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Steve Silverman
How to Make Your Softball Glove Tacky So a Ball Stays in it
How to Break in a Baseball Glove with Shaving Cream
How to Apply Mizuno Glove Oil
How to Break in a Baseball Mitt in the Oven
How to Flare a Glove
How to Break in a Catcher's Mitt
baseball image by lilufoto from Fotolia.com
A catcher's mitt is one of the most important pieces of equipment used on the field of play. They are moderately flexible when you buy them, and they can be used almost immediately without treating the glove. However, if you want it broken in to your own specifications, you need to take steps in order for it to be game-ready.
Squirt shaving cream into the pocket of your catcher's mitt. Rub the shaving cream into the pocket of the mitt thoroughly and then repeat the process. After you finish rubbing in the cream, take a towel and dry off the excess.
Place a baseball in the pocket of the catcher's mitt and close the glove as tightly as possible. Take a rope and tie the mitt in the closed position. Leave the glove in this position for at least eight hours.
Untie the mitt at the end of the eight hours and go out and play catch with somebody who can throw the ball fairly hard. A player who can make the glove pop every time you catch the ball will further soften the leather. About 15 to 20 minutes of playing catch should be sufficient.
Squirt glove oil in the pocket area of the mitt and rub it in thoroughly. Make sure there is no oil residue on the mitt. Take a baseball and put it back in the pocket of the mitt. Tie the mitt closed and leave it for another eight hours.
After the glove has been treated with both shaving cream and oil, it should be ready to go. The leather in the glove will continue to adjust to your hand as you play with it for the coming weeks and months.
Keep your mitt clean and wipe off excess dirt and mud. If you are playing in very hot and dry conditions that are prevalent in many areas in the summer, use one or two squirts of glove oil to keep your catcher's mitt flexible and keep it from cracking.
How to Clean Batting Gloves
How to Break in a First Base Mitt
How to Fit Baseball Gloves
How to Form the Best Pocket for a Baseball Glove
Why Do Baseball Players Throw Around the Horn?
How to Measure for a Little League Baseball Glove
Sports and Recreation: Breaking in a Baseball Mitt
Youth Baseball: Breaking in a New Baseball Mitt
Steve Silverman is an award-winning writer, covering sports since 1980. Silverman authored The Minnesota Vikings: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Who's Better, Who's Best in Football -- The Top 60 Players of All-Time, among others, and placed in the Pro Football Writers of America awards three times. Silverman holds a Master of Science in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism.


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← Interview: The Waterboys
Look To The Future: Scottish Pop / Rock Highlights, 2015 →
Posted on January 8, 2015	by Nicola Meighan
This article originally appeared in The Herald Newspaper (Scotland).
When wayward Krautrock pioneers Faust assembled in Germany in 1971, their aim, says co-founder Hans-Joachim Irmler, was "to create music for the future". The electronic rock visionaries, who were touted as "The German Beatles", subsequently defined the country's experimental movement (alongside Can and Kraftwerk); became one of the first acts signed to Richard Branson's fledgling Virgin label; and prompted Julian Cope to declare "there is no group more mythical than Faust". And that was a reasonable charge: the band's history spans naked live shows, jail spells, orgies, living off dog food, police chases and arson.
Over four decades hence, the radical collective still cast long, psychedelic shadows across popular music, and their liberated (and liberating), progressive spirit continues to thrive. The members of Faust have variously disbanded, reconvened, passed away and re-spawned themselves as dizygotic twins (two separate factions now operate under the Faust appellation). Now, keyboard player and engineer Irmler is set to explore Krautrock's vital and enduring influence on Scottish pop thanks to Musik / Reise (Music / Travel): a one-off collaboration with members of Mogwai and The Phantom Band that takes place at Glasgow's Platform on January 10. The project was conceived by Platform's music programmer Alun Woodward (also of Chemikal Underground) and is supported by the Goethe Institut.
Irmler – who will also perform solo and participate in a career-spanning Q&A at the event – is typically enthusiastic about his upcoming sonic adventure with some of Scotland's most ingenious contemporary artists. "I'm always interested in understanding how other musicians, and other people, think and feel – how they generate ideas and create things," he says. "I like Mogwai very much, because their music is different – it's hypnotic, and complex, and it's not easy to understand how they make these sounds; where they are coming from; what are their origins. And we coincide in wanting to create musical landscapes in the minds of the audience which combine natural and industrial images."
Mogwai guitarist Stuart Braithwaite says Krautrock in general, and Faust in particular, have had a central impact on the band's ethos. "When Brendan O'Hare was playing with us, he introduced us to a lot of Krautrock," Braithwaite recalls of the ex-Teenage Fanclub drummer who played with Mogwai around the time of their 1997 debut, Young Team. "Ever since, they've been a very inspiring set of musicians, and a very inspiring set of recordings – it's just a really great era of music," he says. "There are definitely things that we've taken from it, but I'd like to think that the main thing is the spirit of freedom, just to try things. Not everything is going to work, but hopefully something great will happen along the way."
The upcoming Musik / Reise collaboration looks set to reflect this philosophy, while looking – and moving – ever-forward. "I think the general consensus is just to get together and see what happens," Braithwaite offers. "We've got a few days [in the studio] before we play, so we'll probably just go for it. I'm excited about that. Winging it is always fun." Braithwaite knows of what he speaks: he and Mogwai's Barry Burns collaborated with another Krautrock icon, Can's Damo Suzuki, for an entirely improvised live performance at Holland's Incubate festival a few years back. ("That was like immersion therapy," he quips.)
Irmler and Braithwaite will be joined by Mogwai's Martin Bulloch (drums), plus keyboard maharishi Andy Wake and guitarist Duncan Marquiss, both of The Phantom Band, who release their fourth album, Fears Trending, on January 26. Krautrock's influence can be discerned across our music landscape – from King Creosote and James Yorkston's unplugged mantras, through Primal Scream's dread disco and The Twilight Sad's post-rock, to the trance-evoking electro-prog of Django Django, Errors and Remember Remember – but perhaps The Phantom Band's kaleidoscopic Scottische pop comes closest to conjuring Faust's genre-melding, psychotropic dogma.
Braithwaite nods. "Yeah, definitely. I think The Phantom Band have taken a lot of that wide variety of influences and managed to make their own music out of it – and I think that kind of idea defines the Krautrock era as well."
Faust met in Hamburg in the late 1960s, and were signed up to Polydor in the hope that their ramshackle, unorthodox genius might bear fruit as Germany's answer to The Beatles. Such commercial heights did not transpire: Faust had other plans. Their substantial advance allowed them to construct a now-legendary studio in Wumme, and their freewheeling experiments in jazz, electronics and home-built instruments were fundamental to Krautrock's forward-looking ideals.
"We wanted to make music for the future," Irmler recalls. "There was lots of blues and rock, but we thought it was time to create something new. There was a real pain in our brains, with what had happened years before – with the events of the Second World War – and we really wanted to make a cut with everything in the past. And so, some German bands, like Can and Faust and Cluster, we tried to go a special way. A new way. To create something that was – just like the name Neu! – new."
Despite their ingenuity, Polydor dropped Faust after two albums, on account of their relatively poor sales and capricious live shows (which often featured nudity, drugs, pinball and pneumatic drills), and so the band looked to the UK where, recalls Irmler, "our crazy music got a lot of attention; even love." They signed with Richard Branson's nascent Virgin label and issued an introductory album, The Faust Tapes (1973), with a unique marketing gimmick: it retailed for 49p.
"Oh, we thought it was that such great political idea," Irmler says, with a laugh, as is his way. "We wanted to make a point about the charts, about buying records, about counting sales – because at the time record companies bought their own records back, so they could get them into the charts. And we thought, 'How can we do the same without selling our own records back?' So we got the idea to make an album and to sell it super cheap," he explains. "We were actually going to give it away for free, and then Richard [Branson] said, 'No no, that makes no sense – it should be a selling point. There should be a flow of money'. So he got the idea of selling an album for the price of a single, 49p." The album went on to sell over over fifty thousand copies, although its low retail price rendered it ineligible for the charts.
Decades on, artists including Radiohead have conjured similar concepts, that ask us to question (or reassert) the value of music. And all the while, Faust continue to soundtrack the future, in their myriad guises: crossing musical and geographic borders, breaking new territory, creating brave new sounds – as with Musik / Reise.
Are we likely to see any traditional Faust live tropes in Glasgow? Should we prepare ourselves for on-stage nudity? "Oh no," says Irmler, cackling. "Don't worry."
Braithwaite sounds relieved."Glasgow's quite cold in January, so I'm very glad about that."
Musik / Reise: Platform, Glasgow, January 10, 7pm. Return bus leaves Mono at 6.30pm
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


