subota, 29.12.2007.
terry armour
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tab thacker
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setara qassim
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petak, 28.12.2007.
bhutto assassination
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kat von dee
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tiger maul
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pakistan
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Animesh Roul refers to a NYT report on the Counterterrorism Blog: The heart of the problem (and I am being charitable this Christmas season by not mentioning mendacity as part of the problem) is the different understanding of what terror means. Americans think that terrorism is any act of illegal warfare directed primarily at civilians that is committed by non-uniformed irregular fighters. There are other accepted meanings of terror, such bhutto dead the state-sanctioned terror committed by totalitarian governments from Jacobin France to the Soviet Union to Cambodia, the pakistan caused by strategic bombing, and the balance of nuclear terror that pakistan part pakistan the Cold War. The Muslims of Pakistan do not agree with these meanings. They think that warfare directed at civilians by non-uniformed irregular fighters is just fine, as long as it is part of a Jihad for Allah. So the USA gives money to Pakistan for anti-terror purposes and it is used to commit terrorist acts. OK Mushy, time to give that money back. You cant keep it if you are going to use it to kill your neighbors instead of chasing after your terrorist population up in the mountains of Bajaur and Waziristan. |
četvrtak, 27.12.2007.
kal penn
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I was going to put up some pictures but my triple chin threatened me with even more bodily harm than it has already inflicted on my bloated body. Therefore, until my triple chin leaves me, and takes my double chin and love handles with it, I shall refrain from taking any pictures. Which will be in kal penn 3 centuries, 2 years, 6 months and 17 days. But my beloved appendages will never leave me. They love me and all the fat storing crevices I provide. C'est la vie, oui? So here's the plan for the summer - I want to continue learning Spanish. I love love love that language. Actually I also love the sound of French, but a birth defect (or so I shall have you believe) prevents me from rolling my rrrr's when I speak. And why am I thinking of summer? Because it's spring, baby!!!!!! There's sunshine and warmth and a cool breeze to top of the best morning ever. I love sunshine, I do. Speaking of love and someone who I think is VERY attractive *wiggles eyebrows*, I just saw this movie called Ball and Chain where Kal Penn has a supporting role. I love that boy. By the way, if you want to watch the movie, watch it when you're in a silly, relaxed mood. Lisa Ray, who's also in the movie, can't act worth beans and there's that guy from Dude, Where's the Party? movie, WHICH I think you should watch. Lord, I feel cheery today. Hmm..how strange. |
quincy jones
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Although Im an African-American, R+B music wasnt my first love. It was Berry Gordy, Jr.the owner and guiding force behind Motown, who changed the sound of Black America into the Sound of Young America. The crossover vision soon captured my imagination as well. His formula always started with an extremely well crafted song, musically sophisticated with a strong beat, and used boxer day best producers, musicians, arrangers as well as pool of remarkable singers. Ironically, It was white people who 2008 new years layouts me aware of how Motown records were put together. I used to sit with Bert Berns ( Twist and Shout , Hang On Sloopy ), Jerry Ragavoy( Cry, Cry Baby , who co-wrote Piece quincy jones Heart with Bert) or with Ed Silvers, who ran the New York office of Metric music, and listen to Motowns latest releases. Each of these astute, songwriter/ producers would point out something in each record that would strike a quincy jones in me. Little did I know that this informal education would help me forge relationships with some of the greatest African-American performers, songwriters and producers of all time that included Quincy Jones, Van McCoy, Donny Hathaway, Freddie Perren, Hal Davis, Allan Toussant, Joe Simon, and Rick James. It wasnt until I worked with Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson did more of the pieces of the Motown puzzle began to fit. We were all signed exclusively to write songs and produce for Scepter Records. When we werent creating, Nick and Val would take time to show me the chords and demonstrate the harmonies of all my favorite Motown hits. They sang background on most of my demos and shared their studio musicians with me. I always thought it was a shame that Motown didnt consider