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FIFA 2020 REVIEW
FIFA 2020 Betting Online Review
FIFA 2020 Esports Betting
FIFA Esports has always had huge following, just like the physical football games. The professional Esports gamers of FIFA also share lots of followers and fans all over the world. This is how this Esport game has become a sensation. And now FIFA 2020 is well attended in the world of Esports. Professional gamers love it, and the fans anticipate the tournaments and competitions.
As FIFA 2020 is popular among gamers, Esports betting is never far behind. As popular as the game, FIFA 2020 is also a favorite among Esports bettors. Here are the reasons FIFA 2020 is an ideal Esport for online betting.
For online bettors, it is important that the Esport they are following is offered continuously by the online betting sites. With its popularity, there is no way that online betting sites will stop offering betting games for this Esport. Bettors can always have tournaments and competitions to bet on in FIFA 2020.
Multiple Players
FIFA 2020 allows multiple players to play in lots of tournaments and competitions. With this, it also allows bettors to place bets on different players, making their betting experience exciting.
Competitive Atmosphere
The football Esports games are already exciting and so is the betting on the games. The bettors are also highly competitive, which makes the atmosphere engaging and fun to be part of. This is one reason a lot of bettors are so into FIFA 2020 Esports betting. The atmosphere of this game is the perfect place for competitive bettors.
Multiple Betting Types
Because there is so much action in FIFA 2020, there is also a lot to bet on. Online betting sites create different betting types for their members and bettors. This allows bettors to find the most suitable betting environment for them they can enjoy.
Understanding FIFA 2020 Betting Odds
Understanding betting odds in FIFA 2020 can help you choose the right type of bet to play. However, in order to fully understand the betting odds in this Esport, you will also need to understand how the game works. You will also need to analyze and research thoroughly so you will know where, what and who to place your bets on. Here are some betting odds that many FIFA 2020 bettors use.
Player Popularity
Many bettors place bets on the favorites of the competition. Popularity may not win games, but it is also possible that the players or teams are popular because they are good and win games and competitions.
Five-Game Analysis
If you are looking into a particular player to place your bet on, check on their last five games and analyze whether he has gained good records. Five games can help you see if the player is consistent with his gameplays and is successful in his competitions.
Player with Better Record
FIFA 2020 is a strategical game played by professional gamers. No matter how much you wanted to predict the odds, the results of the game will still depend on the performance of the players. Therefore, research on which player holds good records of winnings in different games and tournaments.
The odds of betting in FIFA 2020 will rely on how you analyze the games and performances of the players. Once you have done this, you will know on where to place your bets with better chances of winning.
Key Features of a Quality FIFA 2020 Betting Site
When choosing an online betting site to join, choose the one that is perfect for FIFA 2020. Its features should give bettors the best experience in betting in Esports particularly FIFA 2020. Here are a few of the features that a quality FIFA 2020 betting site should possess.
Cover plenty of tournaments and competitions
FIFA 2020 is a popular Esports game, and it holds tons of tournaments and competitions all over the world. It is better if the betting site covers many tournaments and games so the bettors can have lots to bet on. This will also assure bettors that they will not run out of games to place bets on.
The site you should join must have live streaming features. It will be more exciting for bettors to see the games live from where they are already placing their bets. This will also allow the bettors to do live betting.
A good FIFA 2020 betting site that bettors prefer to join is the one that gives many special deals and bonuses. These are something extra for your gaming experience. It may be used to place bets on games or get free spins or points or rewards that you can redeem.
Types of Bets You can Place on FIFA 2020
Just like the other Esports, FIFA 2020 allows bettors to choose from many betting types. These will give bettors more enjoyment and options in betting. With these types of bets, bettors can find the one where they will be comfortable betting in.
Majority of Esports betting offers this type of bet. It is the most common type of bet in Esports betting. It is also the most popular and easiest to play. This is betting on a player to win the match. You can either choose player A or player B. If your choice wins the match, then your bet wins as well. This is a singular bet based on the outcome of the match.
Accumulator Betting
This betting is the accumulative or collective version of the moneyline betting. All your moneyline bets will be accumulated in order to place a bigger bet. With this, the return of odds will increase as well. Instead of betting on three moneyline games, your bets will be combined. However, many bettors do not use this betting more often since once you lost in a match, the whole collected bet will be gone.
This is a onetime bet where you will pick the team that will win the tournament or competition. It is a bet that relies on the outcome of the entire tournament and not just of a match or game. Though this is rarely offered by many online betting sites, there are a few that include this in their offers, especially in big time tournaments.
Uncommon Betting
Some online betting sites offer other types of betting that are not commonly seen in many sites. These additions increase the excitement in betting, attracting more bettors to place their bets in the game of FIFA 2020. An example of this is the First-to-Score betting where you get to place your bet on who you think will score the first goal. Another bet is when you predict the number of goals that will be made by a team. This can either be for the complete match or for the half. There are other uncommon betting types that sites offer for more variations. Many bettors choose online betting sites that have more betting types, as they can get better chances of winning if they increase the types they bet on.
The bets may vary depending on what the online betting site chooses to offer. Bettors can choose on a site that has the betting type that they prefer to do while enjoying the games of FIFA 2020.
1. Is betting on FIFA 2020 legal?
It is legal to bet on FIFA 2020 since this Esport game is licensed and legit. Playing the game itself is legit, and when the online betting site has agreed to the terms of FIFA 2020, then they will be legit as well to offer online betting on the games and tournaments. It is important to choose an online betting site that is licensed and legit, just to be sure you are betting legally and that you will be far from online frauds and scams.
There are a lot of licensed and legit online betting sites that offer FIFA 2020. You can research and know more about the site first before signing up. This way, you can see if the site you want to place bets on is trustworthy and reliable. Any site offering FIFA 2020 betting has gained license to operate and offer the betting games on this Esport game.
2. How to watch pro FIFA 2020 games to bet on?
Because of the popularity of FIFA 2020, there are lots of platforms where people can watch the pro games. There are channels on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and other groups that show live stream games of FIFA 2020. These platforms can cover all tournaments and competitions happening in the world of FIFA 2020.
But aside from these platforms, there are online betting sites that feature live games of FIFA 2020. These sites offer live betting. This allows bettors to place bets while the games are in progress. It is a plus factor for a site to show live streams of football games, and many bettors would also love to watch while checking on their bets on the games and players. If you want a better site to join, then look for one that has live streaming features of not just FIFA 2020 but also on other Esports games. This way, you can enjoy betting and watching at the same time.
FIFA 2020 review by René Treur
One of my favourite game series of all time must be FIFA. The oldest titles I played where around 1997. Before that I played ISS, Winning eleven/PES – Konami's much praised FIFA rival Pro Evolution Soccer -, and a Sega Master System title I don't remember the name of.
I do remember you could give a wicked curve to the ball even after it left your foot, which consisted of just a few pixels! I had a number of years where I enjoyed PES more than FIFA, there were even a few years where I bought both games, though from the top of my head I don't remember when this was exactly.
These past few years I have always tried both games, and I had a hard time choosing between the titles at first. Playing with my friends from elementary school is the most fun I have playing soccer games, so usually it's a group decision in the end, and they have preferred FIFA in the past 5 years in a row.
Having been involved in all English spoken Konami PES League events for the 2018/2019 season as well as the most recent WESG event in Chongqing and the World Championship in the Emirates Stadium in London, Konami sent me their 2020 game. So once again I played both titles this past year, but in the end I've spent most time playing FIFA, so this review will focus on the Electronic Arts title.
How to play FIFA 2020?
Now this a question with multiple answers. Like I said, the way I play FIFA mostly is simply getting together with friends in one house, and playing two versus two while ripping each other apart verbally, enjoying a drink and sharing our most recent stories. Good old offline multiplayer, which dates all the way back to when we played games like Mortal Kombat, FIFA, Street Fighter and NBA Jam on the Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, NES and SNES – Nintendo.
The most popular way to play FIFA however, is definitely FUT -FIFA Ultimate Team- , and from an esports perspective, playing weekend league with that FUT team to try and qualify for one of EA's FUT Champions Cups. You basically create your own team, with a custom logo, shirt and team name. By buying Ultimate Team-packs you unpack random players, sometimes you will get a great player like Messi and Cristiano, but most of the time you will get average players like Aaron Wan-Bissaka (editors note : sorry Aaron, I am certain your rating will be boosted heavily for the next FIFA edition). There are several Icon cards with the great players of the past, and EA regularly drops special cards like the TOTS -team of the season- cards. Basically this is a pay-to-win system, which is very smart of EA to implement.
The Belgian gambling commission has banned loot boxes however, and some other countries are investigating and may follow. Unfortunately for us players, each FIFA version we will have to start grinding or splashing the cash to get our FUT team up to scratch again, so some not so hardcore esports players may eventually lose the drive to start building a new FUT team after several editions of FIFA.
FIFA 2020 modes
There are several different modes. As per usual you will have the option to refine your skills in practice arena, there is the special mode VOLTA Football, you can play the FIFA version of the Champions League, etc.
When it comes to the way to play in order to win matches, FIFA has transformed massively over the years. Where in FIFA 99 you would simply play the flank and whip in a high cross (100 % goal with a header at the back post, it would get so easy that I would always try to to finish with sick bicycle kicks), you will have a bigger chance at success by low crosses and weaving through the box in order to create space for a shot.
A big difference compared to FIFA 19 is the fact that this way has a way bigger success rate than the timed finesse shots and the long distance drives in the far corner. Defending has also become a bit harder, you have to really time your challenges well. Personally I preferred the gameplay in FIFA 19, but maybe that is because I've not managed to find as much time to play this version as the last one yet and as a result I have gotten my rear handed to me more often by my friends, who play it on a daily basis.
If you want to play at a top level, the most important thing is going to be patience. Playing against top contenders there will not be much room to thread your through balls, and scoring the first goal will often prove crucial in an encounter between evenly matched players with equally skilled teams.
FIFA 2020 Special Features
There are several different modes, such as VOLTA, which is basically a spectacular version of street football in FIFA. This mode is almost NBA Jam like with the special moves, but this part of the game lacks the depth needed to keep me invested. It is fun when you're playing with your friends but you're at that point where it's getting redundant or you can't find common ground as to what teams to choose -top level teams or mediocre teams to freshen things up, the eternal discussion we have-, but not for hours in a row every day.
I already touched on FUT and weekend league, and the ability to customize your team. Especially these days when young gamers want to be unique and visible, and give their own spin to characters, weapons, and clubs or teams this mode perfectly plays into that urge. More on FUT and Weekend League later in our esports and betting section.
My favourite special feature is the sideways dribble, or strafe-dribble. It's great fun for taunting your friends or opponents, but also can work very well to skip past defenders.
Another special feature that is fun for us Dutchies, but doesn't do much for our English and international readers, is the new Dutch commentators. After years and years of Evert ten Napel and Youri Mulder we now have Sierd de Vos and Jeroen Grueter, who do a marvellous job. Of course the statements are not always on point, but at least it feels fresh.
Betting online FIFA 2020
When it comes to tournaments, you will certainly get your fix with FIFA, as per usual.
As an esports commentator I had about 30 tournaments last year, rough estimate. Each and every year I get more, and those are just the tournaments with organizers that are willing to do live broadcasting and pay one or more commentators to be involved. Competitive leagues and tournaments will only grow as time progresses.
René Treur, Jan Willem Molendijk, Fabio Denuzzo – KNVB Ebattle, Amsterdam ArenA 2017
The highlight of the tournaments will once again be the FUT Champions Cups – for which players have to qualify through several 30-0 results in Weekend League or regional qualifier events -, as well as the national televised leagues that have been launched all over the globe in the past three years.
Just during the summer of 2020 countries such as Malaysia, Mexico and Finland have announced to organise an official FIFA competition in co-operation with the professional football league and clubs in said countries. Italy has also finally joined the party at the start of the year, but made up for being late by not just organising a digital competition for Serie A (using FIFA), but also Lega B (using PES).
Spanish player Alfonso Ramos and French legend Bruce Grannec have lifted two FIFA Interactive World Cup titles each. In recent years the official EA competition was renamed to FIFA eWorld Cup. Spencer Ealing took home the gold for the UK in 2017, which meant a second British world title after Chris Bullard in 2005. The UK had two vice world champions in David Bytheway and Sean Allen, in 2014 and 2016.
My fellow countrymen have fared only marginally less well with Andries Smit managing a solitary Dutch world title back in 2006, but several players coming close to the final, most notably the likes of Koen Weijland and Dani Hagebeuk.
In 2018 I cheered as my Belgian friend Stefano Pinna took the title of best PlayStation player in the world, but he lost the grand final against Saudi Arabian Xbox player Mossad Aldossary and became vice world champion.
René with 2018 vice world champion Stefano Pinna
If you are determined to replicate these legendary performances, start by watching a lot of videos with professional players either going head to head or giving tips while playing.
An easier way to make money however, might be to bet on the outcomes of the top-level games.
So far as a commentator I have been involved in both Edivisie (the Netherlands) and Proximus eProleague (Belgium) as both a commentator/host and advisor during the planning phase of the first seasons. We just finished the second season in Belgium in June, three months later than planned due to Covid19 breaking out. eDivisie has already had 3 seasons, as we were the first to launch an official esports competition with all clubs from the highest professional league involved back in January 2017.
This while Ajax tied the first Dutch football club esporter a few months after the likes of Paris Saint Germain, Galatasaray, Valencia and Porto already contracted FIFA esporters during the summer of 2016. The champions in these past years in Proximus eProleague were Quentin Vande Wattyne (Standard de Liége) and Matthias Rousselet (Charleroi). Dani Hagebeuk (Ajax), Dani Visser (de Graafschap) and Tony Kok / Jonas Gebrehiwot (PEC Zwolle) got their hands on the Dutch titles. The third title was shared by the Xbox and Playstation players of PEC Zwolle as it was a championship where clubs had to field a player for each console and matches were decided on the combined result.
Last year on the world stage for a while it seemed like Fnatics top dog Donovan Hunt aka tekkz was a shoe-in for the FIFA 19 world title, as he managed to win more international events in a row than anyone ever before, claiming seven international trophies at the tender age of 17. Yet to this day, the official title of World Champion has remained elusive for him.
However, if you are an esports betting man, it would be a good idea not to bet against Hunt when it comes to FIFA 2020 or 2021 events. He has just turned 18 in June 2020, so he has plenty of time to go for gold. Especially with the Support of football club Liverpool FC, the Messi of FIFA should be able to once again make an impact.
FIFA 2020 Conclusion
FIFA 2020 is quite different than FIFA 19, but I wouldn't say it's a huge improvement. For me it is very enjoyable to play, but in large part that is down to playing with friends and us always having fun when competing with and against each other. I imagine top players may have trouble to find motivation to go for Weekend League and fully enjoy what they do after twenty weekends. Graphics have been brushed up, but I expect a bigger improvement for FIFA 2021 because otherwise EA might lose some fans.
Especially after losing Juventus (Piemonte Calcio in FIFA2020) and the news that AS Roma will also not be in the next edition of the game officially (they will have a Roma FC with shirts that kind of resemble the Roma kits). This loss will be felt, despite EA adding Inter and AC Milan to their official partner line-up.
The next-generation consoles will allow for a great improvement in the next few FIFA editions when it comes to animations and visuals, and EA will have to improve because Konami – as I hinted at on my socials a month before they officially confirmed this news – will release PES 2021 as a free DLC for PES 2020 owners, and fully focus on PES 2022 for the next generation consoles and a brand new – Unreal – engine. Anyone wanting to buy PES 2021 would only lose 28 €, or about 25 £. Whether that is a smart move in their eternal struggle with EA will remain to be seen, but grab your popcorn and your credit cards, because it makes for exiting years ahead.
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The World's Oldest Mom Had Twins at 70 and Struggled.
Omkari Singh, the world's oldest mother, gave birth to twins at 70.
Despite having 2 daughters and 5 grandsons, the Northern Indian mother and her husband wanted a son to inherit their tiny possessions.
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Omkari, 70, became pregnant after the couple's efforts. Gynecologist Nisha Malik was astonished when the old lady told her she was pregnant.
However, Omkari's work proved difficult. She was bleeding, in pain, and barely aware when she was brought to me. Gynecologist said
"We ordered blood to start a surgery, but happily, the woman and her children survived."

