Unlike other celebs who go wild dressing in color and pattern, Jennifer Aniston is a creature of habit. Her favorite wardrobe crutch? The LBD. The actress probably has an entire closet full of the...

'I really wanted to write a chaper in epic verse, because I thought epic verse and PowerPoint in one novel, come on. Irresistible!'

When Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad was first published in the United States, it got great reviews and sank like a stone. The publishers wondered if the title was a problem; what is a "goon squad"? It might be off-putting to women, they thought. Egan despaired. "It felt like a potentially colossal lost opportunity." A year later, Goon Squad is a bestseller, has been bought by HBO for TV adaptation and a few days after my interview with her, went on to win the Pulitzer prize for fiction. "Are you Jennifer Egan?" asks the waitress in the (very booky) part of Brooklyn where we meet for lunch. There is such a thing, says Egan, as over-exposure. "If I was a person observing it I would be, like, when will she stop?"

In person, Egan is slight, modest, at odds perhaps with the force of her prose, which is lit by a casual brilliance and so compacted as to be almost tangible. As well as the Pulitzer, she has won the National Book Award (beating Jonathan Franzen's Freedom), a Guggenheim fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and yet, she says, "I've never been that confident. I don't tend to think, swaggeringly, I'm going to ace this. It's just not who I am."

Goon Squad is Egan's fourth novel. It breaks with the genre of her previous novel, as did the novel before that and the one before that, as is Egan's habit. Every time she starts a new project, she says, she is itching to relieve the exhaustion of the previous one. After her first novel, The Invisible Circus, a coming of age story, she wrote Look At Me, the satirical story of a model who loses her looks in an accident, and then a gothic novel, The Keep. It probably loses her readers. The Keep was enthusiastically received by people whom she suspects won't identify with Goon Squad – which is loosely set around the music industry, although don't let that put you off. Egan is guided only by what interests her at the time of writing. "I'm kind of looking for thrills, honestly. That's what it's about."

The new novel is broken into 13 interrelated stories, each focusing on a character seen out of the corner of one's eye in the previous chapter. If it sounds irksome, it is saved by pace and sheer readability. Egan is so swift and funny, so light on her feet, that her reputation lingers on the borders of chick-lit, which might explain her omission from the Orange prize shortlist in favour of more earnest titles. It's an absurd oversight, although Egan won't, of course, allow it as such. "The only thing I feel bad about is that it would have made my publishers so happy," she says. She is a great fan of Emma Donaghue's novel, Room, the favourite, which, she says, "is seriously good. It may be partly that I'm the mother of two boys, although I'm not generally interested in books that are about motherhood; I run a mile from that kind of thing. But I just found . . . it walloped me. I was in awe of what she pulled off."

Egan's writing habits are shaped by necessity. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, a theatre director, and their two young sons. Before she picks up the boys from school she strives for five to seven pages a day, by hand. "And that can happen really quickly; I can be done with that in an hour or two. But I sometimes spend a lot of time avoiding doing it, taking four hours to do what I could've done in one. I try not to write more than that, even if I'm tempted to, because if I go too far I'm really drained for the next day. I can't do more than seven or maybe eight without jeopardising the rhythm."

The desire to become a writer struck suddenly and without warning when she was a teenage backpacker in the early 1980s, traipsing across Europe, lonely and depressed, missing her family. This was the era of queuing for the public phone box: "There was a kind of intensity to the isolation of travel at that time that's completely gone now. You had to wait in line at a phone place, and then there weren't even answering machines. That feeling of waiting in line, paying for the phone and then not only having no one answer, but not being able to leave a message so that they would never know you called. It's hard to fathom what that disconnection felt like. But I'm actually very grateful for it. Because it was extreme. And that kind of extreme isolation showed me that I wanted to be a writer."

Why?

"I wish I knew the answer. I don't know. I think there was a kind of clarity to being reduced to myself in this extreme way. I was also really scared. I kept having what I think we would now call panic attacks. This would've been the summer of 1981 and I just thought I was flipping out. Somehow in that extreme state, I wrote constantly; harrowing journal pages where I'm narrating my own panic. 'I don't understand why I can't make it stop' – trying to understand what I was scared of." She smiles. "And I suppose the essentialness of writing for me was revealed in that experience." Egan eventually got hold of her mother on the phone, who told her to come home to California, which she did.

She could, I suggest, have written an early version of Eat Pray Love. Egan makes a face. (Reviewing that book for the New York Times, she wrote: "What's missing are the textures and confusion and unfinished business of real life, as if Gilbert were pushing these out of sight so as not to come off as dull or equivocal or downbeat.") She is a big fan of Gilbert's, she says, although not of that book.

Before leaving for Europe, Egan had had thoughts of being a medic, like her grandfather. "I loved the idea of being a doctor – plunging into the lives of different people – but also the investigative aspect of it. I was a sciency kid; I loved chemistry." Medicine fell by the wayside when she developed a squeamishness about blood in her teens. Then she wanted to be an archaeologist. "It was at that time when the Leakeys were making a lot of discoveries and it felt like archaeology was really in the headlines. My fantasy was 'wow, reconstructing lives from previous times using tiny artifacts'." She laughs to acknowledge the greater truth in this. But, "then I payed to go on a dig in summer, and found it to be kind of hot and dusty and not really what I had in mind. I realised that my fantasy had literally nothing to do with the reality."

She returned to southern California at a difficult time; her mother and stepfather had just split up; the house was sold and a lot of her stuff was gone. "I've always felt really sad about that. I'd saved so many things, for years and years. I know it's silly, but, all of my Barbie dolls with all of their clothes, preserved. It had been a terrible situation and they'd sold their house and my mother was in this apartment, and I didn't even want to be out of the room from her. I would call to her from a different room, that's how upset I was. But I recovered fairly quickly and went to college in the fall."

She used experiences from her trip around Europe for her first novel, The Invisible Circus, about a girl whose sister commits suicide on her gap year, and who retraces her steps to find out why. It's the most conventional of her novels. "It's the kind of book that makes some people cry. It's the kind of book that people say to me, gosh, when will you write another book like that?"

The idea for Goon Squad came to her after her reading group got stuck into Proust. It took them about seven years to plough through In Search of Lost Time, during which she became obsessed with how to represent entire lifespans, non-sequentially and in the way people actually experience them, that is as a constant negotiation between reflection and anticipation. Like the best satire, much of what Egan writes has already turned into reality; one of her characters is a hapless PR, employed by a dictator to rehabilitate his image: after the book came out, it was revealed Gaddafi had done something similar. (Public relations, in Egan's landscape, has come to manipulate human behaviour so egregiously as to be considered a branch of particle physics.) And she is experimental. The most arresting part of the novel is the chapter written in PowerPoint, by a teenage girl in the near-future, writing her online journal.

"I had a few chapters that I couldn't make work," she says. "I really wanted to write a chapter in epic verse, because I thought epic verse and PowerPoint in one novel, come on. Irresistible! But the problem is – I'd been reading Don Juan, which is just so fun and rollicking, very postmodern in that 19th-century way, where Byron is interjecting commentary about local events, making little digs at his enemies, then effortlessly flowing back into Don Juan's adventures. I thought, God, if I could do that it would be amazing. Of course, he was one of the greatest poets ever, that's why he could do it. And I'm not a poet at all. I got a couple of stanzas into that one and thought, this is a disaster."

The PowerPoint chapter manages, somehow, to be very moving and only works, she says, because the medium underlines a structural point she was trying to make about brevity: specifically, the awkward, silence-imbued relationship between a boy and his father. It's not merely a gimmick, although it looks startling on the page and I wonder that her publishers didn't protest. Yes, she says: "I thought they might say, no, this is too expensive, or too far out. And I was perfectly prepared to have that chapter be an url." She filed the first draft of the book without that chapter, and only slipped it into the final edit. "I did it sneakily. They were expecting light revisions. But I thought, all I'm going to do is make everyone frightened by telling them I'm writing in PowerPoint. And I was really possessed by the need to make it work." Inevitably, when she sent it to her agent and editor, neither could open the attachment and she had to print it out and fax it to them. She laughs. "They did not follow my instructions. My agent immediately called for technical support."

Partly as a reaction to this, Egan imagines that her next novel will be much more conventional. She's not fully into a new project yet – is at what she calls that "dangerous point" of fending off starting. Most years, she writes a couple of long magazine stories for the New York Times, and the two forms, the insularity of novel-writing, and the external movement of journalism, cross-fertilise, although she is wary of using the journalism as a displacement activity. "I always feel like I don't want to do it, and that it's getting in the way of what I want to do. I used to be able to do both at once when I didn't have kids, because I worked so much, but now I really can't. It feels like a bigger sacrifice, so I don't do quite as much journalism. But the two interact all the time. Being forced out in to the world is huge for me, it really broadens the possiblities of what I can write about."

Egan can accommodate the various roles in her life with relative ease. The difficulty she says is in the transitional moments. "When I first had a child I really had a hard time trying to figure out how it was all going to fit together. Because I felt like, when I was with him, I wanted to be writing and I should be writing. And when I was writing, I felt like I should be with him, and wanted to be with him. So I was unhappy a lot. But over time that conflict seems reduced. I can't quite explain it. They seem to intermingle more easily. It's often just getting from one to the other which is where the discomfort still lies.

"I'll walk to pick them up at school, it's 15-20 minutes, listening to music as I go, and often as I'm walking I'm uncomfortable. Miserable and depressed. But then when I see them I transfer to the other world. And their concerns are so immediate, which I find wonderful. As a writer, I'm not very interested in domesticity. But as a human, it's fantastic, because I find it so freeing. Accomplishing little domestic tasks can really give me satisfaction. I will be thrilled for having worked out some minor logistical problem with our schedule."

She finds publicity onerous. She used to be very bad at public speaking, she says, to the point where even holding the table at a dinner party would make her anxious – "six or seven people all listening to me; I didn't like that feeling of separation from them." This improved over time and she can address an audience, these days, with only occasional trouble, although in a limited way she finds fear can be useful. Working from a position of light pessimism is the thing that drives her, the thing she gets from starting each novel in a totally new genre. After Goon Squad, she is thinking around the possibility of historical fiction, a more straightforward form of storytelling, because "I'm tired of the fragmented approach, and crave a centrality."

Nonetheless, it will be new to her. "In a way, I'm always trying to do something I'm not qualified to do," she says. "So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my basic mindset." It is one that, this week at least, will be difficult for Egan to maintain, although of course it's her job as a novelist to occupy multiple points of view simultaneously. She smiles. "I think the one thing that's changed over time is that I've come to realise, as a fiction writer, the fact that I don't think it will work out, doesn't mean that it actually won't."

Saison du Permienne scored a mediocre 25.  I opened one of my last two bottles, grabbed a box a tissues, and went over the score sheets.

Aroma: JUDGE 1: Light grainy, pear low spicy hop aroma.  Alcohol and Musty. 6/12
              JUDGE 2: Malty with some sharp alcohol notes an perhaps what could be some harsh hop aromas.  Some lighter (fuser) alcohol notes are also present.  Slight Citrusy character but lacking much of the complexity characteristic of the style.  Some spiciness but seems to me mostly alcohol derived. 5/12
              ME:  (I love judge 2).  Can't disagree.  Probably too old.  I might have scored it a bit higher. . .

Appearance:  JUDGE 1: Golden with slight orange hue.  Slight haze, low head.  Faded quickly. 2/3
                       JUDGE 2: Slightly hazy, golden orange.  Low white head is fleeting.  Huge legs. 2/3
                       ME:  I decanted so mine was crystal clear.  No head, no retention.  Yup! huge legs. (The decanting thing has me confused.  I guess the steward might have roused the yeast in the bottle.  But the steward in the with category didn't, which gave Satan some seriously low scores for Wit Willy.  Wouldn't a beer geek know to rouse the yeast in a wit?)  I would have scored it lower for the lack of head.

Flavor: JUDGE 1: Fruity, spicy, very light malt.  Dominate tart. Medium hop bitterness.  Spicy hop flavor finishes dry and tart.  Balance to bitter. Spicy dry tart sensation. 11/20
             JUDGE 2: Citric Tartness that extends into the finish making the finish juicy and citrusy. (Should be integrated not first.)  Bitterness is moderate high and seems to be largely alcohol derived.  No discernible hop flavor.  Lacks the long, dry finish characteristic of the style--tartness perhaps makes it seem drier that it is. 8/20
            ME:  Medium hop bitterness vs. No discernible hop flavor.  No wonder I hate competitions!  Me?  I don't get no hops.  (Judge 1 is an apprentice and Judge 2 is a National).  Otherwise I agree with both of 'em.

Mouthfeel: JUDGE 1:  Medium body, medium low carbonation, slight warmth. Moderate Creaminess.  Slight astringent from hops and spices. 3/5
                    JUDGE 2: Medium bodied with moderate-high carbonation and a juicy, tart mouthfeel.  Eventually significant alcohol warming in the back of the throat and into the chest. 3/5
                    ME:  no disagreements, except for the hop thing. . .

Overall Impression: JUDGE 1: Dry tart and refreshing.  Dry finish.  Overall pleasing but some musty.  Check hop freshness or spices if present or yeast health. 5/10
                                  JUDGE 2:  Alcohol Character is too much for style.  Seems to be at or above the high end of the ABV, and alcohol character dominates aroma and is too strong in the finish, Saison yeast can do well at high temperatures, but not too high. Other  strains will not tolerate high temperatures well and produce fusel alcohols and off aromas. Finish is surprisingly "juicy" for such an alcoholic beer - perhaps use harder water. 5/10
                                  ME:   I agree it has too much alcohol.  I was chasing ABV.  The next incarnation will have a lot less alcohol.

I will brew this version again, and it will be called "I Blame You Grand Cru"™.

Tracey Emin's raw unpretentiousness – and the use she's made of her life in her work – has captured the nation's attention for 20 years. But its brilliance lies in its use of words

A cunt is a rose is a cunt. This is the title of a Tracey Emin monoprint from 2000. It's a reclining female nude, legs and torso neatly nicked off above the chest and at ankle and shin level, a body sloping backwards from the raised legs downwards, so that, held vibrant and prominent right at the centre of the drawing, there's not just the vibrating smudge and scribble of female genitalia but also a sense of something solid emerging from it, a shape cut in air, made by the crook of the upper knee and the line of the lower thigh.

"A cunt is a rose is a cunt" is Emin's reworking of the famous/notorious line from Gertrude Stein's 1913 poem "Sacred Emily": "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose". This was probably inspired in turn by Juliet's comment on Romeo's name, 300 years before Stein: "What's in a name? – That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet" (and Shakespeare was a writer not averse to the odd pun on the word "cunt" himself). What would Stein, the great literary experimenter, have made of Emin's emendation? Here's what she said in 1935 when some students in Chicago questioned her about it:

Now listen. Can't you see that when the language was new – as it was with Chaucer and Homer – the poet could use the name of a thing and the thing was really there. He could say "O moon", "O sea", "O love", and the moon and the sea and love were really there? And can't you see that after hundreds of years had gone by and thousands of poems had been written, he could call on those words and find that they were just worn out literary words? The excitingness of pure being had withdrawn from them; they were just rather stale literary words. Now the poet has to work in the excitingness of pure being; he has to get back that intensity into the language. We all know that it's hard to write poetry in a late age; and we know that you have to put some strangeness, as something unexpected, into the structure of the sentence in order to bring back vitality . . . Now you all have seen hundreds of poems about roses and you know in your bones that the rose is not there. All those songs that sopranos sing as encores about "I have a garden! oh, what a garden!" . . . Now listen! I'm no fool. I know that in daily life we don't go around saying ". . . is a . . . is a . . . is a . . ." Yes, I'm no fool; but I think that in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years.

The "can't-you-see?" of this. The insistence on "listen". The repeating immediacy – now, now, now. The emphasis on the importance and excitement of aliveness; the intensity. The focus on strangeness; the understanding that something strange introduced into the structure of things renews things: Stein's isn't a bad lens through which to see Emin's own practice. For Emin a word like "cunt" is excitingly multiple. In her work it ranges across the whole spectrum of resonance, from affirmation, celebration, punchy frankness to unpleasantness, insult and mundanity, via the still-thrilling buzz of the just-not-said, and all simultaneously, all in the swivel of a repetition, the shape a word cuts in time. There's also, here, the cheek, the wit of her retake on Stein's rose, since for sure Stein knows that a rose means more than just a rose. "And then later," Stein says of her ring of words, "what did I do? I caressed completely caressed and addressed a noun." Emin, too, is a caresser and addresser when it comes to verbal and conceptual certainties and ambiguities. Inherent ambiguity is something she's well aware of if you look at the photograph, from the same year as A cunt is a rose is a cunt, called I've got it all, in which she sits with her legs splayed open, clutching notes and coins to her cunt as if either the cash is exploding out of her in fairground fecundity, spilling out as though she's a giant fruit machine, or she's in the act of cramming it into herself.

The thing about Emin is that she's really good with words. Maybe no one, until now, has so energised, understood, made visible, the possibilities of this particular, powerful word: cunt. Partly such energising is art's responsibility, one that works, by means of what WG Sebald calls "keeping faith with unsocial, banned language", to question, understand and, with any luck, transcend the proscriptions and the inarticulacies of whatever time we happen to live in. There's a parallel in Emin's punk insertion of the word "fucking" into the construct "red, white and blue" in her neon of 2002, Red, White, and Fucking Blue, where the word "red" is red neon, the word "white" and the "&" are white neon, and the words "Fucking" and "Blue" are blue neon, and suggest everything that could make you feel blue (in all senses of the word) in the cliché of the concept of being British. Plus, there's her general democratising, the total unpretentiousness – for instance, in one of her Princess Diana monoprints of 1999, on which she writes "Regardless of class or status no woman deserves what thoes cunts put you through – LOVE WAS ON YOUR SIDE." With Emin, art is about articulation: its questions, impossibilities and, above all, the fluidity and changeability of register. At the same time it's really very British, reminiscent of something a bit Lawrentian. Mellors, the close-to-nature gamekeeper in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) – a novel that's all about chatter, and the upper, the lower, the chattering classes – can switch rhetorical registers with ease, talking to his penis one minute ("Ay, th' cheek on thee! Cunt, that's what tha're after. Tell lady Jane tha wants cunt"), the next minute laughingly aphoristic to Constance Chatterley ("Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in kindred love"). Something in this resembles the versatile split-second shift from cloy to edge, from acrid to sentiment and back again, in Emin's work; the neon Be Faithful to your dreams (1998) next to Good Smile Great Come (2000) next to MY CUNT IS WET WITH FEAR (1998) next to Love is What You Want (2011). (Elsewhere in her work Emin has played this last one as Love Is What You Wont.)

Something in it is prefigured, too, in work by groundbreaking writers like Angela Carter, a genius of verbal and narrative reclamation and emendation, and the American post-beat writer Kathy Acker, whose seminal, anarchic 1978 novel Blood and Guts in High School is also a work of words and pictures with its graphic genital line drawings, including one of the labia labelled underneath in typewriter typeface "My cunt red ugh". (Acker was influenced, in turn, by the 1960s and 70s feminist performance artists, for instance Carolee Schneemann, one of whose practices was to pull a rolled scroll out of her vagina then read out what was written on it.) Somehow Emin goes beyond; with her, it's as if Warhol and Valerie Solanas were rolled into the same person, but minus his posture of obliquity and spaciness, minus the violent fixity of her political focus. Something else, something unexpected and difficult to articulate happens. As Jennifer Doyle says, about looking at Emin's repeated graphic versions of what Courbet calls "the origin of the world", "I couldn't help but think: 'Isn't this how Judy Chicago and Georgia O'Keeffe are supposed to make me feel (but don't)?'".

Emin's ear for the right word in the right place, and for the resonances of "rightness" and "wrongness" in word and place, are at the basis of her art. Take her play on meaning in the pair of neons, Is Anal Sex Legal and Is Legal Sex Anal (both 1998), so simple and so complex at once, so centrally about how (and where) words mean, and so witty about proscription, with shades too of Lewis Carroll's Alice lazily falling down the rabbit hole in a swoon pondering do cats eat bats, do bats eat cats? "And what is the use of a book", thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?" Emin – while she brings straight to the surface all the things, including survival, Freudian strangeness, child/adult sexualities and innocences, which go unsaid or remain subconscious in the work of a writer like Carroll – is drawn to the place where meaning and consumption come together, fascinated by the conversation that happens when words and pictures meet, a dialogue most of us come across as soon as we first look at books. "I love writing," she says. "I think every artist has a backbone to what they do. For some it could be photography, painting, the ability to make a formal sculpture stand, but for me it's writing." For her, art is language and, as she put it in the press release for her very first show, "art has always been, a lot of the time, a mysterious coded language. And I'm just not a coded person . . . What you see is what I am."

