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This is the change we need for the future of innovation
Looking to the future: embracing the age of big data will be crucial to success
Image: Reuters
Heizo Takenaka Professor Emeritus, Keio University
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This article is part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
Big data is transforming economies and societies.
Outdated governance is holding back the promise of new tech.
Forward-looking cities and countries are prioritizing innovation.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing various social structures. In Japan, the results of these social changes are commonly referred to as Society 5.0. We have progressed from a hunting and gathering society (Society 1.0) to an agricultural society (Society 2.0), an industrial society (Society 3.0) and an information society (Society 4.0), and now a new, human-centered society is dawning. New systems are set to bring together the cyber world and the physical world in sophisticated ways, driving economic development while solving social issues.
Society 5.0 is run by collecting the vast volume of information used in the physical world and transferring it to the cyber world using technology such as sensors. This big data is then analyzed in cyberspace and the results are applied in various forms to our social activities in the physical world.
New technology such as artificial intelligence has an incredible impact here. Robots, self-driving cars and other autonomous technologies make it possible to overcome issues such as declining birthrates and aging populations, the depopulation of rural areas and unequal distribution of wealth. These social innovations are expected to break down walls that have existed between people and build a society where people can have hope, one where people of all generations respect each other, one where everyone can live comfortably and thrive.
Bumps in the road to the future
However, there are major hurdles that need to be overcome first. There is a big gap between the various things that technological advances can achieve in theory and whether those technologies are being adopted in our societies in practice. It's the gap between technology invention and technological innovation. Thomas Edison, known as the King of Invention, is known to have created 1300 inventions and technological innovations. He also started 14 companies with the help of investors. Some of those electrical and mechanical companies are still global corporations today.
Unfortunately, as society matured into its current form, various rules and systems were put in place, and it is now difficult to take an invention or technological innovation and connect it to social systems immediately. An example of this is blockchain and distributed ledger technology: this has the potential to bring immense changes to financial systems, but its advancement has stalled in many countries due to the legal systems that govern banks and other financial facilities today.
Basically, the social and legal systems that were created based on our current lifestyles are holding technological innovation back. The success of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and our transition to Society 5.0 depends on how smoothly we can relax regulations and update our legal systems.
Who is winning the innovation race?
I am the director of the Center for Global Innovation Studies at Toyo University. The Center recently published a Global Innovation Index, ranking the innovation performance of each country. The index was created by selecting and integrating a total of 58 indexes for comparison from five main fields: international cooperation, market trends, technological innovation, resourcefulness and relevant policies. Statistics related to these indexes are available for 60 countries, so these countries were ranked.
Toyo's global ranking of innovative countries
Singapore was the top-ranking country, followed by Luxembourg in second, Switzerland in third and New Zealand in fourth. All of these countries have a comparatively small population, which presumably means that openness is prioritized and consensuses concerning system reforms can be reached more quickly.
What is the World Economic Forum doing about the Fourth Industrial Revolution?
The World Economic Forum was the first to draw the world's attention to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the current period of unprecedented change driven by rapid technological advances. Policies, norms and regulations have not been able to keep up with the pace of innovation, creating a growing need to fill this gap.
The Forum established the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network in 2017 to ensure that new and emerging technologies will help—not harm—humanity in the future. Headquartered in San Francisco, the network launched centres in China, India and Japan in 2018 and is rapidly establishing locally-run Affiliate Centres in many countries around the world.
World Economic Forum | Centre for the Fourth Industrial R...
The global network is working closely with partners from government, business, academia and civil society to co-design and pilot agile frameworks for governing new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous vehicles, blockchain, data policy, digital trade, drones, internet of things (IoT), precision medicine and environmental innovations.
Learn more about the groundbreaking work that the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network is doing to prepare us for the future.
Want to help us shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution? Contact us to find out how you can become a member or partner.
A symbolic predictor of the shift to a new economic society is the trialing of measures to manage urban areas using big data. In Hangzhou, China, where the head office of Alibaba is located, real-time traffic information for major routes is collected as big data and AI is used to optimize the signals of traffic lights. This is said to have dramatically reduced congestion in the city. Big data is also being used in new digital marketing ventures, and many attempts have been made to build "smart cities". The urban technology concept that is attracting the most attention is that of "super cities", which consists not of a test of one technological innovation but an endeavor to build "future-looking cities" by innovating city life as a whole.
Super city initiatives include Smart Dubai, launched in 2013, along with Smart Nation Singapore (2014) and the Xiong'an New Area in China (2017). A distinctive characteristic of these projects is that they have the support of political leaders. Japanese leaders, too, are discussing how the legal system should be adapted to make super cities a reality. The key will be how to use big data while still protecting people's privacy.
We are at a critical turning point that will determine whether we can turn the technology invention into technological innovation.
License and Republishing
Heizo Takenaka, Professor Emeritus, Keio University
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
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The metaverse will increase inclusivity but must genuinely consider diverse needs at the outset and use collaboration and grassroots input to succeed.
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<TITLE>Review for Godzilla (1998)</TITLE>
<LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="/ramr.css">

Godzilla (1998)

reviewed by
Zach Fine

Godzilla - The Plot is as Long as This Sentence

Zach Fine
Daily Reporter

The burgeoning art of reptilian animation has made steady gains in
realism since the charming 1914 silent animation short Gertie the
Dinosaur. Certainly, the first photorealistic dinosaur animations were
as fascinating to filmgoers watching Jurassic Park as were the early
Edison studios' films of elephants walking and bathing to viewers at the
turn of the century. Yet audiences eventually tired of watching
pachyderms walking single-file, and so too might Godzilla mark a turning
point in the history of film - the film which showed that big animated
lizards could be boring.

The archetypal big lizard first appeared in the 1954 Japanese film
Gojira, which was dubbed, re-edited, and in some scenes re-shot with
American actors for its 1956 U.S. release. The film, which was made less
than a decade after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
features a gigantic radioactive monster which rises from the Pacific,
breathes atomic fire, and leaves entire Japanese cities in ruin.

Sure, Gojira may be a schlocky monster movie that features a guy in a
rubber suit who stomps on model buildings, but it is surprisingly
resonant. Scenes of doctors shaking their heads as they wave Geiger
counters over screaming children whose lifeless parents are carted off
on stretchers carry surprising emotional weight. The monster itself,
while bipedal, was hardly anthropomorphic. Gojira was a force of nature,
a gigantic, glistening, mindless monster which appeared for no apparent
reason, spreading terror, destruction and radiation in its wake. Gojira
was more than a 'B' movie.

The new Godzilla is much less. Writer-director Roland Emmerich and
writer Dean Devlin, with the help of $160 million dollars and a
top-of-the-line computer- animated marine iguana, have managed to create
a brain-dead pile of hype.

In the film, the powers that be become alarmed at the growing evidence
that points to the possible existence of a large and destructive
radioactive dinosaur. They assemble a pool of scientists and in so doing
interrupt the work of nerdy scientist Nick Tatopoulos (a helium-voiced
and irritating Matthew Broderick), whose ha-ha funny name and chosen
career of studying large radioactive earthworms in Chernobyl comprise
fully 50% of the film's humor. Meanwhile, Audrey Timmonds (a
helium-voiced, whiny, and pitiful Maria Pitillo), who aspires to be a
broadcast news correspondent, instead finds herself relegated to the job
of 'random office worker and sexual harassment recipient' at a
television network. But when she realizes that she might be able to
steal top-secret documents from Nick, her former lover, she figures
she's got it made.

So much for background. The big iguana arrives at the 25-minute mark
and starts tearing up the Big Apple. Nick chases Godzilla, Audrey chases
Nick, and the military descends with an order of magnitude more
helicopters than were used in Apocalypse Now. Godzilla turns out to be a
difficult lizard to take down, what with those missile-proof scales,
that atomic-fire breath, and knowledge of The Hunt for Red October. The
incompetent and tyrannical Mayor Ebert (Michael Lerner) isn't all that
happy watching his city become rubble, but the filmmakers enjoy making
him look stupid as payback for his namesake's tepid review of
Independence Day. Nick then discovers that Godzilla's laid a bunch of
eggs, but nobody believes him except a French secret agent who can't
find a decent cup of coffee (Jean Reno of La Femme Nikita) and his
fearless crew (all named Jean), who provide the remaining 50% of the
film's humor because, well, they're French.

Eventually, the eggs start hatching and the velociraptors - er, baby
Godzillas - hatch and Nick starts theorizing that, ulp, this could be
the end of humanity as we know it ...

Will humanity survive? Will Nick and Audrey get back together? Will she
apologize to him for having had the gall to believe in herself enough to
leave him for her career? Will she get the big story? Will room for a
sequel be implied at the end?

Frankly, the only real surprise in the film is the realization of
Godzilla herself. Sure, the filmmakers had plenty of bad decisions to
make. They ignored the 20-plus sequels and took nothing from the
original Gojira besides the transliterated name and basic premise,
choosing instead to set an extended Jurassic Park; The Lost World in New
York. They chose to make the film two hours and 20 minutes long. They
chose to cast the tiresome Matthew Broderick in a major role and
relegate the über-talented Hank Azaria to a supporting role. They made
the female protagonist as feeble and flawed as possible. But to actually
expect audiences to be scared by a large marine iguana?