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Festival Ballet Providence (FBP) is thrilled to present an evening of three striking contemporary ballets at The VETS, February 15-17, 2019. The impressive program includes the return of Viktor Plotnikov's gripping dance-drama Coma, the Rhode Island premiere of George Balanchine's sumptuous Serenade, and Yury Yanowsky's apocalyptic Smoke & Mirrors, also a Company premiere.Showcasing the versatility of the FBP dancers, this riveting program reflects something for everyone.
"The concept of reflection inspired this program," said Mihailo (Misha) Djuric, Artistic Director of FBP, adding, "Each ballet highlights the dynamic nature of contemporary choreography. By combining these three different pieces, we hope to introduce new audiences to the emotional and transformative power of dance."
Viktor Plotnikov, FBP's Resident Choreographer, was inspired to create Coma after seeing Michael Crichton's 1978 sci-fi film of the same name. Audiences have come to appreciate Plotnikov's unique style, wrought with intricate shapes, angles, and perspectives. Coma elegantly demonstrates Plotnikov's unmatched design, at turns tender and gripping. From its startling opening tableau, where suspended bodies float and sway, to the simple tolling of bells in Arvo Pärt's powerful, minimalist score, the experience is both cinematic and transcendent. Dance Magazine'swriter Theodore Bale said, "Plotnikov's Coma is not merely a danced sci-fi thriller but rather an emphatic and deeply personal effort, realized with singularity and intelligence."
A romantic addition the program, George Balanchine's Serenadewill have its Rhode Island premiere. This elegant ballet is considered a milestone in the history of American dance as the first work Balanchine created in the United States in 1934. With its signature powder blue tutus, Serenade is a visual treat, seeping in moonlight and bursting with energy. Set to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's magnificent Serenade for Strings, the work premiered in 1934, as the first ballet Balanchine created in New York City after emigrating to the United States. the ballet has evolved over time, as this master choreographer incorporated not only unexpected rehearsal events into the choreography (such as one girl's fall and another's late arrival) but also styles of the time. FBP is one of only two companies in New England authorized by the Balanchine Trust to perform his closely protected works. The New Yorker's Joan Acocella said of the ballet, "The piece is a story about hope... beautiful-stirring, sweeping."
Rounding out the evening, Yury Yanowsky's Smoke and Mirrorsalso makes its Rhode Island premiere. Commissioned 2016 by the Boston Ballet, the contemporary work appears to be set in an apocalyptic future. Dancers costumed in corsets seem to reflect the idea that our society are merely puppets of "the system," struggling to escape their self-imposed restrictions. Smoke and Mirrorsseemingly has no beginning and no end, existing in its own mysterious world with the audience peeking in. The score, by Yanowsky's cousin, Lucas Vidal, a film composer best known for his score for Fast & Furious 6, creates an air of apprehension with its atmospheric use of sirens and muffled voices. Of Smoke and Mirrors, Iris Fanger writing in the Patriot Ledger said, "Yanowsky's innovative revisions of ballet technique come on fast and furious...with alternating pas de deux and group passages partially obscured by billowing smoke from off-stage that is cut by shafts of light."
"Mirrors" will take place at The Vets, One Avenue of the Arts, Providence, RI, Fri. Feb. 15, 2019 - 7:30pm; Sat. Feb. 16, 2019 - 7:30pm; Sun. Feb. 17, 2019 - 2:00pm. Tickets can be purchased at thevetsri.com or 401-421-ARTS.


