Freedom latest town to create TIF district
Freedom officials hope to draw developers to the community.
Freedom latest town to create TIF district Freedom officials hope to draw developers to the community. Check out this story on postcrescent.com: http://post.cr/2kDSF8u
Madeleine Behr, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin Published 3:38 p.m. CT Feb. 13, 2017
A map of Freedom's first tax incremental financing district.(Photo: Courtesy of the town of Freedom)
FREEDOM - Freedom is the latest town in the Fox Cities to create a tax incremental financing district in an attempt to draw more economic development to the area.
"The ultimate goal is to get more economic development in the town instead of having to raise taxes," said Steve Brueggeman, the director of engineering and planning for Freedom. "We'd like to do this for growth, keep taxes down and be able to accommodate developers."
RELATED: Fox Crossing flexes muscle to lure development
RELATED: Greenville approves first TIF
RELATED: Fox Cities towns exercise TIF powers
The 85-acre TIF is located at the southeastern corner of the Outagamie County E intersection with Schmidt Road. The TIF was approved in the fall, but work on the infrastructure began this winter, including the installation of sanitary sewer and water main.
The TIF is slated for a mix of commercial and residential development.
When a municipality creates a TIF district, all of the property taxes generated from new development in the district — the increment — goes toward reimbursing the municipality for any costs (property acquisition, demolition, utilities, streets, parking and cash incentives) it incurred to create that development. The revenues from the increment are diverted from the school district, county and technical college for as long as the district is in place.
No plans for development in the TIF have been announced, but plans are in the works, Brueggeman said. A second TIF, likely for industrial use, also is being discussed.
With ample land and lower taxes than neighboring cities, more towns and villages are drawing development from cities like Appleton. Since 2014, Wisconsin towns were allowed to create TIFs, if they had at least $500 million of equalized property value, a population of at least 3,500 and provided sanitary sewer service.
Freedom didn't meet the three state requirements because it had $475 million of equalized property value instead of $500 million. A bill was passed by the state Legislature to exempt Freedom from those requirements and allow it to use TIFs.
Greenville recently created its first TIF in December to draw development.
Madeleine Behr: 920-996-7226, or mbehr@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @madeleinebehr
Read or Share this story: http://post.cr/2kDSF8u
Officers fatally shoot person during SWAT standoff in Fox Crossing


California Updates
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Foundation Initiatives
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The California Endowment–
Youth and Community Safety Initiatives
Commonweal has worked closely with the California Endowment on health-based initiatives affecting youth in the justice system. Between 2011-2014, Commonweal provided staff support to the Youth Justice Policy Board– a group of distinguished professional and community leaders from California youth-service disciplines, dedicated to advancing statewide policy reforms for youth wellness and community safety. Beginning in 2015, Commonweal partnered with succeeding California Endowment initiatives supporting a wide agenda of health and wellness for at-risk youth and including a strong community safety component.
Positive Youth Justice Initiative
This Sierra Health initiative is dedicated to improving responses and outcomes for "crossover youth" – children who are involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. The initiative blends "positive youth justice", wraparound service and trauma-informed care approaches to support inter-agency collaborations that can address the multiple needs of these youth more efficiently and with better outcomes. From 2014-16, Commonweal staffed a national PYJI Advisory Committee of experts and leaders in the field.
Youth Violence Prevention Initiatives
For two decades the California Wellness Foundation has sponsored initiatives and programs for the prevention of youth violence in California. Under its leadership, grantees and policymakers have adopted major reforms including the creation of large new revenue streams supporting youth crime and violence prevention programs throughout the state. As a long-term grantee of the Wellness Foundation, Commonweal has helped California policy makers build funds and programs to reduce youth violence in California.
The JDAI is a national initiative dedicated to reducing and eliminating the unnecessary and often injurious detention of children in secure juvenile justice facilities. Now active in 37 states, the JDAI has documented significant detention reductions with positive results, both for children and for public safety. Commonweal serves as a technical assistance advisor to the JDAI, training justice system personnel throughout the United States on detention risk assessment and related best-practices.
a COMMONWEAL program © 2014 Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program P.O. Box 316 Bolinas, CA 94924 (415) 388-6666 Commonweal.org
Youth photos by Richard Ross/Juvenile-in-Justice


Home About SAIT News & Events SAIT and Calgary Stampede host international pancake event
SAIT and Calgary Stampede host international pancake event
Calgary, AB — SAIT's Culinary Campus and Calgary Stampede have teamed up today to celebrate cultural diversity in the city with an international tasting event in downtown Calgary.
SAIT's #PancakeParade will feature pancake samples from around the world, including Venezuelan cachapas, Swedish potato pancakes, Eastern European blinis and Korean kimchi pancakes — recipes customized by SAIT Chef Bruno Lesage. The Stampede's renowned western pancake will round out the tasting. SAIT students and the Stampede's "Batter Boys" (a volunteer committee of expert flapjackers) will serve tastings to the downtown Calgary lunch crowd from 11 am to 1 pm.
"A big part of the Stampede experience is food sampling on the midway and with SAIT's growing population of international students, this is a wonderful opportunity to showcase Calgary's global food scene," says Tom Bornhorst, Dean of SAIT's School of Hospitality and Tourism.
Anyone picking up a sample can also bring the international culinary experience to their home kitchen -recipe cards will be available to re-create one of Chef Lesage's custom creations. As an additional treat, Calgary Stampede Executive Chef Derek Dale has a new spin on the Stampede staple! Chef Dale is excited for guests to try his western pancake at home.
Kurt Kadatz, Director of Community Engagement with the Stampede, says this event is a wonderful kick-off to the Stampede season.
"When it comes to pancakes the earth is indeed flat — with most cultures having their own version," says Kadatz. "So what better way to celebrate the diversity of our great city than via the pancake breakfast — that unique way that Calgarians and visitors have gathered ever since larger-than-life cowboy Jack Morton started the free pancake breakfast tradition in 1923."
The showcase of international cuisine will continue after the #PancakeParade at SAIT's Culinary Campus in June with classes featuring cuisine from Thailand and Vietnam.
The Stampede culinary experience kicks off on Friday, July 3 on the midway.
SAIT is one of Canada's most exciting destinations for post-secondary education, offering more than 100 career programs and over 1,400 part-time courses (including online and distance) that position people for success in technology, trades and business. A leader in innovation, SAIT also collaborates with industry on applied research and delivers corporate training worldwide. SAIT has been recognized as being one of Alberta's Top Employers, one of the top five research colleges in Canada and the Best Alberta Workplace for Training and Development.


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The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
Edited by John Bowker
The Oxford Reference Collection
The most comprehensive and authoritative dictionary of its kind
Contains unrivalled coverage of all the major world religions, past and present
Entries on religions; movements; sects and cults; individuals; sacred sites; ethics; and many more
Covers themes such as asceticism, biogenetics, cosmology, and music and dance
Part of the Oxford Reference Collection: using sustainable print-on-demand technology to make the acclaimed backlist of the Oxford Reference programme perennially available in hardback format
This Dictionary is part of the Oxford Reference Collection: using sustainable print-on-demand technology to make the acclaimed backlist of the Oxford Reference programme perennially available in hardback format.
Abridged from the acclaimed Oxford Dictionary of World Religions this is the most comprehensive dictionary of religion available in paperback. Written by an expert team of contributors, the volume contains over 8,200 entries, an extensive topic index, and an original and in-depth introductory essay.
The editor, Professor John Bowker, is an established authority on religious studies and a well-known broadcaster on BBC Radio and the World Service.
Containing entries on religions, movements, sects, and cults, texts, individuals, sacred sites, customs, ethics, and themes, this dictionary is both extensive and accessible. Fully cross-referenced for ease of use, it is suitable for anybody interested in finding out more about the religions of the world.
List of Editors and Contributors
Introduction: Religion
A-Z Concise Dictionary of World Religions
Index of Chinese Headwords
Edited by John Bowker, Fellow of Gresham College, London, and Adjunct Professor at North Carolina State University and University of Pennsylvania
Professor John Bowker, Fellow of Gresham College, London, and Adjunct Professor at North Carolina State University (formerly Professor of Religion at the University of Lancaster, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania), is a highly-regarded authority on religious studies and a well-known broadcaster on BBC Radio and the World Service. His many books on the subject include Is God a Virus?, Genes, Culture and Religion, Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World, What Muslims Believe, The Meanings of Death (Harper Collins Religious Book Award, 1993), World Religions and The Complete Bible Handbook (Benjamin Franklin Award, 1999).
Over 80 expert contributers, from every area of religious study.
"Review from previous edition will prove its worth for the growing number of people interested in different religions'" - Guardian
"covers a vast range of topics and . . . is both comprehensive and reliable" - The Times
God: A Very Short Introduction
John Bowker
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
James MacKillop
Steven C. Harper
Harlem Renaissance Lives
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
The Religious Imagination and the Sense of God
A Dictionary of Opera Characters
Joyce Bourne
The Outrageous Idea of Christian Teaching
Perry Glanzer, Nathan Alleman, George Marsden
The Oxford Guide to Library Research
Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
W. F. Bynum, Roy Porter
The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law
Pamela Barmash
A Dictionary of Sports Studies
Edwards the Mentor
Rhys S. Bezzant
The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets
Darra Goldstein, Sidney Mintz, Michael Krondl, Eric Rath, Laura Mason, Geraldine Quinzio, Ursula Heinzelmann
The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea
I. C. B Dear, Peter Kemp
The Rise of Network Christianity
Brad Christerson, Richard Flory
Arts & Humanities > Religion


