text:
Handsome architecture
Our walk along the Yucatán beach on the Gulf of Mexico is turning into a voyage of discovery, despite the fact that we are a half-hour drive from the closest Mayan ruins.
We stride by fishing boats leaning over in the sand and wave at fishermen
returning with coolers full of grouper, which will end up on dinner plates in
nearby homes and restaurants in the port city of Progreso.
We pick up shells washed up by the tide and stop to take pictures of kids
playing soccer in the sand. It all seems very ordinary, but the backdrop is
What really blows us away are the extravagant beach houses, complete with
pools, palms and huge windows, that go on and on as we head for
the village of Chicxulub, six kilometres up the coast from Progreso.
Many of the houses are owned by wealthy people in Mérida, the handsome
colonial capital of Yucatán state. They are evidence that the descendents of the
Maya, who built fabulous cities throughout Central America before the
arrival of the Europeans, are still amazing builders with a penchant for
bold architecture.
They serve as second homes for rich people and their staffs – even the units
in low-rise condo buildings in Progreso come complete with maids' quarters.
The houses are occupied mainly in the summer when the heat in Mérida, 30
kilometres south of Progreso, becomes stifling and residents head to the
Gulf coast seeking relief provided by the ocean breezes. Apart from that,
the houses are used by the owners during holy week (semana santa) when
Easter celebrations become non-stop parties.
Down time
That leaves almost 10 months of down time for these mansions and a golden
opportunity for people from the north seeking the sun. A clutch of
bargain-wise Canadians has discovered that there are good deals to be had
renting these mansions. They
have become winter bases for the snowbirds – many of them retired – who have
decided to take a pass on cold, snow and slush for several weeks or even
Many arrive here by flying directly to Cancún, the main centre of the
adjacent state of Quintana Roo and the raucous hub of the Mayan Riviera, on
the other side of the peninsula. Some rent cars for the trip to Progreso,
but we hopped aboard an air-conditioned bus for the four-hour ride to
Mérida, making the last leg to Progreso by taxi.
The port is on what is called the Costa Esmeralda, and here they roll up the
Malecón, the wide sidewalk along the beach, early in the evening, compared
with the noisy nightlife of Cancún and the rest of the Mayan Riviera.
We meet some of the contingent of Canadians when about 60 of them gather
for the weekly happy hour that takes place every Saturday at the Hotel
Yakunah in Progreso.
The owners, Elke and Gerben Hartskeerl, a Dutch couple, acquired a rundown
house a block from the beach four years ago and have turned it into a small,
but chic hotel that has become a sort of community centre for expatriot and
visiting Canucks. Over the course of a week at the hotel last January, we
met people from Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec.
The couple from our area, a retired Montreal fireman and his wife, drove for
six days in their car to reach Progreso and were in the middle of a stay
lasting several months. They had dropped into the hotel to make a call home
on the satellite phone.
But I could not speak to them long because I was in negotiations with a
local taxi driver – his name is Ramón – for a day trip to the old Mayan city
of Uxmal, whose structures inspired Frank Lloyd Wright and other
contemporary architects.
But first, Ramón organized a visit to the nearby ruins of Dzibilchaltún, a
sprawling site a half hour away by car.
With its low-rise buildings, it is not as well known as Chichén Itzá or
Uxmal, but it attracts good crowds when there is a cruise ship docked at the
end of the Progreso pier, which pokes eight kilometres out into the Gulf of
Mexico, a testament to the construction prowess of the modern Maya.
At Dzibilchaltún, we follow guides showing visitors through the museum and
then the buildings on the site where an estimated 40,000 people once lived.
The centrepiece is the temple of the seven dolls, which has been aligned to
the spring and autumn equinoxes. Locals and tourists alike gather on March
21 and Sept. 21 to watch the rising sun shine through the doors of the
No visible rivers
Many people stop at Xlacah cenote at the end of the tour for a swim. It's
one of thousands of sink holes dotting the Yucatán, which has no visible
rivers. Fresh water runs under the limestone crust and surfaces in the
Two days later, Ramón picks us up at the hotel bright and early, and we head
for Uxmal, 90 minutes away in the Puuc hills south of Mérida.
Our guide, Jorge, takes us through the ruins, which were discovered
overgrown by the jungle in 1935 and points out the intricate and
impressionistic figures of jaguars, snakes and turtles that make up the
fabric of the underworld of the Maya. There are also faces of priests and
flowers representing the third eye.
Carved into the stone of the buildings is much lattice work, something that
I had only associated with big-box hardware stores up to this point.
We are not allowed to climb the pyramid of the Soothsayer, the highest
building on the site (climbing was banned more than two years ago), but we
clamber over most of the other structures as Jorge explains their
There is no cenote at Uxmal. Instead, the Maya collected rain water and
stored it in underground cisterns, another testament to their expertise in
engineering, which goes along with their detailed knowledge of astronomy and
their boundless imagination in creating myths and stories.
Jorge also tells us that his name is Yorich in the local Mayan language, one
of the frequent references that local people make to their heritage.
The buildings were also constructed in such a way as to provide echoes for
claps and voices.
Ramón takes us next to the nearby caves at Loltún, an underground labyrinth
of interconnecting caverns stretching for two kilometres, full of
stalagmites and stalactites and lit by motion-sensitive lights.
Our guide for this adventure is Ricardo, who explains that the caves were
most recently used by Mayan slaves escaping Spanish landowners.
Archeologists, who have found bones of extinct animals such as the mammoth,
have determined that there is evidence of human activity going back 7,000
There are drawings on the walls, while some columns give off bell-like
sounds when struck with a fist. Near the reception centre is a huge stone
phallus that was transported from a site nearby where it was originally
We pile back into the taxi with Ramón for the ride to the village of Mani,
specifically the Tutulxtu restaurant, for a late lunch. We start off with
corn chips with guacamole dip, and Ramón orders several dishes called poc
chuc, which consist of lime soup, pork and chicken along with salad, a
fitting restorative after a long day.
My wife and I also take time for a trip by air-conditioned mini-bus (the
cost is about $1.30 each) to Mérida, which has been built in the Spanish
colonial tradition and is now the economic, political and cultural centre of
the peninsula.
Magnificent cathedral
We stroll past the magnificent Cathedral of San Idelfonso, built with the
stones of dismantled Mayan structures, on the main plaza, whose trees
attract thousands of noisy birds coming to roost for the night.
And we walk through the nearby university before stopping at a courtyard
restaurant for dinner.
While the ruins and the beach houses gave us a great look at the
construction abilities of the Mexicans, our arrival at Chicxulub following
the hike along the beach reminded us of the astonishing destructive power of
the universe.
As laughing schoolchildren swirled around us practising their English, we
stumble on a plaque in the village plaza describing how a giant comet
slammed into the earth here 65 million years ago causing a major disruption
of the climate and the possible extinction of the dinosaurs.
The comet ended much of the life as it was then lived on the planet, but it
was not the end of the world and we can view more recent earth-shaking
events in that light.
There are frequent ADO buses (comfortable and air conditioned) to Mérida. A
one-way trip costs from $25 to $30.
We saw military posts along the highway with well armed soldiers, a not unusual sight in Mexico. We have not seen violence of any kind on several trips to this part of Mexico.
The biggest problem in Progreso will likely be the presence of stray dogs,
which survive by deferring to humans. However, it is best to exercise
caution and common sense.
If you take your cellphone and plan to call home, verify with your service
provider before leaving that you can access the local network.
Hotel Yakunah (hotelyakunah.com.mx) in Progreso charges $75 a night for
double occupancy.
If you want an idea of the real estate market in Yucatán, go to the online
magazine Yucatan Today (yucatantoday.com and click on destinations and then
real estate). It has a ton of information on Yucatán life.
Celestún is the place to see flamingos. There is lots of information on this
ecological site at Yucatan Today.