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Jack Walker Kibler
JACK WALKER KIBLER, Appalachia VA Jack Walker Kibler, 89, died Saturday, October 26, at his home. He was born June 8, 1924, in Appalachia, VA, the son of the late Frank and Cora Kibler, and lived in Appalachia all his life. After returning from service in World War II, he graduated from Appalachia High School in 1947, and married Johnnie Chloe Walker, a marriage that endured for 65 years. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and later served as tail gunner on the B-17 Vonnie Gal, flying bombing missions over Germany. In July 1944, after being disabled by enemy fire, his plane was able to land in Switzerland, where he and his crew were interned until the end of the war. He returned to Appalachia and soon became involved in the insurance business where he remained for his entire career. He retired as president and manager of the Appalachia Insurance Agency in 1991. He was actively involved in his community his entire adult life. He served for many years on the Appalachia Town Council, several of those as mayor, and returned to Council for further service in his later years. He was a member of the Lions Club, the American Legion, and was a founding member of the Appalachia Rescue Squad. He served on the Wise County School Board Selection Committee and for 20 years on the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission Board of Directors. For more than 50 years, he was also the "Voice of the Bulldogs," in the Riggs Stadium press box announcing home football games for Appalachia High School. He was raised in the Appalachia Methodist Church, but found himself a Presbyterian- by-marriage for the remainder of his life. He was an elder, deacon, and treasurer of the Appalachia Presbyterian Church until it closed in 2000. At that time, he became a member of the Big Stone Gap Presbyterian Church, where he served as elder and on the pastor nominating committee. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Johnnie Chloe, who died in February. He was also preceded in death by six siblings among those lovingly known as The Big Eight. He is survived by his last remaining sibling, William F. Kibler of Newport News, VA. He is also survived by his daughter, Linda Kibler Smith, and her husband, Ray, of Hampton, VA, and his son, Frank Walker Kibler, and his wife, Judy, of Kingsport, TN; four grandsons, Justin Kibler Smith, and his wife, Tammy, Alexander Kibler, Jeffrey Gold, and Brett Smith; and two great-grandchildren, Madeline Smith and Colton Gold. In addition, he is survived by a large, loving family of in-laws, nieces, nephews, and cousins. A celebration of his life will be held on Saturday, November 9, at the First Presbyterian Church in Big Stone Gap, VA. Visitation will be from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m., followed by a service at 3:00. A reception will follow in the church fellowship hall. In lieu of flowers, the family welcomes memorial contributions to the Food Bank of Appalachia, P.O. Box 613, Appalachia, VA 24216, or the First Presbyterian Church, 304 Clinton Ave., Big Stone Gap, VA 24219. Roy A. Green Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
JACK WALKER KIBLER, Appalachia VA Jack Walker Kibler, 89, died Saturday, October 26, at his home. He was born June 8, 1924, in Appalachia, VA, the son of the late Frank and Cora Kibler, and lived in Appalachia all his life. After returning... View Obituary & Service Information
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JACK WALKER KIBLER, Appalachia VA
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The thing I really like about Toybiz is that they manage to put out these sleeper hit lines. No one expected the Hulk Classics line to be such a hit with fans. After all the movie stunk, the movie figures stunk, and they shoved enough Hulk merchandise down our throats that we were pooping green even months after the movie already left theaters. So Toybiz did the only logical thing and released a series of classic comic themed Hulk figures with tons of articulation and fun action gimmicks.
Boy oh boy did these take off with the fans. The best part about these series is that each wave came with one villain. The villain was packed one per case and was only packed in a limited amount of cases as well. Both villains have been pretty sought over not only because they were hard to fine, but because they were figures we will probably never see in a Marvel line again.
Captain America throws his shield at Absorbing Man, knocking him down.
Beast: "Cap, what is your shield made of again?"
Captain America: "A one of a kind that can't be damaged. Why?"
Beast: "Just wanted to know what we were fighting against."
Okay, I understand you may be thinking, "why does he have an action figure of Patrick Stewart in orange jail duds with a big green arm?" The answer is because I have a fetish for Star Trek characters with big green deformed arms. Well no in actuality this is the Hulk Classics series two Absorbing man action figure. Boy is this one hard to get. You would laugh at how many times I checked out KB outlets to find this figure. I bet the employees there thought I was a weirdo for walking in and walking back out ever day for a month.
Well the box is pretty boring on these Hulk figures. Its the basic formula of Hulk busting through a wall, because I am starting to believe that's all he really does anyway. They ditched the clamshell for the simple blister on cardboard. Its simple, but darn hard to keep these thing mint if you like your figures in a box. The price is right if you can actually find the figure, $6.99 is not a bad deal at all for a figure with so many accessories and points of articulation. Of course if you rely on ebay then you might as well drop the percentage rating about 25% on the final score.
So lets get to the figure. Sculpt is wonderful, its a very well done figure with loads of articulation. Thirty-six points of articulation is nothing to sneeze at, however if you do sneeze at him be careful because he may fall over. Sadly his leg joints got loose on me really fast and have caused for some headaches as I had to pick up all the other characters he wiped out on the way down my shelf. As far as sculpt he is very well done, a cool look for a very decent character.
Next up is paint. Again I have no concerns with paint and this figure. All of his arms have unique paint schemes and the paint on his body is perfect. The colors do not run and they are very distinguished from each other. I especially like the metallic looks of the extra arms, its a nice touch. So much talk of arms brings me to my discussion of the accessories. Besides War-Hulk, this guy has the most accessories in the line. We have three arms and his ball and chain. No not his wife, an actual ball and chain silly. The ball is hallow, which makes it easier to pose him so that he doesn't just flop over when holding it. The chain is cool too because he can slip his fingers into the rings. All the arms come fully articulated as well.
So in closing if you like Hulk, you like that classic stuff, and you like guys that can absorb the structure of what they touch then this man is for you. Then again if you need another villain for your Legends display he works well too, just good luck finding him.
What am I doing up so late with this review? Oh yea just bringing you the cold hard facts. Check back here as I am probably going to be reviewing Fred Krueger from NECA. I may do that or I may do that new 18" Crow figure from, again, NECA. A good Eric Draven is hard to find. So yeah, check back, I'll be here all week!