It is a bit of a rabbit punch to go after this film for scientific
inaccuracy, but it seems an odd choice to fashion the big scary monster
after one of the only vegetarian reptiles. In reality, if a marine
iguana were to swim all the way across the Pacific Ocean (from the
Galapagos Islands to French Polynesia), then was exposed to radiation
from nuclear testing which caused it to either grow really big or
produce really big offspring, one might expect an iguana-derived
Godzilla to eat tons of algae, sneeze salt all over the protagonists,
and find a nice warm power plant to bask on.

Although the iguana in the film is lovingly rendered, dewlap and all,
it is not terribly scary. Neither is the film Godzilla exciting,
interesting, entertaining or even mildly amusing.

Copyright © 1998 Zach Fine

Article first appeared in the Thursday, May 28, 1998 Arts section of The
Daily of the University of Washington.

http://www.thedaily.washington.edu/archives/1998_Spring/May.28.98/godzilla.5.27.html

The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).

The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.

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Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.

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Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews

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These Crossovers Are More Important Than 'Avengers: Infinity War'
BySarah Jasmine Montgomery
writing, but mostly reading @withalittlejazz
Image via Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images
Marvel may be trying to sell Avengers: Infinity War as "the most ambitious crossover event in history," since it brings together almost every hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date—but some people seriously beg to differ.
The new Avengers trailer dropped Friday, featuring characters from Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Black Panther, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Since then, Twitter users have wasted no time bringing up other historic crossovers that could rival the Avengers' impressive lineup.
"There was an idea…"
Marvel Studios' "@Avengers: #InfinityWar" in theaters May 4. pic.twitter.com/ll7LllUFaV
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) November 29, 2017
A new meme circulating the web includes some iconic examples of crossovers, including Michael Jordan's appearance with the Looney Tunes in Space Jam, and that one time the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles decided to link up with the Power Rangers crew.
Marvel: 'Infinity War is the most ambitious crossover event in history'
Me: pic.twitter.com/AMOsspsvKi
— J. Skyler (@jskylerinc) March 20, 2018
Marvel: "Avengers Infinity War is the most ambitious crossover event in history."
Me: pic.twitter.com/826oiQW2hw
— Jared Rea (@jaredr) March 20, 2018
Avengers: Infinity War was originally supposed to be released in May, but now is slated for April 27. In addition to including so many different characters, the new film takes place in a variety of locations, including space and the previously hidden land of Wakanda. Tickets for the movie went on sale Friday, and the flick took only six hours to break the advance sales record for superhero movies on Fandango.
The new film is definitely going to be a box office success, so there's no harm in making fun of it before it hits theaters next month. Take a look at some other glorious crossovers that Twitter users are pointing out below.
ListsNewsAvengersDisneySpace JamMarvelBlack Panther

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Webroot to be sold for $618.5m
Webroot is about to be sold to data protection firm Carbonite for US$618.5 million after the two companies entered into a definitive agreement this week.
Webroot has been a major player in the cybersecurity space since its launch in 1997. It operates as a cybersecurity provider for both managed security providers and businesses. Its 2018 fiscal year revenue was approximately US$215 million.
That was an attractive portfolio to Carbonite and according to Webroot CEO Mike Potts, the two companies have a common goal of making cybersecurity protection accessible and easy to use.
"We are thrilled to become part of their team," says Potts. "Together we can deliver tremendous value to our customers and partners."
Carbonite, founded in 2005, has made a number of acquisitions in the last few years, including Evault and Double Take Software.
With the addition of Webroot's portfolio, Carbonite president and CEO Mohamad Ali says Carbonite is one step closer to becoming a leading data protection company.
"With threats like ransomware evolving daily, our customers and partners are increasingly seeking a more comprehensive solution that is both powerful and easy to use. Backup and recovery, combined with endpoint security and threat intelligence, is a differentiated solution that provides one, comprehensive data protection platform."
"The Webroot team has a passion for building technology to simplify the way customers protect their important data, and we are excited to welcome them," Ali continues.
The two companies say there are a number of benefits to the acquisition:
• Next-Generation Technology Platform: Combining Carbonite's cloud-based data protection solutions and Webroot's cloud-based machine learning technology will create a next-generation security platform to serve growing customer needs.
• A Comprehensive Solution, Delivering Better Results: A common set of customers will benefit from an easy-to-use, cloud-based, integrated offering, which includes a unique ransomware prevention and recovery solution.
• Consistent Routes to Market and Expansion of Addressable Market: Webroot and Carbonite share a go-to-market focus and a complementary ecosystem of channel partners. Webroot's MSP partners and RMM relationships provide Carbonite with a new channel for increased scale and market expansion.
• Immediately Accretive: Based on Webroot's current operating plan and existing customer contracts, the transaction is expected to be immediately accretive on an earnings and cash flow basis following the close of the transaction.
Carbonite will use a combination of fully committed financing and cash on hand to complete the acquisition. It is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019.
Red Hat to acquire Kubernetes-native security provider StackRox
Cloudflare launches Data Localisation Suite
Webroot Carbonite Mergers and Acquisitions Data protection
SASE vs zero trust – or the best of both worlds
Zero trust and SASE work together by converging a least-privilege access strategy with an architecture that simplifies how highly distributed users, BYOD, and cloud resources are secured.More
Red Hat will further expand its security offering, adding StackRox's complementary capabilities to strengthen integrated security across its open hybrid cloud portfolio.More
Dark net vendors wanting Bitcoin payments for unverified COVID-19 vaccines
As the medicines are being offered on the dark net, purchasers have no way of knowing whether they are genuine, according to Check Point.More


/NOVOSTIVL/ A group of Russian senators is visiting North Korea, the latest in a series of talks between the two countries following the collapse of the U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Sergei Kislyak, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council's Committee for Foreign Affairs and one of the Russian delegates, said the visit from March 16 to 21 will be "an absolutely natural, normal practice" to continue dialogue between the two countries.
"The goal of the visit (to North Korea) is to continue the dialogue with a country that is friendly to us and that is solving most difficult problems in the foreign and domestic policies," Kislyak told Russian news agency TASS after arriving at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport, March 16. "We have things to discuss, we wish to better understand the aspirations of our North Korean neighbors, and I think that this dialogue is an absolutely natural, normal practice that we will continue in our relations."
Oleg Melnichenko, who heads the Russian delegation, said, "We have a heavy substantial program that includes not just the cultural part," in his reference to a number of scheduled business meetings.
In separate diplomatic efforts, three North Korean officials visited Moscow separately earlier this month and met their Russian counterparts.