outsde material for their artists&I was convinced that they had two or three songs that could have topped the charts with The Four Tops or the Supremes. Then something unexpected happened, for financial reasons, Scepter records sold off their publishing companies. Ed Silvers moved to Hollywood, to run Viva music, Nick and Val started doing more background sessions, and I who was quincy jones married, had to scramble to find another job in publishing! About a month later, I became a partner in Allouette productions with Sandy and Kelli Ross, and we represented quincy jones publishing interests of Quincy Jones, Bobby Scott, Joey Levine, Artie Resnick and Leslie Gore. I brought Ashford and Simpson to Quincys company, but at the time he couldnt afford to sign them. When I was approached by Jeffery Bowen and Eddie Holland (Holland/ Dozier/ Holland) to join Motowns publishing company, Jobete music, I turned them down. I did, however, take the opportunity to introduce them to Ashford and Simpson. It wasnt long before my friends were signed to an exclusive contract. A few months later, Nick and Valerie call me from Associated studios, and ask me to come over and listen to the tracks theyd been cutting at Motown. I sat down and freaked out when I heard, Aint No Mountain High Enough , and Aint Nothin Like The Real Thing . Although their voices were on קר×S×” ×‘×¨×•× ×™ tracks, it didnt take much imagination to hear Marvin Gaye singing it! They said he was recording it as a duet with a new Motown quincy jones Tammi Terrell. Over the next few years, I discovered that Motown was quite a secretive place and had little to do with people outside of their organisation. There were rumors that it was really owned by the Mob&but they were only rumors. For years, I followed Nick and Vals quincy jones like everybody else&on the radio. The next time I talked to them was track santa I moved to the west coast to join Ed Silvers at Warner Brothers music. I got a call from Nick, who told me that they were victim of Motowns creative accounting and they werent getting the money that they deserved as songwriters. I was happy to get my former partner, Sandy Ross to represent them and help them escape&but that was just the beginning! left to right- Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson |
2008 myspace layouts
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will smith
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Will Smith has a new movie coming out called Hancock. You can see the trailer below. The premise is that Hancock is a superhero with a pretty poor attitude. Spidermans old line of with great power comes great responsibility is clearly being ignored. Hancock seems to create as many problems as he solves, particularly with collateral damage . I have hope that the movie brings home the message that a superhero is not a hero without character. A superhero needs caring and integrity to pair with their abilities or theyre not worth reading about. |
lou adler
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After a morning of lou adler songs with Gary Zekely, and Mitch Bottler , the team who wrote Sooner Or Later and Wait A Million Years , we went over to the A&M lot to meet with walmart store hours christmas Adler, (who would produce Carole Kings Tapestry .) After my appointment, I took Richard on an impromptu tour of the facility (which I had never seen). I introduced him to Herb Alpert ( who I didnt know), who introduced both of us to Joan Baez. Then we checked out A&M recording studios to see who was there. That’s when I ran into Phil Spector, (who I did know from my days as an artist at Liberty Records ). I introduced him to Richard, who I knew idolized him. Phil invited us into the studio to listen to a track he was doing with the Checkmates, Proud Mary . When Phil signaled to the engineer to start the tape…I was standing in front of the speaker and was literally blown away¬ just by the recording itself&but by the incredible volume!!! Phil smiled enigmatically as Richard helped me maintain my balance. As Richard was driving me back to my hotel I asked him if he had a chance to think about what we discussed earlier in the day? He looked at me, with stars in his eyes and said, Yeah&Fuck Ice lou adler I’m going into the music business! Pictured at top- Phil Spector |
I first visited Hollywood in 1968 for a combo business trip and quicky divorce. Having lived all my life in New York, I never learned how to drive, so my friend Richard Baskin, graciously took me to my appointments. Richard (who a few years later went on to produce the music for Robert Altmans, Nashville”, Willie Nelsons On the Road Again”, and several outstanding cuts with Barbra Streisand) lou adler still in college and also one of the heirs to Baskin/Robbins ice cream empire. At his friends and familys request I tried to talk him into staying in school…putting his music srijeda, 26.12.2007.
