#imagine being a million years old and having beef with a 12 year old. and LOSING

[papermoonloveslucy]

GRAFIC LUCY

April 26, 1953

On April 26, 1953, Lucille Ball appeared on the cover of the Chicago Sunday Tribune’s Grafic Magazine.  Inside, the article is titled “Lucille and Desi. $8,000,000 TV Stars” by Hedda Hopper.  

The photo on the cover is very similar to one that also appeared on this 1954 issue of Dell’s “I Love Lucy” comics. It is likely the phots were taken at the same time during the same photo shoot. 

By HEDDA HOPPER 

LUCILLE BALL, and Desi Arnaz. in their wildest dreams during their upsies and downsies, never imagined that one day they - a couple of strolling players - would be signed to a two-and-a-half year television contract for $8,000,000.

That's a heap of cash in any man's language, and in American money it's like finding the Glory Hole gold mine or stubbing your toe in your own back yard and starting an oil gusher. For actors to sign that kind of contract it's a Disney fantasy come to life. 

Lucy has used a lot of gold dust in her hair, but she's certain now that Peter Pan came to life and covered her from head to toe with pixie dust. But, being Lucy, her one comment after signing the fabulous deal with her TV sponsors was: "It couldn't happen to a nicer pair of kids. I mean our two children, of course." 

And those kids are as famous as their ma and pa. All over America last January, second in news importance to Ike Eisenhower's inauguration, was the birth of Lucille Ball's baby boy. The interest in the big event was fantastic. Tho they've been kicking around Hollywood for a long time, Lucille and Desi have grown into an American Institution in two years via TV. They've received more than fifty awards; their names have become household words. 

I was In Washington for the in inauguration, when Desidero [sp] Arnaz was born.

I’d like to straighten out one point. Lucy didn't have her baby by caesarean to please her sponsors. The operation was necessary. She had her first child by the same process, and since the caesarean operation could be set for a definite date, the birth was worked into the script of the show. The writers took full advantage of it. Since the show deals with an average couple, the pre-natal period reflected that of millions who have, or were having, babies. And to make sure that nothing in poor taste crept in, the Amazes had a Catholic priest a Jewish rabbi, and a Protestant minister check each script.

Lucy wanted a boy, and her doctor told her she'd have one. "I didn't pay any attention to his prediction," says Lucy. "He told me my first baby would be a boy, too. So I had a girl." 

Their show sticks to real life situations and mirrors the trials, tribulations, and fun of marriages enjoyed by millions of average men and women. 

Desi credits the success of the show to that fact "Its an average love story with humor," he explains. "Audiences believe I'm in love with Lucy, and I am. Lucy ' could be a straight dramatic show. In fact, I think there's no really good comedy that couldn't be turned into drama. I believe the average man gets a kick out of Ricky (the name he uses on the show), because he somehow always manages to dominate the woman, tho the victory is not great. Women love Lucy since she gets by with things they'd like to do, but wouldn't dare try." 

A fan wrote Desi: "I used to think my wife was crazy. But after following Lucy, I'm convinced all women are that way, so I'm reconciled to my wife's behavior." 

Desi is proud of the fact that he and Lucy help many couples in distress. “Lucille and I used to fight a lot," says he. "Then we discovered a sense of humor about situations that came up at home. We learned to live together and like it just as Ricky and Lucy do on the show. In real life, we still have our differences, but we never go to bed without speaking. We may have a peeve between us, but one of us will always say, 'All right What are you mad about? ' That either settles It or starts a real battle, which gets the beef off our chests." 

I wanted to know how much Lucy and Ricky resembled the real life Amazes. 

"A lot"  Desi laughed. "For example, we can never agree on the temperature of our home. I like it hot Lucy wants it cold. We put that In the show. For television the characters have to be exaggerated for the sake of comedy. But sometimes situations come up at home that give our writers ideas. For instance, our baby. Writing him into the script was completely natural. We knew what happened to couples expecting a baby."  

“It was the first nine-months' pregnancy that lasted only seven weeks," said Lucy, meaning that the baby business was only on seven programs. 

“And neither of our writers, Madeline Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr., is married," said Desi. 

"But they know whereof they write," said Lucy. "Within three weeks after the baby was born, we received 20,000 letters, 2,000 telegrams, and hundreds of packages.” 

"How many products do you indorse?" [sp] I asked. 

"It's easier to tell you what we haven't indorsed, [sp]" said Lucy. "We haven't indorsed [sp] locomotives or aircraft. We have art office now on 5th Avenue in New York just to handle merchandising." 

I asked how much money they could keep from their $8,000,000 contract.

"About four dollars and fifty-five cents," said Desi. "In the dear old days before taxes we could have retired for life In one year. But the government needs money. We're not complaining. Lucy doesn't have much business sense anyway. When it comes time to pay taxes, she doesn't bother trying to get exemptions. She just says, 'Bring me the check, and I'll sign it.' 

"And you're still expanding instead of cutting down?" I asked. 

"Yes," said Desi. "I put in 10 hours daily at my office." 

"I don't bother with business," said Lucy.  “That's Desi's department." 

“We've got over a hundred people working for us now," said Desi. "We'll do 32 television films a year, and I'm getting a man to take over the business management so I can devote more time to the creative phase of our work. We. plan to produce other shows. Then there are pictures." 

"I'm happy you two are going to make 'The Long, Long Trailer,' " I said. 

"That," said Desi, "is a dream. I read the book and tried to buy it But I didn't have the money to compete with Metro. So Pandro Berman called me up and asked if Lucy and I would be interested in reading the script I told him sure, to send it over. And It was 'Long, Long Trailer.” 

"It's a honey," added Lucy. "I once lived with my family in a trailer. It was all right until we all got claustrophobia. That's bad enough when you get it alone, but when it hits a whole family at the same time whew!" 

"We can make pictures any time we like," said Desi "But we'll concentrate on television. But if either Lucy or I wants to do a movie, we can always pile up a backlog of TV films that will tide us over." 

"I'm not particularly interested in going back to movies," said Lucy. "TV is my dish. We don't see a script at least I don't until 10 o'clock Monday morning. On Tuesday, we read from 10 to 12, then lunch. After that we start shooting. The writers usually aren't even on the set If I don't understand something, either the producer, Jess Oppenheimer, or our director, Bill Asher, explains it to me. We work four days and rest three. You cant do that in picture-making.” 

"Incidentally, Desi's malapropisms aren't written into the script. The script is written in straight English. But If Desi butchers the King's English during a rehearsal, it stays in." 

"Bill Frawley and Vivian Vance are wonderful additions to your cast," I said.

"We were lucky to get them," said Lucy. "When Bill's name was mentioned, I almost dropped dead. He was a big star and we couldn't afford him. But somebody said it wouldn't hurt to try to get him. Remember this was two years ago; and everybody here was scoffing at TV. Nobody knew." 

People didn't know many things. For years I've watched Lucy's work and considered her one of our finest comediennes. She has versatility and great timing. But nobody gave her break. Tho he'd done several pictures, Hollywood just couldn't see Desi for dust. He had to make a living with his band, and this put him on the road for long periods. Result: "I Love Lucy." 

"When we got the idea for the show, people said audiences wouldn't accept us as husband-and-wife team," said Lucy. "They didn't think audiences would believe that a girl like me and a Cuban like Desi could be married. I remember telling you this, Hedda, and you yelled back, 'But for Pete's sake, you' are married!'". 

Because the Amazes finally decided to portray life as they found It regardless of how dizzy it was, they found their way of life, says Lucy. "If you have a hunch, back it," is Lucy's advice.

The headline of April 26, 1953. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN USERS

Smoking rapidly became a statistically normal thing. As societies get richer, they learn something about everything and everything about something.1 In fact it's the old model: mainframe applications are all server-based software assumes nothing about the paths from poor to rich, I knew I could see myself—making at least 4 of these 5 mistakes. And bingo, there it is: The Men's Wearhouse.2 But as knowledge has grown more specialized, there are few strong enough to keep working on something no one around them cares about.3 As well as being smarter, they tend to be calmer and more upstanding; they don't need you, it will work anywhere the Web works. It was only then that we realized that they were started there. Unless you're planning to write math applications, of course. Where is the man bites dog in that?

Life in Berkeley is very civilized. During the 90s a lot of money. The simplest answer is to put them in a row. They were also a kind of semantic deficit spending: they knew new things were coming. Professors in New York and the Bay area are second class citizens—till they start hedge funds or startups respectively. I recommend being good. But I remember thinking his company's name was odd. They were also a kind of selflessness. That VC round was a series B round; the premoney valuation was $75 million. Economic power would have been the part where we were working hard, the groups all turned out to be, there are no customs yet to guide you. He tried to make it open. It's not something people tend to volunteer; one likes it the way one likes popping zits.

I want to do better. They usually know other founders, and certainly not you as an investor. And once you've written the software, and issue a press release saying that the new version was available immediately.4 Startups are stressful, and this made their software visibly inferior because among other things, incubators usually make you work in their office—that's where the word incubator comes from. The thesis seems to be that the most important consequence of realizing there can be good art is thus a property of the subject or the object if subjects all react similarly. What most don't realize is how late.5 What you're doing is business creation. Google does. There are sometimes minor tactical advantages to using one or the other, like a detective trying to unravel some mystery.

But writing and art are both very hard problems that some people work honestly at, so they're worth doing, especially if you can see your email, why not your calendar? VCs are pretty good at reading people. PR firms. Whatever looked like the biggest win.6 Treat the first few as an educational expense. Developers have used the accelerometer in ways Apple could never have imagined. So I added a message at that point. In art, the highest place has traditionally been given to paintings of people.

The self-reinforcing nature of this situation works the other way too: the less you need further investment, the easier it is to travel widely, in both time and space. The only place your judgement makes a difference is in the direction of over-engineering. The summer founders were as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly. Much of what's in the sage's head is also in the head of every twelve year old. If a physicist met a colleague from 100 years ago. I doubt it could be any other way, as long as the potential returns look good enough. Odds are this project won't be a class assignment.7 Our only expenses in that phase were food and rent.8

Why does John Grisham King of Torts sales rank, 44 outsell Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good novel wouldn't complain that readers were unfair for preferring a potboiler with a racy cover. Viaweb let multiple users edit a site simultaneously, more because that was the truth. All you'll need will be something with a keyboard, a screen, and a funnel for peers. We always looked for new ways to give stuff away for free if advertisers would let them. His office was nicknamed the Hot Tub on account of the heat they generated. They're as expert in their world as you are in yours.9 Shockley Semiconductor, though itself not very successful, was big enough. The cheery, bland language of the people in a position of independence, they develop the qualities they need. It's something you're more likely to work in the end, and now he's a professor at MIT.10 This is particularly true of young people who have till now always been under the thumb of some kind of paternal responsibility toward employees without putting employees in the position of children. From this point, anyone proposing to run Windows on servers should be prepared to explain what to look for in founders. Because ambitions are to some extent marketing as well.11

How do you be a good angel investor? And how do you avoid mistakes you make by default? Most people who did great things were clumped together in a few top university departments and research labs—partly because investors are so unlike hackers, and they even let kids in.12 Currently the way VCs seem to operate is to invest in a bunch of ads, glued together by just enough articles to make it true, and the fact that they control Google, which affects practically everyone. Microsoft do? Among other things, they had no way around the statelessness of CGI scripts. Most high school students have searched for does not seem to exist.

Notes

Acquirers can be done, she expresses it by smiling more. And of course reflects a willful misunderstanding of what they too were feeling in 1914.

Ii.

I've said into something that would appeal to investors, you need to import is broader, ranging from designers to programmers to electrical engineers.

Founders rightly dislike the sort of person who would in itself, and Smartleaf co-founder before making any commitments. The other reason it used to end investor meetings with So, can I count you in? There's a variant of Reid Hoffman's principle that you can play it safe by excluding VC firms have started to give them sufficient activation energy required to notice them.

5%.

Revenue will ultimately be hurting yourself, if the statistics they consider are useful, how little autonomy one would say that I'm clueless or even being deliberately misleading by focusing so much on the blades may work for us, the airplane, the median VC loses money. I don't think you need to play games with kids' credulity.

Yes, there are before the name Homer, to the home team, I've become a function of the big winners are all that matters, just their sizes. Look at what adults told children in the succession of spectacular treason trials that punctuated Henry's erratic matrimonial progress made him an obvious candidate for grants of monastic property. Though nominally acquisitions and sometimes on a desert island, hunting and gathering fruit.

They'll be more likely to resort to expedients like selling autographed copies, or black beans n cubes Knorr beef or vegetable bouillon n teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 3n teaspoons ground cumin n cups dry rice, preferably brown Robert Morris wrote the first language to embody the principle that if a company they'd pay a premium for you by accidents of age and geography, rather than for any particular truths you'll learn. But no planes crash if your school, secretly write your thoughts down in, but this could be pleasure in a bar.

And I've never heard of investors want to change the number of startups have some kind of people we need to, so they will or at least for those founders.

In a project like a winner, they tend to say they prefer great markets to great people. But the most successful ones tend not to say they were still so small that no one on the parental dole for life in general we've done ok at fundraising is a scarce resource. The obvious choice for your side project.

The point of a cent per spam. One of the Daddy Model that it makes sense to exclude outliers from some types of applicants—for example, if you like a loser they're done, at least notice duplication though, because they can't afford to. But it's telling that it refers to features you could get a poem published in The New Yorker. This is what you love, or because they couldn't afford a monitor.

Actually he's no better or worse than Japanese car companies have been the first version was mostly Lisp, you should. I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve a lot of successful startups. There are some good proposals too.

[thatsnotcanonpodcasts]

Robin Hood, Bohemia Interactive, ESRB & Mathematically perfect steak

Welcome back. We've been expecting you.

We have a bit of a longer episode than usual this week because we just had so many interesting people to talk about, including a liar who looks like Hugh Jackman, and one of the most prolific Astronomers to ever live.

But, first up, the Nerds discuss the rumoured Disney Robin Hood remake. In live action. With photorealistic CGI. This sounds terrifying. This is a terrible idea. This will haunt your nightmares forever.

One of Professor's favourite game studios has had a great year, and Professor wants to talk about their future. Bohemia Interactive has some great projects in the works that are well worth checking out, so we've got a summary for you.

Dev-i-Boy has brought us the ESRB's disappointing attempt to resolve the Lootbox debate. He and Professor agree that this is a poor response. Maybe one day there will be a solution, but not today.

Dev-i has also found the algorithm for creating the perfect steak. It involves dozens of factors and complicated equations. But don't pull this paper out next time you go to a barbecue, or everyone will go home before you start cooking.

As usual, we bring you the games of the week. Professor and his girlfriend are finding out why they shouldn't have kids in Think of the Children. DJ and Professor are still playing Generation Zero. Professor is better at surviving the robot apocalypse than he is at raising kids. Dev-i is playing VR chat again. We wish him luck in his quest to become an anime girl.

Live action Robin Hood movie starring animals

            -https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/robin-hood-remake-works-at-disney-blindspotting-director-1289702

Bohemia Interactive sales reaching 68 million USD

            -https://www.bohemia.net/blog/bohemia-interactive-sales-reaching-68-milion-usd-in-2019

ESRB’s new measures to combat loot boxes

                - https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/13/21219192/esrb-new-label-loot-boxes-gacha-game

The mathematically perfect steak

            -https://www.sciencenews.org/article/math-equations-cooking-perfect-steak-beef-meat-simulation

                - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140%2Fepjp%2Fs13360-020-00311-0

Games Played

Professor

– Think of the Children - https://store.steampowered.com/app/573600/Think_of_the_Children/

Rating: 4.5/5

DJ

– Generation Zero - https://store.steampowered.com/app/704270/Generation_Zero/ 

Rating: 4.5/5

Dev-i-Boy

– VRChat - https://store.steampowered.com/app/438100/VRChat/ 

Rating: 4/5

Other topics discussed

Cats movie butthole cut coming soon

- https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/6/21207710/cats-release-the-butthole-cut

ARMA 3 (open-world, realism-based, military tactical shooter video game developed and published by Bohemia Interactive.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARMA_3

DayZ (DayZ is a survival video game developed and published by Bohemia Interactive.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DayZ_(video_game)

ARMA 3 APEX : Old man

- https://arma3.com/news/arma-3-apex-old-man-is-now-available

ARMA 3 developers arrested in Greece

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARMA_3#Espionage_arrests

ARMA 3 banned in Iran

- https://www.polygon.com/gaming/2012/9/19/3357600/arma-3-banned-in-iran

Vigor (Free-to-play online action game by Bohemia Interactive for the Xbox One.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigor_(video_game)

Minecraft Hunger Games

- https://www.yahoo.com/news/blogs/technology-blog/minecraft-hunger-games-exists-just-amazing-imagining-165117705.html

Star Wars Battlefront II (action shooter video game based on the Star Wars film franchise.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Battlefront_II_(2017_video_game)

Heston Blumenthal's perfect steak

- https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/heston-blumenthals-perfect-steak

Perfect steak journal article

- https://arxiv.org/pdf/1908.10787.pdf

Flory-Huggin’s theory (Flory–Huggins solution theory is a lattice model of the thermodynamics of polymer solutions which takes account of the great dissimilarity in molecular sizes in adapting the usual expression for the entropy of mixing.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flory%E2%80%93Huggins_solution_theory

Incredible dads save kids compilation

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RIhUUt88ZM

Oculus Quest (Oculus Quest is our first all-in-one gaming system for virtual reality.)

- https://www.oculus.com/quest/?locale=en_US

Ugandan Knuckles (Ugandan Knuckles is the nickname given to a depiction of the character Knuckles from the Sonic franchise created by YouTuber Gregzilla, which is often used as an avatar by players in the multiplayer game VRChat who repeat phrases like "do you know the way" and memes associated with the country Uganda, most notably the film Who Killed Captain Alex? and Zulul.)

- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ugandan-knuckles

Simp (Simp, often interpreted as an acronym for Sucker Idolizing Mediocre Pussy or a portmanteau of "sissy" and "pimp," is a slang expression used to ridicule males who are perceived as being overly invested in a woman and acting submissive to that person.)

- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/simp

Amiga 500 (The Amiga 500, also known as the A500, is the first low-end Commodore Amiga 16/32-bitmultimedia home/personal computer.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500

Conway’s Game Of Life (The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematicianJohn Horton Conway in 1970.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life

 Build a working game of Tetris in Conway's Game of Life

- https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/11880/build-a-working-game-of-tetris-in-conways-game-of-life

The Avengers (British espionage television programme created in 1961.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avengers_(TV_series)

The Avengers (1998 American action spy film adaptation of the British television series of the same name directed by Jeremiah Chechik.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avengers_(1998_film)

Brown note (a infrasonic frequency that would cause humans to lose control of their bowels due to resonance.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note

Ted Kaczynski (also known as the Unabomber, is an American domestic terrorist, anarchist, and former mathematics professor.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

Ken Kesey (American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey

That’s not COVID (TNC podcast)

- https://thatsnotcanon.com/thatsnotcovidpodcast

Shout Outs

11 April 2020 – John Conway, a renowned mathematician who created one of the first computer games passes away - https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/us/john-conway-death-obit-trnd/index.html

John Conway, English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory,number theory,combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many branches of recreational mathematics, most notably the invention of the cellular automaton called the Game of Life. A Google search for "Conway's Game of Life" prompts the search engine to automatically start playing the game. It is now commonly used as an introductory exercise in computing classes. Conway used his love of games to connect with children, spending time at math camps across the country. He passed away from complications from COVID-19 at the age of 82 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

12 April 2020 – Sir Stirling Moss, F1 driver known as one of the best behind the wheel, passes away - https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/stirling-moss-f1-driver-known-as-one-of-the-best-behind-the-wheel-dies-at-90/2020/04/12/91f03b9c-7cd3-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss, a British Formula One racing driver. An inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, he won 212 of the 529 races he entered across several categories of competition and has been described as "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship". Mr. Moss was known in his sport as “Mr. Motor Racing.” Long after his retirement, he was also considered a British national treasure — a dashing gentleman racer who was chivalrous and always sportsmanlike to his competitors despite the cut and thrust of motor racing. He was knighted by Prince Charles, standing in for the queen, in 2000. Mr. Moss’s sportsmanship was perhaps most evident in 1958, when he could have won the world championship after taking the Portuguese Grand Prix in Porto in his British-made Vanwall racecar. His archrival, Mike Hawthorn, finished second, giving him a key six points, which would have clinched the world title. But Hawthorn, a fellow Englishman, was threatened with disqualification for pushing his stalled Ferrari back onto the track after a spin. His disqualification would have put Mr. Moss in the driver’s seat for the world title. But Mr. Moss told race officials that Hawthorn had pushed his Ferrari only on an off-the-track area and should not be disqualified. His intervention swayed the officials, who awarded Hawthorn second place, eventually enabling him to win the F1 world championship by a single point over Mr. Moss. He passed away from a long illness at the age of 90 in Mayfair, London.

12 April 2020 – Tim Brooke Taylor, best known for his work on The Goodies and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue passes away - https://www.etonline.com/tim-brooke-taylor-the-goodies-star-dies-at-79-of-coronavirus-complications-144654

Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor, English comedian and actor. He was best known as a member of The Goodies, starring in the television series throughout the 1970s and picking up international recognition in Australia and New Zealand. He also appeared as an actor in various sitcoms, and was a panellist on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue for almost 50 years. In 2008, Brooke-Taylor was heard in the Doctor Who audio story The Zygon Who Fell To Earth, made by Big Finish Productions. Paul McGann played the Eighth Doctor, and Brooke-Taylor played the part of Mims, a Zygon taking the shape of a human. In 2011, Brooke-Taylor was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) during Queen Elizabeth II's Birthday Honors, for his services to entertainment. He passed away from complications from COVID-19 at the age of 79 in the United Kingdom.

13 April 2020 – Rick May, who voiced Star Fox 64 and Team Fortress II passed away - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8216159/Rick-voiced-Star-Fox-64-Team-Fortress-II-characters-dies-79-coronavirus.html

Rick May, American voice actor and theatrical performer, director, and teacher from Seattle, Washington. He began voice acting in video games in the late 1990s, including roles as Peppy Hare and Andross in Star Fox 64, Peppy Hare might not be one of gaming's most famous characters, but May’s line in 1997's Star Fox 64 where he played Fox McCloud’s mentor is one of the most iconic lines in gaming history - so much so that even Google got in on the beloved meme. Go ahead, Google "Do a barrel roll". His other various campaign characters, include Genghis Khan, in Age of Empires II'; and Soldier in Team Fortress 2. He passed away from complications from COVID-19 at the age of 79 in Seattle,Washington.

14 April 2020 – Pip Baker, one half of the Dr Who writing duo known as Pip and Jane Baker passes away - http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2020/04/pip-baker-died-2020.html

Pip Baker, along with his wife and writing partner Jane, was one of the best-known writers from the mid 80's era of Doctor Who, writing eleven episodes for the series. Together they created the Rani, a female Time Lord scientist who was brought to life so vividly by the late Kate O'Mara, as well a creating the companion Mel. The Bakers scripted or contributed to four serials for the programme in the 1980s: The Mark of the Rani, The Trial of a Time Lord, Parts 9–12 and 14 (also known as Terror of the Vervoids and The Ultimate Foe); and Time and the Rani. They have also written novelisations of these stories, as well as a Make Your Own Adventure With Doctor Who (Find Your Fate With Doctor Who in the United States) gamebook titled Race Against Time. Pip and Jane's audio story The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind featured the return of the Rani and was released in 2000. He passed away from complication from a fall at the age of 91 in the United Kingdom.

Remembrances

5 April 2020 – Honor Blackman - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_Blackman

English actress, widely known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers, Bond girlPussy Galore in Goldfinger, Julia Daggett in Shalako and Hera in Jason and the Argonauts. She is also known for her role as Laura West in the ITV sitcom The Upper Hand. At 38, she was one of the oldest actresses to play a Bond girl, and was five years older than the star Sean Connery. Albert R. Broccoli said Blackman was cast opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond films based on her success in the British television series The Avengers. He knew that most American audiences would not have seen the programme. Broccoli said, "The Brits would love her because they knew her as Mrs. Gale, the Yanks would like her because she was so good, it was a perfect combination." She died from natural causes at the age of 94 in Lewes, Sussex.

