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Author / Hariprasad Sadanandan
Pattas: An unabashed mass masala
The Pongal festival, you can say, is also a time that spawns commercial potboilers. The box office theory is that if you have a solidly packed entertainer that also appeals to families, a successful film is inevitable. Rajinikanth's Darbar was the first of the releases, hitting the screens in the pre-festival week and it's now time for son-in-law Dhanush to cater to the mass audience with his film Pattas. An unabashed mass masala in which he essays a dual role.
Sakthi alias Pattas (Dhanush) is a small-time thief whose modus operandi revolves around his partner-in-crime Puncture (Sathish) and his foster father (Munishkanth). Pattas and Puncture decide to rob the MMA Academy owned by reputed fighter Nilan (Naveen Chandra), in order to teach Sadhana (Mehreen Pirzada), who is their neighbour, a lesson. Coincidentally, at the time of the theft, Kanyakumari (Sneha) is on the premises, attempting to kill Nilan. She had been released from jail that day.
Kanyakumari is incredibly skilled in adimurai, the oldest form of martial arts that was founded during the times of the Cholas. Once Nilan realises her intentions, he sends men after her and during the course of the events, she gets reunited with Pattas who is her biological son. The film then goes into flashback mode, telling us about Thiraviyam Perumal (Dhanush)– a master in adimurai– his efforts to make the long forgotten art form gain recognition. What happens then and the obvious revenge saga plays out thereafter.
Movie Review, Movies
By Hariprasad Sadanandan
Sarileru Neekevaru: Mahesh Babu does it again
It's Sankranti in Andhra and Telangana, and that means a time for superstar-driven commercial potboilers. This time, the industry is set to witness the biggest box office battle in years with Mahesh Babu's Sarileru Neekevvaru taking on Allu Arjun's Ala Vaikuntapurramlo. Initially slated for a same day clash on January 12, mediation from the producers' council resulted in the Mahesh-starrer preponing its release by a day. It is for the first time in six years that the superstar is having a Sankranti release.
The film opens in Kashmir where we are introduced to Major Ajay Krishna (Mahesh Babu), an orthodox Army man with a good mix of brain and brawn. He loves to lead by example and during one rescue operation helmed by him, a fellow officer (also named Ajay) gets critically wounded at a time when he was scheduled to take long leave for his sister's marriage in Kurnool. Due to the unexpected turn of events, Ajay Krishna decides to visit the other Ajay's hometown to ensure that the marriage and other formalities are completed successfully.
Ajay's family comprises of his mother, Bharati (Vijayshanti) a college professor and, two sisters. Once our protagonist reaches Kurnool, he realizes that all is not well with the State minister (Prakash Raj) being the major obstacle. Quite expectedly, Ajay Krishna intervenes in this skirmish and takes it upon himself to solve the issues of Bharati and her daughters. What starts out as a personal contest soon gets entangled in a scam. How Ajay Krishna restores parity to Kurnool is the crux of the film.
Chhapaak: Deepika's finest performance
Being Deepika Padukone takes a lot of guts and gumption. With Chhapaak slated to release on Friday (10th January 2020), her visit to JNU on Tuesday the 8th to extend solidarity to the crusaders, has come in the eye of a political storm. The reactions have been extreme—one lot rooting for her and the other, baying for her blood. It's in these circumstances that her social drama-cum-biopic directed by Meghna Gulzar has hit the screens.
Chhapaak tells the story of a vivacious middle-class teenager Malti (Deepika Padukone) whose aim is to be popular singer. However, her life turns upside down in a matter of seconds with an acid attack. Scarred physically with a face that's beyond recognition and a mind that's burnt to ashes, Malti realizes that the road ahead isn't going to be easy. She decides to fight for justice and chooses the path of redemption.
Malti's own family takes time to come to terms with the shocking reality leading to some painful moments. Malti finds an able companion in Amol (Vikrant Massey) who hires her in his NGO which specializes in dealing with acid attack survivors. Her lawyer Archana (Madhurjeet Sarghi) is another source of unconditional support through the legal and personal battles. The crux of the film deals with how Malti rises from the pits of depression to the highs of personal liberation.
Darbar: A treat for Rajinikanth's fans
"It will be an old-school Rajinikanth film," said AR Murugadoss, in a recent interview to Film Companion. A self-confessed fan of the superstar, Murugadoss had wanted to first collaborate with his idol back in 2006 when he was riding the Ghajini wave. However, despite the occasional conversations between the two, it took more than a decade for the project to materialize.
Aadithya Arunasalam (Rajinikanth), a Commissioner of Police in Mumbai is a ruthless no-nonsense guy, who is mentally unstable and all the time plotting revenge on an unknown enemy. As a result, we get to see Aadithya randomly finishing off gangsters at will, leaving the criminal world in shock. We are then treated to a flashback in Delhi where Aadithya is living merrily with his daughter Valli (Nivetha Thomas) and their sidekick Kaushik (Yogi Babu). He gets an emergency transfer to Mumbai to handle a sensitive case.
When he isn't chasing goons, Aadithya spends his time with his dutiful daughter and the duo share an endearing bond. Valli is adamant that she won't marry until Aadithya remarries and this is when Lily (Nayanthara) enters the scene by coincidence and a romance blooms, even as Aadithya gets entangled in a peculiar case. Little does he know that this investigation will eventually shake up his life—a typical revenge drama ensues as Aadithya unleashes his anger on the opponent.
Kollywood Star Metre 2010-19: Vijay inches towards Rajni
The 2010s saw another laudable decade for Kollywood, commercially speaking. The top stars firmed up their position, more content-oriented blockbusters were produced and inevitably new stars were born. There were others whose crowd-pulling abilities witnessed a sharp decline. The start of a new decade is the perfect time to analyze the form guide for the top stars in the industry—how they fared in the previous decade. Worldwide all-version collections are considered, although the Tamil version and TN BO does get extra weightage.
Rajnikanth continues to hang on to the Numero Uno spot but that is largely due to his pull outside India and his influence in Karnataka, Andhra, Telangana and the northern belts. Post-Kabali, the Thalaivar has seen his films underperforming in Tamil Nadu, both in terms of initial and lifetime collections. So much so that his Pongal release in 2019, Petta, ended up falling well short of Ajith's Viswasam in the state. To an extent, Rajni's film choices in the last decade have been questionable, probably taking the audience for granted. Darbar will be a crucial film for Rajni, especially in Tamil Nadu.
Rajni's downward slide has coincided with Vijay's rise and the latter has been dominating the Tamil Nadu box-office in recent years. Thalapathy's last three releases all grossed above 125 crores in the State, with the most recent flick Bigil emerging as the highest grossing Tamil film in the State. It is also the top-collecting Kollywood film (Tamil version) worldwide. Vijay is at the peak of his stardom and the incredible thing is that he continues to get sharper with every passing film. Overseas, he is a strong competitor for Rajni although the latter is still ahead currently.
Good Newwz: A smooth delivery
My first reaction when I saw the Good Newwz trailer was—How come Ayushmann Khurrana is not starring in this? After all, he has carved his niche in similar settings right from his debut film Vicky Donor. Despite the basic story being revealed in the trailer (this is a modern promo trend—either all or nothing) itself, there is no denying that the film has been much awaited.
Good Newwz kicks off in Mumbai and we are introduced to the urban couple Varun (Akshay Kumar) and Deepti (Kareena Kapoor Khan), aka the Batras. While the former works in a senior post at an automobile showroom, his better half is a renowned film journalist. Married for seven years, the couple has a near-perfect life, except for one major problem—having an off spring. This is a matter of concern especially for Deepti, given how the traditional Indian society reacts to women in her situation.
A suggestion from their close relative lands them at a reputed fertility clinic owned by Dr Anand Joshi (Adil Hussain) and his wife (Tisca Chopra). After an orientation session, Varun and Deepti agree to the recommended in-vitro fertilization. Unfortunately, an amateurish goof up from the clinic staff results in a swap of sperm boxes with another Batra couple, Honey (Diljit Dosanjh) and Monika (Kiara Advani), who are a typical loud Punjabi pair based in Chandigarh.
Dabangg-3: A jaded sequel
Wanted (2009) and Dabangg (2010) were special films in Salman Khan's career, given that they were instrumental in renewing his stardom that scaled greater heights. The former (a remake of the Telugu blockbuster Pokiri) was directed by Prabhu Deva and gave the initial push while Dabangg confirmed the dawn of a new era for Salman. Therefore, it is understandable why he chose to end the decade with another edition of Dabangg, with Prabhu Deva roped in to direct the franchise for the first time.
The story is set in Tundla (a town in Uttar Pradesh) where Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan), a cop, is currently posted. He lives his routine life that oscillates between romancing his wife Rajjo (Sonakshi Sinha), troubling his brother Makkhi Pandey (Arbaaz Khan) and bashing the goons that threaten law and order. While rescuing a bunch of girls from a treacherous flesh trade gang, Chulbul's path crosses with that of Bali Singh (Sudeep). The two have a past history, one that is painful for the former and he is determined to exact revenge this time around.
Franchises generally opt for a sequel or a prequel while planning a fresh installment. With Dabangg3, it's a mix of the two. A large chunk of the first half is in flashback mode where we get to see Chulbul's naive younger days when he was his world revolved around Khushi (Saiee Manjrekar). The couple is madly in love and just when things appear to be smooth, tragedy strikes and the trauma leads our hero to become the rough-and-tough cop that he is today.
Hero: Not exactly the regular Superhero film
Whenever a superhero film is announced in India, we're usually skeptical. The concern isn't without reason, given that it isn't a genre that's been aced on a consistent basis. There has been a stereotypical approach to scripting of such films, almost as if the writers want to stick to a certain formula, bringing on visual fatigue. So, when Siva Karthikeyan, Tamil cinema's rising star announced a superhero film, it evoked mixed reactions.
During his childhood, Sakthi (Siva Karthikeyan) was a huge fan of the TV series Shaktiman and saw himself as a superhero. When all other kids had the typical ambitions of being a doctor, engineer or a pilot, Sakthi's aim was to be a Shaktiman. Cut to the present and he is an education broker whose modus operandi is to arrange seats in schools or colleges on a commission basis. He also does a business of providing fake certificates for students in his locality.
A chance interaction with Meera (Kalyani) makes Sakthi rethink his priorities. Murthy (Arjun) is a teacher who runs an unorthodox school for the poor-but-gifted students who have been degraded by society. His aim is to uplift these supremely-talented students so that they can come up in life. The obstacle comes in the form of Mahadev (Abhay Deol), a kingmaker with interests in the education sector. What happens when the paths of Sakthi, Murthy and Mahadev intersect?
Mardaani-2: Intense and Pacy
In 2014, when the feminist movement hadn't yet turned a corner, Rani Mukerji had showed that a female cop could look menacing on screen. That perhaps was the USP of Mardaani, which received appreciation for its rawness and intense portrayal. Given the popularity of Rani Mukerji's character and the success of the film, a sequel was inevitable—especially in the present scenario.
The film is set in Kota, Rajasthan where Shivani Shivaji Rao (Rani Mukerji) is now posted. Since her sensational handling of the Karan Rastogi case (in Mardaani), Shivani has climbed up the ladder significantly to become one of the finest cops in the country and is now Superintendent of Police (SP). Terror grips Kota when a psychopath (Vishal Jethwa) starts raping and murdering random women, sending shockwaves across the city. It's up to Shivani to hunt him down before things get out of hand.
As the sequel of a reasonably successful film, comparisons are inevitable. Pradeep Sarkar, who directed the first part, isn't helming the sequel and it's Mardaani's writer Gopi Puthran (also one of Pradeep's associate directors in Mardaani) who makes his directorial debut here. His writing is on point, and although it isn't as razor-sharp as it was in the first installment, things do work well for a major part.
Panipat: Takes liberty with History
It won't be wrong to say that period films made with lavish budgets are reaching a saturation point these days—at least in Bollywood. Lots of the film-makers feel that they can cash in on the Baahubali wave. Ashutosh Gowariker, who is a pioneer in this genre, comes up with yet another magnum opus, on the third battle of Panipat.
The film is set in the 18th century, during the Maratha Empire, with Sadashiv Rao Bhau (Arjun Kapoor), nephew of Baji Rao, at the helm with his wily wife Parvati Bai (Kriti Sanon). Panic ensues when the news of Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali's (Sanjay Dutt) impending invasion spreads like wild fire. The film begins prior to the war and focuses on the battle in detail.
Like many of the period films that have been released in the last couple of years, Panipat does not match the high standards set by Baahubali which has become the barometer for war films. Gowariker, who left us stunned with his execution in Lagaan and Jodhaa Akbar, clearly has been on a downward graph since the Hrithik Roshan-starrer in 2008. The films that he has done thereafter have not only tanked at the box office but also not been up to the mark in terms of quality.
Pati Patni Aur Woh: A fine remake
It's a known fact that Bollywood loves remakes. Nothing guarantees success (at least on paper) like the remake of a successful film. So, we've seen remakes made from blockbuster films of other industries and in recent decades, also witnessed production houses remaking blockbusters of their own. Pati Patni Aur Woh, the official remake of the 1978 cult classic with the same title, is the latest addition to the list.
Like the original, this film also is a romantic-comedy that involves a love triangle of sorts. Set in Kanpur, Abhinav (Kartik Aryan) works in the PWD department and is married to Vedika (Bhumi Pednekar) who works as a tutor in an institute. Theirs was an arranged marriage between two Lucknow-based families. After a point, Abhinav starts to experience a sense of boredom in his life. That's when Tapasya (Ananya Pandey) enters his life. She is in the city on business—doing plot visits—Abhinav ends up as her guide for the same.
Despite his best friend-cum-colleague Fahim's (Aparshakti Khurrana) councel, Abhinav ends up in an emotional soup. One on hand, he has his dutiful wife Vedika, and on the other, he finds himself attracted to the energetic Tapasya. It all starts from a lie that he tells Tapasya and things go haywire from there.
Enai Nokki Paayum Thota: The bullet misses its mark
It's difficult to retain enthusiasm for a film when its release gets delayed for an extended period. Gautham Menon's Enai Nokki Paayum Thota had started rolling in early 2016 and that point, there was a considerable buzz, given the unconventional director-actor pairing of Menon and Dhanush, both known for different kinds of cinema. It has taken more than three-and-a-half years to hit the screens, and not surprisingly, it has arrived with not much hype attached to it.
Raghu (Dhanush) is a final year college student who has a relationship with actress Lekha (Megha) who is shooting at his college. She has a troubled life largely due to her 'guardian' Kuberan (Senthil). Although Lekha has to separate from Raghu to ensure his safety at one point, destiny reunites them after a span of four years in different circumstances.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this film has something to do with Menon's previous directorial Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada which featured Simbu in the lead. A boy-meets-girl plot, a romance that bears the Gautham Menon stamp and then a sudden shift to the action-thriller genre. Except for the change in the lead pair, there is a huge sense of deja vu that you cannot avoid. Moreover, the voiceovers which Gautham loves to use in his films have now become an overdone prop, causing irritation.