From dummies that babies can swallow, to the oats cereal that doesn't contain any oats, consumer advocate Choice has released its annual Shonky Awards.
Selected from more than 400 nominations by Choice's team of consumer advocates, businesses that have been named and shamed include some of Australia's largest and most well-known, including Qantas, Energy Australia (formerly TRUenergy), Kleenex and Dairy Farmers.
Some smaller companies also made the list.
Credit Repair Australia, which claims to have helped 150,000 people repair their credit rating, also took out a gong, both for its $990 non-refundable administration and service fee (Choice says that's the last thing its indebted clients need), and for being known to "overstate its ability to improve a credit report".
"While there are other predatory businesses feeding off consumers' financial despair, this company has dealt with more than 150,000 Australians in the past 10 years, inflicting further hardship and shonkiness on a number of them.
Another small business, Ecoeggs, got the gong of disapproval by Choice for stocking 20,000 hens per hectare, 13 times higher than the voluntary industry code.
"People who buy Ecoeggs may reasonably believe the name means a higher standard of production than other free-range eggs, and the price suggests the same. But in the end we were left wondering exactly what was 'eco' about Ecoeggs," Choice said.
Games publishing house Electronic Arts (EA) also got slammed. Earlier this year, it released the latest iteration of its Sim City franchise, which required players to be signed in through the company's online servers to play the game. The server-overload upon release meant the game didn't function for most players.
If any Australian buyers called the helpline for guidance, however, they were billed a staggering flat rate of $2.48 a minute, even though the problem was one caused by EA. Calling up the helpline was free for customers in the United States, leading Choice to label it "another example of the big, fat Australia tax we pay on many things IT-related, including hardware, software and electronic downloads".
Choicespokesman Tom Godfrey told SmartCompany the awards were a timely reminder to businesses to clean up their act.
"The things we're looking for are poor performance, hidden charges, lack of transparency, broken promises, consumer confusion and poor value," he says.
Historically, industries most likely to receive an award include the food industry, which Godfrey says has persistent issues around labelling, transparency and the claims made on food, and the airline industry, which often struggles with hidden charges.
This year also saw Nuk become the only company in eight years to take out two awards, both times for making dummy shields that were too small meaning, Choice says, a baby could get the whole dummy in their mouth. Recently, the government issued a minimum mandatory standard for dummies sold in Australia.
But, Choice claims, Nuk still failed this standard.
Dairy Farmers' Oats Express Liquid Breakfast, Banana and Honey Pictures of whole oats, banana slices and honey on the front notwithstanding, the ingredient list shows this product doesn't even contain oats, despite its name.
Nuk Starlight Silicone Orthodontic Soother (0-6 months) Nuk entered the Shonky Hall of Fame with its second offence. As in 2006, it was for dummy shields small enough to completely fit in the mouths of babes.
Credit Repair AustraliaChoice claims this product charges a non-refundable upfront fee of $990 to consumers for a service that fails to live up to its name. "This company boasts of having dealt with over 150,000 consumers in the last 10 years – and we reckon that most of them would have been better off not paying for this shonky service," the advocacy group says.
Ecoegg Despite the name, this product fits 13 times more chickens per hectare than the voluntary industry standard adhered to by most other providers of free-range eggs.
Kleenex Mansize Tissues Despite the 'man-size' label, Choice says these tissues are now 14% smaller than they used to be.
Energy AustraliaThe energy giant was slammed by Choice for using the back of a marketing flyer for solar panels to inform consumers that its prices were going up. Even then, this was after the event, and they didn't say how much the increase was.
EA For billing consumers $2.48 a minute to tell them its product didn't work.
Qantas Frequent Flyer Toolbar This toolbar monitors your internet searches and offers you Frequent Flyer points in return. But Choice was unhappy with the rewards, claiming it would take you eight years of being monitored to earn a one-way flight between Sydney and Melbourne.


Salut! is has absolutely everything you need to teach KS2 French — even if you don't speak the language! It's jam-packed with fun and colourful resources for 72 brilliant lessons throughout Years 5 and 6.
It includes Interactive Whiteboard games, singalongs, stories and activities to help children get to grips with the language — and have plenty of fun while they're at it. For teachers, there are full schemes of work, lesson plans and printable classroom resources, including worksheets, answer sheets and flashcards.
And if you're not a confident French speaker, there's full support in the form of full audio, guides to grammar and pronunciation and more! There's also a helpful Salut! Teacher Handbook that you can print out from the 'Teacher Resources' section, or buy as a separate book (see 21FST).
This version includes a One Year Licence, but a Permanent Edition is also available if you'd prefer not to have to renew. And finally, don't forget Salut! for Years 3-4!
Let our friendly expert take you on a guided tour of Salut!
Salut! requires a PC that can play audio, running Windows 7 or later.
You'll also need a DVD-ROM drive, 512 MB RAM and 2GB of hard drive space.
We recommend an Internet connection for installation, but it's not essential.
This IWB resource is licensed for use on up to six computers or an internal network at your school or college.
You may install it on up to six computers or an internal network at your school. Do not copy our files or code, or upload any part of it to the internet or other network. You may print the material from the Teacher Resources Tab or Printable Resources sections for use in your school or college.
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How Singing through the Psalms Reveals the Excellence of Jesus
Singing through the entire book of Psalms helped Wasilla Bible Church expand its lyrical breadth. This shared Scriptural repertoire is pointing people of all ages toward Jesus.
contemporary music, metrical psalms, psalms, songwriting, worship planning
When an earthquake sent fourth-graders huddling under their desks, young Theo Stamoolis prayed and sang Psalm 46: "We will not fear, though the earth give way" (Ps. 46:2, NIV). Theo's dad, Joel Stamoolis, is the worship pastor at Wasilla Bible Church in Wasilla, Alaska. A woman from church later told Joel Stamoolis that reading and singing Psalm 46 helped her fall asleep the first night after the earthquake.
They had psalmody in their memory bank because Wasilla Bible Church spent three and a half years singing through the entire book of Psalms. They began in 2015 on Pentecost Sunday with a Psalm 1 versification from The Book of Psalms for Worship sung to a familiar melody by Joel Stamoolis.
Key phrases—"That man is blessed. . . . He's like a deeply planted tree beside a water stream, which in its season bears its fruit"—describe how singing psalms shaped the congregation as individuals and as a whole.
"We sang one psalm a week in canonical order," Stamoolis says. "For Psalm 119, the longest, we sang one stanza per week for 22 weeks. We ended with Psalm 150 on September 2, 2018." The experience was so formative that sung psalms have remained an important part of Sunday worship.
Stamoolis describes Wasilla Bible Church (WBC) as a nondenominational Bible church in south central Alaska. It has about a thousand people of many ages and from many denominations, including people with no church background.
"The motivation for our Psalms Project was pastoral—a desire that our congregation (including me) be shaped and shepherded toward Jesus through singing the psalms together," Stamoolis says.
The seeds for this project, many sown years ago, can be grouped into four catalysts, he explains. First, in 2008 Stamoolis attended the "Deep Calls to Deep" worship symposium at the London School of Theology. The topics of justice and lament caught his attention. "Like many evangelicals at the time, I was looking for more lyrical breadth," he says. "Some symposium speakers reminded us that, besides writing new songs about justice and lament, we can do what Christians have done for centuries: We can sing the psalms themselves."
During a summer 2014 sabbatical, Stamoolis and a church elder studied and meditated on psalms quoted in the New Testament. "When Jesus and other New Testament writers quoted from a psalm, they had the entire psalm in mind," he says "In the Beatitudes (Matt. 5), Jesus quotes only verse 11 of Psalm 37 ("the meek shall inherit the land"), but that psalm's desire for righteousness, justice, and peace permeates the Beatitudes. I wanted to know the psalms—whole psalms—the way Jesus knew them as he walked the earth. He and other biblical writers learned the psalms by singing them."
In early 2015, Stamoolis and his wife, Naomi, taught a class on music and worship at Alaska Bible College. They were reminded that psalmody was integral through most of church music history but has become forgotten in many churches. Stamoolis also listened online to an archived lecture by British theologian N.T. Wright on praying the psalms. He started praying for God to inspire Christian songwriters to set the psalms to music relevant for today.
That's when the Holy Spirit provided the fourth catalyst for the Psalms Project. "I was praying for others to bring back psalm singing. The Spirit kept telling me, 'You are a worship pastor. You could do this at WBC,'" Stamoolis says. He had many questions about how to do it, but prayer and consultation with other pastoral staff convinced him that they were being led to sing through the whole Psalter.
"Like many nondenominational churches," Stamoolis says, "we sang a mixture of contemporary worship songs, traditional hymns, and songs written by people in our congregation. We rarely sang an entire psalm, and we certainly didn't sing the breadth of the Psalter." Nor did the church have a tradition of following a formal liturgy or lectionary that includes weekly psalm readings.
Yet WBC had already been nourishing roots to support growth in psalm singing. Its core commitments are Christ, Scripture, prayer, authenticity, and community. "These commitments shape everything we do at WBC," Stamoolis says. "The Psalms, as Scripture, have always had a place in our congregational life. It was a logical step to start singing them together."
Confident that diving deeper into psalmody would reveal more of the excellence of Jesus, WBC embarked on a three-and-a-half-year journey through the book of Psalms. "The Psalms are written with a deep trust in God's character and an acute awareness of God's promises, of his story. Singing psalms together helps the word of Christ richly dwell among us (Col. 3:16). It's worthwhile and deeply enjoyable to cross cultures and time to take these ancient songs on our lips," Stamoolis explains.
Each week before introducing the weekly sung psalm, Stamoolis highlighted the psalm's themes and its place in redemptive history. For people who wanted to know more about why they were singing the psalms, he encouraged them to read N. T. Wright's The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential. "Late in our project," he adds, "I discovered The Biblical Psalms in Christian Worship by John D. Witvliet. I highly recommend it to any church embarking on psalm singing."
Christians commonly describe the book of Psalms as the songbook for God's people or the songbook of Jesus. But even though many psalms include musical directions, no one knows the original psalm tunes.
Stamoolis and his worship teams experimented with chant, call and response, and other genres. They soon concluded that matching metrical psalms to a mix of new and familiar melodies worked best for WBC. "Many of our people enjoyed chanting psalms, but most found it easier to focus on the words if we were singing a metrical setting," he explains. Metered music arranges rhythms into repetitive patterns of strong and weak beats.
Stamoolis looked each week for musical settings that the congregation could sing and that the scheduled worship musicians could play. He and nine other church members occasionally wrote or arranged music in metered or contemporary song form—a metered setting with a refrain that doesn't follow a strict syllabic meter and often includes a bridge or pre-chorus.
The congregation had a vocal part in every psalm, but for eleven psalms with more difficult settings, a soloist or choir sang the psalm verses and the congregation sang a refrain.
Using the Wasilla Bible Church app or listening online also helped members musically sink more psalms into memory. Over a third of their sung psalms were on the app by the end of 2018, and Stamoolis continues recording, editing, and adding videos and sheet music.
"Since we started singing them together, psalms come up much more in Bible studies and casual conversations," he says. "People now have more favorite psalms. One woman told me she wants "O Give Thanks," Wendell Kimbrough's jubilant setting of Psalm 107, at her funeral."
Cora Doner, a young mother in the congregation, says her kids often beg to "be the boss of the psalms today." The "boss" gets to choose which psalm from the WBC app to sing at breakfast.
"Hearing an energetic four-year-old boy belt out, 'Shout for joy in the Lord, as is fitting for the righteous' (Psalm 33) is a beautiful blessing," Doner says. "My mind remembers music in a way that it doesn't always remember mere words, just as I've seen in my children. The Lord uses this kind of remembering to grow my heart's understanding of him, his people, or my sin."
"As we've sung through the Psalms together as a church, we have lamented together, longed for God's justice, praised his righteousness, acknowledged our sinfulness, sought his mercy, told his story,and celebrated his faithfulness. All these actions point us again and again to Jesus."
—Joel Stamoolis
The Psalms Project showed that "all these ancient biblical songs can be sung, even by a congregation without a formal liturgy or prior practice of psalm singing," Stamoolis says. He sees and hears the fruit of this immersion in sung psalms.
Families listen to the app and sing psalms together. The senior pastor uses the app in counseling situations. A three-year-old goes around singing Psalm 15. An eight-year-old listens to Psalm 37 when she feels anxious.
"A four-year-old recently asked me, 'Pastor Joel, why are you a worm and not a man?' He'd been listening to Psalm 22 on the way to church and pondering the gravity of the words, especially verse 3. As we've sung through the psalms together as a church, we have lamented together, longed for God's justice, praised his righteousness, acknowledged our sinfulness, sought his mercy, told his story, and celebrated his faithfulness. All these actions point us again and again to Jesus," Stamoolis says.
That's why WBC continues to sing a psalm together every Sunday. Rather than repeat psalms in order, they now select each week's psalm based on the sermon text, the church year season, or a congregational prayer focus.
If the setting isn't already on the church app, Stamoolis makes an audio recording available to the congregation so they can learn and sing the upcoming Sunday's psalm.
The Biblical Psalms in Christian Worship by John D. Witvliet.
The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential by N. T. Wright
Wasilla Bible Church sung psalm videos
Gather a group to read and discuss these two books:
Listen to sung psalms on the Wasilla Bible Church website or download the app for phone or tablet. So far, only a few of Stamoolis' original music settings are registered with CCLI. "Churches are welcome to sing any of our original settings," he says. Contact Joel Stamoolis for more details.
Listen to more Scripture set to music by Joel and Naomi Stamoolis.
Listen to N.T. Wright speak on praying the psalms at the 2012 Calvin Symposium on Worship. Explore other archived material on singing, praying, and creatively reading psalms in worship and psalms for family devotions.
Use Psalms for All Seasons to find the New Revised Standard Version text for each psalm formatted for responsive readings or psalm chanting, a Christian prayer paired with each psalm, a brief footnote about the psalm's genre or type and suggested uses in worship, and one or more musical settings for each psalm.
Feel free to print and distribute this story at your staff, board, or worship meeting. These questions will help people start talking about introducing more sung psalms into congregational worship:
How many psalms are in your congregation's musical repertoire?
What are the pros and cons of singing more psalms in your worship services?
What spiritual growth might you see in your church if you find more ways to use more psalms?
Graham Kendrick on Leading Worship
You've probably sung his "Shine, Jesus, Shine" and "Knowing You." But his worship leading has changed since he wrote those songs.
Psalms in Worship
The Psalms are a font of inspiration, encouragement, and instruction in the life of both public and private prayer.
Best Resources for Singing Psalms in Worship
Joel Stamoolis acknowledges it was challenging to help his church sing through the entire Psalter. But during 171 consecutive Sundays of doing so, he gathered a wealth of tips and resources. You can use them to help your congregation begin singing more psalms in worship.


