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Patricia Clarkson: It was very similar – I mean, I was not a fundamentalist Christian, but I had a very similar path. I was a nice Southern girl hitting the big city for the first time with my big hair; I still have my big hair. My big hair and my non-black clothing. And that’s how I began. I went off to Fordham University; I had never lived in New York. I had been on the East Coast once when my father was stationed in Newburgh, New York but that was it. I’ve lived there now for a long, long time, pretty much since I was 19. So almost 30 years. I’ve spent a little time in L.A. here and there but I’ve basically lived in New York. I just had this feeling. I called my mother one day when I was at LSU and said, I have to go to New York. I’m not coming back. And she said, ok – as long as you go to school in New York, finish up your bachelor’s degree.
Patricia Clarkson: [Laughs] That was simple. I just got a call. I guess Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake had me and Susan Sarandon in mind as their mothers. I was a little shocked at first; I didn’t really understand. I was like, what are we doing in the video? Remember, I’m a nice Southern girl. Then when I found out what it was, I was like, Oh my gosh. They [Timberlake, Samberg, and Lonely Island cohorts Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone] were lovely, lovely. We shot it in one day – I just showed up in the morning, we shot all these videos, we shot that night, and boom! The next night it was on “Saturday Night Live!” It was wild. It’s crazy how they do this, they work so long and such long hours, and they’re brilliantly talented. They’re all just geniuses, the Lonely Island guys.
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While kicking back at BGR headquarters and enjoying some post-holiday relaxation, we stumbled upon a nice little suprise for all you Mac users out there. No longer in beta, GoToMyPC has officially launched for the Mac. Folks with Mac OS 10.5 and higher can download and install GoToMyPC on their Mac and remotely access their machine while on the go. The software is platform agnostic — in addition to Mac to Mac and PC to PC connections, it also allows you to access your Mac with a PC and your PC with a Mac. Any way you like it, you can have it. And no, the name isn’t changing to GoToMyMac.
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Brennan calls Cheney’s comments disappointing and says they do not speak well of the former vice president.
Brennan appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
BRENNAN: Well, we’ve been investing in Yemen for many, many months now. And we’re working very closely not just with the Yemenis, but with our international partners, with the British, with the Saudis, and others, to make sure that we provide the Yemeni government the wherewithal to carry out this fight against al Qaeda.
BRENNAN: It’s disappointing to me that either the vice president or others have willfully mischaracterized President Obama’s position and actions or they’re just ignorant of the facts. I think in either case, it doesn’t speak well to sort of the reasons why they sort of went out and said these things. I came back into government for the express purpose of making sure that we can make this country safer than its ever been in the past. I have worked with the president over the past 12 months now and he is as determined as anybody I’ve worked with. I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I’ve worked with the previous five administrations and this president is determined.
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The Starving Jewelry Artists Team Blog If you would like to be notified of future team deals, discounts, sales and events, I’d encourage you to subscribe to our blog.
For my part, I will be offering 15% off my entire sea glass collection, including custom made pieces in my Etsy Shop. Although I don’t have a huge inventory of pre-made sea glass jewelry, I do have quite a large collection of beach glass, so I am happy to make a one of a kind piece of jewelry just for you.
“Times are tough, and not everyone can afford those $100 parties around town,” said GOAT’s Artistic Director Paul Castaneda. “We’re opening up the doors to our new home for just $15 to everyone in the arts community to come and celebrate the New Year.”
Tickets are available on GOAT’s web site at goatgroup.com and at the theatre the night of the party.
The event will take place at Greater Orlando Actors Theatre, 669 Cherry Street, Winter Park. Cherry Street is located off Fairbanks Avenue between I-4 and Route 17/92, less than a mile from the Interstate and the Fairbanks Avenue exit. Extensive free parking is available around the theatre.
For more information on GOAT or the production, please visit www.goatgroup.com.
