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small-applications wants to keep up with you on Twitter

2011-03-24T10:40:00.001+01:00

small-applications wants to keep up with you on Twitter

Twitter connects you with everything you want to know, right now. Short bursts of information are readily available from news organizations, corporate entities, politicians, celebrities, local businesses - even your close friends and family. Also, if you have something to share with the world, Twitter makes it super easy. To join for free, click the link below. http://twitter.com/i/120a9edf890ed8c6f943464aceae58140420a071

Thanks,

@twitter

About Twitter, Inc.

Founded in 2007, Twitter Inc believes the open exchange of information can have a positive global impact. Every "Tweet" is limited to 140 characters of text or links which means they are easily written or read on a wide variety of services and devices including any mobile phone, social networks, television, Macs, PCs, and the Web.

This message was sent by a Twitter user who entered your email address. If you'd prefer not to receive emails when other people invite you to Twitter, click here: http://twitter.com/i/o?c=Tllazf%2FCle6lCl02Z20mxYIGBWEWlv1POQjd2yEZtj204r3US%2FAv7A%3D%3D

Please do not reply to this message; it was sent from an unmonitored email address. This message is a service email related to your use of Twitter. For general inquiries or to request support with your Twitter account, please visit us at Twitter Support.

Friend invite from Blogged.com

2009-07-08T02:20:00.000+02:00

Hi,

Have you checked out Blogged.com? It's really cool!

I've found some new and interesting blogs at Blogged.com and I just wanted to share it with you. I think you'll really enjoy finding, reviewing and talking about your favorite blogs at Blogged. It's great for blog readers and writers alike!

Check it out:
http://www.blogged.com/signup.php

I'll see you on Blogged...

- Ashraf

WhizBase wants to keep up with you on Twitter

2009-06-26T10:19:00.001+02:00

WhizBase wants to keep up with you on Twitter

To find out more about Twitter visit http://twitter.com/i/addef12baf415a51faad9ce54b738742bbc6b8db

Thanks,
— The Twitter Team

About Twitter

Twitter is a unique approach to communication and networking based on the simple concept of status. What are you doing? What are your friends doing—right now? With Twitter, you may answer this question over SMS or the Web and the responses are shared between contacts.

This message was sent by a Twitter user who entered your email address. If you'd prefer not to receive emails when other people invite you to Twitter you can opt-out

Your invitation from Ashraf Gheith is about to expire

2007-10-04T16:31:00.000+02:00

Hello,

On Sep 03, 2007, Ashraf Gheith sent you an invitation to join jaxtr.

On Sunday (Oct 07), this invitation will expire. Follow this link to join jaxtr:
http://www.jaxtr.com/user/ticket?n=Top5qdfac7taf&type=joininvite

Signing up is free and takes less than a minute.

--------------

This is a one-time courtesy notification from jaxtr about the expiration of this invitation from Ashraf Gheith

Delivered by jaxtr, Inc., 855 Oak Grove Avenue, Suite 100, Menlo Park, California 94025. Click here to stop receiving messages from this sender.

Link to call me for free

2007-09-03T23:23:00.001+02:00

I am using jaxtr, and if you also sign up, we can talk for free on the phone at any time.

-Ashraf

P.S. Here is the link to sign up:
http://www.jaxtr.com/user/ticket?n=Top5qdfac7taf&type=joininvite

Delivered by jaxtr, Inc., 855 Oak Grove Avenue, Suite 100, Menlo Park, California 94025. Click here to stop receiving messages from this sender.

Magazine NewVision

2007-08-31T10:33:00.000+02:00

Bill Gates Dies

2006-10-30T14:01:00.000+01:00

William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft had revenues of US$39.79 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2005, and employs more than 61,000 people in 102 countries and regions died and, much to everyone's surprise, went to Heaven. When he got there, he had to wait in the reception area.

Heaven's reception area was the size of Massachusetts. There were literally millions of people milling about, living in tents with nothing to do all day. Food and water were being distributed from the backs of trucks, while staffers with clipboards slowly worked their way through the crowd. Booze and drugs were being passed around. Fights were commonplace. Sanitation conditions were appalling. All in all, the scene looked like Woodstock gone metastatic.

Bill lived in a tent for three weeks until, finally, one of the staffers approached him. The staffer was a young man in his late teens, face scarred with acne. He was wearing a blue T-shirt with the words TEAM PETER emblazoned on it in large yellow lettering.

"Hello," said the staffer in a bored voice that could have been the voice of any clerk in any overgrown bureaucracy. "My name is Gabriel and I'll be your induction coordinator." Bill started to ask a question, but Gabriel interrupted him. "No, I'm not the Archangel Gabriel. I'm just a guy from Philadelphia named Gabriel who died in a car wreck at the age of 17. Now give me your name, last name first, unless you were Chinese in which case it's first name first."

"Gates, Bill." Gabriel started searching though the sheaf of papers on his clipboard, looking for Bill's Record of Earthly Works. "What's going on here?" asked Bill. "Why are all these people here? Where's Saint Peter? Where are the Pearly Gates?"

Gabriel ignored the questions until he located Bill's records. Then Gabriel looked up in surprise. "It says here that you were the president of a large software company. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"Well then, do the math chip-head! When this Saint Peter business started, it was an easy gig. Only a hundred or so people died every day, and Peter could handle it all by himself, no problem. But now there are over five billion people on earth. Jesus, when God said to 'go forth and multiply,' he didn't say 'like rabbits!' With that large a population, ten thousand people die every hour. Over a quarter-million people a day. Do you think Peter can meet them all personally?"

"I guess not."

"You guess right. So Peter had to franchise the operation. Now, Peter is the CEO of Team Peter Enterprises, Inc. He just sits in the corporate headquarters and sets policy. Franchisees like me handle the actual inductions." Gabriel looked though his paperwork some more, and then continued. "Your paperwork seems to be in order. And with a background like yours, you'll be getting a plum job assignment."

"Job assignment?"

"Of course. Did you expect to spend the rest of eternity sitting on your ass and drinking ambrosia? Heaven is a big operation. You have to pull your weight around here!" Gabriel took out a triplicate form, had Bill sign at the bottom, and then tore out the middle copy and handed it to Bill. "Take this down to induction center #23 and meet up with your occupational orientator. His name is Abraham." Bill started to ask a question, but Gabriel interrupted him. "No, he's not that Abraham."

Bill walked down a muddy trail for ten miles until he came to induction center #23. He met with Abraham after a mere six-hour wait.

"Heaven is centuries behind in building its data processing infrastructure," explained Abraham. "As you've seen, we're still doing everything on paper. It takes us a week just to process new entries."

"I had to wait three weeks," said Bill. Abraham stared at Bill angrily, and Bill realized that he'd made a mistake. Even in Heaven, it's best not to contradict a bureaucrat. "Well," Bill offered, "maybe that Bosnia thing has you guys backed up."

Abraham's look of anger faded to mere annoyance. "Your job will be to supervise Heaven's new data processing center. We're building the largest computing facility in creation. Half a million computers connected by a multi-segment fiber optic network, all running into a back-end server network with a thousand CPUs on a gigabit channel. Fully fault tolerant. Fully distributed processing. The works."

Bill could barely contain his excitement. "Wow! What a great job! This is really Heaven!"

"We're just finishing construction, and we'll be starting operations soon. Would you like to go see the center now?"

"You bet!"

Abraham and Bill caught the shuttle bus and went to Heaven's new data processing center. It was a truly huge facility, a hundred times bigger than the Astrodome. Workmen were crawling all over the place, getting the miles of fiber optic cables properly installed. But the center was dominated by the computers. Half a million computers, arranged neatly row-by-row, half a million...

Macintoshes...

all running Claris software! Not a PC in sight! Not a single byte of Microsoft code!

The thought of spending the rest of eternity using products that he had spent his whole life working to destroy was too much for Bill. "What about PCs???" he exclaimed. "What about Windows??? What about Excel??? What about Word???"

"You're forgetting something," said Abraham.

"What's that?" asked Bill plaintively.

"This is Heaven," explained Abraham. "We need a computer system that's heavenly to use. If you want to build a data processing center based on PCs running Windows, then...

GO TO HELL!"

Let's make a deal: Boeing Field for trails

2006-10-27T16:19:00.000+02:00

Call it the local land swap of the century — maybe.

Under a deal many months in the making, the Port of Seattle would acquire Boeing Field from King County and in exchange would give the county a 47-mile Eastside rail corridor for recreational use.

It's still just a concept.

It faces many hurdles: regulatory, financial, business and political.

But King County Executive Ron Sims and Port of Seattle Chief Executive Mic Dinsmore presented it as a vital transaction at a news conference Wednesday that even surprised one of the county's biggest private employers — Boeing, whose operations in both Renton and Boeing Field could feel the impact.

"This is by far the most ambitious initiative taken in a generation," Sims said, putting the value of the land transfer at hundreds of millions of dollars.

There are several key pieces to the deal:

The Port would take over management of King County International Airport, a general- aviation hub also known as Boeing Field. The Port already owns and operates Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

In return, the Port would buy a key Renton-to-Everett line owned by BNSF Railway, and give it to the county, paying for creation of a recreational trail. That would create the largest greenway since the Mountains to Sound Greenway was set up in 1991 to protect forest views along Interstate 90, Sims said. But he said it's not certain whether trains might still run on part of the corridor.

The Port also would gain some waterfront land where it could build a new rail yard, helping it become a stronger competitor to other West Coast ports that have been taking business from Seattle this year. The Port also would benefit from rail improvements to let double-stacked trains cross Stampede Pass in the Cascades on a track owned by BNSF between Seattle and Ellensburg, for which Gov. Christine Gregoire pledged $25 million in state funds.

The complex deal offers something for both the Port and county. Boeing Field is barely in the black after several money-losing years, so Sims may welcome the opportunity to swap it for a popular amenity. For the Port, the deal provides control of a potentially competing airport, and also results in long-sought rail improvements.

Sims and Dinsmore said they broached the swap idea last year, a month after another proposal to reshape Boeing Field was rejected. Southwest Airlines had proposed moving to Boeing Field to avoid high fees at Sea-Tac; the Port fought that idea vigorously.

In outlining the plan Wednesday, Dinsmore stressed its complexity and many obstacles.

Among them:

• Political approval. The ports of Seattle and Tacoma, the state, the King County Council, railroads and possibly the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies would need to sign off.

• Business impacts. Boeing uses the Eastside rail line to move fuselage pieces between Renton and Everett.

• Cost. Sims' office estimates the airport is worth at least $200 million. The rail corridor to be acquired from BNSF Railway is valued at about $100 million to $180 million. Sims said the county otherwise would have had to raise taxes to buy the property.

"We haven't even gone down the path to decide where the money comes from," Dinsmore said.

Despite those concerns, the two leaders said they are determined to press ahead, and warned of dire consequences for Seattle's Port and the region if the swap doesn't happen.

"This concept agreement required everyone to give something up," Sims said. And he added: "Speed is key."

If the region doesn't pursue this, Sims said, "We'll see Long Beach [Calif.], L.A., Portland, San Francisco, Vancouver [B.C.] be the place to go because they were faster. This required breaking the mold."

The Port, which has seen cargo volume fall this year as shippers route to Los Angeles and Long Beach, considers the deal vital to Seattle's competitiveness.

"As you look at growth, what the constraint will be is rail capacity," Dinsmore said.

The new rail yard would speed transfer of cargo containers from ships to trains. The Port already has such a yard, operated by BNSF.

And expanding Stampede Pass would allow rail companies to send double-stacked freight trains through.

At Boeing Field, some airplane-service businesses voiced fears that having the Port as their landlord would bring higher fees that would drive away jobs. "If they take the same approach at Boeing Field they take at Sea-Tac, it will be very detrimental to the area, because the costs here, if anything, should be lowered," said Joe Clark, chief executive of Boeing Field-based Aviation Partners. The business develops winglets that make commercial jets more efficient.

Boeing is the biggest tenant at Boeing Field, leasing property at the airfield and delivering its 737 narrowbodies there. "Boeing will wait and see how the discussions between the Port of Seattle and King County develop," said spokesman Peter Conte, who learned about the Boeing Field piece of the swap from a reporter.

As for the Eastside rail line, Boeing and BNSF have discussed an alternative rail route to bring the newest and largest 737 fuselages to the Renton plant, and BNSF has pledged the current track would remain open at least until the alternate route is available, he said.

The plan found some immediate political support. In a statement, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said the plan "represents the kind of forward thinking that will help secure a brighter future for our region."

Gregoire said the plan "anticipates future demands on our transportation system and will help to efficiently move our high-quality Washington agricultural products to the global market."

But others were more skeptical. King County Councilman Pete von Reichbauer, R-Federal Way, said the plan "opened up a Pandora's box of questions" about how the Boeing Field transfer would affect airspace from Magnolia to South King County.

Dinsmore said there are no plans to move commercial air service. "It would not be our intent to do anything different than what we so adamantly argued against last year," when Southwest Airlines proposed moving to Boeing Field, he said. The Port could consider expanding service to Boeing Field when Sea-Tac hits capacity, but he doesn't expect that to happen until 2020.

One Port commissioner said the cost and potential loss of the rail corridor appeared misguided. "It looks to me to be a very sad day for the future of transportation in King County, and a sad day for King County taxpayers, who are going to be paying more than they should for this right of way," Port Commissioner Alec Fisken said. King County taxpayers pay about $60 million annually in property taxes to fund the Port.

"It's certainly a creative idea," said King County Councilman Bob Ferguson, D-Seattle, who chairs the capital-budget committee.

"But the bottom line is whether it's a good deal for King County taxpayers."

Times staff reporter Dominic Gates contributed to this report.

Bathroom visit at Qwest Field gets prosecutor arrested

2006-10-27T16:18:00.000+02:00

A Thurston County senior deputy prosecutor who was ejected from Qwest Field on Sunday after employees said he was having sex in a women's bathroom told his boss he was just using the facilities.

King County Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said two women employees told off-duty sheriff's deputies and Seattle police officers who were working security at the stadium during the Seahawks game that a man and woman were having sex in a bathroom stall.

"We didn't see them having sex but they were clearly in the same stall," Urquhart said of the couple, who told deputies they work together in the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

The deputy prosecutor, William Halstead, 39, handles general felony cases and has developed expertise in negligent-homicide prosecutions and accident-scene reconstruction.

Halstead was arrested for obstructing and trespassing, and later interviewed and released.

Thurston County Prosecutor Ed Holm said Halstead has "been put on notice that there will be discipline."

He will be allowed to continue working until Holm makes his decision, which won't happen until after local prosecutors decide whether to charge him.

According to Holm, Halstead "says he was going to the bathroom" and never engaged in a sex act with the woman, a paralegal who has worked for Holm's office for about eight years.

Holm, who has discretion in the disciplining of attorneys, couldn't say if the woman would face discipline. "I don't think there's been any accusations against her," he said.

Urquhart questioned the attorney's claim that he was simply going to the bathroom.

"So why is he using it with another woman in the stall?" he asked.

Prosecutor arrested after allegedly having sex in Qwest Field bathroom

2006-10-27T16:15:00.000+02:00

A Thurston County senior deputy prosecutor who was ejected from Qwest Field Sunday after employees said he was having sex in a bathroom told his boss he was just using the facilities.

King County Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said two female employees told off-duty sheriff's deputies and Seattle police officers who were working security at the stadium during the Seahawks game that a man and woman were having sex in a bathroom stall.

"We didn't see them having sex but they were clearly in the same stall," Urquhart said of the couple, who told deputies they work together in the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

The man, a 39-year-old attorney, "had been drinking and was argumentative" with deputies, he said. Arrested for obstructing and trespassing, the man was interviewed and released, Urquhart said, explaining that it is "against the law for him to be in a women's restroom."

The Seattle Times does not generally name people who have not been charged with a crime.

Thurston County Prosecutor Ed Holm said the attorney — who handles general felony cases and has developed expertise in negligent homicide prosecutions and accident-scene reconstructions — has "been put on notice that there will be discipline." The lawyer will be allowed to continue working until Holm makes his decision, which won't happen until after local prosecutors decide whether to charge him.

According to Holm, the attorney "says he was going to the bathroom" and never engaged in a sex act with the woman, a paralegal who has worked for Holm's office for about eight years.

Holm, who has discretion in the disciplining of attorneys, couldn't say if the woman, a unionized employee, would also face discipline. "I don't think there's been any accusations against her," he said.

Urquhart questioned the attorney's claim that he was simply going to the bathroom.

"So why is he using it with another woman in the stall?" he asked. "When we got there [to the bathroom] there was quite a long lineup" of women waiting to use the facilities, he said.

The Secrets to Finding Lower Hotel Rates

2006-10-27T11:35:00.000+02:00

Finding good deals on great hotels shouldn't be a mystery

Even if you have a strict budget or per diem, there is no reason to have to stay in a low-budget motel. Many of the nicest hotels in the world offer deals online that are far below their standard rack rates. Knowing where to look online can get you a standard room in a hotel far nicer than you might have thought your budget would allow. For your next trip, try these sources.

Try Quikbook
I use Quikbook on almost every business trip I have to plan. Quikbook lets me choose a hotel by inputting my dates of travel and my price range. Even in larger cities, I can find a room in a really nice hotel for as little as half of the rack rates.

For example, on a recent trip to San Francisco, I was able to stay at The Clift in a Superior King for $195 (usually priced at $350). Standard Kings were listed at $175; the only difference (according to the Clift's front desk) is 40 square feet of space.

Check the Hotel's Home Page
This may sound like a no-brainer, but many people skip this step. No matter which online service you use to book your hotel, check the hotel's official web site first for deals and discounts. Many list Internet-only specials that are not available anywhere else. It's prudent to compare the deals you get directly from the hotel before you book, although it may require a phone call to confirm availability. For example, I found a great deal on the Anaheim Marriott's site last summer ($325 for two nights, Disneyland park tickets for three days, free breakfast and $50 in dining credits). Although the deal is still on their site, I have not been able to book it again this spring.

Compare, Compare, Compare
You might think, with real-time information zooming across the Internet all the time now, that all of the online booking web sites would have exactly the same rates. Not so. In fact, I've often found vastly different rates for similar rooms at the same hotel on Travelocity, Expedia, and Quikbook. It's worth taking the few extra minutes to pull up the same hotel on a few different services and compare the prices.

Deals and Discounts
If you are going to a popular destination like Disney World, there are a number of sites that can help you find the best hotel rates around. For example, MouseSavers.com lists the discount codes for Disney World as well as information on which online booking service has the best prices. (Check the Disney World section of this site for links.) If you're traveling somewhere else, Hotels/Resorts/Inns also lists discounts and special deals for hotels and resorts worldwide.

Before You Bid
I'm not a big fan of Priceline, although I've used it a few times. I like a little more control over which hotel at which I'll be staying. However, it can come through with ultra-low rates in a pinch. Before you bid on any hotels, I recommend you check Bidding For Travel, a forum that can help you greatly increase your odds of getting a good Priceline value. Other travelers will tell you what prices they're getting successful bids on with particular hotels and cities. The advice there is invaluable and should always be your first stop before you place a Priceline bid. Also, be sure to see Beat the Bidding System for a few tricks to getting the most out of Priceline.

The Writer

2006-10-27T11:34:00.000+02:00

Perhaps more than any of the director's other collaborators, the script writer has been suggested from time to time as the main "author" of a film. After all, the writer is generally responsible for the dialogue, he outlines most of the action (sometimes in great detail), and lie usually sets forth the main theme of a film. Particularly after the advent of sound, when movie scripts became more elaborate, precise, and-most of all-verbal, many established literary figures were attracted to the new audiovisual medium. ln the United States, some of our greatest writers-including William Faulkner, Nathanael West, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, to name only a handful of the most famous-went to Hollywood with great expectations.

Most of these writers became embittered and cynical. Notwithstanding the encouragement of such powerful producers as Irving Thalberg, Darryl F. Zanuck, and later, Stanley Kramer (who all tended to believe that cinema is essentially a writer's medium), Most of these literary figures were thwarted and artistically frustrated. The majority of them produced only hack work. Indeed, one could make a convincing argument that with few exceptions, great novelists, poets, and dramatists seldom make good screenwriters, simply because they tend to misunderstand the nature of the medium. Certainly most of the best film writers have made their majoi- contribution in movies, not in other forms of literary expression.

But assessing the writer's contribution in the movie-making process is a labyrinthine exercise, and perhaps one doomed to futility, since the writer's role varies immensely from film to film and from director to director. In the first place, some directors hardly bother with a script. Godard, for example, usually begins a movie with only a few ideas jotted down on a scrap of paper. Of course many of the greatest filmmakers write their own scripts: Bergman, Cocteau, Eisenstein, and Renoir, to name only a few. In the American cinema, there are also many writer-directors: Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton, von Stroheim, Huston, Welles, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, Samuel Fuller, and John Cassevetes, are among the most famous.

Most great directors take a major hand in writing their scripts, but thev bring in other writers to expand on their ideas. Fellini, Truffaut, Kurosawa, and Antonioni all work in this manner. The American studio system also tended to encourage multiple authorship of scripts. Often writers had a certain specialty, such as dialogue, comedy, construction, atmosphere, and so on. Some writers were best at "doctoring" weak scripts, others were good "idea" people but perhaps lacked the skill to execute their ideas. In such collaborative enterprises, the screen credits are not always an accurate reflection of who contributed what to a movie. Furthermore, even though many directors-like Hitclicock-contribtite a great deal to the final shape of their scripts, they often refuse to take screen credit for their work, allowing the official writer to take it all. Surprisingly few major directors depend entirely upon others for their scripts. Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter, Marcel Carn6 and Jacques Pr6vert, and Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini are perhaps the most famous director-writer teams.

On the other hand, there are some movies in which the writer seems more dominant than the director. This certainly seems to be the case in the films scripted by Paddv Chayevsky, for example, in which the dialogue tends to dominate the visuals. In general, the more literary the movie, the greater the contribution of the writer. Indeed, some directors en'oy considerable prestige at the expense of theii excellent writers, who are either forgotten or relegated to dependent clauses in critical comnieiitaries, Howard Hawks seems to be such a filmmaker, for though lie has directed some of the most enjoyable works of the American cinema, most of them were scripted by the cream of Hollywood's screenwriters: William Faulkner, Jules Furthman, Ben Hecht, Leigh Brackett, and Charles Lederer. In many ways, Hawks seems to have all the virtues of a good stage director: he's gifted in directing actors, he has an energetic sense of pace, and an unpretentious, functional visual style. But all of these considerable virtues would be wasted were it not for the first-rate scripts Hawks had to work with (not to speak of his excellent actors), particularly in Such charming films as His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep (written by Faulkner, Brackett, and Furthman, from the novel by Ravmond Chandler), and Rio Bravo (written by Furthman and Brackett, from a story by B. H. McCampbell). On the other hand, not even Hawks's most fervent enthusiasts would praise Red Line 7000, which was written mainly by Hawks in collaboration with George Kirgo.

For many years American intellectuals were inclined to dismiss the virile, clean scripts of Hawks's movies in favor of those that dealt overtly with "serious" themes. To this day, many filmgoers believe that art must be solemn-if not actually dull-to be respectable. Indeed, even in the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, such "intellectual" writers as Dalton Trumbo, Dudley Nichols, and Carl Foreman enjoyed tremendous prestige because their scripts were filled with "fine speeches" dealing with justice, Brotherhood, and Democracy. Today these purple patches of dialogue seem clumsy, self-consciously school-marmisli, and ultimately dishonest, for often even rough, unlettered characters would burst forth with eloquent speeches that were totally out of character. Not that these themes aren't important, but to be effective artistically, ideas must be dramatized with tact and honesty, not simply parceled out to the characters like high-sounding speeches on a patriotic holiday. Generally speaking, only students, artists, and intellectuals discuss ideas and abstractions without a sense of self-consciousness. Perhaps this is why the films of Eric Rohmer-like Claire's Knee and My Night at Maud's-are so convincing: the main characters are intellectuals who prefer discussing ideas to other topics. In order to be convincing, then, eloquent language must be dramatically probable: we must believe that the eloquence belongs to the character, and is not merely the writer's "message" dressed up as dialogue.

Even great directors like Bergman and Ford have been hoodwinked by "fine writing"-sometimes even by their own. For example, a good many of Ford's movies are pretentious and earnestly "literary" in the worst sense of that term. Many of the scripts to these films-The Informer, Mary of Scotland, The Plough and the Stais, The Fugitive-were adapted by that incorrigible preacher, Dudley Nichols, from well-known literary works. But Ford is at his best with laconic, even inarticulate characters. Indeed, the scripts to his greatest films-especially his westerns-are lean, spare, and genuinely poetic precisely because the writing is so understated. Frank S. Nugent wrote many of these movies: Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Wagon Master, The Quiet Man, and The Searchers, for example.

Ultimately, however, generalizations about what constitutes good screenwriting are very difficult to make. It all depends on how it's done. In Penn's Little Big Man, for example, the protagonist's Indian grandfather (Chief Dan George) discusses abstract ideas and moral issues with complete believability. Indeed, much of the cliarm and humor of his speeches results from the tension between the sophistication of his ideas and the naive racism of most viewers, who expect Indians to grunt in monosyllables. Calder Willingham's script (based on the novel by Thomas Berger) avoids sentimental clich6s. just as the Indian chief seems to be slipping into a Noble Savage stereotype, for example, the writing subtly and humorously undercuts the potential bathos. In a scene late in the movie, the elderly chief climbs a high hill where he plans to die. He performs several solemn death rituals, then lies down on the ground, while his sorrowing grandson (Dustin Hoffman) watches helplessly. Inexplicably, the chief doesn't die. Shrugging philosophically, he rises and remarks to his grandson, "Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't." Undaunted, the chief returns with his grandson to the Indian village in the valley, to the land of the living.

Despite the enormous importance that the script can play in a sound film, some directors scoff at the notion that a writer can ever be the dominant artist in the cinema. When asked what value he placed on his scripts, for example, Josef von Sternberg replied that the narrative or story elements of his works were of "no importance whatsoever" to him. Antonioni once remarked that Crime and Punishment was a rather ordinary story-the genius of the novel lies in how it's told, not in the subject matter per se. Certainly the large number of excellent movies based on routine, or even mediocre scripts seems to bear out such anti-literary views.

Movie scripts seldom make for interesting reading precisely because they are mere blueprints of the finished product. Unlike a play script, which usually can be read with pleasure, too much is missing in a screenplay. Even highly detailed scripts seldom offer us a sense of a film's mise-en-scene, one of the principal methods of expression at the director's disposal. With characteristic wit, Andrew Sarris has pointed out how the director's choice of shot-how the action is photographed-is the crucial elei-nent in most films, not merely the action as action:

The choice between a close-up and a long-shot, for example, may quite often transcend the plot. If the story of Little Red Riding Hood is told with the Wolf in close-up and Little Red Riding Hood in long shot, the director is concerned primarily with the emotional problems of a wolf with a compulsion to cat little girls. If Little Red Riding Hood is in close-up and the Wolf in long shot, the emphasis is shifted to the emotional problems of vestigial virginity in a wicked world. Thus, two different stories are being told with the same basic anecdotal material. What is at stake in the two versions of Little Red Riding Hood are two contrasting directorial attitudes toward life. One director identifies more with the Wolf-the male, the compulsive, the corrupted, even evil itself. The second director identifies with the little girl-the innocence, the illusion, the ideal and hope of the race. Needless to say, few critics bother to make any distinction, proving perhaps that direction as creation is still only dimly understood.

Sarris' observations reinforce the thesis of this book: that subject matter alone can never be a reliable index of quality in a film, for the artist must translate his subject into the forms of his medium before its true content can be fully experienced and appraised. In these terms, then, the screenwriter generally provides the subject matter of a film, but the director creates its true content.

Auto Insurance 101

2006-10-27T09:58:00.000+02:00

Step by Step Guide: From Choosing Your Car Insurance To Filing Your Claim

Why do you need a five step guide to auto insurance shopping? Because, if you want to get the best coverage for your buck, shopping smart for your car insurance is the way to do it. Also, car insurance is one of the top ways to chisel down your insurance budget if you know how to do it right. Let's start with deciding what car insurance coverage you need:

1. What Kind of Coverage Do You Need?: Before calling the insurance company and getting your insurance quote, take the time to decide what kind of coverage you need. In every state you have to have at least liability coverage. But, you need to decide if you would like to add these additional car insurance coverages:

Comprehensive

Collision

If you choose comprehensive and collision coverages, you will need to decide what deductible amounts you would like.

And, it is important to know what policy limits your state requires so you can decide what policy limits you would like. Other coverages you may also be interested in:

Emergency Roadside Service

Gap Insurance

2. Choosing an Insurance Company: When you are ready to select your insurance provider, besides just looking for the best car insurance premium, you will want to take some time to research what insurance company you want to go with by learning about their financial strength. Another important aspect of choosing your insurance provider is knowing if and how they will use your credit score to determine your rate. Take the time to research different companies and then make a list of the providers you are interested in contacting for an insurance quote. Here are some tools to help you research your car insurance company:

Car Insurance Company Report Card

Your Credit Score and the Insurance Company

3. Making the Call: When you have your list of selected car insurance providers you are ready to start calling around to search for the one who can give you the best deal. It is important to have certain paperwork handy, such as your drivers license number. In addition, having a list of discounts you may be entitled to can save you some extra money. Here are some resources to help you when you are ready to make the call:

Car Insurance Savings Checklist

Online Car Insurance Company Quote Worksheet

4. Understanding Your Car Insurance Policy: Now that you have your car insurance policy, do you understand what it means? Did you get what you paid for? It is important to know how your car insurance policy works and how it can work for you. Here is some help in understanding your policy:

Getting What You Paid For

eCourse: How to Know if Your Insurance Contract is Legal

Car Insurance Frequently Asked Questions

5. Filing a Car Insurance Claim: Let's hope you never have to file a car insurance claim, but if you do it is important to learn some things before the accident comes. Learning what things you need to do when you have an auto accident can help the claims process go much smoother. Here are some claim filing tools you will want to learn before you file a car insurance claim:

I Had a Car Accident!

5 Steps to Filing Your Car Insurance Claim

Aftermarket Parts and the Insurance Company - Do You Have a Choice?

Programming in C 8/8

2006-10-27T09:55:00.000+02:00

Mistakes are a fact of life. When you write a computer program in C, the compiler must convert your source code to machine code, so there must be some very strict rules governing how you use the language. Leave out a comma where one is expected, or add a semicolon where you shouldn’t, and the compiler won’t be able to translate your program into machine code.

You’ll be surprised just how easy it is to introduce typographical errors into a program, even after years of practice. If you’re lucky, these errors will be picked up when you compile or link your program. If you’re really unlucky, they can result in your program apparently working fine but producing some intermittent erratic behavior. You can end up spending a lot of time tracking these errors down.

Of course, it’s not only typographical errors that cause problems. You’ll often find that your detailed implementation is just not right. Where you’re dealing with complicated decisions in your program, it’s easy to get the logic wrong. Your program may be quite accurate from a language point of view, and it may compile and run without a problem, but it won’t produce the right answers. These kinds of errors can be the most difficult to find.

Points to Remember

It would be a good idea to review what you’ve gleaned from your first program. You can do this by looking at the overview of the important points in Figure 1-4.

Summary

You’ve reached the end of the first chapter, and you’ve already written a few programs in C. You’ve covered quite a lot of ground, but at a fairly gentle pace. The aim of this chapter was to introduce a few basic ideas rather than teach you a lot about the C programming language. You should be confident about editing, compiling, and running your programs. You probably have only a vague idea about how to construct a C program at this point. It will become much clearer when you’ve learned a bit more about C and written some programs with more meat to them.

In the next chapter, you’ll move on to more complicated things than just producing text output using theprintf()function. You’ll manipulate information and get some rather more interesting results. And by the way, theprintf()function does a whole lot more than just display text strings—as you’ll see soon.

Exercises

The following exercises enable you to try out what you’ve learned in this chapter. If you get stuck, look back over the chapter for help. If you’re still stuck, you can download the solutions from the Downloads area of the Apress website (http://www.apress.com), but that really should be a last resort.

Figure 1-4. Elements of a simple program

Exercise 1-1. Write a program that will output your name and address using a separate printf()statement for each line of output.

Exercise 1-2. Modify your solution for the previous exercise so that it produces all the output using only one printf() statement.

Exercise 1-3. Write a program to output the following text, exactly as it appears here:

--------------------------------------------------
"It's freezing in here," he said coldly.
--------------------------------------------------

Programming in C 1/8

2006-10-27T09:51:00.006+02:00

If you want to learn the fundamentals of C programming, you've come to the right place. This article is excerpted from the book Beginning C, third edition, written by Ivor Horton (Apress, 2004; ISBN: 1590592530).

C IS A POWERFUL AND COMPACT computer language that allows you to write programs that specify exactly what you want your computer to do. You’re in charge: you create a program, which is just a set of instructions, and your computer will follow those instructions.

Programming in C isn’t difficult, as you’re about to find out. I’m going to teach you all the fundamentals of C programming in an enjoyable and easy-to-understand way, and by the end of this chapter, you’ll have written your first few C programs. It’s as easy as that!

In this chapter you’ll learn

How to create C programs
How C programs are organized
How to write your own program to display text on the screen

Creating C Programs

There are four fundamental stages, or processes, in the creation of any C program:

Editing
Compiling
Linking
Executing

You’ll soon know all these processes like the back of your hand (you’ll be doing them so easily and so often), but first let’s consider what each process is and how it contributes to the creation of a C program.