text:
BREAKING – Facebook, a public company, has reportedly announced a bold new plan – charging users?
Mark Zuckerberg reportedly announced that there will be a host of new changes to Facebook.
WWN's J.B. Smitts broke the story that Facebook was shutting down on May 15, 2013. Maybe this helped Zuckerberg come up with his new plan?
Pressure from angry users has been too much and Facebook is looking at an alternative, something that will persuade Mark Zuckerberg to keep the site alive: his social media platform is going to start charging users!
According to sources outside the company, Facebook is planning a subscription-based service with monthly fees starting at $0.99 for a basic "friendship" which allows for the posting of text and just one profile picture. This fee will increase, depending on the number of friends you have, the messages posted and sent, and the pictures/videos/ games put on a user's page. The monthly fee will be capped at $50.00 per month at the high-end.
Bottom line: the more you use Facebook, the more you will pay.
Reports from sources not affiliated with company are saying that all existing content has been "grandfathered" and will not be disrupted – though Facebook has decided to share this data with government agencies, including the FBI , the CIA and Michael Moore.
CIO, FLoyd Collins said – "people will get used to paying. It's not so bad. What's a few bucks a month?"
Investment bankers, including Goldman Sachs, who brought the company public, learned that Mark Zuckerberg wanted to shutter the site, and are thrilled at the prospect of Facebook converting to a pay service.
"The addition of this substantial revenue windfall makes Facebook all that more attractive as an investment," said Tom Wotozowski, Senior Vice President of Goldman Sachs. "This will make it the largest corporation on the planet, ever."
Although Facebook has always been a free service, industry watchers estimate that the new fee-based program will generate well in excess of $50 billion in new revenue for the company – based on the most conservative assumptions of usage and the proposed tiered fee structure.
These estimates, of course, account for the fact that millions of users may quit Facebook in response to the imposition of fees. "I'm not going to pay for Facebook! It's like paying for air. It's not right," said longtime Facebook junkie, Jessica Samsille. "Screw them, I'm going back to MySpace," said Bo Chan.
No matter. Facebook executives are excited at the prospect of charging users. "We're going to make money hand over fist," said Facebook CEO Cindy Shooman. "I think converting to a pay service is something that will make Mark want to keep the site going. And I'll finally get to buy an island in the Mediterranean."
May 15, 2013 is Facebook Day. The site will either shut down, or start charging users for its service – according to sources close to people from Silicon Valley.
[Reporting by Floyd Collins on WWN's Financial News desk]

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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It's the sort of credit you take when different emergencies happen. There are such examples as medical bills, house maintenance, car repair, etc. Of course, each customer has his own purpose.
Applying does NOT affect your credit score!
No credit check to apply.


text:
Bestsellers 3 Jun
Dean Koontz
Stephenie Meyer
Cory Doctorow
Bestsellers 27 May
Troy Denning
Stephenie Meyer
Salman Rushdie
2008 Archive
2007 Archive
The table shows the current rank of each book and the change since last week, where:
= same as last week
+/- change since last week
+ back on list
++ new on list
x no longer on list (number of x's: weeks off list)
All lists rank hardcovers and paperbacks separately, except for the USA Today list, which is a single list combining fiction and nonfiction in all formats. Dates shown are posted dates, except those in parentheses, which are dates compiled. New York Times posts its list one week in advance of print publication.
Note that some sources do not compile paperback bestsellers, and some exclude YA books (like the Harry Potter series) from their hardcover and paperback fiction lists.
Links Portal
Bookseller Links
Locus Bestsellers, compiled from sales at specialty stores:
SFFH Books on General Bestseller Lists
posted 10 June 2008
|© 2008 by Locus Publications. All rights reserved.


text:
Thayer man killed in single-vehicle crash
Staff reports
A 52-year-old Thayer man is dead following a single-vehicle crash in southern Sangamon County Saturday night.
The Sangamon County Sheriff's Office says Alan Brumfield was pronounced dead at the scene.
Brumfield was heading westbound in the 7100 block of Thayer Road when his vehicle went off the roadway, hit an embankment and overturned at least twice. The vehicle came to a rest on its passenger side facing east, the sheriff's office said.
The crash occurred shortly before 5:30 p.m. Saturday. The sheriff's office said a man hunting mushrooms in the area heard the crash and notified authorities.
Brumfield was not wearing a seatbelt.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.


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Arsenio Hall returns to TV with his new late-night show
Arsenio Hall's program 'The Arsenio Hall Show' is set to premiere Sept. 9. Arsenio Hall worked as a late-night host in the late '80s and early '90s before leaving when his ratings slipped after the arrival of Jay Leno and David Letterman.
Did fate decree that Arsenio Hall would return to late night after two decades' absence?
If so, he's answering that comeback call on Sept. 9 with the premiere of "The Arsenio Hall Show" (syndicated; check local listings for time and channel).
And he's itching to get going.
"You know how certain things make you nervous?" he said recently. "I don't like to fly, but once I'm on the plane and we're over the Rockies and I'm watching a movie, I'm fine.
"Right now I feel like I do when I'm in the airport."
It was in 1987 that a then-unknown Hall, briefly stepping in for Joan Rivers' short-lived Fox talk show, took flight as the cool, hip alternative to NBC's "Tonight Show" titan Johnny Carson.
Then, in January 1989, he debuted with his own syndicated late-night show against Carson. He proved a formidable rival with his party atmosphere (the "Dog Pound" audience greeted him with "woofs" and other animal sounds as well as applause) and a wide range of guests, including presidential candidate Bill Clinton (sporting shades and wailing "Heartbreak Hotel" on his sax) and basketball great Magic Johnson shortly after announcing he was HIV positive.
But by 1994, Hall was facing new competition from "Tonight" host Jay Leno and David Letterman on CBS. With ratings slipping, he announced he was leaving the late-night arena, and, gracefully, he did.
In the years that followed, he kept a low profile. A sitcom came and went. He hosted "Star Search" for a season. He co-starred on a CBS drama "Martial Law" for a couple of years. Did standup.
He also devoted himself to his son, Arsenio Jr., now 13, whose mother is Hall's ex, former manager and down-the-street neighbor Cheryl Bonacci.
"I love being a dad," he said. "When kids got together at Chuck E. Cheese, there were a lot of mothers — and me."
But Hall yearned to return to late night. In June 2012 he announced it was happening.
"People say, 'How did you know when to do it?' Several times before I had tried!"
False starts included a meeting with studio bigwigs he skipped because his son was sick. Or the nail in a piece of sushi that broke his tooth the night before an all-important guest-hosting gig.
"Signs like that," Hall said, "seemed to mean I wasn't ready yet."
Now he's sure he's ready, whatever skeptics may say.
"I hear all the long-shot talk: 'This is an impossible thing to do after all this time. The field is so crowded.' But I still have to pursue my dream!"
Meeting with a reporter at a rehearsal space in a rawboned section of North Hollywood while his new house band was tuning up, Hall radiated the charm and high energy that made him a hit with viewers so long ago. At 58, he comes across much the same as ever – lanky, boyish, wide-open grin. The biggest difference: his mustache is long gone. "It had too much gray in it," he confided.
As part of his strategy to reintroduce himself, Hall became a contestant on "The Celebrity Apprentice" early in 2012 – and ended up not only gaining the exposure he sought, but also winning the competition.
Even so, do enough viewers know who he is – or remember him – to get his new show off the ground?
"When people ask that, I'm like, 'Well, NO ONE knew me the FIRST time!' I used to joke that people thought Arsenio Hall was a dorm at UCLA. So don't I have a better shot THIS time?"
Besides, talk shows traffic in many of the same guests, Hall observed. What distinguishes one show from the next is its host and how he interacts with those guests.
With opening night just around the corner, Hall will be receiving his first guests soon and staking his new claim in late night.
"I don't even know if I can live through that first minute," he said excitedly. "You come out there, back after a billion years, there's gonna be all kind of animal noises and people screaming. What do you say? 'It was a long doggone hiatus'?"
But he used a stronger word than "doggone," then burst into laughter.


text:
Research being conducted by a fabulous radical doula in Chicago, focusing on the experiences of teen moms with pregnancy and childbirth. Details:
My name is Kristen Ethier; I am a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at DePaul University, and I am currently working on my final MA research project. My research is on teen mothers' experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. I am looking for participants to conduct face to face interview who are teen mothers ages 16-21 who both gave birth within the past two years and are currently living in the Chicagoland area to talk about their pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum experiences.
I am also interested in their ideas and opinions on how these experiences can be improved for teen mothers. The interview will take about an hour in the participant's home or a public place of their choice (i.e. school, a coffee shop, or a library). Participation in this study will be confidential, meaning their identity will be protected during and after the interview. If you are a young/teen mother or know any teen mothers who might fit the requirements, please forward this information on to anyone you think might be interested. If you are interested in participating, please contact me at 312-259-0434 or email@example.com. Thank you for your consideration!