In a camper, you can live here.
The RV business is booming right now and that is due to a confluence of economic and technological factors. I would argue that runaway housing costs are still the biggest factor pushing people into van, RV and tiny house living. All the same RV sales are booming and it's not just people living in them.
RV sales have increased every year since 2009, when sales were a dismal 165,700 units. The prediction this year is for sales to top 472,000. Those numbers don't count all the people building out vans, refurbishing older campers, buses and converting cargo trailers. I'm already hearing that campgrounds are more crowded than ever and it can be a wait for reservations at the more popular places. KOA is having its best summer in 57 years.
The RV industry is being helped by record low gas prices and the easy availability of credit. But focusing just on gas prices alone could lead to erroneous conclusions about the market. Campers are getting smaller, not bigger.
These handy pegs keep your outside carpet from blowing away. The outside carpet helps keep dirt outside.
Young people are the fastest adopters of the mobile lifestyle. Growing up in a world of insane rents and ever-escalating housing costs, the lure of mobile living for a younger generation is the cost advantage. Younger people are also more focused on experience over material things, which is a positive trend in my opinion.
Better materials and construction techniques and computer aided design means that campers are getting smaller, lighter and packing more features into the same amount of space. Better manufacturing processes mean lower costs, with the average price for campers dropping steadily.
The trend toward smaller can be seen in manufacturers, like Airstream, where their tiny Basecamp model is blowing out sales records. At nearly $40,000 a pop, Airstream has gone from making 10 Basecamps a week to 25 according to CNN.
With the improvement of wireless data services, being mobile no longer means being isolated or depending upon campground WiFi for internet access. The longer this trend continues, the more people will be making a mobility lifestyle their first choice.
As camping and RV living become more popular, it's also worthwhile to point out to the hospitality industry that hotels are their own worst enemies. The insanity of extra fees like resort fees, parking and valet fees and paid WiFi on top of ever escalating rates is what pushed my wife and I back toward camping. We did find some cool motels and hotels but we also found a lot of hidden fees. Campgrounds can't get away with the fee game as easily because, once word gets around, their business dries up. RV parks playing the extra fee game end up becoming the overflow, the last choice for campers who can't find a space anywhere else.
So, for Team Mobility, this is all good news. The more campers there are, the more campgrounds and mobile services we'll see springing up.
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The Underpants
The Rauschenberg Project
I'll Eat You Last
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Laboratory Theater of Florida will present I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers by John Logan on July 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25 at 8 p.m. and July 25 at 2 p.m.
Sue Mengers was the first female 'super agent' at a time when women talent agents of any kind are almost unheard of. In this high-powered one-woman show, Mengers invites you into her Beverly Hills home for an evening of dish, secrets, and all the inside showbiz stories that only Sue could tell … like how Mengers got Gene Hackman his Oscar-winning role in "The French Connection," got Faye Dunaway into "Chinatown" or how she tried to poach Sissy Spacek. And it's always fun to get a glimpse of Hollywood when deals were deals rather than digital algorithms and when directors, producers and agents screamed obscenities at each other over the phone, then went on to make nice — and award-winning movies. The play's 2013 debut American production starred Bette Midler.
On this page you will find announcements, releases, news and reviews for this production.
Knapp delivers complex, nuanced portrayal of Hollywood agent Sue Mengers in Lab Theater's 'I'll Eat You Last' (07-11-15)
Based upon the hype, you might expect I'll Eat You Last to be a string of stream-of-consciousness anecdotes about celebrities peppered with a liberal sprinkling of profanities, vulgarities and self-serving bravado reminiscent of Kathy Griffin's "D List" stand-up comedy routine. But thanks to director Ken Bryant and actress Bonnie Knapp, what you'll find when you attend this one-woman Lab Theater tour de force is a complex and nuanced portrayal of enigmatic super-agent Sue Mengers.
In lesser hands, Mengers may have very well emerged as something of a cartoon character – a brash, hard-boiled Hollywood agent who succeeded in the male-dominated business of the 1970s-90s by dint of tenacity, inventiveness and brazen chutzpah. But by reason of Knapp's insightful portrayal, it becomes evident that the salty language, self-aggrandizing braggadocio, drinking and drugs function simultaneously as a crutch and carefully-constructed façade designed to enable Mengers to conceal a host of insecurities that would have kept Dr. Phil busy for an entire week. The vehicle that Knapp uses to open the cracks in her character's armor that allow us fleeting glimpses into Menger's very soul is alcohol and pot. The higher Menger gets as she swills drinks and chain smokes blounts, the more Knapp shows us the soft, sensitive side of her character – and the reason for her self-doubt. Mengers, we learn, was a German Jew whose family fled Europe ahead of Hitler and the Holocaust. Her dad committed suicide not long after settling his family in upstate New York, leaving his wife and daughter to survive as best they could in spite of being strangers in a strange land. As a young girl, Mengers' accent was so heavy she chose isolation and loneliness rather than approach the cool kids on the playground. She got her start as a lowly receptionist at a talent agency, and had to prove herself at every turn to everyone, including herself.
What's truly remarkable about Knapp's performance is that not only must she appear to bare her character's soul unintentionally, she has to do it in a way that realistically shows the progressive effect of the booze she downs and the pot she tokes without going all Foster Grant or allowing the audience to think that rather than losing her train of thought as she gets more and more stoned, she's forgotten her lines. It's a very narrow tightrope, but Knapp negotiates it with the aplomb of a Flying Wallenda, and the way you can tell is that by the end of the show, you will feel deeply and genuinely sorry for this wreck of a human being even as she's telling you to get the fuck out of her house. In fact, you'll find yourself thinking about her the next day, and maybe even the day after that. And that's how you'll know that what you experienced was much more than some cardboard character dropping A-List names through the course of some rambling tale about old Hollywood. That's when you'll know that you had the pleasure of seeing some really good community theater.
This is Bonnie Knapp's first one-woman show and her most challenging role to date. Other recent roles include Dottie in Noises Off, Margie in Good People, Matilde in The Clean House and Miss Fischer in A Picasso with the Naples Players. She also played Anne Ripley Smith in the Broadway Palm Theatre production of Bill W & Dr. Bob, as well as various other roles with the Sugden Community Theatre, TheatreZone and the Marco Players, where she has also directed. Bonnie says that acting is her passion and a talent for which she is ever grateful. It shows.
Please see above for play dates, times and ticket information.
Q & A with Director Ken Bryant about 'I'll Eat You Last,' opening tonight at Lab Theater (07-10-15)
Opening tonight at Lab Theater in the downtown Fort Myers River District is John Logan's I'll Eat You Last: A Conversation with Sue Mengers. The show is directed by Dr. Ken Bryant, whose theatrical resume is provided below. I recently caught up with Dr. Bryant to discuss the show and its subject, super-agent Sue Mengers.
TH: Having performed solo in A Christmas Carol two seasons ago, you're no stranger to one-actor productions. What are the opportunities and challenges that you encounter when directing a one-woman show like I'll Eat You Last?
KB: Charles Nelson Riley once directed a one-woman show and said his job was to sit back in the audience and say, "Beautiful. Keep it up, honey. That's what I want you to do."
TH: Of course, he and you are oversimplifying the task at hand.
KB: [Chuckles] On a serious note, a one-actor show lets us really delve into the personality of the character being portrayed. You aren't distracted by interactions with other actors and characters. Instead, the actor and director can focus on what makes this one character really tick. It makes it hard in some ways, but really amazing in other ways.
TH: And what are the challenges?
KB: In the normal, multi-character play, the characters typically define each other. For example, Character A is defined by how Character B reacts to Character A. Well, in a one-person show, there are no other characters, so the identity of the character can only be taken from the lines [of dialogue the character speaks] and, if it's a real person, the research you do into who that person was and how they acted. Of course, I always bear in mind something a teacher of mine once said, namely that we're not doing real life, we're doing theater. While in a show based on a real person, you do research to find out who that person was, in the end you're not just doing an imitation of the person.
TH: So you select certain personality traits and exaggerate them a little?
KB: Yes. Of course. First off, most character traits have to be exaggerated otherwise the audience won't notice them. They get lost on stage. As an actor, I like to find little things I can grab ahold of to help me define the character. Sometimes in a one-actor show, a little personality trait becomes a real defining component of how that person is portrayed, and when you're doing a one-person show like this, that becomes extremely important.
TH: How did you go about researching Sue Mengers?
KB: It's so much easier now than it used to be! These days, we have U Tube. With Sue Mengers, there happens to be a lot on her on U Tube. You can, for example, find her interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. You can find little pieces of her actually talking. And you can find bits of Bette Midler's version of this play.
TH: Is it helpful or harmful to reprise a role made famous by an actress as iconic as Bette Midler?
KB: In this case it can hurt more than help. But Bonnie [Knapp] decided right from the outset [of rehearsals] that she did not want to do the role in the same way. Midler gave Mengers a Long Island, Jewish accent, but Mengers went out of her way not to have any accent whatsoever. Sue Mengers was German and used to have a heavy German accent. She worked very hard to get rid of that accent. She learned to speak English by watching movies and did not substitue a Manhattan Jewish accent for the German once she tried so hard to eliminate.
TH: So what personality trait do you focus on in this production?
KB: The fact that everything she said and did was calculated to make her clients more successful and increase her own reputation and power in the process. In the play, she's waiting for a party to start in her home. That's the premise of the play, and she pretty much sits several of her clients down with directors and producers in order to introduce them and try to get them jobs. It's all about the stars she represents as her clients and how successful she was at representing them. People wanted to go to her parties because they knew that if they got invited to one of her parties, they were going to be successful.
TH: So she was always on the clock.
KB: Very much so.
TH: In many ways, Sue Mengers was larger than life, and like a queen holding court, she dominated any room in which she found herself, whether it was in her own home or at someone else's house. How does Bonnie Knapp go about dominating "the room" given that "the room" in this context is an entire theater?
KB: She does a very good job of doing just that. Of course, the entire show is filled with anecdotes about actors, stars and directors, which draws the audience in. But she also interacts with various audience members, speaking to them as if they were in her home prior to her dinner party. She screams, she yells, she curses. Sue Mengers was a very foul-mouthed person and held court very vocally – which is what Bonnie does in the show. She yells when she wants to yell. She fakes being sweet when she wants something. But she dominates from the stage and does a very good job with portraying Sue Mengers.
TH: There's a bittersweet aspect to this play, as well, isn't there?
KB: Yes. The show takes place after she's peaked as an agent, and now her career is going downhill and so the play is cast as a recollection of better times, with her recounting her good memories. But at the end, the audiences realizes that people are calling and cancelling and aren't coming to her dinner party. So that part is sad or bittersweet.
TH: Is this the first one-actor role Bonnie has played?
KB: She's had some really good roles in the past, but this is her first one-person show. So the audience is going to see a seasoned actor who's really stretching her artistic envelop. The show is Bonnie, and she really does an excellent job.
I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers runs July 10-25. Please see above for play dates, times and ticket information.
Bonnie Knapp portrays superagent Sue Mengers in Lab Theater's 'I'll Eat You Last' (07-08-15)
Chances are, you're not a movie star, but if you've ever wondered what it might be like to explore that golden realm where the gods and goddesses of the screen dwell, you'll enjoy the next presentation at the Laboratory Theater of Florida. It's I'll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers, running July 10 through 25.