Editing

This is the process of creating and editing C source code—the name given to the program instructions you write. Some C compilers come with a specific editor that can provide a lot of assistance in managing your programs. In fact, an editor often provides a complete environment for writing, managing, developing, and testing your programs. This is sometimes called an integrated development environment, or IDE.

You can also use other editors to create your source files, but they must store the code as plain text without any extra formatting data embedded in it. In general, if you have a compiler system with an editor included, then it will provide a lot of features that make it easier to write and organize your source programs. There will usually be automatic facilities for laying out the program text appropriately and color highlighting for important language elements, which not only makes your code more readable, but also provides a clear indicator when you make errors in keying in such words.

If you’re working in UNIX, then the most common text editor is the vi editor. Alternately, you might prefer to use theemacs editor.

From a PC, you could use one the many freeware and shareware programming editors. These will often provide a lot of help in ensuring your code is correct with syntax highlighting and autoindenting of your code. Don’t use word processors such as Microsoft Word, as they aren’t suitable for producing program code.

Compiling

The compiler converts your source code into machine language, and detects and reports errors in the compilation process. The input to this stage is the file you produced during your editing, which is usually referred to as a source file.

The compiler can detect a wide range of errors that are due to invalid or unrecognized program code, as well as structural errors where, for example, part of a program can never be executed. The output from the compiler is known as object code and is stored in files called object files, which usually have names with the extension.obj. The compiler can detect several different kinds of errors during the translation process, and most of these will prevent the object file from being created.

NOTE In UNIX, object files have the extension.o.

The result of a successful compilation is a file with the same name that you used for the source file, but with the.objextension.

If you’re working in UNIX, then the standard command to compile your C programs will be cc. You can use it like this:

cc -c myprog.c

wheremyprog.c is the program you want to compile. Note that if you omit the-oflag, your program will automatically be linked as well. If you’re using the GNU’s Not UNIX (GNU) compiler, you should type

gcc -c myprog.c.

The result of a successful compilation will be an object file.

Most C compilers will have a standard compile option, whether it’s from the command line (such ascc myprog.c) or a menu option from within an IDE (where you’ll find a Compile menu option).

Linking

The linker combines the various modules generated by the compiler from source code files, adds required code modules from program libraries supplied as part of C, and welds everything into an executable whole. The linker can also detect and report errors—for example, if part of your program is missing or a nonexistent library component is referenced.

In practice, if your program is of any significant size, it will consist of several separate source code files, which can then be linked. A large program may be difficult to write in one session. By breaking it up into a number of smaller source files, you can make the development of the program a whole lot easier. The source files can be compiled separately, which makes eliminating simple typographical errors a bit easier. Furthermore, the whole program can usually be developed incrementally. Each source file will have its own file name, and the set of source files that make up the program will usually be integrated under a project name, which is used to refer to the whole program.

Program libraries support and extend the C language by providing routines to carry out operations that aren’t part of the language. For example, libraries contain routines that support operations such as performing input and output, calculating a square root, comparing two character strings, or obtaining date and time information.

A failure during the linking phase means that, once again, you have to go back and edit your source code. Success, on the other hand, will produce an executable file. In a Microsoft Windows environment, this executable file will have the.exeextension; in UNIX, there will be no such extension, but the file will be of an executable type.

In UNIX, the modules that are to be linked are given together with thecccommand, for example:

cc myprog.c mod1.c mod2.o

These three modules will be linked. Notice that the last module here has the extension.o. This is because it has previously been compiled: the.oextension tells the compiler that the module is waiting to be linked and doesn’t need to be compiled again. The output of this stage is a file calleda.out, which you should then rename to something more meaningful.

An alternative form to this is as follows:

cc -o myprog myprog.c mod.c mod2.o

This will compile and link the modulemyprog.cand create an executable file calledmyprog(defined straight after the-oflag).

Many C compilers also have a Build option, which will compile and link your program in one step. This option will usually be found, within an IDE, in the Compile menu; alternatively, it may have a menu of its own.

Executing

The execution stage is when you run your program, having completed all the previous processes successfully. Unfortunately, this stage can also generate a wide variety of error conditions, ranging from producing the wrong output to sitting there and doing nothing, perhaps crashing your computer for good measure. In all cases, it’s back to the editing process to check your source code.

Now for the good news: this is the stage where, at last, you get to see your computer doing exactly what you told it to do!

In UNIX and DOS, to execute a program you just enter the name of the file that has been compiled and linked.

In most IDEs, you’ll find an appropriate menu command that allows you to Run or Execute your compiled program. This option may have a menu of its own, or you may find it under the Compile menu option.

In Windows, you can use Windows Explorer to locate the.exefile of your program, and then you can double-click the file.

The processes of editing, compiling, linking, and executing are essentially the same for developing programs in any environment and with any compiled language. Figure 1-1 summarizes how you would typically pass through each of these processes as you create your own C programs.

Programming in C 7/8

2006-10-27T09:51:00.005+02:00

The word “function” has appeared a few times so far in this chapter with reference to main(), printf(), function body, and so on. Let’s explore in a little more depth what functions are and why they’re important.

Most programming languages, including C, provide a way of breaking up a program into segments, each of which can be written more or less independently of the others. In C these segments are called functions. The program code in the body of one function is completely insulated from that of other functions. A function will have a specific interface to the outside world in terms of how information is transferred to it and how results generated by the function are transmitted back from it. This interface is specified in the first line of the function, where the function name appears.

Figure 1-3 shows a simple example of a program to analyze baseball scores that is composed of four modules.

Figure 1-3. Modular programming

Each of the four modules does a specific, well-defined job. Overall control of the sequence of operations in the program is managed by one module,main(). There is a module to read and check the input data and another module to do the analysis. Once the data has been read in and analyzed, a fourth module has the task of outputting the team and player rankings.

Segmenting a program into manageable chunks is a very important aspect to programming, so let’s go over the reasons for doing this:

Dividing the program into a number of separate functions allows each function to be written and tested separately. This greatly simplifies the process of getting the total program to work.
Several separate functions are easier to handle and understand than one huge function.
Libraries are just sets of functions that people tend to use all the time. Because they’ve been prewritten and pretested, you know they’ll work, so you can use them without worrying about their code details. This will accelerate your program development, by allowing you to concentrate on your own code, and it’s a fundamental part of the philosophy of C. The richness of the libraries greatly amplifies the power of the language.
You can accumulate your own libraries of functions that are applicable to the sorts of programs that you’re interested in. If you find yourself writing a particular function frequently, you can write a generalized version of it to suit your needs and build this into your own library. Then, whenever you need to use that particular function, you can simply use your library version.
In the development of very large programs, which can vary from a few thousand to millions of lines of code, development can be undertaken by teams of programmers, with each team working with a defined subgroup of the functions that make up the whole program.

You’ll learn about C functions in greater detail in Chapter 8. Because the structure of a C program is inherently functional, you’ve already encountered one of the standard library functions in one of this chapter’s earliest examples: the functionprintf().

.........................................................................................

Try It Out: Exercising What You Know

Let’s now look at an example that puts into practice what you’ve learned so far. First, have a look at the following code and see whether you can understand what it does without running it. Then type it in; compile, link, and run it; and see what happens.

/* Program 1.7 A longer program */
#include <stdio.h> /* Include the header file for input and output */
void main()
{
printf("Hi there!\n\n\nThis program is a bit");
printf(" longer than the others.");
printf("\nBut really it's only more text.\n\n\n\a\a");
printf("Hey, wait a minute!! What was that???\n\n");
printf("\t1.\tA bird?\n");
printf("\t2.\tA plane?\n");
printf("\t3.\tA control character?\n");
printf("\n\t\t\b\bAnd how will this look when it prints out?\n\n");
}

The output will be as follows:

----------------------------------------------------------------------Hi there!
This program is a bit longer than the others.
But really it's only more text.
Hey, wait a minute!! What was that???
1. A bird?
2. A plane?
3. A control character?
And how will this look when it prints out?

--------------------------------------------

HOW IT WORKS

The program looks a little bit complicated, largely because the text strings between parentheses include a lot of escape sequences. Each text string is bounded by a pair of double quotation marks. However, the program is just a succession of calls to theprintf()function, and it demonstrates that output to the screen is controlled by what you pass to theprintf()function. Let’s look at this program in detail.

You include thestdio.hfile through the preprocessing directive:

#include <stdio.h> /* Include the header file for input and output */

You can see that this is a preprocessing directive because it begins with#. Thestdio.hfile provides the definitions you need to be able to use theprintf()function.

You then define the start of the functionmain()and specify that it doesn’t return a value with this line:

void main()

The opening brace on the next line indicates that the body of the function follows:

{

The next statement calls the standard library functionprintf()to outputHi there!to your display screen, followed by two blank lines and the phraseThis program is a bit.

printf("Hi there!\n\n\nThis program is a bit");

The two blank lines are produced by the three\nescape sequences. Each of these starts a new line when the characters are written to the display. The first ends the line containingHi there!, and the next two produce the two empty lines. The textThis program is a bitappears on the fourth line of output. You can see that this one line of code produces a total of four lines of output on the screen.

The next line of output produced by the nextprintf()starts at the character position immediately following the last character in the previous output. The next statement outputs the textlonger than the others.with a space as the first character of the text:

printf(" longer than the others.");

This output will simply continue where the last line left off, following thetinbit. This means that you really do need the space at the beginning of the text, otherwise the computer will displayThis program is a bitlonger than the others, which isn’t what you want.

The next statement starts its output on a new line, immediately following the previous line, because of the\nat the beginning of the text string between double quotation marks:

printf("\nBut really it's only more text.\n\n\n\a\a");

It then displays the text and adds two empty lines (because of the three\nescape sequences) and beeps twice. The next output to the screen will start at the beginning of the line that follows the second empty line produced here.

The next output is produced by the following statement:

printf("Hey, wait a minute!! What was that???\n\n");

This outputs the text and then leaves one empty line. The next output will be on the line following the empty line.

Each of the next three statements inserts a tab, displays a number, inserts another tab followed by some text, and ends with a new line. This is useful for making your output easier to read:

printf("\t1.\tA bird?\n");
printf("\t2.\tA plane?\n");
printf("\t3.\tA control character?\n");

This produces three numbered lines of output.

The last statement that produces output adds a new line, so that there will be an empty line after the previous output. Two tabs are then sent to the display, followed by two backspaces, which moves your cursor back two spaces from the last tab position. Lastly, the text is displayed, and two newline characters are sent to the display:

printf("\n\t\t\b\bAnd how will this look when it prints out?\n\n");

The closing brace marks the end of the function body:

}

.............................................

Programming in C 6/8

2006-10-27T09:51:00.004+02:00

The process of developing programs in C may not be evident if you’ve never written a program before. However, it’s very similar to many other situations in life in which, at the beginning, it just isn’t clear how you’re going to achieve your objective. Normally, you start with an idea of what you want to achieve, but you need to translate this into a more precise specification of what you want. Once you’ve reached this more precise specification, you can work out the series of steps that will lead to your final objective. So having an idea that you want to build a house just isn’t enough. You need to know what kind of house you want, how large it’s going to be, what kinds of materials you have to build it with, and where you want to build it. This kind of detailed planning is also necessary when you want to write a program.

Let’s go through the basic steps that you need to follow when you’re writing a program. The house analogy is a useful one, so we’ll work with it for a while.

Understanding the Problem

The first step is to get a clear idea of what you want to do. It would be lunacy to start building your house before you had established what facilities it should provide: how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, how big it’s going to be, and so on. All these things affect the cost of the house in terms of materials and the work involved in building it. Generally, it comes down to a compromise that best meets your needs within the constraints of the money, the workforce, and the time that’s available for you to complete the project.

It’s the same with developing a program of any size. Even for a relatively straightforward problem, you need to know what kind of input to expect, how the input is to be processed, and what kind of output is required—and how it’s going to look. The input could be entered with the keyboard, but it might also involve data from a disk file or information obtained over a telephone line or a network. The output could simply be displayed on the screen, or it could be printed; perhaps it might involve updating a data file on disk. For more complex programs, you’ll need to look at many more aspects of what the program is going to do. A clear definition of the problem that your program is going to solve is an absolutely essential part of understanding the resources and effort needed for the creation of a finished product. Considering these details also forces you to establish whether or not the project is actually feasible.

Detailed Design

To get the house built, you’ll need detailed plans. These plans enable the construction workers to do their job and the plans describe in detail how the house will go together—all the dimensions, the materials to use, and so on. You’ll also need a plan of what is to be done and when. For example, you’ll want the foundation dug before the walls are built, so the plan must involve segmenting the work into manageable units to be performed in a logical sequence.

It’s the same with a program. You’ll need to specify what the program does by dividing it into a set of well-defined and manageable chunks that are reasonably self-contained. You’ll also need to detail the way in which these chunks connect, as well as what information each chunk will need when it executes. This will enable you to develop the logic of each chunk, relatively independently from the rest of the program. If you treat a large program as one huge process that you try to code as a single chunk, chances are that you’ll never get it to work.

Implementation

Given the detailed design of a house, the work can start. Each group of construction workers will need to complete its part of the project at the right time. Each stage will need to be inspected to check that it’s been done properly before the next stage begins. Omitting these checks could easily result in the whole house collapsing.

Of course, if a program is large, you’ll write the source code one unit at a time. As one part is completed, you can write the code for the next. Each part will be based on the detailed design specifications, and you’ll verify that each piece works, as far as you can, before proceeding to the next. In this way, you’ll gradually progress to a fully working program that does everything you originally intended.

Testing

The house is complete, but there are a lot of things that need to be tested: the drainage, the water and electricity supplies, the heating, and so on. Any one of these areas can have problems that the contractors need to go back and fix. This is sometimes an iterative process, in which problems with one aspect of the house can be the cause of things going wrong somewhere else.

The mechanism with a program is similar. Each of your program modules—the pieces that make up your program—will need to be tested individually. When they don’t work properly, you need to debug them. Debugging is the process of finding and correcting errors in your program. This term is said to have originated in the days when finding the errors in a program involved tracing where the information went and how it was processed by using the circuit diagram for the computer. The story goes that it was discovered how a computer program error was caused by an insect shorting part of the circuit in the computer. The problem was caused by a bug. Subsequently, the term bug was used to refer to any error in a program.

With a simple program, you can often find an error simply by inspecting the code. In general, though, the process of debugging usually involves adding extra program code to produce output that will enable you to check what the sequence of events is and what intermediate values are produced in a program. With a large program, you’ll also need to test the program modules in combination because, although the individual modules may work, there’s no guarantee that they’ll work together! The jargon for this phase of program development is integration testing.

Programming in C 5/8

2006-10-27T09:51:00.003+02:00

The general structure of the functionmain()is illustrated in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2. Structure of the function main()

The function body is the bit between the opening and closing braces that follow the line where the function name appears. The function body contains all the statements that define what the function does. The example’s functionmain()has a very simple function body consisting of just one statement:

{	/* This marks the beginning of main() */
	printf("Beware the Ides of March!");	/* This line displays a quotation	*/
}		/* This marks the end of main()	*/

Every function must have a body, although the body can be empty and just consist of the two braces without any statements between them. In this case, the function will do nothing.

You may wonder where the use is for a function that does nothing. Actually, this can be very useful when you’re developing a program that will have many functions. You can declare the set of (empty) functions that you think you’ll need to write to solve the problem at hand, which should give you an idea of the programming that needs to be done, and then gradually create the program code for each function. This technique helps you to build your program in a logical and gradual manner.

NOTE You can see that I’ve aligned the braces one below the other. I’ve done this to make it clear where the block of statements that the braces enclose starts and finishes. Statements between braces are usually indented by a fixed amount—usually two or more spaces so that the braces stand out. This is good programming style, as the statements within a block can be readily identified.
Outputting Information

The body of the example’s functionmain()includes only one statement, which calls theprintf()function:

printf("Beware the Ides of March!"); /* This line displays a quotation */

As I said,printf()is a standard library function, and it outputs information to the display screen based on what appears between the parentheses that immediately follow the function name. In this case, the call to the function displays a simple piece of Shakespearean advice that appears between the double quotes. Notice that this line does end with a semicolon.

Arguments

Items enclosed between the parentheses following a function name, as with theprintf()function, are called arguments. When there is more than one argument to a function, they must be separated by commas.

If you don’t like the quotation in this example’s argument, you could display something else by simply including your own choice of words, within double quotes, between the parentheses. For instance, you might prefer a line from Macbeth:

printf("Out, damned Spot! Out I say!");

Try using this in the example. When you’ve modified the source code, you need to compile and link the program again before executing it.

NOTE As with all executable statements in C (as opposed to defining or directive statements) theprintf()line must have a semicolon at the end. As you’ve seen, a very common error, particularly when you first start programming in C, is to forget the semicolon.
Control Characters

You could alter the program to display two sentences on separate lines. Try typing in the following code:

/* Program 1.4 Another Simple C Program - Displaying a Quotation */
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
printf("\nMy formula for success?\nRise early, work late, strike oil.");
}

The output from this program looks like this:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
My formula for success?
Rise early, work late, strike oil.
--------------------------------------------

Look at theprintf()statement. At the beginning of the text and after the first sentence, you insert the characters\n. The combination\nactually represents one character: a newline character.

The backslash (\) is of special significance in a text string. It indicates the start of an escape sequence. Escape sequences are used to insert characters in a string that would otherwise be impossible to specify, such as tab and newline, or would confuse the compiler, such as a double quote that you use to delimit a string. The character following the backslash indicates what character the escape sequence represents. In this case, it’snfor newline, but there are plenty of other possibilities. Obviously, if a backslash is of special significance, you need a way to specify a backslash in a text string. To do this, you simply use two backslashes:\\. Similarly, if you actually want to display a double quote character, you can use\".

Type in the following program:

/* Program 1.5 Another Simple C Program - Displaying Great Quotations */
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
printf("\n\"It is a wise father that knows his own child.\"
Shakespeare");
}

The output displays the following text:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
"It is a wise father that knows his own child." Shakespeare
----------------------------------------------------------------------

You can use the\aescape sequence in an output string to sound a beep to signal something interesting or important. Enter and run the following program:

/* Program 1.6 A Simple C Program–Important */
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
printf("\nBe careful!!\a");
}

The output of this program is sound and vision. Listen closely and you should hear a beep through the speaker in your computer.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Be careful!!
--------------------------------------------

The\asequence represents the “bell” character. Table 1-1 shows a summary of the escape sequences that you can use.

Table 1-1. Escape Sequences

Escape Sequence	Description
\n	Represents a newline character
\r	Represents a carriage return
\b	Represents a backspace
\f	Represents a form-feed character
\t	Represents a horizontal tab
\v	Represents a vertical tab
\a	Inserts a bell (alert) character
\"	Inserts a double quote (")
\'	Inserts a single quote (')
\\	Inserts a backslash (\)

Try displaying different lines of text on the screen and alter the spacing within that text. You can put words on different lines using\n, and you can use\tto space the text. You’ll get lot more practice with these as you progress through the book.

Programming in C 4/8

2006-10-27T09:51:00.002+02:00

Now that you’ve written and compiled your first program, let’s go through another that’s very similar and see what the individual lines of code do. Have a look at this program:

/* Program 1.3 Another Simple C Program - Displaying a Quotation */
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
printf("Beware the Ides of March!");
}

This is virtually identical to your first program. Even so, you could do with the practice, so use your editor to enter this example and see what happens when you compile and run it. If you type it in accurately, compile it, and run it, you should get the following output:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Beware the Ides of March!
--------------------------------------------

Comments

Look at the first line of code in the preceding example:

/* Program 1.3 Another Simple C Program - Displaying a Quotation */

This isn’t actually part of the program code, in that it isn’t telling the computer to do anything. It’s simply a comment, and it’s there to remind you, or someone else reading your code, what the program does. Anything between/*and*/is treated as a comment. As soon as your compiler finds/*in your source file, it will simply ignore anything that follows until it finds the matching*/that marks the end of the comment. This may be on the same line, or it can be several lines further on. Whatever is between/*and*/will be completely ignored by the compiler, even if it looks like program code.

You should try to get into the habit of documenting your programs, using comments as you go along. Your programs will, of course, work without comments, but when you write longer programs you may not remember what they do or how they work. Put in enough comments to ensure that, a month from now, you (and any other programmer) can understand the aim of the program and how it works.

As I said, comments don’t have to be in a line of their own. A comment is everything between/*and*/, wherever/*and*/are in your code. Let’s add some more comments to the program:

/* Program 1.3 Another Simple C Program - Displaying a Quotation */

#include <stdio.h>		*/ This is a preprocessor directive**	*/
void main()		*/ This identifies the function main() /*
{	*/ This marks the beginning of main()**			*/
	*printf("Beware the Ides of March!"); / This line displays a quotation**			*/
}	*/ This marks the end of main()**			*/

You can see that using comments can be a very useful way of explaining what’s going on in the program. You can place comments wherever you want in your program, and you can use them to explain the general objectives of the code as well as the specifics of how the code works. You can also use comments to identify the author of the code and to assert your copyright if you wish.

Preprocessing Directives

Look at the following line of code:

#include <stdio.h> /* This is a preprocessing directive */

This isn’t strictly part of the executable program, but it is essential in this case—in fact, the program won’t work without it. The symbol#indicates this is a preprocessing directive, which is an instruction to your compiler to do something before compiling the source code. The compiler handles these directives during an initial preprocessing phase before the compilation process starts. There are quite a few preprocessing directives, and they’re usually placed at the beginning of the program source file.

In this case, the compiler is instructed to “include” in your program the contents of the filestdio.h. This file is called a header file, because it’s usually included at the head of a program. It defines information about some of the functions that are provided by the standard C library. The header file will contain C source code and other preprocessor directives. In this case, as you’re using theprintf()function from the standard library, you have to include thestdio.hheader file. This is becausestdio.hcontains the information that the compiler needs to understand whatprintf()means, as well as other functions that deal with input and output. All header files in C have file names with the extension.h. You’ll use other C header files later in the book.

NOTE It’s common practice to write the header file names in the#includedirective in lowercase letters.

Every C compiler that conforms to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard for the language will have a set of standard header files supplied with it. Header files primarily contain definitions relating to standard library functions that are available with C. Although all ANSI standard C compilers will support the same set of standard library functions and will have the same set of standard header files available, there may be extra library functions provided with a particular compiler that may not be available with other compilers.

Defining the main() Function

The next four statements define the functionmain():

void main()		/* This identifies the function main() */
{	/* This marks the beginning of main()		*/
	printf("Beware the Ides of March!"); /* This line displays a quotation		*/
}	/* This marks the end of main()		*/

A function is just a named block of code between braces that carries out some specific set of operations. Every C program consists of one or more functions, and every C program must contain a function called main()—the reason being that a program will always start execution from the beginning of this function. So imagine that you’ve created, compiled, and linked a file calledprogname.exe. When you execute this program, it causes the functionmain()for the program to be called.

The first line of the definition for the functionmain()is as follows:

void main() /* This identifies the function main() */

This defines the start of the functionmain(). Notice that there is no semicolon at the end of the line. The first line identifying this as the functionmain()has the keywordvoidat the beginning. What appears here defines the type of value to be returned by the function. The keywordvoidsignifies that the functionmain()returns no value.

There are circumstances in which you would want to return something frommain()to the operating system—an error code, for example. In those situations, a keyword other thanvoidwould be used. I’ll cover this in a later chapter.

The parentheses that immediately follow the name of the function,main, enclose a definition of what information is to be transferred tomain()when it starts executing. In this example, however, you can see that there’s nothing between the parentheses, so no information can be transferred. Later, you’ll see how information is transferred tomain()and to other functions in a program. In general, the functionmain()can call other functions that, in turn, may call further functions, and so on. For every function that’s called, you have the opportunity to pass some information to it within the parentheses that follow its name.

Keywords

In C, a keyword is a word with special significance, so you shouldn’t use keywords for any other purpose in your program. For this reason, keywords are also referred to as reserved words. In the preceding example,voidis a keyword. C has several keywords, and you’ll become familiar with more of them as you learn more of the language. You’ll find a complete list of C keywords in Appendix C.

Programming in C 3/8

2006-10-27T09:51:00.001+02:00

You could try altering the same program to display something else on the screen. For example, you might want to try editing the program to read like this:

/* Program 1.2 Your Second C Program */
#include<stdio.h>
void main()
{
printf("If at first you don\'t succeed, try, try, try again!");
}

The\'sequence in the middle of the text to be displayed is called an escape sequence. Here it’s a special way of including a single quote in the text. Because single quotes are used to indicate where a character constant begins and ends, you need a special way to indicate when you mean a single quote and not the start of a character constant. You’ll learn more about escapes sequences very soon. You can try recompiling the program, relinking it, and running it again once you’ve altered the source. With a following wind, and a bit of luck, you’ve now edited your first program. You’ve written a program using the editor, edited it, and then compiled, linked, and executed it.

Dealing with Errors

To err is human, so there’s no need to be embarrassed about making mistakes. Fortunately, computers don’t generally make mistakes themselves and they’re actually very good at indicating where we’ve slipped up. Sooner or later your compiler is going to present you with a list (and sometimes a list that’s longer than you want) of the mistakes that are in your source code. You’ll usually get an indication of the statements that are in error. When this happens, you must return to the editing stage, find out what’s wrong with the incorrect code, and fix it. Keep in mind that one error can result in error messages for subsequent statements that may actually be correct. This usually happens with statements that refer to something that is supposed to be defined by a statement containing an error. Of course, if a statement that defines something has an error, then what was supposed to be defined won’t be.

Let’s step through what happens when your source code is incorrect by creating an error in a program. Edit your second program example, removing the semicolon (;) at the end of the line withprintf()in it, as shown here:

/* Program 1.2 Your Second C Program */ #include<stdio.h>
void main()
{
printf("If at first you don\'t succeed, try, try, try again!")
}

If you now try to compile this program, you’ll see an error message that will vary slightly depending on which compiler you’re using. A typical error message is as follows:

----------------------------------------------------------------------Syntax error : missing ';' before '}'
HELLO.C - 1 error(s), 0 warning(s)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Here, the compiler is able to determine precisely what the error is, and where. There really should be a semicolon at the end of thatprintf()line. As you start writing your own programs, you’ll probably get lots of errors during compilation that are caused by simple punctuation mistakes. It’s so easy to forget a comma or a bracket, or to just press the wrong key. Don’t worry about this: lots of experienced programmers make exactly the same mistakes—even after years of practice.

As I said earlier, just one mistake can sometimes result in a whole stream of abuse from your compiler, as it throws you a multitude of different things that it doesn’t like. Don’t get put off by the number of errors reported. After you consider the messages carefully, the basic approach is to go back and edit your source code to fix what you can, ignoring the errors that you can’t understand. Then try to compile the source file again. With luck, you’ll get fewer errors the next time around.

To correct your example program, just go back to your editor and reenter the semicolon. Recompile and check for any other errors, and your program is fit to be run again.

Programming in C 2/8

2006-10-27T09:51:00.000+02:00

It’s time to create your first program. Let’s step through the processes of creating a simple C program, from entering the program itself to executing the program. Don’t worry if what you type doesn’t mean anything to you at this stage—I’ll explain everything as we go along.

Figure 1-1. Creating and executing a program

.........................................................................................

Try It Out: An Example C Program

Run your editor and type in the following program exactly as it’s written. Be careful to input the punctuation exactly as you see here. The brackets used on the fourth and last lines are braces—the curly ones {}, not the square ones[]or the round ones()—it really does matter. Also, make sure you put the slashes the right way (/), as later you’ll be using the backslash (\) as well. Don’t forget the semicolon (;).

Run your editor and type in the following program exactly as it’s written. Be careful to input the punctuation exactly as you see here. The brackets used on the fourth and last lines are braces—the curly ones {}, not the square ones [] or the round ones ()—it really does matter. Also, make sure you put the slashes the right way (/), as later you’ll be using the backslash (\) as well. Don’t forget the semicolon (;).

/* Program 1.1 Your Very First C Program - Displaying Hello World */
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
printf("Hello world");
}

When you’ve entered the preceding source code, save the program ashello.c. You can use whatever name you like instead ofhello, but the extension must be.c. This extension name is the common convention when you write C programs. The extension identifies the contents of the file as C source code. Most compilers will expect the source file to have the extension.c, and if it doesn’t, the compiler may refuse to process it.

Now you’re ready to compile your program. Exactly how you do this will depend upon which compiler you’re using. If your C compiler allows you to work in an IDE, then you should easily be able to find your way to a menu where you can select the Compile option. In UNIX, the command you would use iscc.

Next, you’ll link all the pieces necessary to create an executable program. This will add in code from the standard libraries that your program needs. Once again, the precise way to do this will depend upon which compiler system you’re using. If you’re using UNIX, then append any modules that you need to include at the end of yourcccommand. In an IDE, you’ll find the Link option on one of the menus. Remember that many IDEs offer a Build option that will compile and link your program automatically. If you aren’t working in an IDE, you should again consult your documentation to find out what the command is to run the linker.

Finally, you can execute your program. Remember that you can do this in several ways. There is the usual method of double-clicking the.exefile from Windows Explorer if you’re using Windows. You could also run your program from the command line. To do so, just start a command-line session, change the current directory to the one that contains the.exefile for your program, and then enter the program name to run it. Within an IDE, you’ll probably also have the option of running your program directly. Alternatively, there may be a Run menu that will compile, link, and execute the program in one go.

NOTE If you’re working in an IDE, you may need to use the Window menu to change to an Output window, where you can see the results of your program execution.

If everything worked without producing any error messages, you’ve done it! This is your first program, and you should see the following message on the screen:

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello world
----------------------------------------------------------------------

........................................................................................

Good Things To Know About Insurance Brokers

2006-10-27T08:53:00.000+02:00

Insurance brokers are the ones who make the process of paying taxes be as easy as possible. A broker is free to represent more than one client at the same time, very much unlike an insurance agent, who usually represents a single carrier.

In order to get help on finding the best plan for your business, a broker who knows the insurance carriers in your area can be very useful. Another reason for using insurance brokers is because their services are free most of the times. Theoretically, brokers have the goal of giving the clients the best coverage at the lowest price, helping them understand the industry jargon that is most likely to be used in all the contracts and also dealing with the paperwork. They get paid out of the commissions from the carriers directly, instead of charging the clients for the services they provide.

This all works in theory. But in the real world the line between agent and broker can get very thin. The reason for this is the fact that some brokers have special relationships with certain carriers, meaning that they get a higher commission the more business they place and the good agents will often find the best coverage for their clients, even if it is with another carrier.

This switching thing makes it very difficult a task to choose the best broker on the market. The first thing you must find out about them is how they are compensated and if they have any special commission deals with the carriers they are recommending. They can also charge extra over and above the cost of the coverage. Another good thing to know from the start is how many different carriers they represent in a certain market. Should the answer be only a few, that could mean that they are acting more like an agent.

Never keep a broker who will switch your insurance on and on to new carriers, unless you are given the opportunity to save a significant amount of money. The brokers use to do that as when they bring new business to an insurance carrier they are given higher commissions.

So, you have found a good broker! The bad news is that it's not enough. You will need a broker to specialize in property and casualty, that is workers ' compensation and another one to understand everything there is to know about employee benefits, which include health care. There are cases when you may need a third broker that specializes in another field, depending on your business.

Guidelines For Selecting Your Preferred Student Insurance Plan

2006-10-27T08:51:00.001+02:00

Investing in students insurance is a great way to make sure your child has access to competent medical care. While it should never be thought of as an alternative to more comprehensive insurance, students insurance is a valuable supplement to existing coverage. As there are wide variety of student insurance plans available, it has become a challenge for students to select the appropriate plan. This is especially true, if you are purchasing it for the first time.

In order to help students who are facing similar difficulties, it is meaningful to provide some general guidelines to allow them to determine the insurance plan that they need. In addition, they will also be able to control their insurance premiums to a level that is affordable and sufficient to take care of their health need.

The easiest way to get a good deal is to do some comparison of prices online or consult your friends who have experience in purchasing student insurance plans. You may be able to save money by exploring higher deductibles, a sensible option for young adults. It is a known fact that the lower your deductibles, the higher the premiums you have to pay. Make a comparison of the different benefits available for each plan and make sure, if you have a preferred physician, that he or she is included in the plan.

You should also have a comprehensive understanding of the various medical benefits that you are entitled to for each plan. This would enable you to purchase the insurance plan that will cater to your medical needs and take care of your healthcare issues. Make sure that additional charges for surgery or hospitalization are covered in the plan as these can amount to a big sum if you are being hospitalized. This also applies to outpatient charges, which usually amount to half of all health care costs.

It is essential that you know the procedures for making the medical claims and the ease of doing so. There are instances of students who are not able to claim back their medical fees as the claiming procedures are very complicated and prevented them from doing so.

For more details on student insurance plans, you can simply approach the Admissions office of any college or university your child is thinking of attending. They will be more than happy to provide information about insurance plans that are currently offered.

For more information on the different kinds of students loan, students credit card, finding the right student insurance plan, please visit the following website: http://students.mygeneralknowledge.com/Articles/Students_Insurances.php

When To Consider Selling Your Life Insurance Policy? A Life Insurance Settlement!

2006-10-27T08:51:00.000+02:00

When To Consider Selling Your Life Insurance Policy? Life Insurance Settlement!