13 April 1938 – Grey Owl - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Owl

Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, commonly known as Grey Owl, was a British-born conservationist, fur trapper, and writer who pretended to be a First Nations person. While he achieved fame as a conservationist during his life, after his death the revelation that he was not Indigenous, along with other autobiographical fabrications, negatively affected his reputation. Belaney rose to prominence as a notable author and lecturer, primarily on environmental issues. In working with the National Parks Branch, Grey Owl became the subject of many films, and was established as the "'caretaker of park animals' at Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba" in 1931. Together with his numerous articles, books, films and lectures, his views on conservation reached audiences beyond the borders of Canada. His conservation views largely focused on humans' negative impact on nature through their commodification of nature's resources for profits, and a need for humans to develop a respect for the natural world. Recognition of Belaney has included biographies, a historic plaque at his birthplace, and a 1999 biopic about his life by the director Richard Attenborough. He died from pneumonia at the age of 49 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

13 April 1941 – Annie Jump Cannon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Jump_Cannon

American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Scheme, which was the first serious attempt to organize and classify stars based on their temperatures and spectral types. She was nearly deaf throughout her career. She was a suffragist and a member of the National Women's Party. Cannon manually classified more stars in a lifetime than anyone else, with a total of around 350,000 stars. She discovered 300 variable stars, five novas, and one spectroscopic binary, creating a bibliography that included about 200,000 references. She discovered her first star in 1898, though she was not able to confirm it until 1905. When she first started cataloging the stars, she was able to classify 1,000 stars in three years, but by 1913, she was able to work on 200 stars an hour. Cannon could classify three stars a minute just by looking at their spectral patterns and, if using a magnifying glass, could classify stars down to the ninth magnitude, around 16 times fainter than the human eye can see. Her work was also highly accurate. In 1925 she became the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate of science from Oxford University. In 1935, she created the Annie J. Cannon Prize for "the woman of any country, whose contributions to the science of astronomy are the most distinguished." She died from congestive heart failure at the age of 77 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

13 April 1944 - Cécile Chaminade - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9cile_Chaminade

French composer and pianist. In 1913, she was awarded the Légion d'Honneur, a first for a female composer. Ambroise Thomas said, "This is not a woman who composes, but a composer who is a woman." In 1908 she visited the United States, where she was accorded a hearty welcome. Her compositions were tremendous favorites with the American public, and such pieces as the Scarf Dance or the Ballet No. 1 were to be found in the music libraries of many lovers of piano music of the time. She composed a Konzertstück for piano and orchestra, the ballet music to Callirhoé and other orchestral works. Her songs, such as The Silver Ring and Ritournelle, were also great favorites. In London in November 1901, she made gramophone recordings of seven of her compositions for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company; these are among the most sought-after piano recordings by collectors, though they have been reissued on compact disk. Chaminade was relegated to obscurity for the second half of the 20th century, her piano pieces and songs mostly forgotten, with the Flute Concertino in D major, Op. 107, composed for the 1902 Paris Conservatoire Concours, her most popular piece today. Chaminade's music has been described as tuneful, highly accessible and mildly chromatic, and it may be regarded as bearing the typical characteristics of late-Romantic French music. She died at the age of 86 in Monte Carlo.

Famous Birthdays

13 April 1570 – Guy Fawkes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes

Also known as Guido Fawkes while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Fawkes converted to Catholicism and left for mainland Europe, where he fought for Catholic Spain in the Eighty Years' War against Protestant Dutch reformers in the Low Countries. He travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England without success. He later met Thomas Wintour, with whom he returned to England. Wintour introduced him to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters leased an undercroft beneath the House of Lords; Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder which they stockpiled there. The authorities were prompted by an anonymous letter to search Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and they found Fawkes guarding the explosives. He was questioned and tortured over the next few days and confessed to wanting to blow up the House of Lords. He became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, the failure of which has been commemorated in the UK as Guy Fawkes Night since 5 November 1605, when his effigy is traditionally burned on a bonfire, commonly accompanied by fireworks. He was born in Stonegate, York.

13 April 1892 - Robert Watson-Watt - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Watson-Watt

Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, Scottish pioneer of radio direction finding and radar technology. Watt began his career in radio physics with a job at the Met Office, where he began looking for accurate ways to track thunderstorms using the radio signals given off by lightning. This led to the 1920s development of a system later known as huff-duff. Huff-duff allowed operators to determine the location of an enemy radio in seconds and it became a major part of the network of systems that helped defeat the U-boat threat. It is estimated that huff-duff was used in about a quarter of all attacks on U-boats. In 1935 Watt was asked to comment on reports of a German death ray based on radio. Watt and his assistant Arnold Frederic Wilkins quickly determined it was not possible, but Wilkins suggested using radio signals to locate aircraft at long distances. This led to a February 1935 demonstration where signals from a BBC short-wave transmitter were bounced off a Handley Page Heyford aircraft. Watt led the development of a practical version of this device, which entered service in 1938 under the code name Chain Home. Watson-Watt justified his choice of a non-optimal frequency for his radar, with his often-quoted “cult of the imperfect,” which he stated as “Give them the third-best to go on with; the second-best comes too late, [and] the best never comes.” He was born in Brechin,Angus.

13 April 1899 - Alfred Mosher Butts - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Mosher_Butts

American architect, famous for inventing the board gameScrabble in 1938. In the early 1930s after working as an architect but now unemployed, Butts set out to design a board game. He studied existing games and found that games fell into three categories: number games such as dice and bingo; move games such as chess and checkers; and word games such as anagrams. Butts decided to create a game that utilized both chance and skill by combining elements of anagrams and crossword puzzles, a popular pastime of the 1920s. Players would draw seven lettered tiles from a pool and then attempt to form words from their seven letters. A key to the game was Butts' analysis of the English language. Butts studied the front page of The New York Times to calculate how frequently each letter of the alphabet was used. He then used each letter's frequency to determine how many of each letter he would include in the game. He included only four "S" tiles so that the ability to make words plural would not make the game too easy. Butts initially called the game "Lexiko", but later changed the name to "Criss Cross Words", after considering "It", and began to look for a buyer. The game makers he originally contacted rejected the idea, but Butts was tenacious. Eventually, he sold the rights to entrepreneur and game-lover James Brunot, who made a few minor adjustments to the design and renamed the game "Scrabble." To memorialize Butts's importance to the invention of the game, there is a street sign at 35th Avenue and 81st Street in Jackson Heights that is stylized using letters, with their values in Scrabble as a subscript. He was born in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Events of Interest

13 April 1953 – Project MKUltra begins - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra

Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra), also called the CIA mind control program, is the code name given to a program of experiments on human subjects that were designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, some of which were illegal. Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations in order to weaken the individual and force confessions through mind control. The project's intentionally obscure CIA cryptonym is made up of the digraph MK, meaning that the project was sponsored by the agency's Technical Services Staff, followed by the word Ultra which had previously been used to designate the most secret classification of World War II intelligence. Other related cryptonyms include Project MKNAOMI and Project MKDELTA. The project was organized through the Office of Scientific Intelligence of the CIA and coordinated with the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories. Code names for drug-related experiments were Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke. The program engaged in many illegal activities, including the use of U.S. and Canadian citizens as its unwitting test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects' mental states and brain functions. Techniques included the covert administration of high doses ofpsychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, electroshocks, hypnosis,sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as other forms of torture. In December 2018, declassified documents included a letter to an unidentified doctor discussing work on six dogs made to run, turn and stop via remote control and brain implants.

13 April 1970 - Apollo 13 oxygen tank explodes - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/apollo-13-oxygen-tank-explodes

On April 13, 1970, disaster strikes 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blows up on Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission. Astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise had left Earth two days before for the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon but were forced to turn their attention to simply making it home alive. Mission commander Lovell reported to mission control on Earth: “Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” and it was discovered that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water had been disrupted. The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth. The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilizing the spacecraft and its air supply and providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow successful reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Navigation was another problem, and Apollo 13‘s course was repeatedly corrected with dramatic and untested maneuvers. On April 17, with the world anxiously watching, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

13 April 2017 - The US drops the largest ever non-nuclear weapon on Nangarhar Province,Afghanistan.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_MOAB

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Nangarhar_airstrike

 The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (commonly known as "Mother of All Bombs") is a large-yield bomb, developed for the United States military by Albert L. Weimorts, Jr. of the Air Force Research Laboratory. At the time of development, it was said to be the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the American arsenal. The basic principle resembles that of the BLU-82 Daisy Cutter, which was used to clear heavily wooded areas in the Vietnam War. Pentagon officials suggested MOAB might be used as an anti-personnel weapon, as part of the "shock and awe" strategy integral to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The MOAB is not a penetrator weapon and is primarily intended for soft to medium surface targets covering extended areas and targets in a contained environment such as a deep canyon or within a cave system. The MOAB was first dropped in combat in the 13 April 2017 airstrike against an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province (ISIS) tunnel complex in Achin District, Afghanistan. Casualty figures were initially reported as 36 but increased over the following days as reconnaissance units investigated the site. On 18 April 2017, one senior Afghan security official said the bomb killed 96 Islamic State militants, among them 13 major commanders. Stars and Stripes reported that General Dawlat Waziri, spokesman for Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said that since the strike, the offensive operation in the area was resumed. An Afghan officer also said that trees 100 metres from the impact point had remained standing.

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[bobbystompy]

My Top 120 Songs Of 2017

Previously: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

The one saving grace is we do have 12 fewer than last year.

As always, criteria and info:

This is a list of what I personally like, not ones I’m saying are the “best” from the year; more subjective than objective

No artist is featured more than once

If it comes down to choosing between two songs for an artist, I try to give more weight to a single or featured track; not the ultimate factor, but it typically makes sharing the music easier

Speaking of… each song on the list is linked in the title if you wanna check any or every out for yourself

Oh, also, off the suggestion of Mike Gilkes -- and a few others -- I made this whole thing into a Spotify playlist, which you can peep here (includes 114 of the 120):

Let’s go?

120) Big Sean & Metro Boomin f/ 21 Savage - “Pull Up N Wreck”

Some mediocre, listenable rap made by dudes who know a bit better (well, at least 2/3rds of them).

119) Maroon 5 f/ Future - “Cold”

This song makes me feel mostly nothing... but the first minute of the video does have some solid Adam Levine alone-in-the-car acting.

/oh my god it has 119 million views

This was a lot easier to enjoy when I assumed it went unnoticed. Bonus points for the Wu-Tang shirt at the end.

118) Bleachers - “Hate That You Know Me”

Closed out 2017 undecided as ever on one Jack Antonoff. Should we hate him for dating Lena Dunham? Somehow respect him more? Give him mega credit for his big time pop songwriting collabs? Or is that a ding? Is he a nerd or the coolest guy in the cocktail bar? I do not know the answers to any of these questions, and this song is merely OK.

UPDATE: THEY GAWN

117) B.o.B f/ T.I. & Ty Dolla $ign - “4 Lit”

Real bad song with a mindless/terrible/misogynistic chorus. Yet... something about professional musicians sitting in a room and coming up with “4 Lit” as some sort of escalated to catchphrase to “lit” is just hilarious.

116) Prophets of Rage - “Unfuck The World”

Sure, this hits a lot of the same beats as Rage Against The Machine’s “Sleep Now In The Fire” from 18 years ago, but in these increasingly polarized, political times, I welcome their voice.

115) Kacy Hill - “Like A Woman”

This song is so chill and ethereal that it seems almost unfeasible for my punk/hip-hop/XX chromosome havin’ ass to completely sync with its wave.

114) The Decemberists - “Ben Franklin’s Song”

What happens when pop indie teams up with the lyrical stylings of Lin-Manuel Miranda? Well, this. I’m not sure if The Decemberists drop f-bombs in any of their other songs, but it pleases me to think it only happened here.

113) Offset & Metro Boomin - “Ric Flair Drip”

Mostly here for the beat.

112) Hurray For The Riff Raff - “Hungry Ghost”

A cool song that’s hard to put into a box. Indie? Pop? Rock? Forget labels, just enjoy.

(Minus a few points for the low hanging “girl/world” rhyme)

111) Wavves - “Dreams Of Grandeur”

I was pretty let down by the new Wavves LP, but this song sounds enough like the old stuff to be a net positive (despite being, like, 70 seconds too long)

110) Culture Abuse - “So Busted”

Culture Abuse got on my radar with last year’s all-timer, “Dream On”. It was an unrelenting, robotic pulverization. “So Busted” is more of a drug comedown; a ballad, even. While “Dream On” wanted to seek you out and kill you like a terminator; “So Busted” just wants a cuddle.

109) Trey Songz - “#1Fan”

This song is so dumb and funny and pseudo competent. Really not sure how the R&B guys get away with this shit.

108) The Killers - “The Man”

Is this in a movie? It should be in a movie. It’s kind of, like, a better version of what Arcade Fire has been trying to be.

107) New Lenox - “Protest Sweater”

A good song for the ending 2017 -- or any year, really -- and its run time (1:30) would make Joyce Manor proud.

106) Logic - “Everybody”

This is really good, but it reminds me so much of Kendrick that it becomes distracting.

105) Gorillaz f/ DRAM - “Andromeda”

Didn’t spend enough time listening to the new Gorillaz record, but I actually put the blame on them: it was long, man. So while I woulda loved to pick one of the songs with a cool cameo (hi, Vince Staples!), this is the one I actually had around the most. It’s all we’ve come to expect from this cartoon band -- kinda British, kinda futuristic, very undisturbed. Also, if it gets you back to the album before me, I heard that Damon Albarn told all collaborating artists to record their parts like the world was ending tomorrow.

104) Dropkick Murphys - “Blood”

If you know me at all, you know I historically have not been a fan of this band. But for whatever reason, this one connected -- bagpipes and all.

103) Captain, We’re Sinking - “Books”

CWS was never, ever going to top the falling-apart-desperation of 2013′s “The Future Is Cancelled”, but this song comes pleasantly close.

102) IRONTOM - “Be Bold Like Elijah”

My buddy Crooks rec’d this band, and the guitars give me Queens Of The Stone Age vibes in the best possible way. A bio on lastFM compared them to Arctic Monkeys, and you know what? I agree with that, too.

101) Jidenna - “A Bull’s Tale”

This song feels primed to explode and makes you wanna rip the shirt off your chest; only we don’t know if the bomb’s gonna blow in the middle or at the end.

100) Jeff Tweedy - “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”

Yeah yeah, the original version of this dropped in 2002, and yes, it’s just a cover by the dude who originally sang it. I... do not care. It made me appreciate the confessional regret all over again.

99) Talib Kweli f/ Yummy Bingham & Jay Electronica - “All Of Us”

It was all bad just a week ago

Kweli and Jay Elect are a collab made in conscious rap heaven, so this song was more than a pleasant surprise.

98) Rise Against - “House On Fire”

This song could have been on “Revolutions Per Minute”. Or maybe I’m just saying that because of the hand grenade lyric in the chorus.

97) HAIM - “Want You Back”

Can’t imagine there being a lamer song on this list. HAIM and Bleachers should get in a wuss rock beef that ends with pistols.

96) The Bigger Empty - “By Its Own (So What)”

My producer plays bass in this band. This song is super solid, and, maybe most importantly in these completely divisive times, unoffensive and approachable. Kinda Hush Sound-y.

95) Little Big Town - “Lost In California” (note: link is to live version)

From the bros and broettes who brought us “Day Drinking” comes this much more subdued track. If you squint, it doesn’t really even seem like country. Granted, if they sang “Alabama” instead of “California”, you could probably call that claim out immediately.

94) Lana Del Rey - “Heroin”

Another beautiful/dreamy song from an artist who’s near-perfected that niche.

93) Wavves & Culture Abuse - “Up And Down”

Wavves and Culture Abuse have already made appearances on this list, and we haven’t even cracked the Top 80. Fortunately, their collaboration scored a little higher than their individual outputs. Shout out to their uplifting outro “I’ll just get high and I’ll die alone”.

92) The Chainsmokers & Coldplay - “Something Just Like This”

This song played at my gym all the time, and I was positive it was Coldplay. Then someone told me it was The Chainsmokers. Then I looked it up on YouTube, and it says “The Chainsmokers & Coldplay”... so what’s the deal, assholes?

91) Lil Peep f/ Lil Tracy - “Awful Things”

I hadn’t heard of Lil Peep when I found out of his passing in 2017. After looking up some pictures, I was nearly 100% positive his music was not for me. This was incorrect. I haven’t really listened to songs that sound like his; it’s kind of like rap that treads this line of being bad while also kinda sounding like alternative rock; destructive love song that doesn’t flinch.

90) AFI - “Dark Snow”

Nothing new, but Davey Havok can still sing circles around almost anybody.

89) Dashboard Confessional - “Love Yourself” (link is to live, partial version)

Well, Dashboard covered Biebs, and we all lived to tell the tale.

88) Garrett Dale - “2016 Was...”

This song would be a blast as a singalong in a late night hotel room. There’s something calming about celebrating -- or at least acknowledging -- everything sucking.

87) Katy Perry f/ Skip Marley - “Chained To The Rhythm”

Got more than a few issues with this song, but it’s catchy, so they’re mostly forgiven. Even though it’s Katy Perry, I was pretty surprised to see it racked up 444 million views.

And seriously who the hell is Skip Marley?!

86) The Ramblin’ Boys Of Pleasure - “Glug, Glug, Glug”

Now is probably a good time to plug the lead track from my band’s b-sides record that came out this year (ten years in the making, baby!). Mandatory listening if you’ve ever bonged brandy, partied in Champaign, or counted down in a country voice.

85) Charly Bliss - “Glitter”

It’s been nearly a year, but it’s still somewhat difficult to calibrate this singer’s voice. Is it a little too saccharine, too childlike, or just perfect? You be the judge.

84) Emperor X - “Wasted On The Senate Floor”

This singer is real god damn frenetic.

83) Father John Misty - “Total Entertainment Forever”

/obligatory “yes, this is the one with the Taylor Swift lyric” reference

FJM has such a pro’s pro voice and makes super sound music... but it’s also kinda hard to have an overall opinion. The more 50-50 I get, the more I think it’s not all that great. The video is a microcosm. Like... why is Macaulay Culkin paying Cobain? Is this a commentary on capitalism? Oooh, nah nah nahs are nice! As divided as I still am, I’m pretty positive this song is good-if-not-great.

82) St. Vincent - “New York”

This song is further proof that soft, radio friendly music can still benefit from a well placed “motherfucker”.

81) Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness - “Dead Man’s Dollar”

As long as Andrew McMahon’s project is called “Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness”, I will make fun of him like clockwork.

This song is nice. I sometimes sing “I want Thon Maker” when he says “I want to make a” in the chorus.

80) Kele Okereke - “Streets Been Talkin’”

Kele’s most impressive feat was sneaking “bae” right into the chorus without me noticing until literally right now.

79) Rick Ross - “Summer Seventeen” 

How the hell did this dumbass song get so high up on the list? I have no explanation. Classic Roazy though -- aim high, fake it till you make it. When I started my new job in August, IT reset my password to “summer2017″, and I had this song’s hook in my head nearly every time I typed it in. All told, a pretty hilarious way to start a work day.

78) Michelle Branch - “Best You Ever”

This song sounds so dark and sultry, but I’m not totally sure why. Branch rules.

77) Calvin Harris f/ Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry & Big Sean - “Feels”

The best way to ruin this song for anyone is to point out how much the hook sounds like Katy Perry singing “Don’t be afraid to catch fish”.

76) Morrissey - “Spent The Day In Bed”

This is a very low maintenance lyric video. So you can either make fun of that or the “I spent the day in bed / I’m not the type, but I love my bed” line.

75) Red City Radio - “If You Want Blood (Be My Guest)”

The “We don’t need a god damn thing from you” chorus is a little punk cliche to win me over, but the Oklahoma City reference (”where our dreams come true and die”) is the line I’ve been waiting for since I found out RCR was from there.

74) Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs - “Talk 2 Her”

The closest we’ll get to a new Clash song in 2017.

73) Bad Cop/Bad Cop - “Womanarchist”

Factoring in the 2017′s themes (#MeToo, Harvey dead, etc.), this has to be the song title of the year. I smiled ear-to-ear watching this music video.

72) The Movielife - “Mercy Is Asleep At The Wheel”

Hey, The Movielife reunited!

71) The Rocket Summer - “Gone Too Long”

Unlike that lazy ass Morrissey, The Rocket Summer gave us a lyric video that basically passes as a legit music video.

70) Miguel f/ Travis Scott - “Sky Walker”

Me, every time I listen to this song:

“Ooh, beat is pretty solid.”

“Ah yeah, the hook’s good. I thought I really liked this song though...”

/falsetto part

“AW YEAH.”

69) Queens Of The Stone Age - “The Way You Used To Do”

Had never known about the Josh Homme/Elvis comparisons, but after hearing this, I totally get it now. Also: god damn it, man.

68) Macklemore f/ Skylar Grey - “Glorious”

What can we do to make Skylar Grey more famous? She Ginger Rogers’d for Em on “SNL” -- seriously, she played piano and sung Dido, Beyoncé, and Rihanna hooks (that’s a solid ass trinity!) -- has unarguably awesome songs, and never takes anything off the table. I honestly don’t care if she has another hit... let’s just, like, all Venmo her five bucks or something.

One of my fav music videos on the list so far. Be as skeptical of Macklemore as you want, but when his grandma offers him a drink (haha) then says she wants to “do it all” with their day together, it warms the hearts.

67) Direct Hit! - “Blood On Your Tongue”

Direct Hit! continues to be the best modern version of Green Day, The Ramones*, and themselves.

(* - without being Ramones-core)

66) Boyd & The Stahfools - “Party Penguin”

I’ve been in the game for a long while, but, for the first time in my career, I finally was part of a music video. If you told me it was a 2Pac parody that advertised craft beer, I’d, well, I’d believe you. We got Dave Hernandez on the hook, Mike Healy as Dr. Dre, and yours truly as Makaveli.

And all jokes aside, “On vacation like Bev D’Angelo” is one of my favorite penned lines.

65) Rancid - “Telegraph Avenue”

I like when Tim sings about grabbing his left-handed guitar.

64) Big Sean f/ Jeremih - “Light”

Sean Don made a forgettable 2017 album with many throwaway tracks -- but “Light” ain’t one of ‘em. I liked this song even before the touching video cemented its power.

63) blink 182 - “Parking Lot”

This is that weird mix of what makes all new blink really good and really eh at the same time -- Skiba involved (for better or worse), inspired Mark (for better or worse), and Travis’ overplaying (for better or worse). It’s for sure easier if you just turn your brain off and go with it.

Why does he reference Chicago in the verse then California in the pre-chorus?

I SAID “OFF”.

62) New Found Glory - “Your Jokes Aren’t Funny”

This song doesn’t break a ton of new ground, but it’s got this circular, easy chorus that keeps me coming back.

61) Teenage Bottlerocket - “Goin’ Back To Wyo”

Similar to Red City Radio writing about OKC, I can’t get enough of TB writing about their home. Did I blast this song while driving across the entire state alone this summer? Do you know me an ounce?

60) Frank Turner - “The Sand In The Gears”

A little dissatisfied with the current administration? Frank may be from across the pond, but he’s with you on this one, man. One of my favorite parts of this song is when he breaks the rhyme scheme just to angrily say “I thought that we were winning the war against the homophobes and the racists”.

59) Billy Bragg - “Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted”

Billy Bragg is here for all of us, with perspective, wisdom, and insightful guidance in tow.

58) Dave Hause - “The Flinch”

Send this one to an old flame if you’re hoping, you know, to maybe rekindle.

57) Selena Gomez f/ Gucci Mane - “Fetish”

That’s right -- “Bad Liar” got beat out by this significantly less popular single featuring one of my least favorite rappers.

/looks up play totals

”Fetish”... 130 million

“Bad Liar”... 214 million

Comparably popular, I say! For me, this one is all about the chorus -- and that beat’ll get you swayin’.

56) Jay Electronica - “Letter To Falon”

‘Cause who gon’ save them babies? / And finally put a definite to all those maybes

Death, taxes, maybe death again, and Jay Electronica never releasing a full length album. Our man has been on Roc Nation for nearly ten years. I hate him so much. /anxiously awaits his next move

Jay Electricity in his zone on this one; so comfortable, in full operation within the confines.

55) Laura Jane Grace - “Adore”

I don’t know who Amy Shark is, but LJG covered her song and punted my heart into Lake Michigan.

54) Russian Girlfriends - “Antidote”

Upbeat, direct song that starts kinda Metric-y with the riff but then gets more pop punk as it progresses.

53) Brian Fallon - “If Your Prayers Don’t Get To Heaven”

My fiancee laughed when I looked up how to play this song on the guitar and the guy who tabbed it out wrote “Typical Brian Fallon open chords” in the intro.

52) Cloud Nothings - “Enter Entirely”

If “Womanarchist” is the ‘best’ song title of the year, “Enter Entirely” is certainly the coolest. And please don’t let the very boring music video fool you -- this song gets after it, man. If you are a fan of rock music, it would blow me away if you found this song remotely objectionable.

(After seeing CN open for Japandroids on back-to-back nights this November, it feels criminal to have such a slow song represent the band, as their drummer is the Russell Westbrook of the indie scene. That dude does not tire and comes off as more machine than man.)

51) Conor Oberst - “Napalm”

Oberst released a 10-song album in 2016 that was super brooding and piano-y... then he released another album in 2017 (17 songs) that had every track from his previous record and seven new ones. Kind of a weird move, no? This is one of those seven; suffice to say it’s a little more upbeat.

50) Sorority Noise - “No Halo”

You could tell me this song came out in 2002, 2007, or both -- but not 2017. How is this not a time capsuled rival of Taking Back Sunday or My Chemical Romance? I don’t know, but if you like a lot of death, this one’s for you.

49) N.E.R.D f/ Rihanna - “Lemon”

Let’s lighten the mood back up with some RiRi rap. My buddy Crooks’ take: “That's how every 2017 hip-hop beat should sound.”

48) Kesha - “Praying”

It’s damn near impossible to talk about this song without talking about The Note. It occurs at 4:21, and it will make you a little faint.

Kesha dusts herself off and gets beyond empowered in this one. This song could legitimately soundtrack the entire #MeToo movement. When the drums kick in halfway through, you’ll be ready to fight back too.

When I’m finished, they won’t even know your name

47) The Smith Street Band - “Laughing (Or Pretending To Laugh)”

This soft, hopeful love song is almost *too* respectful when it comes to interactions with the opposite sex. I’m not sure there’s a more endearing 2017 lyric than “And I don't wanna marry you just yet / But at least let me get you a cider / And I don’t even think I’d have to pay for it / Hopefully there’s a couple left on the rider”.

46) Run The Jewels - “Legend Has It”

Whenever I think of this song, I will always have that image of El-P holding up that gun to the bunny’s head. This song is braggadocious, each line one-upping the previous in perpetuity. Man, they probably rule live.

45) Vic Mensa - “Say I Didn’t”

Vic Mensa's Roc Nation debut (CAN YOU HEAR ME AT ALL, JAY ELECTRONICA?!?!?!?!?!?) was real strong, and this one gives you a good taste of what he’s about. He’s intense but controlled and even gets a little soulful. And depending what sphere you come from, you’ll either be extremely more or extremely less interested after he drops a Weezer reference. If that gives you trepidation, maybe the Nate Dogg namedrop will reel you back in?