We just left Jordan or "Ordan" as they pronounce it in Arabic; it became "Yordan" in Hebrew; now it's Jordan in English.
Jordan is 95% Muslim with the remaining 5% split between Orthodox Christians and Druse. There are no Jews or Protestant Christians or Shia Muslims in any official census. Jordanians are proud of how close their spoken Arabic is to classical Arabic. They are proud of having the highest standard of living in the Arab middle east. We don't have the economic statistics but lots of people live in what appear to be physically dilapidated dwellings with not a few abandoned cars strewn about. But, everyone on the streets seems energetic, well-dressed, and mostly bustling.
Jordanians are incredibly handsome people—everyone of them. They smile a lot. They are very demonstrative in their informal social encounters. Everyone in the tourist trade is happy to have us, though they assume that we are American Christians rather than American Jews . I am not sure Jordanians' welcome would change that much if they realized, but they would be reflective and consider it (later they figured it out and didn't mean—we discussed the "situation" and water politics).
Yesterday, we went to the Knesset. In addition to seeing the fabulous tapestries and mosaics by Marc Chagall, we had a private meeting with one member of the Knesset (MK).
Yoel Hasson is a young hot shot in Kadima who got his start as an admirer of Ariel (Arik) Sharon. Sharon is the tough guy who invaded Lebanon in 1982 and who goaded the Palestinians in a provocative visit to the Temple Mount and who unilaterally withdrew Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip. When Sharon started a new political party called Kadima, Yoel joined to help organize and motivate young people (he is 35).
In the election on February 10, Kadima received the highest number of seats: 28 out of 120. But, the slightly more conservative Likud party got 27. A new party called Yisroal Beiteinu (Israel our homeland) received 15 votes as its leader, Avigdor Lieberman, campaigned with a demand that all Arabs in Israel take a loyalty oath. Before the elections Lieberman compelled the government to disqualify the Arab parties from participating in the election. The Supreme Court reversed this and ordered the government to allow the Arab parties to participate. The 3 Arab parties won 11 seats including one seat held by a Jewish member! The point here is that despite the close outcome between Kadima and Likud, the outcome was a conservative landslide. A second point is that Israel's democracy works, even if it is messy and can produce uncomfortable results (so can ours–remember George W. Bush?).
I think it is time to add more impressions and thoughts to the blog with less travelogue. What is this organization, New Israel Fund, that I am traveling with?
I think that liberal Americans may be thinking that Israel, with its vast military superiority, has really become the "thug" in the Gaza conflict. There is a reflexive tendency to believe that anyone with the most guns must be the oppressor. You may wonder, "what is Israel thinking?" to believe it can act with impunity, with utter disregard for world opinion, and with unwarranted cruelty towards the Palestinians of Gaza.
First, let me suggest that there is certain hypocrisy on the part of a certain European country whose conduct with respect to its former North African colony was atrocious. While it is hard to quickly find precise data, Hamas has fired several thousand missiles into Israel in the past several years. While few have done a lot of damage, no sovereign nation would tolerate its immediate neighbor firing missiles onto its territory. You may criticize the Israeli response as disproportionate, but it certainly has a right to make a military response. I do not believe this response constitutes war crimes. At the same time, Israel's continuing development of settlements in the occupied territory of the West Bank and its treatment of its large Arab minority are both unacceptable.
As a result of the Gaza war, Israeli citizens elected more right wing candidates to their Parliament than ever before including an openly racist anti-Arab party. You might be inclined to think that there are no progressive voices in Israel that are critical of Israeli policy and keep the ideals of justice and equality alive within Israel. You'd be wrong. New Israel Fund is one of many voices within Israel working towards a more just and equitable society within Israel, better treatment of the Arab minority within Israel, and a more productive approach to working with Palestinians in the West Bank.
Yehuda (Judah) is a former IDF soldier who is also an orthodox Jew, which makes him a bit more to the right, by background, then many Israelis who question some Israeli policies. His sister is a settler. But, when Judah came back from his mandatory 3 years of service, as a sergeant and platoon leader, he wondered if what he had done had been right. His question to himself was, "where is the moral boundary beyond which Jews defending the state of Israel should not go?" He also wondered if most Israelis knew, understood, or cared what the army was doing on their behalf in the occupied territories. While there is probably no Israeli Jew who would not defend Israel's right to exist as a Jewish democracy and who would understand defending threats within Israel's pre-1967 borders, most probably don't realize that many of the actions taken in the territories do not have a defensive character.
I am already getting more political than Judah. He came back from serving in Hebron wondering if what he had done was right. Starting with his own platoon, he asked others how they felt and many felt the same way. They collected photos and videos of their service in Hebron and mounted an exhibit at the Israel Museum (or was it the Tel Aviv museum?) in 2005. It quickly became the talk of all Israel.
Hebron is a challenging place. It was an Arab village through 1967 that was occupied after the Israeli victory in the 6 day war. Hebron contains the Tomb of the Patriarchs, which allegedly is the burial spot of Abraham/Ibrahim and Isaac and is holy to both Muslims and Jews. The Taliban-esque Rabbi Levinger decided that Jews should recover the tomb, with approval of the government of Israel and military leaders in charge of the occupation. The history of the settlement is told in Gershom Gorenberg's masterful The Accidental Empire.
Now, Hebron has a settlement of 800 Jews more or less in the middle of an Arab village of 16,000. Most of the other West Bank Israeli settlements are distinct villages or small cities that are separated from Arab villages. But, here some Israeli Jewish houses and Arab houses share walls. The settlers are mostly orthodox and ultra-orthodox. They carry machine guns. They frequently taunt and interfere with the Arabs. The army is there to protect the settlers but more than occasionally finds itself defending the Arabs from the settlers—and then getting abuse from the settlers for defending the wrong people.
…when you see a bag in the middle of the street you don't know if it is a bomb or just a bag of garbage. How do you tell? You can do one of three things: You can shoot it from a distance and if it is a bomb it will blow up. You can call a demolition engineer to examine and dismantle it. You can grab a Palestinian off the street in the day—or pull someone out of their house at night—and have the Palestinian pick it up and carry it away—and he'll blow up if it is a bomb. So, which happens the most often? Number 3—it's easier; it shows who is in charge; it adds a little excitement to boring duty. And it's wrong.


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cause of the fuel shortage.
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by County health officer Dr. A. H.
night by Coroner Gordon Doren.
inquest will be held at that time.
after having been released earlier.
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MICHIGAN CITY, Ind.. Feb. 17.
were dismissed after treatment for!
most of them were Negroes.
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parked on the South side.
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and one for Lt. T. B. Hughes.
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branches of the famous stream.
laid out the city of Wilmington.
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every one of Berlin's buildings.
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WordBuild the Game illustrates the formula WORD=Prefix + Root that is taught in the WordBuild Vocabulary: Elements Curriculum by Dynamic Literacy.
Players select a root and then string it together with prefixes and suffixes to build as many words as they can before time runs out. With over 200 roots and 18,000+ words, students can play again and again to improve scores. The game can be played in competitive (timed) mode or as a self-paced supplement to the root being covered in the Elements series. A great way to supplement your course! High scores are kept track of by root and by player. 5th Grade & up. Up to 99 players supported.


