Posts Tagged ‘3’

IHN | Beginning around

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

IHN is an acronym for “In His Name” which some people tend to use at the beginning of email. Those people believe that they should start each piece of writing with the name of God. According to Qur’an when Solomon wanted to write a letter he used the Basmala phrase. It is believed that prophet Mohammad started all of his letters with the Basmala. They believe that other prophets also started their written works, as well as their speeches, with the name of God. Using IHN at the beginning of an email is a way to say “Bismillah” or “In The Name of God”.


See also

  • Names of God
  • Goddess
  • List of deities
  • Names of God in Judaism
  • 99 Names of God
  • Sahasranama

Links

Shittim | also appears

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Shittim may mean several different things:

Botany
  • Shittim is the plural of Shittah, which is Hebrew for wood from the acacia tree, which appears in the Bible
Geography
  • Abel-Shittim, later Abila, is a place which appears in the Bible.

Links

Step into Christmas | also covered

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

Step into Christmas is a Christmas song written and performed by Elton John, released in 1973. Though it was originally released as a stand-alone single in 1973 with the B-Side “Ho! Ho! Ho! Who’d Be a Turkey at Christmas”, it was later included as a bonus track on the 1996 remastered reissue of the album Caribou. It also appears on the albums Elton John’s Christmas Party, Rare Masters, To Be Continued, and The Best Christmas Album In The World…Ever!.


Other versions

It was covered by the band The Wedding Present on their 1992 album Hit Parade II, and also covered by The Business for the ‘Bollocks to Christmas’ EP.


External links

  • Step Into Christmas lyrics

Links

John Chandioux | park edit

Saturday, April 19th, 2008

John Chandioux is a specialist in computational linguistics. His work in the machine translation field includes creating the GramR® programming language and the METEO® Translation System, which has been used since 1977 by the Canadian government’s Translation Bureau to translate weather bulletins on microcomputers. Chandioux is the president of John Chandioux Consultants and vice-president of EDIT Inc., its publishing arm.


External links

  • John Chandioux Consultants
  • EDIT Inc. - Terminology Products
  • EDIT Inc. - Educational Products

Droodle | themed

Saturday, April 19th, 2008

Droodles are a kind of cartoon popularized in the U.S. by Roger Price’s 1953 book Droodles. The trademarked name “Droodle” is a nonsense word suggesting both “doodle” and “riddle.” Their general form is minimal: a square box containing a few abstract pictorial elements, and under that a caption (or several) giving a humorous “explanation” of the picture’s subject. For example, a Droodle depicting three concentric shapes — little circle, medium circle, big square — might have the caption “Aerial view of a cowboy in a Port-a-john.”

Droodles in America are (or were) purely a form of entertainment, like any other nonsense cartoon, and appeared in pretty much the same places (newspapers, paperback collections, bathroom walls) during their heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. The commercial success of Price’s collections of Droodles led to the founding of the publishing house Price-Stern-Sloan, and also to the creation of a Droodles-themed game show. Series of newspaper advertisements for the News and Max brands of cigarettes featured cigarette-themed Droodles.

One of Price’s original Droodles serves as the cover art for Frank Zappa’s 1982 album Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch. Price’s other captions for that drawing include “Mother pyramid feeding her baby.”


See also

  • Leonard B. Stern
  • Mad Libs
  • Kilroy was here


External links

  • Brief Roger Price bio
  • An old archive of droodles

Links

Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements | Magic Kingdom

Saturday, April 19th, 2008

Dungeon Magic is a first-person RPG (similar in vein to Bard’s Tale and the various SSI D&D games) produced by Taito in 1989, and programmed by Natsume for the Nintendo Entertainment System.


Story

500 years ago, the Kingdom of Granville fought a terrible war with Darces the Dark Overlord. A great hero, the warrior “Magi”, rose to challenge Darces. He owned six magical swords and a powerful suit of armor that was impervious to all but the most powerful of magic. Five of his six swords were Elemental blades, each created from the rarest metals on earth. The sixth blade, “Tores”, used an even more powerful metal.

Using his powers, Magi defeated Darces, and exiled him to a far away land. After defeating Darces, Magi grew old and passed away.

Now, on a dark, stormy night in the Kingdom of Granville, Darces the Dark Overlord returns to the land.

According to an old saying,

“When the shadowed veil returns to mask the midday sun
The Fire of Serpents will rise again; Five shall become the One.
The elements now heed his call, and hope is born alive;
We will have our peace once more when One becomes the Five.”