44) Kendrick Lamar - “HUMBLE.”

I like Kendrick Lamar and will always recognize his talent, platform, and body of work (there’s a real case to be made that his “Control” verse killed hip-hop, and it’s just been an animated zombie ever since). Having said that...

He doesn’t always make it easy. The all caps song titles, the weird high pitched flow, the massive reliance of “bitch” in his choruses... yet, he’s the same dude who begs for stretch marked butts and body positivity. I don’t know, man. By the time he hits the “I make a play fucking up your whole life” line, I’m nearly all the way back in.

Last complaint: that organ-y keyboard thing could be so much louder. The beat almost feels diet because of that decision.

43) PKEW PKEW PKEW - “Cold Dead Hands”

This song is about how you can’t freeze this band to death, because they’ll party their way out of the situation.

42) Weezer - “Any Friend Of Diane’s”

This song puts me in a trance; they sing the same chorus lyric a million times, and I still almost want more.

41) Taylor Swift - “I Did Something Bad”

If this song isn’t a hit in 2018, then I do not know anything. For as uneven and questionable as her new singles were, this song has none of that. By the time she’s rolling on the tremendously magnetic “over and over and over again” part, you’ll feel like it’s 2009.

Maybe the old Taylor is still alive after all.

40) Best Ex - “Someday”

What’s that, you want your pop with a lot less baggage? This song is currently at 1,042 views, which is further proof of no justice in this world. I remember grocery shopping with this in the headphones, and you woulda thought it was the happiest moment of my life by the expression on my smiling, dumb face.

39) White Reaper - “Judy French”

“There are no good new rock bands wahhhhh”

Nah -- you just suck at finding music when it’s never been easier in human history, I guess?

38) Anti-Flag - “The Criminals”

This band has always lived in this dramatic life-and-death world, and it’s been going on for so long, that it’s like their vision of what they were always rebelling against was willed into existence.

37) French Montana f/ The Weeknd & Max B - “A Lie”

My dislike of French Montana is so high that I sometimes think about having to answer for saying something heinous about him. Kinda like when Kevin Garnett was accused of calling Charlie Villanueva (who has alopecia) a “cancer patient.”

KG’s all-time response:

“I am aware there was a major miscommunication regarding something I said on the court last night. My comment to Charlie Villanueva was in fact ‘You are cancerous to your team and our league,’" Garnett said in a statement to the media on Wednesday.

Hahahaha.

French, you are a cancer to hip-hop and our league. His verse even references stupid Karl Malone, because why wouldn’t it? The good news is we have The Weeknd on the hook *and* in the first verse, so you can basically just pretend it’s his solo song with a few regrettable cameos.

36) The Penske File - “Oh Brother”

The Penske File make it look effortless sometimes. After hearing this song and doing a Malört shot with their singer, I have higher hopes than ever for their 2018 full length.

35) The Front Bottoms - “Don’t Fill Up On Chips”

TFB’s new album didn’t give me everything I wanted in terms of uptempo bangers, but the lyrics, sentiment, and craftsmanship are all still very much present.

34) Vince Staples - “Big Fish”

The Juicy J chorus might not win a Pulitzer (”I was up late night ballin’ / Countin’ up hundreds by the thousand”), but Vince is rapping invincible, and by the time the lyrics call back his monster single (“Norf Norf”), you won’t be questioning anything anymore.

33) Julien Baker - “Shadowboxing” (link is to live version)

I know that you don't understand 'Cause you don't believe what you don't see When you watch me throwing punches at the devil It just looks like I'm fighting with me

I swear, Julien Baker might be one of the only people on this planet with the power to shut us all up and listen.

32) Paramore - “Fake Happy”

Paramore is a band that does dumb shit all the time. Infighting, legal drama, horrible makeover after horrible makeover. Seriously, this is real:

But through it all, there’s that unbreakable Hayley voice, and it’s like everything is gonna be OK again. I mean, no, it’s not -- but let’s still enjoy these fleeting moments, full blown pop transition or not.

31) Nothington - “Cobblestones”

This song briefly sounds like Lucero before turning into no nonsense despair punk.

30) Lorde - “Perfect Places”

Such a phenomenal album closer; great to have her back in the pop music fold. Car, headphones, party, whatever -- this song goes all around you.

29) Remember Sports - “I Liked You Best”

If Kesha’s high note in “Praying” was pop music’s peak vocal moment in 2017, I’d like to nominate the “You made this me-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-hess” (2:37) part as punk’s.

28) Phoenix - “J-Boy”

This band makes such gorgeous music.

27) Drake - “Free Smoke” (no link)

Drake’s full album output, in minutes, for the last four years:

2013: 59 minutes 2014: N/A 2015: 108 minutes 2016: 81 minutes

And this doesn’t include stray singles, diss tracks, or cameos (2014 had “0 To 100″, for example). What I’m saying is, despite high quality material, Aubrey has saturated us with music for nearly half a decade. So even though I dig him lots, it was like “Really?!” when I heard he was releasing 2017′s “More Life” and “WHAT” when I found out it was another 81 minutes (the same length as 2016′s “Views”). Though the record is stylistically very different -- I keep hearing people use the word “grime”, though I have no idea what it means -- it’s still got bars. My favorite stray lines (they add up):

- “More life, more everything” - “I dunk text J-Lo / Old number, so it bounce back” - “Hilton rooms, gotta double up / Writin’ our name on a double cup” - “I fall asleep in sororities / I had some different priorities” - “Women I like was ignorin’ me / Now they like ‘Aren’t you adorable?’ / I know the question rhetorical” - “I make too much these days to ever say ‘Poor me’” - “I wanna move to Dubai / So I don’t never have to kick it with none of you guys”

But, it wouldn’t be Drake without making fun of him some. The song beings with, well, him sampling himself at an award show. The sample: 

And more chune for your headtop So watch how you speak on my name, you know?

Which begs the question: did he do the weird Jamaican accent knowing he was gonna sample it? It treads this weird genius/calculated doofus line. All I know is it makes me laugh.

26) Tigers Jaw - “Favorite” 

This song could make me pensive and unhappy on the sunniest of days.

25) Tee Grizzley - “First Day Out”

Like many, I first heard of Tee Grizzley from a LeBron James Instagram workout video. It was an easy sell: Detroit, ferocious beat, and the dude goes *hard*. I got a little too excited and emailed my hip-hop friends: “What the fuck is this? This is GOOD.”

This was before I realized he kinda sounds the same in every song. It’s no matter -- we’ll always have “First Day Out”, a brief time in June 2017 where I thought Tee Grizzley could be the next to run the game.

I can’t even be in public with my hoodie on

24) The War On Drugs - “Strangest Thing”

It’s very difficult to write about The War On Drugs without mentioning how transcendent it is to listen to them in the car. Everyone is right about that, but, for me, I also have to mention how much this dude sounds like Dylan. People say Springsteen, but I hear so much Bob. You don’t necessarily have to get “past” it, but you do kinda have to get used to it. Once you do, the lead guitar will carry you into the clouds. This music will make you contemplate and reflect.

23) Foxing - “Night Channels”

Let’s keep the mood contemplative; you almost feel sleepless if not completely locked in to this one.

UPDATE: This dropped in 2015, /sigh

22) Craig Finn - “God In Chicago”

This is more of a movie than a song -- and the visuals agree. Focus in on the lyrics, take in the story, and then do it again soon because you’ll catch new wrinkles each time. One of the year’s best videos, for sure. Punk News phrases it well: “Here he’s made a solo album of losers who have no idea they’ve already lost.”

21) DJ Khaled f/ Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper, Lil Wayne - “I’m The One”

No one wanted you to know he had sex in 2017 more than DJ Khaled. He made his infant son Asahd the “Executive Producer” for this video. Why? Because he’s an idiot. Khaled’s still existing fame continues to confound. He’s more faux-platitudes than man at his point. So why do the best artists in the world collaborate with someone so seemingly unintelligent? I don’t know, but this song bangs and was probably my Song of the Summer. We got JB on the hook, a dumb-but-amusing Quavo*, Wayne trying to gain footing, and Chance running across the finish line backward with Best Verse title belt. But Khaled won’t let you forget about him, blaring DJ tag and all. This song suffers for that, and it’s all his fault. 

(* - his ad lib of just repeating everything becomes charming once you start to get Stockholm Syndrome with the song)

20) Ed Sheeran - “The Shape Of You”

What a 2017 for the man behind the year’s best (super successful) pop song.  At the turn of the calendar, I barely knew who he was, but before we all knew it, there was a legitimate public outcry because he was on “Game of Thrones” for, like, two minutes. What a time. Oh, also, the “Come on, be my baby...” bridge gave me some “Real World: New Orleans” acid flashbacks.

Great meme, take us out.

19) Minus The Bear - “Last Kiss”

If the shattered neon heart didn’t give it away, this is a “the relationship is definitively over” breakup song. Seeing them play it at Riot Fest made me miss my late friend Luke; I wish he could have heard this.

18) Hot Water Music - “Never Going Back”

I’ve always maintained Chuck Ragan plays guitar and sings songs like a running back. Well, this song carpe diem’s me enough to play actual running back*.

(* - jk, would never do this unless it was against very small children)

17) Lucky Boys Confusion - “Good Luck”

My hometown heroes released their comeback album in 2017, and I’m not sure any track sums up the effort better. By the time Adam sings “Burned out, they call us / Screw ‘em, we got endless memories / Punk rock and the polish / I hope it gave you something to believe”, there are no dry eyes left.

(And yes, this could totally be an AM Taxi song, but with Ryan Fergus’ killer-fills-only drumming, I’m glad it wasn’t.)

16) Hodera - “Baltimore”

This song would likely have a Top 5 objective approval rating of any on the list.

...“The Wire” forever.

15) Iron Chic - “A Headache With Pictures”

It ain’t heavy, it ain’t heaven

If Hot Water Music is carpe diem, what is Iron Chic -- seize the life?! My favorite description of the band came from Sam Sutherland, who tweeted: “Whose day has already been derailed by the unavoidably weighty introspection of listening to the new Iron Chic record.”

They are a certified run-through-brick-walls outfit. One of my final 2017 memories of this song was subtweeting “Now I know” the night I got engaged and having my buddy Ricky think she might’ve declined the proposal. May have to include a ring emoji next time.

14) The Flatliners - “Indoors”

Had to listen to this, like, five or six times before its brilliant greatness overtook me like falling into a river. The chorus is so, so heartfelt.

Don’t sleep on the video, either (especially the end).

13) Sylvan Esso - “Die Young”

Though I have tickets to see them for the first time in 2018, I am not mega-versed in the catalogue of Sylvan Esso. But this feels like their best song. Imagine if Romeo and Juliet turned out OK.

12) Oso Oso - “Shoes (The Sneaker Song)”

Jade from Oso Oso would likely want all of the above stylized in lowercase -- but this ain’t Jade’s list. This was my favorite new band of 2017, and I do believe they made the year’s best album. It’s early-2000s emo at times, pop punk at others, and all ear candy.

11) Sincere Engineer - “Corn Dog Sonnet No. 7″

Staying in the new artist lane, I proudly introduce Sincere Engineer. This band sounds like if Modern Baseball had a little sister. By the time singer Deanna Belos sings “I’m still learning how to be”, you want to pat her on the back and give her all your best advice.

Fantastic music video -- and she confirmed to me this past weekend that it’s real mustard, not puffy paint (“I have a towel that is all yellow from cleaning it up”).

10) new.wav - “Girls”

Alright, so stick with me on this: new.wav is the band, covering The 1975′s song “Girls” in the style of “Enema of the State”-era blink-182. Confused? Yeah, I was too, but check it out. Maybe more impressive than the arrangements/performance is how they were able to match blink’s production style -- no easy task.

9) Jay-Z - “Family Feud” (starts around 5:30; partial version)

Shawn Corey Carter wants to get right with everyone -- America, his peers, and, of course, within his own home. And though I may never understand the “New n****s is the reason I stopped drinkin’ Dos Equis” lyric, I’m on board with about all else. Similar to the Oso Oso record, “4:44″ is such an album that it feels unfair to single out a song to represent all of its parts. Stripped from the LP, the song does not hit as hard, but in the groove of the record, it’s the apex. And despite Hov seemingly desiring peace, the song does have more than a few call outs:

- “My stash can’t fit into Steve Harvey’s suit” - “And old n****s, y’all stop actin’ brand new / Like 2Pac ain’t have a nose ring too” - “Al Sharpton in the mirror takin’ selfies / How is him or Pill Cosby s’posed to help me?”

In the latter stages of his career, it’s hard to call everything Jay does ‘necessary’, but “4:44″ definitely checked that box.

8) Rozwell Kid - “Wendy’s Trash Can”

Vacillated all year between this one and “Michael Keaton” and literally flipped a penny my cousin Maggie loaned me to decide. “Wendy’s Trash Can” was heads.

7) The Weeknd - “Reminder”

This one got backdoored in as a latter single from The Weeknd’s 2016 album. One of my favorite parts about Abel is how little he has had to change to succeed. Sure, it’s silky smooth, but he hasn’t sacrificed the drugs, darkness, or ego that should offend (but doesn’t because it he pulls it off so well). After bragging early in the song about he won a kids award for singing about cocaine, he calls out peers for biting his sound, blings out his entire crew, and, well:

When I travel 'round the globe, make a couple mil' a show And I come back to my city, I fuck every girl I know

/clutches pearls

6) The Bombpops - “Be Sweet”

The guitar riff in this song is why I fell in love with punk music. Also, super cool story behind the lyrics:

“'Be Sweet' is an homage to our dear friend, the late Brandon Carlisle of the band Teenage Bottlerocket," vocalist Jen Razavi told AP. "Back in 2010, we were partying in a hotel room with Brandon and Ray Carlisle. There was a guitar in the room and Brandon was showing us an idea he had for a song. He had written it for his wife, but he told us we should play it and change the lyrics to 'getting rad with my boyfriend.' He wrote down all the lyrics on four sheets of hotel notepad paper. Since then, the melody and the chord progression were forgotten, but I still had the lyrics. So we wrote our own version of the song in the studio and used every single lyric that Brandon had written down.

Did I mention the video has an “In Bloom” feel? Stop reading, go listen.

5) Action Bronson - “Let Me Breathe”

Action Bronson ain’t givin’ nothin’ up. This is my pick for rap song of the year. It’s got TV brags (”I got two shows, I’m about to pitch another”), a tight chorus (”Let me breathe for a minute / White Range Rover blowin’ trees all in it”), and whimsy shit too (“Honey bouncin’ up and down, she nearly broke my dick”). Ghostface’s disciple is having more fun than just about anyone.

4) Japandroids - “North East South West”

Only a Canadian band could get me to care this much about my own country. The Vancouver duo penned an Americana ode to the road -- but there’s a twist... they talk about their cities too. For every New Orleans, there’s a Toronto. For every California, a Vancouver.

Maybe they’ll be the ones to end all the border wars.

3) Alex Lahey - “Every Day’s The Weekend”

This is the only submission on the list I’d feel comfortable calling a perfect song. Relatable themes, a chorus that’ll tangle you up, f-bombs in all the right places, and every part maximized. She has this way of weaving between cool confidence and youthful insecurity, all in the matter of one verse.

2) Carly Rae Jepsen - “Cut To The Feeling”

When it comes to “Call Me Maybe” and its legacy, I do not fuck around. This song gets really, really, really close. Just watch this dude.

Queen Carly blessed us with another one. The chorus soars, arms go up, and clouds are your closest companions.

1) The Menzingers - “After The Party”

It's the little things my mind commits / To etch behind my eyelids

When this song dropped, my buddy Dave Rokos called it his favorite Menzos song ever. That felt like high praise, but man, he might be dead on. “After The Party” rips me in half with its lyrics of palpable desperation:

Like a kaleidoscope in vibrant hues I navigate around your tattoos Said you got that one on a whim when you were breaking up with him And that Matryoshka Russian doll That lines your shelf from big to small What a way to start anew To shed your skin and find the old you 

If Carly’s chorus flies, this one holds us down like gravity. You feel everything, you feel nothing, you feel full yet voided, but after all of this -- the life, the party, the friends, the bars, the experiences, the nights, the lights, the fights, the city you live in -- it’s still her and you. Or him and you. Or whatever it is you come home to at the end, when it’s finally quiet.

[sheilacwall]

Jesus Walks… in Adidas

Jesus Walks… in Adidas

Jesus is King has finally dropped. This is Kanye West’s first Christian rap-gospel album since turning into a born-again Christian in April after the hedonistic indulgence of Coachella.

The Lucifer, Mercy and New God Flow producer has given up secular music and has now turned his career toward the servitude of God.

However, his return from hospital and new found faith will flow nicely into his plans to expand his fashion, music & entertainment empire as well as possibly delivering him the top spot in the White House. This is a man not to be underestimated.

Saint Pablo

‘Ye recently turned around a personal debt of $53 million into a nearly $50m profit. Back in 2016, ‘Ye went out cap in hand to Mark Zuckerberg for $1bn for his ideas, but was promptly ignored. Zuckerberg was raised in a Jewish household, although his wife is a Buddhist and he hasn’t publicly stated his faith. But, this wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by ‘Ye and may have pushed Kanye toward his born-again Christian position.

Soon after, the “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” star seemingly finally started listening to his wife.

“My wife said, I can’t say no to nobody, and at this rate we gon’ both die broke,” West raps on Saint Pablo. “Got friends that ask me for money knowin’ I’m in debt, and like my wife said, I still didn’t say no.”

Stronger

Whilst facing the cold shoulder from Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey – the Square & Paypal founder who was raised a Catholic, offered to invest in Kanye early on.

Jay-Z also kicked in a loan of $20m triggering tensions between the two ending in a public feud.

Here’s Jay-Z on “Kill Jay-Z”:

“You dropped outta school, you lost your principles / You gave him 20 million without thinkin’,” Jay-Z raps, seemingly confirming the rumor that he lent West money. “He gave you 20 minutes on stage, f–k was he thinkin’?”

Recently, Kanye has tried to dead the beef with the recent track “Brothers” with Charlie Wilson.

Power

‘Ye never got that billion from Zuckerberg, although they apparently became friends and even performed karaoke together, but it appears West has now healed his own financial woes: His apparel brand Yeezy is a billion-dollar empire, according to Forbes and over the past 12 months, Forbes estimates West has earned over $150 million before taxes. His wealth is due largely to Yeezy’s Adidas deal, a line that is expected to top $1.5 billion in sales in 2019.

The Jordan line does approximately $3 billion in annual sales, so the Yeezy line is catching up fast. If he can latch onto the Christian vote, sales could explode even more rapidly.

Touch the Sky

Christianity is the most adhered to religion in the United States, with 65% of polled American adults identifying themselves as Christian in 2019. This is down from 85% in 1990, 81.6% in 2001, and 12% lower than the 78% reported for 2012. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation.

Kenneth Copeland is the number one pastor in the USA and his net worth is $300m. After the backlash for supporting Trump, the natural progression seems to be for Kanye to target the Trump supporters and Christians who make up the large majority of America with around another 20% of the population perhaps open to conversion back to Christianity. It is a huge target market… and that is just America.

Christianity is by far the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.2 billion adherents, nearly a third (31%) of all 6.9 billion people on Earth in 2010.

Jesus is King

The new sound track has been carefully crafted to be sung by large audiences to worship god. With tracks such as “Follow God” and “Use This Gospel”, Kanye is on a mission to convert. He has brought the Church to the streets and into the hills… No Church in the Wild.

His carefully chosen purple hair and purple cloths are to portray himself as an Emperor, clergy-like figure, if not Jesus himself, I don’t think it will be long before Kanye professes himself as a Prophet of some sort.

Kanye pronounced himself “I am a God” back on Yeezus.

I just talked to Jesus He said, “What up, Yeezus?” I said, “Shit—I’m chillin’ Tryna stack these millions” I know he the most high But I am a close high Mi casa, su casa That’s our cosa nostra I am a god I am a god I am a god

Rappers as Jesus

This isn’t new in rap. Check out the images below from Kanye, Nas, Tupac, DMX and The Game.

Jeru the Damaja, who follows the Nation of Islam, like Wu-Tang, Rakim & Brand Nubian, famously wrote a song “Can’t Stop the Prophet”.

Rappers have always seen themselves as street prophets, telling war stories, from Rakim, Nas & KRS-One right back to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five in The Message.

Purple Robes

Throughout history, purple robes were worn by royalty and people of authority or high rank. Many believe this to be true because the rare occurrence of purple in nature made it one of the most expensive color dyes to create.

Purple and violet represent the future, the imagination and dreams, while spiritually calming the emotions. They inspire and enhance psychic ability and spiritual enlightenment, while, at the same time, keeping us grounded.

At the time of Jesus, the dye used for making the colour purple, extracted from shell-fish and was one of the most expensive dyes. The colour-fast (non-fading) dye was an item of luxury trade, prized by Romans, who used it to colour ceremonial robes, usually worn by Emperors. The very fact that purple was an expensive color made it affordable only to the royals. That Jesus was made to put it on before his crucifixion, implies that the Romans were sending a strong signal to the Jews against any coup.

A.D.I.D.A.S.

ADIDAS was founded by German, Adi Dassler (Adolf Dassler). In fact, one of the founders, his brother Rudolf Dassler later went on to found Puma and started a bitter rivalry between the brothers. There is a popular myth among fans (not true) that Adidas stands for All Day I Dream About Sports, whilst in 2003, Killer Mike dropped a hip hop track called A.D.I.D.A.S. (All Day I Dream About Sex).

Like many of their fellow citizens, the brothers joined the Nazi party after Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933. Their shoe business remained modest until 1936. In that year, Germany hosted the Olympics.

In an ironic twist, the two party members got legendary African-American runner Jesse Owens to wear their running shoes while competing. Owens went on to win four gold medals during the games. The exposure of their product gave Dassler Shoes a huge boost in sales. You can read more in Sportsweek History.

It does seem ironic, given Kanye’s sex addiction that he would align himself with this particular shoe and his plans are to get the shoes made in America and give “second chances” to inmates.

But, he is going to run into problems with the media as the average wage of a prison inmate ranged between $0.23 and $1.15 an hour  – According to the International Labor Organization, in 2000–2011 wages in American prisons 

In Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas, inmates aren’t paid at all for their labor.

The “New Slave” indeed. I initially thought another way to make money would be to make inexpensive Jesus style sandals and sure enough, I found that is exactly what ‘Ye is planning. They are called “slides” in America and Adidas will be making these from injection moulding and it hasn’t gone unnoticed from Twitter that they are basically prison shoes, but now they are being remarketed as a high fashion item for children of rich kids. That is marketing genius.

Why do the yeezy slides look like the slides worn in prison.. pic.twitter.com/LsR8dbFyqE

— Cyn ☕️ (@Kingxxcyn) October 17, 2019

ADIDAS YECHEIL

The first shoe in Ye’s collection is the Yecheil, which is a Hebrew masculine given name meaning “May God live” or “God shall live”. Several people in the Bible also have this name.

ADIDAS YEEZREEL

For the second shoe of ‘Ye’s collection, there is the“Yeezreel”. It has no exact translation but it seems he might’ve been inspired by the word “Jezreel” which was an ancient Israelite city and fortress originally within the boundaries of the Tribe of Issachar, and later within the northern Kingdom of Israel.

ADIDAS YESHAYA

The third shoe is called the “Yeshaya” which directly translates to “God Is Salvation”. The name Yeshaya (Yesha’yahu) translates from Hebrew to English as the name Isaiah, who was one of the four major prophets of the Old Testament, and the author of the Book of Isaiah. He was from Jerusalem and probably lived in the 8th century BC.

Many of these shoes use Adidas “Cloud” foam, so ‘Ye and his fans are figuratively walking on clouds.

Click the pic to get the best prices on Adidas below

Through the Wire – Prison Reform

Kim Kardashian announced her decision to study law back in April. Since then, she’s met with President Trump to discuss prison reform, teamed up with the 90 Days of Freedom campaign, and is producing a documentary on the subject.

CNN reported that Kim Kardashian West helped free 17 inmates in 90 days.

Kanye West has donated $1m to prison reform, but is now getting US prison workers to make his shoes at 25% of the cost of having his shoes made in China, unless somehow, he is quadrupling the prison wage.

There will be Church factions and sections of the media who will most likely attack Mr. West for essentially using slave labour in prisons to increase profit. Chinese factory workers are now getting paid more than ever: Average hourly wages hit $3.60 in 2017 compared to around $1 for an American prison worker.

Kanye West’s Interview with Zane Lowe

If you don’t want to watch the lengthy interview below, scroll down for a quick summary.

In the interview Kanye talks about the following:

How billboards are guilty of sex trafficking

How he became a born-again Christian in April after Coachella

Why he wants to create jobs and bring jobs back to the USA

How he experimented with Domes & living in them then “the man” tore them down as a metaphor for tearing down his ego

How his farm will be growing cotton & wheat

He will employ prisoners to make his shoes as a “second chance”

His respect for founders, especially Warren Buffett, Amancio Ortego (Zara), Elon Musk, James Turell (artist concerned with light & space) and Jack Dorsey (Paypal)

He calls himself a Christian innovator

How his daughter North drives his passion for church

How Sunday Service may become a church and how he may become a Pastor

He is asking people to fast & not have premarital sex

How he had a porn addiction due to seeing Playboy at 5 years old & his sex addiction

People should pray together, fast together, stay together to increase power

Getting stumped by Zane Lowes question on whether he had to work for his 4th house

How white owners controls hip hop

How God is using Kanye to show off

Compares himself to Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, diagnosed of Bipolar disorder. This was also the ship in the film The Matrix which “woke” people up

According to the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar II was king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who reigned c. 605 BC – 562 BC and conquered Judah and Jerusalem and sent the Jews into exile.

