd you find this weekend? Post your picture on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest with the hashtag #fleamarkethaul, and we might add it here.
Don't forget to tell us where you found the items and—if you got a stellar deal—how much you paid!
Plus: See more flea market hauls from our readers, editors, and more! »


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Browse: Home / ClickToFlash
ClickToFlash: A Must Have Safari Plugin
By Adam on September 21, 2009
Do you ever have issues with Safari going crazy? As mentioned in my 45 Free Mac Apps list, I love Safari and spend most of my browsing time in its friendly confines. But every now and then, the safari turns ugly as fans blare, beachballs spin and cpu and memory use skyrockets. And the problem […]
Posted in Apple | Tagged Adobe, browser, ClickToFlash, CPU, flash, mac os x, plugin, Safari, web | 6 Responses


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The chandelier resonated with marching boots on the parade ground. The salon walls shook as heavy vehicles rumbled onto the quay.
The author buried his head in his hands. "I can't create in this din."
"How about," the brigadier-general suggested, "we toss a corpse into the sea, pockets stuffed with secret plans for an invasion at Calais?"
"You don't understand fiction do you?" the author said in withering tones. "The enemy will see through that in a second. We need to misdirect them from the Normandy denouement, sprinkle-in clues so readers are forced to work out the Calais conclusion themselves."
Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. This one is a belated 75th anniversary tribute, of course, to the unsung heroes of D-Day You can find other stories here


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Introduction to Exhibition of Library Material
Location: Huntington Library Conservation Center, Munger Research Center
Date: September 19, 2012
Jennifer Kim, Conservator, Margaret Herrick Library
Marieka Kaye, Exhibits Conservator, Huntington Library
Synopsis: One day workshop on proper exhibition methods for small-scale display of library materials.
• Morning – Lecture of preservation issues related to exhibiting library materials. Lecture followed by tour around galleries at Huntington to discuss exhibition issues.
• Afternoon – Hands-on portion of workshop building basic book cradles and display stands from board. Discussion and demonstration of proper frames and framing methods. Discussion of commercially available exhibition mounts.
Details regarding registration will be posted as the date of the workshop approaches.


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Links 1 - 2 of 2 refined by Arts, Media Guide, Music, Radio and Search Engine:
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An entertainment media source offering resources for music, radio, movies, TV, and videos.
An online entertainment guide and music source where you can listen to a music radio, watch free music videos online and learn about your favorite bands and artists.
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Ogallala aquifer: Could critical water source run dry?
The Ogallala aquifer, a critical water source for US farmers, could dry up within the next 50 years, according to a report issued this week. Limited water supplies from the Ogallala aquifer will begin to have a significant impact on food production over the next few decades, the report said.
A critical water source for U.S. farmers and ranchers is being depleted at a rapid rate and nearly 70 percent of it will disappear within the next 50 years if the current trend does not change, according to a report issued this week.
Thirty percent of the groundwater from a critical portion of what is known as the High Plains Aquifer already has been pumped and another 39 percent will be depleted over the next five decades, according to the report by environmental science and engineering experts published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The report said limited water supplies will begin to have a significant impact on food production over the next few decades. It laid out different scenarios for how targeted reductions in water usage made now could extend peak agricultural production for many more decades. It said cutting back water use from the aquifer by 20 percent now, for instance, would reduce agricultural production in the near term but would extend the longevity of production well into 2070.
"It is generally understood the groundwater is going down. At some point in the future we need to use less water," said David Steward, a professor of civil engineering at Kansas State University who participated in the study. "We tried to put together some information to help with the planning process. If we are able to save more now, it's going to make the decline that we have more gradual."
The study examined in depth the portion of the High Plains Aquifer in the western part of Kansas, generally the largest wheat-growing state in the country.
The High Plains aquifer system, including a portion known as the Ogallala aquifer, is one of the world's largest. It covers an area of approximately 174,000 miles under portions of South Dakota, Nebraska,Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas.
The aquifer is tapped to irrigate corn, soybeans, wheat and other crops, sustain cattle and other livestock, and for drinking water for millions of people throughout the region.
The researchers said current water policies have not translated to significant reductions in use of the groundwater - people are simply pumping until wells run dry. Although their focus was on western Kansas, they said balancing the water needs of the present with the long-term needs of the future is a global concern.
"Although consumption of freshwater supplies has not yet crossed a potentially dangerous planetary threshold, crop yields have begun to fall in many regions because of water scarcity, and global food security remains a worldwide concern," the report said. "There is a clear need for society to become prepared for the consequences of reductions in groundwater use that shall occur in the foreseeable future."
The study took four years to complete and included an examination of thousands of water usage reports, well readings, climate data and other information, said Steward, one of six co-authors of the study.
(Reporting by Carey Gillam; Editing by Dan Grebler)


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Please visit The Deli's full web charts organized by genre and region.
WeWork's Creator Awards, in partnership with our friends at Sofar Sounds, is looking for innovative musical performers (solo or groups) based in the Los Angeles area. The initiative rewards acts that merge creativity and imagination with compelling performances, and it's open to all genres (including performance arts, let your acting friends know about it!).
The winners will be rewarded with a cash prize between $18K and $72K, and will also secure a paid gig at the Creator Awards San Francisco event on May 10.
Applying for a Creator Award only takes a few minutes, you can start the process here.
Kansascity New Bands With Buzz