Evans City Council to vote on bid for 37th Street, 47th Avenue widening project
Sara Knuth
The Evans City Council will take a step forward Tuesday night on a project to widen 37th Street and 47th Avenue by awarding a design contract.
The city staff's recommendation is to award the contract to Thornton-based company RockSol Consulting Group, which submitted a $1.3 million bid.
The big picture: The Evans City Council has identified the 37th Street and 47th Avenue widening project as its highest transportation priority, according to city documents. The plan will also align with standards for the access control plan for the Freedom Parkway, the collective name for Weld County Road 54, 37th Street in Evans, Larimer County Road 18 and Colo. 402. The plan is a collaboration between nine governments, including Evans.
Officials said RockSol did not submit the lowest bid, but it did the best job of addressing the city's work requirements for the project. Specifically, the company did the most thorough job of meeting Freedom Parkway standards.
What's next: If the city votes to award the bid, design will move forward. The city plans to split the transportation project into three phases, starting with 37th Street from 35th Avenue to 47th Avenue, transitioning to 47th Avenue from 31st Street to 37th Street and then 37th Street from 47th Avenue to 65th Avenue.
Check it out: The Evans City Council will meet 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Evans Community Complex, 1100 37th St.
Dig deeper by reading the council's agenda:
Evans City Council Feb. 19 … by on Scribd


Trumpland
Trump Sticks By His Wall Tantrum and Shuts Down the Government [UPDATED]
David Boddiger
Update, Saturday, 3:38 p.m.: A Saturday Senate session has adjourned with no new deal on ending a partial government shutdown. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said no new sessions are planned until Thursday, Dec. 27, USA Today reported. McConnell, however, could call a new session before that if a deal is reached.
Trump, predictably, went on a Twitter rant, bragging about winning "one of the greatest [elections] of all time" and renewing calls for "a great Steel Barrier or Wall." No word yet on how shutting down the U.S. government would force the Mexican government to pay for the wall or the steel fence or whatever it is.
Original post continues here:
President Donald Trump's insistence on having his own border wall or fence or whatever xenophobic vanity project he can build for $5.7 billion has delivered the third shutdown in two years by a Republican-controlled government.
That means that just in time for the holidays, nine federal departments and several other agencies will cease working, 380,000 federal workers will be sent home without pay, and another 420,000 will be made to work without pay, The New York Times reported. Among those forced to work without pay are Border Patrol officers, the newspaper observed.
On Friday night, Trump posted a last-minute video on his Twitter account stirring fear over the usual suspects, including "drugs…pouring in" and "gangs like MS 13," adding that, "The only thing that's going to stop that is great border security with a wall or a slat fence or whatever you want to call it."
Earlier in the day, following passage by House Republicans of last-minute wall-funding legislation, Trump tried to blame Democrats for the shutdown, despite previously—and very publicly—telling incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that he alone would shoulder the blame for a shutdown.
Schumer stuck to his guns, though, making Trump appear vulnerable and weak. "You're not getting the wall today, next week or on Jan. 3 when Democrats take control of the House," the Democratic leader said on the Senate floor, the Times reported.
Trump also tried to pressure Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to use the "nuclear option" to lower the number of votes needed to pass legislation from 60 to 51, but that didn't work, either.
Now, it's anyone's guess how long the impasse will last. On Friday, Trump said the shutdown could go on for a "very long time," according to The Washington Post. Later, in the video, he said, "The shutdown hopefully will not last long."
Referring to signals earlier in the week that the president might work to avoid a shutdown, the Post noted:
Republicans were frustrated by the reversal, and Democrats warned Friday that the president's erratic and unvetted decisions in recent days were unsettling financial markets, foreign allies and even members of his Cabinet.
"This is tyranny of talk radio hosts, right? And so, how do you deal with that?" said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn). "You have two talk radio hosts who completely flipped the president. And so, do we succumb to tyranny of talk radio hosts?"
Negotiating with lawmakers on behalf of the president were Vice President Mike Pence, incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. But none of them could reach a deal, according to the Times, due to "the president's refusal to budge on the wall."
Nicely done, Mr. Art of the Deal.
Weekend Editor, Splinter


The Harsh Reality for New York Carriage Horses
A recent bill passed by the City Council (Intro 35) granting 5 weeks vacation to NYC carriage horses received a great deal of attention in the press, with news anchors chuckling over such an extravagant benefit. It's easy to see why your average overworked New Yorker would feel a touch of envy, but the harsh reality of life for a carriage horse working in New York City is no laughing matter.
They routinely work at least 9 hours a day, pulling a vehicle that weighs hundreds of pounds, on hard pavement, while breathing exhaust from cars, buses and taxis. Unaccustomed to the urban environment, horses can be "spooked" easily, by anything from another horse to a plastic shopping bag to a pedestrian, and cause accidents that inflict great damage on vehicles, drivers and most often, the horses themselves.
At the end of the day the horses return to their tiny stalls in stables housed in former tenement buildings on the far West side of the city, or as Jon Stewart once called it, "The sad-eyed horse carriage district." The cramped space doesn't allow these enormous animals to lie down or to move about freely and get the daily exercise that equine veterinarians agree they need.
Once a horse hits the streets of Manhattan, its life expectancy is cut in half. After a few years of work, injuries and illness usually force the horses into retirement, not to a farm or pasture but to auctions in Pennsylvania where they can be sold to kill-buyers, transported to Mexico and Canada and slaughtered for meat.
As for the 5 week vacation promised in the bill (Intro 35) recently signed into law by Mayor Bloomberg? It sure sounds nice, but don't expect to be running into a horse at the Jersey Shore anytime soon. The minimal regulations already in place are frequently ignored by carriage horse owners and drivers, with no repercussions. The NYC Department of Health and the Department of Consumer Affairs simply don't have the resources or the expertise to fulfill their oversight responsibilities for the 211 carriage horses.
According to a 2007 audit by former NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson, the Department of Health's veterinary consultants spent an average of only 25 minutes inspecting each stable - and that 25 minutes included traveling from one stable to the next, inspecting the condition of the facilities, reviewing paperwork maintained by the horse owners, and completing their own paperwork, not to mention checking out the physical conditions of the horses.
It is no surprise then, that when comparing the 2005 health certificates of the horses with the 2006 certificates, investigators from the Comptroller's office found that 42% of them had conflicting descriptions of the same horses, including age, color, breed, name and gender. With such shoddy record-keeping, who will ever know if the horses get their much talked-about vacation?
The workers in the horse carriage industry don't fare much better. They are independent contractors and their daily income is based on how many rides they sell. They certainly do not get any paid vacation or sick days, let alone any other benefits, like unemployment, health insurance or workman's compensation despite the frequent injuries incurred on the job.
The New York City Council should pass legislation that supports the welfare of humans and animals. A bill currently before the City Council, Intro 86, would phase out the horse-drawn carriages and replace them with green horseless carriages. This new industry would create well-paying jobs with full benefits, and would allow for the retirement of the over-worked horses to farms and sanctuaries.
For more information on how the 21st Century alternative to the horse carriage industry solves not just the humane issue, but the traffic, safety, economic, and quality of life problems caused by the horse carriages, please visit www.NY-CLASS.org.


