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Tom Wells' comic drama about a group of misfits playing Sunday league football was inspired by his love of the underdog.
The young writer may be a flop when it comes to the football pitch but if he keeps producing such sharp, genuinely funny feel-good plays he'll soon be among theatre's top dogs.
This is one huge embrace of a play - theatre's equivalent of a big bowl of comfort food, but without the calories of many a more emotionally manipulative work.
James Grieve's production feels as slick and well-drilled as a Premier League outfit, while retaining something of the amateur, grass roots atmosphere of the ramshackle team it celebrates.
Combative bar manager Viv has assembled a team of friends big in heart, but short on skill in an attempt to win the local gay and lesbian five-a-side league and begin her pub's trophy collection.
We follow them through the ups and downs of their turbulent first season as they celebrate and commiserate after each of their six matches.
Joe is struggling to get his life back on track after the death of his wife and Viv's sister, while Viv is so focused she's got no time for grief.
Bearded busker Geoff refuses to remove the woolly hat hiding the scars of a homophobic assault as he seeks the perfect song for Hull Pride.
But the play revolves around the budding romance between painfully shy librarian Luke and the commitment-phobic aspiring football coach Danny.
Their scrapes and strains on the pitch (none apparently inflicted by Tranny Utd's stilettos) are nothing compared with their emotional bumps and bruises off it.
But they're as much of a family unit as the cast of Wells' last play at the Bush, the equally heart-warming The Kitchen Sink, and they're always ready to patch one another up.
Wells' great talent lies in making life somehow seem so simple, without being in any way reductive or smoothing the bumps we all experience. There's a genuine affection for his characters and for his home city of Hull.
He also has an uncanny knack for squeezing unexpected poetry from the most mundane of sources, from Luke's diary of porridge-based disasters to the Hull fish trail.
Andy Rush, as Geoff, and Philip Duguid-McQuillan, who plays Luke, steal most of the laughs but the whole cast gets the pitch just right.
There's one minor false note at the very end but, as football analogies go, that's a consolation goal in a thumping victory of a play.


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Garden Fountain, KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA: stunning vertical water feature
Published at August 17th, 2017 08:42:14 AM by Townsend
Labelled as water features for gardens topic as well as homemade fountains ponds water features object or blu water fountains area of interest and blu water features area of interest plus cheap water features area of interest and stone water features subject, Garden Fountain, So don't forget to check out the main article in stunning vertical water feature
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domain: hobby


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READ THE RULING BY JUDGE VAUGHN R. WALKER (PDF)
A federal judge ruled Thursday that same-sex couples will be able to marry on Aug. 18 at 5 p.m.
The decision would lift the stay that he placed last week on his own judgement that a statewide ban on gay marriage is an unconstitutional violation of gay Californians’ civil rights.
The ruling could be reversed if opponents of gay marriage appeal the decision to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
On Thursday morning scores of people gathered on the front steps of San Francisco City Hall to mark the occasion, with some same-sex couples hoping to get married on the spot if the stay were lifted immediately. Also present were also supporters of Proposition 8, the initiative that ended gay marriage in 2008.
Within minutes of the announcement, city officials started handing out paperwork to prospective spouses.
The ruling was supposed to have been announced at noon, but it came 15 minutes late. The pro-gay-marriage crowd, which outnumbered the protesters, cheered loudly upon hearing that weddings might resume within a week.
“We’re finally moving toward equal rights,” said Morgan Abbott, who was there with her partner, Elizabeth Taylor, hoping to witness a resumption of weddings. The couple reacted to the news by kissing and crying.
“I’m so happy!” Taylor said. She added that she did not believe marriage was a religious institution but a civil one. “This is such a huge step in what I think is the right direction.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown have both said they would not defend Proposition 8 in court or appeal the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker.

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« AnteriorContinuar »
It may be added, that not only the common audience had no notion of the rules of writing, but few even of the better fort piqued themselves upon any great degree of knowledge or nicety that way; till Ben Johnson getting poffeffion of the stage, brought critical learning into vogue: and that this was not done without difficulty, may appear from those frequent leffons (and indeed almost declamations) which he was forced to prefix to his first plays, and put into the mouth of his actors, the Grex, Chorus, &c. to remove the prejudices and inform the judgment of his hearers. Till then our authors had no thoughts of writing on the model of the ancients: their tragedies were only hiftories in dialogue; and their comedies followed the thread of any novel as they found it, no lefs implicity than if it had been true history.
To judge therefore of Shakespear by Aristotle's rules, is like trying a man by the laws of one country, who acted under thofe of another. He writ to the people ; and writ at firft without patronage from the better fort, and therefore without aims of pleafing them ; without affiftance or advice from the learned, as without the advantage of education or acquaintance among them; without that knowledge of the best models, the ancients, to inspire him with an emulation of them; in a word, without any views of reputation, and of what poets are pleafed to call immortality: fome or all of which have encouraged the vanity, or animated the ambition of other writers.
Yet it must be obferved, that when his performances had merited the protection of his prince, and when the encouragement of the court had fucceeded to that of the town; the works of his riper years are manifeftly raised above thofe of his former. The dates of his plays fufficiently evidence, that his productionsi mproved, in proportion to the refpect he had for his auditors. And I make no doubt this obfervation would be found true in every inftance, were but editions extant from which we might learn the exact time when every piece was compofed, and whether writ for the town or the court.
Another cause (and no less strong than the former) may be deduced from our author's being a player, and
forming himself first upon the judgments of that body of men whereof he was a member. They have ever had a standard to themselves, upon other principles than thofe of Aristotle. As they live by the majority, they know no rule but that of pleafing the prefent humour, and complying with the wit in fathion; fideration which brings all their judgment to a fhort point. Players are juft fuch judges of what is right, as tailors are of what is graceful. And in this view it will be but fair to allow, that most of our author's faults are lefs to be afcribed to his wrong judgment as a poet, than to his right judgment as a player.
By these men it was thought a praife to Shakespear, that he scarce ever blotted a line. This they industri oufly propagated; as appears from what we are told by Ben Johnson in his Difcoveries, and from the preface of Heminges and Condell to the firft folio edition. But in reality (however it has prevailed) there never was a more groundless report, or to the contrary of which there are more undeniable evidences: As the comedy of The Merry wives of Windfor, which he entirely new writ; The Hiftory of Henry VI. which was first published under the title of The contention of York and Lancafer; and that of Henry V. extremely improved; that of Hamlet, enlarged to almost as much again as at first, and many others. I believe the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This too might be thought a praife by fome, and to this his errors have as injudicioufly been afcribed by others. For it is certain, were it true, it could concern but a fmall part of them: the most are fuch as are not properly defects, but fuperfotations; and arife not from want of learning or reading, but from want of thinking or judging; or rather (to be more just to our author) from a compliance to thofe wants in others. As to a wrong choice of the fubject, a wrong conduct of the incidents, falfe thoughts, forced expreffions, &c. if thefe are not to be afcribed to the forefaid accidental reafons, they must be charged upon the poet himself, and there is no help for it. But I think the two difadvantages which I have mentioned, (to be obliged to please the loweft of people, and VOL. I.
to keep the worst of company), if the confideration be extended as far as it reasonably may, will appear fufficient to mislead and deprefs the greatest genius upon earth. Nay, the more modefty with which fuch a one is endued, the more he is in danger of fubmitting and conforming to others, against his own better judg
But as to his want of learning, it may be neceffary to fay fomething more. There is certainly a vast dif ference between learning and languages. How far he was ignorant of the latter, I cannot determine; but it is plain he had much reading at least, if they will not call it learning. Nor is it any great matter, if a man has knowledge, whether he has it from one language or from another. Nothing is more evident, than that he had a taste of natural philofophy, mechanics, ancient and modern hiftory, poetical learning and mythology. We find him very knowing in the cuftoms, rites, and manners of antiquity. In Coriolanus and Julius Cæfar, not only the fpirit, but manners of the Romans are exactly drawn; and still a nicer distinction is fhown, between the manners of the Romans in the time of the former and of the latter. His reading in the ancient hiftorians is no lefs confpicuous, in many references to particular paffages: and the fpeeches copied from plutarch in Coriolanus, may, I think, as well be made an inftance of his learning, as thofe copied from Cicero in Catiline of Ben Johnson's The manners of other nations in general, the Egyptians, Venetians, French, &c. are drawn with equal propriety. Whatever object of nature, or branch of fcience, he either fpeaks of or defcribes, it is always with competent, if not extenfive knowledge: his defcriptions are ftill exact; all his metaphors appropriated, and remarkably drawn from the true nature and inherent qualities of each fubject When he treats of ethic or politic, we may conftantly obferve a wonderful juftnefs of distinction, as well as extent of comprehenfion. No one is more a master of the poetical ftory, or has more frequent allufions to the various parts of it. Mr. Waller (who has been celebrated for this laft particular) has not shewn more learning this way than Shake
Ipear. We have tranflations from Ovid published in his name, among thofe poems which pass for his; and for fome of which we have undoubted authority, being published by himself, and dedicated to his Noble patron the Earl of Southampton. He appears alfo to have been converfant in Plautus, from whom he has taken the plot of one of his plays; he follows the Greek authors, and particularly Dares Phrygius, in another: although I will not pretend to fay in what language he read them. The modern Italian writers of novels he was manifeftly acquainted with; and we may conclude him to be no lefs converfant with the ancients of his own country, from the use he has made of Chaucer in Troilus and Crefida, and in the Two Noble Kinfmen, if that play be his, as there goes a tradition it was; and indeed it has little refemblance of Fletcher, and more of our author than some of those which have been received as genuine.
I am inclined to think, this opinion proceeded originally from the zeal of the partiians of our author and Ben Johnfon; as they endeavoured to exalt the one at the expence of the other. It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is fo probable, as that becaufe Ben Johnfon had much the more learning, it was faid on the one hand that shakefpear had none at all; and because Shakespear had much the moft wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Johnfon wanted both. Because Shakefpear borrowed nothing, it was faid that Ben Johnson borrowed every thing. Because Johnfon did not write extempore, he was reproached with being a year about every piece; and because Shakefpear wrote with ease and rapidity, they cried, He never once made a blot. Nay, the spirit of oppofition ran fo high, that whatever those of the one fide objected to the other, was taken at the rebound, and turned into praites; as injudiciously as their antagonists before had made them objections.
Poets are always afraid of envy; but fure they have as much reafon to be afraid of admiration. They are the Scylla and Charybdis of authors; thofe who escape one, often fall by the other. Peffimum genus inimico
rum laudantes, fays Tacitus: and Virgil defires to wear a charm against those who praife a poet without rulé or reafon;
Si ultra placitum laudarit, baccare frontem Cingito, ne vati noceat
But however this contention might be carried on by the partifans on either fide, I cannot help thinking these two great poets were good friends, and lived on amicable terins and in offices of fociety with each other. It is an acknowledged fact, that Ben Johnfon was introduced upon the ftage, and his firft works encouraged, by Shakefpear. And after his death, that author writes To the memory of his beloved Mr. William Shakespear; which fhews as if the friendship had continued through life. I cannot for my own part find any thing invidious or sparing in those verses, but wonder Mr. Dryden was of that opinion. He exalts him not only above all his contemporaries, but above. Chaucer and Spencer, whom he will not allow to be great enough to be ranked with him; and challenges the names of Sophocles, Euripides, and Efchilus, nay all Greece and Rome at once, to equal him; and (which is very particular) exprefsly vindicates him from the imputation of wanting Art, not enduring that all his excellencies thould be attributed to Nature. It is remarkable too, that the praise he gives him in his Difcoveries, feems to proceed from a perfonal kindness: he tells us, that he loved the man, as well as honoured his memory; celebrates the honefty, openness, and franknefs of his temper; and only diltinguilhes as he reafonably ought, between the real merit of the author, and the filly and derogatory applaufes of the players. Ben Johnson might indeed be sparing in his cominendations, (though certainly he is not fo in this. initance), partly from his own nature, and partly from judgment. For men of judgment think they do any man more fervice in praifing him juftly, than lavishly. I fay, I would fain believe they were friends, though the violence and ill-breeding of their followers and flatterers were enough to give rife to the contrary report. I would hope that it may be with parties, both