This unpretentiousness has made Emin a national symbol. Her uncodedness, her frankness, her direct use of her own life in her work, have made her a repository, in the media and to some extent in the general public's eye, for all that's contentious in contemporary art. It's easy to dismiss, simplistically, her complex and redolent use of self-portraiture as ego-posturing. But the thing is, there's no pinning her down. There's no reducing Emin. No matter how – or how much – the media strings her up (one minute lunatic, the next the new William Blake), her work engages the nation, and has engaged it now for more than 20 years, in a dialogue about art and life and the crossovers between both. It does this at what might be called a language-sensitive place. She is multitalented, multifaceted; aesthetically endlessly versatile; there's no form she won't try. Somehow nothing circumscribes her.

From Blake's illuminated books to Stevie Smith's strange, pithy little illustrated verses, from Fra Angelico to Magritte's not-pipe; from the terrible increasing tension in Charlotte Salomon's Leben? oder Theater? to Gilbert & George's Dirty Words Pictures: artists and writers have worked for centuries with what happens when text and visual art come together. For Emin, it's another of her many modes of dialogue. In one of her monoprints, a girl wearing high-heeled shoes, with a smudge for a face, stands next to the words "dog" and "brains". Is she saying it about herself? Is she hearing it said about herself? The instability makes something momentary into something piercing and shaming.

In her book those who suffer love (2009), 11 monoprints by Emin of a woman masturbating accompany the text like a restless flickerbook; but the repeated shifts of the body up against the text make the text come alive, while the text itself, sometimes banal, sometimes funny, sometimes anguished, rubs up against the body to make the whole thing both pathetic and satisfying. Its title, a statement in its own right and an adjectival phrase, is a typical Emin reflexive. Considered carefully, it becomes more than itself, in the same way that the title of her celebrated tent-work, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (1995) played on the phrase's colloquial sexual meaning and was mischievously, seriously, quite literally, a list of everybody she had ever gone to sleep next to.

I wonder if, along with My Bed and the now lost Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (which was destroyed in the Momart fire of 2004, and which Emin refuses to remake), one of Emin's most enduring images will prove to be the photograph Monument Valley (Grand Scale) (1995–97). In it, the artist is off centre, sitting in the desert on an old bright-green chair whose sides are lined with orange piping, so much in the foreground that the great slabs of Monument rock are miniaturised behind her, with the wide blue sky above her only slightly scuffed with clouds, the word "THANKS" appearing from behind her right leg and a book called Exploration of the Soul in her hands, open as if she's about to give a reading. She's looking straight at us. Her gaze is direct but distanced – shrewd, serious. There's both silence and the promise of voice in it. There's a waiting, a discrete openness.

The book is one she wrote in 10 days, an autobiographical work written with the considered rawness for which Emin has now become known. In the early 90s she toured America, giving readings to anyone who came to hear, sitting on her travelling storyteller chair, which was a gift to her from her grandmother (it originally belonged to her great-grandmother), which she patched with the names of the places she visited, like a suitcase. The chair is now an exhibit in its own right (There's a lot of money in chairs, 1994). It's a dialogue itself in the form of a chair, one that holds its own narrative shape between Emin and her grandmothers, between past and present histories. The work is about a girl who comes of age via the legends of her English mother and her Turkish-Cypriot father, their material ups and downs, then the girl's own horrific early sexualisation, first by abuse, then by rape, at the age of 13, at the hands of a local man, someone well known for having "broken in girls". "When I got in, my mum said, 'Tracey, what's wrong with you?' I showed her my coat, the dirt and the stains, and told her 'I'm not a virgin any more.' She didn't call the police or make any fuss. She just washed my coat and everything carried on as normal, as though nothing had happened." Exploration of the Soul ends with the story of Emin at the age of seven going to a children's party, from which she is sent home because "you don't have an invitation". The next morning the child Emin asks her mother, "What's an invitation?" It is a model fable of exclusion, of how language itself is used to exclude.

Emin is a great recycler. Much of Exploration of the Soul appears again in her book of "memoirs and confessions" Strangeland (2005), a work of echo and resonance and rewrite, in which – as in her video-poem Why I never became a dancer (1995) – she works with a repeating structure, one that shifts from abjection to empowerment and transformation. In it she declares "You don't have to be born with balls to have balls."

By her own authority, Emin writes with a gift of fused subjectivity and objectivity reminiscent of a writer like Nell Dunn (the titles of whose 1960s novels Up the Junction and Poor Cow read now almost like the titles of Emin works). Dunn, an upper-class girl who decamped to south London and wrote with what proved to be a transformative lack of judgmentalism about the working classes, has a talent for fusing roughness and beauty into something at once fragmentary and whole, seen from both outside and inside simultaneously.

"Instead of feeling on the outside, I realised that there was an outside and it was called 'being an artist'." Strangeland's first image, of her birth, is an infant vision between death and life, somehow wrong, voiceless: "When I was born they thought I was dead. Paul arrived first, ten minutes before me . . . I just rolled out, small and yellow . . . I somehow felt a mistake had been made. I couldn't scream or cry or argue my case . . . They put me into a little glass box and slowly I came round." Its final image, of the adult Emin in Egypt longing to smash through the glass case in a tomb and take into her arms a "tiny mummified foetus" is one of sheer empathy. "Dead for thousands of years, not completely formed, but he had soul. He still had soul," writes the artist who knows what spirit is, who can go from the word "drunk" to the word "soul", from inebriation to metaphysic, in the space of a single strip of material, and hold them both in equal measure (Drunk to the bottom of my soul, 2002).

It's all about connection. It's one word after another, with Emin. Give her a blanket and she'll make it speak. Give her the fabric of things and she'll find voice in it. Give her a cliché and she'll take it apart to give it back its full original whack of power again. Give her words, she'll write them backwards and forwards; she'll send them off in all directions; she'll work them into everything; she'll put them where you least expect. She'll make you wonder what they mean; she'll show you they're right and they're wrong. She'll take them to pieces then sew them back together again. She'll light them up.

Tracey Emin: Love Is What You Want is at the Hayward Galley, Southbank Centre, London SE1 (0844 875 0073), from 18 May to 29 August 2011. www.southbankcentre.co.uk

 

The Couple: Joya and Emre

The Wedding: 3.26.11 - Terranea Resort, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

What three adjectives that best describe your wedding? Unique, fun and heartfelt.

The feelings expressed on our wedding day, not only between Emre and myself but also from our friends and family, were all so incredibly warm and sincere. We really tried to personalize each aspect of our day and to think out of the box when it came to entertaining our guests. We wanted to create a vibrant but inviting atmosphere for everyone and in return we felt surrounded by a lifetime of love and friendship that we will cherish always!

What inspired your personal wedding style, and how did you incorporate your style and personalities into your big day? We are big architecture and design aficionados, and have a particular fondness for the Art Nouveau and Craftsman movements. I also have a love for vintage styles, especially when it comes to clothing, music and dance. When we first got engaged, we knew that Terranea was the place for us as it not only had a gorgeous location on the ocean but it conveyed a true old - and grand - California feel.

I started incorporating our style by designing our Save-the-Date postcard, in which I chose my favorite Arts and Crafts font and used a scan from a real 1920s postcard back. Emre and I both work at NBC, and I wanted to incorporate a peacock into our invitation suite, but also wanted to use the same font and style of our save-the-date postcards. I found the exact design I was looking for on Etsy, and hired Mali Chi from Hello & Co. on the spot. I worked closely with Mali on all the stationery designs, to stay faithful to our motifs and color palette. As both of our families live far away (mine in Canada, and Emre’s from the East Coast and Turkey), and we ourselves have lived in various cities around the world, we decided to continue the postcard theme with our escort cards. We bought almost 50 different vintage postcards on eBay and named all of our reception tables after cities we lived in, or that held a special meaning for us (such as Vancouver, where we got engaged during the 2010 Winter Olympics). We wrote personal stories for each of the cities and addressed them to each guest, and made sure each table had an assortment of different postcards so they could compare and share. We set them out in old wooden card catalogs set amongst a vignette of vintage decor that included an Art Deco velvet green fainting couch, old lamps and used books.

We also added smaller rustic touches to the day, like weathered signs and antique frames, our initials handcarved in wood and a custom ringbearer book stack. This love of vintage style was also reflected in our music choices: we had a swing quintet play 1920s and 30s music for our cocktail hour and part of our reception, I surprised Emre by singing a special song, “You’re A Heavenly Thing,”  just for him, and then a DJ capped off the night with modern fare.

Tell us all about your wedding music video! Initially we wanted to do a concept video that we planned to show at our reception but our ideas required a lot of resources and time, neither of which we had in the final months leading up to our wedding. So we brainstormed with our videographer David Robin and the idea of a music video shot on our wedding day came up.

The bar for participation would be low since we just needed people to lip-synch a few lyrics and/or dance to to the song. We knew our friends and family would love the idea, and it would a great gift to give back to them as a unique memory of our day. We had very specific criteria for choosing the music: 1. Big song with lots of energy, and a fun and easy chorus, 2. Singing parts for girls and guys, 3. Relevant lyrics fitting with a wedding, and not R-rated, and, 4. Timeless song that won't be dated when we watch this 10 years from now. The Time (Dirty Bit) by The Black Eyed Peas met all these conditions, in addition to being a newly released song and one we didn’t tire of listening to again and again.

We divided up the lyrics amongst our bridal party, family and friends so they were manageable, we hired a choreographer to teach us some simple moves that our bridal party could perform at our reception, and we informed all our guests beforehand about the plan to film on the day. We shot all day leading up to the wedding, immediately after the ceremony (in fact, we recreated our recessional so we could lip-synch to the song!), and all throughout the reception. We assigned all the spoken word “dirty bits” to those individuals who would be the unlikeliest of stars: JP Reynolds (our officiant), John Reynolds (our hot jazz guitarist and friend), Emre’s father Ziya, and finally my father Gordon (who filmed his part at a urinal!).

We couldn’t have been more thrilled with the outcome thanks to David Robin and his team, and the 100% support we got from our wedding coordinator Amber Gustafson and the staff at Terranea Resort.

Looking back, what are the moments, decisions or memories that you love the most about your wedding? Finding our wedding coordinator (Amber Gustafson of Amber Events) was the first best decision we could have made! We are both extremely busy with our careers, and having someone to guide us -- especially someone whose taste so beautifully mirrored our own -- made the entire year of planning a joy and devoid of stress (well, 95% of it hehe).

Choosing to have our wedding at Terranea really set the tone for day, in terms of look and feel. We had great memories of staying there before our engagement, and always thought it would be our perfect venue.

Taking the time to choose a photographer who gets us, and whose style compliments our own. We began working with Callaway Gable Photography last summer on our engagement session and that really put us at ease come our wedding day. They are so detail-oriented and were so much in-tune with our vision for the day. Looking at our photos now we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect portrayal of who we are and what the day meant for us, our family, and our friends.

Doing a “first look” before our ceremony took so much stress out of the day for us, and really let us relax that much more and spend time with our guests.

Deciding to shoot the music video was one of the best decisions we could have made. We knew how ambitious the project was (and how much our coordinator would have to go the extra mile to accommodate it) but we were determined to make it work, and have fun doing it - and we did! Once our friends and family saw the completed video, it truly became the most talked-about highlight of our day!

 

What was your wedding color palette? Apple Green and Pumpkin Orange. Green is my favorite color (and the color of my eyes) and orange is Emre’s favorite color. They also worked perfectly with our design ideas and the spring season!

A behind the scenes view from event planner Amber Gustafson of Amber Events: "After planning all of the details of their wedding day together for almost a year, Joya and Emre told me about this music video idea just a few weeks before their wedding. While they storyboarded who would lip-sync which portions of the song, I worked with the videographers and photographers to lay-out a timeline that would not only allow everyone to get what they needed for the wedding day itself, but also this music video. We were producing a wedding and a music video all in the same day. No pressure, right?!

Joya and Emre had sent an email out to their guests ahead of time giving them the heads up, and also wrote a note in the program asking them to get up and sing to the camera after the ceremony. They did their recessional three times, actually: the first one was their official "we're married!" walk down the aisle, and the second two were directed by David Robin, the videographer.

Potential inclement weather on the wedding day put yet another stress factor on the 7 cameramen, 4 photographers, and 4 wedding coordinators orchestrating this, but with team work we all made it happen. We think it was worth it!"

 

The Wedding Team:

Photographer: Callaway Gable Photography
Event Planner: Amber Events 
Film Maker: David Robin Films
Ceremony and Reception Venue: Terranea Resort
Officiant: JP Reynolds 
Invitation Designer: Invitation Suite, Menus, Program - Hello & Co., Save-the-Date Postcard - Bride
Catering: Terranea Resort
Florist: Holly Flora 
Cake: Vanilla Bake Shop 
Wedding dress: R-Mine 
Bridal accessories: Shoes - Nina, Organza Hairpiece - Jennifer Behr 
Bridesmaid’s apparel: J.Crew
Groom and groomsmen apparel and accessories: Suits - Jos. A. Bank, Lego Cufflinks - Retro Classy Cufflinks on Etsy 
Hair and make-up: Bridal make-up - Jeannie Jones, Bridal Hair, Bridesmaid Hair and Make-up - Design Visage
DJ: DJ Nahchey 
Live music: Ceremony - Pat Maki Players, Reception - John Reynolds & Friends
Dance instruction: Christina Haggerty
Favors: Party Booths 
Rings: Tiffany, Pinnacle Gems
Rustic Wedding Sign: GoJumpInTheLake on Etsy 
Vintage Wood Letters: sERINasCustomShop on Etsy 
Ringbearer Book Stack: thedaintywoods on Etsy 
Wedding Card Holder Birdbox: CleggFarmCreations on Etsy

Thank you so mcuh for sharing your day and your hilarious music video with us Joya and Emre! And kudos to the whole wedding team who worked hard to bring this day to life!

To find more inspiration for your our personal wedding style, don't miss our all new and gorgeous wedding image gallery! To plan your own Southern California or Seattle area wedding, browse our Plan Your Wedding Hotlists! And to find a dream wedding photographer for your wedding anywhere in the world, be sure to check out Junebug's World's Best Wedding Photographers Hotlist!

One of the great things about videogames is how absurd they can be. Whether this absurdity is intentional (Noby Noby Boy) or unintentional (“All your base are belong to us!”) it’s always nice to see games that aren’t afraid to be ridiculous.

While movies and television have a stricter reliance on sticking to a somewhat cohesive narrative, videogames have the luxury of throwing normalcy out the window and offering something that can only be found in the world of gaming.

Even better, these absurd moments are even more wonderfully insane if they appear in a game that is otherwise fairly traditional.

A perfect example of this is in the semi-recent Xbox Live Arcade hit 'Splosion Man. The entire game (a classic platformer) is full of humorous moments, but an extended sequence at the end of the game is absolutely ludicrous and will go down in history as one of the oddest and most amazing videogame moments I have ever experienced.

The Set-Up

Even though it’s already a couple years old, ‘Splosion Man is still one of my favorite Xbox Live Arcade games to date. In fact, it’s even one of my favorite 2D platformers of all time. The game is just really well-designed, really fun to play, and really, really entertaining.

In the game, you play as the titular ‘Splosion Man, a fiery, explosive experiment gone wrong.

Created in the laboratory Big Science, the game starts with ‘Splosion Man escaping from his prison. Happy to be free, ‘Splosion (I am calling him this for the rest of the article as his full name is a chore to type!) wreaks havoc throughout the lab in order to find a way to escape.

The entire gameplay of ‘Splosion Man finds the main character traveling through multiple 2D, side-scrolling levels, using his explosive powers to traverse tricky obstacles and defeat various enemies.

The game is a blast (no pun intended), and possesses a sick and rather twisted sense of humor throughout.

For example, if ‘Splosion explodes next to one of the terrified scientists franticly running around the lab, their bodies will burst into a shower of flopping meat. It is rather gross, but weirdly satisfying, and, honestly, funny every time.

While traveling through the games increasingly brilliant and challenging levels, ‘Splosion is also tasked with defeating three towering bosses.

Each one is very well-designed and fills the entire screen.

At the very end of the game, as ‘Splosion is on the verge of escaping the facility, he faces the final boss: A giant, meat-covered, lizard-like creature that is as terrifying to look at as he is disgusting.

It is during this final boss battle when this week’s surreal Memory Card moment occurs: MEAT ‘SPLOSION!

The Moment

Even though the final boss in ‘Splosion Man looks crazy, he is defeated in a rather traditional manner. By memorizing his patterns, ‘Splosion must get the boss to smash his fists down onto huge orange panes of glass found on both sides of the room.

Once his hands hit the glass three times, the panes shatter, forcing the massive enemy’s fists to plunge into the hot liquid below. After this happens, the boss pulls out his now-burned-to-a-crisp hands and places them in front of his mouth.

The boss, being absolutely insane, smells his cooked meat hands, immediately bites them off, chews them into little pieces, and swallows.

To ultimately defeat the boss, ‘Splosion must repeat this process for all of the enemy’s four arms.

Once his first two arms are gone, ‘Splosion must explode next to the boss’s face, blinding him and forcing him to thrust his final two hands into electricity-filled tubing on the side of the room.

Again, this burns his hands, turning his appendages into a tasty snack for the self-mutilating monster.

Once all four arms are gone, one final maneuver is needed to put the boss to an end.

Armless and completely blind, the final boss leans forward in absolute exhaustion. He lets his giant, blistered tongue fall out of his mouth.

This is ‘Splosion’s opportunity.

With his mouth open, ‘Splosion leaps inside the belly of the enormous beast.

At this point, the player has to make ‘Splosion explode over and over again as fast as possible.

The boss writhes around in pain, pieces of the meat covering his body fly in all directions.

And, then, as if out of nowhere, something strange happens.

The scene immediately jumps away from the boss action to a shot of a boy lying on a carpeted floor reading a book.

And the shot is not created using in-game graphics. It is an actual real world shot using a real-life actor.

As the boy quietly reads, a giant slab of cartoony meat falls from the sky onto the child’s book.

It lands with a gross squish.

The boy giggles and smiles at the camera. A cheesy sparkle emits from his white teeth.

Um ...

The action then cuts back to ‘Splosion exploding inside the boss’s belly. The player continues to hit the button on the controller as fast as possible.

Again, the scene cuts to another real world shot. This one involves two men playing chess. Another cut of meat slaps onto the table, knocking over their chess pieces.

The two men high-five.

... okay?

The next montage of events repeats this pattern over and over again: Flashes of in-game footage of ‘Splosion exploding inside the boss’s body, cut together with increasingly random scenes set in the real world.

A dog being surprised by a piece of falling meat; a cute couple laughing as a shower of hot dogs surrounds them.

Each real world shot is more surreal and wacky than the one before it.

Finally, after this goes on for minutes, ‘Splosion finally defeats the boss. He is engulfed in a white light and is destroyed once and for all.

As if all of this wasn’t absurd enough, the closing credits then begin.

Next to all the hardworking people’s names scrolling by, a crazy song begins to play, accompanied by a man in a ‘Splosion Man outfit running through the real world streets, kicking and punching random photos of young girls, and, I can only guess, people that worked on the game at development studio Twisted Pixel.

Also, terrible, terrible green screen effects.

As the last credit rolls, the logo of the game explodes in a blast of fire as the screen finally fades to black.

The end.

The absurd, ridiculous, quite amazing end to an absurd, ridiculous, quite amazing game.

You really need to see the final boss battle and end credits sequence to believe it. So you can do that right here:

The Impact

Compared to some of the more moving and heartwarming moments that have been featured on The Memory Card in the past, this is obviously one of the least emotionally touching. (Unless, of course, the destruction of a giant murderous meat monster breaks your heart.)

But the lack of emotional impact doesn’t make it any less memorable.

In fact, I would go so far as to say the final sequence in ‘Splosion Man is one of the most energetic and inspired videogame endings in recent memory.

There is a fine line between hilariously absurd and obnoxious, and, honestly, Twisted Pixel did cross that line a couple times in their most recent game, Comic Jumper.

But with ‘Splosion Man, the absurdity just works perfectly. It never feels too out of control to be annoying, but is also insane enough to be genuinely funny.

What I think really helps -- and also makes this ending sequence of events so effective -- is that the majority of ‘Splosion Man is not really designed around being “wacky” or “hilarious”. Sure, there are big laughs throughout the game, but the game is first and foremost a 2D platformer -- and a really well-designed one at that!

With Comic Jumper, the game almost tries too hard to be funny throughout that it kind of loses some of its solid gameplay in the process.