text:
Mar 01, 2010, 05:47AM
Imagine This: A Two-Week Punditry Free Zone
Today's ramped-up, around-the-clock political journalists could use a break to clear their heads.
winnie's human
The ridiculously sappy song "Imagine" ping-ponged through my head this past weekend—it was on the loop at a nearby Dunkin' Donuts—one more reminder that pop music genius John Lennon, largely immune from criticism because of his tragic murder in 1980 at the age of 40, produced his share of duds. The lyric that really rankled me when the song—typically, in a shallow pop culture, now considered his "anthem"—released in '71, was, "Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can," as if the multimillionaire former Beatle ever considered cleansing himself of wealth and material comforts. At least Lennon was likely under the influence of this or that narcotic when he composed this trash, and so that's a mitigating factor, but what excuse do the likes of Lou Dobbs and Paul Krugman have when they speak or write on behalf of the "ordinary citizen"?
Dobbs, until last year the vile host of a CNN program that centered on his supposedly populist views, most virulently expressed in his opposition to free trade and immigrants, was reportedly given an $8 million severance package, which bolstered his already magnificently large portfolio. Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who teaches at Princeton and whose contentious twice-weekly New York Times column has catapulted him into the pantheon of left-wing luminaries, is another savior of the "little guy" who gets screwed by corporations and has no access to decent health care.
Krugman's entitled to his opinions, of course, and the adulation of millions, but I find his insistence on "leveling the playing field" a bit odd considering that he, too, is a wealthy man who can't possibly empathize with those Americans hardest hit by this prolonged recession. A long and gooey profile of Krugman in the March 1 New Yorker mentions the three homes the professor and his wife own in Manhattan, Princeton and St. Croix ("nothing fancy but right on the beach," writer Larissa MacFarquar points out) as well as the very upscale, if not ostentatious, lifestyle the couple enjoys. It seems to me that Krugman's on the wrong end of the "inequality gap" he often writes about, but perhaps like John Lennon he too, can "imagine no possessions."
Nonetheless, everyone's allowed a glimpse of Utopia and this is what I imagine: a two-week moratorium on all political punditry in print, the web and television on the same ground-to-dust subjects of polarization, President Obama's fluctuating poll numbers, Tea Partiers, the likelihood of Democrats passing the healthcare bill by means of "reconciliation," and premature analyses of the November midterm elections. This is truly a bipartisan malady; just like baseball writers who are marking time until the beginning of the 2010 season, filling their quota with usually meaningless and highly speculative dispatches, the political media just doesn't know when to quit. Perhaps it's a function of the current addiction for the "scoop" in the hurry-up world of communications, whether it's legitimate news such as Sen. Evan Bayh announcing he won't run for reelection, or, as is more often the case, inconsequential tidbits such as First Dog Bo pissing on an Oval Office rug.
Chuck Todd, NBC's political go-to guy, recently told The New Yorker's Ken Auletta, in between tweeting, blogging, appearing on television and posting on Facebook, "We're all wire-service reporters now." (Associated Press employees, happy to have a job, must've winced at that bit of condescension.) Auletta wrote that Todd "knows that the White House press corps, along with the rest of the media, is more superficial than it once was. It has lost the power to arbitrate what matters, as the speed of gathering news shapes its content."
Two recent articles point out the monotony of opinion that's produced by Beltway journalists. In the March 8 Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes—a longtime reporter who must be wistful about the state of his profession today—contributes a story about Obama, "He's No FDR: Barack Obama's shrinking presidency" that adds nothing to a reader's understanding of what's happening in Washington, probably because it's an analysis that those interested in politics have read many times before. That's not to say Barnes' opinion is not thoughtful and cogent, at least depending on your point of view, but it's just not necessary. Adding to the hundreds of other reports on Obama's televised health care summit with Congress last week, Barnes writes: "Did Obama lower the presidency to the level of mere legislator? Perhaps. But I think Obama's behavior at the summit answers a separate question, one that's lingered since he was elected more than 15 months ago. Is Obama the new FDR? The answer is no."
I don't think it's too risky to suggest that the Obama/FDR comparison has run its course.
Then there's Newsweek's Eleanor Clift—who, years ago, entertainingly tangled with Barnes on The McLaughlin Group—offering advice (sort of) to Republicans in the still unlikely event the party wins a majority in either or both branches of Congress. Echoing the well-trod claim that the GOP is the Party of No—I don't entirely disagree, especially since not a single Republican has emerged as a national spokesman; I'm just tired of reading about obstructionism and the filibuster's antiquity—Clift disingenuously writes that after Reagan's landslide in 1980 Democrats took years to figure out how to reclaim middle class voters. She credits Stan Greenberg, one of Bill Clinton's pollsters, for methodically studying the voting patterns and policy concerns of "Reagan Democrats," as if was an orchestrated plan. Please. In 1988, Michael Dukakis was leading the first President Bush by 17 points that summer and Democrats anticipated the end of the Reagan era. It turned out, of course, that Dukakis ran an awful campaign and so he lost.
But Clift writes: "Republicans are skipping the soul-searching. They are so giddy with the prospect that they could be returned to power after only two short years of Obama that they have done nothing to prepare a narrative for legislating or governing." Hey, if Democrats (who took back the Senate in 1986, despite Reagan) were able to win the presidency in '84 or '88 they'd have gladly sacrificed the soul-searching.
It's all too much. I've often thought it would be a useful and creative exercise for newspaper and magazine writers to swap jobs with colleagues; let the White House reporter preview new films or cover "March Madness," or send a sports columnist to fashion shows. I think Chuck Todd (not to mention nearly everyone at Politico, while we're at it) needs a break from Twitter. Dare to imagine, editors! After a two-week break from political commentary of any kind (and I doubt Obama would mind), who knows what kind of fresh writing could emerge?
Older Politics & Media
Not Ludwig Van!
CNN teams up with Vice
Summer of Strom? Perfect Strom?
Newer Politics & Media
The Secret Life of Radovan Karadzic
More fiction than fact
A former Bank of America CSR tells all
commented Mar 01, 2010, 06:32AM
A tantalizing prospect, Russ, though I think it's equally utopian to imagine that a 2-week break would result in some "new ideas" from the jabbering class. Plus, it sounds like your fatigue could be remedied by just picking some new people to read or watch; no one's got a gun to your head as to turn to Krugman twice a week. Plus I think it's important to distinguish between the constant attention to worthless detail like the WH dog, which is silly, and the recurring focus on something like the filibuster's antiquity. The latter's a substantive, systemic problem that relates to many of the country's policy squabbles. If people like Ezra Klein keep going on and on about, that's because nothing has changed. A good idea doesn't become a bad one just because it's been said before.
russ, Mar 01, 2010, 08:45AM
If the pundits took two weeks off, what would the senate and house do with all their "snappy" talking points? Heaven forbid more town halls.
Valid points, John, and that's why the proposal was couched as utopian. But I don't think it's just my fatigue, but that of the political writers as well. They're trapped, as Chuck Todd told Ken Auletta, in a merry-go-round of forced production, due to competition and reduced workforces. I just read that ABC is closing all its bureaus, save D.C. As it happens, I agree that the filibuster ought to be deep-sixed; and like many others have held that position for years. There's an avalanche of political commentary today because it's cheap to produce (as opposed to long-form reporting) and those involved are in a rut. My idea, admittedly the longest of long shots, is that if these writers cleared their heads for a couple of weeks they might emerge with a different perspective.
john, Mar 01, 2010, 06:32AM
SpongeLuke
commented Mar 01, 2010, 03:15PM
This is why I've stopped reading political journalism all together. It's all so superficial, disingenuous, and repetitive. Politics in general just rubs me the wrong way...seeing Obama perform the way he has, along with the Democrats in power, has just really turned me off the whole game for a while. All I care about now is Anybody But Palin 2012.
martywombacher, Mar 01, 2010, 04:17PM
martywombacher
I feel the same way, SpongeLuke. Especially on the Anybody But Palin 2012! And I agree with you Russ on your take on "Imagine." Elvis Costello has a great line his song, "The Other Side of Summer," that goes, "Was it a millionaire who said imagine no possesions?"
SpongeLuke, Mar 01, 2010, 03:15PM
dkrm08
SpongeLuke hits the nail on the head. I also read virtually no political journalism. As for elections...I'm probably turned off for life!


This may be a time when you require legal or professional advice.
You got ready, aimed for the target, but you didn't fire. Why not? Don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's one of the best ways to learn. People with astonishing talent or skill aren't born with it; they have practised and refined these abilities over hundreds of hours and through thousands of mistakes. Don't waste another hour; get started and make some mistakes along the way.
If you're saying it to hurt someone, hold your tongue. If you're saying it to help, let it out.


text:
Q: Is there multilevel structure in hibernate How to design following structure of beans if I have to Question which has sub Questions and all questions and subquestions has respective answer. Structure is like
Structure
How I can design this structure in hibernate for achieving functionality in spring boot.

A: If we take into consideration that these are 3 different tables, what I would think would be an entity of Question
@Entity
@Table("question")
public class Question

then an entity of SubQuestion
@Entity
@Table("sub_question")
public class SubQuestion

with ManyToOne assosiation
  @ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
  @JoinColumn(name="QUESTION_ID")
  private Question question;

and finally a generic class GenericAnswer
@Entity
@Table(name = "answer")
@Inheritance(strategy = InheritanceType.SINGLE_TABLE)
@DiscriminatorColumn(name = "question", discriminatorType = DiscriminatorType.STRING)
public class GenericAnswer {

which will be extended by 2 classes, QuestionAnswer and SubQuestionAnswer
These 2 classes have a discriminator column to distinguish the table they refer to (question or sub_question)
@DiscriminatorValue("question")
@Entity
public class QuestionAnswer extends GenericAnswer {

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@JoinColumn(name="QUESTION_ID")
private Question question;

and
@DiscriminatorValue("sub_question")
@Entity
public class SubQuestionAnswer extends GenericAnswer {

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@JoinColumn(name="QUESTION_ID")
private SubQuestion subQuestion;

Hope this helps you.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Androgeny – hormony płciowe
 Androgen, androgyn – symbol jedności przeciwieństw


text:
Die Liste der Naturdenkmale in Wandlitz nennt die Naturdenkmale in der Gemeinde Wandlitz im Landkreis Barnim in Brandenburg (Stand Juli 2009).