domain: library


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Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel With A Machine Gun
My prediction re: the Weekly’s analysis of the election was, almost word for word, the Weekly’s analysis of the election.
From last night, at 10:35 pm:
Here’s my prediction for the Weekly’s post-election analysis tomorrow:
“The city council elections were a referendum on the monorail: Two monorail board incumbents floundered in second place behind anti-monorail opponents. Richard Conlin did better than expected because he made the monorail his main campaign issue. Jan Drago did more poorly than expected because she supported the monorail. And Richard McIver and Dwight Pelz, who both opposed the monorail, split the anti-monorail vote and did - um, better than expected.”
From the Weekly’s election story, titled “A Monorail Undercurrent.”
Seattle voters turned against the proposed monorail on primary election night, Tuesday, Sept. 20. The beneficiaries were Seattle City Council member Richard Conlin, a leading monorail skeptic, and a couple of political unknowns, Beth Goldberg and Jim Nobles, who were among those challenging incumbent members of the Seattle Popular Monorail Authority board. …
Former journalist and mayoral aide Casey Corr did not have nearly as much luck with his anti-monorail message against Seattle City Council president Jan Drago. … Nielsen [a political analyst] says Drago has done a good job of positioning herself as the true Democrat in the race…
Corr is, of course, a Democrat as well, but he will have to find a way to turn the race into a referendum on the unpopular monorail if he is going to succeed in liberal Seattle. The incumbent who fared the poorest in the primary was the council’s lone African American, Richard McIver, who managed a first-place finish in his race with only 37 percent of the vote….
Pelz and McIver do not differ much on issuesóboth are light-rail boosters, monorail skeptics, and fans of urban density.
For my take on why they’re wrong, read below.
Richard Conlin still has a formidable opponent in pro-monorail Paige Miller. Jan Drago, polling last night at 42 percent, was trouncing Casey Corr (with just under 25 percent), and will likely pick up many of the lefty (and, incidentally, pro-monorail) voters who voted for socialist Linda Averill and goofy green Angel Bolanos. And all three candidates in McIver's race were against the monorail, making it a non-issue.
Finally, Cindi Laws was trounced because of her anti-Semitic comments, not her support for the monorail. Taken together, the two pro-monorail candidates for Cleve Stockmeyer's seat - Stockmeyer and Dick Falkenbury, whose name is practically synonymous with the monorail - polled right around 60 percent. I have trouble seeing Jim Nobles (who wants to shut the monorail down) picking up many of those monorail-loving Dick Falkenbury voters.
To look at last night's results as a referendum on the monorail, you'd almost have to write the story without looking at the results - much less going out and talking to the candidates.
Incidentally, as I reported last night: not one Weekly reporter was seen at this year's primary election parties.


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DATE: Saturday, May 4, 2019
TIME: 9:00 AM Race Begins (Registration and Check-In at 8:15)
LOCATION: Arvada Covenant Church: 5555 Ward Road, Arvada, CO 80002
Hey world changer! Yes, that's you! The 2019 Global 6K was a huge success! We had over 200 participants and raised over $14,000 raised for clean water. We also had almost 35 children sponsored. This is HUGE; this represents CHANGED LIVES around our world; thank you for saying YES!
Next year's Global 6K date to save is Saturday, May 16, 2020. Can't wait! If you're looking to continue running with Team World Vision, we are putting together a team for the Denver Rock N Roll half marathon October 20. Training starts soon! We'll have group runs almost every Saturday leading up to the race. Join the team at: https://www.teamworldvision.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&teamID=12157