Miscellany

One of the interesting aspects of the game was a magic system where a caster could combine runes from various elements to form new magic spells.

Each element had three unique runes, which allowed for 125 different spells. Unfortunately, many of those “different spells” are actually just fireball spells or curative effects. This game had no “magic point” system, so some spells drained the player’s hit points instead.


External links

Links

Ganswindt (crater) | It was covered by

Friday, April 18th, 2008

Ganswindt is a lunar crater that lies near the southern pole of the Moon’s far side. It is attached to the southwestern exterior of the huge Schrödinger walled plain. Ganswindt partly overlays the smaller Idel’son crater to the south.

The rim of Gandswindt is roughly circular but somewhat irregular, particularly at the southern edge. Much of the interior floor is covered in uneven ridges, and there is a small crater in the southeastern section. Because sunlight enters the interior at a low angle, the northern part of the floor is almost always covered in shadow, concealing the terrain in that section of the crater.


References

Links

Child: Music for the Christmas Season | at Christmas it

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Child: Music for the Christmas Season is a 1997 live double album by Jane Siberry.

It presents material she recorded at two 1996 concerts at the famed New York City jazz club The Bottom Line. The material includes both original songs by Siberry and covers of Christmas standards.

The concerts were two of four she performed at The Bottom Line. The other two appear on the albums Lips: Music for Saying It and Tree: Music for Films and Forests. All of the albums have also been released as the New York City Trilogy box set.


Track listing

  1. “She’s Playing the Taxidriver” – 0:28
  2. “Caravan” – 5:12
  3. “Wildwood Carol” – 4:54
  4. “A Bitter Christmas” – 0:54
  5. “What is This Fragrance Softly Stealing?” – 4:59
  6. “Quoi, Ma Voisine, Es-Tu Fachée?” – 3:23
  7. “Shir Amami” – 6:55
  8. “Mary’s Lullaby” – 3:12
  9. “New Year’s Baby” – 4:31
  10. “An Angel Stepped Down (and Slowly Looked Around)” – 5:41
  11. “Silent Night” – 1:25
  12. “You Will Be Born” – 3:33
  13. “O Holy Night” – 2:28
  14. “In the Bleak Midwinter” – 5:55
  15. “Christmas Mass” – 2:40
  16. “The Christmas Song” – 2:55
  17. “Maria Wanders Through the Thorn” – 4:56
  18. “What Child is This?” – 3:15
  19. “The Valley” – 5:23
  20. “Hockey” – 8:00
  21. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” – 5:27
  22. “Are You Burning, Little Candle?” – 4:59

Links

Jolt (comics) | Ho! Who’d Be

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

Jolt (Helen “Hallie” Takahama) is a fictional character, a superheroine in the Marvel Universe and a member of the Thunderbolts and Young Allies.

Contents


Fictional character biography

Hallie Takahama was born in Ojai, California before moving with her parents to New York City at a young age. A super hero buff, she memorized details about various superhuman battles.

On her 15th birthday, Sentinels controlled by Onslaught destroyed her apartment, killing her parents and friends, and for weeks Hallie hid in the ruins of the city with several children she rescued. When Hallie went to seek help after Onslaught’s defeat, she and all the children she was protecting were kidnapped by the mercenary group the Rat Pack and experimented on by the Rat Pack’s employer, Arnim Zola. The other children died or were horribly mutated, but Hallie became faster, stronger, and gained the ability to throw bio-electric punches. She escaped and attempted to reach the Fantastic Four.

Having been isolated between the destruction and the experiments, she had not known that many superheroes, including the F4 and most of the Avengers, had been whisked to a Pocket Universe created by Franklin Richards, the son of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman of the F4. The world at large presumed the heroes dead. When Hallie reached Four Freedom Plaza the F4’s old headquarters she encountered the Thunderbolts, a new apparent super team who were in fact the Masters of Evil posing as heroes.

She joined the team and eventually convinced most of the now-wavering former villains to come over to the “light” side proper. She went on the run with the team, before being “killed” by Scourge. Revived by Techno, she could now become a being of pure electricity, but the damage from the time she spent “dead” left her crippled in her human form, although after much therapy, she fully recovered.

After being stranded on Counter-Earth with most of the Thunderbolts, she chose to stay behind to help the devastated planet as one of the Young Allies. However, Jolt made a brief return to Earth, in order to help both the T-Bolts & Avengers to stop the out-of-control Moonstone (who’d possessed two moonstones at the time and was losing control when she absorbed the Liberator’s energies within her).


