New student center offers, food, fun, recreation and common areas for the MCV community.

The Jonah L. Larrick Student Center reopened for business Monday November 2, 2009 on the MCV campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. This grand opening comes one and a half years after the demolition of the old building and reconstruction of the new center from ground up.

The new facility includes a Starbucks, a workout gym with a pool, study areas, meeting rooms, event space, and Jonah’s a new cafeteria style dinning hall which is set to open next semester. Students on the MCV campus now have a new common area to call their own.

Why rebuild?
 “What prompted it (rebuilding) was the need for recreational sports on campus and the need for the university commons and activity space on campus,” said Director of Recreational Sports (Rec. Sports), Tom Diehl. He is pleased with new building and how smooth things are running. “A feasibility study was done about five to six years ago to determine what our needs were, what was feasible and we determined the best course of action was to knock down the Larrick center, rebuild it and connect it to the Rec. center while increasing our space.”
 “What we have noticed right away is that a lot of students have made their way over to the new student center and they are just hanging out in the lobby, studying, relaxing, and socializing,” said Diehl. The new facility as a whole is seeing a number of visitors. Diehl also said that the Rec. Sports gym numbers have increased, stating that before renovating they had around 300 visitors a day and now they’re “hitting 525 on a regular basis”. Larrick has a good amount of seats, study rooms, and quiet spots where students can do just that, chill or ‘play’. At Rec. sports students can use the gym’s equipment or if they’re not into equipment work outs, participate in group exercise classes.

What students think of the new facility
“It’s a lot more convenient,” VCU freshman Catherine Chop said. Catherine who lives in Cabaniss Hall, located next to Larrick thinks the new facility is “pretty cool.” She and her peers agree on Larrick’s convenience after having to go all the way to the Monroe Park campus or the hospital for getting a snack or using the gym. “I want the food place to open though….. I’m sure the food will be better than or just as good as Shaffer,” said Chop.
“I like the workout gym better over here,” said another Cabaniss resident and freshman, Isaiah Goldston. “Sometimes I go all the way to 12:00 when they’re closing and shutting the lights off.” Isaiah is grateful he doesn’t have to go to the main campus to use the gym at the Siegal Center anymore. He has also seen the common area of Larrick and like dorm mate Catherine, anticipates Jonah’s opening. “It seems like it’s a good place to study but I haven’t used it yet….I’ll be swiping all of my swipes over here” said Goldston.
Larrick employee’s perspective
 “I like it a lot (the atmosphere). They’re all sorts of different people rolling around, they are med and regular students, and working adults; it’s very cool,” said Starbucks employee Greg Collins. He took a job position at Starbucks because it was “fun and seemed interesting” and something that would allow the former bartender to continue making drinks.  Greg also noticed that traffic was a lot more than he expected to see during their first two weeks of business.
 “People need to come out and try our facilities equipment and programs and provide us with any feedback and any questions, concerns or thoughts,” said Tom Diehl in regards to the new Larrick. All students from both campuses and community members are welcome to use the new facilities.

Yoichi Wada

Yoichi Wada says trade must prepare for switch to digital distribution and server-based games and I have to largely agree with him in an Interview he gave to MCV. Digital distribution is going to happen it makes sence from every business standpoint. Console’s will still be here but we may not recognize them as such. They will probably resemble a modem with a very large internal hard drive and by large I mean at least1 hundred Terra-bit (HD video takes up a lot of space) which by then will be a solid state flash drive costing no more than current console drives with a reliability that can only be found in solid state,  there will be no need for a fan or at least a very small one. These hard drives will store all of our music, video, pictures and of course games all downloaded from who ever you want to buy them from and you will be watching everything on your 100 inch LCD  HD  TV. If this is starting to sound familiar to you it’s because we have been living with  it’s crude ancestor for 4 years now. Sony started the ball rolling with the PS2  and Microsoft got the message, the PC was not going to be that futuristic media center they had envisioned for everybody, they had no choice but to  respond.  Yes I can hear the Hardcore gamers already, “no Xbox 360+ could ever replace a PC for gaming” and you would be right if things stayed the way they are now. There is a service out there right now that is in beta  called  OnLive which promises HD-level games over a broadband connection. Will this actually be the answer, who knows. but the idea is to have servers do all the heavy lifting and get the hardware out of your house. Yes I heard you again latency is the problem and I didn’t say it was here now. The Wii has shown that at least half the gaming market is the casual gamer who doesn’t demand high performance or graphics anyway. Microsoft’s introduction of Avatars, Netflix and the whole NXE experience along with their recent addition of Twitter/Facebook have shown the industry as a whole is turning to a more Social media network based modal were even the traditional controller is in question. Project Netal anyone.  Hardcore gamers will always be here it’s the nature of the beast to want to be the last man standing in any competition all  in photo realism, just look at Call of Duty: MW2. Any company that ignores that segment does so at their own risk, unless your Nintendo and have decided that it is not your market anymore.