Bäume, Baumgruppen

|}

Findlinge

|}

Ehemalige Naturdenkmale

|}

Einzelnachweise

Weblinks

Wandlitz
!Naturdenkmale
!Wandlitz


No, I don't mean me. I know my name pretty darn well, and so should you by this point, given that it's at the end of every post and at the top of every comment. If you want to get technical and all-inclusive, with even the confirmation name thrown in, it's Karen Christine Genevieve Funk Blocher. At various times I've also used the nicknames Casey and Foole, and the pen names Casey Jensen and K.C. King, but that's not important right now, because this isn't about me.
It's about that princess in the two excerpts from The Mâvarin Revolutions in the fiction blog, so consistent and persistent in their utter lack of feedback or, for all I know, readers. That's okay. I don't expect more than a few of you to read it, much less comment. But I do have a minor problem with the excerpts, and the book they'll be in, and the two books before it, particularly Another Mâvarin. The Princess needs a better name. Here comes some quick background, and then the specific question and possible choices.
Now, Jor's real children in the first book are named Prince Carli and Princess Cathma. The imposter princess in that same book (don't ask) is Masha. I've been calling the Princess in the other reality Cathma Masha, because she has aspects of both characters. In the story her official name is Cathma, but she took on the name Masha as a minor act of defiance.
But Cathma Masha is a very un-Mâvarin thing to be called. These people never use middle names. So I need to change this. Also, the names Masha and Lok and Van came from Lokvi, the imposter royalty's real father. All are derived from the name of one of the gods, Lokvanishmu. Lormarte wouldn't be inclined to name her kids after a god unless she had a very good reason, e.g. Lokvi's dying request.
Some other variant on the original names.
Those of you who do read fantasy fiction, what are your thoughts?
Your Monday Photo Shoot: Snap a picture of a really interesting lamp or light fixture.
Well, let's see. I've already shown you folks the vintage turquoise and salmon pole lamp, the flower power night light, and the lamp full of Happy Meal toys. But if you think that's about it for lighting-oriented exhibits here at Casa Blocher, the Museum of the Weird, you're underestimating our weirdness quotient rather badly!
Here's another vintage lamp, which currently sits next to the Moses carving and under the Cugat painting in the front room. It's not plugged in; I don't even know whether it works. But it's still pretty neat, and in nice shape for a 50-year-old lamp, don't you think?
I don't quite know what the deal is with this old western-themed lamp. I suspect it was hand made. It came from a yard sale about ten years ago. It's dusty because it's on top of a room divider, not plugged in and not very accessible for cleaning. The truth is that we have more interesting old lamps (and some interesting newer ones also) than places to use them.
The rest of these are all of one or both of a pair or vintage hanging lamps in our den/tv room. There were rather hard to photograph adequately, but these three shots are kind of interesting anyway. This first shot is of one of the lamps as reflected in a vintage mirror.
This second one shows both lamps, plus the mod yellow-base lamp in my office.
And here is a better idea what the lamp as a whole looks like.
I'm still having rather severe sleep deprivation issues, so that's it for tonight.
Try another browser. AOL's internal browser seems to have more trouble than Internet Explorer. Firefox has no trouble at all that we've seen.
The above notice is because several people have reported problems getting the Round Robin Photo Challenges blog to load properly since I added the code for the calendar and Eventful. They are on this blog, too, so I thought I'd throw in some generic advice in case anyone is having trouble. I upgraded the RR blog tonight to the new kind of Blogger template with the widget modules, which should help. The Outpost has been on the new template style for about a week now, maybe more. Please let me know how both blogs are working for you. Thanks!
Today was one of my periodic "sleep or die" days. After four hours' sleep the night before I went to bed from 4:30 to 9:30 PM. I'm still sleepy and exhausted, and I have a sore throat, maybe allergies or maybe the beginning of a cold. So I'm not really up for a lot of cleaning or blogging or fiction writing tonight.
Still, I've been asked to select thirty to forty photos of St. Michael's for the church directory, which I'm in charge of putting together. I haven't done much work on it yet, and I promised to start this weekend. You'd think I'd have a bunch of pictures ready to go, but it's not true. See, I normally edit photos for the web, no more than 500 pixels wide, usually less. For the church directory I need the highest number of pixels per photo I can manage. The photography studio's brochure actually says "no digital photography," but that's clearly insane. I'm sure they put that in so people won't give them low-res images.
Proscovia is in charge of the acolytes, including me.
But they do have to be printed photos, so I need to prepare decent versions of my original images in standard dimensions. I decided to start by taking a bunch of new photos with my new camera, specifically to get the best quality I can manage for the directory. The pictures on this page are resized for the web as usual, but I have large versions, too.
Getting a decent shot of the choir is always a challenge.
One of my ongoing problems is taking well-lit pictures inside the large, rather dimly-lit church. For the shot above I used the ISO setting that's supposed to take decent pictures in low-light conditions. It's not perfect, but it's not terrible, either. I'll know more about whether it's adequate to the purpose when I get these printed out.
Our verger, Toni Sue, is a friend of mine.
And that's another issue. I tend to edit photos so that they look good on my laptop. Experience has shown me, though, that photos I post here look significantly darker on a CRT (traditional desktop monitor, or cathode-ray tube). Judging the right tone balance for printed photos will be something else again. When Toni Sue was baptized in 2005, I took a few photos afterward and printed them out on my $50 printer. They looked terrible! I'm going to have to do some printing on my newer, better printer using photographic paper, just to get a good idea what's likely to work when I get them printed at Walgreen's or wherever.
half-hidden behind a tree-lined walkway.
And on top of all that, there are issues with just physically getting the shots I want. The photo above, for example, is probably the best I'll get of the entrance to St. Michael's. There are mature trees lining the path to the church door, and there just isn't any angle in which the trees don't block part of the view. I was pleased to find this angle this morning, after trying just about every vantage point I could think of over the last couple of years.
As for the photos I already have, the ones that aren't already resized, most of them are too dark or too grainy or both. The earliest ones were taken on the old Sony Mavica, which didn't have he resolution of modern digital cameras. Plus they're scattered in my folders of "My Pictures," on a whole series of CDs as well as my computer.
Guess I'd better start digging. But not tonight!
I did get the end of that scene from The Mâvarin Revolutions posted over on Messages from Mâvarin, not at 4 AM but in the early afternoon. When I mentioned this to John tonight at dinnertime, he said, "I don't even know what that [The Mâvarin Revolutions] is." See, this book is so new, at least past that someday-I-hope-to-write-this stage, that my own husband had never heard of it until today. For the record, it's the book that comes after Return to Mâvarin, which is the last volume of the Mages of Mâvarin trilogy (although it's all one story), which in turn follows Heirs of Mâvarin, my first novel, which is now in its 12th month in the Tor slushpile. Not that I'm complaining. As I've said before, I'd rather it be Still Under Consideration than Definitely Rejected.
Anyway, I got the scene with Will and the Princess finished, and later this afternoon, just before my haircut, I started working on the next scene over a plateful of egg foo young. And why not? Both Heirs and Mages were primarily written in restaurants. Why shouldn't Revolutions emerge the same way?
But tonight I decided to check Making Light, and see what these people I want to be my editors have been up to lately. That's when I found a blog entry about a woman who promoted herself as an Editor on the Inside when she wasn't, basically to promote a $595 pitch conference she's involved with. As is usual with ML entries that uncover someone's scammy or scummy activities, the revelation was followed by uproar and uproariousness. At last peek the comment count stood at 750, of which my only comment is at #745.
Now you know what I did all night instead of Wikipedia, laundry, dishes, selecting photos for the church directory, cleaning my office, or typing the scene in which Fayubi visits Jor.
I'll try to do better tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's a nice picture of Tuffy that I didn't post last night. Tonight at dinner, John and I discussed Tuffy's age (which I just looked up - she's nearly 11 years old), and whether she's a Good Dog. John is of the opinion that Tuffy just isn't affectionate enough for his taste. Also, I don't think he's ever forgiven her for tearing up a couch, a loveseat and a strip of wallpaper when she was five weeks old.
When I was in high school, I bought a book of cartoons by Gahan Wilson, called I Paint What I See. The joke behind the title is that the artist in the cartoon - much like Wilson himself - is drawing truly bizarre stuff.
The path of light is real. The colors and perspective are not.
I thought about calling tonight's entry "I Paint What I See," but it would be misleading. Despite my interest in photography, I'm not a very visual person. Unless I'm actively looking for a photographic subject, I'm not observant when it comes to the sights around me. Nor am I good at visualizing. Maybe it's my fairly extreme myopia. Maybe it's because I'm usually too busy living in my own head to glance outside it, or maybe it's simply that my brain is better at sounds and concepts than sights and spacial relationships.
Also, being no good with eye-hand coordination, I'm not good at drawing and painting from scratch. I'd much rather take a photograph. If the result is a little dull or boring, PhotoStudio will help me liven it up a bit, adjusting tone and color, and even adding special effects.
Here, for example, is pretty much my first sunset photo with the new camera. I lightened and darkened and saturated until I liked what I saw. Does it accurately represent last night's sunset? Not particularly. It's more interesting than the actual view was at Fifth and Wilmot, where I was experimenting with low light photography of the St. Michael's exterior.
rendering. I just played with the background.
Mind you, I didn't edit any of these photos to match a picture in my head. I did it to create a picture I could then see on the screen. For me, it's not I Paint What I See. It's "I paint in order to see."
That's why I hired my friend Sherlock to draw Rani and friends back in 2004. I wanted to see these people in my head, and give them faces at last. I only had rote description of each, but I had Sherry draw and redraw them all until they looked right to me.
Speaking of Rani and friends, I had an idea today for another scene in the new Mâvarin novel, the one that comes after Mages. Heck, I've got whole strands of plot threads spinning themselves in my head these days. Question is, can I finish that scene I started a week and a half ago in the Messages from Mâvarin fiction blog? Probably. Can I do it tonight, bearing in mind that it's already 3 AM? Umm, not so sure about that one. I guess we'll "see," won't we?
Weekend Assignment #149: Reveal Your Teenage Fashion Disasters! Yes, whether it's big hair, Nehru jackets, acid-washed jeans or an ill-advised tattoo, let us know what about your style as a teenager you would change today.
Extra Credit: Are you kidding? Pictures, baby!
As some of you may have gathered over the years, I loved my mom very much, but in many ways she drove me crazy. One of our major sources of disagreement, and the one that caused me the most trouble in school, was the question of what constituted appropriate attire for a teenage girl in the suburbs. Her position on this subject was far from my own, and even farther from the norms at Eagle Hill Junior High and Fayetteville-Manlius High School. My mom was always in favor of me dressing in a ladylike manner, although she didn't put it quite that way. Unfortunately, her idea of feminine clothing consisted almost exclusively of what was available in Lane Bryant mail order catalogs. In short: polyester was the order of the day - nay, the decade. I didn't even own a pair of jeans until Joel's mother bought me some during my trip to Bethesda in 1972.
The staples of my pathetic wardrobe in elementary school were jumpers (mostly plaid) for school, and stretch pants to wear at home as "play clothes." In junior high the polyester pants moved into the school, to the derision of my peers. A blue or red sweater vest completed the ensemble. As the result of my frequent protests, the blue stretch pants with the line down the front were eventually replaced by other polyester pants (one of them was houndstooth), and polyester pantsuits. The one in my senior portrait above (which was taken in the spring of my junior year) was a relatively benign version. The worst pantsuit was textured turquoise doubleknit polyester. I think it had epaulets. I liked the color, but when my 65-year-old English teacher praised it I knew for certain it was horribly wrong.
