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10 Best Upcoming PS4 Exclusive Games Releasing in 2018

January 1, 2018

As far as exciting and unique exclusives go it doesn’t get much better than what we have on the PlayStation 4. 2018 promises to be no different. We’ve got a stacked lineup of unique and varied PlayStation 4 exclusive games to be looking forward to. In this article, we will be going over the top 10 upcoming ps4 exclusive games in 2018. Let’s get right into this.

Top 10 Most Anticipated PS4 Exclusive Games Coming in 2018

Fist of the North Star

Fist of the North Star is having a video game adaptation and this one actually looks really good. It is being made by the Yakuza developers and it looks to be of the similar style of Yakuza. With Fist of the North Star, you would typically think of a dynasty warrior style game and it has definitely got that action-heavy style of gameplay. Not only that, it also got its side events and minigames similar to the Yakuza series.

You will be wandering around the town fighting off a lot of bad guys. You will also have side events odd jobs and mingling with the other inhabitants. Considering what the Yakuza devs have done in the past. Expect Fist of the North Star to be really good. It is up for a release in Japan in 2018. We don’t have any word on a Western release date but you can expect it to come over at some point

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain

Earth Defense Force has been one of those lower key franchises that those who have played it have really enjoyed it. It is not perfect, It is not like it has got some amazing story-telling, world-building or anything like that but the gameplay is where Earth Defense Force shines. It is just the chaotic shooter where you have to fight off giant insects.

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is actually taking it to a more serious tone. However, expect the gameplay to be as enjoyable as ever. It is up for a release sometime in 2018.

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT

Dissidia Final Fantasy was one of the great spin-off Final Fantasy franchises. It took characters from every Final Fantasy game put them all into one fighting game with great RPG mechanics and great one-on-one fighting gameplay. Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is changing some things up. It is more centered around team battles. 3-on-3 where there is more of a strategic element in how you build your teams and the different styles of characters that you pick.

The game is being developed by Team Ninja and already released in arcades over in Japan. It looks really great. Hopefully, it has got a pretty good story mode to back it up as well because the Dissidia games on PSP had really quality single-player components as well. Dissidia Final Fantasy NT releases on January 30th.

Yakuza Six: The Song of Life

Yakuza Six was released in Japan back in late 2016 but it’s finally coming to the States next year. Yakuza six will follow the formula of previous games it is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. It has got its exploration mixed with arcade-style over-the-top combat. Expect another mature and gritty story, great gameplay, and a lot of content. Yakuza Six: The Song of Life releases on March 20th, 2018 on PS4.

Shadow of the Colossus

The PlayStation 2 had so many great games but one of the most iconic games without a doubt possibly the most iconic and the best game was Shadow of the Colossus and now it’s being remade from the ground up for the PlayStation 4. This isn’t your typical HD remastering as you can tell right away. We already saw that on the PlayStation 3. Rather this entry of Shadow of the Colossus is a full remake build Groundup for the PlayStation 4 with Ultra High Definition art assets.

The game is in development by Japan studio and Blue Point games. BluePoint have actually worked on some of the other HD remasterings. We already know that Shadow of the Colossus is an amazing game that is timeless. The only real issue with it on the PlayStation 2 was on a technical side and now on the PlayStation 4 with the shackles being removed expect the Shadow of the Colossus remake to be an amazing game. It releases sometime in 2018.

Days Gone

Ever since the PlayStation 4’s release we’ve been seeing developers reveal all of their games. One studio that had their game missing for a while was Sony Bend Studio. Those are the guys that worked on the Syphon Filter games, Uncharted, Uncharted Golden Abyss, and a couple other games. Their game was finally revealed at E3 of 2016 to be Days Gone.

It is an amazing an action-adventure survival horror game set in a post-apocalyptic open-world environment. The game’s concept is similar to Dead Rising. However, from a technical standpoint and the sheer amount of zombies that are on screen, this game looks insane.

Technically it has got things like a dynamic weather system and a day and night cycle. Those affect the gameplay itself. The zombies are weak and slow during the day but fast and aggressive during the night. From what we’ve seen it looks like the game does have a pretty good narrative. We will find out when the game finally releases in 2018.

Detroit Become Human

Detroit Become Human is the latest game from Quantic Dream a staple studio to Sony platforms. They have worked on games such as Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain, and Beyond Two Souls. Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain were both fantastic games. Beyond Two Souls was a good game but it did have its flaws. Detroit Become Human, however, is a very interesting game. It is a Neo-noir thriller and the plot revolves around three androids. Once again you will make several different choices throughout the game and that’ll shape the story of the game.

In-game characters can die and the story continues without them. As a result, there is no game over. You can rewind to certain points of the story to reshape decisions but the game will continue on. Quantic Dream games are very ambitious and Detroit Become Human is possibly their most ambitious game ever. Let’s hope it lives up to the anticipation when it releases in 2018.

Final Fantasy VII remake: EP 1

Now, this is one that I’m a little hesitant that it’ll be released in 2018 but we can have our fingers crossed. Especially with the fact that the Final Fantasy VII remake is confirmed to be released in multiple installments so maybe, we will see episode 1 this year. A remake of Final Fantasy VII is something gamers have wanted ever since going back to 2005 when Sony decided to show off that tech demo running on the PlayStation 3. Years would go by and we would hear nothing until finally at e3 of 2015 a Final Fantasy VII remake was confirmed.

So far the little bit we’ve seen thus far has looked absolutely amazing and the goal of the Final Fantasy VII remake is to recreate the entire game with the visuals that we’ve seen so far. That alone is extremely ambitious for those of you that know how big of a game Final Fantasy VII is. It is almost understandable that this game is being released in multiple parts. I know that does kind of stink but nonetheless, people will buy it without a doubt. Maybe we will finally get to play the remake in 2018 fingers crossed.

God of War

God of war is finally coming to the PlayStation 4 with a new entry dubbed just God of War. It is a sequel to 2010’s God of War 3 but the game is considered a soft reboot for the franchise. It will take the series out of Greek mythology and into the world of Norse mythology. Series protagonist Kratos is back once again but now he’s older and he has a son. He has taken on a different role. He acts more as a mentor and a protector to his son and has to master the rage that has driven him for many years.

The gameplay we’ve seen thus far seems to be slower paced but it’s a nice change of pace for the franchise. Many have compared the stylistics of the game to something like Last of Us.  God of War Ascension was getting a bit stale the formula works but it needs a new fresh coat of paint and this entry might be what the series has been looking for. God of War is expected to release in the first quarter of 2018.

For a long time, we have wanted a Spider-Man game up to the level of what Batman Arkham did for Batman. It looks like we will finally be getting that in 2018. The new Spider-Man game is being developed by Insomniac Games and for those of you that don’t know Insomniac, Insomniac has done some terrific games the Ratchet and Clank franchise and Resistance to name a few.

Spider-Man is an action-adventure game set in an open world modern-day New York City and played from a third-person perspective. You could use all of Spider Man’s abilities such as web-slinging and wall crawling as well as new gameplay elements one of which will be the ability to traverse using parkour. Environmental combat, quick time events, and stealth will also be featured in the game. Obviously from a technical perspective just looking at the game looks absolutely amazing.

The game is telling a new story about Spider-Man that is not tied to a film or comics so it’ll be a breath of fresh air. Spider-Man doesn’t have an exact release date yet but it is confirmed for 2018. Rumors have been circulating that it will come in the first half of 2018.

So that wraps up the top 10 PS4 exclusive games coming in 2018. What do you think which ps4 exclusives are you the most excited for? Did we forget to mention a game? Let us know in the comment section down below.

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Northamber enhance security division by introducing 2 factor authentication from Yubico

Posted on Jan 8 2018 - 2:40pm by Tayla Ansell
Categorized as
Tagged as

As the world now relies more heavily on cloud storage and technology, protecting valuable data is becoming increasingly difficult amidst the uncertainty of forthcoming GDPR regulations. While strong passwords and a bit of common sense will go a long way to keeping information protected, enabling two-factor authenticators is a hassle free step which all businesses should be investing in. After all, losing critical applications or information to a hacker is probably one of the most concerning things about running a business, especially when such breaches could cost 4% of global turnover. Why wouldn’t businesses want to invest in a further layer of security, at an affordable price?

With more than two decades of experience in distributing advanced security solutions, Northamber offers only best-of-breed products and services to our partners. Today, Northamber is complementing its product portfolio with Yubico’s YubiKey – the gold-standard for easy-to-use, multi-protocol, hardware authentication. Top tech companies, global enterprises and millions of individual users rely on the YubiKey to protect access to computers, networks, and online services, all with a simple touch.

Andrew Holder, of Northamber added: “What attracted us to Yubico was the product’s ability to combine security with simplicity. Regardless of the size of our customers’ organisation, the YubiKey offers a user friendly, highly secure, and low cost device that eliminates the preconceived difficulty associated with hardware authentication. The YubiKey integrates with hundreds of applications and open source software, offering our customers an unrivalled level of flexibility to ensure the product is the right fit for them. Yubico offers a complete authentication solution, which we couldn’t see from their competition at this price point.”

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Happy 30th Birthday 'Legend of Zelda!' Here Are 30 Facts About The High-Fantasy Adventure Game

Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda franchise is the world's most popular video game next to Super Mario. Link is probably one of the gaming world's most recognizable heroes after the portly moustached plumber.

For the game's 30th anniversary on Feb. 21, 2016, here are 30 fun facts you might not have known about Shigeru Miyamoto's green, wooden sword-wielding, time-traveling, ocarina-playing hero.

1. Link's Sword

Link gets his wooden sword from an old man in the original game, but this was not included in the plot until much later in development. Originally, Link starts out with the cheap weapon already in his inventory but early game testers were confused with what to do with it.

2. Link Is A Lefty!

Well, at least most of the time, he is. The sword fighting hero was infamously turned into a righty in the Wii version of Twilight Princess because most gamers hold the Wiimote in their right hands.

3. Which Is Which Zelda

Although she is mostly remembered as the Princess of Hyrule, Zelda has also had other characterizations. Zelda has also been portrayed as a ninja, a pirate, and as Link's childhood best friend.

4. Zelda Is F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife

Not just a fun tidbit for literary geeks, but gaming geeks also know that the character of Zelda was inspired by the wife of "The Great Gatsby" author, Zelda. Hence the same names.

5. Zelda Williams

Speaking of namesakes, the late actor Robin Williams was such a fan of the games that he even named his daughter after the character.

6. Robin Williams Scene

In fact, Williams was such a fan of the game that he wanted to sign on to play the voice on Ganondorf. The scene was, unfortunately, cut from the game and never filmed.

7. Link Speaks

Link has only ever spoken twice in the game. The first was when he says "Come on!" in Wind Waker and "Giddy up!" when he rides his horse, Epona, in The Twilight Princess.

8. I'm Zelda

If you enter your name as Zelda at the start of the original game, you can unlock a hidden level with new dungeons to explore that non-Zeldas can't access.

9. The Chris Houlihan Room

Another secret area to look for is the "Chris Houlihan Room" named after a lucky gamer who got to be immortalized in A Link to The Past after winning a contest sponsored by Nintendo Power. Subsequent versions of the game, however, remove Chris' name and simply refer to it as "Top Secret Room."

10. The Almost-Precursor To Minecraft

Originally, The Legend of Zelda was to be distributed on floppy discs to take advantage of the extra storage for users to design and create their own levels to save and share. But the idea was scrapped when Nintendo decided to go with cartridges instead.

11. Links' Link

Twilight Princess is the first ever Zelda game where two Links interact with each other. Thanks to the game's time-traveling themes, the Hero Shade is also the Hero of Time, the savior in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.

12. Time-traveling Links

Confused yet? The time paradox gets even more loopy when you consider that the first ever Legend of Zelda game is actually the last chronologically. It takes place in an alternate time dimension where Link was unable to defeat Ganon in Ocarina of Time.

13. Back Alley Back Story

If you don't quite know why Ganondorf and the king have so much conflict between them, find a back alley in Castle Town in Ocarina of Time and you'll find a dying soldier who will tell you all the details.

14. No Cheaters!

Nintendo dislikes cheating devices like GameShark. They even left an easter egg in Ocarina of Time of a shark trapped in a cage at the bottom of a lake.

15. Arwings Attack!

Also, if you enter a GameShark cheat code in Ocarina of Time, Arwings will immediately flock and attack you. Get the hint: No cheaters!

16. Gaming Glitch

That being said, you can actually beat the entire original game in half an hour just like Lackattack24. But you'd have to take advantage of a glitch in the game to do it.

17. Dungeon Protests

Jewish groups in the U.S. wanted to protest the original game's release because one of the dungeons was in the form of a swastika.

18. Zelda Dungeons

Other dungeon shapes in the original game could also be arranged to spell out Z-E-L-D-A.

19. Series Regular

Though the series bears the name of the Princess of Hyrule, Link is actually the character who has appeared in every single title of the video game franchise. Him and Octorok.

20. This Is Not The Link You're Looking For

In Wind Waker, however, the little boy who looks like Link is actually not him but a reincarnation of our hero.

21. What's In A Name

Nintendo's official stance on Link's name is that he is a link between the game and the players. However, the game plays with time travel and alternate universes also hint that Link is also THE link between all these worlds and eras to the past and future.

22. The Disney Connection

Link's green outfit was inspired by Disney's "Peter Pan".

23. Linked To "Twin Peaks"

The Legend of Zelda may be completely different from of off-kilter world of "Twin Peaks," created by David Lynch. But Link's Awakening was reportedly inspired by the series which featured memorable characters in a small community.

24. Gardening Game

The Legend of Zelda was inspired by nature. At the time, games like Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers were popular - where the game was all about beating the bad guys to save the princess. But Miyamoto wanted the game to allow gamers to indulge more in exploration just like he used to do in the woods outside his home when he was a child - making it a garden they could wander through that could fit in their gaming drawer.

25. Not In America

Because the original game pushed so many boundaries when it came to gaming, creators were reluctant to release it in the U.S. But they did and The Hyrule Fantasy was renamed to The Legend of Zelda.

26. No More Microphone

Another change from the original Japanese game was the exclusion of the microphone from game play. The U.S. versions of the console did not include a microphone so the Pols Voice rabbit ghost which is found in several dungeons had to be dealt with more traditionally rather than with the innovative use of making noise into the microphone to defeat it.

27. The Triforce Symbol

The three triangles in a triangle of the Triforce and present in every single Zelda game was inspired by a traditional Japanese emblem used by the Hōjō clan in Japan's 13th-14th century. It was called the Mitsuuroko or "the Three Dragon Scales."

28. The Music That Almost Wasn't

By now, Koji Kondo's score has become synonymous with The Legend of Zelda, however it almost wasn't to be. Originally, the creators wanted to use Ravel's Boléro as the game's theme but couldn't afford the rights.

29. High-Tech Fantasy

Originally, the Triforce pieces which Link collects were supposed to be micro-chips. Playing in even further to the theme of time travel and linking the high-fantasy of the past with a high-tech far future.

30. Down Voted

According to The Facts Site, "Navi, Link's companion in Ocarina of Time, has been voted the most annoying companion in gaming history."

© 2018 Tech Times, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

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Friendship Never Ends

November 17, 2017
Ashley was in the middle of packing up her things for college until her mother came into her room.
“What do you think you’re doing young lady,” yelled Ashley’s mother with anger beyond belief.
“I told you, I’m leaving for college and today’s the last day that we can check into our dorms,” replied Ashley with extreme sass; while brushing her wavy blonde hair to the side. Ashley was so frustrated that her parents wouldn't let her to go to college. The peculiar thing was that it wasn’t only because of her parents’ income. She couldn’t quite figure out what the other reason was, but she knew that there had to be one. She was firmly determined to find out what this reason was, though she knew that it would be  difficult.
Later that afternoon at about 3 PM, Ashley knew that she had to do something, though she couldn’t quite grasp the idea. As she was eating her usual afternoon snack in her bedroom, Ashley looked around at the many, many boxes that she had packed earlier that morning. She had this “golden idea.” Her thought was that she could call her closest, most mischievous friend, Jonas. Ashley knew from the bottom of her heart, Jonas would do pretty much anything for her. As she was finishing up her bowl of fresh, strawberry yogurt, Ashley was sorting through the remains that were scattered throughout her room, looking for her phone. “There,” exclaimed Ashley as she reached for her phone.
Scrambling through her phone, looking for Jonas’ contact, Ashley thought to herself, “Should I actually do this behind my parents’ back?” She kept on scrolling for a few more seconds and just blew this sudden thought away, as if the cloud of imagination never even arose. “Here we go, just what I was looking for,” expressed Ashley with joy. As she began to dial Jonas’ phone number, Ashley began to think about her plan, that she hoped, would succeed.
“Hey Ashley, what’s up,” asked Jonas.
“Well Jonas, I need you to help me figure out a plan to get out of my house and into my dorm at the University of Michigan. My only problem is, my parents don’t want me to leave for college, and I can’t figure out why. Do you think that you can help,” asked Ashley as she stumbled over her words.
“I think I can help. I’ll be over in 10 minutes. Oh, and open the patio door that enters into your room, so your parents won’t know I’m here.”
Ashley shuffled all of her boxes near the door so it would be easier to move them into Jonas’ white Ford F-150. As she moved the last box near the patio door, she saw Jonas pull up in front of her newly built, tan-ish colored house. He comes to the patio door with his manly as ever muscles, ready to move about 10 heavy boxes in 2 minutes or less. Ashley knew that eventually her parents would figure out that she was gone, but she knew that as long as she made it to the dorms by 7pm at the latest, there would be no way her parents would be able to bring her back home.
As Jonas put the last of the 10 boxes with the others in his truck, Ashley heard her parents walking up the stairs to check on her. She knew that she had to run like the wind to get into Jonas’ truck and drive away. In about 2.1 seconds, Ashley had already bolted out her patio door, and of course not forgetting the most important item, her phone.
“Phew! That was a close one Jonas,” cheered Ashley as she huffed and puffed, trying to get her body to calm down.
“Oh yes it was Ashley, but we did it,” said Jonas, as he too, was trying to catch his breath.
Ashley was drained. Right as she was closing her eyes to take a nap on the ride up to the University of Michigan, Ashley said to Jonas, “You know Jonas, I don’t think I could have pulled this off without my best friend by my side. I appreciate you, even through times of turmoil and frustration. Thank you for all that you do for me, even if I don’t exactly show it all the time. I . . . I . . . I love you, Jonas,” murmured Ashley as she shut her eyes for the rest of the 2 hour car ride.
Even though Jonas knew that Ashley was 100% passed out and asleep, he whispered back with the sweetest, most precious voice. ”I love you too, Ashley,” as he gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek and placed his arm around her.
At 6:30 PM that same day, Ashley and Jonas pulled up to the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor. “Ashley . . . Ashley, we’re here,” whispered Jonas as he moved his arm from around Ashley’s back and gave her a warm hug, as she was just waking up from her nap.
After Jonas helped Ashley get checked in, unpacked, and settled into her dorm, he knew that it was time to say goodbye, at least for a little while. “Goodbye Ashley, I’m always here if you need me, even if it’s midnight, just give me a call,” stated Jonas as he shed his first tear.
“Thank you, Jonas, I love you. I know you’re always here for me, and I’ll do the same for you. I will never forget you, and I promise to always think of you and talk to you when I get even the slightest moment off free time,” explained Ashley as she started to ball her eyes out.
Though they both knew that this wouldn’t be the end of the road for their strong friendship, they wanted to make every last second together count. For a good minute, Ashley and Jonas just stood there, face to face, holding each other’s hands, just looking into each other’s ocean blue eyes, and crying. When Ashley felt that it was right to go back to the dorms, she knew they had to. She knew that they had to . . . you know . . . kiss. When Ashley and Jonas leaned in for their last hug for a long while, she gazed up, as he glanced down. Ashley brushed through Jonas’ dirty blonde hair, then the magic happened!
As they started to walk their separate ways, they both had the slightest bit of doubt that they would, even though they made a promise, never talk or see each other again. Yes, it can be hard to maintain a firm relationship with someone when you don’t see them often, but you just have to keep one thing in mind: no matter the distance, no matter the situation or circumstance, you will always be with them in heart, mind, and soul.

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text:
Too Far

March 24, 2011
Now, maybe something has fallen through
I've waited too long
Walked these halls too far
Because I've discovered the scratches hidden deep beneath
The simple impurity of the so-called pure
I won't turn away, I won't give in, won't give away

Watched her crumble under the weight
of the thousand moons
Setting an eternal night
Seen him toss pins in the air
into sickened hearts
Bounce back to his eyes
Noticed them burn each other's souls
among the smiles
Ignoring their own ashes
Felt my heart crack
from these nightmares
Bleeding innocence so false – so corrupted.

Lie, I scream
Lie to me one more time!
Tell me it's all right
That it's okay
That she bleeds her own blood
And he stabs the weak
And they burn themselves
I must've looked too hard
Must've stayed too long
Walked too far
Because I've discovered the truth
And I will never believe in it again

Join the Discussion

This article has 2 comments. Post your own now!

Dawn18 said...
Mar. 28, 2011 at 7:58 am
This is very powerful. It  really offers a glance into your thoughts and feelings. This also remonds me of my bestfriends life right now, I am going to show this to her. I think she will find comfort in it, just how people find comfort in songs they can relate to.
enchanted4yu said...
Mar. 26, 2011 at 1:07 am
this is a really powerful peice.. u can tell its heartfelt and i respect that.
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text:
A noise won't make me jump

February 24, 2011
By , Elmwood Park, IL
If someone dies here, I won't care
A noise won't make me jump
I don't have to listen for the falling of a body
For my father's footsteps coming to a halt
For my mother's breathing to suddenly stop
For my little brother's choke
For the last sigh of an overworked body
For the closing thought of a beautiful mind
For the final blink of a precious soul
For my leader to be lost
For my reason to be tossed
For my light to be dark
For my heart to be broke
Here, I am alone

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text:
Mean (Nothing's wrong)

November 21, 2017
By , Punxsy, PA

I am mean
You see the scowl on my face and you know
You assume what’s on the outside matches the inside
That my eyes are those matches that can start a forest fire
Because everything is easy to understand when you skim
But there are no cliff notes for me and my emotions
The cliffs are the crinkles in my face that distort what you thought you knew
The cliffs of conclusions that you jump to for fun
It’s your favorite hobby

I am hazard
Unpredictable and unreadable
You assume what my shell shows
You ignore what my heart knows
Don’t get too close, you might see my reasons
Don’t look into my eyes, you might see the smoke
That covers the horizon
Marking the yellow sun as caution tape
Marking my smile as a half-moon that hangs too low
A moon that brings out the darkness in everything
A moon with craters too deep to fit your mold

I am why
Why smile or laugh when you don’t really mean it
Because then your expressions will be as empty as your words
Your face as blank as your mind
Your projection washed white like your sparkling soul
That knows no pain
No relation to the black waves with foam of glass
Scraping from the inside out with every tide
Glass shards from the broken bottles of your wishes
That you sent out to the sea, to your loved ones, to your lost ones
To yourself

I am mean
But not the mean that is angry, that is supposedly masking the hurt
I am the mean that is
Positively, painfully, permanently
The mean that is everything, good and bad, added up
And then divided like my lips
Which expose my teeth that crack from the lies they are so used to shooting out
My teeth that chip away every time they are used
To prove that nothing is wrong

I mean
Nothing is wrong

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Chris Ayala launches Towanda Capital less than a year after moving here

Towanda CapitalBy Tom Ballard, Chief Alliance Officer, PYA

Less than a year after relocating from New York City to Knoxville, Christopher Ayala has launched a new venture focused on purchasing a middle market business.

“This is exactly what I wanted to do,” the lawyer and corporate executive turned entrepreneur told us recently. Jim Biggs of the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center introduced us to Ayala about a year ago when he was following his wife to Knoxville after she accepted a position with Scripps Networks Interactive.

After taking time to understand the region and opportunities, Ayala launched Towanda Capital on March 1.

The company is targeting businesses located anywhere in the U.S., although the Southeast is optimal. The ideal target company would have between $10 and $40 million in sales and between $2 and $8 million in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).

“The (Towanda Capital) structure lends itself to several different sectors,” Ayala says, citing healthcare, transportation and logistics, and general business services. “I would like to do it (a purchase) as soon as possible.”

Thus far, he has spoken with more than 50 companies.

Once the deal is done, he plans to run the company and continue the legacy of the previous owner.

“I’ve had great success with mid-stage firms, getting them to the next level for purchase or acquisition by others,” Ayala says. “Our goal will be to provide a return to the investors although that does not necessarily mean a full exit.”

He’s backed by 12 investors who have committed the funding for the start-up’s overhead and deal sourcing costs as he looks for the right acquisition opportunity.

“They have the first right of refusal on equity in the business that I pick,” Ayala says of the dozen investors in Towanda Capital. He’s working to identify businesses with strong profit margins and service-type contracts that allow for very measurable future revenues.

At the time of the interview, he had opened an office in the First Tennessee Building in Downtown Knoxville, hired a University of Tennessee (UT) MBA student, and added three undergraduate UT students and another from Columbia University.

“There’s a lot of research and analysis involved in our model,” Ayala says in explaining the work of the MBA student and interns in identifying potential targets. Once they are identified, he’s focused on the all-important and time-consuming relationship building and cultivation.

“Knoxville and the Southeast are a great environment for this model,” Ayala says, citing easy travel and great resources.

The firm’s name is coincidental. It’s the street where the Ayalas reside.

Tom Ballard

By Tom Ballard, Chief Alliance Officer,
Pershing Yoakley & Associates. P.C.

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text:
Kumkum Bhagya 31st October 2017 Written Episode Update: Tanu brings Munni’s kids home to expose her

Kumkum Bhagya 31st October 2017 Written Episode, Written Update on TellyUpdates.com

The Episode starts with Munni meeting with an accident when running on road to reach Tanu’s car. People gather there. Tanu sees people gathering and thinks they have waste time, but I don’t have and have to reach Mehra Mansion. Everyone looks for moon. Mitali says moon is hidden now. Dadi says it is a good shagun and tells whenever husband goes out, wife waits for him and when he returns, wife gets happy and likewise when moon will appear, all wives wait will end and the love will last longer. She says today moon is playing hide and seek and asks them to wait. Mitali says moon haven’t told us when it will come. Dasi says I have a good idea to wait and calls women playing dhol. They all dance.

Aaliya is in the car and calls Tanu. Tanu picks the call. Aaliya asks why did you pick kids

from hostel. Tanu says kids were missing Munni. Aaliya says if you bring kids here, then Abhi will kick us out. Tanu says when I asked you for help, you asked me to do whatever I want to and don’t eat your brain. She says now she don’t care and can’t bear to see Abhi and Munni’s closeness. Aaliya thinks she has gone mad and asks where is she? Tanu says she has taken shortcut and will be reaching there. Aaliya thinks what to do? If she exposes Munni then. I have to reach home before her. Tanu comes home and asks kids to come and meet Munni. Chutka and Chutki gets happy. Aaliya comes and sees Tanu’s car already there. She gets tensed and gets inside. Abhi asks everyone to stop dancing and asks what you all are doing? Dadi asks what happened? Abhi says all wives have kept fast for their husbands then they shall dance with them. Dadi says aww….All husbands and wives dance with each other. Abhi and Pragya also dance. Karam khudaya hai plays while they dance. He lifts her and dances with her.

All wives stand infront of their husbands to break their fast. They do their husbands’ aarti. Abhi looks at Pragya as she does his aarti. She sees Abhi through the mesh. Dadi prays for them. Abhi makes her have water. Tanu asks Dasi where is everyone? Dasi says they are on terrace and taunts her. She asks who are these kids. Kids tell their name. Tanu says they are bomb which will explode. She says she will expose Munni. Abhi and Pragya ask each other to have sweets. Abhi asks her to have it first, but as she insists, he says we will have together. Tanu gets jealous and asks kids to go to Munni. Kids run to Pragya and call her Munni Maasi. They say they used to cry and don’t want to have food. They ask if she don’t miss them. Aaliya comes inside and asks Robin where is Tanu? He says she went to terrace with kids. Aaliya gets tensed. Kids ask her why did you leave us and says now they will stay with her. Pragya is surprised and shocked and thinks who brought these kids here.

Kids ask why didn’t you come and meet us, we used to cry for you daily. We will not return to that hostel again. Tanu thinks her plan is super success because of these kids. Chutka asks why did you separate yourself with us. Chutki asks do you want to go far from us like Maa and Papa. Abhi asks who are these kids and why they are calling you Maasi. Pragya says I will tell you and thinks what to tell. Chutka says whenever we insist to talk to you, we get scolded many times. Pragya thinks who brought them here, and thinks Aaliya will not do this.

Aaliya tells everyone that the moment they came to know about Munni’s truth, they decide to expose her infront of everyone. Abhi asks Pragya to tell the truth and asks who are these kids.

Update Credit to: H Hasan

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  1. pragya’s dumbness about to start…dis is a crap of a serial!

  2. pragya’s dumbness about to start…dis is crap of a serial!

  3. now please do not add more spice to this drab show. Let pragya tell the truth so that this show gets over this week.

  4. New promo showing that Abhi throwing Pragya out of the house, not watching if this happens. Losing my patience now

  5. yeah, if abhi throws pragya out, then the show will not be exited again

  6. Bullshit …. this worst show ever , it was doing so good , not it’s not , not watching it more

  7. most disgusting serial

    this is the most dumb show on earth that i have seen. i dont understand how pragya and abhi and etka kapoor got an award for this show. pragya and abhi behave so dumb always. as for pragya she cant speak up for herself when something goes wrong. disha is much more smarter then pragya.

  8. Dum Pragya drama starts!!

  9. NEW MAHA EPISODE FOR 4 November at 8pm-

    Abhi says to Pragya that YOU’RE NOT MY PRAGYA, YOU’RE HER LOOKALIKE. You don’t have the right to stand here in my house, GET OUT! GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE! Voiceover says those that were made for each other got separated. Pragya’s voiceover says this fight is for my marriage/husband and I will win this fight.

  10. pragya will start her things again…..ooooh noooo

  11. Hi, guys this is the first time Iam commenting here. This show used to be the best show even a year ago but now it has become the worst one. The writers are testing the patience of the viewers. They think whatever they do. We will keep on watching it. If we all stop watching it then they will know but that’s not possible. I stopped watching it a month ago. When I knew they are not going to change the plot . I got irritated and Stopped reading the written updates also. A show should be a entertaining one not a stressful one. But one thing should be said the people, who are still watching it have so much patience seriously, I am not joking. Well I stopped by to say this guys bye. Take care

  12. Stupid cast and Ekta Kapoor and the brain less writers.

  13. Ekta Kapoor u show is irritating seriously can’t u change the plot of the show it’s getting bored am sick and tired of watching the same crap

  14. I want to Kill Pragya for her dumbness. Are you really gone mad or what. You are searching for Kids… The kids are in front of you. You can tell the truth and throw the stupid Tanu. I think Tanu is better than you. She is doing something for Abhi. So are just Dumb…. Go and die.. that will be better. Ekta Kapoor, you also die instead of killing the audience.

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text:
Swasan – A Despacito One Night Stand (#1)

“Meeting is ready and awaits you mr maheshwary”

I heard my PA informing me formally yet kindly, I dismiss him not wanting to disturb this view. Amazing Kolkata, it’s top view is something to really be hold from my wide window of my private cabin. I panted it mentally many times, yet every time I plot it wonderfully.

I saw my reflection in the transparent glass, fearsome and breathe taking yet something I knew is missing. I tie my jacket middle button; black is my favorite color, my family favorite color.

Let me introduce myself while I walk, I am Sanskar Maheshwary, Maheshwary’s younger son, the art god of India, nothing about art slip my fingers. As I walk to the conference room I see employs bow to me or stand in tension, but what relax me that this is not due to fear rather than respect. I respect them and give them anything they want but in return your first mistake will be your last, my brothers adharsh and laksh ruled their world with absolute fear, like two dons, learning from the best which is my own father, but I preferred to rule by peace.

When I entered the meeting all stood in respect, my branches managers, it’s our monthly meeting to keep the work updates. Meeting kept for more than 2 hours and by the end of it I felt my head bounding with hurt, yet I hold myself good, giving my good smile and nice gesture, I gave my instructions to the managers and took my steady walk to my cabin again.

Never show any emotions,

My dad’s rule number ………. I can’t remember, he had many but I remember them all, some by soft way and some with hard way.

I was steps away from my cabin when I met my PA again

“sir, your faience awaits you since 15 mints”

“ohh, ok. Don’t disturb me at all and check the arrangments for the art gallery with mr. kapir and mr. Alano.”

“yes sir” he replied with a head bow.

I took my few steps to the cabin, calm down Sanskar, control your head pain, your faience awaits you, be the man you should be.

With those thoughts I enter my cabin with wide smiley face

“kavita darling”

Damn it. Oh god I am sorry I shouldn’t curse. I am never allowed to curse, not even inside myself, be good Sanskar. But kavita makes it hard on me.

My little faience kavita was in s*xy hot terquaz dress barely above her knee with one leather string on one shoulder and free on the other. Her hairs tied in messy pun and many strands colored in different colors. Her hairs were like a rainbow parrot.

“Sanskar baby”

“how are you today darling?” I said while I hug her softly.

But her hand reached the back of my neck gripping me with small pressure while landing a kiss on my cheek

“I am fine darling, just missed you”

“I am sorry to give you concern baby, I was busy with my works. But I had pictures of your guitar performance, it was amazing”

“well yea.. my family all came, even Dp uncle, I waited you, you know”

She said in slow pouty voice but somehow she managed to make it s*xy.

“it won’t happen again baby”

“Actually I wanted also to thank you, even though I came from wealth family, but when you stand beside me I became the most wanted guitarist”

“well baby you are talented indeed”

I was sitting behind my chair while she sits on the other side looking beautiful and give me tempting looks and I act as the gentle man I am. She moved from her chair and her looks were different now, she forced my chair a little back and finds her place on my lap, both her legs between mine while she seated herself on my right thigh.

Control Sanskar, control, breath in and out, shshshs… calm down…

“I missed you Sanskar baby hmmm”

Kavita hands crawl on my chest up and down rubbing while I try to fix my breaths. She started kissing my neck and my breaths start to take small sound…

“hmm sanskaaaar, Sanskar hmm”

I wanted to kiss her too, I gave small kisses to her neck, it wasn’t our first time to make out, it kept for mints but I wasn’t feeling comfortable.

“kavita darling… ka hmmmmm”

My words went dead as she sucked my lips hungrily, and I kissed her back but not as I want, remember Sanskar, be gentle man, you are gentle man, never lose control…

“kavita darling.. please… hmm”

“ahh touch me Sanskar, come on”

“kavita…. Kavita darling…. hmmm darling …hmmmm we …. Ahmm should ….stop”

I tell her to stop during our kisses, her hands were rubbing over my chest and pulling my hairs while her lips work over my lips and neck. I was hot and turned on, but not enough to twitch my dick which she surly feel it as she position herself very well to feel me down there.

“ohh Sanskar, you are so hot and handsome, hmmmm”

I hugged her waist, pushing her to me, this girl don’t know anything, control Sanskar, stop her now.

“kavita please… we cant … do… this”

She shoves my tie down and now was having my whole neck to kiss while pushing her side hips to match mine s*xually rubbing over my dick…

“ohhh sure we can my baby boy, just me kiss me Sanskar, kiss me senselessly… leave your mark upon me”

Her words, her begging, it should move me, it should …. Nahi Sanskar don’t curse, you aren’t allow cursing so control. Control everything, be the man you are.

“hmm ohhhhh but kavita.. kavi.. please”

I was panting and breathing heavily, my fingers want to tight over her body but no

“ohh just f**k me Sanskar”

At this word I push away from her and make her stand

“how could you say that word kavita?, this is a bad word”

“ohh Sanskar, stop these, let’s not ruin our moment”

She try reach me again but I held her in her place “you are who ruin it kavita, we can’t…….., we can’t do these things, these makings not good for us, stop please”

“ohh Sanskar you are the man for god sake, how long I will be running after you for these? We are engaged baby, it’s ok if we do hard makings or even have s*x”

“no kavita we can’t. Huh baby please we must wait for our marriage”

“Sanskar this is 21 century stop being old fashion”

My god, how can I explain her my real reasons, maybe she wouldn’t judge me, should I tell her??!. NO

I hugged her waist to me speaking softly

“kavita baby, I am being a gentle man, not old fashion, we got to wait to our marriage, so we can honor our parents rightly so we….”

“am I not s*xy to you? Am I not your type? Don’t you like my body? Tell me Sanskar”

“kavitaaa its not about your body!!! You are beautiful darling”

“are you gay then??”

“KAVITA… I am not gay” I bit raised my voice, bad sanskaaaar. “kavita I am sorry I didn’t mean to rise my voice, please try to understand my point”

“and I hope you understand my needs Sanskar”

“I know darling, but trust me, our first time in our wedding night will be very special and you won’t regret it ok darling”

I saw her eyes rolling and giving me weird look then “fine” that was her last word before she break the hug and pick her bag and start to leave.

“baby please don’t leave now… let’s lunch together… don’t be that angry”

But she didn’t listen any and say “later Sanskar, bye” and she left. I just rest upon my couch, how I can tell you kavita why I never touch you the way you want??, if you just know… I hear soft screams crawling to my mind from my past door…

“stop this…..”

“you are monster….”

I sat up, my dear lord, just wait me kavi, let’s just marry and then everything will be fine. But what keeps harass me, what bothers me to extent of suffocation that kavita is my fiancé, my going to be wife and still every time we touch it feels simply ……..

So very wrong.

Hai dear lovlies…. How was the first night ahhhh

I ll eat my nails for your comments…

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  1. Awesome

  2. Awesome epi dr xcited 2 rd next part

  3. Mumpi

    It’s different type waiting for next update. Plzzz update soon

  4. AbrahamEzra

    It’s really superb dear. Loved it and pls post soon

  5. Nice….

Comments are closed.

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text:
Ford C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid buzz powers up

  • Ford is gearing up for the full release of its 2013 C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid, which was recently rated by the EPA at a 108 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) in the city and a combined rating of 100 MPGe.

    The car manufacturer has also cranked up work both at an assembly plant in Michigan as well as the number of its dealers which will be selling the car. It looks to already be on its way to "Ford EV-certified" dealers in half the states across the country.

    The C-Max Energi, which Ford said will deliver up to 620 miles of range on a single tank of gas and a fully charged battery, will price for nearly $30,000 starting after a federal tax credit. The company seems to believe those buying this car will make up that price rather quickly, noting it could save one "almost $7,000 in fuel costs over the course of five years compared with the average new vehicle."

    To get this vehicle quickly to market it is being built in Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant, which is said to be "the only manufacturing site in the world to build vehicles with five different fuel-efficient powertrains on the same line and the only one to build four vehicles that deliver 40 mpg or more in real-world driving." Once used to produce two full-size SUVs, the plant now focused on making use of what is described by Ford as product platform designs that enable the use of programmable equipment to produce multiple variations of products in one facility.

    After leaving the plant, the C-Max Energi of course needs a critical number of dealerships where it is available at if Ford hopes to make an honest run at the vehicle’s closest competitor, the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid. It has thus "tripled" the number of dealers this car is certified to be at, which as of the time of this writing is more than 200.

    The company said that this growth "comes as the number of new vehicle shoppers considering plug-in hybrids has grown to 25 percent. In total, 900 dealers are either certified or enrolled for certification, nearly triple Ford’s initial plans for about 350 certified dealers by early 2013." The first 67 certified dealers were in California, New York and New Jersey and have been selling the Focus Electric since spring.

    What exactly does certification mean to Ford for dealerships wanting to sell vehicles which have a plug-in component? It is a process that includes installation of at least two onsite charging stations and participation in highly specialized training in the field of electric vehicles.

    "From fuel efficiency to innovative technologies to the performance and price, everything we’ve done for the last 20 years in the area of hybrid vehicle technology has led up to this," said John Davis, chief nameplate engineer, C-MAX Energi, in a statement.

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STRATFORD — First Annual Peach Festival Idol Contest will take place June 3, 17 and July 15. There will be three rounds of competition and the entry fee is $25. Cash prizes will be awarded for first, second and third place.

The events will take place as follow: Saturday, June 3 and June 17 at the Stratford School auditorium from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday, July 15 at the Stratford Peach Festival.

Cost of audience entry on June 3 and 17 is $5 and free July 15. A panel of judges and audience will judge vocal and/or instrumental music! All entry fees and forms are due by May 1. Late entries taken until May 15 at extra cost and no entries accepted after deadline.

This event is sponsored by Stratford Chamber of Commerce.

For more information, phone Meresa Marquard at (580) 759-2447 or Kim Gray at (5800 759-4455, (580) 320-3252; or email the committee at

This Week's Circulars


text:
JANE ROSENBERG LAFORGE lives in New York with her husband and daughter. Splashdown is an excerpt from a novel in progress, Sending Mommy to the Moon. Another excerpt has appeared in Pebble Lake Review. She has also published poetry and criticism.

by Jane Rosenberg LaForge

    She should have been counting beads, colors meant to mimic minerals and elements, layers of earth and sky. Instead she was left with numbers, which she scratched into the dirt first with her fingertips, then the bottom of her boot, and finally with a twig she found by a hay bale. If she had been counting beads, she could have at least had categories to sort them into: the primary colors; glass, wooden, ceramic or plastic; or the colors she gave them, pearl gas or oak eye, the yellow-white that escaped when the kiln misfired, or the blue that originated in a Bunsen flame. At The Bead Game everyone had a system for funneling the correct number of beads into a test tube and capping them with a cork stopper. Some counted by twos, fives, or tens. Now she ran her own neat little countdown, trawling one hundred to zero into the dirt, with nothing to show for it.

          She tried not to look at the sky as she counted. The sky had always been less than air to Janice; it seemed more of a measuring device, a scale that ran from horizon to ozone, or a velvet firmament to bright gossamer. Now she was afraid of what she might see in those bands, a map or a legend of impossible travels. Inside the stable, after being out in the sun so long, the sights might be even more disturbing: spots before her eyes.   Not spots of light, but a kind of memory of light, pale and shuddering--the way her mother said people see stars on earth. To travel into space, her mother said, was one way of understanding the universe as it actually occurred. No delays and no interference; no speculation as to make-up and color of what was around you. It was all merely light and its absence.

          “We could go there, you know,’’ Janice’s friend, Melanie, had proposed when Janice first came to stay with her. “Break into the place.’’

         “You’re freaking,’’ Janice said back. “I don’t even know where she’s at.’’

         “I’ll get my dad to find out from your dad. He’ll do it, you know.’’

         “You’re cracked.’’

         Melanie had a habit of leaving her mouth open when she thought she had said something provocative, as though she were tasting the air, testing her power to burn it. Janice shook her head and sat on a hay bale, where Melanie left her for most of the morning, and now, in the punishment of the afternoon air.

        Melanie was supposedly teaching Janice how to ride horses; that was to be Janice’s project for the rest of the summer, according to Janice’s father. Girls like Janice didn’t have time for beads and incense and peace signs and whatever the hell else went on in that god-forsaken excuse for a store, Bernard said. “So what kind of girl am I now?” Janice asked. “One without a mother,’’ Bernard answered. Janice would have argued, reminding him her mother was still alive. But her father’s voice had a way of vanquishing all who disagreed with it, the same way his lawn mower, or his other gasoline-powered contraptions, choked off all conversation.

       The morning before Janice found herself counting for the first time since her mother’s illness, Melanie had made her first real attempt to re-make Janice into an equestrian. She added a third rein to Pebbles’ bridle, and an older gelding the color of    scuffs and scratches was attached. Janice was inserted into the gelding’s Western saddle; the cowboys instructed her to keep her legs straight, and her backbone centered. Melanie promised they would not go out on the trail. “Sit deep in the saddle. Take it easy. That’s it, that’s it,’’ the cowboys encouraged. She was fine as long as the gelding plodded. Speed seemed to complicate Janice’s balance.

       “You a bird? Quit flapping your elbows,’’ one of the cowboys called out as the gelding hit a trot. “Squeeze in with your thighs and knees,’’ Melanie said. “You’re bouncing too much.’’ They must have thought she was afraid too go faster, like most amateurs, but it was the sky that actually inspired her fear. As the horse accelerated Janice thought she could see deeper into the atmosphere. Gone were the bands and colors, the boundaries between chemicals. They were instead replaced by shapes, a Cat’s Cradle of knots and criss-crosses. She’d seen these things before; everybody has, after staring at the sun. But now she knew these shapes were what jets crashed through when they broke the sound barrier, what the astronauts breached each time they re-entered the atmosphere.  These shapes were exactly what her mother wanted to break through, until Janice told her father that he might want to do something about it.

       “Stand in the stirrups,’’ the cowboys called out. “Move with him, not against him,’’ Melanie suggested.  Janice could not grasp the rhythm of the horse; the sensation beneath her was too robotic. She felt as though her bones and muscle had been replaced with far-flung appendage under the command of an unknown intelligence. Once the lesson, as Melanie called it, was over, and Janice had dismounted, the once familiar motion of her limbs felt poisoned with a stiffness that kept her from sitting, standing, or even laying down comfortably.

      “You’re saddle sore. You’ll get over it,’’ Melanie said at the end of the day. They were waiting for Roberta, Melanie’s mother, to pick them up after a day at the stables. “You’ve got to have a goal, like being able to ride somewhere. Maybe to see your mom.’’

      “Get over it, Melvin,’’ said Janice, using an epithet only Melanie’s little brother, Sheldon, had been able to get away with. Now it was Janice’s turn to breathe with her mouth open, although it was because her nose was capped with dirt, and her throat filled with a shameful boredom.

     After her first week at Sweetwater stable, Janice learned to be grateful for the fog in the morning, even though it coated everything in a gelded, gray breath.  Fog proscribed the scent of the stable, the urine, excrement, hide and hay-dust that overwhelmed the honeysuckle and alfalfa. Fog prevented Roberta from speeding down the empty freeway, as though it were an airport runway, when she took Janice and Melanie to the stables each morning. Perhaps Roberta was more like her own mother than she had anticipated. Roberta might only be waiting for better visibility, and the chance to gather enough velocity to lift off, succeed where Janice’s mother had failed.

      But the fog did not last much beyond noon. Janice knew it had broken completely once she felt a thick, trudging heat, rolling down the small of her back like an egg yolk separated from its equilibrium. Heat sent Janice inside the stable, but then she was too close to the animals, the constant shifting of their weight from one leg to the next, their snorting, their audible tedium. Melanie told her to “walk defensively,’’ never directly behind a horse’s backside, or in a horse’s blind spot. Yet wherever she hesitated, Janice found herself in the way of some stable hand, or underfoot a mount being led out. Horses swayed, they stomped, they backed in and out of their stalls; their tapered movements were like a kind of compensation for a rhythm denied to them.

     Janice would have preferred to stay on the private, boarder’s side of the stable, where the stalls were wider, lighted, and Melanie kept Pebbles. The other horses had names like Rufo, Persang, Catalina, and Firesign, names that demanded you learn some detail of their wealthy owners’ lives—the maiden name of a beloved grandmother, their fervent belief in astrology, the ranch where the horse was purchased. Their whims and idiosyncrasies—spooking at unfamiliar footsteps, airplanes overhead or rain advancing-- were lovingly maintained by their owners, according to Melanie, so that they might convince themselves they were, in fact, able horsemen and women. Better to stay on the stable’s public side, where anyone for two dollars an hour could rent a Spot or a Rex, a Chico or a Cisco, names that were short enough for the Spanish-speaking stable hands to pronounce, names that were interchangeable. The sex of the animal—most were old mares, or geldings—was unimportant, and their breeds were indeterminate; they had big heads and occasionally oversized hooves, their prior histories grim if not unremarkable. In the private section of the stable, the colors of the horses ranged from Appaloosa to Palomino, red roan, Pinto and paint. On the public side of the stable, the colors had long since been relegated to bay, brown, black, or white.

       Roberta had given Janice a bandana one morning without explanation; on the infernal afternoons, Janice learned why it was needed. She would tie the bandana around her neck, and pull it snuggly over her mouth. At The Bead Game she had accustomed herself to sage, Nubian sandalwood, something the boss said was called “Moroccan tea’’ that smelled like honey singed, nearly branded. Outside the stable, in the morning, there might be a high sweet scent, cut grass and turned earth; but inside the heat and homogenization of so many lives made the scents tangible, like a froth.  The astronauts might experience something just like this—fear and high temperatures—just before re-entry, her mother had said. Just before splashdown, portions of the space ship might even melt,  upon coming into contact with oxygen again.

       “You’re not really going to the moon, Mom,’’ Janice had said, almost a month ago. They were standing in the backyard, in front of the tent—or hangar, as her mother began calling it—where inside Janice’s sister, Margaret, some neighborhood kids, and her mother had begun building their own rocket ship that Janice’s mother said could rendezvous with Apollo 11.

       “Who says I’m not?”

       “Like the laws of science, for one thing. And Dad, too. You’re freaking him out.’’

       “Your father. I can take care of him,’’ her mother had said, as though she had just completed the arrangements. A few nights later, her father had instead made arrangements for her—for all of them. Janice and her younger sister, Margaret, were jettisoned into the care of Melanie and Sheldon’s parents, Jake and Roberta. In the meantime, their mother was in orbit, as her father said, over “parts unknown.’’

     “I know where Mommy is,’’ Margaret had taunted that first week away from home. They were eating dinner in the kitchen, with Melanie and Sheldon, as Jake and Roberta took their meal in the dining room.  “Mommy’s in the hospital. In corner-tine, with the astronauts.’’

       “That’s quarantine,’’ Sheldon corrected.

        “How do you know?” Margaret asked, as if making an accusation.

        “Once, when we wanted to get a dog? He had to be in quarantine,’’ Sheldon said.

        “So your mom’s rabid,’’ Melanie said to Janice. “You guys better get inoculated.’’

       Janice wondered how her father would have reacted to that. On the telephone each evening, Bernard told her not to listen to Melanie, and deflected all requests to see her mother. She was exhausted; she was not herself. Children were not permitted in hospitals. Janice spent the night once in a hospital, when she had her tonsils removed.  It’s not that kind of hospital, Bernard said. It would be unseemly to have children wandering about.  On the public side of the stable, the horse’s stalls were not marked by their names, but by their numbers, Janice noticed. Melanie had suggested that they write to her mother, but in that case, they might need her inmate number—or perhaps that was what you needed to contact a prisoner. Janice thought her mother might as well have her name changed, her treatment relocated.

       On the day of the Apollo 11 splashdown, Roberta unplugged the radio and televisions, and she forbade Sheldon from playing with anything with airborne possibilities--Super Balls, balsa wood airplanes, Batmans and Robins made of sticks and cellophane, to be launched by rubber bands. Roberta’s strategy was to instead distract Margaret, and she did so with the most earthbound of gifts: a caterpillar trap; an ant farm; a magnifying glass.  Roberta did not even have to think about how to handle Janice. Both sets of parents had once designated the two girls as best friends: they were invited to all of each other’s birthday parties, shuttled to their respective recitals, graduations, and religious rites of passage. But since junior high, their interests (as well as their behavior, according to Janice’s father), diverged. Melanie deliberated over horse magazines like some girls did over yearbooks. Janice had seen them at the end of every year, debating who were the best looking, counting the numbers of blonds, and classifying their prey as a fox or a dog. When they had finished this particular exercise they would discuss possible pairings between themselves and the suitable boys, calculating odds on the success and failure of these pairings.  Melanie pored over the breeding charts in her horse magazines, sometimes for traces of Pebbles’ pedigree, which supposedly included one thoroughbred on her dam’s side.

      On most occasions, Melanie was prowling for a match for Pebbles’ credentials. Pebbles was a pure black horse, although to Janice, the color pulsed with the same kind of beam she’d seen in volcanic rock, severed and polished. Find the right male, Melanie said, and she could produce another pure black, three-quarters thoroughbred.

     “It would be so royal,’’ Melanie declared, “if I could get Pebbles pregnant.’’

      To Janice the breeding charts resembled abacuses, beads that could be arranged and re-set into seemingly infinite combinations.  Melanie attempted to explain how horse breeders tried to produce particular colors in a foal.  Appaloosas were the most prized, yet they did not require an Appaloosa parent.  Chestnuts, browns and bays were too easy, by comparison, although bays were brown horses with black stockings.  Palominos, like blonds, were valued for their light hides and white markings, although to Janice, their color recalled the shade of dentures, filmy and tainted. There were other breeding charts for particular traits—swiftness in thoroughbreds; large, almost mournful eyes in Arabians, and ears curved into the shape of question marks. But where were the horses in the colors of the beads Janice once counted; the kind of blue that not only has a tone, but a shape, tapered at either end; or white with the proper imperfections so that light, luminosity, might travel through it. When Melanie finally put her magazines and herself to bed each night, Janice would lay in her sleeping bag, wondering which traits from her mother she might inherit. There were her looks, of course, the olive skin, eyes virtually without lashes, the once-black hair with mostly gray rooting through it. Then there were the finer points, like beads that could only picked up by a moist fingertips: the tone of her mother’s voice when she was challenged, or hurt, or how her mother went for days wearing the same pair of jeans, or without wearing any lipstick.

       “Do you love your mom?” Melanie asked one evening. “You’re supposed to, you know. Because if you don’t, you get counseling.’’

      “I don’t know,’’ Janice said.

      “You’re pissed off at her, but that’s OK. You’re supposed to be. It’s the new adolescence.’’

        “At least I don’t need counseling.’’

        “I love my dad,’’ Melanie volunteered.

        “He’s never here.’’

       “You’ve got it,’’ Melanie said, sounding triumphant. “He’s working, like all the time. He got me Pebbles when my mom said ‘over my dead body.’ ”

      The horses, the trails, Melanie’s house—the world had gone deep into August. The air whisked with the motion of fire season. At the stable, the scent of shorn grass evaporated, and was replaced by charcoal and smudge. The stable hands and cowboys were pre-occupied with clearing brush, which they hauled back from the trail on pick-up trucks. Branches, scrub, dried-out bushes were heaped onto one another in a pile of crushed colors, like the dried and neglected spices her mother kept in the cabinet.  Janice had never before thought of them as flammable.

    There had been two sensational sets of murders somewhere in the hills, which to Janice’s father made all hills, particularly the Sweetwater trails, suspect. Bernard had been saying for years that psychos, drug pushers, hippies, and child molesters were having too much of a run of the city, and now these murders provided definitive evidence. The last time he had broached this with Janice’s mother, she argued Florida was their only option. All rocket ships require either an equatorial or near-equatorial launch in order to orbit the earth properly, and so it was no mistake that Cape Kennedy was where it was.

        “Stick to the trail, will you please?” Roberta now admonished the girls almost every morning. “Don’t go exploring.’’

        “God, it’s like she thinks the Viet Cong’s out here, or something,’’ Melanie   complained.

        “At least your mom can think,’’ Janice said.

        “Huh,’’ said Melanie.  “I guess. Come on, Pebbles is probably having a fit.’’
        Janice wished her mother had a fit. That she screamed, splattered her car against something, or started a fire. Then there would have been some definitive event, a date Janice could count back from, a before and after. She would have had a method then, a device for separating what she was accustomed to and what she had to learn now. Instead she had Margaret asking her each night what had gone wrong, and that just lead to Janice counting down again. Was it when Margaret and their mother built a Japanese teahouse together, out of old boxes and the cardboard the dry cleaners put in Dad’s shirts? Or when their mother started calling the teahouse a bomb shelter? It had to be when Margaret asked if she could build a rocket ship like the Apollo 11 astronauts. Janice brought up the letter their mother wrote to President Nixon, to inform her of her own moon mission, but Margaret didn’t understand. Then there was the night their mother ripped up the attic, so she could use the fiberglass insulation on the rocket ship; even Margaret then allowed that maybe things were getting out of hand.

     Melanie became reluctant to take Janice out on the trail on windy days of the fire season, when the horses could smell the horses that had preceded them, as well as the consequences of the trail’s poison ivy and rattlesnakes. Beyond the trails, over the hills and to the west, the horses sensed the ocean extending into the sand, and the glossy feel of mud, water, and salt around their hooves.  The days without motion were best for new riders like Janice.  The air lost all buoyancy, all its volatile scents, and the stillness made the horses pliant, both their fears and ambitions like sedge and sheared grass beneath their feet, only remnants. On these days, Janice let her horse follow Pebbles in walks and trots; she was still too afraid to go on a controlled canter, let alone a gallop. Melanie tied Janice’s horse up to a post, or a tree, when Pebbles needed to run. As Janice watched, Pebbles’ bearing thrust air ward and Melanie shifted her balance toward the horse’s ears.  The two of them appeared as though they had a way of remembering together, enumerating their tricks, tumbles, and instances when their lungs pulsed and their hearts punched through their rib cages at the same piercing rate.

       Janice eventually found a job for those windy days, working for Carlos, who ran the stable’s public side. She ferried saddles and other tack between the stalls and the tack room.  Outside, the wind scooped leaves, stems, and roots as if they were crumbs, and mixed them together to create whirls of dust, spores, and dander. Inside the stalls, the horses snorted, backed up, flicked their ears and stomped whenever Janice entered. Carlos offered her more money than she made at The Bead Game if she’d ready the horses herself, because the cowboys were too occupied with clearing the brush.  But even the older, gentler horses reacted to the upheaval in the weather. Janice approached and their ears shot back, their mouths arched to display their teeth; they wanted more, to taste, to bite into the chaos. Janice left the saddling and bridling to someone else; now it was George, one of the few English-speaking cowboys like George.

      George’s hair was beyond blond, wan and arid, and in his eyes Janice recognized a crystalline tautness she had seen in the beads made from sea glass. He was older than all of the girls who had horses on the stable’s private side, but Melanie said he couldn’t have been that much older. Otherwise, he would have been drafted.

          “Got a work permit for this job?” he asked.

          Janice found herself counting the pounds weighing on her shoulders and forearms. Twenty-five, when she put together blanket, bit, bridle, and saddle. “Sure,’’ she answered.

        “Where is it?” He was following her now, past the area where riders signed up for their mounts, into the paddock.

         “At home, I don’t know.’’

         “Need to see it.’’

          The saddle slipped from Janice’s forearm and the blanket, lodged on the other arm, was bound to follow. “What?” Janice asked breathlessly.

          “Come on, now.’’  He was talking to her, but he could have been talking to one of the horses.  Melanie said the only good thing about George was that he showered more than the other cowboys, and or that he knew how to use cologne.   He wore a choker of leather and turquoise, a raw droplet of a stone set on a silver plate.

       “You know, you’re a sweet girl, but I don’t like working with someone spooked by her own reflection,’’ George said. “It’s not cool to the rest of us.’’

       “I’m sorry.’’ Janice told herself she wasn’t looking down to avoid George’s face, or his eyes, which seemed to have ignited as they spoke in some way. She was just counting the pieces of tack she’d been carrying, making sure she hadn’t lost or damaged anything.

         “I’ll get it,’’ George said, reaching for the bridle falling down Janice’s arm. He was about to replace the bridle on Janice’s shoulder when Janice and George were distracted by the punch of galloping hooves against the cement within the stable grounds, precisely where it was not permitted.

        “Christ, it’s the Lone Ranger,’’ George declared.

        “God, I’m sorry, Melanie,’’ Janice said.

        “I’ll tell you who’s going to be sorry,’’ Melanie announced. Pebbles pitched her head severely, as if to shake off her bridle. Melanie tugged back on Pebbles and the mare pranced in place, in response. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, clearly directing the question at George.

       “You don’t know nothing about it.’’

       “You know your momma,’’ Melanie rejoined, leaving her mouth open for that one copious second.  By the time she could challenge him with the third finger of a free hand, George had turned his back, and was walking out past the stalls to clear more brush.

        It was Janice who first went for Melanie’s horse magazines once they arrived home that night. She wanted to study the drawings, oil portraits, and photographs, but the colors of the horses no longer seemed important. Neither did their pedigrees. How they moved, balanced, loped and swayed, with the weight to break bones and force to throw off authority: this was the issue. This is what frightened her, but in the magazines the power had been domesticated. Some of the pictures were posed, with the horses’ coats brushed to a blistering glimmer; others were caught mid-gallop, balancing on one front leg while their rear limbs thrust out behind them.   Some pictures reminded Janice too much of a chance at flight, denied: when stationary, their nostrils stretched skyward, in defiance, and in motion, they practiced a sturdy glide.

      “ You know, horses are stupid,’’ Melanie confided. “You act like you know what you’re doing, they don’t know the difference.’’   She pulled out a poster that showed a jockey and his thoroughbred at full gallop.  “I wish someone could get me and Pebbles like that,’’ Melanie said, and Janice knew what she meant: Melanie wanted a picture of herself in the same position, as proof that she could do it: stop time while keeping her balance. The horse had already suspended himself over the track, and in the background, everything meant to set limits—the rail, the infield clock, the stewards and trainers—looked smeared, as though on their way toward erasure. Not for a moment did the horse touch the ground in the photograph; nor would Melanie’s imagined mount, for at this pace a horse’s momentum is enough to elevate itself.  This was where her mother failed, in seeing the world’s limits blur, Janice thought; and where she herself could not.

          Melanie returned her volumes to the bookshelf before going to sleep. Janice, in her sleeping bag, stared at them through the darkness, their spines lined up as if they were ready for launching. During those weeks on Melanie’s floor, Janice might have actually fallen asleep, although she could never remember that sensation, upon waking. Instead she recalled a kind of timelessness filling her nights, re-living days and weeks.  That particular evening, she let herself speculate as to all of the time stilled in Melanie’s horse journals: a history of breeding, births, races and retirements that Janice had never known existed. Her mother, at one point, had said traveling into space would let her fix time. Astronauts could count between sixteen to eighteen sunrises and sunsets as they made a single orbit of the Earth. If there was anything to the theory of relativity, there had to be some way of orbiting backwards, taking back all of those daybreaks, and dispatching all of the previous years’ worth of mistakes and failures. What exactly did she want to erase, Janice wondered: a skinned knee, a broken date, or something like marrying her father, or having her children?

     The fog failed to burn off that next morning; what had been visible from the backseat of Roberta’s car was now merely suggested, making static the list of landmarks Janice counted through each morning. The more the fog persisted, the more it seemed to acquire a new power, as though it could delay events: the weight of the saddles and saddle blankets on her arms, the angle of a horse’s teeth as she slid the bridle over its tongue, the tension in the reins she could never properly maintain. The last night her mother was home, her father had finally had enough, and gave her the equivalent of one earth orbit until the hangar and the rocket ship had to be dismantled. Janice’s mother replied it would be no problem, provided that he understood she was on lunar time; a lunar day, after all, was twenty-nine earth days, twelve hours, forty-four minutes and three seconds.

       “You’d better get out there now,’’ George was saying. Janice and Melanie were in Pebbles’ stall; Janice brushed the mare’s neck while Melanie was taking her hoofs in hand, to clean them out with a hoof pick.

       “What are you, the trail monitor?” Melanie asked.

       “I wasn’t talking to you,’’ he said. Janice felt the air between her back and the stable wall take on a heft, as though it now had a form and a focus.

       “I’ll find you an easy ride,’’ he promised, behind Janice’s neck.

       “The hell you will,’’ Melanie declared.

        George saddled up Spot for Janice, but Melanie took over the mount.  Spot was a stable gelding that used a rubber bit, due to his long career as a horse-to-let, which was apparently ending in hard mouth. As they warmed up their mounts around the ring, Melanie complained the bay had a fifth leg outside his trot; his canter would be a punishment. “More excuse to run,’’ she said, and took the horse out of the ring at a gallop. Janice followed on Pebbles, careful to post on the correct lead as she held back the mare in a jog.

         “Elbows in, girl,’’ George shouted after her. “No taking off.’’

          Janice had become habituated to someone’s instructions chasing after her at the beginning of each ride. For the moment, the crack of the stable hands’ Spanish was all she had to give her a sense of direction, as the fog appeared to have strengthened, tightened, where the path turned off the oval and onto the trail. She should have been scared, with Melanie so far ahead and her reliable landmarks now caught in the grip of gray moisture, but the fog also made the size of the sky more manageable, as though it could be condensed into her hands.  Janice kept Pebbles to a walk and enjoyed the air, clean and intricate against her face. The close-hewn clouds freshened everything, she thought; the trees, the brush, the horses’ hides otherwise defeated by the crush of manure and yellow pollens.

      “Ho,’’ a command, followed by a new cadence, was trailing her. “Whoa, where you going, girl? Ho. Ho. Wait up there. Whoa.’’ In a quick glance Janice saw George on a Palomino five or six lengths behind; he must have convinced one of the private owners that the horse required an exerciser. Janice shortened Pebbles’ reins, knowing that her horse would attempt to follow the Palomino’s canter; then she ran through her own posture. Her pinkies were fastened between the double reins of the Pelham bridle; her knees pressed inward, her toes pointed slightly upwards, her shoulders relaxed, her waist and hips firm, yet rocking with the animal.

        “That’s it, that’s it,’’ George said, pulling back on his horse. “Nice work, sweetheart.’’

        “Melanie invited you?” Janice said.

        “Melanie doesn’t own the trail.’’

         George rode the Palomino with only a blanket. He held the reins in a single hand, loosely, as if within he was protecting something delicate; a wilted bird or an arrangement of beads, unstrung suddenly. He gestured to Janice, and waved to approaching riders, with his other hand, which he kept close to his waist, where his horse could neither see nor suspect it. Together Janice and George trotted; for her benefit, she guessed. After each jog she found Pebbles’ reins shortened even tighter toward her mane. Pebbles’ ears alternately flopped and hung out of frustration while George’s mount pricked straight and forward. When George pulled back on the Palomino’s mouth, it was more with the strength of his wrists than his shoulders and forearms.

       Once her father had called the ambulance, and the mission to the moon was finally over, Janice’s father began interrogating her mother, as if he already knew the answers. How did she suppose she could actually get to the moon? What was she going to do once she got there? What were he, Janice, and Margaret supposed to do while she was gone? How were they to manage? Wasn’t her place here, at home? Wasn’t that where she was most needed?   Check, check, check, she answered, like a kind of countdown that had no ending. But before she was lead by the hand into the back of ambulance, her mother answered all of the questions through a checked grin: “Women’s intuition.’’

        Janice clicked her tongue. Pebbles answered with her fastest jog yet, her front legs   threatening to blur into running. Janice bounced. She teetered. She slacked down on one rein while she clutched Pebbles mane.  But she was not concerned if George saw how badly her balance was suffering. Her father, after all, hadn’t seen it in her mother, until the last minute. By that time her mother had willed all her trust to something Janice had yet to fathom—an idea about time? An idea about nature? Or an idea about herself, a faith that everyone thought was fatal.

         “Whoa, hold up there, girl, you’re not ready yet,’’ George called after her. Pulling back was what would ultimately give her away, Janice knew, the way her hands and arms flapped and flew in stuttering motions. Pebbles did not resist, but her head and neck remained long and alert, as if poised for running.

       “What’s the rush, sweetheart?’’ George had easily caught up to her, and was now riding parallel. “I know where she’s headed,’’ he went on. He was talking about Melanie, and nodding in the direction of a cluster of mountains. A fog-plowing wind revealed that no trails had been cut into the sides of these unfamiliar forms, crowded over with a green that even from a distance appeared slick, dense, and succulent.

          “Up there?”

          “Slow it down, and I’ll show you.’’ He plucked Janice’s hand out of Pebbles’ mane and rushed her arm to the corner of his eye, using her limb as though it was some type of a viewfinder. “Through there, there’s a trail to the canyon that leads to the creek. Then you ride under the highway and hit the ocean. Wanna go for it?”

           Pebbles collected her legs in a bright, rocking configuration that seemed slower to Janice than that last jog, yet free from the burden of discipline. Janice found herself rising slightly out of the saddle and toward Pebbles’ neck, which had lengthened, yet remained unyielding in the wind the mare herself had created. She was thinking of the ocean, the colors it might contain; how sand and salt might adulterate azure and olive; whether sunlight would bleach the saffron from sea kelp, rising to the surface.

     George might have yelled out, “Ho! Girl! Wait!” He might have tried to push his mount to the same gait. But she had far outpaced him as Pebbles unlocked burst after burst of her legs. Her timing was pin-perfect, with Janice holding and releasing her own breath to Pebbles’ pace. The horse’s hooves split junk straw and flaxen debris while the mountains rose up before the two of them, like the embrace of clear waves amid the ocean’s turning.

The Adirondack Review
The St. Lawrence Book Award
The St. Lawrence Book Award
The St. Lawrence Book AwardThe St. Lawrence Book AwardThe St. Lawrence Book Award
The St. Lawrence Book Award


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Human Services Minister Jacquie Petrusma says Safe Pathways investigation would not be rushed

The government should sever ties with Safe Pathways following earlier allegations of neglect within the for-profit organisation, according to Greens Leader Cassy O’Connor.

Ms O’Connor said she had spent Thursday morning with former employees of Safe Pathways discussing the issues.

“[Ms Petrusma] has no choice but to terminate the contract with Safe Pathways,” she said.

“There are allegations about the way children have been dealt with by the organisation that we believe makes the contract untenable.

“Our fear is for these children who are highly vulnerable and for any children in the future that are put in the hands of a for-profit provider.”

Human Services Minister Jacquie Petrusma said last month that 11 children remained in the care of the out-of-home provider, but reaffirmed this week that all of the children were safe.

ABC’s Four Corners alleged last month that some money funded for the children was not being received by those children.

Earlier this week, Ms Petrusma said that all the children in the Safe Pathways program were safe and had been visited by a child safety officer.

She said the timeline of the investigation should be “above politics” and that no shortcuts would be taken.

“It is important that the investigation into Safe Pathways is done thoroughly by Children and Youth Services and is above politics,” Ms Petrusma said.

A government spokesperson added that the government’s number one priority was the children involved.

The spokesperson said there was no suggestion that the children in care were not safe.

Ms Petrusma previously said in Parliament that concerns about the Safe Pathways program were first raised in August this year, followed by a second time in October, leading to the investigation.

Opposition Children’s Minister Josh Willie called the Safe Pathways issue a “debacle”.

“Tasmanians are right to question why the investigation the Minister claims is still underway is taking so long when 11 children are still in the care of this group,” Mr Willie said.

“Tasmanians need to be abundantly clear about what has happened in the crucially important child protection area on this Minister’s watch.”

Safe Pathways was contacted for comment.


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Matthew Floyd Miller
Matthew Floyd Miller
The Peccadillo Theatre Company has announced casting for of Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest, to run June 3 - July 7 at the Theatre at St. Clement's. Dan Wackerman will direct the production.

Set in the deep South, Another Part of the Forest tells the story of the dysfunctional Hubbard family and their rise to prominence.

The company will feature Sherman Howard, Elizabeth Norment, Matthew Floyd Miller, Stephanie Wright Thompson, Ben Curtis, Kendall Rileigh, Christopher Kelly, Ryah Nixon, Christopher Lukas, Perri Gaffney, Anthony Wills Jr., and Oliver Buckingham.

The creative team will include Joseph Spirito (scenic design), Amy C. Bradshaw (costume design), and Kate Ashton (lighting design).

For further information, visit:


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Latest News

David Margulies, Ghostbusters Mayor and New York Stage Veteran, Dead at 78
Margulies appeared in 13 Broadway shows and countless off-Broadway productions.
Oscar Isaac, Maura Tierney, and More Take Home 2016 Golden Globe Awards
An assortment of theater favorites received honors for their work in film and television.
Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill With Audra McDonald Sets March HBO Broadcast Date
The play with music that won McDonald her record-breaking sixth Tony Award will come to the small screen.
Boyz II Men Joins the Cast of TV's Grease: Live
The R&B group will appear alongside Julianne Hough, Vanessa Hudgens, and more.


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The TRB Writers' Group

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An opportunity for playwrights or those with an interest in writing for the stage to come together each month

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The Theatregoers' Club

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11 January - 28 March 2018

Like watching theatre? Always itching to talk about something you’ve seen?

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Blood Brothers

by Willy Russell

16 - 20 January 2018

Lyn Paul - "the definitive Mrs Johnstone" - plays the iconic role in Willy Russell's legendary musical.

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Posting Letters to the Moon

with Lucy Fleming and Simon Williams

18 - 20 January 2018

Lucy Fleming reads the wartime letters between her parents, Celia Johnson and Peter Fleming, with her husband, Simon Williams.

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An Evening with Aggers & Bumble

21 January 2018

A fascinating, entertaining, no-holds-barred evening for cricket fans and non-lovers of the game alike.

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Showstopper! The Improvised Musical

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Spontaneous musical comedy at its absolute finest, direct from an Olivier Award winning West End run!

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By Emma Powerful | Press Release 04/08/2017

We the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its leadership worldwide under the command and leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu the Director of Radio and Biafra Television condemn unequivocally the unfounded rumours peddled by caliphate slaves through their compromised outlets that the greatest leader of men in the world today, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, is in hiding due to threat of arrest from Arewa North and their security operatives in the Nigerian Army and Police.

Buhari and his APC band of thugs should be the ones hiding from IPOB not us from them. It is unfortunate that some people in Arewa North do not know who Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is hence they keep coming up with laughable fabrications designed to demystify our leader, to no avail. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu they privately acknowledge, knows no fear and is undeterred by side rantings of the vocal parasitic few, who cannot imagine their existence without crude oil money coming from Biafraland.

This wicked lie and malicious fabrication are the work of the enemies of Biafra, who enjoy their perfect slave status and will remain servants to Arewa North all their lives. Their cowardice is such that even when their mothers are literally being raped by Fulani herdsmen on a daily basis before their eyes, rather than fight off the attackers, they help the Fulani rapists in pinning their own mother to the ground while she is brutally assaulted. These shameless individuals have allowed themselves to be used to advance the mission of the Caliphate in Biafraland which is total submission to Hausa Fulani Islamic hegemonic domination.

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It is unfortunate that these unconscionable people have abandoned news reporting in preference for rumour mongering, outright fabrication, misinformation and peddling of falsehood. These unscrupulous individuals are spreading false information in the hope of salvaging the diseased, corrupt British created contraption called Nigeria. So they can continue to trade in the misery of the masses for their personal enrichment. They are hoping that false, demoralising information against our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, will discourage millions of his followers worldwide into abandoning Biafra for one Nigeria. How very mistaken they are. IPOB and her leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, including all lovers of freedom all over the world remain resolute and resilient towards the restoration of Biafra as a free nation under God within the shortest possible time.

Our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has made it abundantly clear to all and sundry that he is NOT going into exile as a result of these childish threats from Hausa Fulani dominated Nigeria Government. IPOB is till date the most vibrant, indomitable and intelligent mass movement in the world over. We are intellectually light years ahead of the little silly mind games Hausa Fulani dominated Luggard created Nigeria are playing. IPOB and Nnamdi Kanu cannot be intimidated by anybody or group no matter how highly placed they think of themselves. Our mission is to restore Biafra and nothing under the sun can stop us.

IPOB family members worldwide under the command and leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu remain nonviolent, irrespective of the well documented brutal killings of unarmed peaceful demonstrators, abductions, torture, illegal detentions and summary executions of detainees by the Hausa Fulani Islamic run Nigeria Police and Army. IPOB remains impregnable and no man born of a woman can stop the agitation for Biafra restoration. Until the Hausa Fulani Islamic Nigeria Government fix a date for a referendum to settle the issue of Biafra in a civilised and democratic manner, this raging agitation led by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu will continue.

With the situation on the ground today concerning Biafra freedom, we pity the APC Party and Nigerian Government led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari for choosing the uncivilised path of brute force and intimidation as opposed to the referendum.  We urge every Biafran, no matter where you are, to remain resolute and strong because Biafra is tantalisingly closer than we expect. It is crystal clear that IPOB led by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is ordained by (Chukwu Okike Abiama) God Almighty which no man can stop. We are winning this battle.

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Monday, April 20, 2015

Pour Another Round

Mammoth Mammoth ~ Hammered Again (2015)

If you haven't heard of these Australians before today, then you're missing out on some of the best stoner infused hard rock going. These guys have been at it for years, and with this being their fourth full length album, they've earned their stripes. "Hammered Again" is just what it sounds like from the title, an album full of hard rock that will be the perfect soundtrack for your next keg party, bong session, or general night of debauchery. I have to say though, we won't be held responsible when your nice little get together turns into a full blown rager once you hit play. While all eleven of the songs are noteworthy, and their slightly twisted, always dirty sense of humor shines through the lyrics of every last one of them. Especially the track "Fuel Injected", where there's a line talking eating angel dust for breakfast, then microwaving the cat because that's the best way to start the day. You have to marvel in awe of Oscar Wilde wordman-ship like that, not to mention at how absolutely ridiculous it sounds. The song it's self is pretty damn far from ridiculous though, it's a head banging good time that's sure to either incite stripping or a bar brawl. They start off with a cranked up, hard rock riff that slowly starts to erode away to the stoner side of things once it gets rolling. The drums are pounding from start to finish, punching out huge rhythms in the midst of heavy riffs and a howling guitar solo. The vocalist uses his trademark vocal delivery, with just enough grit to let you know that it's coming from someone experience. I've long felt like these guys were the closest thing our generation would have to our very AC/DC, except even better, and this latest album only reiterates that thought in my mind. Like any good AC/DC album, if you can't party to this, then there's something wrong with you, not the music. You can pick up "Hammered Again" directly from the Napalm Records site. And for my fellow Americans, Napalm Records even has a pre-order up for some limited vinyl along with the CD in their US store.

 For Fans Of; Monster Magnet, Orange Goblin, The Glasspack