Piggy and his "Doubles" vendor on the Western Main Road, Trinidad "Doubles" is a staple food for screaming commuters on their way to work, and in Trinidad and Tobago is a popular specialty food vendor along the street is around country. Located In "Piggy" the holder of this manufacturer, the Western Main Road, Trinidad, said that the food is not an easy task and for the two hundred customers who stop at every morning and wait politely in line …

All the teen mothers want future-tall babies and Jesus to come from the clouds and start saving them money on groceries and scratch-offs and beer. They want cowboys to whisper soft things in their ears. All the babies are starving in dark restaurant booths, crying over hunger and the poke of a tooth while Mommy’s up working somewhere at the bar. Every night ends in a cold stranger’s car. This ain’t how you meet a nice, salaried man. It’s sad but this is a lifetime of plans, culminating in doubles and long graveyard shifts where time doesn’t pass, so much as it drifts like a car driving drunk over multiple lanes. All the teen mothers want drugs for the pain and a cheap vcr to record weekday shows and a handsome young neighbor to plow when it snows. The ashtray’s been full for a couple weeks now. Maybe pick up a new one next time you’re in town. But all action ends in moot talks about. It’s really gotten too late to go out unless its drinks for a birthday or maybe the end of a long week and they need a night to be dead to the children that never stop crying in cribs with smeared peas and spittle hardened on their bibs. And this new guy says he’d love the chance to help out – you know, clean out the gutters, fill up the mouths. It stars with a ride, one more quick drive. All the teen mothers hate being alive sometimes.

Here are 3 exciting games from this weekends BNR Century Doubles Open Finals. James Hewitt and Steve McIntyre vs Chris Deratnay and Molson Robertson.

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3

Highlights από το Air&Style.

Η χαρά του double.

Ποιος είναι ο dropintvmunich ρε παιδιά?

Το τραγούδι ασχολίαστο…

A movie about (shooting at) garbage

The second, and later film from Jane Campion, In The Cut is not quite as “critically acclaimed,” as they say, but it should be. At least, it should be given more credit cinematically, since Campion perfects her already solid technique and creates a really impressive narrative, rich and cohesive, with elements swirling around in remarkable unity despite the appearance of chaos. Not wholly unlike The Piano, In The Cut delights – perhaps even finds its chief meaning – in turning conventionally accepted notions/expectations/commonplaces/pleasures on their heads. The first shot of the film from within Frannie’s (Meg Ryan) apartment shows the ambiguous image of small, lightweight, white objects falling from the sky. The immediate instinct is to assume it’s snow, although they seem too big to be snow. Soon thereafter we come to understand that it couldn’t be snow, considering the time of year and the weather. Later still, Frannie’s sister reveals to Frannie that they’re petal-like leaves falling from trees. Do not believe your eyes; this is largely the message of In The Cut. Appearances are deceiving, things aren’t what they seem, and so on.

Seeing ain't knowing

The strong identification, or character engagement, with Frannie attaches the viewer to her at the outset and almost never strays from her. Exceptions are momentary and wrought by narrative necessity. The suturing is stronger here with Frannie than it was with Ada in The Piano. Since this film adds the component of a whodunit? to its narrative, the film progresses better with the audience basically knowing only what Frannie knows. The dark aura that pervades the film affects the feel significantly, contributing to a post-idealistic urban setting, a dystopic microcosm, bound to highlight the sinister in society. The cops add to this vibe at least as much as anyone else, and rightly so, considering the course of the story. They’re fundamentally no different from any other members of society, as much potential suspects as anyone else, as much scumbags, as much sleep-buddies.

No Blade Runner, but still dark

Frannie and her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) stand as possible opposites, the independent woman and the dependent woman, respectively. Pauline’s pathetic stalking of a married man, her shameless fatal attraction to him leading to a restraining order, contrasts extremely with Frannie, who rarely ever dates and is constituted by a lack of desire for another. Her regular meetings with a handsome and hungry student lead to him punishing her for being a “bitch” – that is, being a woman who will not let herself be desired, will not return the gaze that caters to the desiring man. When Frannie finally does couple with a man, that coupling is defined by a reversal of traditional roles. Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) tells Frannie that he will be “anything you want me to be,” and so on. The relationship exists on her terms, for her pleasure. He willingly submits to her control, and her desire is not a desire for him, but rather for naked fulfillment. In a word, she uses him, and he knows it. All the while, she suspects him of committing the crime that is the catalyst for the film’s central mystery.