l arche de zoe
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Les Tchadiens en ont assez de cette France qui pourchasse les sans-papiers et se croit au-dessus des lois. Le gouvernement du président tchadien Idriss Déby Itno a mis un coup de frein à lopération dénommée Children Rescue de LArche de Zoé sur son territoire, avant daccuser lassociation descroquerie et denlèvement de mineurs. Elle a beau sen défendre, mais même en gift card trade quelle était de bonne foi, lassociation sy est mal prise sur un sujet et un terrain aussi sensibles. A NDjamena, comme partout ailleurs en Afrique, ce qui a le plus choqué, cest moins lintention, certes louable, de vouloir l arche de zoe des enfants par des méthodes peu recommandables que le fait davoir pris de largent à des familles daccueil pour cela. Une méthode qui ressemble fort étrangement au phénomène des Vidomégon (enfants placés) très connu au Bénin et dans bien dautres pays dAfrique, et vivement combattu par les gouvernements au moyen dune politique transfrontalière. Le scandale humanitaire provoqué par LArche de l arche de zoe na fait que raviver le sentiment antifrançais au Tchad et en Afrique de manière générale. Après le scandale de la récente loi sur limmigration en France, les Africains en sont à se demander comment ceux l arche de zoe sous divers prétextes, rechignent à octroyer des visas dentrée dans leur pays à des Africains, ceux qui décident de regroupements familiaux par ADN interposé sont encore capables de venir chercher des enfants africains sans que lon sache réellement à quoi ils seront destinés. Certains ironisent en disant que laffaire de LArche de Zoé au Tchad est, de loin, plus grave que celle des sans-papiers en France. On a beau trouver que le président Idriss Déby Itno la récupéré politiquement, il nen demeure pas moins vrai que, dans le contexte géopolitique de la région aujourdhui, la démarche de LArche de Zoé paraît alambiquée et pèche sur plusieurs points. Pour Amely James Koh Bela, présidente de lassociation Mayina, ils ont dû travailler avec des intermédiaires douteux qui ont enlevé les enfants. On ne peut pas dire que LArche de Zoé soit impliquée dans le trafic denfants. Eric Breteau, le président de cette association, a pensé agir pour le bien des enfants, ça ne fait aucun doute. En tout cas, après la libération des journalistes qui couvraient lopération, ainsi que des hôtesses de lair espagnoles, grâce à lintervention du président français, Nicolas Sarkozy, et la mobilisation de la presse à léchelle internationale, les autres membres de léquipage et de lassociation française devraient répondre des chefs daccusation pesant sur eux. Sauf dénouement l arche de zoe dAfricains qui ne se sont pas encore remis du vote de la récente loi sur limmigration en France sont plutôt favorables à ce que la procédure judiciaire engagée à NDjamena aille jusquau bout. Ce serait christmas at belmont façon comme une autre de montrer aux Occidentaux que les choses, dorénavant, ont changé en Afrique. Que nimporte qui, sous nimporte quel prétexte, ne peut plus se permettre dagir selon son bon vouloir - et encore moins sortir en masse des enfants dun pays en violant la législation en vigueur. En tout état de cause, selon cette dernière, les inculpés de laffaire de LArche de Zoé encourent des peines de vingt ans de travaux forcés. De quoi faire réfléchir tout l arche de zoe dune association humanitaire, avant de sengager dans une quelconque opération sur le sol africain. |
Il est courant que les activités dorganisations non gouvernementales ou dassociations the great debaters
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Elise sat down with Kam Williams. Here are a few snippets. On The Great Debaters KW: What interested you in The Great Debaters? KE: Well, a oldest man to walk on the moon of things. One, I thought it was a fantastic part of our history, of American history, and what an honor it would be to be a part of telling this story. Its a small part, but it was important to Denzel [director/co-star Denzel Washington] that every part be filled by a strong actor. So, it was a no-brainer. On her next film project Red Soil KW: The director of Red moresupraultra.blogspot.com is Charles Burnett, who has enjoyed a renaissance this year with the long-overdue theatrical release of Killer of Sheep, a movie he made 30 years ago, way back in 1977. KE: Im very excited to be working with Charles. KW: I know that story is set in Ghana. Will you be filming on location? KE: Yes. Read the rest of the interview at News Blaze. |
www.zune.net/setup
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ipod nano probleme
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google desktop
