text:
Waking Nightmares, Death is the Curator, The Second Coming of Steampunk
Waking Nightmares: A Conversation with Jordan Peele (Andrew Chan for Criterion)
Death is the Curator: An Interview with Guillermo del Toro (Lauren Wilford for Bright Wall Dark Room)
The Second Coming of Steampunk: An Interview with Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (Jason B. Jones for Pop Matters)
Miles Behind Us
The first volume of The Walking Dead ended with the death of Shane, and there is no way that the second is going to let us forget that. We immediately get a flashback scene to the start of Lori's affair with Shane, which is in turn linked to the notion that to live during the apocalypse inevitably changes a person. Rick describes the change in Shane's character as "drastic," but that undersells it by quite a bit. It would be more accurate to describe Shane's descent as a "monstrous" change of heart. But even Shane's sudden, horrific willingness to kill his best friend is given an understandable explanation: the stress of survival is transformative, and whatever alterations it brings pose profound dangers to the self and the cohesive of the social units to which they belong. Any individual person can only endure so much before the breaking point makes them a liability to the survival of the group and an internal threat. Stress we cannot cope with makes us the enemy within.
As a way of exploring the idea that the group's survival is dependent on the individual's ability to handle stress, The Walking Dead starts loading its protagonist with new stresses to illustrate that not even a square-jawed hero is immune to the eruption of personal demons. First, Rick learns that Lori is pregnant. If the world hadn't gone to hell, this would be cause for celebration; but in a zombie-plagued landscape where the living are hanging on by a thread, being in the family way pushes new obstacles and concerns to the forefront for a guy who is already expected to provide for and protect both his immediate family and the larger familial unit of the group. When Lori and Rick break their news to the group, no one knows how to respond because, given the context, this isn't a joyous occasion. Of course, because The Walking Dead is a soap opera at heart, Lori's pregnancy carries an additional layer of stress in that Rick can't be sure that the baby is his.
When The Walking Dead starts piling it on one character, it really unloads on them. With the prospect of a difficult addition to his family on his mind, Rick also has to deal with his son Carl getting shot during a hunting accident. This is the incident that pushes Rick past his personal breaking point and reveals that, although it might take more to get him there, he has the same sort of monstrosity lurking under his heroic exterior that we have already seen unleashed through Shane's murderous breakdown. Rick's blind rage and willingness to kill Otis for shooting his son is understandable, but it also delineates that even a good man might not hesitate to pull the trigger when the thing he clings to is being taken away from him. Perhaps we get a sense of why Lori is drawn to both Shane and Rick; they aren't so different, after all.
Of course, Rick doesn't end up killing Otis, but it's easy to imagine that if he did it would have a disastrous impact on the group's stability. Knowing what we do about Rick's sentimentality and hidden fragility, it is likely that he would soon spiral out of control and leave the group without its linchpin. The comic gives us a displaced version of how Rick might hypothetically response to loss; Allen's nearly-complete emotional shut down after the death of Donna could be taken as an alternate universe version of Rick's fate should he lose Carl, Lori, and his internal moral compass. Indeed, this chapter of the story gives us another instance of a good man who is pushed too far by hellish circumstances; after the death of his son and daughter in the barn, Hershel snaps and draws down on Rick the same way that Shane drew down on Rick and in the same way that Rick drew down on Otis.
Much of the stress depicted in this chapter is directly related to the assumption that if the group is it to survive it must have a leader who is both stereotypically male and stereotypically capable. Dale reveals that the reason the group hadn't moved camp earlier was because Shane--the default masculine authority--didn't endorse the idea. Now that Rick has assumed the role left vacant by Shane's death, it all falls to him to be the locus of authority they seem to expect and desire. Dale makes it clear that it has to be Rick: Dale is too old (and therefore too weak), Glenn is too young (and therefore not yet truly a man), and Allen is simply too incompetent (he later reveals that Donna wore the pants in their family, which is a damning sin according to the patriarchal order being established here). The oddest part of the exchange between Rick and Dale about the need for a man to lead them to the promised land of safety is that Rick doesn't question the imposition of the role or even the worldview behind it. Rick also seems to believe that the role is a natural requirement and that he is the obvious candidate to take on the mantle.
With all of this potentially fatal stress buffeting the group at every turn, the characters use sex as their release valve. There is a massive, and obvious, emphasize on sex, pair bonding, and the need for physical and emotional intimacy even in close quarters in this volume. Dale and Andrea are spotted having sex as a way of getting through Amy's death; Glenn and Maggie have sex to boost Glenn's feelings of inadequacy and give Maggie something of her own not related to her family; Chris and Julie have sex as a form of rebellion against life under what they perceive to be Tyreese's thumb; Tyreese immediately pairs off with Carol beause both need reaffirmation after their personal losses. Even the interactions of Carl and Sophie are viewed by the adults in the group through this lens; there is a heightened level of projection here that assumes that the children will ultimately end up together because they will inevitably need to rely on each other in the same way that the adults currently need each other as physical and emotional reassurance.
However, as much as sex is one of the few pleasures they have recourse to in an anhedonic world, it is an imperfect form of release. Sex can function like any other stressor for the group and can threaten the group dynamic. Rick's worries over Lori's pregnancy, to say nothing of his anxieties that another rooster has been in the hen house, are the most stark illustration of this, but it crops up for the other characters as well. The introduction of Tyreese and the ease with which Tyreese catches Carol's attention puts Glenn in a mindset where he reconsiders his sense of belonging within the group; the sexual relationship between Chris and Julie sets Tyreese on edge because it is a facet of the social dynamic he's not fully in control of; catching Glenn with Maggie is the event that pushes Hershel into ejecting Rick's group from the safety of his farm. Sex, physical contact, and pleasure are things we cling to when the world upends, but they also leverage already extant cleavages in the social dynamic--pairing off with one person is always already a matter of exclusion, and exclusion is a luxury that survivors don't have.
From the hip:
It's interesting that the introduction of Tyreese--a powerful, former NFL player--doesn't shake up the masculine pecking order established earlier in the comic. He doesn't seem to challenge Rick's leadership of the group in any meaningful way. Is it assumed that the leader of the group will be white and this is just an unspoken part of the job's requirements?
The depiction of Glenn as not masculine enough to be a leader is reinforced by the later revelation that he is a virgin. But now that he's got some stank on his hang-low I'm curious to see how his place in the larger narrative evolves. Also worth noting: Glenn isn't positioned as a potential leader and he's also not a white guy.
I stopped watching the tv adaption of The Walking Dead once they reached the farmhouse because their stay there seemed interminable. The comic handles this episode at a much brisker pace; the comic's depiction of those events is quicker moving and ultimately more satisfying because of it.
Labels: forbidden tomes, the walking dead
One Night at Fayaz's
Campaign: Scarabae (Open Table 5e D&D)
Theobaldo, the Marques de Carabas - refined and gentlemanly tabaxi rogue
Mortimer - pugilistic human monk
Dr. Aleister Wiffle - human fighter conducting research into infectious diseases
Ash - human monk and accomplished sprinter
Zunx - fidgety little warlock mole-ish thing
Objective: To find a dwarf child in a Chuck E. Cheese gone mad and return him to his father
The crew was assembled in the early hours of the morning by Koska, who sent messengers to fetch them to a location on Porthos Street in the Redgutter Ward. The client is a male dwarf whose beard is threaded with gems. He sits in a gilded carriage and speaks to the party through the carriage window. He explains that his young son Allan attended a pizza party at Fayaz's Pleasure Palace for Children last night, but come this morning he discovered that neither his son nor the servant sent as his son's chaperone had returned. Surmising that his son was still at Fayaz's, he sent three armed servants into the building to find his son, but...they never came out again.
Gesturing to the building across the street, the dwarf pointed out Fayaz's. The building is a single story tall and built from new brick, with a faux gilt dome on top and a gaudy sign out front. Strangely, the building had no windows. Scouting the perimeter revealed that there is a front entrance and a side entrance that is probably used to bring in foodstuffs for the kitchen. Ominous black clouds whirled above the building, propelled by winds that no one on the street can feel.
The characters chose the front door for their initial point of entry. Inside the front door they found three ticket booths, all of which were occupied by the corpses of the ticket-sellers. The room was illuminated by an enchanted, glowing ceiling. Obnoxiously loud carnival music blared from speakers in every room of the restaurant. The corpse of a gray-haired elf lay face down on the carpet in front of a door marked MANAGER'S OFFICE. Examination of the elf's body indicated that he had been assaulted by something capable of both bludgeoning him and slashing his vest to ribbons. Rifling his pockets gained the party a set of keys that unlocked the manager's office.
The manager's office proved to be fairly mundane, save for a crystal ball on the desk. When fiddled with, the ball swirled with mist and then resolved itself into an image of what appeared to be a women's bathroom. The characters had tuned in just in time to see the door to the bathroom close--something was on the move.
Further manipulation of the crystal ball showed them a room lined with mechanical rides and games such as a magic dart board and an automatized whack-a-mole. Seated upon the mechanical rides were three corpses armed with swords, presumably the dwarf's servants who had been sent in prior and who had not returned. The final image the party got out of playing with the crystal ball was a constructed pit filled with multicolored rubber balls. Also in view were what appeared to be naked, chubby pink legs walking out of view. The party wondered if these legs might belong to overgrown babies, and they weren't half-wrong.
And then...the crystal ball suddenly went dim and the glowing ceiling extinguished, leaving the crew in total darkness.
A lantern now lit, the group decided to retreat outside and try the side entrance--which put them in a pantry filled with shelves of canned ingredients and bags of flour used to make the pizzas served at Fayaz's. Aleister opened a door to see what was beyond; he found the restaurant's kitchen and also two human-sized mechanical cherubs staring back at him blankly.
Shutting the door quickly and informing his fellows of what was approaching, Aleister and co. readied themselves. Mortimer quickly tied a couple aprons together; when the cherubs wrenched the door to the pantry off its hinges he was able to throw it over a cherub's head to "blind" it. The rest of the party let loose a barrage of gunfire, rapier stabs, and fisticuffs that quickly brought the two automatons down.
From the kitchen, the party entered the dining room where they found several long tables still laden with food and drink. Unfortunately, they also found many adults who were either parents or staff, all of them apparently dead save for one half-orc woman. At their right was a long stage full of mechanical cherubs going through their prescribed motions--some were dancing, others playing instruments.
The half-orc woman muttered something about "the children" and "the control room." Aleister decided it would be best to carry the half-orc woman back into the kitchen where they could tend to her wounds; as he was carrying her back to kitchen, however, the fattest of the cherubs on the stage shot her with an arrow and things looked grim for her, and the party, at that moment.
Battle broke out between the crew, the fat cherub, and a cherub drummer who also left the stage to join in the fray. The party managed to put a lot of bullets into the fat cherub, but the situation become worse when the opposition was joined by four more of the mechanical monstrosities. (These four were the ones they had caught glimpses of in the crystal ball in the manager's office.)
In the ensuing battle, the party started to take quite a beating. Two of the cherubs (including the deadly bow-wielding one) were taken down, but Mortimer and Theobaldo both went down as well. Sensing the tide of battle turning against them, the remaining members of the group dragged their comrades back to the relative safety of the kitchen where they were patched up by Dr. Wiffle.
Oddly, the cherubs did not pursue them into the kitchen. Exploring a different path through the building brought them to a janitor's closet and then to Fayaz's control room. Listening at the door let the crew hear whispering voices seemingly talking to themselves. How they would storm the room was much debated. At last, they threw open the door, ready to hack and slash but...no one was inside.
Built into the desk were a number of switches and dials used to control the various enchantments at work in the building. Also on the desk were a crystal ball like the one in the manager's office and a large black egg swirling with shadowy power. Zunx used his magic to manipulate the control panel to restore the light throughout the building and (finally) kill the ever-present music. Zunx also picked up the crystal ball and...sent it crashing into the black egg, shattering both. (And, it should be added, severing the outside influence exerting control over Fayaz's mechanical cherubs.)
Although normalcy was restored, they still hadn't found any children. The next door the party tried opened into a long hallway lined with half-built or semi-repaired cherubs. Fearing that the automatons could come to life at any moment and overtake them, they decided to test their apparent inactivity.
Ash volunteered to sprint the length of the hallway, turn around, and sprint back so that his fellows could pick off anything that came after him. Ash ran his race safely; nothing sprang out at him or followed in his wake. A more cautious exploration of the hallway revealed that several children were hiding behind the cherubs, including Alan, the dwarf boy they had been sent to rescue.
The crew ushered the children outside, reuniting Alan with his father--who certainly won't be winning any Parent of the Year awards, as he seemed to have trouble recognizing his offspring, but such is the way of rich folk who leave the upbringing of their heirs to servants.
The party returned inside, as they knew that there should have been more children inside that they hadn't found. They were right, but there were no more children to be discovered within. What had happened to them? The only clue they discovered was a black ashen ring featuring leaf-like sigils burned into the floor of a workshop--a sign they recognized as belonging to the Children of Fimbul, a dark sect of druids that wish to begin the apocalypse to rid the world of machines and usher in the rebirth of a more natural age.
The Take:
XP - 205 each.
Assorted coins and jewelry looted throughout the premises and your fee from the dwarf: 318 gp each.
The crystal ball from the manager's office will allow you to see into any room of Fayaz's, which might come in hand if you ever need to peek into whatever business sets up shop in the building. Fayaz's is undoubtedly closed for business.
That smoke-able stash of drugs you found in the kitchen turns out to be magical; when smoked it functions as a potion of heroism.
Two of the now-dead parents were apparently in the habit of communicating to each other with a pair of sending stones.
One woman was wearing a bracelet of prayer beads; 5 of them turn out to be beads of force.
Talk among yourselves and let me know how you want to distribute the magic items.
Labels: 5e, actual play, scarabae
The Art of Gothic: Britain's Midnight Hour
There is a hallowed tradition with this sort of BBC documentary: at some point it's going to go comically off the rails. The first third is the strongest bit; it gives a lively and informed overview of the Gothic as a historic term, a style of architecture, and a burgeoning literary form that officially started with the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto but already had deep roots in British literature. If I had a nit to pick with the first episode of the series it would be that Ann Radcliffe didn't get nearly as much spotlight as she deserves as an innovator in the mode. Radcliffe's short-shrift is emblematic of a recurrent problem throughout The Art of Gothic; this documentary seems to imagine the Gothic as the province of male thinkers and male artists without daring to peer outside that blinkered view. (Mary Shelley and Jane Austen are the exceptions, but then, they always are, aren't they?)
But it's in the second act where things start to go a bit strange. The documentary is forced to grapple with a time line in which the Gothic enters a fallow period in the mid-nineteenth century, and thus it starts creating dubious links between cultural artifacts and a larger Gothic worldview to fill in the gaps. Analysis of Augustus Pugin's work on Westminster Palace gets spun-out into grandiose feelings about the inherent darkness of his architectural and decorative ideas (with Charles Barry's work on the Houses of Parliament oddly downplayed to fit the narrative), and the discussion of renaissance faire cod-medievalism is a square peg being fitted to a round hole.
Worse yet, untenable claims begin to crop up. The idea that the nineteenth-century Gothic made self and identity the site of phantasmagoric horrors is advanced, seemingly without knowledge of James Hogg's eighteenth-century work in the same vein or a consideration that the horrors of self and identity informed the Gothic's literary ancestors. A case is made for Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater as the invention of drug usage as escapism, which conveniently ignores a long history of European alcoholism at the very least.
The third acts starts briskly by giving pride of place to Bram Stoker's Dracula and the various cinematic terrors it inspired, but the documentary ultimately does what many contemplations of the Gothic attempt--it aims to make the Gothic more respectable by tracing its lineage to markers of Real Culture in the twentieth century. Sure, we can read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as colonial Gothic, but then T. S. Eliot is dragged in, one imagines against his will, as is Francis Bacon. All the insight displayed in the first hour of the series falls away, leaving us with the lazy notion that if a thing is grotesque it's probably Gothic. The ending moments are the most cringe-worthy, as they reveal--in what is probably the most British flourish ever--that the mobile phone is the true modern form of the vampire! Muahaha, the call is coming from inside the house!
Bad Books for Bad People: The Incal
Listen here, listen now, listen until the end of time!
After failing in his quest to find financing for his 18- to 24-hour-long film version of Frank Herbert's Dune, Chilean-French filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo and Santa Sangre) partnered with French artist Moebius to create a science fiction graphic novel titled The Incal. This epic, first published between 1981 and 1988, takes its hapless hero John DiFool across strange galaxies while providing a platform for Jodorowsky to explore his esoteric ideas, which blend shamanism, the tarot, Freudian psychoanalysis, and theater. As you might gather, there's a lot going on here.
Jack and Kate break down how Dune's DNA exists within The Incal even though its creators take the tale in a direction that's far more madcap, alchemical, and... well, French.
Can a work of art succeed at being both serious and light-hearted at the same time? Why are women so goddamn allegorical? Is there such a thing as an unfilmable graphic novel? Who is Kill Wolfhead and why is he the best? Find out all this and more in this month's episode of Bad Books for Bad People.
Intro/Outro Music: "5:55" by Charlotte Gainsbourg and Air.
Find us at BadBooksBadPeople.com, on Twitter @badbooksbadppl, Instagram @badbooksbadpeople and on Facebook. You can discover where to get all the books featured on Bad Books for Bad People on our reading list.
Labels: bad books for bad people
Three Wells I Drink From to Bring Them Pain and Torment
A lot gets written about RPGs. A lot of it is forgettable. (I know because I write a lot about RPGs and then immediately forget about it.) Here are three articles/essays/whatever that I keep coming back to, and what I've learned from them:
Yes I Sank Your Barge, by James Wallis
Lesson learned - If you want your game to be dramatic and fun, you can't allow the characters or their players to become complacent. You have to keep their lives "interesting," by which I mean "terrible."
A 16 HP Dragon, written by Stras, archived at Sage LaTorra's page
Lesson learned - It isn't the numbers that players should fear in your game, it's how you use words to make the opposition worthy of fear.
Grand Experiments: West Marches, by Ben Robbins
Lesson learned - How you set up the social aspect of the game changes how the game is played. It's worthwhile to think about how you can arrive at the kind of game-play you want through altering the relationship of the players to the game.
Labels: dm tools
The Darkness is Eternal, Unfettered, and Hungry.
How oft on yonder grave, sweetheart,
Where we were want to walk,
The fairest flower that e'er I saw
Has withered to a stalk
Campaign: Krevborna (5th edition D&D)
Kylic, fey-blooded half-elf cleric who feels an evil at work in the bones of the world
Luka, self-sacrificing human ranger who has lately converted to religious service
Tristan, human paladin who has sworn an oath of vengeance against the undead
Objectives: To kill the Master!
The party convened at the behest of Kylic, who used his network of urchins to pickpocket both Luka and Tristan and lead them into a dead-end alley where he could dramatically tell them that he felt the eyes of the Master elsewhere for the moment. With the Master distracted, his mind on other matters, Kylic felt that this was the time to strike and rid the land of his vampiric menace!
Two days later, the party took to the road. The weather had turned unseasonably cold, and what remained of the harvest still lay in the fields--but it was now blanketed by snow.