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Oops! Someone at Lenovo may have hit Publish a tad too soon, and now we have a quick peek at a number of their upcoming laptops, including the ThinkPad Edge, T410s, W510, and more. CES what now? [Lenovo via Engadget]
The leak contains a section called “new product showcase” and was live as of 12 p.m., EST. This here is the t410.
The T410s, featuring “high performance” and an optional touchscreen.
Sleek ThinkPad with a shiny new veneer.
Ultra portable! Also shiny!
Future office workhorse?
NFL predictions are expecting Houston quarterback Matt Schaub to have a big day in against a New England defense that might just decide to rest some starters. Schaub has thrown for an NFL-high 4,467 passing yards this season while his top receiver Andre Johnson leads the league with 1,504 receiving yards. Johnson made the Pro Bowl while Schaub was cheated out of a spot that went to Tom Brady instead. New England head coach Bill Belichick has not said anything about the playing time for his starters but most people believe that Brady, Randy Moss, Wes Welker and others are not going to play for the entire NFL betting contest.
Lanning’s NFL Predictions: Houston definitely has something to play for in week 17 NFL odds which could make the young franchise very happy but they are still just 2-4 against the spread for their last six. The Patriots will be resting most of their players and I think the old tough guy Belicheck won’t mind if the Texans make it to the playoffs for the first time from a Patriots loss since they have already clinched the AFC East. My NFL prediction for week 17 is to take the Texans at home laying the points to the UNDER in a close call NFL betting parlay at youwager.com. Vegas odds at Caesars sportsbook have the Houston Texans -7 favorites against the New England Patriots with a total of 46.
xIndianapolis 14-1 (Road: 7-0)
Buffalo 5-10 (Home: 2-5)
xNew Orleans 13-2 (Road: 7-0)
Carolina 7-8 (Home: 4-3)
xJacksonville 7-8 (Road: 2-5)
Cleveland 4-11 (Home: 2-5)
xChicago 6-9 (Road: 1-6)
Detroit 2-13 (Home: 2-5)
xNew England 10-5 (Road: 2-5)
Houston 8-7 (Home: 3-4)
xPittsburgh 8-7 (Road: 2-5)
Miami 7-8 (Home: 4-3)
NY Giants 8-7 (Road: 4-3)
xMinnesota 11-4 (Home: 7-0)
xSan Francisco 7-8 (Road: 1-6)
St. Louis 1-14 (Home: 0-7)
xAtlanta 8-7 (Road: 2-5)
Tampa Bay 3-12 (Home: 1-6)
xPhiladelphia 11-4 (Road: 5-2)
Dallas 10-5 (Home: 5-2)
xGreen Bay 10-5 (Road: 4-3)
Arizona 10-5 (Home: 4-3)
xKansas City 3-12 (Road: 2-5)
Denver 8-7 (Home: 4-3)
xBaltimore 8-7 (Road: 2-5)
Oakland 5-10 (Home: 2-5)
Washington 4-11 (Road: 1-6)
xSan Diego 12-3 (Home: 5-2)
xTennessee 7-8 (Road: 2-5)
Seattle 5-10 (Home: 4-3)
Cincinnati 10-5 (Road: 4-3)
xNY Jets 8-7 (Home: 3-4)
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Due to this we were a tad foggy and missed the diabetes diagnoses. My husband told his Doctor the Metformin made Chocolate taste bad. He prescribed another type pill. The bad taste continued, my husband stopped taking anything. Upon reflection, shouldn’t the Dr. have said, "What are you doing eating chocolate, anyway, you are a diabetic!!!" They never suggested a diet change.
He continued to see that Dr. with complaints of extreme pain and was given stronger and stronger doses of Hydrocodone (which did nothing to alleviate the problem). Finally he was referred to a Pain Management Doctor. She has simply continued the same pattern. Occasionally she asks about the diabetes diagnoses but does not pursue it to a conclusion and was easily satisfied with a brush off answer.
Just one day after beginning treatment for the D I asked her if lowering the BG would help with the pain, she said, "No!" Put him on Celebrex and Lyrica. Well, controlling the BG has given him his life back. But when we go back I know she will credit the Lyrica and Celebrex. What chance do we stand, it is all in God’s hands.