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Every year I host an after-Christmas party for my girlfriends, and I use it as a time to experiment with all sorts of new appetizers. When creating the menu, I look for a mixture of hot & cold, easy & labor intensive, as well as a good mix of veggies, meats, carbs, and vegetarian dishes. Since Président Cheese sent me that package of brie a while back, I knew I wanted to do something with it. Initially I was planning to make the prosciutto wrapped brie with figs, but decided to use the prosciutto in green bean bundles instead.
Before I even had a chance to search for some brie inspiration, The Pioneer Woman updated her blog with a recap of her favorite appetizer posts from the past year, and at the top of the list were these stuffed mushrooms.
These were delicious, and so, so simple. And they’re best served at room temp, so I didn’t have to worry about keeping them warm on the table. Perfect.
Brie Stuffed Mushrooms
Slightly adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks.
1 large pack of White Button Mushrooms, washed and stems removed
1/2 stick of butter
4 cloves Garlic, Minced
¼ cup Flat leaf Parsley, Chopped
5 whole Green Onions, Sliced (up to middle of dark green part)
1 wedge of Brie Cheese
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Melt butter in large saucepan. Add mushroom caps and toss to coat in butter. Sprinkle lightly with salt and cook for 1 minute. Remove mushrooms from pan and place upside down in a baking dish.
In the same saucepan (without cleaning it) throw in garlic, parsley, and green onions. Sprinkle with salt. Stir around, about 1 minute. Remove from heat.
Cut rind off of brie wedge, then cut pieces of brie to fit each mushroom cap. Place inside, lightly pressing to anchor each piece of brie. Top mushrooms with parsley/garlic mixture.
Place into the oven for 15 minutes, or until brie is melted.
Photo Credit: Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman Cooks
The past few days I’ve counted down my best in food for 2009, but no New Year’s Eve would be complete without libations, so I thought I would share my Top 5 list when it comes to imbibing as well:
#5 Food & Wine Cocktails ’09
Even though we go out on the town quite often, it’s fun to sometimes experiment at our home bar. Some of the country’s top bartenders contributed their recipes to this little cocktail “cookbook”, one of my best purchases of the year. Maybe you remember the Cajun Lemonade
I made this summer that was such a hit? Yep, it came from this book.
You should definitely consider buying a copy and playing around with some of the drinks. It’s a steal on Amazon – just a little over $3!
#4 Pimm’s Cup
We probably made more of these than any other concoction at home- it was our unofficial drink of the summer. In a few short months, we went through a few cases (yes, cases!
) of Pimm’s No. 1
, which we purchase at our favorite liquor/wine store: The Wine Chap
. Click here
for the recipe so you can share in our love.
Can you tell that I enjoyed this class? It made my Top 10 Food list for 2009 and now, the Top 5 Drink. I’ll alert you when it’s being offered again so you can see for yourself what all the fuss is about!
Back in August I had the pleasure of judging Nashville Lifestyles’ 4th annual Bartender Bash. In previous years, my participation level was only that of an attendee, so I would choose a few of the cocktails to sip as I spent most of the evening socializing. This time all my focus was on tasting 24 creative cocktails since I was at the judges table! No doubt that Nashville has some talented mixologists, and they’re competing at this bash.
This is, in my opinion, the best bang for your buck when it comes to drinking events in Music City. Highly, highly recommend you attend the 5th annual in 2010!
It should come as no surprise to you that The Patterson House is at the top of my list for Drinks of 2009. The menu is so well thought out- seasonal, fresh, innovative, creative…oh, just read for yourself a few of my thoughts on it here, here, or here.
~Everything you need to Eat, Drink & Be Merry in 2010~
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for (humor me)- my picks for Top 3 meals of 2009!
This meal snuck up on me. I didn’t have high expectations going in because during my research for our trip to Chicago, I wasn’t able to find too many reviews. From the ridiculously delicious Squash Risotto appetizer to the Savoy Cabbage and Foie Gras Crepe side dish, everything just worked. Perfectly. Unexpected delights coming at me from all directions. Click here for all the details.
I visit Chicago often and normally like to try out new restaurants each time, but the next time I go, I’ll be doing a repeat visit to Perennial.
#2: Tayst Chef’s Table, Nashville
For our first anniversary in October, Ravi and I wanted to do something really special, so when Chef Jeremy Barlow of tayst mentioned his chef’s table, I jumped on the opportunity. Take a look back at the 12 course extravaganza by clicking here.
All anniversaries in the years to come now have a near impossible act to follow. Perhaps I’ll just leave my anniversary in Jeremy’s hands every year…..
Really, was there any doubt in your mind that this would be my top pick for 2009? The most incredible, fantastic, awe-inspiring, breathtaking meal of my life. It literally rendered my friends and I speechless– and that says A LOT. Take a look back at the dinner by clicking here.
Tom Colicchio is a dream boat.
So there you are- my top picks for 2009. Now it’s your turn— Are there places you think I should put on my “must try” list for 2010? Tell me what meals you had this year that left you smiling, speechless, or wanting more!
Welcome back to the countdown of my Top 10 Meals of 2009. (Before reading today’s blog entry, first make sure that you catch yesterday’s if you didn’t already.)
We’re starting off today’s list not with a fancy restaurant or a comforting meal at home, but a cooking class!
Back in May I was lucky enough to get a last second spot in a fully booked class with one of my chef heroes, Deb Paquette of Zola. Watching her work her magic from just a few feet away was one of the highlights of my year, and ever the more appreciated now.
You see, recently Deb & her husband Ernie delivered the sad, sad news that they are closing my beloved Zola and moving to the Caribbean. This announcement left me even more thankful that I had the opportunity to learn a bit from the master before she leaves us. Take a look here at all of the creative dishes she prepared during the cooking class at Whole Foods and you’ll understand why I’ll miss her so.
What I love most about Minneapolis? Well, that would be my friend Steph, but it’s a really tight race with this restaurant. Read all my reasons why here.
My life-altering first encounter with Gnudi was at The Spotted Pig in New York this summer. I’m not exaggerating. This dish transported me to another realm. Read my glowing review here and get the recipe to try for yourself at home. I haven’t yet been brave enough to attempt it for fear of screwing it up and ruining the beautiful memory I still have of the dish. Instead I would rather just hop on a plane to New York for another visit!
Come back tomorrow to see who made the Top 3 of 2009!
It’s been an incredible year, filled with some amazing food, so as we close out 2009, I thought it would be fun to count down my personal favorites for the year. Since I didn’t start my blog until May and many of you may not have discovered it until just recently, it’s possible you missed some of the best meals I’ve experienced this year.
I’ve gone all the way back through my calendar and narrowed it down to the Top 10. Food was of the utmost importance, but I also took into account the entire experience. Service can make or break a meal, no matter how unbelievable the food is, so those that got top honors excelled in that aspect as well.
Most of these meals I already blogged about, so I’ll link you back to them for a full story. However, a couple you didn’t really hear about at all, so I’ll expand more on them. #10 is one of those.
#10: Gramercy Tavern. NYC
When I got back from my New York trip this summer I had every intention of blogging about this meal, but never got around to it. And now, when I would love to tell you all about it, I can’t. Why, you ask? Well, just a few weeks ago I lost my little food journal I had been using for the past few months. It had every note from every meal I’ve eaten since May, this one included. Sadly, I don’t remember alot of the details, but I have photos, so I’ll share a few of them with you. What I do remember quite clearly is that the service at Gramercy Tavern was absolutely impeccable. It made our night. I also recall my friend Annika dubbing the rolls that began our meal “little puffballs from heaven”. Hopefully that gives you some indication of the level of the meal- if the rolls are from heaven, can you imagine what all the other courses tasted like??
Here’s a small sampling of what we had:
And the best part of the whole experience? They have a $35 prix-fixe 3 course meal! I was shocked- I mean, c’mon, I’m in NYC at one of the top restaurants, and I get 3 courses for only $35? Craziness. Highly, highly recommend if you’re in the Big Apple.
#9: Fido: Wine 101, Nashville
A coffee shop wine class might seem a bit peculiar, but this was hands down the best wine tasting experience I’ve ever had. And the food? I was blown away. Chef John Stephenson used the freshest seasonal ingredients to prepare 5 or 6 tasting courses for us each night. A few standouts that I didn’t mention in previous writings:
Meatballs with Dates, Blue Cheese, and Local Pork over Organic Zucchini “Spaghetti and Local Oven Dried Juliette Tomato Sauce.
Benton’s Bacon BLT with Heirloom Tomato and Avocado
Fresh Linquine with Lemon Cream, Country Ham, Rainbow Chard, and Roasted Carrots
Mini Chorizo Burgers with Fig Mayo, Fennel Mustard, Gruyere, and Cordito Slaw with Amazing Fries
This class is an unbelievable value for the money. Click here for details on the 6 week course, and here to read more about some of the amazing dishes we had in the first few weeks.
#8: Lola, Cleveland
Surely you remember The Meatfest?
#7: Mushroom Risotto
with Pork Tenderloin in
Sun Dried Tomato Cream Sauce
Every fabulous meal doesn’t have to come from a well-known chef or restaurant- they can come right out of your own kitchen. I hate to toot my own horn, but this meal truly was one of the best meals of my entire year. I made my favorite gourmet mushroom risotto with pork tenderloin in a sun dried tomato cream sauce for my book club last February, and every single morsel was devoured. Girls had not only second helpings, but thirds! I tell you this not to brag, but to convince you that you MUST make this risotto as well as the Pork Tenderloin. Of course, I first need to share the pork recipe with you. Hold on to your pants- I promise you will have it very, very soon. Just stay tuned!
Come back tomorrow for Meals #6, 5, and 4, and then back again on Wednesday for my Top 3!
May your holidays be merry and bright and full of good food! :-)
photo credit: Our Christmas Tree by Tamie Snow
Over the weekend, my kitchen turned into a chocolate factory as I whipped up all kinds of goodies to go in gift bags. And after taste-testing every bit of it, I was kind of sick of eating chocolate. This statement is a tab bit shocking even to myself, because I don’t ever tire of eating chocolate.
In an effort to prevent my gift recipients from going into chocolate overload, I wanted to add something else a little different to their packages. This nut filled recipe seemed like it would be a great addition to the sampler.
Oh boy. Let me tell you, I’ve eaten more than my daily allowance of nuts for 3 days straight. I seriously have to force myself to step away.
These beautiful nut bars are rich, buttery and decadent. To save my friends and family from themselves, I’m only going to include 2 in each package. Because I care. (Not because I want to eat more of them myself. No, that is not it all.)
Rustic Nut Bars
Adapted from Epicurious. Yield: about 3 dozen.
1 Tbsp plus 3/4 cup cold butter, divided
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
2/3 cup honey
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
6 Tbsp butter, cubed
2 Tbsp heavy whipping cream
1 cup hazelnuts*, toasted
1 cup roasted salted almonds
1 cup salted cashews, toasted
1 cup pistachios, toasted
Line a 13-in x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan with foil; grease the foil with 1 Tbsp butter. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt; cut in remaining butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in egg until blended (mixture will be dry). Press firmly into prepared pan. Bake at 375 for 18-20 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
In a large heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring the honey, brown sugar and salt to a boil; stir until sugar is dissolved. Boil without stirring for 2 minutes. Add butter and cream. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in the nuts. Spread over crust.
Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes or until topping is bubbly. Cool completely on a wire rack. Using foil, lift bars out of pan. Discard foil; cut into squares.
Note: Nut bars keep, layered between sheets of wax paper or parchment, in an airtight container at room temperature 1 week.
*I couldn't find hazelnuts at the store on the day I was shopping, so I just used peanuts since I had some in the house. You could also sub macadamia nuts or pecans for an even richer taste.
No visions of sugar plums dancing in my head. Sugar plums? Really? Nah, I much prefer chocolate. Want to know what holiday treat I’m most looking forward to this week? Take a gander to the right.
For those that have been following this blog for a while, you probably remember the wedding desserts I featured back in October. Well, the recipe for my mom’s chocolate peanut butter balls was included then, but I wanted to share again for fear that you might have overlooked. And that would be a shame. A crying shame I tell ya.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls
2 sticks butter
1 lb peanut butter
1 1/2 lbs powdered sugar
1 large bag chocolate chips
1 bar paraffin
Melt butter and add peanut butter and powdered sugar. Make into 1-inch balls. Melt 1 bar paraffin and 1 large bag chocolate chips over low heat, stirring to prevent sticking. With toothpicks in balls, dip into hot chocolate mixture. Place on waxed paper until chocolate hardens.
Another sweet treat that has become a holiday tradition in our family is this fudge. It’s so rich that I can’t eat much, but that’s probably a good thing, right???
White Chocolate Fudge
1- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla flavoring
12 oz white chocolate chips or bark
3/4 cup chopped pecans
With an electric mixer in a tall mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, slowly adding in powdered sugar and vanilla. In a separate container, melt white chocolate in microwave. Stir in cream cheese mixture. Pour in pecans and stir. Pour mixture into greased 8×8 baking dish. Once cooled, cut into small squares.
And this year I’m introducing a new goodie into the mix. We’ll see how it’s received by the fam. I know I’ve enjoyed taste testing it, but as you might recall, I’m partial to a little sweet-n-heat….
Spicy Chocolate Bark
1 lb semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped cashews, toasted
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
1 tsp cayenne pepper
In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt chocolate chips. Stir in the nuts and cayenne. Spread onto a waxed paper-lined baking sheet. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Break into small pieces. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.
What’s your favorite holiday sweet? Do you make it, or does someone else?