As the party traveled southeast toward the coast, they encountered a vagabond woman named Annoushka and her child making camp for the evening. Tristan approached the woman and discovered that she is a tinker. As she posed no danger, the group joined her camp for the evening and partook of her lentil stew.
When asked if she knew anything about the Master's castle, Annoushka informed that she had passed it but had given it a wide berth. She said that a forest of impaled bodies stood before the castle now, and that it was a place "where hope goes to die," which proved to be oddly prophetic. Much of the conversation proved to be unplanned foreshadowing; when Tristan expressed his burning need for vengeance against the undead, Annoushka warned him that this was something that could consume him. Similarly, much was made throughout the session of the notion of Luka as a self-sacrificing man whose fate tended toward doom.
The party arrived at the black castle of the Master after a few days of additional travel. The iron gate was wide open, which marked a change since the last time Kylic had ventured inside. Annoushka had informed them truly of the forest of the impaled; Luka would diligently to behead each corpse in fear that they might rise up against them if they had to make a sudden retreat from the castle. Sadly, there would be no retreat for most of the party.
The heavy, iron-studded doors of the castle swung open easily; either the party was expected or the residents generally had no fear of intrusion. Inside, the group began to explore. Kylic, in particular, was driven to reach the highest points of the castle.
The dining room in which hung the painting featuring the now-deceased Anton Sellvek was rediscovered. A bell tower was ascended as well, but so far there was no sign of the castle's inhabitants.
The music room, however, did prove to be occupied by a woman in a white lace dress seated at a harpsichord. Since her back was turned to the party, Luka decided that the best course of action was to sneak up behind her and attempt to end her life abruptly. Although he did get the drop on her and managed to inflict grievous wounds that turned her white lace to a crimson field of gore, she managed to find her feet and transfixed Luka in place--his lungs felt like they were filling with water and he found that he could not move from the spot.
Tristan and Kylic moved to Luka's aid. A door in the music room flew open and a thin, young butler with slicked-back black hair entered the room. The wounded woman was easily dispatched, but a wave of hatred and anger emanated from the servant that inflicted horrid pain on the party. The butler did not attack them directly, but whenever his stare fell upon one of our heroes it brought horrible thoughts and images to their mind's eye.
This was to be the first to two battles that went back and forth; characters repeatedly went down under the barrage of negative emotions and psychic attacks rippling from the butler, bringing them to death's door, only to be revived by healing magic so the fray could continue as things spiraled dangerously out of the party's control. Ultimately, they were victorious and the butler fell has Tristan split his head with a deft halberd attack. The party barred the doors and recuperated as best they could.
Further exploration revealed an iron spiral staircase leading up into a clock tower. Amidst the machinery, Kylic sensed their quarry looming in the shadows. After a very short burst of banter that confirmed to Kylic that the slender, bearded "man" was indeed the Master, Kylic attempted to take him by surprise with a blast of holy power, but unfortunately his spell missed and the time for talk was now over.
Much like their previous battle, this one was back-and-forth. Tristan, Kylic, and Luka all went down at some point only to be brought back to fight again until...a stalemate, of sorts. Tristan had previously abjured the Master with powerful magic that had made the vampire feel fear, but the Master had felled Luka with a vicious claw attack and now held him on the point of death as a hostage.
Tristan attempted to barter for Luka's life, but all the Master wanted was for Tristan to break his oaths as a paladin and devotee of St. Othric--which Tristan could not bring himself to do. Seeing the catastrophe unfolding before his eyes, Kylic fled back down the stairs, out of the castle, and ran toward the party's carriage. Tristan considered running as well, leaving Luka to his fate, but ultimately it was in his nature to stand against the darkness even at the cost of his own life. Tristan made one last valiant attempt at slaying the master, but he too fell before the count's rending claws.
Both Luka and Tristan had moments of lucidity as the horror that is the Master remade them in his own image. Through a blood-red haze they saw the Master bending toward them, they could feel a rush of anguish and pleasure as the vampire feasted upon their blood. When they regained consciousness they were no longer men of valor and conviction; they were now accursed creatures of the midnight hour bent to the will of a greater evil.
The Spoils:
XP - Kylic receives 1000 XP
Post-Mortem:
This turned out to be an action-packed session that was a roller coaster of hit points lost and gained, more death saves than any one session has ever called for, and the tragic death of Krevborna's two longest-lived and much-beloved player characters. As much as I'll miss having Luka and Tristan in the game, that's where the choices led and where the dice fell.
For much of the session it felt like the players were doing a "speed run" to the final boss; they pushed hard and fast in their exploration, focusing on finding and fighting the Master. Unfortunately, that had repercussions. Luka's attack on the woman in white did a good job of taking her out quickly--but ambushing her actually removed a potential ally for the party who knew the ins and outs of the castle and the Master's various weaknesses.
Similarly, the rush to the clock tower left much of the castle unexplored; there were a number of things to be discovered that hinted at better tactics or points of leverage, but they went unseen. At one point Kylic had the idea that the clock tower's mechanisms were connected to the Master's invasion of Krevborna from the nightmarish realm of his origin--this wasn't correct, but he was on the right track that the clock tower did have a purpose that the party could use to their favor.
Of course, in any game with dice it's also going to come down to where the bones fall. The Master was tough opposition, but not insurmountable. What did tip the scales in his favor was that I rolled two critical hits against Luka and one against Tristan, which turned the tide greatly in his favor since the party was running low on healing resources. Conversely, some of the characters were faced with bad luck on their rolls--such as Kylic's spell attacks.
I was on the edge of my seat during the battle against the Master, that roiling feeling present in the belly as everything fell apart for the characters, and the next day I was fairly bummed out about their dooms. All this means, of course, that the players were doing their jobs and created characters worthy of emotional investment.
When will we meet again, sweetheart,
When will we meet again?
When the autumn leaves that fall from the trees
Are green and spring up again
Colonial Cocktails, Victorian Cock Tales, Deborah Harry's Kink
A Survival Guide to Colonial Cocktails
(Kristen Hartke for NPR)
The Secret History of Holywell Street: Home to Victorian London's Dirty Book Trade
(Matthew Green for The Public Domain Review)
Experience Necessary: Deborah Harry in Videodrome
(Howard Hampton for The Criterion Collection)
Pyrads, the Keepers of the Flame
Pyrads are fey maidens who tend the sacred bonfires that are said to be the fey's source of endless rebirth and immortality. As long as such bonfires remain lit, the fey host will always return to soulless life after death. It is the duty of the pyrads to feed, nurture, and protect the bonfires to which they are bound.
A pyrad's demeanor changes with the season. In the spring and summer, they are wild and frivolous, dancing and frolicking amidst the flames of their bonfires. In the autumn and winter they grow solemn and vicious as the flames of their fires gutter and weaken.
Pyrad
Medium fey, chaotic neutral
Armor Class 13; Hit Points 22 (5d8); Speed 30ft.
STR 10 (+0) DEX 16 (+3) CON 11 (+0) INT 14 (+2) WIS 15 (+2) CHA 18 (+4)
Skills Perception +4, Stealth +5; Senses darkvision 60ft
Perception 14; languages Ignan, Sylvan; Challenge 2 (450 XP)
Innate Spellcasting. The pyrad's innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 14). The pyrad can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
At will: produce flame
3/day each: faerie fire, thunderwave
1/day each: resistance, heat metal, flame blade
Magic Resistance. The pyrad has advantage on saving throws
against spells and other magical effects.
Speak with Beasts and Plants. The pyrad can communicate
with beasts and plants as if they shared a language.
Leaping Ember. Once on her turn, the pyrad can use 10 feet of her
movement to step magically into one bonfire within her
reach and emerge from a second bonfire within 60 feet of
the first fire, appearing in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of '
the second fire. Both bonfires must be large or bigger.
Flame Blade. Melee Spell Attack: +6 to hit reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 fire damage
Fey Charm. The pyrad targets one humanoid or beast that she
can see within 30 feet of her. If the target can see the pyrad, it
must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or be magically
charmed. The charmed creature regards the pyrad as a trusted
friend to be heeded and protected. Although the target isn't
under the pyrad's control, it takes the pyrad's requests or
actions in the most favorable way it can.
Each time the pyrad or its allies do anything harmful to the target, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success. Otherwise, the effect lasts 24 hours or until the pyrad dies, is on a different plane of existence from the target, or ends the effect as a bonus action. If a target 's saving throw is successful, the target is immune to the pyrad's Fey Charm for the next 24 hours.
The pyrad can have no more than one humanoid and up to three beasts charmed at a time.
Based on the dryad, obviously.
Labels: 5e, krevborna, monsters
Ascend in Winter, Descend as Fire
Click here to listen to a 8tracks mix entitled Ascend in Winter, Descend as Fire.
† Isa - The Tree
† Katatonia - Tomb of Insomnia
† Imperium Dekadenz - An Autumn Serenade
† Opeth - The Grand Conjuration
† Ahab - The Sun Below
† Evoken - The Mournful Refusal
† Neurosis - Fire is the End Lesson
† Der Weg Einer Freiheit - Requiem
Labels: dirgecraft, howls of the damned
Momentous Events: A Replacement for Inspiration in 5e D&D
Generally, the way you get Inspiration in 5e is by roleplaying in accordance with your character's Personality Traits, Ideal, Bond, and Flaw. This means that the ways in which your character gets Inspiration are largely determined at character creation; a good DM would likely give you the option of changing Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws as you play, but whether you roll on the random tables provided for your character's background or invent your own you've got them set up before play even starts.
But what about tying the Inspiration mechanic to the events of the game as it is played instead? Below is a hack I wrote inspired by an idea that Erik of Wampus Country floated on G+:
Get rid of Personality Traits, Ideal, Bond, and Flaw on the character sheets for your game. Have a blank space titled Momentous Events or Legendarium or Tall Tales or whatever best fits the aesthetics of your game.
After each session of play, ask each player what the most memorable moment (a "Momentous Event") for their character was in the session. Have them write that event down in a single line in that blank space you've made on the character sheet.
Some examples of appropriate Momentous Events: "Punched Tiamat and lived to tell the tale," "Convinced the Frost Giant Jarl to end the War of the Nine Planes," "Lone survivor of the Bullywug Marches expedition," "Contracted the plague," etc.
Each event that a character accumulates after sessions of play can be invoked once per session to grant the character advantage if they can relate how their past experience is helping them out in the current situation. Essentially, calling on that event grants them immediate Inspiration--as long as the DM or maybe maybe group consensus agrees that the event if applicable.
A character can only have three Momentous Events from past sessions on their character sheet at a time. After accumulating three events they can choose to swap an old one for a new event they've just experienced after a session concludes--basically, they get to choose which events are shaping their character's personality, outlook, or legend. Or maybe traumas endured, depending on your game.
Spoilers ahead, I guess, but if anything I'm doing you a favor by spoiling this film.
tl;dr summary: The Green Inferno is like when a particularly exploitative issue of National Geographic has a baby with a gag-laden issue of Fangoria.
It turns out that building a movie from lazy, stupid stereotypes makes for a lazy, stupid film. College kids are ~ignorant and ~arrogant, activists are ~the real problem, brown people are ~savages, women are ~catty, etc. Oddly , the film feels like it was made by someone with very little life experience who is relying on the echo chamber of narrow minds for ideas. Things it appears Eli Roth does not understand: how undergrads talk, how marijuana works, what an interesting film might be like.
Eli Roth's usual mixture of gore and slapstick humor is especially cack-handed here; at every turn it works against the premise of a horror film. I think we're supposed to feel traumatized when the plane goes down in the rain forest, but that's undercut by one character puking on himself during the descend and another RUNNING INTO A PROPELLER like a Looney Tunes character once they're on the ground. I think we're supposed to feel dread when these dopey undergrads are taken captive to be cannibalized, but that's undercut by weed humor, one character beating off in front of the others so he can "clear his head," and another experiencing some very explosive diarrhea. Anything that could add terror or horror or abjection to this tired pile of cliches is undercut almost immediately.
The Case of the Abducted Drake
Theobaldo, tabaxi gentleman rogue
Volgo, monstrous barbarian who threatens to eat his foes
Mortimer, street fightin' human monk
The party arrives at the office of their sometimes-employer (Koska, a tiefling woman with prehensile hair) to find her taking coffee with another tiefling woman wearing a white carnival mask. Koska explains that the woman is their client, and that her pet drake was stolen from her apartment. The job is to find out who abducted the woman's pet and to retrieve it. Due to necessary discretion, the party won't be allowed to search the scene of the crime, but they are assured that the woman's servants have been cleared of any wrongdoing and are told that the drake must have been smuggled out of the small window in the room in which it was kept.
The party's first stop on their investigation is to see Voone Jaskar, a turtleman who everyone knows buys and sells illicit goods at his pawn shop in Redgutter. No one has tried to sell Voone a drake lately, and he remarks that there isn't much market for rare pets like that in the local underworld. He does offer to put the characters in touch with the Kneecutters, a local gang of "half-pints" (halflings, goblins, kobolds, etc.) who run the local protection racket.
Next, the party stops by Goodneighbor's Emporium, the only department store in Redgutter Ward. They ask the clerk about a cage big enough for a drake, and find out that the store had just sold a cage of the same make and model a few days prior. Pressing for details, they find out that the cage was sold to a ratman named Creel, but unfortunately the address he gave at the time of purchase proves to be fictitious.
On the way to ask Wick, the fire genasi bartender at the Bullroarer Tavern, Brewery, and Sauna about Creel, the party realize that they are being clumsily shadowed by four figures--two kobolds, a goblin, and a halfling. Mortimer uses his amazing agility to scale a wall unseen and drop down behind the pursuers, while Volgo approaches the halfling and immediately begins to threaten to eat him. Picking the halfling up like a sack of meal, Volgo brings him to Theobaldo for questioning. The party learns that the half-pints are all from the Kneecutter gang, that Creel is the leader of a rival gang called the 47 Rodents, and that the group can call on the Kneecutters if they make a move against the 47 Rodents because, hey, one less gang in Redgutter means less competition for the Kneecutters.
At the Bullroarer, the party refreshes themselves with ale and goat curry. Wick tells them that the 47 Rodents are no longer welcome at the Bullroarer, and she gives the party the location of their hideout along an abandoned stretch of Redgutter's docks.
Hoping to scope out the hideout of the 47 Rodents before attempting to find the missing drake, Theobaldo hides in the rubble of a ruined warehouse, Mortimer climbs a ladder to the roof of a still-extant warehouse, and Volgo pretends to fish off the pier. The sound of a metal door opening is heard and Volgo sees a man dressed in a robe of filthy furs exit the warehouse that Mortimer is atop of; the man makes his way to the ladder at the side of the building, but is arrested by Theobaldo, who pretends to be an officer of the law demanding information. The man says that he is a priest and a neighbor of the 47 Rodents.
Mortimer descends from the building by scaling down its rough stone walls, but unfortunately he nearly slips and lets out a loud grunt. He and Volgo explore the priest's warehouse, where they find his cot, some personal effects, and an altar on which is a stone statue of a hideous, horned, multi-eyed rat.
Mortimer's grunt had been heard in the warehouse next door; the party hears a door shut softly and the approach of malefactors. Two ratmen with wicked curved knives and one ratman with a drawn pistol stand at the ready. They're all wearing leather armor with an insignia featuring a 47 above a rat skull. Mortimer rushes one of the knifemen and shanks him handily, then punches the other in the face. Mortimer is stabbed in return by the dead ratman's compatriot. Volgo rushes at the gunman, but the gunman is toppled by a shot from Theobaldo.
Another shot rings out. Someone is firing at the party from below! Volgo lops the head off the remaining knifeman and leaps through a hole in the dock to land next to a larger ratman below. The ratman drops his pistol, draws a cutlass, and nearly kills Volgo in one horrendous swipe. Volgo is enraged and destroys his foe mightily.
Topside, a hairless rat clambers up the wood of a ladder from down below. It staggers like a poisoned thing, its skin bubbling up like cheese under a broiler. It splits into three hairless rat things, and they all charge at Theobaldo. Theobaldo spots the priest attempting to flee the scene, pounces at him with great alacrity, but only manages to grab onto the man's gross robe of pelts, which comes away in his hand, leaving the priest running down the street naked. When Mortimer threatens to destroy the priest's rat idol, the man turns and shouts "I'm thinking about converting to another religion! The rat god isn't working out." He escapes.
Meanwhile, Mortimer and Theobaldo deal with the multiplying rat beasts by throwing flaming debris at them and by creating a makeshift gunpowder trap. However, Theobaldo is bit in the melee, and contracts a horrifying disease that will later cause him to wake up next to an inert copy of his own body that he shed overnight.
Volgo discovers the rat leader's shack of corrugated metal beneath the boardwalk, and finds a pile of looted goods and a sleeping drake in a cage that matches the one they saw earlier at the Emporium. The drake is asleep, apparently drugged by the rat men to keep it docile.
The drake is returned to its owner, a sample of the weird rat-thing's flesh is taken in case Theobaldo turns out to be infected (he is), and a hit list against the Kneecutters found in the 47 Rodent's stash is turned over to the rival gang, who promise to take out whatever remains of the ratmen upstarts.
XP - 283 each
270 gp for returning the drake
73 gp 190 sp 9 cp
Statue of THE CHITTERER (50 gp)
Copper hairpin topped with a bawdy mermaid in silver (5 gp)
Copper teakettle (1 gp)
Polished brass buttons (5 sp)
Silver fork (1 sp)
Sapphire earrings (275 gp)
Silver dagger (50 gp)
Gold ring with inset emerald (310 gp)
Engraved parade helmet (5 gp)
A ring of old keys
Four syringes of sedatives, six syringes of adrenalizer
The priest's staff (allows the wielder to speak with rats and summon a rat swarm once per day)
--> 353 gp 2 sp 3 cp each for the salable items, unless somebody wants to keep any of this. Also, who's taking the staff?
Labels: actual play, scarabae
Bluebeard, A Woman's Touch, Icelandic Dracula
Bluebeard & the Final Girl: Feminist Retellings of Perrault's Classic (Sonya Vatomsky for Death and the Maiden)
A Woman's Touch: The Trinity of the Body in 'American Mary' (A. M. Novak for Vague Visages)
On Dracula's Lost Icelandic Sister Text (Hans Corneel de Roos for Lithub)
Midgard Campaign Setting: Dark Roads & Deep Magic
"Midgard Campaign Setting for 5th Edition and Pathfinder RPG: A 300+ page volume describing the Midgard regions, from the Northlands to the Western Wastes, and from the Southlands to the Crossroads. With detailed locations, cities, rulers, heraldry, plots, and adventure hooks galore, plus full details of the various pantheons, masked gods, and dark gods, there's enough here to fuel years of adventuring! In this updated edition, you'll get the expanded Blood Kingdom of Morgau and updates to Zobeck, the Cantons, the Western Wastes, and other regions. If we meet our goals, we'll also add the Shadow Realm and Blood Kingdom as standalone chapters, and may even open the golden gates of Khandiria... It's a rich and standalone edition of the setting."
I don't back many Kickstarters these days, but I backed this one because:
The premise of this setting sounds a lot like my own Krevborna (Eastern European folklore with extra vampire princes, ghoul empires, scheming fey, and sanity-blasting elder gods) but it definitely goes somewhere different with those influences. If nothing else, I suspect that this will be one of the few game products that at least feels compatible with my homebrew vision.
I've already gotten good use out of the Kobold Press stuff I already have, such as Tome of Beasts, Book of Lairs, and their new races for 5e. Their stuff has made my games better.
Their customer service is A+ and they seem to deliver on their Kickstarters.
So, if you're interested in backing something, you could do much worse than checking out Midgard--now available in 5e and Pathfinder flavors.
Labels: 5e, midgard
Waking Nightmares, Death is the Curator, The Secon...
Three Wells I Drink From to Bring Them Pain and To...
Colonial Cocktails, Victorian Cock Tales, Deborah ...
Momentous Events: A Replacement for Inspiration in...
Dita von Freeze, Nicki Mirage, Lady Nada - Three A...
Bad Medicine: Expanding the Medicine Skill in 5e D&D
Bad Wuthering Heights Covers, Bronte Family Traged...
The Dying Flames of Erendel
A New Look for Scarabae and Player's Page
A Hack for Adding a 1st Level Character to an Expe...
Total Skull - January 2017
Does Your Dungeon Pass the Whiteboard Test?


