text:
warning: Creating default object from empty value in /home/buckman/public_html/neo/modules/advanced_forum/advanced_forum.module on line 492.
Shawn Delahunty's picture

Welcome everyone! For this blog entry, I decided to go back into my computer past a good ways--and drag you with me, kicking and screaming.

Part 1 - Where to Begin?

After having my interest in CRPG's re-ignited by the excellent discussions on Armchair Arcade, I started rummaging around in my memory-banks for the names of the old games that I used to play in study-hall. Yes, I'm going far back into the past; the early-to-mid-1980's to be "fuzzily precise". There were a number of games (mostly pirated) that I and my classmates played, but only two could be classified as CRPGs. And of those two, only one has taken on near-legendary status in my memory. And so with a blast of trumpeted fanfare, I give you!...

*crickets chirping*

*...a tumbleweed blows by...*

Nope, nothing. I couldn't remember the name of the dumb thing. Dangit.

However, with some judicious Google-Fu, I was at last able to locate one of my "Green Phosphor Favorites". (Actually, that's not a half-bad title idea for another article. Hmmm...) The amazing CRPG in question for this Retro-Review?

Super Quest, for the Apple][ series of computers!

Yeah, I know--stunning creativity in that title, isn't there? Anyway, a few years ago I had fiddled around with emulators for a bunch of the old 8-bit systems. This effort included building and installing an emulator for the Apple][ line. Although I never owned one myself, I was intimately familiar with the machines--they were the ones which populated my high school's "Computer Lab". (I'm being exceedingly kind here--calling it a "Lab" is a big stretch. It was really an old, dusty, hastily-converted janitorial storage room. At one end sat a humongous, ancient, very wheezy air-handler for that part of the building. Even with the little separator wall and door they built later, that thing was LOUD. Which was convenient, as the constant Whoosh! of air helped mask the beeps and boops of the computer games we weren't really supposed to be playing.) Anyway, after some initial futzing around with the LinApple2 emulator, and playing a bit of Aztec, I hadn't really touched the thing.

The LinApple2 EmulatorThe LinApple2 Emulator Aztec gameAztec game

Fast forward to two weeks ago. After finding Super Quest, I just had to try the game again--who cared if it was nearly midnight?!? What a rush! Merely booting up the game and seeing the title-screen sent an unexpectedly strong wave of nostalgia crashing through me. I found myself transported back to that loud, echo-laden room in junior high school, where I spent hour after hour staring at fuzzy green-phosphor monitors. With my mind's eye suitably dazzled, it took little effort to recall my earlier self in sharp detail; how I felt (mostly insecure and nerdy), what I thought about (computers and arcades and girls, in that order), and what I wanted most out of life (an Apple][, a TRS-80, a Commodore 64, my own Defender arcade game... and a hot, frisky girlfriend. Who liked Defender. Again, in that order.) Hey, I've always subscribed to the view, "If you're gonna dream, DREAM BIG."

For those who care to try Super Quest for yourself, the game is available in two forms. You can download the DSK disk-image file for any of the Apple][ emulator packages, or play it in your web browser! Thanks go to Bill Loguidice for providing an excellent summary article covering the major systems which can be played in a browser now.

Bill's Article:
Bill Loguidice's In-Browser Emulation Article

SuperQuest can be played online at:

I personally have not tried playing it in a browser yet (I run Linux, so browser-plugins can sometimes be a pain), hence everything I write here is specific to "direct" emulation. I am playing it via the "LinApple2" emulator package. There are several accurate emulation equivalents for Macintosh and Windows machines. The game's ".DSK" disk-image can be downloaded in a ZIP file from that same Virtual Apple web-page.