Anyone else experience this sort of thing?
New Years is a time of reflection at our house. How about any of you?
Janice & Husband
The Americanization of Emily won two Oscars, for art direction and cinematography, and a BAFTA for Andrews. It’s a grossly overlooked movie with a great cast — also on hand are James Coburn, Melvyn Douglas and Keenan Wynn — and well worth seeking out.
In one of the film’s best scenes (you’ll find it after the jump), Garner uses his considerable charm to make what could have been a preachy, heavy-handed scene into something memorably moving. When Charlie meets Emily’s mother, a proud patriot who lives in denial that her husband and sons have been killed, he tells her how he came to his philosophy about war. After enlisting in the Marines, Charlie found himself in a unit invading the Solomon Islands: “There I was, splashing away in the shoals of Guadalcanal. It suddenly occurred to me — a man could get killed doing this kind of thing. Fact is, most of the men splashing along with me were screaming in agony and dying like flies.”
The problem, Charlie explains, is that war makes men brave, while the sensible attitude, the survival-oriented approach, is to be a coward.
“Wars are always fought for the best of reasons,” he tells her. “For liberation, or manifest destiny, always against tyranny and always in the best interest of humanity. So far in this war, we’ve managed to butcher some 10 million humans in the interest of humanity. Next war, it seems we’ll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity.”
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SAN FRANCISCO, MINNEAPOLIS HOUSING UP 15% FROM LOWS – Using the most recent S&P/Case-Shiller home price data from October, below we highlight how much each city that is tracked has risen from its 2009 lows. – Bespoke Investment Group
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pe1 Beantown Bust: Boston CSI and RPX October 2009 – has super cool interactive chart – Paper Economy Blog
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Buffett’s back – Billionaire looks to lock up GMAC’s ResCap – By JOSH KOSMAN – Warren Buffett is in talks to buy GMAC’s Residential Capital, one of the biggest residential mortgage-servicing firms and originators, sources told The Post. Buffett, along with Appaloosa Management and Avenue Capital, is said to have large debt positions in ResCap. – NY Post
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Housing Inventory Still Dramatically Oversupplied — Before You Add In The Foreclosures – by Michael David White – The housing market remains oversupplied by 860,000 units when compared to a 10-year average inventory and the overhang represents a direct contradiction to the spirit of this week’s headlines describing new data from the National Association of Realtors. – New Observations.net
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The Cost Of Curing Negative Equity – … Many of those involved in the HAMP program have had handed to them a no lose proposition. They drag their feet while they live rent free and each time they hear that this is the last best offer, they see another moratorium or new offer come down the pike. Genius is not required to conclude that at the end of the day the government is going to do whatever it takes to avoid any further deterioration of the market. Street smarts suffice. … – But Then What
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GSE Pass-through Players Gird for the New Year – By LINDA LOWELL – Two major concerns for value hang over the pass-through market right now: the anticipated end to the Fed’s MBS purchase plan March 31, 2010 and the likelihood of a sharp jump in involuntary prepayments in GSE pass-throughs (due to modifications and other foreclosure avoidance efforts and foreclosures, which trigger a buyout of the loan from the pool) … – HousingWire
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Increased REMIC Flexibility May Ease Loan Resolution – BY HARVEY BERENSON – primer on REMICS then goes into dangerous effects on loan mods on REMICs – MortgageOrb
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Lender’s refusal to modify loan may have violated borrowers’ Fifth Amendment rights to due process – Lynne Huxtable And Jeffrey Agnew, V. Timothy F. Geithner, Et Al., – by DEAN MOSTOFI – Foreclosure Combatant Blog
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A Florida Resident’s Disastrous Attempt To Raffle Off His Home – Vince Veneziani –
Florida resident Miles Brannan had a great idea: raffle off his $3 million waterside condo, give some of the proceeds to charity, and downgrade his home. Everybody wins.