A Life Insurance Policy is a personal property, like a house, car, antiques, old painting or stocks and bonds. You can sell your life insurance policy like you sell your other personal property items. Life insurance may now be viewed as a traditional asset that can be purchased or sold. Sale of Life insurance policy is called as Life insurance settlement, Life settlement or Senior settlement.

Millions of seniors are unaware of the flexible and liquefiable insurance policy, they can sell for cash. The flexibility of a Senior settlement or Life settlement permits policy owners to sell all or a portion of their life insurance policies.

When the life insurance policy owner sells own life insurance policy, he or she transfers all rights and obligations to a new owner. The purchaser of the policy will then become the new owner and the new beneficiary of the policy and is then responsible for making all of the future premium payments. The new owner now collects the full amount of the death benefit when the insured dies.

Life insurance settlements present a unique opportunity to the policy holder to extract the maximum possible value from an existing life insurance policy and repurpose those funds for whatever financial needs may exist. Many people choose this option because the cash value of a life settlement generally exceeds the surrender value that would have been paid by the life insurance policy.

Policies are sold for many different personal or business reasons. Below are some of possible reasons for considering a Life Insurance Settlement:

Personal:

1. The original purpose or need for the policy has changed or has diminished totally.

2. The Beneficiary of the policy is deceased.

3. Policy holder is chronically ill; selling current policy provides needed funds to cover financial burdens caused by illness. A Viatical settlement gives the ability to regain needed financial security.

4. Policy has not met the original illustrated values and premiums need to be increased to keep policy in force.

5. If policy holder is over the age of sixty-five, a Life settlement or Senior settlement maximizes the current assets by eliminating premiums and getting required funds that can be used today.

6. Insured person wishes to distribute the funds/ liquid assets as per his or her desire while living.

7. To make funds available for other investments like real-estate, stocks, bonds or to start a new business.

8. Divorce settlement has altered the need for life insurance.

9. Personal financial situation has gone bad and making premium payments is unaffordable.

10. Sale proceeds from Life settlements are needed to pay down loans or outstanding debt.

11. The policy owner's current asset mix is weighed too heavily in life insurance.

12. A client wishes to invest in a more appropriate product, such as a lower cost survivor policy, single premium annuity for supplemental income, long term care insurance, long term care insurance or other asset protection tools.

13. A family trust has eliminated the need for personal life coverage.

14. Policy holder need to fund an alternative healthcare that present insurance does not cover.

15. Insured person has left an employer, so he or she needs to sell old group policy.

16. Policy was purchased to ensure the availability of funds to pay off a mortgage and the mortgage has been paid.

17. To take a long awaited vacation or to buy a luxury item that was never affordable.

18. When a policy is in danger of getting lapsed the policy holder can turn it into cash.

19. You can use life settlements to donate to your favorite charity or cause and feel much better about yourself knowing that you have done your part to make the world a brighter place.

Business:

1. Business owned policies those are performing below expectations.

2. Key person insurance policy is no longer required due to retirement or change in business structure.

3. A policy purchased to finance a buy/ sell agreement is no longer needed after the business has been sold.

4. Bankruptcy of business has caused liquidation of assets.

5. Deferred compensation programs in business have changed or not required.

6. If you are a corporation, selling corporate owned life insurance lets you regain back premiums paid on no longer needed policies.

Estate Planning:

1. A single life insurance policy is no longer appropriate- a survivorship policy meets the estate planning requirement and 1035 exchange is avoided.

2. If you are managing an estate, selling your current life insurance policy will help manage changes in estate size, eliminate premiums, and liquidate policies that are no longer needed.

3. A policy needs to be removed from an estate. The three year rule can be avoided by using the life settlement sales proceeds to repurchase a new policy out side the estate.

4. There is a significant reduction in size of estate due to loss of net worth and less insurance coverage is needed to fund the projected estate tax liability.

Charitable Organizations:

1. If charities can no more continue to pay premiums on gifted policies.

2. Proceeds of a Life insurance settlement could result in a larger gift to the charity organization than the policy itself.

Non-Profit Organizations:

1. If you are a non profit organization, selling a gifted life insurance policy provides funds that can be used now and also eliminates premiums.

Once a policy owner has absolutely determined that it no longer makes sense to continue holding a policy, Life insurance settlement or Life settlement may be economically advantageous relative to surrendering or letting the policy lapsed.

This innovative wealth and estate planning tool removes the burden of expensive insurance premium payments in addition to providing the lump sum cash settlement. This allows policy holders to get cash out of their life insurance policy, in an amount in excess of the cash value of policy(if any), while they are still alive. To get the highest life settlements is to improve the quality of life during your retirement years.

Life Insurance Settlement - Sale of Own Life Insurance Policy!

2006-10-27T08:45:00.000+02:00

Life Insurance Settlement - Sale of Own Life Insurance Policy!

A Life Insurance Settlement is the sale of a life insurance policy to a third party in exchange for a cash settlement in excess of the policy's cash surrender value--even if none exists! This is also called as Life Insurance settlement, Insurance settlement or Senior settlement.

This innovative wealth and estate planning tool removes the burden of expensive insurance premium payments in addition to providing the lump sum cash settlement. This allows policy holders to get cash out of their life insurance policy, in an amount in excess of the policy's cash value (if any), while they are still alive. To get the highest life settlements is to improve the quality of life during your retirement years.

Life settlement: When an individual who does not have a terminal or chronic illness sells a policy for other reasons, including changed needs of dependents, wanting to reduce premiums, and cash for meeting expenses, that is known as a Life settlement.

Viatical settlement: When an individual with a terminal or chronic illness sells his or her life insurance policy that is known as a viatical settlement.

Hitherto, elderly Americans with life insurance policies they do not need or cannot afford to keep up have had little option. They will let the policies lapse or sell them back to their insurers. Now lots of them are glad to have an alternative buyer. Clients may now be able to sell their policy for far more than the cash surrender value the insurance carrier would offer.

The policy owner sells his or her contractual rights under the policy at its present market value in exchange for a lump sum cash payment, which payment exceeds the cash surrender value of the policy. The purchaser of the policy will then become the new owner and the new beneficiary of the policy and is then responsible for making all of the future premium payments. The new owner now collects the full amount of the death benefit when the insured dies.

Life Insurance settlement or Life settlement present a unique opportunity to the policy holder to extract the maximum possible value from an existing life insurance policy and repurpose those funds for whatever financial needs may exist.

Clients will often ask if there are any restrictions on what the cash payment can be used for. The answer is that there are no restrictions whatsoever on what the cash payment can be used for. They can use the money to purchase new insurance, travel the world, start a business, buy a property or fulfill their dreams. The money is theirs to simply enjoy and use it for any reason they can think of. In fact, seniors can use the cash settlement for medical expenses, living expenses, or anything they desire--with no restrictions.

There are various reasons why individuals sell their life insurance policy. Why sell a life insurance policy?

1. If you are chronically ill, selling your current life insurance policy provides needed funds to cover financial burdens caused by your illness. A viatical settlement gives you the ability to regain needed financial security.

2. If you are over the age of sixty-five, a life insurance settlement maximizes your current assets by eliminating premiums and getting funds that can be used today. 3. Pay off debts

4. Make funds available for other investments

5. Turn a lapse insurance policy into cash with Life settlement

6. Pay your medical care bills

7. Finance your retirement

8. If you are a corporation, selling corporate owned life insurance lets you regain back premiums paid on no longer needed policies.

9. If you are a non profit organization, selling a gifted life insurance policy provides funds that can be used now and also eliminates premiums.

10. If you managing an estate, selling your current life insurance policy will help manage changes in estate size, eliminate premiums, and liquidate policies that no longer are needed.

How much money will the clients get when they go for Life insurance settlement?

The value of a life insurance policy is determined by a number of factors, including, but not limited to,

1. Face value of the policy 2. The age and medical condition of the insured

3. Estimated mortality of the insured

4. Loans against the policy

5. Rating of the insurance carrier

6. Cash value of the policy

7. Type of policy and prevailing interest rates

8. The net death benefit

9. Premium payments required to keep the policy in force

Typically, a Life settlement is about three to five times the cash surrender value of the policy.

What Life Insurance Policies Qualify for Insurance settlement?

To find out whether you qualify, here are some of the requirements. (A) Must be at least 65 years of age

(B) The face value of the policy is at least $50,000

(C) The insured has experienced deterioration in health since the insurance policy was issued; life expectancy is under 15 years

(D) The insurance policy is in effect beyond the two year contestable period

But any policy owner, including individuals, corporations, charities or trusts, may sell any life insurance policy, including group and term policies.

What types of polices are purchased?

1. Government issued policies

2. Term Life

3. Universal Life

4. Survivorship policies

5. Many Group types of policies

6. Corporate Owned Life Insurance

7. Whole Life

8. Basically All Types of Life Insurance Policies

Experts at www.Financial-Ease.com assist in achieving the highest value for their client's life insurance policies. Their goal is to get you the highest price for your life insurance policy. Their mission is to serve clients with highest offers with honesty, integrity and confidentiality and get fast closings and payments

The life insurance settlement value could be potentially much higher than the cash settlement of your life insurance policy. Don't continue to pay expensive premiums for coverage you no longer need, and don't surrender the policy or let it lapse. The Life insurance settlement or Senior settlement solution is typically the Win-Win scenario that you have been looking for.

Want The Cheapest Home Owners Insurance?

2006-10-27T08:44:00.000+02:00

Before you look for the absolute cheapest home owners insurance, make a short list of decent insurance companies. You can type "insurance company ratings" into any search engine and get some free information on the financial strength of the various companies. You want a company that is going to be around when you need them.

Then, call a company on the list or get a quote online. Ask a lot of questions, first, though. There may be ways to save money that you hadn't thought of, or aren't on the list below. Be sure that you understand what is covered and what isn't. Take notes, writing down the exact policy limits and deductible amounts and anything else relevant.

You are going to need this information to accurately compare the quote to others. What you are really looking for is not the cheapest home owners insurance, but the cheapest way to get the policy you need. With that in mind, here are some ways to lower that premium.

1. Have a higher deductible. Insurance is for disasters, not small stuff, so plan to pay the first $1000 someday when something happens. Meanwhile you'll save money every year. Does this make you uncomfortable? Here's a solution: If the annual premium is say, $80 less with a higher deductible, put that $80 into a special account each year. You'll eventually have the whole deductible covered, or if you have no claims, you'll have extra money for retirement.

2. Ask about a car / home discount. Usually you can get a lower rate if you car is insured with same company as your house. Note the exact criteria and limits for the auto policy, though. You'll want to fairly compare this part of the policy with others as well.

3. Get at least three quotes. Use your notes to make sure that each company is quoting the same policy limits, and roughly the same policy conditions, so you can honestly compare the quotes.

4. Use independent agents. Because they are not limited to one company, they can sell you policies from whichever companies are cheapest, or best suit your needs.

5. Ask about special discounts. Non-smokers usually get a discount. You may get a discount for security alarms as well.

6. Make sure the home is safe. Whether or not there is an inspection before the policy is issued, you don't want to lie to get cheap rates. In other words, you really should have smoke alarms, locks on the doors, a fire extinguisher, and an updated furnace.

7. Check the coverage on contents. If you don't really have $40,000 worth of stuff in the house, don't pay for the coverage. When the time for a claim comes, the insurance company won't pay for value that wasn't there, but they will collect for it if you let them.

In the end, you may never get a perfect comparison of rates. Some insurance companies won't have the exact same policies available as others. They may each have their own minimum content coverage requirements, for example, or a minimum policy limits based on square footage. Still, if you use the guidelines here, you will get close to the cheapest home owners policy - for the coverage you need.

The Real Value of Life Insurance

2006-10-27T08:43:00.000+02:00

When someone dies, there will typically be an identifiable financial loss. It might be the primary income for a family. Or, it might be the intrinsic value of the person who was responsible for the care of children or a feeble adult.

It could even be a company business associate who spearheaded the sales division or someone who took charge of its operation when senior management needed to be absent.

This is sometimes referred to as the human life value of the deceased party. The value itself is usually based on the future loss of income (i.e. salary or paycheck), the future cost of replacement (i.e. child caring or adult caregiver), or the immediate net loss to the company while it struggles to replace the key employee.

For many people, the loss of income is the primary reason to buy life insurance. Losing the paycheck of either deceased spouse will leave most families in a tenuous situation because this usually means their normal lifestyle becomes vulnerable to readjustment.

In the postwar fifties, the primary breadwinner was usually the father. Mother did the cooking and cleaning, while father went to the office. Mom was there when the kids came home from school. And Dad was working 9 to 5 in order to bring home the paycheck.

Today, of course, women participate equally in the workforce. While there continues to be a discrepancy in the amount of earned income between the sexes, nevertheless, the money Mom brings home is vital to the financial well-being of the family.

It is no secret that personal debt per capita in the U.S. is higher than ever. The latest data reveals we are in a negative savings posture, which is something that hasn't occurred since 1932. Any reduction in take home pay can potentially devastate literally hundreds of thousands of families.

This scenario is grim enough while both parties are alive. The reality of what happens at the death of either breadwinner is frightening to say the least.

Life insurance is an important financial asset. In fact, it should be the primary asset for families that might experience severe lifestyle disruptions in the event of someone's death.

Unfortunately, life insurance is frequently misunderstood by the very people it can help the most. One reason is because life insurance doesn't benefit the insured party, who is typically the person paying for the life insurance. After all, the insured party will be dead and unable to witness the undeniable family value of the death proceeds.

Ironically, the second reason for this misunderstanding is because some life insurance has a cash surrender value. This means if the owner of the policy decides to stop paying the premium an amount of cash is returned provided the death benefit is surrendered.

It's important to recognize there are only two types of life insurance: term and cash value. Term is always cheapest in the early years, but becomes prohibitively expensive when one reaches the age of 70, or thereabouts.

Of course, this is before the normal or expected time of death, so it is highly unlikely that a term policy will actually pay the death benefit unless, of course, one dies prematurely.

There are many types of cash value policies to include the classic whole life, universal life, variable life and universal variable life. The competitive marketplace has produced an overwhelming number of hybrids each one created for a specific reason that was initiated due to government intervention.

This article will not attempt to describe each type of policy. The important message here relates to the extraordinary value of life insurance itself... not any particular policy type.

Indeed, there are very few, if any recipients of a life insurance death claim that have asked an insurance agent what "type" of policy had been issued. The fact of the matter is the tax-free death proceeds provided a welcomed amount of cash at exactly the time when money was needed the most.

This, of course, is when the income of one of the breadwinners was unexpectedly and abruptly cut off from the family forever. The type of policy is not important to the survivors. The only thing of importance to the survivors is that the policy was actually in force at the time of death.

Are All Auto Insurance Policies the Same?

2006-10-27T08:42:00.000+02:00

When it comes to auto insurance, people find it all the same. The only difference most people see is the price. It is true that insurance rates vary and the difference could be a few hundred dollars. There is a reason behind these differences. It is easy to contemplate the difference in rates when it comes to different drivers or different makes of cars. A driver with a decorated driving history would incur a higher rate then a person with a good driving record. A luxury car would cost a bit more to insure then an economy car (especially when comparing full coverage). These are tangible differences consumers are able to grasp. The thing people don't understand is why different insurance companies provide different rates for the same person, same car, and same liabilities.

Here are five factors to consider:

Rating System: Each insurance company has its own rating system. Each driver may be rated differently. A good driver is characterized slightly differently by each insurance company. A speeding ticket would cost you more in certain companies then others. Some emphasize a certain characteristics and provide discounts for those particular characteristics. It is hard to truly understand what characteristics provides you with the best rate but it is always a safe bet the less points you have on your driving record the better your rates will be.

Existing customers: Existing customers also contribute to the rates of policies. Some insurance companies specialize in accepting and retaining drivers with perfect records. They reject drivers with poor records with higher then normal rates. This means with a collection of good drivers, the company will have less payout and more capital to provide discounted rates. Companies that accept various driving records would have a more stable rate no matter if you are a good driver or not. Your rates would not increase significantly due to a few additional points. But, you will still have high rates no matter where you go if you collect too many points.

Underwriting Guidelines: Underwriting guidelines also play a role in insurance rates. A stricter guideline would mean a driver will have a harder time being accepted. These companies probably have some good rates but to qualify for those rates is another story. Companies with a higher rate would probably have a more lineate guidelines.

Policy Contract: The insurance policy itself can help lower or raise rates. If a company has a policy with more constraints then it would have lower rates. This is because you will probably be limited in what situations the insurance company will actually pay you. A person would incur a higher policy rate when an insurance policy is more beneficial to the insured because it is more likely the policy will payout when an accident occurs. Basically, you are more likely to get money when you pay more for insurance and the opposite applies. Customer Service: Customer service is also a key factor when it comes to rates. If a company actually cares about you and is willing to use its resources to help when you are in trouble, then you would pay a little bit extra. If a company lacks in customer service then it is more likely you will be paying less for your auto insurance. The savings for not providing decent customer service reflects in your policy rates. So be careful when you choose the lowest insurance policy.

There is a difference among all the insurance companies and their policies. In general, all insurance policies seem similar but a detail inspection may reveal other wise. Make sure you know what you are purchasing and work with a respectable professional that can help explain the many differences among insurance policies.

All about Independent Insurance Agents

2006-10-27T08:40:00.000+02:00

In order to get all the possible clients happy, thousands of agents are being employed by the insurance companies all over the world. These agents help the companies cater on a very personal level to all teh needs a client may have.

The insurance agents are the ones to get from all the details for a certain client. Starting with the lifestyle and ending with all the preferences, the agents will make up an insurance plan and policy for you, that will be based on all these details. These insurance agents are called "producers" because they help a great deal in choosing the best deals in insurance coverage and help customize the product to better suit a client's needs and budget. That is very much like a personal shopper, as you may say!

Insurances are available in so many kinds and they can be personalized so that everyone can be satisfied. You can make an insurance for automobiles, assets, retirement planning, estate planning, for real property, health and even death. You can even get assistance in building a pension plans for businesses. So, you cannot say that you are not given the opportunity to find out which is the one that you really need.

Insurance agents always specialize in each area and aspect of the insurance products they offer. You will have to get the services of the most efficient insurance agents on the market in order to get the best products available.

The insurance agents come in two kinds: the captive agents and the independent ones. A captive agent is the one who works for only one insurance company and cannot give you information on the other options you may have.

An independent agent offers and sells policies for more than one insurance agency. This last type of agent might be most suitable for a person or for a business, given the multiple insurance needs. From the list of insurance providers and their products an independent agent will offer, you can decide for the best deals around, based on his comparative analyses he will set up for you.

So, you will be provided with all the balanced information on all insurance companies and you will have the freedom to choose from all the policy programs available out there.

The deal you will settle for must by all means be best suited for your business.

Eminem Is Right

2005-12-14T08:59:00.000+01:00

The primal scream of teenage music

IF THERE IS ONE SUBJECT on which the parents of America passionately agree, it is that contemporary adolescent popular music, especially the subgenres of heavy metal and hip-hop/rap, is uniquely degraded - and degrading - by the standards of previous generations. At first blush this seems slightly ironic. After all, most of today's baby-boom parents were themselves molded by rock and roll, bumping and grinding their way through adolescence and adulthood with legendary abandon. Even so, the parents are correct: Much of today's music is darker and coarser than yesterday's rock. Misogyny, violence, suicide, sexual exploitation, child abuse - these and other themes, formerly rare and illicit, are now as common as the surfboards, drive-ins, and sock hops of yesteryear.

In a nutshell, the ongoing adult preoccupation with current music goes something like this: What is the overall influence of this deafening, foul, and often vicious-sounding stuff on children and teenagers? This is a genuinely important question, and serious studies and articles, some concerned particularly with current music's possible link to violence, have lately been devoted to it. In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry all weighed in against contemporary lyrics and other forms of violent entertainment before Congress with a first-ever "Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children."

Nonetheless, this is not my focus here. Instead, I would like to turn that logic about influence upside down and ask this question: What is it about today's music, violent and disgusting though it may be, that resonates with so many American kids?

As the reader can see, this is a very different way of inquiring about the relationship between today's teenagers and their music. The first question asks what the music does to adolescents; the second asks what it tells us about them. To answer that second question is necessarily to enter the roiling emotional waters in which that music is created and consumed - in other words, actually to listen to some of it and read the lyrics.

As it turns out, such an exercise yields a fascinating and little understood fact about today's adolescent scene. If yesterday's rock was the music of abandon, today's is that of abandonment. The odd truth about contemporary teenage music - the characteristic that most separates it from what has gone before - is its compulsive insistence on the damage wrought by broken homes, family dysfunction, checked-out parents, and (especially) absent fathers. Papa Roach, Everclear, Blink-182, Good Charlotte, Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Eminem - these and other singers and bands, all of them award-winning top-40 performers who either are or were among the most popular icons in America, have their own generational answer to what ails the modern teenager. Surprising though it may be to some, that answer is: dysfunctional childhood. Moreover, and just as interesting, many bands and singers explicitly link the most deplored themes in music today - suicide, misogyny, and drugs - with that lack of a quasi-normal, intact-home personal past.

To put this perhaps unexpected point more broadly, during the same years in which progressive-minded and politically correct adults have been excoriating Ozzie and Harriet as an artifact of 1950s-style oppression, many millions of American teenagers have enshrined a new generation of music idols whose shared generational signature in song after song is to rage about what not having had a nuclear family has done to them. This is quite a fascinating puzzle of the times. The self-perceived emotional damage scrawled large across contemporary music may not be statistically quantifiable, but it is nonetheless among the most striking of all the unanticipated consequences of our home-alone world.

Demigods of dysfunction

TO BEGIN WITH music particularly popular among white teenage boys, one best-selling example of broken-home angst is that of the "nu-metal" band known as Papa Roach and led by singer/songwriter "Goby Dick" Shaddix (dubbed by one reviewer the "prince of dysfunction"). Three members of that group, Coby Dick included, are self-identified children of divorce. In 2000, as critics noted at the time, their album Infest explored the themes of broken homes and child and teenage rage. The result was stunning commercial success: Infest sold more than 3 million copies. MTV.com explained why: "The pained, confessional songs struck a nerve with disenfranchised listeners who were tired of the waves of directionless aggression spewing from the mouths of other rap-rockers. They found kinship in Papa Roach songs like 'Broken Home' and 'Last Resort.'"

In fact, even their songs about other subjects hark back to that same primal disruption. One particularly violent offering called "Revenge," about a girl hurting herself and being abused by her boyfriend, reflects on "destruction of the family design." Of all the songs on the album, however, it is the singularly direct "Broken Home" that hit its fans the hardest, which summarizes the sad domestic story it elaborates in a pair of lines: "I know my mother loves me I But does my father even care. "

Another band that climbed to the top of the charts recently is Everclear, led by singer Art Alexakis (also a child of divorce, as he has explained to interviewers). Like Papa Roach, Everclear/Alexakis explores the fallout of parental breakup not from the perspective of newly liberated adults, but from that of the child left behind who feels abandoned and betrayed. Several of Everclear's songs map this emotional ground in detail - from not wanting to meet mother's "new friends," to wondering how the father who walked out can sleep at night, to dreaming of that father coming back. In the song "Father of Mine," the narrator implores, "take me back to the day /when I was still your golden boy." Another song, "Sick and Tired," explicitly links the anger-depression-suicide teen matrix to broken homes (as indeed do numerous other contemporary groups): "I blame my family I their damage is living in me. "

Everclear's single best-known song, a top-40 hit in 2000 that ruled the airwaves for months, is a family breakup ballad ironically titled "Wonderful" - to some fans, the best rock song about divorce ever written. Though the catchy melody cannot be captured here, the childlike simplicity of the words brings the message home loudly enough. Among them: "I want the things that I had before I Like a Star Wars poster on my bedroom door. "

Another group successfully working this tough emotional turf is charttopping and multiple award-winning Blink-182, which grew out of the skateboard and snowboard scene to become one of the most popular bands in the country. As with Papa Roach and Everclear, the group's interest in the family breakdown theme is partly autobiographical: At least two members of the band say that their personal experiences as children of divorce have informed their lyrics. Blink-iSz's top-40 hit in 2001, "Stay Together for the Kids," is perhaps their best-known song (though not the only one) about broken homes. "What stupid poem could fix this home," the narrator wonders, adding, "I'd read it every day. "

Reflecting on the particular passion with which that song was embraced by fans, Blink-182's Tom DeLonge told an interviewer, "We get e-mails about 'Stay Together,' kid after kid after kid saying, 'I know exactly what you're talking about! That song is about my life!' And you know what? That sucks. You look at statistics that 50 percent of parents get divorced, and you're going to get a pretty large group of kids who are pissed off and who don't agree with what their parents have done."1 Similarly, singer/bassist Mark Hoppus remarked to another interviewer curious about the band's emotional resonance, "Divorce is such a normal thing today and hardly anybody ever thinks how the kids feel about it or how they are taking it, but in the U.S. about half of all the kids go through it. They witness how their parents drift apart and all that."

Then there is the phenomenon known as Pink, whose album Missundaztood was one of the top-10 albums of 2002, selling more than 3 million copies. Pink (dubbed by one writer the "anti-Britney") is extremely popular among young girls. Any teenager with a secular CD collection will likely own some of her songs. Pink mines the same troubled emotional territory as Blink-182 and numerous other bands, but even more exclusively: Missundaztood revolves entirely around the emotional wreckage and behavioral consequences of Pink's parents breaking up. A review of the album on ABCnews.com noted, "Missundaztood is full of painful tales of childhood divorce, rebellion, disaffection and drugs. It's the stuff that may make parents shake their heads, but causes millions of alienated kids to nod in approval."3 In Pink's especially mournful (and perhaps best-known) song, "Family Portrait," the narrator repeatedly begs her father not to leave, offering even the pitiful childish enticement, "I won't spill the milk at dinner."

Yet another popular group generating anthem after anthem about broken homes and their consequences is Washington, D.C.-area-based Good Charlotte, profiled on the cover of Rolling Stone in May 2003 as the "Polite Punks." Their first album went gold in 2002. Led by twins Benji and Joel Madden, whose father walked out one Christmas Eve and never returned, Good Charlotte is one band that would not even exist except for the broken homes in which three of its four members (guitarist Billy Martin being the third) grew up. The twins have repeatedly told interviewers it was that trauma that caused them to take up music in the first place, and family breakup figures repeatedly in Good Charlotte's songs and regularly shapes its stage appearances and publicity. (In a particular act of symbolic protest, the twins recently made the legal changeover to their mother's maiden name.)

For Good Charlotte, as for many other newly successful singers and groups, the commercial results of putting personal trauma to music have proved dramatic. Their first and eponymous album sailed up the charts partly on account of a teenage angst ballad ironically entitled "Little Things." The song opens with a dedication to every teenager wrestling with the issues of adolescence - all those "little things," including Mom's stint in a mental institution and Dad's abandonment of the kids ("We checked his room his things were gone we didn't see him no more"). Another song on the album is "Thank You Mom." Rather anomalously by the standards of yesterday's rock and punk, but not at all anomalously in the worlds of their descendants today, this song is devoted wholly, and without irony, to the mother who raises children after their father walks out ("You were my mom, You were my dad I The only thing I ever bad was you, It's true").

Rolling Stone groused about this band: "What the hell happened to punk?" Now that's a fair point. But whatever happened, the result has literally turned to gold; Good Charlotte's second album, called The Young and the Hopeless, sold more than a million copies. Two of its thirteen songs are apotheosized lyrics for an absent father. One is "My Old Man" ("Last I heard he was at the bar I Doing himself in"). Another song, "Emotionless," reads much like the related narrations of Everclear, Papa Roach, and many more. The narrator here reminds his missing father of his sons and little girl, wondering, "How do you sleep at night?"

Like numerous other groups, Good Charlotte weaves another prevailing theme - teenage suicide - in and out of the larger theme of parental abandonment. Perhaps the best known is the antisuicide clarion "Hold On," in which the singer implores a desperate teenager to remember that although your "mother's gone and your father hits you . . . we all bleed the same way you do. "

Papa Roach, Everclear, Blink-182, Pink, Good Charlotte: These bands are only some of the top-40 groups now supplying the teenage demand for songs about dysfunctional and adult abandoned homes. In a remarkable 2002 article published in the pop music magazine Blender (remarkable because it lays out in detail what is really happening in today's metal/grunge/punk/rock music), an award-winning music journalist named William Shaw listed several other bands, observing, "If there's a theme running through rock at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it's a pervasive sense of hurt. For the past few years, bands like Korn, Linkin Park, Slipknot, Papa Roach, and Disturbed have been thrusting forward their dark accounts of dysfunctional upbringings. ... As the clichéd elder might mutter, what's wrong with kids today?" Shaw answers his own question this way: "[T]hese songs reflect the Zeitgeist of an age group coping with the highest marital-breakdown rate ever recorded in America. If this era's music says anything, it's that this generation sees itself as uniquely fractured."

As he further observes, so powerful are the emotions roused in fans by these songs that stars and groups themselves are often surprised by it. Shaw relates the following about "Goby Dick" Shaddix of Papa Roach, who wrote the aforementioned song "Broken Home": "He's become used to [fans] coming up and telling him, over and over: 'You know that song "Broken Home?" That's my f- life, right there.' 'It's a bit sad that that's true, you know?' [Shaddix] says." Similarly, singer Chad Kroeger of Nickelback reports of a hit song he wrote on his own abandonment by his father at age two: "You should see some people who I meet after shows .... They break down weeping, and they're like, 'I went through the exact same thing!' Sometimes it's terrifying how much they relate to it." That Nickelback hit song, titled "Too Bad," laments that calling "from time to time I To make sure we're alive" just isn't enough.

Shaw's ultimate conclusion is an interesting one: that this emphasis in current music on abandoned children represents an unusually loaded form of teenage rebellion. "This is the sound of one generation reproaching another - only this time, it's the scorned, world-weary children telling off their narcissistic, irresponsible parents," he writes. "[Divorce] could be rock's ideal subject matter. These are songs about the chasm in understanding between parents - who routinely don't comprehend the grief their children are feeling - and children who don't know why their parents have torn up their world."

That is a sharp observation. Also worth noting is this historical point: The same themes of adult absence and child abandonment have been infiltrating hard rock even longer than these current bands have been around - probably for as long as family breakup rates began accelerating.

Both musically and emotionally, many of today's groups owe much to the example of the late grunge-rock idol Kurt Cobain, who prefigured today's prominent themes both autobiographically and otherwise. A star whose personal life has legendary status for his fans, Cobain was a self-described happy child until his parents' divorce when he was seven. The years following were a miserable blur of being shuffled around to grandparents and other caretakers, including a spate of homelessness. The rage and frustration of that experience appear in some of Cobain's famously nihilistic lyrics, including the early song "Sliver," about a boy kicking and screaming upon being dropped off elsewhere by Mom and Dad yet again. The later, markedly cynical "Serve the Servants" reflects on how his traumatic childhood became exploited for personal gain. As with Cobain, so, too, with his friend Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder. For more than a decade Pearl Jam has reigned as one of the best-known bands in current rock, and Vedder as one of the most adulated singers; indeed, the band's distinctive sound commands instant recognition among almost every American under the age of 30 with working ears. And Pearl Jam, like the aforementioned groups, has achieved that success, according to Vedder, partly because of the group's frankness about the costs of fractured families and about related themes of alienation and suicide.

In a 1994 interview that focused on the death of Kurt Cobain, Vedder noted with particular insight:

"We [that is, Vedder and Cobain] had similar backgrounds, yeah, things that happened with our families and shit. ... I think that's something that comes out in what we wrote in our songs, definitely. . . . But what makes it more similar is the way people responded to what we wrote and sang about, the intense identification. . ..

"And I think it was maybe a shock to both of us that so many people were going through the same things. I mean, they understood so completely what we were talking about.... Then all of a sudden, there's all these other people who connect with them and you're suddenly the spokesman for a f- generation. Can you imagine that! . . . when our first record came out, I was shocked how many people related to some of that stuff .... The kind of letters that got through to me about those songs, some of them were just frightening

"Think about it, man," he says. "Any generation that would pick Kurt or me as its spokesman - that must be a pretty f- up generation, don't you think?"4

Well put. And as it turned out, Cobain and Vedder were only the beginning.

Where's daddy?

EVEN LESS RECOGNIZED than the white music emphasis on broken homes and the rest of the dysfunctional themes is that the popular black-dominated genres, particularly hip-hop/rap, also reflect themes of abandonment, anger, and longing for parents. Interestingly enough, this is true of particular figures whose work is among the most adult deplored.

Once again, when it comes to the deploring part, critics have a point. It is hard to imagine a more unwanted role model (from the parental point of view) than the late Tupac Shakur. A best-selling gangsta rapper who died in a shoot-out in 1996 at age 25 (and the object of a 2003 a documentary called Tupac: Resurrection), Shakur was a kind of polymath of criminality. In the words of a Denver Post review of the movie, "In a perfect circle of life imitating art originally meant to imitate life, Shakur in 1991 began a string of crimes that he alternately denied and reveled in. He claimed Oakland police beat him up in a jaywalking arrest, later shot two off-duty cops, assaulted a limo driver and video directors, and was shot five times in a robbery." Further, "At the time of his drive-by murder in Law Vegas, he was out on bail pending appeal of his conviction for sexual abuse of a woman who charged him with sodomy in New York."

Perhaps not surprising, Shakur's songs are riddled with just about every unwholesome trend that a nervous parent can name; above all they contain incitements to crime and violence (particularly against the police) and a misogyny so pronounced that his own mother, executive producer of the movie, let stand in the film a statement of protesting C. DeLores Tucker that "African-American women are tired of being called ho's, bitches and sluts by our children."