For more than 20 years, bawdy and foul-mouthed Sue Mengers was one of the most successful agents in Hollywood. She could make a career merely by issuing an invitation to one of her A-list-only dinner parties. Her clients were the biggest names in show business, including Gene Hackman, Cher, and of course, Barbra Streisand. If her clients were the talk of the town, she was the town, and her dinner parties were the envy of Hollywood. John Logan's one-woman play is a mouthwatering concoction, buoyant and witty. Subtitled A Chat With Sue Mengers, the single-character piece is exactly what it advertises – 90 irresistible minutes of prime tinsel-town one-liners and delicious anecdotes.
The New York Times called the show "A delectable soufflé of a solo show," and The Los Angeles Times wrote that "I'll Eat You Last is both hilarious and mournful, a reminder that stardom can fade just as quickly as it flares."
Portraying Sue Mengers will be Bonnie Knapp, whose work has been seen all over Southwest Florida, including the Naples Players, the Marco Players, TheatreZone, and the Broadway Palm Dinner Theater.
So, put on your party clothes. You're invited into Sue's glamorous Beverly Hills home for an evening of dish, dirty secrets and all the inside showbiz details only Sue can tell you.
How a dinner party inspired playwright John Logan to write story about superagent Sue Mengers (07-07-15)
This Friday, John Logan's I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers opens at the Lab Theater in the River District. The play features legendary Hollywood agent Sue Mengers, who got Gene Hackman cast in The French Connection, persuaded Paramount to cast Faye Dunaway in Chinatown, and discovered Barbra Streisand singing in a dingy gay bar in Greenwich Village. Logan got the inspiration for the comedy after attending a dinner party at producer Richard D. Zanuck's home in 2008.
"I was, by far, the least famous person at the table, so she didn't have much time for me," recalls Logan of the encounter. "But I was fascinated by her and persistent in my conversation volleys. Finally she deigned to glance over her tinted glasses and speak to me and I got a full-frontal assault of her famed superagent persona: the wicked wit, constant cigarettes, lacerating asides, flowing caftan and stevedore language. When she lit up a joint and a cigarette at the same time, I was hooked."
But Logan saw much more in Mengers than colorful language and hyperagressive behavior. He also found a sense of sadness and the deep resignation felt by a powerful woman whose time had passed. "Late in the evening I asked her what had changed most about Hollywood since she had arrived. She didn't hesitate for a second: 'Honey, we used to have fun.' That Sue Mengers, bemused, self-aware and poignant, stayed with me and was finally the reason I wrote the play."
But Logan did not base his play solely on the experience of that evening. He contacted Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who graciously arranged a series of interviews with Mengers' clients, colleagues, friends and enemies. "He made the introductions and I sallied forth with steno pad in hand – a lot more fun than researching Mark Rothko for Red, I can assure you."
The picture of Mengers that evolved from those interviews captivated Logan even more than that night in Zanuck's home. "She was an astoundingly complicated woman. On one hand, she was an expert at playing the part of Sue Mengers: the glasses, the hair, the cigarette, the joint, the rough language, the diamond-edge timing, just killingly acid. But the thing that really fascinated me was a sort of vulnerability, a poignance, because this was a woman who was a queen, and she had reign in Hollywood, and that reign was over – partly due to herself and partly due to the way old Hollywood became new Hollywood."
But even in old Hollywood, Mengers was unique. "In Sue's day, she would pick up the phone, light a cigarette and begin to assault or seduce studio heads into doing exactly what she wanted. She was persistent and ferocious and alarming in equal measures. It was a Hollywood built on sociability, wit, cocaine and verbal dexterity. Those days are gone now. Maybe we're better off, but I miss the wild morass that produced movies like Chinatown, The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Klute, Star Wars, Cabaret and Paper Moon."
Now if you're still on the fence about going to Lab Theater to see this production, consider this. As a playwright and screenwriter, John Logan has bumped shoulders with some of the most interesting and high-profile actors, directors and producers in both Hollywood and on Broadway, and yet he found Mengers to be the one who was so compelling that he had to write a play about her life and times. Doesn't that make you curious to see the story that unfolds on stage? Thought so. See you at the theater. Lab Theater, that is.
See above for play dates, times and ticket information.
A Look at the superagent who inspired John Logan's 'I'll Eat You Last (07-06-15)
On Friday, July 10, I'll Eat You Last: A Conversation with Sue Mengers opens at the Laboratory Theater of Florida. It is the first play that Tony winner and three-time Oscar nominee John Logan wrote since his 2010 award-winning drama Red, which was based on artist Mark Rothko. I'll Eat You Last brings another historical figure back to life, Sue Mengers, who died in 2011.
In the 1980s, Sue Mengers was the queen of Hollywood agents. At her height, Mengers' stable of "twinklies" (the term she coined to refer to her clients) included Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen, Michael Caine, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Ali MacGraw, Cher, Joan Collins, Burt Reynolds and Nick Nolte. Known as a bulldozer in caftan, she was wickedly witty, evisceratingly acerbic and yet poignantly vulnerable – all qualities that compelled Logan to choose her as the subject for a one-woman play that debuted on Broadway in 2013.
Mengers was born to Jewish parents in Hamburg, Germany in 1932. They were one of the lucky few who not only escaped the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, but were able to emigrate to the United States, landing in Utica, New York.
Her dad made his living as a travelling salesman until his suicide when Sue was just 11. Afterwards, her mother moved the family to New York City. Out of school, Sue went to work for MCA as a receptionist. At the time, MCA was the dominant talent agency in the country. Mengers would go on to work for several other agencies, including William Morris, rising through the ranks through a combination of intelligence, people smarts and chutzpah.
Mengers rose to prominence as a Hollywood agent at Creative Management Associates, a boutique agency that later morphed into International Creative Management or ICM. There, she discovered Barbra Streisand singing in a dreary gay club in Greenwich Village, got Gene Hackman the lead in The French Connection, persuaded Paramount production chief Bob Evans to cast Faye Dunaway in Chinatown, and advanced the careers of directors Bob Fosse, Brian DePalma, Sidney Lumet and Peter Bogdanovich.
"Years ago, you'd find Brando, Newman, and Coppola at her place, and indeed, dinner at Sue's was like stepping into the Hollywood you imagined but almost never experienced," wrote Grayton Carter in Vanity Fair following her death. "Her house was a John Woolf jewel, with great, tall Hollywood Regency doors and a living room that looked over a largely unused, egg-shaped pool. The room was awash with soft colors, Aubusson, and white orchids. Sue would sit at one end of the seating area, two large facing sofas flanking her and a chair at the other end. She held court, to be sure. But she always brought out the best in her guests. At Sue's, everyone was funnier, and quicker, and smarter than they were anywhere else. And as a result everyone went to her place. For visiting friends from the East, such as Fran Lebowitz, Frank Rich, Alex Witchel, Maureen Dowd, Alessandra Stanley, and Lorne Michaels (along with assorted Feys and Fallons), she rolled out the single-name stars: Warren, Jack, Barbra, Elton, Ali, Anjelica, Candice, Bette, and Jennifer (Lopez and Aniston both), along with friends with last names such as Geffen, Diller, Poitier, Caine, Evans, Collins, Maher, Semel, Lourd, and Zanuck."
"In Sue's era, Hollywood was a very social business fueled by dinner parties, openings and cocaine," explains Logan. "The people making landmark movies of that period knew each other and interacted on a certain level." For good or bad, those days are gone, replaced by teams of financiers, marketers and publicists ruled by algorisms and P&L projections. "As the corporate identity of Hollywood changed, Sue's very personal, very pungent, very aggressive brand of interaction with artists and studios ceased."
But you can relive those days at Lab Theater this Friday when I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers opens in the River District. Please see above for play dates, times and ticket information.
Spotlight on the storied career of 'Ill Eat You Last' playwright John Logan (07-05-15)
On Friday, I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers opens at Lab Theater. It is the latest offering by storied playwright/screenwriter John Logan.
If money is the yardstick by which to measure John Logan's career, then Skyfall is his greatest success to date. Yes, Logan was the screenwriter for the most talked-about and biggest-grossing Bond film of all time, with Bond No. 23 having raked in more than $1.1 billion so far.
If Academy Award nominations mark the pinnacle of achievement, then perhaps Gladiator and The Aviator were his biggest hits. Logan gleaned an Academy Award nomination for co-writing Gladiator with David Franzoni and William Nicholson, which won Best Picture in 2000. He received another nomination for writing The Aviator (2004), starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese.
If Tony Awards are the top, then Logan's play, Red, represents his crowning achievement. About artist Mark Rothko, Red was produced by the Donmar Warehouse in London in December of 2009, and on Broadway in 2010, where it received six Tony Awards, the most of any play, including best play, best direction of a play for Michael Grandage and best featured actor in a play for Eddie Redmayne. Redmayne and Alfred Molina had originated their roles in London and also performed on Broadway, for a limited run ending in late June.
Logan's began his career as playwright in Chicago. His first play, Never the Sinner, tells the story of the infamous Leopold and Loeb case. Subsequent plays include Hauptmann, about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and Riverview, a musical melodrama set at Chicago's famed amusement park.
After a decade in the theater, Logan turned screenwriter. He wrote Any Given Sunday, the television film RKO 281, Star Trek: Nemesis, The Time Machine, The Last Samurai, and the Tim Burton-directed musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, for which he received a Golden Globe Award. More recent films include Rango, an animated feature starring Johnny Depp and directed by Gore Verbinski, the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes, the film adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret directed by Martin Scorsese.
In spite of all his success in cinema, Logan regards film as a stimulating and lucrative sideline. "I've always loved the movies," he says, "but when I wake up in the morning I'm still a playwright. Hollywood is not my world. My world is the theatre."
Two new plays by Logan premiered in 2013. Peter and Alice, directed by Michael Grandage and starring Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw opened in London at the Noël Coward Theatre on March 25, 2013, and I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers, directed by Joe Mantello and starring Bette Midler, opened on Broadway at the Booth Theatre on April 24, 2013.
But television and film will always command a huge chunk of Logan's time and creative energy. He created the 2014 television series Penny Dreadful starring Josh Hartnett, Eva Green and Timothy Dalton, for which he also serves as writer, and he is slated to write the next two Bond films, Spectre and Bond 25.
I'll Eat You Last opens on Friday, July 10. See above for other play dates, times and ticket information.
Dr. Ken Bryant to direct 'I'll Eat You Last' (06-21-15)
Lab Theater's next Summer Stock show is I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers.
Dr. Bryant has worked a lifetime in theater, designing, directing, acting and teaching theatre in colleges across the country. He ran the Tennessee Williams Fine Art Center in Key West as its Artistic/Executive Director, was stage manager with Miami City Ballet, and even staged the opera The Marriage of Figaro in Poland. His many theatrical adaptations of classical plays are still being enjoyed and workshopped for college students in the United States.
At Lab Theater, Ken has previously directed Deathtrap, Mr. Marmalade, Amadeus, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Five Kinds of Silence and The Nosemaker's Apprentice. Two seasons ago, Bryant directed and gave an impressive one-man performance of Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol. Ken will also be directing The Velocity of Autumn in January, 2016.
Dr. Bryant joined the Lab Theater family when he played the Ghost of Hamlet's Father in Hamlet. Since then, acting roles have included Brabantio in Othello, Stanley in Death of a Salesman, Shelly in The Rimers of Eldritch, Wulfric in The Nosemaker's Apprentice, and the infamous Ruckley in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
In addition to his long and illustrious creative resume, Dr. Bryant holds a Master's degree in Shakespeare and a Doctoral degree in Dramatic Criticism. He is very proud to sit on Lab Theater's Play Selection Committee.
One Response to "I'll Eat You Last"
Mark Cranford says:
a reproduction of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon appear in 15 out of 19 images of the production in this article
'His strangely shamanic art gives me a remnant of the pow I get from those ancient eternal faces in Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." Jerry Saltz on Mark Grotjahn's large new paintings
"I also take pleasure in the so-called negative power in Grotjahn's work. That is, I love his paintings for what they are not. Unlike much art of the past decade, Grotjahn isn't simply working from a prescribed checklist of academically acceptable, curator-approved isms and twists." Saltz on Grotjahn June 2011
the same can be said in regards to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon


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Financial News Roundup
By TWICE staff
Dell Profits Fall; Adds AMD To Arsenal
Round Rock, Texas — Dell posted an 18 percent falloff in net income, to $762 million, for its first fiscal quarter, even though sales bounced up 6 percent to $14.2 billion.
Sanyo Consumer Group Posts Fiscal Year Loss
Tokyo — Lower sales of digital still cameras, phones, information products and certain major appliances created an $87.5 million loss for the Sanyo Electric consumer group during the fiscal year, ended March 31.
D&M Reports Higher '05 Operating Profit
Tokyo — D&M Holdings reported lower consolidated revenue but higher operating profit for the fiscal year, ended March 31.
Sears Holdings Reports Profit, But Comp Sales Down
Hoffman Estates, Ill. — Sears Holdings reported net income of $180 million for the first quarter, compared with a net loss of $9 million for the same period last year.
Syntax-Brillian Fiscal Q3 Revenue Up 115%
Tempe, Ariz. — Syntax-Brillian reported record revenue of $45.7 million, up 115 percent from a year ago, for its fiscal third quarter, which ended March 31.
Wal-Mart Reports Record Q1 Sales, Earnings
Bentonville, Ark. — Wal-Mart Stores reported record sales and earnings for the first quarter, ended April 30.
Staples Net, Sales Up
Framingham, Mass. — Staples reported total company sales up 9 percent to $4.2 billion and net income rose 26 percent year-over-year, to $186 million, for the first fiscal quarter of the year, ended April 29, vs. the same period last year.
BJ's Q1 Net Down On Higher Sales
Natick, Mass. — BJ's Wholesale Club reported net income of $15.4 million for its fiscal first quarter, ended April 29, down from $18.6 million for the same period last year.
Higher Earnings, Sales For Home Depot
Atlanta — The Home Depot reported first-quarter net earnings of $1.5 billion, compared with net earnings of $1.2 billion reported for the same period in fiscal 2005, a 22.8 percent increase for the quarter, ended April 30.
Directed Reports Higher Q1 Sales, Earnings
Vista, Calif. — Citing strong sales of satellite radio products, Directed's earnings for the first quarter, ended May 15, and surged to $4 million, up from $1.4 million for the quarter a year ago.
Target's Q1 Sales Up 12.1%
Minneapolis — Target reported net earnings for the first quarter, ended April 29, of $554 million, compared with $494 million year-over-year, with total revenues up 12.1 percent to $12.9 billion and same-store sales growing 5.1 percent for the three-month period.
Financial Roundup