Sam Greene
Sam Greene, Copy-Editor
I've had enough of this obsession with pastimes like football and baseball. Sure, they're packed with eventful moments and impressive turning points, but they don't have the creativity and depth that sport is supposed to embody. I don't doubt that they're challenging in their own ways. I know it takes practice, determination and technique to make it to the top, I'm just saying these players don't have half of what it takes to be an athlete as far as my idea of sport goes.
First, let me reevaluate some misconceptions. I don't think it's fair to say that quarterbacks can possibly be confined to simple set of options. When that ball is snapped, as both lines clash and the players jump into motion, quarterbacks process an overwhelming amount of information. But as a whole, football is too slow and broken-up to be a test of mental stamina. Every five seconds, everyone on the field gets to hit a reset button. Some players might argue that these decisions are more impactful in the moment than ones made in soccer, but when you define sport as a series of broken-up plays that are pieced together to reflect some end result, I think you lose the true challenge of sport.
Sport isn't a test of how one executes second chances over and over again with adjustments and reactions scattered through the game and within each play. Sport is a test of how a team links together all these plays into one cohesive performance, uninterrupted by strategic time-outs, split offensive and defensive line-ups or frequent restarts.
Baseball players take the best spot in the sport world spotlight: they get most credit, the most breaks and the most time. They basque in the luxury of having all day to position themselves on the field, smack some gum, blow a bubble, play with their glove and give the pitcher an encouraging pat on the back before, once again, the game restarts. Sure, I'll give the pitcher credit for figuring out a way to manipulate the strike zone to his advantage from pitch to pitch, but planting yourself on the field and adjusting your game after trial-and-error isn't a test of the ability I think sport should challenge.
For me, the essence of sports boils down to what the game demands mentally from its athletes. A true test of skill is a test of an athlete's vision. Vision is the ability to calculate on the spot how executing in one instant will impact the speed, flow and rhythm of play three, four or five steps down the line. From basketball to hockey, each player focuses on unique sets of responsibilities that are essential to be competitive in his or her position, but all the while balance a multitude of demands. What's required of these athletes is never black and white. They learn the ropes for both capitalizing on offense and holding the line on defense while working their position and supporting others'. They compile and act upon more skills because of the variety of circumstances that their game throws at them.
Besides having vision, these sports demand constant focus. There is a higher expectation of these athletes because of the duration of undivided focus they endure. Got knocked down, knocked around or knocked out of your zone? Take t-minus one second to adjust yourself and get back into the swing of play. These athletes don't wait for a reset and stop of play to get into focus, they reset the game with their own actions. The contributions that they make are always original, requiring creative off-the-ball movement to deceptively stretch out the other team. They find a way to break apart defenses and create opportunities without forcing the play to develop. So don't be confused, the speed is quick but these athletes are in no rush to make things happen they just move the ball around the court, pass it up to the front line, receive it back, reshape the play and shift the point of attack. They hold tight to these aspects of the game and make them their domain. At the end of that day, it takes creativity and innovative design to develop this constant vision of how the game is interconnected. These athletes embody the true spirit of sport, the perfect blend of mental, physical and emotional stamina.
Before I leave this page for Paly sports buffs to chew me up, let it be known that I'm more than qualified to make these claims. I made it through pitching-machine in the Palo Alto Little League without knowing which hand I threw or caught consistently with and ran as a second-string running back on my middle school intramural team–and I ran for the winning touchdown. baby
Sam Greene, Copy Editor
Sam Greene studies at the Univesity of California, Berkeley. He joined the journalism program at Palo Alto High School in 2008 and has been writing for...