Yet Shakur - who never knew his father and whose mother, a long time drug addict, was arrested for possession of crack when he was a child - is provocative in another, quite overlooked way: He is the author of some of the saddest lyrics in the hip-hop/gangsta-rap pantheon, which is saying quite a lot. To sophisticated readers familiar with the observations about the breakup of black families recorded several decades ago in the Moynihan Report and elsewhere, the fact that so many young black men grow up without fathers may seem so well established as to defy further comment. But evidently some young black men - Shakur being one - see things differently. In fact, it is hard to find a rapper who does not sooner or later invoke a dead or otherwise long-absent father, typically followed by the hope that he will not become such a man himself. Or there is the flip side of that unintended bow to the nuclear family, which is the hagiography in some rappers' lyrics of their mothers.

In a song called "Papa'z Song Lyrics," Shakur opens with the narrator imagining his father showing up after a long absence, resulting in an expletive-laden tirade. The song then moves to a lacerating description of growing up fatherless that might help to explain why Shakur is an icon not only to many worse-off teenagers from the ghetto, but also to many better-off suburban ones. Here is a boy who "had to play catch by myself," who prays: "Please send me a pops before puberty. "

The themes woven together in this song - anger, bitterness, longing for family, misogyny as the consequence of a world without fathers - make regular appearances in some other rappers' lyrics, too. One is Snoop Doggy Dogg, perhaps the preeminent rapper of the 19905. Like Shakur and numerous other rappers, his personal details cause many a parent to shudder; since his childhood he has been arrested for a variety of crimes, including cocaine possession (which resulted in three years of jail service), accomplice to murder (for which he was acquitted), and, most recently, marijuana possession. ("It's not my job to stop kids doing the wrong thing, it's their parents' job," he once explained to a reporter.) In a song called "Mama Raised Me," sung with Soulja Slim, Snoop Doggy Dogg offers this explanation of how troubled pasts come to be: "It's probably pop's fault how I ended up / Gangbangin' ; crack slangin' ; not givin' a f-."

Another black rapper who returned repeatedly to the theme of father abandonment is Jay-Z, also known as Shawn Carter, whose third and breakthrough album, Hard Knock Life, sold more than 500,000 copies. He also has a criminal history (he says he had been a cocaine dealer) and a troubled family history, which is reflected in his music. In an interview with MTV.com about his latest album, the reporter explained: "Jay and his father had been estranged until earlier this year. [His father] left the household and his family's life (Jay has an older brother and two sisters) when Shawn was just 12, years old. The separation had served as a major 'block' for Jay over the years .... His most vocal tongue lashing toward his dad was on the Dynasty: Roc la Familia cut 'Where Have You Been,' where he rapped 'Fyou very much / You showed me the worst kind of pain.'"5

The fact that child abandonment is also a theme in hip-hop might help explain what otherwise appears as a commercial puzzle - namely, how this particular music moved from the fringes of black entertainment to the very center of the Everyteenager mainstream. There can be no doubt about the current social preeminence of these black- and ghetto-dominated genres in the lives of many better-off adolescents, black and white. As Donna Britt wrote in a Washington Post column noting hip-hop's ascendancy, "In modern America, where urban based hip hop culture dominates music, fashion, dance and, increasingly, movies and TV, these kids are trendsetters. What they feel, think and do could soon play out in a middle school - or a Pottery Barn-decorated bedroom - near you."6

Eminem: Reasons for rage

A FINAL EXAMPLE OF the rage in contemporary music against irresponsible adults - perhaps the most interesting - is that of genre-crossing bad-boy rap superstar Marshall Mathers or Eminem (sometime stage persona "Slim Shady"). Of all the names guaranteed to send a shudder down the parental spine, his is probably the most effective. In fact, Eminem has single-handedly, if inadvertently, achieved the otherwise ideologically impossible: He is the object of a vehemently disapproving public consensus shared by the National Organization for Women the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, William J. Bennett, Lynne Cheney, Bill O'Reilly, and a large number of other social conservatives as well as feminists and gay activists. In sum, this rapper - "as harmful to America as any al Qaeda fanatic," in O'Reilly's opinion - unites adult polar opposites as perhaps no other single popular entertainer has done.

There is small need to wonder why. Like other rappers, Eminem mines the shock value and gutter language of rage, casual sex, and violence. Unlike the rest, however, he appears to be a particularly attractive target of opprobrium for two distinct reasons. One, he is white and therefore politically easier to attack. (It is interesting to note that black rappers have not been targeted by name anything like Eminem has.) Perhaps even more important, Eminem is one of the largest commercially visible targets for parental wrath. Wildly popular among teenagers these last several years, he is also enormously successful in commercial terms. Winner of numerous Grammys and other music awards and a perpetual nominee for many more, he has also been critically (albeit reluctantly) acclaimed for his acting performance in the autobiographical 2003 movie 8 Mile. For all these reasons, he is probably the preeminent rock/rap star of the last several years, one whose singles, albums, and videos routinely top every chart. His 2002. album, The Eminem Show, for example, was easily the most successful of the year, selling more than 76 million copies.

This remarkable market success, combined with the intense public criticism that his songs have generated, makes the phenomenon of Eminem particularly intriguing. Perhaps more than any other current musical icon, he returns repeatedly to the same themes that fuel other success stories in contemporary music: parental loss, abandonment, abuse, and subsequent child and adolescent anger, dysfunction, and violence (including self-violence). Both in his raunchy lyrics as well as in 8 Mile, Mathers's own personal story has been parlayed many times over: the absent father, the troubled mother living in a trailer park, the series of unwanted maternal boyfriends, the protective if impotent feelings toward a younger sibling (in the movie, a baby sister; in real life, a younger brother), and the fine line that a poor, ambitious, and unguided young man might walk between catastrophe and success. Mathers plumbs these and related themes with a verbal savagery that leaves most adults aghast.

Yet Eminem also repeatedly centers his songs on the crypto-traditional notion that children need parents and that not having them has made all hell break loose. In the song "8 Mile" from the movie soundtrack, for example, the narrator studies his little sister as she colors one picture after another of an imagined nuclear family, failing to understand that "mommas got a new man. " " Wish I could be the daddy that neither one of us had, " he comments. Such wistful lyrics juxtapose oddly and regularly with Eminem's violent other lines. Even in one of his most infamous songs, "Cleaning Out My Closet (Mama, I'm Sorry)," what drives the vulgar narrative is the insistence on seeing abandonment from a child's point of view. "My faggot father must have had his panties up in a bunch I 'Cause he split. I wonder if he even kissed me good-bye. "

As with other rappers, the vicious narrative treatment of women in some of Eminem's songs is part of this self-conception as a child victim. Contrary to what critics have intimated, the misogyny in current music does not spring from nowhere; it is often linked to the larger theme of having been abandoned several times - left behind by father, not nurtured by mother, and betrayed again by faithless womankind. One of the most violent and sexually aggressive songs in the last few years is "Kill You" by the popular metal band known as Korn. Its violence is not directed toward just any woman or even toward the narrator's girlfriend; it is instead a song about an abusive stepmother whom the singer imagines going back to rape and murder.

Similarly, Eminem's most shocking lyrics about women are not randomly dispersed; they are largely reserved for his mother and ex-wife, and the narrative pose is one of despising them for not being better women - in particular, better mothers. The worst rap directed at his own mother is indeed gutwrenching: "But hoiu dare you try to take what you didn't help me to get? I You selfish bitch, I hope you f- burn in hell for this shit! " It is no defense of the gutter to observe the obvious: This is not the expression of random misogyny but, rather, of primal rage over alleged maternal abdication and abuse.

Another refrain in these songs runs like this: Today's teenagers are a mess, and the parents who made them that way refuse to get it. In one of Eminem's early hits, for example, a song called "Who Knew," the rapper pointedly takes on his many middle- and upper-middle-class critics to observe the contradiction between their reviling him and the parental inattention that feeds his commercial success. "What about the make-up you allow your 12 year-old daughter to wear?" he taunts.

This same theme of AWOL parenting is rapped at greater length in another award-nominated 2003 song called "Sing for the Moment," whose lyrics and video would be recognized in an instant by most teenagers in America. That song spells out Eminem's own idea of what connects him to his millions of fans - a connection that parents, in his view, just don't (or is that won't?) understand. It details the case of one more "problem child" created by "His f- dad walkin' out." "Sing for the Moment," like many other songs of Eminem's, is also a popular video. The "visuals" show clearly what the lyrics depict - hordes of disaffected kids, with flashbacks to bad home lives, screaming for the singer who feels their pain. It concludes by rhetorically turning away from the music itself and toward the emotionally desperate teenagers who turn out for this music by the millions. If the demand of all those empty kids wasn't out there, the narrator says pointedly, then rappers wouldn't be supplying it the way they do.

If some parents still don't get it - even as their teenagers elbow up for every new Eminem CD and memorize his lyrics with psalmist devotion - at least some critics observing the music scene have thought to comment on the ironies of all this. In discussing The Marshall Mathers LP in 2001 for Music Box, a daily online newsletter about music, reviewer John Metzger argued, "Instead of spewing the hate that he is so often criticized of doing, Eminem offers a cautionary tale that speaks to our civilization's growing depravity. Ironically, it's his teenage fans who understand this, and their all-knowing parents that miss the point." Metzger further specified "the utter lack of parenting due to the spendthrift necessity of the two-income family."7

That insight raises the overlooked fact that in one important sense Eminem and most of the other entertainers quoted here would agree with many of today's adults about one thing: The kids aren't all right out there after all. Recall, for just one example, Eddie Vedder's rueful observation about what kind of generation would make him or Kurt Cobain its leader. Where parents and entertainers disagree is over who exactly bears responsibility for this moral chaos. Many adults want to blame the people who create and market today's music and videos. Entertainers, Eminem most prominently, blame the absent, absentee, and generally inattentive adults whose deprived and furious children (as they see it) have catapulted today's singers to fame. (As he puts the point in one more in-your-face response to parents: "Don't blame me when IU' Eric jumps off of the terrace / You shoulda been watchin him - apparently you ain't parents. ")

The spectacle of a foul-mouthed bad-example rock icon instructing the hardworking parents of America in the art of child-rearing is indeed a peculiar one, not to say ridiculous. The single mother who is working frantically because she must and worrying all the while about what her 14-year-old is listening to in the headphones is entitled to a certain fury over lyrics like those. In fact, to read through most rap lyrics is to wonder which adults or political constituencies wouldn't take offense. Even so, the music idols who point the finger away from themselves and toward the emptied-out homes of America are telling a truth that some adults would rather not hear. In this limited sense at least, Eminem is right.

Sex, drugs, rock and roll, broken homes

TO SAY THAT today's popular music is uniquely concerned with broken homes, abandoned children, and distracted or incapable parents is not to say that this is what all of it is about. Other themes remain a constant, too, although somewhat more brutally than in the alleged golden era recalled by some baby boomers.

Much of today's metal and hip-hop, like certain music of yesterday, romanticizes illicit drug use and alcohol abuse, and much of current hip-hop sounds certain radical political themes, such as racial separationism and violence against the police. And, of course, the most elementally appealing feature of all, the sexually suggestive beat itself, continues to lure teenagers and young adults in its own right - including those from happy homes. Today as yesterday, plenty of teenagers who don't know or care what the stars are raving about find enough satisfaction in swaying to the sexy music. As professor and intellectual Allan Bloom observed about rock in his bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind (Simon & Schuster, 1987), the music "gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertaining industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later. "

Even so, and putting aside such obvious continuities with previous generations, there is no escaping the fact that today's songs are musically and lyrically unlike any before. What distinguishes them most clearly is a the fixation on having been abandoned personally by the adults supposedly in charge, with consequences ranging from bitterness to rage to bad, sick, and violent behavior.

And therein lies a painful truth about an advantage that many teenagers of yesterday enjoyed but their own children often do not. Baby boomers and their music rebelled against parents because they were parents - nurturing, attentive, and overly present (as those teenagers often saw it) authority figures. Today's teenagers and their music rebel against parents because they are not parents - not nurturing, not attentive, and often not even there. This difference in generational experience may not lend itself to statistical measure, but it is as real as the platinum and gold records that continue to capture it. What those records show compared to yesteryear's rock is emotional downward mobility. Surely if some of the current generation of teenagers and young adults had been better taken care of, then the likes of Kurt Cobain, Eminem, Tupac Shakur, and certain other parental nightmares would have been mere footnotes to recent music history rather than rulers of it.

To step back from the emotional immediacy of those lyrics and to juxtapose the ascendance of such music alongside the long-standing sophisticated assaults on what is sardonically called "family values" is to meditate on a larger irony. As today's music stars and their raving fans likely do not know, many commentators and analysts have been rationalizing every aspect of the adult exodus from home - sometimes celebrating it full throttle, as in the example of working motherhood - longer than most of today's singers and bands have been alive.

Nor do they show much sign of second thoughts. Representative sociologist Stephanie Coontz greeted the year 2004 with one more op-ed piece aimed at burying poor metaphorical Ozzie and Harriet for good. She reminded America again that "changes in marriage and family life" are here to stay and aren't "necessarily a problem"; that what is euphemistically called "family diversity" is or ought to be cause for celebration. Many other scholars and observers - to say nothing of much of polite adult society agree with Coontz. Throughout the contemporary nonfiction literature written of, by, and for educated adults, a thousand similar rationalizations about family "changes" bloom on.

Meanwhile, a small number of emotionally damaged former children, embraced and adored by millions of teenagers like them, rage on in every commercial medium available about the multiple damages of the disappearance of loving, protective, attentive adults - and they reap a fortune for it. If this spectacle alone doesn't tell us something about the ongoing emotional costs of parent-child separation on today's outsize scale, it's hard to see what could.

1 William Shaw, "Why Are America's Rock Bands So Goddamned Angry?" Blender (August 2.002,).

2 Gabriella, "Interview with Mark Hoppus of Blink 182," NY Rock (August 2001).

3 Miss Pink: This Pop Star Speaks the Universal Language of Teenage Rebellion," ABCnews.com (November 6, 2003).

4 Allan Jones, interview with Eddie Vedder, Melody Maker (May 21, 1994).

5 Shaheem Reid, with reporting by Sway Galloway, "Jay-Z: What More Can I Say," MTV.com (November 12, 2003).

6 Donna Britt, "Stats on Teens Don't Tell the Whole Story," Washington Post (January 23, 2004).

7 John Metzger, review of "Eminem: the Marshall Mathers LP," Music Box 8:6 (June 2001)

Mary Eberstadt is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, consulting editor to Policy Review, and author of Home-Alone America, from which this essay is drawn. Reprinted by arrangement with Sentinel, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. from Home-Alone America by Mary Eberstadt. Copyright © 2004 by Mary Eberstadt.

Eminem Is Right: the primal scream of teenage music

2005-12-14T08:56:00.000+01:00

The spectacle of a foul-mouthed bad-example rock icon instructing the hardworking parents of America in the art of child-rearing is indeed a peculiar one, not to say ridiculous. The single mother who is working frantically because she must and worrying all the while about what her 14-year-old is listening to in the headphones is entitled to a certain fury over lyrics like [Eminem's]. In fact, to read through most rap lyrics is to wonder which adults or political constituencies wouldn't take offense. Even so, the music idols who point the finger away from themselves and toward the emptied-out homes of America are telling a truth that some adults would rather not hear.

To read more, call 877.558.3727 for a free copy of the latest Policy Review.

Hoover Institution Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-6010 Tel: 877.466.8374 Fax: 650.723.1687 info@hoover.stanford.edu www.hoover.org

Apple's Eminem spot didn't think different enough from shoe ad

2005-12-14T08:48:00.000+01:00

APPLE Computer Inc.'s ultra-hip iPod commercials, the ones featuring black silhouettes dancing against colored backgrounds, have launched the careers of Indie rock bands Jet (iPod's first commercial) and The Gorillaz (the iPod Shuffle ads). The campaigns, created by the Marina del Rey office of TBWA/Chiat/Day, have become a part of pop culture, plastering billboards and buses all over the world.

But the local ad shop seems to have stumbled with its latest iPod ad, which features rapper Eminem. The spot looks similar to a three-year old ad for Lugz footwear, created by New York advertising firm Avrett Free Ginsberg. Both ads have the same red, orange and yellow background and feature black silhouettes jumping through an urban scene with hip-hop music.

TBWA/Chiat/Day, a division of Omnicom Group, issued a statement saying, "We do not plagiarize, borrow, or steal (ideas), and have a strict policy of not accepting third-party ideas in our creative process."

The agency said that any similarities between the ads were "regrettable," and deferred questions to Apple, which declined to comment. The blogosphere has been buzzing about the ad, especially because it's for a company whose motto is "Think different."

Lugz is considering legal action, The New York Times reported. As one ad-blogger pointed out on the site ipodnn.com, "Lugz should take the extra publicity and have fun."

Eminem: the Eminem show . . - Aftermath/Interscope - Sound Advice - sound recording review

2005-12-14T08:38:00.000+01:00

Like a fighter who goes straight for the bruises and just keeps pounding, Eminem can't resist hot-button issues. Sonically, this album has a clean, almost antiseptic sound-but who needs a complex tapestry of samples to distract you when you've got a madly talented rapper having a Tourette's syndrome seizure and inviting you to listen in? A track or two is dazzling. A full hour is like being trapped in a phone booth with Jim Carrey on crystal meth while he rips his diary to shreds.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.

Rent pays off

2005-12-07T10:30:00.000+01:00

Rent * Original Motion Picture Soundtrack * Warner Bros.

Listening to the satisfying movie recording of Rent, with six of the eight original leads from the 1996 Broadway production, it's easy to imagine what an overwrought mess it might have become had Justin Timberlake and other pop divas swooped in with their production posses. (Insert full-body shiver here.) The film soundtrack is marginally slicker than the stage recording, and it's considerably abridged (no "Christmas Bells," no answering machine messages, etc.). But the need to cut to the chase benefits Rent's showpiece songs--about poverty, AIDS, queer love, and death--which are tighter and a notch bigger. I think Jonathan Larson, the show's late creator, would be pleased.

The title song, "One Song Glory," and "What You Own" rock hard; "Take Me or Leave Me" tears it up as the best lesbian duet ever penned by a straight man; "Without You," passionately sung by new cast member Rosario Dawson, is as heartbreaking as ever. Returning stars Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, and Anthony Rapp, in particular, reignite the fire they had in the '90s. (Jesse L. Martin tries a throaty new take on Tom Collins that's several degrees colder than the raw emotion he had onstage.)

The closing bonus track, "Love Heals," is greeting-card earnest, a reminder that Rent at its best is an undistilled elixir of anger, love, despair, and hope, without a drop of sentimentality. Anyway, what other CD at Wal-Mart offers, "Sodomy / It's between God and me"?--B.C.S.

First of nine planned strike days called off at Birmingham International Airport

2005-12-07T10:29:00.000+01:00

The first of nine days of strikes has been called of at Birmingham International Airport, UK.

After 12 hours of talks between the management and unions, the strike scheduled for Monday (28 November) has been called off. Amicus, which issued the strike warning, has not called off the other eight planned strike days, according to the BBC.

The strikes, if carried out, would close the airport as they would affect the airport fire service, engineering, terminals, security and operations. Other planned dates for strikes include Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year's Eve.

Talk About Travel; Trip Tips and Deals

2005-12-07T10:26:00.000+01:00

Byline: The Flight Crew

The Post's Travel Section Flight Crew will take your comments, questions, suspicions, warnings, gripes, sad tales and happy endings springing from the world of... the world. Of course, the Flight Crew will be happy to answer your travel questions -- but the best thing about this forum, we insist, is that it lets travelers exchange information with other travelers who've been there, done that or otherwise have insights, ideas and information to share. Different members of the Crew will rotate through the captain's chair every week, but the one constant is you, our valued passengers.

We know you have a choice in online travel forums, and speaking for theentire Flight Crew, we want to thank you for flying with us.

You may also browse an archive of previous live travel discussions.

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Steve Hendrix: Howdy folks. Thank you for taking a break from your on-line Christmas shopping to be with us. We're here to help you shake off that Tryptophan coma and focus your mind on what's really important this Monday afternoon: your NEXT holiday trip. Got your ski trip/island-getaway/tickets-to-Gram's -house-in-Kansas City all ready?

Well, if Thanksgiving was any indication, maybe you won't have any problems in December. My own I-95 experience (up to Wilmington on Wednesday afternoon, back down Sunday afternoon) was practically painless (except for the excrable Delaware Toll Plazas, of course. Couldn't they have built a bridge over the entire tiny, annoying state?).

What of your own experience in the Turkey Trenches? Report now, and a cheap gimcrack from our Box O' Crap goes to the most eye catching tale of traveling woe or wonder.

We're a pretty full crew today. Standing by are K.C. Summers, John Deiner, Cindy Loose, Gary Lee, Andrea Sachs, Carol Sottili and-just back from three solo weeks in China, Anne McDonough (Welcome back, Anne. Thank goodness we have someone to throw ice cubes at again.)

Ready .wait for it .wait .wait .

GO!

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Washington, D.C.: Can you tell me a good place to find up-to-date, independent, and fairly comprehensive frequent flyer program information? I've begun a job where I'll need to travel to the west coast and I'd like to maximize those trips. Thanks.

Carol Sottili: Try www.webflyer.com, www.insideflyer.com and www.frequentflier.com.

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Dupont, Washington, DC: I'm heading to Dubai this weekend for some meetings. Do you or the chatters have any suggestions for what to do, where to eat, other than the national pastime of shopping?

KC Summers: Oh, bad timing, Dupont -- we're going to have a story on Dubai but not for a few weeks. Well, you can compare notes when you get back. In the meantime, did you see that fascinating piece in the New Yorker a couple of months ago about the weird architecture there? It's worth looking up.

Also in the meantime, maybe any chatters who've been there can chime in?

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Rockville, Md.: Do we have any real statistics on air travel this past holiday weekend? We flew out of National Wed. afternoon and then left Denver early Sunday to come back to DC. On both legs (non-stop flights), it took us 15 or maybe 20 minutes tops from when we got to the airport to when we got to the gate! And this checking 4 bags for a family of 4! We've never seen such short lines. Yet both planes were completely full; not 1 empty seat? I'm having a hard time understanding the lack of lines at 2 major airports on supposedly the 2 busiest days of the year, along with full planes. Was air travel up this holiday season or not?

Steve Hendrix: That seems to be the story across the board, R'ville. Some exceptions of course, but the airport scene seems to have been amazingly calm and fast-moving. People followed the advise to be early and be ready (shoeless, pre-printed boarding passes in hand, etc).

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Will I fly?: Cindy Loose - did you ever follow up with Independence Air about their statement on their web site that said that since credit cards don't pay the airline until after the flight is complete that passengers are protected?

This conflicted with your findings that you have only 60 days from when you charge the flight to dispute a charge, meaning if you are scheduled to fly past the 60 days, you could no longer dispute the charge if FlyI stops flying after that.

You said you were skeptical of FlyI's web statement but would check it out.

Cindy Loose: I did indeed check it out, although it took awhile cause so many people went away for the holiday. I also spoke at length with Independence.

So, the credit card companies I spoke with follow the fair credit act, which gives the 60 days from date of billing. However, the companies that issue the credit cards are sometimes more lenient,and give longer to dispute a charge. There are so many of them I could never check them all out. But the ones I did talk to said they take bankruptcy issues on a case by case basis, and won't say in advance what they might do. Also, disputing a charge is not the same a denying a charge, which I think is the language you were saying Independence was using. To dispute is not to win---you just don't have to pay the charge or interest on it while the credit card company investigates, and then maybe they'll forgive the charge. I talked to the FTC and they said that there have been instances in the past when credit card companies did forgive charges for tickets on airlines that disappeared. Looks like time will tell, and various issuing companies will do different things perhaps.

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Washington, D.C.: Although I have never flown with Midwest Airlines, I have been told many times that the warm chocolate chip cookies make the choice worthwhile. It sounds like someone's idea to serve the cookies is paying off bigtime especially with word of mouth.

Steve Hendrix: We really are easily impressed, aren't we?

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Midwesterner in Dublin: We are lucky enough to find ourselves with tickets to Paris for Christmas. We've read up on Paris, of course, but can any Crew members or experienced travelers give us some advice about what to expect at Christmas and/or special events we should not miss? Also, we will be traveling with an infant. He's a great little travelerand has already navigated Italy and Ireland, both places where they love babies, but I'm assuming the French attitude may not be the same. Any advice?

Gary Lee: I used to go regularly to Paris for the holidays, and loved it. What was nicest was the way they dress up the city, with the kind of stylish decorations that you expect from the French. The churches hold special Christmas concerts which are worth the time for sure. I'd check with Notre Dame and the church at St. Germaine des Pres for details. In this very family oriented counry on this usually family oriented holiday, it will probably be tough to find good restaurants that are open for celebration. You'll have to do some checking around, starting with the restaurants in some of the big hotels.

Anyone else with tips on Christmas in Paris?

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McLean, Va.: I jumped the gun on booking a flight on American to San Jose, Costa Rica from Dulles for $416 per person including fees (2/6 -> 2/21). US Airways cut fares to $280 including fees for the same dates. Is there anything I can do? I am flying with 3 other people so booking too fast cost me $500! Thanks.

Carol Sottili: Used to be that you could call the airline in this situation and they'd send you vouchers to use on another flight to make up the difference. At least it was something. If you change your flights here, the airline will charge a change fee, which I believe is $100 per flight, a serious cut into your savings. Have you tried calling US Airways yet? Try customer relations at 866-523-5333.

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National Airport: I have developed some health problems recently and need some assistance during connections in the upcoming travel season. How do I get this help?

Cindy Loose: Contact the airline and they'll arrange it. You can request it when you buy your ticket, but can also ask as late as when you check in for the flight--just allow some extra time in that case.

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Washington, DC: Do you or the chatters have a recommendation for a (relatively inexpensive) small, strong travel flashlight? thanks

Steve Hendrix: I believe one of Maglite's many variaties would serve, the Mini in particular. My current flashlight fetish, though, is all about L.E.D.

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NC: I'm heading to Las Vegas in March for a week. We've got a hotel, car, and a flight, but that's all the pre-planning I really want to do. But, can I get away with that? We'll probablly want to see a show, do some fancyish dinners. Will I get away with not making reservations before I go? Any thoughts? Thanks for the chats.

John Deiner: Hey, NC. My gut here is that if you're going to be there at a particularly busy time and care about where you sit, you should make reservations well in advance for such shows at Celine Dion, "O" and the other Cirque shows and Blue Man Group. It's easy enough to check availability by going to the different casino Web sites to see if the show has seats left then calling the box office. If you really have your heart set on seeing Barry Manilow at the Hilton, then I'd definitely book ahead.

If you want to see one of the less pricey options, you'll probably be okay just waiting till you get there (there are 3.2 million outlets, and many are in the airport when you tumble off the plane). Also, check out the same-day ticket kiosk inside the giant Coke bottle on the Strip. You won't get tix to the major stuff (at least in my experience), but you can save a bundle on magic acts, comedians and the like.

As far as restaurants go, if you want a big-name restaurant like Thomas Keller's Bouchon in the Venetian, by all means book ahead. But there are tons of other less-trendy spots that you should be able to book when you get there.

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Washington, D.C: Everyone seems to have written Independence Air's obituary. Are they definitely on borrowed time, or could they conceivably emerge from bankruptcy?

Cindy Loose: All the experts I've talked to think they'll get through the holidays, but unless someone steps up to buy or invest, it doesn't look good. Let's hope an investor with a fat wallet emerges, cause Independence has been a great asset out of Dulles, and I'd sorely miss them.

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Fairfax, Va.: Over Thanksgiving dinner, conversation somehow turned to Croatia -- being a loyal Travel reader, I chimed in that I had read a number of WP articles commending Croatia as a travel destination. The problem is, even with WPOnline's handy search function, I can't seem to track them down. Help?

washingtonpost.com: Croatia , (June 16, 2002)

KC Summers: Here's that link, Fx -- and keep an eye out for an update on Croatia this March.

I'm not sure why you had trouble finding this online, so maybe this is the time for a handy tutorial on how to find old Travel articles. Travel has a separate, free archive -- you don't access us from the regular WP archive. It's easily searchable: Just go to our home page (www.washingtonpost.com/travel), scroll down to Travel Archive, and click either International or U.S. Destinations. A map will pop up. Click on the country or state you want, and you'll get a list of many of the articles we've published over the past five years or so. You can also search by topic.

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Columbia River: Hi gang,

Has any of you taken the cruise on the Columbia River? Also, what do you know about the VIATOR web site to book tours overseas?

Thanks for your contribution to our travel dreams!

Gary Lee: I don't know about the website, but I have taken the America West Steamboat cruise on the Columbia. The scenery is lush and dramatic and the boat, a sternwheeler, was nicely appointed. The excusions were great, too, especially the first one to Mt. St. Helens.

One thing to look out for is that the aura of the trip was mostly geared to an older generation of travelers. The other is that the big boat on a relatively small and controlled river can sometimes result in mechanical problems -- ie getting caught in traffic jams waiting for locks, etc.

These things should not deter you from what will be the trip of a lifetime.

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Washington, D.C.: I wish that TSA would get its act together......when traveling in and out of NYC ,DCA or IAD they seem to have one sent of rules....this past holiday weekend when in SMF (Sacramento) they seemed to have another set of rules... should they not be the same?? i have a manicure kit that i travel with.....When i go in and out of Washington Dc and NYC never a problem...BUT in Sacramento they removed it from my carry on.....i had to either check my carry-on or leave part of my manicure kit behind....If TSA removes it..why do they not provide means to ship/mail it to your destination? this could be a shipping niche that Fedex, UPS or USPS may want to explore

Steve Hendrix: According to recent reporting here and other places, a lot of the crazy quilt nature of TSA rules comes down to local mangagers flexing their own baronial powers. So you go Shoeless in Seatle and Shod in Cape Cod (someone please set that to music). One TSA guy told me it "was to keep the terrorists off balance." These days, even bureaucratic incompetence is a strategic value.

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Boston, Mass.: I'm a bigger guy (used to play football) and am planning on visiting my brother for the Holidays. He is stationed in Japan and I realize the flight is going to be a bear. Besides middle seats, are there other things to avoid (places on the plane, certain types of aircraft, etc.)? Also is it really worth upgrading to business class?

Cindy Loose: Bad and good seats depend on the type of plane to some extent. But bulkhead generally give you more leg room. You can look up the type of plane you're on, then look up the layout to get a better idea. But is it worth upgrading to business----well, it's a big enough difference that I always envy the people in those seats when on a wide flight. I mean you can carry decent food on board, but you can't carry space. If you can cash in frequent flyer points, for sure. Otherwise, if you can afford it and price isn't ridiculous, go for it. I'm 5'5" and coach to Asia makes me miserable.

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Arlington, Va.: They don't need a bridge over Delaware, just an EZ Pass lane that actually moves! Every time I go that way, the EZ Pass lane is backed up the most of any approaching the tolls, but when you get to the plaza, there are 3 empty EZ Pass lanes. The lane just gets crowded by people not using EZ Pass worse than most others I've seen (the ones at the Maryland tolls north work fine, for instance).

Steve Hendrix: I know the exact spot of which you kvetch. At first you're thrilled to see an EZPass lane two miles out, then you realize it's clogged. I'm sure a traffic engineer is doing a Master's thesis on that right now.

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New Jersey suburb: Hello! In August, my friend made plane reservations to visit her son over the Thanksgiving weekend. She was supposed to leave on Tuesday, November 22 and return on Tuesday, November 29. On Sunday, November 20, she confirmed her flights, and everything was fine. However, when she called again on the morning of the 22nd, she was told that her flight was canceled. The woman that she spoke with had no idea when the flight was canceled, but she was able to book her on a flight to a nearby city. Why do the airlines do this, cancel a flight on very short notice during the holiday season? Don't they realize that they could ruin people's holidays? Don't they care? Unfortunately, I am booked on the same airline for a round-trip flight in December. How much ahead of time can they say, "Sorry, the flight is canceled"? My friend said that it was a good thing that she called, because they never called her.

Carol Sottili: The airlines have a lot of leeway when it comes to canceling flights. There are no federal laws prohibiting the practice. Each airline has its own rules about how it deals with these situations. Go to www.onetravel.com and click on Rules of the Air for the various airline's contracts of carriage. As far as ruining holidays, I don't believe the corporate mentality of most airlines considers this. Most airlines do allow you to sign up online for notification of schedule changes. I always have a backup plan when I go to the airport. In other words, if I'm flying on United to St. Louis, for example, I know what other airlines fly to St. Louis and the times they fly. This way, if my flight is canceled, I am ready to request a replacement flight.

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Angkor Wat?: I'm thinking of taking 2 days out of a trip to Bangkok to visit Angkor Wat. What's your advice? Is it worth it? What is the best way to get there? Are there places to stay nearby? Will there be a hassle getting in and out of Cambodia? Is there anything I absolutely should not miss?

Andrea Sachs: It is definitely worth it. Angkor Wat is one of the most incredible attractions I have seen, and I could have spent days wandering around the temples and hearing the stories of Cambodia's darker days (the locals are very well spoken and very open about the torture they witnessed) as well as its golden era (hence, the temples). I flew from Vietnam, an easy and quick flight. Car rentals, buses and trains are harder to come by, plus the roads aren't so well paved and security is tight--so, I'd recommend flying. The area around the temples is full of hotels, many very cushy, so you won't have a problem finding a bed for the night. You can sign up for a tour in Bangkok, which is recommended, since an explanation of the history is essential. The tour should also book you a hotel room.