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Since this article was published, we've received several responses from readers unhappy about our choice to rank freshly sliced against presliced hams. Our original intent was to taste all hams in the form that people at home are most likely to buy them. In retrospect, tasting freshly sliced hams against presliced ones is not a fair comparison, nor is proclaiming a winner amongst such varied styles. As such, we have removed the rankings associated with each ham. The tasting notes remain valid, and can be used as a guide to shopping for nationally available dry-cured hams. We maintain the utmost respect for artisan ham producers here in the US and abroad, and this post was intended to celebrate their hard (and delicious) work.
Dry-cured ham is one of those checkmate foods for me. Whether laid out on a butcher's board, draped casually over crudités or fruit, or perhaps fanned out over a pizza, once I see the words "prosciutto" or "jamón" on a menu, it's all over. I'm a sucker for dry-cured ham in nearly every iteration, but not all dry-cured hams are created equal.
"Done right, a thinly sliced dry-cured ham eaten "raw" should be slightly moist and deeply porky, with an appealing ruby-to-rosy reddish hue."
Dry curing has been around for centuries as a way to preserve raw meat. As its name implies, dry-cured hams are coated in a salt rub (and sometimes other seasonings) and left to age for several months up to two years (or more) in a cool, dry place. Salt interacts with muscle proteins, causing them to firm up while still maintaining a base level of moisture. Meanwhile, cool air draws liquid away from the ham, concentrating its flavor. Over time, enzymatic and bacterial reactions take place within the meat, creating complex layers of flavor sans traditional cooking methods. Done right, a thinly sliced dry-cured ham eaten "raw" should be slightly moist and deeply porky, with an appealing ruby-to-rosy reddish hue. (Done wrong, cured ham can wind up so dry and salty that it makes Red's prison cooking on Orange is the New Black look downright gourmet.)
Of course, ham producers claim that breed, feed, and lifestyle of the pig play a big part in flavor, too, which is why some elite hams, like the Spanish Jamón ibérico de Bellotta, boast of their livestock's pure bloodlines (black Iberico pigs only) and diets (all acorns, all the time), and sell for hundreds of dollars per pound. With a new wave of domestic cured ham producers making waves, we thought it was time to see how the homegrown stuff stacks up.
The Contenders
Three nationally-available domestic brands, plus two imports:
- La Quercia Prosciutto Americano, Iowa ($7-9 per presliced 3 ounce pack)
- Edward's Surryano, Virginia ($8-11 per presliced 4 ounce pack)
- Prosciutto Creminelli, Utah ($39 for 2 presliced 13 ounce packs*)
- Jamón Serrano, Spain ($25/lb)
- Prosciutto di Parma, Italy ($24/lb)
*Individual presliced packs of Creminelli are only sold retail at Salt Lake City-area farmers markets; when purchased online, they come in packs of two.
The Criteria
With so many immeasurable qualities to dry-cured ham (depth of flavor, texture, mouthfeel, color, and more), this taste test was less about hard numbers and more about overall impressions. Though we ranked each one in terms of "sweetness" and "saltiness," tasters' comments were more valuable overall. In reality, any one of these hams are a treat, so if you can't get your hands on the ultimate winner, you probably won't be too disappointed with the runners-up.
The Results
Despite some serious hype for the American brands, our tasters preferred the the classic, old-school Prosciutto di Parma, praising its buttery, mild flavor over some of the saltier, funkier stuff from brands closer to home.
Full disclosure: We tried fresh, thinly sliced (by machine, not hand) Prosciutto di Parma and Jamón Serrano, whereas all of the domestic offerings were presliced and pre-packaged, which is their most common form at most retailers. If you have access to freshly-sliced stuff, whether it's domestic or imported, by all means, get it, as it will likely be superior to the packaged version. But if you need to send away for your ham fix, use this as a guide.
Prosciutto Di Parma
Parma was the star, with tasters describing it as some combination of "nutty, mild, complex, rich, sweet, buttery" and "gorgeous sweet salty ham goodness: A++." Made only in Parma, Italy, under a strict set of geography-specific regulations and aged 1-2 years, this is the ham to beat. True Prosciutto di Parma is DOP-certified (Denominazione di Origine Protetta, or Protected Designation of Origin), a government-overseen quality assurance label. There's a reason they call this stuff "the king of hams."
La Quercia Prosciutto Americano
One of the first domestic prosciuttos to make a name for itself, Iowa-based La Querica won praise for its "subtle, deeper fruit and wood flavors," but many tasters were put off by its toughness and the thickness of the slices. "Doesn't have that melt-in-your-mouth delicacy; kinda boring. Definitely more of a sandwich prosciutto than a charcuterie plate prosciutto," said some. La Quercia sells six kinds of prosciutto, based on different pig breeds, diets, and cures (a seventh is forthcoming in December 2014), though the Americano was their first release and remains the best seller. Cured with sea salt and aged for just under a year, it's made from mixed-breed Duroc/Berkshire/Lancaster pigs grown by small-scale, sustainable operations Heritage Acres and Niman Ranch.
JAMóN SERRANO
Another freshly sliced ham, hailing from Spain. This time, the freshness didn't come through quite as strongly as it did with the Parma—many called out the ham for its dryness, which may have been the result of an unfortunate end-of-leg slice job. "Tastes plasticky. Nice porky flavor, but the dry/hard texture is distracting," said one. Still, others praised its "balanced flavor with lots of nuance" and deep ruby hue. Although there are several tiers of Spanish dry-cured hams, including the ultra-premium Jamón ibéricos, this 12-month aged Serrano was made from grain-fed white Landrace pigs, and is significantly less expensive than its countrymen (if not exactly cheap).
Edwards Surryano
Edwards is a third-generation Virginia smokehouse that recently started selling Surryano, a portmanteau of their location in Surry, Virginia and the classic Spanish ham described above. It's made from purebred heritage Six-Spotted Berkshire pigs and aged from a minimum of 400 days, then, unlike any of the other hams, smoked (in this case, over hickory, to a deep rust color). Tasters found the smoky flavor aggressive, and the texture tough: "Funkadelic," "slightly oxidized," "downright chewy, with a salty jerky flavor" were some notes, leading one taster to ask, "does this belong with the others?" In truth, it probably doesn't—despite its name, Edwards isn't all that similar to raw-cured hams like Serrano or prosciutto.
Creminelli Prosciutto
A Utah-based brand, Creminelli has a wide national distribution but ended up being the hardest to find—we eventually ordered presliced packs online. Despite a website detailing the craftsmanship behind each product, this 10-month aged ham was by far the most industrial looking and tasting of the bunch. "Very thick, has something of a Fruit Roll-Up texture," wrote one taster, while others pointed out the "overwhelmingly salty" flavor that somehow "doesn't taste cured—it's more like oversalted deli ham." If you're seeking out artisanal ham products, there are better (and easier-to-find) options elsewhere.
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In the main forum some messages were deleted... in this thread.
My comment was there and someone else's as well. Both were pointing out that instead of adding new features to the mobile app or Next improving client and the classic site should be paid the most attention to, without breaking anything of course.
In don't recall the window dressing censorship for the "off topic" happening in the original forums after a bit of disagreement, and I don't think they were entirely off topic either since they were real reactions to it - I'm not a bot and neither is she. I also explained the original site's long ignored problems in detail, such as the outdated group system and search algorithm because I'm tired of it and I knew the threads are better watched in that forum than elsewhere.
I didn't use any profanity either. I thought about the wording very carefully so I'm a little disappointed.
I think I get the message, ShannonMac. Disagreeing IMVU's priorities is off topic. But they cannot touch the 3rd party site and social media posts... such as here. How was it again...?
I sort of want to argue with the staff about this, but I know they have the upper hand.
Disagreeing IMVU's priorities is "off topic"
A place for talking about IMVU
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Re: Disagreeing IMVU's priorities is "off topic"
Everything is a POS. Just saying...
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Re: Disagreeing IMVU's priorities is "off topic"
Yeah, not that it's an exception or anything...oOChrissyOo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2017 7:24 pmEverything is a POS. Just saying...
The staff just seems very biased right now. We must agree the ToS yes, but nowhere it says that we must agree with their present priorities. Aren't they overstepping their authority a bit when they try to control the display of those opinions?
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Model SL259
lorettalace.com has one checkout process and offers STANDARD SHIPPING for all items. Current shipping rate is $7.99 for US and $9.99 for other countries.
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In rare cases, items maybe lost during transfer from international carriers to local ones due to sorting errors or similar. As this is neither customer's nor our fault we decided on a solution where we will send you a new one of the same lost item in the order for free. However, the customer will not be entitled to refund.
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The Enthusiast
Bill Simmons has set a new and unbeatable standard by writing like a fan—just far better.
In the far corner of my childhood bedroom, a copy of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract stood out among the mishmash of baseball cards and rolled-up posters that formed the obligatory bookshelf-cum-sports-shrine. Bulky, heavy, and dense, the Abstract was forbidding. Who had the energy, or the patience, to really engage with its contents? Each page seemed to contain its own world; there was no chance I could possibly finish it. But James's book imparted a certain gravitas to an otherwise ordinary collection. The sheer amount of knowledge a book contained was proportional to the seriousness it conveyed. Even though I hardly glanced at James before age 18, the Abstract's mere presence was a sign that I was a step closer to adulthood than one might have rightfully concluded at first glance. More important, it was proof that sports, the thing I loved most in the world, could be taken seriously.
It is easy to say that the vast majority of sports commentary—and, indeed, the vast majority of every aspect of life that even touches on the worlds of professional and collegiate sports—is embarrassingly childish. But this understates the case, because even as a child or teenager, every thinking fan is certain to feel that the entire circus is beneath his dignity. It is not just the inane, wannabe-macho commentary during every halftime show, or the ever-present backdrop of misogyny, or the incessant beer ads that run during time-outs. By high school—at the very latest—one could surmise that a deep love of sports was meant only for dumb jocks, and was therefore incompatible with the contemplative life. What intelligent person, after all, would choose to spend his Sundays with Terry Bradshaw's grating folksiness and Mike Ditka's roaring bluster?
If James and Ditka represented the two poles of the sports commentariat, surely the middlebrow fan could find a middle ground. This territory was for a long time occupied by Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann's ESPN show, SportsCenter (and their book, The Big Show, which came along a few years later). Olbermann and Patrick registered the impressive accomplishment of making sports highlights even more compelling; yet neither had Ditka's transparent machismo or James's intimidating nerdiness. The brilliance of Olbermann and Patrick's shtick was that their observations and analysis came from such a distance. Indeed, this constituted their entire mode of scrutinizing the sports universe. They probably felt the same passion as other sports fans, but their routine was so full of irony and sarcasm that they hovered above the spectacle. It was as if they, too, sensed that the wonderful world of sports was full of nothing so much as hot air, and thus the only way to preserve what they loved was to take a step backward. Why not gently mock and jeer and wink at viewers, empowering both them and yourselves in the process?
The Big Show feels dated today because Olbermann occupies such a radically different place in our culture, but also because ESPN's television commentary has been dumbed down significantly. However, in a chapter portentously titled "How to Be a Sportscaster When You Grow Up," the authors not only manage to outshine expectations with some enjoyable advice, they also preach the following:
Another part of the attitude adjustment may come as a shock. Do not take sports seriously. Take your work seriously: Be dedicated to it, know everything you need to know about it, enjoy it, remember that the viewer or listener may be fanatical about it—but maintain a healthy distance from it. The moment you think that a sports team or league or player is actually important, you become a servant of the "sports media complex" whose only purpose in being is to separate people from their money. Your dedication has to be to your viewer or listener, to the truth, and, lastly, and only to the degree that it does not conflict with your ethics, to the success of your employer.
MSNBC viewers will not be shocked to learn that Olbermann was the writer of this self-important passage. And yet, he neatly defines the Olbermann-Patrick ethos: artfully remain above the fray.
Olbermann and Patrick set the standard for sports commentary, even if they did not "redefine" it sufficiently (the term is taken from Bob Costas's introduction). A legion of imitators, on both ESPN and other sports networks, did their best to mimic the anchormen's detachment. The problem was that a smirking sense of humor can, shockingly, come across as obnoxious. Olbermann and Patrick managed to strike the right balance, but many of the next generation's commentators were no more than smug, arrogant jerks (Costas ruefully concedes this). Despite their achievement, room remained for an entirely different approach that could still thread the needle between aggressive masculinity and statistical obsessiveness.
This might seem both rather obvious and easily attainable, but Bill Simmons threaded this needle more skillfully than his competitors. Simmons, a Boston-bred ESPN.com writer living in Los Angeles, is, without much question, the most popular sports columnist in America. He is extremely prolific and, for a sportswriter, quite intellectually curious. His first book, an account of the Red Sox' miraculous 2004 season, was tellingly called Now I Can Die in Peace. His latest effort, a 700-plus-page history of the NBA, is biblically titled The Book of Basketball. From a distance, the book looks like a Tolstoy novel: its encyclopedic ambitions are clear. But as with all of Simmons's work, it is written in (usually excellent) conversational prose and sprinkled with digressions, in-jokes, and bawdiness. It is the work of a true fan—an emotional, biased observer who seems to relish his subjectivity. Simmons might be walking the same line that Olbermann and Patrick once trod—the line that separates mathematical formulas from beer jokes (and believe me, the book contains plenty of both). But Basketball is not ironic or dispassionate. And it might just represent the next phase of sports commentary.
Simmons is known on ESPN.com as "The Sports Guy"; readers can be excused if this reminds them of a politician who calls himself a "man of the people." In public, Simmons fans love to yell out "Hey, Sports Guy!"—which (again) recalls voters who, when interviewed on camera about their candidate of choice, say that he is "one of us." To Simmons's credit, however, the unassuming nickname actually fits him comfortably. In certain respects, the public figure that Simmons most clearly resembles is the early David Letterman, although Letterman has never tried to seem like an average guy. Still, they have one thing in common: the way they personalize their work. Letterman fills his show with in-jokes and (usually self-deprecating) personal references, but he also demands that his viewers accept what he thinks is funny. If you do not think that throwing watermelons off the roof is interesting, then you are out of luck, because Dave finds it fascinating. You rarely get the sense that Letterman's show revolves around jokes that he himself finds boring and lowbrow. (The opposite is true of Jay Leno, a comedian canny enough to understand his audience.) Of course, this tendency is also Letterman's greatest weakness as an entertainer ("Oprah, Uma").
Simmons is eerily similar in this regard. If you do not recognize his pop-culture references, too bad. If you don't like the long digressions about Teen Wolf (a mid-'80s Michael J. Fox film about basketball, for those who do not regularly read Simmons), too bad. True, Olbermann and Patrick would also make plenty of references to pop culture, but the references came across as charmingly haughty, as if the anchormen were showing us that they had interests that extended beyond the court or field. Simmons's podcasts, now a regular feature of his ESPN page, are filled with conversations between the host and his old friends and relatives. He thinks they are interesting, and you should too. That takes a certain arrogance, but Simmons is smart enough to follow his own good instincts.
The opening pages of Now I Can Die in Peace—subtitled How the Sports Guy Found Salvation Thanks to the World Champion (Twice!) Red Sox—give a good window into Simmons's style. Here is how he begins the book:
My editors had to dissuade me from naming this book Love Child of the Impossible Dream. The more I thought about it, they were probably right—it sounds like the title of a John Mayer album, or maybe a crappy civil rights epic starring Reese Witherspoon and Omar Epps. And we wouldn't want that.
The second sentence here is clumsily written, which is not often true of Simmons's prose (I'll return to this later), but one immediately understands that we are getting Red Sox history through a very particular prism. A footnote on the first page makes the following observation:
Imagine being stuck at an all-male school in 20-degree weather? Yikes. If you're scoring at home, Holy Cross finally started admitting women in 1972, although they didn't start admitting women who put out until 1999.
A few pages later, however, Simmons is talking about his parents' divorce. In other words, he gets away with (most of) his sex jokes because the reader understands perfectly well that he isn't striving to be the toughest guy in the room. He jokes about sex because everyone jokes about sex; he has the same unfiltered quality that we expect from our friends. Similarly, his writing about his father is emotionally rich, but avoids the sentimentality that is often the gruesome complement to manly posturing (think Oliver North or Tom Clancy).
If Simmons's first book was a personal journey through Red Sox fandom, The Book of Basketball is an even more personal travelogue through the NBA galaxy. Simmons has always loved professional basketball; he is both a passionate critic of the sport's (and the league's) shortcomings, and a fierce opponent of people who deplore the pro game and have a more politically correct—and misguided—preference for college basketball. Unsurprisingly (or do I mean unfortunately?), Simmons is a Celtics fan, and while his bias more than occasionally reveals itself, his enthusiasm for basketball is infectious. It is hard to summarize exactly what The Book of Basketball is: Simmons has written a guide to NBA history, a list of the 96 greatest players of all time, and a memoir of his relationship with the sport—all with his trademark humor and style. In an early footnote about Boston's reputation for not embracing black players, he notes,
Boston's deep-seated racial issues bubbled to the surface one year later, thanks to a divisive decision to proactively integrate Boston's public schools and all the ugliness that followed. Although, looking back, it was probably a red flag that Reggie Smith and Jim Rice were the only black guys on the Red Sox for like 40 years and everybody was fine with this.
Even the sections of the book that most resemble a reference work are written in this same style. His player rankings begin with dense statistics, but then Simmons lets loose. Here is the opening of his mini-essay on the Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki, who led his team to the NBA finals in 2006, only to suffer a crushing loss:
The NBA's alpha dog almost ended up being German. Yup, we came that close in the 2006 Playoffs—if not for the heroics of Wade, Salvatore, Payton, and others, Germany would have made its biggest advancement on American culture since David Hasselhoff infiltrated the horny brains of teenage guys with Baywatch. Personally, I was terrified—this was the same country that started two world wars and deliberately injured Pele in Victory.
(The names above belong to perennial NBA all-stars Dwyane Wade and Gary Payton; Salvatore is Bennett Salvatore, a referee who Simmons thinks is at best incompetent.) A couple of pages later, he is discussing whether to induct Nowitzki into the "42 Club," which is named for a strange (but helpful) statistical formula that Simmons himself has created. But to get to the Jamesian formula, you first have to consume a couple of politically incorrect jokes and a reference to an early-'80s movie that, one hopes, very few people remember.
This is Simmons at his best, but his tics are occasionally irritating. The Sox' victory "wasn't just a lucky chain of events," he writes.
This was like winning the lottery three different times, or better yet, like Justin Timberlake banging Britney Spears, Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johansson, and Cameron Diaz in their primes, only if he had added Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie, and Katie Holmes.
These jokes, sprinkled over 700 pages, become wearying. Simmons, at times, would benefit from taking at least a half step backward and sticking to his subject matter.
Simmons's biases are part of his charm, although his chapter comparing Wilt Chamberlain with the Boston Celtic Bill Russell could have used more objectivity. By the time he ends his case for Russell with "the defense rests," his sometimes thoughtful insights into these two great big men have been obscured by the feeling that we are watching a show trial. He also adopts the annoying habit—perhaps from his friend Malcolm Gladwell (who wrote the book's introduction)—of quoting statistics and telling us what to think about them, or assuming that we will draw the same conclusions from them that he does. In the same chapter, Simmons, perhaps unable to resist his better instincts, spends two pages trying to expose the "myth" that Chamberlain was a "great guy." Well, fine. I once approached Russell at a Chinese restaurant, where he was standing alone, and told him that I was a huge admirer of his. He grunted and turned his head away. I enjoy repeating this story to my friends who are Celtics fans, but alas, I would not argue that it proves Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest center in NBA history.
Still, Simmons's personal recollections of his favorite players are generally smart and well executed. In an especially good section on Larry Bird, he writes,
You can't call him a superhero because he wasn't saving lives or making the world a better place. At the same time, he possessed heroic qualities because everyone in New England bought into his invincibility. He came through too many times for us. After a while, we started expecting him to come through, and when he still came through, that's when we were hooked for good … Unfortunately you can't glance through Bird's career statistics in the Official NBA Register and find the statistic for "most times the fans expected their best player to come through and he actually did."
The tone here—personal but intellectually open-minded—is just right.
The standard rap on Simmons is that he is no more than a passionate fan who happens to be a terrific writer, and this is more or less true. His writing, over 700 pages, rarely flags—an impressive achievement considering how many sports columns stall after 700 words. Some have faulted Simmons for his lack of interest in reporting, and rightfully so. The upside of this, however, is well phrased by Gladwell:
The other part about being a fan is that a fan is always an outsider. Most sportswriters are not, by this definition, fans. They capitalize on their access to athletes. They spoke to Kobe last night, and Kobe says his finger is going to be fine. They spent three days fly-fishing with Brett Favre in March, and Brett says he's definitely coming back for another season.
Simmons may not be removed from his passions, but he does appear remarkably distant from the sports establishment. His biases and shortcomings are the result of childhood allegiances, not off-the-record dinners with Larry Bird. He is willing to endlessly criticize athletes, and his attack on the NBA's secretive management style and pathetic officiating continues to be his most valuable contribution as a writer. (In this same outsider spirit, Simmons divides his bibliography into books that were helpful and books that are not particularly worth reading. Not only is this useful for prospective readers, but it marks a nice break from the normal back-scratching.) The only time that I can remember seeing him completely desert common sense and succumb to old-fashioned conventional wisdom was when he decided to pile on Patriots coach Bill Belichick's controversial decision to "go for it" on a fourth-and-two last season. But, of course, we are talking about the New England Patriots.
The danger of Simmons's approach—for the rest of us, if not for him—is the same danger that eventually overtook ESPN after Olbermann and Patrick left. Personalized, opinionated discourse is fine, but if you cannot write as intelligently and humorously as Simmons can, you might as well leave the rest of us in peace. My guess is that 10 years from now, Simmons will come to be seen as an outlier, primarily because few people will be able to match his style and skill. Sports commentary will still be a swamp of dank bromides and unattractive aggression. "You either love sports or you don't," Simmons declares, tautologically, at the end of his first book, and about this proposition, he has never wavered. A love of sports is not a sufficient condition for smart sports commentary, but it very well might be a necessary one.