THE 2015 VGJUNK REVIEW!
The final days of 2015 lumber into view, and thank god for that - it's been a pretty miserable year for me on a personal level, and I will be glad to see the back of it. Fortunately, the act of writing about videogames has helped to thrill and entertain me over the last twelve months, although the same may not be true of VGJunk's readership, wonderful darlings that you are. Yes, even games with such dubious pedigree as Silent Assault and Pipi and Bibis helped to keep me sane and put things into perspective: the fact that I don't live in a universe where the only videogames are licensed Game Boy Color tie-ins is proof that things could always be worse. So, with a new year almost upon us, it's time for the annual tradition of the VGJunk Year Review, where I award prizes to some of the games I've covered this year in categories made up on the spot and selected according to my whims. Let's get started!
Most Shameless Rip-Off
There was absolutely no contest in this category, as Codemasters' Commodore 64 and Amiga title Prince Clumsy (AKA The Sword and the Rose) was such an unabashed clone of Ghosts 'n Goblins that it is scientifically provable that you can't talk about it without making reference to Capcom's lance-slinging classic. Even if you try to describe Prince Clumsy through wordless mugging and silent charades, an unseen force will carve the words "it's just bloody Ghosts 'n' Goblins!" into your forehead, the blood-markings forever serving as testament to Codemasters' sheer cheek.
Best Character
I said he would take this title way back in January, and I saw nothing in the intervening eleven months powerful or moving enough to change my mind - the winner is King Ape from Mad Motor. I'm not a complex man, I don't need much more than an enormous, helicopter-riding gorilla wearing a crown, spiked underwear and the Lord Mayor's chains to capture my heart.
Honourable mentions go to the entire cast of Captain Commando, especially Mack the Knife (even his in-game bio describes him as "very cool") and the floating, disembodied head of Sir Clive Sinclair from A Day in the Life. Turns out A Day in the Life of Sir Clive Sinclair's Floating, Disembodied Head is a harrowing one indeed, but Clive bears it all with grace and good humour.
Biggest Waste of a License
Beavis and Butt-head are difficult characters to build a game around, and Doug is so phenomenally boring that any game based on his adventures was always going to be a one-way ticket to Snoozeville calling at Boredom Junction and Pointlessness Central, so the title has to go to Indiagames' Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Quest for Oz. Buffy's a superb fighter and gymnast who beats vampires and monsters to un-un-death with karate and (that one time, at least) rocket launchers, so it was a shame to see her appear in what is quite possibly the most half-hearted Prince of Persia clone ever created. It does absolutely nothing with the license, either, with Buffy herself being the only character from the show to appear in-game. I know the last boss is supposed to be Drusilla, but even taking into account the tiny resolution of a mobile screen it looks nothing like her and so I'm not counting her.
Most Brutal Difficulty Level
Looking through this year's articles, I noticed that I didn't write about that many really difficult games. I'm fairly sure that's because my very first article of 2015 was about Spelunker, a game so viciously committed to inflicting sudden and near-constant deaths on the player that it's taken me an entire year to recover from agonisingly grinding my way through it. I don't think I have ever uttered such a stream of foul invective at a videogame in my life, and I've played through Dragon's Lair on the NES.
Most Terrifying
It wasn't any of the games I wrote about during the Halloween Spooktacular, that's for sure - no, the only game this year to elicit a frisson of fear was Paul Norman's The Trivia Monster. After the unsettling weirdness of Norman's Forbidden Forest, I was hoping for more of the same from Trivia Monster, and boy did I get it in the form of the titular monster's scream, the horrifying sound of a robot programmed only to feel pain trying to drag itself out of a burning cheese grater.
Best Soundtrack
It was a fairly weak year for top-quality soundtracks, but as is so often the case Castlevania came to my ears' rescue with the music from Castlevania Legends.
Most Pleasant Surprise
Quite a few games this year turned out to be much more enjoyable than I first anticipated: Moon Crystal is very close to being a true "lost" classic in the Famicom's library of platformers, Riding Fight was so beautifully dumb that I could overlook many of its flaws and Heavy Smash is just pure arcade fun. However, I have to give this one to Big Fish Game's pixel-pecking hidden object spook-a-thon Halloween Trick or Treat. The cluttered, kitschy mess that makes up the game's environments is an aesthetic that's wired directly into my brain's pleasure centres, and I found the act of hunting around for disguised items deeply relaxing. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I have developed something of an addiction to horror-themed hidden-object games, and since Halloween I have played a considerable amount of them including both the Halloween Trick or Treat sequels and several others. There you are, then: final proof, if proof were needed, that I have no business writing about whether a game is good or not.
Most Poorly-Timed Article
I probably should have saved all those words about Return of the Jedi until a couple of weeks ago, huh?
Most Baffling
Scare Bear for the C64. Why was it called Scare Bear? Where was that bear even going? Why were tiny astronauts trying to kill him? Did he defund the space program for tiny people or something? There are no answers to any of these questions, leaving Scare Bear as a true enigma for the ages.
Most Forgettable
I was looking at the list of this year's articles. Battlecry is on there. I could not remember a thing about Battlecry other than you punch people in it and honestly, that's fifty percent of the games I write about. As someone whose brain is nothing more than a fleshy filing cabinet for side-scrolling beat-em-up information, this means Battlecry might be the most generic slugfest ever created.
Best In-Game Text
Always a hotly-contested category, this one, and amongst my favourites are the various messages in the wonderful Advanced Lawnmower Simulator, even the ones that cruelly compared me to Helen Keller.
Shadowgate was another highlight, with text that veers between sarcastically calling out you, the player, for your dumbass decisions like, I dunno, punching yourself in the face, and describing even the plainest items as though they were artefacts of such wondrous beauty that you eyeballs will rub their eyeballs in disbelief should you happen to glance at them.
Doug's Big Game featured a goat emergency, which was nice.
However, the clear winner in this field is Riding Fight, a game packed to the rafters with poorly-translated and utterly charming dialogue, from the orders that villains should be "manacled and punished" to the hero's quip that his wild adventure is "only a daily experience." Best of all is the enigmatic phrase "what a gravy day," a phrase that manages to communicate it's meaning despite not really meaning anything.
Worst Game
Always a tough choice, this, and I'm still undecided whether that's because the vast majority of retro games are shite or because I am compelled to inflict mental anguish upon myself by playing the worst of the worst. So, who were the contenders this year? Imagine: Doctor was seemingly an attempt to put all who played it into a coma with a one-two punch of extreme tedium and being deeply patronising. The same is true of Disney's Doug: Doug's Big Game, and the manufacturers of sleeping pills the world over are praying Doug's Big Game doesn't become common knowledge because it'll put them straight out of business. TimeCop on the SNES? I'm not going to finish describing it, just like the developers didn't finish making the game. Silent Assault was a typical dollop of unlicensed NES misery, and Penalty Soccer must surely have been the result of one man's quest to remove everything you could consider beautiful from the Beautiful Game. You might be thinking "maybe the winner is Barbie: Fashion Pack Games, a title that contains neither fashion nor games?" Well, you're close, but Barbie takes second place. The winner, and winner by some considerable margin, is Game Boy Color abomination The Mask of Zorro. Hateful gameplay and controls, graphics so bad they'll make you wish the very concept of pictoral representation had never been invented and parts of the game that are almost literally impossible all add up to create a steaming pile of excrement that is this close to dethroning NSYNC: Get to the Show as the worst videogame I've ever played.
Best Game
On the flip-side, there were some games I didn't hate this year. It was nice to finally finish Shadowgate, which remains a jolly little adventure, accidentally leaping out of windows notwithstanding. Captain Commando has been a favourite for many years and thankfully I haven't become any less enamoured with it over time. However, head and bat-wings above the rest this year was Capcom's mighty monster mash Vampire Savior, a product from a company at the very top of its game that is absolutely drenched in detail, care and attention. It's got a great cast of characters, the presentation is fantastic, the gameplay is pitch-perfect and one of the stage backgrounds is a giant god-foetus with an eyeball in the sole of its foot. Play Vampire Savior now or at your earliest convenience, is what I'm saying.
My Personal Favourite Article This Year
It has to be the one about Halloween Trick or Treat. I just had so much fun writing it that I was disappointed when I'd finished, and it left me feeling more Halloween-y than I have in years and that is very important to me. Also enjoyable were the Street Fighter II Character Encyclopaedia, (because I got to marry my twin loves of Street Fighter and really stupid jokes,) Fright Night, that time I played a bunch of Super Mario Bros. hacks and the big, beefy men of the Amiga's title screens. Rarely have so many lazing tracings of Boris Vallejo pictures been collected in one place.
And there we go, another year down and still somehow VGJunk trundles on into the future. I hope you've enjoyed this year's articles, and grateful thanks to everyone who's sent me an encouraging message or comment. I'll be back in the new year with more of this sort of thing, assuming I can tear myself away from Bloodborne.
The surprisingly interesting golf game covers of the Famicom!
Animal and egg crime in Humpty Dumpty Mystery and Who Killed Cock Robin?
Heroic punching action in Superman!
Labels: 2015 review, vgjunk
FAMICOM GOLF GAME COVERS
Today: some golf. "But VGJunk," I hear you wail, "isn't golf one of the most tedious events mankind has ever allowed to be broadcast in the name of entertainment?" You may have your own, differing feelings on the subject and that's fine, but personally I'm of the opinion that Mark Twain's famous quote that "golf is a good walk spoiled" does not go far enough. It's not even a walk, you ride around in an electric dorkmobile. So, golf. I'm not a big fan. What I am a fan of is Japanese videogame artwork, and by focusing in on Famicom games I have managed to put together a selection of box-art for golf games that somehow, against all the odds, manages to make the sport look interesting.
Golf, Nintendo, 1984
Let's begin, as seems appropriate, with Nintendo's own Golf, one of the very earliest Famicom releases. It features a man hitting a golf ball towards a flag, thus effortlessly capturing the very essence of the sport, but here's my problem with it - I know that's supposed to be a cap on his head, but I just can't get my brain to read it that way unless I really concentrate on it. At every passing glance, my eyes tell me that this is the back of a man who has a mere stump where his head ought to be, or maybe that he's popped his collar to a frankly ridiculous degree. His doctors said he couldn't play golf in a neck brace, but he was determined to prove them wrong! And then his head fell off. I have no idea why I can't see it as it's meant to be. However, I know exactly why those purple tee-marker orbs look to me as though they should have electricity arcing between them. It's because I'm a big nerd.
Jumbo Ozaki's Hole in One Professional, HAL Labs, 1988
Smashing the stereotype that "Jumbo" is an epithet only suitable for elephants and the morbidly obese, famous Japanese golfer Jumbo Ozaki gained his nickname due to his height. According to Wikipedia he's 5' 11", so I'm on course to be given the nickname Gargantua any day now.
This isn't the most interesting of cover artworks, I'll grant you. There's a golf man and a golf place - you know, the Hole Zone or White Ball Alley or whatever they call it - and some golf words. It's definitely a golf game. The cover has gotten that across in a clear and effective manner. You're never going to mistake it for Doom, so congratulations to the artist on that front. I also like that they included a yacht marina on the left of the image, just in case you weren't one hundred percent certain that you're too poor to take up golf.
Mini-Putt, A-Wave, 1991
These being Japanese covers, it wasn't going to be long before we got to one featuring giant-eyed little munchkin-people with the physical dimensions of a toddler and the hair of a clown trapped head-first in a threshing machine. Here are some now! Just look at 'em, the neckless freaks. The young chap in the foreground is about to take his putt, but in a disgraceful show of poor sportsmanship that girl in the background is shouting at him. I can see it now, he's bringing back his putter, his eyes firmly on the ball and just as he starts his swing his opponent shouts "don't miss, dickhead!"
Also worthy of note is that sun, who has the florid cheeks and slack expression of a teenager who's drunk, possibly for the first time, on a cheap Bacardi knock-off, a teenager who has just decided that now is the perfect time to call Sally from his maths class and tell her he fancies her, forgetting that she has no idea who he is and that it's two AM in the morning. I know that sounds way too autobiographical a hypothesis for it to have been triggered purely by looking at that cartoon sun, but I swear that never happened to me. I would never drink a knock-off Bacardi substitute, not when there was creme de menth that would never be missed by anyone sitting in the drinks cabinet.
Golf Club: Birdie Rush, Data East, 1987
What is a "Birdie Rush," anyway? The thrill of coming in at one under par, or trying to get through your round of golf as quickly as possible because you've had a sudden epiphany that you could be spending your time in a glorious myriad of other, far superior ways? This guy certainly doesn't seem to be having much fun, but then I think he's supposed to be a professional. That's why there's a crowd behind him with camera. I need a job where I can wear an outfit like that and still call myself a "professional," but what are my options besides becoming a golfer? Eccentric grandfather in a kid's TV show, possibly. Time-travelling 1920's newspaper boy is the only other one I can think of. Dude, why is "society" and "the Man" so insistent on putting everyone in their specific little boxes, man? I want my bank manager to wear clothes like that. It's not going to affect his ability to do his job or anything, so why not? Might want to lose the spiked shoes, though. They'll mess up the flooring. Related trivia: Nintendo put out some officially-branded Super Mario World golf shoes. Well, if he is going to spend all that time jumping on evil creatures he might as well have jagged metal sticking out of his soles while he's doing it.
The Golf '92, G.O.1, 1992
This isn't just any golf, this is THE golf, the definitive article, the One True Golf. A bold claim indeed. I can't tell you whether this game is good enough to crown itself The Only Golf, because I'm not going to waste my time playing it. Let's just say it is. The Golf '92 never can and never will be bettered as a videogame recreation of golf. I can tell you one thing about this cover art, though, and that's that putting pencil moustaches on cutesy, super-deformed characters makes them look really creepy. For example, the guy in the yellow shirt at the bottom; he looks like a mean dad who threw away his daughter's Cabbage Patch doll and was then cursed to turn into that very doll, and he's just getting one final round of golf in before his hands become useless fuzzy flippers.
Mesaze! Top Pro Green Ni Kakeru Yume, Jaleco, 1993
I think that title translates as something like Aim! Top Pro Dreams of the Green, which is a damn sight more interesting than Golf or even The Golf. The cover's nice, too, very tranquil, although obviously it's too dark to play golf at sunset so this has probably been arranged so the player and his caddy can have a romantic moment to help them get over the double bogey on the fifth. So, a good cover, but the game's by Jaleco so it will almost certainly be aggressively average. An aggressively average Famicom golf game from 1993. I think that might be the most average videogame possible.
Fighting Golf, SNK, 1988
Okay, so you might know this one better as Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf, a title I always read as Lee Trevino is Fighting Golf. Lee Trevino is out to put a stop to golf once and for all, and he's going to bring it down... from the inside!
There's Lee now. Presumably. I have no idea what Lee Trevino looks like. The only reason I am aware of his existence is this game, and all I know about this game is that it adds an extra little layer to the Simpsons joke about Lee Carvalho's Putting Challenge. I'm sure it's a great game, though. It's endorsed by the US National Video Game Team, after all, and such an august institution would never allow their name to appear on an inferior product.
In Japan it's just called Fighting Golf - no word on whether the Japanese National Video Game Team endorses it - and it has a much more dramatic cover, with dynamic brushstrokes that capture a raw power that Lee Trevino simply does not possess. The intensity of the image is somewhat undercut by the golfer not looking at where his ball is going, mind you.
Golf-kko Open, TOSE / Taito, 1989
Another fun, cartoony cover for Golf-kko Open, the undoubted star of which is that cool mole. You can tell he's cool because he's wearing shades, and sunglasses do seem like a good idea to protect oneself from the brightness of this artwork, which strikes me as a bit Keith Haring-ish.
The picture continues on the back of the case, where we can see that the golf ball is caught between ecstasy and agony. The sting of the driver hurts, but it hurts good. Forget about the masochistic golf ball for a moment - possibly a futile challenge, it's not a concept that is easy to forget - and instead check out that snake. That snake has the glazed, anxious expression of a reptile that has, through a series of comical mishaps and coincidences, become a participant in a human golf tournament. No-one has noticed that he's a snake yet, and he's going to front it out. Will there be a heart-warming ending when the snake managed to win the golf tournament and everyone still loves him even though he's a snake? No, of course not. How is he going to hold a putter?
Golf Grand Slam, TOSE / Hector, 1991
It's a bunker. Yep. The ol' sand hole. Disappointment Beach. The Dunes of Shame. I don't have much more to offer than that, folks. Next!
Mario Open Golf, Nintendo, 1991
It's-a him, Super Mario, with a smile on his face as he uses a golf club to batter a mole to death. It's Super Mario Bros.: Groundsman With Extreme Prejudice! Now you're playing with power, and a niggling sense that you're a terrible person.
At least this cover finally settles the matter of Mario's nationality. He is definitely American. No native of any other nation would wear that outfit. Technically, Mario is breaking Federal law by wearing these hideous dungarees, as the US Flag Code states that the Stars and Stripes "should never be used as wearing apparel." That's animal murder and a criminal lack of patriotism in one cover, Mario. What a disgrace.
Famicom Golf: US Course, Nintendo, 1987
And now he's goose-stepping! Do you hate America, Mario? Is that it?
Namco Classic, Namco, 1988
This one is my favourite of the lot, a light, summery number that actually looks more like the cover of a tennis game than a golf game. I really like the logo, and the artwork is so cheerful that it manages to make golf look like something worth spending your time doing, but it's offset by the unusual swarm of arrows hovering around the girl, which gives you something to ponder. What do they represent? Are they extremely dense motion lines? Are they pointing in the direction of the ball's travel? Is this a giant woman being attacked by a fleet of the ships from Asteroids? Who knows, but it's an interesting touch none-the-less.
Namco Classic II, Namco, 1992
For the sequel, Namco took a more realistic approach. They've still got a lady taking a swing on there, but now there's also a man who seems to be preparing to smash the game's logo with his five-iron. I'm beginning to think that I have some barely-suppressed rage issues, because I'm looking at a lot of these covers and immediately seeing violence. Maybe it's just my own dislike for golf coming through, although it's not like I don't enjoy golf games. Through the transformative power of videogames, almost anything can be made enjoyable. Golf, stacking blocks, typing, you name it. I could probably get some fun out of my own colonoscopy if they let me control the camera and turned it into a little game. "Pilot the all-seeing Eye of Drungarth through the meat-labyrinth to uncover the ancient evil lurking within," that kind of thing. Hang on, I think I'm on to a winner here. I'm going to call the NHS and propose a shared Kickstarter. Don't worry, I won't forget about you when I'm rich.
Mario gone awry in Super Mario World for the Megadrive!
Labels: cover art, famicom, golf, NES
WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN? / HUMPTY DUMPTY MYSTERY (C64)
Have you ever wanted to be a detective, using nothing but your keen powers of observation and highly-developed sense of logic to sift through the clues and identify the guilty? Okay, good. First things first, develop a problem with your personality, because all the famous detectives have one. Sherlock Holmes is a cokehead, Batman lives in a cave and dresses as a bat, and Columbo never takes off that bloody coat. I'd suggest developing a trait that no-one's seen in a detective before, like a compulsion to stop detecting every half-hour so you can drink a bucket of paint. Inspector Dulux, they'll call you. Once you've done that, you can start practising for a long and fruitful career in summoning a group of people into a room and then revealing who the killer is by playing these two games: released as a double-pack in 1984, it's Widgit Software's Commodore 64 titles Who Killed Cock Robin and Humpty Dumpty Mystery!
We'll start with Who Killed Cock Robin, because Humpty Dumpty was involved with the king's men and so we'll save that added layer of royal intrigue to enjoy later. There goes Cock Robin now, flying towards a tree laden with Christmas baubles, or possibly cartoon bombs. Maybe these bombs are what killed Cock Robin, because he suddenly falls from the sky having been murdered in a brutal farmyard slaying. But who killed Cock Robin?
Well, that's cleared that up. Another case closed for Detective VGJunk, and the sparrow is remanded in custody to await his trail for birdicide. Time to move on to Humpty Dumpty Mystery, then.
Oh, never mind, apparently the sparrow's confession isn't trustworthy enough to secure a conviction. I guess forensics couldn't find the smoking arrow. No reason is given as to why the sparrow might make a false confession, with the options being that he's either protecting someone or he's mentally unstable. Either way, he will be charged with wasting police time and I can get on with the business of finding the real killer.
I need to establish who killed Cock Robin, when they killed him and where. Erm, I don't know about the former but the other two answers are "about three seconds ago" and "right next to that tree, I just saw it happen." No-one is asking why Cock Robin was slain, I notice. You'd think establishing a motive would be an important part of this process, but no-one seems interested. Maybe he had it coming.
Okay, first things first - selecting a difficulty level, with higher difficulties having more possibilities that need to be eliminated. I always like to start on the default difficulty where possible, so let's go with four because it's roughly in the middle.
Here's a clue to get you started. "Not an early bird," hmm? Right then, I'll look for the ones who haven't caught any worms.
Here are the suspects: the blockiest bunch of birds you're ever likely to see outside of a Duplo aviary set. You have to guess which one of these birds committed the murder by typing in the corresponding number. I'm going with the swan, because we've already established that we don't trust the sparrow's confession and while the faces of the crow and eagle to have a hint of true psychopathy about them I reckon that makes them a little too obvious. No, it must be the swan, the aloof, regal swan, the only bird with the superiority complex required to think it can get away with murder. They can break a man's arm with a flap of their wings, you know, so just imagine what they could do to a tiny robin.
Next, make you guess as to where the murder took place. Oh, those were supposed to be apples growing on that tree from the title screen. I did meant to select the orchard, because that's where we saw Cock Robin die, but I accidentally pressed 1 so let's hope he was actually killed in the field and then his lifeless corpse was thrown into the orchard in a clumsy attempt to hide the body.
Finally, pick a time of death. I wish I had some forensic data to help me out here; body temperature when the body was found, how far rigor mortis had set in, that kind of thing. I wanted CSI: Farthing Wood, but instead it's just down to a random (at this point) choice. Let's go for 9PM, nobody murders birds in the afternoon and everyone's in bed at 3AM.
The data has been analysed, the suspect has been questioned and the location meticulously searched, and the results are in - one out of my three guesses was correct, and thus we stumble upon the central concept of the game. You're not told which of your guesses were incorrect - maybe the swan had an alibi, or Cock Robin was captured on CCTV while putting twenty quid on the night's football in Ladbrokes at nine o'clock - so you repeat the process using guesswork and logic to find the three correct pieces of the puzzle.
You're given an extremely generous ten chances to get it right - detective work moves at a much more relaxed pace out here in the countryside than it does back on the mean streets of the big city - and between each round you can pick a number to receive a clue, like so. Some are more useful than others. "Has a keen eye"? That'll be the eagle, then. "Right Angled Time" and "Has Many Trees" do a lot to narrow things down, too. Now I know the eagle is the culprit, and that it didn't take place in the field, so means my original guess of 9PM must have been the one I got right in the first place.
And there you have it. The eagle has landed... in prison, and he's looking at 25 to life. He's a jail bird now. I'm glad he's locked away so he can't tear my eyes out with his talon in retribution for that pun.
That's it for Who Killed Cock Robin in the "gameplay" stakes. It's a passing diversion that might have kept young children of the early Eighties entertained for half an hour or so, although I am factoring in the ten minutes it takes for the tape to load into that.
Oh, okay, let's have another go, this time with six of each variable to contend with. Now they're animals, and it's a bloody good job it has their names written right there because I would struggle to identify some of these from their picture alone. The snake and the badger are recognisable, just about, but the cat looks like it's holding a piece of model railway track in its mouth and the "dog" picture could just as easily be a very unfortunate puddle on a bathroom floor.
There are six new places, too. I have no idea why the farmyard is full of little martini glasses with flags sticking out of them, or why the tree in the lane appears to be exploding. Oh, hang on, it must be one of those bomb-trees from the opening screen, of course.
It turns out it was the cat, in the churchyard, with the candlestick. At noon, I mean. Later, at trial, the cat revealed he had perpetrated the crime because he wanted to leave Cock Robin's body on the kitchen floor as a present for his master. He then licked his own arsehole and was charged with contempt of court.
On to Humpty Dumpty Mystery now, and the real mystery is what kind of benevolent god could allow such a twisted, malformed egg-man to exist? Another mystery: does Humpty have trousers made especially for him, or does he simply paint his legs black? Yet more mystery - this game has more goddamn mystery than an X-Files box set - who are these bizarre, place men with fezes and Hitler moustaches, and what is the significance of the symbol on their hats that looks like the underside of a plane? They must be the king's men, performing their solemn duty to keep watch on Humpty Dumpty so that he can never again go on a bloody rampage through the peaceful world of men. It's a stressful job, as the ranks of the king's men are constantly depleted by the ravenous attentions of Humpty's insatiable appetite - why do you think we eat soldiers with a boiled egg, hmm? - and eventually one of these man had to, ah ha ha, crack.
HUMPTY DUMPTY WAS PUSHED, the headline screams. Humpty doesn't seem that traumatized by the ordeal, mind you, Are you really telling me that all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again when the worst of the damage seems to just be a large crack? Maybe not the horses, glueing eggshell together is a job too delicate for hooves, but surely the king's men could have put him together again if they had wanted to. This isn't the action of one rogue soldier, then. Everyone hates Humpty. Also, if you're an egg, don't sit on a wall, or at least wear a crash helmet.
Here are the king's men, lined up in alphabetical order. One of them is called Donks. I hope he gets a lot of promotions, everyone will love to hear the tales of General Donks or Major Donks. Donks. That'll be my nickname for Donkey Kong from now on, good ol' Donks and his little chimp friend Dids.
You might have realised by now that Humpty Dumpty Mystery is a variant of the classic board game Guess Who? To find the egg-smashing culprit, you must eliminate the others by asking a series of yes-or-no questions based on their appearance. For instance here I asked "Did He Have a Red Hat?" and no, he did not have a red hat so anyone wearing a red hat is eliminated.
And so you go on, asking questions and occasionally being stumped by the text parser. I just wanted to find out whether Humpty's assailant had a moustache or not, but I could not get the answers I was after until later, when I realised the word I should have been using was "lips". It also took a bit of trial-and-error to figure out "badge" for the thing on their hats and "jacket" for their clothes, but I got there in the end. That was the most challenging part of the game: as in Who Killed Cock Robin you get ten attempts but it's even easier here, and I always managed to narrow my suspects down to a shortlist of one after three or four questions. That's not really a complaint, because these games were specifically designed for children in the 5-10 range, but merely a heads-up that if for some reason you do decide to play this game then be warned that it's not going to fill an entire rainy afternoon.
'Twas Clump who did the deed! I should have known. A red jacket, a blue hat and a toothbrush moustache? That's the portrait of a killer if ever I've seen one, although I'm not sure why I'm seeing twelve copies of Clump's face now that I've identified him. I've either spent too long on this case and gone in so deep that my obsession with catching Clump means that I see him at every turn, or this is a big sheet of posters to inform and warn the public about Clump. Wanted dead or alive for the crime of egg-shoving, that kind of thing.
With the crimes against him avenged, Humpty Dumpty is back in fine health, presuming his legs are supposed to be doing that. It doesn't look like a very comfortable seating arrangement. Speaking of seats, Humpty has once again perched himself atop a wall, having learned nothing from his ordeal.
But wait, there's more! You can also select Humpty game two from the title screen, and how could I resist after Humpty game one was so thrilling? I'll admit, I was drawn in by this mysterious image of a silhouetted king's man, although I'm seeing someone else in that shadowy outline...
There, that's better.
Humpty game two starts in much the same way as Humpty game one, with the attempted murder of a large sentient egg, an egg with two passions in life - sitting in high places and the feel of brick against his backside. Again, one of the king's men is responsible, but this time there was a witness! Unfortunately, the ranks of the king's men are filled from a very small pool of families that have engaged in generation after generation of inbreeding, and so all the king's men look very similar.
It was this guy. He did it. He's not ashamed, he'd do it again in a heartbeat. Someone had to put an end to Humpty's tyranny.
I hope you burned the miscreant's face into your memory, because now he's gone and you have to remember what he looked like. Was his hat blue or red? Did he have a 'tache, or were his pursed and extremely red lips on display for all to see? All the king's men have tiny, creepy eyes like you might see painted on the disturbing idol worshipped by a race of semi-human maniacs, but what colour were these particular eyes? Enter all the details that you can remember and keep guessing the ones you don't. It is not a complex process.
There's even less to capture the imagination in this one than there is in Humpty game one or Who Killed Cock Robin, and it's the last part of this C64 double feature. So, how has a thirty-year-old bundle of children's guessing games held up? Do you really need me to answer that? There's nothing to hold your interest in any of the games once you've played them a single time, they're extremely easy even for the suggested age range and the graphics are, well, let's call them rustic, shall we? Crudley hewn from great slabs of pixels with only simple tools, etcetera. Still, there is a certain amount of charm to it and the games work correctly, which sounds like damning with faint praise but I'm always happy when a retro game isn't horribly broken. Was it worth writing all these words about? I dunno, I had fun doing it and isn't that really all that matters? Yes, yes it is.
Platform action so cutesy it'll melt your eyeballs in Miracle Girls!
Labels: commodore 64, humpty dumpty mystery, who killed cock robin, widgit software
SUPERMAN (ARCADE)
SUPER MARIO WORLD (GENESIS / MEGADRIVE)