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Speaking of the TSA...: Did you know that in the Nashville airport they'll take your fingernail clippers and lighter at the security checkpoint, but you can purchase BOTH at the book/snack shop INSIDE the airport--PAST the security checkpoint!

Steve Hendrix: That'll confuse those terrorists.

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Ft Belvoir: Just curious. If Delta were to go out of business, would that have an effect on tickets for flights operated by a codeshare partner? I bought a ticket through Delta but is operated by Air France.

Cindy Loose: First off, I don't expect to see Delta go away in foreseeable future. And I can't imagine Air France not honoring your ticket. I'm assuming here that you are flying Air France all the way. If a partner supplying the connecting flight disappeared, that could be problematic.

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Washington DC: So my post Turkey Day trip to see my hurricane-ravaged family in New Orleans was ruined on Saturday thanks to Delta, mechanical problems, and full or overbooked flights for the next two days. I didn't get there. At all. Not to MSY or GPT or BTR or anywhere close to my destination. All I got was a "Sorry" and a refund. Sorry doesn't get me there, Delta, and you've just lost a customer for life. My question to you travel gurus is this: Family may try to gather at Xmas near aging grandmother just outside Orlando. Do you have any resort suggestions? 4 adults, no kids, just need to relax and eat good food and try to forget about 2005. Thanks so much!

John Deiner: Gee, DC. Sorry to hear that...and Delta can't afford to lose a single passenger, particularly for life.

Unless you want to stay at Disney (and those resorts rock for the most part, unless you stay at one of their cheaper options, which stink), I'd suggest the Gaylord Palms, which is a beaut of a resort, plus it has a branch of Canyon Ranch. So you can chill out without ever going far fromt he property. And I'm guessing here, but the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes looks lovely as well.

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Downtown Washington, DC: I can't imagine an easier flight over Thanksgiving - I was on a 315pm departure from National, got to the airport at 2pm worried that I might be tight on time if there were delays. I was checked in (US Airways) and through security and at my gate by 215pm. Easy as pie.

That said, I do have a question, or a comment. At the security clearance, I started to walk through with my shoes on. The TSA worker stated, "you'll have to remove your shoes." I said, "oh, no, these don't set off the detectors," and the TSA screener said, "no, sir, you have to take them off, or I will select you for secondary screening."

Now, I knew full well what I was doing in testing this - though I took the shoes off to avoid the hassle. It continues to anger me that screeners at National force you to take off your shoes. The guy behind me made a comment about it, and I said, perhaps a little loudly, "It's BS, they are legally not allowed to tell you that," which drew a rather harsh face from the TSA woman.

How come no one has called them on this ridiculous treatment? It's not that I mind, except that it's a pain in the neck to bend over and get your shoes untied and all that while watching your stuff (like my laptop bag), trying to move the line forward, etc. It slows down the process, and on principle, they CAN'T tell you this, but they do!

Steve Hendrix: It is a strange little dance they put through. Literally, sometimes.

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Washington, DC: Hi, Flight Crew. I was hoping you might be able to help out with a book recommendation. My parents are taking a 2-week trip through China next year with Chinese-American friends of theirs. Then they're taking a cruise throughout several countries, including Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Can you recommend any books that might help them get ready/get informed before their trip? Or travel literature to get them thinking about the region? Thanks!

Anne McDonough: They're in for a wonderful trip! For China, Peter Hessler's "River Town" is wonderful, and as it addresses life on the Yangtze during his years as a Peace Corps volunteer would be appropriate for those on a cruise (albeit in other countries). It's outdated, of course, but Theroux's "Riding the Iron Rooster" is a kick, and Emily Hahn on China is priceless. As for fiction, Ha Jin's "Waiting" killed me, and my favorite Chinese author is Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang) who wrote of wartime Shanghai and Hong Kong--skip her novels and head right to her short stories ("Love in a Fallen City" and "The Golden Cangue" are among those widely in translation). I haven't read it, but Edward A. Gargan (a former correspondent for that OTHER paper) wrote "A River's Tale," which follows a year of travel along the Mekong, which runs through China, Vietnam and Thailand among others, making it a good thematic pick. Japan literature I'm a bit less sure of--posters? Any favorites out there?

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Cinque Terra, Italy: Do you have any recommendations for lodging in Cinque Terra? I've never been there and I'm helping my parents plan a trip. If they are planning to spend a couple days there is it better to stay the night in one of the little villages or take the train in and out each day from somewhere else? Many thanks for any suggestions you could provide.

Anne McDonough: Coming up is a link to the most recent article we've done on Cinque Terre, hope you can glean some tips!

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washingtonpost.com: Italy's Greatest Hit , (June 27, 2004)

Anne McDonough: Thanks, Kim!

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Sterling, Va.: We often take redeye flights home, so we have to store our luggage at our hotel after we check out of our room. Do you tip when you give them the luggage or when you pick it up? How much tip is standard?

Gary Lee: Having worked recently as a bell-hop, I can advise you to thing generously. Most of the folks on the receiving end rely on tips to make a living. I usually tip when I pick up the bag, and give a couple of buck per bag.

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Princeton, NJ: My friend was told on the morning of her flight that it was canceled. Luckily, she was able to get another flight. How far in advance can an airline willy-nilly cancel a flight? When she confirmed it the day before, everything was okay. The airline personnel had no idea why the flight was canceled or how far ahead of time. I bet they canceled it because it wasn't 100% full. It's not fair - if it's overbooked, you risk getting bumped, but if it's not 100% full, you risk not getting where you want to go. How can the airlines justify their despicable behavior?

Carol Sottili: The airlines say they don't often cancel flights because they are underbooked, but that's not quite true. If they have a mechanical problem with a plane that is fully booked, they sometimes will replace it with a functioning plane from a flight that is underbooked. But most planes need to get to the next destination, regardless of how many people are booked, because they are going on - in other words, there are people waiting at the next airport to take that plane somewhere else.

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Canal Bound, Presidents Weekend: I've got a friend working in a resort in Panama, and I'm trying with a friend to go and visit her around presidents day weekend. Trouble is, all the flights are $500+ -- I thought Panama was supposed to be cheap, should I just wait it out? Do you know any discount airlines I should be looking at? Thank you!!

Andrea Sachs: The country itself may be less expensive than some of its neighbors, but flights there won't be, since their is not much tourist demand. Also, you are traveling on a holiday. Check for airline sales to Latin America as well as consolidators. Intratours, for example, has flights to Panama for the fall from $365 (see travel zoo for this deal).

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Arlington, Va.: Hi, I have Christmas shopping on my mind today. Thinking about getting some travel-related gifts for my friends and family who love to travel. I was wondering what a travel wallet is?? It looks like a regular wallet to me, but is this really something that makes a traveller's life easier? Also, what would the Flight Crew want most as a travel-related gift? Thanks for the helpful chats!

KC Summers: I have to say that I've never seen the value of a travel wallet -- they're supposed to keep you organized, but I've got a better system that works for me: a special shoulder bag I only use for travel, with lots of zippered compartments and fold-out flaps for my passport, e-tickets, maps, even a little mesh pocket for a water bottle. I think a bag like that would make a great Christmas present for a traveler -- mine's by Baggalini (sp?). Either that or a cashmere throw, which you can use for everything from an airline blanket to a evening shawl.

Here's what the rest of the gang would like Santa to bring them:

John: an iPod.

Steve: John's old Walkman.

Anne: some currency of the destination she's going to.

Carol: an Ambien prescription.

Gary: noise-reducing earphones.

Andrea: digital camera.

Cindy: leather luggage.

Got that, Santa?

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Alexandria, Va.: This may sound like a weird question, but do other people have a problem with your feet swelling when you fly? If so, is there a trick to minimizing this? I usually wear velco-strap sandals when I fly to give my feet a little "expansion" room, but that solution has some obvious negative points in the winter. Or is it only my feet that do this?

Steve Hendrix: Bien sur, Alex. 'Tis a common traveler's lament. Foots swelling (see if you can tell when I start plagerizing a medical website), or edema, is caused both by prolonged inactivity and the confining postion of your legs in an airliner seat. It's a minor issue, helped by walking around the cabin ever now and then or doing those rotation excercising you see in the flight magazines. But some people are prone to deep vein thrombosis (blood clots) and need to take more care.

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Washington DC: Dear Flight Crew: I am booked on a cruise that includes a 1-day visit to Libya next March to see a total solar eclipse. We have been promised that security will be provided by the Libyan government.

Are we nuts to do this?

Gary Lee: Friends who have travelled to Libya say that safety or security should not be an issue. But, they added, in a country with almost no tourism infrastructure, you should expect more than the usual share of red tape and hassles.

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What are the Flight Crew's trip suggestions for week between Christmas and New Year's: Hi, Flight Crew!

Here are the parameters. Have passport, $1,000 to spend, single male early 30s.

Where would you go?

Cindy Loose: Normally, I'd have dozens of possibilities leaping to mind. But given that I've been researching half a dozen places I'd like to fly that week, and given that I'm finding horribly high airfares, I'm not sure what to tell you. Example: I'm looking to ski. Flights to Salt Lake City, usually a couple hundreds bucks and change, are $795. That wouldn't leave you much out of $1,000.

If it were me and I couldn't think of any place I wanted to visit within driving distance, I'd ask a travel agent if they have package somewhere, or surf the internet for any and all possibilities that have any interest. Anyone else out there booked something recently and found reasonable rates?

Other option: can you use your vacation time some other week? Like forget it's Christmas and New Years and save your money for a week or two after that?

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Ft Bevoir - RE: Delta Code Share: Thanks for responding. Yes, I am taking Air France all the way. The only reason I booked via Delta and not directly through Air France was to maximize my frequent flier miles with Delta.

Cindy Loose: I shouldn't worry.

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Holiday travel: My husband and I are considering a nearby escape vacation for a few days between Christmas and New Year's. We like a little luxury and were thinking of finding a nice B&B someplace. We also love quality museums and displays of twinkling holiday lights, and quality dining (preferably within walking distance of that nice B&B) is also very important. We do not drink, so we're not looking for a wine-country getaway. We really enjoyed the Brandywine Valley area of PA a few years ago, when we visited the Wyeth museum and Longwood Gardens. Any suggestions for where to go this time?

John Deiner: Hey, HT. For some reason, Cape May, NJ, popped into my head, Jerseyite that I am. It's beautiful at Christmas time, and there are, I believe, some nice restaurants in town (correct me if I'm wrong here, gang). Lots of pretty gingerbready BnBs, and the town goes all out for the holidays. Don't think there are lots of museums, but you can go up to the boardwalk to see what the tide washed in.

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Christmas Driving Question: My dear sweet better half forgot to get tickets for Christmas. So we're driving to Cinncinati. He claims this takes 8 hours (Columbia). I'm not exactly so sure. Any ideas to break up the drive, or places to see or eat at on the way?

Steve Hendrix: You could throw peanuts at your dear sweet, forgetfull better half the entire way.

This is not a route we know. Anyone?

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Paris at Christmas: What I love about Paris at Christmas is the food markets. They are full of game (a full hanging boar, birds, rabgits) as well as the oysters and seafood and fabulous cheeses. Try some of the market streets (rue Poncelet in the 17th, rue Mouffetard in the 5th are two, or even walk down rue de Commerce in the 15th) or any of the moving municipal markets that are in different neighborhoods everyday.

Also, the windows in Les Grand Magasins (Galleries Layfayette etc) have great Christmas decorations - often made up the latest toys. Really cool for kids.

Gary Lee: That's a good point. I had forgotten that most of the big department stores dress up their windows more grandly than those in New York.

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Austin, Tex: I need help! I am planning on traveling to Bangkok at the end of February to visit friends and procrastinating about buying the tickets. I don't know if I should go through a travel agent or book the tickets myself? Tickets are currently in the $1000 range. Is this the lowest I can expect? Should I book through an airline or is a site such as Orbitz ok? THANKS!!!

Andrea Sachs: Wherever you can find the cheapest flight, book it. Orbitz has great fares, however, watch for those booking fees (airline sites don't have those extra costs). A good way to compare fares is through an aggregator like SideStep: Let the engine do the research, then book at the best site. As for a grand to Bangkok: That's the right range, though, after the holidays, you might see it drop by $150 or so.

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Re: Midwest Air: Just flew Midwest for the Thanksgiving holiday. Only airline to fly non-stop to Omaha. In addition to the warm cookies, all the seats are like first class seats. Plush and spacious.

Steve Hendrix: Midwest Air's must be burning today. (Let's hope the cookies aren't. Or the landing gear.)

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Washington, DC: I understand that children under the age of 2 can ride on their parents lap, but is there any weight/size requirement to this rule? i was on a flight this mrning where a quite large 2 year old was riding on his fathers lap. The kid was big for a 2 year old and being stuck next to them was a very unpleasent experience. I really could not believe that this kid was concidered small enough to ride on his fathers lap. Luckily it was not a very long flight.

Cindy Loose: I'm betting the problem is that the kid wasn't two. There is no weight limit, but maybe they should be asking for I.D. with a birthdate. There have been numerous attempts, by the way, to require all children to have seats, since it's dangerous to have them flopping around without a seat belt. But every time, the effort has been fought off, in part with the argument that the cost of a seat would cause more families to drive long distances, and that would be even more dangerous.

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Arlington, Va.: Just wanted to say I flew on Independence over the holiday and had a great experience. They even joked about "choosing them amongst the many going bankrupt" so that was good, that they seemed positive. Any updates on what's happening with them?

Cindy Loose: Glad to hear you had a good experience. I haven't heard any new news, and I spoke with as recently as Friday. It's going to take a buyer---since the prospect of making money in the airline industry right now is grim,it would take a buyer with a big ego who'd like the idea of owning an airline or ball team. Where is Ted Turner when you need him?

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New York, NY: After finally crafting an itinerary for a trip to South Africa, I have one remaining question -- how to get from place to place. We arrive in Johannesburg and the next day are due at Kruger National Park, and then in a few days have to return to Johannesburg for a flight to Cape Town. Should we fly from Jo'burg to Kruger and try to get a shuttle to the hotel at Kruger, rent a car, or something else? Any thoughts would be appreciated! We're kind of reluctAnt to start driving right away (we'll rent in Cape Town) but if that's the only thing that makes sense, then so be it.

Andrea Sachs: I would say fly for Joberg-Kruger-Joberg, but rent for the Cape Town leg (that's what we did last year). You will definitely want a car in Cape Town, though, for the beaches, wine country, lunch at the jail, etc.

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Alexandria, Va.: Flew Indpendence Air over the holiday. Both flights were delayed from 2 to 4 hours. Both had computer problems. On the return flight from Boston they said they were flying mechanics in from Dulles. The crew were all very nice, even though the situations were very frustrating. Both times the crew swore this had never happened before. I won't buy an advance ticket for this airline again until it is known they will survive, which I doubt. Overall I do appreciate the crew keeping themselves very professional in an uncertain and difficult time and I thought instead of really cripping about the flights I would try to put a postive spin on the situation.

Cindy Loose: Good for you.

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Holiday Joy: Our holiday trip to Ohio had many delights. On our way to time with family and a luscious Thanksgiving dinner, our GPS device directed us to the back of the Somerset Pennsylvania Turnpike service area. As snowflakes were falling, we parked in the employee lot and made our way to Roy Rogers to get some of their excellent fried chicken. On Friday, my birthday, we took a trip to Tony Packo's Cafe in Toledo for a Hungarian double hot dog and a bowl of Tony's mother's chili. My husband and daughter also indulged in apple strudel. Then, to the Toledo Museum of Art for a dose of culture. Heavenly!

Steve Hendrix: Over the River and Through the Woods, to Grandmothers House We Go!

But then the GPS craps out and we end up at Shoney's off Exit 33a.

Hmmmm. It's missing something.

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Miami Airport: In a few weeks, I have a 6 hour layover in Miami on my way to Peru. Is there any chance of finding something to do? Or, am I best off buying a book of Sudoku puzzles and finding some coffee that isn't too awful in the airport.

Gary Lee: I have often been in this situation and have responded in a couple of ways.

At the top of the hotel in the airport is a fitness center, including a pool, where you can pay a day rate and work out.

There is also a mall not far from the airport which provides free transfers on a regular basis to and from MIA. I can't remember the name but any of the information folks at the airport will be able to tell you.

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Upgrading to business class: The ex-football player who asked about whether it's worth upgrading might want to consider flights that have a premium economy section. These generally have a 38" seat pitch instead of the miserly 31", and the price premium over regular economy often isn't all that high--unlike business class.

Cindy Loose: Good suggestion, thanks.

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Boston, Mass.: My boyfriend and I want to do a volunteer vacation in Africa for a few weeks. We're looking at Cross Cultural Solutions and Global Citizens Network and a few others. Can you recommend any of these types of organizations? I'd love to hear from anyone who has spent their vacation this way. We're really excited about being part of the community and are anxious to hear about the experiences that others have had there.

Thanks!

Andrea Sachs: We personally have not volunteered with either of these groups, but perhaps a clickster has: anyone, anyone?

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Deep Valley, USA: Former Delaware resident here:

Consider going back to the Brandywine valley. You missed several more great museums (Hagley/Eleutherian mills, Nemours) and a few stray house museums. It's a lovely area.

Even Wilmington is getting more interesting than it used to be.

Steve Hendrix: Oh, I love Wilmington (I even married one of it's native daughters) and have visited and written about most of it's admirable DuPont legacy museums. Old Mansion, they do beauifully. Toll plazas, they flunk.

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Upper level course - Bowling 401:

Will you have info on the big BCS games and how to get there? I have a daughter that's most likely Miami bound!

John Deiner: Go Tech! (I'm guessing Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl?)

Sad to report, we don't have any features upcoming on how to get to the big boys, though I imagine you should probably be looking around now. One good thing is that there may be some good deals for travel right after the holiday, and the matchup should be set this weekend. Just don't forget to look into traveling to Fort Lauderdale or even West Palm Beach; both are Southwest airports and it's frequently much cheaper to fly into one of those two. And good luck!

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Arlington, Va.: If all I have is an e-ticket when my airline goes belly up and quits flying, how am I supposed to fly stand-by on another airline? Is a printout of my schedule good enough, or should I ask for, and probably pay for, a paper ticket before travelling?

Carol Sottili: Some airlines don't even issue paper tickets anymore. If your airline is on the brink and you can get a paper ticket, it might be worth the extra $25 or so. That would make it easier to switch carriers.

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Midwest: Uh, the person posting about Midwest is obviously an employee (perhaps a new USAir family member?) Their seats are no more spacious or "plush" than the others.

Steve Hendrix: We've been had????

Quick, someone post a slashing negative comment about Midwest.

How bout this: The cookies are LOADED with transfat (and they're made with slave labor in Michagan's Upper Peninsula).

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TSA Shoes: I finally called them on the shoe removal baloney in Las Vegas. I asked for a supervisor. (Yes, I had a lot of time before my flight.) He said it was because of the thickness of the soles of my shoes. Incidentally, there must be a minimum thickness of the skull in order to be employed by the TSA.

Thanks for letting me post that. Felt good.

Steve Hendrix: You don't feel like a heel?

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Columbia, SC: For the person looking to go to Vegas in March, your advice was right on. Especially if he or she is going during "March Madness," he will want advance tickets for the big Cirque shows like "O" or "Ka." Often those shows sell out the first available day they go on sale - usually 90 days out. I also would make spa reservations or reservations to the elite restaurants a month in advance. If they want to wait and see when they arrive, they certainly could get tickets to shows like Lance Burton or Jubilee or Follies Bergere, and probably still would have a good array of restaurant choices.

John Deiner: Wow. How could I forget about March Madness! You're absolutely correct, Columbia...it could be a real madhouse then. Thanks for the great tip.

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Baltimore, Md.: I'll be traveling through Europe in a few months and was wondering if you could recommend any websites for hostels or cheap hotels throughout Europe, but particularly Germany, Italy, Austria. Thanks

Gary Lee: Check out Venere.com.

They offer a range of options, some cheap, some not.

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Washington, DC: I'm going to be in Ireland with a group of friends in mid-January for 9 days, and have plans for a few days in Dublin, as well as in the Galway/Connemara region. However, we were looking to take a day trip from Dublin one day - what do you suggest that isn't the Blarney Stone? We'll have a car, and could do either a day trip or stay somewhere one night. Thanks!

KC Summers: Smart of you to skip the Blarney Stone, Wash. Also smart to do Connemara -- whatever you do, don't miss Kylemore Abbey (an amazing little castle built by a doctor for his wife, who then died young -- now it's a girls' boarding school), and the fishing villages of Clifden and Roundstone. Oh, and Ballynahinch Castle... but you didn't ask about that, did you? You asked about day trips from Dublin. One fun excursion is to take a coach trip out to Malahide Castle, an 800-year-old castle with beautiful grounds, just north of Dublin. There's a little restaurant and gift shop. Great views of Dublin Bay from the villages along the way. Took about half a day.

Any other ideas for day trips from Dublin?

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Blue Bell, Pa: Inquiring early: we're heading to St. Kitts for a week; a family member is ill. Our cellphone carier is Cingular. Can you confirm if Cingular is reliable in this locale or do you recommend we purchase phone cards? I read Cingular now covers St. Kitts; carrier reply is not reassuring. Thanks in advance to the Flight Crew and knowledeable posters.

Cindy Loose: Cingular should be able to give you an answer, but if they can't--it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If what you want is for someone to be able to contact you at all times, so you can sit on the beach out of reach of your hotel and not be worried that someone is calling you--then I think you need a phone rental. If you're just looking to be able to call home cheaply, consider signing up for a service like MCI or Sprint that gives you an access code, or cheap calling cards, which you can research on line.

Anyone happen to have used a Cingular phone on St. Kitts?

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McPherson Square, Washington, DC: Hi Flight Crew,

I'm planning a cross-country move and have started to apply for positions out West. Assuming a company is interested in interviewing me in person, I will likely have to make a few last-minute travel arrangements without more than a week's notice, if that. Are there any last-minute travel sites you could recommend?

(Apologies if you've answered this in the past.)

Andrea Sachs: Priceline, 11th-Hour Vacations.com, weekly email deals through the major airlines, Site 59, Hotwire

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Juneau, Alaska: Traveling to London in April and finding hotels to be very expensive. Better to use hotel points and stay in main line hotels or try cheaper B&B's? Any good sites for good B&B's? Will be there 8 nights.

Anne McDonough: Coming up should be a link to a recent piece about renting apartments in London and Paris, might be just the thing for you.

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The joke that is TSA: What happens when someone from TSA finally goes to the Spy Museum, as I did with my family this weekend, and notices the "Rectal Escape Tool Kit"? I bet those lines get really long and people stop complaining about removing their shoes.

Steve Hendrix: There are four words in the above that have never, ever appear together in this chat. Can you find them?

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washingtonpost.com: Flat Sweet Flat , (Oct. 16, 2005)

Anne McDonough: For the London-bound. Thanks again, Kim!

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Greenville, SC: I am a BIG Independence Air fan. Since they have been flying to GSP airport I have been able to fly to Tampa to see relatives. I used to have to drive. I love FLYI. Do you think they will make it? I have been trying to get as much info from local news but I haven't heard much since they filed Chapter 11. If you haven't flown them. Do it...They are awesome.

Cindy Loose: I like them too. They have competed like made out of Dulles, and even people who didn't fly them will miss them if they go. But the reason you haven't read any more news since their filing---there hasn't been any. They set a 60-day "auction" period, so I guess everyone is waiting to see if an investor materializes.

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Arlington, Va.: Despite "the media's" annual scare campaign about the worst travel days of the year (!!!), I breezed through National on Wednesday morning last week for my 11:30 flight to Toronto. In fact I arrived two hours early which gave me about one hour and forty five minutes to sit at the gate and read the paper. My return trip was about the same, with wide open self check-in kiosks at Pearson and in a first absolutely NO LINE at all for US customs and immigration. The extra security and hand checking of all luggage going to National didn't slow me down much either. The airport didn't seem too busy when I arrived back here at 1 PM and our bags were arriving on the belt within ten minutes. I had a longer wait for a metro train than I did for my luggage. The only real slowdown I encountered on the whole trip was the overwhelmed Canadian immigration lines when I arrived in Toronto.

Steve Hendrix: Well, I'm not sure "the media" has been making this up. There have been plenty of travel meltdowns on these days in year's past.

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Arlington, Va.: Thanksgiving travel is usually a pain for me, but this year's was so much fun! I'm going to really miss independence air if they shut down. They were HYSTERICALLY funny at Dulles during thanksgiving. The "flyi guy" was there giving away tickets and being really funny with passengers. The lady next to me won a free roundtrip ticket for having the hardest last name to pronounce in the airport. Were they always this fun? If not, why did they start so late??

Cindy Loose: They've always tried to be light and breezy.

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New Jersey suburb: Carol, I checked out the airline's contract of carriage, and absolutely nothing was said about the amount of notice they have to give passengers when they say, "So sorry, your flight was canceled." It seems that they could even decide to cancel the flight one minute before boarding time. It just doesn't seem right that if a passenger has to change his plans, he gets hit in the wallet, but an airline can decide to inconvenience hundreds of people and it doesn't cost them one penny.

Carol Sottili: I didn't mean to infer that the contract of carriage would spell out how much time they had to cancel. As I said, they have lots of leeway and there are no laws about this. But the contract of carriage does spell out what they will do for you if they cancel.

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Highland, Md.: I routinely feel sick when reading in a car or just riding in the back seat. Should I expect to be sick on my first cruise (In early October from Baltimore to Bermuda on Royal Caribbean)? If so, what is the best way to deal with seasickness without feeling sleepy?

KC Summers: I don't think you'll have any problems, Highland. Those big ships have stabilizers that do their job so well you barely know you're on water -- in fact, on my last cruise I remember wishing I could feel a little motion, just so I'd feel like I was cruising.

Some people swear by those copper pressure-point bracelets, but I'm skeptical -- if you do develop a problem, I think you're better off with Dramamine or something like that. Ask your doctor.

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Washington DC: For the Japan-bound traveler asking about seats, check out seatguru.com. It has seat-by-seat commentary on every plane in the sky.

Also, I just wanted to thank United. Last week I was flying from Orlando back to Dulles and noticed that they had a flight to National leaving at the same time. I didn't think it would work, but I asked and they switched me to the National flight, saving me a lot of money and time getting home.

Cindy Loose: Thanks---I was trying to think of the name of that website when I answered the question. I would probably have come to me on the drive home, or in the shower. So thanks for that.

And hey, it never hurts to ask. Sometimes the airlines will just be nice for the heck of it, and sometimes it might even be to their advantage, like if the flight you were on is heavily booked, and the one that you'd like has more seats empty.

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Pittsburgh, Pa.: I can attest to the surprisingly easy travel over the holiday weekend. We traveled from Pittsburgh to Orlando on two of the supposedly worst travel days of the year (Wednesday depart, Sunday return) and on both ends of the trip, the Pittsburgh and Orlando airports, parking was a breeze, the security lines were very short, the flights left and arrived on time. We actually arrived at the Pittsburgh airport and hour and a half before our departure time thinking that the security line would be as bad as it was during the 4th of July weekend, and had enough time after going through security to stop for a leisurely lunch (rather than just grabbing something to take on the plane) before heading to our gate. The only snafu was that our daughter's stroller got lost somewhere between Pittsburgh and Orlando, and they didn't locate it until the day before we came home. Southwest Airlines did give us a $50 cash voucher for the mix-up and offered us a loaner stroller to use in the meantime. All in all, a surprisingly calm trip (and being able to spend 4 days in sunshine and 80 degree temps didn't hurt either - great to have family in the Sunshine State).

Steve Hendrix: Wow, a "loaner stroller." Cool. I wonder if they have loaner toothbrushes, tuxedo pumps, footie pajamas and other items that go missing in lost luggage.

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Telluride, Colo: Is there any way to get Phoenix to renumber the gates in the America West/Southwest terminal? Having two A concourses, two B concourses, two C's and two D's is simply very confusing. I go through Phoenix at least monthly, sometimes more often and it's maddening to see someone hurring to get to B-18 and go down the first B concourse, only to reach the end (B-14) and realize that B-18 is a half mile away.

Anne McDonough: If anyone from Sky Harbor's out there, your public calls!

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For NC in Las Vegas: Don't miss the opportunity to visit Death Valley National Park, a magnificent place, perfect in March (but don't plan to spend the night htere, it's probably already too late to get a hotel room in the park). But it's only 2 hours by car from Las Vegas. Also visit the Rimrock Recreation Area on the western outskirts of town. You'lkl need those visits as an escape from the glitz and glitter of Las Vegas, which you'll enjoy all hte more for the break.

John Deiner: Good stuff, though I don't think it's too late at all to find a room there. It's at least worth a try! The chichi Furnace Creek resort is great; while the other lodging options are a little more rustic, they're all clean and the folks working there are wonderful. Good tip!

_______________________

Deep Valley, USA: Delaware Toll plazas -

Doesn't everyone know the easy short cut that gets you around the 896 toll plaza (going north) with hardly any delay?

Get off at the last Maryland exit, take it toward Newark.

Pass the cheap liquor stores and turn right at route 4, take that to 896 and turn right. Go a mile or two then you can get back on 896 past the toll plaza.

Steve Hendrix: We post this without comment or, of course, endorsment.

_______________________

RE: TSA Shoes: Given how much I "love" the TSA, I can't believe I'm typing this but f one were to read the TSA's shoe policy, one would see that thickness of heels and soles have a lot to do with whether they want to examin them closer.

By the way, I am one of those unlucky folks with a name that seems to match one of those on their "watch list" so typing the above was difficult.

Steve Hendrix: Okay, that's only fair to note.

_______________________

Philadelphia, Pa.: Happy Thanksgiving. I just returned from a week vacation in Buenos Aires. I want to thank you for all the "right on" information in your porevious articles about Buenos Aires and Argentina. They were a big help!

Steve Hendrix: We're here to serve, Philly.

_______________________

Des Plaines, Ill: We have a timeshare vacation scheduled in Cancun (Jan 7-14). What might we expect with regard to restaurants, beaches, safety (personal and health)? Our timeshare website reports that they are up and running. Please advise. Thank you.

Cindy Loose: What the heck, I'll just fly down there tomorrow and check it out for you.

Ah, actually, I was already planning to do that, but I'm glad it will help you out. I'm thinking by Jan. 7 you should be fine, but I'll know more by the next chat---or check out the article that will run Sunday after this one.

_______________________

St. Paul, Minn: To the person spending Christmas in Paris -- you are lucky!! There is so much to see and do. Some restaurants that are open on Christmas eve and day: Le Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyons; le Bistrot de Breteuil in the 7th. Best to make reservations at both -- and they both have websites. You will find both filled with multi-generational families celebrating.

Gary Lee: Thanks. I can heartily recommend Le Train Bleu...

_______________________

Christmas in Paris: Christmas dinner at the Hotel Meurice CANNOT be beat. It's fabulous. Also, the Pompidou Center (modern art) is open on Christmas Day.

Gary Lee: Thanks for the tip...

_______________________

RE: Paris: I was in Paris a few years ago in December with a 2 year old. We took him to the Louvre, where they let him eat a lollipop in the museum! I think they were happy that he was being quiet.

Gary Lee: Thanks. In general, it is, in my experience, a very child-friendly town.

_______________________

Fun airport names...: Why don't more airports have them? Like "Sky Harbor"... it's fun to say and evokes a sense of modernity and adventure of travel. Stop naming airports after dead white men!

Steve Hendrix: Favorite airport name: Louis Armstrong International.

_______________________

Arlington, Va.: Hi. I'm looking for the best place to get a passport photo. I'd prefer the digital option. I think that you did an article that rated the different places. Could you please provide the link? Thanks!

washingtonpost.com: DC Passport Photos (pdf file)

Anne McDonough: Here you go, Arl.

_______________________

I-95 and a question: We left DC at 7:50 p.m. Tuesday night and flew up I-95 until we hit the George Washington Bridge. The lower level of the bridge was closed to traffic, so we lost 20-30 minutes in the toll lines waiting to cross (we have EZ Pass too). We still managed to make it to my parents in New Rochelle by 12:30 a.m., which is a Thanksgiving record. However, on the way home, we hit zero traffic and made the trip in 4 hours, 10 minutes.

Now my question: is there any chance of getting a decent price on a flight to Orlando over New Year's? If not, can you recommend another affordable New Year's vacation spot?

Carol Sottili: Depends what you call decent. Weekend fares to Orlando over New Years are now about $250 to $275 round trip, which isn't bad.

_______________________

Ballston, VA: Steve, if you don't know how to get around the DE toll plaza by now, your lovely wife needs to tell you. I grew up in Wilmington and any time my husband and I have to drive down 95 South lately, it seems like we have to use the shortcut...I prefer moving (even sitting at a couple of lights) to waiting in that awful traffic.

Steve Hendrix: What else isn't she telling me? I am really NOT the first boy she ever kissed? Don't tell me she doesn't really play chess every other night in that orphanage that doesn't have telephones?

_______________________

Gaithersburg, Md.: I have driven the route to cincy for 20 years. it is 7 1/2 to 81/2 hours depending on stops. Do not thake the Penn Turnpike!Go 70 west to Maryland rt. 68 to Morgantown WV, take 79 north to Washington Pa and pick up 70 agian to Columbus wher you go 71 sout to Cincy. 68 is a major highway that cuts out all the tolls and most of the trucks (too hilly) and is pretty to boot.