But I am not here to criticize Comic Jumper (I still like that game a lot!). But the comparison helps to understand what makes ‘Splosion Man work so well.

‘Splosion Man is just a really solid game with a very humorous tone to compliment the stellar gameplay. Even the final boss -- as crazy-looking as he is -- is, at its core, just a really well-paced and challenging final boss fight.

So when you are about to defeat the boss and the game all of a sudden cuts to a random sequence of events showing real world actors being attacked by digital pieces of meat, well ... it is rather shocking, to say the least.

The first time this happened to me I really didn’t know what was happening. It made no sense to me! Heck, it still doesn’t make any sense to me.

But it is so absurdly awesome that I can’t help but smile every time I experience it.

I am not here to clear my throat, push up my glasses, and obnoxiously break down why the comedy works (I don’t even think I know!), but I can tell you that the reactions from the actors are what make this sequence so damn funny. One particular chuckle-inducing moment is the priceless facial expressions (and accompanying poorly dubbed sound effects) of the couple having a picnic in the park.

I mean ... what the heck? HA! It makes me laugh even typing about it.

Is this ending sequence completely pointless and a little dumb? Oh, definitely! But give me pointless and dumb any day if it results in something so refreshingly creative and absolutely insane as the ending of ‘Splosion Man.

I love it so much.

 

The Memory Card Save Files

_{Season 1}
.01: The return of Baby Metroid (Super Metroid)
.02: Palom and Porom's noble sacrifice (Final Fantasy IV)
.03: The encounter with Psycho Mantis (Metal Gear Solid)
.04: The heir of Daventry (King's Quest III: To Heir is Human)
.05: Pey'j is captured (Beyond Good & Evil)
.06: The Opera House (Final Fantasy VI)
.07: Attack of the zombie dog! (Resident Evil)
.08: A twist on a classic (Metroid: Zero Mission)
.09: A Christmas gift (Elite Beat Agents)
.10: To the moon, Mario! (Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island)
.11: The Solitary Island (Final Fantasy VI)
.12: Wander's brave friend (Shadow of the Colossus)
.13: The submerged letter (StarTropics)
.14: The legend of Tetra (The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)
.15: Snake pulls the trigger (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater)
.16: Riding under the missiles (Contra III: The Alien Wars)
.17: Hover bike madness! (Battletoads)
.18: Syldra's final cry (Final Fantasy V)
.19: Death by ...grappling beam? (Super Metroid)
.20: The message in the glass (BioShock)

_{Season 2}
.21: Crono's final act (Chrono Trigger)
.22: Ganon's tower (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time)
.23: It was all a dream? (Super Mario Bros. 2)
.24: The assimilation of Kerrigan (StarCraft)
.25: A McCloud family reunion (Star Fox 64)
.26: The return of Rydia (Final Fantasy IV)
.27: The battle with the Hydra (God of War)
.28: Fight for Marian's love! (Double Dragon)
.29: The Hunter attacks (Half-Life 2: Episode 2)
.30: The Phantom Train (Final Fantasy VI)
.31: The end of The End (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater)
.32: In Tentacle We Trust (Day of the Tentacle)
.33: Peach dances with TEC (Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door)
.34: Learning to wall jump (Super Metroid)
.35: A leap of faith (Ico)
.36: The Master Sword (The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past)
.37: Thinking outside the DS (Hotel Dusk: Room 215)
.38: Running outside the castle (Super Mario 64)
.39: Del Lago! (Resident Evil 4)
.40: In memoriam (Lost Odyssey)

_{Season 3}
.41: The tadpole prince (Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars)
.42: Pyramid Head! (Silent Hill 2)
.43: Waiting for Shadow (Final Fantasy VI)
.44: Solid vs. Liquid (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots)
.45: The birth of the cutscene (Ninja Gaiden)
.46: Insult swordfighting (The Secret of Monkey Island)
.47: A castle stuck in time (The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)
.48: 'That's the magic flute!' (The Wizard)
.49: Saving Santa (Secret of Mana)
.50: A shocking loss (Half-Life 2: Episode Two)
.51: The flying cow (Earthworm Jim)
.52: Blind the Thief (The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past)
.53: The nuclear blast (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)
.54: Microwaving the hamster (Maniac Mansion)
.55: The fate of Lucca's mother (Chrono Trigger)
.56: A fiery demise? (Portal)
.57: Jade's moment of silence (Beyond Good & Evil)
.58: The Great Mighty Poo (Conker's Bad Fur Day)
.59: With knowledge comes nudity (Leisure Suit Larry III)
.60: Flint's rage (Mother 3)

_{Season 4}
.61: The dream of the Wind Fish (The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening)
.62: Leaving Midgar (Final Fantasy VII)
.63: Auf Wiedersehen! (Bionic Commando)
.64: Death and The Sorrow (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater)
.65: A glimpse into the future (Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter)
.66: Taloon the merchant (Dragon Quest IV)
.67: Scaling the waterfall (Contra)
.68: Anton's love story (Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box)
.69: TKO! BJ! LOL! (Ring King)
.70: Giant robot fish! (Mega Man 2)
.71: The rotating room (Super Castlevania IV)
.72: The collapsing building (Uncharted 2: Among Thieves)
.73: Death by funnel (Phantasmagoria)
.74: Crono's trial (Chrono Trigger)
.75: The blind fighting the blind (God of War II)
.76: Brotherly love (Mother 3)
.77: Prince Froggy (Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island)
.78: The statue of a hero (Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride)
.79: Inside the worm (Gears of War 2)
.80: The return to Shadow Moses (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots)

_{Season 5}
.81: A prayer for Ness (EarthBound)
.82: Yuna's empty embrace (Final Fantasy X)
.83: Blast Processing! (Sonic the Hedgehog)
.84: A royal assist (The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)
.85: You have chosen ... wisely (Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis)
.86: Death is final (Fire Emblem)
.87: A Snake in a microwave (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots)
.88: The mark of a THIEF (The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening)

We dish the dirt, it sucks it up

Not quite so well known for its vacuum cleaners as its kitchen appliances, Morphy Richards threw Pocket-lint a bit of a curve ball when the company sent over its top of the line Vorticity Plus Bagless Cylinder Vacuum Cleaner to test out. Fortunately, we’re always curious to see exactly what bits and bobs they’re putting in top kit of all sorts these days and, more importantly, Chez Lint also happens to be a very dusty place right now and in need of some serious Spring cleaning.

Out of the box the ?169.99 Vorticity Plus is nice and simple to set up. With snap together pieces reminiscent of those close up shots in action movies where ex-marines assemble their weaponry for the big fight, it’s almost quite fun were it not over all too quickly. Cylinder onto machine, hose into cylinder, handle into hose, telescopic arm onto handle and head into telescopic arm. Job done. Well, nearly. Naturally, a vacuum cleaner wouldn’t be a vacuum cleaner if it didn’t come with all those alternative attachments for the head that you’ll never use and Morphy Richards are kind enough to include a Mini-Floorhead (just like the big one but smaller), Brush (for upholstery) and a Crevice Tool (not for that crevice).

Now, the clever thing that MR has done here is recognise that most of these accessories get left in the box and stuffed up in the attic, so there’s a rather nice bit of design along the handle and tubing with little brackets where you can fit the alternative heads so that they stay on-device for when you need them. It’s an excellent idea but, sadly, the fact that we’ve still managed to lose them speaks volumes. Fire the thing up though and you’ll have very few complaints.

It’s wildly simple to use in - sorry Morphy Richards but we have to say it - Dyson-like style. Any buttons of relevance are colour coded orange and you’ll have down what each one does within a minute without so much as having to pick up the manual. A swift kick of the power pad on the cylinder and the 22 mini-cyclone system comes to life. The deal there is that instead of relying on just the one main hole on the underside of the head to do the work, the Vorticity Plus adds a system of mini-holes along the width. What that means in practice is that it does actually suck up the dirt and fluff of the whole area you’ve just passed over without having to go back and do it again. Given that vacuuming isn’t at the top of most people’s favourite activities list, that’s a very good thing.

The suction works well throughout use and the machine never seemed to drop bits back through the head and onto our clean floors. It hasn’t deteriorated from the day it arrived and nor does the fullness of the cylinder seem to affect performance either. Once it is jammed full of dust and fluff though, it’s nice and obvious to see with very clear fill levels to indicate when it’s time to unclip. Then comes the most satisfying moment of all when you hit the second button on the case - and make sure you’re over a bin bag when you do so - and the bottom opens up dropping all of the detritus where it needs to go without dumping any back on the floor. A quick shake and a bump seemed to remove just about all of it with too much of a problem.

Once you’re done with the work, tug on the flex and the plug whips back into the housing on the case with much the same action as you might expect on a window blind. Aside, running the filter under a tap once a month or so, that’s pretty much all there is to it and we were generally very pleased with the functionality and design of the unit from top to bottom.

The only really question for us was over the heaviness of the head. It’s not heavy at all. That might sound like a good thing, and it’s certainly not all bad, but what that tends to mean is that you have to lean into it a bit more to ensure that it stays on the ground all the time. Invariably, that results in bending over and pressing on the tube a bit more which doesn’t quite make for the seamless, open-windowed, glass of wine experience that most commercials would have us believe that vacuuming is. It’s not a major flaw and it’s not like it’s going to cause you spinal problems or to hate the machine any, but don’t be fooled into thinking that the Vorticity Plus means that doing your floors isn’t a chore. It’ll still require some elbow grease.

The final thing to mention is the price. It’s not cheap. You can pick up a lot of cylinder vacuums offering the same kind of size and pack away convenience for a lot less. In fact, Morphy Richards makes some itself. At the end of the day, spending ?169.99 on something like this is going to be around ?100 more than a lot people want to. Who wouldn’t rather spend the difference on a better TV? But after pushing round some old heaps that double your work time and break down more often, it would be hard to feel that the Vorticity Plus isn't money well spent.

Related links:

• Review - Philips AirFryer
• Review - Morphy Richards Accents Breadmaker

Tags: Home And Kitchen Vacuum cleaners Morphy Richards Morphy Richards Vorticity Plus

                 

Morphy Richards Vorticity Plus bagless vacuum cleaner hands-on originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 05 May 2011 12:24:39 +0100

Mother’s Day is traditionally one of the busiest days of the year at restaurants. Why not forget the restaurants this Mother’s Day and try whipping up some home-cooked treats.

Breakfast:

Chocolate chip pancakes are the perfect start to the day.  If starting from scratch is a bit daunting, you can always try  making pancakes from box mix!

Pop some bacon  (video) in the microwave, pour some orange juice and you’ve got a meal fit for a queen!

Lunch:

Salads quickly become a filling and satisfying meal by adding a bit of protein to the salad.  Both kids and adults love Taco Salad!

Grilled Chicken is a perfect addition to a Caesar Salad.

You can buy pre-washed lettuce or wash your own lettuce.

If you want to really impress her, make your own Salad Dressing!

Dinner:

Whip up some Pan-Fried Scallops in less than 5 minutes.

Think of how good these would be with steamed asparagus and some rice.  Or try steaming salmon in the microwave in the morning so that after a day of fun, dinner will be all ready to just pull out of the refrigerator!

Dessert:

You can’t go wrong with simple, fresh, Apple Crisp. Plus, it’ll make the house smell fantastic.

Frozen Berries with White Chocolate takes minutes to prepare.  Just be sure to freeze the small berries ahead of time

Tip: Don’t forget to make the table look special for mother’s special day!

“Baseball is a slow, sluggish game, with frequent and trivial interruptions, offering the spectator many opportunities to reflect at leisure upon the situation on the field: This is what a fan loves most about the game.”
–Edward Abbey

First off, let me get this out of the way: Your Sacramento River Cats continued Sactown's ownage of all things Anaheim with Tuesday night's 2-0 victory over the Salt Lake Bees, the AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of that town in Orange County that tried to steal the Kings.

Anthony "Home" Recker, who extended his hitting streak to seven games with a second inning double, had a hand in both River Cats runs. After Adrian Cardenas led off the home half of the eighth with a double, Recker smacked a single to left, bringing Carednas home for the first run of the game. The River Cats catcher later came around to score the second and final run on a sacrifice bunt by DH Adam Heether.

Trystan Magnuson (3 saves, 1.88 ERA), the fifth River Cats pitcher of the evening, pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to seal the victory for the fourth River Cats pitcher of the evening, Joey Devine (3-0, 0.00).

Now that we've gotten that over with, I can get to the meat of the issue: This was, without question, the worst game of baseball that I have ever had the misfortune to watch.

As Ed Abbey noted up top, baseball at its best is slow-moving, and this was not baseball at its best. This was molasses in January. As a general rule, the more action a game has, the longer it takes to be played to completion. A 12-11 barn-burner will most likely be over three hours, while a 1-0 pitchers duel may clock in at just over two hours. Action takes longer than a lack thereof.

Somehow, the laws of baseball physics ceased to exist in Tuesday's games kitchen. We had all the slow drudgery of a slug fest without any of the excitement. We had the total lack of offense of a great pitchers duel, without the great pitching.

Through seven innings, the two teams combined for 15 strikeouts and 11 walks. That's 26 at-bats without a ball being put into play. Through seven innings the two teams had combined for seven hits … and seven pitchers. The eighth pitcher entered the game in the top of the eighth ... of a 0-0 game.

Salt Lake starter Ryan Ketchner threw 94 pitches in three innings of work. The River Cats left eight men on base in those three innings. Nine would have been a record (they tied the record for men left on base through two innings with six. This record will never be broken).

River Cats starter Bobby Cramer only lasted 3 2/3 innings. In a game that was 0-0 through seven, neither starter got through the fourth. That has got to be some sort of record.

River Cats batters saw 170 pitches in the eight innings in which they batted. There were 36* full counts. There were 67* pick-off throws.

In between the third and fourth innings, as if to mock our pain, they had the crowd pick their favorite of three Ke$ha songs. In a related note, I just found out that Ke$ha has three songs. "Tick Tock" won. Everyone else lost.

Cricket thought this game was boring.

"War and Peace" thought this game was too long.

In the middle of the eighth, I snapped.

I watched the eighth inning rally on a TV in the bowels of the stadium and listened to the top of the ninth on my way back to Midtown. If I had decided to stay in the press box, the game would probably still be going as we speak, knotted at zeros in the 112th inning (another record).

Nobody wanted that, so I took off, and set the rally into motion.

You're welcome. 

 

*these numbers may be wildly innaccurate

My first “real” box and my first project posted to Lumberjocks. Made this last year for my oldest daughter to commemorate her graduation from Navy boot camp. Materials are Big Orange Box red oak and redwood. The redwood started life as a rather wet fence board. I cut it to rough dimensions and took a skim cut on both sides using a router surfacing jig. After a couple of weeks in my 90+ degree, zero humidity garage it was much drier and had a nice bow to it. Another session on the surfacing jig and it was flat and ready to go. I used the redwood to remind her that wherever her Navy career takes her she’ll always be a California girl (ironically enough she’s currently stationed in San Diego). Lining is a blue felt; stop hinges are from Brusso. Finish is Watco Danish Oil (Natural).

Valve Corporation

(Xbox360, PS3, Mac/PC)

GAMER Portal 2 reminds us that "first-person" is a point of view first and a game type second. With combat-themed shooters incestuously fumbling over one another to produce the most similar experience, it takes a certain amount of marbles to deliver a shooter about strategy and narrative instead of death. But for developer Valve, Portal's sequel was never a risky gamble.

Portal (2007) was a surprise success, a last-minute addition to Valve's Orange Box bundle that boasted heavy-hitters like Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2. It was Portal, the little game that traces its history to a college senior project in Washington state, that brought the most buzz. A puzzle game where you play a test subject in a future lab, Portal tasks you with escaping elaborate exam rooms by using a gun that shoots portals — one orange, one blue — go in one and come out the other. But it wasn't just Portal's mechanics that attracted players; the humor, pacing, and whimsical approach made it memorable.

In the same way that I can define what made Portal a sensation, Valve too was armed with the secret to its success. A joke is never as funny the second time, but Portal 2 knows its audience and does its best to satisfy old fans while telling an altogether new story.

Sometime after the conclusion of Portal, human test subject Chell is awakened in a deteriorating laboratory by a robot named Wheatly. As Chell, you must negotiate the cavernous lab and a vengeful computer AI named GLaDOS and familiarize yourself with new, futuristic technologies like force fields, light bridges, and gels that make you bounce. Early levels reiterate the first game's slow and easy increase in difficulty, but soon you are gleefully translating your puzzle-solving skills into a means of escape.

Most of the game is set in test rooms, and it's unsurprising to learn that Valve's vision for Portal 2 wasn't entirely clear: it continues its tradition of creating puzzles first and contextualizing them later. A great benefit in telling the tale comes from stellar voice-acting by Stephen Merchant and character actor J.K. Simmons. Fewer conventional puzzle rooms would be nice, but the brain teasers themselves are consistently satisfying.

Valve could easily have damaged its cult credibility by amplifying a perfectly concise experience, but Portal 2 works. With an equally satisfying (and wholly unique) cooperative mode that highlights teamwork — and a developer commentary mode that places commentary nodes within the game world — Portal 2 packs enough content to justify its standalone release. The joke might be less funny when you anticipate the punch line, but in this case it all comes down to delivery.

Photo: Muchin With MunchkinCakeSpy Note: This is a guest post from Cake Gumshoe Christine, who blogs at Munchin With Munchkin. Let the NOM begin:

The first time I had a whoopie pie was 15 years ago and completely by accident. I had found a sandwich cookie recipe in one of my mother’s cook books and begged her to make it with me. I remember the chocolate cookies being moist like cake and the icing tasted like no other. We only made them once as the cookbook was lent to a friend and never seen again.

I would dream about those cookies and subconsciously was on the hunt for another fresh batch. Every recipe I tried after that became a horrid mess of typical vanilla icing and cookies that in no way resembled cake. Years later the whoopie pie trend emerged and I finally re-discovered that magical cookie of my childhood.

One evening, after being horribly nostalgic, I picked up a box of fruit loops as a late night snack. The first bite yielded memories of elementary school and early morning chaos. By the second bite I had a revelation! The mysterious taste of fruit loops was no longer a mystery!

I ran to my spice cabinet and searched through the endless glass bottles until I found one in particular; cardamon. The spice that only  saw the light of day during a curry cook-off was the secret ingredient in my childhood cereal!

Upon this discovery I began to imagine all the new baking possibilities. Cardamon rice pudding, cardamon lime pie, cardamon cake, and that’s when it hit me; Fruit Loop inspired whoopie pies. Combining cardamon cookies with a light and fluffy fruit flavoured icing would make everything wrong in the world right. So today I say farewell to my diet (at least for now) and hello to orange and green coloured carbs.

Froot Loop Whoopie Pies

Cookies

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup vegetable shortening
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 ½ Tsp. baking soda
• ½ Tsp. salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 Tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp. ground cardamom

Lime Filling

• ½ cup vegetable shortening
• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• ½ cup marshmallow cream
• ½ Tsp Vanilla
• 1 Tsp. Lime zest
• 1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice

Mandarin Filling

• ½ cup vegetable shortening
• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• ½ cup marshmallow cream
• ½ Tsp Vanilla
• 1 Tsp. Mandarin zest
• 1 Tbsp. fresh mandarin juice

Procedure 

1. Preheat Oven to 350.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking oil; set aside. (Or alternately use a whoopie pie pan)
3. In a large bowl cream together the sugar with ½ cup shortening using an electric mixer. Add eggs and continue to mix until well combined.
4. Add flour, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, vanilla and cardamon and blend on low speed for one minute. Increase speed to medium and continue to mix for an additional two minutes ensuring to scrape down the sides.
5. Scoop one tablespoon of batter onto the prepared pan about an inch apart. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes until no indentation appears when the top is lightly touched.
6. Let cool on cookie sheet or in whoopie pie pan for two minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack until cooled.
7. While cookies are cooling prepare the filling. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer beat on low for one minute.
8. Add desired amount of food colouring, increase speed to high and continue to beat for an additional two minutes. Refrigerate until ready to use.
9. To assemble cookies place a dollop of icing on the centre of the flat side of one cookie. Top with another cookie and press gently together to evenly spread the icing. Repeat for all cookies.

 

Makes about 20 sandwich cookies

Valve Corporation

(Xbox360, PS3, Mac/PC)

GAMER Portal 2 reminds us that "first-person" is a point of view first and a game type second. With combat-themed shooters incestuously fumbling over one another to produce the most similar experience, it takes a certain amount of marbles to deliver a shooter about strategy and narrative instead of death. But for developer Valve, Portal's sequel was never a risky gamble.