text:
Not quitting. Moving. Closing this shop, opening a new one.
I thought long and hard to come up with a meaningful metaphor.
Imagine you run a baking shop. Imagine it is a good baking shop, by your standards anyway. You aren't making millions, you don't have a massive chain. It's just you, the sole owner/proprietor/employee, in some small town somewhere. You have, say, eight thousand or so regulars, most of which you remember by name.
Time goes by. Years in fact. You bake and you bake and you bake.
You experiment sometimes. Make a bagel at least half your customers fall in love with immediately. Dip your toes into doughnuts, though a Tim Hortons opens up just down the way and forces you out of that particular market. It doesn't matter though, your customers never abandon you.
Sometimes you take sick days, and there's that one time you were accidentally caught up in a hilarious spy romcom starring Brad Pitt as Johnny Depp's unwitting gay lover.
Many years in, you can feel a weight. You're not sure what this weight is, but you can feel it. Just… a remote pressure, gently squeezing you and increasing in intensity over the course of several weeks.
You finally recognize it as a book closing. Your book. The book of the bakery.
The bakery, you see, is coming to an end.
It's not that you suddenly dislike baking. It's not that you suddenly don't enjoy it or became particularly bad at it.
Something, somewhere, shifted. And now the bakery is ending.
You think about becoming a florist.
You decide to go with it.
Baking is done, now it's all about floral arrangements.
But, you see, you can't use the same name or the same store.
You see, cause that name, that name is a bakery. That store saw the creation of confectionaries and delightful pastries and yes, even wholesome loaves of bread from time to time.
You can't change that, you can't retcon it into something it isn't. It is, and always will be, a bakery. You can't morph it into a florist. You can't simply remove the ovens and replace it with a greenhouse.
The bakery has become something beyond you. It has sprung from you, created a life for itself, lived and reveled as its own entity.
I can't bring myself to kill it.
I can't bring myself to take it out back and shoot it.
It is what it is, and shall remain so.
By opening a new place, I create something that has no history. No past, no personality. A true tabula rasa, a blank slate. A solid square of marble, untouched by the chisel.
Critical QQ is something that has already been forged, grown and developed, matured, battle hardened.
You cannot return a painting to the blank canvas it once was.
Get a new canvas.
And with that, I proudly present Preposterous Pretentious Prattle (threepr for short), my new canvas.
I am unsure where this new place will take me. I have freedom here, total and unchecked. We shall see.
I'm not particularly fond of, nor good at, goodbyes or thanks, which is why I haven't posted any.
What would I say? How would I thank the loyal legions?
I'd be all…
Gnomeaggedon. You are an absolute blast, in every sense of the word.
Krizzlybear. WEEABOOOOO!!!
Larisa. YOU'RE OLD.
(Seriously, if you got all us mages together, Larisa would be the kindly, grandmotherly figure everyone genuinely liked. Except, you know, don't mess with granny, cause piss that harmless old woman off and you will be embraced with liquid streams of absolute death.)
Pike. Man, I don't even know what to say. You and your fellow nerds-with-uterii cause my higher brain functions to fail at extremely inopportune moments daily. Fucking baller is what you are.
Rilgon. I honestly found you first as a commenter in MMO-Champ. I would actually scroll through MMO-Champ threads specifically to read your comments. Then I said "I bet this guy has a totally kickass blog." I WAS RIGHT.
Saresa. In honour of warlocks such as yourself, every six months I level one to twenty and then delete it whilst cackling.
Do you want to delete Lolbutts, level 20 warlock?
Megan. I'd let you corpse camp me any day. If you know what I mean. And I mean SEX.
Jong. See what I said to Megan. SERIOUSLY.
… DO YOU SEE HOW HORRIBLE THIS WOULD BE. Who wants to read like several thousand words of this?
It would take multiple days to thank everyone individually, and I would still miss people!
I mean, I'd probably fucking thank my goldfish from third grade before I remembered I forgot to thank my own mother. The stress would be unbearable. I'd be sitting here going "did I thank Tam? did I send that note to Grimmtooth? what about that e-card to Rhii? did I remember to mana-bonk theerivs? oh god what about repgrind, better double check!"
And then I'd reread like ALL THREE THOUSAND WORDS (volume one of forty nine) just to see if I missed someone, and I'd run out of paper, and I'd start writing names down in blood on my desk just to make sure.
Nobody wants that.