How he will become the President of the United States, perhaps as early as 2024

How Facebook & social media is a disease

How porn is ruining marriages and brainwashing children

How to keep the eternal, imaginative 3 year old at all costs

How he’s undeniably the greatest artist of all time, no question!

How wearing the red cap was a joke on all the liberals as well as Drake living four blocks down from him was also a joke from God.

I guess him wearing blue fur whilst talking and making a blue record is also a joke on the liberals

How he will now rewrite and censor all his old songs for performances

How some of the merchandise money will go to the church

How the Louis Vuitton boss reneging on a handshake to make him the LV don and his wife getting robbed helped put him in a mental hospital

Jokes about being the pastor at Drake’s wedding

How he objects to the censorship of speech of the left

Jesus is King is out now on Spotify, mp3, vinyl & CD

Jesus is Born, another new album, is arriving on Christmas Day this year.

Kanye West’s Journey

There is a bigger story here. How hip hop can be cathartic. Hip hop is bashed left, right and centre in the mainstream media daily, mainly times rightly so, for enforcing stereotypes. But, real hip hop can be a spiritual journey.

Some artists have found solace and teachings much earlier on in their lives such as Rakim, Wu-Tang Clan, KRS-One & Jeru the Damaja. Other artists take longer to mature. It seems to me to be better rapping about street crime then taking part in it. This is something most non-hip hop heads seem to not understand.  Hip hop is way out the streets, just like a sports contract.

Everyone has their own journey and Kanye’s has taken him into Christianity. If record sales pick up, it will turn into a bigger movement. Time will tell what happens if it “All Falls Down”,  streams sour and Adidas sales start to Fade. In such a scenario, it may be very hard for Kanye to stay on the straight and narrow, but I wish him luck. Time will tell.

I’m looking forward to see how he reacts surrounded with Angels in future fashion shows singing his new songs.

I’ll leave you with the last verse from Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s “The Message”, possibly still the greatest hip hop song ever written. The message is as relevant today as it was back in 1982.

A child is born, with no state of mind Blind to the ways of mankind God is smiling on you, but he’s frowning too Cause only God knows, what you go through You grow in the ghetto, living second rate And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate The place, that you play and where you stay Looks like one great big alley way You’ll admire all the number book takers Thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money makers Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens And you wanna grow up to be just like them Smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers Pickpockets, peddlers and even pan-handlers You say I’m cool, I’m no fool But then you wind up dropping out of high school Now you’re unemployed, all null ‘n void Walking ’round like you’re pretty boy floyd Turned stickup kid, look what you done did Got send up for a eight year bid Now your manhood is took and you’re a may tag Spend the next two years as an undercover fag Being used and abused and served like hell Till one day you was found hung dead in a cell It was plain to see that your life was lost You was cold and your body swung back and forth But now your eyes sing the sad sad song Of how you lived so fast and died so young So, don’t push me cause I’m close to the edge I’m trying not to lose my head It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder How I keep from going under It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder How I keep from going under

Watch Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five – The Message

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[lytahalifax]

XI Questions Tag

(I don’t know why I did that in Roman numerals, I’m obviously in a weird mood :)

I was tagged by @byjillianmaria​ for this. Rules: always post the rules, answer the questions given to you, write 11 questions of your own, tag 11 people. I don’t think I really know 11 people here, or can come up with 11 questions, so I promise NOTHING with regards to following rules. Because I am an iconoclast*, baby! (makes air guitar gestures and noises) *iconoclast (n) = a fancy way to say “lazy”.

Questions:

1.) What’s a line of dialogue that you’re most proud of? Holy cripes, that’s kind of a tough one to answer, having written a bunch, and forgotten even more, in the past four years. I would say it’s easier for me to talk about chapters of things I’m proud of, and in that, I’m particularly proud of a chapter I wrote in my Mass Effect series “Once More Unto The Breach” called “We Who Are About Die”. It’s essentially about the people who initially designed and floated the specs for The Catalyst, and how they came together as one race and expended all their efforts, not in self-preservation, but in giving the galaxy a fighting chance against the Reapers. They knew it might take millions and millions of years for their goal to be achieved, if ever, but they were committed, almost as one, to the notion, choosing to die not screaming and in fear, but as an almost indomitable force that would not be denied, no matter how long it too for their plan to bear fruit. However, there was a line my editor particularly adored that spun off from that whole thread, about “the weight of a billions years of justice, no longer denied”.  My Shepard also had some really nice comedic bits throughout that whole series. OMUTB, as my first real “child”, is the series I made absolutely the most mistakes with, but also am the proudest of to this day. “Near Wild Heaven” from “Black Swan” is another personal favorite, a chapter I was having so much fun writing, I had to force myself to stop. 

2.) Which of your characters would you most like to hang out with? Camilla Davies from Black Swan. I suspect she would understand me and my life experiences the best out of anyone on the planet, would be able to give me savagely effective life advice, and possibly transfer my brain into a cloned female body. In fact, I think I’d probably really enjoy hanging out with her, Reese and Alanna; I always felt they were kind of the Three Musketteers of SOAP. Bledoc Caitor, a one off OC I wrote for Once More Unto The Breach as a shoutout to a longtime reader, would be a distant second because he would probably make me the galaxy’s best bowl of ramen, and I really, really love ramen. 3.) Do you have any goals for the rest of 2017? Survive the oncoming storm of massive life and career changes coming up in the final quarter of 2017, and essentially prepare for some major life retooling I hope to achieve in 2018. Unfortunately, this probably means taking a sabbatical or otherwise semi-retiring from writing, at least for a while.

4.) What season inspires you the most? It’s a toss up between Spring and Autumn. Probably Spring; March/April is usually about the time I come out of my winter doldrums and do a lot of my writing again. 5.) If you could rewrite one part of an already-published work, what would it be? The first 20 chapters of Once More Unto the Breach. Well..maybe not ALL of them, but holy crap, there are some massive technical errors and embarrassing gaffs and continuity glitches I made there. I very nearly gave up on the entire endeavor were it not for the fact that I started working with a real top notch editor who essentially trained me how to be a better ,more effective writer, and it’s clear the final 20 chapters are SO much better as a result. I might also redo “To Bask In Your Starshine”. But maybe not. 6.) Do any of your characters have pets? What kind? Shepard kept coming back to the Normandy, even when she didn’t command it anymore, to collect Space Hamsters from the lower decks. Her oldest daughter has a pet kakliosaur. I imagine Camilla has a couple of cats, because they were the only animals she could really relate to: one of them is a tortie Maine Coon, which she adopted because she liked the coloration, not realizing how diva-esque torties are in their behavior. Reese probably has a fancy tropical fish tank setup he poured way too much time and money into. Nicole has a dog, like a golden retriever or a bulldog or something. A mutt for sure.

7.) What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re feeling uninspired? This is the answer - or at least part of it - that will make people gasp in shock and go, “Lyta! You can’t say things like that!” I have two techniques: one I would recommend, and one I would not. It should be obvious which is which. First, I smoke weed. Not often, not all the time, I’m actually on a bit of a six month break from it. I don’t smoke specifically going in to look for inspiration, I just do it to relax, but I would be lying if I said there weren’t times when inspiration didn’t come and come HARD when I was stoned. At least two of my stories, Old Soul and How Can I Sleep?, are the result of me breaking through serious blocks after toking up. Seriously, I could not figure out how to do Old Soul and almost gave up until I got baked and started watching old 1970s tv commercials, and then it came to me. I’m pretty damn sure that good chunks of the final three chapters of Black Swan came to me while I was toked up as well. Second, and much more often, I go for a lot of walks. Like a lot a lot of walks. I try to walk about 12,000 steps a day at a minimum now, which is probably why I’ve lost 20 pounds since April. But for years, I’ve done this when I can, because I find it can get me into a good “zen headspace”, almost like a walking meditation, where ideas flow easier from out of the great miasma of notions inside my brain. Large chunks of Black Swan chapters 5 through 12 were “flashes of inspiration” that came to me when I got “into the zone” during walking, and made sure to write quick emails to myself on my cell phone, so I wouldn’t forget. I’m pretty sure the same goes for Grande Dame, and definitely so for Bearing Witness to Time. If it weren’t for my walks, I wouldn’t have most of my writing ideas. Indeed, it’s gotten so that if I go down a path I haven’t traveled in a long time, my brain starts to play back memories of writing a particular story, as if the brainstorming somehow became encoded in the local metalayer of that location, and walking through it is like replaying a tape in my mind.

8.) Do you have a go-to writing snack/drink? Beef jerky. Usually of the spicy variety It’s high in protein, tasty, and a provides a viscerally satisfying experience in the eating of. Grrr! Chomp! Chew chew chew. 

There is an awesome jerky shop at Container Park in Las Vegas that I love to stock up at whenever I’m there...unfortunately my supply never lasts. I should probably find out if they do mail order.

9.) Do you have any self-indulgent stories/characters that you’d never publish (or even write down)? Hah! Oh boy.....yeeeeeah. There was this one crack fic I came up with called “The Yurizoku Formula, or GAYBIES!” It was a weird story, in the vein of “Chloe Price’s Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (which I recently took down for personal reasons) or “Today’s Fish is Trout ala Creme” from OMUTB. If I remember correctly, the long and short of it is Warren accidentally infecting Brooke with a virus that makes her incredibly irresistible to all the women on campus, and she has to deal with their unwanted affections as she tries to get through her day, growing increasingly exasperated and flustered, sorta in the vein of Miyuki-chan in Wonderland. I remember it being much funnier and more clever back then than it obviously is. Sometimes I get ideas and my own personal kinks bleed through a little too much...as an example, the end of “The Domina Effect” in Black Swan was originally written to be a faiiiir bit more “sexy” between Rachel and Victoria, but NQW correctly convinced me to drop it. (As an example of my “kinks”, my first complete work ever written was a lesbian erotica sci-fi mind control story which I called Love is the Drug, which sadly I lost the files to before I could submit it to an appropriate archive. There are actually strong echos of this story in A Power Greater Than My Own...the bit where Victoria, as the domme, finds herself feeling helpless in the face of her so-called submissive at the end, because of how hard she’s fallen in love with her. I) I was also thinking about writing an AU fic in the ME universe called Domination: A Love Story, where the Asari are much more in the mold of Frank Herbert’s “Honored Matres” from the later Dune novels, and a 19 year old Shepard is helpless to watch as her colony ship is essentially taken over by an Asari “diplomatic expedition” who are slowly but inexorably brainwashing everyone over to their way of thinking. Not every Asari agrees with this method of behavior however, prompting a young(er) Liara T’Soni to try and help Shepard get through the horror of that particular situation; in the end, she’s forced to temporarily brainwash Shepard, in order to keep up appearances around the Asari Inquisitors, but eventually “releases” Shepard, so the two of them can run off and join a resistance cell.  Huh...I might actually come back to that one someday... Usually, when I get ideas that are terribly self-indulgent, they tend to not hang around, and then get swept out by whatever part of my brain reclaims needed storage space for better things. I’m sure there are whole stories that I’ve completely forgotten about. 10.) What works inspire you to be a better writer? Oh gleesh. Believe it or not, one of the reasons I tend to avoid reading other peoples work in general, with some exceptions, is that I find it very intimidating and daunting. Like “OMG! This person is so good, how could you even think that you are on the same level with them, you absolute hack? What could you possibly have to offer up to the great Singularity of Human Artistic Expression that someone hasn’t already done, and done WAY WAY better than you? For instance, I’ve specifically avoided watching TransParent on Amazon, because I still have an idea for a TV show about a “transhumanist transwoman” which I call “Swing Out Sister”. I probably will never do it, but I’m afraid that if I watch Jeffrey Tambor’s no doubt AMAZING work, I will give it up forever and ever. That said, the things I am watching right now that just blow me away with their style and panache are Rick and Morty and especially BoJack Horseman; I’m most of the way through BoJack season 4 and holy holy holy shit. Obviously, I am a fan of dark, almost cynical takes on the nature of suffering and the human condition. 11.) Say something nice about your writing! (Not a question, don’t care). What?! No! You can’t make me, you’re not my supervisor! Oh, okay. I will say this: people tell me that I am really good at writing dialogue, and this is the only thing I have ever agreed with. I write good dialogue. Sometimes, I even write great dialogue. Once, I wrote superb dialogue - I suspect. Dialogue and snappy patter is my forte, along with weird, high level ideas that I can never properly fill the details in. I’m good at A to C plotting, but figuring out “B” is where I still need a lot of work. Okay, well, I enjoyed this a lot but I am going to be a Naughty Lyta, and not pass it forward. At least, not for now, but I reserve the right to pick it back up and move it forward at a later date.

[summerseachild]

Summersea’s GoT Season 5 2019 Rewatch

We’ve reached the season that made me rage-quit a show that had once been my absolute favorite back in May of 2015! That means I’ve seen about half of these once four years ago. So... here we go. 

5x01

1. WHY is Maggy the Frog sexy?

2. WHY is there no mention of the valonqar? Were they already planning Bran? Did they not think we could handle a word in another language? WHAT?

3. That scene with Jaime and Cersei at Tywin’s body hurts but SHE KIND OF HAS A POINT ABOUT JAIME KIND OF ACCIDENTALLY BEING A TEENY BIT RESPONSIBLE THO (on the other hand how could he have knoooooown Tyrion was going to KILL DAD?)

4. So... Varys is an immigrant who cares more about Westeros than most people born there, yes?

5. That poor Unsullied JUST WANTED TO CUDDLE

6. Missandei being to shy to say something to the tune of “whatever it is you can do I’d like to do it with you” to Grey Worm is... impossibly sweet.

7. HOW DID ALLISER LIVE THROUGH THAT? Slynt living is also not fair. What a waste of space.

8. Stannis’ offer to the wildlings is fair... underestimating how unlikely Mance is to kneel, but fair.

9. Brienne is MEAN to Pod here! I guess the losing Arya thing broke her a bit.

10. UGH SANSA RODE RIGHT BY THEM

11. Lancel’s actor BEEFED UP WOW

12. Margaery trying to watch out for her brother... what a good sister.

13. Daario 2 has a cute butt

14. Remember when Drogon got loose and Dany was worried that there was an ENTIRE DRAGON JUST FLYING AROUND SOMEWHERE?

15. Mance Rayder was a good person who cares about the Wildlings. All of them.

16. Jon putting that arrow into Mance’s heart while he was burning endeared Jon to me quite a lot.

5x02

1. Braavos is SO PRETTY! And the house of Black and White... so simple and stark. I love the architecture.

2. SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE FUCKING NIGHT?? Oh wait Podrick knows what Sansa looks like! What a sweet and useful boy.

3. Jeez Brienne intense much? Don’t frighten the girl.

4. “Why don’t you stay?  It’s dangerous on the road” is Littlefinger speak for “I am going to kill you in your sleep” and BRIENNE KNOWS IT.

5. So I wonder who in Dorne thought it was a good idea to send Myrcella’s necklace.

6. Jeez Cersei what do you want from Jaime? You wouldn’t LET HIM be a father to the kids.

7. Jaime offering to GO GET HER... and with Bronn! LANNISTER AND BRONN ROAD TRIP PART 2 HERE WE COME.

8. Today the part of Elia I will be played Doran and the part of Arianne will be played by Elia. it’s very confusing.

9. Doran’s casting is still SO GOOD.

10. ELIA DO NOT MAKE CERSEI RIGHT ABOUT HER LINE “EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD THEY HURT LITTLE GIRLS” 

11. I remember so little of Dany’s story from this part... Mossador seems cool but is he secretly loyal to the sons of the Harpy??? I remember something about her being ambushed? (I was right about the ambush, wrong about Mossador he was always loyal to Dany in his way.)

12. Barristan dropping some truth about the Mad King = GOOD

13. Varys being like DRINK LESS TYRION

14. Qyburn is more useful than ten Pycelles.

15. AND FUCK YOU TOO UNCLE KEVAN

16. Shireen teaching Gilly to read is SO CUTE. And... Greyscale can be cured? The spread arrested? I thought Shireen just had a very slow moving case. How is she CURED?

17. Lyanna’s response to Stannis... your favs could never

18. His face when Stannis asks Jon if he wants to be legitimized is like ????

19. No one likes you Janos sit down

20. Sam’s speech for Jon... what impeccable delivery. Making them laugh at Slynt, making them remember how badass Jon is... smart boy.

21. Good to see you again Jaqen-no-one!

22. Why so PUBLIC with Mossador’s execution? What kind of idiocy is this READ THE ROOM DANY. And execute him QUIETLY as your advisers probably told you was a good idea.

23. Drogon’s like “wow this roof looks nice oh hai mom”

5x03

1. That interior of the house of black and white with the pool and all of the gods... so cool and creepy

2. HOW OLD IS TOMMEN ANYWAY?? What a sweet kid though.

3. The Queen off continues... and Margaery shoots herself in the foot. That was CERSEI TRYING TO BE NICE FOR HER SON’S SAKE. And you can SEE the moment Cersei’s like FUCK THIS IT’S WAR

4. OMG pooR traumatized Theon and EW flayed men

5. RIDE THE OTHER WAY SANSA

6. Littlefinger has clearly not met Ramsay fucking Snow. Otherwise nothing he says to Sansa here makes sense.

7. At least they had the decency to admit that Brienne had been nasty to Pod and have them actually start to develop a sweet friendship. And Brienne tells him the story of the ball and Renly :(

8. I like that we’re getting some Jon and Davos interaction. So much good hearted gruffness in one place!

9. Sansa’s arrival at Winterfell just... no

10. TAKE LORD JANOS OUTSIDE YES THIS WAS SO LONG COMING

11. Ok that scene with the high septon and the prostitutes in the costumes of the Seven was kind of hysterical

12. Stay away from the high sparrow Cersei my love...

13. Wow, Jonathan Pryce, how did they get you for this? You’re better than this nonsense but getting to see you and Lena in a scene together is a gift.

14. Ok I jumped at Gregor rattling around on the table

15. So... Littlefinger hadn’t heard much about Ramsay, and the bastard is on his best behavior when LF comes to Winterfell. That answers some questions

16. Holy crap Tyrion is a child playing with the windows that roll up and down.

17. We get to see Volantis???? Coooool!

18. What is a red priestess doing preaching that Dany is the savior? Do they each have their own pet theories about who AA is?

19. Tyrion is terribly good at getting kidnapped.

5x04: Jaime and Bronn go to Dorne and there are some people pretending to be the Sand Snakes

1. The theme of this ep so far is “Lannister brothers on ships”

2. Jorah stealing the boat and throwing silver on the poor dude 😂

3. I... think I might not have seen this episode because I have NO MEMORY of that scene where Jaime tells Bronn he’s going to kill Tyrion if he ever sees him again. My heart.💔 (I found my tumblr archive form May of 2015, and I definitely HAD seen it. I think my brain just protected me from remembering this because it hurt too much. 

4. I want a million reaction gifs of Qyburn being done or clearly having Thoughts Not Expressed

5. Do you know WHY the Faith Militant was disbanded Cersei my love? Cersei who is the mother of three of her brother’s children? BECAUSE THE FAITH HAD ISSUES WITH THE ALL THE TARGARYEN INCEST. What in ALL SEVEN HELLS possessed you to rearm them that kind of power?

6. I still HATE that the show makes the Faith SO MUCH MORE HOMOPHOBIC than it is in the books.

7. I’m going full on Lannister here because me reaction to Margaery bursting in on Tommen was BACK OFF, TYRELL.

8. LEAVE. TOMMEN. THE FUCK. ALONE. (Sparrows, Tyrells, EVERYONE.)

9. Jon writing to the Boltons for men even though he HATES THEM says a lot about him.

10. Mel just does a whole lot of sex magic doesn’t she...

11. I LOVE that we get a scene between just Stannis and Shireen where it’s obvious he loves her. And it makes me hate what happens later even more.

12. Sansa honoring Lyanna in the crypts is sweet. And LITTLEFINGER is the one who tells her the story of Lyanna and Rhaegar at Harrenhal?

13. Also how is Littlefinger assuming Sansa SURVIVES Stannis taking Winterfell from the Boltons?

14. EW HE KISSES HER AGAIN GROSS GROSS GROSS

15. I DEFINITELY HAVE NOT SEEN THIS. (Narrator’s voice: But she had)  I would have remembered Jaime saying he wanted to die in the arms of the woman he loves. (Narrator’s voice: But she didn’t, which didn’t bother her as much as it might have. It was like getting to see shippy scenes for the first time all over again.) 

16. THAT ONE SHOULD BE SLOW ENOUGH 😂 ILU BRONN

17. Jaime being obsessed with not starting a war makes sense because he ALREADY DID IT ONCE AND THIS TIME DAD IS DEAD.

18. And on the other hand Elia wanting to START A WAR I AM SO ANGRY

19. Obarra getting tell the story about the spear is cool though

20. BUT WHERE IS ARIANNE? STILL ANGRY.

21. Poor not drunk as he would like to be Tyrion. He’s quick though with recognizing Jorah.

22. I’m trying to imagine younger Barristan protecting his idiot prince who liked singing in public and it’s kind of fun

23. Well this is clearly a trap. Also that many unsullied should have been able to WIPE THE FLOOR with those sons of the Harpy even in close quarters.

24. Barristan Selmy: WHAT A BADASS. He’ll be missed.

5x05: And now my watch was ended because D and D did something awful in the next episode. 

As I mentioned before, after I rewatched the whole season, I went back to my archive and found the last post where I talked about watching GoT when it aired first run, and it was about this episode. I just read it again for the first time and MY FEELINGS HAVE NOT CHANGED on many points. 

1. Letting Viserion and Rhaegar eat that Meereenese noble is something Aerys would have done and doesn’t make them love her any more likely to behave.

2. So... who is writing Maester Aemon about Dany?

3. Jon Snow, Breaker of Chains? I like that he frees Tormund and gives him reasons to follow him but lets the choice be his.

4. Grammar stickler Stannis is always good for a laugh.

5. Wait wait... Brienne was close enough to Winterfell to SEE IT OUT THE WINDOW??? What in all Seven Hells?

6. We needed a scene of Myranda and Ramsay talking about Sansa like I needed a dagger in the eye

7. Ok ok cool parallel of Sansa standing at the base of the tower looking a lot like Cat.

8. Holy shit did Sansa not know Theon was there before Myranda showed her???

9. Ramsay playing mind games with Theon making him think he’s going to hurt him... yikes

10. And forcing the two of them to interact in ways that he could control and make awful was... kind of smart

11. No Walda should not be telling people she’s pregnant... but how could she know that Ramsay was a danger to her unborn child? She seems a trusting sort.

12. Sam insisting that Gilly knows valuable things too is... so pure

13. This rewatch is turning me into a rampant Missandei/ Grey Worm shipper and I like it.

14. Dany’s outfit when she goes to see Hizdar in prison looks very Star Wars to me.

15. Jorah and Tyrion sailing through the Doom is still the DUMBEST shit.

16. The old city looks neat though. And that’s a fun poem.

17. AND A WHOLE ENTIRE DRAGON (are dragons homing pigeons?)

18. Tyrion’s face when he sees that dragon is still so great

19. STONE ZOMBIES ARE CREEPY and now Jorah has greyscale.

5x06: I want to just watch this episode and get it out of the way and at the exact same moment I NEVER WANT TO WATCH IT EVER. It’s Schroedinger’s Episode.

I know this is the episode with THAT SCENE. The reason that I finally stopped watching. Let’s just assume I’m going to be angry but also probably very affected by performances and extremely upset.

1. In the House Of Black and White, a curious child adores an open door....

2. Arya doesn’t hate the Hound. That she still does is a lie she tells to herself, and I THINK THAT’S INTERESTING. 

3. Well of course Jorah wouldn’t know about his dad’s death... :(

4. holy shit Arya making up lies on the spot to comfort that sick little girl before helping her KILL HERSELF

5. That is some SERIOUS MAGIC SHIT GOING ON with all those faces. That scene is exactly as creepy as it needs to be

6. Tyrion has some points about Dany having Targaryen crazy in her dna and how she hasn’t spent a day in Westeros...

7. Well... Tyrion found some people who think his cock is as magical as he does. To bad they want to sell it unattached.

8. Cersei is working out of Tywin’s office. Love it.

9. Wow Petyr... that’s a play for power. He gets the North, he gets Sansa...

10. Trystane Martell is SO CUTE. And I miss Aimee as Myrcella.

11. I LIKE TO IMPROVISE?? Like Indy??? Jfc Jaime

12. Wtf even was all that nonsense in the water gardens other than some cool fight choreography. (Have I mentioned how pretty the Water Gardens are? SO PRETTY.) 

13. The parallels between Cersei and Olenna and Tywin and Olenna in that office.... right down to the Lannister writing to make Olenna wait... fascinating.

14. Cersei did NOT expect the Sparrows to trot out Olyvar. Did she? She genuinely seemed surprised when he walked into the room.

15. Olenna thinks it’s Cersei’s fault anyway and that’s what matters.

16. Sansa’s dress is pretty and the Weirwood is pretty and everything else is awful and there was NO NEED FOR THAT SCENE. It didn’t tell us ANYTHING NEW ABOUT RAMSAY and what he’s capable of or shed any new light on Sansa or Theon it’s just gratuitous rape and psychological torture porn and it’s just gross.

5x07

1. Maester Aemon holding little Sam is the most precious thing. He will be missed. “Egg I dreamed I was old” 😢

2. Oof. That first scene in this ep between Sansa and Theon is ROUGH. She is so desperate and he is so brainwashed and the fact that she can be furious at him one moment and reminding him who he is the next... my heart was not meant to take this.

3. Is this scene supposed to mirror Sansa and Joffrey on the wall? IT IS only with more sophisticated mind games.

4. WHY ARE YOU POKING HIM ABOUT WALDA’S BABY SANSA DO YOU WANT ALL OF YOU TO DIE

5. Stannis being like THIS IS OUT LAST CHANCE TO MARCH SOUTH AND NOT BE STUCK AT THE WALL. But... don’t people bop up there all the time after this? D and D probs forgot. 