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Q: How to disable multiple select tag when selecting one? I have three select tags with values in it. If I select Unlimited in one of the values I want the rest of the two select tags to auto-switch to the same value (Unlimited) and gets disabled.
If I select the option Unlimited from the first select tag the second and thirds value should switch to Unlimited and inputs should get disabled.
If I select the middle option (2nd option) the first select tag and third select tag's value should auto-select to Unlimited and both input fields should get disabled.
Likewise, if I select Unlimited from the last select tag, the first and second should auto-switch to Unlimited and both input fields should get disabled.
Is this possible to do it via pure CSS? If not, how do I achieve it?

<link rel="stylesheet" href="//stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.1.3/css/bootstrap.min.css">

  Distance per day
  <select id="distancePerDay" class="form-control custom-select">
   <option value="100">100</option>
   <option value="150" selected="selected">150</option>
   <option value="200">200</option>
   <option value="250">250</option>
   <option value="300">300</option>
   <option value="350">350</option>
   <option value="400">400</option>
   <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
  </select>

  Distance per week
  <select id="distancePerWeek" class="form-control custom-select">
   <option value="700">700</option>
   <option value="950" selected="selected">950</option>
   <option value="1200">1200</option>
   <option value="1450">1450</option>
   <option value="1700">1700</option>
   <option value="1950">1950</option>
   <option value="2200">2200</option>
   <option value="Unlimited" >Unlimited</option>
  </select>

  Distance per month
  <select id="distancePerMonth" class="form-control custom-select">
   <option value="1500">1500</option>
   <option value="1850">1850</option>
   <option value="2250">2250</option>
   <option value="2600">2600</option>
   <option value="2950">2950</option>
   <option value="3300">3300</option>
   <option value="3650">3650</option>
   <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
  </select>

A: Hi you could do that with javascript, I created validate function and added onchange="validate(event)" in each select like so:

const validate = event => {

  const dropdowns = ['distancePerDay','distancePerWeek','distancePerMonth'];
  const dropdownsToUpdate = dropdowns.filter(x => x !== event.target.id);

  for(let i = 0; i < dropdownsToUpdate.length; i++){
    const item = document.getElementById(dropdownsToUpdate[i]);

    if(event.target.value === 'Unlimited'){
      item.value = 'Unlimited';
      item.setAttribute('disabled', '');
    }
    else {
      item.removeAttribute('disabled');
    }
  }
}

    Distance per day
 <select id="distancePerDay" onchange="validate(event)">
  <option value="100">100</option>
  <option value="150" selected="selected">150</option>
  <option value="200">200</option>
  <option value="250">250</option>
  <option value="300">300</option>
  <option value="350">350</option>
  <option value="400">400</option>
  <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
 </select>

 Distance per week
 <select id="distancePerWeek" onchange="validate(event)">
  <option value="700">700</option>
  <option value="950" selected="selected">950</option>
  <option value="1200">1200</option>
  <option value="1450">1450</option>
  <option value="1700">1700</option>
  <option value="1950">1950</option>
  <option value="2200">2200</option>
  <option value="Unlimited" >Unlimited</option>
 </select>

 Distance per month
 <select id="distancePerMonth" onchange="validate(event)">
  <option value="1500">1500</option>
  <option value="1850">1850</option>
  <option value="2250">2250</option>
  <option value="2600">2600</option>
  <option value="2950">2950</option>
  <option value="3300">3300</option>
  <option value="3650">3650</option>
  <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
 </select>

A: Pure JS (why jQuery?)
I made a change : if the select with 'Unlimited' is changed again, the 2 other are not disabled any more, and get their ancient value before to be disabled
Second solution, with persistents values in a dataset value:
const threeSelects =  document.querySelectorAll('select')
    , C_Unlimited  = 'Unlimited'

threeSelects.forEach(Slc=>{
  Slc.dataset.val = Slc.value
  Slc.onchange=e=>{
    let isDisabled  = (Slc.value===C_Unlimited)
    Slc.dataset.val = Slc.value
    threeSelects.forEach(Sx=>{
      if(Sx!==Slc) Sx.value = (Sx.disabled=isDisabled)? C_Unlimited: Sx.dataset.val
    })
  }
})

const threeSelects =  document.querySelectorAll('select')
    , C_Unlimited  = 'Unlimited'

threeSelects.forEach(Slc=>{
  Slc.dataset.val = Slc.value
  Slc.onchange=e=>{
    let isDisabled  = (Slc.value===C_Unlimited)
    Slc.dataset.val = Slc.value
    threeSelects.forEach(Sx=>{
      if(Sx!==Slc) Sx.value = (Sx.disabled=isDisabled)? C_Unlimited: Sx.dataset.val
    })
  }
})
.col-12 { display:inline-block; padding:.5em }
label, select { float:left;clear:both }

    Distance per day
    <select id="distancePerDay" class="form-control custom-select">
      <option value="100">100</option>
      <option value="150" selected="selected">150</option>
      <option value="200">200</option>
      <option value="250">250</option>
      <option value="300">300</option>
      <option value="350">350</option>
      <option value="400">400</option>
      <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
    </select>

    Distance per week
    <select id="distancePerWeek" class="form-control custom-select">
      <option value="700">700</option>
      <option value="950" selected="selected">950</option>
      <option value="1200">1200</option>
      <option value="1450">1450</option>
      <option value="1700">1700</option>
      <option value="1950">1950</option>
      <option value="2200">2200</option>
      <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
    </select>

    Distance per month
    <select id="distancePerMonth" class="form-control custom-select">
      <option value="1500">1500</option>
      <option value="1850">1850</option>
      <option value="2250">2250</option>
      <option value="2600">2600</option>
      <option value="2950">2950</option>
      <option value="3300">3300</option>
      <option value="3650">3650</option>
      <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
    </select>

First solution, with persistents values in a JS table:

const threeSelects = Array
                      .from(document.querySelectorAll('#distancePerDay, #distancePerWeek, #distancePerMonth '))
                      .map(sx => ({ sel: sx, val: sx.value }))
    , C_Unlimited  = 'Unlimited'

threeSelects.forEach(eSchg => { eSchg.sel.onchange = e => {
  eSchg.val = eSchg.sel.value

  threeSelects.forEach(eSx => {
    if (eSx.sel !== eSchg.sel) {
      if (eSchg.sel.value === C_Unlimited) {
        eSx.sel.value = C_Unlimited
        eSx.sel.disabled = true
      }
      else if (eSx.sel.value === C_Unlimited) {
        eSx.sel.value = eSx.val
        eSx.sel.disabled = false
      }
    }
  })
} })
.col-12 { display:inline-block; padding:.5em }
label, select { float:left;clear:both }

    Distance per day
    <select id="distancePerDay" class="form-control custom-select">
      <option value="100">100</option>
      <option value="150" selected="selected">150</option>
      <option value="200">200</option>
      <option value="250">250</option>
      <option value="300">300</option>
      <option value="350">350</option>
      <option value="400">400</option>
      <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
    </select>

    Distance per week
    <select id="distancePerWeek" class="form-control custom-select">
      <option value="700">700</option>
      <option value="950" selected="selected">950</option>
      <option value="1200">1200</option>
      <option value="1450">1450</option>
      <option value="1700">1700</option>
      <option value="1950">1950</option>
      <option value="2200">2200</option>
      <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
    </select>

    Distance per month
    <select id="distancePerMonth" class="form-control custom-select">
      <option value="1500">1500</option>
      <option value="1850">1850</option>
      <option value="2250">2250</option>
      <option value="2600">2600</option>
      <option value="2950">2950</option>
      <option value="3300">3300</option>
      <option value="3650">3650</option>
      <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
    </select>

A: I am storing the last known value in a custom attribute last in the element before all items were marked Unlimited. When changed to not unlimited it will remember the last known value of each select element and restore it.
If you are looking for a jQuery solution, You add change event listeners to all select elements and if there is any element who has 'Unlimited' as values filter the selects w/o the current element and assign property disabled if 'Unlimited' is selected
$('select').on('change', function(e){
  const isUnlimited = $(this).val() === 'Unlimited';
  $('select')
    .not(this)
    .prop({disabled: isUnlimited})
    .attr('last', function(i,v){ return isUnlimited ? $(this).val() : v; })
    .val(function(i,v){ return isUnlimited ? 'Unlimited' : v === 'Unlimited' ? $(this).attr('last') : v; });
});

And using jQuery ensures you write less do more. Snippet attached below.