text:
What are the United States' best regional foodstuffs? Its worst? These are the questions that bedevil the mind of man—but no longer! For here, we have ranked them. Rigorously scientific (not), ardently researched (nope), and scrupulously fair (not even a little bit): this is the Great American Menu!
Each state (plus the District of Columbia) gets one, and only one, signature foodstuff. And we selected actual food preparations; no state gets credit merely for being the geographic location where a certain edible flora or fauna happens to grow or swim or graze. But enough of that bullshit. On to the rankings! (For a full-size version of Jim Cooke's map, click here.)
The Greats
1. Chicago-style deep-dish pizza (Illinois)
Man is mortal. He frolics upon the grass of life for but a short season, and then is snatched back to the inanimate dirt of his origin. The Chicago-style deep-dish pizza, America's greatest regional foodstuff—all those toppings, good God so much cheese and meat, I can hear my heartbeat, this can't be right, it sounds like a goddamn chainsaw, can that be right?—will greatly hasten that day's arrival, but it will also fill at least a little part of at least one of those days with a transcendent, mind-boggling, outrageously indulgent sensory experience. This is the best thing any food can do, and certainly far beyond the capabilities of [stares daggers at New York] a sheet of soggy cardboard with a flap of waxy melted cheese stretched across it.
2. Shrimp and grits (South Carolina)
Shrimp. Grits. Tasty, satisfying, authentically South Carolinian. Perfect.
3. Mission-style burrito (California)
The Mission-style burrito is especially great because, nowadays, you don't have to go all the way to California to get a good one. In fact, you can even leave California at 125 miles per hour, screaming and crying because your organ systems are rightly rejecting the state of California like a grafted-on walrus tail because California is awful, and still get a tasty Mission-style burrito pretty much wherever you end up! This is because a Mission-style burrito is just a really fuggin' large burrito with extra rice and (figurative) shit in it. Mmmmmmmm.
4. Crab cake (Maryland)
As we've established (here, here, and here), blue crab—particularly the Chesapeake blue crab—is the best of all ingestibles. However, the Maryland crab cake ranks fourth on this list, simply because so many of the various foodstuffs calling themselves crab cakes are really just mildly crab-flavored bread wads for ninnies, which are nonetheless priced as though they contain some quantity of actual by-God crabmeat measurable in units larger than the zeptogram. This means that the best way to obtain a genuine crabcake, rather than an OldBayseasoningandcrushedcrackerscake, is to make one at home—and, so long as you can find yourself a tub of crabmeat to work with, you don't have to be anywhere near Maryland to do that. (That's a good thing. Maryland drivers. Holy shit.)
5. Peach pie/cobbler (Georgia)
Peaches are good. Pie crust and/or biscuit dough are/is good. Good on ya, Georgia.
6. Gumbo (Louisiana)
Yeah, yeah, Louisiana also has the po' boy and the beignet, but really, those are New Orleans foods, and New Orleans already thinks more than highly enough of itself. Besides, neither of those is as tasty as Creole gumbo, which, factually, is the sole credible argument for not sinking that state into the Gulf of Mexico.
7. Key lime pie (Florida)
But what about the Cuban sandwich?!?!?!?! First of all, there's some controversy about the Cuban sandwich's origins: Either it is from Cuba, in which case it is Cuba's sandwich and not Florida's, or it is from Tampa, in which case it is not a Cuban sandwich and has a dumb name, in which case it sucks because things from Tampa suck because Tampa sucks. In any case it is not as definitively Floridian as Key lime pie, which originated in Florida and is made with ingredients—Key limes—that are native to Florida and nowhere else. (It also doesn't taste as good as Key lime pie. So there.) Anyway Key lime pie is very good and I don't know how we wound up talking about the Cuban sandwich this whole time so let's just move on.
8. Fried green tomatoes (Alabama)
... at the Whistle Stop Cafe, yawl! There is nothing to say about fried green tomatoes. They taste very good and you should eat some.
The Goods
9. Stacked enchilada with green chile (New Mexico)
This is really, really fucking tasty. It loses some nonexistent points, though, for the notion that you can just leave the tortillas unrolled and pretend you've created a new foodstuff. That's horseshit, New Mexico. Horse. Shit.
10. Marionberry pie (Oregon)
Mmmmmmm, pie. Oh man. Nobody tell any Oregonians how high their state food is ranked, though. They can't fit any more self-congratulation into their busy schedules.
11. Hot wieners (Rhode Island)
I'm not gonna lie here. The name is a big reason Rhode Island's signature food is ranked so high. It's a tasty hot dog, too.
12. Burgoo (Kentucky)
Kentucky's signature food, a whatever-you-got stew that never tastes the same twice, gets a million imaginary bonus points for its wonderful communal nature: People just bring whatever ingredients they can, and everybody puts what they've got into the stew, and out comes burgoo, and that is just fucking beautiful, even though in reality probably 78 percent of its ingredients were scraped off I-64 with a snow shovel.
13. Pulled pork barbecue (North Carolina)
Pulled pork is more reliably tasty than burgoo—that is to say, there's virtually zero chance of it containing a fistful of raccoon fur—but a lot less wonderful. Science.
14. New England clam chowder (Massachusetts)
Demerits for New England.
T-15. Kansas City-style ribs (Missouri)
T-15. Memphis-style ribs (Tennessee)
For real, they're the same shit. But hey, let's fight about it!
17. West Virginia slaw dog (West Virginia)
This is a hot dog with a chili-like meat sauce, mustard, and coleslaw on it. (Sometimes it has chopped onions on it, too.) Which, yeah, you can get variations of that pretty much anywhere, but West Virginians are serious about the coleslaw part. It's tasty. Like so much else in its home state, it is also low-grade, disreputable, and makes you feel kinda sad and gross if you think about it for too long.
18. Chimichanga (Arizona)
Somebody dropped a burrito into a deep-fryer and out came Arizona's signature food, which no one in Arizona eats, because half the people in Arizona are too old for solid foods, and the rest are on the run from white-supremacist paramilitary border militias.
19. Frozen custard (Delaware)
Suggested advertising language for your frozen custard shop: Frozen custard! It's just like ice cream, only not particularly significantly unlike it, and only preferable if you grew up with it! Bonus points for the fact that ice cream is yummy; demerits for just being ice cream with some egg in it.
20. Texas-style barbecue brisket (Texas)
Beyond the smoky tastiness of all barbecue, the virtues of the Texas-style barbecue brisket are as follows: It is very large. The end.
21. Fried okra (Oklahoma)
They both start with O-K, and they are both never better than that.
22. New York-style pizza (New York)
By rough estimate, there are 900 trillion pizza joints per person in New York City. Somehow, within this competitive environment, not a one of the purveyors of "New York Pizza" has yet considered the wild and crazy idea of maybe trying to do something—anything!—interesting with its pizza. Here is a comically large, thin wedge of dough with some indifferent, rubbery cheese smeared across it, and maybe a few greasy F-grade variants of the same bullshit toppings you can get on your lousy DiGiorno back in friggin' Topeka. Oooh, it's so New Yorky! In that it is overpriced and happy to coast along on a long-since-hollowed-out myth of Big Apple authenticity, just like everything else in this giant, bad-smelling amusement park for rich white people! New York pizza isn't even a genuine pizza genre. It's just lousy, half-assed pizza. Papa John's with a chip on its shoulder.
23. Hot Hawaiian breakfast (Hawaii)
This is Spam, eggs, and rice. Tastes like authentic cargo cult!
24. Lobster roll (Maine)
Here is a list of accoutrements cooked lobster meat does not need:
1) Bread
2) Anything else
Only Maine could turn lobster into a goddamn hot dog.
25. Bull testicles (Montana)
Oddly, bull testicles come in so low on the list not because of ew, cow nads!!1! (seriously, the weirdest thing about eating bull testicles is the bizarre interspecies gay panic—"I don't put no balls in this-a-here mouth!"—they arouse in the food-scared weenie population), but because, eh, they're just not all that exciting. What else you got, Montana? Come back with, like, eyeball pie or something. Cow-snot poppers. Braised asshole. Something really challenging. Welcome to Jeb's Montana Steakhouse! Try the heifer surprise: She gives birth right into your open mouth!
26. Fried catfish (Arkansas)
Fried catfish is pretty tasty, which is no small triumph, since catfish are pretty fuggin' grody. Still: Would you order the fried catfish off the Great American Menu? No. You would not. It would sit there on the menu forever, and you'd pass it over a million times—sometimes even in favor of certainly less pleasant-tasting but more adventurous stuff—and then you'd hear somebody at an adjacent table order it, and you'd go, "Oh, they have fried catfish here? Huh. I never noticed. Maybe I'll try that next time." And then you'd go right back to forgetting it existed, just like you do with Arkansas.
27. Maple syrup (Vermont)
Maple syrup is plenty tasty, but, c'mon. It's tree-snot reduction. Try harder, Vermont.
28. Scrapple (Pennsylvania)
But the cheesesteak mer m'mer Phiwwy cheesesteak mer! Shut it. The famous grease-and-garbage sandwich belongs to the city of Philadelphia, which A) is the worst place on Earth, and B) doesn't come close to representing the entire state of Pennsylvania. In a given day, 500 times as many Pennsylvanians are scraping possums off the motorway to add volume to their scrapple as are standing in line with the tourists in the Junior Varsity Metropolis to have a bucket of Cheez Whiz dumped onto a fistful of thinly sliced sewer rat. Your state food is this salty, greasy, gray, abjectly horrifying pig-rectum-mash, and, fuck you, it is delicious.
(Also, a 9-year-old in her parents' kitchen could make a tastier cheesesteak in 10 minutes than any to be found in Philadelphia. Thhhppbbpbpbppbbp.)
29. Corndog (Iowa)
Who doesn't love a corndog? Nobody, that's who, and also idiots. On the other hand, when a region's entire concept of cuisine is to take ordinary foodstuffs (hot dogs, brownies, fucking honey), dunk them in batter, mount them on a stick, and deep-fry them, the successes (corndogs) tend to be shadowed somewhat by the excesses (deep-fried Snickers bars), the horrors (chocolate-covered deep-fried cheesecake), the oh-fuck-this-has-to-be-some-kind-of-goofy-Iowa-troll-job jobs (fucking deep-fried honey), and the lingering suspicion that Midwesterners suffer from a congenital lack of tastebuds.
30. Cedar-plank salmon (Washington)
I mean, it's salmon. Whoop-de-fuckin'-do. I like mine with extra board.
31. Cowboy cookies (Colorado)
The cowboy cookie is a chocolate-chip cookie to which someone wisely added rolled oats and shredded coconut, and to which someone else very stupidly added chopped pecans even though pecans are shitty. Neither pecans nor coconuts nor oats come from Colorado. Nor does chocolate. Nor do cowboys, really. You know what does come from Colorado? Confused looks and shrugged shoulders when you ask people what their state's signature foodstuff is. This is because, at any given time, 102 percent of the people in Colorado are vacationing Californians in bubble-vests and hiking boots. Real Colorado-types (Coloradans? Coloroadies? Colorectal cancers?) eat snow, and don't exist.
32. Mud pie (Mississippi)
This is essentially a pile of brownie dough floating in a gallon of chocolate syrup. It is delicious. Let's take this moment to remember that Mississippi leads the nation in adult diabetes.
33. Bratwurst (Wisconsin)
The bratwurst is among the more boring and dumb tube meats, even before you penalize it for being a pillar of the beers, brats, and bros! triad of meathead tailgating culture. The authentic-replica-Bryan-Bulaga-jersey set like bratwurst because they're less interested in tasty food than in a large meat comma they can use to divide alcohol-abuse clauses. Be honest: Would you rather have another boring bratwurst, or a hot Italian sausage with sautéed peppers and onions? Or a grilled kielbasa with a pickle spear, sauerkraut, and grainy mustard? Exactly. Shut up.
34. Virginia ham (Virginia)
Truthfully, nobody in Virginia gives a shit about Virginia ham, which is just another friggin' ham, only with 900 times as much salt as all the other hams, which are already pretty fuggin' salty. It's not like Virginia is any hammier than any other state, really. In fact, it's probably less into ham than most of its Southern brethren. The favorite foodstuff of Northern Virginia is the gluten-free white-soy-chocolate-macadamia-nut biscotti at every insufferable chain coffee joint in the world; in southern Virginia, the most popular thing to cook, by far, is a large wooden cross.
The Better-Than-A-Finger-In-The-Eyes
35. Fried pork tenderloin sandwich (Indiana)
This is a crispy chicken sandwich, only with a big, chewy sheaf of salty pig in place of the juicy, marinated chicken breast. It is neither particularly interesting nor particularly original. It is the signature food of Indiana, which, of course it is.
36. Half-smoke (District of Columbia)
For those not familiar with the culture of our nation's capital, the half-smoke is a hot dog. Yes, it is. Sometimes it can be half beef and half pork; sometimes it can be smoked. Most often it is a steamed beef frank with some very lousy chili slopped over it. Always it is a hot dog. Never is it anything special. Yoda this paragraph wrote.
37. Chicken-fried steak (Wyoming)
Because, y'know, when you're having a steak, you definitely need some heavy breading and thick, greasy gravy to make sure you don't come away with an empty stomach.
38. Finger steaks (Idaho)
"For starters, we'd like the deep-fried steak poppers, please, and a pair of defibrillator paddles."
39. Hamburger casserole (Kansas)
The hamburger that you serve with a fucking ladle. Christ.
40. Hotdish (Minnesota)
This is basically the same thing as Kansas's hamburger casserole—some meat, some starch, some mushy overcooked vegetables, and some canned soup, dumped into a deep pan and baked for a while—only with a name that makes it sound like Rod Stewart should be humping its leg in a London disco in 1974.
41. Michigan pasty (Michigan)
Michigan's signature foodstuff—meat and potatoes served in a portable bread-purse—goes by the name pasty as a means of associating itself with the pasty of England, as though the culinary traditions of that pallid, inbred, rain-soaked island shithole will vindicate what is essentially a calzone for people who hate and fear things that are good.
42. Chislic (South Dakota)
Picture a kebab. Can you picture a kebab? Meat, veggies, skewer, maybe some cucumber dressing and tasty pita bread or naan on the side? Fresh and flavorful and varied and exciting? Got it? OK. Now, eradicate that appetizing image from your mind, and replace it with a bunch of small cubes of greasy, chewy beef on toothpicks, sitting on a sad plate next to some plastic-wrapped packets of saltines. Congratulations. You have now pictured chislic, as well as everything you need to know about the culture of the upper Midwest.
43. Green Jell-O with goddamn carrots in it (Utah)
Come on, Mormons. Goddammit.
44. Lutefisk (North Dakota)
Lutefisk (Norwegian for "lye-fish") is a traditional Nordic preparation whereby dried whitefish is soaked in fucking oven cleaner for no goddamn reason for a long time until it is no longer dry, salty, and disgusting, but gelatinous and pungent and five trillion times as disgusting. There is no reason to eat it ever. There is no reason for it to exist. What the fuck is wrong with Nordic people.
45. Salt water taffy (New Jersey)
New Jersey's signature foodstuff is, quite literally, the result of a sarcastic asshole offering flood-damaged candy to a small child. It is chewy misery to consume, tastes terrible, and contains virtually nothing that any intellectually honest use of the language would permit to be described as food. Salt water taffy is an unhappy accident consecrated to history by the Garden State's lack of literally anything else to claim as its own.
46. Handheld meat pies (Nebraska)
These are homemade Hot Pockets. They are homemade Hot Pockets, and they are what pass for regional culture in Nebraska, the other other other corn state.
47. Akutaq (Alaska)
Say this for akutaq, Alaska's putrid mixture of whipped fat (usually vegetable shortening; traditionally blubber) and berries: What it lacks in, um, not being fucking disgusting, it more than makes up for in the rich lipids and antioxidants the hardy people of the Last Frontier need to get through their pitch-dark "days" of drilling for oil, hunting kidnapped prostitutes across the tundra, and starving to death in abandoned buses.
48. Boiled dinner (New Hampshire)
This is pretty much what it sounds like: You put a big wad of meat and some bland tuberous growths into a pot, cover them with water, clamp on a lid, and then parade around smugly barking about the importance of your dipshit state's presidential primary until the water has successfully annihilated any traces of flavor or character from your food, so that it can more closely resemble the people who will be eating it.
49. Not having any authentic local culture to speak of (Nevada)
Sorry, but "one's retirement savings" does not count as a foodstuff.
50. A fucking steamed fucking cheeseburger (Connecticut)
No foodstuff could more quintessentially embody Connecticut's rigorous commitment to blandness than a mushy wad of pulverized cow cooked in water vapor. You don't need a degree in American history to conjure up the almost certainly accurate image of some buckle-hatted Puritan twerp's Eureka! moment, when he discovered a cheeseburger preparation that promised all of the Caloryes of a Common Cheese-and-Burger, but None of the Curfed Pleafure, which Verily rots the fpirit and faps the Vigour of Man.
Being Hit By A Car
51. Being hit by a car
52. Cincinnati chili (Ohio)
For the mercifully unacquainted, "Cincinnati chili," the worst regional foodstuff in America or anywhere else, is a horrifying diarrhea sludge (most commonly encountered in the guise of the "Skyline" brand) that Ohioans slop across plain spaghetti noodles and hot dogs as a way to make the rest of us feel grateful that our own shit-eating is (mostly) figurative. The only thing "chili" about it is the shiver that goes down your spine when you watch Ohio sports fans shoveling it into their maws on television and are forced to reckon with the cold reality that, for as desperately as you might cling to faltering notions of community and universality, ultimately your fellow human beings are as foreign and unknowable to you as the surface of Pluto, and you are alone and always have been and will die alone, a world unto yourself unmarked and unmapped and totally, hopelessly isolated.
But wait! This abominable garbage-gravy isn't just sensorily and spiritually disgusting—it's culturally grotesque, too! What began as an ethnic curio born of immigrant make-do—a Greek-owned chili parlor that took its "Skyline" name from its view of the city of Cincinnati—is now a hulking private-equity-owned corporate monolith that gins up interest in its unmistakably abhorrent product by engineering phony groups of "chili fanatics" to camp out in advance of the opening of new chains, in locations whose residents would otherwise see this shit-broth for what it is and take up torches and truncheons to drive it back into the wilderness.
Whatever virtue this bad-tasting Z-grade atrocity once contained derived from its exemplification of a set of certain cherished American fables—immigrant ingenuity, the cultural melting pot, old things combining into new things—and has now been totally swamped and consumed by different and infinitely uglier American realities: the commodification of culture; the transmutation of authentic artifacts of human life into hollow corporate brand divisions; the willingness of Americans to slop any horrible goddamn thing into their fucking mouths if it claims to contain some byproduct of a cow and comes buried beneath a pyramid of shredded, waxy, safety-cone-orange "cheese."
Cincinnati chili is the worst, saddest, most depressing goddamn thing in the world. If it came out of the end of your digestive system, you would turn the color of chalk and call an ambulance, but at least it'd make some sense. The people of Ohio see nothing wrong with inserting it into their mouths, which perhaps tells you everything you need to know about the Buckeye State. Don't eat it. Don't let your loved ones eat it. Turn away from the darkness, and toward the deep-dish pizza.
The Foodspin archive: Chicken thighs | Popeye's biscuits | Salad | Candy corn Oreos | Chili | Red Bull Total Zero | French toast | Sriracha | Halloween candy | Emergency food | Nachos | Meatloaf | Thanksgiving side dishes | MacGyver Thanksgiving | Eating strategies | Leftovers | Mac and cheese | Weird Santa candies | Pot roast | Bean dip | Shrimp linguine | Go-Gurt | Chicken soup | Lobster tails | Pulled pork | Pasta with anchovies | Sausage and peppers | Bacon, eggs, and toast | Indoor steak | Cool Ranch Doritos Tacos | Chicken breasts | Baked Ziti | Quiche | Pimento cheese sandwich | Potato salad | Popeyes Rip'n Chick'n | Crab cakes | Mother's Day brunch | Cheeseburgers | Uncrustables | Peach cobbler | Pizza | Alfredo sauce | Kebabs | Soft-shell crabs | Ruffles Ultimate | Omelet | Pesto | Poached eggs | Bivalves | Ribs | Caesar Salad | Nutella | Reuben sandwich | Corn relish | Lasagna
Albert Burneko is an eating enthusiast and father of two. His work can be found destroying everything of value in his crumbling home. Peevishly correct his foolishness at email@example.com, or publicly and succinctly on Twitter @albertburneko. You can find lots more Foodspin at foodspin.deadspin.com.
Map and illustrations by Jim Cooke.