Sadistic

Having firsthand knowledge of the key piece of evidence needed to solve the crime, she withholds it. She seems to do this in order (1) to draw out the satisfaction she can experience through Malloy and (2) to solve the crime herself. Regarding the second, her day job as a high school teacher makes her an authority figure, a woman with knowledge and power. The meetings with her student are for the purpose of learning street vernacular from him so that she can give a more accurate portrait of urban life in the book she is writing. This is another instance in which Frannie uses a male for her own ends rather than letting herself be used, rebelling against gender norms. Regarding (1), it is important to note that the pleasure she experiences from Malloy is directly related to her suspicion that he is the murderer. Their romance is marked by sadism. After being mugged in an alley, Malloy has Frannnie re-stage the mugging in her apartment,  with him posing as the mugger. They do not get very far into the reenactment before arousing one another through the suggestion of violence. Toward the film’s finale, Frannie handcuffs Malloy to the wall in her apartment and proceeds to discover what appears to be incriminating evidence in his jacket pocket. The ensuing events leave Malloy stranded, cuffed to the wall like an animal as he becomes angrier and angrier. Once again, there is no question here concerning with whom the power lies. The climax in the following sequence has Frannie seizing the instrument of violence and overcoming the male villain.

Imprisoned

That climax is the second scene in which Frannie interacts with blood to a rather heavy degree. In the first, she enters a space that is extremely bloody, a space that happens to be the most intimate space of her sister’s, the bathroom where she has been murdered. This room is a sort of primal cave, penetrated through a violation of the worst kind, perhaps even on par with a violation into the womb. The bathroom already figures as the most personal, intimate space in a domicile. When Frannie enters it, not only is the evidence of the murder spread everywhere for her to see, but her sister is literally spread everywhere for her to see. This is an intrusion of the most violent sort, and Frannie walks straight into it, voluntarily surrounding herself with the bloody evidence. She is distraught, but also fearless and angry. In this way, the scene is somewhat reminiscent of the “castration” scene in The Piano.

Violated

It’s also reminiscent of that scene in another way, however. Right off, perhaps the main difference between the two scenes is that in The Piano, the act of violence is being done to Ada herself, whereas in In The Cut the act of violence has been done to Frannie’s sister. Returning, however, to the earlier point about Frannie and Pauline acting as opposites on the feminine spectrum (in terms of established archetypes or stereotypes), could they not essentially “be” the same person? There is, after all, a blurry line separating an opposite from a double. Consider not only the idea of two warring sides of a person embodies in two separate persons (something that wouldn’t be original to this film), but also the otherwise strange plot element of Pauline’s murder. Why, exactly, is she murdered? She and the murderer have never met and have no reason to meet. Their encounter only takes place as a direct result of Frannie getting a lift to her sister’s apartment. Pauline’s murder is an act supremely premeditated not only in terms of the murder itself but also in terms of the murdered person’s identity. Unless Frannie and Pauline essentially constitute two sides of the same person (from a thematic point of view), Pauline’s murder is a hole in the plot; it makes little or no sense.

Faker

If she – Frannie/Pauline – is the same person, however, then Malloy and Rodriguez (his partner) are also the same person. The two cops are partners. They work together and even hang out at the bar together. Frannie and Pauline are sisters – stepsisters, to be exact. They share the same father and spend a good deal of time together. Within the film, they’re defined in terms of one another; their identities are only clear in relation to one another. The same applies to the two cops. It’s in the bar that the difference between the two cops becomes most apparent. It’s there in the bar where Malloy tells Frannie how he’s willing to be whatever she wants him to be. Moments later Rodriguez makes some shockingly misogynistic comments (to say the least) about women that stand in polar opposition to Malloy’s words. Perhaps most importantly, it is their shared tattoo that creates the main misunderstanding fueling the film’s mystery.