Guwahati: Call it a political game plan or the failure of the state government to assess the "rehabilitation and relief measures admissible to the indigenous families of Assam recently evicted from Amchang" about two years ago, thousands of people living around the wildlife sanctuary near Guwahati in Assam are still passing sleepless nights under the open sky.
The much-hyped eviction drive at Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary in November 2017 has also raised a million-dollar question on the definition of "indigenous people". It has been broadly alleged that people having electricity connections, election identity cards, government identity documents, land rights and land revenue documents, among other "accepted" papers, have had to bear the brunt of government apathy. Some of these residents had also reportedly contested in the recent panchayat elections in state.
On February 13 this year, the Supreme Court of India ordered and asked all the state governments what steps they had taken to evict encroachers of forest land, implying that encroachers ought to be evicted from forests by July this year.
After the eviction order was issued by the Supreme Court, Assam health and finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had tweeted, "Assam is going to file a review petition without any delay. We all are committed to protect and preserve identity and rights of our tribal brothers and sisters." It is estimated that in Assam, 27,534 forest dwellers face eviction and they would not be able to get any compensation of rehabilitation package.
The SC order triggered protests from forest rights groups across the country, who contended that wildlife conservation cannot overcome natural justice goals. At the same time, some wildlife conservationists – especially those who had filed the original petition – said that the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006 has caused forests to become fragmented, and said some people had filed bogus claims to forest land.
After widespread criticism and a petition by the Central government, the Supreme Court temporarily stayed its order on February 28 this year.
However, this was not after villagers living on the fringe areas of forests in Assam, along with other states, lived in a state of panic following the Supreme Court order. The affidavit filed by the Assam government in Supreme Court said that 22,398 claims out of 74,364 filed by Scheduled Tribe communities were rejected while 5,136 claims of the 19,966 claims made by other traditional forest dwellers were not accepted.
The BJP-led government in Assam started an eviction drive in Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary, Kaziranga National Park, Garbhanga Reserved Forest and Dibru-Saikhowa National Park since 2016 with an order from the Gauhati High Court. Those eviction drives had to be stalled due to public protests and litigation by some organisations.
In Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary, about 10 sq km of 78.64 sq km area, is allegedly under encroachment by an estimated 864 families. The Assam government, acting on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by an environmental organisation, Early Birds, carried out eviction drives around Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary in Kamrup district since August 25, 2017.
On November 27, 2017, the state government carried out a massive eviction drive as per the Gauhati High Court order in the area declared an eco-sensitive zone (ECZ) by the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change around the wildlife sanctuary. Such was the brutality of the eviction that it became national news with all media houses giving extensive coverage to it. There was a massive outrage against the eviction. Takam Mising Porin Kébang (TMPK), a students' organisation of the indigenous Mising community that works as an activist group demanding rehabilitation rights for the people, issued a press release soon after the eviction, condemning the Amchang eviction.
Over the past few decades, a number of villages have mushroomed in the disputed periphery of the Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary, which prior to 2004, were three reserved forests. Almost all the residents of Yusuf Nagar on the 'outskirts' of Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary are Muslims with a few handful families belonging to other communities such as Hindu Bengalis and tribal people belonging to the Mising community.
"The Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary was notified in 2004 by the Assam government. Although demarcation of the forest was stated officially, on ground, the periphery of the forest was not clarified properly," said Abdul Hakim, a villager of Yusuf Nagar.
Interestingly, many villagers from Yusuf Nagar were also in possession of land rights and were paying land revenue. Even some of them had contested in the last Panchayat elections in the state.
Since late 2017, all families living near Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary have been sleeping under the open sky. Children have been the worst affected due to this eviction process. Electricity connection has been cut off. The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) centre has also stopped its operations. Many students continue to study under candlelight conditions at night.
The draft notification submitted by the Assam government to the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEF), which published in The Gazette of India on June 7, 2017, clearly mentioned that there are 37 revenue villages falling within the ECZ of Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary but still no attempt was reportedly made to resort to a rehabilitation plan for these villagers.
The villages named in the notification are Kamarkuchi Gaon, Jhor Gaon, Sagoli Gaon, Patorkuchi, Hatimura, Jagdalgram, Medhikuchi Gram, Goria Guli Gram, Ghanashyam Basti, Botaghuli (Yusuf Nagar), Jharna Basti, Ghuli Gaon, Haldhibari Gram, Hastinapur, Nazirakhat, Botakuchi Gram, Belguri Basti, Kolitakuchi Basti, Taltol Nepali Basti, Imli Basti, Sat Gaon, Sattol Basti, Khanapara (N.K. Basti), Madhan Nagar, Nabajyoti Nagar, Aamgaon Tatibagan, Barikuchi Gram, Thakurkuchi Gram, Hazambori Gram, Hatisila Pahar, Ekora Basti, Lahapara (Panikhaiti), Panikhaiti Railway Gate, Panbari Gram, Garo Basti RojaKuchi, Beerkuchi No.2, and Gandhi Nagar (Panikhati).
People living in flood-affected districts of Assam continue to lose most of their land due to constant floods, forcing the affected people to look for alternate living spaces. "The land, allegedly encroached by villagers, belongs to the people for decades and the areas fall under revenue villages. The government should exclude these villages from the map and demolish new industries around the wildlife sanctuary. Unfortunately, the government is doing the opposite thing. It proves the nexus," Gogoi added.
On the basis of a state government's submission, the Gauhati High Court suspended the eviction drives on December 1, 2017 for two months to give time to the state government "to work out a rehabilitation plan and compensation package for evicted people". These flood-affected landless people were applicable for a rehabilitation package under the Assam Special Scheme for Rehabilitation of Erosion Affected Families but they were left homeless for past 19 months without any compensation.
Samar Bezbaruah, convenor of Assam Sangrami Mancha, claimed that these eviction drives were deliberate and planned to marginalise Assamese people. "The state land revenue department has allotted lands to corporate outside Guwahati metropolitan area (Sonapur) since 2014. Along with revenue lands, they also allotted forest lands for industries. Now, they manipulated the forest map to compensate those lands," Samar said.
It is unclear and unlikely that any official document clarifies who the indigenous families of Assam are and what about those who are not indigenous but simply citizens of the country? "Ascertaining indigenousness in the context of Amchang will mean people are going to be discriminated on the basis of their place of birth, and covertly, their religion. Such discrimination is clearly prohibited by Article 14 and 15 of the Constitution of India. In the case of Amchang, there appears no reasonability to justify such discrimination. Moreover, Article 19(e) grants all citizens a fundamental right to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India," HRLN asserted.
Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary is a treat for nature lovers. One can see some of the rare species of animals and birds. These include mammals such as Chinese pangolin, flying fox, slow loris, Assamese macaque, rhesus macaque, capped langur, hoolock gibbon, jungle cat, leopard cat, leopard, elephant, wild pig, sambar, barking deer, gaur and porcupine, etc. Bird species found here include lesser adjutant, greater adjutant, white-backed vulture, slender-billed vulture, khaleej pheasant green imperial pigeon and lesser pied hornbill, among others.


Watch NBA Games On-line – How To Watch Stay NBA Games On-line!
In case you are a fan of basketball then you could have in all probability heard of the tremendous stars on this sport. The principle ones that spring to thoughts are Mike Jordan, Shaq O'Neal and Magic Johnson.
In the event you carry up the topic of basketball in a dialog it's not lengthy earlier than you hear these names. Nicely in the event you like to observe basketball then this text will inform you a bit extra a couple of new know-how that lets you Watch NBA Games On-line so you'll be able to catch all of your favorite stars everytime you need!
The brand new know-how is known as Satellite tv for pc TV for PC and is nice for those that love sport however at all times appear to overlook their favorite occasions. All it's good to do is get the software program and open up your favorite browser and it is possible for you to to Watch NBA Games On-line or anything you need too buy mt.
There isn't any want for a TV tuner card or a satellite tv for pc dish because the software program works by receiving stay broadcasts via web streams.
The advantage of that is the truth that it is extremely simple to arrange and likewise the vary of channels you should have as properly! There are properly over three,000 channels to select from so you'll at all times be capable of discover one thing to observe.
It's each individuals dream to fulfill their favorite sports activities star and a few folks will go to insane lengths to have the ability to do that and spend hundreds of on season tickets, nonetheless most individuals simply do not need the cash to do that so have to observe the sport by tv.
Additionally the opposite factor to consider if you wish to Watch NBA Games On-line is the hours that a few of these video games are on and in the event you work nights or do loads of hours a minimum of you'll not miss your favorite recreation.
You possibly can after all tape it however by that time you should have heard the outcome and that takes all of the enjoyable out of it!
I hope this text has defined how one can Watch NBA Games On-line and likewise a bit about how this software program works!