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Last Night, You Got To See Why I Co-Founded NotMittRomney.com
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In a profession that's filled to the brim with narcissists, sociopaths, and incompetents, Mitt Romney strikes me as a competent, well organized businessman and a genuinely decent human being. Those are not things that you can say about most of the politicians in D.C., including the President of the United States.
That being said, Mitt Romney is not a conservative, particularly honest or likable, terribly gifted at governance or even a good politician. That last one is particularly notable because Mitt Romney, who is cut out of the same cloth as Bob Dole and John McCain, was sold to Republican primary voters as "the most electable candidate."
That is, was, and always has been nonsense.
That's why I wrote a column called, 7 Reasons Why Mitt Romney's Electability Is A Myth. It's worth reading again because other than the war on women tripe, it's practically a roadmap to the tactics the Obama campaign used to beat Mitt into the ground.
Here are just a few excerpts from the piece.
Let's be perfectly honest: Mitt Romney excites no one except for Mormons, political consultants, and Jennifer Rubin. To everybody else on the right, Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama would be a "lesser of two evils" election where we'd grudgingly back Mitt because we wouldn't lose as badly with him in the White House as we would with Obama. That's not the sort of thing that gets people fired up to make phone calls, canvass neighborhoods, or even put up "I heart Mitt" signs in their yards.
…Barack Obama won North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida in 2008 and you can be sure that he will be targeting all three of those states again. This is a problem for Romney because he would be much less likely than either Gingrich or Perry to carry any of those states. Moderate northern Republicans have consistently performed poorly in the south and Romney won't be any exception. That was certainly the case in 2008 when both McCain and Huckabee dominated Romney in primaries across the south. Mitt didn't win a single primary in a southern state and although he finished second in Florida, he wasn't even competitive in North Carolina or Virginia. Since losing any one of those states could be enough to hand the election to Obama in a close race, Mitt's weakness there is no small matter.
…However, in a year when Obama will be running a populist campaign and Occupy Wall Street is demonizing the "1%," Mitt Romney will be a TAILOR MADE villain for them. …Imagine pictures of dilapidated, long since closed factories. They trot out scruffy looking workers talking about how bad life has been since Mitt Romney crushed their dreams and cost them their jobs. Then they show a clip of Mitt making his $10,000 bet and posing with money in his clothes. All Mitt needs is a monocle and a sniveling Waylon Smithers type character to follow him around shining his shoes to make him into the prototypical bad guy the Democrats are trying to create.
…There are a lot of issues with trying to run a candidate who doesn't seem to have any core principles. It makes it impossible for his supporters to get excited about him because you can't fall in love with a weathervane. Even worse, since politicians tend to be such liars anyway and you know Romney has no firm beliefs, it's very easy for everyone to assume the worst. Democrats will feel that Romney will be a right wing death-beast. Republicans will think that Romney will screw them over. Independents won't know what to believe, which will make the hundreds of millions that Obama will spend on attack ads particularly effective. Ronald Reagan famously said the GOP needed "a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors." That's particularly relevant when it comes to Mitt Romney who has proven to be a pasty grey pile of formless mush.
If you're wondering which candidates would have been more electable than Mitt, at a minimum I'd say Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum. You can deny that if you like, but most conservatives I know privately have been saying that they don't think this election should have even been close. They think Mitt should have won in a LANDSLIDE.
That's especially true since Barack Obama is not just a horrible President, he ran a terrible campaign. He focused on trivia, he undercut his own favorability with his nastiness, he was out of it in his first debate and he showed himself to have a tin ear. But, just as Claire McCaskill lucked out to be up against Todd Akin, Barack Obama was incredibly fortunate to be taking on Mitt Romney in the Big Show.
Now, all that being said, I didn't pout, kick my feet, and hold my breath until I turned blue when Mitt Romney won the primaries. I didn't get angry that everyone in the party didn't have the same opinion of Mitt Romney that I did. To the contrary, although I have never taken back a single word that I've written about Mitt Romney or misled people about what I believe, I tried to do my part to help him win by writing columns like Why The Founder Of NotMittRomney.com Has Already Voted For Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney In Pictures (30 Pictures), and 7 Incredible Personal Stories About Mitt Romney That You May Not Know — which was even linked by the Romney campaign and forwarded more than 21,000 times on Facebook. I may not like Mitt Romney, but a competent, moderate, decent Republican beats a hapless, immoral far left-winger any day.
Additionally, despite Mitt Romney's enormous grab bag of weaknesses, I always thought he had a good shot to win. In fact last night, like Karl Rove, Michael Barone, George Will and Larry Kudlow, I thought Mitt would take the election because I believed the state polls were systematically overestimating Democrat support. We bought into the idea that Gallup and Rasmussen were judging the composition of the electorate more accurately than the other pollsters and it turns out we were wrong. Of course, when you had the least electable Republican candidate since Goldwater up against the worst President in American history, it's like an irresistible force coming up against an immovable object: One of them has to lose.
That takes me back to a conversation I had with someone who seemed to be, like far too many Republicans, supporting Mitt Romney mainly because he thought he would win the primary. After Romney won some decisive late victory in the primaries that seemed to put him too far ahead of Santorum and Romney for either to catch up, this person seemed to be extremely pleased with his decision to back Romney because it looked like Mitt was going to win. He asked me if I wanted to admit that I was wrong about supporting, well, pretty much anybody other than Gary Johnson or Ron Paul instead of Mitt Romney.
I said, "Tell me I'm wrong after Mitt wins the primary, then beats Obama, and then governs like a conservative." Unfortunately, Mitt never had a chance to let us down in the White House because he lost an election that Mr. Potatohead should have been able to win. Unfortunately, we didn't have Mr. Potatohead on the ticket; we had Mitt Romney and he turned out to be worse.
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Tag Archives: healthy art inspector
Lori Krein: Healthy Art Program…Creating my BURST collage
The inspiration for creating my sun collage was multi-faceted. The sun gives us life, but it can also easily take life away. Too much pollution in our atmosphere, which might block out the sun, and we're done. Too much sunshine, … Continue reading
Posted in Lori, Materials Tagged collage, eco friendly paper, eco-friendly art, healthy art inspector, Lori krein, paper, san jose artist Comments Off on Lori Krein: Healthy Art Program…Creating my BURST collage


