The Small-Animallike Lady is Adored by the Ice Prince is a brand new romance manga from Yen Press. This first volume takes us to a familiar setting where there's a royal arranged marriage involved, and some frozen hearts are melted along the way!

Dylan Mars Greenberg crafts a homegrown fantasia of magic, action, and anti-conservative provocation.

Due to demand from vendors, The Brooklyn Independent Comics Showcase (BICS) is going to a two day show in 2025

Recently, Apple rejected a digital book application from Sony. The disagreement here is over how and when Apple collects for its services. Apple is playing a dangerous game.

In theory, Apple has the right to insist, under its terms for developers, that any app, which offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, offer the ability for customers to purchase within the app at the same time.

Here is the rub. In its application, Sony sends customers to its own web site where they complete the purchase of a book. By routing the customers to its own web site, Sony is able to avoid a payment of 30% of revenues to Apple.

Others, including Amazon, with its Kindle, and Barnes & Noble, with its Nook, have been able to sell e-books by sending users to the companys’ own web sites. Apple simply was not enforcing its policy requiring developers to use its in-app purchasing feature to buy new content.

A 30% charge on revenues is a high price to pay Apple. Apple may be setting itself up for future loss of market share by enforcing this policy. If the Android platform does not put the same requirement on its app developers, the developers will have a strong incentive to avoid the 30% charge by encouraging customers to purchase using an Android device rather than an Apple device. Alternatively, the application developers may charge a higher price for purchases through Apple.

Apple’s unique strength has been its superior list of available applications. Apple’s enforcement of this requirement to purchase inside the app so that Apple can collect 30% of the revenues puts at risk its major advantage. Apple needs to compromise here by charging a lower price or no price at all. After all, it already makes high profits on its hardware and software product combination. It also makes profits on many of the downloaded apps. The application developers are customers too. Why make their life difficult? Does the benefit Apple provides a seller justify 30% of revenues? Sounds pretty rich.

The figures are in for U.S. auto sales in 2010. The biggest winners in percentage growth were Hyundai, at 24%, and Ford at 20%. Toyota lost .4% and Honda grew a mediocre 7%. The Japanese struggled in 2010.

Earlier we wrote a blog about Ford’s ascendency and Toyota’s problems (see Blog HERE). Toyota is paying the price for failing its customers. Honda appears to be getting painted with the “failure” brush, though I doubt its punishment is deserved.

I am actually using the word “fail” to mean something specific here. A company fails its customers when it is unable or unwilling to do something that at least half of its competitors can, or will, do for customers. Toyota’s troubles with accelerators, floor mats, and so forth, received extensive media coverage. This coverage clearly has had a negative impact on Toyota this year.

Toyota’s struggles illustrate the win and fail dynamic. In our terms, a “win” occurs when a company is able to do something that the majority of its competitors either can not or will not do. Wins account for a good deal of market share growth in a fast-growing market, but are less important in more mature markets. In a more mature Stable market and, especially, in all Hostile markets, failure moves a significant amount of market share.

Here is what this means. The decision to change a supplier is really two decisions. The first is the decision to leave a current supplier and the second is the decision on which new supplier to take on in your relationship. In the average Stable and Hostile marketplace, more market share moves on failure than on wins. This means that before an established customer will change suppliers, its current incumbent supplier must “fail” the relationship in some way. This failure, then, opens up the customer’s relationship to competition among other potential suppliers. Whichever supplier gains this customer’s volume really did so only after the incumbent failed. We call this gain a “weak win.” The “weak win” would not have happened on a straight-up comparison of performance and price of the new supplier versus the old. The gain only happened after the incumbent clearly failed the customer and then opened the relationship to someone new.

Toyota’s failure was largely a failure of Reliability. It clearly lost share. The companies that gained this share from Toyota, Ford and Hyundai among them, enjoyed some degree of a “weak win” in the domestic automobile market. They may have “won” market share as well, but my guess is that most of their share gains from Toyota fell to them from Toyota’s “failure.”

The government deregulated the airline industry in 1978. Since that time, the basic pricing in the industry, as well as airline fortunes, have been more or less continuously on the downward slope. It has been a very long trip down.

The industry may be heading up again, though. In the third quarter of 2010, the average domestic airfare was 11% higher than a year earlier. Profits returned to the industry in 2010 behind higher prices. In some part, these higher prices were the result of the additional fees that most of the domestic carriers charged passengers for checked baggage, better seating, rerouting and so forth. Still, the industry was able to hold its higher prices.

These prices are holding because the major industry players are less enamored of discounted flying. All of the big airlines are finding ways to extract prices from industry customers. Now that airline capacity utilization is high, the industry is more careful about capacity additions. Higher prices are here to stay.

The consumer still is far ahead. Even at these higher prices, ticket prices are a bargain. In fact, ticket prices, adjusted for inflation, are 20% below the levels of 1995. The industry has continuously stripped benefits from the base product in order to save costs. In 2010, the industry added back a few of those benefits (for example, economy plus seating) for an additional charge. We may see more of that over the next few years.

AS FEATURED IN

First off, I want to thank you for your interest in my product. I aim to give you the absolute best quality product that exists, as well as the best possible technical support for all of your questions, concerns, and comments.
I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about my new Muscle Building Program.
My name is Ben Pakulski , the author and creator of MI40. I will start off by answering the question most commonly asked. What is the significance of the name?
The name, MI40 - “Mass Intentions” is significant to this program because it is representative of the conscious INTENT, to create TENSION in the muscle, as well as the pun of overall mass creation.
The number 40, is the most important number in this program because it is the number that has the most scientific significance in MI40. 40 is representative of the number of days in the program (40 days), the amount of time in a set (40 seconds), the rest between sets (40 seconds), and the number of exercises used in constructing this muscle building protocol.
Many of you will immediately recognize the scientific significance of all of these numbers and some of you may not. The number 40 was chosen because of it being the MOST optimal number for many of these variables.
As will be explained in the program, 40 days has been proven to be the most optimal amount of time to adapt to any new training program (6weeks). 40 seconds is the ideal amount of “Time under Tension”(TUT) to illicit muscular hypertrophy. 40 seconds rest is the ideal amount of time to allow your CP and ATP Glycolytic energy pathways to recover before the next set (these are the energy pathways that drive muscular contraction of fast twitch muscle fibers which are responsible for growth!).
To tell you all a little about myself, I am a graduate of the University of Western Ontario. My areas of study were primarily Kinesiology, and Biomechanics.
My passion for health and fitness is second only to my passion for helping others improve their lives. I live my life by the acronym “CANI” – Constant And Never-Ending Improvement. 1% Improvement Every Day.
I have never viewed myself as an overly blessed individual, which is why my life is always centered on learning the best information, from the best resources and brightest people that exist. 14 years of seeking the best information and applying just about every possible technique on myself , has brought me to where I am today. A very successful, happy, healthy, motivated -professional bodybuilder, author, public speaker, nutrition coach, celebrity trainer and success coach. Sounds like a lot of hats, but they all tie into one balanced life…. Sometimes! ☺
The 2 main principles (or as Vince would reference them – “hooks” and Unique Selling Propositions) set forth in MI40 are the concepts that I deem to be most greatly contributing to holding people back from achieving their goals! “The WEAKEST LINKS!!” Here are the two problems MI40 Solves:
1) Most people have no idea how to feel how to “feel” their muscles, and therefore have little idea how to exhaust and build these muscles. ‘Intentions’ the ideal tool to assist them in doing so.
2) Then there is the idea of creating sufficient overload to stimulate a muscle to grow. Many people spend way too much time in the gym trying to “train” and exhaust a muscle group.
NOS has been designed to get the MAXIMUM efficacy in the shortest amount of time. It will fatigue the muscle faster and create the most optimal hormonal environment to illicit the growth response. Keeping the workout time shorter, means less cortisol (muscle breakdown) and therefore better body composition and muscle growth!
As many of you may already know, in a manner consistent with my approach to all aspects of life, I have gone out and sought “the best”. I have hired marketing genius and fitness pro, Vince DelMonte as my campaign manager for MI40. After spending quite a bit of time with Vince in prepping him for his competitions in 2011, I knew Vince was the guy to help me launch my muscle-building baby to the world! Vince is becoming renowned for his consistent low-to-mid 6-figure launch records. I believe in the product I have created, and I want to share my knowledge and expertise with as many people as I can.
I truly believe that this product has the science, the practical basis, the structure and format to help anyone that comes in contact with it. I want your help in spreading this knowledge and passion with the world!
Yours in fitness, health and passion, Benjamin Pakulski