Steve Hendrix: Thanks for the tip, G'burg.

_______________________

Dublin day trip: Check out Newgrange--the neolithic passage tombs are incredible to behold. The site museum is also very informative and interesting.

KC Summers: Another good idea for the Dublin-bound. Thanks!

_______________________

London hotels: The poster may want to check out the London forum on tripadvisor.com - lots of excellent info on hotels, B&Bs, and apartment rentals there. It helps to consult a good guidebook beforehand, to have a rough idea of which attractions are in what neighborhoods. Also, when you post your question about lodging, give a rough per-night budget, so forumites will be able to give you recommendations according to your pocketbook.

I travel to London often, and have found lodging there to be cheaper than NYC. For example, in London I can always depend on finding a very clean, comfortable 3-star hotel for less than $100/night for a single room (including tax and breakfast), even with a weak dollar. I've never been able to find anything comparable in NYC.

Anne McDonough: Thanks for these, and for the excellent suggestion about including price ranges when posting questions. Every bit of info helps.

_______________________

Steve Hendrix: Okay folks, that's it for this week's episode. The cheap gimcrack goes to Christmas Driving Question, because I feel sorry that her lammo husband forgot to book the tix and now they are stuck driving. Christmas Driving Question, send your contact info to Travel@washpost.com and we'll whip you a genuine tiny plastic airplane kit and a swell ink pen from somthing called Skylofts.

Thanks all. Same time next week.

_______________________

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

The Other Half

2005-12-07T10:25:00.000+01:00

Byline: Carol Wilson

About eight years ago, my sisters and I gave my mom, then in her late 60s, a computer with cable modem service for Christmas. Two weeks later, she called me to sadly report that she was taking it back to the store, based on instructions from the local police. Inquiring further, I discovered that she'd gotten one of those annoying Windows 95 messages - "Your computer has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." In her world, illegal had only one meaning, so Mom just assumed the message was from the local police, who somehow - through Internet magic - had detected her PC's nefarious behavior. It never occurred to her that all she had to do was turn the machine off and then back on - after all, rebooting doesn't work for washing machines, cars, vacuum cleaners or any other modern appliances with which my mom is familiar. Unfortunately for service providers, particularly telcos with their low-cost DSL offerings, broadband users are beginning to look a lot like my mom, or at least react as she does. This new user group will, in some ways, resemble first-generation immigrants. These are the folks who never learned to speak the language all that well and therefore relied on their savvy grandchildren to help them navigate a strange part of the planet. Of course, not all of them are that old since this is less a matter of age than of familiarity with technology. In all the discussion of the digital living room, it's wise to remember there is a substantial part of the population for whom pods carry seeds and Google is not a verb.

US Online holiday sales expected to reach almost USD20bn

2005-12-07T10:24:00.000+01:00

Online holiday sales in the US are expected to reach almost USD20bn this year, with consumers returning to work after the Thanksgiving weekend and using fast Internet connections to place orders.

The Monday following the Thanksgiving celebrations has become known as 'Cyber Monday', with sales and discounts introduced by online retailers to generate traffic, the online equivalent of 'Black Friday'.

comScore Networks said consumers are expected to spend about USD19.6bn through US Internet sites during November and December, for non-travel goods, representing an increase of 24%, from USD15.8bn in the same period in 2004. The figures do not include sales on auction sites such as eBay Inc, or large corporate purchases, and account for under 5% of the US's total holiday sales.

According to Ernst & Young, the majority of people shop online at work, rather than at home, due to the faster connections often available. Traditional retailers have invested in their websites and many allow online purchases to be returned to physical stores for return, an issue which has overtaken security as a concern for consumers when shopping online.

A survey from Shop.org, an online retailer association, revealed that free shopping offers are a big draw for online consumers - in addition the avoidance of driving costs and queueing instore have encouraged online purchasing growth. Jupiter Research said many consumers feel they can find better choice and deals online, although it claimed sales and coupons can result in better instore offers.

((Comments on this story may be sent to info@m2.com))

And a cartridge in a bare tree

2005-12-07T10:23:00.000+01:00

I've written three Christmas Gift Guides for three different gun-and-cop magazines in the past two weeks, and it just hit me that ain't nobody, nobody, ever inquired once what I might want for Christmas! What's wrong with this picture, pals? Now admittedly, that might be partially ascribed to the fact that it's mid-sweltering-summer as I write this for Pete's sake. but if I can whup up some festiveChristmassy-cheer and fat-man-in-a-fur-suit gift-giving enthusiasm while sweatin' out juices like a six-pound London Broil in a crock-pot cooker, then why can't somebody else?

I checked with my wife. the Memsaab Helena. She just smiles, bats those big blues, and gives me a little hip-bump while passin' me in the hall.

"I know what you want. cave man." she breathes, and somehow I forget the subject--sometimes my middle name, too.

And I won't toss hints at my editors. His Imperial Editoriality Roy Huntington always sends me a gift. but ... one year it was a case of two dozen dry-iced "gourmet treats"--genuine Coney Island Rat-On-A-Stick! Another time, he sent me a nicely framed photo of Himself and Suzie enjoying their Christmas vacation on a sparkly beach in Aruba. The scribble read. "Connor: Had a wonderful time--YOU WEREN'T THERE! HaHaHaHa!!!"

My gift-history with Jeff John here at GUNS Magazine only goes back one year. He sent me an autographed copy of the Deadline Schedule. The one for the past year. With red-slashed notes on deadlines I missed. Yeah: that got me all warm and fuzzy

I Don't Want Much, Really

My kids suggest coming up with gift ideas for me is impossible, 'cause I already have everything I want. I think that's a cop-out; an excuse for lack of imagination. I can think of several cool things I want, and with all this high-tech dot-commery, nano-technology an genetical-engineery stuff we have today, they dang sure ought to be available.

I'm continually amazed at the kinda junk that sells for BigBucks on e-Bay, dudes. My son auctioned off a rusty Saab V-3 hub cap for $35, and the Memsaab made a killing on sales of a buncha old. decapitated Barbie dolls that somehow sent our daughter. Little Red. into a frenzy of mutilation when she was Little-Teensy-Red.

I want G-Bay!--a worldwide clearing house for gun-junk! My first ad would be for a "Big Box Fulla Useless GunLeather." One piece is a vintage SuperSafetySaddleScabbard from the now-defunct Wild Hoss Leather Co. Using a conglomo-combination of Velcro. key-locks, compression straps, Chinese-puzzle-buckles and industrial magnets, it was designed to keep your saddle-gun securely ensconced in your scabbard no matter how high, hard, and hairy your broomtailed trail-nag bucked.

It worked--too well. Tearing the Velcro loose activated the magnets. Popping the magnets free cinched up the compression straps. Messing with the compression straps caused the Chinese puzzle buckles to engage. I'll have to sell it with a Winchester 94 .30-30 in it. It ain't coming out. Not in one piece, anyway and I'm not gonna take a cutting torch to it.

Also in that box is my gunwriter-sample of the failed prototype Speed-Slick Competition Rig from Air-Launch Holsters. Inc. This forward-canted hip-hanger employed an infrared beam to detect drawing-hand movement, and a C[O.sub.2]-powered pneumatic pump. It was supposed to activate when you began your drawing stroke, an' boost the pistol up into your waiting mitt. The timing, however, needed work. and the air-powered Roscoe-lifter was, shall we say, a bit "exuberant." If I wiggled my fingers or shrugged my right shoulder, it Munched my 1911 like a non-ballistic missile, to land about 15 yards downrange.

It "flung" pretty good groups, I gotta say: With practice, I could get eight outta 10 throws" into a 30-gallon garbage can at 40'. The same company made an internal assembly for 1911s called the "MagAirAssist." Hit the mag release, and it would shoot your empty mag out so hard it would either fracture foot-bones or spike the mag 2" into the ground.

Service-Serpents, Etc ...

And, I want bore snakes! No, not Bore Snake pull-through cleaners, not the regular kind, anyway. I mean living, breathing, slithering, armorer-trained bore snakes! Kept in your gun safe, all you'd have to do is place your dirty weapons inside with their actions open, close the door and leave. Your bore snakes would then slither-an'-slide in, out, and over 'em, cleaning and lubing your shooters while you snooze. They should feed exclusively on grit, dust, and carbon deposits, but I wouldn't mind tossin' 'era a mouse now and then.

Now, for a "Range Bag," versus a "range-bag," I ...

(Editor's Note: We're cutting Connor off right here, before he irreparably insults muscular, older women who wear canvas aprons with large pockets and don't mind packing guns and picking up empty brass. I don't need the grief And I know what I'm giving him for Christmas, and this year it won't be autographed--Jeff John) P.S. Say something gushy and Christmassy (before he cries anymore crocodile tears) to Connor at TheOddAngryShot@yahoo.com

What card

2005-12-07T10:21:00.001+01:00

Sure, shooting off e-cards is the quick-n-easy way out, but it is kinda cold and impersonal. So, instead, make your Christmas cards shout, "I not only thought of you--but I took the time to make your card from scratch because you totally rock!" We love using the collage technique. Here's how ya do it ....

What you need

blank sheets of white paper * acrylic craft paints * paint brushes * scissors * glue * felt-tip marker

1 In Collage with Color, author Jane Davies, recommends using printmaking papers, available at art supply stores. The price of printmaking papers can be intimidating, but not all drawing papers take paint well. If, however, drawing paper is better suited to your budget, use it. If your paper curls or buckles after the paint is dry, flatten it by placing a piece of waxed paper over it and weighting it down with several heavy books overnight.

2 Start by making patterned papers, creating designs consisting of a motif (holly leaves, swirls, stripes, squares) repeated randomly or in rows. First, create a back ground by painting each sheet in a base color. Because you will be creating patterns and textures over the background, an even layer of paint is not necessary--the variations will add character to your finished pattern. If you want, you can use a palette knife, sponge or brush strokes to add texture to your background. Let dry.

3 Using colors closely related or highly contrasting to the background color (it's up to you!), decorate your papers with patterns using simple brushstrokes, such as lines, checks and swirls. Sponges, stencils and stamps work well, too, for creating patterns. Let dry completely. Wash brushes, sponges and other tools immediately after use.

4 Fold a piece of heavy paper, cut to the size you want, and decorate it with collage cut-outs. Just cut shapes from your patterned papers to make trees, holly, ornaments or gifts, and glue them onto the fronts of your folded paper. There are no rules--let your artistic vision guide your design.

5 Use the marker to write a personal message inside the card, and send it off.

The .22s of Rhineland Arms

2005-12-07T10:21:00.000+01:00

It's amazing to see some of the creative products flowing from smaller gunmakers around the country. Rhineland Arms of Lewisville, Texas, is one of those hot beds of innovation. Rhineland has appeared between the covers of GUNS before. They're the outfit that supplies those neat, do-it-yourself kits for converting surplus Mausers and Enfields into handy .45 ACP-chambered carbines. Their latest venture into high-tech rimfires is just as interesting. Rhineland calls their new rimfire the R22.

The head honcho, gun designer and machinist at Rhineland Arms is Thomas Seidel. When I asked Seidel what he was trying to achieve in bringing to the marketplace another .22 autoloader, he said, "I set out to make an attractive target rifle that would cost less than $500, look good--indeed, look distinctive--and still be California approved. At the same time I wanted to use as many existing parts as possible to give the customer the ability to fine tune the rifle to his needs inexpensively.

Best Of All Worlds

"The bolt is a slightly modified Ruger 10/22 bolt and feeds from standard Ruger rotary magazines. The trigger is a standard AR-15 trigger, and the trigger pack can accept aftermarket AR-15 target trigger assemblies. The button-rifled barrel with my special chamber is free-floating within the handguard, and headspace is adjusted using the Savage-type locking nut system. Barrels can be easily changed," Seidel added.

"I machine the receiver, trigger housing and magazine well from solid 6061 aluminum while the scope rail/handguard is machined from an extrusion. The stock is a scaled-down HK variant. All the major assemblies are held together by 5/32 hex-head bolts and can be readily separated for cleaning, modification or repair.

"I am sure I put more math into this rifle than I ever did into my high school and college homework."

Sci-Fi Looks

Before long, I had two R22s to examine and shoot. A sporter with a 3/4" diameter barrel, and a 1" bull-barreled model. To say they look "distinctive" is an understatement. The R22 looks like it just came off a Star Wars movie set. It is racy, it is spacey and between its anodized aluminum and blued metal, it is black, but it is made like a Swiss watch. The machining, assembly, and finish on all parts are first rate.

The button-rifled barrels are made from tough 4140 steel and meet the minimum barrel length requirement by being 16.5" long. A straight lathe cut across the end of the barrel completes the crown.

One of the most distinctive parts of the R22 has to be the massive ventilated scope rail and handguard with the cross-section of a FN/FAL forearm. The Picatinny rib alone is 17" long permitting the mounting of any type of sighting device. What's not obvious from the pictures is the handguard is drilled and tapped in a number places for other accessory mounts including sling swivels. The handguard is very hand filling, plus, being flat on the bottom, it's a stable platform over the bags.

The R22 is a comfortable rifle to shoot. The AR-15-type pistol grip with the selector-switch-safety at your right thumb gives you the familiar feel of an AR-15. The trigger pull on the R22s measured 5.5 pounds. The sporter trigger had a bit of creep, though. The straight stock and comb line feel good and correctly position your eye down the Picatinny rail. They're chunky rifles. The sporter weighs 6.75 pounds and measures 35" overall while the bull-barrel model weighs in at 8.25 pounds.

Accurate And Fun

How did they perform? Like all .22s, they had their likes and dislikes when it came to ammunition. The bull-barrel model liked them hot and turned in its best 50-yard performance with PMC Zapper (1/4") and Aguila Super Maximum (5/16" at 1,650 fps!). The sporter barrel did, too, with 1/2" groups being generated with PMC Zapper, Aguila Super Maximum, CCI Stinger, and Winchester Super-X HE The target ammunition on hand was Federal Champion, and it delivered 3/8" groups in both guns.

The only serious feeding problem I had was with Winchester Power Points. The R22 didn't care for the broad hollowpoint nose of the Power Points one bit.

Working with both the steel lipped and plastic "Hot Lips" magazines by Butler Creek, I would highly recommend the steel-lipped magazines for the utmost reliability and longevity.

I might add that all the testing was done with a loaner Leupold 4-12X VX-II with adjustable objective, and I was quite impressed with its clarity and adjustments.

In closing, I asked Seidel what Rhineland Arms had in the works for the future. "Well, we're now chambering the R22 in Hornady's .17 Mach 2 and we'll have a HK MP5-looking model by Christmas," he said, "and hopefully, I will not see a Chinese copy!"

R22

Maker: Rhineland Arms, Inc.
1301, W. FM 407, Suite 201
Lewisville, TX 75077
(972) 342-2105
www.rhinelandarms.com

  ACTION TYPE: Semi-auto, blowback
      CALIBER: .22 Long Rifle
     CAPACITY: 10 (also uses hi-cap mags)
BARREL LENGTH: 16.5"
OVERALL LENGTH: 35"
       WEIGHT: 6.75-8.25 pounds
       FINISH: Blackened
       SIGHTS: Picatinny rail
        STOCK: Synthetic
        PRICE: $425 in 22 LR;
               $440 in .17 Mach 2
        SCOPE: Leupold VX-II
        POWER: 4-12x40mm
       CLICKS: 1/4 MOA
   EYE RELIEF: 4.7" (4X), 3.7" (12X)
    OBJECTIVE: Adjustable

Bound by mixing bowls & recipes: through a holiday memory, one woman discovers that cooking isn't just about food

2005-12-07T10:20:00.000+01:00

I don't cook on a regular day, let alone a holiday. As soon as someone even mentions cooking to me, I have a classic, conditioned response involving my eyeballs immediately rolling up into my head. (Pavlov's dogs have nothing on me.) My non-cooking ability is so profound that my friends mock it.

I'm not sure why I'm so kitchen-incompetent since I'm from a long line of women who make Martha Stewart look like an amateur. One day I'm 11 and in the kitchen with my mom while she cooks a Christmas dinner she could sell tickets to. The next, I'm 36 and overworked, living on takeout.

As I spent time thinking about all the Christmas dinners my mom has cooked compared to the, uh, none that I have, it came to me without warning: I can cook. I have cooked. And for a Christmas dinner no less! I made my grandmother's strawberry bread recipe and produced the kind of mouth-watering deliciousness people should write poetry about.

I was in high school, and it was a Christmas like all the others then. My dad walked around the house in his candy cane socks singing carols. And my mom was in the kitchen fixing up a feast fit for 50 kings.

My two grandmothers were there helping, too, just like they always did then. And in between the noises of pots clanging on the stove and pans banging into the oven was the sound I have come to associate so fondly with all of my holiday memories: the constant, almost musical chatter among women packed happily together into a slightly too small kitchen, bumping elbows while still successfully managing to cook 10 things at once.

Of course, I was hanging around too. Even then, I had already begun carefully crafting my life into the no-cook zone I occupy today. As such, my own contributions to these events were usually confined to activities that didn't involve knowing my teaspoon from my tablespoon. I'd organize the relish tray or arrange the rolls on the baking sheet. But for whatever reason that year, I agreed to my grandmother's request to make her strawberry bread.

I know what you're thinking: There's no way that bread came out okay, let alone delicious. Maybe not. Truthfully, I don't really remember. (I know I said it was great earlier, but that was just my ploy to keep you here!) Want to know what I do remember? How I felt like a part of something that day. Not just the chatter--though I was--and not just the tradition of cooking Christmas dinner--though I was a part of that too. More importantly, I felt like a connected part of three generations of women, creating history together by creating a meal together. Bound by blood and bound, in a sense, by something as simple and as complex as mixing bowls and family recipes.

That's the thing about cooking: Sure, eating fuels our bodies and keeps us alive, but to so many people, it's the act, the art of cooking that gives sustenance to the soul. It's family history--a common experience passed down through generations. In a world that moves too fast and spends too much time looking ahead, it anchors us to our past. When we bake bread, we know our grandmothers and their grandmothers before them also baked bread. That's a tradition worth honoring beyond the holiday season.

As for my future in feast preparations, let's be frank: My favorite foods remain the ones someone else cooks for me. But as the holidays come around again, I'm fairly certain I'll try my hand once more at strawberry bread--for my grandmother, whom I dearly miss, and for my mocking friends, who'll shortly be getting free samples.

Now who's panicked?

grandmother's
strawberry bread

Serves 16

2 10-oz, pkg. frozen strawberries, thawed
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups canola oil
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup chopped nuts
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and
flour two 9x5-inch loaf pans.

2. Combine strawberries, eggs and oil
in medium bowl.

3. Combine flour, sugar, nuts,
cinnamon, baking soda and salt
in large bowl.

4. Add strawberry mixture to dry
ingredients, and stir until blended.

5. Pour into pans, and bake 1 hour, or
until toothpick inserted into middle
of loaf comes out clean.

PER SERVING: 408 CAL; 6G PROT;
23G TOTAL FAT (2G SAT. FAT);
47G CARB; 53MG CHOL; 241MG SOD;
2G FIBER; 26G SUGARS

A Christmas gift guide for the serving soldier: the scoop on shipments to Grunts in "The Sandbox"

2005-12-07T10:18:00.000+01:00

The good news is, the military has really relaxed its former policy of: "If we don't issue it, you can't have it," so personally-owned items of all kinds can be used and enjoyed by deployed troops. The bad news is, it's gotta be acquired "on your own hook," and our lads and ladies in The Sandbox don't get much chance to sashay through the sidewalk marketplaces for comfort-and-convenience items--which mostly ain't in the inventory anyway. That's where you friends-and-family folks come in. More good news: almost all of our troops in Iraq operate out of base camps where they can semi-safely stash goodies that can't or shouldn't be carried in their combat load-out, so don't worry too much about that.

Check the appropriate shipping regulations carefully before packin' presents, and if anything you're sending could be confused with contraband, don't seal parcels until you ship 'em. Inspection may be required. Think "fortress" rather than "flimsy" on containers. Once your packages bounce into Baghdad, they're trucked--not very tenderly--to the boondocks. Mom's cookies often arrive separated into their original components of sugar, flour, and oatmeal--more suitable for snorting than nibbling. Send jerky instead, and lots of it. Oh, by the way, the Post Office has a full-blown cat over shipping aerosol cans. Try not to.

Line stout boxes with copies of GUNS, American Handgunner, and sports magazines. They're enjoyed by all, then traded and bartered with. Prime package padding includes 5.11 socks, UnderArmour "Heat Gear" (or their "Cold Gear," depending) undershorts, and sealed, pre-moistened antibacterial towelettes, like the 15-packs of 7"x6" wipes available from Rite Aid drug stores. Send plenty. They're refreshing in the heat, and a "field bath" in the cold. Fill out empty space with hand sanitizer gels and body lotions--unscented, please! Fruity aromas can draw both bugs, and bullets-in-the-dark. Slide pre-paid phone cards into crevices, and you'll be blessed many times over.

Electro-gizmos are best shipped with batteries out, but packed with lots of spares. Lithium CR123 batteries are scarce, and lithium coin-cells and button-batts even more so. D-cells are less difficult to find, but less demanded, and AA's are generally available. Send lots, but make sure they're packed without anything resembling wires around them.

Major Howard Hall, USMC, is our top GUNS-guy in Fallujah, where he's training Iraqi security forces. Howard's input on parcels may not apply everywhere--Iraq's a big country--but serve as a general guide. He reports the US Postal Service Priority Mail seems fast and certain, averaging 10 days from CONUS to his bunker. First Class takes about 21 days, and UPS parcels take about a month. Size and weight are always considerations, and make sure valuable contents are insured Howard says the only thing worse than a package not arriving is learning that your friends and loved ones suffered a financial loss for their generosity.

Take Charge

As I write this, it's a crisp, cool 105 degrees! at 2000 (8:00 PM) in Baghdad, and the forecast for next week averages 115-plus at noon. But, up in the mountains of Kurd country and the Iranian border, other friends of ours are freezing. Know where your troops are, and make allowances for changing seasons, too.

Now, here's a personal plea from a guy who's Been There & Done That: If you don't have a buddy, brother, or sister in The Sandbox, think about playing Santa to somebody else's son. My pal Howard Hall and his crew will rotate back stateside before Christmas, but other Marines will take their place. The unit's address is:

Military Transition Team

Second Brigade, 1st Div., Iraqi

Intervention Forces

Camp Fallujah, Iraq

APO-AE 09387

All should give some. Some will give all.--Connor.

Widgets For Warriors, Gizmos For Grunts

Yeah, yeah, I know. You glanced at the title, blew through the first paragraph, zoomed over the photos, and you're sayin'. "This clown wants me to give my brother in Basra some used sandals, weird hippie beads, some kinda rubber rope-thingie and an orange plastic door-stop? What's goin' on?" Listen up to the clown. OK?

The value of some of these items should be obvious, while others, admittedly, may seem a trifle strange. But combat is a strange, strange world, with a weird mix of medieval and modern conditions, stone age and silicon-chip needs. There were times I woulda traded my favorite knife for the use of some fine-point tweezers; given up ammo to know what the heck the barometer was doing, and kissed the bloomin' boots of 'im who could tell me--within 10 square miles--exactly where I was. Read on, and believe me--these goodies can be solid gold to the Grunt who needs 'em.

The Eyes Have It

Blackhawk has your Grunt's Mark-I eyeballs covered. Their wrap-around shooting glasses are light and comfy, and when the shamal storms blow, HellStorm Tactical Assault Goggles are a big improvement over mil-issue dust goggles, and fit the PASGT helmet perfectly. Both feature interchangeable polycarbonate lenses and 99.9 Percent UV protection. Great gear!

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Odd But Good

Grunts in Iraq have learned that the "shemagh"--traditional Arab headgear--also makes a fine scarf, field towel, sweat mop, sunshade, sling and more, but have trouble getting them in Iraq! Send one in khaki/black, one in green/black. They're available from Brigade Quartermasters and others. The Zeiss Scopz shooting glasses in neutral gray are superb quality, and they stay put through falls, fire-fights and fumbles.

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Sharp Stuff

Clockwise from 12, Gerber's LMF II "Infantry" was designed and built for the field soldier, with a hammer butt, sheath-integrated sharpening system and more. You'll want to keep it just for the grip and balance. Send it! Spyderco's "Military" is lean, light, and lives up to its name. The titanium-framed 3G from "Combat Elite" is nearly bombproof, and a fitting gift for your brother in Baquba. The "Shrapnel" by Extrema Ratio is single-billet tough and sleek, with a cobalt-stainless blade.

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Strange? Nah!

In the "Essential Oddities" category, that rubber-rope thingie is McNett's GruntLine. An indispensable braid of live rubber with clips at both ends. it's a bungee, tourniquet, lanyard, clothesline, gear strap, and 52 other things. Send at least two. The funky orange polymer blocks are Sniper Training Cube reactive targets from Just Shoot Me Products'. Troops in-country train constantly, and this is one tough, durable, jumping, spinning, challenging target. My well-used one on the right has now sucked up over 14,000 rounds of 5.56mm, 8,200 7.62mm, and 578 rounds of .50 BMG. She still dances delightfully every time the music plays. By the time you read this, the Pistol Cube will be available, too.

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Better Than A Bowie

Mere possession of SOG's PowerLock equals platoon-wide popularity. This rugged tool, featuring compound leverage pliers, should be issued to every soldier and Marine. DoD won't do it, so you should. Toss in some heavy upholstery needles and OD waxed linen thread for repairing harness gear. Keep its little angle-headed cousin. the ParaTool, for yourself.

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Magazine Care

Magazines are unloaded, cleaned and reloaded as often as weapons, and you don't want your mags empty any longer than necessary. Michaels of Oregon's Butler Creek division now distributes the LULA magazine loader/unloader, and it's the best I've ever seen, period. Simply snap it on a loaded M16/AR-15 mag and flip the lever back and forth to unload in a flash, then reload as fast as you can drop rounds in and repeat.

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Columbus Didn't Have It This Good

But when microchips fail and batteries fade, you'd better have low-tech backups. The Brunton Eclipse compass replaced my Marine-issue lensatic, and is the best unit available. Those funny-lookin' beads are "pace counter" beads, available from Brigade Quartermaster and others. Figure out your own stride, but for me, every 65 times my left foot lands I've done 100 meters, and I pull one of the nine beads down from the lower group. When they're all down, pull one (kilometer) bead down from the upper group. Re-set every 5,000 meters. I've "boxed the compass" over 14 miles of broken mountains with 'em and come out within 100 meters from start-point. The plastic rectangle is a GR2 UTM Grid Reader, for military and USGS maps, and every map-readin' Grunt needs one.

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Clean Scene

Iraq and Afghanistan are the world's greatest sources of grit and dust. Weapons cleaning is a marathon mantra, and the issue PM gear, frankly, sucks. Send Otis "Tactical" cleaning systems, Bore Snake pull-through cleaners, and lots of cheap, hard-bristle toothbrushes. Lone Wolf's Ultimate Armorer's Tool looks like a pen and packs a stiff brush, screwdriver, hex nut driver, and pin punch into a brass barrel--not just for Glocks. Major Hall named Militec-1 Strike Hold and KG-1 Carbon Remover as top choices, and McNett Op-Drops keeps glasses and optics clear and fog-free.

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Upside Of Downtime

So, what's there to read by that light? I mean, besides GUNS and Handgunner? My pal Robert Boatman is a classically educated brutish Neanderthal--and a dang fine shooter and writer. His latest is Living with the 1911--A Fresh Look at the Fighting Gun. Team it up with his excellent Living with Glocks, and Living with the Big .50, and you've got a winter's worth of info-tainment.

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Be Where When?

The Suunto X-Lander is a weatherproof multi-feature watch plus digital compass, altimeter and barometer, with memory and deviation/difference recordings--invaluable in the field. The new Suunto X9M has all that plus a GPS system expressly designed for military users like reconnaissance and forward observation team leaders. It has too many features to list here, so I'll just say, "Fifty routes, 500 waypoints, accurate to one meter." It's worth your life.

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The Sawyer Extractor Kit

This goodie saves lives and significantly reduces suffering from bites and stings of all kinds. Topical treatment isn't enough--you've gotta get the neuro-, necro-, and hemotoxins out! Add fine-point sliver-gripper tweezers for stingers and splinters. They're treasured in the field.

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More Light For The Night

Major Hall specifically named SureFire's A2 "Aviator" (Model A2-HA-RD) tactical light as a Fallujah favorite, praising its unique microprocessor-controlled switching system for momentary or constant-on choice of three red LED's or a dazzling white Xenon spotlight. SureFire also has the best deal around on US-made lithium CR123 batteries, at $15 per dozen. The runt on the left is a short, fat 4-AA-cell flashlight from Coleman. Pull the barrel open, and it morphs into a stable little reading lantern. It's sold super-cheap in a blister pack with a clunky matching D-cell flashlight. Hang the "D" one by the basement stairs, and send the "flash-lantern" to your cousin in Kirkuk.

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Survival Kit For Survivors

Most "survival kits" are "survival toys," but Survival Inc.'s DeLuxe Tool Kit delivers. It packs a "BlastMatch" magnesium fire-starter, "WetFire" smokeless, odorless non-toxic tinder that lights better wet than dry, a "StarFlash signal mirror, "JetScream" whistle, and the "SaberCut" Saw, a bi-directional flexible chain saw--that works!--in a waterproof case.

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A Light For All Occasion

Rotate the bezel of Gerber's stubby RECON LED light, and you get red light for preserving night vision, blue for detecting blood and body fluids, soft white for general use, and green for topo map reading. In the dark, match flats on the head and bezel by finger-touch, and you're sure to have the red light on. The three-watt Gerber TX3.0 LED makes a great impact weapon as well as a tough, anti-roll tactical light. Both run on plentiful AA batteries.

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Happy Pups

Good footgear is dead-serious Grunt-stuff. When a Grunt strips off his combat boots in base camp after 96 straight in 'em, he's gotta have comfortable footgear he can run and fight in if necessary. Chaco Z/1 Terreno sandals have tough Vibram soles, secure heel-straps, strong molded arches for big ground-pounders, they shed sand well, and they're amphibious. Don't even look at the Z/2's, or cheaper substitutes.

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SAWYER EXTRACTOR KITS,

UTM READERS, ETC.

ANY SPORTING GOODS/OUTDOOR SUPPLY

CHACO Z/1'S

OUTDOOR SUPPLIERS LIKE EASTERN

MOUNTAIN SPORTS,

DICK'S, GALYAN'S ETC.

COMPASS, GPS

BRUNTON

(307) 856-6559, WWW.BRUNTON.COM

SUUNTO

(800) 543-9124, WWW.SUUNTOUSA.COM

KNIVES

SPYDERCO

(800) 525-7770, WWW.SPYDERCO.COM

GERBER

(800) 950-6161, WWW.GERBERGEAR.COM

EXTREMA RATIO KNIVES

(435) 865-0050, WWW.EXXCESS.INFO

FLASHLIGHTS

SUREFIRE

(800) 828-8809, WWW.SUREFIRE.COM

BOATMAN'S BOOKS

PALADIN PRESS

(303) 443-7250,

WWW.PALADIN-PRESS.COM

SURVIVAL KIT

(800) 292-4707, WWW.SURVIVALINC.COM

TACTICAL ACCESSORIES

BLACKHAWK INDUSTRIES

(800) 694-5263,

WWW.BLACKHAWKINDUSTRIES.COM

SHEMAGHS, PACE-COUNTER BEADS, ETC.

BRIGADE QUARTERMASTERS

(800) 338-4327, WWW.ACTIONGEAR.COM

LONE WOLF (GLOCK GOODIES)

208-437-0612, WWW.LONEWOLFDIST.COM

LULA LOADER

BUTLER CREEK

(800) 948-1356, WWW.BUTLERCREEK.COM

CUBES FROM JUST SHOOT ME PRODUCTS

(317) 994-5597, WWW.BALLISTICTEC.COM

ZEISS SHOOTING GLASSES

(800) 441-3005, WWW.ZEISS.COM

MCNETT PRODUCTS (ANTI-FOG SOLUTION)

(360) 671-2227, WWW.MCNETT.COM

COLEMAN PRODUCTS

GO TO ARMY NAVY SURPLUS, WAL-MART

OTIS CLEANING KITS, BORE SNAKE, OTHER

CLEANING NECESSITIES

GUN SHOPS

Next action hero

2005-12-07T10:17:00.000+01:00

"I want my star on the Walk of Fame," says Kevin Levrone, "I didn't get my Sandow, so a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame will be my Sandow." Although Kevin is along way from his dream--he's sitting in a balcony dive bar in a sparsely populated part of the Caribbean island of Trinidad, drinking raspberry vodka and "Coke Light" over melting ice--he may be much closer to realizing that dream than geography would predict.

The bartender of De Monkey Bar is a pudgy guy of Hindu origins, and Kevin calls him Rambo--it's the sort of non sequitur that makes enough sense in these unfamiliar surroundings that you just don't question it. If De Monkey Bar had any other patron, you'd expect it to be Ernest Hemingway, slurring stories of how the big one got away.

Kevin has come to Trinidad to film a substantial role in the action thriller Backlash from Triton Northstar Entertainment. "When I first landed the role, I called Arnold to ask him how much I should get paid. He told me, 'Do it for the publicity and for your career.' I said, 'Yeah. But how much should I get paid?'" Kevin Levrone thinks in these sweeping swaths rather than increments. Maybe that's why--less than a year after moving to Hollywood--he has already found success in the film industry.