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ISIS Has MORE Territory Despite Months Of U.S.-led Airstrikes
Erica Wenig Contributor
June 04, 2015 3:09 PM ET
After nine months and nearly $2.5 billion spent by the U.S. battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group controls holds more territory than it did before the American-led military campaign began last fall.
"While more than 10,000 ISIS fighters are said to have been killed by airstrikes so far, the Iraq and Syrian turf where ISIS fighters roam has nevertheless grown in the past 10 months," reports Defense One, including a video that reveals the limited success of U.S. airstrikes in narrowing Islamic State-held territory.
Military operations against the Islamic State began August 8, 2014. From then until May 7th of this year, the U.S. spent $2.44 billion, according to the Department of Defense. The U.S. spends $8.9 million per day on military operations meant to defeat the group.
Despite those efforts, the Islamic State continues to launch offensives, capturing key cities in the past month.
Militants recently overran the 4,000 year-old Syrian city of Palmyra, giving them control of half the country. The Islamic State launched an attack against Aleppo last weekend, heightening the risk of Syria's largest city falling under jihadi control. (US Embassy Accuses Syrian Regime Of Supporting ISIS Advance)
Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's largest province, was captured by a reported 400 Islamic State fighters in mid-May. The country's largest oil refinery remains contested, battered by continued fighting between Islamic State militants, Iraqi security forces, and Shiite militias. (Iraq's Biggest Oil Refinery 'Threatened' By ISIS)
The Islamic State was ousted from the Iraqi city of Tikrit in early April, one of the most recent instances of the U.S.-led coalition working with allied ground forces to retake the town in which Saddam Hussein grew up.
President Obama proposed a three-year time frame for the war against the Islamic State, ending after he completes his second term in the Oval Office. This is a strategic move, intended to shield the administration from criticism, according to Michael Rubin, an expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Tags : iraq isis syria
Erica Wenig

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Nothing to do and no where to go.
When I moved to Chicago I thought it'd be temporary. Seven years later, temporary seems a distant dream. For a while, Chicago had become a second home. But, still, I had always said that as soon as my sister started having children, I wanted to move back to New England. I wanted to be there as her children were born. I wanted to be the kind of aunt to her children that I have been so fortunate to be to my husband's nephews. The aunt that takes them places, hosts movie nights, and always makes them feel loved and completely special.
Now that my sister due with her first baby in August, little pieces of my heart sometimes break knowing that I will most likely miss so many of her and baby's firsts. I know that living so far away is going to require a bit of creativity to be able to be as involved as I want to be. And I know, too, that I will have to relish those little face-to-face moments I do have.
A few weeks back when I was home for my aunt's birthday, I spent a couple days at my sister's before anyone else knew I was even in town. And it was wonderful. Each morning, I woke up and made my way to my sister's room. Danny had already left for work so I crawled into bed next to my sister and waited for her puppy Bronx to jump up. Within seconds, he was on the bed and ready for snuggles.
We spent about two hours each morning just chatting, watching funny videos and gossiping about blogging. Every fifteen minutes or so, one was us would comment, "One of us should really get up and get in the shower." But we didn't. At least not for a few hours.
Though I've missed much of my sister's pregnancy and have had to keep up mostly through photos and phone calls, I feel lucky to have had those couple mornings with nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Those mornings remind me that though I may not be there for every moment of my future niece of nephew's precious little life, I will do my absolute best to be fully there when I can be. With nothing to do and no where to go.
Free Loves: All my dreams.
Be it that my sister is in Paris or because I've just been watching far too much Gossip Girl, lately all my dreams begin with Paris. I've never been to Paris but I just know I'd be in heaven there, amidst the street cafes, macarons, museums and history. Sigh. My heart bursts at the thought.
One day it will happen. I'll make sure of it.
3) Once downloaded, upload in an e-mail to yourself.
4) Open the e-mail on your phone and save the image then set as wallpaper.
5) Remind yourself daily that you got this and then go out there and chase down those dreams of yours!
Until then, enjoy this free love!
A little over a month ago, my friend Meredith and I were out for drinks and she shared that she had started a pinterest board for her upcoming birthday. She wanted to have a birthday brunch with a teal and yellow theme. So right then and there, we jotted notes and ideas on a napkin and dreamed about what could be. From there, we set about making lists and doing projects and collecting teal and yellow everything.
This is perhaps the best, most beautiful party I have been involved in thusfar. I am absolutely in love with how it turned out. Everything we had hoped for came to be and it was just perfect.
The idea was an indoor light, airy garden party, focused around all things Meredith. Guests arrived in their best garden party attire and the new Great Gatsby soundtrack played quietly in the background. Guests mingled and chatted, catching up with old friends and introducing each other to new friends.
We gathered some of her favorite foods, including the most delicious doughnuts from Glazed & Infused. Sigh. So good.
Fruit skewers, mini omelets, yogurt parfaits, mini pancakes and sausages rounded out menu.
And because it was a brunch, we of course had to include a mimosa bar, complete with champagne and juices of all kinds: orange, blood orange, strawberry, and mango.
Once everyone had a chance to eat, we played a very special game. Meredith is one of the most optimistic, positive and hilarious ladies I know. Part of the Meredith charm are her commonly used and laughter inducing phrases. I scoured her Facebook and twitter feeds and sought the help of roommates and friends and we compiled a list of Meredith's most quotable moments. I then created "Meredith Bingo" with 20 different bingo cards.
Meredith Bingo was such a hit. As we called out each square, friends laughed and others shared stories behind the quotes.
We collected a few of Meredith's favorite things to offer up as prizes. A couple prizes, such as going for a walk and a Redbox rental, required certificates so I created them.
Lastly, because you know I love a little photobooth action, we set up a photobooth with teal, yellow and white streamers for the background. Meredith's roommate provided garden party themed accessories.
Meredith's roommate Ashleigh (pictured above!) created the hashtag #BloughBirthdayBrunch so that guests could share and easily find photos on social media. I was so excited to see how others photographed the party!
I loved this party. It was exactly as Meredith and I had dreamed a little over a month ago. I am so grateful for my friendship with Meredith and I was honored to play a part in celebrating her birthday!
So happy birthday to this beautiful lady!