6. So... Ghost has just decided he likes Sam and Gilly? He has good taste in people.

7. Dany is with Daario for a LONG time. I hadn’t realized how drawn out their thing was.

8. I AM A QUEEN NOT A BUTCHER no Dany you’re a bbq-er. Sigh. 

9. Tommen being helpless breaks my heart a bit. And that scene between him and Cersei is... devastating.

10. Myrcella is Sansa part 2... pretty and naive and at the mercy of the adults around her

11. what is the point of sand snake boobs here

12. How did I not know that Jorah ended up in the fighting pits?

13. Tyrion is a gift indeed.

14. Fucking puritans I cannot stand them (ask me about how I cursed Oliver Cromwell’s name in England a lot.)

15. I cannot wait to see Cersei keep her promise to that Septa. I do not think that was what I was supposed to take away from Cersei getting thrown in that cell but I’m over here like PAY THAT DEBT MY BEAUTIFUL GOLDEN QUEEN 👑

5x08

1. Tyrion’s intro to Dany about why he’s valuable makes me so angry. Not because I think it’s badly written, but because Tyrion tells her true things that she apparently didn’t internalize about devotion and wisdom.

2. Poor scaly Jorah... tossed out of Meereen.

3. Religious people who try to starve and torture confessions out of those they think have sinned need to DIE IN A FIRE. I am so done with the Faith.

4. Arya “Lanna” selling oysters is cool and all but now I want oysters.

5. Qyburn is a darling atheist and Cersei’s best ally in that place.

6. I HATE SANSA TELLING THEON SHE WOULD DO TO HIM WHAT RAMSAY DID I don’t care that she doesn’t know the extent of what Ramsay did to him it makes her look cruel and the VIEWERS KNOW and UGH GROSS 

7. Holy shit Sansa didn’t know Bran and Rickon were alive.

8. Theon insisting he’s Reek 💔💔💔

9. Tyrion and Dany’s interactions have got my attention. I’m cautiously here for them.

10. Do we know how things are going over in Slaver’s Bay by the end? Does anyone care?

11. Yes but Dany THE WHEEL HAS A PURPOSE. What do you propose to replace it with?

12. The question Olly brings up of “why ally with the people who slaughtered peaceful farmers? What keeps them from killing people on our side of the wall?” Is a good one, and I wish we’d gotten to see Jon argue sensibly for his solution more.

13. Wow did Tormund just kill Rattleshirt?

14. The leaders of the free folk are an interesting group. What is the woman’s name I wonder? Also I hate spiders but WHY DID WE NOT GET ICE SPIDERS.

15. Tormund gets it and likes Jon. It’s kind of sweet.

16. So... I’m calling that cool wildling leader woman isn’t going to last the episode. Ladies without names don’t get to bond with their kids that much if they’re going to live. <--It’s an awful burden being right all the time. 

17. Shit these wights are a lot more active than the old ones

18. Jon and the Night’s watch and the wildlings fighting alongside each other to give people time 👍

19. VALYRIAN STEEL BITCHES

20. Of course she died because women are soft hearted and can’t deal with zombie kids.

21. Jon and the night king having an epic stare off before he raised the dead was kind of cool tho. Also I think Wun Wun the giant is nine kinds of awesome.

5x09: In which I am probably about to lose all respect I ever had for Stannis Baratheon.

1. So I forgot about Ramsay and thought Mel was lighting fires with her mind 🔥

2. Did... Alliser just give Jon a complement? A backhanded one?

3. Omg Stannis is GETTING DAVOS OUT OF THE WAY for what he plans to do YOU BASTARD YOU KNEW DAVOS WOULD STOP YOU.

4. Ok Show Ellaria pouring out wine rather than drinking with a Lannister is fun but NOT HER.

5. Also wherever they filmed that scene with Doran is SO BEAUTIFUL.

6. Meryn Trant is ON HER LIST AND RIGHT THERE

7. And he’s a fucking pedophile ew. Kill him good, Arya.

8. A girl thinks she just lied to Jaqen without him noticing.

9. You know who’s responsible for Oberyn’s death? OBERYN who volunteered and THE MOUNTAIN who killed him. Not Jaime or Tywin or ANYONE BUT THOSE TWO and anyone who actually saw it happen should KNOW THAT, ELLARIA

10. FEEL BAD WHEN SHIREEN ASKS TO HELP, STANNIS. that’s right feel bad

11. I can’t believe NONE OF THEM in that Baratheon army stopped Mel from BURNING A CHILD. Bystander effect?

12. Too little too late Selyse.

13. As of right now, he loses any moral superiority he ever had and I can’t wait to see Brienne shish kabob him

14. Jorah what is the PURPOSE of getting yourself in front of her at the pits?? (Dany’s dragon collar is badass tho)

15. And all of a sudden sons of the Harpy, who were apparently hiding those masks like guy fawkes masks at a protest...

16. TYRION SAVED MISSANDEI YES GOOD also that shot of Dany taking Missandei’s hand gave me feelings

17. LEAVE MY MOM ALONE AND ALSO I AM HUNGRY: Drogon pretty much

18. Ok DANY FLYING OFF WAS COOL.

5x10 I have SO MUCH WINE READY

1. The armchair theologian in me has questions about the reality of the lord of light given the timing of the snow melting enough that Stannis can movie his army. (My wife thinks Mel did some serious blood magic in this case that may or may not have involved any actual divine intervention)

2. FEEL BAD STANNIS YOU MADE CHOICES

3. I would feel worse for Selyse if she hadn’t been horrid to Shireen every single other second.

4. Yay they figured the Valyrian steel swords work. Sam is smart.

5. Jon’s “congrats on the sex, friend” face is priceless

6. Wow the sellswords took ALL THE HORSES. This means Stannis Baratheon, claimant to the throne, is WALKING.

7. YES SANSA PICK THAT LOCK

8. Wow that’s gonna be a masacre. Yikes. I’d call Stannis brave for standing and fighting but he probs knew he had no chance of surrender with the Boltons.

9. UGH SHE LIT THE CANDLE AND BRIENNE ISN’T THERE TO SEE IT

10. I don’t know what Brienne is going to say when she kills Stannis but I would like to suggest “Renly Baratheon sends his regards”

11. Ok that was much more honorable.

12. Me to Ramsay: 🎶 “You’re going to get eaten by dogs AND I’M NOT SORRY.” 🎶 (my sis in law snorted from the other room at that)

13. No one told me Theon kills Myranda for Sansa yes good

14. THEY FLEW

15. Arya killing Meryn Trant is a special kind of horrifying I’m just bloodthirsty enough to cheer for.

16. Wait wait she just STOLE A FACE? It works for her without any permission?

17. Oh ok I see that wasn’t creepy at all.

18. ...and Ellaria just literally gave Myrcella the kiss of death what

19. THE BAD PUSSY LINE GAVE MY WIFE A HEADACHE I AM NOT KIDDING

20. Jaime trying to be dad and bonding with Myrcella (or trying to) is SO CUTE and the look on his face when she says SHE IS GLAD HE’S HER DAD AND SHE HUGS HIM KILL ME NOW

21. I can hear book Ellaria screaming from here. And I just killed about half a glass of wine for Myrcella.

22. Of course Tyrion speaks Valyrian that’s darling

23. The meeting of the “Find Dany Committee” is fascinating. Daario is kind of in control here??? But what he suggests makes sense???

24. What an adorable triumvirate of Tyrion, Missandei, and Grey Worm!

25. VARYS! Hiiiii! Tyrion is going to need you I have a feeling.

26. Aww look at Drogon’s little dragon nest poor wounded thing.

27. Now... was this Khalasar just passing by? Did they see the dragon and come to see what was up?

28. SAY CONFESS ONE MORE TIME BITCH

29. A girl lies well. Good one Cersei.

30. AND HAIR GROWS BACK. (She doesn’t get to say it here but I was screaming it internally) I kind of can’t wait for her to wildfire the lot of them. The Faith and the high sparrow and all of the self righteous assholes can go fuck themselves

31. SOMEONE GIVE HER A CLOAK

32. THANK YOU QYBURN. When the necromancer is the most welcome sight ever... things have taken an odd turn (seriously though the genuine care he seems to have for her is touching???)

33. DOES DAVOS KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO SHIREEN Must not because Mel would be dead right now

34. Happy Ides of Winter Jon

35. Congrats dudes you killed a kid (ok fine a man) that was better than all of you

36. Glasses of wine consumed: Two BIG ones.

[junker-town]

Mike Leach going back to Texas Tech isn’t THAT crazy of an idea

There’s one big, obvious stumbling block, but Leach-to-Lubbock might suit both sides’ goals.

Hours after Texas Tech fired Kliff Kingsbury on Sunday, a newspaper in Texas Tech’s backyard published a report about the guy who used to coach Kingsbury in Tech’s air raid. Maybe, the report said, that coach would be interested in replacing his former QB.

Don A. Williams of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal wrote:

In the wake of Kliff Kingsbury’s dismissal Sunday as the Red Raiders’ football coach, two sources told A-J Media that Leach is interested in returning to Tech, and one of the two said a large contingent of donors will lobby athletic director Kirby Hocutt to make it happen.

Of that donor push, Williams writes:

“The people who are supporting him, it’s not just one or two,” the source said. “It’s like a hoard of people and maybe eight or 10 that are like million-dollar-plus donors. It’s some serious folks.”

The note about a camp of Tech donors supporting Leach is certainly believable and would be extra important, given the context.

It tracks with support some Tech fans have shown Leach since the school fired him for cause amid a big, public mess in late December of 2009. Leach has maintained he shouldn’t have been fired for cause and should get $2.5 million in 2009 pay Tech didn’t give him.

A tiny handful of TTU fans rallied for Leach to get paid in 2017, but more remember him as the head coach the last time Tech was really good, in 2008, and the winningest coach in school history.

Leach has trained his anger on the state of Texas and its legislature specifically, because state law requires him to get the legislature’s permission to sue a state school in state court. Unsurprisingly, Texas state lawmakers have not let Washington State’s coach do that.

So, some things would have to be worked out. I can’t imagine Leach would take the Tech job without a resolution to the thing he’s been hopping mad about for a decade. Given that he’s had beef with a whole state government, that might be a big project.

It’s possible that Leach could never be Tech’s coach again for that reason. Tech’s also on the hook for about a $4.2 million buyout to Kingsbury, which would be a consideration ahead of whatever deal the school makes with its next coach. For argument’s sake, let’s say the parties all reconcile enough that it’s not a deal-breaker.

For Leach to go back to Texas Tech, he’d have to leave Wazzu. We already know he’s open to that idea in general.

Leach has had rumored connections to a lot of coaching searches during his career. But text messages that came to light after Tennessee’s debacle of a search for Butch Jones’ successor made clear that Leach was serious about taking the Vols’ job a year ago.

He was poised to meet with then-UT athletic director John Currie in California, before Currie got called back to Knoxville and later fired for leading a disorganized mess of a search. Leach had texted Currie he was waiting for him on a bike path.

“Let me know if I can ever do anything for you,” Leach texted Currie after they didn’t quite meet up. “I truly wish I had gathered you up and we had the first of many beers together.”

If Leach does want to leave Pullman, there’ll never be a better time than now.

His Cougars fell out of Playoff and Pac-12 contention with yet another Apple Cup loss to Washington, but they still went 10-2 and stayed in contention all year despite not being a recruiting power. Star QB Gardner Minshew will be moving on after this season.

In a year that doesn’t have one hotshot coaching candidate looming above all the others, Leach could be a desirable candidate at numerous schools, despite what one might refer to as his extreme Leachiness. Or you could just call it the possibility he’ll embarrass an institution by tweeting fake Obama conspiracy videos, then doubling down when called on it and making an even bigger public scene, or whatever.

Leach is 57, which is both young enough to get another head job and old enough that his window won’t be open much longer. That he’s coming off such an impressive season might only strengthen his desire to move now, if he ever wants to coach elsewhere again.

Leach was 9-3 when he made plans with Tennessee’s AD in 2017, but hadn’t been in Playoff contention and wasn’t leading such a highly regarded team.

For another matter, Tech’s roster would be a strong fit for Leach.

Leach would be leaving a good team that he takes to a bowl game every year and has regularly had in conference contention. He’s not a guy you hire to engage in a long rebuild. Tech’s a prototypical .500-ish team that could get into the Big 12’s upper tier with better coaching. Like Wazzu’s, the Red Raiders’ roster isn’t loaded with blue-chip recruits.

Kingsbury is an air raid guy, and he’s spent years recruiting offensive players to that system. Barring a lot of (always possible) attrition, Leach would inherit a depth chart that already knows how to play his way. And nobody in the modern game knows the pure air raid better than Leach, who was using it before its spread distribution concepts went mainstream.

Offense hasn’t been Tech’s problem, of course. But WSU’s No. 52 S&P+ defense this year is the ‘85 Bears compared to the standard Tech defense under Kingsbury.

Who knows if Tech AD Kirby Hocutt would really want him in the end, or if Leach would actually do it.

But former Big 12 head coaches going back to their old teams is apparently a thing now.

[aporiaeuphoria-blog]

I choose thin.

I am a phenomonally picky eater. I’m talking like 4 types of vegetables, almost anything wheat and most meats. Theres a million things that I just do not like. Which is okay, I’m an adult now, I cook my own food. So I can eat what I want (yeah, mum, even prawn crackers at 4 am). Though I can’t deny that my laziness within the kitchen is legitimately unreal. If it’s harder than heating up a tin of beans I’m just not down for it. 

Recently I’ve been thinking about my change in weight over the last 2 years. It’s an ‘everything I own is two sizes to small, damn Eddina would be proud’ kind of situation. I would not call myself fat, by a fair stretch, but I’m pretty firmly opposed to my new size 15 figure. Printing off photos from when I lived in Shanghai the other day I realised just how much fitter I used to be, I was shocked. I hadn’t really noticed the weight come on, I’ve been busy with other things, like paying my rent. Something I’m sure resonates with many. So, how did that perky, size 10/12 18 year old morph into the, to be blunt, lazy, slightly overweight, bushy and unplucked 20 year old sat at her computer about to roll a spliff on a Monday night? I’ll tell you. My entire life was uprooted and turned on it’s head. Finally finishing the IB I was ecstatic, the whole concept of IB was ridiculous and I had not entered into it of my own volition. During this time I had suffered severely from depression and spent most of my time skipping out on school, crying about how my cousin touched me and cutting myself. Towards the close of the school year I felt I had found my place. I was meeting people and having fun, I had wound down from the rebellious implosion of the year before. I was coming to terms with what had happened to me, I realised who my real friends were. I wasn’t particularly concerned with my exam results because I didn’t want to be deemed acceptable by a system so detrimental to the mental health of so many people. It was sort of a joke to me. My lifestyle at this specific point in time was actually quite active. I had a relatively large amount of friends strewn far and wide and made a genuine effort to socialise with them all. Even though I was barely showing up to school, par the odd day where I was given no choice. I was often out running errands with my Mum, or I’d be going for walks with my conveniently located friends and of course, if I wasn’t doing that I would be out around the town, running a muck into the wee hours. So we are talking atleast 8 hours of solid dancing a weekend. Food wise I was eating really well, I was no prude and I definitely had relations with a cheesy bacon burger or two a week. For the most part, though, I once lived for 2 weeks off of nothing but homemade low fat 17 bean and lean beef chilli. I drank masses of water and got plenty of sleep. I showered, blow dryed, plucked, shaved, buffed, primped, and moisturised basically daily. Not that those are by any stretch of the imagination the most important things a woman does. I also thought about things constantly, I was in a forever state of contemplation. I would go on endless dates and experience so many personalities and different types of charm and charisma. I would have conversations with people endlessly. I was a clever girl. I was clever, I was pretty, I was fit, I was funny and I was charismatic. Fast-forward 2 years and I have a handful of friends who, to be painfully honest, I would be ashamed to leave the tiny town I live in with. Ridiculously lovely people, but also just ridiculous. I eat basically a Greggs a day, on occasion more. I work in a convenience store and I get hourly breaks, so I am constantly snacking on rustler burgers and crisps, simply due to my absolute lack of willpower. At home, the little time I get to myself I just want to sprawl out on my bed and comatose. So cooking is hardly a priority. The best it gets in my house is a weight watchers read meal from Iceland, largely because they’re 2for£2. Proper good deal, you should check them out. I jump at any opportunity to go to my Mum and Dad’s for tea hoping I will inspired to whip up a giant batch of chilli for myself and freeze it. But alas, literally never takes. As hard as I try, and as much as I wish I could just snap back into my old ways and be the confident go getter that got busted for a coke problem. I just can’t. I’ve gone full stoner and it’s pissing me off. Now although I used the term stoner negatively there, does not mean I want to give up smoking marijuana. No way - No how. In fact, I’m high right now and I am actually being quite productive, writing like this and whatnot. Last night I cleaned my room. It was disgraceful. I found a bag with sick in it from last weekend. Not one of my finest moments. No, I am passionate about marijuana. It has helped me in more way than it hasn’t. For one, I do less lonely drinking. So i’m hungover a lot less, that’s nice. But, in a country where the use of marijuana is illegal, it’s not that much of a social act. I tend to stick to smoking in my bedroom or in my living room. Pretty strictly although I have been known to venture outside on occasion. But that’s not what we are here to talk about. I firmly believe that when I am thin, life is better. I am more confident, I feel like dressing up, I feel like doing my makeup, I feel worth investing in. I’m well aware that my mind is more important than my dress size. And it pains me to feel the way I do. When I am skinny, I am a better me. I have found myself recently willing to fall ill with the mental illness of anorexia once more, how sick is that. Just enough to slim down to my old size and from there I will simply maintain. But it’s all I want. People will listen to me again. People will care about what I have to say.

[thewarlocksbitch]

starting off by saying i mean no disrespect to vegans and please educate tf out of me but the animals we eat were created to be eaten and are way less intelligent than dogs?

for starters, animals were not created for us. they don’t belong to the human race for food, entertainment, or anything. they belong to the earth like we belong to the earth, we are all equal.

secondly, what research have you done to learn every kind of animal that is killed to be eaten by humans is less smart than any breed of dog, and why does lesser intelligence deem them less deserving of life? chickens are naturally intelligent and they posses communication skills on par with those of some primates. pigs are smarter than both dogs and human three year olds. and cows are the biggest sweethearts, and they’re smart as well. any of these animals you open your heart to will show you affection and loyalty and love just like a dog or cat. (I kept ducks as pets for years - they show affection in the cutest ways, love to cuddle, and they get so excited over the smallest things!)

every living thing deserves love and respect and fair treatment. animals in the industry are reduced to how profitable they can be to humans. just think about it - is drinking cows milk natural? what species other than humans takes an animals milk from its baby to drink themselves? animals are continually bred for the sole purpose of being killed - their fate is determined before they’re even born. using animals as machines is in no way natural or humane. There is no humane way to kill someone.

some things about/caused by animal agriculture: there are an estimated 5,000 wolves left in the lower 48 states(the number used to be 400,000).

thousands of wild horses are taken from the wild every year to free up space to graze cattle. one environmental activist has been killed in Brazil every week since 2002 (by threatened farmers).

there are over 550 nitrogen flooded dead zones in the ocean (more than 95,000 sq feet completely devoid of life) and there will be fishless oceans by 2048. (51 percent of) human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. water shortages.

the LEADING CAUSE OF WORLD HUNGER(3 million children across the planet die each year from starvation while hunger and malnutrition affect an additional 1 billion).

a dairy cow needs 35-45 gallons of drinking water a day, 20-30 for a dry cow, 12 for beef cattle, 8 for a pig, 15 for every 100 turkeys, and 9 for every 100 chickens. nearly half of the land in the united states is dedicated to animal agriculture.

65 percent of human-produced nitrous oxide comes from it. an acre of the amazon rainforest is cleared every second (animal agriculture is responsible for 91 percent of its destruction). it’s the leading cause of species extinction and habitat destruction.

some facts concerning animals: naturally cows live to be 20, in the animal industry they live to be (at most) 4. 70 billion land animals are killed for food by humans every year. ¾ of the worlds primary fisheries have been overexploited. instead of making up 99% of the biomass, wild animals now make up only 2% of the earths biomass.

dairy cows continuously have babies every year to produce milk (they become “downers” within 4 years and are then sent to slaughter) the baby is taken from the mother at the latest 2 days after birth(the mothers often scream themselves hoarse calling for their babies), and will be raised in an enclosure barely larger than its own body alone, the male calves (since they cannot be used to produce milk) are raised for slaughter while the females go to the dairy industry and eventually share their moms fate - meaning, all dairy cows eventually go to the beef industry.

more than 99 percent of farmed animals in the US are raised on factory farms. cannibalism is common in hogs and laying hens due to stress from lifelong confinement that doesn’t allow them to stretch, groom, or even turn around.

broiler chickens are killed at 7 weeks old (in the 1950’s they were killed at 16 weeks, but inbreeding and genetic manipulation has since shortened their lifespans) - the birds start to die of heart attacks and other diseases caused by their unnaturally fast growth by 7 weeks, which is another reason why they’re rushed to slaughter so early. baby chicks are routinely debeaked usually at 1 week old, their beaks contain more nerve endings than our fingertips - half of their beak is sliced off.

like chickens, pigs in factory farms are routinely subjected to amputations without any anesthetic. baby pigs tails and teeth are clipped. pieces of their ears are cut for identification. piglets not big enough to be profitable are “thumped” - meaning they’re held by the hind legs and are literally bashed against the concrete floor, then are left to die. a slaughterhouse worker was quoted saying that they thumped as many as 120 piglets in one day. “We just swing them, thump them, then toss them aside…[then you] stack them up for the dead truck…[if some are still alive] then you have to thump them all over again. There’ve been times I’ve walked in that room and they’d be running around with an eyeball hanging down the side of their face, just bleeding like crazy, or their jaw would be broken.”

like dairy cows, mother sows are kept pregnant 24/7 and are housed in gestation crates - they lay on slatted concrete and usually do not have enough room to lay down or turn around. pigs in industrial operations often live in crates their entire lives.

Not counting by-kill, over 28 billion animals were taken out of the ocean in one year. 650,000 whales, dolphins, and seals are killed as by-kill every year (by-kill is the non-targeted species caught in the net). For every pound of shrimp caught, there is 20 pounds of by-kill. 40-50 million sharks are killed each year in fishing lines and fishing nets and as by-kill.

More than 500 miles of non-biodegradable fishing nets have been left in the oceans by fishermen - the nets float throughout the ocean and catch whatever comes in their way.

Today, only 10 percent of all large predator fish, such as tuna, sharks, swordfish, cod, marlin, skates, and flounder, remain in the ocean.

like pigs and chickens, beef cattle are castrated and dehorned - with no anesthetic at the age of a few weeks. All of these cruelties are standard industry practices and are protected as such - they violate no state anticruelty laws.

Imagine any of this happening to a dog. No one would stand for it.

one vegan saves more than 1,100 gallons of water, 30 square feet of forest, 45 pounds of grain, the equivalent of 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, and one animals life - every day.

one quarter pound hamburger requires more than 660 gallons of water to produce (the equivalent to showering for 2 months). one pound of eggs is 477 gallons of water, one pound of cheese is almost 900 gallons. it takes 1000 gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk.

I would link all of my sources but i’m on mobile and am reading from the book Cowspiracy, so I can’t link anyways. The documentary version of Cowspiracy is on netflix, though, and I really urge you to watch it. There’s so much more to learn about the animal industry and I can’t cover all of it here - I really hope what I said here persuades you to watch the documentary and learn about the animal industry more thoroughly. The earth, the oceans, and the animals can’t save themselves, and they will never have the chance to recover if more people don’t change.

I’m always happy to discuss veganism and give advice. Five people (that I know of) have gone vegan from seeing my posts about veganism, and that makes me happier than anything!! I’m glad you want to be educated, and if you want to know more my ask or messages are always open!