Wada warned that “all the distributors and sales firms will suffer a big negative impact” from a new era in which interactive entertainment switches from software run on hardware in the home to server-based offerings, game streaming and digital distribution.

He claimed that format-holders including Sony and Microsoft are already prepared for the shift – and that third-parties must follow suit. Source:  MCV

Dacia va participa la circuitele pe gheaţă din cadrul Trofeului Andros, ediţia 2009-2010, la categoria Silhouette. Fiabilitatea vehiculelor va fi pusă la grea încercare, iar Dacia va avea ocazia să demonstreze că robusteţea este înscrisă în genele sale de marcă. Regulamentul concursului nu permite echiparea vehiculelor din competiţie cu elemente de tehnologie foarte sofisticate sau costisitoare. Astfel, conform regulamentului de concurs, care impune utilizarea un anumit tip de şasiu, de cutii de viteze şi de pneuri, concurenţii vor apela la soluţii simple şi ingenioase, două trăsături care definesc spiritul Dacia…(mai mult)

A friend of mine, Kate O’Halloran, has just had a pretty great article published in MCV about people in the Jewish community and queer/homosexual sexualities. It can be found here.

It reads in part:

On the evening of Saturday, August 1 this year a masked gunman injured 15 and killed two people at a queer support centre in Tel Aviv, Israel. The Australian Jewish News (AJN) ran several pieces on the incident, and quoted the Israeli Prime Minister as saying that “all people were created in God’s image”, and “every citizen has the right to be… free and proud”.

But not all readers were impressed. An anonymous blogger commented: “…the last thing […] readers are interested in is what is happening in Tel Aviv snake pits of dreck and perversion”.

The comment led Michael Barnett, head of Aleph – a Melbourne-based group offering guidance, support and companionship for Jewish, gay and bisexual men – to circulate other such material to prominent figures in the community. Barnett says he did this to raise awareness of what he sees as homophobia within the Australian Jewish community. This illustrates, that, if nothing else, non-straight sexuality remains as contentious within Jewish religious circles as elsewhere.

What is the Jewish community’s relationship to queer sexuality? Is the community divided, as AJN journalist Haviv Rettig Gur suggests of Israel: “along religious lines”, and for those who do identify as Orthodox or conservatively Jewish, how do they reconcile their religious beliefs with their sexual desires?

Shaun Miller attends a progressive lay-led synagogue called Kedem, based in Armadale. He spoke of his overwhelmingly positive experiences of the Jewish community. “My family and Jewish friends completely ‘accept’ [my sexuality] to the same extent that I ‘accept’ their heterosexuality.” This allows Miller’s Jewish and gay identities to be “completely relaxed with each other”. He in no way considers that his religion condemns his sexuality: “I was made in G-d’s image. I am gay. So G-d must have a little gay side too!”

Interestingly, both Progressive and Orthodox Jews share this positive outlook. Jessica Zimmerman, who attended an orthodox Jewish school, writes that while “you would assume I would have been a victim to homophobic hate… I was actually welcomed with kindness and understanding”. For Zimmerman, this positive experience has enabled her spirituality and sexuality to remain “very much intertwined”. Indeed, Zimmerman believes her sexuality has even enhanced her religion and spirituality: “I thank G-d for making me the person I am!”

Unfortunately, this is not the experience of all queer Jews. One man, who asked not to be identified, spoke of the “extremely trying circumstances” he undergoes as a homosexual frum (Orthodox, religious) man. He sees his religion as taking absolute priority over his sexuality, perhaps a necessary consequence of his belief that his religion “absolutely, certainly, and unequivocally” condemns homosexual acts. This is in no small part due to the frum or strict interpretation of the Torah.
…

Orthodox men as such find it near impossible to comfortably act upon their sexual desires. According to this person, “only a very small percentage of frum gays choose to abandon frumkeit, live a gay life and come out to their family”, while others, like himself, are able to function sexually in a marital [heterosexual] situation and choose to do so because of their commitment to an Orthodox Jewish way of life.