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On linux I use the locate command to find files by name. I use grep google desktop search content of files within a directory (recursively). On windows, I have always used only the filename based search. I dont run Windows search indexing service. Nor do I have Google Desktop installed (they already know a lot about my web searches, why give away more info about me?). Anyway, the purpose of this post is to pen a couple of my thoughts on the recent Googles complaint about Vistas search capabilities (or lack of them, to be more precise, as it pertains to Googles ability to replace the in-built functionality with its own). Unstructured textual data is fundamentally searched using the technology outlined at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tf-idf It works pretty good when no one tries to influence the search results. When this algorithm is directly applied to the web, it fails miserably because of web masters and SEO experts trying melinda dillon tweak their pages to influence the basic algorithm. Then google desktop this $100+ billion dollar idea called PageRank by Google guys which figured out a way to beat this biased tweaking. So, thats why they are No. 1 today in the internet search. However, files on your desktop are not being tweaked by anyone so that their files are going to show up first. Isnt it? This isnt the case either at home or at work. Essentially, any intranet information is mostly unbiased. In addition, the pagerank, which is mainly based on linking between pages, is mostly irrelevant since files on the disk are mostly non-html files. Like pdf, word, ppt, spreadsheet, txt files. Ofcourse, there may be html files too, but thats not the majority. Since PageRank is irrelevant for personal/intranet files, it doesnt matter whether one uses Googles desktop search or any other search based on the tf-idf algorithm mentioned earlier. Googles argument is that people should have choice. There are people who are pro and against Googles idea. Some believe that this should be a OS functionality. Even though I dont use Google Desktop or Vista or Windows search indexing service, my thinking is, as there is no advantage of PageRank algorithm, it doesnt matter which one is used. However, I have the following thought process, from a technical standpoint, based on my familiarity with materialized views. Materialized Views is a database concept that is used to speed up queries, much google desktop same way a text index helps speeding up text search as opposed to a normal grep command which has to scan the entire text of each google desktop Materialized Views can google desktop classified as fast refreshable or full refresh mvs. That is, depending on the complexity of the query google desktop materialized, its either possible to compute the query either in a incremental fashion (since the last refresh), or compute it completely. Luckily, the tf-idf is incremental. MVs also can be refreshed immediately or in deferred google desktop In immediate mode, as the underlying table is updated (and on commit), the MV gets computed. The equivalent to this in case of a text indexing a file system is, as and when a file is created, updated or deleted, the text index can be updated immediately. The benefit of immediate refresh is that there is no need for a periodic long-running process to update the index. The reason why the periodic process takes longer time is because it takes a while to figure out what files have been already indexed and which ones have been modified, created or deleted since the last index. With immediate refresh, this operation is spread google desktop each file operation. The disadvantage with the immediate refresh is the fact that it would slow down the individual operations, but thats mostly very negligible. With dual cpu cores these days, these additional book keeping tasks like text indexing can happen in the spare cpu. The same can be said for the long running periodic process as well, but the fact remains that it has to scan the entire disk, much like a virus scanning service. Now, the ability to detect a change to a file is within the filesystem module which is a core OS functionality. Who can do this more efficiently than the one who wrote the file system in the first google desktop So, if Microsoft supports this type of an incremental file system search indexing, then with the quality of search results being no different google desktop to lack of PageRank advantage in a file repository), which one would you choose? |
happy new year myspace layouts
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utorak, 25.12.2007.
noradsanta
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Today I: |
subota, 22.12.2007.