Life can be so difficult sometimes. There are situations that arise that almost seem to be more than we can bear. Sometimes, more than one situation arises and compiled together we feel as if we'll be crushed. The world looks bleak and all hope is lost. What do you do? Where do you turn? How do you get relief?
Recently Rev. Doug Clay, General Treasurer of the Assemblies of God, spoke at our church. He told a story about his daughter asking which member of the Trinity is really God. He told her to go get ready for bed and he would come and talk to her about it. When he went to tuck her in, she told him she had figured it out. God the Father was really God because He is the tallest. Rev. Clay made the decision not to correct her theology and that phrase has carried over to the rest of her life. While counseling a young lady, who was contemplating abortion and felt there was nowhere to turn, she was able to tell that young lady that God was bigger than the situation. She chose to give birth to that baby and give him up for adoption.
As I contemplated that phrase, "God is tallest", I looked at the situations going on in my life. It seems that on every side there has been nothing but trouble. Every time I turn around there's been more bad news. I realized that God was speaking to me that day. All of the situations coming at me seemed like more than I could bear, but He is taller than all of them. I've already seen God move.
My grandmother is 85 and has dementia. She recently made the decision to no longer drive at all. (She had been driving to church on Sunday mornings.) She was very fretful over missing church. I have been very concerned about her and trying to figure out how we can help her from eight hours away.
I spoke with her pastor and he is going to make sure she has a ride to church. I also spoke with a senior care group in her town and we can put her on a list to receive free lunches delivered to her Monday-Friday. In one day, God made a way to relieve my fears. He made a way for her to be taken care of when my Mom and I can't be with her.
Ephesians 3:20 (HCSB) says, "Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us".
God has shown me through this situation with my grandmother, and many others in my life, that He can do more than I even know to ask or think. What situations are you facing? What giants need to be shown that God is tallest? Trust Him to do more than you can ask or think.
Is the Bible Just A "Don't Book"?
1 Comment on "God is Tallest"