Religious Jews who attend progressive or reform temples or shuls regard the mitzvot as open to questioning and discussion. Sandra, who attends a reform shul, writes that Reform Judaism “has its own way of praying… allows women to become Rabbis [and]… play significant roles in the community” while still upholding many aspects of Orthodoxy, particularly laws such as fasting on Yom Kippur and the observance of Passover and Rosh Hashana. Sandra speaks of witnessing a “passionate” sermon “about acceptance… especially for gay Jews”.

It’s great that the particular experiences of queer/gay Jews are being explored within the wider community, and fantastic that Kate took the opportunity to write this article, which told a few peoples’ stories with such grace. Kate has another article about this stuff coming out soon in Cherrie. I’ll post it here when it comes out.

A Dacia apresentou uma nova linha de veículos modificados para as versoes picape, perua e furgão do Logan. As novidades têm acabamento em fibra de vidro (picape) e podem atender às mais variadas necessidades. Inclusive, seriam opções para modelos como Fiat Fiorino, Chevrolet Montana Combo e Ford CourierVan.

Entre as novidades, a picape Logan traz modelos com acabamento em fibra de vidro nos formatos baú (duas portas), caixa (três portas) e caçamba metálica (uma porta). A perua MCV traz versões com rampa de acesso a portadores de necessidades especiais (PNEs) e frigorífico.

Os preços partem de 9.090 euros na França, podendo chegar a 13,5 mil euros.

GALERIA

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

- Robert Frost

Ahhh, the allure of independence, free will, and personal freedom. The free spirit in all of us knows that the road less traveled is the one to take. It’s where all the surprises and excitement exist. It’s where spontaneity is born. It’s where all discoveries occur. It’s the path that seduces our “Inner Lewis & Clark” to push ’round the next bend in the river. But if you’re a patient with a rare disease navigating a health system, the road less traveled can be a downright lonely and inhospitable place.

Let me explain.

I just had a visit with the transplant team at MCV on August 25th and it looks like I’m at a crossroads in the progression of my liver disease. Here’s a quick review of the facts. I’m on the transplant list, but with a relatively low MELD score. As I’ve mentioned before, the MELD score quantifies just how sick a liver patient is, and consequently establishes the priority in which available livers will be provided for transplant recipients. Complicating matters is the fact that while the MELD score effectively measures severity of illness in the vast majority of liver patients, it is a notoriously unreliable measure for patients with my specific condition, Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC).  So, although I’m on the transplant list, I’m so far down the list that it’s unrealistic to expect a match from a deceased donor any time soon.  While I wait for a liver to become available, I face a risk of cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer), a known risk for patients with PSC and very-nearly a terminal diagnosis (NOTE: There is still a great deal of controversy related to liver transplants in patients known to have cholangiocarcinoma. While cholangiocarcinoma can’t be considered a purely terminal diagnosis, the outcomes are very grim. The most recent issue of the medical journal Transplantation sums up the issue nicely in the abstract found here). So, my crossroad has two choices: (1) wait, and hope that I don’t get cancer, or (2) try to move the timetable up dramatically by identifying a living donor.

In the meantime, I’ve been seeking the advice and guidance of the transplant team at MCV, and I’ve been getting two widely divergent sets of opinions from them about the course of action I should take. Here’s a quick, highly oversimplified summary of their views and of mine:

• The Hepatologist: Believes I should wait patiently. He is not a fan of living donor transplants because he believes the complication rate for the recipient is substantially higher than in a deceased donor approach. He also feels that the risks associated with the surgery actually outweigh the risk of getting bile duct cancer, given my current MELD score.
• The Transplant Surgeon: Believes I should move ahead aggressively with a living donor option. Prefers the living donor approach over the deceased donor option. Says that while living donor complication rates used to be higher than with a deceased donor, the gap has nearly closed, and in the specific case of his patients, the complication rates are the same. Is very concerned about the risk of cholangiocarcinoma.
• Me: I believe I am a better-than-average risk for the surgery. I’m otherwise healthy and have a high level of understanding about what is required post-transplant in order to stay healthy. I further believe that I am a worse-than-average cancer risk. I have nothing to quantify this assumption, nor do the physicians have any hard evidence to counter my assumption. Admittedly, I’m placing significant weight on the risk of cancer as a result of spending the last 22 months of my mom’s life watching her die from cholangiocarcinoma, so my motives may be more emotionally driven than quantitatively driven. Bottom line, I’d like to be transplanted now and a living donor could make that possible.