Another staple of my wardrobe, especially in junior high, was the culotte. I liked the fact that it wasn't a dress, and yet I was allowed to wear it to school. This one was dark navy with white polka dots. Around my neck I wore a peace symbol on a leather strap. I liked this outfit just fine until I posed in it one day for a newspaper article about a dangerous puddle near my house. I had erected a warning sign asking drivers to slow down, since people were constantly stalling out after driving through the huge puddle. Kids at school accused me of wearing a dress to play in puddles.
Here's another item I actually liked: my blue velvet cape. But I wouldn't wear such a thing now. My mom was a great believer in capes and caftans, shawls and ponchos.
I've had a total of eight hours of sleep over the last two nights combined, so I'm going to rush this entry and go to bed. I wanted to get my next installment of the Princess and Commander Masan scene written and posted over on Messages from Mâvarin, but that's going to have to wait. Friday is probably a better night to schedule that, when I can stay up all night and sleep into the afternoon the next day.
As I mentioned last night, one of the main criteria I used in selecting my new camera (a Sony Cyber-shot) was its purported ability to take decent photos in relatively low-light conditions. Tonight I put the camera to the test in this respect. It didn't work any miracles, but overall I think it did rather well.
This first shot was taken at lunchtime, of chicken tortilla soup. It's a flash shot using the macro setting.
Dusk in the Unnamed Largish Company parking lot. The flash photos came out better than the low-light settings I tried. I played with the tone and saturation levels on this, but I almost always do that anyway.
One of the big frustrations I've had with past cameras is the difficulty in taking a good picture of Tuffy after dusk. The house is never brightly lit, for various reasons (older house, broken fixtures, sixty-watt bulbs), and when I use flash, her eyes get that awful shiny reflection that ruins the shot. Sometimes I color them brown afterward; this makes the shots barely usable. Since I pretty much only see Tuffy nights and weekends, I miss out on a lot of potential dog-blogging.
Can the Sony Cyber-shot help me with this problem? Well, a little bit. This was taken without flash by the light of a nearby sixty-watt bulb under a vintage lampshade. I've adjusted the levels quite a bit, but the colors are still off, it's still a bit dark and the focus is just so-so. Still, it's a nice mood piece, and I like the fuzziness of the background.
Okay, I played with this one quite a bit - for tone and saturation, despeckling and cropping - but even the raw version of the photo was rather striking. I love the shadow the dragon is casting here. This shot simply would not be possible with flash.
You may recognize these props from Halloween, and from one of the "mess" pictures from the Monday Photo Shoot. I have them stored in a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory popcorn bucket. I've tried many times to photograph this faux skull, but it always comes out looking very odd when I use flash. This is the best representation of the way the thing actually looks that I've managed to date.
1:14 AM. I've done worse. Good night!
Unlike Steven of (sometimes) photoblog, who is an expert with macro photography, I barely knew what it was when this challenge came up. Turns out "macro" is the term for the close-up setting (or lens, or both) on a camera. I think a macro lens on a non-digital camera is a large lens for taking pictures of small things. It's a paradox: outside the field of photography, "macro" means big, and "micro" is small!
Still, it's a neat idea, and a good chance to stretch my photography skills outside my usual comfort zone of landscapes and sunsets. And it was a great excuse to finally do what I've wanted to do for months: I bought a new camera tonight! It's a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W100, with 8.1 megapixels and an ISO of 1250 for taking good pictures in low light conditions. That's important for me, because of all the pictures I take inside St. Michael's as semi-official parish photographer.
Three Skipper dolls and a Skipper case "reflect" each other.
My newest doll, a Happy Meal Lucy Pevensey from a little over a year ago.
Now, if you're interested in joining in on this Challenge, you're more than welcome! Check out the Round Robin blog for details, and don't be intimidated if you're not sure about this macro stuff - it isn't hard, and it's a lot of fun. (At least it is for me, so far!). Steven and John have both posted some tips. Check 'em out! I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with! And remember, any macro photography is fine for this. For most digital camera, that means using the setting with the flower icon to take close-ups of small things. Got it! Good!
Schelle - POSTED! Welcome, new member!
Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a picture of a real mess.
And a corner full of stuff that used to be on shelves - and will be again soon.
Last night's snow delayed some of my co-workers getting to the office, but not me. The bridges around the city (over various washes and rivers, mostly), were almost all closed this morning, so people drove around looking for a way through. But all I had was a five minute drive up Wilmot Rd.
And this was the view on Wilmot this morning. Talk about snow on the mountains!
The view from the second floor. Too bad about the flagpole.
All morning snow was falling - not from the sky, but from the palm trees as the snow and ice melted. No more snow tonight, but a hard freeze. We had about two inches of snow Sunday night. For Syracuse that's nothing, but for Tucson that's pretty darn impressive.
With all the people struggling to get to work this morning, I felt a little guilty about enjoying the snow so much. Trust me: back in Manlius, and Syracuse, and later Columbus, OH, I was thoroughly sick of the stuff. But when snow only covers the ground a couple times a decade, it has definite novelty value. John said he saw a snowman on a car - a car in motion, mind you. And my Dad called from North Carolina to ask whether I'd made a snowball. I didn't, but John did.
Well, finally! Through all my attempts this winter to take pictures of snow on the Santa Catalina Mountains north of me, I've secretly (or not so secretly) been hoping for this unusually cold Tucson winter to produce some actual snow in the city, seemingly for the first time in five years or more. I'd almost forgotten what it looked like up close. Tonight I got my wish - and then some.
It started as we drove to Safeway around 5 PM. It had been raining, and John noticed that the rain was turning into snow - just barely. Anything that hit the windshield was already melted, but in the air...yes. It was big and white.
We pulled into the Safeway parking lot, and as we got out of the car we could see that the snow was really starting to look like, well, snow. As we shopped, I kept hearing the word "snow" coming from the mouths of both Safeway employees and our fellow shoppers.
Back home I took a few shots of snow in the sky and snow on my car. Then I drove to work, admiring the beautiful, rather heavy snowfall as I drove through it. I got to the office safely, only to realize that I forgot my security badge. I didn't really mind - it was a chance enjoy the snow a little longer. I wasn't the only one, either. At least three sets of my neighbors were outside taking pictures as I left the house again.
When I got back to work I parked right next to the building, partly because there's no competition for the space on a Sunday night (the lot was almost completely empty otherwise), partly for safety, and partly on the theory that the building would shield the car from some of the snow. By that time the snow was actually "sticking" rather than melting as it hit the ground.
It was almost 1 AM when I left the office again. I wish I could tell you it was a very productive evening, but I had a few setbacks I couldn't do anything about tonight. When I got outside I had to run the front and rear defrosters and wait. The windshield didn't have all that much snow on it, but what was there was icing up, and the windshield wipers couldn't budge it. The back window was also completely covered with snow and ice. I passed the time chatting about snow with a security guard who used to live in Buffalo. Seems to me a lot of people in Tucson are refugees from the "lake effect" snow I grew up with in Manlius. Not too surprisingly, I no longer know whether we even own an ice scraper; so I mostly relied on the sleeve of my jacket to brush away what I could.
The front yard at home at 1:05 AM or so was a winter wonderland. The plant in the middle is bougainvillea.
The neighbor's tree was also pretty neat-looking.
I just hope John remembers to start his car well before he needs to leave for work.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention - I'm happy to say I got the sixth-most votes out of seven candidates for the St. Michael's vestry. That means I was not elected, but I'm told that I'll probably either end up filling a vacancy when it comes up or be asked to run again next year. That's all right. At least I don't have to commit the time right now. Several people told me they voted for me. At the last possible second I even voted for myself - I was on the fence about it until that moment. Meanwhile, Father Smith wants me to choose thirty or forty of my best shots of St. Michael's, and have them printed for the parish directory. The photography studio specifically says "no digital photography," but we should get away with the full-size, high-res images.
I spent all of today either asleep, watching Doctor Who or cleaning, mostly just dishes and laundry and Christmas stuff. Didn't make it out of the house at all. Sunday morning - about seven hours from now - I either will or won't be elected to the vestry of St. Michael's. I'm kind of hoping for not. I didn't even get the church website updated this week - which is completely my fault. Nobody sent me the file, although I could have retyped. Will people gather that I don't "deserve" to be on the vestry, or will name recognition alone get me elected? There are seven candidates and five slots.
So now I need to make sure the time of the church's annual meeting is posted properly, and go to bed. No pictures tonight, except for one I took at Christmas, no going on about Wikipedia or time management. Then after church tomorrow I absolutely positively have to go in to work.
See you with updates tomorrow night.
Yes, I took more pictures of the Santa Catalina Mountains today. This first one I've darkened quite a bit. Do you see why?
There's just a smidge of that ever-elusive Southern Arizona snow here again, and at the other end, over by Pusch Ridge, a rainbow. See it?
I think I took this other shot from upstairs in Accounting. The rainbow was either gone or not visible from that angle. Still, I liked the cloud formation and the way the mountain looked. Too bad the flagpole is in the way.
So I edited it out.
I'm happy to say that I got eight hours of sleep last night. Even though it's 4 AM now (I've been watching Doctor Who on DVD, followed by a Diagnosis Murder / Matlock crossover, SG-1 and The Pretender), I fully intend to get at least eight or night hours tonight/today also, starting a few minutes from now. Unfortunately I need to spend a good chunk of the weekend at work. But first I will sleep!
And the point of my fried brain recipe, Paul, is that I worked very nearly an 11-hour day at the office on four hours of sleep. Yesterday, and again today, I barely touched Wikipedia. The sleep part is absolutely my fault, but that long stint at work is just how it is for me at this time of year. It's only going to get worse for the next month or two. Unfortunately, nights and weekends at Unnamed Largish Company is not something I'll be able to cut back on any time soon. In fact, it's just beginning.
Weekend Assignment #148: Cats. Cheese. There's only enough room on the planet for one of them -- and you have to decide which stays and which goes. Which do you choose and why?
Extra Credit: what's your favorite breed of cat and/or type of cheese?
If the question stated that "There's only enough room in the house for one of them," I would literally agree with that proposition. I'm not a cat person at all. Never have been. I'm a lifelong dog person, cradle to grave, through and through. What's more I'm very, very allergic to cats. They give me asthma and everything. I'm only a teeny bit allergic to dogs.
I'm not allergic to cheese at all. Even if I were to unwrap, handle and consume a piece of cheese, I would suffer no ill effects.
Not being a cat person, I have a remarkably cat-free home, even without Scalzi's false dichotomy. I don't have plush toy cats, cat pictures, china cat figurines, cat books, cat calendars or catnip. I may have a weird little textured cat figurine that came in a $1.00 box of auctioned junk, but I don't know where that is. It may be a dog anyway. Oh, and I have cardboard Kliban cat ornaments.
So you see, losing the feline species would not impinge on my life one bit. It would actually enhance it, because I would be able to visit certain friends without getting ill ten minutes after I walk in the door. Losing cheese would be more of a problem. John and I both like cheese. It's low in carbohydrate, and frankly, there are quite a few dishes that don't taste nearly as good without it.
However, John Scalzi specified the whole planet in his question, and I'm not so selfish as to deprive Steve, Sara, Sarah, Linda, Steven, Carly, Dan, Anita, Jacob, Pat, Julie, John Scalzi and a zillion other people of their cats. I would rather give up cheese than not have Elvis and Pickles and Lopsided Cat and the rest out there in the world...far away from me.
P.S. Two entries tonight. Scroll down.