KBS TV series "God of Study", starring Kim Soo-ro and Bae Doo-na, is seeing its ratings soar just two weeks into its showing.
According to statistics released by TNS Media Korea on Wednesday, the Monday/Tuesday evening drama scored a viewership rating of 26.3 percent during its fourth episode broadcast yesterday, gaining 3.2 percent from the previous night. The show was also the most-watched TV show during its time slot at 9:55 p.m.
Figures by research firm AGB Nielson Media also indicated that "Study" was faring well, topping its ratings chart with a 23.5 percent viewership rating on Tuesday, compared to a 21.2 percent rating the previous day.
"Study", which premiered last week, is about a determined lawyer (played by Kim Soo-ro) who offers to teach five rebellious students and get them accepted into the country's top college. The drama also stars some of the best young actors in Korea including Yoo Seung-ho, Lee Hyun-woo and Go Ah-sung.


Gary Sutcliffe stepping down as President and Brad Lowe stepping up!
The SAGM took place on May 8th. At this meeting, Brad Lowe was voted in as President of Marpole Curling Club after his term as Vice President. Dale Cameron is Vice President, Susanne Whalley remains Treasurer and Tammy Cameron also remains as Secretary. Marian Dickens, Rebecca Gibbons, Jineane Payne, Ryan Eason, Keith Parry, Thomas Friesen, Deb Pound and Heather McMannus continue as Board Members with the welcomed addition of Gary Roper.
Sandra Krego presenting Gary Sutcliffe with the Lifetime Membership Award.
Gary Sutcliffe will remain on the board in the capacity of Past President. Gary has worked extremely hard for the club over the years as both a board member as well as a fellow curler. It was with great honor that Past President Sandra Krego presented Gary Sutcliffe with the Lifetime Membership Award for his long list of contributions to the club. His countless efforts have always been performed with integrity, commitment and authenticity and greatly contributed to the successful continuation of the club.
As Manager, I would like to say that I am looking forward to working with such a great team of Executives and Board Members. Over the past months in this position as well as the past years as a club member, I have seen the volunteered hours that they have provided to the club, generating amazing outcomes such as leading leagues, coaching juniors, organizing bonspiels, securing advertising partners, club maintenance and countless other efforts that have benefited the club tremendously. The Board's implementation of a strategic plan, integrating with all of the other functions they perform, provide the club with a promising future and I am proud to work beside them.
Many thanks go to the Marpole Curling Club Foundation for their extraordinary fundraising efforts throughout the season. Events such as the garage sale, plant sale and silent auction accumulated enough funds to generously donate a cheque to the Club for $10,000. Their contribution is respectfully appreciated and gratefully accepted.
On behalf of the MCC Foundation, Charlie Holden presenting a cheque to Marpole Curling Club for $10,000. Accepting for the club is Gary Sutcliffe.
A tremendously huge thank you to the MCC foundation and all the wonderful volunteers who pulled off yet another successful Garage Sale. It is truly amazing to see such stellar folks put in so much time and effort for the benefit of the club. For weeks people came to the club, sorted, priced and packed up items. On the weekend of the sale, they were here extremely early setting up, then selling and tearing down just to do it all over again the next day. The BBQ was sizzling and the weather was perfect. A special thank you to Ken and Connie Bailey. Connie outdid herself this year with organizing every detail.
Again, on behalf of the staff and Board of Directors, a sincere thank you to everyone involved.