Although the hepatologist and the surgeon don’t see eye-to-eye on my case, I remain 100% convinced that they are each spending an extraordinary amount of time studying my specific situation, and that they are each providing me with the best advice based on their individual medical judgment. The fact that they disagree has nothing to do with being right or wrong, and has everything in the world to do with making decisions based on incomplete data. I’m unusually fortunate that my team of providers not only tolerates my routine input, challenges and opinions, they have actually encouraged it. They have expressed appreciation that I am so willing to be vigilant about my condition, to study the latest data, and to be actively engaged in my care. To be candid, not all health care providers appreciate that level of involvement. I’m thankful that mine do.

So, although we don’t all agree, not surprisingly we’ve all settled on a compromise. I’m now on 90-day cycles for visits to MCV. When I’m there, I’ll go through the usual battery of blood work and physical examination, but I will also meet with the surgeon and/or the hepatologist. They have agreed to look beyond the MELD score and have indicated that they will be asking for more of my input related to symptoms I’m experiencing. Catherine has pointed out that I have a tendency to gloss over how poorly I’m feeling, and that now isn’t the time to be stoic. I’m a very lousy patient in that regard, since I find few things as unpleasant as talking about how sick I am. I thought I could hold off that conversation for another 40 years or so once I was institutionalized with my fellow octogenarians somewhere. No such luck. So, every 90 days we’ll go through the same debate again: transplant now or transplant later.

I should point out that PSC patients get accustomed to this level of ambiguity very quickly, but it’s no less frustrating just because it’s typical. Most PSC patients spend months, even years undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. After diagnosis, the course of action doesn’t get much clearer because there’s so little known about the disease, its cause, and treatments. Let me offer a quick synopsis of a common conversation someone newly diagnosed with PSC might have with their physician. All of the following is based on actual experiences…

• PSC Patient: Wow, so I’ve got this disease. Any idea what caused it?
• Doc: We have a few theories. It might be an autoimmune disease, but we really don’t know.
• PSC Patient: I did some reading and see that a transplant may be required. Am I going to need a transplant?
• Doc: You might, but we really don’t know. The disease manifests itself very differently in different people.
• PSC Patient: So, what’s my prognosis?
• Doc: I don’t know.
• PSC Patient: Is there any chance my kids will get this? Should they be tested?
• Doc: No, no. PSC is not known to be hereditary.
• PSC Patient: Wait a second. My mom had PSC. Doesn’t that seem strange if it’s not hereditary?
• Doc: I didn’t say it wasn’t hereditary. I said it wasn’t known to be hereditary. Big difference.
• PSC Patient: Wow, do you use a scalpel to split hairs that thin?
• Doc: What…huh?
• PSC Patient: Sorry, that was supposed to be a joke. I understand there’s a risk of getting cancer. I guess we should monitor that pretty closely, huh?
• Doc: I wish we could. Unfortunately there’s no real reliable test for cholangiocarcinoma.
• PSC Patient: Okay, well what do we do now? Is there any sort of treatment?
• Doc: Well, “treatment” may be too strong a word, but we do have some pills that you can take (Ursodiol). There’s no clear evidence that they work. In fact, we’re pretty sure they have no impact whatsoever on the course of the disease, but at least they are outrageously expensive.
• PSC Patient: I don’t have any symptoms now. When can I expect that to change?
• Doc: Sometime between tomorrow and 30-40 years from now. Did I mention that the disease progresses at very different rates in different people?
• PSC Patient: Yes, you mentioned that. Is there anything more that I should know?
• Doc: I don’t think so.

Maybe the little one-act play above portrays an unreasonably cynical point of view, and there is definitely a small-but-growing body of knowledge that is being slowly accumulated as more research is conducted, but in general, this is what life is like when you have a rare disease. I’ve met with numerous physicians who have dedicated their careers to studying liver diseases, and a small handful of physicians whose field of study has been focused exclusively on PSC. In both instances, the body of research and quantitative data that they can rely upon is pitifully small. Worse yet, in many cases the new research absolutely contradicts the earlier research (e.g., Ursodiol. Remember, that’s the incredibly expensive drug I have been taking in megadoses diligently since September 2000. I had been cautioned that it might not actually affect the underlying disease and that it could possibly just make my lab scores look better. Well, the most current research indicates that high doses of Ursodiol actually INCREASE the rate of bile duct cancer vs. patients who take nothing at all).  So my exchanges with physicians gradually become less about data and research and more about hunches and intuition.