$('select').on('change', function(e){
  const isUnlimited = $(this).val() === 'Unlimited';
  $('select')
    .not(this)
    .prop({disabled: isUnlimited})
    .attr('last', function(i,v){return isUnlimited ? $(this).val() : v;})
    .val(function(i,v){return isUnlimited ? 'Unlimited' : v === 'Unlimited' ? $(this).attr('last') : v; });
});

<link rel="stylesheet" href="//stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.1.3/css/bootstrap.min.css">

    Distance per day
    <select id="distancePerDay" class="form-control custom-select">
      <option value="100">100</option>
      <option value="150" selected="selected">150</option>
      <option value="200">200</option>
      <option value="250">250</option>
      <option value="300">300</option>
      <option value="350">350</option>
      <option value="400">400</option>
      <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
    </select>

    Distance per week
    <select id="distancePerWeek" class="form-control custom-select">
      <option value="700">700</option>
      <option value="950" selected="selected">950</option>
      <option value="1200">1200</option>
      <option value="1450">1450</option>
      <option value="1700">1700</option>
      <option value="1950">1950</option>
      <option value="2200">2200</option>
      <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
    </select>

    Distance per month
    <select id="distancePerMonth" class="form-control custom-select">
      <option value="1500">1500</option>
      <option value="1850">1850</option>
      <option value="2250">2250</option>
      <option value="2600">2600</option>
      <option value="2950">2950</option>
      <option value="3300">3300</option>
      <option value="3650">3650</option>
      <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
    </select>

A: you can make it easily with jquery, with not().
you can also use .prop('selectedIndex',0); to reset your <select> when you choose another option to "Unlimited":

$( "select" ).on( "change", function() {
    var sw = $(this).val() == "Unlimited";
    var others = $('select').not(this).prop('disabled', sw);
    sw ? others.val("Unlimited") : others.val()=="Unlimited" ? others.prop('selectedIndex',0) : 0;
});

<link rel="stylesheet" href="//stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.1.3/css/bootstrap.min.css">

  Distance per day
  <select id="distancePerDay" class="form-control custom-select">
   <option value="100">100</option>
   <option value="150" selected="selected">150</option>
   <option value="200">200</option>
   <option value="250">250</option>
   <option value="300">300</option>
   <option value="350">350</option>
   <option value="400">400</option>
   <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
  </select>

  Distance per week
  <select id="distancePerWeek" class="form-control custom-select">
   <option value="700">700</option>
   <option value="950" selected="selected">950</option>
   <option value="1200">1200</option>
   <option value="1450">1450</option>
   <option value="1700">1700</option>
   <option value="1950">1950</option>
   <option value="2200">2200</option>
   <option value="Unlimited" >Unlimited</option>
  </select>

  Distance per month
  <select id="distancePerMonth" class="form-control custom-select">
   <option value="1500">1500</option>
   <option value="1850">1850</option>
   <option value="2250">2250</option>
   <option value="2600">2600</option>
   <option value="2950">2950</option>
   <option value="3300">3300</option>
   <option value="3650">3650</option>
   <option value="Unlimited">Unlimited</option>
  </select>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
← Ladies and Gentlemans, Hongkong, license plate (act.II.)
Thank God. The holidays are over. →
Big report Observer / The Guardian from "Golden Prague".
Observer special report
The fall of Prague: 'Drunk tourists are acting like they've conquered our city'ps:/ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-city/www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-city
Tourists on Prague's Charles Bridge this summer. The city is now Europe's fifth most visited destination. Photograph: Bartek Sadowski/Bloomberg via Getty Images
As the Czech Republic capital launches a crackdown, the Observer joins one of the organised pub crawls that are blighting residents' lives
by Robert Tait
Sun 25 Aug 2019 12.30 BST Last modified on Sun 25 Aug 2019 13.39 BS
ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityEugen Kukla could not have made his feelings clearer as 120 drunken tourists thronged noisily past his home around midnight, rudely breaking the silence of a normally sedate city-centre residential street.
"Fuck pub crawls, fuck pub crawls," he repeated over and over again, while filming the scene on his smart phone. Some of the crowd reacted in amusement, smiling and waving into the camera.
But Kukla, 55, a photojournalist, did not see the joke. "It's an expression of my personal feelings, a buildup of frustration over a long period of time, years and years and years," he said. Kukla says his and his family's lives have been disrupted by the snowballing trade in pub crawls through the centre of Prague and past their fourth-storey flat. "It's been going on for 10 or 15 years – but it's got worse."ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-city
Kukla's act of resistance was witnessed by the Observer, which joined one of the organised crawls along with a senior councillor from Prague 1 municipality, the local authority responsible for the Czech capital's historic tourist district – now under strain as never before from a burgeonps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-citying influx of foreign visitors.
Photojournalist and local Eugen Kukla. 'The pub crawls have been going on for 15 years, but it's got worse'. Photograph: Robert Tait/The Observer
ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityOn a night when thousands of Czechs marched through the city marking the anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion on 21 August 1968 that crushed the liberal Prague Spring in communist Czechoslovakia, tourists from locations as varied as Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Brazil, Belgium and Armenia roamed the streets on a different mission – to have fun and get drunk.
The spectacle was graphic evidence that "over-tourism", a phenomenon more commonly associated with destinations such as Barcelona, Amsterdam, Venice and Edinburgh, has arrived in Prague – a city that was all but sealed off to western visitors until 1989 when the velvet revolution swept the former communist regime from power.
In the years since, a rising tide of visitors has flooded in, up from 2.62 million in the year 2000, to just under 8 million last year, drawn by Prague's reputation as home to stunning baroque and gothic architectural gems – and cheap beer. Numbers this year are forecast to reach just under 9 million.
The trend is transforming Prague and risks pushing out long-term inhabitants of the city centre – historically considered a residential district – and turning it into a tourist-only zone. That prospect was called "humiliating" by Jan Štern, who took office this year as the city's first "nightlife mayor" and has negotiated with bar owners trying to persuade them not to cooperate with pub crawls and to enforce policies prohibiting outdoor noise that would make conditions more tolerable for neighbouring residents
"It's important that we don't give up the historic city centre, which is our most valuable legacy, and not let it become a dead zone that's just a background for nightlife and a cheap type of tourism," said Štern.
ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-city
A beer-and-bike tour – one of Prague's many alcohol-related activities – offers unlimited Czech beer. Photograph: Terry Dean/Alamy Stock Photo
Now the authorities – alarmed at that possibility and the city's growing reputation as a location of cheap booze and easy fun – are pledging a harder line with miscreant visitors, some of whom stand accused of disrespecting Prague and its inhabitants.
"There could in the future be more action taken by the police. We want to get that message out," said one municipal official. "There will be harder treatment against tourists and more harsh action when they are making noise. There are even voices calling to use riot squads. When there are 150 people on a pub crawl there needs to be a lot of policemen asking for documents. If anyone is drunk they'll be taken to alcohol stations and things could be really hard for them."
Imagine no graffiti: new regulation to fall on Prague's Lennon wall
Over-tourism, as defined by three academics last year, is "the excessive growth of visitors leading to overcrowding in areas where residents suffer the consequences, which have enforced permanent changes to their lifestyles, access to amenities and general wellbeing". That definition by Joseph Cheer, Claudio Milano and Marina Novelli, writing on the Conversation website, aptly sums up the reality of many European cities that have reaped the rewards – but also borne the brunt – of the explosion in cheap flights and Airbnb-style ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityaccommodation that recent years have brought.
But it is particularly pertinent to Prague, according to Pavel Čižinský, mayor of Prague 1, who has vowed to transform the city's approach by cracking down on pub crawls and limiting alcohol serving times. He is also promoting information drives to encourage tourists to visit more peripheral areas instead of over-visited attractions such as Charles Bridge and the historic ninth-ceps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityntury castle.
The centre of Prague "is losing the quality of normal life," said Čižinský, a lifelong city resident who grew up near the Jewish quarter. "The centre is becoming a goldmine where you earn a lot of money, but it is not a place for living. It is a significant and crucial problem.
The Lennon Wall, one of Prague's most popular attractions, is covered with graffiti and obscene messsages. Photograph: Petr David Josek/AP
"Too many people are coming just for a very small number of purposes, and buildings, and those who want to make profits from the presence of the tourists worsen the situation."
The signs of such tourist-driven commercialisation are everywhere, seen in the spread of cheap souvenir shops, massage parlours painted in out-of-place garish colours – an example of what officials denounce as "visual smog" – and the dancers in giant panda suits that proliferate in Old Town Square, exploiting local busking laws. That practice will be illegal from next month.
But it is the commercial pub crawls and other alcohol-related "tours" that are altering the city's previously tranquil character most dramatically and driving an increasing number of long-term residents out, leaving vacant properties to be rented out.
Beer bikes, offering tours to up to a dozen people at a time while they drink unlimited quantities of famous ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityCzech brews to a soundtrack of loud music, have gained notoriety as noisy nuisances, blocking traffic and disturbing passersby. A council attempt to outlaw them is currently being cps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityontested by a local microbrewery on the grounds that it is "discriminatory".
'I've remonstrated with tourists and some have been apologetic, but the guides have been aggressive and confrontational'
Karolina Peake
Also notorious are walking tours in Malá Strana, near Prague castle, which often culminate in visits to the Lennon Wall, a famous protest site during communist times that has since become a place of free expression for would-be graffiti artists, but is now being defaced with mindless spraying done at the urging of guides.ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-city
After offering unlimited beer, guides have been known to push clients into posing for outrageous pictures at city landmarks, according to Prague 1 municipality, which joined one such tour. Tourists were pictured clambering on to outsize statues of babies designed by the Czech artist David Černý in Kampa Park and pouring beer into the mouths of two male figurines in the courtyard of the Franz Kafka museum.
The authority scrutinised the tour after complaints that people had urinated on a statue unveiled in 2014 by Sir Nicholas Soames, Winston Churchill's grandson, to honour Czechoslovakian pilots who fought with the RAF in the Battle of Britain.
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During the tour, some participants were observed writing obscene slogans on the Lennon Wall, owned by the Sovereign Order of Malta, which afterwards filed a criminal complaint.
Residents say such activity has made living conditions intolerable. "I remember this square being a quiet area where you would rarely meet anyone, let alone a tourist," said Karolina Peake, 43, a lawyer who has lived her entire life in a house near the wall.
"Ever since the wall became part of the tourist and Baedeker circuit, it has become a bit of a nightmare, and in the last five years it has become unbearable. A lot of drunk tourists are coming and acting like they have conquered the place rather than just visiting. They have no respect for the fact thps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityat there are people living here – and it's making people reconsider whether they want to continue living in a place where their families have been for generations."
ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityps://www.theguardian.cps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityom/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-city
A crowded bar in Prague is indicative of the 'snowballing' trade of pub tours. Photograph: Robert Tait/The Observer
Back on the tour that the Observer and the local councillor joined, people on the Prague Pub Crawl were led down ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityCeletná Street, once the route of ancient Bohemian kings, to a nearby establishment that offered an open bar for two hours before the tour was taken to a series of other pubs on a crawl that lasted into the small hours.
As the group wound from bar to bar, being greeted at each venue with a free "welcome drink" of cheap vodka, residents could be seen closing their windows – despite warm summer temperatures – against the rising din. The commotion grew louder as the night wore on. At no point did a tour guide ask the group to keep the noise down, despite local laws demanding quiet in residential areas after 10pm.
Indeed, there appeared to be little fear of the law. At the corner of Rybná and Benediktská Streets – near the heart of Prague's infamous "party district" – a woman vomited copiously, oblivious to a police station just yards away. She eventually required first aid, administered by the councillor. Outsps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-cityide a bar on 28 October Street, near Wenceslas Square, a couple lay smoking flat on their backs, while others on the pub crawl milled raucously around them.
Only after the councillor – who requested anonymity – called the police did officers arrive to tell the pub crawlers to quieten down. But they left without imposing fines or making arrests.
Such scenes are familiar to Peake. "I've remonstrated with tourists and some have been apologetic, but the guides have been aggressive and confrontational," she said. "They see the residents as a threat to ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-citytheir business. Unfortunately Prague has become a bit of an Eldorado for these type of tour groups."
The sometimes-obscene graffiti defacing the Lennon Wall has spread to neighbouring properties and sometimes even cars. "It's pure vandalism," she added.ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/prague-drunk-tourists-conquer-our-city
One particularly ugly piece of vandalism last month prompted city authorities to up the ante, when graffiti was sprayed on the 600-year-old Charles Bridge. Two German tourists were fined and ordered to pay restoration costs. The graffiti was later removed by a Czech man acting alone and without authorisation.
Scores of tourists take photos of the historic Astronomical Clock in Prague's old town square as it strikes the hour. Photograph: Robert Tait/The Observer
One result will be an information campaign of dos and don'ts on Instagram, which could include pictures of some of the most notorious acts of misbehaviour being used in pixelated form to advise visitors of what to avoid. Posters have already been placed on the Prague metro warning visitors about the need to keep quiet in the streets after 10pm and that failure to comply could result in a €400 fine.
City-centre residents are being officially "encouraged" by Prague 1 municipality to report disturbances from Airbnb properties and other short-term rentals to the police, enabling the authority to fine the owners.
Meanwhile, pub-crawl and alcohol-based walking-tour companies will come under greater scrutiny for infractions, such as failing to offer customers receipts – as required by Czech law – or to check if they are over 18.
Bars cooperating with pub crawls will face increased inspection on health and safety matters, like whether they are exceeding capacity, said Čižinský, who added: "We will have to be tougher … I do not consider the negotiations very successful."
Tohle je velmi politicky korektní soft reportáž. Nezmiňuje celou oblast bezdomovců,feťáků,zlodějů, taxikářů, koloběžek, nekonečných koncertů,špíny,prachu, vandalismu atd.
Jednou udělám opravdovou zprávu.
Tak takhle draze vykoupené jsou LP, co ode mne roky vídáte. Přímo do centra toho hnusu,kam bych dříve ani náhodou nezabloudil. Ale už mě to opravdu přestává bavit. Pokud bych našel něco jiného- určitě bych už do centra nevkročil. Vám nadšeným Prahou, strkajícím hlavu do písku, já nic nevidím-jen LP, navrhuju-ubytujte se jednu noc v centru- ono vás to nadšení přejde!
Ale díky Observer za report. A zvláště za titulek: Úpadek Prahy! Naprosto ,naprosto přesné. Úpadek na každém kroku. Ve všech sférách.