text:
{-# LANGUAGE UnicodeSyntax #-}
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveDataTypeable #-}
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleContexts #-}
-- Do no complain about the System.Timeout import.
{-# OPTIONS_GHC -fno-warn-unused-imports #-}

module Control.Concurrent.Timeout (
    timeout,
    threadDelay
  ) where

import Data.Typeable
import Data.Timeout
import Data.Unique
import Control.Applicative
import Control.Monad.Base
import Control.Exception
import qualified Control.Concurrent as C
-- Imported for Haddock.
import qualified System.Timeout as C

data TimeoutException = TimeoutException Unique
  deriving (Typeable, Eq)

instance Show TimeoutException where
  show _ = "<<timeout>>"

instance Exception TimeoutException

-- | A version of 'C.timeout' that takes 'Timeout' instead of number of
--   microseconds.
timeout ∷ MonadBase IO μ ⇒ Timeout → IO α → μ (Maybe α)
timeout tt _ | tt == instantly = return Nothing
timeout tt io = liftBase $ do
  pid <- C.myThreadId
  ex  <- TimeoutException <$> newUnique
  handleJust (\e -> if e == ex then Just () else Nothing)
             (\_ -> return Nothing)
             (bracket (C.forkIO (threadDelay tt >> C.throwTo pid ex))
                      (C.killThread)
                      (\_ -> Just <$> io))

-- | A version of 'C.threadDelay' that takes 'Timeout' instead of number of
--   microseconds.
threadDelay ∷ MonadBase IO μ ⇒ Timeout → μ ()
threadDelay tt | tt == instantly = return ()
threadDelay tt = liftBase $ C.threadDelay (fromIntegral us') >> go us'
  where us = tt #> MicroSecond
        maxUs = fromIntegral (maxBound ∷ Int)
        us' = maxUs `min` us
        go passed = case us - passed of
          0    → return ()
          left → C.threadDelay (fromIntegral us'') >> go us''
            where us'' = maxUs `min` left

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Resident DJ and longtime Sacramento underground party mover, Funksion, returns to PGR with some true global sickness! This is party time, the likes you'll only get in Sacramento at Phuture Global on 2nd Saturdays!
Come check out Funksion playing a B2B set with Gavin Varitech on July 13th as PGD welcomes Sacramento's house music OG, Karizma, back home!
Two hours of special guest deejay Vince Lobardi's 2.5 hour set at PGD in March. This is recorded live off the mixer with no editing of any kind (other than a fade in/out at the beginning/end since the original is a tad longer than this).
The vibe was dope at March's PGD and this set was a big part of it. Opener Erin Best and set up man Gavin Varitech played a big part in that too. And a big shout out to a bunch of local house dancers for setting it off!
Inspired by his set at PGD's opening night party in November get a taste of one of Northern California's best party time favorites. No filler or fluff, this is straight for the dancefloor house and techno, mixed impeccably, that will move your asses!
Our new resident deejay at Phuture Global Discotheque, as longtime friend and techno champion, Sacramento underground hero of the late 90's-early 2000's: Funksion brings us 90 minutes of tasty proper house and techno. This thing is great!


text:
Expert opinion: As we mark World AIDS Day, how is the UK fairing on treatment targets?
Peter McTigue from Nottingham Law School researches employment law and discrimination against People Living with HIV / AIDS. He discusses where the UK stands on ambitious targets set by UNAIDS.
World AIDS Day takes place on Monday 1 December and marks an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and commemorate those who have died.
The landscape in relation to HIV is changing rapidly and recently the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) has outlined its vision of achieving zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination in relation to HIV and zero AIDS-related deaths worldwide.
One way in which UNAIDS aims to achieve this vision is by setting ambitious targets for individual countries. These targets, which need to be reached by 2020, include making sure that 90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status; that 90% of people who know they are HIV positive are on treatment for the condition; and that 90% of people on treatment for the condition achieve an undetectable viral load i.e. the level of the virus in their body reaches a very low level.
It's important that the targets of UNAIDS are met – despite popular misconceptions people living with HIV can expect a near-normal life span if they are diagnosed promptly and, in addition, they are highly unlikely to transmit the virus onwards if the level of the virus in their body reaches undetectable levels.
Where then does the UK stand in relation to these targets? The UK's annual report in relation to HIV shows that there were an estimated 107,800 people living with HIV in the UK in 2013. The report also indicates that the country already provides HIV treatment to 90% of people attending clinical services and that 90% of those on treatment have an undetectable viral load.
Worryingly though, the country has a long way to go in ensuring that all people with HIV are aware of their HIV status - roughly a quarter of HIV positive people in the UK do not know that they are HIV positive. The only way this target will be met is by an increased uptake in individuals presenting for HIV tests.
There is still stigma associated with having a HIV test but in reality there is no reason people should be afraid to take a test. Testing for HIV at specialist clinics takes minutes rather than hours. The options for people wishing to get tested are also ever increasing.
Today, home testing kits are available which allow individuals to take a saliva sample or blood spot and send them off to a laboratory for testing. These are available to buy online and from some pharmacies. In addition, in the forthcoming months it will also be possible to buy self-testing kits that will allow an individual to test themselves and find out the results immediately.
These new opportunities for individuals to discover their HIV status should be welcomed as the earlier an individual discovers they have the virus the better their prognosis.
There is an old adage that knowledge is power - in relation to HIV not only is knowledge power, it also has the potential to save lives.
Peter McTigue
Senior Lecturer in Law
Nottingham Law School
Peter's research focuses on employment law and discrimination against people living with HIV / AIDS.
Press enquiries please contact Helen Breese, Public Relations Manager, on telephone +44 (0)115 848 8751, or via email.
Published on 1 December 2014
Category: Press office; Nottingham Law School
New facility to focus on production of medical devices and technologies
Work is well underway on Nottingham Trent University's new Medical Technologies Innovation Facility (MTIF) at the Boots site, which is part of the Nottingham Enterprise Zone.
ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2020/01/new-facility-to-focus-on-production-of-medical-devices-and-technologies
Molecule sheds light on autoimmune disease status
Scientists have for the first time identified a protein in the blood that can be used to accurately monitor the disease status of lupus and a range of other autoimmune diseases.
ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2020/01/molecule-sheds-light-on-autoimmune-disease-status
Nottingham Law School to train Crown Prosecution Service solicitor apprentices
Nottingham Law School (NLS) is to deliver Solicitor Apprenticeships for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after being awarded one of only two UK contracts.
ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2020/01/nottingham-law-school-to-train-crown-prosecution-service-solicitor-apprentices