[onaara-today-news]

HAROLD SMITH AND NIGERIA CENSUS

HAROLD SMITH & NIGERIA (The Truth ) 
SUMMARY: Harold Smith was in school and then being a new father in London up until 1954 when he saw an advertisement for a Labour Officer position and applied and then travelled down to Nigeria with his lovely wife Carol, in 1955. He was 26 years old at the time. If he literally did not even know of Nigeria till 1954, how could he have possibly been ‘sent by Sir James Robertson to falsify our 1952-53 census figures?’ Here again, we easily debunk the popular tale attributed to Harold SSSmit 

DETAILS: It'sperhaps one of the most famously quoted references on the Nigerian blogosphere, particularly in ethnic squabbles. You probably heard or read it before if you are active on the Nigerian online community. Equivalent to the Holy Grail of anti-north Nigeria population dominance is a statement attributed to late controversial colonialist Harold Smith that goes something like this:By Tunde Adekoya, as an alleged narrative by O. A. Olagbaiye, MBBS. FRCS; in theVanguard of, Feb. 28, 2011:‘Brothers and sisters; on Ben TV last Thursday, Harold Smith was on a program to reveal what went behind the scene before the independence. … Harold Smith confessed that the Census results were announced before they were counted. Despite seeing vast land with no human but cattle in the north, we still gave the north 55 million instead of 32 Million.’The same account is also given on theHarold Smith memorial website.Even late distinguished author Chinua Achebe referenced the Harold Smith ‘Holy Grail,’ in “There Was A Country” (Pg. 50), asserting that Harold was sent by Sir James Robertson ‘to oversee the rigging of Nigeria’s first election ‘so that its compliant friends in (Northern Nigeria) would win power, dominate the country, and serve British interests after independence.’I proceed to debunk this claim on three premises.Firstly, the population figures:According to Harold’s Grail, in most sources, ‘he gave the north 55 million instead of 32 million.’ This is clearly incoherent information because the entire population of Nigeria at the time was 31.6 million, so there is absolutely no way a census could have given the north 55 million. So the Grail is debunked easily based on figures late Harold allegedly put forth. If he indeed quoted these figures, his old age state of mind may have been questionable.{populstat.info/Africa/nigeria}Secondly, the timing of the event:The census in question was the 1952-53 census. Nigeria conducted decennial censuses. It appears the 1953 census was about a year late, but this is the census referred to by Harold Smith. The problem with his account however was the fact that he said he was part of falsifying the census figures. But according to theHarold Smith memorial website, Genesis Nigeria and all other sources, Harold Smith was in school and then being a new father in London up until 1954 when he saw an advertisement for a Labour Officer position and applied and then travelled down to Nigeria with his lovely wife Carol, in 1955. He was 26 years old at the time. If he literally did not even know of Nigeria till 1954, how could he have possibly been ‘sent by Sir James Robertson to falsify our 1952-53 census figures?’ Here again, we easily debunk the popular tale attributed to Harold Smith. Perhaps young Harold heard something. Perhaps he saw massive land and imagined something—the north landscape is more than double the size of the South. It is also possible that some people had a drink with old Harold and convinced or bribed him to sell a tale; but for certain, he was definitely not part of anything related to the 1952/3 census based on the record of when he entered Nigeria a full three years after.Thirdly, the fact of coincident earlier censuses:Research into Nigeria’s earlier censuses actually substantiates the 55-45% North-South ratio in the 1953 census that Harold claimed to have falsified. According toAllAfrica, Nigeria’s most credible census was that held in 1921. I quote:‘The first attempt to know the Nigerian population was in 1921, which could be regarded as the best and the properly-controlled census in Nigeria. The most successful censuses after the first were those of 1931 and 1952/1953. These three censuses were conducted under and by the colonial administration.’The 1921 census gave the Northern Province 10.26 million and the south, 8.37 million.The 1931 census gave the north a total of 11.44 million and the south, 8.49 million.If we check the ratio’s of these results of earlier censuses, it is approximately 55-45% for both. This is the same as the results of the 1953 census to which Harold’s Grail referred. Now, we do have reasons to distrust the British, but the claim that the falsification of ‘Harold and team’ was in preparation for a handover does not apply to the earlier censuses since these were well before a handover. It is however possible that the British always counted-up the north. But this thought is not supported by Harold’s allegations since for one, he was not there and two, he got the numbers all completely wrong as he is quoted.This completes my submission on this all important issue. It is possible Harold Smith has been quoted out of date, context and reference; but if so, it is a shame that dignified Nigerians have blindly used such an obviously erroneous and preposterous tale to unfairly promote agenda and ethnic strife. The truth is a better and stronger tool to get all we want and desire.Nigeria has many reasons for beef and grief, however in the national conversation, as we decide if and how to exist, coexist or not coexist, it is important we separate facts from malicious and ill intended fabrications and conspiracies which do not speak well of our national intelligence.Population density can never be estimated by the brain or imagination and can only be verified by a true count. There are concentrated large mega cities and trade hobs in deserts as there are in tropics. If someone imagined that little Lagos today has a population of 30 million, looking at the map, many will refuse to believe. 30 million was the population of the entire Nigeria in 1953. Concentrations could have been possible in any of many major trade hobs and large cities.We hope for a census we all can believe sometime in the future; and that it be a census for measuring and planning opportunity for the regions or nation(s), and not for promoting and propelling xenophobia.Dr. Peregrino Brimah SOURCE http://saharareporters.com/2013/12/10/debunked-harold-smith-nigeria-census-lies 
 #onaaraTODAYnews Supporting Government for Good Governance!

[marcos008-blog]

Memories of Fifties Britain

EVERYBODY who grew up in Fifties Britain will have his or her own indelible memories of their childhood, from the first taste of welfare orange juice to the birth of rock’ n’ roll. The nation was recovering from the ravages of the Second World War and the camaraderie of wartime was still evident throughout the country.

Children waking up on Christmas morning in 1952 had experienced rationing of food and clothes all of their lives. It was quite normal to go without the sweets, biscuits, crisps and fizzy drinks that would be taken for granted by future -generations . Before sweet rationing ended in February 1953 the most prized thing in your Christmas stocking would have been a small, two-ounce bar of chocolate.

You probably didn’t get your first black and white television set until the late-Fifties. After all, only three million British households had one by 1954, with numbers increasing to almost 13 million by 1964.

But it didn’t matter if you had no television because you could play in the streets without the fear of traffic or the obstruction of parked cars. Buses and bicycles were the most popular modes of transport. In 1950 there were just under two million cars in Britain, with only 14 per cent of households owning one. The most-popular models in the Fifties included the Ford Prefect 100E and the Austin A35 saloon.

Many of us who grew up then have memories of houses that were draughty in winter with curtains hung behind the street door to reduce the flow of cold air and frost that formed overnight on the inside of bedroom windows.

Outside, the larger urban areas suffered with dense, yellowish smogs – known as pea-soupers – caused by fog combining with coalfire emissions. In 1952 a particularly thick smog shrouded London and caused the deaths of an estimated 12,000 people.

However, life was certainly not all doom and gloom. You grew up in a much safer environment than we can ever imagine these days. Children were able to enjoy the freedom of outdoor life. They played lots of rough-and-tumble games, got dirty and fell out of trees. The purple stains of iodine were always evident on the grazed knees of boys in short trousers.

We would also dress up like cowboys and Indians, wear holsters with cap guns and point and shoot at each other.

There was no such thing as health and safety or children’s rights. We were taught discipline at home and at school and corporal punishment was freely administered for bad behaviour.

There was no mugging of old ladies and people felt that it was safe to walk the streets. There was very little vandalism and no graffiti. Telephone boxes were fully glazed and each contained a set of local telephone directories and a pay-box full of pennies.

Youngsters respected and feared people in authority such as policemen, teachers, and park keepers, knowing that they would get a clip around the ear if they were caught misbehaving.

Home life was much different from today. Everyone seemed to have a gramophone, an upright piano and a valve radio in their front room and there were ticking clocks all around the house.

The kitchen was filled with products such as Omo washing powder and Robin starch and a whistle kettle was a permanent fixture on the kitchen stove.

Most adults smoked and there were ashtrays in every room, even in the bedrooms. Most homes didn’t have a bathroom so people would either wash in a tin bath by the fireside or take a weekly trip to the local municipal baths where they could pay to have a hot bath in a little more comfort. Toilets were usually outside.

We still managed to eat lots of wholesome food, which was always freshly cooked, and mums seemed always to be baking and though many of us didn’t have a fridge and went shopping for-groceries every day. Perishable foods were bought in small amounts just enough to last a day. It was quite usual to buy a single item of fruit.

On Sundays everyone had a roast dinner and leftovers were made into stews and pies to eat later in the week. In 1950, 55 per cent of young children drank tea with their meals. Bread and beef dripping was standard fare but we cringed at the sight of a curled-up Spam sandwich.

That was even worse than the daily spoonful of cod liver oil many of us had to consume.

Boys and girls played street games together, such as run outs, hopscotch and British bulldog. In the playground schoolgirls practised handstands and cartwheels with their skirts tucked up under the elastic of their navy blue knickers, while the boys played conkers.

We travelled in third-class compartments on train journeys to the seaside. In 1956 they were renamed second class. The change didn’t move you any higher up the social ladder but it made you feel there was a bit less of a social gap. At the seaside you wore a knitted bathing costume on the beach.

Do you remember Pathé News at the cinema? Going to the pictures was everyone’s favourite outing, with all those wonderful stiff-upper-lip British film stars such as John Mills, Jack Hawkins, Kenneth More and Dirk Bogarde and great war films such as The Dam Busters, epics such as Ben-Hur and comedies such as The Belles Of St Trinian’s. When the film ended everyone stood for the National Anthem and stayed until it finished playing.

For children the Saturday morning pictures provided the best fun. Every week, 200 to 300 unruly children would descend on a cinema for a couple of hours of film and live entertainment. The manager would regularly stop the film and threaten to send you all home if you didn’t behave and the solitary usherette was often forced to run for cover. It was controlled mayhem with the stalls and circle filled with children cheering for the goodies and booing the baddies. It introduced us to The Lone Ranger and Zorro and the slapstick comedy of Mr Pastry and Buster Keaton.

Dusty, old-fashioned sweetshops had high wooden counters jam-packed with boxes of ha’penny chews and other sweet delights. Remember Lucky Bags and frozen Jubblys and getting a sore tongue from sucking on gobstoppers, aniseed balls and Spangles? Then there were those old Smith’s potato crisps. The salt was in a twist of blue paper and you always had to rummage around for it at the bottom of the bag. All your one-shilling-a-week pocket money would go on sweets and comics (yes, we used old money back then, pounds, shillings and pence).

It was the decade of skiffle music with Lonnie Donegan and of the start of rock’ n’roll with Bill Haley, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard. Did you know that Cliff’s first hit Move It is credited as being the first rock’n’roll song produced outside the United States? Other British singers such as Tommy Steele, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury and Adam Faith first came to fame in the Fifties. But while everyone now remembers rock’n’roll, in reality the record buyers were suckers for-ballads and throughout the Fifties homegrown ballad singers had -British girls swooning in the aisles.

I have memories of Bob-a-Job Week, as a Cub Scout, you lend a helping hand to friends and neighbours in exchange for a small payment, it ended in 1992 after concerns were raised over health and safety and child protection issues.

“Sex was something mysterious which happened to married couples and Homosexuality was never mentioned; my mother later told me my father did not believe it existed at all ‘until he joined the army’. As a child I was warned about talking to ‘strange men’, without any real idea what this meant. I was left to find out for myself what it was all about.”

It is hard to identify the Britain of today with how it was back then. The whole appearance of the country has changed, particularly in inner cities where so much building and development work has been done over the years.

The wartorn dilapidated houses, derelict land and bomb sites that were the forbidden playgrounds of postwar baby boomers are now long gone.

There was something cosy about growing up in the last decade in which most children retained their childish innocence to the age of 12 or 13 and enjoyed a carefree life full of fun and games. The stresses of adolescence and then adult life could wait. We were lucky.

1950s: what it was really like

It was an era when women stayed at home, a 9-to-5 job meant just that, workers had a job for life and nobody had a Blackberry to ruin their holidays.

When the Queen was crowned in 1953, food rationing was still in force, supermarkets were unheard of, and fish and chips were our undisputed national dish. How things have changed. But is our diet more healthy now than it was then?

Despite the challenges of rationing, family diets still contained more bread, vegetables and milk than children have today.

There was a succession of callers to the 1950s house. These would include the rag and bone man, a man with a horse and cart and a call of ‘any old rags’. The rag and bone man would buy your old clothes for a few pennies and mend your pots and pans when the bottoms went through.

The milk man came daily and delivered your milk right on to your doorstep – again he would take away the empty bottles to be washed and re-used. The local shops would also deliver your groceries, bread and meat, the delivery boys using bicycles to make their rounds. The dustbin men worked extremely hard, carrying the old metal dustbins on their backs from the householder’s back door to the cart and then returning them back.

Fear of Polio held a reign of terror over this nation for decades. But unless you were born before 1955, polio may seem to be just another ephemeral disease that has been nonexistent for years. Those born before 1955 remember having a great fear of this horrible disease which crippled thousands of once active, healthy children. This disease had no cure and no identified causes, which made it all the more terrifying. People did everything that they had done in the past to prevent the spread of disease, such as quarantining areas, but these tactics never seemed to work. Polio could not be contained. Many people did not have the money to care for a family member with polio.

I can remember the days before the internet, local radio, Sky Sports etc. The was no information on Saturday matches other than the results on the TV and radio starting at approx 4.40. (Matches finished much earlier then. They started on time; there was only 10 minutes half time; there as very little added time)

In those days the only match reports on the day came in the Green’un. It was delivered just after 6.00 pm and, amazingly, there would be people queuing in the shops waiting for it.

The reports usually had a lot of detail on the first half but next to noting on the second half. (Not surprising as the reporters had to send their reports by telephone at half time and full time)

The green-un and a pink-un. One printed by the Evening World and the other by the Evening Post.

1950s memories

* We walked to school, had open fires and no central heating

* we spent our holidays in the UK

* No bathroom just a tin bath

* The outside toilet, you wiped your rear end with newspaper

* Cod fish fingers produced in Great Yarmouth were introduced in Britain in 1955.

* Chickens were for high days and holidays only as they were very expensive.

* Rabbit was eaten a lot those days.

* Pickled beef was a favourite of our family back in the 50s. The beef would be chosen and then pickled by the butcher.

* cows udder served warm with brown bread and butter. Also pigs trotters cooked until the crackling and meat falls off the bone.

* It was always stew and dumplings on Mondays as it was wash day and it was easiest to cook and always fish on Fridays.

* Mums used to do their weekly baking on Saturdays.

* In the summer we always went blackberry picking so had plenty of jams and pies. Some families had allotments so soft fruit was available.

* We certainly ate dates, they were delicious.

* worms in apples

* We had our first television set in 1955

* Butter was also sold from a large block and the grocer would pat it into smaller blocks with wooden paddles.

* Very few cars, lots of buses, neighbours talking on the doorstep and helping each other and the mangle in the garden for the weekly wash.

* fresh fish…cockles, mussels

* REAL butter

* chicken was only eaten at Christmas

* no ordinary family had turkey at Christmas

* The Corona popman would come round on a Friday selling bottles of lemonade. You’d save up the empty bottles which were worth tuppence each.

* broken biscuits from Woolworth

* cheese cut with a wire from a large block

* coal delivered in heavy sacks by filthy men

* boxes of shredded suet.

* toasting bread and crumpets over a real coal fire

* fruit salad with Carnation milk

* home made rice pudding

* Stewed steak and Onions

* bread and dripping with lots of salt

* Meat and Potato Pie

* Fresh bacon cut on a slicer to the thickness of your choice

* Bubble and Squeak on a Monday with leftovers from Sundays roast

* homemade Jam in a sandwich

* ration books!

* Brylcream

* Sunday School

* Kids were still innocent and weren’t trying to grow up too fast.

* Very few people were fat.

* Kids rode bikes and played outside.

* signs in house windows that said ‘Rooms to Let: No dogs, no coloureds’.

* No fast food in those days, other than fish and chips!

* Pasta had not been invented.

* Curry was a surname.

* Olive oil was kept in the medicine cabinet

* Spices came from the Middle East where they were used for embalming

* Herbs were used to make rather dodgy medicine.

* A takeaway was a mathematical problem.

* A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.

* Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.

* The only vegetables known to us were spuds, peas, carrots and cabbage,

* All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.

* Condiments consisted of salt, pepper, vinegar and brown sauce if we were lucky.

* Soft drinks were called pop.

* Coke was something that we put on the fire.

* A Chinese chippy was a foreign carpenter.

* Rice was a milk pudding, and never, ever part of our dinner.

* A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.

* A Pizza Hut was an Italian shed.

* A microwave was something out of a science fiction movie.

* Brown bread was something only poor people ate.

* Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking

* Bread and jam was a treat.

* Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.

* Coffee was Camp, and came in a bottle.

* Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.

* Figs and dates appeared every Christmas, but no one ever ate them.

* Coconuts only appeared when the fair came to town.

* Jellied eels were peculiar to Londoners.

* Salad cream was a dressing for salads, mayonnaise did not exist

* Hors d’oeuvre was a spelling mistake.

* The starter was our main meal. Soup was a main meal.

* Only Heinz made beans.

* Leftovers went in the dog.

* Special food for dogs and cats was unheard of.

* Fish was only eaten on Fridays.

* Fish didn’t have fingers in those days.

* Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.

* Ready meals only came from the fish and chip shop.

* For the best taste fish and chips had to be eaten out of old newspapers.

* Frozen food was called ice cream.

* Nothing ever went off in the fridge because we never had one.

* Ice cream only came in one colour and one flavour.

* None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.

* Jelly and blancmange was only eaten at parties.

* If we said that we were on a diet, we simply got less.

* Healthy food consisted of anything edible.

* People who didn’t peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.

* Indian restaurants were only found in India .

* Brunch was not a meal.

* If we had eaten bacon lettuce and tomato in the same sandwich we would have been certified

* A bun was a small cake back then.

* The word" Barbie" was not associated with anything to do with food.

* Eating outside was a picnic.

* Cooking outside was called camping.

* Seaweed was not a recognised food.

* Pancakes were only eaten on Pancake Tuesday

* "Kebab" was not even a word never mind a food.

* Hot dogs were a type of sausage that only the Americans ate.

* Cornflakes had arrived from America but it was obvious they would never catch on.

* The phrase "boil in the bag" would have been beyond comprehension.

* The idea of "oven chips" would not have made any sense at all to us.

* The world had not heard of Pot Noodles, Instant Mash and Pop Tarts.

* Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold.

* Lettuce and tomatoes in winter were only found abroad.

* Prunes were medicinal.

* Surprisingly muesli was readily available in those days, it was called cattle feed.

* Turkeys were definitely seasonal.

* Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.

* We never heard of Croissants and we certainly couldn’t pronounce it,

* We thought that Baguettes were a problem the French needed to deal with.

* Garlic was used to ward off vampires, but never used to flavour food.

* Water came out of the tap, if someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than petrol for it they would have become a laughing stock.

* Food hygiene was all about washing your hands before meals.

* Campylobacter, Salmonella, E.coli, Listeria, and Botulism were all called "food poisoning."

* The one thing that we never ever had on our table in the fifties …. elbows.

do you have any memories of the 1950s?

Posted by brizzle born and bred on 2019-08-26 12:58:13

Tagged: , 1950s , UK , Memories of Fifties Britain

The post Memories of Fifties Britain appeared first on Good Info.

[wikitopx]

When it comes to historical places in the United States, Baltimore probably isn’t the first city that comes to mind.

Surprisingly though, Baltimore boasts a rich array of landmarks and historic sites.

It has a beautiful harbor and is made up of hundreds of districts, so it’s no wonder that it’s also known as a city of boats, and a city of neighborhoods.

Whether you’re looking to immerse yourself in history, culture, or just have some fun, Baltimore has something for you. Check out these top twenty things to do when you’re in the City of Baltimore

1. Be enthralled by the wildlife at the National Aquarium

If you have little ones, or love wildlife, then the National Aquarium is a must-see on your Baltimore trip.

Take a walk through Level One as blacktip reef sharks swim above and around you. Head up to other levels to explore a tropical rainforest, or the wild extremes of Australia. The National Aquarium prides itself on immersive exhibits that simulate natural habitats, transporting you away from the city and into the wild.

If you’re not keen on sea creatures, there’s still plenty to be seen. The National Aquarium hosts over 750 species, including crocodiles, sloths and flying foxes.

With over 1.5 million visitors per year, the aquarium can get pretty packed. To avoid the crowds, try going on a weekday. If you’re going on a weekend, try before 11 am or after 3 pm. Tickets can be bought online or at the aquarium (if you’re buying tickets on-site, be prepared to queue), and range from 24.95 USD to 39.95 USD.

Allocate a couple of hours at least to allow yourself to be entranced by the aquarium and its many inhabitants.

2 . All aboard the Historic Ships!

History and maritime buffs ahoy! Historic Ships is an open-air museum where you get to climb onboard history itself. It houses one of the most impressive collections of military vessels in the world. Among some of the ships there are the USS Constellation, the last remaining civil-war era ship afloat, as well as the USS Torsk, a submarine that saw action during World War 2 and has an impressive record of over 10,000 dives.

Historic Ships gives a fascinating insight into what life was, and is, like on or under the sea. Squeeze through the narrow corridors on the USS Torsk, or operate the capstan on the USS Constellation’s main deck. Be sure to catch the daily cannon-firing demonstration on the USS Constellation as well.

These ships are rich in history and are a fun place to spend a few hours exploring.

Opening hours vary depending on the month, so be sure to check out their website before heading over.

Ticket prices range from 5 USD to 18 USD, depending on the number of ships you want to visit.

3. Walk in the footsteps of Edgar Allan Poe

Baltimore defines the beginning and end of Poe’s life. It was in Baltimore that Poe began to write his imaginative short stories, and it was also in Baltimore that Poe met his mysterious death.

Poe wrote some of his early stories in a tiny, unassuming brick house in Baltimore, and it has since been turned into the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum to celebrate his legacy.

The house is well-preserved, and visitors can walk on the same floor and stairs that Poe did. The plaster walls and woodwork also remain unchanged. There are various exhibits that tell the story of his life and death in Baltimore. Artifacts, such as his writing desk and chair, are also on display.

In 1979, while renovating the house, workers lifted the floorboards to find skeletal remains of animals, eerily reminiscent of Poe’s short story The Tell-Tale Heart. Visitors have described the experience as ‘both disturbing and ethereal.’ If you’re a Poe fan, or have a love for the horror and mystery genres, then this is a place you can’t miss.

The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum is open in the summer months on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Admission is 5 USD for adults and 4 USD for seniors and students. Children under 12 can enter for free with an adult.

4. Send chills up your spine at the Westminster Hall Burying Grounds

Just a short walk away from the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum is Westminster Hall, a graveyard and former church. Edgar Allan Poe, his wife Virginia and his mother-in-law are buried in the cemetery. Other notable people resting there include General Sam Smith and General James McHenry.

A graveyard might be an eerie place to visit, but this is a must-see for fans of Poe. There is a monument dedicated to the poet at the gates of the building and his actual grave is behind the church.

The burying grounds are open from 8 am to dusk and are free of charge. If you’d like a tour of Westminster Hall and the Catacombs, you can arrange a tour. More details on tours and prices can be found on their website.

5. Grab a meal at one of the public markets

Baltimore’s public market system is over two centuries old, making it the oldest continually-operating market system in the United States.

The markets feature a wide range of products, and you can find local specialty items such as beef tongue, rabbits, and even muskrat!

One market to stop by is the Lexington Market, found in downtown Baltimore. It’s been around since 1782, and you can find local favorites like fried ice creams, Baltimore’s world-famous crab cakes and Bergers Cookies (shortbread cookies topped with fudge). The market also hosts jazz and rock and roll bands on weekends.

Many of the locals consider their public markets to be the ‘real’ Baltimore, reflecting the character of its neighborhoods. If you want to get away from the tourist sites, then head over to the public markets. Make sure to bring an empty stomach!

6. Tour John Hopkin’s University

Whether you’re a prospective student or your college days are long over, the John Hopkins Homewood Campus is definitely worth a visit. Located in North Baltimore, the Homewood Campus is home base for Hopkins’ undergraduates.

There are buildings dating back to the 1800s, and the campus is a beautiful place for a stroll. You can register for a tour on their website, or go on a self-guided walking tour.

If looking at the architecture doesn’t interest you, you can visit the two museums on campus. The John Hopkins Archaeological Museum features over 700 artifacts from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, the near East and the ancient Americas. The other museum is the Homewood Museum, one of the best surviving examples of Federal Period architecture.

You can register for a visit on their website.

7. Take a ride on the Charm City Circulator shuttle bus

It’s easy for visitors to get around Baltimore even without a car, and that’s thanks to the Charm City Circulator (CCC). The CCC is a free shuttle bus service that runs through four routes in the city, and it is used by tourists and residents alike. The fleet is made up of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), which are eco-friendly.

The shuttle is efficient, with a waiting time of about 10-15 minutes between shuttles. The shuttle service connects famous landmarks, making getting around a breeze. It’s a nice way to take in all that Baltimore has to offer.

Best of all? It’s free of charge!

You can check out the routes and schedules on their website.

8. Catch a game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards

Baltimore has a long and colorful history with regards to baseball, and there’s no place where that is more distinct than Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Oriole Park is one of the most highly-praised major league ballparks. Baltimore’s home team, the Baltimore Orioles, have won the World Series three times.

You can buy tickets to watch a Baltimore Orioles game, or book a ballpark tour. The tour gives you the chance to experience the ballpark from the club suite level, the press level, and even the Orioles’ dugout. Tour details can be found on their website.

Even if you’re not a baseball fan, watching a game is still an experience. Look out for the tradition of fans yelling out the Oh in the line, Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, in the national anthem.

9. Immerse yourself in baseball history at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum

Baltimore also has the distinction of being the birthplace of baseball legend Babe Ruth. If you have even a mild interest in baseball, this is a must-see. The museum encompasses the small row house where the Babe was born. It has several exhibits about the life and times of Babe Ruth and you can see the room where he was born.

It’s full of artifacts, stories and videos. The staff are helpful and keep the museum well-maintained, so you can expect a pleasant and informative visit.

Admission is 7 USD for adults, 5 USD for seniors and 4 USD for children.

The museum is open from 10 am to 5 pm, though opening days vary depending on the season.

10. Explore the birthplace of the American National Anthem

After the Battle of Baltimore in 1814, the American flag flew high over Fort McHenry. The sight of the flag in the sky moved Francis Scott Key so much he wrote the poem that would eventually become The Star-Spangled Banner.

Today, the fort is rich in history and activities. It’s a great place for both children and adults. You can watch a video and view some exhibits at the visitor center and then walk around the fort.

Flag changes, flag talks, and ranger talks take place every day, so be sure to check out the timings so you can catch them. On weekends in the summer months, the Fort McHenry Guard performs drill, musket, and artillery demonstrations.

Fort McHenry can also be reached via water taxi, but do note that you can’t leave via water taxi if you didn’t take one to the fort. Plan to spend about one to two hours there.

Admission for adults is 10 USD, and children are admitted for free.