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areadersreviewblog
To read is to escape, to write is to release!
Tag Archives: kidnapping
April 12, 2017 by Tina Williams
*REVIEW* ~ The Vodka Trail, by AA Abbott
#crime #thriller
Orphaned and destitute as a teenager, Kat has made a new life for herself in London. Now she's determined to reclaim her father's vodka business in the former Soviet Union.
Birmingham businessman Marty wants to stop her. That alone isn't why Kat hates him – she blames him for her parents' deaths. But when she's taken hostage by freedom fighters, only Marty can help her survive.
~ Slick and Entertaining ***** (5 stars) ~
The Vodka Trail is a slick and entertaining crime thriller, with believable characters and plenty of plot twists, taking place in Birmingham, London and the former Soviet Union. It is the second book in the Trail series (the first being the Bride's Trail), but can easily be read as a standalone, for although it does feature some characters from the first novel, it contains a brand new plot.
Kat travels to the former Soviet Union to reclaim her family's vodka business. At the same time Marty, a Birmingham businessman, also finds himself there on what is to turn out to be an ill-fated business trip. The two protaganists have a history going way back, to when Kat was a child, and they are both as stunned as each other when they discover that they are both held captive by freedom fighters. They know that their situation is precarious and that they will be lucky to escape with their lives. Kat in particular finds that she has to rely on Marty to maintain her sanity and recognises that the man she blames for so many past events in her life may be the one man who could save her life.
As Kat and Marty spend time in captivity together they are compelled to confront events which took place in the past, little realising how much of the past and present have collided in their current predicament. Their situation also impacts on family and friends in the UK and it is an anxious time as they await their, fate hoping for the best, yet fearing the worst.
The read is a realistic and harrowing portrayal of kidnapping and of the contrasting lives of those who live in the former Soviet Union and the UK. Not only was I on pins to see if Kat and Marty would survive their ordeal, but also how they would endure their close proximity given their animosity towards each other. Scenes expertly pan from their desperate situation to the lives and motivations of their captors and friends and family (including Kat's fiancé) in the UK. Their existence is far removed from the shenanigans of some characters and the contrast makes for an entertaining read. I enjoyed both the two main characters as well as the insight into the political situation which has prompted their kidnapping.
The author has a gift for scene setting and I particularly liked her descriptions of Birmingham and London's business community and those of the former Soviet Union, which I found very insightful. I particularly enjoyed the complex relationship between Kat and Marty and how this develops throughout the novel.
A super crime thriller, which is a thoroughly entertaining read.
PLEASE NOTE: The book is available in e-book and paperback. The author has published this series in a dyslexia free format. See the author's blog post Fun, Fast Thrillers and Dyslexia Friendly Too
Reviewed by Tina Williams
Connect with the Author
Twitter as @AAAbbottStories
http://aaabbott.co.uk/
Posted in Crime, Review, REVIEWS (ALL) - Reverse Chronological Order, Thriller
Tagged aa-abbott, city-of-london, crime thriller, kidnapping, soviet-union, the-vodka-trail
June 30, 2016 by Tina Williams
*DOUBLE REVIEW* ~ The General's Daughter and Stolen Melody (Snow and Ash books 1 and 2), by Heather Knight
#postapocalyptic #romance #darkromance #erotic, #romanticsuspense
Adult/18+ Read
Must read series for dark romance fans!
It is no secret that I am a huge fan of dark romance. I also love post-apocalyptic novels, so when I came across the Snow and Ash series by Heather Knight I was positively salivating. I pre-ordered the first book, The General's Daughter and read it in one sitting, after which I downloaded book #2, Stolen Melody and feasted on that too. After a difficult week with one thing and another, escaping into the harsh, brutal world the author paints, complete with alpha males, mind blowing sex and suspenseful plots was just the tonic I needed! I will be downloading book #3 in the series, The Other Brother, as soon as it is available.
Each book pairs a swoonworthy anti-hero with a heroine who is broken/damaged. The sex scenes sometimes push the boundaries of consent – remember it's a dark romance. The author paints an excellent picture of the post-apocalyptic world which remains after the Yellowstone volcano goes off, destroying much of civilisation and the population and leaving the world in a perpetual winter. Only the strong and/or the very fortunate survive. Women are very much a commodity, controlled by various militaristic male led factions, who vie for control and survival, whilst out in the wilderness many have turned to cannibalism…
The General's Daughter (Snow and Ash #1)
Eighteen year-old Ilsa's father, General Balenchuk, is one of the few men with balls enough to build a tiny island of civilization after a global catastrophe sends humanity to near extinction. He runs Bluefield Mountain with an iron fist, and he's even more controlling when it comes to his daughter. Ilsa's been dead inside for years—that is, until the person who hates her most takes her hostage.
When twenty-two year-old Talon Heinesman kidnaps Ilsa Balenchuk, it's not just because the leader of a rival territory ordered him to capture the general's daughter. Four years ago, her selfishness set into motion a series of events that resulted in his mother's and sister's murders. He's buried his rage for four years, and now it's time to mete out the punishment she deserves.
Their story sets Ilsa and Talon on a steamy, turbulent path full of danger, incendiary passion, and a bond so deep it could kill.
This romantic suspense novel contains dark, mature situations and sensitive subject matter, and contains triggers some readers may find discomforting. It is a work of fiction and is intended for adult readers.
My Review ~ Five deliciously dark stars *****
The General's Daughter, an extremely hot and sexy read, is a tale of revenge and redemption but also absolution. In it Isla, the daughter of a brutal General, is kidnapped by a man working for a rival leader. Her kidnapper is none other than Talon, a man whose family she unwittingly destroyed. Talon is hungry for revenge and jumped at the chance to get his hands on this selfish and spoiled woman. Yet can he hand her over to his boss before he has exacted his revenge? Indeed, does he want to? Would he rather see her suffer at his hands rather than those of another?
Isla's captivity is brutal and she despairs of surviving it. As she gets to know Talon their relationship develops and they learn much about their respective roles that led to their shared tragic past and its repercussions. There are a number of hightly charged scenes. It becomes clear that Isla is not the woman Talon believed her to be yet nevertheless she was responsible for the deaths of those he held dear. Over time Talon, a man who both despises and desires her, becomes Isla's only hope for survival.
Isla and Talon are fantastic characters. Both have tragic backstories and have contributed to each others pain. Can they forgive each other and even themselves before it is too late? Their relationship is both sizzling and conflicted and I loved it! Talon struggles to fight his attraction to his captive, a woman whom he should despise. Whilst his words are often cruel, his actions are not always so and Isla comes to depend on him for her survival.
Isla has had led an awful past, controlled by a father she hates and recognises that she is in a situation where she may not survive. I enjoyed how the author developed her character and how she stepped up to the challenge of facing both Talon and her demons. She is a strong woman but even I doubted how she would withstand the events that came her way as the plot developed. Is her future wth Talon, a man who despises her? Is she better off with her controlling father? Will Talon hand her over to his boss, which would herald her death or has he something else entirely planned for her? Either way she appears to be screwed. The stakes are high and the sex is hot!
A recommended read for dark romance fans!
Stolen Melody (Snow and Ash #2)
The rest of the world knew her as Melody, the beautiful young siren who rose to the top of the music scene just before a volcano blew and wiped out most of civilization. For the past three years, nineteen year-old "Imogen" has been living under the protection of a small town pastor, and no one else in this increasingly righteous parish knows her infamous history. The whole The rest of the world knew her as Melody, the beautiful young siren who rose to the top of the music scene just before a volcano blew and wiped out most of civilization. For the past three years, nineteen year-old "Imogen" has been living under the protection of a small town pastor, and no one else in this increasingly righteous parish knows her infamous history. The whole persona of Melody was a corporate fabrication, and Imogen would like to forget that part of her past.
Ex-felon Axel Diehl is scouting ahead for a well-organized gang when he spots his fantasy girl. There's no mistaking the small scar on her hand, those full lips, or that kick-ass figure. It's too good to be true, and when the gang takes control of Sadie's Bend he publicly claims Melody for his own.
Can sweet Imogen become the sexy Melody of Axel's dreams? Can Axel give his poster girl the love she craves? Or will the violence of this new, post-apocalyptic world tear them apart?
This dark romance novel contains mature situations and sensitive subject matter, and contains triggers some readers may find discomforting. It is a work of fiction and is intended for adult readers.
My Review ~ Fast paced and sizzling! ~ Five stars *****
I loved both the premise and the execution of Stolen Melody. It has a very different plot and feel to The General's Daughter in that it contains more characters and further explores the landscape and society of the post apocalyptic world in which it is set. It pairs an ex-felon Axel with Imogen, a young woman who, prior to the apocalypse, was a young music star at the top of her career. As Melody she was the proverbial wet dream, with her raunchy stage show and persona, an image that was far from the truth of Imogen the girl. Imogen's refuge in a restrictive small town religious community comes to an abrupt end when she is claimed by Axel, who recognises her, the girl from his fantasies.
Axel's character is dark and alpha to the core, taking what he wants and defending it to the hilt. He starts off as a violent, controlling and unlikable character, but we soon find out that he had an appalling childhood, learning that to survive he must be stronger, tougher and meaner than the rest. Melody is a prize that he will not share and he is intent on enjoying her and not afraid of punishing her if she transgresses. Indeed, he is a very bad boy and once again the plot contains some dubious consent and some hot scenes! Obsessed with the image he lusted after he is surprised when the real woman reveals herself. How can the couple possibly find any common ground?
Imogen is at first terrified of Axel, yet she realises that he is her only protection against others who covet her. She also lives in fear of her old identity becoming common knowledge. Surprised and afraid of the emotions that Axel's rough love stirs up in her, should she escape if given the chance or should she stay? Also how can they survive the violence that is closing in around them as different leaders vie for dominance?
The novel reveals more of the post apocalyptic world, a world of violence, cannibals, and survival of the fittest. It also introduces us to the hero of The Other Brother, book #3, whose story I am very eager to read.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/352997.Heather_Knight?from_search=true&search_version=service
Posted in Dark Read, Erotic Romance, Post - Apocalyptic, Review, REVIEWS (ALL) - Reverse Chronological Order, Romance
Tagged abduction, absolution, alpha-male, dark-erotic-romance, dark-romance, heather-knight, kidnapping, post-apolalyptic-romance, redemption, revenge, snow-and-ash-series, srtong-heroine
December 24, 2015 by Tina Williams
**REVIEW** ~ The Men of the Border Lands Collection, Volume 1 (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting), by Marla Monroe
Erotic Post-Apocalyptic/Futuristic Romance
Erotic Futuristic Ménage à Trois Romance, M/F/M, HEA
(This collection includes three books from the Men of the Border Lands series, nearly 110k words total). MFM, erotic romance.
In Belonging to Them, while escaping slavery in the Border Lands, Heather hides in a trailer belonging to brothers Brandon and Bolton. They take her to their farm and prove they won't harm her. Bolton quickly falls in love, but Brandon pulls away. After a wolf attack almost takes her from them, Brandon must realize he could lose the best thing that's ever happened to him.
In A Home with Them, fed up with the reluctant men who have cared for her for five years, Jessie takes matters into her own hands. Wyatt and Kent worry that their kind of love isn't what Jessie needs, but a tough life out in the Border Lands and a kidnapping show the men that Jessie belongs with them.
In Their Border Lands Temptress, after the year of catastrophes, Ronnie jumps at an offer of protection from a lifelong friend. When the safety becomes abuse, she runs. Brice and Garrett know she needs a man to protect her, and they are hell-bent to help her. When danger shows up at their door, Ronnie must decide if she's ready for them to be more than lovers or if she's too scared to let them into her heart.
The Border Lands are a dangerous place, but love and passion are often the keys to surviving.
** A Siren Erotic Romance
My Review 5* (FIVE STARS)
Sweet and Sizzling Ménage Collection
I found the erotic tales in this ménage collection sweet, sizzling and satisfying! Each novella is set in the Border Lands, at a time when the world as we know it has ceased to exist and where women are in short supply. As a consequence of the general lawlessness that pervades society and their scarcity, women are regarded as chattels by many and some are kept as slaves. All men are not bad however, and I'm pleased to say that the heroes in this collection are the good guys! I thoroughly enjoyed each romance and also learning about the futuristic society the tales are set in. The collection certainly illustrates the pleasures to be had by having two men available to bring the heroine to the heights of ecstasy!
Each tale takes a different take on the dynamics of a mfm ménage before their HEA is reached. Highly recommended if you are looking to indulge in some fun erotic reads!
Belonging to Them #1
In Belonging to Them, Heather, escaping captivity, takes refuge with brothers Brandon and Bolton. The brothers are ripped and handsome and I loved it that they were both committed to gaining her trust and putting her at ease. Whereas Bolton makes no secret that he cares deeply for Heather and wants a loving relationship with her, Brandon appears surly and increasingly standoffish, refusing to acknowledge he cares and believing that Heather prefers his brother above him. I really felt for him as he has his reasons for acting in that way. Heather loves both brothers but will a schism develops between Heather and Bolton and Brandon on the other side? It takes nearly losing Heather before the stubborn Brandon realises his mistake, but will she forgive him? This story was the first I had read by the author and I loved the scorching and intense love-making scenes, which leave nothing to the imagination!