Incriminated

Further still, recount the sadistic relationship that Frannie and Malloy share, and how that sadism plays out in their desires. Perhaps in this case, seeing Frannie-Malloy as “polar opposites” of Pauline-Rodriguez isn’t appropriate. Rather, significant overlap between the different couples makes them in some ways more similar than different. Another one of these overlaps concerns the guns of the two officers. We learn earlier in the film that Rodriguez carries a bright yellow squirt gun on his belt in place of a real firearm on account of losing his gun privilege due to – NB! – his wife taking the gun and using it. After cuffing Malloy to the wall, Frannie takes his gun with her (a second theft of a police gun by a woman) and rides off in Rodriguez’s car, though he is unaware that she is carrying. Her victory over him by means of a gun not only concludes the cycle for Rodriguez’s character of losing his gun to a woman (yes, folks, that’s castration), but Frannie’s theft of the gun from Malloy solidifies his status, already strongly hinted at, of being a male without an instrument of power.

Coming out bloody & on top

This is the kind of frustrating yet gratifying film that feeds on its own interpretation. The more that one sees in it, exponentially more will spring up before one’s eyes. Precious few films can submit to – what a terrible word; how about, “permit” – this kind of a reading without having violence done to them. In The Cut is a deceptively simple film, one that appears disturbing and complex but that is in fact very tight and coherent. It’s as much a Western as anything else, except in reverse. There are a hero and a villain, but instead of knowing who they are at the beginning, we aren’t fully sure until the end. Someone saves the day, but instead of fortifying established norms, the film challenges them and turns them over. At this point I’m struck with the realization that I’ve said nothing here about Frannie’s very interesting and imagined “flashbacks” to her father’s proposal to her mother and how violence fits into those. We could point to the identification between the primal, blood, and the woman that was already explored in the bathroom scene. Certainly issues of parenthood are of importance to this film, not only via the proposal flashbacks and constant talking about their father but also through the bracelet Pauline gives Frannie, suggesting Frannie as a mother. That the baby carriage breaks off of her bracelet while Frannie overcomes her mugger seems to solidify the possibility that Frannie is abandoning the maternal notion of Woman for something more powerful and independent. While there’s plenty more to discuss about this, time and space presently forbid it.

Castrated mother?

She came, she saw, she conquered

Here are games 1, 2 and 3 of the Squash Ontario Mixed Doubles match between Stephanie and James Hewitt versus Nicole Pirko and Scott Dulmage.

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3

Enjoy.

Seanna Keating and Richard Thomson battle with Stephanie and James Hewitt for the Mixed Doubles Open held at the Granite Club. Keating and Thomson take the first game, but Stephanie and James came back strong in the subsequent games to take the match 3-1.

An album of pictures from the recent Squash Ontario Mens B, C and Womens B tournament.  Kelly Kuru and Sandy Gregus won over Nicole Pirko and Pat Foster to win the Womens B.   Har Grover and Andrew Thompson won over Dilhan Kuru and Mark Langford in the Mens B category.  Wayne Pye and Steve MacInnis won the MENS C.

The picture and movie version can be found at Sportztime

So, the tennis masters cup 2009 at the O2 in London is under way.

Just watching the first match which is the doubles between Nestor & Zimonic vs Fyrstenberg & Matkowski

Then we kick off the singles with the first group matches involving Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Del Potro & Fernando Verdasco.

Let’s Go!

Huh, today is the final of China Super Series 2009, of course, will have myself at home in the afternoon to watch it live. There is now only left Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong in the final of men doubles. They are world ranked no. 1, up against the world no.2, Lee Young Dae and Jung Jae Sung from South Korea.

Real nice, exciting and interesting match. Breathtaking! First game, I can see that Malaysian pair did quite poor, shuttercock not over net, out of court, or can’t handle some smashes. Finally, they losed out to Korea (13 – 21). Second game came. Results seems that winning is by Korean side, Malaysians did not improve much in the beginning. As the game came to the middle and almost end, Malaysian pair fight back eventhough left far behind in the results. Finally, Malaysian pair won second game by 21 – 19, a very exciting game. Everyone in the stadium is cheering and applauding the performance.