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Resource Library
APQC's Resource Library is your source for timely and topical information to help you meet your most complex business process and knowledge management challenges. Explore our ever-growing collection of more than 8,000 research-based best practices, benchmarks and metrics, case studies, and other valuable APQC content.
At APQC's 2016 Knowledge Management (KM) Conference, APQC research program managers Elissa Tucker and Lauren Trees shared findings from APQC's 2016 best practices study, …


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Chef Eric Chavot opened the doors to Brasserie Chavot on Conduit Street in Mayfair in March 2013, receiving critical acclaim from respected food writers and devoted diners alike. Described by Giles Coren as 'the best thing to happen to top-end dining for ages', Brasserie Chavot's French-inspired menu is created using the finest produce from the British Isles and France, ranging from the much-celebrated 'deep fried soft shell crab' to the highly popular 'Snails Bourguignon, meatball and potato espuma' and the delectable 'Rump of Oisin venison with honey glazed root vegetables'.
Brasserie Chavot's decadent Mayfair premises boasts opulent chandeliers, grand deep-red banquettes, an intricate but understated mosaic floor and an attentive but discreet staff, striking the perfect balance between glamour, comfort and French sophistication – the perfect stage on which to present Eric's culinary creations.
Eric's early career encompasses a host of highly renowned chefs and their venerated restaurants. Recognised as one of Pierre Koffman's acclaimed protégés, Chavot served as sous chef at London's La Tante Claire, before working under Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir Aux Quat Saisons.
Eric then joined Marco Pierre-White at Harvey's before returning to Pierre Koffman at La Tante Claire. This was followed by the head chef position at Nico at Ninety Park Lane, and then head chef at The Restaurant, Hyde Park Hotel, for Marco Pierre White.
Eric's first solo venture, Interlude de Chavot, opened in Charlotte Street, Soho, where he gained his first Michelin star within ten months. From there, Eric opened Chavot, in London's Fulham Road, where he was chef/patron and held a Michelin star for two years. Eric then joined The Capital Restaurant in Knightsbridge as head chef, where he famously held two Michelin stars for an impressive ten years from 1999-2009.
AA Gill, Sunday Times columnist who dined at The Capital during Eric's time there, said, 'This is as good as you can eat in London…. This was three-stars-and-bars cooking; a faultlessly assured, elegant, thoughtful, poignant, intelligent, top-of-the-range, exceedingly-rare handmade dinner.'
Prior to opening Brasserie Chavot, Eric spent two years in Florida as Consultant Chef to the Weston family, owners of Selfridges and The Windsor Club.
Reservation and general enquiries:
Tel: +44(0)20 7183 6425 firstname.lastname@example.com email@example.com
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Seventeen: The last time you competed in the , what was going through your mind?
Rebecca Soni: There was so much running through my mind. It was really exciting to be in a totally different country competing with my teammates and representing the USA. There was so much energy that it was almost overwhelming. It's a lot of pressure to compete while so many people around the world are watching you, but I just kept telling myself that it was one more swim meet, just like I've done a hundred times before.
17: Is it hard to stay focused on the competition at such a high level?
More From Seventeen
RS: No, it's not hard. Even though there are a ton of distractions at the Olympics, I know I'm there to compete. I'm lucky swimming is the first week of the Olympics and then I get to hang out, have fun, and go to other events. But when I'm at the Olympics, I'm very focused and I remember exactly why I'm there.
17: What sort of cross-training do you do with swimming?
RS: I do a little bit of work in the weight room — not weight lifting, but more core work — and I also do yoga and pilates.
17: You recently partnered up with Kellogg's. Tell us a little about that.
RS: I'm a member of Team Kellogg's, which includes eight Olympic athletes from all different sports. The Kellogg's Olympic campaign stresses that getting to the finish line begins with a great start. For me, that means eating a good breakfast every morning to fuel my day. You can accomplish so much more if you start your day right by eating breakfast. It's been awesome working with the Kellogg's Olympic team and there are some amazing stories on their website.
17: Do you have any tips for girls who are too busy to eat breakfast in the morning?
RS: If your mornings are too busy, prepare your breakfast the night before. Sometimes, I put my cereal and fruit in a Tupperware bowl so all I have to do in the morning is pour milk on it. That way, I can eat on my way to practice. The key is planning ahead. I also keep snacks, like energy bars, in my car.
17: Do you have a hairstyle that you love because you can do it quickly after swim practice and then go meet your friends?
RS: After swimming, I spray my hair with styling gel and put it up in a messy bun. I don't have time to blow dry my hair and the styling gel helps it dry frizz-free. A bun looks good wet and also when it dries, so it's my favorite style.
17: What beauty products do you keep in your gym bag?
RS: Definitely sunscreen — I'm always putting it on my face — and also mascara because it makes me look awake. Revlon makes a great waterproof version!
Click here to see the schedule of Rebecca's Olympic competitions and to set up an alert so you don't miss her on TV!
Emily is a freelance writer and certified health coach who specializes in writing about mental health, fitness, healthy food, and social justice issues. Emily spent six years as an editor and writer at Well+Good, covering everything from food trends to serious issues like the opioid crisis in America and gun violence. She has also worked at Seventeen, Elle, and Twist magazines. She regularly writes for publications including Forbes, Parade, Shape, and The Huffington Post. Emily lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her cat Evie.