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Chevron - Blueberry Double Dog Leash
The dog coupler leash adjusts in length to allow for easy use. The size selected is typically matched with the width of collar the dogs wear. However, sizing up may sometimes be desirable for dogs that pull
Small = 3/8" Wide x 9-12" Long
- Designer Fabric 2 way Coupler
- 100% Durable Polyester Braid
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- Adjustable Length!
- Machine Washable
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- Backed by the Yellow Dog Design Inc 100% Guarantee
We can ship to virtually any address in the world. Note that there are restrictions on some products, and some products cannot be shipped to international destinations.
When you place an order, we will estimate shipping and delivery dates for you based on the availability of your items and the shipping options you choose. Depending on the shipping provider you choose, shipping date estimates may appear on the shipping quotes page.
Please also note that the shipping rates for many items we sell are weight-based. The weight of any such item can be found on its detail page. To reflect the policies of the shipping companies we use, all weights will be rounded up to the next full pound.
Limited Lifetime Guarantee
Hot Dog Collars is proud to offer a "Limited Lifetime Guarantee" to our customers for many of our products. Our guarantee promises that we will replace any product purchased from Hot Dog Collars that, due to manufacturer defect, is lost, fails, or unnaturally wears, for the entire life of the product.Our guarantee does not cover products which are:
- Lost for reasons other than manufacturer defect.
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If there is a problem with a product, please allow us the opportunity to resolve the issue. Contact us regarding any items that you would like to return or exchange.
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Free return labels can be generated up to 30 days after you receive your order. If you're within the 30 day window from delivery, you can request a return label by clicking here.
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text:
Qualcomm preps ARM server SoCs
–and they want to hire you
Rick Merritt 1/25/2013 4:58 AM EST
Qualcomm has posted job openings that make it clear it will join at least seven companies making 64-bit ARM server SoCs.
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Add Qualcomm to the list of ARM server SoC designers.
The smartphone chip designer is advertising at least three software engineering jobs that clearly state its intentions.
Applicants will work on "architecture/design and system prototypes of Qualcomm's new ARMv8-based server SOC ASICs for the power optimized server market," the ads say. "Primary responsibilities include specification, development, porting, integration and shakeout of server platform management software and firmware on prototypes utilizing Qualcomm's new SOC."
The ARMv8 is a reference to ARM's next-generation 64-bit capable instruction set architecture.
The ability to handle 64-bit addresses is key for server processors.
Qualcomm is at least the eighth company now known to be working on ARM server SoCs.
Others with announced or known plans include AMD, Applied Micro, Cavium, Calxeda, Marvell, Nvidia and Samsung.
Huawei posted job openings for ARM server engineers last year.
However, it was not clear if the company is designing systems, SoCs or both.
Texas Instruments rolled out ARM server SoCs, but is targeting "purpose-built" embedded systems, not data centers.
The companies known to be preparing ARM server chips generally aim to start shipping 64-bit SoCs in 2014.
Calxeda and Marvell are shipping 32-bit SoCs for servers today with limited traction, mainly in prototyping systems for Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Taiwan's Mitac.
The Qualcomm software jobs appear to be mainly in Raliegh, N.C., although at least one also lists postings in Austin and San Diego, Qualcomm's headquarters.
Related stories:
Intel leapfrogs ARM (for now) with Atom server SoC
ARM servers: Heavy lifting, big payoffs ahead
ARM backers jump on Facebook bandwagon
Slideshow: Facebook remakes the server