Powers and abilities

Originally, Jolt possessed hyperkinetic agility and could move with amazing speed and jump vast distances. Her hyperactive metabolism made her body’s natural bioelectric field exceptionally powerful, and she could shock enemies with a touch. Moreover, Techno stated that she could transform any kind of energy into physical strength and speed, and that with an unlimited source of energy she would be able to use her powers with no physical strain whatsoever.

After her “rebirth”, Jolt could change from flesh-and-blood into living electricity. In her energy form, she could fly and fire blasts of electrical force. At first, she could only function in her electric form, her human form was so injured that she could barely walk and talk. She has now fully recovered, and her level of power has increased.


Alternate versions


MC2

While not appearing often, Jolt was member of the Avengers before the current team was formed in A-Next #1.

Links

Blood of Vol | Favorites Vol.

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

In the Eberron campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Blood of Vol is a lawful evil cult that reveres the ancient traditions of the elven line of Vol. A subsect of the group, the Order of the Emerald Claw, is devoted to serving Erandis d’Vol, the Queen of the Dead and last scion of House Vol. Cultists exist on Khorvaire, Aerenal, and Xen’drik. They see undeath as a path to divinity, and are fascinated by the literal and figurative meanings of blood. They invoke negative energy and manipulate bloodlines to achieve their goals. Despite the cult’s overall evil alignment, there are many good-aligned members, who revere the undead as self-sacrificing champions in the war against death. The cult’s domains are Death, Evil, Law and Necromancy, and the favored weapon is the dagger.


Vol

Vol, or Erandis d’Vol, is the last member of House Vol, and carries the thirteenth dragonmark: the Mark of Death. She is the daughter of an elf mother — the matriarch of House Vol — and a green dragon father. When her existence became known, both elves and dragons came together to destroy the half-dragon abomination and the House of Vol. To save her daughter - and the family bloodline - The matriach turned Erandis into a lich just before she was killed herself. Howevever, becoming a Lich caused Vol to lose access to the power of her dragonmark, which she seeks to restore.


References

  • Baker, Keith; Slavicsek, Bill; Wyatt, James (2004). Eberron Campaign Setting. Wizards of the Coast, Inc. ISBN 0-7869-3434-4

Links

Business Line | Business for the ‘Bollocks

Friday, April 11th, 2008

Business Line or The Hindu Business Line is an Indian business newspaper published by Kasturi and Sons, publishers of the The Hindu newspaper.

Business Line started publishing in 1994. It is India’s youngest business newspaper and also the country’s second largest selling, with a circulation of one lakh ( = 100,000) copies, next to the Economic Times.

Business Line is known for its special focus on commodities, agribusiness and logistics. Out of a total of 20 pages, a total of four pages are dedicated to commodities, agribusiness and logistics. On Mondays, the newspaper contains special sections called ‘Commodities Investment’, and another page called ‘Transport’.

Business Line is published from 14 locations - Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Madurai, Mangalore, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirapalli, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam. Most of the newspaper’s circulation comes from south India.

Some consider it to be a newspaper targeting niche audience since it is priced at Rs 4 compared to the Economic Times’s Rs 2 and Business Standard’s Rs 3. Mr D Murali is the Deputy Editor of the newspaper.

Links

Liberal Party (Japan) | party has

Friday, April 11th, 2008

Liberal Party (自由党 Jiyūtō) is the name of five different political parties in different time periods in Japan.

They are:

  • Liberal Party of Japan (1881), founded by Itagaki Taisuke in October 1881. The party stood for popular rights and espoused the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The main objective of the party in the beginning was the establishment of a constitution. The party was an offspring of the Aikokusha.
  • Liberal Party, founded in 1890, which became the Liberal Constitution Party later that year
  • Liberal Party, formed from the LCP in 1891, merged with the Shinpotō into the Kenseitō in 1898
  • Liberal Party, founded by Ichirō Hatoyama in 1945. In 1946, Yoshida Shigeru formed the first Liberal cabinet after Hatoyama purged. From 1948 to 1950, the Liberal Party merged with a part of the Japan Democratic Party to form the Democratic Liberal Party. Then, in 1955, it merged with the Democratic Party again to form the Liberal Democratic Party.
  • Liberal Party (1998), founded in 1998 from the remnants of the Shinshinto. It merged with the Democratic Party of Japan in 2003.