A Home with Them #2
In At Home with Them, we meet Jessie, rescued by Wyatt and Kent, when she was a teenager. The men have acted as her protectors for so long but Jessie wants a lot more! The brothers begin to see her as a woman and are committed to protecting her, taking her out of the city where they fear she will be threatened by other men, to the Border Lands. Kent, the younger brother is certain that he wants to commit to Jessie, but Wyatt is afraid that his feelings for her are little more than lust and is reticent. He also believes that Jessie does not deserve to be shared. However, Jessie is certain that she wants both men and goes all out to seduce them both. I waited with bated breath to see whether the stubborn Wyatt would succumb to her advances! Once again here are some tantalizing and scorching scenes between the two heroes and their heroine which I really enjoyed.
Their Border Lands Temptress #3
In Their Border Lands Temptress Ronnie, who has been successfully living on her own since escaping from an abusive relationship, finds that she needs their help and protection when she is involved in an accident. I really felt for Ronnie as she is initially skittish and distrustful around the men due to her abusive past and I loved how sensitive the men were to her fears. Both Brice and Garrett are attracted to her and know that without protection no matter how independent Ronnie is, she is vulnerable to being taken by men who only want to possess her body. There is a lot of tension in this tale as Ronnie has to give her trust and Brice and Garrett, long time friends, have to decide if they are willing to settle down before danger threatens Ronnie and it is too late.
Please note, a copy of this book was given to me by the author for the purpose of a fair and honest review.
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Posted in Erotic Romance, Erotica, Futuristic, Review, REVIEWS (ALL) - Reverse Chronological Order, Romance
Tagged erotic-post-apocalyptic-romance, erotic-romance, kidnapping, menage, mfm, slavery
November 13, 2014 by Caroline Barker
*PROMO POST with Author Bio & Excerpt* The Seventeen Commandments of Jimmy September by S. R. Wilsher
CRIME SUSPENSE THRILLER (Adult 18yrs+)
For those readers who love a contemporary crime suspense thriller adventure, we are excited to introduce you to THE SEVENTEEN COMMANDMENTS OF JIMMY SEPTEMBER by S.R. Wilsher. The reader's discretion is advised and an 18yr+ reader is strongly recommended.
Title: The Seventeen Commandments of Jimmy September
Author: S.R. Wilsher
Genre: Thriller suspense/crime, contemporary, adventure
Warlord, 'General' Jimmy September believes he is a great soldier and teacher, destined to lead his people to a better future. In order to fund an upcoming war, he kidnaps five multi-national aid workers from a refugee camp in West Africa.
When the governments of the nationals involved refuse to pay a ransom, Mark Samuel, finance director and father to one of the hostages, misappropriates three million sterling of company funds to secure his son's release.
As he battles his way through a hostile environment and unhelpful officialdom, struggling to hold on to the money long enough to save his son, Mark Samuel discovers a reason to succeed more important than securing his own future.
He noticed them the moment they stepped into the carriage. It wasn't the clothes they wore, nor their age or skin colour, or even that they were noisy that drew his eye and kept it on them. It was the way they moved and the places where their hungry, agitated eyes settled.
It was early in the morning for the commuters clinging to the roof rails pretending not to notice the young men pushing past, late in the night for the edgy and chemically restless lads. Their voices were raised, their language coarse and threatening as they barged and glared. The uneven switching between laughter and abuse, unpredictable and irrational, created a palpable fear in the carriage.
The lead one was lean and rangy, stood in a way that made his teenage frame appear bigger, and with it was the sardonic half grin of a boy who thought of himself as more hunter than prey.
The first one was tugged back on his sleeve by the second youth, then the slightest of nods. The other two youths hung back by the doors. They were unsettled and twitchy, brought mildly to heel by the knowledge that they were still vulnerable to the rule of law.
The first two regarded their victim for the smallest of moments before stopping and separating. They positioned themselves either side of someone out of sight of the watching man.
Across the aisle of the bucketing carriage was a free length of rail, so he stepped across to see more clearly.
She was a young girl, no more than twenty with long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Her clothes were clean, smart and new and on her lap was a large soft leather bag. She wore earphones connected to a mobile phone that preoccupied her.
He recognised their intention because he had nearly been like them; could pinpoint the day it had changed for him. The grazed knuckles and the terror he had put into someone else's eyes had hollowed out his stomach and dumped from him the anger he had been toting for years.
That had been twenty-eight years ago and Mark Samuel was now forty-five. The boy he had once been had faded in his memory. Ruth always liked to claim she had saved him, but he'd already changed paths by the time he met her. She wouldn't even have looked at his old self.
He wondered when it might happen and what he could do about it if it did: whether he was prepared to do anything when it did.
He did not consider himself a brave man, not in the same way that he had felt indestructible when he was their age. Yet he would have choked on the label of coward. If he'd been forced to choose one word to describe himself, and through his life he had tried many for size, he had reluctantly come to realise that there was only one that fitted properly now. He had become a careful man.
He had a careful job in a careful part of the world and had enjoyed a careful marriage that he had always imagined would take him through to a careful old age. Or he had at least until nine months ago when he and Ruth had agreed, with very little heat from his side, that they had gone as far as they were likely to ever go in their marriage and they had arranged their own careful divorce. He hadn't wanted it, but neither had he worked very hard to avoid it.
The girl had put her mobile back into her bag and was looking at the underground map pasted to the curved roof. Was she preparing to get off? She didn't seem aware she was being watched. Or she was behaving like everyone else in the carriage and pretending the young men didn't exist.
The next stop came and the iconic roundels flashed by the windows as the train slowed rapidly. She looked at the signs, the youths looked at her and he looked at all of them.
Mark considered what he could do. He regretted the loss of youth, the certainty and the recklessness with which he would have once intervened. Now they wore the shield of invincibility, while experience had given him the frayed cloak of self-doubt. His middle-aged self was unlikely to come off best in a fight with four fit young men.
Now, he feared, he would most likely only have been able to prevent something happening to the girl if it had required an explanation of managing change in large organisations, or accounting in multi-nationals.
Yet it wasn't enough for him to stand there and pretend he hadn't seen. Too much to perhaps challenge them, enough maybe to lodge misgiving. They would act not think, and he too needed to do the same, to behave without too much thought because he could easily persuade himself to do nothing.
The girl didn't stir as the train stopped. The restless youths swung between disinterest in her and over acknowledgment of each other. The woman who had been sat next to the girl rose from her seat. Mark knew that if he was going to do anything, it had to be before the girl got off the train, before the youths could get hold of her.
He stepped along the aisle, feeling self-conscious as he pushed himself into the centre of an event he had only been a spectator to moments before. He sat beside the girl. She did not look at him.
He had no words in his head to use. Each sentence he thought of would only scare her. The moment he told her what was happening she would react. She would look at the men, she would flee the train, or she would not believe him. He had no way of knowing how that might change things. There were too many variables for him to control, too many ways in which the situation might deteriorate.
She sensed his gaze and glanced at him. He tried his best fatherly expression and smiled at her. The look she threw back at him was short and unforgiving. She didn't want him to invade her bubble.
Mark smiled again and pointed at her bag. He leaned away unthreateningly. The gesture made her reluctantly reach up and pull out one of her earphones.
"It's my daughter's birthday soon, I thought I might get her a bag, I wondered where you got yours."
"Covent Garden," she said unhelpfully. She had taken him from one pigeonhole and put him into another equally as unflattering, and her reply was terse as she looked away quickly.
He sat back in his seat and looked directly at the lead youth. He knew he had some advantages. As a careful man he was also unexcitable, rarely betraying his emotions. He knew how to convince someone he was more than he was. In more than one negotiation his ability to look someone in the eye and not cave in had worked in his favour.
He might be middle aged, and his joints might ache every morning and the man who could once run a hundred metres in well under eleven seconds may have perished but he knew that, despite his heightened awareness of his own vulnerability, on the outside he looked something else.
He thought of his daughter, the girl who had so valiantly claimed on his behalf that the running to fat was still muscle and had announced that the implacable version of his face that frightened her friends made her feel safe. She had only been half-joking and he had only been half-offended. He knew he looked stern even when he did not feel it.
So he stared back long enough to create uncertainty in the young men. He could see that they were wondering how this affected things. He looked at each in turn, for too long. In a bar it might have begun a fight, but he wanted them to know he had connected them, that he had recognised the reason for their sudden downturn in activity.
The first youth flexed his arms and shook his legs. It was a loosening, threatening gesture meant to convince Mark that he was in trouble.
Instead, Mark smiled and he saw the consternation on the opposing face. It was brinkmanship, no more no less. He hoped it was enough.
The train slowed for the next station. The girl stood and moved to the doors without looking anywhere but ahead, turned her back innocently on the scene. Mark stood with her. It was not his stop but he followed her anyway.
He passed within inches of the first youth. He was taller and wider than the youngster but he had dropped the smile, now was not the time for goading.
He saw the question on the face of one of the others waiting to be answered by the lead youth. They were unsure where this was going to go.
He watched for any sign of movement and, as he passed, he switched his gaze to their reflections in the blackened windows.
The youths watched him go and stayed on the train.
Mark sat on the platform and waited to resume his ride to work. He knew that what he had done was futile. He would not be there for the next victim they chose. Still, he felt he had been the best white knight a careful man could be.
The Seventeen Commandments of Jimmy September is my third book and was intended as a departure from what had gone before as I still searched for my own style and voice. After years of struggling with my two earlier stories, with rewrite after rewrite as I tried to interest agents, self-publishing allowed me to get them out of my system and move on.
With that departure I found that I actually liked trying different genres. So much so that book four, finished and resting, is different again. Not necessarily a good idea as it makes marketing problematic and confusing for buyers. But then, the beauty of self-publishing is the first person you can please is yourself. Also, I've never been very good at working out who I'm writing for anyway, vaguely imagining a reader not unlike myself, which is probably a very small demographic.
Jimmy September was intended as a pure adventure story, very much like the kind of tales that started me writing in the first place, and written in a much shorter space of time than the first two. This has allowed me to be more productive and, apart from those mentioned above, I am also working on a series of books for teens.
On a personal note, I am married with two children and live a few minutes' walk from the beach in Dorset, England. The bulk of my career was in Sales Management, but this was cut short by the recession and compounded by the need for a kidney transplant. I now work as a Data Manager in Clinical Research. I've been writing all my adult life with my career and my writing each suffering as a result of the other. It's only recently that I've stopped pretending about a salaried career.
http://www.srwilsher.com/
https://twitter.com/SrWilsher
e.mail: info@srwilsher.com
Posted in Contemporary, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Tagged action, adventure, aid workers, author bio, contemporary, crime suspense, excerpt, hostage situation, kidnapping, ransom, rescue, S.R. Wilsher, Seventeen Commandments of Jimmy September, thriller
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*COVER REVEAL* ~ Queen of Thorns: A Dark Mafia Romance: War of Roses Universe: (Mice and Men Book 2), by Lana Sky January 8, 2021
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*BLOG TOUR* ~ The Boss Upstairs by Roya Carmen November 6, 2020
*BLOG TOUR,REVIEW & GIVEAWAY * ~ Dream Reaper, by Alistair Cross October 31, 2020
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Making coin piles from casting plaster using a temporary mould.
Making open books from stripwood, card and paper.
How to make bottles from beads.
Making rings from solder for use as door handles or curtain rings.
How to make goblets from a dolls house coffee set.
Making creepers using dried plant stems.
How to make small leaves from birch catkins.
How to make water lilies.
Making cabbages from polymer clay.
Making slime slugs from plastic sheet and epoxy.
How to make a set of tentacles.
How to make a birds nest from a scouring pad.
How to make a wolf spider nest from a wet wipe.
How to make a wasps nest from modelling clay.
How to make molehills from plaster.
Making a hay pile which can be added to a wagon.
Making a plaster spire using a card mould with templates.
How to make neat round towers using plaster blocks.
Disguising flaws as monster damage.
Filling unwanted joints in models made from plaster blocks.
Adding areas of plaster to model walls.
How to make areas of damaged plasterwork.
Making damaged window panes with cracks.
Making textured shields from an empty plastic milk bottle.
How to make shield bosses from superglue caps.
Making handles for shields from an empty water bottle.
Adding designs to your shields using adhesive tape.
Instructions for making a variety of maces from beads and cocktail sticks.
How to make a variety of polearms from cocktail sticks and other cheap materials.


