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Home Lifestyle Travel Places to Visit in Kota Rajasthan
Places to Visit in Kota Rajasthan
Kota is the third largest city in the state of Rajasthan and is one of the popular tourist destinations. Situated on the banks of the Chambal River, the city of Kota is famous for its distinctive style of paintings, palaces, museums, and places of worship. The city is known for gold jewellery, Doria sarees, silk sarees and the famous Kota stone.
The history of Kota dates back to the 12th century when Rao Deva conquered the territory and founded Hadoti. The independent Rajput state of Kota was carved out of Bundi in 1631. The kingdom of Kota had a turbulent history as it was raided by various Mughal rulers, Maharajas of Jaipur and even the Maratha warlords.
The city of Kota is well known all over the world for its architectural splendour comprising beautiful palaces, temples and museums which exhibit the grandeur of the foregone era.
Destinations to explore in KOTA
GARH PALACE
The foremost tourist attraction in Kota is the 'Garh'. This large complex, also known as the City Palace, is built in a predominantly Rajput style of architecture. The palace is a sprawling complex of suites and apartments built by different rulers of the Rajput dynasty at different times in history.
MAHARAO MADHO SINGH MUSEUM
Situated within the walls of the Garh palace, Maharao Madho Singh Museum houses a splendid collection of Rajput miniature paintings of the Kota school. Visitors can spend hours taking in the fascinating sculptures, arms and other valuable antiques.
ABHEDA MAHAL AND KARANI MATA TEMPLE
Located 8 kilometres away from Kota, on the banks of a tank, this medieval palace was the recreation spot of the rulers of Kota. It is where they went to enjoy the wildlife and natural beauty of the region. Close to Abheda Mahal is the temple of Karni Mata, the reigning deity of Kota.
DAD DEVI TEMPLE
Situated about 18 kilometres from Kota, the temple of the deity of the royal household of Kota is surrounded by thick forests and is an ideal place to spend some time in quiet contemplation. This temple is dedicated to Shri Dad Devi Mata Ji, an incarnation of Goddess Durga.
CHARAN CHAUKI
On the way to Dad Devi, 15 kilometres from Kota City, is Charan Chauki. It marks the legendary spot where Lord Krishna is said to have rested for a brief moment while travelling to Dwarka from Mathura. His footprints are said to have been preserved here.
JAGMANDIR PALACE
The Jagmandir Palace was built by one of the queens of Kota between 1743 and 1745, and is situated in the middle of the Kishore Sagar Lake. Built in red sandstone, it is a monument of exquisite beauty. The palace is open to tourists who can enjoy boat rides in the Kishore Sagar Lake and the panoramic view of the palace from the lake. The Keshar Bagh, situated near the Jagmandir Palace is well known for its royal cenotaphs.
KOTA BARRAGE
Kota Barrage is one of the most important water reservoirs in the Rajasthan state constructed over Chambal River. The Kota Barrage spreads over an area of 27,332 square kilometres, which makes it as large as Haiti! The mesmerizing view of water flowing through the gates with a great force makes it a popular tourist attraction. The Kansua temple of Lord Shiva, housing a rare four-faced Shiva lingam is a place of interest near the barrage.
CHAMBAL GARDEN
Located on the bank of river Chambal, this place is one of the most beautiful picnic spots in the city of Kota. At Chambal Garden, visitors can enjoy peace in the lap of exquisite greenery. The major attraction here is the wonderful boat ride that you can take on the Chambal river. Considered to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the river itself is a part of the National Chambal Ghariyal (Gavial) Sanctuary.
The sanctuary was established in 1983 with the express purpose of conserving the fast depleting population of marsh crocodiles and ghariyals, which are a type of thin-snouted crocodile. It is also famous for its diverse bird population and scenic natural beauty.
EVEN WONDER PARK
The Seven Wonder Park is a Rs. 20 crores worth project developed along the Kishore Sagar Lake at Vallabh Bari in Kota. A single visit to this park allows visitors to get a glimpse of the replicas of all the Seven Wonders of the World.
KHADE GANESH JI TEMPLE
The Ganesh temple is situated in the southern part of the city. What makes this temple unique is that this is the only temple in India that has a standing idol of Ganesh. One can also visit Rangbadi Balaji temple on the way there.
KARNESHWAR TEMPLE
Karneshwar temple is a Shiva Temple located on the Jhalawar Road (NH 12). Besides the temple, the place itself is beautiful, especially during the monsoon. The temple is thronged by devotees and picnickers.
GODAWARI DHAM
Godawari Dham is a Hanuman temple situated at walking distance from Chambal Garden. This temple is located beside the Chambal River. It is a beautiful shrine, made entirely of white marble. The towers of the temple are quite high and impressive. It has a huge marble swan built at the top of the entrance gate.
ALNIA DAM
The Alnia Dam is one of the must-see attractions of Kota. It is renowned for the beautiful rock paintings that date back to the Upper Paleolithic age. Still in good condition, they adorn the bank of the river, making this place definitely worth a visit.
MUKUNDARA TIGER RESERVE
The Mukundara Tiger Reserve is 50 kilometres from Kota. Tigers are often relocated here from Ranthambore Reserve. It has a core area of 417 square kilometres and a buffer zone covering 342.82 square kilometres. Other wildlife includes panther, deer, wild boar and bear. This thickly wooded area is home to a large variety of birds as well.
GARADIA MAHADEV TEMPLE (MAGNIFICENT TEMPLE IN KOTA)
Garadia Mahadev Temple is a noted shrine of Kota, located near the Chambal River. It is located near the NH-76 that leads to Dabi and Chittorgarh. If you're someone who enjoys spectacular views, then this place doesn't disappoint.
It provides one of the most mesmerising views you can hope to find of the Chambal River, gorge and the plains. The shrine can be reached by descending a few steps where you can pay your respects to Lord Shiva. The place is a tad remote and isolated from regular tourist hotspots but is worth the journey you have to make.
Most people recount being stunned by the sheer beauty and memorable view. Thanks to the privacy and view it affords, this spot is quite popular as a picnic destination. Nature lovers can sit here for hours, absorbing its tranquillity and pristine beauty. Budding poets, writers and artists can count on being inspired by the still, blue waters and surrounding wilderness. If peace, blessings, nature's splendour and privacy is what you're looking for, you won't find a better place than this.
KANSUA TEMPLE
This is one of the oldest and most beautiful temples in Kota and is dedicated to Lord Shiva. The temple has a small pond within its premises. There is a stone inscription here dating back to 738 AD that says that it was built by Raja Shivgana Maurya but local legend has it that the temple was built by the Pandavas during their exile.
MATHURADHEESH MANDIR
The Mathuradheesh Temple in Kota belongs to Pushti Marg, a Vaishnava sect founded by Shri Vallabhacharyaji. The idol of Krishna housed here was brought from the Karnaval village (near Mathura) and placed in the haveli of Dewan Dwarka Das. It now forms a major attraction for devotees of Lord Krishna. The festivals of Janmashtami, Nand Mahotsav, Annakoota and Holi are celebrated with great enthusiasm here.
GAIPARNATH TEMPLE
Gaipar Nath is a lovely big chasm with an old Shiva temple set in a deep gorge with a spectacular view of the ruggedly beautiful forests and cliffs of the Chambal valley. The pleasant sound of gushing water from the Gaiparnath waterfall near the temple, set against a picturesque canvas of a green landscape make it an idyllic and beautiful spot to visit.
HOW TO REACH HERE
The nearest airports are Sanganer airport in Jaipur which is 244 kms away
Regular buses are available to Kota from all cities and towns in Rajasthan.
Kota is a major junction in the Western Railway sector, on the Delhi-Mumbai line. Most trains pass through Kota.
Contributed by http://tourism.rajasthan.gov.in/kota
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Utsav Srinet September 4, 2016 at 11:49 am
Very well written, Kota is nand green but cleanliness needs attention.else a good place to be with family and friends.
Yogita August 31, 2016 at 7:59 pm
Hey, thanks for giving us some time. That picture is of 'Garadia Mahadev Temple'. I placed it on wrong location 🙂
Tales of travelling sisters August 30, 2016 at 11:48 am
Wow, the first picture is simply stunning!!! Is that the Dad Devi Mandir or the Charan Chauki?
Yogita September 6, 2016 at 5:54 pm
No.. 😛 we made the little mess. That picture is from Garadia Mahadev Temple.
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require 'spec_helper'

module Searchengine
  class CitiesController < ActionController::Base
  end

  class CountriesController < ActionController::Base
  end

  class City < ActiveRecord::Base
    include Searchengine::Concerns::Models::Searchable
  end

  class Country < ActiveRecord::Base
    include Searchengine::Concerns::Models::Searchable
  end