sam boyd stadium
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Hot Import Nights came to Las Vegas this past saturday. HIN is a traveling car show with a lot of cars, girls and music. Pretty popular event for car enthusiasts and the general public. The event was held at Sam Boyd Stadium. My camera was not co-operating that night, but i got some pictures. Check them out after the jump More pictures at the HIN site and WCI site. http://www.hotimportnights.com/events/coverage.asp?id=1054A7E3PKZ76SQEBDI7YJ7W http://www.westcoastimports.net/Gallery/index.php?list=31&page=allNice space boots! My buddies 10 sec integra. He took home two trophies |
danielle fischel
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leah hickman
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Clark Davis Huntington police are searching for a Marshall University student that’s been missing since last Friday. Family and friends of 21-year-old Leah Hickman began to worry Saturday when she did not report to her job at the Dress Barn in Barboursville. When she missed work again Sunday, the police involvement became more intensive. John Williams: â€SAt this point we’re giving this 100 percent of our attention,” Huntington Police Sgt. John Williams said. â€SAs you know with any investigation, the first few days are very critical from the time the reports are received, so we’re acting accordingly on that. No, nothings pointing to it one way or the other. Of course, we’re keeping all possible scenarios and options as far as the investigative course.” Williams says the case is perplexing. There is no evidence of foul play, but it isn’t like Hickman to disappear. John Williams: â€SIntensive is we’re checking all options, checking the background, we have several agencies assisting us and checking some information and stuff. There’s nothing in her lifestyle that would indicate that this is any type of normal behavior for her. It causes us concern and thats unlike her. ” Meanwhile, fliers have been put up in neighborhoods in the Huntington area and Lawrence County, Ohio. Hickman is a junior from Mason County majoring in journalism. |
tooth
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It was a Friday evening. I slowly slipped out from my mothers view, and tiptoed to the terrace. After ensuring noone is around, I climbed over the chimney. I have been severely warned and reprimanded by mom and dad against climbing over the chimney, as they say I may fall down and hurt myself. As I had no accomplices in this act, I had to make sure that none of my parents or the countless aunties who do part time espionage for them, are not observing my climbing over the chimney. I took out the old pencil box from ventilator, and opened it. It had four teeth inside it. I looked at them with some sense of a valuable asset that I possess, and suddenly I could hear my mother calling for me. I answered: Yes amma& I am coming . I hastily closed the box, and hurried to hide it back. Sadly, I had a momentary lapse of concentration, and the box slipped from my hand and fell down. I ran, took it and by the michael devlin I could go back to hide it elsewhere, my mother saw me. She came running to me, and I was struggling there, to hide the box. She asked me: What are you doing? I was not a big liar then. So she could easily observe me battling out to cover up the situation. I have been told by my parents that if I lie, I will lose my eye-sight. So, I was a bit worried about losing my eyes as well. Still I showed some nerve, and answered: Nothing amma . Dissatisfied with my answer, she came forward and grabbed the box from me. She opened it, and I could see glasses shattering in front of me. I have been robbed! She just looked at me back, and then scolded me. For how many times did I tell u not to keep any of these things with you? Why dont you understand? I had told you everytime to give this to the maid, so that she can throw them off after moulding it with cowdung (superstition) She took them and walked off. Tears started rollicking from my eyes, and I cried and begged to my mother to give it back. She simply refused, and after making a few more unsuccessful attempts,  I declared that the battle has begun. The mode of retaliation was instantly discussed (with my alter ego I mean! I had an alter ego when I was a kid :P) with top priority, and good old Gandhijis mode of Satyagraha; the hunger strike was approved unanimously. The time is 8.30. I had not relented to my mother, and I was really feeling hungry. There have been many attempts from the managements side, to reach a consensus, and call off the strike. She tried to lure me by giving lucrative pro bowl such as five star, gems, dairy milk, amul mike chocolate etc, which poured oil to my burning hunger. Still the demands from our side (My alter ego and I) were not accepted, and we decided to continue the strike. Finally the ultimate authority, my dad came after a ruin romo days slog at office. He is visibly tired. Management proposes this infront of him. He listened to her patiently, takes a light shower before coming to my room. Stroking my head gently, he waited for sometime. Then he slowly raised his voice. What happened dear son? I was eagerly waiting to explode. I narrated my version of whole story, sobbing. All efforts were made from my side to denigrate my mother and label her a cruel capitalist. I called for the unity of workers of the whole world!  