domain: food


I love these 4Runner V8s (view it here: https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicledetails.xhtml?listingId=497648715). When this generation ended in 2009, the V8 was retired as well, so 4Runners have been V6-only ever since. This same engine powered the Land Cruiser back then, not to mention the Sequoia and Tundra. It simply doesn’t break, and it sounds and feels a lot more special than the Tacoma-grade V6.
4Runner geeks will tell you that 2005 brought some notable engine updates for the V8, resulting in a substantial 35-hp boost, but I’ve read that the difference isn’t that noticeable on the road. I’d prefer the extra power, of course, but I wouldn’t sweat it too much.
I’d also prefer 4WD, but it’s hard to find a rust-free California specimen that’s not RWD. And this rig checks all the other boxes. The clean Carfax says it’s a one-owner vehicle with consistent dealer service. It’s got the third-row seat, which might come in handy. I see a possible blemish in the paint on the driver-side C-pillar, but otherwise it looks pretty sharp. And as a lifelong California car, it should be exempt from the rust issues that haunt 4Runners of this vintage.
Okay, here’s one more thing I found. The dash covering shows some wrinkly degradation that I’ve never seen before. I’m guessing too much sun? Hopefully it could be sorted by an interior expert for a reasonable sum.
Overall, this is so much truck for the money (look at what these guys are charging for 4Runner V8s). Three rows, one owner, zero accidents, and 115k miles on an engine that could do 500k miles with just normal maintenance, based on what I’ve read. There’s a timing belt that needs replacing at preset intervals, so that would be one thing to check on before buying. But what if you could grab the keys for $7k or something? Feels like a no-brainer to me. Unless you hate the idea of a fully functional, stone cold reliable, debt-free SUV that you could drive for the rest of time.


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domain: game


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Slaughterhouse Rock was released in February 1988.
Filming locations include Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Monica, CA.
3939 Tracy St. Los Angeles, Ca. 90027
(John Marshall High School)
Gardner brothers' house -
2704 Highland Ave. Santa Monica, Ca. 90405
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domain: geography


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|Reviews for Furuba Hana|
| SheLady chapter 1 . 4/28/2013
That was cute and funny. Thank you for combining the two stories. I like how you explained so much of how they connected. :-)
| White Lotus Suzume chapter 1 . 6/17/2012
I liked the backstory but overall this was hard to read and too much stuff was crammed into one chapter. I know its supposed to be a one shot but it would have been a lot better if it was longer.
| DanceOfTheEntWives chapter 1 . 1/23/2010
of all the possible people of those two anime, these two are one of the last i'd have thought of.
my first thought would've been taiki kayashima and saki hanajima. those two would get along great! don't you think?
these two go well together too though very ic!
| whatnamebutnoname chapter 1 . 9/7/2009
3 loved it! great idea, though sometimes a bit confusing, Id never read a fic with this pairing before...
| kimmiol chapter 1 . 8/22/2009
So cool. I really liked this - the only fault i have with it is that its to short. :)
| Aish Sheva chapter 1 . 2/17/2009
Ah! I love it. :-)
| flamingbunnies chapter 1 . 12/5/2008
Lol, I loved this! It's the first hana-Kimi fic I've read so I was happy! I for some reason have a crush on Umeada Sensei.
| UltimateDoubleThinker chapter 1 . 11/22/2008
Good job, this is really cute _ There really does need to be more HanaKimi/Furuba crossovers, you should write more of these. Maybe I'll write one.

domain: literature


Video: Meet the cosplayers of Denver Comic Con 2014
Where can you find Link, The Joker, Spiderman, and half a dozen flavors of stormtroopers in one place? Denver Comic Con. We visited the convention, where cosplayers told us about the inspiration behind their getups, and the work that went into making them.
See also: Photos: The costumes of Denver Comic Con
Get the ICYMI: Today's Top Stories Newsletter Our daily newsletter delivers quick clicks to keep you in the know
Catch up on the day's news and stay informed with our daily digest of the most popular news, music, food and arts stories in Denver, delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday.


