The Automatic Musical Instruments Collector's Association (AMICA) was formed in 1963 by a group of collectors in the San Francisco area, committed to the preservation, restoration and enjoyment of vintage mechanical musical instruments that play by themselves, focusing on those made from 1885–1935. Typical examples include player pianos, reproducing pianos, player reed organs, player pipe organs, orchestrions, music boxes, fairground organs, etc. Music media includes paper music rolls, folding continuous cardboard music, pinned cylinders, and pinned discs, etc. The scope of interest embraces not only the instruments themselves, but also their music media and published literature of the whole of the industry throughout this era.

Since 1964, the association has grown to some 1,300 members worldwide, with 13 Chapters throughout the USA. It is now affiliated with 15 related associations, societies and institutions. It holds annual conventions and from time to time these are held in foreign locations such as the United Kingdom (1995), Australia (2001) and Germany (2007).

External links
AMICA website

Mechanical musical instruments
Organizations established in 1963
1963 establishments in California


The George Sumner House is a historic house at 32 Paige Hill Road in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  The -story late Federal wood-frame house was built sometime before 1830, probably for Major George Sumner (who is recorded as its owner in 1855).  Sumner was a leader in the early development of the textile industry in Southbridge, being the first in the area to offer as a service the complete cycle of woolen textile processing, although some work was still initially done in homes, not in a factory setting.  The house is notable for the fanlight window on the gable end, which is a late 19th-century addition.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

Federal architecture in Massachusetts
Houses completed in 1812
Houses in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts


Penelope "Penny" Hofstadter is a fictional character from the American CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actress Kaley Cuoco. She is the primary female character in the series, befriending her neighbors Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), two physicists employed at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Penny's lack of advanced education sets her apart from the group, and her outgoing personality and social aptitude drastically contrast with the personalities of the primary male characters in the series. She is the primary love interest of Leonard, who briefly dates her during the third season. This relationship is later resumed in the fifth season and culminates in their engagement at the end of the seventh season and their wedding at the start of season nine.

Development

In the original, unaired pilot of The Big Bang Theory, the conception of the female lead was very different. She was called Katie, and was envisioned as "a street-hardened, tough-as-nails woman with a vulnerable interior". Sheldon and Leonard would "approach her with honesty, to draw the real, sensitive Katie out". The role was played by Amanda Walsh. However, the test audiences reacted to the character negatively, seeing her as too mean. Because of this, the character was changed, and the role was recast. Marisa Tomei, Tara Reid, Elizabeth Berkley, and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe were all also considered for the role.

In the show's early seasons, Penny was portrayed as a young woman who was out of Leonard's intellectual league. But the character developed into a more complex individual with high emotional intelligence, social skills, and work ethic.

Characterization

Personality
Penny is originally from a small town outside of Omaha, Nebraska.

She has full confidence in pseudoscientific concepts such as horoscopes, psychics, and Voodoo, which has led to repeated mocking from both Sheldon and Leonard along with criticisms of their accuracy.

In contrast to the rest of the group, Penny is neither well-educated nor savvy in a specific field and is generally somewhat dim-witted, but she has great social skills and is more streetwise than her neighbors. She is knowledgeable about popular culture. She is messy, disorganized, and highly irresponsible (both personally and financially).

Having dropped out of community college prior to the start of the series, she is the only regular character with less education than Howard Wolowitz, who has a master's degree. In season six, she returns to college, taking a history class and hiding it from the rest of the group. She initially performs terribly in her college classes. It is revealed in later seasons that Penny has continued her education, taking both an acting and a psychology class.

When expressing feelings of anger or frustration, other characters have compared her to The Hulk, a "rabid wolverine", and "killer robots".

Penny's poor driving ability and failure to maintain her vehicle are acknowledged throughout the series. She is known to ignore her check engine light and has left her passenger side wing mirror in a parking lot somewhere in Hollywood after trying to park her car. She also hit a Mercedes in a parking lot and knocked the side-view mirror off of Bernadette's car; not leaving a note in either incident. In season seven, her car engine fails and she receives a new car from Leonard.

In the fifth-season episode "The Speckerman Recurrence", Penny is revealed to have unknowingly been a bully while in school. She attempts to make amends with a classmate she tormented, and although she does her best, she sees little success.

Another recurring personality trait is her ability to consume large amounts of alcohol, especially wine. In "The Flaming Spittoon Acquisition", while spending the evening with Bernadette and Amy, Penny observes that they have finished the bottle of wine, and when Bernadette and Amy point out that they consumed only half a glass and no wine at all, respectively, Penny snaps, "Okay, don't judge me! So, what do you want to do, go to the movies, go dancing, lay down for a little bit?" At the end of that episode, she passes out while the three of them play Twister, and when Bernadette initially fails to revive her, she says "Penny, we're out of wine", which manages to wake Penny. In "The Intimacy Acceleration", Sheldon asks her, "If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?" Penny replies, "Well, not to steal from the Bible, but turning water into wine sounds pretty good." Then, in "The Locomotive Manipulation", Leonard declines Amy's suggestion that the group spends a weekend in Napa Valley, leading to this exchange:

Leonard: "I'm not sure it's a great idea to take Penny to where wine comes from. (Looks at Penny) What? It's a joke. Oh, come on. We bust on each other. I wear dorky glasses, you might have a problem, it's all for laughs."
Penny: "That would really piss me off if I didn't have a buzz going on."

Nerd traits
A number of episodes depict Penny's assimilation of nerd culture through her time spent with the men, and she has quoted some science fiction shows (like Star Trek) and movies (Star Wars). After Sheldon introduces her to the online role-playing game Age of Conan, Penny becomes addicted to the point of ignoring her friends, hygiene, general appearance and job, pestering Sheldon incessantly for gaming advice. This likely resulted from frustration with her life at that point, believing herself to be a failure in most aspects of her life. She overcomes her addiction when she realizes she has agreed to go on a virtual date within the game with Howard. Penny has also displayed proficiency in playing Halo 3 and Fortnite despite being a complete newbie, annoying Sheldon (and Bernadette).

In season three, she asks Sheldon to teach her "a little physics" so she could talk to Leonard about his job (like Bernadette does). She manages to recite a brief summary (obviously written by Sheldon for her to memorize) of Leonard's experiment during dinner, which puzzles Leonard, Howard, and Raj.

In episodes such as "The Apology Insufficiency", "The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition", "The Wheaton Recurrence", and "The Love Car Displacement", she makes casual references to Star Trek. In "The Bakersfield Expedition", Penny, Amy and Bernadette read some of the men's comics, believing there is nothing interesting in them, only to get into a heated argument about whether or not only Thor could wield his enchanted hammer Mjolnir. In season seven's "The Proton Transmogrification", she alarms herself when she realizes that she understands Raj and Howard's corny Star Wars-related puns. In "The Werewolf Transformation", although a complete beginner, she has beaten Leonard in chess despite not knowing the names of the chess pieces. Leonard later expressed astonishment that his girlfriend plays like Bobby Fischer.

Penny sometimes references science and technology-related ideas. In "The Codpiece Topology", Penny, having previously learned of Schrödinger's cat in "The Tangerine Factor", is seen explaining that concept to her date. In "The Beta Test Initiation", Penny references beta testing when Leonard uses a software development analogy, to describe their attempt to start a romantic relationship again, although he points out he was technically talking about alpha testing. In "The Veracity Elasticity", she demonstrates fluency in Ubbi dubbi by having a secret conversation with Amy Farrah Fowler in front of Sheldon and Leonard when the guys are having their own secret conversation in Klingon.

Financial issues
A recurring theme throughout the series is Penny's ongoing financial problems and poverty. This is seen in "The Financial Permeability", when she finds herself behind on her bills, and borrows money from Sheldon, only to later become paranoid into thinking that he is pestering her for repayment, even though he makes no such indications of this – he misinterprets Penny's paranoia and even offers her more money, while Leonard points out that one of the few things about Sheldon that isn't insufferable is that he genuinely doesn't care about how long it will take to repay the money. Other references are seen in the fact that she once attempted to pay for her electric bill using a Starbucks gift card, an apology note and pictures of her in underwear.

A subset of this trait is addressed by other characters is her freeloading. In the second-season episode "The Financial Permeability", when Penny is short on money, Leonard pays for her share of a group dinner, which causes Raj and Howard to joke that they would get free food too if they wore skintight jeans and a tank top. A recurring gag in the fourth season is Sheldon's frequent change of his and Leonard's Wi-Fi password to address Penny's use of their signal. In "The Thespian Catalyst", he changes the password to "Penny is a freeloader", in "The Roommate Transmogrification" he has changed it to "Penny, get your own Wi-Fi", and in the episode "The Speckerman Recurrence", he has changed it into "Penny already eats our food, she can pay for Wi-Fi". In the seventh season "The Convention Conundrum", when the women go out for drinks and ponder their own maturity, and Penny questions the significance of that trait, Bernadette replies that it would mean that their check would be split three ways.