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Google Fiber's first rollout was in Kansas City, Kansas, and it has since been confirmed for the likes of Austin, TX, and Provo, UT. It's now hitting a new city, Gladstone, MO, which is adjacent to Kansas City.
"Recently, we've welcomed a handful of new Kansas City-area Google Fiber communities—and tonight we get to welcome yet another. The Gladstone, Missouri City Council just voted to bring Fiber to their city, too," Google Fiber Community Manager Rachel Hack wrote on the project blog yesterday. "As we've said before, it takes a while to plan, engineer, and start building our network in new communities, so it will still be some time before we can hook up our Gladstone customers."
As you can see in the map on the right, Gladstone could be viewed as an expansion of the existing Kansas City deployment.
Google Fiber brings Gigabit Internet to customers for $70 a month or 5Mbps service for a $300 one-time charge with no monthly fee. Most of you will probably have to keep your sub-Gigabit Internet service for a while longer, as analysts have calculated that nationwide Google Fiber would cost $11 billion a year.


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OPUS FAU - Online publication system of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
The online publication system OPUS FAU is the central electronic archiving and publication platform for all members of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Qualified scientific works from research and teaching may be published here free of charge. The full texts are thus permanently available to the global public and are searchable and citable via catalogues and search engines.
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DC-based musician, blogger, and fellow marketing professional Mike Holden writes in his blog Thursday that Stan Kasten and the Nationals should consider restoring a little dignity for the 40,000-or-so fans who snapped up tickets to Friday night's game against the Cincinnati Reds based on reports that pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg would be making his major league debut that night.
"What better way is there to reward those in attendance for this non-Strasburg start," Holden writes, "than with something that's just as rare as Pitching Jesus?" A Teddy Roosevelt victory, says Holden, still gives the fans "something that some will proudly say they were there in-person for."
Our readers have speculated variously that Teddy's mounting losses will come to an end when the the Nats win the division, or make the playoffs, or win the World Series, or even when Strasburg makes his debut; but I'm in Mike's camp. Reward the faithful. End the suffering. Give us something special. Let Teddy Win tonight!


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Bethenny Frankel to Guest-Star on The Neighbors
TV Guide
Bethenny Frankel is coming to the neighborhood.
The former Real Housewives of New York City star will guest-star on an upcoming episode of ABC's The Neighbors, Entertainment Weekly reports.
Frankel will play a businesswoman who offers to help launch Debbie (Jami Gertz) launch her handbag business in the episode "Mo Purses Mo Money Mo Problems," according to EW.
ABC at TCAs: All the latest news
The episode is expected to air in March or April.
View original Bethenny Frankel to Guest-Star on The Neighbors at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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FDA says Americans consume too many books with metallic covers: Urges pregnant women to "limit or avoid" Dan Brown novels.
Fake Book News posts on One-Minute Book Reviews satirize American literary culture, including the publishing industry. They consist of some of the most popular of the made-up news items that appear on Janice Harayda's FakeBookNews page on Twitter. To read all the tweets in the series, please follow FakeBookNews (@FakeBookNews) on Twitter at www.twitter.com/FakeBookNews.


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Buying Flowers on a Budget
Flowers make for such beautiful gifts, are such a fabulous way of expressing sentiments and are, without a doubt, one of the prettiest decorations for any occasion and venue. From everyday décor to special events such as weddings and parties, flowers are a great way to infuse positivity and spirit into any room.
The only drawback to buying flowers? They can put quite a dent in your wallet. While even a small bouquet of exotic flowers can cost quite a bit, when you plan to buy flowers in bulk, having a tight budget can be quite a challenge. Here are some fantastic tips for buying flowers on a budget.
Stop getting flowers delivered to your doorstep
It's expensive and you can get the same flowers for much cheaper if you simply make the effort to go and pick them out yourself. Now, unless you're having them delivered to someone else and cannot take them yourself, or you know a florist who does deliveries for free or gives discounts if you spend a certain amount, buying them in-person always works out much cheaper.
Make your flowers last longer by looking after them better
. You won't have to repurchase them as often, and will end up saving lots of money and getting more bang for your buck. This is a practice that most flower lovers swear by, because it means you spend much less but you continue to enjoy the beauty and fragrance of flowers in your home for much longer. Place the flowers in tall jars with water that you change every two days. Make sure all the flowers have enough space and aren't crowded and pressed up against each other. Trim the leaves so that they don't droop into the water and get decayed and contaminate it. Trim the bottoms of the flower stems at a diagonal angle- this helps the flowers absorb water better and thus keeps them properly hydrated and "fed".
Only buy in-season flowers
In-season blooms will be easily available, and thus will be priced very reasonably. This won't be a compromise if you're buying flowers to decorate your home but if you have your heart set on some exotic bouquet for a special occasion such as your wedding, then remember, you won't just be paying for the flowers themselves but also for the cost of having them imported, the fuel and transportation charges and so on. It might be something you've really wanted for a while now, but do rethink the expenses and the stress you'll be incurring. A little compromise with your self and some enthusiastic browsing are sure to turn up some equally fabulous options locally too.
Look for discounts
If you insist on going to a fancy florist, you are never going to be able to buy flowers on a budget. Instead, head to supermarket chains because these usually have a flowers section and sell decent bouquets at really reasonable rates. Depending on where you live, street vendors and fresh-flower markets can also be a great source for flowers at discounted rates.
Don't purchase exotic and expensive flowers, unless it is a very, very special occasion
If you're putting together your bridal bouquet or gifting flowers to someone for an extremely important event, splurging is justified. But anything less than a milestone event can be made just as beautiful with regular flowers too. You don't have to buy orchids or calla lilies to decorate your home or for the gesture to be truly meaningful.
Flowers, regardless of variety or rarity, will bring a smile to everyone's faces. It makes more sense to buy a big bunch of regular flowers than to buy a few pieces of exorbitantly priced blooms.