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


1- To provide the student with a foundation in Human Anatomy and Physiology as preparation for more specialized courses in the fields of Nursing and Allied Health programs. 2- You will be introduced to clinical conditions and the relationship between normal and pathological anatomy and physiology and you have to be acquainted with the mechanics of the different processes that are involved. 3- Use the tools and guides provided and unleash your full potential. Prerequisites: Students enrolled in this class should have finished all theirs remedial/preparatory courses 2085lecture & Lab before taking this course.


Roofing, Siding, Gutters | Bailey, CO | R & R Roofing & Siding, Inc.
For more than 20 years, the experts at R & R Roofing & Siding have been providing Bailey, CO, and the surrounding areas with premium exterior services at affordable prices.
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Our family owned and operated business has won various awards over the years, including 2016 Best Roofing Company from The Flume Newspaper and multiple Master Elite Excellence Awards, as well as earning the national Master Elite Weather Stopper Roofing Contractor that is only awarded to three-percent of roofing contractors. From roofing installations and repairs to gutter replacement and new siding, we have the skills and experience necessary to give you the quality results you deserve.
Regardless of the material your roof is made of—or the replacement material you prefer—our team has you covered. As residential and commercial roofers, we offer metal roofing, asphalt shingles, flat roof installation and repair, and much more. Plus, we provide 24/7 emergency roof repairs across the region, ensuring you get the help you need when you need it. Rely on the area's leading roofing contractor to protect your home and your family for years to come.
Located in Park County, we serve everyone in the area. Call us today to schedule a consultation regarding your repair or installation and we'll give you a 100 percent free estimate on your service. We will get you in at the earliest possibility to assess your home or business, provide recommendations, and begin work on your project.
RR did great job through out the whole process. Provided great insight and guidance.When it came time to install the roof it was as if they hadn't even been there (besides new roof). No mess,shingles scraps etc. Highly recommend.
Recently had R&R out to replace an old (2 layer ?!?) composite shingle roof with metal and they did a fantastic job. The new roof is beautiful, very solid, and the clean up was superb. Definitely would recommend reaching out to Dennis and Tina at R&R.
R&R did a wonderful job replacing my roof. Mike, the salesman, came and took pictures of my roof and gutters and emailed them with the bid. Not only was the bid considerably less than other local contractors, Mike and the staff took care of my concerns/questions quickly. I would definitely recommend R&R Roofing.


Buying our first home is definitely one of the biggest decisions we have ever made. Getting ourselves to a long-term commitment, we knew we had to be very cautious and yet our excitement would very often get the best of us.
Maria and I have arrived in Melbourne on July 2018, and immediately started planning on getting a house of our own. We have been searching high and low, doing our fair bit of research for a couple of months, and still not feel any confident whether we were on the right track or not. On several occasions, we thought of just getting a random apartment close to the CBD and just get the whole thing started. Thank God we did not.
Fortunately, a colleague of mine heard of our ordeal and made a referral to a buyer's advocate. I was initially hesitant of 'hiring' someone to help us out for what seemed to be an 'easy work'. But we were keen on giving it a try as there was nothing to lose anyway, so we have set an appointment with Peter Rogozik.
Peter Rogozik is an absolute professional. He knew exactly the right questions to ask, and how to address every concern we had. He is a true wealth of information, and did not hold back. What we got during the initial meeting was a confirmation that finally, we are on the right track.
We have engaged Peter to help us out, and he did so for more than 4 months! As newcomers to Melbourne, we had absolutely no idea how to get started and where, but Peter was there helping us out in every way possible. When we ran into some uncertainties, Peter was always there – just a phone call away. Not once has he rushed us into making a decision, but instead, as the market was volatile, he advised us when to pace ourselves.
For myself, the best part of the whole engagement was that – not a single instance has Peter made me feel like he was just after our money. In fact, there were times when I felt we were not paying Peter for his service enough (because he's just that good) and I made an advance payment to him. I was dumbfound when Peter wanted to refund the money back and said I did not have to. What a guy!
We were on a tight budget, but Peter ensured that we will get the best for every buck we had and he really did! We had a very unreasonable checklist given our limited funds, but guess what? On the 16th of March this year, we bought our first home and everything in our checklist was ticked and almost DOUBLED – literally.
We are, beyond words, satisfied with Peter Rogozik's service. We wanted a nice home and a great investment, and we are very confident we got just that. All thanks to him.
Without a doubt, getting Peter Rogozik to help us out in this journey is the single best decision we have ever made! Piece of advice? Give it a shot, talk to him and see for yourself how he can be of help to you. I guarantee, you will not regret it.


text:
AJung Moon
ECSE557 - Ethics of AIS
AJung Moon an experimental roboticist. She investigates how robots and AI systems influence the way people move, behave, and make decisions in order to inform how we can design and deploy such autonomous intelligent systems more responsibly.
At McGill University, she is the Director of the McGill Responsible Autonomy & Intelligent System Ethics (RAISE) lab. The RAISE lab is an interdisciplinary group that investigates the social and ethical implications of robots and AI systems and explores what it means for engineers to be designing and deploying such systems responsibly for a better, technological future.
She is a Korean-Canadian and based in Montréal, Canada.
*The proper way to spell of her first name is with the two capital letters.
human-robot collaboration (e.g., collaborative assembly)
nonverbal communication (gestures, cues)
real-time human-robot negotiation using motions/gestures
AI ethics
translation of ethics principles into design/deployment/operation decisions
operations research into the 'value-add' of AI ethics approaches
embedding human values into predictive, data-driven algorithms
ethics and policy implications of autonomous intelligent systems (e.g., care robots, autonomous cars, lethal autonomous weapons)
Academic Positions & Affiliations
Director, RAISE Lab at McGill University
Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Associate Member of the McGill Centre for Intelligent Machines (CIM)
Associate Member of Mila
Associate member in the Bensadoun School of Retail Management (BSRM) in the Faculty of Management, McGill University
Founder and former director of Open Roboethics Institute (ORI)
Tech-Policy & ethics Work
Executive Committee Member of The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems
Panel Member of the International Panel on the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons (IPRAW)
A member of the Government of Canada Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence (2019-2021)
Senior Advisor to the d
McConnell Engineering Building
3480 University Street, Room 541
Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 0E9
Email: ajung.moon@mcgill.ca
Twitter: @RoboEthics


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General working rules for X-ray analysis machines
Safe working rules for the fluoroscopic X-ray machine in CTEC and LAF
Working rules for the dental X-ray machine
Working rules for Engineering Cabinet X-ray Units
Working rules for OHCWA Cabinet X-ray Units
Working rules for OHCWA extra-oral X-ray units
Working rules for OHCWA intra-oral dental X-ray units
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Our role is to develop and assist in the implementation of the UWA safety, health and wellbeing programs in order to minimise the risk of injury, illness and property damage.
We provide consultancy and other services to promote best practice and legislative compliance in all University and related activities.
Safety and Health has a checklist for XRA machines:
X-ray analysis equipment survey form	[PDF, 54.9 KB]
Updated 29 Feb 2012
X-ray analysis equipment survey form	[DOC, 1.1 MB]
X-ray producing equipment and its location must be registered with Safety and Health and the Radiological Council, and x-ray machines may only be used by, or under the supervision of, a person with an appropriate licence.
Separate licences to use analytical and diagnostic x-ray machines are required, as the training and operation of these machines are quite different.
In the case of analytical x-ray devices, legislation requires compliance with the NHMRC Code of Practice for the Safe Use of X-ray Analysis Equipment (1984).
The Code provides the major guidelines for the use of x-ray analysis (XRA) equipment and sets out in detail the responsibilities of the user (licence holder) and operator, and describes minimum requirements for XRA equipment design, working rules and radiation monitoring.
Working rules
All new procedures involving X-Ray equipment at UWA require the user to have completed a protocol application before starting work. Protocol forms are available from UWA Safety and Health or from the school radiation safety officer (SRSO).
The forms must be completed, signed by the applicant and signed by their supervisor before being sent to UWA Safety and Health for a final assessment. The application will be reviewed and if approved it is signed and issued with a protocol number. Copies of the approved protocol are sent to the applicant and the SRSO.
Any changes to an agreed protocol must be approved by UWA Safety and Health. Such changes may include the use of new equipment.
For X-Ray analysis work, use the form below:
X-Ray analysis protocol form	[DOC, 89.0 KB]
X-Ray analysis protocol form	[RTF, 985.9 KB]
For X-Ray diagnostic work, use the form below:
X-Ray diagnostic protocol form	[DOC, 89.5 KB]
X-Ray diagnostic protocol form	[RTF, 986.3 KB]
X-ray working rules are required to be posted in a prominent position in the X-ray area. Safety and Health also provides:
General working rules for X-ray analysis machines: these can be used as a starting point for specific X-ray analysis machines
Working rules for the fluoroscopic machines on campus
Working rules for OHCWA extra-oral dental X-ray units
Cabinet X-ray local working rules.
All XRA users at the University are encouraged to attend the X-ray Analysis Safety Course. It is expected that licensed users of partially enclosed XRA equipment (usually research group leaders) have adequate training and experience in XRA safety and that their supervised users are suitably instructed, trained and supervised.
The half-day X-ray Analysis Safety Course consists of lectures on:
basic physics of X-rays (production, interactions with matter, measurement, units)
hazards from X-ray equipment (acute, chronic, non-radiation)
safety procedures (interlocks, warning lights, shielding, enclosures, maintenance)
regulations (registration of equipment, licences of individuals, SRSOs' working rules)
an XRA safety video.
Assessment will take the form of an in-class, open-book test.
All users of fluoroscopic x-ray machines must have completed an approved non-radiologist fluoroscopy x-ray safety course. This course runs over half a day.
Only qualified imaging technologists or a technicians who are approved by the UWA Safety and Health Office are allowed to operate fluoroscopic X-ray equipment.
For further information contact Safety and Health on (+61 8) 6488 3938 or email.
There are different training and licensing requirements for those who service or make significant changes to x-ray equipment, as opposed to those who simply use x-ray equipment. For details about how to get the correct level of training contact Safety and Health on (+61 8) 6488 3938 or email.
The University of Western Australia
Future UWA Students
Current UWA Students
UWA Staff
CRICOS Code: 00126G
Indigenous Commitment
Tuesday, 6 February, 2018 4:41 PM
Website Feedback:
safety@uwa.edu.au
http://www.safety.uwa.edu.au/1718127