Time for the third and deciding game, Malaysian pair lack some strength this time, can’t give hard smash to opponents. I really want to praise Lee Young Dae for his strength. He had spend over 1 hour in the earlier match of mixed doubles which he won, and now another match of over 1 hour. Totally, he had spend over 2 hours 30 minutes on court, and still had the strength to smash hard. Incredible. Malaysian pair is far behind in results again, but the atmosphere was still very exciting. Malaysian pair did some actions that stunt and trigger the laughter of the audiences;

1. taking new racquet quickly and throwing off the damaged racquet for several times.

2. handling a simple attack by reflecting the shuttercock back by using unique styles, like from the back.

3. sitting on the court ( Koo Kien Keat) and saved 4 fast attacks from the opponents.

4. the shuttercock is out of court and still play it to continue the excitement.

5. flying the shuttercock at quite an acute angle to make it super difficult for opponent. (but sometimes failed, and out of court)

6. no feeling of giving up eventhough lost far behind, until the results are getting close.

7. and many more…

Eventhough Koo and Tan lost in third game to Korean (21 – 18), but they are able to make it close, at least, and making the match the most exciting ones. Everyone is cheering for Koo and Tan eventhough they lost. Great sporting spirit by the players and even by the audiences. The coaches seems so happy, either win or lose, is not a matter anymore on that moment, it is the moment of beating opponent in a memorable way that matters. Congratz to Korean pair for winning it, full of effort, they had good skills in smashing, attacking and even defencing.

Eventhough no Malaysians came back with title from this tournament, but they leaved with memorable and unforgettable moments to the audiences of China, to show that Malaysian players can lose with proud, strong spirit and dignity. I wonder how come Lee Chong Wei (world no. 1) lost to Jade O Jorgensen from Denmark in early round, if not, he can give a good fight with Lin Dan in men single final.

The next badminton tournament will be the Master Super Series Final held in Malaysia in the beginning of December 2009. China Super Series 2009 is the last tournament of 12 super series in the whole year of 2009. Hopes that Malaysia can do better on that tournament, battling on the homeground.

The death toll from a mine blast in north-eastern China more than doubles to 87, with 21 people still missing, report state media…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: china jade. The blog is also related to: china sports.

A couple of weeks ago, I checked out VALIE EXPORT’s 1976 experimental film Unsichtbare Gegner (Invisible Adversaries). It was presented at NYU by Hari Kunzru.

A crazy tale of an alien invasion of everday residents of 1970s Vienna, Austria:

Invisible Adversaries film still

You can watch the film here.

The city stars in this film, in which the increasing paranoia of the human protagonist is matched by the harshness of personal interactions between the Viennese. While no “aliens” are ever seen–no little green men running around–strange occurences and affects seep into the spaces between people. Especially into the spaces between each person and her image, her reflections, her representations.

The doubles and shadows no longer walk in lock step with their originals. They have lives, affects, of their own.

VALIE EXPORT was working in a repressive, neo-fascist Vienna, in which the unwillingness to acknowledge the horrors of Nazism tainted all aspects of public life. The evidence of alien takeover is in the schizophrenia of images and visual representations. The protagonist herself is obsessed with images: she takes photographs, makes videos. The obsessiveness of her actions distinguishes her from “the others.” It is her image-making that helps her keep track of the alien takeover of urban life.

Today, we incessantly create doubles, triples, quadruples of ourselves, multiplying out across Facebook and Flickr; Twittering nonstop. What does our image-making, or creation of archives of our selves, our lives and our cities tell us about the way we live in our cities today? What anxieties are we tracking?

first i want to apologize for the few updates in the last weeks – there are a lot of things to finish for my studies, i hope this will get better soon.

there will be a four-x-challenge at the floodlit local in wiener neustadt tomorrow evening. there will be an entry fee for guest-riders of about five euro. doors open at 5pm, start of the race will be at 6pm. beer will be arranged, there will be a bbq too but you have to bring your own steaks…

ps. there’s a double-line too, so grab your bmx and have a lot of fun…
pps. the results and photos of the bmxclusive-opening-event are available at bmxclusive.com

(Recipe by www.theonefour.com)

Doubles are sold as a convenient meal by street vendors in Trinidad and Tobago

If you go to Trinidad, you are sure to see this snack sold by street vendors. It’s called doubles. Doubles are said to have East Indian roots. Many East Indians, newly released from being indentured servants, chose to stay in Trinidad instead of returning to India; therefore, they needed a way to make money. Ever-enterprising, they set up small stalls to sell whatever they could, which just happened to include curried and fried channa (chick peas) in small paper cones. Later on, as the story goes, a vendor discovered that adding bara (East Indian fried bread) would make a nice little meal.

So now you’re wondering how did the name doubles come about, right? There’s always a story. So here it goes! The bara along with the channa caught on so well that people began asking the vendors to double up on the bara. And through the creativity of slang, the request was shortened to just asking for “doubles.” Now doubles are sold on wax paper for a quicker more cost-effective way of serving customers. See the recipe for doubles below.

Barra

2 cups of flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 teaspoon curry powder

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 tsp ground pepper

1 teaspoon yeast

1/3 cup warm water

1/4 tsp sugar

1/4 cup oil for frying

Channa Curry

2 cups of chickpeas, canned or soaked over night and boiled until tender.

1 tablespoon curry powder

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, sliced

1 tablespoon oil

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground allspice (if you have it)

1 tsp Pepper sauce

2 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

Instructions:

• In a small bowl place the warm water, sugar and yeast and set to sponge for 5 minutes. In a large bowl combine the flour, salt, curry powder and cumin. Add the yeast mixture and enough water to make a slightly firm dough. Knead until the dough is no longer sticky, adding flour if necessary. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and allow to rise for an hour.
• For the filling, heat the oil in a heavy skillet, saute the onions until they are translucent, and then add the garlic and spices. Saute for another minute or so and then add the water. Add the chickpeas and let simmer for 15-20 minutes. Add pepper sauce and season to taste
• The dough should be punched down and allowed to sit for 10 minutes. To shape the bara, take 1 tablespoon of the dough and flatten to a round, 4 or 5 inches in diameter.
• Wet your hands so that the dough won’t stick to them but not so much as to make the dough too wet to fry.
• Fry the baras in hot oil until puffy (about 15 seconds per side), turning once and drain on kitchen paper. When all are cooked, fill with channa by placing a heaping tablespoon of the cooked filling on each bara and top with cucumbers and hot pepper sauce.

Historical information taken from Amazing-Trinidad-Vacations.com

KARACHI: Pakistan’s tennis ace Aisamul Haq Qureshi and his doubles partner James Cerritani brushed aside tennis great and world number one, Roger Federer and his Swiss compatriot Marco Chiudinelli in straight sets at the Basel Open on Tuesday.

Qureshi was at his serve-and-volleying best in the round-of-32 match as he and Cerritani cruised to victory against Federer and Chidudinelli 6-4, 6-3 to book their place in the quarter-finals of the $2.6 million ATP tournament.

Playing in Federer’s hometown, Qureshi and his partner were in control of the match from the first game and although Federer and Chiudinelli produced moments of brilliance, the grit and powerful serve-and-volley game of Qureshi and Cerritani saw them through to the end.

The Pak-Americanpair will now play tournament first-seeds Daniel Nestor (Canada) and Nenad Zimonjic (Serbia) in the quarter-finals.

Download AI URL: http://www.imgcapture.com/?p=303

Material description:

Fashion pattern with two black miniskirt girl room to increase the temptation to double. While listening to music while dancing the two girls enjoy a show girl, sexy charm

MP4: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0FZJU9RF

YES FINALLY! I’ve been waiting for it! This song has been like playing on my IPod since the last few weeks and I havent stopped ! HyunJoongie looks uber hot and so does KyuJong!! OF course the boys are looking F.I.N.E!!

MP4: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L2O5ZNNE

THE BOYS LOOKED HOT HOT! The stage was perfect, the song is perfect, and of course so are the boys! Especially HyunJoong and KyuJong!!

Follow me on Twitter!: http://www.twitter.com/VIPS2ELFS

Cr: kpopweb.blogspot.com for video; xiaodano02 for mp4

Ok, so one of the articles I wanted to write about is really short, so I did two short ones which will hopefully equal a normal sized one:)

Smith, Craig, “Twilight in Dublin: A Look at Joyce’s ‘Nausicaa’,” col.28, no.3 (Spring 1991), pp. 631-635.

Smith’s main goal with this article appears to be to argue that the first half of episode 13 is not merely a comic parody of a writing style, but actually deeply packed with complicated twins, a “series of dualitites” (631). He frames this argument by discussing the setting of the episode at twilight, “the moment of transition” in which it is both night and day (631). He identifies a series of twins, both obvious ones like the sea and shore, man and woman, etc, but also more abstract concepts like reality and illusion and sacred and profane, as well as doubles of people, such as Tommy and Jacky doubling the priests. He also notes a rather startling link between Ulysses and Portrait, in which Stephen and Gerty are described in almost identical terms.

            From this point he moves on to the second part of the article, in which he argues that these two characters are unable to differentiate between a key twin, “sexual and spiritual ecstasy” (632). He doesn’t do much with this point, but goes on to find a variety of interesting similarities between Gerty and Stephen, identifying Gerty as a young Stephen as a he appears in Portrait without the intervening year of significant change (633).

            Finally, Smith uses another double to illustrate the importance of the first half of the episode, despite the common desire to brush it off as merely parody. Smith claims that “Joyce sought to continue the twinning process in the episode so that both pairs and opposites might be seen with a second vision, [thus] the strange style of the opening half of the episode is not so enigmatic” (634). He then lists the common topics of Gerty and Bloom’s respective ruminations, which are extensive, arguing finally that both sections are necessary to understand each other, just as the presence of doubles and twins contribute meaning to each part.

Benstock, Bernard, “Decoding in the Dark in ‘Oxen of the Sun’,” vol.28, no.3 (Spring 1991), pp. 637-642.

Benstock begins his article by highlighting “the absence of a controlling, much less a reliable narrator” in episode 14; which is to say that the rapid shifts from one literary style to another creates a narrator that is so transitory that it ceases to be an authority over the progression of the story (637).  Thus, as readers we are forced to experience this episode “in the dark,” without the benefit of a unified coherent narrator, “an exercise in reading blind by listening to the ten voices” (638). Much of the article consists of examples of this confusing progression, which I do not feel the need to trace as we all experienced it ourselves thank you very much. He identifies a further disorienting characteristic of this episode, which is the near invisibility of either of our expected central characters, Bloom and Stephen, especially towards the end of the episode. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ is dominated by the chattering of characters who are not only unknown to the reader, but even difficult to distinguish from each other, with Bloom and Stephen speaking remarkably little: “the disintegration of the elegance of language into dialect distortion acts to deprive the proper Bloom of a voice and reduces the literary Stephen to a few foreign phrases” (641). All told, the purpose of he argument appears to be to point out why this episode is do difficult and uncomfortable for the reader, and while he makes valid points, I don’t think any of us needed a scholar to tell us that.

Tonight, at band practice, I noticed I was extra-jittery because George was on the field. This happens very often, and I decided to tell Yuki this tonight.

“I’m shaking all over,” I say to her and she asks me why. I tell her I don’t know. It’s just that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is on the field and can probably hear me mess up.

“He’s not in charge of you,” she says. “He’s not Director and he’s not Zachary.”

That’s when Sebastian says, “Who?”

This is one of those times when Yuki and I aren’t perfectly in sync with each other’s words. I say, “Nothing,” as soon as she says, “George.”

And then I’m lectured by all of my section on how to react if George pesters me about my playing. I am supposed to Do It if it’s reasonable and Do It Anyway and Tell Zachary Later if it’s completely unreasonable. And it would have already been hard to endure if Yuki had told me up front like that. It’s even harder with my entire section giving me tips on how to deal with a guy I like bothering me about my playing, which he’s actually never done before. I don’t think he’d dare. He’s feeling too paternal at the moment, anyway.

But now my entire section knows that I get jittery and self-conscious around George. Which isn’t very good, as there’s only one reason why you would be intimidated by someone who isn’t even in charge of you. Yeah, you have it.

Wheeler and Morrison take on Meek and Zander in the Squash Ontario Mixed Doubles 40+