A Few Notes on Legalities and Emulation:

  1. I am a programmer. I hate DRM. I think software patents are a blight on common-sense. But I do not endorse copyright infringement.
  2. Emulation projects are vital to preserving the growing pile of "digital culture", as well as being wicked cool programming projects in their own right.
  3. If you deal with emulation at all, you quickly get into the prickly situation of needing ROM or game/program "disk images" for a given emulation to work.
  4. I will not help you find ROMs or disk/game-images for your systems--YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.
  5. Do NOT Email me nor Armchair Arcade asking for ROMs or links to ROMs. I repeat--YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.
  6. Some games have been released as "freeware". It's up to you to determine which ones.
  7. Some games are well and truly "abandonware". The legal entities which released them still hold copyrights, but don't technically exist in any form. It's up to you to figure out "what's what" in that regard, and what applies to you legally, ethically, morally, etc.
  8. Playing Super Quest or downloading the DSK image is not copyright infringement! The game was released in full-form by the author in 1999. Per the Credits, the game is, "$3 Shareware".

Anyhow, back to my Retro-Review...

Part 2 - Some Background

Super Quest was most precious to me personally. (*Gollum!* :-) I valued it far above most of the other (mostly pirated) games I played during study-hall periods. The reason for that is quite easy to explain. At that time, I was very much into playing the tabletop Dungeons & Dragons RPG with some close friends/classmates. Sadly, because my family lived "out in the sticks", it wasn't very often that I would get an opportunity to play; perhaps once a month during the school year. So for me, Super Quest became a way to fire up my imagination; to explore all the exciting aspects of the Role-Playing Game on almost a daily basis. In short, I could "get my escapist, adolescent-power-trip D&D fix," avoiding the frustration I felt at not being able to play campaigns more often with my group of friends.

That isn't to say that I believed the game to be "perfect" or "wonderful" or even "very good". Even my "Rose-colored Helm of Nostalgia +7" can't obliterate my memories of sometimes being absolutely enraged by the game. There were (and still are) some serious limitations to it. Some points irritated me as a gamer; others specifically aggravated me as a then-budding programmer.

To begin with, the version I played in the early-to-mid-1980's was slightly different than the version available now. It was also significantly buggier. One of my greatest frustrations was playing screen after screen of the game, racking up treasure, vanquishing monsters, only to have the game crash horribly while I was making a run for the dungeon exit. As the game is written in Motorola-6502 assembly language, and having no assembler program nor even good references for the Apple]['s built-in debugger, hacking a home-brew fix was not possible. All you could do was seethe with rage, reboot the machine, and start another character. (The game usually ate the character disk-file when it crashed.)

Part 3 - The Gameplay Overview

What about the game proper? What is that like? How does it feel and play?

Super Quest is purely a hack 'N slash CRPG of the "dungeon crawler" variety. It offers a play style very similar to classic UNIX workstation ASCII-based games like Rogue, Moria, NetHack, Angband, and so forth. It provided what became a "standard feature set" for these games:

  1. Your basic dungeon (though not utterly randomized like the UNIX games listed) extending down several levels.
  2. An overhead "quasi-graphical" view when in the game dungeons.
  3. A "general store" sitting atop the dungeon, from which supplies can be bought.
  4. Text-based interface to the "general store" and for saving the game.
  5. Purely randomized monster encounters; though with a significantly more limited set of monster types than even other games of that time.
    Monster ListingMonster Listing
  6. Random "treasure finds" of stuff laying about. Denoted by a plus-sign '+', these chests are sometimes booby-trapped.
  7. A basic quest structure, in this case the search for the "MEGA-CROWN". While this naming seems ridiculous now and suitable for mocking, it is important to note something; this game was written so early on, that this might actually be the first use of the appellation "MEGA" in the entirety of video game history. In which case, it isn't silly or juvenile or mindlessly derivative; it's "Wholly Original." (But admittedly, still kinda dumb.)
  8. The ability to have ONE single game-save per character, and that must take place topside. No in-dungeon saving.
  9. Basic melee attacks. Essentially you have the option of "bashing" into monsters.
  10. Ranged weapon attacks. There are only 2 types of projectiles, essentially "normal" and "magical".
  11. The ability to run away from battle.
  12. The use of Health potions to restore sapped Strength.
  13. One pure magic attack; a type of "Insta-Death Powder" which is the only thing that will kill a few of the beasties you find in the dungeon rooms.
  14. The faintest possibility of completing the "Final Quest", and thus ultimately winning the game. (Please note that I have never even come close to this goal, even in the wild, twitch-finger days of my misspent youth.)