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Extended Returns Policy - 90 Days
In light of the current circumstances, we have extended our returns policy from 28 days to 90 until further notice. This applies to all purchases made on our website.
If you wish to return your purchase for any reason, please contact us using our online Contact Form, stating your order number, reasons for return and the date the order was returned. All other terms and conditions related to returns and refunds applies.
0.1. If you are a consumer, you have a legal right to cancel a Contract during the period set out below. This means that during the relevant period if you change your mind or decide for any other reason that you do not want to receive or keep a Product, you can notify us of your decision to cancel the Contract and receive a refund. Advice about your legal right to cancel the Contract is available from your Citizen's Advice Bureau or Trading Standards Office.
0.2. However this cancellation right does not apply in the case of a Contract for the supply of sealed goods which are not suitable for return due to health protection or hygiene reasons, if they become unsealed after delivery.
0.3. Your legal right to cancel a Contract starts from the date of the Dispatch Confirmation (the date on which we email you to confirm our acceptance of your order), which is when the Contract is formed. Your deadline for cancelling the Contract is set out below:
End of the cancellation period:
The end date is the end of 14 days after the day on which you receive the Product.
0.4. To cancel a Contract, you just need to let us know that you have decided to cancel. To do so, please send us an email to firstname.lastname@example.com. Please include details of your order to help us to identify it, including the order reference number, date of purchase and reason for cancellation.
(Please see point 0.2 for reference)
0.5. If you cancel your Contract we will:
a) refund you the price you paid for the Products. However, please note we are permitted by law to reduce your refund to reflect any reduction in the value of the goods, if this has been caused by your handling them in a way which would not be permitted in a brick and mortar shop;
b) refund, where the full order is returned, any delivery costs you have paid, although, as permitted by law, the maximum refund will be the costs of delivery by the least expensive delivery method we offer (provided that this is a common and generally acceptable method). For example, if we offer delivery of a Product within 3-5 working days at one cost but you choose to have the Product delivered within 1-2 working days at a higher cost, then we will only refund what you would have paid for the cheaper delivery option;
c) make any refunds due to you as soon as possible and in any event within the deadlines indicated below:
a. if you have received your Product and we have not offered to collect it from you: 14 days after the day on which we receive the Product back from you or, if earlier, the day on which you provide us with evidence that you have sent the Product back to us. For information about how to return a Product to us see below;
b. if you have not received the Product or you have received it and we have offered to collect it from you: 14 days after you inform us of your decision to cancel the Contract.
0.6. If you have returned the Products to us under this clause because they are faulty or mis-described, we will examine the Product as quickly as possible. If the non-compliant nature of the Product is confirmed by us, we will refund the price of the Product in full, together with any applicable delivery charges, and any reasonable costs you incur in returning the item to us (upon production of an applicable receipt).
0.7. We will refund you using the same means of payment you used for the initial transaction, unless expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of the reimbursement. Formosa may withhold reimbursement until Formosa has received the Products back or you have supplied evidence of having sent back the Products, whichever is earliest. (Please contact us prior to sending out your return in order to confirm acceptable shipping evidence, i.g tracking number etc)
0.8. If a Product has been delivered to you before you decide to cancel your Contract:
a) then you must return it to us without undue delay (and in the meanwhile retain possession of the Products and take reasonable care of them) and in any event not later than 14 days after the day on which you let us know that you wish to cancel the Contract. You must send it back accompanied with the returns note, to the below address: Formosa Beauty, 150a Balgores Lane, London - Romford, RM2 6BP United Kingdom.
If you fail to return any Product the direct cost of recovery of that Product by Formosa shall be borne by you. You shall assume all reasonable risks linked to the return of Product(s).
b) Unless the Product is faulty or not as described (in this case see below), you will be responsible for the cost of returning the Products to us. Formosa does not accept returns with delivery charges due.
0.9. Because you are a consumer, we are under a legal duty to supply Products that are in conformity with the Contract. As a consumer, you have legal rights in relation to Products that are faulty or not as described. These legal rights are not affected by your right of return and refund in this clause or anything else in the General Conditions of Sale. Advice about your legal rights is available from your local Citizens' Advice Bureau or Trading Standards office.
0.10. The right of cancellation can only be exercised by you, the purchaser of the Product, and not by a third party.