A short message from your launch manager… Vince Del Monte

We have more than one – earning it’s rightful tag line, “Twice The Muscle, Half The Time!”
First, MI stands for MASS INTENTIONS and INTENTIONS is Ben’s trademark technique that addresses the problem of not being able to go heavier and heavier with your weights unless you wish to carry more risk than reward.
Going heavier isn’t your best option, especially after a few years of lifting, if you want to stimulate muscle growth and you most look to other solutions. With INTENTIONS you change the angle of pushing or pulling by means of a technique almost imperceptible to an observer. You push inward or pull outward with your hands or feet as you perform an exercise. I was introduced to intentions in December 2010 and ever since, my body has never looked the same. You’ve seen my pictures! Intentions literally RE MOLDED my body. On lat pulldowns as I pulled the bar down, I tried to pull my hands apart. They didn’t actually move on the bar, but that different motion made my lats fire in a different way, and my back was more sore the next day than it had been in months.
In the MI40 DVD, Ben teaches you how to apply INTENTIONS to virtually every exercise, not an easy task if you’re untrained in biomechanics and kinesiology (Ben holds a degree from the University of Western Ontario in Kinesiology). On barbell presses for chest, for example, you try to push your hands together. One thing is certain: Forget about using your normal weights. Typically, I do work sets with 180 to 230 pounds on lat pulldowns to the front; at that recent back workout I didn’t need to go any heavier than 150. As I said, though, the feeling in the lats was completely different.
We often play around with grip widths and experiment with pushing and pulling angles, but with intentions you introduce a variable that can awaken dormant muscle fibers and stimulate them in fresh, new ways. Pakulski has used intentions to get more out of exercises like leg presses, squats, barbell rows, bench presses and overhead presses—really anything that has you pushing or pulling both limbs at once on a bar or roller pad. It’s helped him become ripped at 270, place Top 10 at the Arnold Pro Show, Top 5 at the Flex Pro show and on his way to qualifying for the Mr. Olympia next year! INTENTIONS is 100% unique and will breath new life into your workouts. More important, it stimulates new muscle growth based on science and biomechanics, not bro science.

Ben already explained this but lets review it once more to ensure you know exactly what you’re endorsing. You and your list are going to LOVE the simplicity of the mechanism that makes MI40 so effective.
40 days!
40 second sets!
40 second rest periods
40 minute workouts!
40 exercises!
40 foods!
40 day meal plans!
This is the exact workout I followed in prep of the WBFF World Championships and here’s a reminder that it works!
As you can see, MI40 did not transform my body, it literally RE MOLDED it and it’ll do the same for you.



Aside from Ben’s trademark technique Intentions and the science behind the number 40 (we can explain why 40 is scientifically optimally for every variable above), we have…. NOS!
I’ll let Ben explain NOS to you…
Join the NOS revolution:
For years, I had been searching for the best way to overload my muscles each and every time I go in the gym. I know you can relate to those days when you worked “hard” but still feel like you could have done more. Leaving the gym feeling like there was more in the tank or maybe getting home and regretting not pushing harder?! I CRAVED something that would ensure that my muscles are taken to their limit, and CREATE NEW GROWTH!
This is when I discovered NOS!
My training partner and I had been coming up with creative ways to inflict pain on each other during leg workouts for years. I remember daydreaming of ways to make workouts harder. My goal was to leave the gym knowing I had BLASTED every last muscle fiber, and to have my training partner talking about how he had never experienced muscle pumps and growth like this.
“Straight sets” just didn’t seem to do the trick anymore. Ya sure I felt a decent pump, but it just didn’t seem to be the type of intensity that I KNEW I needed to grow!
FACT: A “straight set” will NEVER cause the type of neurological adaptation, hormonal response, and thereby GROWTH that a NOS set will.
NOS WAS BORN ON A LEG PRESS!
Being a research junky I had always read about overloading the muscle and overloading the nervous system to stimulate new muscle and strength gains respectively. Time under tension was proven to be the number one factor correlated with muscle growth and overload!
Something clicked in my brain! Time under MAXIMAL TENSION! This had to be better than just time under tension!! And so, my GROWTH BABY was born!
If I could use the maximum amount of weight I could handle for strict form for the greatest amount of time possible, growth was inevitable! The only catch is, that ITS HARD!
NOS is something that I have been using religiously ever since. Perfecting its components. I use it to get ready for my contests and in my offseason. Straight sets are now a thing of the past.
The science behind NOS: Neurological Overload Set.
The NOS system has been specifically designed to ensure a maximal MUSCLE OVERLOAD! The greatest number of muscle fibers are broken down or exhausted. Taking your muscles to such an exhausted state also causes the highest possible release amount of growth hormones and growth factors within a working muscle! Without these, you can train all day and eat a perfect diet and expect ZERO growth. This is one of the main reasons why so many people train often, train “hard” and see minimal results. They never reach that “overload-anabolic state.”
GREATER OVERALL STIMULUS=GREATER MUSCLE GROWTH!
Now this Math I LIKE!
How to: NOS
NOS is completed by performing an “extended set”.
The goal here is to extend the set for as long as possible while maintaining tension on the working muscle, and perfect form!
Start the set with a weight that you can use for a strict 8 repetitions. After completing your first 8 repetitions, decrease the weight by 20%(if youre using 100lbs, you would decrease by 20lbs, etc.) Immediately continue to perform as many repetitions as you can with the second weight (usually 5-8 reps). Repeat this process 4 times total. (You will complete 3 drops, therefore 4 “sets”-100,80,60,40lbs).
DO NOT allow your form to stray in an attempt to complete more reps. If anything, decrease the size of the Range of Motion (ROM) (“partials”), just make sure to be initiating the movement with the working muscle from a fully stretched position.

FRONT END OFFER:

Component 1
The 40 Day MASS Intelligence Training Manual
Component 2
The 40 Day MASS Consumption Nutrition Manual
Component 3
The 40 Day MASS Instruction Workout Videos
Component 4
The 40 Day MASS Proportions Exercise Demo Guide
Component 5
The 40 Day MASS Prescription Printable Workout Sheets
Component 6
The 40 Day MASS Pursuit Calendar
Component 7
The 40 Day MASS Supplement Stack Protocol
Component 8
The Sciene & Story Behind NOS & Intentions Audio Interview

Quick, guess the lighting.

If you said two lights, and use of high-speed sync to get the shallow depth of field, that's a pretty good guess.

If you said zero lights and a rigid high-efficiency reflector, that's an even better (and correct) guess.