text:
Q: How to read highlighted cell in excel using node JS? I have written a node js script to read data from an excel file.
My scenario is each row will have a column that has a highlighted cell (only 1). Currently, I am using xlsx package to read the data. Below is my code by which I am reading data from the sheet:
var XLSX = require('xlsx')
var workbook = XLSX.readFile('Book1.xlsx');
var sheet_name = workbook.SheetNames;
var xlData = XLSX.utils.sheet_to_json(workbook.Sheets[sheet_name[0]]);
console.table(xlData);

and this is my sample data:

How can I read the data of C3 from the above picture?
Or can anyone suggest me anyway without any package?

A: According to the documentation, you can pass cellStyles to the options when using read or readFile. This option adds the .s field to the cells, which contains the style.
You can then go through the cells and filter for cells which have bgColor in the style:
const XLSX = require('xlsx');
const workbook = XLSX.readFile('Book1.xlsx', {
  cellStyles: true
});
const sheet_name = workbook.SheetNames;
const sheet = workbook.Sheets[sheet_name[0]];

const cells = Object.entries(sheet).filter(([cell]) => !cell.startsWith('!'));
const coloredCells = cells.filter(([cell, value]) => value.s && value.s.bgColor);

for (const [cell, value] of coloredCells) {
  console.log(cell, value.w);
}

The sheet object which contains the cells seems to contain some metadata as keys which start with !, so those are filtered out.
The meat here however is this line:
cells.filter(([cell, value]) => value.s && value.s.bgColor);

It checks that the cell has a style property (.s) and that the style has a bgColor. I don't know if it's possible to set the background color explicitly to transparent or white, but in your example it seems to work. You could compare the color to the specific color you want, if there are cells with explicitly set white backgrounds.
I also make use of Object.entries, some array destructuring and for..of.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Fairfax County preparing to halve bus fares for low-income riders
FFXnow.com December 17, 2021 at 2:00pm
Changes to Virginia's gas tax and transit fees will eventually bring savings to Fairfax County bus riders facing financial hardships.
Customized Fairfax Connector bus passes will cut fares in half for low-income riders with a new program that might begin this coming summer, county staff told the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors at a transportation committee meeting on Tuesday (Dec. 14).
The county plans to reduce fares for people with incomes up to 225% of the federal poverty level. That would put the eligibility cap around $29,000 for an individual or $59,625 for a family of four.
Residents of Fairfax County as well as the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church will be eligible.
The county's transportation staff is working with the Department of Family Services and Housing and Community Development to get users of those services the discounted passes because they've already had their income screened. The county could later expand its outreach to others who qualify.
"I think this is going to be a great, great program once we get it piloted," Lee District Supervisor Rodney Lusk said.
The county will receive $5.49 million in state funds to pilot the effort for three years as part of Virginia's new Transit Ridership Incentive Program (TRIP), which supports projects that reduce barriers for low-income travelers or improve connectivity in urban areas, such as by creating dedicated bus lanes.
The grant program was created as part of a transit funding overhaul approved by Virginia General Assembly in 2020. The legislation also raised the gas tax by 5 cents per gallon on July 1, 2020 and again on July 1, 2021.
With about 30,000 daily riders, Fairfax Connector is the largest local bus system in Northern Virginia. It already offers free rides to middle and high school students, and the county temporarily suspended fares for all riders for part of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
County staff are slated to update the board on the reduced fare effort this spring.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay asked staff to return with more information about the cost of implementing and administering the program compared to "the cost of just waiving fares, period," noting that some neighboring localities are looking at eliminating fares.
"I support this needs-based one, given the size and complexity of ours," McKay said. "But I do think we need to know what the administrative cost of this is and weigh that against a larger, maybe more aggressive way to provide transit as something that our residents in need can utilize."
BREAKING: Fairfax County police have evidence of a serial killer in VirginiaHere are the top Tysons Reporter stories of the week