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The Luxembourg pub that belongs to its punters
Many people will only ever dream of owning their own pub but for 200 trusting investors in Luxembourg, this dream has become a reality with the opening of tribal bar Zulu Blanc.
(JB) Many people will only ever dream of owning their own pub but for 200 trusting investors in Luxembourg, this dream has become a reality.
On Thursday, the shareholders were able to see how their money was invested at the launch of new Luxembourg tribal bar Zulu Blanc in the Rives de Clausen.
"I don't know anybody else who has used this concept in Luxembourg. It's a mix of crowdfunding and being a real shareholder. It's a business model that's a bit unique," explained Zulu Blanc manager Steve Darne, who came up with the concept with his business partners in February this year.
Shares were initially floated at a price of 37.50 euros with a ceiling placed on the number of shares an investor could purchase.
Interested investors, meanwhile, were vetted by the management team.
"We had people requesting to buy shares from Astralia, South Africa and the US. But, that wasn't the concept. We wanted to have our shareholders as clients. So they're in their own pub," Steve said.
Dividends and discounts
Around 200 people were accepted as shareholders. If the business is profitable, they will receive dividends on their investment. All shareholders, meanwhile, receive a 10 percent discount on drinks in the pub and will be invited to special associate events.
The investors who responded ranged from CEOs to young people with no financial investment experience.
"What was very interesting was it wasn't the kind of clients we expected. I figured we would get a lot of 18 to 19-year-olds buying three shares. That would have been my dream, had I heard about this many years ago," said Steve.
Steve is no newcomer to the world of bars and venue management. Since opening his first bar, The Pulp, at what is today the Sofitel, he has gone on to manage a cluster of bars and restaurants in the Rives de Clausen with business partners Jean-Claude Colbach and Mitch Passos.
More than one shareholder said that knowing this, limited the risk element in their investment.
"These (managers) are people who are more familiar with this kind of project so it's more safe," said French national Cathrine, who bought 30 shares, and has previously invested in traditional shares and real estate. "It's just the beginning of the adventure. Let's wait and see," she added.
First-time shareholder
For Luxembourger Carole this is the first time she has become a shareholder. "I thought it was a good idea for normal people like me who would never be shareholders normally because it costs so much," she said, adding: "I love the bar concept. I think I will come here regularly."
For others, there was little expectation about the return on investment. Tom, a Luxembourger who took 33 shares in the company, said: "It's not really an investment for me, it's fun, and a joke."
For those who missed out on their chance to invest in a pub, it is not too late. The bar is seeking to double its number of investors. However, the share price has risen to 65 euros.
Steve said: "When we did the project, it was just a building site. People had to trust us and believe in the concept." He was confident that the shares would all be sold and does not rule out the idea of opening a chain of similar concept bars in other major cities around the world.
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Provide a LEGO fan with hours of fun and imaginative play with this super-cool LEGO City Police Helicopter Pursuit Set. It comes with 253 pieces that include a blue and white police helicopter, a red and gray speed boat and a chomping green alligator. The helicopter can be used with or without the boat for added fun. In addition, this LEGO toy comes with three mini-figures that include a pilot, a police officer and a crook and assorted swamp-inspired accessories. For an even more action-packed play experience, combine this model with additional LEGO play sets, which are sold separately. This LEGO Pursuit set is recommended for kids age 5 years old and older. It will make an ideal addition to any LEGO lover's collection.


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Vision Painting Added to Indy Eleven's Group of Corporate Partners
By Indy Eleven Communications, 01/07/21, 1:00PM EST
Indianapolis-based Residential & Commercial Paint Service is Latest Local Business to Join the Eleven Family
Indy Eleven continued its run of adding new Corporate Partners for the 2021 season by announcing an agreement with Indianapolis based Vision Painting.
Since its founding in 1996, Vision Painting has delivered quality service on thousands of residential and commercial painting projects throughout Central Indiana. Vision Painting's end-to-end client experience combines seamless communication, estimation, and budgeting with in-house coordination and project management, ensuring top quality work every time. For more on how Vision Painting's tried, tested and true team members can provide a fresh look for your home or business in 2021 and beyond, visit vizionpainting.biz.
"Indy Eleven is delighted to bring another local company in Vision Painting into our club's family of official partners," said Greg Stremlaw, President & Chief Executive Officer for Indy Eleven. "We appreciate Vision Painting's commitment to the club and look forward to them leading the list of exciting new partners to be announced in 2021."
"Vision Painting is thrilled to be working with the Indy Eleven and we are greatly looking forward to what's to come with our new partnership," said Phil Alt, President of Vision Painting. "We're excited to get to know Indy Eleven's great team and staff more, and also looking forward to connecting with our fellow Indy Eleven fans here in Indianapolis."
In conjunction with the partnership, Vision Painting will be featured via numerous promotional avenues including, but not limited to: on-field and in-stadium signage, commercial inventory on local television and national/international streaming video broadcasts, advertisements in the club's official Victory gameday program, and placements on the team's official website, IndyEleven.com.
Indiana's Own Rece Buckmaster Signs with Indy Eleven
Auburn Native, IU Alum Becomes Club's 13th Signing Ahead of 2021 Campaign
Defender Karl Ouimette Returns to Indy Eleven
Veteran Canadian Center Back Set for Fourth USL Championship Season with Indiana's Team
Indy Eleven Adds Sherwin-Williams to Roster of Corporate Partners
Nation's Largest Specialty Retailer of Paint & Painting Supplies on Board as "Official Paint Provider of Indy Eleven"
Get to Know: Cal Jennings
Eleven Questions to Introduce One of the Latest Additions to the Squad
Tag(s): News


Department Instititut for samfundsvidenskab og erhverv Application due date: 1 June 2019.
Department of Social Sciences and Business (ISE), Roskilde University, invites applications for one, potentially two, position(s) as assistant professor in Social Studies from November 1 2019 or as soon as possible thereafter. The positions are limited to 3 years.
In announcing the assistant professorship(s) in Social Studies, ISE wishes to further develop our social science research and teaching as it pertains to welfare (e.g. social cohesion, labour market, care and/or marketization); or diversity and equality with a special focus on quantitative methods (e.g. social identity, stigmatisation and/or social justice).
ISE conducts interdisciplinary, collaborative and socially engaged research based on political science, economics, anthropology, business studies, sociology, legal studies, and development studies. It is an innovative and interdisciplinary university environment characterized by academic and methodological diversity in research and education. The department's researchers put emphasis on research methodologies and they share a commitment to understanding society and businesses in diverse contexts of change and global engagement. We produce research at the highest international level that feeds into our educational programmes, while simultaneously leveraging our research to impact social, economic and political change. Research in the department is organised in research groups. The selected candidate is expected to work closely with political scientists, sociologists, and economists in one of these groups. Read more at https://ruc.dk/en/department-social-sciences-and-business.
The assistant professor is expected to maintain a steady rate of publications as well as to make a contribution to the research culture in the department. The assistant professor's work primarily includes research and research-based teaching and supervision with associated examination obligations within social studies at BA and MA level. In addition to research and research-based teaching, the position also involves sharing knowledge with the rest of society – including participation in the public debate.
The ideal candidate shall furthermore be enterprising and possess good communication skills and be a visible involved participant in the department's daily activities, in addition to being willing to engage in disciplinary and interdisciplinary collaboration across the department.


Bourbon Street Bistro and Bar is a Cajun restaurant and bar near the waterfront in Cairns. If you're after some live music in a laid-back setting, this is the venue for you! If you visit the bistro, you'll be able to sit down to an incredible authentic meal as you listen to the sound of live artists on the stage. The locals love the New Orleans Style Gumbo and Jambalaya packed with flavour and fresh ingredients. Other southern style meals include the fried chicken drumlettes served in their house Cajun spice mix with mustard aioli and hot sauce.
On stage you'll find a range of local artists, from soul bands playing with bongos to calm acoustics. Order yourself a cocktail or fresh beer and a platter of oysters while you sit back and relax listening to the rhythm of live music. Head down this Saturday night to hear blues singer Phil Anglim from 7pm, for a soulful night out. This is the perfect venue if you have an eclectic taste in music and prefer the sounds of soul and blues to DJs and drums.
For a high-energy night out with live bands and dancing, head down to the Woolshed Chargrill & Saloon Bar in the centre of Cairns. This is a bar loved by locals and party animals looking for live music and DJs alongside their favourite cocktails. Eat a quick meal in the new alfresco dining area and then head inside to join the party with a drink in hand. Each week they have different bands, soloists and DJs performing for a variety of different musical tastes.
Visit the Woolshed Chargrill & Saloon Bar this Friday night to enjoy the sounds of DJ Rupheo for the perfect dance floor music. If you just can't get enough and still need somewhere to party on Saturday night, don't miss out on Matt Caseli – an Ibiza legend – taking over the decks at the Woolshed Chargrill & Saloon Bar. This is the perfect venue for a big night out with some great tunes.
If your ideal Friday night features a pint of Guinness and a quality live cover band, you'll love the atmosphere at PJ O'Briens Irish Pub. This Irish pub is one of the best venues in town for a fun Friday night out with friends to wind down from your week at work. Step inside this intimate Irish themed pub and order yourself a drink from the friendly bartenders, and you'll find it's an awesome spot to have a drink and chat with your mates. If you're hungry you can even order one of their $14 meal deals, that includes a full sized traditional pub meal and pot of beer, glass of wine or basic spirit.
This Friday night the popular local cover band Big Noise will be playing at PJ O'Briens Irish Pub from 10.30pm, so pop down with your mates after work or drop in after grabbing dinner. You'll enjoy the sounds of this three piece band playing everything from the pub classics to modern favourites as you sip on your favourite beer or refreshing drink. Don't sit at home listening to the radio when you can listen to a huge variety of music live at PJ O'Briens Irish Pub.
If you're looking for somewhere to grab dinner beforehand, why don't you check out the best yum cha restaurants in Cairns!
Are we missing your favourite local act? Comment and let us know where you'll be listening to some sweet tunes this weekend.


