Thursday 9 October 2014

THE KIDS HAVE BEEN UP since seven-thirty

THE KIDS HAVE BEEN UP since seven-thirty playing machine amusements and viewing toons. What a crime for them to be inside on such an excellent day, you harrumph to yourself. On the fridge, you recognize the timetable of occasions from the adjacent nature focus. "How about we Get Face to Face with Flowers," it draws. Simply the thing! Buds are blasting. There's a warm breeze loaded with the sweet-smelling aroma of the forested areas simply awakening. 

You trundle the children into the minivan. They dejectedly assent. "Do we need to do a project? Projects are exhausting," the more established one gripes. However when you pull into the parking garage at Happy Hills Nature Center, their countenances light up. They toss the sliding entryway open and hurry down through the bloom filled glade to the shore of the lake. Ross, age seven, pulls off his tennis shoes and wades in, curved over looking for frogs. Amanda, age ten, thuds down and begins making a dandelion tiara. What a decent choice, you think to yourself. 

Terri, the smiley naturalist wearing the authority Happy Hills insigniaed staff shirt, walks over. "Here for the blossom program?" she tweets. "We're getting together in the Cozy Corner room to begin." 

Ross asks, "Can Freddie come as well?" holding up the fat green frog he has gotten to know. 

Terri's brilliant face obscures a bit. "Too bad. Freddie needs to stay in the lake. Did you know the oils from your hands can make Freddie wiped out?" 

In the obscured Cozy Corner room, Terri has arranged a Powerpoint of every last one of blooms you may see on the trail today. "Here are some spring marvels. They look much the same as little peppermint confections. Anyhow, obviously, we can't consume them. Furthermore here's one of my top picks, Dutchman's breeches. 

After about the seventh slide the children begin to squirm in their seats. "Daddy, I need to go pee," whines Ross. After about the twenty-seventh slide, you excessively need to go pee. 

"What's more now, we should perceive what number of we can discover," Terri says. It's great to be again outside. After entering the forested areas, Amanda notices a red eft in a patch of greenery. She makes a couple of strides off the trail and Terri rebukes her: "Recollect, Amanda, nature is delicate! When you stroll off the trail, you pulverize different varieties of little animals you can't see." Farther on Ross hurries up into the welcoming limbs of a tree that has fallen over the trail. "Sorry, Ross, no climbing, excessively risky, we wouldn't need you to get harm." At each one bloom, Terri rounds everybody around and lets them know the Latin name, the natural uses, the pollinator, the . . . Occasionally somebody gets to touch the petals, just veeerrry tenderly. Picking blooms is strictly verboten.

Monday 4 March 2013

Don't Look Now



Don't Look Now is a 1973 thriller film directed by Nicolas Roeg. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland star as a married couple who travel to Venice following the recent accidental death of their daughter, after the husband accepts a commission to restore a church. They encounter two sinister sisters, one of whom claims to be clairvoyant and inform them that their daughter is trying to contact them and warn them of danger. 

The husband at first dismisses their claims, but starts to experience mysterious sightings himself. It is an independent British and Italian co-production adapted from the short story by Daphne du Maurier. While Don't Look Now observes many conventions of the thriller genre, its primary focus is on the psychology of grief, and the effect the death of a child can have on a relationship. Its emotionally convincing depiction of grief is often singled out as a trait not usually present in films featuring supernatural plot elements.

As well as the unusual handling of its subject matter, Don't Look Now is renowned for its atypical but innovative editing style, and its use of recurring motifs and themes. The film often employs flashbacks and flash forwards in keeping with the depiction of precognition, but some scenes are intercut or merged to alter the viewer's perception of what is really happening.

 It also adopts an impressionist approach to its imagery, often presaging events with familiar objects, patterns and colors using associative editing techniques. Originally causing controversy on its initial release due to an explicit and for the time very graphic sex scene between Christie and Sutherland, its reputation has grown considerably in the years since, and it is now acknowledged as a modern classic and an influential work in horror and British film.

Monday 16 July 2012

LOOK algorithm

LOOK is similar to SCAN in that the heads sweep across the disk surface in both directions performing reads and writes. However, unlike SCAN, which visits the innermost and outermost cylinders each sweep, LOOK will change directions when it has reached the last request in the current direction.

Monday 19 September 2011

Please Don't Touch


Please Don't Touch! is the second solo album by English guitarist Steve Hackett, and his first after leaving Genesis in 1977.

The album featured several guests including R&B singer Randy Crawford, American folk icon Richie Havens, the drummer and vocalist for the progressive rock band Kansas (Phil Ehart and Steve Walsh respectively), Frank Zappa alumnus Tom Fowler, Genesis concert drummer Chester Thompson, and Van der Graaf violinist Graham Smith.

This was also Hackett's first album to feature his pioneering use of the Roland GR-500 Guitar Synthesizer.
In 2005, Please Don't Touch! was remastered and re-released by Hackett's Camino Records label. The new edition features updated liner notes and three bonus tracks.