How Long Do Brakes Last?
The brakes on your car are an essential component, because they’re responsible for helping you monitor and control the speed of your vehicle. They’re also the key feature that helps the vehicle come to a complete stop.
Your brakes are the last line of defense in avoiding an automotive collision, so it’s important to stay on top of their health and wellbeing. You need to know how long brakes last, so you can prepare to have their different components replaced and have the system in proper working order. Typically, brakes last around 25,000 to 65,000 miles, but sometimes they can last through 70,000 miles.
At Land Rover Santa Fe, we’re here to help drivers in Santa Fe, White Rock, and La Cienega learn more about their braking system components, how long they last, and how to tell if they need a replacement.
Schedule a service appointment online today!
The Components of Your Braking System
Your vehicle’s braking system is comprised of several components. These different parts work together to help you slow down or stop your vehicle. While each part serves a very important purpose, they each have their varying life expectancies, so it’s crucial to know how long brakes last.
- Brake pads and shoes: These are made from semi-metallic or ceramic materials, and they provide friction against the rotor or drum to help slow the vehicle down. Since these parts wear the most, they’ll need to be inspected regularly by a technician to determine if they’re still in working condition. (25,000 to 70,000 miles)
- Brake calipers: The brake calipers fit like a hydraulic clamp on a wheel’s rotor and use pistons to create pressure. Their main function is to force the brake pad to contact the rotor or drum when you press the brake pedal. (75,000 miles)
- Brake rotors and drums: These components are attached to your vehicle’s wheels. They work toward slowing down the movement of the wheels when the brake pads are pressed against them. (30,000 to 70,000 miles)
- Brake fluid: Brake fluid is responsible for allowing the pistons in the calipers to move. When you press the pedal, you’re essentially pumping brake fluid through the lines to help stop your vehicle. (20,000 miles or two years)
How Can I Tell My Brakes Are Worn?
While you can never truly know when it’s time to schedule brake repair or replacements, there are a few warning signs that can tell you when service is needed. All you have to do is keep an eye and ear out for these signs, and then schedule brake service near you as soon as possible.
- Brake dashboard light: If you see your brake light come on, it means the system has detected a malfunction or issue that you’ll want to have looked at. This light also comes on when your parking brake is engaged, so double-check before scheduling an appointment.
- Vibration when braking: This sign may mean that you have an uneven rotor, which you’ll want to have adjusted or replaced.
- Squishy brake pedal: If you notice a lack of resistance with your brake pedal, it could mean that you’ve got air in your system or there’s an issue with the master cylinder. Either way, schedule service immediately.
- Grinding and squeaking brakes: If you hear a shrill, high-pitched noise when you’re braking, it’s a sign that your brake pads are going. The pads have wear indicators that emit this sound when they’re getting low.
Scheduling Brake Service & Repair near Me
When you notice any of the above-listed signs, you’ll want to schedule brake service as soon as possible. Because brakes are a vital component to the driving experience, and they’re also one of the most important safety features, you don’t want to take any chances. When you pick up on any of these indicators, you can always schedule brake service with us at Land Rover Santa Fe.
We’re happy to help drivers in Santa Fe, White Rock, and La Cienega with their automotive needs to help make sure their vehicle is in great shape before heading out on the road.


text: I'm June Bug and I'm only 18 months old!!!! Yippee!!! I am ready to just go go go! If you want to adopt me, I sure hope you have a male dog for me to play with!! And you can't lock me up in a crate and leave me all alone while you are at work all day either. I need attention!!! Because I'm still so young, I need a little training. All my vet work has been done and I am healthy and frisky! If you are interested in adopting me please fill out the online application at www.russellrescue.com. My adoption fee is $200. If you want me, you have to be able to drive to the San Antonio, Texas area to get me. I cannot be adopted out of state. My foster mom says you must also have a really good vet reference and be comfortable with her coming to your home for a visit. I can only be adopted to people with no kids and no female dogs. Contact: email@example.com. Please visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TexasRussellRescueInc.

domain: pet


Evaporator-Start up, operation, shut down, and cleaning of separators, cream HTST, evaporator and related equipment in east room. Monitor product for correct percentages, component composition and temperature. Responsible for tank hook ups and flow. Start up, operation, and shut down of RO.
Dryer operation-Start up, proper operation, shut down, and clean up of dryer and related equipment. Insure proper moisture in finished product. Maintain charts,and records. Responsible for product flow, proper tank hoop up, directing powder to proper silo, maintaining the air inlet and product transfer filters, bag compartments, dryer box cleaning and general upkeep.
Processor HTST #2-Perform duties of pasteurizing raw milk, condensed skim milk and cream. Must be able to make the required tank connection and be able to CIP lines and the HTST as required.
Bulk Room Receiver-Able to unload raw milk, cream, and condense. Drive tractors and spot semi tankers. Ability to wash tankers, silos, and lines as required as well as proper hook ups of tanks, silos, and lines. Monitor amount of milk products being unloaded to prevent overflow of tanks and silos.
Bulk Room Loadout-Responsible for load out and sampling of liquid products. Drive tractors and spot semi tankers. Wash tankers, silos, lines, and monitor flow of product. Insure correct product is loaded and that bill of lading is completed correctly. Assure that all tankers have properly filled out was tags and seals.
Floorman-Able to operate equipment. Monitors liquid products that are being pumped to tanks and silos and match the amount to ordered products. Clean and sanitize all product lines.
Warehouse Shipper/Receiver: Must be able to operate forklift in safe, efficient manner. Properly load and unload powder and supply items to and from trailers. Move product from one area to another.
Powder Bagger-Fill, weigh, seal, and palletize milk powder. Must be able to lift 56#. Keep accurate and legible records.
Second shift 2PM - 10PM
Must be able to work evening shift, all days of the week including Saturday and Sunday, holidays, and mandatory overtime.
Must learn to safely and effectively operate all plant machinery.
HS Diploma or GED required. Ability to add, count, multiply and divide whole numbers and decimals is required. Prefer one year experience in a production environment with a good work and attendance record is required. Will be required to pass drug screen, physical, and background check.
Position requires the ability to master a wide variety of duties including bulk receiving/load out, evaporator, dryer, processor HTST, bagger, warehouse shipper/receiver.


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It’s time for United Parcel Service (UPS) to pull out of the climate-denying American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) if it wants to be true to its word on climate and sustainable shipping, CREDO Action argues in a petition released last week.
The online campaign, timed to coincide with ALEC’s annual meeting this week, had drawn 102,610 signatures, 68% of its goal as of mid-Sunday.
CREDO describes ALEC as a “shadowy, far-right organization [that] is notorious for promoting climate change denial and pro-corporate policies harmful to workers, the environment, public education, and consumers.” One of the top agenda items for this year’s annual meeting, CREDO reports, is an attack on the endangerment finding that provides the legal basis for the U.S. government’s (past and future) efforts to fight climate change.
While dozens of companies have quit ALEC under sustained pressure from U.S. campaigners, “one familiar brand continues to fund ALEC: UPS,” CREDO notes.
The freight and courier company “claims to be a leader in sustainable shipping and a pro-environment company, giving millions of dollars to environmental organizations, planting trees and switching to cleaner fuels,” the petition site adds. Yet “UPS is funding ALEC’s long-term strategy to dismantle our environmental protections and block climate action. The company can’t have it both ways: either it gives up its claim to be an environmentally friendly company or it leaves ALEC—now.”

domain: politics


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domain: medical


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Here in the Adaptation Arcade, we have explored several case studies of filmic adaptations of video games and have discussed the implications of the translated elements on the audience and the overall participatory experience. However, we haven’t yet conducted an analysis of the affective quality of both entertainment formats as part of the translation process. That is, until now.
The following piece will thus engage in such an examination by employing a triangulated analytical framework to bolster the overall depth of research. The main elements that will be considered are the technique and modality and how these impact the audience affect, or as Christopher Moore posits, “states of being rather than explicit manifestations or interpretations of emotions”, which each arguably have a bearing on the relative quality of any movie adaptation(s) of video game(s).
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domain: artistic


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Our family got to visit the Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive again this weekend! We missed our turn on the way in as the residential and commercial development surrounding the conservation area seem to have made big leaps since last Summer. This time, we saw new homes being built right along the corner of Binion and Lust Road (the nearest cross street for this point of interest) in Apopka.
As a family, we love driving around Central Florida and taking a detour over to the Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive on the way to the countryside. It’s a great place to go birding and engage our children–even our toddler–in identifying all kinds of birds and wildlife, including the rare ones. We noticed that the more we visit this place (as well as Black Point Wildlife Drive), the more familiar we become of the birds’ movements, behaviors, and habitats. It’s a fun way to learn and spend the weekend together in a place that’s not too crowded… and, it’s free*! The beauty of God’s Creation never ceases to amaze us. He is definitely the Master Artist!
Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.
Psalm 150:6 KJV
Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive
The Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive is an unpaved, one-way, 11-mile road flanked by a wildlife habitat that many birds and animals call home. Besides birds and alligators, we’ve also seen venomous snakes, otters, and bobcats. It is important to drive slowly and respect wildlife (do not feed them) during your visit. It is equally important to be courteous to other visitors by pulling over to the side (in designated areas) to avoid blocking the road.
Looking for more information? We posted more information about the Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive in our original post when we first visited the area. You can also find official information on the St. Johns River Water Management District website.
Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive Hours
The Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive is open between sunrise and sunset on Fridays, Saturday, and Sundays, as well as on federal holidays*. The entrance gate closes approximately 1 hour prior to sunset to allow visitors to finish their drive before sunset.
Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive Driving Directions
From US Highway 441 South, turn right onto W Orange Avenue (which becomes S Binion Road). Turn right on Lust Road. US Highway 441 Landmarks: W Orange Ave is beneath the 414/429 Interchange in the Plymouth / Sorrento area. Here are the rest of the photos that we took during our recent trip…For more photos, check out our slide show on Flickr. Happy browsing!
*As of the time of this post.
Thanks for sharing…I love nature.