  Engine.routes.draw do
    get '/search', to: 'cities#query'

    resources :countries do
      collection do
        searchable
      end
    end
  end
end

describe Searchengine::CitiesController, type: :controller do
  before(:each) do
    Searchengine::CitiesController.class_eval do
      include Searchengine::Concerns::Controllers::Searchable
    end
    allow(Searchengine::City).to receive(:set) { |name, val|
      stub_const "Searchengine::Indices::#{name}", val
    }
  end

  routes { Searchengine::Engine.routes }

  describe 'supporting search' do
    before(:each) do
      Searchengine::City.searchable_as('Dummy') do |index|
        index.define_type Searchengine::City do |type|
          type.field :email, :string
        end
      end
      Searchengine::CitiesController.searches(Searchengine::City)
    end

    it 'responds to the #search action' do
      get :query
      expect(response.status).to eq(200)
    end

    it 'calls the #process_query with the appropriate query content' do
      expect(controller.class).to receive(:process_query).with(hash_including(q: 'lisa'))
      get :query, q: 'lisa'
    end
  end

  context 'pagination' do
    let(:details) { }
    before {
      Searchengine::City.searchable_as('Dummy') do |index|
        index.define_type Searchengine::City do |type|
          type.field :email, :string
        end
      end
      Searchengine::CitiesController.searches(Searchengine::City)
    }
    subject { controller.class }

    it 'set the starting marker' do
      skip
      expect(subject.find('New', from: 7)).to be_nil
    end

    it 'sets the count of items to return' do
      skip
      expect(subject.find('New', size: 3)).to be_nil
    end

    it 'returns the standard count of items' do
      skip
      expect(subject.find('New')).to be_nil
    end
  end

  context 'query constructor' do
    before { skip }

    let(:details) {
      {
        filter: { range: { age: { gte: 100 } } },
        order: { email: :desc },
        offset: 12,
        limit: 10
      }
    }
    subject { controller.class }

    it 'sets the ordering' do
      is_expected.to receive(:query_ordered).with(anything, details[:order])
      expect(subject.find('New', details)).to_not be_nil
    end

    it 'sets the filtering' do
      is_expected.to receive(:query_filtered).with(anything, details[:filter])
      expect(subject.find('New', details)).to_not be_nil
    end

    it 'sets the offset' do
      is_expected.to receive(:query_offsetted).with(anything, details[:offset])
      expect(subject.find('New', details)).to_not be_nil
    end

    it 'sets the limit' do
      is_expected.to receive(:query_limited).with(anything, details[:limit])
      expect(subject.find('New', details)).to_not be_nil
    end
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Gujarat's Maldhari community leader Bhima Rabari resigns from BJP
In Porbandar, Maldhari community leader Bhima Rabari and workers have resigned in frustration over the BJP's performance. Bhima Makwana has been the president of Scheduled Caste Morcha of BJP. He is currently the president of the Maldhari community. He had also come on the agitation against the BJP government for the Scheduled Tribe certificate.
With the preparations for the assembly elections in Gujarat, the process of resignations of leaders in political parties and joining other parties has started.
About 200 workers, including the president of Porbandar District Rabari Samaj Education and Charitable Trust, resigned from the party in protest against the BJP. Resigned from BJP citing displeasure over several issues including certificates and social work.
Bhima Rabari had announced that it would be the BJP's turn in the 2022 elections. 200 workers are resigning from BJP for the injustice done to us. The agitation was called off after the government promised to issue certificates to the Scheduled Tribes. He has taken such a step after not getting the certificate even after the guarantee of the government.
Students of Maldhari community have first agitated against the government on the issue of LRD exam and then a huge rally was also organized by Maldhari community in Porbandar for the ST certificate.
Singers and community leaders also stood by the students during the agitation. After this the government resolved the matter. BJP's Maldhari has started resigning.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The hotel has a total of 60 rooms and suites and has a reputation as one of the best in the region. There are many room categories, depending on the size and the view. All are bright and well appointed. The hotels restaurant is excellent and has a traditional French menu with the Chef taking pride in using fresh local products. The best tables are by the windows and have stunning panoramic views of the coastline.


All of the internship prompts will be posted here.
Starting June 7th – BE IN CONTACT WITH YOUR ADVISOR. MAKE SURE YOU ARE AVAILABLE AND AWARE OF YOUR ADVISORY GROUPS ARRIVAL TIME ON FRIDAY June 14TH.
Do you have a sense of accomplishment? What have you put together for a project? How do your experiences compare to school?
Describes any conflicts that exist at your site. This could also be between your site and the outside world. If there have been conflicts, then what has been done to resolve them. If there are no conflicts, then describe your Utopian world and why everyone gets along so well.
Ask you mentor about their career choices. How did he or she go about getting this job? What education did they undertake? What choices did they make along the way that took them a different direction? Why did they choose this work? What part about their work do they like the most? What would they change? Additionally, you should add two additional questions. Consider the decisions you will have to make in your own future. What choices will you have to make? What education will you have to obtain? In order to achieve some of these skills you see at work, what will you have to do?
Note: Be sure to post the transcript from the interview.
6th post (May 29): Are you making a meaningful contribution to your workplace? What project (s) are you working on? What accomplishment will you feel proudest of? What did you learn about the quality and quantity of your work?What qualities and characteristic do you see in your coworkers would you like to develop in yourself?
5th post (May 24): From the class generated list o' prompts: Tell some funny stories. (This could be something that happened to you or something you witnessed during your internship. ) Have you had any awkward moments?
4th post (May 22): How does it feel to be back at work? What was your attitude as you arrived at work? How did the place feel when you got there? What do you plan to accomplish this week?
3rd post (May 17): What HTH skills did you use in your first week? This could be lab skills, computer skills, or communication skills. Any skills you wish you had, but weren't prepared for?
2nd post (May 15): Describe your first day. Use descriptive language. How did it match your expectations?
1st post (May 9): Write out your expectations for your first day. Also include your mentor's name and their full contact information.


Raised on shell corn in the Husker state of Nebraska, Cort Scheer wins hands down for the sexiest cowboy of the year. Those pearly white teeth, non-stop smile, great sense of humor, ultimate politeness and highly polished cowboy manners? That's our boy!
His light chestnut hair is long enough to be old-fashioned Western romantic under his crisp, silver belly hat but short enough he'll never be mistaken for a girl. The Elite Rodeo Association 2016 Champion Bronc Rider is tall, moves like a cat and flies off bucking horses to stick the landing and walk off in time to the music with that big old happy grin any old time he wants to.
Scheer is a businessman in the world of bronc riders, savvy to not just the trail. He's earned several Wrangler National Finals Rodeo Qualifications and always capitalized by rising in the standings during his 10 days in Las Vegas.
Rodeo is famous for athletes supporting one another. Cort is a guy who takes that to the next level, helping young cowboys get started right and sharing what his career has taught him to streamline the success of the next generation. He's a cowboy in and out of the arena, can be found dragging his cattle to the branding fire, riding a string of nice ranch horses and dancing around to Meghan Traynor music when he thinks nobody's watching.


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Contract service
Terms of admission Social guarantees Advanced training Uniform
Ceremonial full dress Duty uniform Camouflage dress Shoulder insignia
Conscription service Contract service Alternative service State civilian service
< Home < Service < Contract service < Terms of admission
Terms of admission
People wishing to start contract service may apply to the Enlistment Offices in place of residence. There they will be interviewed and asked to undergo medical examination after which all required documents will be executed.
The Contract for military service can be concluded by:
Servicemen whose previous contract is expiring;
Servicemen doing Draft military service for at least 12 months;
Citizens in reserve;
Non-reserve male citizens graduated from the state or municipal educational institutions or non-state institutions of higher professional education state-accredited in corresponding training areas (specialities);
Non-reserve female citizens;
Other citizens according to the regulatory legal acts of the President of the Russian Federation.
The Contract is concluded between a citizen (foreign citizen) and on behalf of the Russian Federation – by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation or another federal executive authority which can offer military service pursuant to this Federal Law. The Contract is executed in a standard printed form and is concluded according to the procedure established by the Provision on active service. A person may conclude the first or the new Contract. The first Contract may be concluded by citizens 18 to 40 years old.
The following people cannot be considered eligible parties to the Contract: citizens (servicemen) who have a guilty verdict of court of a court suit underway against them; who have outstanding convictions of crime and who serve their term in prison.
Requirements to citizens wishing to do contract service are set forth in Article 33 of the Federal Law On Military Duty and Military Service.
A citizen applying for the contract military service is expected to meet the medical and professional-and-psychological requirements to specific military specialities. To establish compliance with the specified requirements, the citizen will be asked to undergo medical examination (according to the Provision on military physician expertise) and the process of professional-and-psychological selection (according to the Provision on active service).
Citizens recognized by the medical commission as fit for military service or fit for military service with minor restrictions may be admitted to contract military service.
The process of professional-and-psychological selection will produce one of the following conclusions on the citizen's professional fitness to contract military service in certain positions:
Recommended in priority – category 1;
Recommended – category 2;
Recommended conditionally – category 3;
Not recommended – category 4.
A Category 4 citizen will not be admitted to contract military service.
A citizen applying for contract military service is expected to satisfy certain requirements to:
education;
professional training;
physical training.
These requirements are specified by the Defence Minister of the Russian Federation or the Head of the Federal executive authority which can offer military service pursuant to this Federal Law.
The reasons for rejection of a citizen's application for contract military service are:
absence of positions corresponding to the citizen's training profile or military speciality in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other forces, military units and authorities;
the decision of the military unit Assessment Committee approved by the Commander (officer-in-charge) of such military unit on awarding the Contract to another candidate upon the results of the competition;
the decision of the Enlistment Office or Assessment Committee of the military unit on the failure of the candidate to meet the requirements to contract military service established by this Federal Law.
Sociological center
International Mine Action Center


J Cell Biochem. 2010 Feb 1;109(2):283-91. doi: 10.1002/jcb.22403.
Pathogenesis of myeloma bone disease.
Multiple myeloma (MM) is the most common cancer to involve bone with up to 90% of patients developing bone lesions. The bone lesions are purely osteolytic in nature and do not heal in the vast majority of patients. Up to 60% of patients develop pathologic fractures over the course of their disease. Bone disease is a hallmark of MM, and myeloma bone disease differs from bone metastasis caused by other tumors. Although myeloma and other osteolytic metastases induce increased osteoclastic bone destruction, in contrast to other tumors, once myeloma tumor burden exceeds 50% in a local area, osteoblast activity is either severely depressed or absent. The basis for this severe imbalance between increased osteoclastic bone resorption and decreased bone formation has been the topic of intensive investigation over the last several years. These studies have helped to identify novel targets for treating myeloma bone disease and will be discussed in this chapter.