As easily as you can become allergic to someone you see too often of, you can become addicted to someone you don't see enough of.
In the last two years of reading Anita Shreve's novels, I have become used to her storytelling. After reading Strange Fits of Passion in February, I seriously thought that I had figured out her style of writing. I was wrong.
Fortune's Rocks is told in the third person and in the present tense. In the first sentence of the 453 page paperback novel I borrowed from my neighbour, Shreve cleverly summarises the entire story in one word: DESIRE. The last word in the entire novel sums up the consequences of that desire.
While reading it, I was conscious of my resistance to read too much of it too fast. I had to pace myself so that I could enjoy it like a fine wine which I sip slowly to taste its entirety while saving the remainder for as long as possible. This kind of deliberate and conscious reading took me into the story to such an extent that I seemed to be living out the fiction in the nonfiction of my life!
Shreve's second sentence captivates the reader to continue: "Desire that slows the breath, that causes a preoccupied pause in the midst of uttering a sentence, that focuses the gaze absolutely on the progress of naked feet ...."
Fortune's Rocks is a fictional place where the events of one summer determine the fate of many people. It is an apt title, for fortune is not without problems (rocks). And what appears to be so perfect on the surface hides what can disrupt and overturn from beneath.
In the novel, a home-schooled and sheltered 15-year-old girl, an only child, has a secret affair with her father's trusted 41-year-old married friend. When they are caught in the act in a chapel on the eve of her sixteenth birthday gala party, it causes a scandal and forces a drastic turn of events. The wife divorces him and takes their four children away. The lover loses his job. The girl finds out she's pregnant, but the baby is taken away from her while minutes after birth. The reputation and friendship of two well-to-do families are ruined.
While the plot is sizzling, the writing is mesmerising, if you can get into the mind of the desirer and the desired. They know from the moment they meet, despite the age difference and the obviously unacceptable incompatibility of their circumstances, that they desire one another and they are destined to be together. There is an immediate intimacy that they cannot deny. They are aware of what is at stake, but they don't resist each other. Even after they have lost everything and have sacrificed so much, they don't repent.
"How can something that feels so true and honest and pure, which is how I must describe my feelings for you, and I do declare them love, which I had not thought possible after so short a time, be so ugly as to cause such pain? And more vexing still, have no happy concluson?"
Is it possible to know a person so well that you understand why he does what he does, even if others consider what he does to be wrong or scandalous? Indeed, a Neuro Linguistic Programming supposition says that every behaviour has a positive intention.
Read the book, and you will become more forgiving and less critical of what you consider to be wrong or imperfect. Understand the characters, and you will empathise with lovers who desire each other, against all odds.


Political commentators sympathetic to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Fatah Movement, in particular, fanned out as soon as the news was announced of Muhammad Ishtayeh's appointment as the new Palestinian Prime Minister.
It is no surprise to witness this gush of support and enthusiasm, for Ishtayeh is a Fatah man, par excellence. Gone are the days of the factional uncertainty of Rami Hamdallah, an independent Prime Minister who served from 2014 until he was brushed aside earlier this year.
Hamdallah was meant to change all of this, but his efforts were thwarted, partly because his power was largely curbed by those who truly managed the PA - the Fatah strongmen, an influential and corrupt clique that has learned to co-exist with and, in fact, profit from any situation, including the Israeli occupation itself.
For them, Muhammad Ishtayeh's recent appointment is the most logical answer.
Ishtayeh possesses all the features that qualify him for the new role. His 'seven-point letter of assignment', which he received from Abbas, calls on him to prioritize national unity. But that would make no sense since Ishtayeh, who has been close to Abbas since the early 1990s, has a poor track record on that front.
Aside from accommodating the whims of Abbas and his grouping within Fatah, Ishtayeh will try to appeal to a younger generation within Palestine that has lost faith in Abbas, his authority and all the hogwash about the two-state solution. That is, in fact, Ishtayeh's main mission.
Ishtayeh is a two-state solution enthusiast as his legacy in the Palestine negotiations team clearly demonstrates. His article in the New York Times on October 26, 2016 was a desperate attempt to breathe life into a dead option. His language is very similar to the language used by a younger and more energetic Abbas during the heyday of the Oslo Accords.
But Ishtayeh is different from Abbas, at least in the appeal of his own persona. He hails from the First Intifada generation of 1987. He was dean of students at Birzeit University in the early 1990s. Birzeit has served as a symbol of the revolutionary class of Palestinian intellectuals in the West Bank, and even Gaza. Ishtayeh's ability to connect with young people, as he places constant, but guarded emphasis on the resistance against Israeli Occupation, will certainly bring new blood to the aging, irrelevant PA leadership or, at least, that is what Abbas hopes.
"We do not want to preserve the same status quo," Ishtayeh told Al Quds newspaper in a statement on August 30, 2017. "The Palestinian government ... has to ... turn into a resistance authority against Israeli settlements. We should be able to take measures without the permission of Israel, such as digging water wells and reforesting Area C in the West Bank," he said.
That type of 'resistance', proposed by Ishtayeh hardly pushes Abbas out of his comfort zone. However, the aim of this language is barely concerned with digging a few wells, but to reintroduce 'revolutionary' rhetoric to the Prime Minister's office, hoping to reinvent the PA and renew confidence in its ailing and corrupt institutions.
Ishtayeh's mission will ultimately fail, for his actual mandate is to reunite Fatah behind Abbas, not the Palestinian people behind a truly democratic and representative leadership aimed at ridding Palestine from its Israeli occupiers.


The public outrage that emerged in the aftermath of the event has brought new attention to the rights of farmers and the basic human right to be able to choose what kind of food we wish to consume. It has also highlighted the outrageous abuses of government power that are increasingly wielded against targeted victims who take a stand against unreasonable government regulation.
We covered this raid in great detail at NaturalNews, publishing dozens of articles, interviews and videos on the subject (https://www.naturalnews.com/033258_Rawesome_F...). In fact, we were the first to break the story globally, and we even helped raise funds for the legal defense of those charged with crimes in the Rawesome Foods raid.
The concept for this cartoon was actually created by a NaturalNews employee who I will simply call "J" (to protect their privacy). Special thanks to "J" for coming up with this great dialog! It was a solid concept so I fleshed out the scene and sent the idea to Dan Berger for illustration. His illustrations just keep getting better, don't they?
Spread the word! If you like this cartoon, pass it on. Feel free to post it on your own website and please give credit to either NaturalNews.com or Counterthink.com - thank you!


Such OPness, much balancing, wow.
first guide, obviously best. Upvote pls.
Sorry, I couldn't help it. I'll archive this tomorrow or whenever I'm back on my computer.
... yes. yes they will. they always do. dafaq yuo talkin bout?
47314 All4Games [quote=DroboBrandegee] [quote=All4Games] More and more guides will start appearing over the next week and those will be better. [/quote] or will they?!??! [/quote] ... yes. yes they will. they always do. dafaq yuo talkin bout?
More and more guides will start appearing over the next week and those will be better.
47312 DroboBrandegee [quote=All4Games] More and more guides will start appearing over the next week and those will be better. [/quote] or will they?!??!
47295 Talenhiem [quote=All4Games] More and more guides will start appearing over the next week and those will be better. [/quote] ...hopefully.
I expected a real build,i know this is for fun but you have to realize people want builds and not things like this.
Talenheim has been around for a while now. It's just a joke about how day 1 guides are often awful. Don't take it to serious.
47285 All4Games [quote=TheDoctorfl] I expected a real build,i know this is for fun but you have to realize people want builds and not things like this. [/quote] Talenheim has been around for a while now. It's just a joke about how day 1 guides are often awful. Don't take it to serious. More and more guides will start appearing over the next week and those will be better.
47274 TheDoctorfl I expected a real build,i know this is for fun but you have to realize people want builds and not things like this.
Much upvote. Many good. So info. Wow.