domain: travel


text:
MEET GABRIELLA G, THE MULTI-TALENTED FASHION EXPERT
Meet Gabriella G, a woman of many talents.
Fashion designer, stylist, editor, and photographer Gabriella stays quite busy; along with her other talents, she is also Co-Founder of the famous sneaker shop, @ODTORONTO. Along with managing OD, Gabriella is one of the lead designers in the brand’s in-house clothing line and manages the social media content, marketing, and oversees all operations within the brand.
Gabriella started her journey career and graduated with a fashion merchandise degree. There she pursued photography as well which opened the doors for her passion for sneakers and developed her own unique style. Her photography features a unique perspective by combining traditional streetwear style photography with fashion editorial photography to create a mix of where both the product and the model are the focal point.
She and her business partner together founded and built OD Toronto, a luxury streetwear consignment shop located in the heart of Downtown Toronto’s fashion and arts district.
To say the least Gabriella is the definition of a talented boss woman. We had the amazing opportunity to sit down with this powerhouse in an exclusive interview and get to know her a little more!
Check it out below!
1. Where did you grow up?
I was born in Canada but was raised in Israel from the age of 1–11 years old. I moved back to Canada in grade 6 and haven’t left since.
2. How did you get into fashion?
Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been interested in fashion. My mom was a fashion designer and stylist and when I was growing up she always kept the scrap pieces of fabric from her sewings and gave them to me so that I could use them to glue, pin, and sew clothing for all my dolls. I chose to go to school for fashion merchandising so that I could learn the ins and outs of how the fashion industry operates. While in college, I learned product photography, which started my initial step into the streetwear world. During this time me and my business partner started developing the idea of creating OD, and so, I started taking pictures of all of his collection. We started posting all of his rare collections on the IG page we created @odtoronto with the vision to build the craziest streetwear consignment shop Toronto’s ever seen.
3. Who inspires you?
My business partner and our OD family for sure! The people I surround myself with have to be my biggest inspiration and motivation. On a daily basis, we keep each other motivated and support each other through everything. We constantly are thinking of new ways to add, change, and/or innovate.
4. What is your era of style?
Definitely streetwear. I live in baggy clothes and sneakers all year round.
5. What is your endgame with ODTO?
I strive to see OD become the household name that we know it will be.
6. If you could have a store anywhere where would it be and why?
I would like to see OD in cities all over the world, but to be honest, Toronto will always be my favourite location because it’s the city I was born in and we were all raised in.
Follow her content and all her amazing adventures on Instagram: @GGCLX

domain: design


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As an Italian restaurant in London, Osteria’s menus change with the seasons and have emphasis on Italian produce partnered with exciting fresh cocktails and aperitifs. We let our ingredients be the stars of our dishes and focus on simple, delicious Italian food.
All prices include VAT. A 12.5% discretionary service charge will be added to your final bill. All gratuities are transferred to the team alone. Food described within this menu may contain nuts, derivatives of nuts or other allergens. If you suffer from an allergy or food intolerance, please notify a member of the Searcy’s team who will be pleased to discuss your needs with the duty manager.
Great news @SearcysGherkin 🎉 https://t.co/dWc2RCUZ5E
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Treat someone you love to a special Valentine's dinner at our iconic restaurant @SearcysGherkin ❤ https://t.co/6xvoAg54Gc
#BlueMonday is keeping to its name on this dreary Monday morning☔. #BeetTheBlues with our handcrafted healthy dish… https://t.co/mL7NYk2rQf


So far, the benefit of an electric powertrain have been expressed in terms of speed and instant torque through cars like the Tesla Model S and its face-bending accelerations in Ludicrous Mode. However, that same torque is delivered in huge quantities in addition to it being available from any speed.
That has lead Ford to build in an electric powertrain into their popular truck, the F-150, resulting this ‘All-Eletric Prototype’ seen here. From the outside, it looks just like any other example of the Built Ford Tough pick-up, and that’s what the group of existing owners shown in the video thought as well.
Soon after, the F-150’s chief engineer Linda Zhang appeared to brief the boys on what was about to happen. To their disbelief, there was much towing that needed doing. First, the electric prototype F-150 was hooked up to a 10 cargo rail cars. Shockingly, the truck performed the tasked with ease, even nonchalance.
Just after that, the purpose of the 42 production F-150s that were assembled at the rail yard were revealed. They were there to commemorate the 42 years that the F-150 has remained as the best-selling truck in the United States. One by one, they were loaded into the double decker rail cars.
That made for a total load of over 1 million pounds (just over 450,000kg). The electric F-150 had the unenviable task to pulling all that mass over a distance of 1,000 feet, of a bit more than 300 metres. After some trepidation, the truck did just that.
Its chassis did yield somewhat at the rear while the electric motors applied all that torque through the conventional wheels and tyres, and soon the unprecedented tow was underway. That’s some perspective.
Though Ford’s electric prototype might look exactly like a F-150 SuperCrew, peeking at the undercarriage reveals a floor that’s been utilised for battery storage, significantly reducing the truck’s ground clearance over the production model. Our guess it is using a dual motor drive layout instead of a motor on all four hubs.
The Dearborn-based automaker is keeping the prototype’s details well under wraps for now, so we have no idea how much torque was laid down to tow that enormous load, and so undramatically.
Ford is also used the opportunity to tease the eventual arrival of a fully-electric F-150 in showrooms relatively soon, though that date has yet to be set. In the meantime, the company has confirmed that a new variant of the F-150 with a hybrid powertrain will be going on sale next year.


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|Institution:||University of Tasmania|
|Keywords:||Obsessive compulsive disorder; Obsessive compulsive disorder|
|Full text PDF:||http://eprints.utas.edu.au/20402/1/whole_JosephsStephen1997_thesis.pdf|
This review of the literature on obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) presented diagnostic, epidemiological, and conceptual features of the disorder. It highlighted the heterogeneity of OCD by discussing the various symptom subtypes, spectrum disorders and comorbid conditions. Consideration of the prevalence, severity, chronicity, intensity, complexity and pervasiveness of OCD demonstrated it to be a significant clinical problem. Biological, psychological and environmental aetiological and maintenance factors were presented, establishing that no single theory can account for the onset and maintenance of the disorder in all cases. A dominant hypothesis arising from cognitive and behavioural conceptualisations, as well as phenomenological accounts of OCD, was that of anxiety reduction. Cognitive, affective, behavioural and psychophysiological components of anxiety reduction were discussed in relation to obsessions and compulsions. Research into the anxiety reduction processes associated with these phenomena was deemed to be useful in clarifying the maintenance mechanisms underlying the disorder. However, such research has been limited by insufficient or desynchronous response components and the methodology to measure actual obsessive-compulsive episodes. Of the anxiety disorders, OCD presents as one of the most complex and diverse forms of psychopathology, both to treat and to investigate.


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Last Tuesday, during the official June 2013 Mississippi PowerShell User Group meeting, PowerShell MVP Jeffery Hicks presented a session on Building PowerShell Tools from Command-line Tools. Jeff has made the presentation materials available on his blog site and the video from that presentation is now available:
If you're interested in learning more about this topic, Jeff wrote an entire chapter on "Turning Command Line Tools into PowerShell Tools" in the PowerShell Deep Dives book:
Don't Read more [...]
Last Month, during the official May 2013 Mississippi PowerShell User Group meeting, PowerShell MVP Don Jones presented a session on delegated administration and setting up constrained endpoints in PowerShell. The video from that presentation is now available:
The April meeting of the Mississippi PowerShell User Group was last Tuesday, April 9th. Rohn Edwards, co-founder of MSPSUG and winner of the advanced category of the 2012 Scripting Games was the speaker.
Rohn presented on "Discovering PowerShell and the .NET Framework". We recorded the meeting for anyone who was unable to attend:
Don't forget about the Florida PowerShell User Group online (virtual) meeting tonight featuring guest speaker and PowerShell MVP Jim Christopher.
I'll Read more [...]


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Out this week: Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg; Muse by Jonathan Galassi; The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida; Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave; The Unfortunates by Sophie McManus; The Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein; A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay; I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them by Jesse Goolsby; The Loved Ones by Mary-Beth Hughes; A History of Money by Alan Pauls; Land Where I Flee by Prajwal Parajuly; and Bitter Bronx by Jerome Charyn. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
It’s fitting that Ray Bradbury credited his interest in architecture to an H.G. Wells story he read when he was five. At The Paris Review Daily, a previously unpublished essay by the author, who says his career in architecture started when he noticed there was no plaque at the residence of Sherlock Holmes. Related: Tanjil Rashid on Bradbury’s connection to the Middle East.
“It’s the marriage of one kind of darkness to another… the black storm cloud of Neel’s pen is well suited to Dostoyevsky’s questions of God, reason, and doubt.” On Alice Neel‘s illustrations for The Brothers Karamazov, from The Paris Review. Pair with our own Kevin Hartnett’s much lighter take on the novel, “Reading The Brothers Karamazov: Even a Toddler Knows a Funny Name When He Hears One.”