To give you an idea of how the game looks, here are some screenshots taken in-game, while adventuring:

ingame02ingame02 ingame01ingame01
ingame03ingame03 ingame04ingame04

TANGENT ALERT #1! Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

If you look closely at the screen captures, you'll notice that the dungeon "rooms" are actually numbered, which is a peculiar feature to offer in a graphical CRPG. It is not uncommon to find that feature in fully text-based adventure games of the period--those quite often came with manuals and maps and booklets with "Room Descriptions" in the box. Those additional physical materials acted as a direct supplement to the text-adventure gameplay.

In this case, I believe the room numbering is meant as an aid to manually mapping out the dungeon, as the room numbers do not change, nor do the room exit configurations. (Moria, Rogue, NetHack, and the rest all fully randomize each dungeon level, every single time you enter them. There's no point in creating a map.)

That the author included this feature in the game indicates two things to me:

  1. The game was written in a period when "home computer" games of all kinds were still struggling to define themselves; to clearly establish what they "could be". There was no "formulaic approach" or "standard" yet; not at that point in time anyway. This makes the feature an interesting sociological and cultural indicator/marker.
  2. The author was at least familiar with the party-based nature of Dungeons and Dragons, and other table-top RPGs. Usually you had a "party leader", another person who acted as the "map maker", and sometimes other breakdowns in overall role-playing responsibility.

    As Super Quest offers no pause feature, runs in "real time", and as the game spawns random monster encounters at a truly staggering rate, there is simply no way for a single player to hand-map the dungeon as they explore. I believe this indicates the game was meant to be "pair played"--indeed, we often paired up like this in those old study-hall gaming sessions.

Part 4 - Who Am I? Are We Not Men?

Typical of the CRPG form, Super Quest really begins with character creation. When building a new character, you type in a name, then pick one of the four available races. "Stats Management" is minimal to non-existant here, as you get a semi-random range of "Strength" scores based on which race you pick. And... well, that's about it. Your Strength/Health degrades as you take damage in the game, just as you would expect. Oddly though, this Strength/Helath is shown as a percentage on-screen, rather than an absolute number or ratio. Here's an example of my test character and an explanation of the available character races:

Got character?Got character? character racescharacter races

With that done, the game next lets you examine the "Hall of Heroes" if you so choose. This is merely a suitably pretentious, CRPG-ish name for a High-Score Table, with the names of past heroes, both currently living (saved to disk) and deceased. (The game is of the "Perma-Death" variety. One life, that's it. No chance for resurrections or reverting to the last save-point. It's very much a Hardcore, Old-school Game.)
Hall of HeroesHall of Heroes

From a historical perspective, one fascinating point worth noting here is the inclusion of a weird little feature on that High-Score Table. I believe it is wholly unique to this game, among ALL the games for ALL the early 8-bit computer/gaming platforms. (If anyone has information to the contrary, please leave a comment below.)

To the right of the character's name (in my case "Derpster"), there is a 3-letter set of initials (I picked "BUB" to amuse myself.) An overly elaborate, and frankly dumb explanation for this is given in the game's "Information" screens; some babbling silliness about, "..nobles who sponsor heroes view the quest for the MEGA-CROWN as an opportunity for competition..."

Essentially it boils down to this--they are meant to be your own initials there. The point being that anyone who plays the game, who saves their character (or their character dies) can still "prove" which character is which, and who scored more points. The feature is there purely for bragging-rights. (Offering it, when you have a longer 'character name' available for bragging, always felt weird to me though.)

Why is this in any way significant? Two main reasons; both of which provide a subtle but powerful clue to the history, the sociology, and the cultural perceptions of the time period in which Super Quest was created.

  1. In 1982-1983, the video game industry was still essentially in it's infancy. Arcade games at malls and pizza joints were still "State of the Art" when it came to games. And that is the first key to understanding this feature. Upright, full-sized arcade cabinet video games had "High Score" tables. Nearly all of them at that time only provided the capability for entering 3-letters; usually the player's initials. That the "3-letter initial" feature is included here, demonstrates how home computer games were trying to define themselves, within the context of a world that still had few references, few norms, little to no market demographic data, and basically ZERO "accepted practices".
  2. The second point is a little more obscure, but gives us some indication of the economic expectations of the game-player. Namely, there is the assmption that several different people would be playing the game, using the same 5-1/4" floppy diskette. It wasn't that the game couldn't be copied to another diskette, it could. The implicit expectation was that people wouldn't copy the diskette, simply because they were so expensive.