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ESPN+ Adds PHF (Formerly NWHL) to Hockey Content Offerings
20 Oct 2021, 16:11 BST – Jeff Kotuby
ESPN+ is quickly becoming the hockey fan's premier (no pun intended) streaming destination.
Today, ESPN announced that the Premier Hockey Federation, formerly known as the National Women's Hockey League, will air all 60 regular-season games and its Isobel Cup playoffs on ESPN+. For the first time in the league's existence, every single contest will air on one platform.
"This is historic for us," PHF commissioner Tyler Tumminia said, noting that negotiations had been ongoing for approximately five months. "ESPN is becoming the home of hockey, right? We all wanted to be a part of that."
US$6.99 / month espnplus.com
And become the home of hockey it has. Outside of adding the NHL in a monumental seven-year deal earlier this year, ESPN has also added the KHL to its existing men's and women's NCAA hockey coverage, creating a streaming destination for hockey fans across the country. What Paramount+ has tried to do for soccer by nabbing up broadcast rights, ESPN+ is certainly trying to do for hockey.
With the move to the Worldwide Leader's streaming platform, Tumminia also said the league's games will have an upgraded broadcast presentation, and members of the PHF community and some "potential talent from the ESPN+ side" will help with the broadcasts this season. You can also expect to see ESPN+'s hockey studio shows like In the Crease cover the PHF, too.
According to the league, the ESPN+ deal was one of the catalysts for the PHF's rebranding. The league was founded as the National Women's Hockey League in 2015 and played six seasons under that banner before changing to the Premier Hockey League earlier this year, saying that the new name, "re-defines the league's brand based on the skill and talent of its athletes as opposed to their gender and is the first professional women's sports league in North America to lift the word 'women's out of its title" according to its official press release.
"We knew we wanted to rebrand before announcing the ESPN+ deal. The stage will be larger than we've ever been on. The exposure for brand awareness will be larger," said Tumminia, who was named league commissioner in August. "The athletes felt very passionate about defining themselves just as skilled athletes."
The PHF season officially begins on November 6.
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🇬🇧 United Kingdom (English)
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text:
Crafty's Advent Calendar: Scotty Hargrave
December 17, 2019, by James Smith
How fast things can change... When working out who to approach for this series, the person we're featuring today was head brewer and co-owner of one of the fastest-growing and best-loved breweries in the country.
When we asked him if he'd be keen to get involved, then sent him the questionnaire ahead of calling him up, that was still the case. Yet, when it came to making said phone call – from a picnic bench in the middle of the road in Nhill, in regional Victoria, of all places – it was more to chat about arguably the biggest change of his professional career.
Thus, as his answers hit the site today, they land in a landscape somewhat altered from when the questions were sent his way. In many ways, nothing has changed: Scotty Hargrave is still head brewer at one of the fastest-growing and best-loved breweries in the country and he'll still be heading to the brewery in Currumbin Waters to oversee production of as much XPA and friends as his growing team can fill their tanks with, but now it's as part of CUB's expanded craft portfolio.
The beer and recipes won't have changed, although your opinion of the brewery and whether you choose to continue supporting them might have done. What won't ever change is Scotty's remarkable run from quitting his job as a concreter in Canberra to start brewing at Sunshine Coast Brewery around thirteen years ago. The intervening years went on to include stints at Stone & Wood in the brewery's early years, the Byron Bay Brewery prior to its sale to Lion, and then Balter, where trophies have been amassed regularly on the back of his beers along the way.
When it comes to those awarded by industry experts, you have AIBA Champion Large Australian Brewery 2019, AIBA Best International Style Pale Ale 2019 (Strong Pale Ale), AIBA Champion Medium Australian Brewery 2017, and AIBA Best International Style Pale Ale 2017 (XPA). As for the public votes, Balter XPA topped the GABS Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers of 2017 and 2018, while the brewery was voted as Australia's best in the 2018 and 2019 Australian Craft Beer Surveys conducted by Beer Cartel.
While helming the brewing side of Balter as it's grown at a rapid rate, quickly outgrowing the original warehouse, he's found time to contribute to the industry, most recently in a role on the Independent Brewers Association's technical advisory panel. Alongside brand director Stirling Howland, he's regularly given up time to chat to members of our Crafty Cabal ahead of new beer launches too.
While we're unlikely to agree often on what should be blasting from the speakers, I've been able to enjoy a few beers with him outside official duties, so to speak, and I'm sure he's planning to find more time for life away from official duties following this month's announcement. If he can loosen his grip on the brew deck just a little, that is.
Scotty Hargrave
Scotty (left) with Balter co-founder and brand director Stirling Howland.
What's been your highlight of the past decade?
Well, as far as beer is concerned, the biggest one for me obviously would be Balter. To get to build my dream brewery with just a handful of what were then non-beer industry peeps back in 2015 has gotta be the pinnacle. Then add the insane way that people took to our beer right through to today, where we have 60-odd staff who show up everyday to make the best beer we can and just be total legends, is really quite something... All that with beer in the market for just a bit over three-and-a-half years and, yeah, no wonder we're exhausted haha...
And I have to mention XPA: this little beer that was born in my garage that then just took off and took us all with it has been astounding, really. To see how well it's done commercially, with the punters' love for that beer, and to score a couple of gongs along the way is very humbling. It's a beer that has more or less given everyone at Balter a job.
I've said plenty of times before that I certainly didn't invent the term "XPA" and there were a couple of great local – but very different – ones before ours, but I think we really did help make it a "thing", which is still just very surreal.
What's surprised you the most about the Aussie beer scene?
For one, the incredible explosion of new breweries – folks finding a way to get in there and have a crack. Brewing is a very tough business and to see folks going: "Fuck it, we're just gonna have a go anyway" is always inspiring.
And with the upswing in new breweries has come a wider repertoire of beer styles and an audience for them. It really is mind-blowing to see the range of different beer styles in bottleshops and pubs all over the country these days, basically driven by the punters' demand and appetite to have more well made local and more diverse beers available.
Scotty with Balter co-founder Mick Fanning back in the brewery's early days.
What are your thoughts on the health of the beer industry as we approach the end of a remarkable decade?
I think it's at an interesting point in time. With a lot more breweries now, even since we started, it's so busy and crowded out there that competition is fierce, and if we were attempting to start Balter today, it may well have had to be with a different model. I kinda thought we were mad building a 35hL brewery as a startup. Turns out it should have probably been bigger.
I don't know if that still applies these days and it seems that the brewpub model might be the best way forward in a lot of cases. Having said that, a lot of brewpubs want to start selling cans or wholesale beer fairly soon after opening and that's understandable too. And, yeah, there's a couple of recent entrants who are going for blue sky so, all in all, it seems like there's no shortage of dreams of all sizes... None of it is easy, but all of it is worthy...
Also, I think the industry is no longer in its infancy, it's now more like the awkward teenager stage. There's a lot more confidence and skill, but there's also a bit of teen angst as well.
I think we need to realise we have bigger threats in this game than each other. We are competing for the attention of a whole new generation of people, the very first generation in this country to expect to have 30, 40, 50 beers to choose from when they buy alcohol, and that is absolutely fantastic. But they are spoilt for choice and attention across many beverages and we need to fully realise that beer is only one of the myriad choices they have.
What's your number one goal for the coming decade?
I've had lots of people over the last few years remind me to stop and smell the roses and absorb all the great things that have happened. But I'm such a dumb shit that I've managed mostly not to do that because there is always the next thing to tackle, next beer to make etc.
So the 20s is going to be about looking after myself better and hopefully repaying the significant sacrifice that my family have had to bear. I am blessed with an amazing wife and two daughters who have supported me and encouraged me and backed me all the way and I owe them everything. And, for their sakes and mine, I'm beginning to understand that it is just beer...
And, if you had one Christmas wish for beer in Australia, what would it be?
Two small ones: that Greg the goose bites Will Irving [of Feral] in the nuts – and a Wildflower x Mountain Culture collab.
We're opening a door on Crafty's Advent Calendar every morning up until Christmas Day and you can find them all here.
James Smith launched The Crafty Pint in 2010, two years after moving to Australia from the UK. He was taken to Mountain Goat within weeks of landing in Melbourne, joined their indoor cricket team, and is still navigating the rabbit hole that is craft beer to this day.
The beers that turned you on to good beer:
Watching pints of McEwan's 80 Shilling settle when visiting family in Edinburgh.
Pints of flat Bass from the jug at the Cap & Stocking in Kegworth.
A first Paulaner Hefeweizen when working in Munich in 1998: "This smells of bananas!"
Castle Rock Harvest Pale – how could a 3.8 percent ABV beer be so good? (It turns out it was an early example of the three Cs – Cascade, Centennial and Columbus – in an English bitter).
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA poured through hops at the Sunset Grill in Cambridge, MA, in the company of a man who turned out to be the Beer Nut (while we were both covering a double murder case at the time).
Ordering a Mountain Goat Hightail on my first day as an Aussie resident as it was local and I'd never heard of it; "A dark Australian beer; well I never…"
Murray's Icon 2IPA at Beer DeLuxe Fed Square, recommended by a guy I'd not long known who's now the main man at Fixation, served by Mik Halse, now head of sales at Hawkers. How could an Australian beer smell as good as that?!?
Any really good, fresh and balanced West Coast style IPA. Punchy hop aromatics are the most obvious way to capture someone's attention and these IPAs, done well, present the key components in beer (if you're sticking to just water, malt, hops and yeast) in harmony yet with the volume turned up.
Saison Dupont. Arguably a selfish choice here as I bloody love the broad saison style and dearly hope it will finally take hold in Australia one day. Given a choice, I'd probably crack one enlivened with Brettanomyces like Molly Rose Matilde for myself but, when it comes to turning on someone new, you've got to go with the classic.
Rodenbach Caractère Rouge. Because if you don't enjoy or can't appreciate this beer, I'll never win you over. And because Filip, the fruit and wood specialist at Rodenbach that designed it, is a beautiful human.
Fixation IPA at The Incubator.
The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Golden Plains
NB All articles written by James in the first eight years of the site appear as By Crafty Pint. Today, that's used for collaborative efforts by the wider team.
Articles by James
crafty's advent calendar balter scotty hargrave xpa
Crafty's Advent Calendar: Richard and Tracy
Back before "craft beer" was a thing, there was one man doing cool shit in Canberra. He still is, along with his partner and ever-growing team, and here he is as part of our Advent Calendar end-of-decade series. read on
X Marks The... Something
It's been three years since Wolf of the Willows launched its XPA and the number of beers bearing that name is growing fast. But does anyone agree on what an XPA should be? We ask some XPA brewers about the X factor. read on
Crafty's Advent Calendar: Peta Fielding
Long before the Gold Coast became nationally recognised as a home of good beer, there was a couple trying to sell their beers to locals. Thirteen years on, here's Burleigh co-founder Peta Fielding reflecting on the change. read on