BURLINGTON -- A message of hope and acceptance rang out at the Islamic Center of Burlington Thursday morning as members, local clergymen and residents covered the walls of the center with messages to support their Islamic faith and love for America.
The act came in response to an act of vandalism over the weekend, when two teenagers allegedly spray painted "U.S.A." across the walls of the center.
The Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the graffiti reflects a common Islamophobic theme that Muslims are not "real Americans."
In a sign of solidarity and connections across faiths, mosque president Munir Gandevia and John Robbins, executive director of the Massachusetts CAIR, organized the event, calling it "We Are Americans.
To begin a process of healing, mosque members approach the building's exterior, writing: "We love," We are," "We support," above the graffiti.
"Today's message is one of peace," said state Rep. Ken Gordon, D-Burlington, standing in front of the renewed wall.
Two years ago, the mosque's sign was defaced. During the last five years, the building has been burglarized multiple times, leaders said, and over the summer, members experienced taunts and racial slurs while entering the center for prayer services.
On Monday, Cameron Capella and Derrik Demone, both 18 of Burlington, pleaded not guilty at Woburn District Court to charges of malicious destruction of property over $250 and tagging a building.
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Follow Melissa Hanson on Twitter and Tout @Melissa__Hanson.


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Absolute Winery is a blog dedicated to providing readers with information on wine, travel, and everything in between.
The blog covers various topics, including wine tasting, winery tours, travel destinations, hotel and restaurant reviews, travel guides, and travel insurance.
The blog aims to provide valuable insights and tips to travelers and wine enthusiasts who want to explore new destinations and taste unique wines.
With its informative and engaging content, Absolute Winery Blog is a go-to resource for anyone interested in wine and travel.
Whether you’re a wine lover looking for the best wineries to visit, a traveler in search of the perfect destination, or simply someone who enjoys reading about wine and travel, Absolute Winery Travel Blog has something for you.
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The primary mission of my blog is to inspire and educate readers about the world of wine and travel, showcasing unique and interesting destinations and wineries that readers may not have known about before.
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In addition, by showcasing popular wine regions and cities known for their wine culture, the blog would provide you with a comprehensive guide to the world of wine travel.
If you have any questions in regard to Absolute Winery Blog, please use the contact form to connect with me.


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British pub food and Northern California lightness don’t seem like a likely mashup, but chef Jennifer Puccio melds them in her third restaurant with Anna Weinberg. In their follow-up to Marlowe and Park Tavern, the partners hired Ken Fulk to give the space near Fifth and Mission a traditional feel, with tufted leather banquettes, taxidermy and soaring arched windows that let in the urbanscape. Puccio makes lamb scrumpets accented with pickled mint and chiles; uses Welsh rarebit as an inspiration for a souffle; and grinds duck as a coating for Scotch eggs. Emily Luchetti does equally adept interpretations at dessert with mocha trifle or walnut steamed pudding. With its warren of rooms, and a private club called Marianne’s, the Cavalier is becoming a hangout for the tech set.
Cuisine: British pub fare
Specialties: Salad with goat cheese and truffle vinaigrette; Welsh rarebit souffle; fish and chips; roast chicken; pork and beef bangers.
Seats: 90 (plus 45 in the bar); private room for 20
Prices: $16-$32 (plus 4% S.F. surcharge)
Noise rating: Four Bells
Parking: Hotel valet ($10 per hour); Fifth and Mission Garage
Vitals: 360 Jessie St. (at Fifth, between Mission and Market), San Francisco; (415) 321-6000. www.thecavaliersf.com. Breakfast, brunch or lunch and dinner daily. Full bar. Reservations and credit cards accepted