The 17th edition of the Henry van de Velde Awards and Labels is now upon us. We created these Awards in 1994 at the Vlaams Instituut voor het Zelfstandig Ondernemen [Flemish Institute for Independent Entrepreneurship] (Design Department) because, at the time, neither Belgium nor Flanders presented awards for professionals in design and design-related fields. The Provincial Prizes were all that existed.
Along with a cash prize, we attached several symbols of success to the Awards, such as a silver trophy and a calligraphic certificate. These were created to underline the prestige of the Henry van de Velde Awards. The first trophy was designed by Siegfried De Buck, whose work made him an icon of Belgian silversmithing. We used his design, which took the form of a staff, for five editions. The next trophy was designed by Nedda El-Asmar, a graduate of Artesis University College (then simply the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts) and holder of a Master's degree from the Royal College of Art in London. The third was made by David Huycke, recently the first designer/artist to become a Doctor of Arts. Helena Schepens, one of our youngest workers in precious metals, and also holder of a Master's degree from the Royal College of Art in London, was the fourth silversmith to design and make the trophy. Each of the trophies is used for five years. The certificate had to be calligraphic to illustrate, like the trophy, the importance of the craft aspect. The first calligrapher was Bert Binnenweg, and the second was Brody Neuenschwander, the Texan from Bruges, who worked with Peter Greenaway on films such as 'The Pillow Book', 'Prospero's Books' and others. So far, we have stayed with Brody. The cash prizes are EUR 5,000 per Award, for Career, Company and Young Talent. The Public award is worth EUR 2,500.
Veerle Wenes
Nica Broucke
Jan Boelen
Heiko Bartels