HQ Trivia, the app apparently no iPhone owner can shut up about, is headed to Android this holiday season. In a tweet sent out from the official HQ Trivia account, the Android app will be a stocking stuffer, meaning we should expect it around Christmas time, though, no official date was provided.
Now, you may be asking, WTF is HQ Trivia? Well, it's an online live trivia show that people access via this app, created by the founders of Vine. If you're quick enough, you can play with others for real cash prizes, so long as your trivia chops are up to the task.
Because I don't have an iPhone, I know as little as any other Android user about this game, but I'm looking forward to the iOS peeps crying like babies once Android users are welcomed into the fold. Always the best when Android users come and crash an exclusive party.
We'll let you know as soon as it launches. In the meantime, if you have any experience with this app, tell us all about it in the comments section below!


Today I have been leafleting all day. With sore knuckles and sore knees I can definitely feel it and as I traced my way up and down garden paths I had time to reflect on leafletting and letterboxes. We are the unsung heros of the election. Without us, voters would feel ignored and bereft of that essential election communication.
Nottingham is a very hilly city and most houses have drives and steps that the weary leafletter must go up and down, up and down. As I wend my way I remind myself that leafleting is one of the best workouts known to woman or man.
The motto of a good leafleter is 'Be Prepared'. Okay so that is also the motto of the Scouts. Hats, sunglasses, raincoats, it will be you against the weather. You will also need a good size shoulder bag to carry and protect your leaflets against the aforementioned weather. Do not be tempted to use a plastic carrier bag. They will break and the weight of your leaflets will cause them to cut a painful red ring in your wrist. Plus you will need both hands for the intricate task of leafletting. Finally, you will need your trusty 'pusher'. You can get specially designed one but a ruler or even a short sturdy stick will do. Never leave home without it!
There are some clear rules to delivering political materials direct to the electorate. If possible do try to avoid irritating the householder. It makes little sense to slog up and down the pathway only to deliver the vote directly into the hands of the opposition. If you open a gate, close and latch it correctly. Assume someone, (shift worker, baby), is sleeping. Creep in and creep out. Whatever you do don't let the letterbox bang. Never ever go across someone's garden however tempting, and some gardens are very tempting, especially town houses with no fences and extra long paths. Someone will always see and take offence. Talking of offence, a prime way to render a resident incandescent is to leave a leaflet sticking out of their letterbox. Always, always push your leaflet all the way through the letterbox.
Which brings us to letterboxes… where shall I begin? All leafletters become letterbox connoisseurs. Personally I prefer the horizontal widescreen version situated in the middle of the door. My pet peeve are the ones on the bottom of the door that make you stoop down. (see sore knees). I have leafletted for elections over many years and each time I develop an increasing respect and sympathy for the trusty 'postie'. Letter boxes can be viscious! Never mind a simple cover on the outside of the door, modern letter boxes seem designed to prevent you actually getting any kind of communication through them. Most outer covers have an extra strong spring to keep the wind and weather out. I can understand and live with that. But then you have to get your leaflet past a stiff double hedge of bristles akin to a yard broom. Get your leaflet through that and you run into an inner cover with an even stronger spring. You will also find that the householder with a letter box like the serried rows of a shark's teeth is also the most insistant that the leaflet is pushed all the way through. This is where your 'pusher' will become essential. The mantra of all experienced leafleters is, whatever you do, do not push your fingers through that letter box. If you don't get them bruised and battered by the letterbox you will surely find them bitten off by the silent but deadly dog in wait behind the door! Not an election goes by without some poor soul ending up in A&E. Be warned!
Most leaflets are the wrong size for the average letterbox. Plus you need to fold your leaflet to get sufficient rigidity to get it through that letterbox. Personally, I prefer to pre-fold, but others will fold 'on the fly'. Remember that shoulder bag? Sling it around your back out of the way while one hand manoeuvres the letterbox and the other manipulates the leaflet and 'pusher'. Keep those fingers OUT of that letterbox while you ensure the leaflet goes all the way through and flutters to the floor on the other side. Success! And on to the next.
Leafletting does have it's charms. I love to see all the different houses and gardens, stamped with their owner's personality. It is a great way to get to know your patch up close. Most folks are friendly and pleased to see you. Sometimes they will ask for a poster. It is also suprising what you come across. Only the other day I leafletted a house to find that the front door key left in the lock! With a note on the door, the key was left in a neighbour's safekeeping. No dawdling now, nine hundred leaflets to deliver today.


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We only take walk-ins, so you don't need an appointment. We are well-staffed and we can get all patients in and out quickly. All we ask is that you come in before 11:30 AM Monday through Friday, or before closing time in the afternoon; we lock the door at those times and finish up the last few patients. We have no lunch break on Saturdays, but we allow our last patient in and lock the front door promptly at 1:30 PM on Saturdays, so come early!
How do I get to Cordova Medical Clinic?
Depending on where you are coming from, you can find your answer by clicking here.
How long do the office visits generally take?
Your first office visit usually takes 30 to 60 minutes, and subsequent visits usually take between 20 to 30 minutes. For more information, click here.
Who qualifies to be treated at your clinic?
We treat people, 18 to 64, with a BMI of 30 or higher. With parents consent, we will also treat teenagers who are 16 years of age with at least a 27 BMI. Please click here for more information.
You do not need an appointment ever! We only see walk-ins, and we are well staffed, so we are very quick. Your first visit should take 20-30 minutes, and follow-up visits are likely to be 15 minutes or less.
If you are off by just a few days, it won't matter much; we will continue the usual program. If you miss one of your visits by a week or more, we will start from the beginning again, but there will be no extra charges to you.


The list below shows daycares in Harbourfront, Toronto or other nearby neighbourhoods. Aside from showing the daycares, the list also provides the distance from the center-point of Harbourfront You may also want to check the Toronto daycare search page to browse the listings in the city. Good luck with your daycare search.
0.7 km - Kids And Company Ltd.
1.0 km - Kids And Company Ltd.