So, a while ago, Jon and Lauren at Works Partnership Architecture asked me to help out with a video installation in their building on 6th and east Burnside. The basic idea was to project images from some old surveillance cameras into the windows of the building with time delay and time stamp. They brought me onto the project and I started building stuff in Processing. As the project progressed, and as I tried out and showed them new things I was doing with the video, the project changed from simple time delay to something cooler and more trippy. I also got to add automatic on-off switches for the projectors via their remote controls via arduino via computer. That doesn't really add to the experience of it but it was fun to figure out.
The project is up now through (I believe) the end of April. The computers turn the projectors on at 6pm, but it doesn't become very visible till at least 7, and is much better viewed when it's completely dark out. Go check it out! And if it's not too late, go to the opening reception for it on 4/2/10.
Here's me taking a picture of it taking a picture of me- this is the only west-facing window with a projection in it.
Here's the building from across the street. You can see the projection inside on the first floor, and the east-facing projections on floors 2 and 3.
Here's a picture of my name and the name of my website on the window. Yes!
Here's Kelly both on the sidewalk and in the projection. The projections (like this one) in which I messed with the image cycle through about 20 different ways of being messed with.
Here's the ground floor projection. This one is on a wall inside, rather than on a film on the window. You can just make out my shape standing in front of the camera.
Here's the downstairs one again, with a different effect on the video.
It's video, so hopefully it's better in person, where you can see the pixels move and stuff. And see yourself in them.
For anyone who's interested, here is the code I used to manipulate the images. This is for the 2nd floor projection, so it also includes an unmanipulated but time-delayed image on the second screen.


A response to hacker group Anonymous' attack on a number of Irish Government websites in light of the controversial statutory instrument dubbed Ireland's SOPA is being met with a 'whole of Government response to the threat'.
A statement issued by the Department of Justice's press office confirmed that Government servers came under attack last night.
"Last night, the Department of Justice and Finance websites experienced a distributed denial of service attack. This is not an attempt to extract information from the website but is instead an attempt to stop access to a service.
"There seems to be no damage done to the website, however, a review is being conducted this morning. The situation continues to be monitored by the Department of Justice and the Department of Communication. Gardai have been contacted on the matter.
"The Government is aware of the potential threat of this type of cyber attack and the Department of Communications is co-ordinating a whole of Government response to this threat," the Department of Justice said.
The statutory instrument that has aroused Anonymous' anger is about to be signed in Ireland just a week after major protests around the web stopped SOPA and PIPA in their tracks.
The instrument is aimed at covering a perceived gap in the Irish copyright laws whereby courts will be given powers to grant injunctions against ISPs on the suspicion of illegal downloading activities by their customers.
A petition that emerged earlier this week against the statutory instrument attracted more than 22,000 signatures.
Earlier this week, Anonymous attacked and vandalised government websites in Poland, including that of its prime minister.


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"Pregnancy Established in an Infertile Patient After Transfer of a Donated Embryo Fertilized In Vitro" (1983), by Alan Trounson, John Leeton, Mandy Besanko, Carl Wood, and Angelo Conti
In 1983, researchers Alan Trounson, John Leeton, Carl Wood, Mandy Besanko, and Angelo Conti published the article "Pregnancy Established in an Infertile Patient After Transfer of a Donated Embryo Fertilized In Vitro" in The British Medical Journal. In the article, the authors discuss one of the first successful experiments using in vitro fertilization, or IVF, with the use of a human donor embryo at the Monash University and Queen Victoria Medical Center in Melbourne, Australia.
Subject: Publications, Publications, Reproduction, Processes
"Transfer of a Human Zygote" (1973), by David De Kretzer, Peter Dennis, Bryan Hudson, John Leeton, Alexander Lopata, Ken Outch, James Talbot, and Carl Wood
On 29 September 1973, researchers David De Kretzer, Peter Dennis, Bryan Hudson, John Leeton, Alexander Lopata, Ken Outch, James Talbot, and Carl Wood published "Transfer of a Human Zygote," in The Lancet. In the article, the authors describe an experiment that resulted in one of the first pregnancies established via in vitro fertilization, or IVF. Prior to the article's publication in 1973, there was no published evidence demonstrating whether IVF treatment would work in humans, although evidence existed showing that IVF worked in other mammals for breeding purposes.
Subject: Publications, Processes
"Female Ejaculation: A Case Study" (1981), by Frank Addiego, Edwin G. Belzer Jr., Jill Comolli, William Moger, John D. Perry, and Beverly Whipple
In 1981, Frank Addiego and colleagues published "Female Ejaculation: A Case Study" in The Journal of Sex Research. In the article, the authors find that female ejaculation, or the expulsion of fluid from a female's urethra during or before orgasm, is a legitimate phenomenon that can occur when one stimulates an area in the vaginal wall that the team names the Gräfenberg-spot. According to the authors, at the time of publication, many individuals believed that if a female expelled fluid during orgasm, the fluid was urine and, thus, improper bladder control caused the expulsions.
Subject: Publications, Processes, Reproduction
Inducing Fertilization and Development in Sand Dollars
Sand dollars are common marine invertebrates in the phylum Echinodermata and share the same class (Echinoidea) as sea urchins. They have served as model laboratory organisms for such embryologists as Frank Rattray Lillie and Ernest Everett Just. Both Lillie and Just used Echinarachnius parma for their studies of egg cell membranes and embryo development at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in the early 1900s.
Subject: Processes
Pearl Luella Kendrick (1890–1980)
Pearl Luella Kendrick researched prevention for pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during the mid-1900s. Pertussis is a respiratory disease that mainly affects infants and young children. During the 1920s, pertussis was responsible for more deaths in children in the United States than any other disease. In the 1930s, Kendrick created one of the first pertussis vaccines that underwent large-scale clinical trials.
Subject: People, Publications, Processes
Sex Determination in Humans
In humans, sex determination is the process that determines the biological sex of an offspring and, as a result, the sexual characteristics that they will develop. Humans typically develop as either male or female, primarily depending on the combination of sex chromosomes that they inherit from their parents. The human sex chromosomes, called X and Y, are structures in human cells made up of tightly bound deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, and proteins.
Subject: Processes, Processes
Test-Tube Baby
A test-tube baby is the product of a successful human reproduction that results from methods beyond sexual intercourse between a man and a woman and instead utilizes medical intervention that manipulates both the egg and sperm cells for successful fertilization. The term was originally used to refer to the babies born from the earliest applications of artificial insemination and has now been expanded to refer to children born through the use of in vitro fertilization, the practice of fertilizing an embryo outside of a woman's body.
Sperm Capacitation
Sperm capacitation refers to the physiological changes spermatozoa must undergo in order to have the ability to penetrate and fertilize an egg. This term was first coined in 1952 by Colin Russell Austin based on independent studies conducted by both Austin himself as well as Min Chueh Chang in 1951. Since the initial reports and emergence of the term, the details of the process have been more clearly elucidated due to technological advancements.
The Process of Implantation of Embryos in Primates
Implantation is a process in which a developing embryo, moving as a blastocyst through a uterus, makes contact with the uterine wall and remains attached to it until birth. The lining of the uterus (endometrium) prepares for the developing blastocyst to attach to it via many internal changes. Without these changes implantation will not occur, and the embryo sloughs off during menstruation. Such implantation is unique to mammals, but not all mammals exhibit it.
Slime Mold Video
This video is composed of a sequence of films created by John Tyler Bonner in the 1940s to show the life cycle of the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum. As only the second person to study slime molds, Bonner frequently encountered audiences who had never heard of, let alone seen, the unusual organism.
Human Embryonic Stem Cells
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that are capable of dividing for long periods of time and can give rise to specialized cells under particular conditions. Embryonic stem cells are a particular type of stem cell derived from embryos. According to US National Institutes of Health (NIH), in humans, the term "embryo" applies to a fertilized egg from the beginning of division up to the end of the eighth week of gestation, when the embryo becomes a fetus. Between fertilization and the eighth week of gestation, the embryo undergoes multiple cell divisions.
"Test-tube baby" is a term used to refer to a baby produced through artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization, also called IVF. During artificial insemination, a physician injects carefully selected sperm into a women's uterus to fertilize her eggs. During IVF, a trained professional harvests eggs from a female donor. Those eggs are fertilized with carefully selected sperm in a petri dish.
Format: Graphics
Abortion is the removal of the embryo or fetus from the womb, before birth can occur-either naturally or by induced labor. Prenatal development occurs in three stages: the zygote, or fertilized egg; the embryo, from post-conception to eight weeks; and the fetus, from eight weeks after conception until the baby is born. After abortion, the infant does not and cannot live. Spontaneous abortion is the loss of the infant naturally or accidentally, without the will of the mother. It is more commonly referred to as miscarriage.
Frog Embryo in the Blastula Stage
Illustration of the animal-vegetal gradient in Xenopus laevis ( African clawed frog) eggs after fertilization. During fertilization, the sperm s point of entry determines the future dorsal side (shaded) and ventral side (unshaded) of the embryo. The prospective ventral side of the embryo forms on the side where the sperm enters while the prospective dorsal side forms opposite the sperm s point of entry.
Subject: Processes, Organisms, Theories
Multi-Fetal Pregnancy
In humans, multi-fetal pregnancy occurs when a mother carries more than one fetus during the pregnancy. The most common multi-fetal pregnancy is twins, but mothers have given birth to up to eight children (octuplets) from a single pregnancy. Multiple fetusus can result from the release of multiple eggs or multiple ovulations, the splitting of a single fertilized egg, and fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) which involves the insertion of many fertilized eggs into the mother's uterus.
Gastrulation in Mus musculus (common house mouse)
As mice embryos develop, they undergo a stage of development called gastrulation. The hallmark of vertebrate gastrulation is the reorganization of the inner cell mass (ICM) into the three germ layers: ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. Mammalian embryogenesis occurs within organisms; therefore, gastrulation was originally described in species with easily observable embryos. For example, the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) is the most widely used organism to study gastrulation because the large embryos develop inside a translucent membrane.
Subject: Processes, Experiments
The term homunculus is Latin for "little man." It is used in neurology today to describe the map in the brain of sensory neurons in each part of the body (the somatosensory homunculus). An early use of the word was in the 1572 work by Paracelsus regarding forays into alchemy, De Natura Rerum, in which he gave instructions in how to create an infant human without fertilization or gestation in the womb. In the history of embryology, the homunculus was part of the Enlightenment-era theory of generation called preformationism.
The term morphogenesis generally refers to the processes by which order is created in the developing organism. This order is achieved as differentiated cells carefully organize into tissues, organs, organ systems, and ultimately the organism as a whole. Questions centered on morphogenesis have aimed to uncover the mechanisms responsible for this organization, and developmental biology textbooks have identified morphogenesis as one of the main challenges in the field. The concept of morphogenesis is intertwined with those of differentiation, growth, and reproduction.
Leuprorelin as a Treatment for Endometriosis
Leuprolide acetate, or leuprorelin, is a manufactured drug that has been prescribed as a treatment for endometriosis, a medical condition in which body tissue that typically lines the uterus grows outside of the uterus, since 1989. Leuprorelin is a modified version of a gonadotropin-releasing hormone, a type of hormone that helps regulate the female menstrual cycle. The drug inhibits the production of estrogen, a female sex hormone that enables endometrial gland growth.
Many difficulties can arise with a pregnancy even after the sperm successfully fertilizes the oocyte. A major problem occurs if the fertilized egg tries to implant before reaching its normal implantation site, the uterus. An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants anywhere other than in the uterus, most commonly in the fallopian tubes. Ectopic pregnancies cannot continue to term, so a physician must remove the developing embryo as early as possible.
Subject: Disorders, Processes, Reproduction
Fruit Fly Life Cycle
Fruit flies of the species Drosophila melanogaster develop from eggs to adults in eight to ten days at 25 degrees Celsius. They develop through four primary stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. When in the wild, female flies lay their fertilized eggs in rotting fruit or other decomposing material that can serve as food for the larvae. In the lab, fruit flies lay their fertilized eggs in a mixture of agar, molasses, cornmeal, and yeast. After roughly a day, each egg hatches into a larva.
Subject: Theories, Processes, Organisms
Hamburger-Hamilton Staging Series (1951)
In 1951 Viktor Hamburger and Howard Hamilton created an embryonic staging series from a combination of photographs and drawings from other researchers. The Hamburger-Hamilton stages are a sequence of images depicting 46 chronological stages in chick development. The images begin with a fertilized egg and end with a fully developed chick. The Hamburger-Hamilton staging series was produced in order to replace a previous chick staging series created in 1900. The earlier attempt lacked specific details and staged the chick embryo by using only morphological characteristics.
Ectoderm is one of three germ layers--groups of cells that coalesce early during the embryonic life of all animals except maybe sponges, and from which organs and tissues form. As an embryo develops, a single fertilized cell progresses through multiple rounds of cell division. Eventually, the clump of cells goes through a stage called gastrulation, during which the embryo reorganizes itself into the three germ layers: endoderm, ectoderm, and mesoderm. After gastrulation, the embryo goes through a process called neurulation, which starts the development of nervous system.
Regeneration is a fascinating phenomenon. The fact that many organisms have the capacity to regenerate lost parts and even remake complete copies of themselves is difficult to fathom; so difficult, in fact, that for a very long time people were reluctant to believe regeneration actually took place. It seemed unbelievable that some organisms could re-grow lost limbs, organs, and other body parts. If only we could do the same!