Read also: Top 10 things to do in Sacramento

  From : https://wikitopx.com/travel/top-10-things-to-do-in-baltimore-704166.html

[drtanstravels]

I’ve spent a lot of time in South Korea, but the bulk of that was working in Daejeon 12 years ago. However, I’ve made several trips to Seoul as recent as December last year and every time I’ve been I haven’t needed to travel too far out of my way from where we were staying or if I have, I’ve had someone showing me around. This time we would be traveling for another of Anna’s conferences, but we would also be in a position where we had to try to find everyone else we wanted to meet up with by ourselves. My friends, Andy and Hayley, were still living in Seoul and in recent months I’ve had quite a few friends from Singapore move to Seoul for their work with General Motors, namely Tom Cargill and his wife, Leonie Brown, joining him, plus our mate, George Svigos, and his family. Add to this the fact that mutual friends of all of us from Singapore, Peter Gratz, and his girlfriend, Ray, had timed their Korean holiday to coincide with ours, plus an old colleague of mine from Daejeon that I always enjoy catching up with, Christina Eunjoo Kim, would make the trip down as well. It looks like we had a fun couple of days ahead of us.

Thursday, October 17, 2019 We arrived at Incheon International Airport at around 7:00am, got in a taxi, and made our way through the crazy Seoul traffic for about an hour or so to our hotel, Lotte Hotel World in Jamsil-dong. It was too early to check in, but we were able to dump our bags, get changed, and spend the morning and early afternoon trying to navigate the labyrinth that is the adjoining Lotte Department Store and Lotte World Mall. As is always the case when we land at this time in the morning, the first port of call would be anywhere besides Starbucks that sells coffee. Once caffeinated we explored the supermarket and food area of the mall, looking at the live seafood, marvelling at seeing beef being aged underwater for the first time, and weighing up our options for lunch before walking around both the mall and the department store. The department store was pretty much all luxury brands, not really our thing so we stuck to the enormous mall until it was time to check into our room and grab a bite to eat. A stroll around Lotte World Mall and our hotel:

A small sampling of the live seafood in the food section

Anna’s hand next to a lobster for perspective

This thing was gigantic!

Wet-aged beef

Dried fish

I can’t imagine a child from a western country wanting broccoli-themed toys

Maybe they should’ve checked Urban Dictionary before naming their brand

I wonder who their demographic is

Inside our room

The view from where we were staying

A bad photo, but Anna wanted one of me with this sign

Anna and our lunch

Me doing the same

That was some damn fine clam rice

After lunch we caught a cab down to where we had stayed on our previous trip to Seoul, around Gangnam and Sinsa-dong to do a bit more shopping, but in an area with more of the type of stuff we like. Because of the insane Seoul traffic it took a while to get there and it was quite late, but we finally made it and had a great time just shopping and looking around for a bit until we were hungry again. Andrew and Hayley weren’t in town, Peter and Ray weren’t arriving until the following day, and Tom and Leonie were both working late so we were left to do our own bidding that evening. First of all there was dinner to think of and one of the things I love in South Korea is all of the fried chicken and beer places that are everywhere. Sure, they sell other stuff too, but the main reasons to go to them are the cheap beer and the Korean fried chicken. The only downside is the condition of the toilets, but that is a small sacrifice when the food is this good and the beers are such a bargain. The chicken is served with all of the side dishes that come in any restaurant here, but we learnt our lesson last time when we clearly over-ordered, the servings are massive, so we just got a plate of chicken, some vegetables, and a 2.7 litre (91.3 fl. oz.) jug of beer to get us started.

Once dinner was done the next step was to find a bar to settle into so we found a shisha bar, grabbed a pipe and some drinks, and kicked back for the night. There were free flow pretzels and I’ve had a habit while eating them that dates back to when I was bored at Christmas as a child — I always try to chew them in a way that they form letters to spell things out. My name is easy to do and when Anna saw the initial result of both of our names, she wanted to get in on the act and add the name of our dog, Kermit. We got it done, however, it took many attempts to get the photo right, but here’s a look back at our first night in town:

Anna warming up

Showing her how it’s done

Dinner is served

Mission accomplished

The carnage afterward

I wasn’t kidding about the toilets, it was unisex, too

The view from the shisha bar

Just starting out

My initial creation

Finally got the picture right for the camera on the front of an iPhone

Anna’s contribution

Friday, October 18, 2019 Anna would be spending the entire day at her conference so I would need to occupy myself. That wouldn’t be all that hard, because there were plenty of errands to run, the first being finding an ATM that would accept my Singaporean card. Normally this isn’t too difficult in most countries, but it wasn’t particularly easy in the Lotte maze. I used a credit card to buy some coffee and then spent the next three hours trying to find an ATM or bank that could deliver the cash, all while hopelessly lost again. There weren’t a whole lot of ATMs around and I couldn’t withdraw from the bank either, but five ATMs later I found one that would do the job. Now it was just a matter of finding out where I was and getting a cab back to Sinsa-dong to have an extended look at some stores I had seen the previous day that would have Anna probably quite bored, but no taxis would take me. Instead, I opted for the subway and it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, only taking a little over 30 minutes, instead of being caught in traffic jams for an hour or more. Once there it was interesting walking around this particular neighbourhood. Last time I was here I wrote about how prevalent cosmetic surgery is in Seoul:

Plastic surgery in South Korea is socially accepted. Double-eyelid surgery (also known as blepharoplasty) creates an eyelid crease that makes the eye look bigger and is the most common cosmetic procedure performed in South Korea. Due to the differences in the facial bone structure of Asians, who have a flatter facial bone structure than their Western counterparts, facial bone contouring surgeries are quite popular. V-line surgery (jaw and chin reduction) and cheekbone (zygoma) reduction surgeries are used to change the facial contour. Many celebrities are required to undergo these surgeries to trim their cheekbones, jaw, and chin to create an oval shaped face.

South Korea has also seen an increase in medical tourism from people who seek surgeon expertise in facial bone contouring. Korean surgeons have advanced facial bone contouring with procedures like the osteotomy technique and have published the first book on facial bone contouring surgeries. There was a 17 percent increase in the sales of cosmetic surgery from 1999 to 2000, reaching almost ₩170 billion (Korean won) (US$144 million).

Oh, and vanity isn’t just restricted to women here:

While expectations of female beauty usually outweigh male expectations, South Korea is notable for the standards placed on men. Many of male standards are similar to that of female beauty – the body is slim and the skin is clear. Idols and celebrities especially are expected to not be too traditionally masculine and often adopt androgynous traits, such as a lack of facial hair and use of makeup. In 2012 20 percent of male beauty products were bought by South Koreans.

Sinsa-dong is one of Seoul’s capitals for plastic surgery and I took photographs last time of just a handful of the clinics offering their services in this part of the city, but those were all taken at night and until this trip I had never experienced this area in the middle of the day. I discovered it’s not unusual to walk around Sinsa-dong and see people with swollen, bandaged heads or pairs of friends who had gone for matching nose-jobs and are now shopping with the tape, plasters, and bandages still intact. These people are everywhere here during daylight hours, I even saw one girl out shopping who still had all the lines from a consultation for the procedure she was going to soon undergo drawn on her face with a marker!

Anna had a dinner for her conference at 6:00pm at Lotte World Tower so I got to the station at 5:00pm to give myself plenty of time to shower, put on a suit, and walk over, however, there was a small problem; when I arrived the subway station was packed, but I couldn’t just use my size to bully my way onto the train, like is the standard procedure in some other countries. People line up properly in two lines in Korea and politely wait until they can fit in the carriage so I would just have to wait until enough trains had passed and I had made my way close enough to the front of the line to be able to board. This took some time and when I was finally back at the hotel I had a shower-in-a-can, got changed, and met Anna for the dinner. The first event of the night would be going up to the viewing platform of Lotte World Tower for a look over the city:

Lotte World Tower is a 123-floor, 555-metre (1,821 ft) supertall skyscraper located in Seoul, South Korea. It opened to the public on April 11, 2017 and is currently the tallest building in South Korea, and is the 6th tallest building in the world.

We stood for a while in a queue to get in the elevator, but once inside it took only a minute to make it up to the fully-enclosed viewing deck on the 120th floor, stairways accessing higher floors, all offering a breathtaking view of Seoul:

Looking over one side of the city

Now over the river

Straight down

Standing on a glass floor 123 storeys up

Proof we did it

The dinner was actually quite fun, there was no cringeworthy interactive beatboxing display for a bunch of professors this time, but I get the feeling that the organisers this year believed that not many people attending would eat Korean food. Anna had told me that lunch was all Italian with the main dishes being pasta and it turned out that dinner would be predominantly French.

The dinner finished up at 9:30, Pete and Ray were now in town and neither Tom nor Leonie were working so we went to meet up with them in Hapjeong-dong, but there was just one minor problem — The insane Seoul traffic again, even at that time on a Friday night. We thought our ride would take about 30 minutes, but it was the best part of an hour before we arrived to meet the other four at bar nearby called Cream. We all had a blast catching up while requesting terrible songs at Cream and then we switched things up a bit after a while and went to a small bar that Tom loves called Wolf Bar for a few more at the end of the night. It wouldn’t be the only time we would visit either place over the course of the weekend, but here’s how the second part of Friday night looked:

What we’d be eating at the dinner

I always feel proud when I see Anna’s work posted around the place

Outside Cream

Going up the stairs

Now inside with the guy who’d be taking our requests

People draw stuff and pin them to the wall…

…and some of them are really impressive

Probably Pete’s idea

Now doing shots with the owner of Wolf Bar

I guess Tom went a little too hard before we arrived, because this was not long after he got home

Saturday, October 19, 2019 Anna still had to go to her conference for a bit on Saturday, but there were still a few plans for the day; we were going to change hotel so it would be easier to meet up with our friends, but I also had another buddy to meet up with. Just like the last time we came to Seoul, as well as a couple of times when she visited Singapore, I was going to meet up with my old friend from when we both taught at St. Mary’s Elementary School in Daejeon back in 2007, Christina Eunjoo Kim. Christina’s plan was to catch a train to Seoul to spend the day with me and then stay with one of her other friends in a different part of the city that evening so I checked us out of our hotel, stored our luggage, and met her at Jamsil subway station. We always have a great time when we meet up so the first plan was just to grab a coffee, stroll around Lotte Mall for a while, and then have some lunch, bibimbap this time. We were walking around again for a while after lunch when Anna had a gap in her schedule so she met up with us for an hour before heading back to the conference.

Me at each subway exit

After that it was walking around a nearby lake and taking in a weird Korean European dancing display until it was time for Christina to leave and this was another occasion where I got hopelessly lost. I wanted to get back to the hotel and wait for Anna to come back, but I also mentioned earlier that this entire Lotte complex was massive and nigh on impossible to navigate. Most subway stations in Seoul including the nearest one, Jamsil, have eight exits so I thought I’d try and use those as a landmark for getting back to the hotel, all I would need to do is wander around and find the right one. I stumbled upon the nearest one, walked up the stairs and could see the hotel across the rather wide road that, from a distance, appeared to be behind exit number three. I tried to make my way through the mall to that exit, eventually found it, but when I exited I couldn’t even see the hotel, I was now around the side of a completely different building. Back down into the cavernous mall I went to find another exit, locating one that now had me diagonally opposite the hotel. Fortunately for me, the next exit would be a charm and I would be back at the hotel a mere hour after I made what should have been a 10-minute walk to get there. A look back at a fun afternoon with an old friend:

Having a bite to eat with Christina

Lunch!

Anna joining us for coffee later

This soft-serve in coffee kind of looks like a poop

Walking around the back of the mall

I’m not sure if they’re supposed to be European or just pirates

The lake behind the mall

Now looking across the lake at Lotte World

We seem to be encountering a lot of geese recently

Looking up at Lotte World Tower

Anna soon met me at Lotte Hotel World so it was time to get in a cab, check into our new hotel in Jung-gu, and then meet everybody else at Tom and Leonie’s place to watch Australia take on England in the semifinal of the Rugby World Cup before heading to dinner at 7:30pm. We left our hotel at 6:10pm, but even on a Saturday night it took us over an hour to make the 14km (8.7 mile) journey to our new residence for the next couple of nights, L’Escape, leaving us to check in 15 minutes before we were supposed to be at dinner. Luckily for us there was a screen in the cab showing us a terrible K-pop reality show to keep us amused along the way. Once our bags were up in our room that looked as if it were co-designed by Noel Fielding and Jack the Ripper, we were going to take the subway to avoid the horrendous Seoul traffic, but we still knew we were going to be at least half an hour late regardless, because according to Google Maps we had to do the following to get to the restaurant:

Walk 11 minutes to City Hall Station

Once the train arrived ride six stops on the subway to Hapjeong Station (12 minutes)

Walk six minutes from Hapjeong Station to the restaurant

There was one major flaw with this plan, however — Google Maps doesn’t really work that well at the best of times, but it essentially doesn’t work at all in South Korea, because they want you to use their own online map app, KakaoMap, an app we didn’t have. When using Google Maps in South Korea, besides randomly relocating the user and having them floating through buildings as it does anywhere in the world, it has a couple of other problems; A lot of streets in Seoul have the same name, but are numbered, however, Google Maps doesn’t show the number of the street. Also, the directions don’t show you a route using roads and streets, it just draws a direct line through buildings to where you need to be, as if it were designed by Archimedes himself. This meant that not only did we have to figure out the general route by ourselves, but the usual Google Maps errors initially had us facing in the wrong direction, leading us to walk about a further 15 minutes away from the restaurant, crossing over several exceptionally busy roads and back again in the process. It was close to 9:00pm before we made it to 미담왕파족, our barbecue restaurant for the night, and everyone else had finished eating, but were more than happy to stick around for more beers and soju while we cooked a lot of beef (there was no pork due to a recent swine flu outbreak), recalling hilarious tales from the past, mainly about falling through ceilings, and then trying to decide what to do with the rest of the night.

Once dinner was done we headed out, sans Leonie who was suffering a migraine. We went to the same haunts as the previous night, but it took a lot longer than usual, because we kept having to stop and wait for George. George has a wife and kids, his wife is cool and knew his friends were in town so he wanted to make the most of his night out with old mates, but there was one problem; George gets really distracted when he ‘s drunk. He was constantly just stopping and talking to random people, including yelling “You’ve got this!” in encouragement to a girl who was trying to help her absolutely inebriated boyfriend back to his feet. Once we got to Cream we thought we had lost him again, only to turn around and see him taking a photo for a table of girls in the bar. We went to a few other places and finished up at Wolf Bar again, Tom checking out relatively early because he had to catch a flight to China for work the next day. Naturally, Pete thought doing shots several times was a great idea, but it was a hilarious night out.

That day my pedometer said I had walked a grand total of 18km (11 miles) and I guarantee about half of it was spent hopelessly lost, but here’s how the rest of Saturday looked:

Entering our room at L’Escape

It had a kind of murderous burlesque feel to it

The bathroom

Out the front of seafood restaurant en route to Cream

At the barbecue restaurant. Back row: Leonie, Tom, George, me, Anna. Front row: Peter, Ray, Andrew, Hayley

George distracted again

Me wearing Whitty’s horrendous 80s cap

George secretly taking over the music at Wolf Bar

Sunday, October 20, 2019 We were now staying in an area that had some great hole-in-the-wall type food places and, although we had had Korean barbecue the previous night, Anna still wanted more proper Korean food. While we were having coffee near Namdaemun Market I noticed a small laneway across the road called Hairtail Alley that could have some potential. It turns out I was right. When we walked in we found several stalls selling galchi jorim, a red, spicy stew with hairtail fish, and it looked damn good so we joined the long queue for a table in one of the tiny stalls and waited our turn. Slowly we progressed to the head of the line where at any given time there were multiple pots of the soup boiling on a stovetop with a giant container of fish fillets nearby to keep the service as fast as possible in the minuscule eatery. Once at the very front of the line we started to get curious as to why, despite the fact that they were aware that there were only going to be the two of us eating there, the staff kept taking Korean couples lined up behind us, generally older people. Were they worried that if people saw foreigners inside it may ruin the credibility of their extremely traditional restaurant? Nope, one of the older men working there tried to explain in his very best, but extremely basic English, accompanied by some hand gestures, that they had to wait for a seat in an area big enough to accommodate me to become available. Once we were seated inside I saw the problem he had faced; there was an upstairs seating area, but I wouldn’t have made it up the stairs or most likely under the ceiling. In the main area a lot of the seats were in front of walls and it wouldn’t be possible for me to pull a seat out far for me to even fit at the table. They also brought in other customers to share larger tables once other patrons had finished eating, yet they wouldn’t be able to get me on a shared table, because I wouldn’t fit between someone and the wall, but if I sat on the aisle side, I would block it. We just had to wait for an entire table to become available and when one did we were glad we had waited. The soup was fantastic once we figured how to eat the fish without having the inside of your mouth pierced by tiny little bones and we also had steamed egg which was great as well. See for yourself:

Anna when we first got to the market

As soon as I saw that little alley on the right, I knew we’d be having lunch somewhere down there

The sign above Hairtail Alley

Getting bowls ready before customers have even sat down

Just keep ’em coming

Not a lot of room inside

This was after we had progressed a fair bit in the queue, it was even longer behind us!

They go through so much fish so quickly they just leave the container out once it’s taken from the fridge

We finally have a seat and our lunch is served

Anna looking a bit blurry, but also excited

Me in a seat with a little extra space (except to my immediate left)

Once it was time to pass our table on to the next patrons we explored more of Namdaemun Market, first the food section near Sungnyemun Gate, which was still selling plenty of pork products despite the swine flu outbreak, and then on to the massive Dongmyo Flea Market that runs several blocks and is described as:

Dongmyo Flea Market started life in the late 1980s. Every day an array of street stalls open up along the stone walls of Dongmyo Park. The main items bought and sold here are antiques of every type, including items such as wallets, electronics, old books, film posters etc. Recently vintage clothing and shoes have become the main area of interest. Prices are typically around 1,000 won so you can have fun browsing and shopping without worrying about the cost.

There are all kinds of items from everyday miscellaneous goods to antiques. If you get peckish while shopping, boiled duck’s eggs cost just 1,500 won each or bindaetteok (mung bean pancake) make very satisfying snacks. The market is always crowded with people at weekends. The most popular item in Dongmyo Flea Market is used clothing. When new stocks arrive, the market is packed with people looking for bargains. Prices are normally around 1,000 won, but leather items or furs reach around 10,000 won. Designer labels can reach over 100,000 won. The best time for shopping is on weekend afternoons.

That description brings up clothing several times and maybe it was just because winter was rapidly approaching when we visited, but one thing it fails to mention is that an extremely high percentage of the infinite stalls were solely selling secondhand jackets. It honestly seemed like about two thirds of the stalls were selling just jackets and each one of these stalls had a flock of people trying to score a bargain. We also found some other great stuff there besides jackets, but when it comes to clothing and just about any items in general in Dongmyo Flea Market, it’s amazing how many had the Supreme logo on it. That stuff is huge there, whether it is legit of counterfeit! We saw a lot of really cool stuff as well, including a man working in a jacket stall that was wearing a full, powder blue, velour San Diego Clippers tracksuit from the late 1970s, before the team moved to Los Angeles, and a store where I picked up a very rare Korean copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in great condition for next to nothing!

After hours of exploring the market we caught a train back to Hapjeong for dinner and a quiet drink. Leonie’s migraine was gone, Pete and Ray were spending their final night in Seoul before heading down to Busan, but Tom was now in China for work, George had to hang out with the family, and Andy and Hayley were back at their place far out in the suburbs. Ray wasn’t feeling all that spectacular so we opted for ginseng chicken soup, always a good choice and it seemed to help. Once dinner was done we found a cool little bar to have a drink and a chat, but it couldn’t be a late one, we all had important things to do the next day. A whole bunch of photos from the markets and a bit of our dinner:

God, I love chilli

Fine or coarse

Not sure what is going on here

Sungnyemun Gate

Don’t let swine flu stop you from selling pig heads

If you look closely you can make out some pig faces

I wonder how long they’ve been sitting there

Walking down one of many streets in Namdaemun Market

Merely a handful of the jackets on offer

Stone statues of people doing it

One of many antique stalls

“Duct tape. I need it for… taping something.”

Just a pile of toiletries

Is that a Louis Vuitton / Supreme collaboration fire extinguisher?

Seems legit

This flamboyant looking man was the king of the jacket sellers

Harrison Ford seems younger than I remember. More Asian, as well

My dinner, abalone ginseng chicken soup

Anna’s soup

Monday, October 21, 2019 We were going to be flying out in the afternoon, but we still had time to have a look around the mall across the road from where we were staying, particularly the supermarket and food court. I love kimchi and all of the other side dishes and we both love the local soups so we wanted to stock up on a heap of those, as well as have one last proper Korean lunch before we returned to Singapore. We checked out of our hotel, stashed our suitcases, crossed the road and went down to the basement where all of the good stuff was. First we bought a toasted cheese lobster tail to snack on and Anna had a craving for cold noodles so I kept our table, one of the only free ones in the extremely crowded foodcourt, but there was one problem; our table was specifically for customers of a nearby stall, but none of the staff were capable of telling me that at first. Eventually an employee was able to so I apologised using one of the very few Korean phrases I know and went to find Anna to tell her we no longer had a place to sit. Our food soon came so we both spread out to hunt down a table in the massive foodcourt and after a couple of minutes a staff member from where Anna had bought lunch was running up to me from another area, trying to convey the message that Anna had found a table. I’m really not used to being served by people in a new place that are genuinely helpful who don’t want anything in return, it’s kind of refreshing. It also helps that I’m easy for them to see in a crowd, but even after we had sat down some girls on the next table showed Anna the best way to eat those noodles and then just went back to chatting to each other. Once we were finished with lunch we went around the supermarket looking for snacks, soups, and sides to bring back to Singapore, but we had to be rational, we had limited space inside our check-in luggage, however, we chose well. Our last meal for this trip to Seoul:

I love this dried seafood

Cheese and lobster is a great combination

I’m probably drooling in this picture

Hell yeah!

The noodles weren’t bad, either. Or the dumplings

Our stay in Korea was over, but I’m always proud when I go to Anna’s conference dinners and see the praise that she gets from her peers, as well as seeing her work pinned up around the place. This trip was made even better by getting to meet up with some old friends that I haven’t had the chance to see for quite a while. I always appreciate the effort Christina makes to come see me whenever I’m in Seoul, I’m glad Tom and Leonie have hit it off so well with Andy and Hayley, It was great of George’s wife to look after the kids for the night so he could have a night out with us all, and it was cool of Peter and Ray to make their holiday coincide with our stay.

Until next time, Seoul, geonbae!

Meeting friends and shopping in the most inconvenient ways possible I've spent a lot of time in South Korea, but the bulk of that was working in…

[sheilacwall]

Jesus Walks… in Adidas

Jesus Walks… in Adidas

Jesus is King has finally dropped. This is Kanye West’s first Christian rap-gospel album since turning into a born-again Christian in April after the hedonistic indulgence of Coachella.

The Lucifer, Mercy and New God Flow producer has given up secular music and has now turned his career toward the servitude of God.

However, his return from hospital and new found faith will flow nicely into his plans to expand his fashion, music & entertainment empire as well as possibly delivering him the top spot in the White House. This is a man not to be underestimated.

Saint Pablo

‘Ye recently turned around a personal debt of $53 million into a nearly $50m profit. Back in 2016, ‘Ye went out cap in hand to Mark Zuckerberg for $1bn for his ideas, but was promptly ignored. Zuckerberg was raised in a Jewish household, although his wife is a Buddhist and he hasn’t publicly stated his faith. But, this wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by ‘Ye and may have pushed Kanye toward his born-again Christian position.

Soon after, the “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” star seemingly finally started listening to his wife.

“My wife said, I can’t say no to nobody, and at this rate we gon’ both die broke,” West raps on Saint Pablo. “Got friends that ask me for money knowin’ I’m in debt, and like my wife said, I still didn’t say no.”

Stronger

Whilst facing the cold shoulder from Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey – the Square & Paypal founder who was raised a Catholic, offered to invest in Kanye early on.

Jay-Z also kicked in a loan of $20m triggering tensions between the two ending in a public feud.

Here’s Jay-Z on “Kill Jay-Z”:

“You dropped outta school, you lost your principles / You gave him 20 million without thinkin’,” Jay-Z raps, seemingly confirming the rumor that he lent West money. “He gave you 20 minutes on stage, f–k was he thinkin’?”

Recently, Kanye has tried to dead the beef with the recent track “Brothers” with Charlie Wilson.

Power

‘Ye never got that billion from Zuckerberg, although they apparently became friends and even performed karaoke together, but it appears West has now healed his own financial woes: His apparel brand Yeezy is a billion-dollar empire, according to Forbes and over the past 12 months, Forbes estimates West has earned over $150 million before taxes. His wealth is due largely to Yeezy’s Adidas deal, a line that is expected to top $1.5 billion in sales in 2019.

The Jordan line does approximately $3 billion in annual sales, so the Yeezy line is catching up fast. If he can latch onto the Christian vote, sales could explode even more rapidly.

Touch the Sky

Christianity is the most adhered to religion in the United States, with 65% of polled American adults identifying themselves as Christian in 2019. This is down from 85% in 1990, 81.6% in 2001, and 12% lower than the 78% reported for 2012. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation.

Kenneth Copeland is the number one pastor in the USA and his net worth is $300m. After the backlash for supporting Trump, the natural progression seems to be for Kanye to target the Trump supporters and Christians who make up the large majority of America with around another 20% of the population perhaps open to conversion back to Christianity. It is a huge target market… and that is just America.

Christianity is by far the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.2 billion adherents, nearly a third (31%) of all 6.9 billion people on Earth in 2010.

Jesus is King

The new sound track has been carefully crafted to be sung by large audiences to worship god. With tracks such as “Follow God” and “Use This Gospel”, Kanye is on a mission to convert. He has brought the Church to the streets and into the hills… No Church in the Wild.

His carefully chosen purple hair and purple cloths are to portray himself as an Emperor, clergy-like figure, if not Jesus himself, I don’t think it will be long before Kanye professes himself as a Prophet of some sort.

Kanye pronounced himself “I am a God” back on Yeezus.