    This point also demonstrates how nascent and un-formed the "home computer industry" was at that time. No one knew what customer expectations were. No one really knew precisely WHO the customer even was. So the author of the game, knowingly or not, included a key "cultural reference" here, in an attempt to make the game "more accessible" to players.

Next up, you are plonked into the "Bazaar" (general store) interface. All fresh characters come pre-equipped with a mix of "quarrels", both magical and muggle-style. You get some Health Potions. You are also given a goodly helping of "Tana Powder"; the wonderful, magical, "Insta-Kill" stuff you'll need for fending off certain undead beasties. The Bazaar is your opportunity to stock up on any additional things you think you might need. (HINT: Buy as many "Magic quarrels" and "Tana powders" as you can.) Worthy of note is the "price hagglng" system built into the game. You pick an item, pick how many to purchase, and then make an offer. The game will usually make a counter-offer, and allow you to continue haggling, or if it likes your price, it will accept and sell you the item(s) at the agreed-upon price.
Haggling For Fun + Profit!Haggling For Fun + Profit!

This option isn't particularly well done, as there doesn't seem to be a "Charisma" score or other character stat which affects haggling ability. Other games based off D&D used this to much better effect. But again, this game appeared so early in the CRPG development history, the feature merits mention if only because it was a novel concept at that time.

Part 5 - The Road Goes Ever On and On...

Playing Super Quest is not big on plot. Most folks, particularly anyone who hasn't played and loved the insanely hard "Old School" CRPGs and arcade-games, would certainly find that the game gets repetitive quickly. The one factor which maintains "interest" is actually the pure, adrenaline-soaked, twitch-key frenzy of the gameplay. You are constantly worrying about existing monsters, spawns of random monsters, trying to figure out what your health and inventory status are, WHERE the heck you are in the dungeon, and balance all of that with the often incomplete mental map of the dungeon rooms you'll have to traverse to get your character out intact. If this CRPG were turn-based (a hack which we often longed for in those bygone days...) it would honestly be much less fun to play.

Really, that's about it. You build your character, find loot, whack monsters, collect "Dragon's Ears" as a partial quest-fulfillment, and ultimately win the game by finding the MEGA-CROWN! (Maybe.)

Part 6 - A Modern Viewpoint

Frankly, even though I loved this thing in 1984, Super Quest can at best be described as "Pretty Damn Rough". And I mean ROUGH, in every sense of the word, and in every area--and that's being generous. It is rough-looking. It is rough sounding; limited to various "zzzoooops!" and "boops!" and so on. It is extremely rough to play. Like many of the old-school CRPGs, the game isn't merely content with being, "not so user-friendly". It actively and aggressively and unapologetically goes for your throat, screaming "I'M USER-HOSTILE! BOW DOWN BEFORE ME! I'LL BITE YOUR LEGS OFF!"

As the prior screenshots have shown, the game is pretty mediocre graphically, even when compared only to games produced at that time. This was not as big a problem then as it would be today, but honestly it was a very prominent detractor. Most of my classmates were put off by the meager ASCII graphics. The insane difficulty was probably the last-straw; nearly all of them lost interest in the game very quickly. I chalk it up to "meager imaginations" moreso than the "meager graphics". I'm not being mean when I state this; it's just that I doubt that many (or even any) of them had the powerful imagination it takes to envision the gameworld. Most of them hated the Zork text adventure games as well, which just adds support to my argument.

Again though, I'm perhaps being overly generous. Despite the MONTHS of time I poured into this misshapen thing in junior high-school, it was very hard to play, even by the vicious, rough, and oh-so-common "Perma-Death" standards of games produced during that era. This extreme difficulty stems from multiple factors in the game's design.