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Home » Lists » Top 10 Games Developed by Tales Studio
Top 10 Games Developed by Tales Studio
Posted by David "DDJ" Jerebko on Sep 4, 2012 in Lists | 2 comments
This series of Top 10 lists focuses on several of the companies that have had the most significant impact on the video game industry through their development of many of the most influential and revolutionary video games ever created. More than just an overview of the companies, however, the goal of this list series is to be something of a step back into the shaping of the industry. This series will attempt to take us back through the evolution of the industry, as seen through the eyes of the companies that made that evolution happen. Console design is important, but at the end of the day, the video game industry is an industry of just that: games. The industry is driven by the companies that design the best games.
A few bits of housekeeping before I get started: first of all, game development is an inherently muddled process, and oftentimes it is difficult to draw lines around who developed which game. At times, this may lead to disagreement over who the developer of a particular game truly is; however, with how quickly the industry changes and the speed with which companies are bought, sold, and changed, there is never truly a black and white to what constitutes one developer's library. Secondly, there will be a lot of differentiation in the sizes of the libraries described in these lists. As such, in certain lists, I will refrain from including more than one game from one franchise and instead use one game as a stand-in for the series as a whole; in other lists, multiple games from the same franchise may be listed. Lastly, while I have a list of companies I plan to look at eventually, I am always looking for suggestions on what company to cover next; if you would like to make a suggestion, you can drop by the Top 10 List discussion board, contact me through my contributor profile, or visit either of my websites that cross-post these lists, DDJGames.com or GamingSymmetry.com.
This week, I'll be talking about Tales Studio.
Wolf Team, the company from which tri-Ace emerged, actually had a fairly long history before the fallout over the Tales of Phantasia game that led to studio's release from their former affiliate, loss of the employees that would go on to form tri-Ace, and new partnership with a new game publisher. Wolf Team (referred to in some places as one word, Wolfteam) was initially a unit of the Japanese game development company Telenet. Telenet Japan developed several games in the late 1980s and early 1990s for Sega's consoles and the various PCs floating around, but never developed a sterling reputation. As a result, when Wolf Team embarked on its ambitious Tales of Phantasia project, they looked for a different publisher, eventually settling on Namco. Namco, however, exerted more design clout over the finished product than Wolf Team had anticipated, thus leading to several members of the team departing. The remaining studio, however, formed a close alliance with Namco, becoming the primary driver behind the Tales series shortly thereafter. Namco published Wolf Team's next several releases, all in the Tales series, until finally, in 2003, Namco acquired a controlling stake in Wolf Team and renamed it after its own iconic franchise: Namco Tales Studio. Since then, the studio has gone on to develop a dozen more games, all in the Tales series. The series has gone on to be, in my opinion, one of the most popular and longest-running JRPG series in the world, joining such heavyweights as Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Shin Megami Tensei.
#10: Tales of Phantasia (SNES)
Released in 1995, Tales of Phantasia was the game that changed Wolf Team's entire fortunes and future, both in good ways and in bad. The game was Wolf Team's most ambitious project to date, and as such, they preferred not to partner with their usual publisher and parent company, Telenet Japan, due to its bad reputation. Instead, they partnered with Namco (after a brief flirtation with Enix). Namco, however, ended up exerting more control over the game than the team desired. Originally titled Tale Phantasia after the novel written by the game's programmer, Namco demanded a title change to Tales of Phantasia, leading to the series' moniker by which it's known today. These issue, as well as other internal issues with branding and staffing, led to the game being delayed by over a year, while some of the staff left to form tri-Ace.
Despite all of this, the game went on to become a moderate success. It was especially notable in its day, becoming one of the first games to feature real voice acting. Its battle system was unique compared to other RPGs, allowing the player primary control over only one character at a time (as has, interestingly, become standard) while positioning characters on a 2D side-scrolling battlefield rather than the typical two-sided affair. Though different, that was not revolutionary; the art style of the game, however, was particularly notable, coming on the heels of games like Chrono Trigger that helped popularize anime-style graphics in RPGs.
#9: Sol-Feace (X68)
Before the fallout with Telenet Japan and Wolf Team's subsequent (slow) defection to Namco, they were responsible for several other high-quality but poorly-selling games released primarily in Japan. One of these, released in 1990 for the Sharp X68000 and later ported to the Sega Mega-CD and Sega Genesis, was Sol-Feace (released in North America as Sol-Deace). The game was, in many ways, a prototypical shoot 'em up game: the player controlled a ship on the left side of the screen, firing at strategically placed and maneuvering enemy ships.
The notable elements of the game, though, were the graphics, music, strategy, and certain structural elements. The graphics were among the most advanced released at the time, and it is not beyond the realm of believability to think that the game could have reached the popularity of other recognizable shoot 'em ups with a better publisher backing it. The enemies were more interesting and varied than many other shoot 'em ups of the day, with more complex movement patterns and strategies. The music, especially, was some of the most impressive of the generation, disguising the technical limitations of all the consoles for which it was released. To this day, the music still stands up in quality against music you might see from modern big-budget games. Lastly, the game also provided an underappreciated scrolling feature: although the game scrolled left to right, it also allowed the played to scroll the screen up and down by moving in those directions, an interesting step forward that other games were slow to replicate.
#8: Time Gal (SCD)
First and foremost, Time Gal was not initially developed by Wolf Team – it was developed by Taito, with Toei Animation (now of Dragon Ball fame) handling the animation and graphics. Wolf Team, in turn, was responsible for the port of the game to the Mega-CD. Why, then, do I rank it as one of Wolf Team's best games? Time Gal's localization to the United States represented one of the first and most successful times a game of that genre was actually brought to North America. The game used pre-animated sequences matched with what could possibly be best described as primitive quick-time events to tell its story. Gameplay was at a minimum, as was typical with the interactive movie genre, and the emphasis was on the story and cinematography.
Wolf Team's port of the game to the Mega-CD was not a simple copy, either; the animation was significantly improved. If you go and look up gameplay of the game on YouTube, you'll find that you might mistake the game for an anime outright; the only give-away that the game is actually a game comes in the auditory cues to input button commands. To me, games like this represented an early attempt by the gaming industry to focus on the visual presentation of a story, even at the expense of gameplay. It would be several years before gameplay and cinematographic storytelling could be merged into one, but interactive movies like Time Gal provided one of the starting points for developing toward that accomplishment.
#7: Tales of Destiny (PS)
Tales of Destiny is the second game in the Tales series that eventually gave the studio its namesake, although at the time of its release (1997) the studio was still six years away from its eventual name change. Tales of Destiny itself is in many ways the game that put the franchise on the map; for a long time, it was the best-selling game in the franchise, especially in Japan. Like Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny sticks with an interesting 2D battle layout, positioning the fighters in the game along a straight line, in many ways giving it a flavor more akin to fighting games. The system was also not turn-based, but rather real-time, echoing what would become Tales Studio's (and tri-Ace's) tendency toward active real-time battles rather than the turn-based strategic battles.
Released for the PlayStation, the biggest weakness that Tales of Destiny encountered was timing: Final Fantasy VII was released for the PlayStation twelve months earlier in Japan, and was superior in every immediately visible way. That's not to say that Tales of Destiny was actually a superior game overall, but rather the visual qualities of the game fell far short of anything seen in SquareSoft's now-iconic title. Tales of Destiny was still remarkably ahead of its time, however, as its battle system bares far more resemblance to the types of active battle systems that are popular today than the turn-based systems that were the industry standard at the time of its initial release.
#6: Valis: The Legend Of Fantasm Soldier (MSX)
Commonly credited to its then-parent company, Telenet Japan, Valis: The Fantasm Soldier is one of the games that led to the schism between Wolf Team and Telenet Japan in the first place. In particular, Wolf Team perceived that it was Telenet Japan's poor reputation that led to lackluster sales for what was actually a relatively strong action game at the time. It was no genre-changer, but it stood up against the other popular franchises at the time. The game presented an interesting meld of platforming, action combat, and strategy; in many ways, it plays like a cross between Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Contra. Like most Wolf Team games as well, the music was among the best around at the time of the game's release. It deserved more recognition than it received, but never sold well.
The franchise went on to have four sequels, most of which were credited to Telenet Japan, although Wolf Team was the primary developer behind them all. This period of the franchise's history is also particularly notable in terms of Wolf Team's history, as it was during this phase that the team began to distinguish itself more and more as an independent studio under Telenet's umbrella rather than an actual member team within the company, as it had started out. It was that development that eventually gave the team the prestige and clout to go looking for its own new collaborator and publisher, leading it to Namco.
#5: Tales of Symphonia (GC)
Released in 2003, Tales of Symphonia was the first game released by the studio after its name change from Wolf Team to Namco Tales Studio, and the fifth Tales game overall. It was also the studio's only entry on the Nintendo GameCube, although it was later supplemented with a PlayStation 2 port, increasing both the game's and the franchise's visibility with an entry on the generation's most popular console. Tales of Symphonia was, in many ways, the game that elevated the Tales series to its modern status; Tales of Phantasia created the franchise and Tales of Destiny gave it its initial visibility, but it was Tales of Symphonia that launched the franchise into the realm of most-popular JRPG series of all time, alongside Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Shin Megami Tensei. In the United States especially, Tales of Symphonia solidified the Tales series' position as arguably the second most-popular JRPG series available.
Like most of Tales Studio's games, the game's highest point of praise was an interesting battle and combat system. The game employed a more active battle system than other RPGs at the time, modifying the classic system used in the previous game to allow for more simultaneous action and to take advantage of the GameCube's and PlayStation 2's graphical capabilities. The game has also gotten better with age, as its renown and recognition has seemed to increase over time; recently, I have even seen it getting some love as potentially one of the best games ever made.
#4: Mid-Garts (MSX)
Released in 1989, Wolf Team's Mid-Garts was a scrolling shooter. On the surface, the game didn't appear to be much different than any other game in the genre, but closer inspection shows that with Mid-Garts, Wolf Team was attempting to elevate the genre past simple repetitive entertainment. The different flavor on the genre is apparent right from the outset; the cover is more like a painting, the game's subtitle echoes a deeper objective than just killing baddies, and the documentation included with the game is enormous; complex back-stories are given on all the characters, locations, and animals in the game. Wolf Team never intended for Mid-Garts to just be another shooter in an already-crowded genre; the game was meant to be more of an experience.
Throughout the game, that dedication to putting a new flavor on the genre is clear. In Mid-Garts, you encounter enemies the likes of which you never would have expected to see in a game of this simple genre. You'll encounter talking severed heads, preserved human fetuses, and even modern-day enemies like the US Navy. The plot that the player embarks on throughout the game is twisting, turning, and utterly unpredictable, and at times even manages to transcend genres, seamlessly moving back and forth between a shooter and a shoot 'em up (two similar genres, granted, but two that are typically kept fairly far apart). With the unique flavor of the game, it's a shame that it was largely relegated to anonymity due to Telenet Japan's influence.
#3: Tales of Xillia (PS3)
Released in Japan in 2011, Tales of Xillia has yet to see localization to North America, making it one of the most hotly anticipated RPG titles in development today. Slated for a 2013 release in both the United States and Europe, its hype is made even stronger by the extremely favorable reception it received upon its Japanese release. Critics hail the game as the greatest Tales game ever, surpassing even the praised Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Graces F. Its sales are also among the best the franchise has ever had. Those numbers, those reviews, and the upcoming direct sequel combine to make Tales of Xillia one of the most hotly-anticipated 2013 releases in North America.
Tales of Xillia might also go down with a more dubious honor: the game may be the last game ever created by Tales Studio. Tales Studio was dissolved and merged into the broader Namco Bandai Games shortly after Tales of Xillia's release. Although the majority of the staff, designers, and programmers from the team are still employed by Namco Bandai Games, only time will tell whether they are kept together as a cohesive unit or not. At present, a direct sequel to Tales of Xillia (Tales of Xillia 2) is projected for a November 1st release, but time will tell whether the recent restructuring will impact that schedule. If nothing else, Tales of Xillia marks the end of an era; even if the same developers are assigned to the new Tales games, we shall never again see a game "Developed by Namco Tales Studio".
#2: Tales of Vesperia (PS3)
I'm writing from the United States, and thus while critics in Japan may have hailed the thusfar Japan-only Tales of Xillia as superior to Tales of Vesperia, I'll believe it when I see it; until then, Tales of Vesperia still receives my vote as the best Tales game yet released. Released in 2008 (with a 2009 Japan-only PlayStation 3 port), Tales of Vesperia was the best of everything the Tales series had to offer and more. It retained the anime-style graphics and characters that had become iconic in the series and the soaring and epic plotline that the studio seems to pull off so effortlessly. The game was so popular that it even caused the Xbox 360, until then something of a dud in Japanese sales, to fly off the shelves. The subsequent PlayStation 3 release, catering more to the most popular console in Japan, sold almost 150,000 copies on the very first day.
Like all Tales Studio games, the highest achievement for the game seemed to come in the battle system. Although the acronym that the studio uses to describe its system gets more convoluted with every generation, the system itself is strong. Most notably, it addresses many common issues with other RPGs' battle systems, such as merging roaming groups of enemies. The only weakness to the game's combat system is a rather primitive skill system, but that minor note isn't sufficient to hamper the game as a whole; with how innovative and unique the other systems are, perhaps having something familiar is desirable.
#1: Arcus 1-2-3 (SCD)
It might be somewhat unfair to give Arcus 1-2-3 an entire entry on this list given that it, itself, is a compilation of three games: Arcus, Arcus II: Silent Symphony, and Arcus III. The three games, however, form such a unique and cohesive experience that it's almost difficult to separate them out, and each are strong enough on their own right to make this list. The series had the potential to be recognized as one of the all-time greatest RPG franchises, and was surely a sign of things to come for the studio that went on to create one of gaming's most beloved JRPG series. In fact, many say it was specifically the lack of commercial success of Arcus that was the final impetus for Wolf Team to find a new publisher in the first place.
Arcus is a series characterized by an intricate plot, a complex and enthralling set of characters, and, perhaps most notably, among the most seamless and elegant mergers of plot and gameplay the gaming industry had yet seen. The combat and leveling systems required significant strategy and nuance; they were not simply races to the strongest spells to spam them at will. The series also featured some of the first in-battle voice acting the industry had ever seen, showing how such a simple feature can significantly improve the feel of a game. Put simply, the entire Arcus franchise had the potential to be referenced alongside Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest among the pantheon of the genre's greatest hits; if you have the means to play it, stop reading this right now and go do so.
Honorable Mentions: Tales of Graces, Tales of the Abyss, Road Blaster, Zan: Yasha Enbukyoku, Arcus Odyssey, Tales of Rebirth, Tales of Eternia, Tales of Legendia, Tales of Destiny 2, Tales of Hearts.
As mentioned above, Tales Studio faces an uncertain future. A year ago, the studio was officially dissolved and merged into the larger whole of Namco Bandai Games as part of a significant restructuring of the company. That does not mean that the actual staffers of the studio are gone, however; by and large, most are still with Namco Bandai Games, albeit in a less specific capacity. Judging from the company's intention to put out a direct sequel to Tales of Xillia later this year, it is reasonable to think that the dissolution might not actually affect the game produces by the now-defunct Namco Tales Studio, and that the restructuring is more of a change in names and organization. On the other hand, it might also be reasonable to assume that Tales of Xillia 2 is merely the remnant of a project in development when the studio was dissolved, and that upon its release Namco Tales Studio will finish its fade into obscurity. Only time will tell whether the restructuring hinders the company's ability to produce more high-quality Tales games, but regardless, the name Namco Tales Studio will no longer be emblazoned across the cover of these releases.
If you'd like to join in on the discussion of this list, I invite you to the Top 10 List discussion board, linked on this page. You're also welcome to contact me directly via the information in my contributor profile, or to come by either of the web sites that co-host these lists, DDJGames.com or GamingSymmetry.com. If you have any suggestions for what company I should review next, please let me know!
Tom / September 5, 2012
I am pretty sure that it was still called Sol-Feace in North America. At least it is called that on the Sega CD copy of the game that I own.
Alice Kojiro / September 5, 2012
Perhaps I can shed some light on this; I believe that the Sega CD version is called Sol Feace, but the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive is called Sol Deace, because I seem to remember playing it and thinking, "Shouldn't it be called Sol Feace, like on the Angry Video Game Nerd video?"
Lists. Thanks to Cracked, one of the most popular forms of writing on the internet today, and the medium through which many of our writers got their start over on GameFAQs.