The Iowa State football team (8-4, 6-3 Big 12) has qualified for a bowl game for the second-straight season and for the 14th time in school history, accepting an invitation to play in the 2018 Valero Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, Texas.
The Cyclones will face No. 12 Washington State (10-2, 7-2 Pac-12) Dec. 28 at 8 p.m. CT. ESPN will broadcast the game.
The Cyclones finished the regular season with an 8-4 record and a 6-3 mark in Big 12 play, breaking the school record for conference victories in a season while recording their best conference finish in 40 years (T3rd).
Iowa State is ranked No. 25 in latest AP Top-25 poll, the first time since 1976 the Cyclones were rated in the final regular season poll.
Iowa has accepted an invitation to play Mississippi State at the 2019 Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida, on New Year's Day. Kickoff is scheduled for 11 a.m. (CT). The game will be televised by ESPN2 from Raymond James Stadium.
Iowa finished the regular season 8-4 and will be making it's sixth appearance in the Outback Bowl.


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Home News & Tools Latest Travel News & Events Updates on Grenada
Updates on Grenada
Ed Wetschler
These are good times for both travelers and the travel business in Grenada, and a conversation with Patricia Maher, CEO of the Grenada Tourism Authority, during Caribbean Week in New York City, revealed some important updates:
Grenada will host this year's Caribbean Tourism Organization's annual SOTIC (State of the Industry Conference) Oct. 9-13. "We see this as a wonderful opportunity for people to come and experience the island," said Maher. "We'd especially love to have travel agents and tour operators come. There'll be lots of opportunities to experience the island. We will make it a memorable experience." Details on participating hotels, special agent rates, and other information will be released shortly.
Patricia Maher, CEO of the Grenada Tourism Authority
"So few people really know Grenada," she said, "but travel professionals who come will immediately realize that there's a reason Grenada, which also includes Carriacou and Petite Martinique, is called Pure Grenada—it's still so pristine and natural. We offer resorts and beaches, of course, but also inland adventures, snorkeling and diving, agritourism. You can hike into the countryside and see nutmeg trees, be a cacao farmer for a day at Tri-Island Farm, enjoy a farm-to-table meal at Belmont Estate."
Maher singled out one particular aspect of agritourism: "Nobody has chocolate like Grenada. We have four chocolate factories, and visitors can watch the ladies make it from bean to bar." Some of the specialty chocolates are made with spices, too, which comes as no surprise; after all, Grenada is also known as the spice of the Caribbean. "We're pure, we're natural, organic," she declared. "We don't need fertilizers."
On May 25, the Grenada Hotel and Tourism Association launched the Pure Grenada App, a complete and interactive guide to everything about the country, and it has both online and offline functionality.
The Grenada Scuba Diving Association will host its first ever Dive Fest Oct. 11-14, and please note: This event is for everyone from absolute beginners to divemasters.
The country has 1,500 hotel rooms plus numerous villas and guesthouses, and Maher anticipates a 26 percent increase over the next two years. For example, Kimpton Kawana Bay is going up where the old Flamboyant was. "And when 44-suite (and 9-villa) Silversands opens next March, this chic minimalist resort will give visitors another very high-end option," she said. Speaking of high-end options, Maher added, "Don't forget that Spice Island Beach Resort recently won a 6-diamond award for 30 years of excellence. Sir Royston—he's our star."
But back to events, because this, too, is big: This Friday, June 16, JetBlue expands its JFK – Grenada schedule to seven days a week.
For more information, visit puregrenada.com
Belmont Estate
Caribbean Tourism Organization
Grenada Hotel and Tourism Association
Grenada Tourism Authority
Kimpton Kawana Bay
Patricia Maher
Pure Grenada
Silversands
State of the Industry Conference
New Goldwynn Resort & Residences in The Bahamas Has an Offer


This is a 25 year old Hispanic male complaining of a ptotic, droopy tip and a pronounced dorsal hump. His nasal skin has all the features of an Ethnic Rhinoplasty. Thick, oily skin and a large hump with a downturned tip. Dr. Slupchynskyj performed an Open Rhinoplasty procedure under local anesthesia. This patient had a dorsal hump reduction, caudal septal strut, shield graft and tip defatting procedure. The nasal tip cartilages also had multiple cartilage grafts to re-support and rotate the tip. He is 8 months post-op.


Paul Cornell and Alan Davis take Wolverine on a hunt against an unknown foe. This issue is doing its best to earn the parental advisory warning.
Pete Wisdom has a lot of fairies to kill. Yes, fairies are supposed to be nice and magical and charming, but they are currently attacking England.
Discover how three of Azeroth's greatest champions forged their first alliance, in the official graphic prequel to the Warcaft movie from Legendary, Universal Pictures and Blizzard Entertainment. In a fantasy action epic set decades before the film, the young and headstrong Llane, Lothar, and Medivh embark on a mission of vengeance that will forge them into heroes... the kind of heroes Azeroth will need in its darkest hour.
Arcadia Alvarado, the leading Democratic candidate for President of the United States, says she was "abducted by aliens."As the Mexican-American Governor of New Mexico, she's dealing with immigration, budget cuts and an alcoholic ex. She's about to toss her hat into the ring as a candidate for President in the most volatile political climate ever.But then…a lonely road and a nightmarish encounter have left her with terrible, half-glimpsed memories. And now she has to become President. To expose the truth – and maybe, to save the world.Arcadia's quest is at the heart of this new monthly series from writer Paul Cornell (DEMON KNIGHTS, ACTION COMICS, Doctor Who) and artist Ryan Kelly (NEW YORK FIVE, NORTHLANDERS). With the help of her quirky staff, Arcadia will pursue the truth of her abduction into danger, mystery and awe. SAUCER COUNTRY is a dark thriller that blends UFO lore and alien abduction with political intrigue, all set in the hauntingly beautiful Southwest.
Plus: Panther Gods, Lion Gods and Snowbirds!
When Lex Luthor finally regained control of LexCorp, he thought he had everything he wanted. But in BLACKEST NIGHT, he briefly became an Orange Lantern and got a taste of true power. Now he'll do anything to get that power back. Buckle in for a greatest hits tour of the DCU's most wanted – including an appearance by The Sandman's big sister, Death! – as Lex Luthor begins an epic quest for power in stories from ACTION COMICS #890-895, brought to you by writer Paul Cornell (Dr. Who, Captain Britain and MI-13)!
Just as Gotham City has Batman and Robin, London has Knight and Squire--British heroes and frequent allies of The Dark Knight! Explore what the war on crime is like across the pond from America in this miniseries from award-winning writer Paul Cornell!
A threat to the minds of the whole human race sends the FF somewhere they've never been before: into the realm of fiction itself! Where Ben finds himself clobbering a demonic army to save the cast of Sense and Sensibility. No, really. And it gets weirder from there. Dante (not the one from Clerks)! Willie Lumpkin! Behold, the Fictocraft! And it's actually kind of smart and serious too!
What shocking past event brings three Doctors together - to combat an unknown foe with three incarnations in its sights? The five-part Doctor Who event of 2015 begins here in a tale written by Doctor Who novelist Paul Cornell and illustrated by Neil Edwards that brings together the tenth Doctor and Gabby, the eleventh Doctor and Alice, and the twelfth Doctor and Clara!
The Melter, The Executioner, The Enchantress, Egghead, Big Zero, and Coat of Arms: they call themselves the Young Avengers, teenage rebels, on the run from the authorities, hated and feared by a world they've sworn to protect. Their interests include interspecies romance, modern art, and bloody murder. Everything is permitted, and so are they. Until they meet the original Young Avengers. And then their grey areas will come home to roost.
SECRET INVASION TIE-IN! The Skrull Invasion isn't restricted to the US. When the Skrull Invasion hits England, only Captain Britain and MI: 13 stand in their way. Can they find out what the Skrulls are after before it's too late?
Before she steals the world's heart in Iron Man II, get caught in the wicked web of Marvel's sexiest and deadliest super-spy! She's been everything from a Russian espionage agent to a Champion to an Avenger, now a skeleton from Natalia Romanova's past is reaching out for those she's loved and lost...and the Black Widow has many victims to choose from! From the frozen streets of Moscow to the upper stratosphere, writer Paul Cornell (CAPTAIN BRITAIN & MI3) and artists Tom Raney (DARK REIGN: HAWKEYE) and John Paul Leon (The Winter Men) deliver a globe-hopping, bone-breaking, high-tech thriller that reveals how Natalia's shadowy past threatens all she now holds dear. Guest-starring the Winter Soldier andWolverine!


This watercolor sunset card reads "It Was Always You" amidst a southwestern-inspired landscape. Show that special someone how much they care with a portable work of art suitable for birthdays, Valentine's Day, and anniversaries. Each card comes with a blank interior and matching cream envelope. Measures 4.25" x 5.5" inches. Made in the USA.