'I hope we are keeping a list of everyone who was in favour of press regulation", began an email from a British friend who has never been nor wanted to be a journalist. "I would like this tattooed on their foreheads – and perhaps there can be a kind of noise, like discordant trumpets, which will sound every time they make a public pronouncement about anything. For the rest of their lives."David is a kindly man from a Christian background who believes in redemption, so he added: "If they renounce their mistakes – and apologise for trying to destroy the basis of a free and decent society, and indeed of justice and science and the whole Enlightenment – then they can speak free of the trumpets. And their foreheads will be wiped clean."
I'm with him all the way, and my first candidate for the punitive tattoo will be Hugh Grant. I liked him in Four Weddings and a Funeral, but I'm so furious with him that I don't care if the tattoo keeps him off our screens. Forever!
Grant has been the front-man for Hacked Off, an organisation of victims of hacking and other press malfeasances and a few academics and lawyers with what I regard as authoritarian leanings, though they would dispute that. In that role he has become a weighty public figure who is listened to with an absurd amount of respect, not least because he is adept in reminding us of the worst cases and interviewers are too reverential to remind him that laws should not be made by victims.
There was no decent person who watched or read evidence given at the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press who was not moved and angry about, for instance, the persecution of the parents of Madeleine McCann or the hacking of a missing girl's phone. But the offending newspapers paid huge damages to the McCanns, the News of the World was closed down, and scores of journalists have been arrested in dawn raids and many charged with serious offences like theft and bribery. The career of Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's right-hand woman at News International, has been ruined and she's awaiting trial.
The police had turned a blind eye for years – not least because they knew that they had many members who routinely sold information – but once they began to do their duty it was clear there was no need for new legislation.
There was a clear need, however, for a serious beefing up of the Press Complaints Commission, easy access to a complaints procedure, prominent corrections, a new code of conduct and hefty fines, and editors were prepared to sign up to it. Some looked favourably on the Irish system of a Press Council and Press Ombudsman. They were close to agreeing on very tough self-regulation.
And then, using Hugh Grant as cover, politicians decided to seize the opportunity to muzzle the hated press which for three centuries has exposed corruption and bad behaviour in public life. In recent times, it has brought about the jailing of, for instance, Jonathan Aitken, Jeffrey Archer and Chris Huhne. In 2009, citing the public interest, the Daily Telegraph paid £110,000 for a confidential file of MPs' expenses, leading not just to many resignations, sackings, and retirements, but to the imprisonment of several politicians for false accounting.
The campaign was harsh and brought politicians probably into too much disrepute, but that's typical of how the British press has been able to keep politics and business pretty clean compared to Ireland, which has used fear of bankruptcy to keep the press at bay. Charlie Haughey and Michael Lowry would not have survived in the House of Commons.
David Cameron actually cares about press freedom and wanted voluntary and proportionate reform, as did a handful of Tories, but most MPs just wanted vengeance and control while piously insisting that they were merely trying to protect future victims. Cameron's attempted compromise of a royal charter was dished by Hacked Off, which painted him and any other dissenters from their demands for heavy state regulation as Murdoch stooges. Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg led the stampede to sign up and Cameron had to go unhappily along with a confused form of state regulation of print and digital journalism that was hastily passed, almost no one understands and is attracting horrified criticism from world media and bodies like Index on Censorship that defend freedom of expression.
Editors and owners are consulting their lawyers and the prospect looms that tabloids like the Sun and the Daily Mail, which loath the European Court of Human Rights, may yet be saved by it. What a great film it would all make. Hugh Grant, tattoo and all, can play himself.