Chinese crypto miners are reportedly promoting their mining tools "by kilo," as they've reached the "shutdown price" amidst the current market crash.
Cryptocurrency mining operations in China are reportedly promoting mining machines by weight, versus worth per unit. This selloff was reported by native Chinese crypto outlet 8BTC Wednesday, Nov. 21, with regards to the cryptocurrency mining pool F2Pool.
Cryptocurrency markets skilled widespread decline all through final week, with Bitcoin (BTC) declining to as little as $4,300 per coin.
The decline has resulted in the same drop in mining profitability and compelled Chinese operators to promote their mining units at a loss, based on 8BTC. The information outlet has reported that the miners are being offered "by kilo," citing a put up made by the founding father of F2Pool on the Weibo microblogging platform.
Crypto miners are reportedly particularly desirous to promote the older fashions, together with Antminer S7, Antminer T9, and Avalon A741, as these have reached their "shutdown worth." According to native Chinese outlet Tencent News, the earnings from mining are not sufficient to cowl electrical energy and different related prices.
The market droop has reportedly affected largely small and medium-sized mining operations within the Chinese areas of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. There, 8BTC experiences, some mining machines are being offered on the second-hand marketplace for merely 5 p.c of their unique worth. A mining machine purchased at a worth of as much as 20,000 yuan ($2,885) a 12 months in the past is reportedly at present offered for simply 1,000 yuan ($144).
Bitcoin's worth has stored falling, together with the remainder of the crypto market, for the reason that exhausting fork community improve of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) that happened Nov. 15. The replace has led cryptocurrency exchanges world wide to droop BCH trading and withdrawals.
Earlier this month, Bitcoin mining big Bitmain introduced plans to achieve out to native mining farms within the coal-rich province of Xinjiang, and deploy round 90,000 Antminer S9 units within the area. Bitmain's transfer is reported to be a strategic one within the computing "energy battle" related to the BCH exhausting fork.
At press time, the crypto markets have calmed down, with many of the prime ten cryptocurrencies seeing solely gentle losses. BTC has at the moment hovered between $4,450 and $4,630.
In September, the CEO of F2Pool printed an infographic that indicated that if Bitcoin worth would attain decrease than 36,792 Chinese yuan (about $5,376), mining the cryptocurrency with an Antminer T9 would turn into unprofitable. In the case of an S7 mannequin miner, the break-even level amounted to a considerably increased Bitcoin worth level of about 79,258 yuan (about $11,581).
The post China: Crypto Miners Sell off Mining Devices 'by Kilo' Amidst Market Decline appeared first on Bitcoin Upload.