He listened to them patiently and approvingly. After hearing the whole narration, he told me: Dear son, I accept that amma was short tempered and non considerative when she took away your ed simmons chemical brothers assets. But think about her. She is your mother. She also loves you. She didnt do that to purposefully hurt you. There is no use for you with those tooth. Since it was something precious for you, I am ready to pay a compensation for it today. You try to work out, the compensation is going to be much higher than what you could have asked for it anytime. He has always been smart in fueling my interest while coming up with offers like this. Since I was really hungry by then, I was also waiting for some kind of opportunity to work out an agreement. I, trying not to sound too curious, asked: What is it? He replied: A game of chess and a light stroll towards the temple after dinner. I jumped in joy and said: Yes! My mother was still gritty. She said: He is hungry. He would have come for dinner anyways. This was too much to me. I went back crying, and praying in heart that dad would again give some more offers. My dad scolded my mother, and then came back to me: Dear, let us have dinner, and a game of chess, and then a stroll towards the temple and we will observe the night sky for half an hour there. I increased my demands: I would come if you promise me that you are not going to take amma with us. He smiled, and then winked towards my mother, and said to me: Of course, that is a part of our agreement. We, bad boys will freak out tonight! I was overjoyed, I came out, started singing my favorite song, and jumped in joy, and moved to the dinner table. The dinner was one of the most delicious one I had till then, thanks to my irresistible hunger. |
little manhattan
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Lately, Ive been hanging out with a friend til around 2 in the morning just chilling, people watching, going to karaoke pubs, and drinking a beer or two. Last night, after a very long but disappointingly boring night at the Zone, my friend and I started our late-night routine of walking along Yonge Street all the way up to Bloor Street to get on a bus taking me up north to Lawrence Station, and him to Dufferin Street. I usually dread sitting or, if unlucky, standing on a bus known as the vomit comet , which got its reputation after the fact that there is more than 80% chance of witnessing someone vomit, a humiliating relief, before reaching your destination. Some are pretty polite about it; they would shout at the top of their lungs begging to stop the bus because they know theyd explode in 3, 2, oh, she didnt make it. Last night, though, no one vomited. In fact, it was quite an interesting night. A rugged-looking nerd of a guy decided to stand up and start yelling, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have an House of the Dead and the entire bus went from a pig sty to a courtroom. You can feel the tension in the silence, as well as the intensifying eye of strangers looking right back at the tensed and awkward orator. Briefly, the man wanted the world to know how much he loves this mexican lady, and how willing he is to keep her forever. The dilemma I think is that they have some language barrier; He speaks English fluently but not Spanish, while she speaks Spanish fluently but is not very comfortable with the English language albeit she can converse in English properly, if not fluently. He shouts, I really love this woman and I want this to work, what do you guys think? , to which people replied, Yeah! Woohoo! I love her, too! And me, too!!! A few seconds later, the woman standing right next to me walked in front of him, hugged him, then kissed him, and everybody just clapped and hollered. Say Cheese!!! This is a kodak moment folks. Eglinton is next, Eglinton. And sorry, no champagne in the bus, the bus driver announced. As the bus pulled over, the couple got off, walking while holding hands together. As for me, as much as I found it a bit romantic, I couldnt help but be ambivalent about it. It was, nonetheless, quite a crowd-stopper. |
Love isnt about ridiculous little words. Love is about grand gestures. Love is about airplanes pulling banners over stadiums, proposals on jumbo-trons, giant words in sky writing. Love is about going that extra mile even if it hurts, letting it all hang out there. Love is about finding courage inside of you that you didnt even know was there. Gabe (Little Manhattan)abc supply
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Billionaire roofer Ken Hendricks died today from head trauma suffered after falling through the roof of his garage. After dropping out of high school, Hendricks worked for his fathers roofing business. He later founded roofing materials supplier ABC Supply. He had been contracted to build a roof for a complex to be used in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I suspect he was not attired thusly at the time of his accident: Hendricks passing lowers from eleven to ten the number of billionaires tied at #91 on the Forbes |
petak, 21.12.2007.
mike bellotti
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Unseasoned, but strong Time returns, wounds heal& Even four three five QBs turn diamond I bring discipline Hail, Persephone! Late frost burns the bloom *if you can recognize the haiku this is based on, Mitch Mustain will transfer to your school |
google doodles
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If anyone shares my odd fascination with the Google doodles that you see appearing on their website for holidays, special events and birfdays, you will especially enjoy this website, which chronicles all its doodles over the years: http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html Also good: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2004/06/oodles-of-doodles.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Doodle |
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