When working with an inexperienced assistant — or looking to introduce someone to the world of off-camera lighting — a rigid/high-efficiency reflector is a fantastic and inexpensive place to start.

Read more »

 

 As we've seen, the Mayan Calendar is a chart of the evolution of consciousness in the universe.

Each Cycle or Age has its own dominant paradigm or point of view. As you move up through the 9 Cycles, new perspectives and new ways of being arise.

This new perspective starts to show up in the world, but it isn't an immediate switch from the old way of doing things to the new way.

It takes time, and a process of transition, for a new understanding to gain prominence.

The quantum physics revolution is a perfect example. We've known since the 1950's that matter isn't solid, and reality is nothing like we've imagined. Yet for the most part, our world continues to go along believing in the old materialistic ways... "Reality" is what can be proven with the senses. Medicine sees the body as a machine with unconnected parts. The Earth is dead, and humans are the pinnacle of evolution. And so on...

Yet, as we progress, the old perspective becomes more and more marginalised. People begin to talk about things in a new way. Then people begin to act in a new way. Finally (we're not there yet), the tipping point is reached -- the old way is as disregarded as the once unshakeable "knowledge" that the Earth was flat.

And that process is what the 13 days and nights of the Mayan Calendar describe.

The "Days" are times when consciousness expands, new perspectives arise -- times of fresh beginnings.

The "Nights" are times when the new consciousness is applied, new procedures initiated, and old ways (usually forcefully) overthrown.

And each of these 13 periods is characterised by specific circumstances.

Here's a breakdown of each of the 13 Days And Nights of the Mayan Calendar, and the specific transformation that occurs in each.

The First Day

A period of illumination -- new perspectives arise. Beginnings. Seeds are planted; energy begins to flow in a new pattern or paradigm.

The First Night

A period of darkness, rest. Integration. The new pattern begins to germinate within the dark subconscious of mind.

The Second Day

The second period of illumination. Dual paradigms, the old and the new, overlap -- both can be seen. In history, a time of turmoil, as the old ways (status quo) try to repress the new.

(This is where we are as of April 20, 2011.)

The Second Night

The second period of darkness. Followers of the two different paradigms battle for supremacy. Historically, very violent eras.

The Third Day

The third period of illumination. The new paradigm begins to spread deep and wide, beginning to show up in the world as new methods of doing things, new ways of perception. The new pattern begins to overtake the old, as fables, falsehoods, and failures expose the weakness of the past system.

The Third Night

The third period of darkness. The fledgling perspective of the new paradigm is refined, and the earlier, simplistic aspects fall away. The old system is thrown over, usually by force.

The Fourth Day

The fourth period of illumination. The new pattern becomes stronger and goes deeper into consciousness. A period of expansion, as the new paradigm takes form in the world. New corollaries emerge, as the new perspective takes precedence.

The Fourth Night

The fourth period of darkness. Healing the pain of the transition and the death of the old ways. Rebuilding after the destruction of the old status quo systems. The new, more healthy paradigm is truly established now.

The Fifth Day

The fifth period of illumination, and point of greatest radiance in the Cycle. The new paradigm flourishes, sending information about wonderful new knowledge out into the world. The highest possibilities for this Cycle are attainable.

The Fifth Night

The fifth period of darkness, and the nadir of darkness. This is a time of major hardships, cultural collapse, horrific violence. However, it is also a little like gestation: within the dark, something new awaits. From the death, new life will arise.

The Sixth Day

The sixth period of illumination, a time of Enlightenment. The flowering of the paradigm into stunning new insights and newer perspectives... in fact, sowing the seeds for the new Cycle of evolution to follow.

The Sixth Night

The sixth period of darkness. The paradigm has reached its peak and begins to dry and wither, like wheat in autumn. Typically a time of war and violent conflict.

The Seventh Day

The seventh period of illumination. There is a sense of openness, of being ready for something new. The best of the paradigm has been harvested, and it's time for a new level of consciousness to arise.

From the Seventh Day of the Mayan Calendar, we proceed directly to the First Day... from Light to Light. This demonstrates that whole process, even though it contains much dismantling and death, is finally and entirely a process of Creation.

The Mayan Calendar is an illustration of this process.

That's what makes it so fascinating... How did the Mayans ascertain such detailed information, that accurately predicts the ancient past (of which they could have known nothing) to the far future (which they are scarcely more likely to know)?

We may never know the answer to this question. But at least we finally know enough to appreciate their wisdom at last.

And just in time!

With Bright Blessings,

Last weekend I had a lively discussion with a friend about Pagans she has met who don’t condone or accept the LGBT community, especially as it is intermingled with Paganism.  She has met some of this ilk (I have not) and described how they do not condone non-straight sexuality when it is expressed in Paganism, and how this type also has a limited view of what should be expressed as Paganism, and other expressions are wrong.

I gave her the impression I was surprised to hear this, but it was not surprise, but shock.  I knew intellectually that this type exists (since all types of everything exist,) but this was the first I had heard of actual encounters with such thinking.

We followers of Earth-based spirituality are persecuted and ridiculed enough with us doing it to ourselves.  Think of how Christine O’Donnell (who has no business holding public office, but that is another story) was openly ridiculed when an old clip of her surfaced where she stated she dabbled in witchcraft.  It tanked whatever chances she had in her Senatorial race, and was it because she was the wrong picture to put on the pagan community?  No, it was because any inference that one is a practicing pagan is social suicide in most parts of the United States.

We pagans need to be accepting of each other, and open to the great cosmos that is all of us.  There is no “right” or “wrong” way to be a pagan.

Those who think otherwise are suffering from cognitive dissonance.

NEWS – As the holiday season approaches, Creality is thrilled to launch its biggest-ever Black Friday event! From October 21 to December 3 on the Creality Store and November 21 to December 2 on Amazon, enjoy record-low prices on an extensive range of 3D printers and accessories. Whether you’re a 3D printing enthusiast or a […]

I am over-the-moon excited to share with you that today is the book birthday for my newest book, THE SPELLSHOP! It's a cozy fantasy about a rogue librarian and her best friend, a sentient spider plant, who take on the low-stakes market of illegal spellmaking and the high-risk business of starting over. And it's for anyone who is looking for a slice of joy, a bit of comfort, or just a deep breath.

I wrote this book to feel like a warm hug. Or like drinking hot chocolate. Or like eating really good raspberry jam. Or a cinnamon roll, with hot chocolate and maybe some raspberry jam on the side...

We've all been through a lot over the past few years, and I wrote THE SPELLSHOP for anyone who wants to escape into a world filled with kindness and enchantment.


Thank you to everyone at Macmillan/Tor/Bramble for bringing this book to life and gracing it with Lulu Chen's beautiful cover art and such lovely lavender sprayed edges!

If you'd like to learn more about the book or read the first chapter, please visit my website: http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/Spellshop.htm

I'm also going on book tour starting today, and I'm so excited!! If you'd like to join me at any of my tour stops, I'd love to see you! For details, see the Events page of my website.

Happy reading!!!

THE SPELLSHOP IS A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER (#7), A USA TODAY BESTSELLER (#13), AND AN INDIE BESTSELLER (#10)!!!!!!!! I’M SOBBING!!!! Thank you so much to everyone at Bramble/Tor/Macmillan who made my dreams come true, including the incredible Ali Fisher, Dianna Vega, Caro Perny, and Julia Bergen! Thank you so much to my amazing agent Andrea Somberg who has been with me for 18 years and 28 books! And thank you to the wonderful booksellers and readers who made this possible!!!! I love you all so much!!!