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My father had a story to tell but unfortunately I was not ready to hear it when he was alive. I know that he was the youngest of seven children and that his father died shortly after my father was born. I don't recall my father sharing many stories about his siblings, extended family or even his mother. Perhaps the loss was so painful that he just couldn't bring himself to speak of them, or maybe he thought his stories couldn't compete with my mother's colorful delivery. Either way, there are holes in the family history and nobody left to ask.
My mother was a storyteller and spoke warmly of her large family and their lives in the small shtetl of Mogielnica. We grew up hearing about my maternal grandfather's tannery, about her aunt who owned the bakery in town and whose sisters were also bakers, about her unruly brothers who she clearly adored. The meals, the food, the holidays, the memories were vivid and sharp and I can recall many of them to this day.
My daughter recently traveled to Germany and realized that she doesn't know as much about my family as she had thought. She has asked me to write down what information I have, but I must admit it is very limited. It is a tall order and it feels like I am trying to recreate something without knowing all the ingredients. So instead, I spent the afternoon baking a Fruit Cobbler, in memory of all the family bakers that preceded me, and in honor of my daughter who wants to know more and is ready to ask.
1 stick butter
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 Tb baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk
4 cups fruit ( I used blackberries and peaches)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
Place butter in a large round baking dish and melt in a 375 degree oven. In the meantime, mix 1 cup of sugar with the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add milk, stirring gently but not thoroughly. Pour batter over melted butter but do not stir.
In a medium pot, cook fruit with sugar and cinnamon for just a few minutes. Pour over batter and sprinkle with more cinnamon. Bake for about 45 minutes or till golden brown. There is liquid in the center even when the cobbler is fully baked, just take the juices and spoon over each serving. Serves 8