Redirected from page "DebianEdu/Documentation/en/ITIL/Introduction"
Clear message
Knowledge sharing for centralised administration
Small organisations are in practice dependent on individuals and therefore vulnerable if someone leaves. A thorough and quality assured system administration handbook is therefore essential to ensure stability and continuity in operating practices. The Program for Digital Literacy has the primary objective of developing a set of recommended operating solutions, with guidelines that provide schools and educational institutions with stability and predictability so that computers, networks and basic services function properly.
The ITIL book contains guidelines based on "best practices", adapted for municipalities using free software like Skolelinux to run centralized networks across multiple schools. These guidelines are adapted for municipal and regional administrative centres. Many municipalities have only one part-time position for ICT operations in schools. In Norway there are more than 300 small and medium sized municipalities; usually they have 1-4 persons working full time with ICT in each municipality. Therefore, sharing expertise and experience between operating organisations is essential for all.
This document is written under the GNU General Public License version 3. It means that you have:
The freedom to use the documentation for any purpose (Freedom 0).
The freedom to study documentation and adapt it to your needs (Freedom 1).
The freedom to forward copies so you can help your neighbour (Freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the document and distribute it with your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (Freedom 3).
These freedoms are explained on Wikipedia. Torgeir Kielland at the University of Bergen's Faculty of Law has analysed the GNU license or terms of Copyleft. He states that the GNU license is copyright relevant. In short, you can use everything in this documentation as appropriate. You must ensure that your contributions also receive a General Public License.
Many have contributed to the documentation. Essentially it was written by Knut Yrvin and Andreas Johansen with many contributions from Klaus Ade Johnstad. Halvor Dahl, Skolelinux Drift AS is on the committee, and has made several contributions to structure and form, and content. In addition, there are contributions Snorre Løvås, UNINETT ABC, Finn-Arne Johansen from BzzWare AS, Ragnar Wissløff from LinuxLabs AS, and the reference group who participated in writing the documentation. The following participated in the reference group:
Monica Larssen - Harstad municipality
Aksel Celasun - Hurum municipality
Trond Mæhlum - Kongsvinger municipality
Bjarne Nielsen - Nittedal municipality
Stein Lier - Akershus county
This documentation is maintained in a wiki. This is to ensure that operations staff can easily search for solutions to problems, update configurations, and so on.
See the ?copyright page for the copyright status of this document.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
The Program for Digital Competence is the Norwegian Ministry of Education's ICT plan from 2004 to 2008. One objective is to develop a set of recommended operating solutions and appropriate guidelines. It will provide schools and educational facilities with stability and predictability, so that computers, networks and basic services function properly. Operating solutions must be adapted to the institutions' size and needs.
This documentation contains guidelines based on practices customised for ICT-services within municipalities and counties. It is also applicable for commercial operators. Many municipalities have only one part-time position for computer networking operations within the schools. Overall just 13% of the municipalities in Norway have more than 20,000 inhabitants; 73 % have less than 10,000. Usually 1-4 people work full time in ICT within the municipal administration. When it comes to schools, there is often only one part-time ICT position, which can cover approximately 500-800 client computers at 5-10 schools, with around 1700-3200 students and teachers using the system.
The documentation is also suitable for larger organisations. It is based on the ISO 20000 standard for ICT operations, also known as the ICT Infrastructure Library. See Wikipedia for more information about the standard itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITIL
The first edition of this document was finished 19th July 2006.
The document is maintained in a wiki and can be updated at https://wiki.debian.org/!DebianEdu/Documentation/nb/ITIL. The previous version is available from http://developer.skolelinux.no/itil/oldindex.html
The document will be translated into English using https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/itil-revitalization/ from March 2015.
DebianEdu/Documentation/ITIL/Introduction (last modified 2016-05-19 08:39:01)