Antonio Villaraigosa dominated the outcome of this week’s runoff school board election, yet the biggest question is unanswered: whether the mayor of Los Angeles, whose influence over the board is far from certain, will have any say in a district that is already going through a catharsis without him.
In the pricey war for the Los Angeles Unified school board seat in the San Fernando Valley, Villaraigosa pick Tamar Galatzan whipped incumbent Jon Lauritzen into submission, grabbing 58 percent of the vote for a place on the seven-member school board. Yet her wan 21,563 votes, in a city of 4 million souls, came with a massive price tag — $131 per vote based on the $2.83 million Galatzan raised (more than $2 million from the mayor’s campaign committee).
The Valley battle was bitter, as were remarks by reform-resistant Lauritzen to reporters on election night as his hopes dwindled.
“I think she’s going to find herself taking orders from the mayor, and they’re going to be trying to change the district in a way that is not possible at this time because she doesn’t understand how the district works,” sniped Lauritzen, a retired teacher known for resisting reform, whose run was largely funded by his associates at the teachers union.
Galatzan isn’t so sure. At one debate in Granada Hills between the city prosecutor and Lauritzen representative Donna Smith, a local teacher asked if a vote for Galatzan was a vote for the mayor’s school-takeover agenda, an effort which was deemed unconstitutional by the courts.
“I’m not the kind of person to whom you say ‘Jump’ and I ask ‘How high?’” replied Galatzan, who says she told the mayor point-blank, if he wanted a board member whom “he would call up and say ‘do x, y and z’ — and they do x, y and z — I didn’t think I was his gal.”
She was equally independently minded about the mayor’s school-takeover bill, which he convinced Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign into law, only to have it challenged by the LAUSD and trashed in court. Galatzan, who has worked as a Los Angeles deputy city attorney in the Neighborhood Prosecutor Program since 2002, admits, “I’m not surprised about how it ended up in court.”
Villaraigosa’s other candidate of choice, retired West Covina Unified School District Superintendent Richard Vladovic, won with 54 percent — beating a strong challenge by retired principal Neil Kleiner.
It was never clear what Vladovic was offering in the way of “reform” over the schoolhouse veteran Kleiner, but the mayor’s committee poured $511,536 into Vladovic’s campaign. Vladovic’s total war chest, to win a seat representing the strip of Los Angeles from Watts to the harbor, hit $757,404, meaning his 8,552 votes on Tuesday cost him $89 a pop.
Along with the recently elected Yolie Flores Aguilar and Villaraigosa supporter Monica Garcia (elected just last year), neither of whom has articulated a clear plan for ending the high-school-dropout crisis and other pressing problems, Galatzan and Vladovic now comprise a purported Tony Majority.
So, well, he won. He can drop the balloons and confetti, now that his multimillion-dollar mission to get his handpicked minions into LAUSD’s Beaudry Avenue headquarters is over. After his failed attempts in the courts, not to mention those pesky plane rides to lobby Sacramento, success must be intoxicating.
But was it a Pyrrhic victory for the mayor? Or a victory at all? Superintendent David Brewer tells the L.A. Weekly it doesn’t matter if the school board is dominated by the teachers union or mayoral allies: Their mammoth task remains the same.
At the top of the supe’s long list of problems is the structure of the district, which he says suffers from poor delegating by its leaders, and departments that “operate within a vacuum,” with some divisions failing to communicate with others. Yes, LAUSD is concerned about instruction-based reform, which worked in the much-improved elementary schools. But first, Brewer says, he must improve basics like routine communications.
A glaring reminder of the communication problems played out at Locke High School in Watts a week before the election, when chaos erupted after the faculty and staff decided they’d had enough of L.A. Unified.
Students ditched classes and pressed their noses against gates and windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of Principal Frank Wells, who stood across the street from the school he’d tried desperately to turn around, declaring to a group of reporters, “I’m a fallen soldier today, but I’m standing tomorrow.”
Days earlier, the district had stripped Wells of his duties and — in what officials believe was an unprecedented moment in the Education Wars — hauled him off campus, accusing him of taking teachers out of classes to sign a petition to let Locke High become an independent charter school, free of the district’s rules.
More than half the tenured teachers at Locke signed the petition to convert the 2,800-student school into 10 small, Green Dot schools. It was a stunning move by teachers, whose United Teachers Los Angeles union has long deemed the city’s rapidly spreading charter-school movement an attack on public schools.
Many observers probably saw it as fitting that the badly failing high school — which earned the lowest possible score, a 1 out of 10, in last year’s Academic Performance Index (API) statewide ranking — should be ground zero for a revolution.
Locke isn’t the first large L.A. school to seek a conversion to independent charter. In 2003, Granada Hills High School broke L.A. Unified’s hold. It now earns an impressive 9 out of 10 on the statewide test-score rankings, and was recently named one of California’s 39 certified charters — a designation of excellence.
California Charter Schools Association President Caprice Young says Granada officials got tired of being told “you can’t have that discipline plan, you can’t have the teachers staying after school, you can’t have a longer school year — Granada said, ‘Forget it. We know what the kids need.’”
Young and Green Dot Public Schools demigod Steve Barr want other huge schools in L.A. broken into smaller schools, and Barr recently said he was looking at Marshall High in Los Feliz — outgoing school board member and longtime teacher David Tokofsky’s old haunt — for possible takeover.
In the midst of this revolt, which is moving forward with or without Villaraigosa, some folks worry that the mayor’s reform plans are a little simplistic, idealistic, doe-eyed — and that his 52-idea “Schoolhouse” reform outline wasn’t exactly revolutionary.
So what is reform anyway? To “form again,” technically speaking? Reinventing the wheel year after year on the heads of the kids?
Kathleen Cooper, a former Sacramento Unified associate superintendent who now works with the Reading Lions Center, a group of Sacramento-based educators with a track record in school turnarounds, says, “Medicine is governed by standards of care. The legal profession is governed by precedent. . . . Education’s protocol seems to be change — change for change.”
Classroom fads come in, mess with teachers’ minds and magically fade out when the next piece of software or a new teaching method comes a-calling. That’s why, when the word reform is suggested to board member Tokofsky, it makes the colorful guy a tad battier than usual.
“There are transformers, reformers, some I would call deformers, and an awful lot of school conformers. Reform, deform, conform, transform,” mutters Tokofsky. “We should be focusing on fundamentals [and] what turns a kid’s mind on.”
A few weeks back, the L.A. Weekly embarked on a quest to find out if any particular reform works in high schools — the place where Villaraigosa has focused his nearly two years of intense criticism of L.A.’s public schools.
The Weekly’s key question was: Does real “high school reform” even exist? That is, reform that’s being replicated elsewhere, proving it isn’t just a fluke?
Sure, we’d heard about charismatic superstar principals busting into piss-poor schools and mopping up the mess, lifting test scores and morale. But what about a real reform phenomenon?
We asked a bunch of people, including one superstar principal, the now-retired Nancy Ichinaga. She dragged Bennett-Kew Elementary School in Inglewood up from the virtual bottom, where it festered at the third percentile out of 100. She raised her mostly minority and poor students’ test scores to the 78th percentile — a level generally seen only in wealthy schools.
Does Ichinaga think a set of solid policies can be applied to more than one school — high schools targeted by Villaraigosa, for example — and come out triumphant?
Her answer was a big, fat “No!” After four years on the powerful California State Board of Education, where Ichinaga sat on panels with non-educators who liked to listen to their own voices, she believes, “Widespread reforms don’t mean a thing. It comes down to individual schools and the leadership at them. I always ran a tight school. So my school was very successful.”
When Ichinaga walked into Bennett-Kew Elementary in 1974, it was filled with illiterate children.
“It either meant that all the kids were retarded, or something else was wrong,” says the plainspoken Ichinaga. So she challenged her teachers to take on a strict and rigorous curriculum. It took only a year, she says — not several years — to teach students to read. No fads, no nonsense, zip, zero.
Neither Ichinaga nor Tokofsky think the mayor’s newly configured board will make a difference. L.A. has 95 high schools, and in recent years charter schools have lured away about 43,000 of the district’s children — shrinking the student body to about 704,417. Charter schools, not bound by district restrictions and regulations, enjoy a much lower dropout rate.
Why? For starters, kids are treated like people, says former LAUSD board president Young. And teachers and counselors personally know the teens, so they can directly address their personal needs.
“Small works,” says Barr. “High expectations for all kids work.”
Young cites two top reasons why students drop out, from a study by the National Education Association, an influential body representing teachers. According to the NEA, teenagers drop out because no one really notices if they aren’t in class, and they are bored stupid.
So how do you fix high schools packed with bored students (often bored, teachers say, because they arrive from middle school so behind that they can’t follow high school math, history, science or languages)?
The key, says Tokofsky, is to focus on kids in fourth and fifth grade — giving them more of the math and English they need to survive the “huge, impersonal pubescent hellholes” of middle school.
By the time L.A. kids reach sixth grade or so, he says, they aren’t reading or critically thinking as they should be, and are instead involved in faddish classroom games designed to get them “engaged.”
“Then,” says Tokofsky, “you hand them a big, fat biology book in ninth grade and expect them to read 30 pages a week? It’s just not gonna happen.”
Parent Christie Hind’s eldest son isn’t even close to approaching middle school yet, but already she’s preparing for the battle.
Her Silver Lake neighborhood is full of good-to-great elementary schools. But the thought of sending her kid to Thomas Starr King Middle School — which ranks in the bottom 30 percent in California — has her anxious. So Hind and concerned parent Joe Lightfoot founded SELF, the Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Echo Park chapter of L.A.’s Parents Union.
Their goal? To transform King inside and out. For starters, the poor facilities — exploding gas heaters, leaking ceilings and terrible drainage problems — have to go. And the school’s floundering test scores have got to be buoyed up. Or else.
If not, Lightfoot says his group is not beyond threatening the district with Locke High’s situation: angry adults moving to turn a public school into an independent charter conversion school.
But first, the parent group is trying other fixes. They want to move the youngest children now at King Middle School — the sixth-graders — back to local elementary schools, thus alleviating the crowding at King, which brims over with 2,766 students. Hind says Silver Lake grade schools have enough space to take back sixth-graders who have been stuck on campuses with older middle-school students.
Days before the election, as the media cameras rolled, ousted Locke High principal Wells said this is just the beginning of the battle — with or without the mayor.
“I’m tired of going to funerals. I want to go to more graduations,” he said amid amens from parents and tears from students — who wish he could be the one handing them their diplomas several days from now.
Behind him, Steve Barr, leader of the charter-school revolution in Los Angeles, stood with a knowing smile on his face.
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.


When looking for a great mattress, foam mattresses often rank as some of the most recommended products on the market today. The Best Foam Mattress Top picks represent excellent mattresses which excel in an array of different categories which may appeal to people shopping for new foam mattresses. The following article will explore a number of different points which may be of interest to you when looking for a new mattress. With such in depth guide, you will gain much more understanding about memory foam mattresses with ease.
One of the best ways to understand how foam mattresses vary from standard spring mattresses is to understand how they work. Foam mattresses are made with an open cell construction that provides an airtight seal and a support system which retain heat and support your body as well as allowing for firmness and support. As standard mattresses are made with a closed cell construction, the spring within the mattress has nowhere to return heat once it is compressed and cannot provide support. This means that these types of mattresses do not allow you to move about comfortably, but they are also much less firm than standard spring mattresses. As foam mattresses retain heat, some people prefer spring mattresses because they are comfortable and do not offer the same degree of support.
Typically, the weight of a mattress should be relative to its thickness. A mattress with four inches of thickness is likely to weigh about the same as a mattress with only one inch of thickness. However, if a mattress is too thick or weighs too much, it could cause pressure sores around the sides of your body as the mattress pushes on these areas. Foam mattresses have two different types of cells – polyester fiber and memory foam – which enables them to vary in thickness.
If a mattress appears to be too heavy or to float above your head, you may be carrying it around in your arms, or you may be carrying it incorrectly. The traditional “ball and chain” method of rolling the foam mattress to fit provide very little friction, so if you have an old spring mattress or a “loofah” you will need to replace these products with ones manufactured with a metal hook and loop system. A foam mattress will not take up too much room, so keep mattresses flat to prevent moving them about. For those who want a mattress that feels good and looks great, there are a few options. There are memory foam mattresses that feel like down and you roll over it, but these often do not provide the support that one needs, especially if you sleep on your back.
A memory foam mattress has several layers of cells made of a polyurethane foam that are connected together with cords. Each cell is individually cushioned, and this creates what is known as a “memory layer” that stores information about your sleeping position and softens as you change positions. This information allows the foam to mold to each part of your body, providing maximum support as you sleep and a soft feeling when you wake up. The memory foam mattresses are good for people who want to get a good night’s sleep, but also want to be able to move freely during the night, and they are good for people who suffer with aches and pains because of a hard mattress that does not “bounce” or provide adequate support. They are popular among senior citizens, as they tend to be firmer than other types of mattresses.
One drawback to memory foam mattresses is that, if a person sleeps on their back, the foam may be compressed by the muscles of the back. This can cause the sleeper to have a pain or sore neck. It is also better suited for people who have back issues or other health problems. However, for the majority of people, a memory foam mattress can make a back sleeper’s sleep better and more comfortable.