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text:
Keims' marriage still thriving after 75 years
It all started with a slow dance at the old Pace Theatre, the large concrete block building in the 100 block of Main Street in Chadron.
Hardly anyone still alive remembers it as much more than a storage facility, but it opened in 1916 as a movie theatre and then it is said to have had a wonderful dance floor and was used for that after the movies moved to the present location of the Eagle Theater in 1924.
"It had a great floor and was a great place to dance until they started letting people roller skate there," says the former Carol Stallings. "I was sitting with some friends when this tall, good-looking guy came and asked me to dance. That's the way things worked in those days. If he decided he liked you, he asked you to dance again and after a few dances you might be going together."
The suitor was Erwin Keim. He must have liked Carol, all right. He recalls that he had recently broken up with another girl friend whose name he has long forgotten and was "kind of looking around." He spotted Carol sitting with a few other young ladies.
Carol and Erwin Keim
Before too long, they were getting married. He was 20, she was 18. Their wedding date was April 27, 1940—75 years ago this spring. Both of their fathers, Frank Keim and Manley Stallings, accompanied them to the Sheridan County Court House in Rushville, where they tied the knot.
They're still married, happily living at 605 Maple Street in the home they purchased in 1955—60 years ago for $2.500.
Has any Chadron couple ever been married for a longer time period? (Perry and Alberta Moody had been married 73 years when he died in 1973.) They don't know, but if they haven't already broken the record, Erwin says they will.
"We plan to stick around for quite a few more years," he said emphatically several times during the interview in their home.
"Well, it depends on what the good Lord has in store for us," Carol notes. "But you can say we've had a happy marriage. Otherwise we wouldn't still be here."
One thing that makes them happy is that they're still able to live in their home and take care of their basic needs without much help. This spring, a daughter made arrangements for Joe Rischling to do more of the mowing, but they're not sure that's necessary.
"We could have kept doing it," says Carol, who operated the mower most of the time. "But since Joe was already doing some of it (areas they own outside their yard), it's OK."
The Keims have been workers. He notes that he had numerous jobs before going into the trucking business. She was involved in various Chadron restaurants for something like 40 years, maybe more.
Soon after they were married, the couple lived in northern Idaho, where he worked on the railroad and then on a military base, before they returned to western Nebraska after a couple of years.
"We then mostly worked for farmers and ranchers for about 10 years," Erwin says. Some of their employers included Major Hale and John Augustine, both east of Chadron, the Koester Brothers, who raised potatoes in the Alliance area, and March's dairy near Hot Springs.
Erwin also was a ditch rider for the Bureau of Reclamation on the Mirage Flats south of Hay Springs for six years before they settled in Chadron.
Over the years, he was employed at a Standard Station, the Chadron Milling Co. and the Chadron Tire Shop when it was located at 162 Chadron Ave., and then bought a truck.
Erwin spent approximately a decade during the 1950s and '60s at Chadron Tire when it was owned by Orrin "Pappy" Rish and his son, Dwain. It was a busy place, recapping tires besides selling new ones, doing front end alignments and repairing lots of flats.
Erwin says he got off to kind of a rocky start with his employers at the tire shop.
"One of them would tell me one thing and the other would tell me something else," he recalls. "Finally, one day, I told them I couldn't take orders from both of them and asked them "Who's my boss?"
"They went in the office for a while and came back and told me I was the boss in the back shop. I could run it the way I wanted to. From then on we got along well."
Erwin notes that Terry Cunningham, who died this past January at age 85, was one of his primary helpers at the tire shop.
The trucking included picking up cream cans at every village and town along Highway 20 east of Chadron and taking them to Valentine after the Chicago and North Western Railroad ceased doing that. This was in the days when most farmers and ranchers milked at least a few cows, separated the cream and sold it. The proceeds were often used as "grocery money."
The Keims' second son, Jim, who lives in Norfolk, helped collect and haul the cream cans.
"We made the trip three times a week in the winters and five times a week in the summers," Jim remembers. "It was a 12-hour round trip."
After their four kids were in school, Carol joined the work force. She says her first job was helping Juanita McKnight at what she calls "the Refinery Lunch," also called Sioux Skillet and located on West Highway 20. That launched a long career in the food service business.
She also "ran the soda fountain" at Saults Drug, later Myers Drug, for a while, and worked for George Grosh at the Chuck Wagon Restaurant for a time before managing Helen's Café on West Highway 20 for 11 years after Grosh purchased it in 1972. She eventually purchased the café previously owned by Jack Elwood on West Second Street where Marie's is now located and renamed it Carol's Kitchen. She ran the café for about two and a half years before selling it in 1985 after receiving an offer she couldn't refuse.
"If you're going to be in the restaurant business you better be prepared to work a lot of hours," Carol notes.
Jo Kominek, who had been married to the Keims' oldest son, LeRoy, worked with Carol at Helen's and Carol's Kitchen for more than a decade. She says Carol was an excellent cook and manager and was good to her employees. Jo, who has been married to Jim Kominek since 1988 and is the office manager for their Circle J Glass business, checks on the Keims at their home on a daily basis.
Besides work, the Keims have had other interests. Erwin claims he can name six different locations where he bowled in Chadron over the years.
"At one time I bowled three or four times a week," he states. When asked if he was a good bowler, he says, "pretty fair,"
Carol has been in charge of "the fine needle booth" at the Dawes County Fair "for years," a friend notes. She still helps with the Food Basket distributions on Tuesdays.
Erwin was born Sept. 21, 1919 at Franklin, Neb., and Carol was born Dec. 29, 1921 at Wray, Colo.
The Stallings family moved to Chadron in 1929 so her father could sell Delco light plants to farmers and ranchers. The Keims came about a decade later.
While Erwin's oldest brother, Alvin, another longtime Chadron resident, and his youngest sister, Kathryn, have passed away, his brothers Frankie of Chadron and David of Bridgeport and sister Anna Lee, who lives in Florida, are still doing well.
Carol is the youngest of four in her family and the only one still living.
The couple's children are LeRoy, who worked at the power plant near Glenrock, Wyo., before retiring; Jim, who lives in Norfolk after a long career in the dairy products industry; Phyllis Mosely, who lives in Lakewood, Colo.; and Karen Rich of Spearfish.
"It makes you feel kind of old when your youngest child is nearly 70," Erwin notes.
They have 10 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and 15 great-great grands.
Carol says it seems as if the years have "flown by," but adds they've enjoyed life "most of the time."
Erwin says, "We've never had time to argue about anything. We never had a fight in our life. We were too busy for that."
Ward baseball honorees from 60 years ago
Chadron lad became a Beverly Hills Cop
Early Crawford students may have "packed iron"
Late Chadron man's novels get "thumbs up"


The end goal of finance and accounting is to keep records, and make sure activities are sustainable for some given period. This happens when costs are examined and budgets are created.
Activity Based Costing (ABC) - Another alternative method of tracking costs in order to see how profitable a product or customer is. All activities are assigned a cost. A percentage of each activity used to create a product or service can then be summed for an overall cost.
Budgets are used to regulate work done and money spent. Budgets are also where most assumptions that are made come into play. The two main goals of any budget are planning and control (goals and satisfying goals).
A general master budget can be broken up into many smaller budgets. This helps organize the task and ensure its correctness.
An additional step that is often used when creating a budget is that of flexible budgets. A flexible budget is a budget based on activity ranges. Instead of creating one possible sales figure, or production figure, a few range or checkpoint numbers are chosen and a budget line is created for each of these.