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Taking a Tizzy
Musings by Dimetre Alexiou
About Dimetre
Star Wars & I
There doesn't seem to be anything more profitable than a good film franchise these days. There have been a lot in my lifetime. James Bond was raking in the dough before I was born. When I was small few things made me as happy as Christopher Reeve flying through the air as the Man of Steel. The Rocky movies brought everyone to their feet, and the Indiana Jones flicks had those same viewers tensely clutching their armrests. As I grew older, I repeatedly gave money to reprobates like Freddy Krueger and Chucky the serial-killing doll to test the limits of my fear, and yet more money to Batman (as portrayed by Keaton and Kilmer) to save the day. A bleaker and hoarser version of the Dark Knight drew my business as I reached adulthood, but it's the Marvel Cinematic Universe that rarely fails to leave me grinning from ear to ear.
But there is only one film franchise that seems to have defined my generation the world over, and has far outstripped all competitors in terms of financial reward. I'm, of course, referring to Star Wars, and most people would expect me to be a huge fan, but I'm here to tell you that my feelings for the Saga are… complicated.
As anyone with an internet signal knows, discussing Star Wars these days is like Michael Richards hitting the stage at the Laugh Factory; it can get ugly. But I don't think it has to be this way. I think, when discussing art, we need to step back and realize we're not dealing with tangible matters. At the end of our debate, no treaties should have been torn up, no dwellings should have been torched, and everyone's vital signs should be okay. Knowing that's not how it goes anymore, allow me to delve into my long, checkered relationship with those beings from "long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away."
The first Star Wars movie was released on June 24, 1977, when I was five. My life didn't change right away like you might imagine. My parents didn't load my sister and me into the station wagon and scoot directly to the ticket wicket. Nope. Instead the movie went largely unacknowledged in our household – for a while anyway. My parents ran a strict, god-fearing household, and my mother tried her best to keep her children's entertainment free of as much violence and profanity as possible. So while my friends' cultural upbringing consisted of generous helpings of Led Zeppelin and Clint Eastwood, my sister and I were fed more wholesome fare like ABBA, Anne Murray and Little House on the Prairie. According to my mother, my first trip to the cinema was for a re-release of Mary Poppins. I don't remember that, but I remember my cousin taking my sister and me to see Grease. That probably looked innocent enough to my mother, at least more innocent than a movie full of laser guns and exploding planets.
What I'm trying to say is that I wasn't exposed to Star Wars through a movie. But, if not a movie, then how? Well, back in those days, kids would go to each other's houses and play with each other's toys. In the late 70s, Kenner made a fortune selling Star Wars toys. All of my friends had, at the very least, an X-Wing fighter and a Luke Skywalker action figure to sit in it. And it seems like every one of my friends knew who all of these characters were, and how their stories would pan out. They spoke of the Jedi, droids and wookiees. To me it was simply a matter of out who the good and bad guys were, so I could join in and play with what were, without a doubt, the coolest toys in the whole wide world.
Eventually some television network played the movie, and I saw it that way. C3PO quickly became my favourite Star Wars character, and he was my most prized action figure. Eventually I amassed an impressive Star Wars toy collection, consisting of an army of storm troopers, droids, Luke, Darth Vader, Vader's Tie Fighter and some sort of rebel ship.
I absorbed very few details from the movie at this stage. I liked how light sabres sounded, and I liked Anthony Daniels' English accent. I couldn't tell you why anyone was fighting, just that Darth Vader was bad. I don't think my sister ever developed an interest in Star Wars, and certainly neither of my parents did. But it was definitely all the rage in the schoolyard, if the backpacks and lunchboxes were any indication.
By the time the 80s rolled around, I was sleeping in a set of Star Wars bedsheets, and there was rumbling of a second movie. Did my parents take me to see The Empire Strikes Back? Of course not, but I was given the storybook version, written by Shep Stenemen, complete with full-colour photographs. That may sound like a far inferior substitute for what many agree is the best movie in the entire franchise, but that was a surprisingly good storybook. Most of the film's best lines were included ("That is why you fail," "Luke, I am your father," "We would be honoured if you would join us.") From that book alone, I gained much more interest in the characters beyond whether they were merely good or bad. By the time a television network ponied up the cash to play Empire, I had turned ten, and this was a far more enthralling viewing experience. My beloved C3PO is blown to bits. Luke nearly dies on a frozen planet and later gets his hand chopped off. Han is frozen in carbonite. Darth Vader turns out to be Luke's father?!?
But I think another often overlooked aspect of what was so surprising about Empire was the introduction of Yoda. Everyone my age found Yoda's voice familiar, which made sense. It belonged to Frank Oz, the puppeteer who operated and voiced Grover on Sesame Street, along with countless other Muppets. Yoda's voice is almost identical to Grover's, but, even though Yoda's syntax was quirky, his dialogue was highly profound. Yoda taught us so much more about the Force, and that appearances mean next to nothing. Most of all, Yoda revealed to all of us, not just little kids, that puppets could be serious.
So, with this second movie, I knew that this was now a "Saga," and that the story had taken on far more weight. I had gotten more toys, and the stories my friends acted out in our playgrounds had taken on a new dramatic flair. But, was Star Wars my favourite film franchise? No.
A year after the first Star Wars movie, Warner Brothers released Superman: The Movie. I was already familiar with the character because of his animated adventures on TV. Every six-year-old boy loves Superman. When a kid in my class wanted to go see the movie on his birthday, I was invited to come along. I was blown away. It was simply a "bigger" looking movie than anything I had ever seen. Christopher Reeve was perfect as Superman, and I doubt there will ever be a Lois Lane as spunky and charming as Margot Kidder's. I also saw 1980's Superman II in the theatre, and I remember loving it even more. And these aren't short movies. The first one is 2 hours and 23 minutes, while the second is only 16 minutes shorter. Nevertheless, both movies never lost my attention for a second.
Looking back, though, I find it weird that I had so many Star Wars toys, while I can't be sure I had a single Superman doll. I think it's because, in my case, Star Wars was more about the toys and the adventures I made up with my friends than the movies themselves. As great as I knew The Empire Strikes Back was, I was far more drawn in by the characters and earthbound situations presented in the first two Superman movies.
In the summer of 1983, I was eleven years old, and both Star Wars and Superman had films hitting the cinemas. As much as I adored the first two Superman movies, something just seemed off with the commercials for this third one. What was the guy from The Wiz and Stir Crazy doing in a Superman movie? It looked like they were trying to make it a comedy. So, instead, I chose to see a Star Wars movie in the theatre for the very first time. (The Superman movies with Christopher Reeve never recovered.) I enjoyed The Return of the Jedi. My sister and her friends adored the Ewoks because they were the cutest things. I think if people my age were honest, they would admit that they all fantasized about having a pet Ewok in 1983. There was a reason why there was an animated Ewok series along with two made-for-TV Ewok movies (both of which I've never seen.) Ewoks were big business.
Still, it was cool to see Luke in full Jedi mode. I still think the climactic battle between Luke and Vader in this movie is the greatest light-sabre battle in the entire franchise. There is so much at stake. Darth Vader is torn between sparing his son and saving his Emperor. Luke is simultaneously trying to kill the Emperor and pull his father from the Dark Side. However, I now think the Luke and Vader drama is the only compelling part of the movie. The rest of Return of the Jedi seems like so much business for business' sake – no matter how adorable the Ewoks were.
After The Return of the Jedi, that seemed to be it for Star Wars as a movie franchise. We played with the action figures less and less, until we stopped playing with them altogether. Soon no one was talking about the characters or spaceships at all. George Lucas retreated into his special effects studio. Star Wars was a thing of the past, specifically spanning a six-year period from the late 70s to the early 80s. Surprisingly, the movie business found ways to thrive without it.
In the summer of 1994, I was 22 years old. George Lucas announced to the world that he was developing a prequel trilogy, and I felt absolutely nothing, partly because 1994 was shaping up to be one of the best years in movie history. It was the year of Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Speed, Ed Wood, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Last Seduction, Immortal Beloved and The Mask. When the movies are better than I can ever remember them being, why would I care about Star Wars? Besides, I had no idea where my toys were.
No matter. Five years later, Lucas' first offering in the prequel trilogy was ready. A friend had VHS copies of the original trilogy, and we agreed to watch them before heading to the theatre to watch the new installment.
Watching the old movies with fresh adult eyes brought new insights. First, there was a lot of sub-par acting. To this day, I contend that the only good performances in the 1977 movie belonged to Sir Alec Guinness and James Earl Jones (who only provided Vader's voice). Harrison Ford may have become a genuine movie star, but he seemed so uninvested throughout the first three movies. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher grew more assured as actors by Return of the Jedi, but their performances were still uneven.
Similarly, while there were interesting concepts, such as the Force and the Dark Side, the screenwriting throughout the trilogy was clunky, particularly the dialogue. Lucas tends to load his screenplays with expository dialogue. Most information is conveyed by characters saying what is happening, rather than the movie simply showing us. On top of that, a lot of the lines don't actually sound like things a person actually would say. Has anyone outside of someone's first screenplay ever said, "Boy, am I glad to see you"? So much of the dialogue is "on the nose" and devoid of subtext. It's not awful, and the writing is better in Empire and Jedi, but it's remarkable how 1977's Star Wars can continue to maintain its reputation with such amateurish writing and acting.
Still, with all its faults, I still found the original trilogy enjoyable, and had grown excited for the new movie. Because the 1977 film begins in the middle of a larger story, I realized that the prequel trilogy was going to have to cover a lot of the political roots of the rebellion. Although I was ready to watch a brand new Star Wars movie with fresh eyes, I clearly had on a thin veneer of nostalgia goggles.
Walking out of the cinema after viewing The Phantom Menace, I felt satisfied. The movie successfully scratched whatever Star Wars itch I possessed. I remember cheering when I first caught a glimpse of R2-D2. I remember being thrilled by the three-way light-sabre fight between Darth Maul, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. (For a brief time I even thought it was better than Return of the Jedi's. It was a very brief time.) I also didn't think Jar Jar Binks was as offensive a character as others made him out to be, since he performed heroic deeds. (I admit his speech is based on a horrible racial stereotype, but doesn't a character's heroism count for anything?) However, something irked me. The opening scene shows Qui-Gon melting a door with a light sabre, which, somehow, to me, feels too inelegant a job for the weapon. Secondly, Jake Lloyd was insufferable as little Anakin Skywalker. I couldn't believe Lucas accepted that take of him shouting, "Yippee!" Hell, I can't believe any grown human would type that word into a screenplay.