Portal (2007) was a surprise success, a last-minute addition to Valve's Orange Box bundle that boasted heavy-hitters like Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2. It was Portal, the little game that traces its history to a college senior project in Washington state, that brought the most buzz. A puzzle game where you play a test subject in a future lab, Portal tasks you with escaping elaborate exam rooms by using a gun that shoots portals — one orange, one blue — go in one and come out the other. But it wasn't just Portal's mechanics that attracted players; the humor, pacing, and whimsical approach made it memorable.

In the same way that I can define what made Portal a sensation, Valve too was armed with the secret to its success. A joke is never as funny the second time, but Portal 2 knows its audience and does its best to satisfy old fans while telling an altogether new story.

Sometime after the conclusion of Portal, human test subject Chell is awakened in a deteriorating laboratory by a robot named Wheatly. As Chell, you must negotiate the cavernous lab and a vengeful computer AI named GLaDOS and familiarize yourself with new, futuristic technologies like force fields, light bridges, and gels that make you bounce. Early levels reiterate the first game's slow and easy increase in difficulty, but soon you are gleefully translating your puzzle-solving skills into a means of escape.

Most of the game is set in test rooms, and it's unsurprising to learn that Valve's vision for Portal 2 wasn't entirely clear: it continues its tradition of creating puzzles first and contextualizing them later. A great benefit in telling the tale comes from stellar voice-acting by Stephen Merchant and character actor J.K. Simmons. Fewer conventional puzzle rooms would be nice, but the brain teasers themselves are consistently satisfying.

Valve could easily have damaged its cult credibility by amplifying a perfectly concise experience, but Portal 2 works. With an equally satisfying (and wholly unique) cooperative mode that highlights teamwork — and a developer commentary mode that places commentary nodes within the game world — Portal 2 packs enough content to justify its standalone release. The joke might be less funny when you anticipate the punch line, but in this case it all comes down to delivery.

 

The 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival  runs from June 16 - 26 .

Today the Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times, announced the first round of official US and international selections. The 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival is produced by Film Independent — the non-profit arts organization that also produces the Spirit Awards — and will screen over 200 feature films, shorts, and music videos, representing more than 30 countries. Opening and Closing Night films, Galas, Conversations, Artists in Residence, LAFCA’s Films That Got Away, along with additional special guests and programming for the Festival Talks will be announced at later dates.

Returning to downtown Los Angeles, with its central hub at L.A. LIVE, the Festival will run from Thursday, June 16 to Sunday, June 26. Now in its seventeenth year, the Festival is recognized as a world-class event, showcasing the best in new American and international cinema and providing the movie-loving public with access to critically acclaimed filmmakers, film industry professionals, and emerging talent from around the world.

This year, the Festival received more than 5,025 submissions from filmmakers around the world, compared to over 4,700 from last year. The final selections represent 27 World, North American, and US premieres. The number of films competing in the narrative and documentary competition categories increased this year from 18 to 19, of which 11 are World premieres and 8 are North American or US premieres. The number of female feature filmmakers also increased this year from 21 to 23.

For the sixth year, the Los Angeles Times will serve as the Festival’s presenting partner and will once again produce the Official Film Guide, the comprehensive source for all movie info, screenings, locations, and related special events. The Film Guide will top the paper on Sunday, June 12 in Los Angeles and Orange County, and will be made available throughout downtown Los Angeles during the ten-day event.

“We experienced our most successful year ever when we were downtown last year for the first time, and we can’t wait to return with this diverse, rich and exciting program of film,” said Los Angeles Film Festival Director Rebecca Yeldham. “We’re looking forward to reuniting our community of filmmakers and film lovers with this year’s program of memorable cinematic events and experiences.”

“I’m very excited about the broad range of movies we’ve assembled for our second year downtown. Many of them are made in Los Angeles and reflect the city’s tremendous diversity,” said Festival Artistic Director David Ansen. “There are delights for every kind of movie lover — an original musical, a 4½ hour epic from a master director, a comedy from Iran, cutting-edge horror films, the best of new Cuban cinema and a wide variety of Spanish-language movies, entries from some great new French Canadian directors, a very strong line-up of gay and lesbian films, and documentaries that will change the way you look at the world.”

“Film Independent has been producing the Los Angeles Film Festival for ten years now, and we’re incredibly proud of its growth, the diverse artists we’ve supported, and the breadth of films we’ve shared with both a local and international audience,” said Film Independent Executive Director Dawn Hudson. “This year’s Festival also has many returning filmmakers, as well as Fellows who have gone through Film Independent’s year-round programs, and we’re excited to screen their latest work.”

To celebrate the line-up announcement, the Los Angeles Film Festival will also be presenting a free outdoor, screening tonight at 7:00 p.m. of Pretty in Pink at Nokia Plaza L.A. LIVE (777 Chick Hearn Court, Los Angeles, CA 90015). The screening marks the 25th anniversary of the film and director Howard Deutch, actor Jon Cryer, and Festival filmmakers will be in attendance. Guests who arrive in ‘80s attire will receive two vouchers to the Festival, and special discounted passes and packages will be available for purchase. A “Pink” Beer and Wine Garden will be open in Nokia Plaza L.A. LIVE at 5:00 p.m. and parking is $8 cash at Gate G in the West Garage.

Passes to attend the Festival are currently available to the general public, with special rates for Film Independent members. In addition to screenings and events, Festival passes provide access to a series of networking receptions and entry to the Filmmaker Lounge, where Festival pass holders can interact with Festival filmmakers and professionals in the film community. General admission tickets to individual films go on sale beginning May 31. Contact the Ticket Office for passes, tickets and event information by calling 866.FILM.FEST (866.345-6337) or visit LAFilmFest.com. Festival passes and tickets can also be purchased in person beginning on Monday, June 13 at the Coca-Cola Ticket Center, located in the Festival Village on the rooftop of the West Parking Garage at L.A. LIVE.

 

Narrative Competition (10): The Narrative Competition is comprised of films made by talented emerging filmmakers that compete for the Filmmaker Award. The winner is determined by a panel of jurors, and films in this section are also eligible for the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature.

• The Bad Intentions, Rosario Garcia-Montero – Argentina/Germany/Peru – US PREMIERE
• The Dynamiter, Matthew Gordon – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
• Familiar Grounds,Stephane Lefleur – Canada – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
• The Fatherless, Marie Kreutzer – Austria – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
• How to Cheat, Amber Sealey – WORLD PREMIERE
• Mamitas,Nicholas Ozeki – WORLD PREMIERE
• An Ordinary Family, Mike Akel – WORLD PREMIERE
• Please Do Not Disturb, Mohsen Abdolvahab – Iran – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
• Sawdust City,David Nordstrom – WORLD PREMIERE
• You Hurt My Feelings, Steve Collins – WORLD PREMIERE

Documentary Competition (9): The Documentary Competition is comprised of films made by talented emerging filmmakers that compete for the Documentary Award. The winner is determined by a panel of jurors, and films in this section are also eligible for the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature.

• Cheonggyecheon Medley: A Dream of Iron, Kelvin Kyung Kun Park – South Korea – US PREMIERE
• Family Instinct, Andris Gauja – Latvia – US PREMIERE
• Once I Was a Champion,Gerard Roxburgh – WORLD PREMIERE
• Paraiso For Sale, Anayansi Prado – WORLD PREMIERE
• Salaam Dunk, David Fine – Iraq/USA – WORLD PREMIERE
• Somewhere Between, Linda Goldstein Knowlton – US PREMIERE
• Unfinished Spaces,Alysa Nahimas, Ben Murray - WORLD PREMIERE
• Unraveled, Marc H. Simon – US PREMIERE
• Wish Me Away, Bobbie Birleffi, Beverly Kopf – WORLD PREMIERE

International Showcase (18): The International Showcase highlights innovative independent narrative and documentary features from outside of the United States. Films in this section are eligible for Audience Awards for Best International Feature, Best Narrative Feature, or Best Documentary Feature.

• 108, Renate Costa – Spain/Paraguay
• Christopher and His Kind, Geoffrey Sax – United Kingdom – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
• Come Rain, Come Shine, Lee Yoon-ki – South Korea – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
• Curling, Denis Côté – Canada
• The Destiny of Lesser Animals, Deron Albright – Ghana/USA
• Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within, Jose Padilha – Brazil (New Video)
• Eternity, Sivaroj Kongsakul – Thailand
• Family Portrait in Black and White, Julia Ivanova – Canada
• Kawasaki’s Rose, Jan Hrebejk – Czech Republic (Menemsha Films)
• Love Crime, Alain Corneau – France (IFC Films)
• Medianeras, Gustavo Taretto – Argentina/Germany/Spain (IFC Films) – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
• Mysteries of Lisbon, Raúl Ruiz – Portugal (Music Box Films)
• Ocaso, Theo Court – Chile – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
• Position Among the Stars, Leonard Retel Helmrich – Netherlands
• The Salesman, Sébastien Pilote – Canada
• Self Made, Gillian Wearing – England
• Senna, Asif Kapadia – England (PDA)
• Tomboy, Céline Sciamma – France (Rocket Releasing) – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

 

Summer Showcase (18): The Summer Showcase section offers an advance look at this summer’s most talked about independent film releases from the festival circuit. Films in this section are eligible for Audience Awards for Best International Feature, Best Narrative Feature, or Best Documentary Feature.

• Another Earth, Mike Cahill (Fox Searchlight)
• Elevate, Anne Buford
• The Future, Miranda July (Roadside Attractions)
• The Guard,John Michael McDonagh – Ireland (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Higher Ground, Vera Farmiga (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Leave It on the Floor, Sheldon Larry – WORLD PREMIERE
• Letters From the Big Man, Christopher Munch
• L!fe Happens, Kat Coiro – WORLD PREMIERE
• Natural Selection, Robbie Pickering
• Page One: Inside the New York Times, Andrew Rossi (Magnolia Pictures/Participant Media)
• The Pruitt-lgoe Myth, Chad Freidrichs
• Renée, Eric Drath (ESPN Films)
• Sex Crimes Unit, Lisa F. Jackson (HBO Films)
• Skateistan: Four Wheels and a Board in Kabul, Kai Sehr
• Terri, Azazel Jacobs (ATO)
• Tyrannosaur, Paddy Considine – England (Strand Releasing)
• Where Soldiers Come From, Heather Courtney
• Winnie the Pooh, Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall (Disney)

 

Outdoor Screenings at the Ford Amphitheatre (3): These official Los Angeles Film Festival selections, sponsored by Brand X, are included as part of the 2011 Ford Amphitheatre Summer Season; a multi-disciplinary arts series produced by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission in cooperation with Los Angeles County-based arts organizations. Films in this section are eligible for Audience Awards for Best International Feature, Best Narrative Feature, or Best Documentary Feature.

• Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, Michael Rapaport
• Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Tsui Hark – Hong Kong
• The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, Ron & Russell Mael aka Sparks and Guy Maddin – WORLD MUSICAL PREMIERE

International Spotlight – Cuba (4): This year, our International Spotlight focuses on Cuba, whose films rarely find distribution in the U.S. We’re proud to showcase the best of the new and recent Cuban cinema. Sponsored by the Department of Cultural Affairs and UCLA Latin American Institute.

• · Habana Eva, Fina Torres – Cuba/France/Venezuela
• · Operation Peter Pan: Flying Back to Cuba, Estela Bravo – Cuba
• · Suite Habana (2003), Fernando Pérez – Cuba
• · Ticket to Paradise, Gerardo Chijona Valdes – Cuba

Documenting Mexico (2): Inspired by the efforts of the Ambulante Film Festival, a traveling film event designed to promote a documentary culture across Mexico, we are pleased to highlight two outstanding documentaries from Mexico’s vibrant documentary filmmaking culture. Sponsored by HOY.

• · The Night Watchman, Natalia Almada – Mexico
• · The Tiniest Place, Tatiana Huezo – Mexico

Community Screenings (7): These films will be presented free to the public. Films in this section are eligible for Audience Awards for Best Narrative Feature or Best Documentary Feature.

• The Bully Project, Lee Hirsch (The Weinstein Company)
• Choose Your Own Movie – vote at LAFilmFest.com for this free outdoor screening
• Crime After Crime, Yoav Potash – Grand Performances Screening
  • Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), John Hughes – 25th Anniversary Screening
  • Hot Coffee, Susan Saladoff (HBO Films)
  • On the Ice, Andrew Okpeaha MacLean – Project:Involve Screening
  • Project Nim, James Marsh – United Kingdom (Roadside Attractions)
    • Stand By Me (1986), Rob Reiner – 25th Anniversary Screening

The Beyond (5): The Beyond offers films that dare to be different. Films in this section are eligible for Audience Awards for Best International Feature, Best Narrative Feature, or Best Documentary Feature.

• Entrance, Dallas Hallam, Patrick Horvath
• Haunters, Kim Min-suk – South Korea – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
• The Innkeepers, Ti West
• Karate-Robo Zaborgar, Iguchi Noboru – Japan
• The Yellow Sea, Na Hong-jin – South Korea

Retro (2):

• Boyz n the Hood (1991), John Singleton – 20th Anniversary Digitally Re-Mastered Screening with a Cast & Crew Reunion
• Das Boot (1981), Wolfgang Peterson – Germany – 30th Anniversary Digitally Re-Mastered Screening

 

The Film Foundation Screening Program (1):

• Wild River (1960), Elia Kazan

Short Films (41): Shorts are shown before features and as part of five short film programs. With their diverse and complex content, these films shine brilliantly. Most short films, domestic and international, will compete for prizes in Narrative, Documentary, and Animation/Experimental categories. The winner is determined by a panel of jurors. An Audience Award for Best Short Film is also presented.

• Shorts Program 1-5

 

Future Filmmakers Showcase: High School Shorts (33): These two programs of shorts are made by high school students from around the country, featuring work by the next generation of filmmakers.

• Programs 1-2

Music Videos (48): The Music Video Showcase consists of three programs. Our two Eclectic Mix programs are a visual mix tape of this year’s best independent music videos, with a few innovative major label artists thrown in for good measure. Music videos will compete for an Audience Award.

• Eclectic Mix 1-2
• Kewl Vids by Eric Wareheim

2011 Los Angeles Film Festival Addendum.doc

ABOUT THE LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL

Now in its seventeenth year, the Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times, is widely recognized as a world-class event, showcasing the best in new American and international cinema and providing the movie-loving public with access to some of the most critically acclaimed filmmakers, film industry professionals, and emerging talent from around the world.

The Festival features unique signature programs including the Filmmaker Retreat, Ford Amphitheater Outdoor Screenings, Poolside Chats, Coffee Talks and more. Additionally, the Festival screens short films created by high school students and has a special section devoted to music videos.

Over 200 features, shorts, and music videos, representing more than 30 countries, make up the main body of the Festival.

The Los Angeles Film Festival is presented by the Los Angeles Times and is supported by L.A. LIVE and Premier Sponsor Pechanga Resort & Casino and Principal Sponsor Virgin America. Special support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Department of Cultural Affairs, and UCLA Latin American Institute. The Los Angeles Athletic Club is the Official Host Hotel, Virgin America is the Official Airline Partner, WireImage is the Official Photography Agency, and PR Newswire is the Official Breaking News Service of Film Independent.

More information can be found at LAFilmFest.com

ABOUT FILM INDEPENDENT

Film Independent is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization that champions independent film and supports a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation, and uniqueness of vision. Film Independent helps filmmakers make their movies, builds an audience for their projects, and works to diversify the film industry. Film Independent’s Board of Directors, filmmakers, staff, and constituents are comprised of an inclusive community of individuals across ability, age, ethnicity, gender, race, and sexual orientation. Anyone passionate about film can become a member, whether you are a filmmaker, industry leader, or film lover.

With over 250 annual screenings and events, Film Independent provides access to a network of like-minded artists who are driving creativity in the film industry. Film Independent offers free Filmmaker Labs for selected writers, directors, and producers; provides cut-rate services for filmmakers; and presents year-round networking opportunities. Film Independent’s mentorship and job placement program, Project:Involve, pairs emerging culturally diverse filmmakers with film industry professionals.

Film Independent produces the Los Angeles Film Festival, celebrating the best of American and international cinema, and the Spirit Awards, a celebration honoring films and filmmakers that embody independence and dare to challenge the status quo.

For more information or to become a member, visit FilmIndependent.org.

 

Valve Corporation

(Xbox360, PS3, Mac/PC)

GAMER Portal 2 reminds us that "first-person" is a point of view first and a game type second. With combat-themed shooters incestuously fumbling over one another to produce the most similar experience, it takes a certain amount of marbles to deliver a shooter about strategy and narrative instead of death. But for developer Valve, Portal's sequel was never a risky gamble.

Portal (2007) was a surprise success, a last-minute addition to Valve's Orange Box bundle that boasted heavy-hitters like Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2. It was Portal, the little game that traces its history to a college senior project in Washington state, that brought the most buzz. A puzzle game where you play a test subject in a future lab, Portal tasks you with escaping elaborate exam rooms by using a gun that shoots portals — one orange, one blue — go in one and come out the other. But it wasn't just Portal's mechanics that attracted players; the humor, pacing, and whimsical approach made it memorable.

In the same way that I can define what made Portal a sensation, Valve too was armed with the secret to its success. A joke is never as funny the second time, but Portal 2 knows its audience and does its best to satisfy old fans while telling an altogether new story.

Sometime after the conclusion of Portal, human test subject Chell is awakened in a deteriorating laboratory by a robot named Wheatly. As Chell, you must negotiate the cavernous lab and a vengeful computer AI named GLaDOS and familiarize yourself with new, futuristic technologies like force fields, light bridges, and gels that make you bounce. Early levels reiterate the first game's slow and easy increase in difficulty, but soon you are gleefully translating your puzzle-solving skills into a means of escape.

Most of the game is set in test rooms, and it's unsurprising to learn that Valve's vision for Portal 2 wasn't entirely clear: it continues its tradition of creating puzzles first and contextualizing them later. A great benefit in telling the tale comes from stellar voice-acting by Stephen Merchant and character actor J.K. Simmons. Fewer conventional puzzle rooms would be nice, but the brain teasers themselves are consistently satisfying.

Valve could easily have damaged its cult credibility by amplifying a perfectly concise experience, but Portal 2 works. With an equally satisfying (and wholly unique) cooperative mode that highlights teamwork — and a developer commentary mode that places commentary nodes within the game world — Portal 2 packs enough content to justify its standalone release. The joke might be less funny when you anticipate the punch line, but in this case it all comes down to delivery.

Fox News

Second black box may finally unlock secrets of Air France crash The Independent French air accident investigation officials said both "black boxes" – actually orange cylinders – appeared to be intact and should help to explain what caused the Airbus 330 to dive into the South Atlantic. The French Transport Minister, ... Air France Find Could Alter the Future of the Black BoxSeattle Post Intelligencer (blog) Second Air France Crash Black Box FoundHuffington Post Air France plane crash mystery could be solved by black box findMirror.co.uk Voice of America -New Zealand Herald -Neon Tommy all 1,018 news articles »

For sale is my iPhone 3GS 16GB Its in Excellent Condition as the photo’s show and comes in the original box with a 3rd party charger as I lost the original. Its 18 months old, but not used for the 3 as I got an Iphone4 from work to test for corporate mail which I [...]

I'm just about through Day 1 of my first-ever Ayurveda cleanse . . . and so far, it's been torture. I have to say, I'm not cut out for this sort of thing. I'm a hungry Vatta that snacks constantly. When I get hungry I mean business and need to eat immediately. I always carry candy in my purse (for emergencies). You would think I'm a diabetic with my urgent need for food - mostly candy. So why did I agree to four days of torture? That's a good question to which I'm not sure I have an answer.

Part of my 6 week Ayurveda class included taking part in this 4 day cleanse. I guess I got all wrapped up in the spirit of the class. Besides, I would have been the only one not doing it. Maybe it was like peer pressure. I didn't want to look like the only loser chickening out due to my fright of butter and prune juice. OK, I'm getting ahead of myself a little . . .

So the day began with me (trying) to get up early so that I can boil the Hell out of water. Did you know that water changes its molecular structure if it gets boiled to death? Yeah well, this was news to me. It isn't bad enough that I had to drink hot plain water all day, but first I had to boil it for 30 minutes. Not terribly convenient and you should have seen the rushed production of trying to figure out how to move said boiling water from pot to stainless steel water bottles (no plastic of course). Nightmare and 4 burnt fingers later I'm ready for the part of the cleanse that scared me more than the "laxative effect." I had to drink something that disgusts me so much I almost gag at the thought of it. And I learned another new thing. I learned about a product called ghee. I wish I could describe exactly what it is, but I couldn't even listen to the description in class. Click on the link if you're curious. Basically it's butter. I despise butter and I had to DRINK 2 teaspoons of melted butter. I scrubbed my lips, fingers, teaspoon, and cup for 10 minutes desperately trying to get the ick off. Being late for work this morning was a given.