Yet despite these issues and difficulties, I feel Super Quest is worthy of remembrance. It is possibly unique, in several ways. As pointed out above, it had the rather unusual High-Score hybrid feature. It may also be the very first example of a videogame which utilized the 'WASD' direction-of-travel key configuration. The game technically uses a slight variation:

As you can see, it _actually_ specifies 'W-A-D-X' for movement direction of the character. The 'S' key isn't listed, but it actually DOES function in-game as a "STOP" command, making your character halt. This is a much-needed feature. Otherwise you continue moving in the last direction you pressed, whether or not you continue to hold down the key. This is problematic sometimes, as it will keep you moving towards monsters and closing the gap at an alarming rate. It's far better to pick them off from a distance than to try a brute-force melee attack.

Yet even counting this as "an innovation", I have to put in a caveat. There are some control/movement oddities of this game which help make gameplay frenetic (and often frustrating):

  1. You cannot move diagonally. This sucks, as monsters can--effectively allowing them to close the gap between you faster than you can flee.
  2. You only move 1 character space in the UP or DOWN directions each turn. (This means 1 move roughly every second.)
  3. You are "compensated" by moving TWO character spaces horizontally in one move/turn.

These peculiarities affect your game-play tactics tremendously. You very much want to enter rooms from the left- or right-side of the screen, as you get a movement advantage should you have to flee. You ALWAYS want to issue a STOP command upon entering a room, to give you at least a few fleeting moments to assess any danger. You would be wise to always keep corners and '+' treasure chests between you and enemies as much as possible. Everything in the dungeon is geared around "buying time" to think and hopefully act, before the denizens of the maze grind you up and spit out your well-gnawed corpse.

Pretty harsh description, I know. But like I said earlier, the Super Quest is ROUGH. Even something normally as simple as a title-screen is, in this instance, a bit of a train-wreck too. Here's how the game opens, after 'rebooting' the emulator with the game's DSK image selected:

  1. The "Title Screen", which one would expect to contain some kind of credits and/or a copyright notice, consists soley of rather shabby-looking, blocky graphics. No author, no publisher, no copyright date; nothing else shows. Even for an early 1980's game, this is exceedingly crude. Unbelievably, the game only utilizes the "Low Resolution" block-mode graphics for the Apple][ machine. Most Apple ][ games, even from that era, included _some_ kind of high-resolution title/splash screen.
    Green TitleGreen Title Color TitleColor Title
  2. The "Credits Screen" containing the copyright notice still doesn't appear yet. Instead, after being treated to the "Chunky Dragon of Pixelvania", you are presented an odd warning screen about "Turning ON Caps-Lock". Um, ok. Sure. Couldn't the author have just detected BOTH keypress types?
  3. You are next offered a chance to view an "Introduction" to the game. This provides a rather weird, confusing, and poorly written "back-story". (More on this oddity in a moment.)
  4. Only NOW do you get an actual "Credits" screen, with a copyright notice. Even more strangely, the game displays this screen _extremely_ briefly, even at "normal 100%" emulation speed of the Apple][.
  5. As if that weren't enough, yet another mystery appears: There are in truth, TWO versions of the "Credits" screen! The game shows the first one, then a split-second before clearing the screen, flashes the second version. I have screen-captured both of them.
    Credits #1Credits #1 Credits #2Credits #2

    Notice anything odd? Yeah, for some reason, the credit for "James Carmody", and the section title of "Original Game Idea" is blanked. I don't know whether this is intentional, or merely some kind of display bug (I've not had the patience to dig into the Assembly code to find out.)

    EDIT: Thanks go to 'Hammer' for pointing out a boo-boo here.... that name is "John Carmody". #@%*ing typos...

    As you can see from the screenshots, the rest of the title screen isn't the most obviously laid-out thing either. Which is odd in a way, since the introduction/back-story screens go on. And on. And ON. There are TEN of them, in point of fact. So you'd think with that much devotion to text, the author could have cleaned up the title-screen layout. Or scrolled it. Or something.

I didn't remember any of this clunky garbage from my misspent youth, and my curiosity was piqued. Since I love tangents, I decided to head off on one and investigate the game credits more thoroughly. Despite the confusing muddled layout of the Credits Screen, a little bit more Google-Fu cleared up parts of the mystery.