CHARACTER ASSASSINATION

His character in Backlash is killer-for-hire Gunner "Turk" Tester, an ex-CIA agent. "The character is on the page, but I feel like I found him," Kevin says, tugging at the hand towel around his neck; all he's wearing is a baggy pair of shorts and the towel. "That's what I love about acting. I listen to opera. I'm a CIA operative. I wear a suit--all black--but when the fighting starts, I take it off and fold it neatly." Kevin doesn't even notice he has blurred the line between self and character: He could be a Caribbean killer, sitting at a rattan table in Trinidad, contemplating the assassination of the American journalist across from him. But then the real Levrone calls, "Hey, Rambo. Bring us another round."

Kevin is now a toned-down 210 pounds, the right size for a muscle screen star. Any more and he might look comical onscreen, cartoonish rather than frightening or impressive. While he might not place as well on the Olympia stage, he looks better--more handsome--than he ever has. "I can have any look I want to have," he says. "Do you want me to weigh 240 to play the next Terminator? Give me six weeks. Do you want me to slim down to 200? Give me a few days." Kevin's penchant for quickly transforming his physique before bodybuilding shows indicates that this is not an exaggeration. There's method acting and there's muscle memory. Kevin has welded the two together: Call it Method Muscle.

THE SECRET SHARER

Joseph Conrad wrote about imperialism in remote corners of the world, and in some ways, that echoes Kevin's new goal: Conquer the world of Hollywood through this foray into the tropics. In one of Conrad's works, The Secret Sharer, a young ship's captain secretly allows an interloper aboard his ship. As the story progresses, the question arises: Is the stowaway a separate person or just the dark nature of the captain?

It's interesting how Conrad's story mirrors the themes of Kevin's life. Around the Weider office, he has been known for years as the Jekyll and Hyde of bodybuilding. The good Kevin calls up for no reason, just to chat. The bad Kevin doesn't call back. Or worse, picks up the phone in a surly mood, "Yeah?" and barely knows who you are. But, now, here he is assuming yet another persona, sitting in a back-water bar in Trinidad, hired by Hollywood to be an assassin. Kevin's own history is rife with these Conradian dichotomies and dualities.

"Villains are very interesting. What are they thinking about when they kill someone? I want to be an actor because I want to explore the range of emotions. Don't get me wrong, though, I love recognition. I loved being on a body-building stage, not just for the attention but also for the reward. In one moment, you get your reward, and then you walk away and it's done. I'm finished competing. I've reached the top. And I want another challenge."

LOCAL COLOR

Backlash is shooting at various locales throughout Trinidad. One day, the production shoots near The Savannah, the Central Park of Trinidad. To the ugly-American eye it looks like a vast and patchy soccer field, bordered by stockyards, grain silos and the clanging docks of Port au Spain. The locals are very proud of The Savannah, and the decaying Colonial mansions that flank one side are simultaneously a source of nationalism and a middle finger to the oppression of the past.

Crowds gather to watch the film shoot, and the hometown press has collectively interviewed all the stars in an early production blitz. Seemingly, everyone on the island knows about Backlash. At each locale, groups form that look like casual Friday at the U.N. Trinidad is sultry but not unpleasant, and its racial diversity dates back to the days of the slave trade, followed by an influx of Chinese, Hindus and the imperialists from Europe. Today, all these groups are represented on the streets of Port au Spain.

This is the rainy season--it runs from June to December--and at least once a day a deluge brings production to an abrupt halt. Rain falls for 15-20 minutes, then the skies clear and production resumes with the pavement still steaming.

The locals are friendly and offer an idyllic but cautionary version of their part of the world. "On a clear day, you can see Venezuela," a cab driver says en route from the airport, pointing at the horizon. The oil-rich nation lies through the haze, 7 miles beyond his fingertip.

"What's it like?"

"It's beautiful. Don't go." The breaking news story back in America on this particular weekend is the disappearance of teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba, another Caribbean island only a stone's throw from the Venezuelan shore.

The cab driver keeps up his litany of the temptations and horrors of paradise. "If a girl wants to go with you, don't go. If you go, take only some money. Leave your wallet. If you go, wear a glove." To further explain, he sheaths his whole forearm in imaginary latex--an ominous and impressive gesture.

HEART OF DARKNESS

Conrad's best-known work, Heart of Darkness--the story on which the movie Apocalypse Now is based--is about traveling into the deepest part of the jungle to face your darkest nature, to see if your sense of self is worth maintaining in the onslaught of extremes. It's no small irony that this is how Kevin has chosen to transform himself--and reacquaint himself with the demons of his past.

"Feel that, bro," he says, handing over a tautly wrapped cigar. "That's nice and tight." Kevin gives the cigar to Rambo, who places it in his mouth and lights it, then hands it back to Kevin. He puffs on it intermittently.

"My father died of leukemia two weeks before Christmas when I was 7 years old," he says with a rawness that makes this past grief palpable and indicates it's connected to this particular journey. "I was mad at God. I didn't understand it. I can take that emotion and apply it to Turk. What made him become an assassin? I needed answers, and I think Turk is looking for answers. With acting, I can go back to things that happened to me in my life. It's like therapy. I can spend some time alone, thinking about things. I like being alone. That's where your heart lives."

On this trip, though, Kevin is not alone. He hasn't yet assembled a full entourage, but he has started, bringing his Los Angeles room-mate, Pastor Mike, with him. "Part of why I'm doing this is to bring a little Christianity into Hollywood," Kevin says, a stream of his cigar smoke breezing across the bar.

Each day, Pastor Mike accompanies Kevin to the set, and often stays after Kevin's scenes have wrapped. "I'm here to be with Kevin, to see the movie, to see Trinidad, and to pray if someone needs a prayer," Pastor Mike says. He's a young guy from Indiana who looks more like a dude you'd find at an X Games event than behind a pulpit. But his presence is easy enough to explain: No spiritual pilgrimage or imperial excursion to a distant land is complete without a missionary man.

So Kevin has launched a movie career and he's no longer a competitive body-builder in the pro ranks. "I never announced my retirement because I never felt a need to," he says. Maybe he's right. Maybe retirement isn't an event; maybe it's a process, and it can't be pinpointed until it's definitively in the past.

"I have the best track record in the history of bodybuilding--more wins, more seconds." Then he pauses uncertainly. "Right?" he asks for verification. Yes, he's right. Twenty wins and 18 second places. The minutiae of his successes don't mean that much to Kevin. He can't tell you his Olympia placing in 1994 or 1995. "I think I was third or fourth." (Actually third, then second.) "But I should've won the Olympia in 2000." His disappointments register with far more specificity than his triumphs.

CAREER BACKLASH

This project is not some one-off, straight-to-video movie that will be both the start and finish of Kevin's Hollywood career, according to all those with whom he's working. The producer and director of Backlash are equally effusive in praising Kevin and his potential--they didn't cast him because his was the scariest headshot in the submissions pile.

"His picture got my attention," says producer G. Anthony Joseph. "Then I saw his reel. His performances were more than acting--they had star quality, charisma. Really, I was shocked." G--as everyone on set genially calls him--has produced four other films, including The Eliminator and The Vault for his company, Triton Northstar Entertainment. He's a native of Trinidad, currently living in Los Angeles. G is coy and deprecating about his successes and budgets, as independent filmmakers tend to be: "We make movies in the $400,000 to $3 million range," he says when asked how much Backlash will cost to make.

First-time feature director Dave Chameides (ER, Third Watch) echoes G's praise of Kevin's talents. "There were one or two other guys who I would have been happy casting before I saw Kevin. But we started talking about the character, and I was very pleasantly surprised by what Kevin brought to the role. He has a great look. A great presence. I'd like to see him break out and play a dramatic role against type. He's a total professional. Everyone's been saying, 'Arnold, Arnold, Arnold.'"

To launch his acting career, Kevin studied (and continues to study) at the highly regarded Beverly Hills Play-house. After testing the waters, he moved to Hollywood and signed with Lee Solters, who repped Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra. "When I met Lee, I knew I wanted him to represent me," Kevin remarks. "He's about 80 years old and very enlightened. He has a wisdom and passion like Joe Weider. I told him he reminds me of Joe."

Is Kevin's new career for real? It's easy to laugh it off, but don't forget his foray into music with his band Fulblown. They were good. And Kevin continues to chase this dream, too. "It was too hard to do music and bodybuilding at the same time. The synergy wasn't there. But now I can pursue both music and acting--they go together well."

In Trinidad, no one involved in Backlash mentions Kevin's worldwide fan base. All their kudos are reserved for his neophyte acting talent. But it's possible they still underestimate him. "I can walk into almost any restaurant in the world and someone will recognize me," Kevin says, placing the cigar between his teeth. It's a strange kind of fame his bodybuilding career has granted him, and it begs the question: Will Kevin become even more famous for his acting? That can't be answered, yet. But keep this in mind: Kevin Levrone, viewed from certain angles, cigar casually placed at the side of his mouth, with his impassive expression and prominent forehead, bears a striking resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you haven't noticed that yet, you soon will.

PHOTOS BY NITIN VADUKUL

American Made

2005-12-07T10:16:00.000+01:00

Interviewing under the influence

It started innocently enough—a couple of drinks at some hipster restaurant, some dirty looks from an uptight couple at another table, and a demo of Bad Day L.A. American McGee—of Id Software and Alice fame (not so much for Scrapland)—was just planning to show off his incendiary new game. That is, until someone started ordering tequila.

CGW: So what exactly is the deal with Bad Day L.A.? You’ve got cartoony graphics but lots of messed-up violence going on here.

American McGee: The important thing to remember about this game is that it is meant as a comedy. Bad Day L.A. is tongue-in-cheek about everything from videogames themselves to violence and disasters. The hope here is that we can talk about a generally sensitive subject like disasters but also combine that with other issues and just make fun of the whole thing—about how ridiculous all the crap we deal with really is. The art style is meant to kind of deflect the serious nature of all the stuff that’s going on. Basically, think of Bad Day L.A. in the same vein as a South Park or Family Guy.

[He fires up his notebook and the game begins. The opening scene shows the game’s hero, Anthony, an African-American who is homeless by choice. As he crosses a traffic-choked L.A. road, someone shouts, “Get off the freeway, ya retard!” As payback, Anthony unbuttons his pants and proceeds to, um, make an off-camera deposit on the guy’s car.]

CGW: Wow. You don’t see that every day.

AM: [Laughing] You’ve never seen a videogame start like this before?

CGW: You kidding? Some of my mornings have started out that way. After seeing this, though, I am curious how this is going to be different from Postal 2 [which earned a zero-star rating from CGW for bad taste and bugs].

[In the game, a plane crash-lands and explodes on the 405 freeway. Cars explode and chaos breaks out.]

AM: The goal with this game is not that you’re supposed to go around killing people, pissing off people, setting them all on fire. That is completely against the rules in this game. And for the inevitable Grand Theft Auto comparison: This game doesn’t advocate violence toward innocent people, rape, drugs…we don’t use the N-word and there’s no sexual content whatsoever. There’s a difference here, which is…OK, so watch this. The first weapon I get is this fire extinguisher. When I use the fire extinguisher on somebody and save them, I get a smiley face. This game is about being socially acceptable. Even though our main character is a maniac, even though the game seems pretty sexist and pretty racist, it’s really not. People don’t complain about Chappelle’s Show or Saturday Night Live. There’s a clear delineation between positive acts and negative acts. And the whole game revolves around this right here [he points to the threat advisory meter].

So a bad thing just happened and a black frowny went up, right? The threat advisory is your karma meter. If you let stuff get out of control—whether you’re doing the wrong thing or nothing at all to help—the game basically just becomes more and more difficult to the point of not being playable. It kills you. You’re balancing your forward movement toward your ultimate goal of trying to escape the city with having to help people. You absolutely have to, but the funny part of it is that the main character doesn’t want to help anybody. He’ll come across characters who are like, “Please help us. These guys are trying to hurt us.” And he’ll look at them and go, “So run the f*** away.” He says to them what you would say to them in a situation like that. Then, of course, he’ll grudgingly help. Anthony’s just a little bit more of a real character than your typical gung ho, trying-to-save-everybody type.

CGW: You reference South Park, but it has absurd humor—a talking Christmas poo as opposed to a guy peeing on a car. While based in reality, South Park isn’t nearly as “real” as this. Isn’t that a problem?

AM: People stay away from South Park because it’s obviously satire. It makes fun of everyone equally. We’re trying to do the same here. Still, videogames are an easy target for the politicians and for their constituents because it’s safe, because there is no videogame lobby. There is no understanding of videogames as an art form or as, actually, a proper form of media at all. And, you know, if you are Hillary Clinton, it is safer to go out and talk bad about videogames. Try attacking films or music and you’ve got a problem. What kind of trouble are they going to get in for demonizing games? None. It’s total bulls***.

CGW: But don’t you think that you’re just giving ammunition to the Hillary Clintons and the Jack Thompsons of the world? They’ll wind up attacking you.

AM: You know what? I hope they do. This game was born out of my frustrations. This game deals with the political nature of fear, of the war, of race issues, of all these things today. I would like nothing more than to go on television with Hillary Clinton and look her in the eye and go, “Wait a second. You want to tell me that you want to ban my videogame—or you don’t accept the fact that it’s available for people who are 18 and over—and yet you go on record saying you want to send more kids to Iraq? And they start enlisting before they’re 17 years old—before they can even buy a videogame where we simulate violence, you want to send them off to war?”

CGW: So you’re calling out Hillary and Jack, eh? Well, I hear you already have some people that aren’t taking the subject matter well.

AM: Yeah. We’re getting some letters from the Los Angeles mayor’s office and the hate crimes legislator, just based on the fact that everything happens in Los Angeles. What the hell, it’ll be good practice.

CGW: [Laughs] That’s when they ran you out of L.A. and you moved to Hong Kong?

AM: [Laughs] I actually fooled myself into believing that I could live in Los Angeles and make a game in Hong Kong and in China. And I ended up moving there because I was way f***in’ wrong. You give me the list of things you have to get right when you’re making a game. That is the list of things they were doing wrong. I s*** you not.

CGW: Had these guys ever made games?

AM: Let’s put it like this: The engine that they were using to make this game was an “isometric view RPG engine.” It’s now a third-person action-adventure title. It was sort of turn-based. Now it’s real time. Take the art direction. They don’t know how to do anything other than photo-realism. We gave them a tremendous amount of art and tried to tell them: “Here’s how to make this game look right.” And what we were getting back was literally them going out and taking pictures of cars in China, scanning them in and slapping them on the set of the game. They drew a black outline around a car! That doesn’t count! [Laughing] I seriously doubt that any publisher in their right mind would have financed this game, in the U.S., anywhere. They just wouldn’t have done it. I cannot begin to make a list of all the things that went wrong and were tough. Everything was hard, and everything went wrong.

CGW: So you take all these jobs overseas and deal with these hassles. How does it compare to here?

AM: U.S. game development teams are really creative, brilliant, innovative—and they’re really headstrong. A guy that I’d hire to be a junior artist would try to force an idea into a game and hijack the production, throwing a major monkey wrench into the process. That’s the Western development team. It’s the opposite with the Chinese team. If you come up with a good idea and you give them good direction, they’ll stamp it out. Problem is, they will not deviate a f***in’ inch from what I say. So the challenge is coming up with enough of a good idea, and…like, I find my days are now 80 percent just giving directions. And it’s really frustrating and really annoying and boring, but it works. Otherwise, I’ve had people following orders until there was nothing else to do. They just sit there and stare at the screen.

CGW: And do what?

AM: Nothing! They’re f***in’ frozen.

CGW: Are there any benefits, at least?

AM: Well, there is one obvious one. Labor is incredibly cheap in China and Hong Kong.

CGW: OK, Kathie Lee Gifford....

AM: Hey, that’s normal. It’s not like we’re doing something that everybody else doesn’t do. And what it means is that Bad Day L.A. has 120 unique NPC characters in it. That’s a lot of unique models and unique animations. That’s a lot of art assets.

CGW: Yeah, you know, that’s pretty damn cool. Hey, wanna get one more round?

AM: What the hell? Sure.

Things get fuzzy here. I’m just wondering why I woke up on top of a 12-inch cheesesteak sandwich—and whether it’s still OK to eat.

Rush Hour

Five things to know about Bad Day L.A.

1. The game is really simple. McGee’s goal, in an age of Splinter Cells, is to make something that anyone can grasp. That’s why the instruction manual looks like an airline safety card. Seriously.

2. Don’t punish the players. There’s a supereasy mode that resurrects you right after you die.

3. The most powerful weapon in the game: nail clippers. “You don’t realize they’re a weapon until you get to the airport and get searched. Use the BDLA 9000 to clip a nail and it wipes out everything in sight.”

4. How many things can go wrong in one day? Apparently, 10 major incidents. The first level has airliner crashes and a toxin-produced zombie apocalypse.

5. Four sidekicks follow you throughout the game: a sick zombie kid that pukes (he’s good against normal humans), Juan (his chain saw is good against zombies), “the Sergeant” (he quotes Dubya as he goes ballistic), and Beverly (think Paris Hilton—she distracts foes, then sics her Chihuahua on ’em).

American McGee’s Episodic Adventures

He’s even talking beyond Bad Day L.A.

Maybe it was the booze that loosened him up, but he’s not even done with Bad Day L.A. and McGee is already thinking big for his next project.

“This concept is to throw old crap out the window—no more consumption of games in the typical sense of how we do it. It’ll be like television: weekly, episodic. Some companies are starting to talk about doing this, but you’re just paying for an online expansion. I’m still trying to figure this all out, but the basic idea is to structure single-player episodes like Lost—with weekly cliff-hangers.

“Now imagine being able to get that cliff-hanger every week, but then when the episode is over, you’re able to go and run around the world. Outside of the episodes, [players are] free to explore an entire world. Like Zelda: There’s fishing, there’s rock bashing, there’s cave exploring, there’s diving. There are all these things to do. Some expand the story, some don’t. They own the world for free, and the episodes unlock new tools to have fun inside of the world. And then, if you want to play the next episode, it’ll only cost you a dollar.

“It’s basically what you sort of do in Grand Theft Auto, but spread out on an episodic-content basis and with specific hooks to keep you coming back every week to watch. When that half-hour or 45-minute segment is over, you’ve played the game to the cliff-hanger and then [you’re] back in the game world. You’ve got control of your character again, but the cliff-hanger’s still hanging out there.

“You’ll be able to walk around the world and talk to people and get a little bit of insight into the episode. Never enough to give away the next episode, but enough to make you need to see the next one.”

The Forever Changes Concert

2005-12-07T10:14:00.000+01:00

The Forever Changes Concert LOVE, 2003 CD set (2 discs, one enhanced with video, still pictures, and screen saver). Snapper Music SMACD868

This album is a miracle. Thirty-five years after the release of his masterpiece Forever Changes in 1967, Arthur Lee performed the album live in London on 15 January 2003. This is not the original or classic line-up of Love. Nor could it be--singer-guitarist Bryan MacLean and bassist Ken Forssi from the Forever Changes band are dead. The current version of Love is Arthur Lee plus a quartet otherwise known as Baby Lemonade.

A poor seller in 1967 and 1968, Love's Forever Changes is now recognized as one of the best rock albums ever recorded. Unfortunately, Love broke up in 1968 and there was no proper follow-up to Forever Changes. Lee remained in Los Angeles, re-formed Love with different members, and released several later albums, none of which, despite their high quality, captured Forever Changes's unique, shimmering blend of sweetness and menace.

There was not much reason to expect any further noteworthy dispatches from Love, and hopes of a meaningful comeback by Lee were repeatedly dashed as he seemed unable to sustain the occasional flashes of brilliance in his infrequent post-1970s efforts. Bryan MacLean seemed similarly frustrated, but the release of two volumes of his solo demos from the 1960s was a stunning revelation of his genius. These CDs might have revived MacLean's career, but instead he died from a heart attack on Christmas Day 1998, just as his first volume of demos (released in 1997) was being hailed as a lost treasure.

Meanwhile, Arthur Lee spent the last half of the 1990s and the early 2000s in prison. His alleged crime is irrelevant to this discussion, but his incarceration seemed to spell an end to yet another promising comeback in 1996.

The Forever Changes Concert is an excellent album with or without all this context, but, for people who have followed the ups and downs of Love, Arthur Lee, and Bryan MacLean, there is no finer pleasure than listening to Arthur Lee's triumphant return. The performance and recording of this concert are worthy of the material, and that is no small achievement because it involves an orchestra accompanying the rock band. Listeners familiar with the original album will find that the studio creation of 1967 makes for a compelling live event--and much of this material has rarely if ever been performed live, certainly not with an orchestra.

The Forever Changes Concert is an inspired idea done right. This is not a mere comeback. It is an apotheosis--a complete work, the work that defines the careers of Love, Arthur Lee, and Bryan MacLean. The concert setting proposes risk and the long-delayed fulfillment of a promise. Simultaneously it evokes regret and summons the reclusive humanity of Arthur Lee, who sings the songs and the vocal part of his departed friend MacLean. And what must Lee feel when he sings his own lyrics:

   At my house I've got no shackles

  Served my time, served it well
  You made my soul a cell

  They're locking him up today, they're throwing away the key
  I wonder who it'll be tomorrow, you or me

In 1967, Forever Changes seemed spooky, existential, only indirectly political, and maybe paranoid. Now I notice the lyrics' prescience and perennial relevance, in more ways than I can begin to list. But there is also that sweetness--contradictory, Orwellian, and defiant.

A faithful live recreation of a 1967 studio album is an odd affirmation that some of the finer things have not changed in 35 years. That feeling is too rare, but when it comes around the best one can do is savor it and be thankful for miracles.

GARY BURNS

Northern Illinois University

The Polar Express

2005-12-07T10:09:00.000+01:00

This computer-animated Christmas tale creeps the hell out of me because all the characters look like they’ve been Botoxed—the animation process for face capture here is not quite ready for prime time. If you redubbed this and gave everyone zombie voices (“Santa...braaaaaaaains”), it would be both a lot more amusing and far more appropriate. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. _A shame, that.

1UP.com Announces Exclusive Online Cover Story on Half-Life 2

2005-11-30T09:04:00.000+01:00

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the popularity of 1UP.com's online "cover story" on Namco's Soul Caliber III, Ziff Davis Media's online community for gaming enthusiasts unveiled today a major cover story on Vivendi/Valve's Half-Life 2. The story will run online at http://valve.1up.com/ for one week and will feature exclusive video, screenshots, interviews and news on one of the highest acclaimed PC games in 2005.

For the second-ever cover story, titled "Steam Punks," 1UP.com teams up with its companion print magazine Computer Gaming World. The combined editorial team provides gamers with a sneak-peak behind Valve's iron curtains to get an exclusive view of Half-Life 2: Aftermath, the latest chapter in the Half-Life saga.

1UP.com's week-long cover story reviews all the angles of Valve in 2005, including a world exclusive chat with founder Gabe Newell on the Source engine and next-generation platforms. The October issue of Computer Gaming World, on newsstands September 6th, features an in-depth story on Half-Life 2.

Vivendi Universal Games/Valve Software's Half-Life 2 has won near-perfect ratings on 1UP.com -- 9.3 out of 10 by the editorial staff and 9.5 out of 10 by visitors to the leading game site. Half-Life 2 also won Best Xbox Game in the 1UP.com Best of E3 2005 awards, and it won the Computer Gaming World Editors' Choice award in February 2005.

The new online cover story format expands Ziff Davis Media Game Group's tradition of providing the most in-depth stories with the absolute latest info and exclusive media. The video, screenshots, and articles will be released over the following daily schedule on 1UP.com:

  Monday, August 29th:
 * HL2: Aftermath / Lost Coast
 * SPOTLIGHT: An exclusive look at the sequels that will change Half-Life
   forever.

 Tuesday, August 30th
 * SiN Episodes
 * VIDEO: Steam and episodic content is future of games publishing

 Wednesday, August 31st:
 * Half-Life 2 Xbox Video Feature
 * Modding The Source
   - FEATURE: Garry's Mod leads the way in HL2 user-made content. 1UP.com
     spotlights 15 mindblowing creations!
   - VIDEO: Exclusive Half-Life 2 Xbox video feature

 Thursday, September 1st:
 * The Story of Valve
 * Valve Retro/Active
 * VIDEO: See how it all started! Plus, we retro-grade Valve's back catalog
   of classic shooters.

 Friday, September 2nd:
 * Gabe Newell Speaks
 * VIDEO: Next-generation platforms

 About Ziff Davis Media Game Group

Ziff Davis Media Game Group is the largest publisher of electronic game magazines in the United States. Electronic Gaming Monthly has the highest rate base of any independent gaming magazine published. It covers the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and all relevant and emerging game systems. Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine is the #1 publication for passionate PlayStation and PSP gamers. Computer Gaming World is the longest running and most respected publication for core PC gamers. 1UP.com features exclusive editorial content in addition to content drawn from Ziff Davis Media Game Group magazines Electronic Gaming Monthly, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine and Computer Gaming World. The site taps into the Game Group's unparalleled editorial resources to provide a rich body of reviews, previews, cheats, Top 10 lists, downloads, news and stories. Ziff Davis Media Game Group reaches 8 million core gamers per month, making Ziff Davis Media the largest publisher of video and PC game magazines in the United States.

About Ziff Davis Media Inc.

Ziff Davis Media is a leading integrated media company serving the technology and videogame markets. The Company is an information services provider of technology media including publications, websites, conferences, events, eSeminars, eNewsletters, custom publishing, list rentals, research and market intelligence. In the United States, the Company publishes 10 magazines including PC Magazine, Sync, ExtremeTech, DigitalLife, eWEEK, CIO Insight, Baseline, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. The Company exports the power of its brands internationally, with publications in 40 countries and 20 languages. Ziff Davis leverages its content on the Internet with a network of highly-targeted technology and gaming sites including PCMag.com, eWEEK.com, ExtremeTech.com and 1UP.com. The Company also produces highly-targeted b-to-b and consumer technology events including DigitalLife. With its main headquarters and PC Magazine Labs based in New York, Ziff Davis Media also has offices and lab facilities in the San Francisco and Boston markets. Additional information is available at http://www.ziffdavis.com/.

CONTACT: Randy Zane, +1-212-503-3535, randy_zane@ziffdavis.com, or Jason Freidenfelds, +1-415-547-8248, Jason_freidenfelds@ziffdavis.com, both of Ziff Davis Media Inc.

Web site: http://valve.1up.com/ http://www.ziffdavis.com/

Trash

2005-11-23T09:31:00.000+01:00

BLOWN SAVES

KING OF THE ROAD 2005 WAS ONE FOR THE SKATE HISTORY books. After braving broken arms, blown knees and a stingy Filipino, Jamie Thomas' Zero team still managed to pretty much slaughter the competition--blasting some 1,100 points past second-place Habitat. To give you an idea of how far ahead they were, in 2003 first and second were separated by just 40 points, and in 2004 the divide was around 400 (about eight 50-pointers). That means this year Zero had about 20 more of the hardest KOTR tricks than the next team.

Chris Cole, unsurprisingly, snagged the Boost Mobile MVP award (getting cash and free phone service) and was the only skater to land some of the most bizarre moves, including the fakie heel-flip over the spine and the switch 360 flip crooks. Tommy Sandoval scored a broken wrist in a pool and Rattray popped his elbow out of socket over a seven-foot spine. Most brutal of all, 2004 standout filmer Matt Winterberg tore his ACL trying the Greg Louganis down eight stairs. It's a miracle they made it to the finish line, much less in first. Photos--including plenty of competent rippitude from runners-up Habitat, Flip and Element--next issue.

After terrorizing Texas a few issues back, Jake Duncombe signed up as a full member of the new Globe team, joining Apples, Mumford and the boys on an upcoming tour in his beloved Australia. In other sponsor swaps, Ryan Sheckler and James Craig rolled over to the Bones wheels program, and Jerry Hsu and Raymond Molinar slapped on the Royals. Guy Mariano, who is rumored to be doing something Royal, appeared to be somewhat Venturing.

In Free Race news, Omar Salazar whooped it up into pro status at Rasa Libre. Drop in on that!

In his latest effort "for the kids," Snoop Dogg released a line of skateboards to go along with his youth football and snowboard program.

In the close to home front, Thrasher's very own Michael "Sparks" Sieben has quit his job in the bicycle motorcross industry to take the creative reins of a brand new skateboard board company out of Giant helmed by Long Beach's Stacy Lowery. It's called Bueno, and if it's anything like Sieben's ditch writing or Stacy's ollies, it's gonna be good.

The Vox footwear team continues to build up steam, with Dan "Corpsy" Drehobl joining the already hardy crew of Darren Navarrette, Justin Strubing, JT Aultz, Neil Blender, Peter Hewitt, Adrian Mallory and Peter Watkins. Sounds like a hell of a Christmas party.

TIDAL WAVE

Toy Machine, repped by a skeleton crew of Dirty Billy, Josh Harmony and Matt Benetar, took the big cheese at Van's Downtown Showdown over Labor Day weekend. Instead of the usual vert and street style events they've been doing for the last 10 or so years, Vans' newest contest creation was a KOTR-style approach with skateboarding's top board teams competing on specially designed obstacles--as simple as a bump-to-street gap (designed by Baker) and as wacky as a gigantic teeter-totter ledge (designed, possibly to kill someone, by Girl). The other teams, including Almost, Foundation, Element, Birdhouse and Zero, battled for 50 large in a round robin of best trick events. Other standouts were Daewon Song, Chris Cole, Andrew Reynolds and Bryan Herman.

In a somewhat related Toy Machine story, both Billy Marks and Johnny Layton broke up with their long-time ladyfriends just in time to move in together into a Corona-area bachelor's pleasure dome. The 1200-square-foot tract palace came complete with a hot tub (non-working) and a revolving cast of hardy partiers including Brian "Tell 'Em You're 25" Young and many of the Inland Empire's finest fineys. Late night adventures have included Young punching out a romantic competitor 10 years his junior, and Billy making out with a girl on the balcony so passionately that she ended up falling off and plummeting 12 feet to a doghouse back breaker below. If you're out cruising in Corona just look for the trail of puke or the smoke and you're there.

Baltimore's Brandon Westgate took first at the recent Brooklyn Banks contest, launching a wallride assault the likes of which have not been seen since the heady days of Tim Jackson. Koo-koo Billy Rohan snagged some dough, too, with heavy hardflips over the big rail. True East.

P-Rod continues on his roll, following up his X-Games win with a Slam City Jam top placement as well as fifth in the Dew Tour at Oregon.

KOTR fans who got a big kick out of Ernie Torres' 2004 coffin roll-in will want to check out the new Creature promo vid, where Navs and the crew take it a step farther by sending a buddy stiff-style down the monsterous roll-in at Hailey, Idaho. Other standouts in this online Creature feature include bowl busting Al Partanen and spooky rail rider Josh Perkins.

El Beardo called up to let us know the Channel Street skatepark in his beloved San Pedro now boasts a new pork chop bowl thanks to the usual crew of concrete coercing ne'er do wells. Check sanpedroskateparkassociation.org for photos.

MILES LONG

James "Red Dog" Muir and Teag appeared in an American Express TV commercial. The pair worked out a Venice High School, famously last seen on screen in American History X. The father-son Muir team beat out other industry parental/ offspring units who were being considered such as Paul Sehmidts, the Hawks, the Godoys, the Mountains and the Fletchers. Observers pointed out that Muir senior was coming off of a wrist reconstruction surgery, so the pain versus gain equation was in full effect.

Poncho Mohler is said to be up for a slot as a television talk show host.

Bam Margera revealed on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show that Jessica Simpson had actually transgressed with Don Vito rather than himself.

ODD DOGS

Jay Adams and Jesse Martinez are among the hierarchy that is organizing an international fraternal skateboard club. Reportedly there are regional chapters, affiliates, and even elaborate individualized jacket patches. "One-hundred-percent skateboarding" is the club's code. Marco Saiz is drawing up the design for a Jesse Martinez Daggers guest cue. This has created speculation that Saiz may also be working on a rather hush-hush club graphic. Pagado en sangre.

Gonz has now resumed all-day/all-night long training on his bicycle. One unsettling practice technique is to borrow friends' bikes, which he jumps, folds, bends and mutilates in his quest. A recent impact with a car gained Mark 30 stitches.

It was all low lows and stretch limos at the Venice, CA opening of Block and Chuck Katz show at Hama. Seen were the Mess, Christian Hosoi, Reverend Jay Alabamy, Jeff No, Scott Oster, the Muirs, Chad White, SM Berry, Aaron Murray, Ricky Massie, L Lorenzo, Wylie, Donald Cassel, Oscar Galvan, Brian Zarate and a couple 100 other equally stellar types. The spillover crowd blocked the infamous traffic circle as people jocked for entry.

BACK LOT

Wes Humpston released a 160-page chronicle of his art and times. Published by Concrete Wave, by all counts it's very in-demand.