Penny's financial situation radically improves when she begins working as a sales representative at the pharmaceutical company that employs Bernadette, in the eighth-season episode "The Locomotion Interruption".  By "The Expedition Approximation", she is making enough money to be financially self-sufficient, able to sell the automobile Leonard previously gave her, and gives him back the money for it—changing their dynamic and leading to discussions on whether her future financial windfalls may prove difficult for him, given his insecurities. This situation was later exacerbated when it was revealed that Penny was earning significantly more than Leonard.

In the ninth-season episode "The Big Bear Precipitation", Penny reveals she hates her job as a representative but sticks with it because she still has large debts to pay and also does not want to go back to waitressing or acting.

Work
Penny initially moves to California in the hopes of becoming an actress.

Until the seventh season, Penny works predominantly as a waitress at her local The Cheesecake Factory, although in the first-season episode "The Grasshopper Experiment" she trained as a bartender. It seemed that she occasionally picked up the bartending shift in the restaurant. In 2010, when actress Kaley Cuoco broke her leg, Penny was shown working as a bartender in several fourth-season episodes to hide the cast on her leg.

Her work at The Cheesecake Factory was initially meant to be a temporary job for her desired profession as an actress, although her expectations are somewhat high and naive at the beginning. She admits in season two that her plan was to be a waitress for six months and then become a movie star, and her backup plan was to become a TV star. She regularly goes to castings but is most often unsuccessful or finds the role to be quite different from what she expected, as when a cat food commercial audition was actually for a pornographic film. In the season one episode "The Loobenfeld Decay", she is cast in a production of Rent, and in "The Terminator Decoupling" she refers to another of her roles as "Anne Frank in a theater above a bowling alley". Frustrated with her acting career, in the fifth-season premiere, she briefly considers returning to Nebraska until landing a part in a commercial for hemorrhoid cream. In "The Monster Isolation", Penny is seen performing the role of Blanche DuBois in her acting class's production of A Streetcar Named Desire. In this episode, Sheldon, who attended the show along with Leonard and Amy, is impressed with Penny's ability to memorize lines despite not remembering customers' orders as a waitress. In the seventh-season premiere, she was revealed to have had a topless shower scene in a low-budget horror film named "Serial Apeist" when she first moved to California, which she did not realise had been uploaded to the internet until Sheldon revealed it was available online and that the gang saw it on the day they met her.

In the season seven episode "The Hesitation Ramification", Penny believes she found stardom when she lands a brief role in NCIS. She is devastated when her scene is cut, but later decides it is time to focus solely on acting; she quits her job at The Cheesecake Factory to devote herself to becoming an actress.

Despite usually going to her neighbors for technical assistance when she has problems with her computer, Penny does have some mechanical skills of her own. When she was a child, she rebuilt a tractor engine on the farm where she grew up and competed in a junior rodeo.

During season eight, Penny abandons acting and takes a job as a salesperson at Bernadette's pharmaceutical company. The following season, Penny admits that she hates flirting with her customers for sales. In season ten, she almost changed her job when her ex-boyfriend Zack (Brian Thomas Smith) offers her a position at his menu company. Leonard reluctantly supports her but when she called Zack to accept the job, Zack informs her that his fiancée does not like the idea of Penny working with Zack (given their history). In season twelve, Bernadette gets Penny to head the sales team to promote her new drug in "The Confirmation Polarization". After a competitor tries to recruit Penny in "The Conference Valuation", Bernadette assures Penny that she is great at her job, elevating Penny's sense of self-worth.

Relationships

Unlike the rest of the main characters, Penny is an extrovert. She is very outgoing and assertive, and has many sexual relationships over the course of the series. She often dates, and in one way or another all the men have gone to her for dating advice. In the fourth season opener, Sheldon estimates that Penny has dated 193 men, and had sex with 31 of them. Penny strenuously denies it was ever that many. Amy asks Penny in the same conversation if, in light of her sex partners, she considers herself a "slut", Penny responds with uncertainty, "No. No. ... No?"

In the series premiere, Penny moves in across the hall from Leonard and Sheldon because of her recent split from her boyfriend, Kurt, after living together for four years.
She says she still loves him, even though he cheated on her. Kurt makes two more appearances in the series.

Howard shows interest in her (primarily sexual), but he is always rejected abruptly due to his unsettling approaches. Although Penny occasionally teases Raj for his inability to speak to her, she is sympathetic and kind towards him and, as with Sheldon, she almost always overlooks his idiosyncrasies and appreciates that his intentions are good.

In the first-season episode "The Fuzzy Boots Corollary", Penny describes her approach after a failed relationship: she picks up an attractive man to have rebound sex with over the course of a 36-hour weekend, then leaves him.

Leonard

From the beginning, Leonard's infatuation with Penny becomes a major force that drives the series. In the first-season finale, Penny breaks up with her boyfriend after he posts intimate details about their private life on his blog. This gives Leonard the opportunity to ask her on a first official date. Although the date is successful, Penny becomes worried after she lies to Leonard about graduating from community college (it is mentioned in a later episode, "The Cohabitation Formulation", that she was enrolled in one, but dropped out). When Sheldon asks her why she lied, she indicates that she is self-conscious about their comparative level of education. Leonard eventually learns the truth, but makes matters worse when he tries to encourage Penny to enroll in Pasadena City College, as Penny interprets his suggestion as an insult to her intelligence, and rebuffs him.

In "The Maternal Capacitance", Penny's introduction to Leonard's mother, Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, causes Penny and Leonard to seek comfort in each other. They nearly have sex, but when Leonard comments in bed that she was attracted to him because of a psychological need to be closer to her father, her revulsion at this causes her to rebuff him.

Afterwards, Penny dates Stuart, from the comic book store, but their dates do not lead to a relationship. The first time, Penny and Stuart are interrupted by Sheldon, who argues at length with Stuart over whether Dick Grayson or Jason Todd should be Batman's successor, while Penny falls asleep. Their dating ends in "The Classified Materials Turbulence", when Penny and Stuart are kissing, and Penny mistakenly calls him "Leonard".

In the second-season finale Penny shows strong romantic feelings for Leonard. When she discovers that Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj will be spending three months at the magnetic North Pole for a scientific experiment, she becomes sad and gives Leonard a Snuggie and a long hug, that Leonard perceives as unusually long. Although Penny dismisses the meaning into which Leonard reads the gift and the hug, she later admits to herself that it meant that she did not want him to leave.

In the third-season premiere, after the men returned from the expedition, Penny kisses Leonard immediately upon his return, having missed him immensely. Initially, Leonard and Penny feel uncomfortable with their new relationship, and they agree to remain only friends, but are unable to maintain this resolution and began a stable relationship. Their relationship sours, however, when Leonard tells Penny he loves her for the first time, and an unsure Penny simply replies, "Thank you." The resulting tension eventually leads to Penny tearfully breaking up with Leonard during a bowling match. However, they remain friends and sleep together once after Penny gets drunk following a bad date with Zack Johnson, after she realizes Leonard ruined her ability to tolerate and date unintelligent men.

In the fourth season, Penny reveals to her friends Bernadette Rostenkowski and Amy Farrah Fowler during a "Truth or Dare?" game that she has still not moved on from Leonard. This is further implied in "The Justice League Recombination" when she indicates to Leonard that her reunion with Zack, and Zack's decision to have the two of them join the men in dressing up as the Justice League for New Year's Eve costume party at Stuart's comic shop is made difficult by her history with Leonard. In "The Love Car Displacement", Penny and the rest of the cast attend an academic conference in Big Sur. She and Leonard share the same hotel room for the night and they almost have sex until Raj walks in on them. The next day, bored with the conference, Penny accepts a ride back to Los Angeles from Professor Glenn, Bernadette's tall and attractive ex-boyfriend. When Raj's sister, Priya, returns in the episode "The Cohabitation Formulation", Priya and Leonard begin a romantic relationship. Penny appears to be initially accepting of their relationship, but is later discovered by Amy to be heartbroken over it.

In the fourth-season finale, Penny reveals to Raj that she made a huge mistake by breaking up with Leonard. However, even though she and Raj both agree to be friends, they get drunk and wake up in bed together, apparently both naked, the next morning. Leonard, Sheldon, and Howard discover Penny leaving the apartment, deducing that they just had sex. In the fifth-season premiere, Raj confides to her that they had not consummated their encounter and instead just fell asleep, prompting Penny to refer to Raj as "Quickdraw" because of that. She spends the rest of the episode with Amy, avoiding the men due to her embarrassment over her encounter with Raj.

In "The Ornithophobia Diffusion" Leonard and Penny go on a platonic date as friends, but after Leonard decides that he does not have to pay for everything or defer to her because they are not a couple, they end up bickering and sabotaging each other's attempts to socialize with members of the opposite sex. Penny realizes that she finds Leonard's more assertive demeanor attractive, but when he regresses to groveling in order to have sex with her, she rebuffs him.

On the spur of the moment in "The Recombination Hypothesis", Leonard asks Penny out on a date after he imagines what getting back with her might be like. In "The Beta Test Initiation", their date goes well until Leonard asks about the status of their relationship. This causes conflict, due to Penny's subsequent admission that commitment frightens her, but they agree to take their relationship slowly. While having sex in "The Launch Acceleration", however, Leonard accidentally proposes to her, causing Penny great distress. After discussing the matter, Penny declines his proposal, while affirming her feelings for him, and her desire to remain with him. In the sixth-season episode "The Date Night Variable", Leonard wants a reluctant Penny to define their relationship. In "The Decoupling Fluctuation", she wonders if she is really in love with him, but cannot bring herself to discuss it with Leonard. In "The Date Night Variable", Raj shows up unannounced at a private dinner of Penny and Leonard's, and inserts himself into their discussion of where their relationship is headed. When Leonard complains that Penny has yet to say "I love you" to Leonard, Raj attempts to get her to say it, causing Penny to eject him from the apartment.

In the "Higgs Boson Observation", Sheldon hires grad student Alex Jensen to review his childhood journals for any potential ideas that might win him a Nobel Prize. After Amy and Penny observes Alex and Leonard in the Caltech cafeteria talking, Penny, although having reservations with her relationship with Leonard, is bothered with the thought of him with another woman. Later that day, Alex comes home with Sheldon to work in his apartment where Leonard and Penny are. Penny introduces herself to Alex (subtly implying that Leonard is hers) and drags Leonard to her apartment to have sex. In "The 43 Peculiarity", Leonard becomes jealous of Penny's classmate, an attractive Englishman. At the end of the episode, Penny and Leonard discuss this, during which Penny casually mentions that she loves him, which Leonard notes is the first time she has said this to him. In "The Egg Salad Equivalency" Penny learns that Sheldon's attractive assistant Alex asked Leonard out to dinner and eventually admits to Leonard her own insecurity about their relationship. After a major argument with Sheldon, Leonard suggests moving in with Penny in "The Spoiler Alert Segmentation", but she indicates that she is not ready for this. In "The Tangible Affection Proof", upon seeing her ex-boyfriend propose to the woman he cheated on her with during a Valentine's Day dinner date, Leonard again tries to propose to Penny, but she expresses that she is not ready for this, and is unnerved by that level of commitment. They resolve that when she is ready to get married, she can propose to him. In "The Bon Voyage Reaction", Penny copes with Leonard leaving for a summer science assignment in Europe, resolving that they are more secure in their relationship.

In "The Hesitation Ramification", Penny, inebriated and frustrated over the state of her acting career, proposes to Leonard, who is hesitant to answer, given the circumstances. Though this further frustrates Penny, she admits in the following episode, "The Occupation Recalibration", that Leonard did the right thing.

By season five, Penny has formed strong friendships with Doctors Amy Farrah Fowler and Bernadette Rostenkowski, and the three are often seen spending time together. However, Amy and Bernadette occasionally prefer to meet without Penny, and often tease her.

In the seventh-season episode "The Thanksgiving Decoupling", it was revealed that Penny had married Zack in Las Vegas in what they thought as a "fake" wedding. This revelation causes tension between her and Leonard who has repeatedly proposed to Penny but was always rejected. They managed to annul the wedding by getting Zack to sign the annulment papers. In the penultimate episode of season seven, "The Gorilla Dissolution", she and Leonard become engaged, after Penny realizes that it is not fame she wants out of life, but happiness with Leonard. Throughout season eight, a running gag is their reluctance to decide upon a wedding date. In the eighth-season finale, Penny asks Leonard to marry her that night in Las Vegas. Leonard happily accepts, but during the journey, after Penny expresses happiness that they will get married while knowing everything about each other, Leonard confesses to having shared a drunken kiss with another woman while on the boat in Europe, though he adds that the woman started it and he rejected her. Penny becomes hurt by the revelation, and even though she claims to forgive Leonard, there is clearly tension between them, leaving the season ending in a cliffhanger as to whether or not they will go through with the wedding.

At the beginning of season nine, Leonard and Penny marry, although not without some initial problems. They both reveal that they were subconsciously trying to sabotage their relationship, feeling unworthy of the other. Upon addressing this topic, they both agree to stop being scared of losing the other and embrace their happiness together. After an aborted attempt for Leonard to move into Penny's apartment and live with his wife, Sheldon forces them to spend most of the nights a week in Leonard's old room. Although CBS now refers to the character with the married name Penny Hofstadter, it has not been explicitly indicated in series whether she took Leonard's surname. By the ninth-season finale, Penny and Leonard decide to have a second small, unofficial wedding ceremony for their family and friends to make up for eloping. In season ten, Sheldon moves into Penny's old apartment with Amy, allowing Penny and Leonard to live on their own as husband and wife.

In season eleven, Leonard, Howard and Raj are trying to recover the bitcoin they mined years ago (now worth thousands of dollars). It is revealed that the bitcoin is in Leonard's old laptop which he gave to Penny while they were dating in season three. Penny then said that she gave the laptop to Zack after her breakup with Leonard. After retrieving the laptop, Zack shows the couple a video in the laptop that Penny made after her breakup with Leonard showing a drunk Penny apologizing to Leonard and regrets breaking up with him. Leonard is touched by the video and realizes that Penny genuinely loves him and not just out of desperation or pity.

In season twelve, Penny announces that she does not want to have any children which Leonard somewhat reluctantly supports her decision. Later, Zack and his wife Marissa wants Leonard to be a surrogate father to their kid since Zack is infertile. Penny reluctantly agrees to let Leonard donate his sperm. However, Penny tries to seduce Leonard despite knowing he has to be abstinent for a few days. Her visiting father, Wyatt, points out to Penny that her own actions suggest she is more conflicted over having kids than she lets on, to which she admits she feels bad about letting him and Leonard down if she goes through with never having children. He says that despite her flaws, parenthood is the best thing that ever happened to him and he does not want her to miss out, but he says he will support her no matter what she decides. Leonard finally changes his mind about donating his sperm to Zack, not wanting a child in the world that he cannot raise. In the series finale, Penny reveals to her friends that she is pregnant with Leonard's baby, and changes her mind about not wanting children.

Sheldon
A staple of the series' humor is Penny's awkward interactions with Sheldon, as they are almost polar opposites in terms of intellect and social aptitude. Throughout the series Sheldon often insults Penny's level of formal education, but appreciates her advice when navigating social situations.

In one episode, Sheldon tries to "improve" Penny, rewarding her with chocolate for what he considers "correct behavior", as in operant conditioning of lab rats. Leonard noticed it and accused Sheldon of training her like Pavlov's dogs. Although the two characters sometimes clash, and Penny is frequently irritated by Sheldon's obstinacy and lack of social awareness, she developed a conspicuous soft spot for him as the series progressed. She and Leonard occasionally talk and behave as if Sheldon were their child (alluded to earlier in the third-season episode "The Spaghetti Catalyst" during the final seven minutes [see next paragraph], and in the eleventh-season episode "The Collaboration Contamination" when Penny actually uses a parenting book of Bernadette's on Sheldon). Penny is delighted whenever Sheldon acts affectionately towards her, recognising that such behaviour is highly unusual for him. Penny often calls Sheldon "sweetie", a term of endearment she frequently uses with other characters (a fact that Sheldon himself points out in one episode), and Penny and Amy are the only principal characters who ever openly demonstrate their genuine fondness for Sheldon.

Evidence of Penny's affection for Sheldon is apparent in various episodes. Penny takes care of Sheldon while he is ill and lets him stay at her apartment when he is locked out of his, has a bad dream or is feeling unsafe; Sheldon lent her money when she needed it and takes care of her when she dislocates her shoulder. Despite not being as well versed as the men in geek culture, Penny has shown attention to what each of her friends likes, although she still remains dismissive of them: during a Christmas episode, Sheldon is overwhelmed when Penny gives him a napkin autographed by Leonard Nimoy. In return, Sheldon gives Penny several baskets of bath products and then a long hug, to both her and Leonard's surprise – Leonard claims it to be "a Saturnalian miracle". When Sheldon's World of Warcraft account is hacked and the four men all back down from the much larger hacker who also steals Sheldon's Klingon Bat'leth, Penny kicks the hacker in the groin. Following her breakup with Leonard, Penny takes Sheldon along when she and some friends from work went to Disneyland, for which he is thankful. In the same episode, "The Spaghetti Catalyst", she notes that she takes Sheldon shopping for his linens.  (This episode shows Leonard and Penny speaking to each other in the manner of a divorced couple arguing over Sheldon as though he were their child.) She has also helped Sheldon resolve conflicts with Amy, as in "The Shiny Trinket Manoeuvre".

In "The Panty Pinata Polarization" Penny has a fight with Sheldon as he banishes her from his apartment and using their Wi-Fi as she got "three strikes". She defends herself by refusing to take down his order at the restaurant (later suggesting that she tampered with his food after being forced to take Sheldon's order after he complained to her manager) and then ruins his weekly Saturday laundry night.  In response he puts Penny's underwear on the outside telephone wire. After having a heated argument with his mother over his actions he apologises to Penny and they make amends with one another.

On one occasion, when Penny knocks on the door to Apartment 4A in the same manner as Sheldon as a joke, she admitted to Sheldon that it started to "feel good"; Sheldon swiftly advises her not to do it again as she would be "doing it for the rest of her life".

Sheldon has acknowledged that he likes Penny, although claims he was forced to because Leonard "made him", and that Sheldon liking her was a "hard row to hoe", although in "The Intimacy Acceleration" Sheldon has admitted that he considers Penny a sisterly or motherly figure. By the series finale, Penny and Leonard admit to each other that Sheldon was "sort of our practice kid", whereas Sheldon himself calls Penny and Leonard "my two dearest friends in the world" during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

Family
In "The Maternal Capacitance", when first meeting Leonard's mother, Penny reveals that her father Wyatt (Keith Carradine) tried to raise her like a boy, which is a source of pain for her, leading her to have father issues. When she and Leonard begin dating, Wyatt comes to appreciate that she is dating an accomplished academic, rather than an uneducated hick, so much so that when he visits Penny in the fourth-season episode "The Boyfriend Complexity" following her and Leonard's breakup, it is revealed that she has not revealed the breakup to her father. When she later informs Wyatt of the breakup, Wyatt secretly encourages Leonard to not give up on her.

In an early episode, Penny talked to Raj about her sister having shot her brother-in-law. In another episode, Penny accompanied the men to the comic book store to shop for a gift for her 13-year-old nephew. In "The Boyfriend Complexity" (4–9), Wyatt tells Leonard he wants grandchildren one day, "and I want them to grow up on a house without wheels". In "The Dumpling Paradox", Penny has an unwanted guest, Christy, staying with her who had slept with her brother while being engaged to her cousin, saying, "she's kind of family". Christy knows Penny from back in Omaha and, according to Penny, she slept with nearly every man in the city, earning her the nickname "Whore of Omaha". While staying with Penny, Christy sleeps with Howard.

In the fifth-season episode "The Pulled Groin Extrapolation", after Penny quickly grabs and eats the last dumpling of a group dinner after a brief disagreement over who should get it, Sheldon makes the sarcastic comment, "I've seen pictures of your mother. Keep eating", a reference to Penny's mother's weight, that clearly unsettles her. In "The Flaming Spittoon Acquisition", Penny confesses to Bernadette that her mother smoked pot while pregnant with Penny.

Penny has mentioned having a sister who appears to be the mother of her 13-year-old nephew mentioned in season two. In the sixth-season episode "The Parking Spot Escalation" Penny mentions to Bernadette and Amy that her sister gave her her first ever bikini wax using melted crayolas and duct tape. In "The Bachelor Party Corrosion", Penny tells Bernadette, Amy and viewers that
her sister was heavily pregnant at her own wedding, and her water broke at the start of the father-daughter dance.

Penny has mentioned having a brother on parole, who she says is "kind of a chemist". In "The Rhinitis Revelation" (5–6), she is more explicit in revealing that he is in the practice of cooking crystal meth. She mentions that he is back in prison for 12–18 months, depending on his behavior, in the seventh-season finale, "The Status Quo Combustion".

Penny's mother Susan, who Penny has occasionally spoken with on the phone in prior episodes (usually about other family members), first appears in the tenth-season premiere "The Conjugal Conjecture", portrayed by Katey Sagal (who previously played Cuoco's mother in the sitcom 8 Simple Rules). She is shown to be very embarrassed by her family's shortcomings: her son's criminal record and jailing, Wyatt's drinking, and their overall humble existence as a farming family. Although she has previously met Leonard and likes him, she is uncomfortable about meeting his academic parents, not wanting them to think of her family as "white trash". She goes to great lengths to present them in the best possible light, including buying dental implants for her son.

In a 2019 episode, the names of Penny's siblings are said to be Randall and Lisa.

Full name
Penny's full name is never officially revealed. In 2009, Co-creator Bill Prady stated that Penny's last name would be revealed eventually. In 2014, executive producer Steve Molaro stated that her last name would remain a secret. Nevertheless, clues to her full name had already been revealed in Season 2.

In the second-season episode "The Barbarian Sublimation", when she becomes addicted to online gaming, she uses the gamertag "Queen Penelope", though whether Penelope is her actual full first name is never confirmed in the series.
In the second-season episode "The Work Song Nanocluster", Penny receives a package addressed to "Penny Teller", an apparent reference to magicians Penn and Teller.  The name on the address label is just barely (and fleetingly) visible, and is not referenced in dialogue.  The producers of the show approved the name "Penny Teller" for use on the package, mistakenly believing it would not be visible in the finished episode. Similarly, Parsons related that an envelope in an early episode was addressed to "Penny London", the surname of the prop master. Producer Bill Prady maintains that the last name "Teller" is "not canon". Warner Bros. have referred to her as Penny Teller on social media, however.

Following her marriage to Leonard, Penny is occasionally referred to or addressed with the last name Hofstadter.

Reception
Tom Jicha of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel praised Cuoco's portrayal of Penny, stating: "Her character had the potential to be a bimbo, but she [Cuoco] has developed it into a fully fleshed-out woman, who isn't as book-smart as the other characters but is wiser in so many ways. She's also a great straight person, who can get off zingers of her own".

See also
 List of The Big Bang Theory characters
 List of The Big Bang Theory episodes

References

American female characters in television
Fictional actors
Television characters introduced in 2007
Fictional characters from Nebraska
Fictional waiting staff
The Big Bang Theory characters
Fictional salespeople


Eugene Tapin House is a historic house at 215 Lebanon Hill Road in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  The large Tudor Revival house was built in 1929, at a time when rural portions of Southbridge were gradually becoming suburbanized.  It is one a few high style Tudor homes in the city.  It was built by F.X. LaLiberte to a design by LaLiberte's son Oswald, for the latter's sister and her husband, Camille and Eugene Tapin.  Camille worked in her father's business; Eugene was a music teacher and church organist.  The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

Houses completed in 1929
Houses in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts


The Tiffany-Leonard House (also known as The Southbridge News building) is a historic house at 25 Elm Street in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  Built about 1832, it is a distinctive and high-quality local example of Greek Revival architecture, and is notable for its association with prominent local business owners.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Description and history
The Tiffany-Leonard House is set on the east side of Elm Street, just south of Southbridge's downtown and opposite the Elm Street Fire House.  It is a handsome two story brick structure, with a front-facing gable roof and a granite foundation.  Its most prominent feature is its full height four-columned Greek Revival portico, which features fluted Doric columns supporting a full-pedimented and dentillated gable.  The columns are narrower than often found on this type of house, a style reminiscent more of the Federal period.  The building's front corners are pilasters, and the dentillated eave is continued around its sides.  Windows (some bricked over) are set in openings with granite lintels and sills.

The house was built circa 1832 for Bella Tiffany, a business partner of mill owner Samuel Slater who cofounded the first cotton mill in nearby Webster.  He also served as president of the local bank, and in the state legislature.  By 1855 the house was owned by Manning Leonard, in whose hands it remained until late in the 19th century.  Manning Leonard was also a local businessman and politician, holding significant shares in the Central Manufacturing Company.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

Houses completed in 1832
Houses in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts


Larry Fallon (born Lawrence James Freaso; September 8, 1936 – June 2, 2005) was an American composer, arranger and record producer.

Career
Fallon's arranger credits include Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, Nico's Chelsea Girl, Jimmy Cliff's Wonderful World, Beautiful People, the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" and Gil Scott-Heron's Bridges. He played the distinctive harpsichord arrangement on Morrison's "Cyprus Avenue". He also arranged horns and strings on the Looking Glass's first album, Looking Glass.  He co-wrote Traffic's "Shanghai Noodle Factory."

Fallon died in Hoboken, New Jersey, at the age of 68.

References

External links

1936 births
2005 deaths
American music arrangers
American male composers
American record producers
American male conductors (music)
American keyboardists
20th-century American composers
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American male musicians


The Twinehurst American Optical Company Neighborhood is a residential historic district in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  It consists of seven three family houses built by the owners of the American Optical Company to provide housing for their workers.  The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Six of the seven houses are on Twinehurst Place, a short loop near the junction of Paige Hill Road and Central Street; one house has an address on Central Street but is physically adjacent to the others.  The center of the loop is an open grassy area, giving a clear view of the neighborhood.  All of the houses were built between 1915 and 1917, and exhibit Colonial Revival characteristics despite subsequent alteration.  The typical house has a three-bay front facade, with the building entrances in the end bays, topped by a gabled pediment above.  Two of the buildings have only a single entrance.  Most of the buildings have three-part picture windows in the center bay.

The houses appear to be somewhat typical -story two-family houses, with their gables toward the street.  However, each has extended dormers sufficient to provide a full apartment on the third floor.  Each unit originally had a porch on the south side, but in all cases these have been subsequently enclosed.  The houses originally had wood-shingle siding, but this has generally been changed: on some of the houses it has been replaced by wider wood siding, and on others by synthetic siding.  Despite these changes, Colonial Revival trim details have generally been preserved.

See also
Maple Street Historic District (Southbridge, Massachusetts), an American Optical housing district
Windsor Court Historic District, another American Optical housing district
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

External links
 MACRIS Listing - 3-5 Twinehurst Pl

Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Colonial Revival architecture in Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Company housing


The Upper Chapin Street Historic District is a residential historic district on Chapin Street in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  The district includes fourteen Victorian houses on Chapin Street, thirteen of which lie between Forest Avenue and Dresser Street, and two of which are just south of Forest.  All of these houses, almost all of which were built in the 1870s, are well preserved, making it one of the most intact period neighborhoods in the city.

Most of the houses in the district are relatively small cottage-style houses, either 1.5 or two stories, with Italianate and Gothic Revival style decoration.  There is one house in the district with Queen Anne styling, and two in the Stick style.  Only one property, 132 Chapin Street, does not contribute to the district.  The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

Historic districts in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Queen Anne architecture in Massachusetts
Gothic Revival architecture in Massachusetts
Italianate architecture in Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts


The Vinton-Boardman Farmhouse is a historic farm at 93 Torrey Road in Southbridge, Massachusetts.

The Vinton-Boardman Farmhouse was built in 1760 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.  It was built on land that belonged to the Vinton family since 1738. In 1825 (beams originating from c. 1800), the formal 2 over 2 front was added. The home was sold by the Vintons to the Boardman family in 1894. Ms. Harriet Boardman ran a dairy farm on the property, while her single sister taught school in Southbridge. Upon her death in 1930, Ms. Boardman bequeathed the farm to the MSPCA. It changed hands in 1961 and again in 1965. In 1969 Carl Schubert, a local artist and teacher bought the home and devoted the next 12 years to restoring it. In 1981, David and Kathy Hardwick bought the home and spent 25 years continuing his work, tastefully restoring and renovating it, and landscaping the grounds with lush plantings. At that time, the back wing was still recognizable as the creamery it had been during the home's farm days. In 1995 this wing was renovated, but is still known as The Creamery in honor of its past usage. Beneath The Creamery, accessible by a cleverly concealed trap-door, is a root cellar and Indian cellar, where early settlers could hide and defend themselves from Indian attackers. The home changed hands again twice more, and is now occupied by the Alesci family who are committed to preserving its historic significance for farming and architecture. The entrance hall staircase walls, and the walls flanking the middle upstairs window are gracefully curved, and thought to be one of the earliest examples of this type of architecture.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

Federal architecture in Massachusetts
Houses completed in 1760
Houses in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts


Arthur Gore may refer to:

Baronets
Sir Arthur Gore, 1st Baronet (c. 1640–1697), Irish MP for Mayo 1661–1666
Sir Arthur Gore, 2nd Baronet (c. 1685–1741), Irish MP for Ballynakill, Donegal County and Mayo 1715–1742

Earls
Arthur Gore, 1st Earl of Arran (1703–1717), Irish MP for Donegal Borough
Arthur Gore, 2nd Earl of Arran (1734–1809), Irish MP for Wexford County
Arthur Gore, 3rd Earl of Arran (1761–1837), Irish MP for Baltimore, British MP for County Donegal
Arthur Gore, 5th Earl of Arran (1839–1901), Anglo-Irish diplomat, Lord Lieutenant of Mayo
Arthur Gore, 6th Earl of Arran (1868–1958), Anglo-Irish soldier, Lord Lieutenant of Donegal
Arthur Gore, 7th Earl of Arran (1903–1958), Anglo-Irish author
Arthur Gore, 8th Earl of Arran (1910–1983), Anglo-Irish peer
Arthur Gore, 9th Earl of Arran (born 1938), British politician

Others
Arthur Gore (cricketer) (1866–1944), New Zealand cricketer
Arthur Gore (priest) (1829–1913), Archdeacon of Macclesfield and Canon of Chester
Arthur Gore (rugby league) (1891–1969), Australian rugby league footballer
Arthur Gore (tennis) (1868–1928), British tennis player, Olympic gold medallist 1908


The Vinton-Torrey House is a historic house at 5 Torrey Road in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  It was built in 1841 by J. Eliot Vinton, whose ancestor John acquired the land in 1738.  The -story brick house may incorporate elements of an earlier house (possibly part of John Vinton's original house).  The house expresses some Greek Revival characteristics in brick, notably pilasters on the corners.  The doors and windows feature granite lintels, and the slightly larger front overhang is a typical local feature.  In the late 19th century the property belonged to E. M. Torrey.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

External links
 John M. Vinton - E. T. Torrey House MACRIS Listing

Houses completed in 1841
Houses in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts


The George B. and Ruth D. Wells House is a historic house on Durfee Road in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  Built in 1932 to a design by Boston architect Paul Wood, it is one of the first International Style houses to be built in the northeastern United States.  The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.  It is not generally accessible to the public, but is vacant and was listed for sale in 2014.

Description and history
The Wells House stands on about  of wooded land on the north side of Eastford Road in southern Southbridge, separated from the road by a portion of the Cohasse Country Club's golf course.  The house is a large single-story structure with about 9,000 square feet of living space, organized as a series of block-like shapes.  It has steel framing, and its walls are clad in either beige brick, or floor-to-ceiling glass windows set in black metal frames.  The brick, originally painted white to set it off from the window frames, has returned to its natural color over time.  The interior of the house is organized to take advantage of daylight, with living spaces generally facing east, south, and west, with the northern part of the structure taken up by passageways and utilitarian parts of the house.

George Wells was a scion of the Wells family, which owned the locally prominent American Optical Company, and the grandson of architect Daniel Burnham.  Wells and his wife Ruth, having seen International Style houses on travels to Europe, decided to build a house in that style, but had difficulty finding an architect in Boston or New York City who worked in the style.  He eventually commissioned Boston architect Paul Wood to do the design, and the house was built in 1932.  The house, built in a rural section of Southbridge near his cousin John's French chateau-style house, was a marked contrast.  The house, one of the first International houses to be built in the eastern United States, was written up in 1933 in House Beautiful.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

External links
 George Burnham and Ruth D. Wells House MACRIS Listing

Houses completed in 1932
Houses in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts


Thomas Goldsmith Hussey (November 10, 1910 – March 8, 1982) was a Major League Baseball announcer for the Boston Red Sox and Boston Braves.

Early life
Hussey was born on November 10, 1910, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the son of Thomas P. and Mildred (Goldsmith) Hussey.  He graduated from Palm Beach High School in Florida in 1927, and then attended the University of Florida, where he graduated in 1931. His radio career began on Gainesville radio station WRUF, also in 1931.  He married Margaret Hutchinson, also of Marblehead, on June 12, 1937.  By that time, Hussey was already working as a sports announcer for WNAC radio in Boston, flagship station of the Yankee Network, as well as for its then-sister station, WAAB. When not on the air himself, he read commercials for other announcers, including Fred Hoey and Hoey's successor Jim Britt.

Radio career

Hussey called Red Sox and Braves games from 1939 to 1950, first at WNAC/WAAB and the Yankee Network; and then, by the late 1940s, at WHDH. During his career on Boston radio, he was a secondary play-by-play announcer for home games and recreated road games off wire tickers. And when TV came to Boston, Hussey was in the booth, along with Jim Britt, to call the Boston Braves' first televised game in June 1948, on WBZ-TV.  When the Braves and Red Sox separated their television and radio coverage, Hussey became exclusive to the Red Sox. He remained with the Red Sox until 1954. In addition to calling baseball games, Hussey also called college football at times. In addition, he spent several years as the host of an early evening sports radio program.

Later Years

In 1959, Hussey moved to Vero Beach, Florida, where he worked as a chemist for General Division Corp. He died on March 8, 1982, at his home in Vero Beach at the age of 71.

References

1910 births
1982 deaths
20th-century American chemists
American sports announcers
Boston Braves announcers
Boston Red Sox announcers
College football announcers
Major League Baseball broadcasters
People from Marblehead, Massachusetts
People from Vero Beach, Florida
University of Florida alumni


Lee Feeney (born 21 March 1978 in Kilkeel) is a Northern Irish footballer who manages Bangor F.C. in the Premier Intermediate League in Northern Ireland.

Playing career
Feeney began his career at Ards. He made 4 appearances for Ards in the 1997 UEFA Intertoto Cup. He left to join Linfield and made his debut for them back in February 1997 before moving to Rangers for £100,000 in December 1998. He made 126 appearances, his first during a 4–0 league win verses Dundee in January 1999. Three seasons later he re-joined Linfield. During his second spell at Windsor Park he scored in the UEFA Cup.

He left again in 2002 for Ards then had a spell with Glenavon before signing for Shamrock Rovers for the 2005 season. He scored on his debut on live television  but did not score again in 11 total appearances and was released in July. He then joined Bangor before joining Newry City.

His brother Cullen also plays for Newry. His cousin Warren Feeney is a former Northern Ireland international, and past manager of Linfield. His two uncles were also internationals.

Managerial career
Lee's first steps into Management were confirmed when announced as the new Manager of Mid Ulster Football League Intermediate A side Banbridge Rangers F.C. on 3 June 2016. Feeney departed the club on 17 July 2018 having taken the club within one point of winning the Intermediate A league title. Feeney returned to coaching in March 2019, serving as part of cousin Warren's coaching staff at Ards before leaving in June following the club's relegation to the second division.

Feeney was appointed Bangor manager on 4 June 2020.

References

External links

Profile at Newry City
Career stats

1978 births
Living people
People from Kilkeel
Association footballers from County Down
Men's association footballers from Northern Ireland
National Soccer League (Australia) players
Scottish Premier League players
Ards F.C. players
Bangor F.C. players
Glenavon F.C. players
Linfield F.C. players
Newry City F.C. players
North West Sydney Spirit FC players
Rangers F.C. players
Shamrock Rovers F.C. players
League of Ireland players
NIFL Premiership players
Men's association football forwards


The H. C. Wells Double House is a historic house at 28-30 Dresser Street in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  The -story wood-frame duplex was built in the late 1880s or early 1890s by Hiram C. Wells, member of the Wells family which owned the locally important American Optical Company.  It was one of several duplexes Wells built in the area as an income property.  Although not as ornate as some Queen Anne houses, it features high quality construction methods despite a relatively simple symmetrical plan.  It features a granite foundation, diamond transom windows, and stained glass windows.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

Houses in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Queen Anne architecture in Massachusetts
Houses completed in 1888
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts


The John M. Wells House is a historic house at 491 Eastford Road in Southbridge, Massachusetts, United States.  The Wells family were the founders of the American Optical Company, a leading business in Southbridge.  The house John M. Wells had built in 1927 was reminiscent of a French chateau, and was the first to be built in the Cohasse  Farms section of Southbridge.  The only previous development in the rural area had been the development of the Cohasse  Country Club in 1919. Wells' cousin George would build a more modern house nearby in 1932.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

Renaissance Revival architecture in Massachusetts
Houses completed in 1927
Houses in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts


Rod Laver and John Newcombe were the defending champions but only Newcombe competed that year with Tony Roche. Newcombe and Roche lost in the final 6–4, 6–4 to Ross Case and Geoff Masters.

Seeds

  John Newcombe /  Tony Roche (final)
  Ross Case /  Geoff Masters (champions)
  Jürgen Fassbender /  Hans-Jürgen Pohmann (semifinals)
  Dick Crealy /  Onny Parun (quarterfinals)

Draw

Main draw

References

External links
 ITF – tournament edition details

Doubles


Afghanistan Blizzard was a fierce blizzard that struck Afghanistan on the 10th of January 2008.
Temperatures fell to a low of -30 C, with up to 180 centimeters of snow in the more mountainous regions, killing at least 926 people. It was the third deadliest blizzard in history.

Aid organizations and foreign troops distributed several tons of clothing, blankets, food and fuel in provinces throughout the country and in remote, mountainous villages. The hospitals performed frostbite amputations on at least 100 people across the country, as many walked barefoot in the freezing cold mud and snow.
The weather also claimed more than 100,000 sheep and goats, and nearly 315,000 cattle died.

References

2008 natural disasters
Blizzards in Afghanistan
Afghanistan Blizzard, 2008
Afghanistan Blizzard, 2008
Blizzard 2008
History of Afghanistan (1992–present)
February 2008 events in Asia
2008 disasters in Afghanistan


Matthew F. Bekker is an environmental geographer and dendrochronologist.  He is a professor of geography at Brigham Young University (BYU).

Bekker has a bachelor's degree from BYU, a master's degree from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Iowa.  Much of his study has been on the effects of forest fires in California (Bekker and Taylor 2001). In 2014 and 2015 he was co-publisher on papers related to the flow of rivers in northern Utah over the last several hundred years. He is most known through his frequently cited publication on the positive feedback between tree establishment and forest advancement (Bekker 2005). He has also demonstrated the use of dendrochronology to reconstruct earthquake events (Bekker 2004).

Sources
BYU faculty bio
Bekker article on forest patterns
Penn State Alumni listing
Who's Who in Social Science Academia listing
Bekker 2005
Bekker and Taylor 2001
Bekker 2004

American geographers
Brigham Young University alumni
Brigham Young University faculty
Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences alumni
University of Iowa alumni
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)


The Albert H. Wheeler House is a historic house at 219 South Street in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  It was built in the late 19th century, and is an example of a modest Queen Anne Victorian.  Its owner, Albert H. Wheeler, was a Civil War veteran and dry goods merchant with a shop in the Globe Village neighborhood.  Wheeler died in the 1910s, and his widow lived in the house until at least 1928.  It was eventually acquired by the American Optical Company and used for company housing.

The house follows a simple L-shaped plan, with a front porch in the crook of the L that was added in the 20th century.  The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Southbridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

Houses in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Queen Anne architecture in Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Southbridge, Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts


Gary Scott Buckels (born July 22, 1965) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played during one season in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Career
He was signed by the California Angels as an amateur free agent in . Buckles played his first professional season with their Class A (Short Season) Salem Angels in 1987, and his last season with the Detroit Tigers' Triple-A club, the Toledo Mud Hens, in . Now he is a catching and pitching coach in Huntington Beach, California.

References
"Gary Buckels". Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved on 14 March 2009.
"Gary Buckels Statistics". Baseball-Reference. Retrieved on 14 March 2009.

1965 births
Living people
American expatriate baseball players in Canada
Baseball players from Los Angeles County, California
Cal State Fullerton Titans baseball players
Edmonton Trappers players
Louisville Redbirds players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Midland Angels players
People from La Mirada, California
Quad Cities Angels players
Salem Angels players
St. Louis Cardinals players
St. Petersburg Cardinals players
Toledo Mud Hens players


The 1949 New York Yankees season was their fourth and final in the All-America Football Conference. The team improved on their previous output of 6-8, winning eight games. They lost to the San Francisco 49ers in the first round of the playoffs and the team folded with the league after the season.

Season schedule

Playoffs

Division standings

References

New York Yankees (AAFC) seasons
New York Yankees
New York Yankees AAFC
1940s in the Bronx


Events in the year 1958 in Norway.

Incumbents
 Monarch – Olav V
 Prime Minister – Einar Gerhardsen (Labour Party)

Events

 8 January – Fire breaks out in the coastal steamer MS Erling Jarl while it is docked in Bodø. 14 people are killed.
 22 June – Olav V is crowned as ruler of Norway in the Nidaros Cathedral.

Popular culture

Sports

Music

Film

Literature
Harald Sverdrup, poet and children's writer, is awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature for his poetry, Sankt Elms ild.
Astrid Tollefsen, poet, is awarded the Gyldendal's Endowment literature prize.

Notable births

28 January – Lisbeth Bodd, performance artist and theatre leader (died 2014).
4 February – Kjell Ola Dahl, writer
25 February – Eugene Ejike Obiora, died during police arrest (died 2006)
19 May – Sjur Loen, curler.
9 June – Inghill Johansen, writer.
19 June – Siri Bjerke, politician
28 July – Peter M. Haugan, scientist and Director of the Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen
16 August – Steve Sem-Sandberg, journalist, novelist, and non-fiction writer.
26 August – Nils Carl Aspenberg, historian, author and businessperson
24 September – Kim Haugen, actor.
7 October – Siv Nordrum, journalist and politician (died 2021).
23 October – Liv Signe Navarsete, politician and Minister
30 October – Gunn Marit Helgesen, politician
23 November – Kjerstin Andersen, handball player.
24 November – Randi Hansen, pop singer
26 November – Rune Gokstad, comedian, actor, and radio and television host.
15 December – Christopher Hjort, typographer and graphical designer
29 December – Karin Singstad, handball player and Olympic medalist.

Notable deaths

21 January – Sven Nielsen, politician (born 1883)
29 January – Arnfinn Heje, sailor and Olympic gold medallist (born 1887)
29 January – Birger Øivind Meidell, politician (born 1882)
9 February – Lars Osa, artist (born 1860)
22 February – Thorleif Petersen, gymnast and Olympic gold medallist (born 1884)
25 February – Ole Sørensen, sailor and Olympic gold medallist (born 1883)
18 March – Sigve Lie, sailor and twice Olympic gold medallist (born 1906)
19 March – Helmer Hermandsen, rifle shooter and Olympic silver medallist (born 1871)
19 April – Andreas Strand, gymnast and Olympic silver medallist (born 1889)
20 June – Ingvald Haugen, trade unionist and politician (born 1894)
27 June – Ragna Wettergreen, stage and film actress (born 1864)
16 July – Birger Eriksen, military officer (born 1875)
18 August – Mikkel Sveinhaug, farmer and politician (born 1873)
2 September – Paul Tjøstolsen Sunde, politician (born 1896)
11 September – Dorthea Dahl, writer in America (born 1881)
16 September – Olav Berntsen Oksvik, politician and Minister (born 1887)
18 September – Olaf Gulbransson, artist, painter and designer (born 1873)
5 October – Nils Bertelsen, sailor and Olympic gold medallist (born 1879)
5 November – Gunnar Larsen, journalist, writer and translator (born 1900)
10 December – Hans Næss, sailor and Olympic gold medallist (born 1886)

Full date unknown
Torgeir Anderssen-Rysst, politician and Minister (born 1888)
Per Bakken, Nordic skier (born 1882)
Theodor Bull, businessperson and genealogist (born 1870)

See also

References

External links


The Mute of Portici () is a 1952 Italian historical melodrama film directed by Giorgio Ansoldi. It is based on a play by Eugène Scribe.

Cast
 Flora Mariel as Lucia Maniello
 Doris Duranti as Elvira D'Herrera
 Paolo Carlini as Masaniello
 Ottavio Senoret as Alfonso
 Umberto Sacripante as La Spia
 Raf Pindi as Viceroy of Naples
 Paolo Dola as Cap. Perrone
 Maurizio Di Nardo
 Isarco Ravaioli
 Anna Maria Ferrero (uncredited)
 Marcello Mastroianni (uncredited)
 Jacques Sernas (uncredited)

See also
La muette de Portici (play)
The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916)
The Mute of Portici (1922)

References

Bibliography
 Chiti, Roberto & Poppi, Roberto. Dizionario del cinema italiano: Dal 1945 al 1959. Gremese Editore, 1991.

External links

1952 films
1952 drama films
1950s historical drama films
1950s Italian-language films
Italian black-and-white films
Films based on operas
Films based on works by Eugène Scribe
Films set in the 1640s
Films set in Naples
Italian historical drama films
Melodrama films
1950s Italian films


The Visitor is the nineteenth studio album by the British hard rock band UFO, which was released on 2 June 2009. Bass parts were recorded by Peter Pichl. Since there are no writing credits on the album booklet, they were posted on UFO's official website (June 2009).

The digipak edition bonus track, "Dancing with St. Peter", had previously been recorded by Phil Mogg with his side project, $ign Of 4, featuring Mogg/Way guitarist Jeff Kollman, one-time Michael Schenker Group drummer Shane Gaalaas, and bassist Jimmy Curtain. The album was originally released in 2002 through Track Records and re-issued in 2008 by Kollman's label Marmaduke Records under the name Mogg & The Sign Of 4.

Track listing

Personnel

Band members
 Phil Mogg – vocals
 Vinnie Moore – lead guitar
 Paul Raymond – keyboards, rhythm guitar, engineer
 Andy Parker – drums

Additional musicians
 Peter Pichl – bass guitar
 Martina Frank – backing vocals on "Living Proof" and "Forsaken"
 Melanie Newton – backing vocals on "On the Waterfront" and "Forsaken"
 Olaf Senkbeil – backing vocals on "Stop Breaking Down", "Saving Me", "Hell Driver" and "On the Waterfront"

Credits
 Tommy Newton – producer, engineer, mixing
 Andy Le Vein – engineer
 Tristan Greatrex – album artwork
 Kai Swillus – photography
 Peter Knorn – management

Charts

References

External links
 The Visitor's feature at UFO's official website
 The Visitor's feature at the UFO fansite
 The Visitor's feature at The Ripple Effect blog
 The Visitor's feature at Heavy Metal Addiction blog
 The Visitor's feature at Nightwatcher's House Of Rock blog

2009 albums
UFO (band) albums
SPV/Steamhammer albums


Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (also known as Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief) is a 2010 American action fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus from a screenplay by Craig Titley, based on the 2005 novel The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. The film is the first installment in the Percy Jackson film series. It stars Logan Lerman as Percy Jackson alongside an ensemble cast that includes Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson, Catherine Keener, Kevin McKidd, Joe Pantoliano, and Uma Thurman.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief was released theatrically in the United States on February 12, 2010, by 20th Century Fox. The film received mixed reviews from critics, with criticism for the poor grasp of its source material and its script, but praise for Lerman and Jackson's performances, visual effects, and action sequences. The film grossed $226.4 million worldwide against a production budget of $95 million. It was released on June 29, 2010 on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. A video game based on the film was released for Nintendo DS on February 11, 2010. A sequel, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, was released on August 7, 2013.

Plot

At the top of the Empire State Building, Zeus meets his brother Poseidon and accuses Poseidon's demigod son, Percy Jackson, of stealing his master lightning bolt. Poseidon reminds Zeus that Percy is unaware of his true identity, but Zeus declares that unless the bolt is returned to Mount Olympus before midnight of the Summer Solstice in two weeks, war will be waged between all the gods.

A 16-year-old Percy struggles with dyslexia and ADHD, but has a unique ability to stay underwater for long periods of time. On a school trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Percy is attacked by Alecto, a Fury masquerading as his substitute English teacher Mrs. Dodds, who demands the lightning bolt. Percy's best friend Grover Underwood and his Latin teacher Mr. Brunner help scare off Alecto. Mr. Brunner gives Percy a pen which he claims is a very powerful cosmic weapon, and instructs Grover to take Percy and his mother Sally to Camp Half-Blood — a hidden summer camp for demigod children on Long Island, leaving behind Sally's abusive husband and Percy's stepfather, Gabe Ugliano. There, they are attacked by the Minotaur, who seemingly kills Percy's mother. Percy discovers that Mr. Brunner's pen is a magical sword, and uses it to fight off the Minotaur, killing it with its own horn.

Waking up three days later, Percy learns he is the son of Poseidon, Grover is a satyr and Percy’s protector, and Mr. Brunner is Chiron, a centaur. Percy starts coming into his latent demigod powers, which include hydrokinesis and healing, and meets other demigods, including Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena; and the camp's leader Luke Castellan, son of Hermes. Percy is visited by an apparition of Hades, who reveals that the Minotaur abducted Sally to the Underworld to trade for the lightning bolt. Defying Chiron's orders, Percy sets out for the Underworld with Grover and Annabeth. Luke gives Percy a map with the location of three green pearls belonging to Hades' wife, Persephone, which will allow them to escape the Underworld. Percy is also given a pair of flying winged Converse All-Stars stolen from Hermes, and Luke's favorite shield. Meanwhile, Percy is declared a missing person.

At a garden center in New Jersey, with help from Grover and Annabeth, Percy manages to decapitate Medusa and takes the first pearl from her corpse. At the Parthenon in Nashville, Percy uses the shoes to retrieve the second pearl from the crown of the statue of Athena there, and Grover kills a Hydra with Medusa's head. The trio arrive at the Lotus Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas to obtain the third pearl; however, they forget their mission after eating lotus flowers, the effects from which causes them to lose sense of time. Percy snaps out from the spell after hearing the voice of Poseidon through telepathy telling him not to eat any more flowers. Percy frees Grover and Annabeth from the flowers' effects; they locate the final pearl in the casino and escape the hotel. Annabeth realizes that they only have one day left to prevent the gods' war, as they were in the casino for almost a week. They discover that the Underworld is in Hollywood and race there. With all three pearls, Percy, Grover, and Annabeth enter the portal to the Underworld upon arriving in Hollywood.

In the Underworld, Hades finds the lightning bolt hidden inside Luke's shield, revealing that Luke was the thief all along. Hades tries to kill the trio, but Persephone turns on him in retaliation for imprisoning her, and gives the bolt to Percy. As they only have three pearls, Grover remains behind, while Percy, Annabeth, and Sally teleport to the Empire State Building, the entrance to Mount Olympus. However, before they can enter, they are ambushed by Luke, who reveals that he stole the bolt to demolish Mount Olympus and establish the demigods as new rulers of Western civilization. After a battle across Manhattan, Percy defeats Luke, returns the lightning bolt to Zeus, and reconciles with his father. Having been reunited with Grover, Percy and Annabeth continue to train back at Camp Half-Blood.

Cast

 Logan Lerman as Percy Jackson, the demigod son of Poseidon
 Brandon T. Jackson as Grover Underwood, Percy's best friend and protector, a satyr and Persephone's love interest
 Alexandra Daddario as Annabeth Chase, the demigod daughter of Athena, and Percy's romantic foil
 Jake Abel as Luke Castellan, the demigod son of Hermes
 Sean Bean as Zeus, god of the sky, thunder, lightning, king of the twelve gods of Mount Olympus and brother of Poseidon and Hades
 Kevin McKidd as Poseidon, Percy's father, god of the seas, earthquakes, and horses
 Steve Coogan as Hades, Percy's Uncle, god of the Underworld, the dead, and riches
 Melina Kanakaredes as Athena, Annabeth's mother, goddess of crafts, domestic arts, strategic warfare, peace and wisdom
 Rosario Dawson as Persephone, goddess of springtime, wife of Hades and admirer of Grover
 Dylan Neal as Hermes, Luke's father, god of trade, thieves, travelers, sports, athletes, and messenger of the gods of Mount Olympus
 Erica Cerra as Hera, goddess of birth, family, marriage, women and queen of the twelve gods of Mount Olympus, sister and wife of Zeus
 Stefanie von Pfetten as Demeter, goddess of agriculture, fertility, and the harvest, sister of Zeus and mother of Persephone
 Dimitri Lekkos as Apollo, god of the sun, light, knowledge, healing, plague and darkness, the arts, music, poetry, prophecy, archery, and twin brother of Artemis
 Ona Grauer as Artemis, goddess of the hunt, virginity, the moon, and all animals, and twin sister of Apollo
 Serinda Swan as Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty, wife of Hephaestus and lover of Ares
 Conrad Coates as Hephaestus, god of fire, forge, blacksmiths, craftsmen and husband of Aphrodite
 Ray Winstone as Ares, god of war, lover of Aphrodite (uncredited)
 Luke Camilleri as Dionysus, god of wine, celebrations, ecstasy, and theatre
 Uma Thurman as Medusa, a gorgon cursed by Athena
 Pierce Brosnan as Mr. Brunner/Chiron, a centaur who is a high school teacher and also trains heroes at Camp Half-Blood, the immortal son of Kronos and brother of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, and Hera
 Maria Olsen as Mrs. Dodds / Alecto, a Fury, servant to Hades
 Julian Richings as Charon, ferryman of the River Styx, servant to Hades
 Catherine Keener as Sally Jackson, Percy's mother
 Joe Pantoliano as Gabe Ugliano, Percy's abusive stepfather

Production

In June 2004, 20th Century Fox acquired feature film rights to the book. In April 2007, director Chris Columbus was hired to helm the project. Filming began in April 2009 in Vancouver, and Mammoth Studios in Burnaby was selected to be the studio. Portions of the film were shot at the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, that has a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. The Lotus Casino sequence was filmed at The Westin Bayshore in Vancouver in June 2009, and additional scenes of Percy, Grover and Annabeth driving to and from the casino were shot on the Las Vegas Strip and in front of the Fremont Street Experience. Filming wrapped up on the morning of July 25, 2009, in Mission, British Columbia. Additional exterior scenes were filmed on location in Brooklyn, New York during the first week of August 2009. Digital intermediate work began in San Francisco in November 2009. Christophe Beck composed the score. Columbus has stated that the cast was chosen specifically with sequels in mind. "I think with Percy Jackson it was a matter of finding the right cast to fit into these roles, sort of the perfect cast for these roles, because hopefully, God willing, we will go on to do other Percy Jackson films and you want the cast to grow with their characters".

During production, Riordan was disappointed with the changes made to the story and warned the studio that it would likely alienate the readers of the book series that it was depending on to buy tickets. In two emails commenting at length on a draft of the script that he posted to his blog in 2018, he specifically warned the studio that trying to make the story more attractive to a teenage audience by aging the characters and including some profanity in the script might move a significant portion of the books' readers to leave the theater in disgust long before the movie ended. He also felt the introduction of Persephone's pearls as a plot device made no sense, having no basis in mythology and distracting Percy from his goal of recovering the stolen lightning.

Reception

Box office
The film opened on February 12, 2010, in 3,356 theaters; its opening weekend box-office results totaled $31.2 million in the U.S., finishing at #3 below The Wolfman, which opened at #2 with $31.5 million and below Valentine's Day, which opened at #1 with $56.3 million. The film had a strong opening weekend for its genre, posting the highest opening weekend for a fantasy film not from the Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, or Lord of the Rings series. As of September 14, 2010, it grossed a total of $88.8 million in the U.S. and Canada with $137.7 million elsewhere in the world, bringing it to $226.5 million.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 49% based on reviews from 150 critics, with an average score of 5.30/10. The site's consensus reads: "Though it may seem like just another Harry Potter knockoff, Percy Jackson benefits from a strong supporting cast, a speedy plot, and plenty of fun with Greek mythology." On Metacritic it has a score of 47 out of 100, based on 31 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B+ on a scale from A+ to F.

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "standard Hollywood product... unadventurous and uninteresting". The reviewer for The Washington Post thought "the movie suffers by taking itself a little too seriously. It's not just that it's a lot less funny than the book. It's also a lot less fun". On BBC Radio 5, Mark Kermode criticized the similarity of the film to director Chris Columbus's Harry Potter films, likening it to a Harry Potter parody book and dubbing it Benjamin Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Penguins. This comment later sparked a satirical fan creation with precisely that title, narrated by Stephen Fry.

The author, Rick Riordan, publicly criticized the final script. He revealed email recommendations for script changes with names redacted. Regarding future support for a reboot Riordan said, "In the future, if some project actually does get underway, I may not be able to comment on it for contractual reasons, but you can tell how I'm feeling about it by what I do or don’t say. Am I talking about it? Promoting it? Sharing cool things? I am probably happy. Am I completely ignoring it and never mentioning it on social media? Yeah . . . that’s probably not a good sign. For instance, check out my website, rickriordan.com. Do you see any indication there that the Percy Jackson movies ever existed? No. No, you do not." He also shared in the same email “The script as a whole is terrible. I don't simply mean that it deviates from the book, though certainly it does that to point of being almost unrecognizable as the same story. Fans of the books will be angry and disappointed.”

Accolades

Soundtrack

Video game
A video game based on the film developed by Griptonite Games and published by Activision was released exclusively for Nintendo DS on February 11, 2010. GameZone's Michael Splechta gave it a 6/10, saying "Percy Jackson might not make a splash when it comes to movie tie-in games, but fans of turn-based combat might find some redeeming qualities in this otherwise bare-bones game." On Metacritic, the game has a score of 56 out of 100 based on 6 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Home media
The film was released on June 29, 2010 on DVD and Blu-ray. The movie itself charted at the top of the charts (DVD sales) with $13,985,047 in revenue in its first week. As of October 2011, the movie had sold 2,087,368 DVDs with over $37 million in sales.

Sequel

In October 2011, 20th Century Fox announced a sequel based on the second book, The Sea of Monsters. The film was released on August 7, 2013.

References

External links

1492 Pictures films
2010 fantasy films
2010s English-language films
2010s fantasy adventure films
2010s teen fantasy films
20th Century Fox films
American fantasy adventure films
British fantasy adventure films
Cultural depictions of Medusa
Dune Entertainment films
Empire State Building in fiction
Films about size change
Films about summer camps
Films based on American novels
Films based on classical mythology
Films based on fantasy novels
Films based on young adult literature
Films directed by Chris Columbus
Films produced by Michael Barnathan
Films produced by Chris Columbus
Films produced by Karen Rosenfelt
Films scored by Christophe Beck
Films set in the Las Vegas Valley
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in Manhattan
Films set in Nashville, Tennessee
Films set in New Jersey
Films set in New York City
Films shot in Tennessee
Films shot in New York City
Films shot in Vancouver
Films with screenplays by Craig Titley
Percy Jackson & the Olympians
Teen adventure films
2010s American films
2010s British films