Links

A Fresh Aire Christmas | Christmas’ EP. edit External

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

A Fresh Aire Christmas was the second Christmas album released by new age musical group Mannheim Steamroller. The album was originally released in 1988.


Track listing

  1. “Hark! The Herald Trumpets Sing”
  2. “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”
  3. “Veni Veni (O Come, O Come Emmanuel)”
  4. “The Holly and the Ivy”
  5. “Little Drummer Boy”
  6. “Still, Still, Still”
  7. “Lo How A Rose E’er Blooming”
  8. “In Dulci Jubilo”
  9. “Greensleeves”
  10. “Carol of the Bells”
  11. “Traditions of Christmas”
  12. “Cantique De Noel (O Holy Night)”

Links

Profane Existence | the ‘Bollocks

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

The Profane Existence Collective (referred to occasionally as ‘P.E.’) is a Minneapolis-based Anarcho-Punk collective. Established in 1989, the collective publishes a nationally-known zine (also called “Profane Existence”), as well as releasing and distributing anarcho-punk, crust, and grindcore music, and printing and publishing pamphlets and literature.Thompson, Punk Productions, 104 Stacy Thompson describes the collective as “the largest, longest-lasting, and most influential collective in Anarcho-Punk so far.”Thompson, Punk Productions, 108 The collective folded in 1998,Thompson, Punk Productions, 105The collective’s October 1998 announcement that it would “cease operations” can be read here although its distribution arm, then called Blackened Distribution, continued operating.Thompson, Punk Productions, 186 It restarted in 2000.Thompson, Punk Productions, 92

Launched in 1989,Thompson, Punk Productions, 97 the Profane Existence magazine has been described as “the largest of the anarchist Punk fanzines in North America.” The magazine deals with a very broad range of topics,Thompson, Punk Productions, 95 including veganism, animal, women’s and minority rights, anti-fascist action and the punk lifestyle. It publishes feature articles, interviews, reports on local scenes around the world, editorials, letters, “how-to” articles, and so on. Thompson, Punk Productions, 106 Thompson writes that the zine “functions as [a newspaper] for many Anarcho-Punks, especially those in the Twin Cities area.”Thompson, Punk Productions, 94 Until it ceased publication in 1998 Profane Existence was free in the Twin Cities and cost $1-3 elsewhere; then as now customers who order the zine through the mail are only charged for shipping. The zine was initially published in a black and white tabloid format. It switched to an 81/2 x 11” magazine format with issue #23 (Autumn 1994) but returned to a tabloid format (now with color front and back covers) with issue #38 (Spring 2000).

Profane Existence Records, the collective’s record label, was also founded in 1989. One of the label’s first releases was “Extinction,” the seminal New York City crust punk band Nausea’s only full-length album, which John Griffin describes as “as important to the punks of the ’90s as the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks was to the punks of the late ’70s.” Throughout the early and mid 1990s Profane Existence released and/or distributed records by many other crust bands, including Doom, Misery, Fleas and Lice, Anarcrust, Counterblast, Dirt, and Hellbastard. Thompson writes that the label “became ground zero for [the crust] movement” and that the aesthetic of second-wave (i.e., beginning in the late 1980s) anarcho-punk “is currently exemplified by the bands released” on the label. More recently, the label has released music by bands like Behind Enemy Lines,, MURDER DISCO X, Iskra, and The Cooters.

The collective is referenced by former Minnesotans The Hold Steady on their album “Separation Sunday” in the song “Stevie Nix”, which contains the lyrics “When we hit the Twin Cities, I didn’t know that much about it / I knew Mary Tyler Moore and I knew Profane Existence”.

Contents


See also

  • Profane Existence discography
  • Minneapolis hardcore


Footnotes


References

  • Thompson, Stacy (2004). Punk Productions: Unfinished Business. SUNY Press. ISBN 0791461874.


External links

  • Official site
  • Profane Existence on ZineWiki

Links

The Last in Line | of the album Caribou.

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

The Last in Line is the second studio album by heavy metal band Dio, released on July 13, 1984. It was certified Gold (500 thousand units sold) by the RIAA on September 12, 1984, and was the first Dio album to be certified Platinum, achieving the feat on February 3, 1987.

It is the second Dio album to feature current Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell and the first to feature former Rough Cutt keyboardist Claude Schnell.