Happy paperback book birthday to my YA thriller, THE LAKE HOUSE!!! It's about three girls stranded in the woods in Maine. No food, no water, no shelter, and someone -- or something -- is hunting them. Paperback edition out today from HarperTeen! 

http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/LakeHouse.htm

Very excited that THE SPELLSHOP is out today in Germany (with lovely purple edges)!!! Thank you to everyone at Fischer Tor! I like to think that Kiela, Caz, and Meep are celebrating their book birthday by selling spells and jam somewhere along the Rhine... 

https://www.fischerverlage.de/buch/sarah-beth-durst-spellshop-9783596710942

- Scarper; British slang for 'run away'. From Scapa Flow - Go. 

- Grass; as in informant. From Grasshopper - copper (and from there to copper's nark) 

- Dukes; slang for fists, as in 'duking it out'. From Duke of York - Fork. ('Forks' being now-forgotten slang for hands.) 

- Donkey's years; a long time. From Donkey's Ears, rhyming slang for Years... but then the Y crept back in. 

Alt Text: Donkey's ears. And between them, a donkey. Well, I suppose there's always a donkey between a donkey's ears. I mean: another one, framed in the photo between the ears of the first donkey. Glad we've got that clear. It doesn't matter in the least.

In the latest episode of their tightly-wrapped podcast, Ken and Robin talk vampire firewalling, the espionage of Jan van Eyck, weird war mummies, and the Quasi War.

In the latest episode of their quartz-festooned podcast, Ken and Robin talk TPKs, RCMP misconduct, crystals, and The Mandalorian.

It’s that time of year again—but what a different year. The Toronto International Film Festival, COVIDVERSE edition, has begun.

The show must go on, though with a slate one-fifth of the usual size.

There are distanced and drive-in screenings, but we are forgoing those entirely in favor of digital screenings. For $19 - $26 a pop, viewers in Canada who grabbed tickets in time can watch on digital devices. Options include Chromecast, so we’ll be hunkering down in front of our home theater setup for a total of 39 films. No TIFF unfolds without technical problems, but this time an entire new set of them awaits!

Many rights holders are sitting on completed films hoping to launch them when normalcy returns to film exhibition. TIFF 2020 titles skew less toward the offbeat genre items that make up my typical must-see list and more to documentary, Canadian and generally serious fare. I did snap up tickets for the three Midnight Madness titles.

Normally we see 45 films each. We’ll be filling in the gaps with titles already on streaming services. Most years there’s a documentary about film near the start of the fest, so I’ve found one of those. We usually strive to stack up fun, poppier choices on the last Sunday, so I’ve picked out a substitute slate to replicate that. To not be weird, I’ll be putting capsule reviews of those flicks in our weekly Ken and Robin Consume Media feature, not here.

Pandemic Festival tosses our finely-tuned logistical routines, honed over 34 years, out the window. I’m sure you’re all anxious to hear about the profound changes this wreaks on our snack game.   

I’ve drawn up a specific schedule of screening times to keep us on track, with break times marked. Finally we can pause TIFF films for brief naps. We’ll be making a point to go out and speed-walk around the block to mimic the salutary effects of dashing between venues.

And as for the dudes loudly voicing wrong movie opinions while we’re packed, sardine-style, in line-ups at the Lightbox or Scotiabank, well, we’ll just have to imagine what they had to say about opening night:

Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds [US, Werner Herzog & Clive Oppenheimer, 4] Documentary explores the science and mythology of meteor, from Chicxulub to ʻOumuamua. The intersection between scientific discovery and religious awe, central to all of Herzog’s gorgeous, delightful nature docs, rises from subtext to text through the intercession of traditional elders, joyful researchers, and the Jesuit scholar of the Vatican’s heaven stone collection.

Enemies of the State [US, Sonia Kennebeck, 4] Documentary pulls apart a labyrinth of contradictory evidence around Matthew DeHart, an Indiana man who was framed for child pornography by the FBI as part of a Wikleaks espionage case, or created a story of secret files to shield himself either cooked up a Wikileaks-related espionage smokescreen to mask his sex crimes. Invites the viewer to join a filmmaking team as it goes ever deeper down a rabbit hole.

---

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. 

Shiva Baby [US, Emma Seligman, 4] The ambient social pressures of a post-funeral gathering skyrocket for a directionless college student (Rachel Sennott) when attendees include not only the expected ex-girlfriend (Molly Gordon) but also the sex work client she’s caught feelings for. Knife-edge comedy of emotional suffocation uses a plucky suspense score for that extra frisson of social anxiety.

If you've been missing family events during the pandemic, this film is the cure for that. Polly Draper and Fred Melamed appear as the loving but insufferably intrusive parents.

Night of the Kings [Côte d'Ivoire/France , Philippe Lacôte, 4] When the red moon rises over MACA, the Ivory Coast’s toughest prison, its inmate boss appoints the new arrival as storyteller—a post that results in death if the tale ends before sundown. Prison drama with compelling narrative hook widens out to encompass ancient warfare, contemporary politics, and even a wizard duel.

Spring Blossom [France, Suzanne Lindon, 4] Bored with her classmates, an awkward 16 year old (played by the writer-director) pursues her attraction for a ruggedly handsome stage actor (Arnaud Valois.) Character drama sets aside the sexual aspect of this staple French cinema situation to focus on the emotion, periodically breaking from naturalism to have its characters express their feelings through dance.

This year’s Q&As are Zoom interviews between the programmers and filmmakers, which drop on YouTube when the films become available for online viewing. In the Q&A for this one we discover that the director wrote it when she was 15, a year younger than her character. She’s 20 now. Lindon is the daughter of well-known French actors Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain.

Get the Hell Out [Taiwan, I-Fan Wang, 4] Taiwan’s notoriously pugilistic parliament tips into arterial spray when the effluent of a controversial chemical plant triggers a zombie epidemic. Zombie comedy features an eye-searing palette and an onslaught of optical overlays, and is paced like a quarter kilo of crushed Adderall. 

It’s quite an achievement to find the worst hue of every color on the visible spectrum. Fortunately the underlying message, that government officials would respond to a pandemic by idiotically making it worse, has no bearing on anything that comes to mind.

---

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

Gaza Mon Amor [Palestine/France, Tarzan & Arab Nasser, 3] Middle-aged fisherman discovers a Greek statue and courts a wary dress shop clerk. Deliberately paced dramedy of life under oppression.

The Way I See It [US, Dawn Porter, 3.5] Documentary profile of Obama-era Official White House photographer traces his arc from work for the Reagan administration to anti-Trump social media gunslinger. Whether American viewers consider this slickly fashioned film heartfelt or sentimental will depend on party registration. It’s certainly explicitly framed to fire up Democrats to get out there to de-elect the current president.

Under the Open Sky [Japan, Miwa Nishikawa, 4] Out of prison after a long sentence, an aging yakuza (Koji Yakusho) struggles with his volcanic temper as he attempts to go straight. Bittersweet drama anchored by a lead performance from Yakusho, a mainstay of contemporary Japanese cinema.

Penguin Bloom [Australia, Glendyn Ivin, 3] A former surfer left paralyzed from the chest down by a freak accident reluctantly bonds with a magpie chick named Penguin, which one of her young sons has rescued. Sun-dappled animal-related family drama about the depression and anger that can accompany a life-changing injury.

In a regular year I would definitely have programmed Under the Open Sky, and would possibly have picked Gaza Mon Amor, depending on its position on the schedule grid.