All seemed to be going well… until he realized nowhere near enough tickets were sold. – Clusterstock @ Business Insider
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sa1 Mortgage Fraud – The Root of America’s Economic Malaise – Tom Armistead – good treatise on mortgage fraud – Seeking Alpha
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Agency FICO Redline? – A Question to Ask – Submitted by Bruce Krasting – … Does Treasury really believe that Citi Bank and Wells Fargo are going to be making cheap mortgage loans to those who have just been ‘red lined’ by the new tighter standards? … – Zero Hedge
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Housing In 2010 – Paul Maidment, – Christopher Hyzy, Paul Maidment, Bernie McSherry and Carol Pepper discuss the housing sector’s outlook in 2010. … to discuss their views on the economy, the housing sector and China in 2010. … – Forbes
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Biggest Reverse Mortgage News of 2009 – John Yedinak – The reverse mortgage industry has been through more changes than anyone could’ve predicted over the last 12 months and 2010 will bring more of the same. As the year comes to a close, take a look at the top 10 reverse mortgage news stories of 2009 (based on page views): … – Reverse Mortgage Daily
After all the (so delicious!) holiday indulgences, my body naturally craves clean, green and simple foods to bring me back to center. Here in San Francisco, we’re fortunate that nettles are showing up at the farmers’ markets, just in time to for a new year’s cure: a simple nettle tea that is healthy, balanced and comforting. Oh, and it tastes good, too. Perfect!
…Ms. Medina Lichtenstein’s experiences illustrate the good and the bad of service learning, loosely defined as community service that supplements and….It was in the mid-1980s that service learning took off, with the establishment of organizations like Campus Compact and Youth Service America, whose mission is to spur national service efforts among youth.
In a famous passage from Ulysses, James Joyce recapitulates the development of the English language in 45 pages — from the archaic and formal (“Deshil Holles Eamus”) to the conversationally casual (“Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on”). Over the past decade, as more people have spent more time writing on the Internet, that same evolution has not only continued, it feels like it’s accelerated.
With so much discussion about how the Internet is changing journalism and media, there’s surprisingly little said about how writing itself has transformed. But it has changed in a dramatic if subtle way.
Nine years ago, I remember being one of 100 or so journalists gathered to listen to a veteran writer speak. I don’t remember the topic, just that when he asked how many of us enjoy writing, I was surprised that only a few hands went up. Today, so much of the typical day is taken up with writing emails, tweets, updates, text messages, chat sessions, blog posts and the occasional longer form writing. And few complain how onerous it all is.
On balance, all of that practice is making online writing better. Which is not to say that all online writing is good. Much of it’s terrible – see the average YouTube comment for an example of how bad it can be. But it’s been said that excellent writing is a matter of good thinking – if you’ve got the thinking part down, that’s most of the battle. And many of the thoughtful people I know are producing some great stuff on the web.
The Internet isn’t just prompting us to write more, its open structure pressures us to write in a way that’s at once more concise and flexible. One problem newspapers and magazines never could fix is that articles are assigned arbitrary lengths. Pay writers per word and they’ll write as many as they can. Assign a 12,000-word story and you’ll get just that, even if 1,000 are all that’s necessary.
On the web it’s different. Back in 1997, Jakob Nielsen looked at how people read web content (basically, they scan it) and argued web writing should
Many web writers, whether they’ve read Nielsen’s advice or not, use these practices because readers respond to them. The impulse to scan is a good thing because readers’ impatience inspires economy among writers.
At the same time, people are mastering more kinds of writing. Other technologies that grew more popular this decade required a different mode of expression: Instant messaging invited a breezy, fast-thinking tone; blog comments (again, the thoughtful ones) sharpened our debate skills; Twitter enforced even more economy onto our words. In all of these, we were nudged toward something all writers aspire to: a strong, distinct voice.