In Hollywood, Heath Ledger is said to have gifted Skip Engblom with a classic 1949 Cadillac sled replica of the latter's old ride, which was built for the Lords of Dogtown film. In a semi-entirely unrelated development, it has been said that Stacy Peralta is negotiating for another documentary project. The subject? LA gangs. Is this another autobiographical joint? First the Z-Boys. Then big wave surfing. Now hanging and banging? One time Peralta and Rocco film associate Brentwood Stukin, who along with Apollo already created a well-received doc on the Bloods, is said to be currently slinging real estate in Palos Verdes, CA. Stukin was last seen in public with Engblom, the Caddy, and Ted Turner at a country club opening. Another story is circulating about the in-production Steve Rocco story. It's a mad, mad World.

WHITE CHICKS

Word in from Bali about a proposed mega-park project involving some of Indonesia's wealthiest developers and businessmen, as well as a crew of longtime skaters. Plans are for a development so vast and advanced as to be the premier spot in Asia and Oceania, threatening to "Blow away anything in Australia." Will a park of this massive magnitude get off the ground? And if so, how will the visiting, various skate population get along? Will we see longhairs like Jamie Thomas in some "Kuta Braids" and sandals, carrying a man-purse, like every other Westerner on the paradise island?

UNDER STOOD

"We would have won if it was called Piles of the Road."--Geoff Rowley on Flip's third place finish

"Our club is going to be the biggest skate organization in the world. Once it is, we will take over and rule."--Jesse Martinez

"What's a United States Senator doing at a skateboard park under a freeway?"--Hank Plante, CBS 5 News

"This is a tough sport. I've tried it."--US Senator Barbara Boxer

"Jake is tarnishing the tradition."--Mofo

"As you can read on the website, I'm starved for attention I never got as a child."--Jake Phelps

"If one of the judges, perhaps Jake Phelps, has a score way different from the other judges, that score will be thrown out."--Brian Schaeffer at the Vans contest rider's meeting

BAKER 3 PREMIERE

VINE THEATER, HOLLYWOOD, CA 8/10/05

IT'S BEEN CLOSE TO five years since Baker2G, the video that shot the whole Baker crew into skateboard superstardom status. Pivoted into a league of their own, featured in magazines like Rolling Stone and sought after by the biggest and best in the business, these boys have had a lot to live up to. The pressure was on and Baker skateboards was ready to deliver. On August 10, 2005 the goods arrived and nobody was disappointed--except for you if you weren't there, and the police, who definitely were there. With the addition of a couple new ams, the departures of a few friends and the return of a few others, Baker3G is a must have.--RS

RIP IN PEACE

Randy "Biscuit" Turner

11.25.49-8.18.05

RANDY TURNER--aka Biscuit--passed away in August, and the world will never see his likes again. Frontman for the Austin band the Big Boys (and later Cargo Cult and Swine King), not to mention an inspired visual artist, Biscuit represented the band's participatory creed that anyone could get on the stage and create, and to make life "Fun, fun, fun." The band was famous for tearing away the increasingly pretentious, conformist and dogmatic layers of emergent hardcore in the late '70s and early '80s, blending slower rhythms and funk into their music. Biscuit never took things too seriously, unafraid to play shows wearing a tutu and other ridiculous get ups. Their music stoked many a session, the guys in the band skated, and they were one of the original skate rock bands. There is no doubt about his legacy.

The Matrix: Path of Neo

2005-11-23T09:21:00.000+01:00

He didn’t just punch the security guard. He effortlessly soared 20 feet into the air with the finesse of an eagle, did an inverted acrobatic flip, examined his surroundings (he’s still in midair, mind you), landed gracefully on his feet, then proceeded to make Silly Putty out of the guard’s face with his stone-hard fists. To the guard, it all happened in the blink of a now-swollen eye. But the way the attacker saw it, he had all the time in the world. It was poetry in slow motion.

We’ve all seen the elegant ballet of stratospheric kung fu and bullet-trailing firefights whenever good met evil computer programs in the Matrix films. Now you can live it in this stylish (and surprisingly hardcore) beat-em-up. Luckily, in The Matrix: Path of Neo, you’re not playing the punching-bag security guard; you are the guy who’s dishing out those high-flying, slow-mo punches. As the game’s title implies, you’re Mr. Whoa himself: Neo, aka The One. You’re eventually tasked with saving all of humankind with your superpowers—but first, you must escape your office workplace without tripping over the mail-room guy.

You play through the most important parts of the Matrix movie trilogy, from that scene in which a clueless office worker stealthily avoids capture by the men in black (you can also purposely turn yourself in to these “authorities” for a slightly branched-off story line complete with different cinemas) to whatever it was that happened in the second and third films. Along the way, you learn to fight. At first, you practice basic moves in simulation programs, but you’ll soon graduate to a 1-on-1 with bossman/teammate Morpheus and eventually take on multiple Agent Smiths and his thug friends.

Young grasshoppers don’t use guns, so you’ll start off with hand-to-hand combat. Kick, punch...it’s all in the game, but you’ll eventually learn how to fight enemies coming from different directions at the same time, use super moves and combos, and factor in Focus (the extra “Matrix power” you use to boost attacks, slow enemies, etc.). “We call it ‘The Swirly,’” Path of Neo designer Benjamin “BJ” Cholewinski says of one of his favorite combos. “You dash around a pillar, perform a weapon strip on an enemy, then Focus evade over his head, flip-kicking him in the back. You then grab him out of the air, slam him to the ground, then tornado throw him for the win.” Trust us

Grab a stick Bang...you’re dead

After going a few rounds with Morpheus in the dojo, you may tear open one of the paper walls to reveal racks of swords and staffs in the next room—time to take your fighting game to the next level. You can pick up any melee weapon that you find. What, no two-handed sword lying around? No problem. Just scoop up a push broom or rip out that lamppost and get to work. Of course, this wouldn’t be The Matrix if you couldn’t fancy up the attacks some. “I’m a fan of the melee weapon link-up attacks,” says Cholewinski. “Plunging a sword into a Vamp’s belly then back-fisting a Doberman and uppercutting a sub-boss brings great satisfaction. The real payoff is in finishing the assault by running up the Vamp’s body, pulling the sword out of his chest, then performing aerial slashes as you bounce from Doberman to boss.”

Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Then you have guns. Lots of guns. From dual pistols to submachine guns, from grenade launchers to Gatling guns, you’ll have a virtual SWAT arsenal at your disposal (though sometimes, you’ll have to “borrow” that arsenal straight from the hands of the SWAT members you’re battling). The beautiful slow-mo trails of hot lead ripping through the air really defined the movies’ aesthetic style, and that fact is not lost on the developers. You can play the game like it’s a typical third-person shooter, but by adding Focus to your gunplay, you help Path of Neo steal back some of the snazzy style other shooters, like Max Payne, aped from the Matrix flicks. “It’s hard to top the sensation of smashing the Focus button,” says Cholewinski, happily describing yet another picture-perfect scenario to us, “then thrusting into the air, unloading round after round into a horde of SWAT while swimming in a sea of Matrix-style bullet trails.” How about doing all that cool stuff in a game that’s actually good? Don’t worry. From what we’ve seen and played so far, Path of Neo looks to be a far more complete, less-bug-ridden game than 2003’s disastrous Enter the Matrix, which was made by the same developers. Looks like this new one’s the pill we were meant to swallow....

Paris Hilton Hack Started With Old-Fashioned Con; Source Says Hacker Posed as T-Mobile Employee to Get Access to Information

2005-11-19T12:51:00.000+01:00

Byline: Brian Krebs

The caper had all the necessary ingredients to spark a media firestorm -- a beautiful socialite-turned-reality TV star, embarrassing photographs and messages, and the personal contact information of several young music and Hollywood celebrities.

When hotel heiress Paris Hilton found out in February that her high-tech wireless phone had been taken over by hackers, many assumed that only a technical mastermind could have pulled off such a feat. But as it turns out, a hacker involved in the privacy breach said, the Hilton saga began on a decidedly low-tech note -- with a simple phone call.

Computer security flaws played a role in the attack, which exploited a programming glitch in the Web site of Hilton's cell phone provider, Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile International. But one young hacker who claimed to have been involved in the data theft said the crime only succeeded after one member of a small group of hackers tricked a T-Mobile employee into divulging information that only employees are supposed to know.

The young hacker described the exploit during online text conversations with a washingtonpost.com reporter and provided other evidence supporting his account, including screen shots of what he said were internal T-Mobile computer network pages. Washingtonpost.com is not revealing the hacker's identity because he is a juvenile crime suspect and because he communicated with the reporter on the condition that he not be identified either directly or through his online alias.

A senior law enforcement official involved in the case said investigators believe the young hacker's group carried out the Paris Hilton data theft and was also involved in illegally downloading thousands of personal records from database giant LexisNexis Inc. The source asked not to be identified because of his role in this and other ongoing investigations.

A third source, a woman who has communicated with the hacker group's members for several years, also confirmed key portions of the young hacker's story and said she saw images and other information downloaded from Hilton's T-Mobile account hours before they were released on several Web sites.

T-Mobile declined to comment on the details of the hacker's account of the Paris Hilton incident, saying through a spokesman that the company cannot discuss an ongoing investigation. The spokesman said the company "will work with federal law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute anyone that attempts to gain unauthorized access to T-Mobile systems."

In the months leading up to the Hilton incident, the hacker group freely exploited a security glitch in the Web site of wireless phone giant T-Mobile, according to the hacker, who described himself as the youngest member of the group. The group had found that a tool on the T-Mobile site that allowed users to reset their account passwords contained a key programming flaw.

By exploiting the flaw, the group's members were able to gain access to the account of any T-Mobile subscriber who used a "Sidekick," a pricey phone-organizer-camera combination device that stores videos, photos and other data on T-Mobile's central computer servers.

The hackers could only exploit the Web site vulnerability if they actually knew a Sidekick user's phone number. The loose-knit group had grown bored of using the flaw to toy with friends and acquaintances who owned Sidekicks and decided to find a high-profile target, one that would ensure their exploits were reported in the press, the young hacker said. They ultimately settled on Hilton, in part because they knew she owned a Sidekick; Hilton had previously starred in a commercial advertising the device.

The group's members --- who range in age from their mid-teens to early 20s -- include a handful of "AOLers," a term used in hacker circles to describe youths who honed their skills over the years by tampering with various portions of the network run by Dulles, Va.-based America Online Inc. Four members of the group have all met face-to-face, but as with most hacking groups, the majority of their day-to-day interactions took place online.

Before gaining access to Hilton's wireless phone account, the group had spent a year studying weaknesses in T-Mobile's Web sites. The group member interviewed for this story had already written a simple computer program that could reset the password for any T-Mobile user whose phone number the hackers knew.

According to the young hacker's account, the Hilton caper started the afternoon of Feb. 19, when a group member rang a T-Mobile sales store in a Southern California coastal town posing as a supervisor from T-Mobile inquiring about reports of slowness on the company's internal networks.

The conversation -- which represents the recollection of the hacker interviewed by washingtonpost.com -- began with the 16-year-old caller saying, "This is [an invented name] from T-Mobile headquarters in Washington. We heard you've been having problems with your customer account tools?"

The sales representative answered, "No, we haven't had any problems really, just a couple slowdowns. That's about it."

Prepared for this response, the hacker pressed on: "Yes, that's what is described here in the report. We're going to have to look into this for a quick second."

The sales rep acquiesced: "All right, what do you need?"

When prompted, the employee then offered the Internet address of the Web site used to manage T-Mobile's customer accounts -- a password-protected site not normally accessible to the general public -- as well as a user name and password that employees at the store used to log on to the system.

To support his story, the hacker provided washingtonpost.com with an image of a page he said was from the protected site. T-Mobile declined to comment on the screenshot, and washingtonpost.com has no way to verify its authenticity.

The hackers accessed the internal T-Mobile site shortly thereafter and began looking up famous names and their phone numbers. At one point, the youth said, the group harassed Laurence Fishburne, the actor perhaps best known for his role in the "Matrix" movies as Morpheus, captain of the futuristic ship Nebuchadnezzar.

"We called him up a few times and said, 'GIVE US THE SHIP!'" the youth typed in one of his online chats with a reporter. "He picked up a couple times and kept saying stuff like YOUR ILLEGALLY CALLING ME."

Later, using their own Sidekick phone, the hackers pulled up the secure T-Mobile customer records site, looked up Hilton's phone number and reset the password for her account, locking her out of it. Typical wireless devices can only be hacked into by someone physically nearby, but a Sidekick's data storage can be accessed from anywhere in T-Mobile's service area by someone with control of the account. That means the hackers were at that point able to download all of her stored video, text and data files to their phone.

"As soon as I went into her camera and saw nudes my head went JACKPOT," the young hacker recalled of his reaction to first seeing the now-public photos of a topless Hilton locked in an intimate embrace with a female friend. "I was like, HOLY [expletive] DUDE ... SHES GOT NUDES. THIS [expletive]'s GONNA HIT THE PRESS SO [expletive] QUICK."

The hackers set up a conference call and agreed to spread the news to several friends, all the while plotting ways to get the photos up on various Web sites. Kelly Hallissey, a 41-year-old New York native who has been in contact with the group of hackers for several years, said the group's members showed her evidence that they had gained access to Hilton's phone during these early hours -- before the images made their way online.

By early Feb. 20, the pictures, private notes and contact listings from Hilton's phone account -- including phone numbers of celebrities such as Cristina Aguilera, Eminem, Anna Kournikova and Vin Diesel -- had appeared on GenMay.com (short for General Mayhem), an eclectic, no-holds-barred online discussion forum.

Within hours of the GenMay posting, Hilton's information was published on Illmob.org, a Web site run by 27-year-old William Genovese of Meriden, Conn., known online as "illwill." (The FBI charged Genovese in November with selling bits of stolen source code for Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows NT operating systems.) By Monday morning, dozens of news sites and personal Web logs had picked up the story, with many linking to the illmob.org post or mirroring the purloined data on their own.

Hallissey, who describes herself as a kind of "den mom" to a cadre of budding hackers, confirmed that the teenage source has been engaged in various hacking activities for several years. Hallissey met a slew of the hacker group's members after a three-year stint during the 1990s as one of thousands of people who helped AOL maintain its online content in exchange for free Internet access and various other perks. Hallissey has since joined a still-active wage lawsuit against AOL and maintains www.observers.net, a Web site critical of the Dulles-based company.

Hallissey said her sense of privacy has been erased gradually over the past two years as a result of her association with a number of AOLers who playfully bragged to her about their success with social engineering. They showed her online screen shots of her water, gas and electric bills, her Social Security number, credit card balances and credit ratings, pictures of her e-mail inbox, as well as all of her previous addresses, including those of her children.

"This was all done not by skilled 'hackers' but by kids who managed to 'social' their way into a company's system and gain access to it within one or two phone calls," said Hallissey, who asked that her current place of residence not be disclosed. "Major corporations have made social engineering way too easy for these kids. In their call centers they hire low-pay employees to man the phones, give them a minimum of training, most of which usually dwells on call times, canned scripts and sales. This isn't unique to T-Mobile or AOL. This has become common practice for almost every company."

AOL officials declined to comment about the young hacker or other "AOLers" for this story.

Security experts say the raiding of Hilton's wireless account highlights one of the most serious security challenges facing corporations -- teaching employees to be watchful for "social engineering," the use of deception to trick people into giving away sensitive data, usually over the phone.

In his book "The Art of Deception," notorious ex-hacker Kevin Mitnick says major corporations spend millions of dollars each year on new technologies to keep out hackers and viruses, yet few dedicate significant resources to educating employees about the dangers of old-fashioned con artistry.

"The average $10-an-hour sales clerk or call-center employee will tell you anything you want, including passwords," Mitnick said in a telephone interview. "These people are usually not well-trained, but they also interact with people to sell products and services, so they tend to be more customer-friendly and cooperative."

During his highly publicized hacking career in the 1990s, Mitnick -- who spent four years in prison and now works as a computer security consultant -- broke into the computer networks of some of the top companies in the technology and telecommunications industries, but rarely targeted computers systems directly.

Rather, he phoned employees and simply asked them for user names, passwords or other "insider" data that he could use to sound more authentic in future phone inquiries. "This kind of thing works with just about every mobile carrier," Mitnick said.

He said all of the major wireless carriers -- not just T-Mobile -- are popular targets for social engineering attacks. Mitnick said he knows private investigators who routinely obtain phone records of people they are investigating by calling a sales office at the target's wireless carrier and pretending to be an employee from another sales office.

Mitnick described how an investigator will claim to have the customer they're investigating in the store, but can't access their data because of computer trouble. Then the investigator asks the sales representative at the other store to look up that person's password, account number and Social Security number. In many cases the employee provides the information without verifying the caller's identity. Armed with that data, he said, investigators usually can create an account at the wireless provider's Web site and pull all of the target's phone records.

Large organizations that maintain numerous branches around the country are especially susceptible to social engineering attacks, said Peter Stewart, president of Baton Rouge, La.-based Trace Security, a company that is hired to test the physical and network security for some of the most paranoid companies in the world: banks.

More often than not, Stewart says, his people can talk their way into employee-only areas of banks by pretending to be a repairman or just another employee. In most cases, the break-in attempts are aided by information gleaned over the phone.

"Usually your corporate headquarters are more stringent and things get more lax the further away from there you get," Stewart said. "The larger you are as a company the more likely it is that you're not going to know everyone by name, and lots of companies have no policy in place of verifying who's calling you and how to respond to that person."

Social engineering can be difficult to counter, but the now-infamous Paris Hilton attack follows other recent serious T-Mobile security breaches engineered by hackers.

On Feb. 15, Nicolas Jacobsen, 22, of Santa Ana, Calif., pleaded guilty to compromising a T-Mobile Web server that granted access to hundreds of wireless accounts. He faces a maximum of five years in jail and a $250,000 fine at a sentencing hearing originally scheduled for mid-May.

Jacobsen was arrested last fall by the U.S. Secret Service as part of a large-scale investigation into an international online credit card fraud ring. According to court records, Jacobsen had hijacked hundreds of T-Mobile accounts, including a mobile phone belonging to a then-active Secret Service agent. Jacobsen had posted to an online bulletin board that he could be hired to look up the name, Social Security number, birth date, and voice-mail and e-mail passwords of any T-Mobile subscriber.

T-Mobile later alerted 400 customers that their e-mails, phone records and other data had been compromised as a result of that break-in.

The court files don't give details about how it happened, but Jack Koziol, a senior instructor for the Oak Park, Ill.-based InfoSec Institute, said the intruder likely took advantage of security flaws in the company's Web servers. Koziol conducted an informal audit of T-Mobile's site in March and uncovered hundreds of pages run by Web servers vulnerable to well-known security flaws, he said.

"It's pretty amazing how poorly secured their Web properties are," said Koziol, whose company offers training to corporate, law enforcement and government clients on the latest techniques and tactics used by hackers. "Most of these flaws are simple Web Security 101, stuff you'd learn about in the first few chapters of a basic book on how to secure Web applications."

T-Mobile officials declined to say what steps they took to close the security holes identified by the Hilton hackers or how many other accounts may have been hijacked.

"T-Mobile has invested millions of dollars to protect our customers' information, and we continue to reinforce our systems to address the security needs of our subscribers," company spokesman Peter Dobrow wrote in an e-mail. "For our customers' protection, we do not publicly disclose the specific actions taken to reinforce our systems."

Pearl Jam

2005-11-19T12:48:00.000+01:00

When grunge music exploded into the mainstream of popular culture in the early 1990s, it was Pearl Jam, along with fellow Seattle band Nirvana, who filled the column inches and the billboard charts. While Nirvana's September 1991 debut Nevermind generated an immediate media frenzy, it was Pearl Jam's more orthodox blues-rock album, Ten, released almost simultaneously, that would eventually overtake it in sales--over ten million copies in the United States alone by the end of 1996. The breakthrough single from the album, "Jeremy," won four MTV awards, and recognition for a video that tried to create a coherent story for lead singer Eddie Vedder's typically elusive and obtuse lyrics. What was clear from the video was the sense of pain and anger that characterized Pearl Jam's music: songs that helped recharge rock 'n' roll, a seemingly exhausted genre that had been slipping in both market share and musical relevance since the late 1980s.

Pearl Jam was formed in 1991 by bass guitarist Jeff Ament, and rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard. Together with Mike McCready (guitar), drummer Dave Krusen (later replaced by Dave Abruzzese and then Jack Irons), and Eddie Vedder (vocals), the band began recording under the name Mookie Blaylock, after the New Jersey Nets basketball star. After Blaylock objected, they changed to Pearl Jam (allegedly after a jam containing peyote made by Vedder's great-grandmother, Pearl). Their debut album, Ten, combined a hard, guitar rock sound with anthemic choruses, slow pop melodies, and Vedder's vocal gyrations that told stories of suicide and childhood neglect. If Nirvana's Nevermind was a punk-rock incendiary aimed at classic rock, Pearl Jam's Ten provided a more mainstream-sounding attack on the established order. Both albums were instrumental in positioning grunge, or the "Seattle-sound" (fellow bands Soundgarden and Alice in Chains also hailed from Seattle), as the dominant MTV aesthetic and confirming Alternative music's arrival overground in the early 1990s.

Pearl Jam's more commercial sound prompted an attack from Nirvana's Kurt Cobain in 1993. The singer called the band a "corporate, alternative, cock-rock crossover" and charged Pearl Jam with "jumping on the alternative bandwagon." Their response was to record a much rawer and harder second album, vs., which they refused to support with videos, singles, or a major tour, though the album still managed to sell five million copies and top the billboard charts. In 1994 the band also embarked upon a stand against ticketing agency Ticketmaster, alleging that the company had a monopoly over ticket distribution in U.S. arenas and stadiums. Pearl Jam officially asked the Department of Justice to investigate Ticketmaster on antitrust charges, and band members Ament and Gossard found themselves testifying before a congressional committee.

The Justice Department dropped its investigation of Ticketmaster in July 1995, but the band gained praise in many quarters for a stand against a stadium system that in some ways mirrored their increasing rejection of stadium rock. The band's third album, Vitology (1994), stripped away the grunge sound in favor of a diverse collection of influences, including folk and reggae. One of the standout, Grammy Award winning tracks was "Spin the Black Circle," a homage to vinyl records, and the album was made available on vinyl before its release on other, more polished formats. The move reflected the group's seeming desire to reestablish serious grassroots credibility after tremendous media hype; singer Eddie Vedder had appeared on the front cover of Time magazine in October 1993, despite his refusal to be interviewed for the accompanying article. The album also reflected Vedder's musings in light of Kurt Cobain's suicide, an event that increased the attention given the Pearl Jam vocalist. As Andrew Mueller of the British music weekly Melody Maker commented at the time, "Eddie Vedder is out there alone now."

Vedder and Pearl Jam's response was increasingly to shirk the limelight and to move away from the grunge sound that had helped generate their fame. Their fourth album, No Code (1996) employed Indian drones, psychedelic rock, folk, and punk, only occasionally returning to a high-energy rock sound. Similarly, their 1998 album Yield continued with the combination of Vedder's existential musings and more eclectic range of musical instruments. It included a track showing the influence of Pakistani qawwali star Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with whom Vedder collaborated for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack. Music critics were less receptive to Pearl Jam's attempts to redefine themselves; yet the demise of the grunge phenomenon and a diminished, if still significant, fan base suited the band. Their stated wish was to sustain a lengthy and credible musical career, in line with those they admired, such as Bob Dylan, Pete Townsend, and in particular Neil Young, with whom they collaborated on the MirrorBall album.

St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, 2002 Gale Group.

Healthware 2 Bodycare introduces organic cotton relaxation pillow line

2005-11-19T12:47:00.000+01:00

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 5, 1995--Healthware 2 Bodycare, H2B Company, California's creators of the finest organic-seed-filled, silk and cotton specialty pillows, introduced an "earth friendly," organically grown cotton line of all its relaxation pillows, June 1.

H2B secured a source for organically grown, naturally colored cotton fabrics that met the company's high aesthetic standards. The fabrics are as beautiful as they are environmentally clean.

The cottons are grown on certified organic farms using crop rotation, soil composting and beneficial insects to control pests. Pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers are not used. The earthy colors of these fabrics are an inherent part of the fiber, making dyeing unnecessary.

The new line of products are especially suited to chemically sensitive people for whom organically grown cotton fabrics are the only hypo-allergenic solution. H2B is proud to offer these alternative versions of its products that directly support environmentally responsible agricultural and fabric manufacturing practices.

H2B designs, manufactures and distributes six different relaxation tools, which are available through their direct-mail catalog and through over 500 retail outlets nationwide. H2B is one of the forerunners in the emerging trend of soft-tech tools for personal health care in the 1990s.

H2B reinterprets age-old relaxation techniques into accessible products for today's discerning, health-minded and fitness-conscious public. H2B, founded by Harry Hull and Brenda Beebe in 1989 as a vanguard cottage industry in San Francisco, is a thriving wholesale and mail-order company. To request a free catalog or to order products directly, call 800/829-6580.

CONTACT: Weis Public Relations

Ellen Weis, 510/841-WEIS or 510/548-6636 (FAX)

FEATURE/Healthware 2 Bodycare Co. is relaxing America; creating soft-tech products for changing American health habits

2005-11-19T12:46:00.000+01:00

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE FEATURES)--Nov. 22, 1994-- Healthware 2 Bodycare, or H2B Co., the country's leading designer of relaxation pillows, has announced its newest product offering.

The RELAX! Crescent Neck Pillow joins a well-received family of unusual silk and cotton relaxation pillows. Designed expressly to address neck and shoulder fatigue by comfortably supporting the head and neck when sitting up, the RELAX! makes an exceptional travel companion, perfect for trips by air, rail or auto.

A versatile product, the pillow is practical for reading and desk work, as well. The crescent shaped pillow has a 100% cotton velveteen case and is filled with organically-grown buckwheat hulls.

H2B Co. is a pioneer in the emerging trend of soft-tech tools for personal health care in the 1990s. By incorporating age-old relaxation techniques into accessible products for today's discerning and health-conscious public, H2B supplies tools for the art of relaxation.

The company's flagship product, the popular Rest Your Eyes eye pillow, has been recognized nationally for its ability to alleviate a modern health problem -- stress. The sensuous, flaxseed-filled pillow placed over the eyes, blocks out all light and provides a gentle weight which soothes away tension in and around the eyes.

This approach for restoring peace and quiet to the mind was first used in Asia centuries ago.

Said Lolly Font, director of the California Yoga Center in Palo Alto, Calif.: "Healing stems from deep relaxation. The eyes -- windows to the soul -- are inundated with visual noise. Headaches, hypertension and susceptibility to illness are often the result of the over-stimulation we endure every day. An integral part of my yoga teaching is the use of the Rest Your Eyes eye pillow in relaxation postures. Giving the eyes a complete rest, even briefly, is a powerful restorative of inner calm and well-being."

Convenient, effective and handmade of the highest quality materials , the eye pillow responds to the demanding lifestyle and healthy-habit changes of our culture in the 90's. It has proven to be widely popular, especially among health-conscious consumers, families, computer users and frequent flyers.

And increasingly, massage practitioners and physical therapists are finding the eye pillow an ideal acccessory for their practices.

H2B products have been enthusiastically reviewed in Self, Glamour, New York Post, Boston Globe and Yoga Journal and have relaxed the necks, backs and eyes of many Hollywood celebrities.

The Rest Your Eyes eye pillow is available through 500 retail outlets, including 63 Marriott Hotel gift shops nationwide. Individuals also may order the Rest Your Eyes eye pillow (starting at $12) and the RELAX! Crescent Neck Pillow ($40) directly from the company by calling: 800/829-6580.

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Note to Editors: Complete media kit with sample Pillow available.

CONTACT: Weis Public Relations, Berkeley, Calif.

             Ellen Weis, 510/524-8854
            Fax: 510/524-8855

Contest Survey Asks, "Who Takes Responsibility For Pleasure?"

2005-11-19T12:45:00.000+01:00

Are men the masters of the boudoir? Do they take the most responsibility for sexual pleasure? Or are women more interested in pleasing their partners?

In the area of contraception, a few highly reputable studies have shown that there is an alarming disconnect between what is said and what is done when it comes to men's behavior. Assuming that the same holds true when considering which partner is responsible for pleasure, we decided to hold a contest to find out whether more men or women claim to take control of making sure their partner is satisfied.

The Body Perfect.com is working with WNEW 102.7 radio in New York City to conduct a survey and contest on the WNEW web site (www.wnew.com) asking, "Who do you think takes responsibility for pleasure?" The winner, who will be picked at random and announced the week of July 29, will receive a romantic dinner for two at the restaurant of his or her choice (a $150 value), as well as a basket filled to the brim with luxury skincare products from The Body Perfect.com, including 6th Gear(TM), a botanical stimulating lubricant that allows a man to take charge of a woman's satisfaction while making himself a hero in her eyes.

Back to the science. In the largest nationwide study regarding men's contraceptive use by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 78 percent of men (whether in committed or casual relationships) stated that men and women have equal responsibility for contraception. However, another study by the Population Council's Center for Biomedical Research found that in reality 80 percent of the world's contraceptive users are female and that the majority of contraceptive research and family planning programs focus on female clients and methods, placing the burden of responsibility for protection squarely on women's shoulders.

In spite of the bravado that keeps most men from admitting to incidents of less than stellar performance, more than 10 million men have a popular prescription drug to enhance sexual performance. Women, too, often need help to intensify the enjoyment of sex, particularly those near the age of menopause, when decreased lubrication and diminished libido can make the act uncomfortable and unsatisfying.

The fact is that stress, fatigue, fluctuating hormone levels, anti-depressant use and a host of physical conditions can take their toll on women, resulting in decreased sensitivity and arousal. Hence the introduction of 6th Gear(TM), a unique gel with botanical active ingredients that helps stimulate the skin's touch receptors. By addressing the need for increased lubrication and sensitivity in women and the occasional need for enhanced stimulation in men, it amplifies pleasure for both sexes. The addition of the herbs Yohimbe and Saw Palmetto, both derived from extracts of the bark of African trees, are what make 6th Gear(TM) different from mere lubricants. Yohimbe has been used for centuries to heighten sensation and arousal, while Saw Palmetto has long been known to increase the vitality of male and female organs of reproduction. Because of these ingredients, 6th Gear(TM) allows men and women to share in the responsibility for each other's pleasure - safely and naturally. And it lets the discerning man take charge of a woman's pleasure by addressing her problems and needs.

"Satisfying sexual activity requires good communication between two partners who are as interested in gratifying each other as in pleasing themselves. That's why I developed 6th Gear(TM), a lubricant that meets the needs of men and women. Even if only one partner is experiencing difficulty with decreased arousal, 6th Gear(TM) will help heighten the pleasure for both partners," says Normajean Fusco, president of Equibal/The Body Perfect, a line of scientifically formulated total skin care products that use only the purest, most concentrated botanical ingredients.

6th Gear(TM) is one of the latest innovations from Equibal's The Body Perfect, facial and total bodycare products that deliver spa and salon quality results at home. Normajean Fusco, the founder of Equibal Labs, created The Body Perfect line in response to retail customer's specific needs. Founded in 1984, Equibal Labs is renowned for its professional line of facial and anti-cellulite treatments and Nufree(R), a non-wax, soy-based depilatory product that has become the standard of spas and salons around the world. For more information, please visit www.thebodyperfect.com.

It's No Contest. Men Voted More Responsible For Pleasing Their Partners

2005-11-19T12:18:00.000+01:00

Look out, ladies. Setting the mood and satisfying your desires is a man's job, according to results just in from The Body Perfect's online contest. Men have been known to buy roses and make dinner reservations. Now we can state with conviction that they're the ones responsible for pleasing their partners in the romance department. That's the opinion of listeners both male and female in a contest posted on the web site of WNEW radio in New York City and promoted by some of the station's DJ's on-air.

The contest asked listeners to vote whether they think men or women are more responsible for their partner's pleasure. Men outnumbered women in the total number of votes cast. The final count, which combined male and female responses, favored men two-to-one in asserting that men are in charge of assuring their partner's pleasure.

"The results didn't come as a surprise to us," said Normajean Fusco, president of The Body Perfect, a luxury skin care company and the makers of 6th Gear stimulating lubricant. "They confirmed what we've known all along. People in the industry say that men are a tough market when it comes to skincare, but we know better. Men simply want products that deliver results. And they know the value of a product that will benefit them by keeping their partner's interest."

Smart men know that addressing a woman's occasional need for additional lubrication and heightened sensation can mean increased pleasure for both partners. It's no secret that "Sorry honey, I have a headache," often means that stress, fatigue, fluctuating hormone levels, anti-depressant use and a host of physical conditions can take their toll on women, resulting in decreased interest and arousal.

That's why The Body Perfect hosted the online contest - to illustrate that men are concerned about a woman's pleasure. On hearing that voters selected men as more responsible for pleasure, Denise Gonzalez of Glen Rock, New Jersey, the randomly selected winner, remarked, "Really! I think that traditionally the onus has been on women in terms of romance. The 'animal drive' would come from men, but I think women set the mood and take the lead."

Well, Denise, The Body Perfect hopes you'll enjoy your prize of a romantic dinner for two, and bear in mind that today's man is taking a woman's pleasure very much to heart. Ninety-eight percent of total sales of 6th Gear in 2002 have been to men!

6th Gear is one of the latest innovations from Equibal's The Body Perfect(R), a new consumer line of facial and total bodycare items. Normajean Fusco, the founder of Equibal Labs, created The Body Perfect line in response to retail customer's specific needs. Founded in 1984, Equibal Labs is renowned for its professional line of facial and anti-cellulite treatments and Nufree(R), a non-wax, soy-based depilatory product that has become the standard of spas and salons around the world. For more information, please visit www.thebodyperfect.com.