Rosuvastatin
ATC Code C10AA07
Formula C22H28FN3O6S
Molar Mass (g·mol−1) 481,538
CAS Number 287714-41-4
PUB Number 446157
Solubility sparingly soluble in water
Rosuvastatin is an active ingredient from the group of statins. Due to its lipid-lowering properties, it is used to treat disorders of lipid metabolism and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
It is considered the most effective statin drug because in clinical trials, the reduction in LDL cholesterol levels was about three times that of atorvastatin. However, despite this difference in efficacy, there are no differences in the effect on the progression of coronary atherosclerosis according to the results of the SATURN study.
Elevated cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels are significant risk factors for the development of cardiovascular disease. Rosuvastatin inhibits the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, which plays a central role in endogenous cholesterol biosynthesis. The drug acts mainly in the liver, where the number of LDL receptors is increased, allowing more LDL to be taken up and broken down, and also inhibits the synthesis of VLDL (very low density lipoprotein). This leads to a decrease in LDL and VLDL in plasma. At the same time, HDL cholesterol (High Density Lipoprotein) is increased and triglycerides are decreased.
Rosuvastatin has an oral bioavailability of 20% and is 50% absorbed. Maximum plasma concentration is reached after approximately 5 hours. The drug binds 88% to plasma proteins and is absorbed primarily in the liver, where only about 10% is metabolized by the cytochrome P450 enzyme family. The half-life is approximately 19 hours but does not increase with increasing dose. Rovastatin is excreted unchanged 90% in the stool, the remainder in the urine.
It takes between two to four weeks for the effects of the statin to occur.
Because rosuvastatin is minimally metabolized via the cytochrome P450 system, fewer interactions occur (in contrast to atorvastatin, lovastatin, and simvastatin) with drugs metabolized by the same enzyme system.
Adverse side effects such as myalgia (muscle pain), abdominal pain, nausea, and weakness may occur when taking rosuvastatin.
Toxicological Data
Overdose of rosuvastatin has mytoxic and hepatotoxic (damaging the muscle cells and liver) consequences.
DrugBank (accessed on 07.06.2022)
Gelbe Liste (accessed on 07.06.2022)
PharmaWiki (accessed on 07.06.2022)


jeff sessions donald trump alabama senate race cnn republicans doug jones
Are You OK, Jeff Sessions? We Don't Really Care But Blink Twice For 'Yes' Anyway
Jeff Sessions is so desperate to return to the Senate he bound and gagged his own dignity and murdered it on camera. Sessions, Donald Trump's former attorney general, groveled yesterday for the pleasure of the mad king. His first campaign ad is called "Great Job," and he spends the entire cringe-inducing 30 seconds telling us how awesome the president is. It was embarrassing to watch even if I had any respect for the man, which I don't.
Great Job youtu.be
Sweet Christ, what's going on with his eyes? There used to be twinkle in them, as if he was fondly imagining happy slaves toiling in the fields and singing "Zippedeedoodah." Now, they're dead inside. It's like he was broken in Room 101 and just wants to share with us how much he loves Big Brother.
PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING: When I left President Trump's Cabinet, did I write a tell-all book? No. Did I go on CNN and attack the president? Nope. Have I said a cross word about our president? Not one time. I'll tell you why: First, that would be dishonorable. I was there to serve his agenda, not mine. Second, the president is doing a great job for America and Alabama, and he has my strong support.
When Sessions says Trump is doing a heckuva job, there's a quick clip of Sessions endorsing Trump in Alabama. Whoever threw that in has no insight into the psyche of a sociopath. The worst thing to do is to remind them of a time when you had power and they didn't. They'll just resent the implication they were ever in your debt. The president has all the power now, but Sessions can't just beg his way out of his political grave. He'll have to give Trump the only thing he has left.
James Frain: Tudors: Cromwell's Execution youtu.be
Trump told Chuck Todd in June that naming Sessions attorney general was his "biggest mistake," and remember, his son is Donald Trump Jr. Today Kristen Holmes and Karen Travers at CNN asked him if he's forgiven Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Trump claimed he "doesn't even think about it." Sessions said Thursday that he doesn't personally regret his recusal, and I think he'll need to see five lights where there are actually four before Trump forgives him. Trump did think Sessions debasing himself was a good start.
REPORTER: Will you endorse Jeff Sessions in the Alabama Senate run?
TRUMP: I haven't gotten involved. I saw he said very nice things about me last night. But, we'll have to see ... I haven't made a determination yet. You have some very good people running in Alabama. Let's see what happens.
Pundits have suggested that Trump not delivering a death blow to Sessions and endorsing another candidate right away is a hopeful sign for the former Alabama senator. I just think Trump is going to play with his food for a while and then crush Sessions when it most amuses him. Sessions has stated that he was the first (and only) senator to endorse Trump's presidential run. But that's just a fact. Anyone can say facts. Only someone truly loyal to Trump can see all five lights.


A fleet of MIT drones can rescue hikers without GPS
GPS is often the most effective and crucial requirement when it comes to hiking and also for search and rescue operations. But there are times when drones and other devices find it impossible to connect with GPS in densely-packed forest areas. MIT has come up with an innovative solution for such scenarios, where drones can use similar technology used in autonomous cars.
MIT researchers have reinvented a drone that uses LIDAR to map forests that can put away with GPS. Drones will create a 2D mapping that covers the orientation of trees, making it easier for exploring unexplored areas. For instance, if an entire fleet of drones is released, it'll make a smooth coverage in large forest areas with minimum effort.
These robotic drones from MIT aren't restricted to just mapping unexplored areas, but also in their searching techniques. Preserving the drones' momentum, MIT has been able to create a spiral pattern that can cover a wider area with less time. This comes in handy during a rescue operation where time is a critical factor.
Of course, the technology has its limitations. Once the drones map the area, it needs a ground station to merge the maps. The technology also needs an object recognition system to identify people, once it spots them. MIT also envisions sharing maps when contact is made with lost hikers and so on.