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

Nomadland [US, Chloé Zhao, 5] When her town closes down in the wake of its gypsum mine’s closure, a self-reliant widow (Frances McDormand) moves into her van and joins the ranks of the nomad subculture, people who rove the US, taking whatever hard work they can get and living out of their vehicles. Rooted in social realist cinema, marked by a triad of transcendent qualities: poetic visual beauty, an indelible central performance and a deep love for the characters from the writer/director.

This is from Searchlight, formerly Fox Searchlight, now part of the Disney empire, so you’ll get a chance to see it. Likely as part of awards season, whatever the heck that’s gonna look like this year. Normally I don’t spend festival slots on titles with distribution but that’s out the window in the COVID-verse.

(At the moment cinemas are open, with distancing, here in Ontario but if you look at the numbers we’re in the early denial phase of a reimposition of lockdown measures. Whatever the deal is I don’t plan to be inside a theater in any foreseeable time frame.)

Her next project is a huge pivot from poetic verite dramas like this and The Rider— Marvel’s The Eternals. 

Memory House [Brazil, João Paulo Miranda Maria, 1] Racist harassment from German co-workers drives dairy worker to vengeance. Blunts the political anger of its subject matter with enervating pacing.

Another Round [Denmark, Thomas Vinterberg, 4.5] Burned out high school teacher (Mads Mikkelsen) embarks with three colleagues on an experiment to enhance their performance by maintaining a blood alcohol level of 0.5% throughout their days at work. Not only an original booze movie, but a big one, full of turns and ambiguities, and an utterly masterful performance from Mikkelsen.

Shadow in the Cloud [New Zealand, Roseanne Liang, 4] When an WWII RAF Flight Officer (Chloe Grace Moretz) boards a Samoa-bound cargo plane bearing a mysterious package, a monstrous gremlin on board is just one of the surprises. Enclosed space horror-action thriller tips an 80s-style hat to Carpenter and Cameron.

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

The Inconvenient Indian [Canada, Michelle Latimer, 4] Essay-format documentary examines the Indigenous struggle for sovereignty and cultural reclamation in North America, as hosted by novelist Thomas King and inspired by his nonfiction book of the same name. Makes its case through cinematic language, pushing the archival footage and talking heads format to the background.

Beginning [Georgia, Dea Kulumbegashvili, 4] Depressed wife of a pastor bears the brunt of a persecution campaign from a local man hostile to their minority Baptist faith. The camera acts as a pitiless eye in this harsh, austere drama of pervasive male oppression.

I Care a Lot [UK, J Blakeson, 3] Corrupt legal guardian (Rosamund Pike) who slaps unsuspecting seniors into care facilities to bleed them dry triggers a cat-and-mouse game when her latest prey (Dianne Wiest) turns out to be the mother of a wealthy gangster (Peter Dinklage.) Engaging thriller— until it betrays the contract it has established with the audience.

Concrete Cowboy [US, Ricky Staub, 3] After yet another expulsion from school, a troubled teen (Caleb McLaughlin) gets dumped for the summer with his father (Idris Elba), who belongs to Philadelphia’s threatened culture of inner city horse owners. A rich social milieu is the star of the show in this affirming drama, which could do with a stronger drive to activate its protagonist.

Lift Like a Girl [Egypt, Mayye Zayed, 4] From ages 13 to 18, under the tutelage of a volcanic, motormouth coach, with a rubble-strewn lot on a busy Alexandria street, weightlifter Zebiba trains to be a champion. Fly-on-the-wall documentary inhabits a hardscrabble community powered by loving verbal abuse.

The coach and his key athletes denigrate the skills of male lifters, while constantly referring to the girls as boys, urging them to man up, and telling them they need to grow balls if they want to win.

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

City Hall [US, Frederick Wiseman, 4] The latest of Wiseman’s distinctive epic-length observational documentaries studies the quotidian, procedural and human moments of human life as seen through the processes of municipal government in Boston, as held together by the thoughtful charisma of Mayor Martin Walsh. Improbably absorbing as always, this institutional cross-section offers a beguiling vision of an oasis of good government in the USA.

In a normal year I’d wait for the four and a half hour Wiseman documentary to arrive on television rather than taking up two time slots to watch it from the confines of a cinema seat at TIFF. But this is not such a year and with a digital screening you get a pause button when you need it. This is bound for PBS and due to the breadth of its subject matter will serve as an excellent introduction to those unfamiliar with this pillar of the documentary form. Or track down 2017’s Ex Libris, about the New York Public Library. In North America Wiseman’s filmography can be found on the Kanopy platform, which you may be able to access through your public library system.

The Father [UK, Florian Zeller, 4] Retired engineer (Anthony Hopkins) struggles to piece together the confusing reality of his living circumstances as his daughter (Olivia Colman) copes with his progressing dementia. Impeccably performed stage play adaptation puts the viewer inside the contradictory shifts of the protagonist’s subjective viewpoint.

Forget Draculas and Cthulhus. This is the real terror.

Summer of 85 [France, Francois Ozon, 4] Love between two young men in a French beach town leads to a bizarre crime. Teen emotions run high in a sunlit melodrama of Eros and Thanatos.

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

Beans [Canada, Tracey Deer, 4] As the 1990 Oka standoff envelops her Mohawk community, a shy tween achiever (Kiawentiio) decides to toughen up by ingratiating herself to the tough kids. Mixing the docudrama and coming-of-age structures offsets the inherent trickiness of both, but it wouldn’t work without an appealing and touching performance from its charismatic young lead.

Akilla’s Escape [Canada, Charles Officer, 4] Weed dealer hoping to leave the business (Saul Wiliiams) tries to recover his boss’ ripped-off cash and product without sacrificing a young gang member who reminds him of his younger self. Moody, laconic crime drama contextualized by the political history of Jamaican gangsterism.

Williams, a recording artist, also supplies the score. The kinds of films that play at the festival often economize by favoring black credit  screens over full title sequences, so it’s always a bracing change of pace to see a well-done one. The title sequence for this not only delivers a welcome jolt of mood and energy but does a lot of the storytelling work that would otherwise have to be done with expository dialogue.

New Order [Mexico, Michel Franco, 4] A wedding thrown by a wealthy family during a growing insurrection suffers a murderous attack by protestors and the kidnapping of the bride. Wildly disturbing vision of political violence and degradation takes its time unreeling its allegorical purpose.

David Byrne’s American Utopia [US, Spike Lee, 4] Filmed version of the Broadway version of David Byrne’s recent tour features joyous choreography, simple but arresting stagecraft, and songs from his Talking Heads and solo eras. When you shoot a concert film featuring David Byrne, you have to bring it, and Lee does that ably, finding countlesss different ways to shoot within a proscenium.

David Byrne has always been a hugely important artist to me, but I was surprised how moved I was to get to feel that I was at a live concert.

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

Pieces of a Woman [US, Kornél Mundruczó, 3.5] Grief tears a couple (Vanessa KIrby, Shia LaBeouf) apart after the death of their baby in childbirth, abetted by the insistence of her domineering mother (Ellen Burstyn) that they pursue legal action against their midwife (Molly Parker.) Wrenching drama marked by deep performances and key long take scenes. An otherwise masterful script reaches for the conventional when it hits its climax.

The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel [Canada, Joel Bakan & Jennifer Abbott, 4] Polemical documentary deploys narration, stock footage and talking heads (some appearing via lockdown video conference) to survey corporate capitalism and the struggle against it from Reaganomics to COVID and the George Floyd protests. Comprehensive primer for the prospective young progressives includes a call to continued electoral action.