I had to take some sort of digestion pill 30 minutes before breakfast. I have to say I easily put breakfast off due to my complete lack of appetite after that ghee. Maybe this fasting thing won't be so bad. Then came breakfast. I had oatmeal (which I love. Wait a minute - USED to love). Never in my life have I experienced plain oatmeal with no sugar or honey. Holy smokes, it's terrible plain. I couldn't even choke it down and half of it ended up down the drain. Now how will I get to lunch????

Not sure how I managed it, but I sipped my plain hot water until noon. That's when I had to make my special Indian rice called Kitchari. Aside from having to actually find a pan and turn on the stove at work to cook the stuff, I was looking forward to it. Too bad it tasted like dirt. But I was hungry enough to eat it anyway. Lunch is supposed to be the biggest meal of the day, but I definitely didn't have enough. I should have planned better and brought some veggies or salad to add to it. Tomorrow for sure.

A couple more special and awful pills before and after the meal. For God's sakes can't they coat these things? Choking them down (with the hot water) is simply dreadful. I made it all through the afternoon, staring down my box of Thin Mints and staying away from my secret cabinet full of Dove chocolates. Very proud of myself indeed.

Dinner time came and I was starving. I had the second half of the Kitchari that I made for lunch. This time I sprinkled some fat-free Balsamic dressing on it and strangely it still tasted like dirt. I treated myself to a yam after the dirt. Hopefully that will hold me over till bed time.

Before bed I have to go through a special nighttime routine. First I have to dry brush myself - just brush my skin with a special brush. Next, I have to take a bath in Epsom salt. You should have seen me in the grocery store looking for that stuff. Now I'm trying to figure out how much a 'quart' is. Thank God for google. I can't believe how challenging this has been so far and I'm not even done with the first day. Anyway, after the bath (and then shower because how am I going to wash my hair in the bathtub?) I have to oil myself from head to toe . . . with oil that will turn me, my towel, my pajamas, and my sheets orange. Great! Next its meditation and breathing exercises and finally sleep. But wait, I can't go straight to sleep. I think tonight I deserve to watch Glee, just to get the thought of ghee out of my head.

Stay tuned to see if I survive this very long 4 day ordeal.

Welcome to the sixth piece of the 2010-11 Phoenix Suns Player Evaluations. We here at Bright Side of the Sun have assembled a cast of writers to put together alternative views on the players, front office, and coaches. Your favorite and least favorite Suns will no doubt get plenty of attention, and the compliments or criticism they deserve.

 

From Urban Dictionary:

1. chucker
a. A really bad basketball player.
b. Also, just a plain old idiot, any one who just throws anything in the air and hopes it makes a goal

(White Chocolate!!)

White Chocolate (via fuqua786)

You couldn't blame a Suns fan for rooting for Vince Carter and Mickael Pietrus upon their entrance onto Planet Orange. Most of us had an inkling that Vince was no good and Vinsanity a decaying corpse rotting deep beneath the cold, cold ground. Nonetheless, we fans and Alvin Gentry held on to the delusion that he had something left in the tank to help the Suns make a playoff push. While it took fans only a couple of weeks to realize Carter was finished, Gentry was holding on to the idea of a rotation. Rotations create chemistry and chemistry was needed on a team that had once again reinvented themselves.

Mickael Pietrus was another intriguing player from Orlando. Known for his defense, he was much needed (in theory) to a Suns squad that was and has been lacking D for a couple of decades. Pietrus got a shot in the rotation from the beginning, and had a few games, including a 25 point outing against stiff competition from the LA Clippers. No doubt Pietrus was given the green light by Alvin Gentry as 30+% career three-point shooter. An while Pietrus proved he could score in bunches, he also proved he could miss in bushels.

(Ed note one bushel=35.239072 liters. Thus, bushel>bunches. I don't know how many bunches equal 35 liters. But it's probably a lot.)

 

Aside: One Master of the Obvious Prediction:

As it relates to Mickael Pietrus and the Orlando Magic: The Magic took a major dump in the first round of this season's playoffs. Expect a huge housecleaning, beginning at the top-Otis Smith, GM. Unable to advance past the 1st round of the playoffs with Dwight Howard looks bad. That Rashard Lewis signing a few years back looks really bad. The December trade with the Suns looks bad, and something that caught this author's eye looks bad as well:

Mickael Pietrus, in his contract year for the Golden State Warriors ('07-'08), averaged his 4th lowest ppg total as a professional in 5 years-(7.2), and: Decreased in PER, TS%, eFG%, 3P%, and games played and started compared to his prior season. Nevertheless, he received a $2 million dollar raise from Good ol' Otis and the Magic in the offseason. All to pry a role player away from the lowly Golden State Warriors. Of course the Suns took on MP, but that's a different story.

Into Some Numbers

• Between Orlando and Phoenix, Pietrus shot 39% from the field and 36% from beyond the arc.
• His average makes from 3 was right along his career average of 36%,
• Mickael is a career 43% shooter from the field, yet managed to sink only 39% of his shots between Orlando and PHX last season.
• In 22 MPG in Orlando he shot 39% behind the arc. in 18.1 MPG in Phoenix he shot 34% behind the arc. Yes he nearly doubled his attempts in Phoenix, so it's logical that his average go down. Still...
  

Abandoning the Numbers-And the Excuses

The Suns would not be broken-hearted if Pietrus declines his $5.3 million option for next season, but Pietrus said he wants to return.    -Paul Coro

The bottom line is that Pietrus is just another role player on the Suns among a glut of them. Who deserves the chance? Who didn't get the playing time they deserved or who could have benefited the most from a full season with the team? MP is valuable in that he can play defense and he can get hot from time to time. Yet like many shoot first players, Peaches fell in love with the 3 to the point where green light equalled stupid light. Pump fake, go to the hoop pal, hit your man Gortat down below slashing to the hoop, talk to Jared Dudley it can be done. And for God sakes, don't  F with the Lopez.

We can make the excuse for Pietrus that he came in mid-season, didn't mesh and all that, but I'm not buying it. It didn't take the Polish Hammer a whole off-season to figure things out. Further, there may not even be a real off season if the skies continue to darken among the CBA and lockout situations.  And what's the guy going to pick up in the pre-season: "Stop shooting stupid shots?" Maybe.

The problem with Mickael Pietrus echoes the problem of 75% of the Phoenix Suns roster. There are many pieces, but no matter how you shift them around some of them are still not going to fit. MP just might be the jigsaw piece from the idealic-home-in-the-French-countryside that accidentally got tossed into the Golden Retriever-puppies-in-a basket box. It just may not fit.

Poll

Is Mickael Pietrus a Hopeless Chucker Who Needs to be Sent Away, or a Rotational Player for the '11-'12 Suns?

• Chucker. Send Him Away
• Peaches Needs Training Camp and Will Buoy the Bench

  6 votes | Results

Discovery of audio recorder two days after flight data recorder brings investigators closer to cause of June 2009 crash

Search parties scouring the seabed off Brazil's north-east coast have recovered the second of two flight recorders from the Air France aircraft that crashed into the Atlantic in June 2009, investigators have said.

The discovery of the audio recorder, two days after the flight data recorder was fished up, brings investigators even closer to the cause of the crash as it should hold recordings of cockpit conversations during the flight's final moments.

"We can now hope to find out what truly happened within the next three weeks," the French transport minister, Thierry Mariani, told RTL radio on Tuesday.

The investigation team identified the cockpit voice recorder at 9.50pm GMT on Monday , France's BEA air accident inquiry office said in a statement. The device was hauled up to the team's ship at 2.40am GMT on Tuesday.

A BEA spokeswoman said the black box would be shipped back to France, probably by the end of next week.

"The outside appears to be in relatively good shape," she said, adding that it would only be possible to see if the recorder was "usable" once it was opened, which would not happen until it was back in France.

A photograph of the recorder on BEA's website shows a bright orange cylindrical device that looks scuffed and battered but otherwise intact. So-called black boxes are painted orange so that they can be spotted more easily in wreckage.

The Airbus 330-203 airliner plunged into the sea off Brazil en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro in June 2009 after running into stormy weather, killing all 228 passengers and crew.

The discovery of the two flight recorders follows nearly two years of on-off search efforts over a 10,000 sq km area of seabed.

Theories about the cause of the disaster have focused on the possible icing up of the aircraft's speed sensors, which seemed to give inconsistent readings before communication was lost.

Depending on how much data can be retrieved and how clearly it pinpoints the cause of the crash, lawyers say information from the black boxes could lead to a flood of liability claims.

Any fresh conclusions on the cause will also be fed into a judicial probe already under way in which Airbus and Air France have both been placed under formal investigation.

CTV.ca

Searchers find second Air France crash black box Reuters Africa So-called black boxes are painted orange so that they can be spotted more easily in wreckage. The Airbus 330-203 airliner plunged into the sea off Brazil en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro in June 2009 after hitting stormy weather, killing all 228 ... Air France Crash Investigators Recover Black Box From SeabedBloomberg Air France Rio Crash Black Box FoundRTT News 2009 Air France crash: Black box recovered by search teamXinhua AllMediaNY -International Business Times -AHN | All Headline News all 666 news articles »

BY ALISON LADMAN | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Giving Mom a box of chocolates on her special day can be a fine way to show your love. Even more so if you made the chocolates yourself.

Relax. It's easier than it sounds and we've written up a foolproof plan for making all of the mothers in your life a special box jammed with a delicious variety of chocolates.

To keep it manageable, we broke the process up into a two-afternoon project that produces five 15-piece boxes of mixed filled and decorated chocolates, such as chocolate-dipped fruit jellies, dipped caramels and buttercreams. The only special equipment you'll need is a candy thermometer; they are inexpensive and available at kitchen and hardware stores.

Craft and baking supply shops will be your best bet for boxes and wrappers. Once made, the chocolates can be kept in a cool and dry place for up to a week.

For the fruit jellies, we used passionfruit nectar and black cherry juice, but use whichever juice you like, including grape, pomegranate, apricot or blueberry. Just be sure to use 100 percent juice made from just the fruit named (not a fruit juice blend).

When making the buttercream filling, use whichever flavor you like. Strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon are common flavors used for chocolates. Mint, vanilla, butter rum, ginger, maple and anise also are good. If you'd like to color the filling, gel food coloring can be stirred in with the extract. To make more than one flavor, simply divide the unflavored buttercream mixture into bowls and flavor them individually.

DAY ONE

Begin by preparing
the fruit jellies:

Sugar, for dusting

11/4 cups fruit juice

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 cups sugar

Two 3-ounce envelopes liquid pectin (sold with canning supplies)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Coat a 9-by-9-inch baking pan with cooking spray. Dust the pan with sugar, then tap to coat evenly and tip out any excess. Open the packages of pectin to have them ready to use.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the juice, applesauce and sugar. Stirring constantly, heat until the mixture reaches 238 F on a candy thermometer. Add the pectin and return to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook for 1 minute.

Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the top with a thin layer of sugar. Allow to set, at room temperature, for at least 2 hours or overnight. They can be left at room temperature.

(Jellies recipe adapted from Peter P. Greweling's "Chocolates and Confections," Wiley, 2007)

Next, prepare the caramels:

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 cup half-and-half

1/2 cup corn syrup

2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Line a 9-by-9-inch baking pan with foil. Lightly spray the foil with cooking spray.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter, half-and-half and corn syrup. Bring to a simmer cook until the mixture reaches 244 F on a candy thermometer, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla, salt and vinegar. Pour into the prepared pan and allow to sit at room temperature at least 3 hours, or overnight.

DAY TWO

Gather your
dipping ingredients:

1 pound chocolate candy melts (available in the baking section of the grocer)

12-ounce bag milk or dark chocolate bits (or half of each)

3/4 cup roasted unsalted nuts (single variety or a mix)

1/4 cup finely chopped dried fruit (such as apricots, cranberries and cherries)

Begin by preparing
the buttercream filling:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cool

2 cups powdered sugar, divided

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 to 2 teaspoons flavoring extract (variety of your choice)

Gel food coloring, if desired

Line a baking sheet or other tray with waxed paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until creamy and no lumps remain. Add half of the powdered sugar and beat on low until incorporated. Add the cream and the other half of the powdered sugar and beat again until smooth. Add the flavorings and color, if using.

Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag or a zip-close plastic bag. Snip off the tip or one lower corner to make a 1/2-inch opening. Pipe the filling into 3/4-inch mounds onto the prepared baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in the freezer to harden the fillings. Chilling the fillings will make them easier to handle when covering with chocolate.

Next, assemble
the fillings:

Begin with the fruit jellies. Overturn the pan onto a cutting board. Using a sharp knife, trim the edges so they are squared. Cut the block into neat 1-inch squares. Dust each cube, especially the cut edges, with more sugar. The fruit jellies can be added to the box of chocolates as is, or dipped in chocolate. If you plan to dip the fruit jellies in chocolate, skip the sugar dusting step.

To prepare the caramels, using the foil, lift the sheet of caramel out of the pan onto a cutting board. Peel the foil off the back. Using a sharp knife, cut the caramel into 11/2-inch squares. The caramel will soften and lose its form, so do this just before dipping in chocolate. Alternatively, individual caramels may be wrapped in squares of waxed paper, twisting the ends to seal.

Remove the buttercreams from the freezer.

Dip the chocolates:

Line 2 baking sheets with waxed paper.

In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the candy melts and chocolate bits. Microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring between each, until melted and smooth.

Select a filling -- fruit jelly, caramel or frozen buttercream -- and rest it on a fork. Lower the filling into the melted chocolate until completely submerged. Lift the filling out and tap the handle of the fork on the edge of the bowl allowing the excess melted chocolate to drip back into the bowl. Move the dipped candy onto the prepared baking sheet and gently slide off, using another fork if necessary.

Repeat to coat all of the fillings. As desired, top some of the fillings with nuts and/or dried fruit. This must be done as soon as the fillings are dipped and the chocolate has not set. Whole nuts can be pressed onto the surface of the caramels before dipping, if desired.

When all of the fillings have been covered, dump any remaining chopped nuts and dried fruit into the bowl of melted chocolate. Mix to coat, then use a tablespoon to scoop out and form fruit-and-nut clusters on the prepared baking sheets.

Refrigerate the dipped chocolates on the baking sheets for 10 minutes to help the chocolate set. Arrange the chocolates in gift boxes, then store at room temperature for up to five days. Do not refrigerate, as this will cause moisture to form on the chocolate.

Over the years I'd noticed my foodie friend Carl didn't seem to be a fan of Japanese food so recently I asked him about it. He said he usually orders vegetable tempura (pronounced tem-poo-rah rolling the "r") and watches with a bit of envy as his dining companions relish the opportunity to order raw fish sushi. I've never been a fan of raw fish myself so I suggested he try cooked meat and vegetarian sushi and other less well known dishes instead.

Then it hit me! Our April food adventure could be an opportunity for him to discover a few more dishes he can order besides veggie tempura.

I had a pretty good feeling that Carl would like at least a few of the the foods he would sample that day. It turned out he liked or loved ALL of them!

Our adventure focused on two areas in the South Bay: Winchester Blvd and San Jose's Japantown, one of only three remaining in the United States.


Our day began at Mizu Japanese Restaurant.

I brought Carl to Mizu to try one of my most favorite dishes called Agedashi Tofu (pronounced ah-gay-dah-she). The funny thing is I don't particularly care for tofu but I love it prepared this way. The squares of soft tofu are lightly battered and deep fried then placed in a bowl of broth called dashi (pronounced dah-she). It is often garnished with dried fish flakes, slivered strips of nori seaweed, finely grated daikon radish and freshly sliced green onions.

It's delicious and economical. A typical serving runs around $4 - $6. Combined with a bowl of rice and miso soup it's plenty of food as a meal.

And Carl loved it! Yay!

Another favorite is Wakame Seaweed Salad (pronounced wah-kah-may). The seaweed is thinly sliced and flavored with a lightly sweet dressing with hints of sesame and chili pepper flakes.

It was another hit!



There is a dining-at-tables area but I wanted Carl to sit at the sushi boat bar so he could see all the different kinds of sushi pass by.

The boats circle around the bar in a moat of water. Each carries three plates of sushi, or in this case also appetizers and desserts, allowing diners to pick and choose which plates they want. You can also order directly from the sushi chefs in the center of the bar area who continuously refill the boats with more sushi.

Carl tried three kinds of sushi. Clock wise from the top are:

Umekyu Maki ($2.50)  filled with tart, pickled, umeboshi plums and fresh cucumber strips and wrapped in nori seaweed

Oshinko Maki ($1.90) filled with a piece of sweet, crunchy, pickled, daikon radish and wrapped in nori seaweed

Santa Cruz Rolls ($3.50) filled with tempura shrimp, fresh avocado and nori seaweed wrapped in slices of fresh avocado and drizzled with teriyaki sauce. Carl is pescatarian (not vegetarian) which means he does eat fish and seafood from time to time so the fried shrimp wasn't an issue.

He tried three, liked two and loved the Santa Cruz roll. At last! Sushi he can enjoy too!

If you go to a sushi boat sushi bar you'll find a pricing diagram affixed to the bar or as a menu. The way sushi is priced is by the pattern of the dish the sushi is placed on so you can keep track of what you're spending as you eat.

This was funny. LOL you won't see chocolate cream pie come around on a sushi boat at every sushi boat restaurant.

Our next stop was Kumako in San Jose's Japantown.

I'd been here once before and really enjoyed the vegetarian ramen noodle soup with the vegetarian broth.

While most people are familiar with the ubiquitous Top Ramen soup found in their local grocery stores, not everyone has had restaurant style ramen soup before. They are quite different.


The toppings included fresh tofu, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, radish sprouts and green onions. I had to pull the noodles out from under the toppings to show them to you. After taking this photo I poured broth over them and ate them all up!

If you live near a Japanese market you may be able to find fresh ramen noodle soup in the refrigerator section. This fresh package came with a broth packet to add as the soup base.

This is an inexpensive dry ramen I made at home. After adding fresh asparagus, sugar snap peas and fresh daikon to the soup it was much healthier and pretty gourmet. Even if you don't have any fresh veggies handy you can always add frozen corn, carrots and green beans to the soup. It turns a not so nutritional noodle soup into a fantastic way to eat more veggies.

We also ordered a julienned daikon radish and carrot salad with a miso dressing topped with more radish sprouts. The dressing was a bit salty/strong for my taste but I really love fresh daikon so I ate half the bowl. Daikon is crunchy, light and full of health benefits.

By then Carl was willing to try Unagi (pronounced ooh-nah-gee) which is BBQ freshwater eel. When people hear the word eel they usually cringe or recoil a little or a lot but if they try it, they almost always enjoy it. The meat is very mild in flavor, tender and is always served filleted and coated in a sweet teriyaki style glaze. He liked it!

Unfortunately I just learned Unagi is on the Seafood Watch list meaning it's sustainability is threatened :( So if you enjoy it, you may want to order it sparingly for special occasions and not every week.

Mission accomplished? Not quite yet. There was still dessert just two doors down.

We are so lucky. The Shuei-Do Manju Shop is one of the best, if not the best, manju shop in the nation. It's best described as being like a Japanese patisserie. They make their confections fresh each day and as the day goes on they'll sell out of the most popular choices.


Carl sampled four that day:
Top left: White Inaka baked and filled with whole adzuki beans
Top right: Kuri baked and filled with smooth white beans
Lower left: Yomogi chewy sweet rice filled with smooth adzuki beans (mugwort)
Lower right: Pink Shiro chewy sweet rice filed with smooth white beans

Carl doesn't have a sweet tooth so I wouldn't have been surprised if he didn't care for them but he did like them and his family LOVED the leftovers he brought home to share with them.

Here is an example (not from Shuei-Do) of what the white lima bean paste looks like on the inside wrapped in the sweet chewy rice.

So Carl tried nine new things and enjoyed all nine of them. That exceeded even my expectations!

Just for fun I wanted to introduce Carl, and you, to Nikaku Japanese Arts and Crafts, one of my favorite stores not just in Japantown but all of San Jose. I've bought many kitchen tools and serving ware pieces, lots of origami paper and gifts here over the years.

Carl purchased a really unique and beautiful vase while we were there.


They have a little bit of everything and all of it is from Japan. If you go down to Japantown to eat you should stop by and take a peek for yourself.

And we were done!