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DIRECTOR BIO
PRODUCTION/PRESS KIT
After a side track to get his Bachelor of Science degree at the University of British Columbia, Raphael went to the acclaimed acting arts conservatory Studio 58 where he received the Elizabeth Ball award for outstanding comedy performance. Professionally in theatre he has worked for the Playhouse Theatre Company, the Arts Club Theatre Company, Bard on the Beach, and others. He has appeared in feature films that were presented at the Vancouver and Toronto Film Festivals including Bruce Sweeney's "Crimes of Mike Recket" and Peter Ricq's "Deadshack". For TV Raphael has had numerous principal parts usually as an interesting Eastern European bad guy and has guest starred in the History channel show "Six", as well as had recurring parts on Amazon's "Man in the High Castle" and The CW's "Supergirl". He lives with his wife and daughters in Vancouver's Kitsilano neighbourhood.
Actor "Raff the Hitman"
Raphael Kapenski
A Studio 58 Grad, Logan can most recently be seen in an episode of the TV series, iZombie.
Crazy, but true! Dan Doheny (also a Studio 58 grad, and former student of Forman's) was originally cast as Finn. On the day before principle photography he got a callback to LA (no he didn't get the part). However before heading down to Hollywood Dan secured Logan to fill in for him, what a great call. On top of that, he didn't see the script until he showed up on set. Remember that when you listen to all the lines that Finn has in this film. What an amazing feat!
Actor "Finn"
Logan Fenske
Lillian grew up in Ottawa, Ontario where she attended an arts High School (Canterbury High School) studying theatre everyday. After graduation she took a gap year and Au paired for 9 months while studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London England. She then moved to Vancouver where she studied Theatre at Studio 58, graduating summer 2016.She can also currently be seen alongside Helen Hunt in the 2018 film, The Miracle Season.
Actor "Paloma"
Lillian Doucet-Roche
Forman is a self-taught storyteller and filmmaker having received his formal education in BioChemistry at McGill University and a Masters in Education at University of British Columbia. He has spent the last ten years honing his skills while teaching video production at the Byng Arts program in Vancouver, Canada. Forman has made multiple nano budget productions with his students including an off the wall feature with the comedy group HumanTown (all former students). He is excited to finally enter the arena of professional quality film making with his short film debut Going Up.
Writer/Director/Producer
Forman Howes
Super-talented with an eye for the cinematic.
*2012 Winner - Best Short at Whistler Film Festival for "Plating"
*2013 three Leo Nominations, including Best Cinematography in a Short Drama
Jon Thomas
Camera...electrical...got it covered!
Jassa Campbell
This guy has skills...makes things, organised, fixes equipment, a great colleague...Forman is so lucky!
Associate Producer/
Set Design & Construction
Nick Booker
Speed! Sounds great...was great!
Anton Thomas
Daniel Jeffery is a short and feature film editor based in Vancouver BC. Since graduating from SFU's Film Production program in 2013, his work has screened at international film festivals such as TIFF, VIFF, Hot Docs, Fantastic Fest, and broadcast nationwide on CBC. Recently, his short film Sad Hill With Sad Hill was featured in the Netflix documentary Sad Hill Unearthed. He currently works as a Filmmaker for Lush.
You've got to movit movit...
Tom Armstrong
Swing Grip
Joshua Wilhelm Wong
Best assistant!
2nd AC
Doruk Tosun
Also some patient wiring for the elevator control box
Media Wrangler
Mila Kwan
Elevator...activate
Door Grip
Stefanie Tom
Light up my life
Lighting Assistant
Perry Miotto
Michelle Hondi
grip team
Regan Smith & Malka Martz-Oberlander
"Such great food !" - said everyone
Jasmine Howes
© 2023 by Himalayas. Proudly created with Wix.com


As many of you know the Destin Pelican Beach Resort has had a record year so far this year and that includes my two beach front condo units.
I would like to personally thank all my previous renters this year and look forward to being your Destin beachfront condo rentals destination in the years to come.
The hurricane missed Destin earlier in the month and hopefully will continue to do so in last month of hurricane season.
Please contact me at 731-589-7841 if I can help you book your Destin beachfront vacation.


When I was in kindergarten, the teacher had a laminated Cookie Monster necklace. At the end of the day, she'd give the necklace to one child to wear home. The mother of the marked child was the designated snack provider for the next day. Now I could be remembering it wrong, but I'm fairly certain the moms only had one evening's notice to come up with some sort of a snack. Usually it was something like Saltines or Nilla Wafers, but one time it wasn't. One time it was criss-cross peanut butter cookies. They tasted really good to me then because I'd never had them before. The taste and texture was imprinted and I've spent many years trying to reproduce it. I don't think I ever will be as satisfied with the cookies as I was as a little kid, but I can't eat criss-cross cookies without thinking of kindergarten and that in itself is kind of nice.
This recipe is very basic, but it will produce a fairly thick crisp peanut butter criss-cross cookie. The key ingredient is shortening. I use butter flavored for a little added flavor, but you can use regular if you want. You can also add a bit more peanut butter to intensify the peanut butter flavor, but if you do, the cookies might not be as crisp.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, cream the shortening, peanut butter, and both sugars. Stir in the egg and vanilla.
In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt, then add that mixture to the peanut butter mixture and stir until incorporated. Add some peanuts (however many you want) if you feel like it.
Shape into small balls about ¾ inch in diameter and place balls a few inches apart on parchment lined cookie sheets. Wet a fork with water and shake off excess. Press the damp fork into cookies and make deep criss-crosses. If fork dries, dampen it again and continue.
Bake for about 10-13 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet and place on a rack to cool.
Criss-crosses were done when I was a kid, and that was long before nut allergies were known to be a problem. Whenever I see cookies with the fork markings, I always think of peanut butter cookies.
Oh, I also dip my fork in granulated sugar after each criss-cross. Adds a nice little sparkle.
I think the criss crosses were to "smash" the cookie so it'd cook more evenly!
This cookie takes me back to the days.
I was wondering if anyone knew of a peanut butter cookie that was made out of Captain Crunch peanut butter cereal.
Also , another cookie that when you take a bite out of it , you crunch on bits of candy cane. I tried to experiment on a butter cookie and added crushed peppermints, but the candy melted. Anyone out there know these recipies??
There is a PB cook-off thread on Egullet and someone linked to this recipe. I linked to your blog because you made the pillsbury winner.
I really need to pick up some shortening. We used the butter/shortening combo all the time when I was growing up, but when I first moved out of the house (and especially when I lived in TX), I almost never baked.
Now that that I'm baking again, this recipe has convinced me that the purchase of Crisco is essential. Especially since it doesn't just come in a tub nowadays.
I love PB cookies. This recipe looks similar to my grandmother's, except hers is doubled what yours is. mmm.
Mmmmm peanut butter cookies. I might have to add some chocolate chips though. I can't get enough of the chocolate-peanut butter combination.
Anna, have you ever made the "magic in the middles" from the KA Cookie Companion? I bake for coworkers and those are one of my bestsellers (those and my chocolate chocolate chip cookies), though they are rather time-consuming.