Contents


Track listing

  • All lyrics and melodies written by Ronnie James Dio, music as stated
  1. “We Rock” (Dio) 4:33
  2. “The Last in Line” (Dio/Bain/Campbell) – 5:46
  3. “Breathless”(Dio/Campbell) – 4:09
  4. “I Speed at Night” (Dio/Appice/Bain/Campbell) – 3:26
  5. “One Night in the City” (Dio/Appice/Bain/Campbell) – 5:14
  6. “Evil Eyes” (Dio) – 3:38
  7. “Mystery” (Dio/Bain) – 3:55
  8. “Eat Your Heart Out” (Dio/Appice/Bain/Campbell) – 4:02
  9. “Egypt (The Chains Are On)” (Dio/Appice/Bain/Campbell) – 7:01


Charts


Album

Year Album Chart positions
Billboard 200 UK Album Charts
1984 The Last in Line #24 #4


Singles charts positions

Year Song Chart positions
US Mainstream Rock Tracks
1984 “Mystery” #20


Credits

  • Ronnie James Dio – Vocals, Keyboards
  • Vivian Campbell – Guitar
  • Claude Schnell - Keyboards
  • Jimmy Bain – Bass
  • Vinny Appice – Drums
  • Recorded at Caribou Ranch, Colorado, USA
  • Produced by Ronnie James Dio
  • Engineered by Angelo Arcuri
  • Assistant engineered by Rich Markowitz
  • Mixed on Westlake Audio BBSM6 monitors
  • Originally mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound, New York, USA
  • Illustration by Barry Jackson

Links

Black Veil | Wedding Present

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

Black Veil, in the Roman Catholic Church, the symbol of the most complete renunciation of the world and adoption of a nun’s life. On the appointed day the nun goes through all the ritual of the marriage ceremony, after a solemn mass at which all the inmates of the convent assist. She is dressed in bridal white with wreath and veil, and receives a wedding-ring, as a “Bride of Christ”. Afterwards she presides at a wedding breakfast, at which a bride-cake is cut. She thus bids adieu to all her friends, and having previously taken the white veil, the betrothal, she now assumes the black, and forever forswears the world and its pleasures. Her hair is cut short, and her bridal robes are exchanged for the sombre religious habit. Her wedding ring, however, she continues to wear, and it is buried with her.

In Lay circles a triangle or rectangle shaped cloth or lace Veil, also known as mantilla, is worn by Catholic women while attending church Mass (liturgy). This practice has fallen into decline since the 1960’s among those who attend the revised rite of the Mass, but traditional Catholic women who attend the ancient Latin Mass still wear them.


References

Links

Christmas (song) | Christmas

Monday, April 7th, 2008

Christmas” is a song written by Pete Townshend and is the seventh song on the Who’s rock opera Tommy. The song tells how on Christmas morning, Tommy’s father (others claim it is both of Tommy’s parents) is worried about Tommy’s future, and soul. He claims “Tommy doesn’t know what day it is/He doesn’t know who Jesus was or what praying is,” and he wonders “How can he be saved/From the eternal grave?”


Musical themes

Musically, Christmas introduces the See Me, Feel Me reprise. Also there is a short “Can You Hear Me” reprise that will be repeated in the song Tommy Can You Hear Me.

That same Christmas, Tommy is given a game of pinball, foreshadowing to the events that take place in “Pinball Wizard”

Links

Bhringi | Continued and The Best

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

According to Hindu mythology, Bhringi (the wanderer) was an ancient sage (rishi), and a great devotee of Shiva,the Hindu God of destruction and rejuvenation. The legend states that he had three legs. According to mythology, all the rishis once paid homage to both Shiva and Parvati, the second consort of Shiva, but Bhringi would not worship Parvati and dedicated himself solely to Shiva. Enraged, Parvati reduced Bringi to a skeleton. In this form he was not able to stand and so Shiva provided him with a third leg. Bhringi remained undaunted, and continued to worship only Shiva. To force him to worship Parvati as well, Shiva transformed himself into his androgynous form of Ardhnarishvar, in which state he was combined with his consort Parvati. Bringi remained undeterred. Transformed himself in a bee, he bored his way through the male part of androgynous Shiva and continued his worship. He generally appears beside Shiva during his cosmic dance of tandava.


References

Links

David Grimal | in 1973. Though

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

David Grimal (born 1973) is a French violinist.

Considered one of the most interesting musicians of his generation, he is invited to perform all over the world.

He plays the ex Roederer Stradivarius of 1710.


External links

  • David Grimal’s official website

Links