The doc starts by tackling apparently public-minded initiatives as Trojan Horses for privatization. It is a Crave Original. Crave, Canada’s premium cable/streaming service, is a division of Bell, one half of our reigning telecom duopoly and the lead sponsor of the Toronto International Film Festival

Violation [Canada, Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli, 4] Woman (Madeleine Sims-Fewer) exacts meticulous revenge after her brother-in-law rapes her. Although this jarring, meditative drama includes gruesome imagery and horror-exploitation motifs, it’s closer in spirit to Michael Haneke than Dario Argento or Wes Craven.

Many years the power of coincidence throws up an unintended motif running through many of the movies we pick. Past examples have included cats, stress vomiting, animal slaughter, and teddy bears. This year’s motif: plastic bags as a suffocation weapon.

Falling [US, Viggo Mortensen, 3] Pathologically forbearing airline pilot (Mortensen) attempts to find a new situation for his lifelong miserable prick of a father (Lance Henriksen) as his dementia worsens. With one character incapable of change and another not needing to change, almost all of the scenes repeat the same dynamic.

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

Wildfire [UK/Ireland, Cathy Brady, 3.5] After going missing for a year, a bipolar woman (Nika McGuigan) drops in on her sister (Nora-Jane Noone), opening the wounds of shared tragedy. Raw, unsubtle family drama against the backdrop of Northern Irish politics as Brexit threatens a fragile peace.

The film is dedicated to the memory of lead actor McGuigan, who died of cancer last year.

40 Years a Prisoner [US, Tommy Oliver, 4] Documentary recounts the 1978 standoff between members of radical Black back-to-nature organization MOVE and Philadelphia police through the efforts of the son of two of the group members to secure their parole. A strong emotional hook greatly assists in telling a tenaciously complicated story.

I would like to have seen more on the genesis of the group and the first stages of their conflict with the mayor and police. So much needs to be unwound in the 1978 standoff that the even more astonishing story of a 1985 confrontation, which resulted in Philadelphia authorities dropping a satchel bomb from a helicopter, killing 11 and burning down 65 houses, goes unmentioned here. Another doc I haven’t seen, Let the Fire Burn, focuses on that part of the story.

True Mothers [Japan, Naomi Kawase, 4.5] Parents of a kindergartner react with dismay when a woman contacts them claiming to be his birth mother. Luminous, delicate drama of shifting perspectives.

Limbo [UK, Ben Sharrock, 4] Syrian oud player grapples with guilt over family left behind as he cools his heels with other refugee claimants at a center in the bleak and isolated Outer Hebrides. Moments of deadpan humor and stark landscapes layer this exploration of displacement.

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

The final day of TIFF 2020 has come and gone and below are my final capsule reviews. I’ll post a full capsule roundup on Monday.

Fauna [Mexico/Canada, Nicolás Pereda, 3.5] Narratives nest within narratives when an actor visits his girlfriend’s family in a sleepy small town. Comic misunderstandings, naturalistic locations and twisting meta-story may remind seasoned festival-goers of the works of Hong Sang-soo, with Coronas instead of soju.

Preparations to Be Together For an Unknown Period of Time [Hungary, Lili Horvát, 4] Top neurologist questions the accuracy of her recollections when she moves back home from the US to Budapest for a romantic rendezvous, only to find that the object of her affections professes not to remember her. Quietly suspenseful drama of psychological uncertainty.

The Truffle Hunters [Italy, Michael Dweck & Gregory Kershaw, 4] An aging generation of Piedmontese truffle hunters carries on the search for the elusive delicacy, fearing the poison bait left for their beloved dogs by ruthless newcomers to the trade. A documentary balm for lovers of food and canines luxuriates in the presence of sumptuously photographed forest eccentrics and their very, very good dogs.

Bandar Band [Iran/Germany, Manijeh Hekmat, 3] A pregnant singer, her husband and their guitarist try to get their van through a floodstruck region to attend a contest gig in Tehran. Neorealist drama where the obstacles in the characters’ path are literal.

The Water Man [US, David Oyelowo, 3.5] Imaginative kid (Lonnie Chavis) heads into the Northwestern forest in search of a legendary immortal, thinking he holds the secret to curing his mom (Rosario Dawson) of leukemia. One of the more successful of a recent wave of films that put a somber sin on 80s kids adventure, thanks to a well-constructed script and Oyelowo’s sure control of tone.

Among the differences of this digital-only fest was that it removed the flexibility to choose between multiple screening dates. In a regular year I program the last days and work backward to end on some combination of stronger and/or lighter selections. Here programmers assigned a 24 hour window for each film. These last movies weren’t what I would have picked as closers in ordinary times. To compensate for this Valerie and I are running a day of fake TIFF programming to simulate the funner final Sunday we usually shoot for. They consist of one film that played at TIFF 2019 and three others from previously-appearing directors. Play along at home by streaming The Vast of Night, The Forest of Love*, Mr. & Mrs. Adelman, and Ace Attorney.

*Update: Turns out this one is ultra-disturbing and in no way fun or light. Going into something with mistaken tonal expectations—just like the real TIFF!

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

In today’s economy, parting with hard-earned dollars to support your favorite charity or cause just may not be feasible. Consider donating yourself and your time as a way to give back without impacting your piggy bank.

Here’s how Chris Knoll, a cartographer here at NatGeo Maps, is giving back:

As part of an ongoing effort to support access to some of Colorado’s most popular 14er mountains, I participated in a stewardship adventure with Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado who partnered with Colorado Fourteeners Initiative. The main focus of this project was to work on building a sustainable trail up to 14,172 foot peak Mount Bross; which is near Fairplay, CO (90 miles southwest of Denver). Due to numerous unmarked mine shafts and a network of unmanaged social trails, access to the summit of Mount Bross was closed in 2006 until private land owners in conjunction with the US Forest Service can come to an agreement on the new route.

This is where the volunteers come in to action. Four crews totaling about forty people were given the task of stabilizing, reconstructing, and rerouting a trail leading up to Mt. Bross. The work included building sustainable portions of trail by installing rock steps where trail erosion is present, delineating one path up the mountain, and covering up social trails by re-vegetating these areas with native tundra plants that grow at higher elevations.

After work was completed each day, volunteers were fed by VOC staff, and were given the opportunity to socialize around the campfire and even take short hikes in the area. However, nights were called in early due to early 5:45 a.m. wake up calls.

All in all, the work that was completed over the weekend was meaningful and fun. It gives me a great sense of accomplishment knowing that one day, I will be able to hike a trail that I helped to construct.

For more information on non-profit volunteer groups mentioned in this article, check out http://www.voc.org, and http://www.14ers.org.

~Chris Knoll, Cartographer, National Geographic Maps

1. Right now, the Sun is far more active than predicted – and small satellites are paying the price  The Conversation
2. Unpredictable Solar Activity Sends Satellites Plummeting to Earth  ScienceAlert

Excellent fundraisers, as well as average ones often find themselves reaching a plateau when it comes to their fundraising abilities and the dollar amounts that they raise.  On a plateau, it is just as easy to move upward as it is to slip backwards; losing progress. Fundraisers are only interested in moving in one direction; upward.

pla•teau (plæˈtoʊ; esp. Brit. ˈplæt oʊ) 
n., pl. -teaus, -teaux (-ˈtoʊz, -toʊz) 
v. -teaued, -teau•ing. n.1. a land area having a relatively level surface considerably raised above adjoining land on at least one side.
2. a period or state of little or no growth or decline, esp. one in which increase or progress ceases: to reach a plateau in one's career.v.i.3. to reach a state or level of little or no growth or decline; stabilize

Definitions #2 and #3 have the most significance in fundraising, but definition #1 can be a useful visualization tool.

So how do we get beyond the fundraising plateau?