text:
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank. But first, it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAITWAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Or click the Contact Us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org. There, you can find out about attending our weekly live shows back at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show in Hartford, Conn., on March 15 and our April 5 show in Columbus, Ohio.
Hi, you are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
ANNA CARMACK: Hi. This is Anna Carmack (ph) calling from Atlanta, Ga.
SAGAL: Hey. How are things in Atlanta?
CARMACK: They're good. I am visiting from Maine, though. So it's a little - they think it's cold. I think it's warm.
SAGAL: Really? So what are you doing in Atlanta?
CARMACK: I am a medical student down here doing an elective rotation.
SAGAL: Oh, OK. Cool. So it's an elective rotation. What did you choose, then, to study?
CARMACK: I'm at the CDC for a few weeks.
SAGAL: Oh, you are?
ADAM FELBER: Oh.
CARMACK: Yeah - in the flu division so keeping busy.
SAGAL: Things have changed. But is the CDC against diseases, or are they for them now?
CARMACK: Hopefully against.
SAGAL: All right. Anna, welcome to the show. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly on two of the limericks, you'll be a winner. You ready to play?
CARMACK: OK. Yeah.
SAGAL: Here's your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS: Because everyone plays MP3s, we don't need discs of all the Bee Gees. And each cracked jewel case was just eating up space, so the stores have stopped selling...
CARMACK: CDs.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Best known as those shiny little plates used to keep crows away...
SAGAL: ...CDs will no longer be sold at Best Buy, where for years they've been one of the worst buys. The thing is, most people thought CDs were gone years ago, but they've been here all the time - like Nazis.
SAGAL: Does this make you guys sad because you all grew up with CDs?
FELBER: The countdown has just started to when hipsters start insisting it's the best sound out there.
SAGAL: That's true.
SAGAL: Here is your next limerick.
KURTIS: With my beak, I play heavy percussion. I peck holes in the wood - no discussion. Each day, I sustain heavy blows to my brain. This woodpecker has a...
CARMACK: Concussion.
SAGAL: Yes, concussion.
SAGAL: With all the attention paid to athletes, we've forgotten about the most obvious concussion sufferers, woodpeckers.
SAGAL: Scientists say they have found proteins in the brains of birds that indicate head trauma, trauma that comes, of course, from constantly banging its head on a tree to get food. Can you imagine if the only way to get food would be to bang your head on a Trader Joe's?
FELBER: That's what it feels like when you try to park there.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know. You finally - you bang your head. You bang your head, and finally you make a little hole, and the peanut butter-filled pretzels finally come out.
SAGAL: Not only do they have to do that, they have the stupidest name - woodpecker.
FELBER: Yeah.
SAGAL: Yeah.
FELBER: You won't find that in a certain school dictionary.
SAGAL: Certainly not.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Here, Anna, is your last limerick.
KURTIS: Hot fashion has news I can use. New footwear, I'm choosing by twos. The runway extolls double layers of soles, so I'm wearing some shoes on my...
CARMACK: Shoes?
SAGAL: Yeah, shoes on your shoes.
SAGAL: It's - if you're having a hard time envisioning what shoes for shoes are - good. That means you're not wearing them. So a Chinese designer has created this pair of shoes you strap onto the shoes you're already wearing, sort of the same way you would strap on an old-style pair of roller skates. Roller skates are, of course, safer because you might break your leg, but at least you won't look like a moron.
SAGAL: And the idea was - it was designed as a fashionable way to protect the expensive shoes that you might be wearing. You know, you don't want to ruin your $800 loafers, so you strap on these $350 shoe protectors.
AMY DICKINSON: And they're, like, giant crampons, right?
SAGAL: Sort of, yeah.
FELBER: It sounds like someone just reinvented goloshes and put a big price tag on it.
SAGAL: Sort of - but they're much more expensive that eventually you're not going to want to ruin them, so you have to get a pair of shoes for your shoes...
SAGAL: ...For your shoes for your shoes - and then, of course, a pair of shoes for your shoes for your shoes for your shoes. And eventually, you'll have so many shoes on your feet that you'll ram your head on the bottom of Elon Musk's car.
SAGAL: Bill, how did Anna do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Anna, that undergrad at Notre Dame paid off. You got them all right. You killed it.
SAGAL: Congratulations.
CARMACK: Thank you.
SAGAL: Anna, thank you so much for playing.
CARMACK: Thank you. Have a good day.
SAGAL: Bye-bye. You, too.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKING")
NANCY SINATRA: Are you ready, boots? Start walking. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
An Egremont Education
Meet Our Egremont Team
Support Egremont
Inquiries & Appointments
Early-Kindergarten
What grade levels are offered at Egremont?
Egremont provides instruction to students in Preschool through 5th grade. Preschool students may enter our program beginning at age 2 years 6 months and must be fully potty trained.
What are Egremont's hours of operation?
Egremont opens at 7:00 AM and closes at 6:00 PM. Classroom instruction begins at 8:30 AM for Preschool and Early Kindergarten and ends at 2:30 PM. Kindergarten through 5th grade classes begin at 8:15 AM and end at 2:45 PM. Extended day care is provided before and after classroom instruction time at an additional charge.
What is the maximum number of students in a class?
Due to COVID-19, class sizes may vary to comply with social distancing protocols.
The Preschool and Early Kindergarten classrooms have a 12:1 ratio of students to teacher. Class sizes do not exceed 24 full time students on a daily basis. The maximum number of students in a Kindergarten through 5th grade classroom is 20.
What types of specialty classes are offered at Egremont?
As part of the curriculum at Egremont, Physical Education, Foreign Language, Music, Art, Theatrical Dance, and Technology courses are offered to varying grade level students in Preschool through 5th grade. These classes are taught by specialty teachers in their respective disciplines.
Are all teachers at Egremont credentialed?
All Kindergarten - 5th grade teachers hold a minimum of a bachelor's degree. Preschool-Early Kindergarten teacher are required to have a minimum of 12 ECE units. Most of Egremont's teachers are credentialed, and some have or are working on their Master's degree.
Does Egremont Have a School Nurse and Security Officer?
Egremont staffs a certified/registered nurse five days a week on a part time basis. Egremont also staffs a certified security officer on a full time basis.
Does Egremont have a library?
Yes... Egremont has a library located in the main administration building which houses a wide array of over 7,000 books. It is staffed by a part-time librarian. Students may borrow books during scheduled class visitations, or students may borrow books after school during open library times of 2:45 - 3:30 PM. The library contains a large selection of Preschool through Middle School grade level books which include fiction, non-fiction, and reference books. The Egremont library has an extensive collection of Newberry Award winning books. In addition to our library, each classroom has a mini-library which contains grade specified books for research and pleasure reading. The library is always grateful for donations.
Does Egremont have a dress code?
Yes... Egremont students in grades Preschool through 5th wear uniforms in order to present a cohesive look to our student body.
Does Egremont offer a summer camp program?
Due to COVID-19, summer camp programs may be cancelled.
Yes... Egremont offers a summer camp program that encompasses academic enrichment and fun-filled activities.
What types of national recognition programs does Egremont have for students?
Egremont participates in the Presidential Physical Fitness program for Kindergarten through 5th grade students, the Presidential Recognition of Excellence Awards, and the National Elementary Honor Society for 4th through 5th graders.
Does Egremont have a lunch program?
Due to COVID-19, our lunch program will not be in use for the 2020-2021 school year.
Egremont engages the services of "The Caterer" to prepare and serve fresh and healthy lunches on our campus in our state-of-the-art kitchen. Students eat their lunches in our cafeteria. Lunches are $6.25 per day for Preschool and Early Kindergarten and $6.75 per day for Kindergarten through 5th grades. Students may bring their own lunches to school, but the staff is unable to heat food from home.
What types of before and/or after school programs does Egremont offer?
Due to COVID-19, contracted vendors will not be conducting after-school classes for the 2020-2021 school year.
Egremont offers our Extended Day Care Program (EDC) to all students. Morning EDC begins at 7:00 AM and the afternoon EDC begins at 2:30 PM / 2:45 PM. EDC is a program provided at an additional charge.
In addition to our normal EDC program, Egremont does offer additional classes through contracted vendors in areas such as piano, cooking, karate, golf, tennis, Play Ball, Kids Art, hip-hop, computers, swimming (seasonal), cheer leading, and drama. An additional fee applies for each of these programs.
Due to COVID-19, after school competitive sports will not be offered for the 2020-2021 school year.
Egremont offers after school competitive sports programs in the areas of soccer, basketball, and volleyball.
Additional fees apply.
Does Egremont offer tuition assistance?
Egremont offers tuition assistance/scholarships to students via the TADS program. Please see the "Tuition and Fees" section of our website for additional information.
How are contract enrollment fees, tuition, and other costs paid at Egremont?
Contract enrollment fees are paid to Egremont through an outside company called Smart Tuition. The contract enrollment fee payment secures enrollment for the upcoming school year. Payments may be made via credit card (subject to a fee charge) or check.
Tuition and EDC (contract users) are billed through Smart Tuition. Families have the option of paying through automatic deduction via checking account or credit card. Credit card payments incur a convenience fee.
Payments for uniforms, EDC (non-contract users), or other applicable charges may be made to the school via credit card (subject to a fee charge), cash, or check.
Where do most 5th grade Egremont graduates attend middle school?
Historically, the majority of our 5th grade students apply for and are accepted into other private middle schools in the general area. A small percentage attend public schools.
Does Egremont offer volunteer opportunities for parents?
Due to COVID-19, in-person volunteer opportunities will not be available for the 2020-2021 school year.
Yes... Egremont gladly welcomes parents to get involved in their children's school experience. Egremont has a "Parent Volunteer Committee" structure that allows parents to sign-up for volunteer opportunities at school events such as Halloween festivities, classroom celebrations, Grandparent's/Grandfriends' Day, movie nights, meet & greet socials... and many more! Egremont is proud to have such a fantastic group of parents who are willing to support their children and our school!
19850 Devonshire St.
Chatsworth, CA 91311
FAX: (818) 831-5670
Copyright 2018 Egremont School


Sugarwork for Revlon is Now In Print!
I am so thrilled that the sugarwork I did for Revlon last year is now in print.
So exciting. It is in major fashion magazines and on billboards.
I found it on this one at National and Overland Boulevards in Los Angeles.