Having a clear voice has grown more important on the web, where writers worry about brand-building, news sites grow interactive and blog posts resemble conversations. Some don’t regard texting and chat as writing, while others argue that they’re killing longer and more formal prose. Both notions are wrong. The informal writing we do on the web doesn’t supplant formal writing, it complements and influences it — and is influenced in return.
Not all of the Internet’s effects on writing have been positive. Many bloggers tailor headlines and posts so that they’ll surface at the top of search results, making them at once easier to find and less enjoyable to read. And this decade, a lot of other bloggers mistook a strong writing voice for caustic irreverence. But most eventually learned that writing with snark is like cooking with salt — a little goes a long way.
On the other hand, concerns about the Internet hurting writing feel overblown. Some educators worry that the Internet is making teenagers way too casual in their writing, so that they never learn more formal composition. I disagree. The best way to learn good writing is to write a lot.
Besides, language is always evolving, and a more conversational English isn’t a bad thing. “Writing, when properly managed…is but a different name for conversation.” Laurence Sterne wrote that in Tristram Shandy 250 years ago. Thanks to the Internet, it’s more true now than ever.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
An air purifier for pets! What an ingenious idea! It takes that filthy air around Fido’s head, sucks it up, and replaces it with clean, refreshing and pet-friendly snake oil!
But wait! That’s not all! While the purifier saves your pet from allergens, dander and smoke—possibly from the bong that lead to its eventual purchase—it also coats your dog, cat or small child with spray from a scent dispenser that’s meant to relax and calm the little target of your affection. Bonus use: Your roving Rover now doubles as an air freshener. Just ignore the constant sneezing, as that’s a feature, not a bug.
All that for a mere $17.20. Vet trips are extra. Total steal. [Technee via Coolest Gadgets]
Museo Mateo Manaure
Biblioteca Pública
With the December 2010 deadline for obtaining incentive funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act only a year off, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Bob Abbey today reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to helping the nation reach …
North Carolina, US | Inspired Inventions
Few diversions are as uniquely and unabashedly American as a good old fashioned monster truck jam. Among the greatest stars in the sport’s history is Grave Digger, specifically when driven by Dennis Anderson.
Way back in 1981, before the dawn of monster truck racing as we know it today, Andersen assembled his first ‘mud bogging’ vehicle by combining the chassis of a 1952 Ford pickup and a high-performance Chevy engine with a body welded together from miscellaneous junkyard parts. After a few years of vehicular experimentation and perfecting his racing style, Andersen, so the story goes, gained enough confidence to talk smack to his opponents saying, “I’ll take this old junk and dig your grave.”
Enter the Grave Digger. With its signature black, old-style body adorned by green flames, skulls and the grim reaper, Andersen and the Digger quickly became a crowd favorite. At first, the driver’s reputation for spectacular finishes often punctuated by debilitating crashes worked against “One Run Anderson,” until he harnessed his strengths (high flying antics, trick driving, and car crushing) to establish the Freestyle Jam as the final element of each rally.
Rollovers, demolition, as well as general wear and tear necessitate more than one Grave Digger. Just like Shamu, to date there have been approximately 20 Grave Diggers, including one passenger-style monster truck in which visitors are taken on a ride for a nominal fee.
Late models that have been put out to pasture can be found at the Digger’s Dungeon, which also serves as home-base for Grave Digger’s drivers and mechanics. Inside the shop, childhood fantasies become real by giving big and little kids alike the opportunity to climb into one of the notorious vehicles, and take pictures with the Diggers parked out front in precarious positions.
Lots of memorabilia can be purchased, but the shards of Grave Diggers hanging from the ceiling are priceless, permanent fixtures.
Nani Roma, none other that the former Dakar Rally winner in the motorcycle category, has taken off to a 2-minute lead in this year’s car competition. The BMW driver managed to outscore his nearest rival Carlos Sainz by 2 minutes and 7 seconds after the very first stage of the rally, from Colon to Cordoba.
The Spaniard benefited from a clear road ahead of him in Day 1, as he started 5th in the opening stage of the rally. Nevertheless, he admitted he didn’t expect to take the stage … (read more)