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Weekly Briefs Archives
Jefferson Lab Weekly Briefs March 29, 2017
Jefferson Lab Weekly Briefs
Jefferson Lab Published Journal Articles, March 19-25
X. Yan et al. (Jefferson Lab Hall A Collaboration). "First measurement of unpolarized semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering cross sections from a He3 target." Phys. Rev. C 95, 035209.
P. E. Bosted et al. (CLAS Collaboration). "Target and Beam-Target Spin Asymmetries in Exclusive Pion Electroproduction for Q2>1 GeV2. I. ep → e π+ n." Phys. Rev. C 95, 035206.
P. E. Bosted et al. (CLAS Collaboration). Target and beam-target spin asymmetries in exclusive pion electroproduction for Q2>1 GeV2. II. ep → e π0 p." Phys. Rev. C 95, 035207.
Get Up-To-Date on Professional Publications at Jefferson Lab on April 7
The next monthly Publications Refresher Course will be held on Friday, April 7, at 10:30 a.m. in CEBAF Center room F227. The course lasts 30-45 minutes and will cover everything an author needs to know about how to use the Jefferson Lab Publications Submission and Approval system. If you plan to attend, R.S.V.P. to Kim Edwards at kindrew@jlab.org by Thursday, April 6.
Photo Trivia for Records and Information Management Month
April is Records and Information Management Month, and the Jefferson Lab Archives Staff need your help! This is your chance to use your knowledge of Jefferson Lab and the people that have worked here over the years. Each week, beginning today, a new collage of photos will be displayed in the CEBAF Center atrium. Jefferson Lab staff and Users are asked to look at the old photos and identify its people, places and things. Each photo on display will correspond to a field on forms provided. Complete and drop off the forms in the box, which will be available during the entry period. Forms with the most correctly completed fields will be placed in a weekly drawing for a Starbucks gift card, courtesy of the Jefferson Lab Archives staff. For those who are unable to identify any of the individuals or objects, you can still play along and fill out the forms to the best of your knowledge. At the end of April, all forms received will be eligible for the last drawing gift card.
Entry periods will be as follows:
Wednesday, March 29 through Tuesday, April 4
Wednesday, April 5 through Tuesday, April 11
Wednesday, April 12 through Tuesday, April 18
Wednesday, April 26 through Tuesday, May 2
Winners will be announced in the subsequent JLab Weekly Briefs. Prize can be picked up from the library. If you have any questions about the trivia challenge, contact Kim Edwards at kindrew@jlab.org.
Last Chance to Apply for Sabbatical and Research Leave Support at Jefferson Lab
The JSA/JLab Sabbatical and Research Leave Support Program enhances research opportunities for faculty through access to Jefferson Lab facilities and interaction with Lab researchers and users, strengthens the teaching and research capabilities of universities through faculty involvement, and strengthens the research programs of Jefferson Lab by attracting "new blood" and integrating university faculty members in the laboratory's programs. Application materials are due by March 31. More information and applications requirements can be found online.
Center for Theoretical and Computational Physics
A new paper addresses a critical issue in first principles lattice QCD calculations, namely, nonperturbative renormalisation of currents. Using these results, the most accurate calculations to date have been achieved for the mass and decay constant of the φ vector meson. This work can be extended to compute pseudoscalar and vector meson electromagnetic form factors at high momentum transfer, relevant to the Jefferson Lab 12 GeV experimental physics program.
The Metrology Group has completed many tasks in the last two months, including:
In Hall A, the group has completed eight surveys of both the right and left spectrometers. Additionally, the Hall A target was aligned as required after repairs. A system was developed to process all 36 of the various detectors located on Hall B's forward carriage. This will allow rapid calculation of all the detector locations after the forward carriage is moved, relative to the target. Additional work completed in Hall B include the alignment of the central time of flights and many other components in the beamline to prepare for the Key Performance Parameter run.
In Hall C, the survey network of monuments in the hall and on the Super High Momentum Spectrometer (SHMS) and HMS were updated to take into account deflections of the floor due to the increased weight of the spectrometers. Also in conjunction with meeting Hall C's KPP, the target can, beamline, superharps and the beam dump were aligned to specification parameters. All five major magnets on the SHMS have been installed
and aligned.
Over in the CEBAF Accelerator, the beam chopper in the injector was aligned to assist with beam delivery. All survey monuments were also monitored in the accelerator. The monitoring helps track tunnel movements, which is fed to beam operations. Small movements in the tunnel affect beam steering. The alignment crews also assisted in the repair/replacement of the RF separators earlier in the year. Support for the UITF also continues as beamline components are installed.
Work also continues supporting the LCLS-II project. One of the many jobs the crews completed was monitoring the prototype cryomodule before and after the test road trip.
Finally, the magnet measurement group restored the five-meter test stand to operational status.
Environment, Safety, Health and Quality
Emergency Manager Thanks Lab Community for Time on Tornado Preparedness
Jefferson Lab Emergency Manager, Tina Menefee, commends all the supervisors and members of the lab community who took the time last week (March 20-24) to review the tornado preparedness procedures. Menefee has received some very useful feedback regarding the lab's tornado preparedness efforts and encourages anyone with feedback, ideas or suggestions to send them to her at: emergmgr@jlab.org.
DOE Women in STEM Panel Discussion Today at 10 a.m.
In recognition of Women's History Month, the Office of Science presents a panel discussion with Department of Energy scientists on Women in STEM today at 10 a.m. The panelists will reflect on the experiences, accomplishments and challenges of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Participating in the discussion are: Laura Biven, Jehanne Gillo, Barbara Helland, Meredith Rutledge, Shannon Shea and Sharlene Weatherwax. Human Resources will tune in to the panel discussion via conference call in CEBAF Center room B207 and invites those interested in listening in on the discussion to attend.
Food Services Contract Transition: Farewell to Eurest
The Jefferson Lab community is invited to stop by Quark Cafe today, March 29, at 3 p.m. for a special Recharge Wednesday, as lab management thanks Eurest for their years of service to the lab!
Food Services Contract Transition: Hello to Elite
Reminder: The Quark Cafe will be closed this Friday, March 31, for the transition to the new Food Service Provider, Elite. On Monday morning, the cafe doors will open at the regular time at 7 a.m. The cafe will remain open until 2 p.m. Elite plans to provide the following services, beginning Monday:
* Full hot line breakfast 7-10 a.m.
* Snacks, drinks, grab-and-go options 10-11a.m. (for all you late risers and continual coffee drinkers!)
* Salad bar & sandwich deli 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.
* Hot entree lunch 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Elite will roll out new to-go options and will begin implementation of their new online ordering system that can be accessed from your desktop computer or even your smartphone. Stay tuned for details on how to access the system.
In the News: Jefferson Lab Accomplishes Critical Milestones Toward Completion of 12 GeV Upgrade
Jefferson Lab's upgraded CEBAF accelerator has successfully delivered upgrade-energy electron beams into each of its experimental areas. The Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has achieved two major commissioning milestones and is now entering the final stretch of work to conclude its first major upgrade. You can read more at the link.
In the News: Dark Matter in Science
Two of Jefferson Lab's dark matter experiments were featured in last week's Science Magazine in an article on the U.S. Department of Energy workshop: "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter." You can access the article here.
Jefferson Lab Recognized for Sustainable Acquisition
The lab has been recognized as a Bronze Level recipient of DOE's GreenBuy Award Program for sustainable acquisition of four products in two different categories. This the fifth time the lab has been recognized with this award. According to Joe Arango, Thomas Jefferson Site Office manager, "The award demonstrates the Laboratory's commitment to environmental excellence in the area of procurement, demonstrating efficient and effective purchasing practices that beneficially impact the environment, the community, and future generations."
Vote for Your Favorite 2017 Jefferson Lab T-Shirt Design
Vote for your favorite submission in the 2017 Jefferson Lab Annual T-Shirt Contest. There are 11 different designs to choose from this year. Voting will remain open until April 7. The winning design will be unveiled at the lab's annual Run-A-Round on May 17.
Red Cross Blood Drive at Jefferson Lab Set For April 11
An American Red Cross Blood Drive will take place at Jefferson Lab on Tuesday, April 11, 2017, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. in CEBAF Center, Room F113. New and repeat donors are encouraged to attend. Walk-ins are welcome. All participation is appreciated. For information on scheduling an appointment and the new Rapid Pass system that can save time at the donation site, see the full memo.
New 2017 Dates Offered for TIAA-CREF Individual Counseling Sessions
TIAA-CREF is offering Individual Counseling Sessions, where you can discuss your personal financial situation with a TIAA-CREF financial consultant on a confidential basis. The consultant will be available at Jefferson Lab for multiple dates in Support Service Center room 22i to discuss how to help you achieve your financial goals by investing in financial solutions, such as mutual funds, brokerage, life insurance and annuities. To schedule an appointment, call TIAA-CREF at (800) 732-8353, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.–8 p.m. (ET).
Last Reminder: Annual Property Training & Validation Due March 31
Jefferson Lab's annual Property Custodian Training and Property Validation for 2017 ends Friday, March 31. See the full memo for links to the training and validation. If you have property or property validation process questions or concerns, contact the Property office at x7348 or property@jlab.org.
Jefferson Lab Calendar of Events
March 28-31: CLAS Collaboration meeting
April 3-5: JLEIC Collaboration Meeting Spring 2017
April 11: American Red Cross Blood Drive
April 20: JSA's 2017 Small Business Outreach Fair
JLab Weekly Briefs is an ongoing publication providing information on the status of safety, accelerator operations, experiments, free-electron laser, reviews, upcoming activities and special events. Deadline for submission is every Tuesday by 10 a.m. Submit new items to: the Communications Office or contact Kandice Carter at x7263.
Wed, 03/29/2017 - 09:28am


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