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Aside from the most common question asked of the gallery attendant—"where's the restroom?"—the next could easily be the empathetic concern, "do you stand all day?" Yes, but it's not too bad. Working in a museum, I like to say, is heaven for the mind and hell for the feet.
For the stoic guard the day is filled with many splendors. Many of us are art lovers who wanted to be guards in the museum. Barring the attendant physical woes, being hemmed in with Picasso, Matisse, Rembrandt, and the many other great works that fill LACMA's rich and eclectic collection is irresistible. Not to take away from the astute curators, the dedicated docents, and the army of people who make it all possible, but even they can't imagine the unfettered hours on end at Matisse's magical Tea party or the hypnotic color swirls of Leger's Disks, or to turn and be face to face with the delicate, tenderly rendered Woman with Blue Veil by Picasso—an act of looking which could be repeated without end.
This is our living space. This is the upside of the coin, lessened in value only by our struggle to keep at bay that strange creeping casual indifference that is first cousin to repetition.
Doesn't it get to look like wallpaper and furniture to you, standing in the galleries day in and day out? Well, maybe for some, but not for everyone. I believe that some of the art will go on speaking to you in spite of fatigue and familiarity. That being said, you are not quite alone within this silent drama, for the patrons are invariably asking questions, sometimes enlisting opinions or edging your enthusiasm. I find such engagement to be the cure-all.
Hylan Booker, Gallery Attendant


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the mortal coil snaps
and peace is all that remains –
he's gone home
(c) G.s.k. '14
the mortal coil snaps
and peace is all that remains –
he's gone home
(c) G.s.k. '14
life happens . . .
Noreen Crone-Findlay talks about the crafts she loves with her friend, Tottie Tomato. They'll be sharing tutorials, how to's and step by steps for spool knitting, crochet, doll making, small loom weaving, wood working, paper crafts and all manner of other fun crafts. This is a family friendly blog.
Random musings, observations and thoughts from inside a VW camper van.
Poetry. Art. Book Reviews.
a forum for the study of the materialism and ontology of finance
Written Thoughts are unlocked Treasures of the mind...
Welcome to the Feline World of Nera, Tabby and Fluffy
Observations and views from a different set of eyes
Advice on Writing, Publishing, and Book Promotion
An Artist's Eyes Never Rest
A Blog of Books and Literature
Misk Cooks
wāhine on the go
Poetry ~ Waka
Carpe Diem's Tanka Splendor is part of the Carpe Diem Haiku Family. It's a weekly tanka-meme in which you can write and share tanka inspired on a given prompt every Saturday (mostlty, sometimes it will be on another day).
Haiku inspired (mostly) by my walks in and around Eastbourne
Often rough and filled with switchbacks, the road this child of God is traveling Home.
poetry... mostly...
About fantastical places and other stuff
MALTAWAY TRAVEL per Viaggi, Corsi Inglese e Incentive - maltawaytravel.wordpress.com
a happenstance journal
Who, What, When, Where, How & Why
brenda warren
Mindful parenting and modern pagan lifestyle.


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Contract for CWLP property insurance approved
The Springfield City Council on Tuesday approved a nearly $1.8 million contract with a local brokerage firm for insuring city-owned utility properties, but one alderman objected to not first soliciting proposals from other firms.
In a 9-1 vote, aldermen approved a three-year contract with broker R.W. Troxell and Co. to insure 40 City Water, Light and Power properties.
The contract calls for the city to pay the firm $1,766,900 for the first annual premium of the three-year commitment.
"It makes sense to shop around," said Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin, who cast the lone vote against the contract.
McMenamin called his dissent a "protest vote" to encourage the competitive bidding process in city contracts. Aldermen recently spent several months debating whether the city should have used a competitive process in procuring a contract to supply auto parts at the new consolidated garage scheduled to open later this year.
McMenamin said he spoke to representatives from other insurance companies, including one in Decatur, who said they wanted to bid on the Springfield contract.
R.W. Troxell is a Springfield-based insurance broker, and the contract calls for the firm to receive a 12 percent commission. The insurance carrier is National Union Fire Insurance, which is the same insurer the city was working with several years ago when explosions rocked the city's main power plant. R.W. Troxell negotiates the premium on behalf of the city, and then the city pays the firm the commission.
Mayor Mike Houston said Tuesday that the city saw more than $50 million in insurance payouts following the explosions to cover damages at the facility.
The city's current insurance policy for the CWLP properties runs out July 14, so some of the other aldermen urged a "yes" vote to be sure the insurance doesn't lapse. Others said they were confident in the firm's experience.
"We've got one meeting between now and when this policy lapses," Ward 10 Ald. Tim Griffin said.
Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman said he understood McMenamin's point, but, with the timeline the city is currently up against, he called it "irresponsible" to vote the contract down.
"I think in the future when this comes up we should take a hard look," Cahnman said.
McMenamin agreed it would be "unacceptable" for the city to risk going uninsured, leading Ward 3 Ald. Doris Turner to press him on how he could cast a "no" vote.
It would be irresponsible "if all 10 of us voted 'no,' " McMenamin said.
In other business at Tuesday's meeting, the city council voted unanimously to eliminate sick-time payouts for all nonunion employees hired after July 1. The measure targets the sick-time payouts employees receive upon their retirement, or payouts their families receive when they die, but doesn't change payouts for unused vacation time. City Budget Director Bill McCarty said last week that the city pays on average about $1 million annually in sick-time payouts to retiring employees.
The city council voted 7-3 to reclassify the property at 1322 S. 11th St. as within the city's general residence district zoning, which will allow the property owner, Calvin Jones, to provide temporary housing for adult men who are getting out of prison.
Ward 2 Ald. Gail Simpson called the applicant "unique" because Jones' Adulthood Transition Center provides social welfare services and is experienced in running such an operation. Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards was among the "no" votes, and he said the city has had "some bad experiences" with other temporary housing for offenders, referring to the House of Rainbow properties on 10th Street. The council voted against zoning changes for those properties earlier this year.
Ward 8 Ald. Kris Theilen said Jones is "selective" about who he allows into his housing and that he doesn't allow any sex offenders. Edwards, McMenamin and Ward 4 Ald. Frank Lesko cast the three votes against the zoning change.
The council voted 7-3 to do the same for a property at 1940 E. Jackson St., which Jones also owns. Adulthood Transition Center also operates at the Jackson Street address.
Contact Jamie Munks: firstname.lastname@example.com, 788-1528, twitter.com/JamieMunksSJR.


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I love these pictures.
But...how can you not love friends? Girlfriends!
I had several friends in the audience on Sunday for my TED Talk. And several more online who'd been waiting the entire day (I was the final speaker) and texting me and calling me and encouraging me and assuring me I wasn't sh-t.
Does Gwyneth Paltrow do the same for Cameron Diaz?
Does she tell her that Jessica Biel may have the ring and the wedding but she also had Olivia Munn too?
Here they are, G and Cammie, arm in arm after sushi dinner in Brentwood with Chris Martin. You'll note they're wearing almost exactly the same thing too -- grey on top and chains looped around the neck and jeans and fresh(ish) faces, and ...
Friends, right? Friends!
Anyway, here's a Chinese friend feng shui tip --
Don't buy them shoes.
Don't buy anyone shoes. Not your husband, not your wife.
It's bad luck, and considered extremely rude. One lady gifted me at my wedding with a porcelain ballet shoe - random, I know - and my ma hasn't spoken to her since.
So if you're interested in the latest GOOP collaboration, buy it for yourself. The gold brogues are gorgeous. And yes, they're $750 because they're handmade Esquivel. I mean, it's not like she's been partnering with Payless. What is the point of bitching when she recommends expensive items? I'm stopping with this now, because, really, for the ones who complain, I'm not sure what else they expect. Like I said last week, you don't need G to tell you what to buy at Costco. (The big jar of sauerkraut is the best.)