I hope this post may have relieved any fears or anxieties you've ever had about sushi and opened the door to trying new dishes the next time you go to a Japanese restaurant. Just like Carl you may discover you're a fan after all and never again will you choose to sit at home while your friends or family go out to eat Japanese or feel left out as you watch your dining companions enjoy their food more than you :) You'll be right there enjoying your food right alongside them!

Last week, Andrew Hyde made headlines after doing an interview with ABC Radio News.

If you aren’t familiar with Andrew Hyde, he’s a technology mogul and consultant. Like many in his field, he’s constantly on the move, working out of New York and Silicon Valley in equal measure. He is also the founder of Startup Weekend, and organizer of the TEDxBoulder conference. He mentors young companies and is working on a new business venture that will create art out of discarded vinyl records.

Sounds like a pretty typical business professional, right? Well, Hyde does have one other claim to fame that sets him apart from his competition.

Andrew Hyde only owns 15 things.

Hyde is intentionally homeless. After leaving his job as community organizer for the New York-based start-up incubator TechStars, he sold all of his posessions and decided to travel the world. And for Hyde, everything is coming up roses.

Minimalism is something I’ve been intrigued by for years. In fact, one of my first posts here at Lifehack was about 100-item minimalism. And while I’m making a concerted effort to through the clutter in my own life, paring down all my belongings to 100 items is something I’m not sure I could ever achieve, let alone the incredible challenge of selecting just 15 items to live on. So one has to wonder…just what 15 items would you choose to live with?

In this picture of Hyde, you can see him and all his worldly possessions. In addition to the clothes on his back, you’ll see two pieces of outerwear, some workout clothes, an orange backpack, a pair of socks, a pair of sunglasses, a phone, a laptop, and a few other sundry items. In other words, everything he needs for a tech job on the go. (You can read the full list of Hyde’s belongings circa 2010 here.)

And while not having a permanent home certainly helps to limit the number of possessions a person can have (unless you’re investing in a long-term storage unit), just 15 items seems crazy to most people, especially to anyone who likes fashion and wants to have more than 1 pair of shoes.

But it’s worth remembering that just because you don’t own any given item doesn’t mean that you can’t ever access one, should you need it. The larger your network of friends is, the fewer items you need to own. You can always borrow what you don’t own from friends or colleagues, whether it’s a suit for a formal occasion, a casserole dish for cooking dinner for your in-laws, or even a whole house while your friends are on vacation.

And while you might think that there are just some things a person can’t live without, there are decent alternatives for most of them.

Cooking basics like pots and pans aren’t needed if you are traveling and either eating out for every meal, staying in a hotel, or staying in accommodations provided to you by your employer.

You don’t need furniture if you don’t have a home or apartment.

You don’t need a TV or a cable box to watch your favorite shows, as long as you have a laptop. Same goes for video games, books, and magazine subscriptions.

And think of the savings. No car payments, no mortgage, no cable or utility bills. Without those burdens, you could probably afford to go our to dinner every night and travel extensively.

So how would you go about paring down all your belongings to just 15 items? For Andrew Hyde, it was a slow process: “I started with my clothing basics: 2 shirts, 1 pant, 1 short, 1 sandals, 1 sunglasses and underwear. I added a few ‘must haves’ for me like an iPad and camera. I added a backpack, toiletries kit, towel, and a few random things (pen, connector cable, chargers) and tried it out. After five weeks of the trip, there is more that I have not used in the bag than there is in the bag.”

Socrates once said, “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” For a guy who lives with only 9 pounds worth of personal belongings, Andrew Hyde is living a Socratic ideal that meshes surprisingly well with our modern perceptions of what a person needs to be happy.

Could you ever live with just 15 items? What 15 things would you choose? Tell us in the comments below!

Earlier this year at CES 2011, LG officially announced the LG Optimus Black which is an amazing looking phone and its main feature is the 4-Inch NOVA touchscreen display which is clearer, brighter, and less power consuming as compared to other displays, that's what LG said. The phone was recently launched in Singapore and it's also available in India. Now the phone is heading towards UK where Orange UK will launch this phone any time this month. Orange UK is not alone, T-Mobile UK is also launching it, but no one knows when it's officially coming out. It looks like both mobile networks will launch it officially later this month, as it's a device LG fans are dying for. Just like other phones on UK carriers, this device will also go for free on selected plans. As we told you that it comes with a 4-Inch NOVA display. Other specs are a TI OMAP 3630 1 GHz processor, 5 MP rear camera with HD recording and 2 MP front-facing camera for video chatting, HSPA, Wi-Fi connectivity and Android 2.2. The device is running Froyo out of the box, but it will be upgraded to Gingerbread sooner than expected. Check out this device here ...

I had this picture of the old Abdel secret grease box ( from Mads) on my workbench for quite a while and then I found a piece of Osage Orange left over from a project on the other bench. I put the two together and made this secret grease box with a few changes. I thought it would look better as finished small treasure box and I changed the locking mechanism to a round brass pin that drops into the slide to lock it shut and you have to flip it and give it a tap to drop the pin back into the hole in the top to open the top. To secure it without fasteners showing, I used a brass pin in a blind hole in the top and bottom with a recess for a 4 penny nail to retain it into the bottom. I puttied the holes over so you can disassemble it if you really had to.

It is dry Osage Orange and finished with Deft gloss lacquer.

For Bittermen's Xocolatl Mole bitters ideas, I'd start with the Fumidus, which won the 2011 Anvil Bar and Refuge "Bar Regulars Competition": Fumidus by Zachary Pearson 1 oz Scotch, Compass Box Peat Monster 1 oz Cynar 1/2 oz Sweet vermouth, Punt e Mes 1/2 oz Lemon juice 2 ds Xocolatl Mole bitters, Bittermens Shake, strain, float bitters on top of drink, flame orange peel over top. I like these bitters very much. They are potent -- start out with a small amount and go from there. This is but one of 14 different cocktails on Kindred Cocktails that use these bitters. -- www.kindredcocktails.com | Craft + Collect + Concoct + Categorize + Community

Its been 10 years to the day since Aki Takanori set up his company Good Smile Company and to celebrate, they held a huge event in the middle of Akihabara. The day was split into two parts - one for business partners in the early afternoon and the other for fans and consumers.
I went along and stayed for the early afternoon session and for a wee bit in the late afternoon.

We is being greeted by some ladies and the chap who sends me all those Good Smile posters that you see in the office ^^

The ladies wearing the latest in balloon fashion.

Checking in at the reception.

The traditional congrats flowers with names of the various companies displayed along with them.

The BRS ladies - folks who have seen Culture Japan Season 1 Episode 1 may recognize them.

A ton of noms - which I didn't get to eat much of as I bumped into a load of comrades - half of them were my clients too ^^;

Good Smile had *all* the figures they've made on display. They also make the Max factory stuff too but only had the "Good Smile Company" branded ones out.

Will post all figure photos in a separate post.

Big Boss Aki Takanori looking very smart.

Or maybe it was the 70th anniversary? ^^;

Doors just opened and folks are slowly starting to make their way in.

The Good Smile mascot - Gusuma Seijin.

Spoke to the boss of Indotei about making some vacuum packed Mirai-chan curry.

I wish I had eaten more ToT

This is Max Watanabe - the boss of Max Factory. We've been working on a challenging project of late ^^;

The balloon girls are starting to increase in numbers.

Indotei curry - orange curry on rice with a dollop of coconut.

Time for Aki-san to greet the audience.

The Balloon girls on stage ready to...

...give Aki-san a bite of their soft...
...sushi...

Up n coming Nendoroid releases. Photos in a separate post later.

The boss of Banpresto makes a speech - he used to be Aki-sans boss.

Was speaking to the Bushiroad staff about their boss Kidani-san when all of a sudden he appeared on the screen behind me! I obviously was saying all things good about him ^^;

The Milky Holmes girls left a message too.

Good Smile Company announces that they are opening a Shanghai office. They've also discovered a load of talented sculptors in Shanghai and will be working with them on a load of projects soon.

The Nendoroid Planet iPhone app will be available from the App Store at end of May - June. Will be a catalog of all the Nendoroids available and include some 3D models too. Shame Nendoroid Mirai didn't make it for the release of the app ^^;

PSP game Nendoroid Generations being worked on by Bandai Namco.

Good Smile talking about hiring university graduates. I need to talk about how university students look for jobs in Japan - tis a very interesting process.

Good Smile participate in a load of racing shenanigans too and they had a live feed of what was going on at one of the tracks.

Nearing the end of the first session of the day. The top lady at Good Smile makes a speech.

Then all of a sudden, the rest of the Good Smile staff get on stage. Aki wonders whats going on.

Everybody attacks Aki and hurls him up in the air.

Time for Max to give a speech.

At the back of the hall are all the GSC figures throughout the years.

Gorgeous illustration by Huke - Gumako in BRS style.

Nitroplus PR guy Joy Max wants to om nom Aki-san.

And then in the late afternoon, the hall is cleared for the consumer and fan session.

Picked up some goodies on the way out.

Box O Good Smile Goodness.

Good Smile headphones.

Watching how Good Smile have evolved throughout the years is always stimulating and am honored to be able to work with such a coolsome company.

What is your fave Good Smile Company figure to date?
There is a poll embedded in this article.

My favorite thing about being a cupcake blogger is that I'll have a desire to look up a certain kind of cupcake, in this case Justin Bieber cupcakes, and discover a totally new to me cupcake company that makes incredibly cool-looking and sounding cupcakes.

In this case, that discovery was PolkaDot Cupcakery in Upper Arlington, Ohio. You can find out more about them on Facebook and @pdotcupcakery on Twitter, and these photos, with the exception of the Twizzlers one, which came from Facebook, are from their Flickr account.

Their PolkaPops push pop cupcakes look incredible and I think this trend of the push pop cupcake is something we're starting to see and will be seeing much more of!


Strawberry rhubarb


Banana caramel


PolkaPops Push Pop cupcakes!! You can get these in any flavor, and personalized with a label for a gift or a wedding or other event.


Twizzlers cupcakes, strawberry cupcakes with strawberry Twizzler buttercream with Twizzler pieces on top.


Justin Bieber!


Pokemon


pirates!


red rose flower cupcake bouquet


Tiffany box cupcakes


orange cotton candy cupcakes (what an interesting flavor!)

French investigators hope data will solve debate over whether faulty sensors caused 2009 accident

A black box flight recorder from an Air France plane that crashed off the coast of Brazil in 2009, killing 228 people, has been recovered by a deep-sea search team, reviving hopes of understanding what caused the crash.

French investigators said one of the plane's two data recorders had been located by a robot submarine about 3,900 metres (12,800ft) below the Atlantic ocean's surface.

Pictures published on the website of France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), before the box was pulled on to the deck of the ship Île de Sein, show an orange cylindrical object half-buried in sand.

In a statement, BEA confirmed that the device was "in good physical condition".

The discovery comes after months of start-and-stop search efforts on a 15,540 sq km (6,000 sq mile) area of sea-bed off the north-east coast of Brazil.

Investigators hope information inside the recorder – expected to include records of cockpit conversations – will settle a dispute over the cause of the crash.

The Airbus A330 plane plunged into the Atlantic while on the way to Paris from Rio de Janeiro in June 2009, after the flight hit stormy weather. There were no survivors.

Speculation about what caused the accident has focused on the possible icing up of the aircraft's speed sensors, which seemed to give inconsistent readings before communication was lost.

Automatic messages sent by the Airbus A330's computers showed it was receiving false air speed readings from sensors known as pitot tubes. However, investigators have said the crash was likely to have been caused by a series of problems, and not just sensor error.

The recent discovery of chunks of the plane's wreckage, as well as the chassis of the flight recorder, had rekindled hopes of locating the black boxes and explaining the crash, the worst in Air France's 75-year history.

Bente and I decided on doing a couple of care quilts days together, Tuesday to Wednesday this week, and I spent the night at her house.

The last finished triple stripes blocks quilt top I will make in a while.

Another big size hexagon quilt top, lacking borders

Bente's quilt, front and back,  and nearly done :-)

I have cut all my orange fabrics, enough for 2 care quilts.

These quilts to be is going in my project box for another care quilt day :-)

Hanne

Valve is bucking one of the largest trends in the video gaming industry — releasing additional content for games and charging extra for it — by releasing the next phase of content for its blockbuster hit Portal 2 for free for all gamers.

Downloadable content for games can be as big as blockbuster games themselves. The Call of Duty series, a first-person shooting game set during a war, has proven it time and again by selling additional maps for multiplayer games. But the additional costs can frustrate some gamers that might think they are being charged too much for content that should already be in the game. Valve — which regularly delays its games so they are at their best when they are released — could be using the opportunity to build up additional good will.

Not that it really needs to do so. Bellevue, Wash.-based Valve pulled out all marketing stops and launched an alternate reality game related to Portal 2. Alternate reality games are difficult to pull off, because they involve fans guessing about the game and trying to solve puzzles that span the entire Internet. But if a company can pull it off, it can generate an enormous amount of excitement for the game. Valve was successful by giving players the power to release Portal 2 early if they solved the puzzle, and had players frantically working until hours before the game’s official release time to do so.

Portal 2 is the sequel to the hit game Portal, which featured players taking control of a test subject with a gun that could create doorways between two parts of a level with a portal gun. The game also featured a cynical and hilariously dark antagonist, artificial-intelligence GLaDOS. The game was a massive commercial success when it was released with the Orange Box, where it was packaged with Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 — two other critically acclaimed games.Portal was a fairy-tale success story for independent game developers.

Portal was a fairy-tale success story for independent game developers. The game was a successor to an independent game called  Narbacular Drop, which was developed by a group of students from the Digipen Institute of Technology. The students were hired by Valve and spent a little more than two years developing Portal. Its successor has so far held up well with Critics too, picking up a score of 95 out of 100 across 37 reviews on review aggregation site Metacritic.

Tags: downloadable content, map packs, Portal, Portal 2

Companies: Valve

The day before the wedding there was much to do about the custom of ladies wearing classic to elaborate hats or headpieces called "fascinators" to British weddings and that those attending viewing parties around the world should wear them as well.

When I heard that I was so excited because I had a hat to wear!

This hat was a gift from my mom that's lived in a hat box, in my closet, with the price tag still attached for over two decades. It has moved with me from apartment to apartment and house to house, never seeing the light of day. Why? Because I'd never felt like I had an appropriate event to wear it to. Until today.

Today the hat came out of the box and the closet where it was buried under boxes of shoes to make it's debut at the Royal Wedding Viewing Party and Brunch at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. The weather was absolute perfection. Sunny and warm with the bluest of skies.

As I entered the Penthouse Suite the wedding was playing on television sets around the room and I saw lots of people I knew! That always makes a party more fun doesn't it?

I moved to the Dining Room where a buffet station was set up. This was the sweet buffet, the savory was in the Billiard's Room.


Of course there were scones, two kinds in fact. Interestingly I heard celebrity wedding designer Colin Cowie say on tv that the proper pronunciation isn't scone with a long "o." Instead it rhymes with the word "con" so more like "scahn."  So if you go to the UK you might want to try that out.

Just some of the buffet items I was able to photograph:

• Top Left : Orange Peel and Cranberry Scones
• Top Right: Ripe Papaya with Mint Yogurt
• Center Left: Lox with a gorgeous vegetable garnish!
• Center Right: Dungeness Crab and Caramelized Onion Waffle
• Bottom Left: Spiced Beef Tenderloin with Black Olive Baguette w/ Lady Apple Slaw and Pear and Coconut Currry Chicken Petite Brioche Roll
• Bottom Right: Pear and Coconut Curry Chicken Petite Brioche Roll

The Penthouse Dining Room was bustling all morning. I love this room partly because the walls are gorgeous and because the crystal chandelier creates such an elegant ambiance it makes me want to put a chandelier in every room of my house.

From the dining room I stepped directly out onto the Penthouse Terrace. I have to admit I was a little surprised more people weren't wearing hats but you can spot two in this photo :)

I was enjoying the view from the terrace when all of a sudden I spotted something interesting right beside me.


Ooooooh a honey bee! This made me recall that when I attended an event at the Penthouse in December I learned all about the Fairmont's Honey Bees. From that post:


"The honeycomb above was served alongside a cheese tray. The really cool part? It was from the hotel's own bee hives! There are now 5 hives that house 80,000 honey bees that live at the hotel! So cool right? Executive Chef JW Foster wanted to do something eco-friendly to help support honey bees which, since 2006, have been decimated nationwide by a phenomenon called "Colony Collapse Disorder." If you've never had honeycomb before you should try it if you ever have the opportunity. It's really delicious."

I really wanted to find the bee hives and had once heard they were "on the roof" so I headed downstairs to see if I could sleuth around a bit and locate them. I thought they might be on the Roof Garden but before I could arrive there I spotted them along the way.

Right between Cirque Restaurant and the Roof Garden is a long hallway. One side is all mirrors, the other windows. Through the windows this is the view of the hotel's Epicurean Garden. Here the bees feast on flowering herbs like basil, chives, cilantro, lavender, oregano, rosemary and thyme.

And how cool are those raised beds? Gardening would be so much easier if you didn't have to bend down to do it!




I gazed up to the left and spotted the terrace to the Penthouse. It's that open nook along the top line of the hotel right above the iron balustrades of the terraces for the lower floors.

Ah, so  the bees fly up to the fountain to grab a little drink of water.

So cool!


Here are Photographer Michelle Walker and I in our hats. I think I'll be wearing dressy hats more often. It's kind of sad they're such an underused fashion accessory here in the United States. Perhaps it's a lack of closet space that has kept them from becoming popular here?

My thanks to The Fairmont Hotel San Francisco, San Francisco Brides Magazine and Josephine Fisher Interior Design for hosting such a lovely event and inviting me to it!

---

If you'd like to see more pictures of The Fairmont San Francisco visit these posts on The Flirty Blog

• San Francisco Fairmont Hotel Penthouse
• A Video Reflection • My Day as a Videographer's Assi

Orange -- A movie billed as the world's first 3-D porn film has broken a box office record - outselling Avatar on its...

While Portal 2 continues to amaze and/or infuriate gamers, the first Portal has been able to boast a significant achievement. The original comedy-puzzler has sold nearly four million copies since it released in 2007, and that's not including Steam sales. 

For a game that was an underdog on The Orange Box, the success of Portal has been terrific to see. Not only is it a genuinely interesting concept, it's also one of the best written games ever. To see it become a success -- one that hopefully carries over to Portal 2 -- makes me think that there's hope yet for originality and talent in the game industry. 

So yeah, congratulations! I think it's been earned. 

Portal 2 sells nearly 4 million [GameSpot]

Gamespot reports -- citing Valve -- that sales of Portal are approaching the 4 million mark since it launched in 2007's with The Orange Box.

One could blame Rebecca Black for finally killing auto-tune by strangling it with her bare vocal cords and for turning Friday into a sad face, but that doesn't mean it's okay for hos to fill her voicemail box with death threats, but that's what somebody is doing. USA Today says that Anaheim police are investigating two separate death threats against Rebecca. One threat came from a phone call and the other landed in her e-mail inbox. Kevin Costner, get down to Orange County, grab Rebecca and keep her safe inside of your pappy's lakeside cabin (DON'T BRING HER SISTER).

Rick Martinez, the rep for Anaheim police, said, "In essence, the threats were related to getting the music off the Internet or they were going to kill her."

Some say that you truly haven't made it until you've gotten a death threat, but "dislike" any random kitten video on YouTube and you'll find an e-mail with a skull on it in your inbox.

I'm sure if the police backtraced the e-mail, they will not only find that consequences will never be the same, but they will also find a bedazzled pink laptop with a denim cozy over it (I'm looking at you, Jenna Rose).

By the way, every time "Friday" passed through my ears I took that as a direct death threat.

(Image via PopDirt)

Temptation is a single page portfolio template with a minimal and clean design with strong typography, well suited for personal and proffesional use.

If you’re in need for a template with emphasis on content with strong and bold typography, this is the template for you.

Features

• 10 color variations
• 20 custom made social icons
• 30 box icons
• Toggle Panels
• Integrated Google Map
• Working AJAX Contact Form with validation
• Twitter Feed plugin
• jQuery Cycle plugin for slide transitions
• AnythingSlider plugin for displaying content
• @font-face for displaying fonts
• jQuery prettyPhoto plugin
• 8 PSD files for further customization
• Valid XHTML 1 .0 Transitional/CSS 3.0
• Works with Javascript disabled
• Supports all major browsers (IE7/8/9, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari)

Preview

Styles wtih Content Slider (anythingSlider)

• Orange
• Lime
• Blue
• Pink
• Beige
• Turquoise
• Red
• Green
• Blue – Dark
• Purple

Styles wtih Images Slider (jQuery Cycle)

• Orange
• Lime
• Blue
• Pink
• Beige
• Turquoise
• Red
• Green
• Blue – Dark
• Purple

Credits

• Images used in previewcourtesy of Simon Bouchard aka LayeredPixels
• Bebas Neue – font used via @font-face
• jQuery cycle plugin
• anythingSlider plugin
• Twitter Icon
• jQuery form plugin
• jQuery localScroll plugin
• jQuery scrollTo plugin
• jQuery Tools plugin
• jQuery prettyPhoto plugin
• jQuery tweet plugin
• jQuery Easing plugin
• 16×16 pictograms icon set (used for box images) courtesy of Miro Keller

According to Valve, Portal has sold four million copies on various platforms. This excludes sales numbers from Steam too. Portal was sold as part of The Orange Box on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 which includes Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2. Portal was also released as a stand-alone retail release for PC, and as a digital download for Xbox Live Arcade - Portal: Still Alive.