Okay, a quick reality check. It would be fair to accuse me of exaggerating in my description above to make a point, but I think most PSC patients who read this will recognize the frustrations associated with the ambiguities of our disease. Before I am accused of spreading misinformation, though, here are some hard facts. There is no known cause for PSC. There is no known prevention for PSC. There is no known treatment for PSC with the exception of a transplant. The few treatment options that exist are focused almost solely on managing symptoms. What works for one PSC patient may have no effect on another.

So, this is the road less traveled, albeit probably not the one that Robert Frost had in mind. The path is being carved daily and there are as many dead ends as there are discoveries. In the words of my six-year-old daughter quoting Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, “This expedition is fraught with danger.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Tibia MCV es un bot para tibia creado por dark pallys , yo nunca he usado este bot pero escuche cosas muy buenas acerca de el, ademas que es un bot gratis y cuenta con funciones de cavebot y warbot.

Aqui les dejo el link de descarga: Tibia MCV

Dejen sus comentarios.

Do you like Joypod?

If you do, why not help the hosts elmo and Michael blag earn a well deserved Games Media Award. All the details needed to vote can be found over at MCV.

Joypod now has a spanking new forum and a live chat room on the go, that will no doubt be the place for lolz when PlayRadioUK and their weekly show is back on the air.

Previous podcasts can be found via iTunes, RSS, or right here. Get them.

On Tuesday, July 22, 2009 I was contacted by the Medical College of Virginia informing me that I’m officially on the liver transplant waiting list. About a week ago, following a meeting with the transplant surgeon, I had been told that I could expect to wait at least 3-4 more weeks before being notified about whether or not I had been listed. So I wasn’t fully braced while going through the routine course of checking voicemails to hear that I’ve joined the ranks of the 1000 other individuals and their families in Region 11 who are also waiting for the next liver to become available.

I’ve been bracing for this day since September 1, 2000, the day I was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, and have known since then that a transplant would almost certainly be in my future. In the corners of my mind, I held out hope that my case would be somehow different and I would magically be able to avoid such a severe measure. For the first few years following my diagnosis, that seemed to be a potentially realistic outcome since my symptoms ranged from non-existent to inconsequential. However, during the past two years, and especially during the past 6 months, I’ve been on a different trajectory altogether. My symptoms and their considerable disruption to my life have reached the point where I welcome the opportunity to discard my malfunctioning liver and replace it with a newer model straight from the showroom floor (or at least gently used).

So, what happens next? Read “How to Get a Liver 101” to find out.

Que pena que ele se foi

É isso ai galera, teremos um novo game do rei do pop em breve.

De acordo com o site britânico MCV, a produtora MJJ Productions tem vindo trabalhando há alguns meses num novo jogo de Michael Jackson.

Michael gravou a sua voz para o jogo, e além disso, o título contará também com várias das suas canções que se tornaram um ícone da cultura pop.

Um representante da MJJ Productions disse :

“Tenho a certeza que o jogo será lançado. Michael adorava os jogos.”

Não temos ainda muita informação sobre o jogo, mas está previsto que o jogo seja lançado nos consoles  neste Natal.

Assim que tivermos mais informação postamos aqui no RG.

[Tues] Celebrated dad’s birthday; he made a rather wise wish before blowing the candles. I guess it’ll be years before I make a similar wish.

[Wed] Had an eventful trip to the zoo, with non other than my OG pals (: also played some songs on the electone with Kalpy [was really amusing when we played different parts to "Once Upon A Dream"; about 7 pages long!]

[Thurs] Aside from a sumptuous Burmese lunch @ Inle restaurant with a couple of AC gals (their first!), I worked on the usual medicamp + RC stuff. Watched a bit of tennis in the evening =p

[Fri] Attended a meeting concerning medicamp contingency plans which ended at 8.30pm; rushed to MPS thereafter. Worked on amendments for the first time – I now see what the MP wants in her letters to the various ministries and organisations. I felt really great when I left at 11.30 (late by mum’s standards but she didn’t complain a single bit) though I wished I could have stayed longer – the usual folks often stayed up to 2 or 3am to finish up…!

[Sat] Woke up after 11h of sleep – the previous day seemed rather draining. Sorted my shelf again while talking to my cousin (she came to visit after work). We had a nice chat about her working life, my holiday life and the future which, to our surprise, ended on a rather sombre note. Did a bit more work, watched the ladies’ tennis finals, and was disappointed to see Safina lose for her 2nd finals )=

[Sun] Alas, the big event; I was in charge of sounds. I did expect one of the CCAs from my alma mater to be there, since I was involved in the planning; nonetheless it surprised me that I wouldn’t know any of them. 4 years has passed in the blink of an eye…