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Patrik FreiCEO Ph.D., lic. oec. HSG
Dr. Patrik Frei is founder and CEO of Venture Valuation AG, Switzerland. He started the company in 1999 when he noticed a need for independent valuation services in high growth industries during a collaboration with Novartis Venture Fund, which became his first client. Since then he has been involved in over 450 valuations for investors as well as biotech, pharma and medtech companies. Patrik graduated from the Business University of St. Gallen and completed his Ph.D thesis ("Assessment and valuation of high growth companies") at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL Lausanne. Patrik was a board member and one of the original founders of Ineo, a holding company of the Swiss dental implant VC-backed firm Thommen Medical and also the Chairman of Ophthalmopharma, a Swiss-based biotech ophthalmology company, where he successfully out-licensed a portfolio of 4 products. Furthermore, Patrik was member of the board of Aventron AG (AVEN:Berne), a publicly quoted cleantech company, which raised over USD 160m during his time as board member. Patrik's articles have been published in a number of scientific journals including "Nature Biotechnology", "Chimia" and other business publications ("Starting a Business in the Life Sciences: From Idea to Market" and "Building Biotechnology: Starting, Managing, and Understanding Biotechnology Companies"). He has also lectured at Seoul National University, South Korea, EPFL Lausanne, University of St. Gallen and gives regular workshops on valuation.


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Barnard has announced that The Wilderness by Sandra Lim has received the 2013 Barnard Women Poets Prize for the best second collection of poems by an American woman poet. The biennial prize, awarded jointly by Women Poets at Barnard and the publisher W.W. Norton & Company, includes publication of the work and a free public reading at Barnard. The Wilderness will be published in 2014 by W. W. Norton & Company.
"In its stern, quiet way The Wilderness is as thrilling a book as I have read in a very long time," writes former Poet Laureate of the United States Louise Glück, also winner of the Pulitzer and Bollingen Prizes, who judged this year's competition.
Lim's first book, Loveliest Grotesque, won the 2006 Kore Press First Book Award for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in Boston Review, Court Green, Guernica, Colorado Review, American Letters & Commentary, and other journals. Honors for her work include fellowships to The MacDowell Colony and the Vermont Studio Center. Lim was born in Seoul, Korea, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Currently, she is an assistant professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
Below is a poem from The Wilderness. Lim will read from her work at Barnard during the upcoming fall semester.
Spring comes forward as a late-winter confection, and I cannot decide if it advances a philosophy of meekness or daring.
This year's snowdrops: is it that they are spare, and have a slightly fraught lucidity, or are they proof that pain, too, can be ornate?
Even a propped skull is human nature. And its humor is monstrous, rich with an existence that owes nothing to anyone.
Fat little pearls against the ice, battering softly, try even fewer qualities—
To say that you love someone or something to death is to hover around the draw of irrevocability.
More faith is asked of us, a trained imagination against the ice-white.


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A Memorial Day Weekend celebration is not complete without a few good movies to watch in between the barbeques, picnics, and parades. I have compiled a list of some of the best flicks to watch that commemorate our veterans and those currently serving in the military. Check out Netflix, Cable, Satellite, and your local TV stations for the following titles….
- Saving Private Ryan – The story of "D-Day" with Tom Hanks and directed by Stephen Spielberg.
- Sergeant York– This is the true story of Alvin York, a Tennessee sharpshooter, who becomes the most decorated soldier of World War 1. This is an old movie, but one of the best. Everyone needs to know the inspiring story of Sergeant York.
- Flags of Our Fathers– Made in 2006, this film, directed by Clint Eastwood, is the story of six men who raised the flag at the "Battle of Iwo Jima" which was a turning point of WWII.
- The Longest Day –This film came out in 1962 and has a star-studded cast that includes John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, and Sean Connery. Filmed in the style of a docudrama, it shows the events leading up to "D-Day".
- The Big Red One– World War II movie starring Lee Marvin and Mark Hamill.
- The Green Berets– Another John Wayne movie made in 1968. This film is strongly anti-communist and strongly anti-Saigon. It came out in theaters in response to the anti-war atmosphere and social discontent over the Vietnam War in America.
- MASH– A black comedy about a unit of medical personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War. This film inspired the long running TV show of the same name.
- Black Hawk Down– A 1999 adaptation of the novel, Black Hawk Down tells the story of the events of the Battle of Mogadishu, a raid integral to the United States' effort to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
- HeartBreak Ridge– The story involves the actions of a small group of Marines during the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada. Clint Eastwood stars, directs, and produced this movie.
- Glory– This American war drama, made in 1989, depicts the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first formal unit of the US Army to be made up entirely of African American men, as told from the point of view of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, its commanding officer during the American Civil War.
There are so many movies to choose from that represent the sacrifices our men and women have made for our country. If nothing else, this list reminds us of those sacrifices. Happy Memorial Day to all those who selflessly serve.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Check Out Other Great Posts:
Do You Know Your Memorial Day History?
Remembering Memorial Day by Susan Garren
©Grandmother Musings 2012-2013.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jamie Nowinski – Grandmother Wisdom/Grandmother Musings with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


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We are very excited to announce a new release of AstroApp!
Major new features:
- Financial Module additions:
- Trading System
- 462 cryptocurrencies
- Fibonacci indicators and Pivot points
- Astro Research
- Ability to analyze groups of charts for similarities and differences
New Features in each Edition:
AstroApp Pro, and Financial Gold Editions:
- Astro Research:
- Ability to analyze groups of charts for commonalities and differences
- 13 research criteria
- Customizable research criteria sets
- Graphs with standard deviations and predicted vs actual values
Financial Gold Edition:
- Trading System:
- Ability to create and evaluate complex Buy and Sell signals
- Ability to combine Technical Indicators, Astro Indicators, and Astro Events and incorporate them in your trading strategy
- Ability to use 22 trading rules
- Ability to combine trading rules into simple trading formulas and into trading formulas of unlimited complexity
- Analysis of profitability and risk-reward ratio
- Comparison of user-defined trading strategies with the buy-and-hold approach
- Ability to graph entry and exit signals on stock charts
- Ability to graph hypothetical cash flows for custom and buy and hold trading strategies
- 14 new Technical Indicators including Fibonacci Support and Resistance, Pivot Points, Demark support and resistance, and more
- 6 new Astro Indicators
- Portfolio astro-analysis. For example, you can now quickly check if your portfolio is overweight in stocks that have specific astrological configurations
- Support for 462 cryptocurrencies and 155 currencies added. Ability to research crypto-to-currency conversion rates
- First trade charts for 22 companies added; 20 charts updated
Vedic, AstroApp Pro and Financial Gold Editions:
- Vedic Business Astrology: Tarabalam