I just talked to Jesus He said, “What up, Yeezus?” I said, “Shit—I’m chillin’ Tryna stack these millions” I know he the most high But I am a close high Mi casa, su casa That’s our cosa nostra I am a god I am a god I am a god

Rappers as Jesus

This isn’t new in rap. Check out the images below from Kanye, Nas, Tupac, DMX and The Game.

Jeru the Damaja, who follows the Nation of Islam, like Wu-Tang, Rakim & Brand Nubian, famously wrote a song “Can’t Stop the Prophet”.

Rappers have always seen themselves as street prophets, telling war stories, from Rakim, Nas & KRS-One right back to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five in The Message.

Purple Robes

Throughout history, purple robes were worn by royalty and people of authority or high rank. Many believe this to be true because the rare occurrence of purple in nature made it one of the most expensive color dyes to create.

Purple and violet represent the future, the imagination and dreams, while spiritually calming the emotions. They inspire and enhance psychic ability and spiritual enlightenment, while, at the same time, keeping us grounded.

At the time of Jesus, the dye used for making the colour purple, extracted from shell-fish and was one of the most expensive dyes. The colour-fast (non-fading) dye was an item of luxury trade, prized by Romans, who used it to colour ceremonial robes, usually worn by Emperors. The very fact that purple was an expensive color made it affordable only to the royals. That Jesus was made to put it on before his crucifixion, implies that the Romans were sending a strong signal to the Jews against any coup.

A.D.I.D.A.S.

ADIDAS was founded by German, Adi Dassler (Adolf Dassler). In fact, one of the founders, his brother Rudolf Dassler later went on to found Puma and started a bitter rivalry between the brothers. There is a popular myth among fans (not true) that Adidas stands for All Day I Dream About Sports, whilst in 2003, Killer Mike dropped a hip hop track called A.D.I.D.A.S. (All Day I Dream About Sex).

Like many of their fellow citizens, the brothers joined the Nazi party after Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933. Their shoe business remained modest until 1936. In that year, Germany hosted the Olympics.

In an ironic twist, the two party members got legendary African-American runner Jesse Owens to wear their running shoes while competing. Owens went on to win four gold medals during the games. The exposure of their product gave Dassler Shoes a huge boost in sales. You can read more in Sportsweek History.

It does seem ironic, given Kanye’s sex addiction that he would align himself with this particular shoe and his plans are to get the shoes made in America and give “second chances” to inmates.

But, he is going to run into problems with the media as the average wage of a prison inmate ranged between $0.23 and $1.15 an hour  – According to the International Labor Organization, in 2000–2011 wages in American prisons 

In Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas, inmates aren’t paid at all for their labor.

The “New Slave” indeed. I initially thought another way to make money would be to make inexpensive Jesus style sandals and sure enough, I found that is exactly what ‘Ye is planning. They are called “slides” in America and Adidas will be making these from injection moulding and it hasn’t gone unnoticed from Twitter that they are basically prison shoes, but now they are being remarketed as a high fashion item for children of rich kids. That is marketing genius.

Why do the yeezy slides look like the slides worn in prison.. pic.twitter.com/LsR8dbFyqE

— Cyn ☕️ (@Kingxxcyn) October 17, 2019

ADIDAS YECHEIL

The first shoe in Ye’s collection is the Yecheil, which is a Hebrew masculine given name meaning “May God live” or “God shall live”. Several people in the Bible also have this name.

ADIDAS YEEZREEL

For the second shoe of ‘Ye’s collection, there is the“Yeezreel”. It has no exact translation but it seems he might’ve been inspired by the word “Jezreel” which was an ancient Israelite city and fortress originally within the boundaries of the Tribe of Issachar, and later within the northern Kingdom of Israel.

ADIDAS YESHAYA

The third shoe is called the “Yeshaya” which directly translates to “God Is Salvation”. The name Yeshaya (Yesha’yahu) translates from Hebrew to English as the name Isaiah, who was one of the four major prophets of the Old Testament, and the author of the Book of Isaiah. He was from Jerusalem and probably lived in the 8th century BC.

Many of these shoes use Adidas “Cloud” foam, so ‘Ye and his fans are figuratively walking on clouds.

Click the pic to get the best prices on Adidas below

Through the Wire – Prison Reform

Kim Kardashian announced her decision to study law back in April. Since then, she’s met with President Trump to discuss prison reform, teamed up with the 90 Days of Freedom campaign, and is producing a documentary on the subject.

CNN reported that Kim Kardashian West helped free 17 inmates in 90 days.

Kanye West has donated $1m to prison reform, but is now getting US prison workers to make his shoes at 25% of the cost of having his shoes made in China, unless somehow, he is quadrupling the prison wage.

There will be Church factions and sections of the media who will most likely attack Mr. West for essentially using slave labour in prisons to increase profit. Chinese factory workers are now getting paid more than ever: Average hourly wages hit $3.60 in 2017 compared to around $1 for an American prison worker.

Kanye West’s Interview with Zane Lowe

If you don’t want to watch the lengthy interview below, scroll down for a quick summary.

In the interview Kanye talks about the following:

How billboards are guilty of sex trafficking

How he became a born-again Christian in April after Coachella

Why he wants to create jobs and bring jobs back to the USA

How he experimented with Domes & living in them then “the man” tore them down as a metaphor for tearing down his ego

How his farm will be growing cotton & wheat

He will employ prisoners to make his shoes as a “second chance”

His respect for founders, especially Warren Buffett, Amancio Ortego (Zara), Elon Musk, James Turell (artist concerned with light & space) and Jack Dorsey (Paypal)

He calls himself a Christian innovator

How his daughter North drives his passion for church

How Sunday Service may become a church and how he may become a Pastor

He is asking people to fast & not have premarital sex

How he had a porn addiction due to seeing Playboy at 5 years old & his sex addiction

People should pray together, fast together, stay together to increase power

Getting stumped by Zane Lowes question on whether he had to work for his 4th house

How white owners controls hip hop

How God is using Kanye to show off

Compares himself to Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, diagnosed of Bipolar disorder. This was also the ship in the film The Matrix which “woke” people up

According to the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar II was king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who reigned c. 605 BC – 562 BC and conquered Judah and Jerusalem and sent the Jews into exile.

How he will become the President of the United States, perhaps as early as 2024

How Facebook & social media is a disease

How porn is ruining marriages and brainwashing children

How to keep the eternal, imaginative 3 year old at all costs

How he’s undeniably the greatest artist of all time, no question!

How wearing the red cap was a joke on all the liberals as well as Drake living four blocks down from him was also a joke from God.

I guess him wearing blue fur whilst talking and making a blue record is also a joke on the liberals

How he will now rewrite and censor all his old songs for performances

How some of the merchandise money will go to the church

How the Louis Vuitton boss reneging on a handshake to make him the LV don and his wife getting robbed helped put him in a mental hospital

Jokes about being the pastor at Drake’s wedding

How he objects to the censorship of speech of the left

Jesus is King is out now on Spotify, mp3, vinyl & CD

Jesus is Born, another new album, is arriving on Christmas Day this year.

Kanye West’s Journey

There is a bigger story here. How hip hop can be cathartic. Hip hop is bashed left, right and centre in the mainstream media daily, mainly times rightly so, for enforcing stereotypes. But, real hip hop can be a spiritual journey.

Some artists have found solace and teachings much earlier on in their lives such as Rakim, Wu-Tang Clan, KRS-One & Jeru the Damaja. Other artists take longer to mature. It seems to me to be better rapping about street crime then taking part in it. This is something most non-hip hop heads seem to not understand.  Hip hop is way out the streets, just like a sports contract.

Everyone has their own journey and Kanye’s has taken him into Christianity. If record sales pick up, it will turn into a bigger movement. Time will tell what happens if it “All Falls Down”,  streams sour and Adidas sales start to Fade. In such a scenario, it may be very hard for Kanye to stay on the straight and narrow, but I wish him luck. Time will tell.

I’m looking forward to see how he reacts surrounded with Angels in future fashion shows singing his new songs.

I’ll leave you with the last verse from Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s “The Message”, possibly still the greatest hip hop song ever written. The message is as relevant today as it was back in 1982.

A child is born, with no state of mind Blind to the ways of mankind God is smiling on you, but he’s frowning too Cause only God knows, what you go through You grow in the ghetto, living second rate And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate The place, that you play and where you stay Looks like one great big alley way You’ll admire all the number book takers Thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money makers Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens And you wanna grow up to be just like them Smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers Pickpockets, peddlers and even pan-handlers You say I’m cool, I’m no fool But then you wind up dropping out of high school Now you’re unemployed, all null ‘n void Walking ’round like you’re pretty boy floyd Turned stickup kid, look what you done did Got send up for a eight year bid Now your manhood is took and you’re a may tag Spend the next two years as an undercover fag Being used and abused and served like hell Till one day you was found hung dead in a cell It was plain to see that your life was lost You was cold and your body swung back and forth But now your eyes sing the sad sad song Of how you lived so fast and died so young So, don’t push me cause I’m close to the edge I’m trying not to lose my head It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder How I keep from going under It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder How I keep from going under

Watch Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five – The Message

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Apple in 2018: the highs and lows for the MacBook maker

The highs and lows from a trillion-dollar valuation to MacBook misgivings

It’s that time of year when we take stock of how the big tech companies have fared over the past 12 months, and they don’t come any bigger than Apple. So how did Tim Cook’s merry band of engineers, designers and geniuses perform in 2018? Note that we’re going to focus on the computing front here – Apple’s PCs and notebooks – but we will also touch on the iPhone and iPad, and the company’s mobile fortunes. Tech trillionaire Looking at the firm’s balance sheet as a starting point, Apple achieved a massive milestone this year, becoming the world’s first trillion-dollar company. It reached the 13-figure market valuation in August, although Amazon wasn’t far behind, hitting the magic trillion number the following month. Still, when folks look back in the history books, it will be Apple’s name recorded as the very first trillionaire. And as you might imagine, the organization didn’t manage that feat without packing in some impressive sales throughout the year. For the most recent quarter (at the time of writing – fiscal Q4 2018) running up to and including September, the company took a total of $62.9 billion (around £50 billion, AU$88 billion) in revenue, up 20% year-on-year.

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Unsurprisingly, a lot of that was driven by the iPhone, and while the actual number of smartphones shifted remained roughly the same as last year – albeit with a very, very slight uptick – revenue grew by a strong 29% (reflecting the growing premium on the handsets).

However, this isn’t quite the full story with the iPhone for 2018, because chatter from industry sources including suppliers, analysts, and retailers, is that the new models of the phone – the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR – are struggling more in terms of sales. Apple has also reportedly cut production orders on these models. For its part, Apple is insisting the iPhone XR is a success – or at least a relative one compared to the XS models – but the fact that the firm announced it will stop sharing figures on the number of iPhone units sold in its financial results has raised some eyebrows. Meanwhile, the iPad isn’t faring so well going by the latest Q4 figures, with Apple’s tablets slumping 6% year-on-year in terms of units shifted, and revenue was down further at a 15% drop. On the computing front, Mac shipments were down very slightly (2%) at 5.3 million units in the quarter – compared to 5.4 million in Q4 the previous year – but those sales generated a revenue of $7.4 billion (around £5.9 billion, AU$10.3 billion), which was actually up 3% year-on-year. That’s not a bad result considering that last year was a strong Mac performance from Apple (up 25% in Q4 of 2017). We also have to bear in mind that this quarter doesn’t include the impact from the freshly launched MacBook Air, or the new Mac mini – only the refreshed MacBook Pros. Speaking of which…

MacBook machinations This year witnessed the introduction of new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models equipped with faster 8th-generation Intel Core processors. The larger 15-inch notebook got turbocharged with a six-core chip (capable of boosting up to 4.8GHz on the top-end CPU), with the 13-inch spin having a quad-core processor. Those who are hungry for power to tackle computing-intensive tasks also got the ability to beef up the system memory to 32GB in the 15-inch MacBook Pro. So there’s no doubt that you can now spec up a much more powerful MacBook Pro than was possible before, plus Apple added a True Tone display – which intelligently adjusts the screen to match ambient lighting conditions – along with a revamped third-generation keyboard designed to keep typing noise down. While the performance boosts are clearly welcome, particularly with the 15-inch MacBook Pro, connectivity issues persist, with a lack of ports still evident. And some of the fresh features introduced, like the self-adjusting display, are aimed more at consumers, and may not appeal to professionals (who will doubtless be more interested in color accuracy than what they may view as automated gimmickry). There’s a danger Apple is forgetting its target audience here, at least to some extent. Also, these notebooks remain seriously pricey. And, of course, if Apple is trying to cultivate a greater level of mass-market appeal in some small measure, that very much still works against this.

As for the MacBook Air, there was disappointing news on the price front here, too, with 2018’s model being the most expensive entry-level one to date. Granted, there have been some nifty improvements, including a gorgeous screen, and the refreshed machine is supremely portable, but it doesn’t step up much on the performance front, only running with a dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with a base clock of 1.6GHz. As we noted in our review, the MacBook Air 2018 felt a touch sluggish at times, as if the processor was struggling (particularly when multitasking). And given the ramped up asking price, we don’t really feel that’s good enough. We didn’t see a vanilla 12-inch MacBook this year, and some have even wondered if this MacBook Air is effectively a replacement for that model. But if that’s the case, it’s barely any more powerful than the old 12-inch machine, which doesn’t seem very satisfactory. However, it’s still possible we’ll see a new 12-inch MacBook in the spring of 2019 (or at some point next year).

Mac mini marvel Okay, so while we’ve got mixed feelings about the new MacBooks, what can’t be argued about is that the return of the Mac mini represented a stroke of genius from Apple. The refreshed compact PC packs a hell of a lot into a small box, and is hugely faster than its predecessor, boasting 8th-gen Intel Core processors (up to hexa-core, with boost of up to 4.6GHz) and the potential to cram in a hefty 64GB of system RAM. As we observed in our review, about the only weak point here is the integrated graphics, but that can always be resolved by hooking up an external GPU box (to one of the four Thunderbolt 3 ports) when greater pixel-pushing power is needed. The price might look expensive on the face of it, but in actual fact, compared to rival small form factor computers, the Mac Mini is very competitive. This little machine represents a definite victory for portable and flexible computing in 2018.

Mojave magic In September, Apple released the latest version of macOS (10.14). Mojave arrived with a new Dark Mode for more comfortable working in a dimly lit environment, as well as the Stacks feature, which makes it easier to keep your desktop organized and your files more manageable by grouping files together based on their format (or tags, or other specified means). Finder was also honed, with the addition of Quick Actions to let you perform swift edits on files, right there and then, and a new screenshots tool was welcomed by those who like to take snaps of their desktop or its contents.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

In short, the new version of the desktop OS had some useful features, and of course you can’t argue with the fact that the upgrade is free. One downside here: the hardware requirements for Mojave mean that some older Macs are left out in the cold (pre-2012 or pre-2013 devices, depending on the exact model). That’s a marked contrast to the move from macOS 10.12 Sierra to 10.13 High Sierra, where the system requirements remained practically unchanged. Getting real

Throughout the year, it has become increasingly clear that Apple has some major ambitions in terms of augmented (and virtual) reality. From job listings and staff hiring through to patents and a range of acquisitions including Akonia Holographics – a startup that makes lenses for augmented reality (AR) headsets – the evidence of Apple being serious about making its own AR glasses has been mounting. According to the grapevine, Apple reps secretly attended CES back at the start of the year in order to have private meetings with AR component suppliers. By all accounts, it seems that the company believes it can succeed where the likes of Google Glass have failed. Everything has remained very much behind the scenes in 2018, but the rumor mill reckons that we could see Apple’s AR headset on shelves in 2020, with the gadget to get an initial reveal next year. Concluding thoughts and looking to the future

In the year that Apple became the first trillion-dollar company, not everything has been smooth sailing for Captain Cook and his crew. The iPhone is still raking in huge amounts of cash, but there are question marks over the sales of Apple’s latest phones, with some analysts predicting a decline next year. Although we won’t know for sure if this happens because Apple will no longer publish its units shipped figures (with some interesting and potentially controversial timing therein). At any rate, the iPhone could be a weaker spot for the company next year, although given the hefty premium on the handsets, the profits are still likely to be rolling in. Apple seems determined to keep that premium on all of its products, and it was certainly disappointing this year to be greeted with a MacBook Air that definitely wasn’t a budget-friendly model (as some had hoped for and was rumored earlier in 2018). MacBook Pros remain as pricey as ever, and overall, it was a let-down to see no relief for those who are, shall we say, cost-fatigued when it comes to Apple’s notebooks. The MacBook Air also felt lackluster on the performance front, although there was good news with the MacBook Pro models, which were seriously beefed up in terms of the hardware, particularly the 15-inch spin. Even the new Mac mini isn’t cheap, but this is a great little PC which is around four times quicker than its predecessor, not to mention more than competitive with high-end rivals like Intel’s NUC boxes.

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Looking to next year, we’d like to see some clarification of what Apple is doing with its notebook range – will there be a new 12-inch MacBook, or has it effectively been replaced by the MacBook Air 2018? And we’d be delighted with some downward movement on prices, but we also wished for that last year, and furthermore, the likelihood of this happening is shaky when profits are still pushing forward for Apple’s computers and notebooks. We will likely see Apple’s new AR glasses unveiled next year, which should be exciting, although we’ll have to wait a bit longer for the prospect of MacBooks with custom-made ARM processors inside – these may not be realized until 2020 or even 2021 according to the latest from the grapevine.

SOURCE:

from Blogger http://bit.ly/2SnPZwE via

The highs and lows from a trillion-dollar valuation to MacBook misgivings

It’s that time of year when we take stock of how the big tech companies have fared over the past 12 months, and they don’t come any bigger than Apple. So how did Tim Cook’s merry band of engineers, designers and geniuses perform in 2018? Note that we’re going to focus on the computing front here – Apple’s PCs and notebooks – but we will also touch on the iPhone and iPad, and the company’s mobile fortunes. Tech trillionaire Looking at the firm’s balance sheet as a starting point, Apple achieved a massive milestone this year, becoming the world’s first trillion-dollar company. It reached the 13-figure market valuation in August, although Amazon wasn’t far behind, hitting the magic trillion number the following month. Still, when folks look back in the history books, it will be Apple’s name recorded as the very first trillionaire. And as you might imagine, the organization didn’t manage that feat without packing in some impressive sales throughout the year. For the most recent quarter (at the time of writing – fiscal Q4 2018) running up to and including September, the company took a total of $62.9 billion (around £50 billion, AU$88 billion) in revenue, up 20% year-on-year.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Unsurprisingly, a lot of that was driven by the iPhone, and while the actual number of smartphones shifted remained roughly the same as last year – albeit with a very, very slight uptick – revenue grew by a strong 29% (reflecting the growing premium on the handsets).

However, this isn’t quite the full story with the iPhone for 2018, because chatter from industry sources including suppliers, analysts, and retailers, is that the new models of the phone – the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR – are struggling more in terms of sales. Apple has also reportedly cut production orders on these models. For its part, Apple is insisting the iPhone XR is a success – or at least a relative one compared to the XS models – but the fact that the firm announced it will stop sharing figures on the number of iPhone units sold in its financial results has raised some eyebrows. Meanwhile, the iPad isn’t faring so well going by the latest Q4 figures, with Apple’s tablets slumping 6% year-on-year in terms of units shifted, and revenue was down further at a 15% drop. On the computing front, Mac shipments were down very slightly (2%) at 5.3 million units in the quarter – compared to 5.4 million in Q4 the previous year – but those sales generated a revenue of $7.4 billion (around £5.9 billion, AU$10.3 billion), which was actually up 3% year-on-year. That’s not a bad result considering that last year was a strong Mac performance from Apple (up 25% in Q4 of 2017). We also have to bear in mind that this quarter doesn’t include the impact from the freshly launched MacBook Air, or the new Mac mini – only the refreshed MacBook Pros. Speaking of which…

MacBook machinations This year witnessed the introduction of new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models equipped with faster 8th-generation Intel Core processors. The larger 15-inch notebook got turbocharged with a six-core chip (capable of boosting up to 4.8GHz on the top-end CPU), with the 13-inch spin having a quad-core processor. Those who are hungry for power to tackle computing-intensive tasks also got the ability to beef up the system memory to 32GB in the 15-inch MacBook Pro. So there’s no doubt that you can now spec up a much more powerful MacBook Pro than was possible before, plus Apple added a True Tone display – which intelligently adjusts the screen to match ambient lighting conditions – along with a revamped third-generation keyboard designed to keep typing noise down. While the performance boosts are clearly welcome, particularly with the 15-inch MacBook Pro, connectivity issues persist, with a lack of ports still evident. And some of the fresh features introduced, like the self-adjusting display, are aimed more at consumers, and may not appeal to professionals (who will doubtless be more interested in color accuracy than what they may view as automated gimmickry). There’s a danger Apple is forgetting its target audience here, at least to some extent. Also, these notebooks remain seriously pricey. And, of course, if Apple is trying to cultivate a greater level of mass-market appeal in some small measure, that very much still works against this.

As for the MacBook Air, there was disappointing news on the price front here, too, with 2018’s model being the most expensive entry-level one to date. Granted, there have been some nifty improvements, including a gorgeous screen, and the refreshed machine is supremely portable, but it doesn’t step up much on the performance front, only running with a dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with a base clock of 1.6GHz. As we noted in our review, the MacBook Air 2018 felt a touch sluggish at times, as if the processor was struggling (particularly when multitasking). And given the ramped up asking price, we don’t really feel that’s good enough. We didn’t see a vanilla 12-inch MacBook this year, and some have even wondered if this MacBook Air is effectively a replacement for that model. But if that’s the case, it’s barely any more powerful than the old 12-inch machine, which doesn’t seem very satisfactory. However, it’s still possible we’ll see a new 12-inch MacBook in the spring of 2019 (or at some point next year).

Mac mini marvel Okay, so while we’ve got mixed feelings about the new MacBooks, what can’t be argued about is that the return of the Mac mini represented a stroke of genius from Apple. The refreshed compact PC packs a hell of a lot into a small box, and is hugely faster than its predecessor, boasting 8th-gen Intel Core processors (up to hexa-core, with boost of up to 4.6GHz) and the potential to cram in a hefty 64GB of system RAM. As we observed in our review, about the only weak point here is the integrated graphics, but that can always be resolved by hooking up an external GPU box (to one of the four Thunderbolt 3 ports) when greater pixel-pushing power is needed. The price might look expensive on the face of it, but in actual fact, compared to rival small form factor computers, the Mac Mini is very competitive. This little machine represents a definite victory for portable and flexible computing in 2018.

Mojave magic In September, Apple released the latest version of macOS (10.14). Mojave arrived with a new Dark Mode for more comfortable working in a dimly lit environment, as well as the Stacks feature, which makes it easier to keep your desktop organized and your files more manageable by grouping files together based on their format (or tags, or other specified means). Finder was also honed, with the addition of Quick Actions to let you perform swift edits on files, right there and then, and a new screenshots tool was welcomed by those who like to take snaps of their desktop or its contents.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

In short, the new version of the desktop OS had some useful features, and of course you can’t argue with the fact that the upgrade is free. One downside here: the hardware requirements for Mojave mean that some older Macs are left out in the cold (pre-2012 or pre-2013 devices, depending on the exact model). That’s a marked contrast to the move from macOS 10.12 Sierra to 10.13 High Sierra, where the system requirements remained practically unchanged. Getting real

Throughout the year, it has become increasingly clear that Apple has some major ambitions in terms of augmented (and virtual) reality. From job listings and staff hiring through to patents and a range of acquisitions including Akonia Holographics – a startup that makes lenses for augmented reality (AR) headsets – the evidence of Apple being serious about making its own AR glasses has been mounting. According to the grapevine, Apple reps secretly attended CES back at the start of the year in order to have private meetings with AR component suppliers. By all accounts, it seems that the company believes it can succeed where the likes of Google Glass have failed. Everything has remained very much behind the scenes in 2018, but the rumor mill reckons that we could see Apple’s AR headset on shelves in 2020, with the gadget to get an initial reveal next year. Concluding thoughts and looking to the future

In the year that Apple became the first trillion-dollar company, not everything has been smooth sailing for Captain Cook and his crew. The iPhone is still raking in huge amounts of cash, but there are question marks over the sales of Apple’s latest phones, with some analysts predicting a decline next year. Although we won’t know for sure if this happens because Apple will no longer publish its units shipped figures (with some interesting and potentially controversial timing therein). At any rate, the iPhone could be a weaker spot for the company next year, although given the hefty premium on the handsets, the profits are still likely to be rolling in. Apple seems determined to keep that premium on all of its products, and it was certainly disappointing this year to be greeted with a MacBook Air that definitely wasn’t a budget-friendly model (as some had hoped for and was rumored earlier in 2018). MacBook Pros remain as pricey as ever, and overall, it was a let-down to see no relief for those who are, shall we say, cost-fatigued when it comes to Apple’s notebooks. The MacBook Air also felt lackluster on the performance front, although there was good news with the MacBook Pro models, which were seriously beefed up in terms of the hardware, particularly the 15-inch spin. Even the new Mac mini isn’t cheap, but this is a great little PC which is around four times quicker than its predecessor, not to mention more than competitive with high-end rivals like Intel’s NUC boxes.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Looking to next year, we’d like to see some clarification of what Apple is doing with its notebook range – will there be a new 12-inch MacBook, or has it effectively been replaced by the MacBook Air 2018? And we’d be delighted with some downward movement on prices, but we also wished for that last year, and furthermore, the likelihood of this happening is shaky when profits are still pushing forward for Apple’s computers and notebooks. We will likely see Apple’s new AR glasses unveiled next year, which should be exciting, although we’ll have to wait a bit longer for the prospect of MacBooks with custom-made ARM processors inside – these may not be realized until 2020 or even 2021 according to the latest from the grapevine.

SOURCE: