The journey from Cambridge to Milton Keynes, should have been a breeze but of course with the cold snap it was a little problematic, mostly getting out of Cambridge as the A14 had been closed due to a traffic accident. The drive to MK was fast an uneventful until I get the last stretch, where the a% was locked because of traffic problems on the M1. I think I arrive at just on 4:00PM which wasn’t too bad and seemed to be pretty much the same as all my other friends coming form various locations.

At check in the Campanile hotel was true to its word and stood by the amazing £1.00 offer for the room, booked via their website…….. it’s not often I pay cash for a hotel room and not often I save over £50! I then went to get my bags and take them up to my room on the 2nd floor. It’s amazing who rude people these days are becoming, I stood by on the stairs to let a couple past, they looked straight at me like I was a piece of dirt….I was going to tell them what I thought of their lack of manners…fortunately I bit my tongue, as they joined us for dinner later.  I was down in the hotel bar just before 6:00PM and met Helena and Kay….Louise, Sophie and others were still getting ready. By 6:30PM everyone was there but of course the best laid schemes of mice and men etc. the taxi’s didn’t turn up until 7:00PM, they were supposed to be mini buses but weren’t so we had to take three cars and we were running late by this stage.  In fact our taxi driver was a complete idiot, the journey was scary in the extreme as he tailgated and barged his way around the roads in sub-zero temperatures and icy roads.

Dinner was really, really good as it always is at the Orchid lounge. The staff treat everyone so well and the food is so good. I think there were 15 of us in total. I chatted to Lisa who I know from the last two Sparkles and Alison who I hadn’t met before in the bar prior to our table being ready. I sat between Sophie and Reisa sp? and had a really good chat with both of them.  We chatted about our various ’situations’  Reisa’s story was interesting…she is 36 and has a 16-year-old son! the result of trying to do the right thing and impress people when she was younger. We also talked a fair bit about me, where I was going,  respect and consideration  for those around us etc. etc. Reisa said I seemed happy and well balanced with my situation, I suppose I am but thats not a comment often head around TG circles! There were three couples with us, two wives were happy enough to be there and chatted and interacted with everyone, however it made me really sad to see one wife who had been dragged out against there will and was obviously hating every moment of being with us, I’m sorry but that just isn’t fair and certainly doesn’t bode well for their future together as a couple.

Sadly they meal took so long there was no time for pictures as our taxis had arrived (Helena snapped the one below of  Reisa, me and Sophie)

So a quick change and freshen up of make up back at the hotel and down to the bar to meet before walking across to the club. By the time we left the snow had started and was blowing a blizzard, that was an interesting and chilly walk, pity the girls in sandals and their cold toes It was really quite a quiet night at PP I think due to the weather and the fact that christmas was still almost a whole week away. Usually to punters like to chat a little but we were left. I finished up at about 2:00AM when Sophie and I walked across the road to the Campanile and was asleep by about 3:00AM

I was home the next day (Sunday) by 10:00AM after a very cold, -5 oC in a couple of places but sunny drive. Great to see friends and sit down to a fabulous meal

Oh Helen, Helena.
I sent a thousand paper boats for thee,
Why won’t you come home to me?
My dear, I plead.
But you won’t move along.
I thought of nothing, but to ruin your plans,
Of nothing, but the fleeting joy.
Instead of loving her, my queen,
Run away and marry me.
I know it doesn’t make much sense,
And maybe someday it will pass.
But Helena, oh Helen, my Helena.
For now let me corrupt your perception,
When boats won’t do I’ll send jet planes.

I’d say I’m lonely because of the upcoming Holidays, but really it’s not the upcoming festivities fault why I’m sad.  I’m lonely and sad for reasons previously written here.  These feelings have been perpetuated by Charlie’s actions and more recently Helena’s emails. 

I sent Helena an email on the 2nd letting her know I wouldn’t get a chance to see her while she’s visiting her father over Christmas.  Ilet her know I gaver Charlie a gift for her for Christmas and that I hoped she had a good Christmas.  That was it, nothing more, nothing less.  I didn’t explain anything to her, there was no need.  According to Charlie however, she really likes me and wants to spend with me.  I just can’t do it.  I pour my soul out to her father and he can’t even acknowledge it any more then to say it makes him happy that someone cares for him as deelply as I do, but it doesn’t change anything.  Well then I’m not going to spend time with your daughter and allow myself to drag myself down anymore emotionally.

I’m just lonely.  I just want the holidays to be over with.  I just want to get 2010 over with and hopefully I can bid midnights next year.  I just want to get through this year and forget 2009 and just ignore the shit 2010 is bound to bring.  Ugh. FML right now, just FML.

KERUDUNG HELENA KERLIP BUNGA
Kode : K4KB

Kerudung segiempat dengan bahan helena/haicon, dihiasi payet kerlip bentuk bunga dan bintang disekeliling kerudung. Kerudung ini tampil mewah untuk penampilan sederhana namun tetap elegan.

Bahan :
Helena/Haicon/Paris Korea

Ukuran :
115 x 115 cm

Harga :
Eceran Rp 80.000,-
Grosir Rp 75.000,- (Pembelian min 3 Pcs)

Kerudung Susun Empat Sisi
Kode : K4SS
Kerudung segiempat berbahan helena/haicon dengan bordir kombinasi lengkung pada keempat sisi kerudung, dihiasi payet kerlip bentuk bunga. Dipakai dengan melipat menjadi segitiga dengan sisi pendek di bagian depan (biasanya sisi pendek di dalam). Kerudung ini tampil eksklusif bila dikenakan (tdk pasaran, hanya di  JilbabIndo)

Ukuran :
115 x 115 cm

Bahan :
Helena/Haicon

Harga :
Eceran Rp 105.000,-
Grosir Rp 95.000,-

Kerudung Helena Bordir Kerancang
Kode : K4BK

Bahan :
Helena/Haicon/Paris Korea

Ukuran:
115 x 115 cm

Harga:
Eceran Rp 88.000,-
Grosir Rp 80.000,-

Warna :
Hijau Satpam (Gambar), Coklat, Hitam, Broken White

Greta Alison (Lily)

Olive Audrey

Alex Chloe (Jack)

Bess (Ella)

Haidee Elaine & Alyssa Rose (Lucas)

Iris Vita (Harriet, Phoebe)

Vivien Rosemary (Lily)

Helena Antoinette

Lauren & Honor ( Lucia)

Olive Elizabeth (George)

Elsie-May Ellen (Bailey, Ephraim & Marita)

Polly Frances

Aurelia Grace (Isabelle)

Portia Alice

Neve Jennifer (Rylee, Fletcher)

Penny Mary (Hamish, Felicity)

Sacha Tui

Kahlan Lillias (Hayden)

Maggie Iris Rosa (Ruby)

Freyah Lily (Tahlia)

Sabrina Mary

Elsie Olivia (Joel)

Milla Juno (Bodie)

Maeve Ellen (Cormac)

Sidney (Lennox & Munro)

Hugo John

Jasper Stan (Jonty & Tilly)

George Banjo (Hugo)

Tahere Hunter

Albie Murphy

Jack & Keygan (Thomas)

Wilhelm David

Josiah James

Jag Archie

Edward Montgomery (Benji & Samuel)

Wilfred Otis (Theo)

Deaths

Rosanna Jane, Adeline Anne, Sally Elizabeth, Grace Muriel, Margaret Winifred, Ruby Evelyn, Sylvia Winifred, Adele Mary, Violet Hope, Hazel Margaret, Beatrice Mary, Helen Adeline,

Hector Leslie, George Basil, Quentin Phillip, Henry Percival, Leo Charles, Archibald Ralph, Sydney Benjamin.

So after a finale almost as dramatic as the X-Factor , the results are in on the iPod voting  and Helena has an official new owner. The voting was not without drama as the “contestants” rallied support, in fact there was even a veiled allegation of vote rigging but at midnight last night when the voting closed, the results stood as follows:

• Lindsey and Wilhelm – 3 votes each
• Frank – 6 votes
• Geoff – 27 votes

AND THE WINNER…

foreverjuly with a whopping 33 votes.

This means Helena will be shipped off to Japan to start a new life as consort to foreverjuly’s laptop, Troy and I will hopefully be getting a catbus for my efforts. Send me your address, dude… the tunes are in the mail!

Last week I replace my Felicia (Linux Mint 6) with Helena (Linux Mint 8). The installation was similar with any previous Linux Mint, but the most obvious different was there was an introduction slide show when installing Helena.

With a little bit of modification my desktop looks like this.

My Desktop of Helena

You can find in the Internet for full screen shots of Helena.

After I used Helena for almost 1 week, I can confirm several best things from Helena compare to her sibling, Felicia.

• Very fast boot time, this is very obvious, because Felicia needed almost 1 minute just to show login screen, and Helena only needs less than 30 seconds.
• The time needed from login to ready desktop also very short.
• Nice desktop theme. Even though I believe I can set the theme by myself, but as a default theme, it saves a lot of my time.
• Firefox v.3.5 is much stable compare to the version 3.0.
• Compiz is more smooth and stable.
• This might be subjective, but I feel the program launching is faster and more stable.
• One last thing the font seems nicer compare to Felicia’s.

But, I still have one big problem with Helena, the transfer rate from and to USB harddisk is very slow, or maybe, slower than Felicia. The transfer rate is only 1.5 – 4 MB/sec, which is very annoying.

Without transfer rate problem, I think Helena is a very perfect linux distro, especially for new comers.

By Stewart Bailey, curator

If you ask any aviation enthusiast to rank the top ten most beautiful aircraft ever built, chances are the Lockheed Constellation will appear on that list. 

Developed by Lockheed just before World War II, the Constellation owed much of its early capabilities to its lead customer, TWA, and the airline’s major stock-holder, Howard Hughes. With the outbreak of World War II, the Constellation first flew as a military transport and served as the C-69, but after the war it returned to its roots as an airliner. Because the Constellation was designed to have intercontinental range, many were built for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy as early warning radar aircraft.  They served for more than 20 years, keeping track of targets in the air and on the surface of the ocean during the Cold War.

While most Constellations long ago had a meeting with the scrapper’s torch, a few survived and today are prized pieces in the collections of museums or private individuals.  In May 2009, the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum joined those ranks when it was awarded a Lockheed EC-121T early warning Constellation by the Government Services Administration (GSA) Federal Surplus Program. The aircraft, serial number 52-3417, served as a maintenance trainer for the University of Montana’s aviation mechanics school at Helena, Montana for the last 28 years. Excess to the college’s needs, it was offered up for disposal through the GSA, and of the several proposals, Evergreen’s was declared the winner.

Because of the excellent condition of the aircraft, a decision was made to make it flyable for a one-time ferry flight to its new home in McMinnville. Despite its condition, there is still plenty of maintenance to do, and starting in October, properties director Terry Naig along with volunteers from the Museum began the work. 

Their first task involved cleaning out 28 years of debris from birds nesting in the aircraft, and after two weeks, the “Connie” is reported to have smelled much better. The crew is also installing material to keep the birds from getting back in, as well as cleaning the years of grime and oil off the aircraft so its structure could be inspected. The next step will involve moving the old veteran to the Helena Airport, where further maintenance can be performed and the engines can be tested.

For more information about this project, check out this article on the Helena Independent Record web site.

I have wanted a new ipod for ages. I love Helena, my little green Nano, but her brain is too small and I keep getting struck with the desire to listen to songs and then not having them with me. So on Wednesday, in typical Abbi-impulse style, I ordered a 160GB Classic from the Apple store. This ipod has been named Vanora, which was Laura’s suggestion and only just won out in a vote over Valencia, suggested by Mai. (I won’t be listening to any Nelly Retardo on it though).

Vanora

I figured with a new ipod in my life, it would only be fair to find Helena a new home and since I believe the more you give away, the more you get back, I decided to give her away to whoever could make the greatest case for ownership. I have five contenders via twitter and facebook, and I couldn’t decide… so I want y’all to vote. These are the options:

Frank: I’ve never owned an ipod and I’ll tweet you my 1000th tweet AND i’ll do a dance for you. How’s that? Also I’m ugly! (his words, not mine… I actually think Frank is really cute)

foreverjuly: Always wanted to visit Helena, Montana, but I fear I will never make it there. Only an ipod with that name could comfort me. My laptop is named Troy and so it’s only natural for a Helena to go to it. Plus I’ll pay shipping (he’s in Japan) or could cover it or send you back a nifty souvenir (I’ve asked for a catbus if he wins).

Lindsey: Might actually convince me to listen to music more often; don’t listen enough to be able to BUY one! Lol!

Wilhelm: Shotgun! I’ll blackmail you! I’ll help you cook Christmas lunch! (I said I managed alone last year). I’ll sabotage Christmas lunch!

Geoff: What about a poor little South African boy who lives in a poverty stricken country:

Please Help
No Food
No Job…
10 Children to Feed
Need 8GB ipod nano

God Blass

So who do you think deserves to be Helena’s new benefactor. Vote now… it’s more exciting than X-factor! (Votes close Monday).

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

- A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Helena’s still lame though. What kind of a friend rats out her BFF and ruins her eternal happiness to some douche who dumped her to chase after the above-mentioned BFF?

Is she hopelessly musty or an undiscovered gem?

Thanks to Sara for suggesting Enid as Name of the Day.

Unlike Gertrude or Mildred, Enid was never popular.  You might have a Great Aunt Enid, but even in her peak year – 1920 – she was bestowed upon just 216 newborns.  She’s been out of the US rankings entirely since 1954.

If fellow 1920s favorites like Alice and Ruby are ready for revival, why not Enid?

The Welsh eneit meant purity or soul.  As a name, Enid first appears in Arthurian legend, where she’s the wife of a knight named Geraint.  After they wed, Enid’s groom frets that his commitment to noble work is compromised by his marriage.  Geraint announces he’s undertaking a perilous journey.  Enid insists on riding shotgun, and proves her loyalty – as well as demonstrating that he can be a hero and a husband.  Chrétien de Troyes called the pair Erec and Enide.  Alfred, Lord Tennyson included their story in Idylls of the King.

The most notable bearer is twentieth century childrens author Enid Blyton, creater of Noddy, a little wooden resident of Toyland.  You can see him on TV around the world.  While some of her other works have not aged as gracefully, she’s still among the most-translated authors of all time.  (Blyton comes in behind Agatha Christie, but comfortably ahead of Charles Dickens.)

There’s also:

• Writer Enid Bagnold, author of National Velvet;
• Silent movie star Enid Bennett, remembered for her 1922 role as Maid Marian opposite Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood;
• Character actress Enid Kent is best remembered as Nurse Bigelow on M*A*S*H;
• Enid Lyons was the wife of Prime Minister of Australia, Joseph Lyons, and later became the first woman elected to the Australian House of Representatives.

A number of more recent uses that might make Enid attractive to modern parents:

• Today’s expectant mothers probably grew up reading the Sweet Valley High series of tween/teen soap-operas-in-novella form, centered on twin sisters Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield.  Enid and Liz were BFFs for most of the series’ 181 books, as well as prequels, sequels and the television series;
• The Barenaked Ladies recorded “Enid” back in 1992.  I don’t know the backstory, but it seems like a sweet little tale of first love – and first heartbreak;
• A minor character in Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four series wears the name;
• Cult classic comic Ghost World is about friends Enid Coleslaw and Rebecca Doppelmeyer.  No superheros here – it is something of a Catcher in the Rye, updated for the 1990s, with Enid as Holden.  In a 2001 big screen adaptation, Thora Birch played Enid, with Scarlett Johannson as Rebecca;
• Back to Enid Blyton at the end – Helena Bonham Carter played the author in a recent biopic for BBC.

Enid also sounds quite close to the quickly-rising spiritual/geographic/starbaby pick Eden, though stylistically they’re miles apart.

If you worry that Hazel and Esther no longer seem daring, Enid might be unusual enough to satisfy.  She’s granny chic and, especially with that Ghost World reference, has plenty of indie cred.

And still, Enid feels like slightly more of a stretch than some other unusual choices.  Perhaps she’s too frills free.  I leave it to you, dear readers – would Enid work on a daughter in 2009?

This article was originally posted on PoliticalBetting.

On Sunday 10th October 2010, Brazilians will go to the polls to pick the country’s fourth directly-elected President since the resumption of civilian rule in 1985. The 2010 elections will mark the first Presidential election since 1989 in which incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former shoe-shiner and sheet metal worker, will not be a candidate. Choosing not to emulate the example of Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe or Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, he has not sought to alter Article 16 of the country’s constitution which limits Presidents to two consecutive terms.

Lula’s 2006 re-election race was nothing other than a resounding success for the incumbent, sweeping twenty states to former Sao Paulo state Governor Geraldo Alckmin’s seven. Even in the case of opposition victories, Alckmin’s strength lay predominantly in the sparsely populated states of southern and western states bordering Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. The opposition candidate’s only real victory was in his native state of Sao Paulo, home to just under a quarter of the country’s 190 million people, where he narrowly outran Lula by 52% to 48%. The rest of the country delivered near-absolute domination for the left with Lula outpacing Alckmin by a 78:22 margin in Bahia, 70:30 in Rio de Janeiro state and 65:35 in Minas Gerais. Indeed, the further north one travelled, the greater the Lula margin of victory became – most astonishing being the Amazonas where he crushed Alckmin 87:13. The only northern state won by Alckmin was wealthy Roraima on the border of Venezuela and Guyana, centre to Brazil’s developing diamond and gold industry.

Electorally-speaking, it speaks volumes about the strength of leftist sentiment in the Brazil’s impoverished population centres that Lula was only denied an outright first round victory as a result of support for the avowedly Marxist candidate Heloísa Helena who left Lula’s Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) in protest at the party’s perceived move to the centre. Picking up 17% of the first round vote in Rio de Janeiro, 7% in Sao Paulo and Bahia and 5% in Minas Gerais, Helena’s 6.85% first round support, when added to Lula’s 48.61%, would have been more than enough for the incumbent to avoid a second round clash with Alckmin.

It is starkly apparent how little Brazilian politics has changed little since João Figueiredo’s military junta relinquished power in 1985. Almost a quarter of a century since the appointment by Electoral College of Tancredo Neves (who died hours before taking office) as the first civilian President and twenty years since Fernando Collor’s direct election, senior political offices in the country continue to be predominantly filled by aged veterans of the struggle for democracy. The 2010 Presidential election is likely to do little to change this reality.

The two front-runners – Sao Paulo Governor Jose Serra and Presidential Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff – are very similar personal and political quantities. Both are trained economists in their mid-to-late 60s who grew up in Brazil’s prosperous South Eastern states. Both candidates were exiled in Argentina and the United States for their opposition to military rule. Both espouse relatively flexible political ideologies which offend neither bankers nor slum-dwellers. Both are technocrats who owe their rapid political rise to party-political patronage and appointments to unelected yet highly influential cabinet positions. Crucially, neither possesses the star-power of the outgoing President.

While polling day remains more than a year away, one can make several early observations about the race. It is clear that Jose Serra has very firmly established himself as the front-runner in the contest holding a robust 38% rating in the most recent Datafolha poll. The Sao Paulo governor’s support base has fluctuated between his current 38% and a high point of 41% since March 2008, indicating a modicum of stability to his poll numbers.

Politically-speaking, Brazil is truly a country where there is little shame in losing. It took Lula some four attempts to be elected President and (with the exception of Rousseff who has never sought elected office) all the 2010 Presidential hopefuls have faced numerous past defeats in mayoral, gubernatorial and even past Presidential races. As such, Serra’s initially high poll numbers may have more to do with his higher name recognition than any genuine groundswell of popular support.

Serra does, however, enjoy the firm and avowed support of the residents of the state of Sao Paulo. The state’s prosperous electors forgave him for breaking his pledge during the 2006 mayoral race to serve a full four year term, electing him as Governor two years late with 58% of the vote. Arguably the driver of the Brazilian economy, Sao Paulo’s business community will ensure that Serra is possession of the financial resources to comfortably outspend each of his challenges.

Despite Serra’s stability, the candidate with momentum – a crucial quality for candidates in Presidential elections from the United States to Uruguay – is Dilma Rousseff. Her support has risen steadily from 3% in April 2008 to 16% today with no other candidate from the Partido dos Trabalhadores even closely approaching her current poll standing.

Rousseff has the enthusiastic support of the outgoing President – something viewed as crucial by media observers both in and outside Brazil. Despite of the high-profile Mensalão scandal in which bribes were funnelled to congressmen through state-owned companies by PT officials in order to gain support for the President’s legislation, numerous and frequent currency devaluations and little real progress in the battle against poverty, Lula remains genuinely popular amongst the Brazilian public. In a June IBOPE survey, 68% of respondents rated his performance as “good” or very good” while a further 24% labelled his performance “fair”. At 8%, fewer than one in ten Brazilians consider Lula’s job performance to be “bad” or “very bad”.

There is, however, a risk of overestimating the importance of Lula’s endorsement. The 2008 local elections proved this. While the PT’s residual strength carried them to easy victories in the majority of small-town races, Brazil’s key population centres ignored impassioned pleas from their popular President to support his candidates. Perhaps the most painful example of this was the failure of former Mayor and Tourism Minister Marta Suplicy – a front-runner to succeed Lula as the PT’s Presidential candidate for 2010 – to defeat Gilberto Kassab in Sao Paulo despite the incumbent’s opinion poll rating standing at 17% less than six weeks before polling day. Personal appearances at campaign rallies the city’s poorest areas and near-blanket coverage of the state’s media markets with television adverts featuring an open-collared Lula appealing for support for “my Marta” failed to prevent Kassab defeating Suplicy 61% to 39%.

Even in Rio de Janeiro, a city which gave Lula almost 80% of its votes in 2006, his handpicked candidate Eduardo Paes spluttered to victory by half a percentage point despite almost every billboard and lamp-post in the Cidade Maravilhosa being plastered with images of the two men grinning in that way only populist South American politicians can while making thumbs-up gestures.

It is noticeable, given the long tradition of Brazilian Presidential candidates to run as the candidates of coalitions of large and small political parties, how robust support for ‘third party’ candidates is at this stage. On the left, support for Heloísa Helena and the former Finance Minister Ciro Gomes who briefly pulled ahead of Lula and Serra in the 2002 contest stands as high as ten and fifteen percent respectively. Invading Serra’s political space to the right is Minas Gerais Governor Aécio Neves whose support is hovering at around 14%.

While an early decision by these candidates to align themselves with either of the two front-runners could help avoid the usual first-round voting fragmentation seen in Brazilian elections, establishment fatigue and the lack of a real sense of enthusiasm towards Serra or Rousseff could catapult any of them into active contention within a matter of days.

With more than a year to go until polling day, this is the most unpredictable Presidential election in Brazilian electoral history – and a market only a fool would be willing to bet on.

Fight Club – 1999

Director – David Fincher

Starring – Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, and Helena Bonham Carter

Firstly, I’d like to mention that this review was a special request from a friend of mine.  Normally all it would get would be a little bullet review simply because I had already seen it, although I do confess it deserves quite a bit more attention.  So, here we go.

Back in 1999, before I had read the book, learned the rules, and become swept up in the fervor that was Fight Club, I was blissfully unaware of what lay before me.  At the time, I was living in an apartment with 3 other guys, all of which lifted weights, and were at least partially if not completely into the pathos of the film.  All of us were in our twenties, none of us were in solid relationships and each of us was steeped in the malaise of the 90’s.  Everything about Fight Club not only seemed fresh, it was fresh.  Released the same year as the other major 1999 film with a genre defining plot twist, The Sixth Sense, I had no clue as to where Chuck Palahniuk’s tale of hard-won maturity was taking me. 

Whether or not you like the film, Fight Club grabs away your attention, and doesn’t let you have it back until finished.  As the very definition of slick and flashy, but with the added bonus of subtext, the film sets forth with a social commentary unique to its place in time.  Equal parts special effects display, close examination of the modern-male condition, romance, and suspense film, Fight Club is unapologetically brazen and wonderful.

For those lucky enough to not know what it’s all about, here’s a brief rundown of the plot (don’t worry, I won’t spoil it).  The narrator, sometimes referred to as Jack (although we never actually learn his name), is stuck.  He finds himself constantly running the treadmill of the daily working-grind.  Business trips, catalog shopping, and time spent avoiding everything of substance in his life is taking its toll, and he finds himself unable to sleep.  In an attempt to turn his life right side up, Jack meets a girl (Marla), makes new friends (Tyler), and goes through the process of systematically dismantling his life in an attempt to put it back together again.  From nameless worker bee, to co-founding an underground street fighting ring, to working to bring down the system all in the name finding cure for the omnipresent male aggression that he suffers from, Jack walks a very long path to find himself in very familiar territory.

Despite its somewhat fractured method of telling it’s story, Fight Club is a fairly straightforward film.  Using a very visual, and interactive method of walking us through the narrative, we are placed directly into the character’s nerve center.  We see first hand, from Jack’s point of view, his plain, drab apartment being populated with equally plain, drab furniture.  We watch as his work-life gets drowned out by his new passion for fighting, and we feel the same panic when the boundaries of his comfort zone are reached.

Fincher utilizes the same grimy chic aesthetic that he used in Seven, and would later use in Panic Room.  Going along with the themes of the source material, everything is worn, threadbare, and ultimately falling apart.  From the house that Jack and Tyler move into on Paper St. to the tenuous relationships that hold our main character to his old life, we watch as the very fabric of his life is torn apart.  Aside from dressing the set accordingly, Fincher utilizes destructive imagery, achieved through the combination of CGI and simple practical effects.  Lighting, post-production coloration of the film, as well as on and off-screen narration provide a glimpse into the inner workings of the distressed mind of our main character.

What to say about the acting…I’ve never liked Brad Pitt better than I do in his role of Tyler Durden, and Edward Norton, coming off of his fantastic run of Primal Fear, and American History X, achieved a level in his career that he hasn’t before, or since.  Helena Bonham Carter provides the perfect foil to the Pitt/Norton duo, by playing crazy with issues in a really grounded sort of way, and numerous wonderful supporting roles are filled out by familiar faces, such as Meatloaf, Zach Grenier, Jared Leto, and a whole host of others that you’ve seen even if you don’t know their names yet.

Since my initial viewing, I’ve come to watch the film time and again on DVD, and I find that the story has changed a bit.  Coming out of the theater the first time, I felt empowered as a film student, a movie goer, and as a young man who didn’t quite know what he wanted out of life.  The macho posturing and gratuitous justification of the character’s extreme measures seemed completely justified to me.  Damn right I wanted to take something back from the world that had taken so much from me!  I too, wanted to punch my way into a happier life, have my anger and discontent work for me instead of against me, and find that dysfunctional, messed up girl who “got” me. (What!?  I said I was in my 20’s.)  Needless to say, I grew up.  My selfish view of the world changed, and I stopped being so focused on my own problems.  As I grew, and watched the film again, I realized there was a satirical bent to the film that I didn’t see when I was steeped in selfishness.  Now that I had a changed view of the world, and myself in it, I could understand the fact that the film wasn’t preaching anarchy, or violence.  Instead it was illustrating the nature of youth, and the power of experience, and acceptance as a means of learning and growing out of it. 

Fight Club is a near perfect film, right up there with The Royal Tenebaums, The Big Lebowski, and Children of Men.  A true 10!

Great time it was in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Hele and Tim tied the knot in a gorgeous ceremony right next to the beach with mariachis, friends and margaritas. I was not the official photographer, but I always manage to take some shots no matter what. There was also some time for snorkeling, and fun at the beach. Congrats again Hele and Tim.

So, NaNoWriMo is finally over.

Unfortunately, OYMAS is not.

But, fortunately, I was still able to hit 50,000 words before midnight last night.

Unfortunately, I was pasting in my final word count, but I goofed and only pasted the last chapter. So instead of going from 49,381 words to 51,189 words, I got flushed down to 1,981 instead.

Fortunately, the lovely people at NaNo understand what it’s like to function on a fried brain at midnight on November 30th after a month of feverish writing. They manually updated my word count to 51,189.

Which means that I am a:

Winnawinnawinna!!

Thanks to everyone who’s been reading these. Thanks to everyone who’s been commenting on them — which really only pertains to my friend Rosie, who is special and gets them e-mailed directly to her.

Anyway, if you have been reading and like what you’ve seen so far, rest assured that Chapter 21 is not the end. I figure I’ve got four or five chapters left to go before this is over — six, if I decide to do the epilogue.

So, for those who care, here are the results of my marathon writing session this weekend:

Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21

Introduction to Linux Mint 8:

The 8th release of Linux Mint comes with numerous bug fixes and a lot of improvements. In particular Linux Mint 8 comes with support for OEM installs, a brand new Upload Manager, the menu now allows you to configure custom places, the update manager now lets you define packages for which you don’t want to receive updates,the software manager now features multiple installation/removal of software and many of the tools’ graphical interfaces were enhanced.

Highlights of Linux Mint 8:

· Based on Ubuntu 9.10;
· Linux kernel 2.6.31;
· EXT4 filesystem;
· X.Org 7.4;
· GNOME 2.28.1;
· Improvements to the Menu;
· Improvements to the software manager;
· Improvements to the update manager;
· New Upload manager tool;
· Lots of bugs fixed.

System requirements:

A minimum of 512MB of RAM is recommended. Once installed the system works fine with as low as 256MB RAM. The installation process deals with 2.5GB of data compressed on a 700MB CD and it can hang or fail on systems with less than 512MB RAM. If you have between 256MB and 512MB RAM you may have to try to install several times

Download Linux Mint 8:

You can download the Main and Universal editions of Linux Mint 8 via torrent or via HTTP:

Main edition:

• size: 688MB LiveCD
• MD5Sum: 06fc2f27f8352a2bac5516b86c020755
• Torrent download: http://www.linuxmint.com/torrent/LinuxMint-8.iso.torrent
• HTTP download: http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=44

Universal edition:

• size: 1GB LiveDVD
• MD5Sum: e297a2cdf1b1c6408ac6a6d76833933a
• Torrent download: http://www.linuxmint.com/torrent/LinuxMint-8-Universal.iso.torrent
• HTTP download: http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=45

Asia:

• http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/LinuxMint-ISO/stable/8/ (Japan)
• http://ftp.riken.jp/pub/Linux/linuxmint/stable/8/ (Japan)

Europe:

• http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/linux/mint/isos/stable/8/ (Austria)
• http://mint.nano-box.net/iso/stable/8/ (Bulgaria)
• http://mirrors.cytanet.com.cy/linux/mint/stable/8/ (Cyprus)
• http://ftp.klid.dk/ftp/linuxmint/stable/8/ (Denmark)
• ftp://ftp.linuxmint-fr.org/pub/linuxmint.com/stable/8/ (France)
• http://linuxmint.cybermirror.org/stable/8/ (Germany) *
• http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/linux/linuxmint/stable/8/ (Greece)
• http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/stable/8/ (Ireland)
• ftp://ftp.tpnet.pl/pub/linux/linuxmint/isos/stable/8/ (Poland) *
• http://cesium.di.uminho.pt/pub/linuxmint/stable/8/ (Portugal)
• http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/linuxmint/stable/8/ (Sweden)
• http://mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net/linuxmint.com/stable/8/ (UK)

Northern America:

• http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/linuxmint/stable/8/ (Canada)
• http://mirror.amarillolinux.com/linuxmint/stable/8/ (USA)
• http://mint.ez.by/linuxmint.com/stable/8/ (USA)
• ftp://linuxfreedom.com/linuxmint/linuxmint.com/stable/8/ (USA)
• http://ftp.cs.rose-hulman.edu/linuxmint/stable/8/ (USA) *
• http://linuxmint.secsup.org/stable/8/ (USA)
• ftp://mirrors.secution.com/linuxmint.com/stable/8/ (USA)
• http://mira.sunsite.utk.edu/linuxmint/stable/8/ (USA) *

Rest of the World:

• http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/linuxmint/stable/8/ (Australia) *
• ftp://mirror.unej.ac.id/pub/iso/linux-mint/stable/8/ (Indonesia) *

* Mirrors marked with a star weren’t fully synched when this announcement was made.

What is Linux Mint? Linux Mint is an elegant, easy-to-use, up-to-date, 100% free and comfortable Linux desktop distribution based on the very popular Ubuntu operating system. It offers paid commercial support to companies and individuals. Also, free community support is available from the forums and the IRC channel.

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu and the two distributions have much in common. Both distributions use the same software repositories. For instance, release 6 (“Felicia”) uses the package pools of Ubuntu “Intrepid Ibex” (8.10). Most packages are the same on both distributions, and as of Linux Mint 6 ‘Felicia’, each Linux Mint release is based on Ubuntu, whereas before they were based on the previous Linux Mint release.

Most differences are on the desktop. Linux Mint has a stated focus on elegance, and it includes a number of applications that are not available in Ubuntu

Linux Mint es una de esas distribuciones que hace que Linux sea una alternativa viable para personas que no estan o no saben lo que es Linux y quieren empezar a ver como funciona o como utilizarlo.

Basada en Ubuntu 9.10 cuenta con varias mejoras:

• Kernel 2.6.31
• Xorg 7.4
• Gnome 2.28.1

La distribución es una de las más fáciles de utilizar, tiene un aspecto visual atractivo y cuenta con funciones que lo hacen realmente muy amigable. Entre lo que contiene el programa se puede desctacar:

• Cambios en el gestor de actualizaciones
• Se puede colocar paquetes en modo “Ignore” para que no nos avisen mas cuando necesiten ser actualizados
• Mejoras en el administrador de Software (Synaptic)
• Nuevo gestor de subidas de archivos
• Mejoras en el escritorio

Otro cambio importante es que Linux Mint ya no trae Codecs para video y audio ya que la nueva política es no dar soporte a codecs propietarios. Pero si trae una aplicación la cual nos permite descargar el codec que necesitemos.

Para actualizar desde versiones viejas de Linux Mint 8:

• Desde Linux Mint 7 “Gloria”
• Desde Linux Mint 8 RC1 “Helena”

Release Notes:

http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_helena.php

Descarga:

• Main Edition: HTTP – Torrent
• Universal Edition: HTTP – Torrent

Algunas imágenes desde la página oficial:

Vai cair como uma bomba na vida de Dora (Giovanna Antonelli) a notícia de que está grávida. Ela descobrirá que espera um filho ao fazer um teste de farmácia, que dá positivo.

De acordo com o jornal Extra, a princípio, a amante de Marcos (José Mayer) irá esconder sua gravidez de todos. Apenas sua prima Soraya (Nanda Costa) ficará sabendo do fato.

Ao encontrar com Helena (Taís Araújo), logo depois da descoberta, Dora não tocará no assunto de sua gravidez. Tudo porque ela teme que a modelo desista de levá-la para o Rio de Janeiro. Helena levará a amante de seu marido para trabalhar em sua casa.