text: Animal Protection Groups Stop Coyote Killing Contest | Animal Legal Defense Fund Share this:PrintTwitterEmailTumblrRedditPinterestLinkedInLike this:Like Loading... Leave a comment About Sherayx Hi, I am a humanitarian...I love this planet, my home, your home, our home...I have been a blogger on WP for some years now...ups and downs but still think it;s one of the best. . I want to bring love and light... We have to look out for each other...we are all we have... View all posts by Sherayx


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PYONGYANG, North Korea - North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.
Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong Il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.
Wails echoed through the chilly hall as a group of North Korean women sobbed into the sashes of their traditional Korean dresses as they bowed before his body. The hall bearing the glass coffin was opened to select visitors — including The Associated Press — for the first time since his death.
North Korea also unveiled Kim's yacht and his armoured train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.
North Koreans paid homage to Kim and basked in the success of last week's launch of a long-range rocket that sent a satellite named after him to space.
The launch, condemned in many other capitals as a violation of bans against developing its missile technology. North Korean space officials say the satellite would be used to study crops and weather patterns.
U.S. officials have said the satellite is tumbling in orbit and not acting as it should. Nevertheless, in North Korea, the launch's success in getting the satellite into space was portrayed as a gift to Kim Jong Il and also as proof that his young son, Kim Jong Un, has the strength and vision to lead the country.
The elder Kim died last Dec. 17 from a heart attack while travelling on his train. His death was followed by scenes of North Koreans dramatically wailing in the streets of Pyongyang, and of the 20-something son leading ranks of uniformed and grey-haired officials through funeral and mourning rites.
The mood in the capital was decidedly more upbeat a year later, with some of the euphoria carrying over from last Wednesday's launch. The satellite bears one of Kim Jong Il's nicknames, Kwangmyongsong, or "Lode Star," a moniker given to him at birth according to the official lore.
Cameras were not allowed inside the mausoleum, and state media did not release any images of Kim Jong Il's body.
With the death anniversary came a hint that Kim Jong Un himself might soon be a father.
His wife, Ri Sol Ju, was seen on state TV with what appeared to be a baby bump as she walked slowly next to her husband at the mausoleum, where they bowed to statues of Kim's father and grandfather.
There is no official word from Pyongyang about a pregnancy. In addition, Ri is shown wearing a billowing traditional Korean dress in black that makes it difficult to know for sure.
North Koreans are reluctant to discuss details of the Kim family that have not been released by the state. Still there are rumours even in Pyongyang about whether the country's first couple is expecting.
To honour Kim's father, North Koreans stopped in their tracks at midday and bowed their heads as the national flag fluttered at half-staff along streets and from buildings.
Pyongyang construction workers took off their yellow hard hats and bowed at the waist as sirens wailed across the city for three minutes.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered in the frigid plaza outside, newly transformed into a public park with lawns and pergolas. Geese flew past snow-tinged firs and swans dallied in the partly frozen moat that rings the vast complex in Pyongyang's outskirts.
"Just when we were thinking how best to uphold our general, he passed away," Kim Jong Ran said at the plaza. "But we upheld leader Kim Jong Un. ... We regained our strength and we are filled with determination to work harder for our country."
Speaking outside the mausoleum, renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the military's top political officer, Choe Ryong Hae, said North Korea should be proud of the satellite, calling it "a political event with great significance in the history of Korea and humanity."
Much of the rest of the world, however, was swift in condemning the launch, which was seen by the United States and other nations as a thinly disguised cover for testing missile technology that could someday be used for a nuclear warhead.
The test, which the U.N. Security Council said violated a ban on launches using ballistic missile technology, underlined Kim Jong Un's determination to continue carrying out his father's hardline policies even if they draw international condemnation.
Washington said Monday it has no option but to seek to isolate Pyongyang further.
"What's left to us is to continue to increase pressure on the North Korean regime and we are looking at how to best to do that, both bilaterally and with our partners going forward until they (North Korea) get the message. We are going to further isolate this regime," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
Some outside experts worry that Pyongyang's next move will be to press ahead with a nuclear test in the coming weeks, a step toward building a warhead small enough to be carried by a long-range missile.
Despite inviting further isolation for his impoverished nation and the threat of stiffer sanctions, Kim Jong Un won national prestige and clout by going ahead with the rocket launch.
At a memorial service on Sunday, North Korea's top leadership not only eulogized Kim Jong Il, but also praised his son. Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of North Korea's parliament, called the launch a "shining victory" and an emblem of the promise that lies ahead with Kim Jong Un in power.
The rocket's success also fits neatly into the narrative of Kim Jong Il's death. Even before he died, the father had laid the groundwork for his son to inherit a government focused on science, technology and improving the economy. And his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the policy of putting the military ahead of all other national concerns have also carried into Kim Jong Un's reign.
In a sign of the rocket launch's importance, Kim Jong Un invited the scientists in charge of it to attend the mourning rites in Pyongyang, according to state media.
The reopening of the mausoleum on the anniversary of the leader's death follows tradition. Kumsusan, the palace where his father, Kim Il Sung, served as president, was reopened as a mausoleum on the anniversary of his death in 1994.
Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report. Follow Jean Lee, AP's bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul, at www.twitter.com/newsjean.


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Dear Fishing…(A Letter From One Of Your Most Ardent Admirers)
You and I go back a long way, Fishing. If it weren't for you, it would have taken me much longer to afford my first epic flying. Who knew that so many people needed those lovely Golden Fishsticks, but were too lazy to fish them for themselves? Those fish sticks were "golden" indeed!
We've spent so many hours together. You were there when I hung out with friends and talked, giving us something to do at the same time! What better way to pass the time than to hang out with a buddy and do something useful? People always wondered why I spent so much time with you. They didn't understand us, Fishing. It's okay, though. We had each other. I devotedly pursued you, through crocolisks, a fishing hat. You helped me meet Mr. Pinchy and my crab pet. Eventually we found a sea turtle together. Remember those hours by the Dalaran fountain? I loved catching all those coins with you. You never did give me a jeweled fishing pole, but that's okay. A friendship isn't just about what you stand to gain.
You helped to bolster us through countless raids. The magical combination of fish – lovingly prepared – helped us all be smarter and faster. I prepared feasts for people in battlegrounds, I carried a stash of fish on me at all times. Magic keeps them from smelling, you know. I was so excited to see how you'd changed after the Cataclysm! I know more people had been paying attention to you. They wanted to make you "more fun."
Fishing… I don't understand why you've been so cold to me this expansion. I hate to admit it, but I don't like your new face. I don't want to pluck crabs from the canal. Your feasts used to be available for everyone who had the tenacity to learn how to make them. Now, I can't even use your bounty to make them until my friends and I have caught ten thousand other fish from pools. I don't mind spending that much time with you, Fishing. Really, I don't. I thought it wouldn't be so bad. I was consoled by the fact that we could spend time together while I prepared my own food, but Fishing – there seems to be some grave oversight. The fish I need don't congregate in pools.
You've put me between a rock and a hard place, Fishing. I can't make your feast until I've fished many, many fish – and the fish I need won't help me to do that. So I'm seeing other fish. I thought I could use that time to build up a stock of the fish I need to make feasts once I'm able to make them. Imagine my dismay when I realized that one of those three fish also can't be found in pools.
I'm trying to be understanding, Fishing, I really am. I caught three hundred fish last night. I want to love you, but you're really trying my patience. All of the fish for fish feasts used to be found in various pools in different zones. Anyone could learn to make a fish feast, and then that fish feast could be shared with friends. Now the feasts, once made, are stuck with you – I can't even stock my guild bank with them – that is, assuming we ever fish up enough fish to learn the recipe in the first place. Do you really think that forcing yourself on people like this is going to make you more popular?
You still have a few things going for you, Fishing. Catching volatiles from you is positively sexy. That appeals to the enterprising crowd, you can use that! All you have to do is consolidate some of your fish into pools – they like to school, don't they? It shouldn't be too hard – and once you've done that, put some fun things in your fishing bags again. I recognize that the awards have to be applicable to characters of all levels. Still, I miss the days when I felt like you cared about me, Fishing. If we have to spend enough time together for me to catch another four thousand fish from pools, I wish we could both be enjoying it. As it stands, I'm not sure that I will. Can't we go back to the way things were?
p.s. – At the very least, please lose the Murglesnout.