1. Go back to basics. Find something in your fundraising routine that can be improved and work on it. Can your greeting be made more friendly? Can your donation requests be tightened up? What ever it is, work on it. Working on any one issue has the added benefit of providing new perspectives on other issues.
2. Ask the donor. Ask donors, whether, they give or not, what they thought of your performance. Most will provide at least one useful bit of information. Some donors will provide so much valuable criticism that you may find yourself reexamining your entire fundraising strategy.
3. Ask another fundraiser. Sometimes we let shyness, pride or professional competition get in the way of improving our skills. Every fundraiser, at every stage, goes through the plateau problem. Reach out to your fellow fundraisers and get their advice.
4. Become an expert. Often after fundraising for a certain cause for a long time, fundraisers began to feel like experts on the issue. There is always more to learn. Find books magazine articles and any other materials that you can. The more you know about your issue, the better you can fund raise for it.
5. Remember, Plateaus aren't permanent. Keep slugging away, doing the best job that you possibly can. Eventually, you will begin to see some progress.

The first two panels of yesterday's SMBC: The last two: Back in 1979, David Macauley's Motel of the Mysteries had a much longer story to tell about archeologists' presuppositions. Macauley's plot loosely satirizes the work of Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann in excavating Troy, and also echoes Howard Carter's excavation of Tutankhamunn's tomb. It's 4022, and […]

Hello and howdy. I usually describe myself as turning the "ripe old age of so-and-so" on my birthday posts, but I may need a new adjective as I'm solidly in my mid-40s, now (44). Perhaps "fermented." The birthday's come and gone without incident, although there were minor contemporaneous incidents:

Still in the math hole. It might be an infinite hole. Trying to get out. But I have improved my console fonts and ANSI color libraries and GPU programming skills, at least. I was very pleased that a recent release of NVIDIA drivers came with a brand new updated OpenCL, which I previously assumed had been abandoned like so many computer things that I become fond of. Kudos to whoever at NVIDIA pushed on this. I am making myself laugh privately to myself (well, no longer private now) by imagining someone who spells it out like an acronym, N-V-I D-I-A.

Also, like usual, I ran the Pittsburgh Great Race, a mostly-downhill 10k. No encumbrances this time. I've been in good shape this summer, but I got sick last month and it set me back a bit, so this wasn't a star performance. Still 43m22s is not too bad and I didn't push myself all that hard. Fewer minutes than years old.

The new GPU is mostly for math, but I wanted to try it out for its Intended Purpose, (N)Video Games. So I played through Far Cry 6, which was okay. I liked it better than 5, which among other things had a bunch of technical problems (this one was much smoother and more stable), but I probably should have read my review of that game before downloading, as I say something like "I should probably stop playing this series." Still slowly savoring Tears of The Kingdom, which remains great. I also started Return To Monkey Island. I loved the first two in this series, but couldn't get into the later sequels; of course I'm interested in giving this one a shot since it's made by the original designers (and I did like Thimbleweed Park). Too early to render a verdict, but I did like how they deftly handled the canonicity of the end of 2.

Then there's this: I think this is Taylor Swift wearing a homemade t-shirt of her "Pegicorn" (sometimes "Pegacorn"), a Unicorn-Pegasus hybrid. The text is in my font Action Jackson:

Taylor Swift Pegicorn (Action Jackson font)

You can also see this drawing/font at the beginning of the "Making of" video for You Belong With Me". I think she posted this to twitter in May 2009, but somehow I'm unable to find an archive of her tweets from this time (inconceivable??).

So what? We went to Mexico for vacation, visiting the island of Cozumel and some nameless resort area between Cancún and Playa del Carmen. This was just a vacation, for relaxing, so I spent most of the time programming for fun or writing my SIGBOVIK paper, but with a nice view of the ocean and a little bit of sand in my keyboard, and a little bit of mediocre Mexican beer. Cozumel was a pretty neat place: We happened to be there for the 150th year of their Carnival, which was happening concurrently with the Super Bowl, so there was a wild collision of tourist "culture" and local culture one evening. I added a picture to the Wikipedia article. It's a sparsely populated island, small enough to bike pretty much the whole way around, although as the bike rental guy informed us, "most people leave in the morning." We did some caving and won some bingo games and did some moderate to severe food poisoning, and now I'm back!

So what else? I'm deep into my project now and the end is (sort of?) in sight, but time is running short and I keep adding unnecessary aspects to it. It's fine. Even though I feel some pressure to keep making these elaborate projects, for deadlines, the real point of my hobby is for me to enjoy the spirit of the hack, which sometimes just means reimplementing typed closure conversion for the nth time.

Oh! I will be presenting at An Evening of Unnecessary Detail in Brooklyn on April 14. I have a silly style of beard again so that you can tell me apart from Matt Parker (aside from his very different accent and he's much taller than me and says it as "maths" and actually doesn't even really look like me now that I'm looking at a picture again). I think this will be quite fun.

I've been playing trough Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania, which like Katamari Damacy I had played some of ~20 years ago and had always wanted to finish. I do love struggling with a precision platformer, though as usual with 3D ones the analogueness and camera trouble can be a bit of a drag. It's a good game with a good flow, though, and I'm like 80% of the way through it at this point. And speaking of 3D precision platformers, Celeste 64 is a cute 3Dification of Celeste (which remains one of my all-time favorites in the precision platformer genre) that they released for free recently. Initially I found this game really frustrating; it doesn't have nearly the same attention to detail in the controls that the 2D game does. But by the time I finished it, the controls and camera no longer seemed disastrous to me, and I pretty much liked it. On the other end of the spectrum, I for some reason bought "Yeah! You Want "Those Games," Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let's See You Clear Them!" and then for some reason beat every level of it. This game is an in-depth implementation of some notorious "games" featured in Mobile Game Hell-type advertisements. (If you're not aware of this phenomenon, it's common for the advertisement to depict some kind of casual gameplay that looks kinda fun, but that if you download the app it's linked to, it's like some totally different game like Clash Of Clans or something like that. So there are all these fairly recognizable games that you can't actually play. Bizarre! I'm guessing that there's just a market for "just get us downloads of the app" where they literally don't even care what the content of the advertisement is.) Anyway, this long-titled game is an implementation of some of those, with like hundreds of levels. Honestly I can't tell how ironic it is, but I did appreciate it as artwork even though it was also basically torture. I recommend it if you are my enemy, or if you like is-it-art?-torture. Having finished that and immediately deleted it, I just started Teardown, which I like so far, but I haven't gotten into it enough to provide a full take.

OMG. I can't believe October is over already. I blame Satisfactory which, okay, I do get it now, and it did destroy my body and mind. I am inches from being done now; I just want to make sure that I finish it with enough force that I do actually put it away, as I could imagine tinkering with my saddest factory forever.

The game isn't without flaw, but I think most of those flaws are not interesting to talk about. I do have one petty but important criticism, which is mildly spoilerful and anyway will only be interesting if you played the game. There is an object called the Somersloop ("cool S") which allows you to double the output of a machine. Canonically this item is some kind of "loop" and the flavor text talks about how it is able to create more energy than you put into it. So when I'm out hunting for Korok seeds I have this thought that maybe I could create a loop of factories whereby it would create infinite resources by repeatedly doubling. And I'm thinking about it but the crafting tree doesn't have any notable loops in it, but I remember the "packager" which allows you to put a fluid in a container or the converse, and I'm like: Yes, that's great! So I get back to base and I am doing this, just for fun to create an infinite fuel factory or whatever, and I realize that the packager just doesn't have a slot for a Somersloop. They must just hate fun, elegant twists. It would not break the game to allow this (you can always get infinite resources lots of other ways) or cause any other problem I can think of. Hmph!