But, for a time, I accepted it. After all, I didn't revere the original trilogy as highly as other people, so if this new movie was only okay, then that was par for the course. But then I started thinking about the battle-droids. It seemed we had an ocean of these stupid robots attacking the Jedi, and I was never worried once that any of them would even graze one of our heroes. That seemed wasteful. Then I thought of the cast. In 1977, the only actors Star Wars had of any renown were Sir Alec Guinness and James Earl Jones. The Phantom Menace was loaded with actors who had dazzled earlier in their careers. Samuel L. Jackson, Natalie Portman and Liam Neeson now all showed as much acting ability as their characters' bobbleheads. Ewan MacGregor showed a little bit of effort, but clearly Lucas wasn't as good at coaxing a quality performance out of him as Danny Boyle did in movies like Shallow Grave and Trainspotting.
The more I thought about The Phantom Menace, the more and more it seemed like a waste of talent and resources. That should have been reason enough to stop me from lining up to see Attack of the Clones three years later, but there I was, amongst my friends on opening weekend. This time, when the movie ended, I immediately realized I had just been served garbage. Jackson, Portman and MacGregor were still wasted, but now they added screen legend Christopher Lee to the sewage. The romance between Portman's Padme and Hayden Christensen's Anakin was one of the worst in film history. Particularly infuriating was that, for the first time, the climactic light sabre battle – the emotional centre of Star Wars movie – was now played for laughs.
The light sabre battles throughout the prequel trilogy, while immaculately choreographed, seem to exist for their own sake, as if to fulfill a quota. The stakes in the 70s and 80s were much higher, and that's why those battles still resonate more – because they mean something.
I knew Attack of the Clones was beyond saving when Padme fell at least twenty feet from a speeder onto the desert sand. Some other character runs up to her as she clutches her shoulder in pain. "Are you okay?" they ask her. Padme lets go of her shoulder and hops effortlessly to her feet. "I'm fine," she says, and she runs out of frame. Why have a character fall a few dozen feet if it's going to add nothing to the story? If that is good enough for Lucas – if he cares that little – then I shouldn't reward him with any more of my money. I swore then and there I wouldn't send a penny towards the next installment's box office total.
So, everyone lined up to see The Revenge of the Sith without me. The reviews were unfavourable, and I heard people making fun of Vader's anguished wail of "Padme… Nooooo!" Eventually I borrowed someone's DVD copy, and I concluded it was only slightly better than Attack of the Clones. The cast puts in a little more effort, but Anakin's surrender to the Dark Side couldn't be less climactic. I thought the computer-generated lava during the standoff between Anakin and Obi-Wan was shoddy even then, and the scramble to place all the characters where they need to be at the beginning of the Episode 4 was ham-fisted to say the least. To me, Star Wars was forever tainted because of this prequel trilogy, and I didn't find that the movies of the 70s and 80s were of high-enough calibre to survive their new malignant growth. If this was the death of Star Wars, I felt fine throwing a clump of dirt on its coffin so it could rest in peace.
Clearly, a lot of people did not share my attitude. In 2008 – three years after The Revenge of the Sith – someone on Facebook with a flair for wordplay declared May the 4th Star Wars Day. In 2011, the world's first organized celebration of Star Wars Day was held at the Toronto Underground Cinema. This baffled me. Surely Star Wars should have died off by now. After all, there hadn't been a competently-made Star Wars movie in twenty-eight years. But there were the kids waving light-sabres and playfully Force-choking each other. I felt like a fuzzy green creature on a mountaintop, horrified at the villagers below singing the Ewoks "Yub Yub" song.
"Maybe Star Wars," I thought, "was more than just movies. Maybe Star Wars means something more to the loonies."
My tiny heart retreated deeper into my chest as I harrumphed back into my cave.
Never letting a market go untapped, Disney purchased Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in 2012. While I was glad to see Star Wars out of Lucas' control, I was not excited at all about new movies. When J.J. Abrams was put in charge, I was even less excited. I saw his first Star Trek movie, and was driven crazy by the sheer volume of jokey references to that franchise's history. I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if Abrams had played it absolutely straight. I felt safe in assuming he'd take the same goofy tone with Star Wars.
The first trailer for The Force Awakens was rapturously received and shared all over social media. After reading the three-hundredth post about how awesome it looked, I decided to take a peek. The trailer I saw was an impressive display of the Millennium Falcon, AT ATs, light sabres, a new droid and other gear familiar to the fan base. What I didn't see was any sign of a story, so I remained uninterested. When my friends would invite me to go see The Force Awakens with them, I told them to enjoy it without me. The movie scored an enormously successful opening weekend and tremendous word of mouth. One friend was insistent that I had to see it, so I told him I would wait until it showed up at this century-old second-run movie theatre in my neighbourhood. I waited, and that's when I saw it.
If The Force Awakens is criticized for anything, it's that it copies and pastes the story from the 1977 movie. That's a valid criticism. However, there was never, ever, a Star Wars film as well acted or with as punchy dialogue as this. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega inject the franchise with a fresh new energy we haven't seen for decades. It had been a long time since I saw actors in a Star Wars who looked like they gave a shit. Ridley's character, Rey, was a protagonist whose journey we actually wanted to follow. For the old fans, we were treated to reappearances from old characters like Leia, Chewbacca and Han Solo. To me, this was, hands down, Harrison Ford's best performance in a Star Wars movie. For the first time, Han is given dialogue that doesn't sound like it was originally intended for Humphrey Bogart with all its "ain'ts" and "dames." Ford never sounded comfortable speaking those lines. Here, he looked right at home beside his best wookiee friend. Carrie Fisher is similarly fantastic as Leia. I think my favourite image of her will always be when she calls after Rey and tells her, "May the Force be with you."
There are only two things that keep the film from being great. The first is that I didn't buy Adam Driver as the big villain. When he took off his mask and revealed his face, I actually laughed. Driver, at least in that film, wasn't physically intimidating enough. At worst, he looked like someone who would get obnoxiously drunk at a party. I bought Driver as an arrogant hipster in While We're Young. I didn't buy him as an evil space lord in The Force Awakens.
My other problem was that Rey seemed able to control the Force with zero training. Even Anakin needed to train. It was as if the writers hadn't looked at what had come before in the Saga. Still, the movie was good enough that I was curious about the next chapter, which confused me, because the next Star Wars movie was less than a year away.
Disney seemed intent on wringing every dollar they could from Star Wars' enormous fan base as often as they could. So now, in the years between the "episodic" movies, we were going to get stories that take place elsewhere in the Saga's timeline. The first of these came out in 2016.
Rogue One was begotten from a single expository line in the 1977 movie detailing how rebel spies smuggled out the plans for the Empire's Death Star. From that one line sprang a thrilling spectacle featuring spaceships, robots, a heist and perhaps the most horrifying display of Darth Vader's full power. As much as I enjoyed it, I couldn't help but grumble about how Star Wars fans can get an entire movie made from a single line from a thirty-nine-year-old film, and Canadians like me can't get a good movie made about Louis Riel, the controversial real-life leader of the real-life North-West Rebellion of 1885. Perhaps that's just me.
The Last Jedi was the first Star Wars movie I saw on opening weekend since Attack of the Clones. The cast seemed to only get stronger since The Force Awakens, particularly Ridley, but Driver also won me over as the tortured Kyle Ren. While I thought the movie was flawed yet still good, this one seems to have driven a schism through the Star Wars faithful. The main issue seems to be with the depiction of Luke Skywalker. Many of the film's dissenters don't believe that the Luke we know and love would abandon the Jedi cause. I think you have to take into account the thirty-four years we haven't seen the character. Thirty-four years is a long time, in which many life-changing moments can happen. I don't think it's right to demand that a character be exactly as they were three and a half decades earlier. In fact, it's more interesting if you show a significantly changed character, and then explore why they changed.
The Last Jedi's detractors also complained about Finn and Rose's lame B-plot on the casino planet. I agreed with them, but that is nothing new to the franchise. I refer you to any part of The Return of the Jedi that didn't involve Luke Skywalker.
What I find most perplexing about The Last Jedi schism is that the movie's loudest detractors claim to be the biggest Star Wars fans. Maybe that's why I count it as a pretty good movie because I no longer claim to be a big fan; it's something I always enjoyed, except when I thought it sucked. I'm a true fan of a few things, like the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If radical changes were being made to either of those entities, I think it would be understandable if I were to become nervous. However, I would like to think I would properly assess whether or not the change was valid before raising hell.
The most recent movie was yet another solid yet flawed between-saga entry called Solo. I thought it was an engaging enough story with very good acting. However, I would rather the focus had been on Han's unusual friendship with Chewbacca, rather than his romance with a love interest we never knew existed. I think there was a missed opportunity with Solo, but I wouldn't call it a bad movie.
Maybe my relationship with Star Wars isn't as complicated as I thought. I'm now someone who will buy a ticket to a new Star Wars movie within its first few weeks of theatrical run, which is much better than where I was after Attack of the Clones. Obviously the franchise has won me back as a customer, even if I'm reluctant to label myself as a full-fledged fan. I think what I like about the new movies is that they have re-captured the goofy and irreverent action of the original movies, but the new directors and writers are simply better at their jobs than Lucas ever was. I also don't hold the original movies up on a pedestal where they don't belong. They were innovative in many respects, but their flaws must also be acknowledged. And that's pretty much where Star Wars is today.
May the Force be with us all.
Six corporations I'm currently boycotting
I Dream of Newhart
Tall Slut says:
Interesting story – I think my own relationship with Star Wars would show a similarly convoluted process!
dimboothboy says:
Thanks for giving my blog a read, Tall Slut!
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Arcade Belt's top selling belt just got 100% better. With an updated brand patch that has a more sleek look and an updated logo on the buckle make this Midnighter a must have, even if you already have one. I mean it's a black belt you can't really have too much black.