Portal 2 was released yesterday on various platforms. Most critics adore the game, but some users take issue with the length of the game. That aside, it looks like Portal 2 will be another big seller for Valve and its distribution partners. Portal 2 is the first Valve game to feature PC-style Steam functionality on a home console as well as a nice bonus: those who purchase the game for PlayStation 3 can unlock a Steam Play copy of the game for free simply by linking their PlayStation Network accounts with Steam. Read More

read more

According to Valve, Portal has sold four million copies on various platforms. This excludes sales numbers from Steam too. Portal was sold as part of The Orange Box on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 which includes Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2. Portal was also released as a stand-alone retail release for PC, and as a digital download for Xbox Live Arcade - Portal: Still Alive.

Portal 2 was released yesterday on various platforms. Most critics adore the game, but some users take issue with the length of the game. That aside, it looks like Portal 2 will be another big seller for Valve and its distribution partners. Portal 2 is the first Valve game to feature PC-style Steam functionality on a home console as well as a nice bonus: those who purchase the game for PlayStation 3 can unlock a Steam Play copy of the game for free simply by linking their PlayStation Network accounts with Steam. Read More

read more

With an auspicious beginning at the Independent Games Festival Student Showcase in 2006, a small game -- named Narbacular Drop -- from a group of DigiPen students went on to inspire an industry darling. Several oft-quoted lines of dialog and millions of "The cake is a lie" jokes later, Portal was a resounding critical success when it launched inside The Orange Box, also home to Half-Life 2, its two follow-ups, and Team Fortress 2.

You knew about the acclaim, but you may not have known that it has moved approximately four million copies in the past four years. What's really surprising, however, is that Valve reached that sales mark without including the numbers for Steam -- numbers that would muddle the accuracy of that four million in terms of actual sales, given that Valve has offered the game free through Steam at various times.

It's also unclear whether that number includes individual copies of Portal sold at retail, the Xbox Live Arcade release (Portal: Still Alive), or any other sales channels. We've reached out to Valve for clarity on the total sales of Portal, but for now, four million is nothing to sneeze at -- especially considering the game's humble origins.

Portal 1 has sold four million, excluding Steam sales originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

A year on from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, this specially-commissioned story is set in Louisiana, where Pa Claude and Jackie are going out fishing on the bayou

The dawn looked more like a sunset. The horizon was a luminous peach-colored line, and rising above it were gray commas of cloud with copper bottoms, each the size of a small town. The old man came onto his back porch holding a cup of coffee and looked east over the sound, his great grandson dawdling behind, hands in his pockets, a willowy boy of nine. Claude Ledet was eighty-eight, his skin a sun-eroded fabric of pale craters and burgundy spots. He looked down to his little wharf hugging the island.

"We goin fish today, down to the mouth of the river."

"The river?" The boy's voice sailed high in the question.

"The Mississippi," his great grandfather snapped. "Don't you know nothing?"

The boy grinned, goofy and sweet. "I know it's a long way off, Pa Claude. For your boat."

The old man turned west, looking for weather. Sometimes he would see what was there, sometimes his mind would layer memories over the present, and he would see what was there last year, or the decade before that, or sixty years earlier when he'd built his little frame house high up on pilings. The day before, he'd seen the big wooden oyster lugger The Two Sons go by, loaded down, and he'd waved at his cousins Henry and Rene where they sat on the deck sorting what they had dredged up from their lease, even though Henry and Rene had been dead of old age for many years and The Two Sons lay sunk and rotting in Lake Borgne. Sometimes he saw things from several different decades at once, steam tugs, coastal sail boats, brand new Chris Craft mahogany yachts, jet skis carrying windblown children racing above the swells, time-wandering images floating side-by-side and overlapping like a bowl of fresh shucked oysters.

Claude looked down at the boy. "Why you here?"

"Aunt Brenda couldn't come stay with you today. She's at the doctor with the flu."

"That oldest girl couldn't come?"

"Suzie?"

"That's right. So many come around to visit with me I can't keep 'em straight."

The boy gave him a long look. "Great-aunt Suzie's your daughter."

The old man nodded west. "Get two rods off the porch and my box. I'm goin bail the skiff."

"Her friend's husband got killed in that rig accident about three weeks ago. It's a big mess out in the Gulf."

"My radio's burnt out and that damn television don't make no sense to me at all."

"Everybody's talking about it. You haven't heard?"

Claude put a hand to his stubbly chin. "We need some crackers and potted meat and a jug of water."

The boy settled a baseball cap down on his curls. "I didn't know we were going fishing."

 
 
 

Soon the two of them were in a plank skiff being pushed east by Claude's five-horse Champion, a smoky old outboard he had to pull on ten times before it would even pop, the first tugs on the rope making only the noise of a startled hen. The twelve- foot boat rattled and wandered but managed after a while to get up to ten miles an hour as it cut between the big shrimp company dock and an incoming corporate trawler.

The boy looked back at the vessel as the wheelman leaned out of the cabin to watch them. "Pa Claude, you sure you want to go all the way to the river?"

The old man didn't answer as he watched for the pass that led to the gulf, which he saw after a minute and turned into, and then two minutes later turned back out of when three foot rollers caused the skiff to buck and sway. They began to follow the grassy back of the island where there were no houses, still headed east, a longer but calmer route.

 
 
 

After several miles they began to pass oil company canals cut into the marsh on both the left and right, and the motor hit a stump, hard, jumping up and puttering in open air until Claude could find the kill switch. As he replaced the propeller's shear pin with a cut nail, the boy asked them what a stump was doing out in open salt water.

"Aw, Jackie, this used to not be water."

The boy brushed dark hair under his cap. "What was it?"

"Ha. Land, you little fool. You see how what we in now looks like a lagoon? Years ago it was a long narrow cut, not a hundred feet wide." He looked up from his work. "All this was land. Over there was camps, but they fell in the water every one. A farmer grew sugar cane in a sure-enough field over there. I remember a road. The world's meltin away on account of all these rig canals."

"Maybe you ought to stay off the shore out of these stumps," the boy said quietly.

"Yah. I'll go out further in the old way."

 
 
 

In another five miles the island fell away to the right and they stopped in open water. "The chop ain't too bad." Claude pointed to a long concave shore a mile off to the northeast that had been cut into with five canals. "We can head over there and then skin down that long bank south of it and around past the jetties at the mouth and anchor in a little hook inside the rocks where it'll be calm. That's where them redfish hide." He looked across the water again. "This used to be cypress trees, here. Even a little high ground."

The motor idled and both of them studied a broad whitecapped channel they would have to cross. Something other than bitter marsh smell hung in the air. The great-grandfather pushed a lever on the motor and the skiff slowly gained speed. They rocked through a rough place, shipping only a couple gallons of water because the old man still knew how to play the swells.

Close to the crescent of marsh and out of the big currents, the boat cut into rusty water topped with an engulfing stink like that of a steaming refinery. "What the hell," the old man yelled over the motor.

"Pa Claude, what's that smell?" The boy leaned over to look at the water.

"I don't know, baby. We run up on a little oil, I guess."

But as the skiff slid along, they saw that it was not a little oil they were going though, but a broad deep pool of reddish crude that had blown against the shore and was turning the marsh grasses into tarred pretzels. They saw pelicans trembling about the bank like bronze ghosts strangling under glossy sheets. The slathered skiff seemed lost in a vast storage tank of crude oil, as thick as glue. Looking overboard, Claude saw that the engine's water pump was pulling pure oil and spitting it up in a fuming stench. He killed the outboard, fearing that the very sea around them could erupt into flames.

"This must be some of that blown-up rig's stuff," the boy said.

"What? What rig? The steam plant by North Pass?" The old man was dizzy, afraid, and his mind suddenly went many years off track. To the east he saw more water than he remembered, open Gulf running all the way to the orange triangle marking the eroded mouth of the river. He wondered what had happened to the land, its fish-filled inlets, the shrimp-spawning marsh, the oak groves, the hummocks overrun with white egrets, how a place that fed so richly whoever sailed through it could dissolve, history and graveyard and church and road and home.

They waited. The sun was straight up, it was May in Louisiana, and the heat was cooking the oil to fumes as the skiff stuck in place. After an hour the boy began to vomit overboard. Claude stuck his arm into the water and it came up covered with a black-and-red batter halfway to his elbow. The boy retched again, and the old man himself felt headspun and sick. He pulled the starter rope figuring they should try for open water to the south. Doddering up to speed, the boat dragged through the oil until the bow suddenly rose up on what, a thousand-year-old cypress stump or one of a million abandoned pipelines? The hull rolled high and slid off to the right, dumping Claude Ledet into the terrible slop, and as he went under, his mind came back to a splintered version of the present, and he knew at once that he had to get back to the surface because the boy, he felt sure, would jump after him, and a news account he'd read thirty years before of a grandfather and grandson gone fishing and not coming back in at the appointed time bloomed into his head, because when the sheriff's men dragged the canal the next morning the hooks brought up together the grandfather and a four-year-old boy wrapped tightly in his arms. Sweet Jesus, he thought, give us a hand.

He twisted to get his bearings but could not tell up from down until he felt ten narrow fingers pulling up on his shirt and he knew Jackie was in the water with him and struggling blindly out of some blood kin urge that nobody understands, and now he knew which way was up, so Claude spread his arms, cupped his hands and pulled them both to the sky, remembering not to take a breath too quickly once his head broke the surface. His great-grandson he knew to be a weak swimmer, and the boy had taken in a large amount of oil that was jetting from his nostrils as he coughed into the terrible water. The old man took him by the collar and struggled fifty yards toward shore, slow as a giant water bug, and reaching his depth, walked them in the rest of the way where they fell on a thin shell reef and coughed and puked burning red streamers of oil until they were nearly unconscious with the strain of it. They sat like oiled birds and watched the skiff, which had beached itself far across the open water, back on the island. In another hour the boy began to cry that his skin was burning all over and that he couldn't breathe. Claude had pulled his handkerchief and mopped off the thickest oil from Jackie's face and eyes, but the white skin itself would not come clean and kept the color of thin-smeared tar. The old man stood and walked off the ledge of shells into the grass, but they were miles from any building, and all he could see was the great flat marsh spreading north. Miles away, a ship passed straight out into the Gulf, a helicopter went over at two thousand feet. They would just have to wait.

 
 
 

Claude sat next to Jackie, but it hurt the boy to be touched, so the old man just watched and slept, dozing now and then, rousing with a start and forgetting where he was, who this weeping person next to him was, why his own neck and back flamed and blistered. Around four o'clock they saw a sports fisherman and Claude stood and waved his bony arms. They were taken into a smudged new boat and brought to the landing on the island where an ambulance took them up Highway 1 to the hospital. The old man spent one night there because it took that long for the nurses to scour him and test his blood over and over. Against all prohibitions he walked down the hall past the priest, through a crowd of relatives and friends, or people he guessed were such, to see Jackie, who was on a ventilator, his eyelids blue, his beanlike fingers cold. Claude waited long to see if the boy would at least open one eye to discover that his great-grandfather was in good shape. But he didn't. The nurses had cleaned Jackie up, but the smell of oil hung in the room like an unwelcome spirit.

 
 
 

A week later, the relatives took Claude's boat away from him, and then his car, which he had not driven in three years anyway. On a Tuesday he woke up and dressed for work at the fish plant, which had been closed twenty years, and his daughter had to tell him to just go sit on the little porch and drink his coffee. He walked down to his wharf instead and stood at the very end, remarking to no one how the land had melted away all around just since yesterday. So much water and no place to go. He turned for a moment and saw his graying daughter seated on a rush chair on the porch, her head down in her hands.

 
 
 

A boat's engine throbbed in his ears and looking again at the water he saw his old uncle, Monsieur Abadie from all the way over in Tiger Island going out in his long skiff propelled by a one-cylinder inboard. On the north side of his uncle raced the fresh-painted Aztec, the sailing lugger owned by the Czechs who lived on the river, and knifing between, but coming in, was The Two Sons, its decks piled high with sacks of oysters, Jackie standing at the very bow, raising his arms and waving with big sweeps of his sun-brightened hands.

• Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England

Game of the year?

In less capable hands, Portal 2 could have been a disaster. As part of Valve’s mighty Orange Box, the original felt like the sort of brilliant support act you sometimes find on a stadium tour, threatening to blow the main band - Half Life 2: Episode 2 - off the stage. It didn’t matter that it was short or less graphically impressive, because for its brief running time it was smart, tight, inventive and engaging. Through dint of its own imagination, it couldn’t help but capture yours.

Who can forget the increasingly mad ramblings of your AI nemesis, GladOS, the weird scribbled messages on the wall, the superb, understated finale? The problem for Portal 2 is the same problem that any support act faces when it starts touring the arenas alone. Can it hold an audience for a longer haul? Fill the larger spaces? Justify all that expectation? Or will it end up stretching a few good ideas over too many hours, and end up a saggy, overblown mess?

Luckily, Portal 2 comes out ready for the big-time. Valve has cleverly expanded on the original without diluting what made it work, and transformed a quirky, left-field game into a blockbuster without losing its heart along the way. If you loved Portal you’ll love Portal 2. If you never played Portal, you’ll still love Portal 2. In fact, provided you have eyes, a brain and opposable thumbs, it’s safe to say that you’ll love Portal 2.

At first, it's all much the same, but with a few cool twists. After a hectic opening sequence with a new guide, the Stephen Merchant voiced robot, Wheatley, you’re back in the test chambers of Aperture Science, learning how to use portals and getting to grips with switches, companion cubes and laser beams. As you might remember, your Portal gun can create two portals, one blue, one orange, which instantly transmit any light or matter coming through them - including your heroine, Chell. Objects coming through the portal also retain their momentum, meaning that you can use speed picked up by, say, falling, to hurl yourself across vast horizontal gaps. Portals can only be placed on certain surfaces, and gates are sometimes used to prevent you connecting two areas.

It sounds complex and it is complex, but it’s also surprisingly easy to pick-up, and the feeling when a concept clicks or a solution to a puzzle suddenly falls into place is one of Portal 2’s biggest pleasures. It’s not long, either, before new ideas start trickling in. Spring-pads (dubbed Aerial Faith Plates), bridges made of light and new laser-bending cubes are quickly thrown into the mix, along with old favourites like the robotic turrets (which come complete with a range of cheerful greetings before the bullets start flying your way).?

Where Portal 2 really steps away from the original is in the setting and the style. In Portal the story almost sneaked out from behind the stripped-back setting and the gameplay. In Portal 2 it’s all upfront. Years have passed since the first game, and Aperture’s chambers are in a state of disrepair from the off. The old pristine whites have tarnished and decayed, vegetation creeps over rusty surfaces, and you’ll frequently catch glimpses of the machinery behind the chambers. Graphically speaking, there’s a lot more detail here than there was in the first game, with some spectacular sequences that take you deep behind the scenes of Aperture Science, and this is probably the most impressive outing Valve's Source engine has had yet.??

With Wheatley and GladOS quite directly involved in the action, Portal 2 is also a less lonesome game than its predecessor, which felt (perhaps appropriately) clinical at times. The dark, paranoid humour is absolutely spot-on, as Marchant’s dumb, bumbling robot schtick contrasts with GladOS’s line of ironic, bitter put-downs, and while you're unlikely to bust a gut chuckling, it's hard to resist the game's bleak wit. The music fits the mood just as perfectly. Where Portal was more of a cerebral exercise - at least in its early stages - Portal 2 is a rawer, more emotional affair.

In fact, it’s all so good that it comes as a bit of a blow when Portal 2 appears to be building up to a climax all too soon. Saying too much here would spoil what follows, but we can safely say that just when it seems to be drawing to its end, the game is really just building up for a second act that’s every bit as ingenious as the first. On top of the all the old Portal mechanics, Valve throws in a selection of liquid gels which radically change the properties of surfaces they land on, so you're racing and bouncing all over the place. The game then builds up for the most gruelling and thrilling set of tests we’ve seen. There are periods in this second act where you might struggle to see where you’re meant to be going or what you’re meant to be doing, but stick with it. The answer is always slap-on-the-forehead obvious when you finally spot it, and it’s definitely worth persevering. The comedy gets even better, and before you’re done you’ll have a deeper understanding of Aperture’s oddball history. Superbly paced, brilliantly designed and totally engrossing, Portal 2 does for Portal what Half-Life 2 did for Half-Life. It really is that good.

Meanwhile, the all-new co-op multiplayer mode is so much more than the usual bonus option. Featuring two new robot heroes - Atlas and P-Body - on a new mission for GladOS herself, it’s a separate campaign with an all-new sequence of levels designed specifically for collaborative play. The basic gameplay is much the same as in the single-player game, but with the emphasis on each player pressing switches and creating portals to help their partner proceed, before the roles are reversed. You can play with a stranger, but it’s much more rewarding to play with a friend. In fact, if you can’t find one online, the split-screen option works a treat, with the added bonus that it’s easier to kick someone sitting on the same sofa when they mess things up.

Verdict:

Valve has done it again, creating a satisfying single-player experience that can stand up with Half-Life 2, and a co-op mode worthy of the company that gave us Left4Dead. Despite some tough moments in the game’s second half, Portal 2 is mind-bending fun from beginning to end, and one of the finest games you’re likely to enjoy this year.

Tags: Gaming Portal 2 Valve Xbox 360 PS3 EA

             

Portal 2 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:56:55 +0100

I have been digging into the details of President Obama's budget plan vs. Paul Ryan's budget plan. What I found was so sickening that I asked my friend Ross Perez at Tableau Software for a display.

The interactive map below may take a few seconds. It will be worth your wait.

Comparing the 2012 Budget Proposals


Select from the dropdown box for a list of items you can chart. You can also hover over any of the orange or blue boxes for a popup display comparing the budgetary difference between the Obama and Ryan proposals for that year, for that item.

Boxes in blue are years in which Paul Ryan has budgeted more for an item than President Obama. Boxes in Orange are the reverse.

Straight Up Comparison

Numbers for President Obama come from Whitehouse Budget Summary Tables page 174 (PDF page 6).

Numbers for Paul Ryan come from Path to Prosperity Table S-3 on PDF page 64.

The category items are identical except Ryan has an extra item for Global War on Terror. To equalize, we added Global War on Terror to Security.

Without making any judgment to the contrary, let's assume Ryan and Obama can both "deliver". Here are a few charts depicting the results. You can produce the same charts above via the dropdown boxes and hover functions (minus my anecdotes).

Deficit: Obama vs. Paul Ryan



Paul Ryan made good headway for three years, then fell flat for another 7. This is no way to shrink the national debt or reduce interest on the national debt as we shall see in a moment.

Obama's proposal is abysmal. He made some progress for a few years, then went into reverse.

Medicare: Obama vs. Paul Ryan



Amazingly Paul Ryan want to spend more on Medicare than president Obama every year for the next 10 years. To be fair, Ryan takes a big bite out of Medicaid for six years starting in 2016.

Security: Obama vs. Paul Ryan



I labeled this as "defense", they both called it "security". Is the "security" label an attempt to make the huge numbers seem more palatable?

Regardless, Neither Ryan nor Obama is interested in doing anything about one of the most bloated items on the budget.

Moreover, President Obama is the biggest war-monger in history judging from his proposed budget. Democrats should be shocked to see the president propose to spend more than Ryan every year for a decade.

I was reasonably confident the president would reduce military spending. He didn't. His scorecard is thus a perfect zero. President Obama has not done a single thing right.

It's not easy being perfect, even perfectly wrong.

Interest on the National Debt: Obama vs. Paul Ryan



The above chart shows the effect of cumulative failures to shrink the deficit.

Note that in 2021 president Obama proposes to spend over $900 billion a year on interest on the national debt. This is sickening, not amusing.

Paul Ryan would have us spending $687 billion on interest in 2021. His deficit proposal for 2021 is $731 billion.