The Securities and Exchange Commission has not necessarily reviewed the information in this filing and has not determined if it is accurate and complete.
The reader should not assume that the information is accurate and complete.
hours per response: 4.00
CIK (Filer ID Number)
X None
Limited Partnership
Business Trust
Other (Specify)
Novan, Inc.
Within Last Five Years (Specify Year)
Yet to Be Formed
4222 EMPEROR BLVD SUITE 200
State/Province/Country
ZIP/PostalCode
Phone Number of Issuer
DURHAM NORTH CAROLINA 27703 919-485-8080
Stasko Nathan
4222 Emperor Boulevard Suite 200
Durham NORTH CAROLINA 27703
X Executive Officer X Director Promoter
Clarification of Response (if Necessary):
Schoenfisch Mark
Executive Officer X Director Promoter
Hunter F Neal
Ingram Robert A
Palmour John W
Geer W. Kent
Martin G. Kelly
Murphy Sean
Peterson Richard
X Executive Officer Director Promoter
Pooled Investment Fund
Is the issuer registered as
an investment company under
the Investment Company
Act of 1940?
Other Banking & Financial Services
X Biotechnology
Hospitals & Physicians
REITS & Finance
Lodging & Conventions
Tourism & Travel Services
Other Travel
Revenue Range
Aggregate Net Asset Value Range
No Revenues No Aggregate Net Asset Value
$1 - $1,000,000 $1 - $5,000,000
$1,000,001 - $5,000,000 $5,000,001 - $25,000,000
$5,000,001 - $25,000,000 $25,000,001 - $50,000,000
$25,000,001 - $100,000,000 $50,000,001 - $100,000,000
Over $100,000,000 Over $100,000,000
X Decline to Disclose Decline to Disclose
Not Applicable Not Applicable
Rule 504(b)(1) (not (i), (ii) or (iii))
Rule 504 (b)(1)(i)
Rule 504 (b)(1)(ii)
Rule 504 (b)(1)(iii)
X Rule 506(b)
Securities Act Section 4(a)(5)
Investment Company Act Section 3(c)
Section 3(c)(1) Section 3(c)(9)
Section 3(c)(2) Section 3(c)(10)
Section 3(c)(7)
X New Notice Date of First Sale 2015-12-01 First Sale Yet to Occur
Does the Issuer intend this offering to last more than one year?
Yes X No
X Equity Pooled Investment Fund Interests
Debt Tenant-in-Common Securities
Option, Warrant or Other Right to Acquire Another Security Mineral Property Securities
Security to be Acquired Upon Exercise of Option, Warrant or Other Right to Acquire Security Other (describe)
Is this offering being made in connection with a business combination transaction, such as a merger, acquisition or exchange offer?
Minimum investment accepted from any outside investor $0 USD
Recipient CRD Number X None
(Associated) Broker or Dealer X None
(Associated) Broker or Dealer CRD Number X None
State(s) of Solicitation (select all that apply)
Check "All States" or check individual States All States
Foreign/non-US
Total Offering Amount $31,000,000 USD
or Indefinite
Total Amount Sold $30,409,735 USD
Total Remaining to be Sold $590,265 USD
Select if securities in the offering have been or may be sold to persons who do not qualify as accredited investors, and enter the number of such non-accredited investors who already have invested in the offering.
Regardless of whether securities in the offering have been or may be sold to persons who do not qualify as accredited investors, enter the total number of investors who already have invested in the offering:
15. Sales Commissions & Finder's Fees Expenses
Provide separately the amounts of sales commissions and finders fees expenses, if any. If the amount of an expenditure is not known, provide an estimate and check the box next to the amount.
Sales Commissions $0 USD
Finders' Fees $0 USD
Other than the payment of salaries and other compensation and benefits, no officer, director or promoter will receive any payments from the proceeds of this offering.
Notifying the SEC and/or each State in which this notice is filed of the offering of securities described and undertaking to furnish them, upon written request, in the accordance with applicable law, the information furnished to offerees.*
Irrevocably appointing each of the Secretary of the SEC and, the Securities Administrator or other legally designated officer of the State in which the issuer maintains its principal place of business and any State in which this notice is filed, as its agents for service of process, and agreeing that these persons may accept service on its behalf, of any notice, process or pleading, and further agreeing that such service may be made by registered or certified mail, in any Federal or state action, administrative proceeding, or arbitration brought against the issuer in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, if the action, proceeding or arbitration (a) arises out of any activity in connection with the offering of securities that is the subject of this notice, and (b) is founded, directly or indirectly, upon the provisions of: (i) the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940, or the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, or any rule or regulation under any of these statutes, or (ii) the laws of the State in which the issuer maintains its principal place of business or any State in which this notice is filed.
Certifying that, if the issuer is claiming a Regulation D exemption for the offering, the issuer is not disqualified from relying on Regulation D for one of the reasons stated in Rule 505(b)(2)(iii) or Rule 506(d).
Name of Signer
Novan, Inc. /s/ Jeff N. Hunter Jeff N. Hunter Secretary 2015-12-16
* This undertaking does not affect any limits Section 102(a) of the National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996 ("NSMIA") [Pub. L. No. 104-290, 110 Stat. 3416 (Oct. 11, 1996)] imposes on the ability of States to require information. As a result, if the securities that are the subject of this Form D are "covered securities" for purposes of NSMIA, whether in all instances or due to the nature of the offering that is the subject of this Form D, States cannot routinely require offering materials under this undertaking or otherwise and can require offering materials only to the extent NSMIA permits them to do so under NSMIA's preservation of their anti-fraud authority.


Daily Morning Note – 9 April 2018
WEEKLY MARKET OUTLOOK WEBINAR
Register HERE for MONDAY's 11.15am webinar if you have not already done so.
Archived webinars available.
Technical Analysis: Technical Pulse – The Phillip 20 Portfolio – March Monthly Review
– New Entries: Genting Sing, KrisEnergy and UOL
– Stop loss: F&N and Wing Tai
– Total return since May 17 to March 18 is +3.23%
– Weekly hammer rejection off the 3,354 to 3,340 support area on the week
ended 06/04/18 suggests the resumption of the uptrend next
TECHNICAL PULSE
Genting Sing Ltd – Weekly timeframe – Bullish
– A strong hammer was formed on the week ended 06/04/18 with increasing
volume suggests a reversal higher next.
– Expect the long-term uptrend to resume next for price to test the 1.19
resistance area followed by 1.27.
For more information and additional disclosures, refer to the link here.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's coalition government on Monday lost a 30th straight major opinion poll, a symbolic defeat that intensifies pressure on him after he used the same milestone to oust his predecessor. The latest widely watched Newspoll, published in The Australian newspaper, showed the Liberal-National coalition trailing the opposition Labor Party 52-48 on a two-party preferred basis, a margin that would deliver Turnbull an election defeat.
Britain's Brexit transition deal last month has boosted confidence among finance chiefs at some of the country's leading companies, a survey published on Monday showed. Accountancy firm Deloitte said 27 per cent of chief financial officers (CFOs) it interviewed after the deal was struck were more optimistic than three months earlier. That compared with 18 per cent of CFOs who were more optimistic before the deal was struck.
Tokyo stocks opened flat on Monday, as the yen eased modestly against the US dollar, with investor sentiment hurt by falls on Wall Street on worsening trade war fears. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index edged down 0.02 per cent, or 4.08 points, to 21,563.44 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was down 0.06 per cent, or 1.07 points, at 1,718.23.
President Donald Trump predicted China will be first to buckle as the world's largest economies teeter on the brink of a trade war that's sent financial markets reeling, without indicating where his assessment sprang from. "China will take down its Trade Barriers because it is the right thing to do," Trump told his 50 million Twitter followers early Sunday. "Taxes will become reciprocal & a deal will be made on Intellectual Property." He also said that no matter what happens, "President Xi and I will always be friends," referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping
SINGAPORE and China signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Beijing on Sunday to promote greater collaboration between Singapore and Chinese companies in third-party markets along the Belt and Road. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a mega project initiated by China to connect countries across Europe, Africa and Asia together via ancient land and sea trade routes.
A BUYOUT bid of mainboard-listed LTC Corporation has been declared unconditional, after regulators green-lit lowering the acceptance threshold from 90 per cent of all shares to 50 per cent, the company said on Monday morning. As at April 6, shares validly tendered in acceptance of the offer amounted to a combined interest of 84.21 per cent – satisfying the reduced acceptance condition that was approved by the Securities Industry Council.
SHANGHAI RST Chinese Medicine Co (Renshoutang), which is 49.9 per cent owned by Perennial Real Estate Holdings, was awarded the contract to operate an integrated eldercare, medical care and rehabilitation care facility in Fengxian District, Shanghai. Expected to open in Q3 2018, the 768-bed Fengxian Second Welfare Home is expected to be the first and largest facility of its kind in Shanghai's Fengxian District.
Source: SGX Masnet, The Business Times, Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg, Phillip Securities Research
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