The thing about constructing a factory and watching it churn is that it's basically the same thing as a programming project that you invented for yourself, and it's probably better to do the programming project. Here's progress on my mysterious rectangle:

Minusweeper 2

It's good progress if I do say so myself! Anything but black here is a Satisfactory result, which is 90.55% of them at this point. I may need heavy machinery for the remaining 9.45%, but that is part of the fun.

I think that's really it for this month! Please vote in the US Elections if you can (but I guess also vote in any important elections. And obviously, vote for the good guys???). And happy Halloween!

There was a news item this week about the sentencing of some people who organised dog fights, with large sums wagered on the result. I saw one such case a few years ago, and it needed a strong stomach to look at the evidence. The fight took place in an abandoned farm building and at the end the whitewashed walls were heavily bloodstained. We simply remanded the two defendants, and my colleagues sentenced them a few weeks later after reports were prepared. The aggravation was considerable; organised for money, dogs had to be destroyed, and so on so. They received the maximum six months each and were banned from keeping animals for ten years. In this latest case numerous social-media comments have complained that the six month sentence was not enough, but as usual that raises the question of just how long is enough? All sentences have to fit into the scale somewhere; for example can it ever be right to impose a higher penalty for cruelty to animals than to people?

Here's the Guideline:-

http://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/item/animal-cruelty/

Watch it again on the BBC iPlayer

Scotland beat Italy and Canada but fall short of reaching the World Women's Curling Championship play-offs.

A few years back, when Cynthia Leitich Smith was off to Vermont for the VCFA residency, I undertook an exploration of Austin pizza joints and pizza blogging: the rules were these: aside from a dinner salad prior to the pizza, my meals were pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  For ten days.  For the record, the first time I did it, I lost five pounds; the second time, two and a half.

Here's the inaugural post from 2009:  A Pizza a Day and Other Weird Activities.

I tried this again January 2015, but posted only to my Facebook account (I'll be reproducing the posts here along with this edition, with the term "archive" in the header).  I also did it in July 2015.

To view the entire line-ups, just click the "pizza a day" label.

This time, I decided to do something a little different, since I'm on the verge of exhausting Austin's specialty pizza places:  I'm going to see how many pizzas I can make using various techniques.  I'll also take a look at some of the places I've missed or have recently opened.

And, for Christmas, I received this nifty little item:

Yes, it is a starship Enterprise pizza cutter.  So of course I had to make a couple Star Trek-inspired pizzas:
(You can see the Enterprise if you squint real hard).  The saucer section was Canadian bacon with an olive for the bridge.  The nacelles were scallions and the engineering section Belgian endive.  The pizza didn't turn out so great but the cutter worked fantastically.

I also made a pizza in honor of our Klingon allies:

This one sort of drifted apart due to migration of the mozzarella, but it is a Klingon D7 class battlecruiser.  The main hull was a green pepper, while the nacelle supports were red onion.  The nacelles themselves, and the neck section, were scallions, and the bridge was a mushroom slice.

Q'apla!

This is a post I originally put only on Facebook in January 2015.  Click here for background.

And the first pizza of the January 2015 #PizzaADayDiet comes from Hoboken Pie! A thin crust sausage, mushroom, and green pepper -- all the ingredients were fresh and in abundance. The sausage and sauce were slightly spicy and the crust was really thin. It could have had a tad more body, but I liked the fact that it didn't feel like I was filling up on bread. Delivery was prompt and the pizza was warm out of the box. I will definitely order from them again.

Today's pizza a day diet pizza came from the Austin Beer Garden Brewing Co. at 1305 W. Oltorf (right next to the train tracks).

I hit the place in mid-afternoon, so it was pretty empty (Happy hour is from 3 pm to 7 pm, though, so it filled quickly :-)).  You order food and beer at the bar and they bring it to your table.  Inside are long wooden tables with benches, for social/communal beer-gardening in the Bavarian tradition.  Outside are round tables under the live oaks for beer gardening in the Austin tradition. :-).

I ordered a sausage pizza (boring, I know :-), but I like to try new places out on the basics).  It was delivered hot and fresh; the crust was somewhat soft but firmed up after I let it cool a little.  It had a nice chew and stood up to the ingredients.  The sausage had a more subtle flavor than I was expecting, but I really liked it and its freshness.  The cheese and sauce were also quite good.


One of their "by the slice" choices had also caught my eye, so I ordered it as well.  This was venison, spinach, pesto, white bean, roasted tomato, roasted garlic, and ricotta.  This one was amazing (not that the sausage was bad).  The crust had just the right amount of crispness and chew, but the combination of toppings really made it.  It had a richness from the venison without being gamy or overwhelming, and the remaining ingredients provided a terrifically contrasting texture in every bite.


Oh, and the beer was darn good, too. :-).

Today I went back to the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook for their Chicago-style pizza recipe (No, they're not from Chicago, but their recipe is actually pretty close to others I've used in the past.). 

They've got a technique where you "laminate" the crust with butter to make it crispier.  It worked well with the sides, but I'm not sure that it quite worked with the bottom, but the crust did turn out pretty firm and full-bodied.  And rich.  Next time I might let it cook a little longer to see what happens.

The recipe for the sauce and the cheese were a bit different than what I've done before: using shredded mozzarella and diced tomatoes instead of mozzarella slices (or a fresh ball) and crushed tomatoes, but it turned out pretty well.  Next time, though, I think I'll go back to crushed with slices.

And the Star Trek pizza cutter is actually big enough to use on deep dish...

I had Brian Yansky and Frances Yansky over to share the results, so I didn't end up taking too many pictures, but here are a couple:

Pizza! And the Star Trek pizza cutter!

Frances poses with a slice.

The cat inspects the table.

 

Today's Pizza a Day Diet pizza is technically not a pizza.  It's a flatbread. NB: All pizzas are flatbreads but not all flatbreads are pizzas (A flatbread has an unleavened crust).

I happened to be up north during rush hour so I decided to find the closest Italian place and see what they had that resembled a pizza. :-). This happened to be the Maggiano's in the Domain.  The place has sort of a Disney-fied feel of a downtown Italian restaurant, which is not surprising since the first Maggiano's was founded in Chicago by the Lettuce Entertain You chain whose specialty is theme restaurants. 

Anyway, I took a table in the bar and ordered a Caesar salad and the sausage flatbread.  The sausage was removed from the casing but still distributed in large chunks and had that good Italian-sausage flavor.  The cheese was also abundant and flavorful.  And the crust? Nice and crispy at first and then steamed through. 

Here are a couple pics:

Day 8 of ‪#‎PizzaADayDiet‬ is another thin crust, this one from Southside Flying Pizza. They call it “Neapolitan style,” which I guess is a really thin crust. I chose the whole wheat crust and it was pretty good – it stood up to the ingredients but I wouldn't have minded if it had been a tad crisper. The cheese was thoroughly melted and excellent, though, as were the toppings. The sausage had a good flavor and the peppers were nicely al dente. And the side salad was really good, as well.

Today's ‪#‎PizzaADayDiet‬ occurred at Home Slice Pizza -- Don Tate joined me for the sausage, mushroom, and green pepper pie! This was the thickest thin crust I've had so far, and was sufficient to be not -floppy, yet not doughy, with a good, chewy texture. The cheese was flavorful and the toppings were each present in every bite.


Altogether, a most excellent pizza -- and they put the leftovers in a tinfoil swan (I've never seen that before in real life :-)).

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