National Debt: Obama vs. Paul Ryan



The above chart is where the rubber meets the road. For all the brouhaha surrounding the deficit reduction plans, both are a miserable failure.

President Needs a New Head

In 2021, under Ryan's proposal, the national debt will soar from $14.973 trillion to $23.105 trillion. Interestingly, that is not that much better than what the president put together as shown above.

Ryan needs to reduce more, way more, or raise revenue. There is no other way. I propose a good hard look at military spending.

Obama needs a new head. The one he has cannot think at all. His proposal to send the deficit into reverse starting in 2014 and spend close to $1 trillion a year on the national debt is proof enough.

Contact Congress

Please send your congressional representatives an email or fax and a link to this post and demand they read it. We are on a path to self-destruction even IF we were to pass Ryan's budget.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Wanted to swap this nice Citizen for a Seiko or Orient i have had this watch for many years and have never worn it, runs good although i have never timed it and service history is unknown, comes with what i believe is the original box. Maybe an Orange Monster with cash difference Watch is in...

Innovation in video games is terrific—sometimes. But with certain ideas and series, particularly the simplest ones, the smartest thing to do can be to just expand and build on the concept but not change it very much. That's the choice Valve Software has made with Portal 2, the ravenously awaited sequel to the addictive and brain-twisting 2007 first-person puzzler. Judging from our initial half-day with the game, Valve has chosen wisely.

The original Portal, first released as part of the Orange Box collection, was maddening because it was so straightforward, and delightful because of its rampant dementedness. As a test subject trapped in the Aperture Science building, you were armed only with a gun that could create up two dimensional portals: shoot a blue one, shoot an orange one, then run through one to emerge from the other. Strategy and physics played key roles as you struggled to discover what happened to the all the office workers, evade turret fire and pits of foul-looking liquid, and determine what the nature was of the teasing and tormenting computer (the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, or GLaDOS) that made jokes at your expense every 30 seconds.

 

Portal succeeded because its formula was both hard to screw up but easy to love. It was both rigorously adult (some of the levels were hard, and many of the bonus boards all but impossible), and yet faultlessly cute (who can forget the baby-voiced android weapons, or the Weighted Companion Cube emblazoned on all six sides with hearts). This meant that anyone of any age could play it, and because it required just a handful of keys or buttons (far fewer than the average shooter), you didn't even need to be an experienced gamer. As if realizing this, Valve even structured the game to provide to provide its own fully integrated tutorial so you could master tricky concepts without being aware you were learning everything.

In fact, the most commonly cited problem with the game was that it was too short: Nineteen levels and it was done. For years, people have been crying out for more levels and more snappy wit—and with Portal 2, that is what Valve has almost exclusively provided.

Continue reading Portal 2 review Tags: (T), (T), (T), (T), (T), (T), (T), (T), (T), (T), (T)

Add to: Recipe Box | Grocery List | Meal Planner

Recipe submitted by Webmistress Laura, 04/19/11

Vegan Cadbury Creme Eggs

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

    1/2 cup brown rice syrup
    1 tablespoon margarine (I like Earth Balance)
    1/4 cup vegetable shortening
    3 cups powdered sugar
    1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
    1 12-ounce bag vegan chocolate chips
    1-1/2 tablespoons vegan creamer

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, place the brown rice syrup, margarine, and shortening and use a hand mixer to combine. Cream in powdered sugar until smooth. If you want to separate part the mixture and add food coloring (yellow to make it look more like an egg!) or flavored extracts (orange? coffee?), now is the time!

2. Make sure your ha...

Format: Xbox 360, PC (version tested), PS3
Release: Out now
Publisher: EA
Developer: Valve

The Orange Box was a quixotic endeavour: unusual and idealistic, it’s also probably the greatest value-for- money purchase in gaming history. But while the ongoing adventures of Gordon Freeman and Team Fortress 2 were the bulk, it was Portal that stole hearts. Petite, chic and unique, it’s a masterpiece. It was also a whole, self-contained and neatly tied up, before success made a sequel inevitable.

read more

Xbox 360/PS3/PC; £49.99; cert 12+; Valve/EA

Strange as it may seem to start a five-star review on a note of concern, I worry about Valve. It's not that I think the developer has put a foot wrong so far, or that its latest release won't meet the impossibly high expectations of its audience. On the whole, the titles that Valve has produced have been critically lauded and have sold very respectably.

But if the history of art and entertainment has taught us one thing it is this: if you habitually make genius look easy, audiences and critics will round on you if you stumble, even more viciously than they would have done if your track record was of a mediocre quality. Valve's winning streak has to get snapped at some point, doesn't it? And if it does, the knives will be out in force.

Well, thankfully, Portal 2 isn't the game that's going to cause this, which is remarkable when you consider it's arguably the sequel of 2011 with the toughest act to follow. The first Portal, released in 2007 as part of the Orange Box, was a short, ingenious puzzler wrapped up in first-person-shooter mechanics, underpinned by a darkly comic story about scientific research taken to dangerous extremes. The game seemed like lightning in a bottle and a sequel sounded unnecessary. Still, Valve has managed to go one better than what its team created before, and then built on its impressive foundations.

Portal 2 kicks off with player waking up in the Aperture Laboratories, the human behaviour research facility from the first game, and finding out very quickly that things have gone haywire. Aperture is a wreck: without GlaDOS – Portal 1's female AI antagonist – to run things, the facility is in an advanced state of disrepair. Walls are crumbling, test chambers malfunction and every room the player moves through is riddled with smashed windows, natural overgrowth and broken machinery. In the opening stages of the game, players are introduced to Wheatly, a stammering, motor-mouthed droid voiced by Stephen Merchant, and reacquainted with the Portal Gun, which creates interconnecting portals capable of bending distances, and physics, in their environment.

They're also soon reunited with GlaDOS, who takes umbrage at their presence and decides that a new round of potentially lethal tests is in order.

While the set-up will sound incredibly familiar to Portal veterans, Portal 2 is hardly a retread of the first game. Yes, using the Portal Gun to navigate one's way through every new environment is the core premise of the game – and cubes, gun turrets, floating platforms and pressure pads all make a return. But Valve has added some mind-bending mechanics and tools to the mix.

As the player advances through the Apeture Labs they're introduced to new items that the research facility has created to exercise their grey matter and potentially kill them off. There are Hard Light Bridges, which can create walkways or block off the sensors of lasers and gun turrets. There are Aerial Faith Plates, which fling the player through the air. There's Propulsion Gel, which allows them to zoom across the floor, building momentum for jumps and portal leaps. Puddles of Repulsion Gel can create areas the player can bounce on– and the higher the ledge they drop from, the higher they'll fly through the air. White Gel can be sprayed on to surfaces to make them Portal Gun-friendly. Excursion funnels are blue tubes of anti-gravity, which gently transport the player from one end of the map to the other, and they too can be redirected and repositioned with the Portal Gun. Each new item is introduced gently, to let the player become familiar with its capabilities, and then Valve starts ramping up the difficulty.

The puzzle rooms are incredibly well designed in that there's no hard and fast rule with the game's difficulty curve. Once the tutorials are out of the way, it's down to every individual player's desire to break the code on each environment, which allows them to move from the entrance to the exit. Even if one player finds the solution to one particular room obvious, this doesn't mean that everyone else will, and some puzzles may take up to hour to solve. All the while GlaDOS pours scorn over the player's efforts, with a stream of insults that are petty, vindictive and immature – made more hilarious by her robotic, sing-song voice.

The humour in Portal 2 is another trump card in the game's well-paced, engrossing and unsettling story. Without giving too much of the game's plot away, the player will find Portal 2 funny throughout, but also faintly spinechilling. GlaDOS and Wheatly are by turns funny and monstrous and the Aperture Labs take on an increasingly oppressive atmosphere as the player ventures deeper into the facility, learning more about its origins. Meanwhile, the unseen character from the first Portal is still lurking behind the scenes, scrawling paranoid messages and horrific cartoons on the walls.

The game's main campaign is longer than in Portal 1, and arguably better too. Once that's over and done with, however, players can return to Aperture in the multiplayer. This mode is a standalone story starring two cute droids, Atlas and Peabody, who are sent testing by GlaDOS, and the series of puzzles they have to navigate depends on them working successfully as a team. While it may sound strange that a game offering such a successful solitary experience as Portal should include such a mode, it's actually delightful fun. Once again, the puzzles are well-balanced and brilliantly constructed and, GlaDOS has a new collection of insults.

Valve has created a masterpiece in Portal 2. The depth of content, the mind-bending mechanics and fantastic experience are almost certain to satisfy ardent fans of the first game; and to all newcomers to the series, it's as simple as this: prepare to have your mind blown. Over and over again.

• Game reviewed on Xbox 360

Rating: 5/5

Affordable Android is Facebook 'appy

The INQ Cloud Touch is a new generation in social mobile from the small UK company who practically invented the connected mobile social experience before everyone else jumped on board. These days there is no shortage of social integration across all mobile platforms, Android especially. So do INQ have what it takes to redefine that social mobile experience again in their popularly-dubbed “Facebook phone?”

INQ is all about detail and lifting the INQ Cloud Touch from the exquisite packaging makes this message clear: they are thinking differently. We don’t normally comment on packaging here on Pocket-lint, but the first word has to go to the box. It’s a box you’ll feel guilty about throwing away and in a world where first impressions count it gets the phone off to a good start, but it is only a box.?

The handset itself comes in a couple of colours and we had the white model, which screams Star Wars at us: its curves and contrasting black and white design make us think of an Imperial Stormtrooper and that’s no mistake. It’s no mistake either that the other handset screams Ferrari Red at you. Like the packaging, these phones are designed to be noticed. On our white handset we were almost disappointed to find it didn’t have OII stamped on the back.?

It is finished in plastic but it feels sturdy enough, certainly better than something like the Orange San Francisco when it comes to build quality, but not quite up to the more established HTC Wildfire S. It is pretty much free from creaks, but there is a hint of movement as you manipulate it in your hand. Sure, it won’t stand-up against some of the high-end devices when it comes to passing off that luxury look and feel, but this is an affordable device: it is designed to be cool and that it is.

Its affordable status is reflected in it’s overall size: measuring 114 x 62 x 13.1mm it is larger than many rivals. That’s not necessarily a negative point as there is something of a toy-like charm in its fun design. The bold controls across the bottom of the screen are a far cry from the subtle touch-buttons you’ll find elsewhere - they also shout out the phone’s identity, the home button replaced with INQ’s logo, flanked by menu and back controls.?

At first glance though, there is a lot of space that surrounding the screen: this isn’t a thin bezel design, but it feels comfortable in the hand. The 3.5-inch display is pretty generous for an affordable model, compared to the common 3.2-inch devices it competes with. That does highlight one issue, and that’s the low resolution and pixel density of the 480 x 320 display, offering 162ppi. The darling of affordable screens is the Orange San Francisco, or ZTE Blade, and we suspect the follow-up - the ZTE Skate will be a popular device offering bang for your few bucks when it comes to the display.

A lot can be forgiven on a device that is so affordable as it is competitive with many of its entry-level rivals. The status is reflected under the hood too, where you’ll find a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor. The same processor finds it’s way into a wide range of devices on this level, such as the HTC Salsa and ChaCha phones that also offer specific Facebook functionality, and the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Mini and Ace (although some devices are clocked at 800MHz).

Internal memory is minimal at only 140MB, which will very quickly dwindle. Of course you get to expand up to 32GB with microSD using but you’ll have to pay attention to where you download and install your apps - more increasingly you can install or move them to the external memory, which is well worth doing where possible.?

Other key specs include a 5-megapixel autofocus camera. INQ haven’t done anything to alter the camera over the stock experience, although you will find various settings to tweak the colour and white balance. The results are average and will be fine for sharing online, but it suffers from the normal problems of struggling with noisy images as the light drops and over-exposing when the conditions are bright. There is no flash.?

Video capture is offered at a limited 640 x 480 resolution and returns pretty much average results, again, fine for sharing online, but lacking the detail and fidelity of more expensive phones offering HD capture. Focus is fixed too, so don’t expect too much outside of casual candid video capture.

But the INQ Cloud Touch isn’t being pushed as a camera phone, or even as top tier device, so the compromises can be accepted as they lead to a more affordable device and being based on Android, it comes with most of the benefits of the Android ecosystem. You miss out on some of the niceties, like Adobe Flash video support, as the phone falls below Adobe’s specs, even though it arrives running on Android 2.2.?

What you do get, however, is one of the deepest and most considered approaches to Facebook integration that we’ve seen so far. The INQ Cloud Touch is synonymous with “Facebook phone”, the two terms being linked in the rumour mill before the truth become fully revealed. Facebook is given top-level visibility, with a number of widgets that feed you Facebook directly on your homepage. Of course, this being Android you can remove them and rearrange them if you don’t like what you see.?

Essentially the main Facebook features get their own widget: News, People, Events, Notifications and Places. Beyond this, INQ have also broken out Facebook Chat, Friends, Messages, News Feed, Notifications, Photos, Profile into direct shortcuts in the app menu (and on their customisable scrollable homescreen bar) so you can basically access any of the Facebook mobile features directly, without having to go back and forth around the Facebook app.?

The INQ Cloud Touch uses a combination of the regular Facebook for Android app and their own Facebook layers which are again linked. The mainstay of this on the homepage is the News widget which will give you live access to the links, videos and photos, either taking you to the Facebook app, or direct to the website for that link. It is a nice, in your face, easily snackable, way of serving up Facebook content from your friends without you having to do anything, but feels a little slow in use.

The other main Facebook widgets - People, Events, Notifications and Places - are mixed in their approach. As widgets they are live, so change when they have something to reflect (in the case of People, Events and Notifications) changing their image so you know there is something to look at. Places is essentially a link through to the existing Facebook Places area of the mobile app and Notifications takes you through to the homepage of the Facebook app, so you can access your notifications at the bottom of the page.

Events in fact opens up your calendar, which is your regular Android Calendar, but with the addition of Facebook birthdays and events integrated from Facebook. The People widget is more interesting, tying into INQ’s People app, which serves up a customised feed from your top friends on Facebook. Apon first opening the app it will auto-populate, giving you the opportunity to chop and change and select those people you want in there. It’s nice clean way of seeing what your friends have been up to. Again, it is really only a top-level offering however, as if you click on comments or the likes section it reverts you to the Facebook for Android corresponding page.

Facebook rolls into one other area of the INQ Cloud Touch user interface too and that’s the Contacts. Enter the Contacts and things are fairly regular - the option to skip across tabs to enter the dialler, call list or favourites, or browse your list of Contacts. If a contact is also a friend on Facebook, then their contact page changes to include extra tabs for access to their Facebook wall and photos. This additional information is on top of the normal integration that Android offers from the likes of Twitter and Skype.

That, in summary is Facebook on the INQ Cloud Touch. It’s a comprehensive approach but it isn’t all encompassing. We feel that the People app could potentially offer up some additional features and you could expand the stock Android gallery to include Facebook galleries, for example. However, for fans of Facebook, you’ll find that having a direct link to different features will serve you very well, especially if you are forever rooting through the mobile app to get to a particular section.

Before we look at other areas of the user interface it is worth mentioning the two shortcut buttons on the outside of the INQ Cloud Touch. The first is an info button that opens up an extremely useful page reflecting the status of your phone, covering useful things like alarm setting, Wi-Fi, battery, memory status and shortcut buttons to toggle vibrate, Bluetooth, GPS and so on. It’s the sort of functionality many manufacturers are adding to the notification bar on their homepage. It’s a great way to easily access settings, something that Android users are often doing.

The second external button is a direct music control. A long press will open up Spotify, which is the default music player on the phone. Thereafter pressing the button will pause the music - even when the screen is off - and a double tap will skip on a track which is a useful feature. If you have a Spotify account already, you can log in directly and make the most of their streaming music service and the Spotify app will also index any local music you have on the phone. It isn’t the best music player when it comes to dealing with local music however.

You’ll find the default Android Music player is in place that you can also use (which makes navigation of your local music collection a little simpler) although this isn’t tied into the external button - if you are using the stock Android Music player and you press the button, it will start playing from Spotify and we couldn’t figure out anyway of changing the priorities of that control button, which would be useful.

Throughout the user interface INQ have made little changes to make the phone distinctly theirs, for example changing the app icons. If this is your first Android phone it will probably be of no significance, but we couldn’t help thinking that the additional colour and detail added to the app icons was slightly overbearing: the mock Picasso gallery icon and the DSLR (with flash) for the camera seem to cram too much detail in too tight a space. There seem to be too many colours in play and we’re not sure that it quite hits the young and edgy intention square on.

One of the changes that INQ have made is to the lockscreen. It offers up three icons: unlock, camera and keyboard. This will let you basically jump into the camera or “INQ Type” straight away, which is a nice touch, but recently eclipsed by the customisable offering of the HTC Sensation and HTC Sense 3.0. It does segway neatly into the next area where INQ have made a change and that’s the keyboard.?

INQ Type that we’ve just mentioned is a neat little app that lets you type first and then figure out what to do with it. Accessed either from the homepage or via the app shortcut/icon, it offers up the keyboard so you can start typing, and then offers you three options: Google search, Share and Save (clipboard, contacts). The search and save options are exactly as they sound, but INQ have missed a trick with Share. As this is social mobile, the Facebook phone, you’d expect Share to offer you some sharing options. It doesn’t: it lets you send by SMS. The SMS sharing option appears as though it could be the first entry on a long list; we’d expect Facebook and Twitter updating to be here, currently they’re not, so it’s not as useful as it first appears.

The keyboard itself is pretty good however. INQ Type is based on TouchType’s tech, which is behind our favourite SwiftKey keyboard. That means that as you type you’ll be offered suggestions and more often than not you can just hit spacebar to accept the suggested word without having to bash everything out on the keyboard. The predictions are intelligent, not just offering the word you’re typing, but going on to offering what it thinks the next word might be.

The keyboard is a little small, and we get the feeling that without INQ Type the experience of using the phone would be for the worse: we found that it could be a little fiddly and it isn’t the fastest or most responsive display out there which can impact on text entry. That’s to be expected on this level of phone and at least the keyboard is ready to roll and make the best of things.?

Like the screen response, general navigation of the phone is typical for it’s specification. It is a little slow, but on the whole it seemed stable enough in operation, being mercifully free from crashes in our tests, although we did hit some errors from Facebook for INQ Mobile when restarting the phone. A selection of gestures are?available, so you can select actions for swipe up, swipe down and double tap. Usefully, you can use one of these to open the dialler, something that by default doesn't find itself represented on the default homescreen. Call quality was fine and we had no problems with call?quality. The external speaker is a little tinny, but we're neither surprised or bothered about that.

What doesn’t stand up so well, given it’s specification, is the battery life.?This took us by surprise as many entry-level devices cope better - smaller screens and lower power hardware draw less juice from the battery - although the INQ Cloud Touch’s display is a little on the dark side too. Even so, the INQ Cloud Touch left us with a dead battery mid afternoon on several occasions, which was somewhat unexpected. This is the sort of problem that can affect the likes of the HTC Desire HD or the LG Optimus 2X and we expect more from the INQ Cloud Touch’s battery life.

We also found the Wi-Fi sometimes needed prompting to be reliable. Far too often we started looking?something?up to find that it hadn't connected to our Wi-Fi network. Despite being logged in to both our home networks, it seemed to ignore them. INQ offer a Wi-Fi manager setting that is supposed to?intelligently detect when and where it should activate Wi-Fi, but we ended up turning it off.??

Verdict:

Overall the INQ Cloud Touch offers up an interesting twist on Android: this isn’t a copycat device, it is original in its design and there are some very positive benefits that INQ have brought to the table. The info button is really useful, the look and feel of the Facebook widgets make Facebook more immediate and if you’re a Spotify user then the direct Spotify control will bring a smile to your face.

However, there is scope to take this further and we believe that these things are already on the INQ radar. Social integration beyond Facebook seems a no brainer and we’d love to see some juicy Twitter widgets. INQ Type is begging for more functionality and it is easily added.?

Is it only for Facebook fans? Not necessarily, but the presentation of Facebook is one of the unique benefits that INQ offer you in Cloud Touch. If you fancy the phone because it is affordable you can easily remove many of the Facebook items if you don’t want them, but then you are left with a number of phones that offer a similar experience, with Spotify and SwiftKey available from?the?Android Market to reproduce some of what INQ have added here.

We’d love to see INQ tackle a higher-power device, weave a little magic into a more comprehensive multimedia offering, but as it is, the INQ Cloud Touch’s performance is befitting of its affordable price, even if its battery life isn’t.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones Android INQ Cloud Touch Facebook Spotify Inq

                                       

INQ Cloud Touch originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 15:09:48 +0100