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Top 5 Books For DJs
DJs are everywhere bands used to be: school dances, wedding receptions, birthday parties, bars, clubs, and lately in championships where turntablists battle each other with their beat-juggling and mixing skills which often encompass acrobatics, lol. In 2004, for the first time, a DJ even played the opening ceremony of the Olympics held in Athens. As sales of DJ equipment (turntables, CDJs, mixers, midi controllers) have grown to rival those of guitars and drum sets, books now talk about the emergence of the DJ as full-fledged musicians have emerged, too.
Here are the Top 5 Books For DJs
1 – Last Night A DJ Saved My Life
Author: Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton
The title says it all; inspired by the name of a 1982 r&b song by Indeep, no doubt millions of dance floor habitues have woken up after a magical night of dancing and thought just that thought. "A truly great DJ, just for a moment, can make a whole room fall in love," say the authors in this entertaining biography of the DJ, with club charts from the mid-50s through the end of the '90s. Their How to DJ Right: The Art and Science of Playing Records, is even more fun.
PREVIEW↓
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0802136885/ref=sib_dp_ptu#reader-link
2 – DJ Skills: The Essential Guide to Mixing & Scratching
Author: Stephen Webber
DJ Skills: The Essential Guide to Mixing & Scratching is the most comprehensive, up to date approach to DJing ever produced. With insights from top club, mobile, and scratch DJs, the book includes many teaching strategies developed in the Berklee College of Music prototype DJ lab. This book is perfect for intermediate and advanced DJs looking to improve their skills in both the analogue and digital domain.
3 – Looking for the Perfect Beat: The Art and Culture of the DJ
Author: Kurt B. Reighley.
An enjoyable read with lots of quotes by popular DJ's. Says the author, "If [my book] spares one neophyte DJ a little frustration, prompts a single pro to examine his or her art from a new angle, or just makes the reader think differently about how [musical] ideas can be presented and combined, then I won't feel like such a jackass when I tell people I'm a DJ."
4 – Love Saves the Day
Author: Kurt B. Reighley
A valuable historical record of the Disco phenomenon describing, from over 300 interviews with influential scene players including legendary DJ's, its transformation from gay and urban subculture to mainstream popular culture, including a fascinating selected discography of the music of the era.
5 -The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash
The inspiration for countless DJ dreams, the legendary Bronx native (aka Joseph Saddler) sets the record straight in his new autobiography, including how he originated techniques that revolutionized DJ'ing from just playing records to reinventing the turntable as a musical instrument.
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Q: Update the Android Gradle Plugin (Android Studio) I'm trying to build an app bundle through android studio (Build > Build Bundles / APK > Build Bundle), however, I receive the following "Update the Android Gradle Plugin" prompt:

I'm currently running:

*

*Android Gradle Plugin Version: 3.4.2

*Gradle Version: 5.5

The only newer versions of the android gradle plugin are in alpha, and these too prompt the same update message (even when the very latest alpha version is chosen).
Clicking update on the notification prompt doesn't do anything.
At this point, i'm very stuck on what is going on - I have also tried other gradle versions, re-installing android studio as well as switching SDK's but again no luck.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

A: My issue appears to have been caused by having my project on another drive, perhaps even the directory (white spaces maybe) it was in; not 100% sure.
I moved my project to a new folder on my C drive and it's working.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Generating Rails project, and come to phase to commit it. The file size is even more than my expectation.
Compressing objects: 100% (24906/24906), done.
Writing objects: 100% (26593/26593), 157.41 MiB | 160.00 KiB/s, done.
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USAID, CourseTalk, IREX and TASCHA Launch $1.55 Million Initiative to Bring Online Education to Developing World
Written by Editorial Team
Two-year initiative focuses on youth workforces in Colombia, Philippines and South Africa
Online courses have the potential to expand quality education and career training worldwide, but few people in developing countries access them. Now, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and CourseTalk.com, the largest source of reviews of online courses, are launching a two-year, $1.55 million project to investigate and address this unmet potential.
The initiative, called Advancing MOOCs for Development, will be driven by research on online course enrollment in Colombia, the Philippines and South Africa. The research will be conducted by the Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington's Information School with support from IREX, a non-profit development organization.
The initiative was unveiled today at the SXSWedu conference in Austin, Texas.
The public-private partnership aims to harness the power of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to help young adults across the developing world grow successful careers, potentially leading to stronger economies. MOOCs are open to anyone – with no enrollment caps – and often free.
"In many developing countries, traditional education systems are failing students," said Rachel Blum, Senior Advisor for Youth Workforce Development at USAID. "Economic constraints, political upheaval, war and natural disaster are all leading causes. But MOOCs have the potential to change this. By answering key questions — who takes MOOCs, why they take them and what inhibits those who don't — this project will help us better understand MOOCs and their role in offering affordable, quality education to young people worldwide."
Research on MOOCs has been sparse, and the first year of the project will seek to alleviate this data gap. TASCHA will use surveys, interviews and an analysis of more than 70,000 course reviews posted on CourseTalk by students around the world to study awareness and usage of MOOCs among 18 to 35 year olds in Colombia, the Philippines and South Africa.
TASCHA's findings will be used to develop a framework for training young workforces through MOOCs. They will also form the basis of a campaign designed to increase MOOC enrollment and completion rates in the three chosen countries. The eventual goal is to replicate the research in other developing countries around the world.
"The potential for MOOCs to alter the educational landscape is amazing, reaching far beyond Colombia, the Philippines and South Africa," said IREX's Scott Andersen, director of the initiative. "MOOCs show great promise as a way to support global youth who are longing for employment, and this initiative focuses on three key countries in the hope that lessons learned will benefit those young adults around the world."
USAID and CourseTalk have committed cash resources of $1.05 million, plus an additional $500,000 of in-kind services and support.
Author: Editorial TeamWebsite: http://edtechreview.in
For more latest updates, You can join us on Google+, Twitter, Linkedin
E-Learning	MOOCs	Online Courses	Online Education	Rural Area/Low-Income	Employment Skills
Over 120 MOOCs and Courses Coming Up in the Month of April 2015
How is Technology Helping Tutors Improve their Efficiency and...


text:
The Vampires of San Francisco
Poor (Un)Life Choices.
About – READ THIS FIRST
The Player Characters
Known NPCs
Game Errata
2015 DragonCon Report
Posted on October 17, 2015	by Corvidae
As you've probably seen, this year has been filled with a lot of off-weeks as each of our schedules mis-align for different events. In early September, though, we missed a week because we were all aligned for something else entirely.
DragonCon.
Jim and Kara have been regular attendees at this most massive of nerd conventions for years now. Last year, they brought Chris and I along with them. This year, the combined influence of all four of us was enough to drag Jason along as well. Adventures and revelry were had by all, but here I'd like to share a few highlights of special relevance to the game.
Last year, I didn't have much of an "official" cosplay, opting instead to wear the Roman bellydance costume I made for my troupe's spring concert. I also pieced together a sort of fem-Tom costume (which, much like the tree in the woods, does it really count as cosplay if no one gets it?) This year I wanted to do something new, but being short on time and money, decided to kill two birds with one stone and do a new outfit that would work for dance as well as cosplay. Thus I made an outfit for Kahina Seveda, my long-time backup character, an Anarch Lasombra on the Path of Lilith, who is herself a dancer, of North African descent. (Of course, since now I'm playing Scout, she doesn't even exist as a character except in my own head, but fuck it, I do what I want.)
That dance sword, by the way, is a real antique Indian cavalry sword that's been dulled. During game nights, it's also sometimes Glitch.
Sadly, I learned last year that World of Darkness does not have a big presence at DragonCon. Still, I wanted to do something to be a little more direct about what I was doing, in case somebody got it. Thus, I commissioned my friend Marie to do henna-work on my back of the Anarch logo. Originally I was thinking just a solid logo, but she brought her full artistic game and came up with a design that also honors the traditional style of henna-work. Here's the fresh paste right after she completed the work.
Henna can be a crapshoot, depending on the quality of the powder and how your skin cells respond in that place on that day. Thus, the design never got quite as dark as I would have liked, but it was still striking. Many people complemented me on it over the course of the con. Not one person recognized it, though. Ah well. I still looked good.
I also came up with a new version of a fem-Tom costume, this one with a crop-top shirt instead of a corset so I could show off the tattoo. Someone asked, though, if Tom was really an Anarch. I replied, "Well, the problem is, the Anarchs don't like him cause they think he's Camarilla, the Camarilla doesn't like him cause they think he's Sabbat, the Sabbat doesn't really care about him but for the most part they kind of assume he's Anarch, so he's stuck in this weird multivariate faction-space where no one wants to associate with him. But if he had to choose himself, Anarch would probably be the closest."
But enough about me. There was one thing I was looking forward to this year, and I had been looking forward to it since the day I left the con the year before: bringing Jason to the con, and bringing him to The Armory, so he could point out all the various weapons and guns we have been using in the game. Kara took this picture not long after we first stepped foot in the place. Somehow, I feel it perfectly encapsulates our friendship:
As expected, he pointed out all the guns, including some ones that he's used for Sophia in the Werewolf game she is from. Some of the weapons, though, didn't need his guidance for me to pick out:
Panzerfaust, much larger than I thought. Probably a good thing Tom never really carried no more than two at a time.
Vera! About as large as I thought, though it's clear an oversling must be a bitch. Thank god for Potence.
Speaking of weapons: just like last year, we had dinner the first night at the Hard Rock Cafe across the street from our hotel. Somehow, though, last year we completely missed the fact that they basically have Helgi's guitar-battle axe right there on the fucking wall:
Lest you think that Vampire is the only thing we do, this year we discovered the Gaming Room in the basement of the Hilton. Jim and Kara were amazed, because they had no idea it was there and they've been attending for five years. They have an entire library of pretty much every game in existence you can check out and play, whenever you want, all con long. Here is Jason, Chris, Kara, and our good friend Jenn playing a Star Trek game (complete with tiny ships!) at roughly two in the morning:
Kara's cosplay was also her own creation, which she calls "Steampunk Ravenclaw." It's wonderfully perfect, complete with corsets and tiny hats, and bears mentioning because it's really not that far off from the sorts of things Georgia wears. It's also why she would have no problem murdering Victoria Lovelace and stealing her wardrobe.
I should also mention, that figure on Kara's shoulder is a dragon hand-made by an artist who sells them at the con every year. Each are one of a kind, and a real work of art. Kara gets one every year, usually just in pretty jeweled colors. This year, though, she found a steampunk dragon, complete with bronze skin, tiny gears, and its own tiny hat. Everyone agreed it's the most Kara thing that ever Kara'd.
Also, lest you think that Jason saves all his terrible machinations for us, one evening at the con he fell into a game of Axis and Allies that, according to him, was the greatest game of Axis and Allies ever played. Every player was an expert at the game, it lasted over six hours, and Jason–after many plots and counter plots involving the Japanese taking over the Panama Canal and making a rush on Massachusetts–won.
Jim, meanwhile, reprised his most-excellent Loki cosplay from last year, and was also joined by Chris, who matched up well with a Thor cosplay. The two of them definitely had fun rambling around together, but my favorite moment was when we were karayoking and they did an entire duet together, in character, to Lady Gaga. Only they changed the lyrics to "Bad Bromance." Here they are ironically well-positioned on stage in light and shadow:
Now, I know I've complained that no one got my costume, but believe it or not we did actually have fans at the con! Seth and Kira, long-time friends of the game (and Werewolf players themselves, though we don't hold that against them) came from Colorado to join our larger group of Bay Area nerds at the con. I hadn't seen them in person since Jenn and ChrisM's wedding years ago, so that alone was awesome. But it was also cool to introduce them to the rest of us assholes. Kira, incidentally, had briefly considered actually trying to cosplay as Sophia, before going with other options (which may be for the better, since Jason said he may have literally died from shock 😉 ). I for one, though, would have loved the excuse to dress as Tom ramble around drunkenly with her as Sophia. Perhaps next year.
I didn't venture into the Vendor Hall until late in the con, but while I was there I found a few game-worthy moments. For example, I found an entire rack of steampunk goggles and took a picture for Jason, saying that now, finally, he might have enough goggles to put together a Dr. von Natsi costume for next year.
I also found Marcus's sword. Straight up, no question. Hand-carved foam with a wooden handle, with the proper hispanic leaf-blade style Jason says he would have favored. The blade was even shadow-black. An absolutely beautiful piece of work, but at almost $200, perhaps not an impulse buy just to play around with at the game table.
But the real find of the vendor hall occurred right before I left. Now, I know traditionally book vendors are part of the entire point of nerd-con vendor halls, but I usually pass them by. Frankly, I barely have time to read anymore, and the few books I do purchase I try to get from my local SF/F bookstore Borderlands Books. However, while wandering down one of the aisles past a booth for a small independent publisher, one of the people manning the tables waved me down with a pleasant smile and asked if I would like to hear about some of their books. Too exhausted to protest, I said sure and asked him what sorts of interesting or unusual types of work they have.
He scanned the shelves and was like, "Well, we have one that's about vampires on a submarine."
I stared at him in silence a few moments. "…I'm gonna need you to show me that book," I said.
He leads me to the book and it's basically everything I could hope it would be. It's called Red Sounding, and the back cover blurb says it's not just about vampires on a submarine, but Russian submarine vampires during the Cold War. A vampire tries to take over a nuclear submarine to use it to travel the world in relative safety (obviously coming to the same conclusions Anstis did), killing some of the crew and embracing others to join him. The whole boat becomes a claustrophobic battleground hundreds of feet beneath the waves as the two factions war with each other for control of the ship.
As I'm skimming the back, I eventually admit to the guy that I play in a long running Vampire game and we recently had a major plot beat that took place on a submarine. He was like, "Oh! Well then you totally have to get this!" I was like, "Yes, I absolutely do!"
Then things got better. He said that if I came back to the booth in an hour or so, the author himself was going to be there and could sign it for me. I absolutely did, and absolutely knew what I wanted him to inscribe:
(At this point I have actually read the book and did enjoy it. I shall try to share my thoughts in a separate review-like post later.)
All in all, it was an amazing year, a filled with lots of little moments like these amongst the maelstrom of chaos of 70,000 people. I am relatively new to nerd conventions (despite the fact that I myself am on the planning committee for a small local one) but already I am in love with them. They are special places, sacred in their way, where people who thrive on imagination and the worlds shared amongst friends can come together to build great things, even if it's only for a few days at a time.
I think it's only proper that I shared this experience with the people I love so much precisely because we come together to create our own shared stories, both in reality and just on the other side of it. The games we play and the stories we tell are a microcosm of the experience of life, and my life is certainly all the richer for having experienced them, and it couldn't have happened without them.
Even if, at the end of the day, they're still a bunch of assholes.
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2 Responses to 2015 DragonCon Report
Rhys says:
You all look to have had a great time, been following this blog on reddit and here. Keep up the great writeups.
😀 Thank you so much!
Leave a Reply to Rhys Cancel reply
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Sara Cassidy is an award-winning journalist, an editor and the author of ten books for young readers. Her poems and short stories have been published in The Malahat Review, Geist, Fiddlehead, Grain, Qwerty, Prairie Fire, ottawater, Antigonish Review and other literary journals. Her feature articles, news stories, columns and reviews have appeared in such places as the Winnipeg Free Press, Halifax Chronicle Herald, Focus Magazine, Times Colonist, The Globe and Mail, Today's Parent, Herizons and CBC Radio, and have won a National Magazine Award (Gold). She lives in Victoria. B.C.


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text:
Finnish Male Singers of North America
AMERIKAN LAULAJAT (AL)
LAPEL PIN PROTOCOL
The choir has two (2) types of lapel pins:
1. Membership pin
2. Concert Tour pin
The Membership pin shall have the following classes:
1. Membership (basic) pin. Colour: silver
2. Gold Membership pin. Colour: gold – tuning fork blue enamel
3. Merit pin, Gold Membership pin or Concert Tour pin worn over a red-white-blue rosette
4. Honourary pin, as a Merit pin but worn with two ribbons; white on the right and blue on the left
The Silver Membership pin may be purchased by any member of the AL, at a price determined by the AL Board, provided that said member has been an active member of an affiliated choir for at least one year.
The Gold Membership pin may be given by the AL Board to a member of an AL choir or to a member of another choir, in recognition of continued efforts on behalf, and in furtherance of, the aims and objectives of AL.
The Merit pin may be given by the AL Board to an individual who has served AL with distinction or to an individual who, in the opinion of the AL Board, has performed meritoriously in the furtherance of the aims and goals of AL. Nominations for this honour may be put forward by the general membership.
Honourary pin is presented to Honourary Members. The AL Board may recognize exceptional service by a member of the executive. It may also award this pin to an individual in recognition of distinguished service in the furtherance of the aims and objectives of AL. The decision to award this pin must be approved unanimously by the AL Board.
Concert Tour pins:
1st Trip pin, similar to the basic pin except that the tuning fork is blue.
2nd Trip pin, similar to the Gold Membership pin but with the addition of a tab at the bottom of the pin with the Roman Numeral two (II).
3rd and 4th Trip pins, similar to the 2nd trip pin except that the numeral three (III) or four (IV) in blue on the plate at the bottom.
5th and subsequent Trip pins, will feature a diamond instead of a number on the tab. Members may only receive one such pin and will wear it during any subsequent trips.
Replacement pins, replacement pins may be purchased from the AL Executive.
The AL pin is worn above the member's own choir pin. The Finnish Male Choir Association (MKL) uppermost and the SULASOL membership pin lowest.
Only the highest AL pin is worn at any time. (See note *) In other words; if the Honourary pin is presented to 5-trip member, the 5th Trip pin is mounted on the red-white-blue rosette with ribbons: or, in the case of a Member who has not participated in a Concert Tour, the red-white-blue rosette is worn with the Gold Membership pin. Wearing of more than one AL pin is neither desired nor permitted.
The Merit and Honourary pins are presented with a Certificate.
* It is understood that in this case a 2nd Choir Trip pin is rated higher than the Gold Membership pin.
Choir Trip Pennant
The Choir Trip pennant may be presented by the Executive to member choirs, individuals or organizations in recognition for efforts made on behalf of AL. AL members are entitled to acquire pennants for personal use or as gifts.
All AL pins and pennants must be treated with due respect. Pins are not to be gifted, sold or otherwise given without the approval of AL Executive. The AL Executive will maintain record of pins and other honours bestowed.
Approved in Sault Ste. Marie, 20.9.1990.
English translation provided per AL annual meeting request at Sudbury ON, 25.4.2010.


What the heck is that? I know, I heard it the first time about 4 months ago and, when explained, it made so much sense. I suddenly understood my struggle with changing certain things and it became so much easier to do. Now I was aware of it and could choose. Before I just had this damn resistance and did not know how to get beyond it. Are you willing to explore this subject. It could be uncomfortable because it creates a different relationship between you and whatever you are keeping a comfortable distance; you are reducing that comfortable distance. Iy applies to any area of your life. And, boy, how much more freedom is available when you choose that.


text:
Shifting US-China Policy Postures: options for Australia
posted on 2022-03-28, 15:34 authored by Richard James Cleverly
International relations are passing through a crucial phase, specifically since the end of the Cold War in which the post-Second World War institutions and alliances are being increasingly challenged by the rising powers, particularly China. The rules-based order, mainly championed by the United States through its alliance system is being challenged externally by the countries like China and internally by the new administration of Donald John Trump.In a sense, a situation is arising in which China is challenging the existing world order by forwarding its sovereignty claims over the South China Sea and impinging on freedom of navigation, exerting pressure against the US alliance system as well as leveraging its relation with trade and investment. This thesis identifies and examines Trump's postures that could most affect Australia and the Asia-Pacific, focusing on the South China Sea Dispute, the US-led alliance system, and trade. It then examines China's resultant postures and the possible implications to Australia, before concluding with a look at Australia's responses and the possible options Canberra might employ in its relationship with China moving forward. Through a descriptive analysis within an offensive realist framework, this study concludes that Australia ultimately needs to take a much firmer stance towards China in areas it has traditionally remained more ambivalent. Particularly with the convening/supporting of increased security dialogues between Australia and other regional states, while simultaneously displaying understanding of China's cultural sensitivities, by supporting and advocating for a less confrontational approach in other areas, especially concerning Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs).
Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Background and literature review -- Chapter 3. Trump administration policies: implications for Australia -- Chapter 4. China's policy overtures: implications for Australia -- | Chapter 5. Australia's policy responses: a pathway forward -- Chapter 6. Conclusions.
Theoretical thesis. Bibliography: pages 102-126
MRes, Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Security Studies and Criminology
Department of Security Studies and Criminology
Dalbir Ahlawat
Copyright Richard James Cleverly 2017 Copyright disclaimer: http://mq.edu.au/library/copyright
San Francisco Alliance SystemChina Foreign relations United StatesSouth China Sea disputeInternational relationsrise of ChinaUS policy posturesDonald TrumpUnited States Foreign relations China


text:
4 Doodles Your Kids will Love from Your Childhood
There are some doodles or cartoons from your childhood that are timeless classics. Many of the original cartoons are still shown on satellite networks or are available on DVD.
The Pen Company has made a list of some of the cartoons currently making a comeback in the TV lives of our children:
A group of cat-like humans go on heroic quests and fights for survival. The program first aired in the 1980's. A new series began in 2011 which re-imagined the story but retained many of the characters.
Batman first appeared in Detective Comics in 1939. He starred in his own comic from 1940. The most recent cartoon is 'Batman, the Brave and the Bold' which ran between 2008 and 2011. The show will be replaced by a more serious cartoon entitled 'Beware the Batman' due to air in 2013.
Scooby Doo first aired in 1969 with 'Scooby-Doo, Where are You?' The character usually has four faithful companions: Freddie, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy. The latest incarnation is Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc which brings the characters' costumes up to date but keeps all the much loved features and in-jokes from earlier cartoons.
The comic first appeared in the 1960's. Spiderman was the first teenage superhero. He has appeared in a number of TV cartoons. 'Ultimate Spiderman', a new cartoon has recently aired during 2012.
Photo Credit: Heroes3 by popofatticus
Posted by Tina at Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Labels: cartoons, Movie
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