  1. The game of Super Quest is "inspired by" a game called Quest 1. This in turn, was written originally for the TRS-80 line of computers by Brian Reynolds, and published in 1981 by SoftSide, a "type-it-in" style of programming magazine that was common in the late 1970's and early-to-mid 1980's. An Apple][ version of Quest 1 was created/ported by Rich Bouchard, presumably in 1982. According to Wikipedia, an Atari 800 port was also done by Alan Z. Jeff, presumably in that same timeframe. Sadly, I was not able to locate a version of Quest 1 to try on any of my emulators. If anyone locates a copy or is aware of one, please leave a comment below, or send me an Email.
  2. My actual beloved Super Quest game was written by Jeff Hurlburt, a long-time reviewer and contributor to SoftSide magazine, as well as to other small and "regional" types of 8-bit and Apple][-centric computing/programming publications. Super Quest first appeared in SoftSide Magazine, Issue #38 in 1983. Oddly, the "Credits" screen for the game lists a starting copyright date of 1982. As I mentioned previously, and per the "Credits" screen, the final version 5.5 of the game was released as "Shareware" in 1999.
  3. All this may seem to clear the mystery up a bit, but wait! There's more! Now we get to the really strange part. As mentioned previously, when the game starts, you get the option of reading an informational back-story. This backstory is confusing, almost to the point of being nonsensical. Worse, the tale unfolds via a lengthy sequence of (thankfully skippable) introductory text screens. I won't torture you with all of them, but here is a sampling of the first few:

    Um, yeah. That face you're making right now? Same as mine when I read through that mess. And there are 8 more screens of it...

    My initial suspicion upon re-playing the game was that the narrative might have been badly translated out of another language, perhaps by a non-native English speaker. It turns out that assumption was wholly incorrect--what we have here is just a terrific example of some really dreadful writing. There is a more coherent summation of the introductory story available on the Web, should you care to read further:

So my confusion was cleared up--I think. I'm still not too sure about the bizarre storyline presented in the game's "Introduction". I've read it four or five times now, and I still feel as though I'll need to smoke some weird little mushrooms for it to make sense.

Part 7 - A Fond Adieu

Before we close, a good question to ask me is, "Why on Earth did you like this game?" The truth is, I didn't like this game. I had a deep, intense, LOVE/HATE relationship with this game.

  • I loved it because it felt and played like some of the D&D sessions which I had gotten into, beginning in 1979.
  • I loved it because I could play "any time", when the D&D group only got together about once a month during the school year.
  • I loved it because it stoked my imagination. (I was reading a boatload of Sci-Fi and Fantasy fiction novels at that time, discovering the greats like Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Greg Bear, Rose Estes, Michael Moorcock, and so on.)
  • I loved it because it showed me what Assembly Language could do. This inspired me in my own self-directed programming studies and efforts.
  • I hated the game because it was so stinking hard.
  • I hated it because there was no pause, and just "yanking out the disk because the class bell rang" might corrupt your character or the whole game.
  • I hated it because you couldn't save "anywhere", except after working your way out of the dungeon alive.
  • I especially hated it because i couldn't fix the annoying crash bugs that plagued the game. (The latest v5.5 has not crashed on me yet.)

Looking back on it with sharp hindsight, I can honestly say that even my list of "Hate It Because" items proved useful. Those irritations stuck with me, through the decades. Thanks to the lessons learned playing Super Quest, I always made sure to put more user-friendly features into not just the arcade ripoff games I wrote, but all the other types of software I was working on; the utility programs and bitmap converters/exporters and data-gathering daemons. Further, the game DID ignite and fuel my imagination. It helped foster my desire to create similar worlds myself. As such it has served as one of the key inspirations for me, egging me on in my lifelong pursuit of programming.

Although it practically defined the word "ROUGH"; I shall always have fond memories of this game. And thanks to the wonderful efforts of emulation coders, I'll even be able fire it up every now and again when I feel the urge. Which probably won't be often.

I hope all of you enjoyed the trip into my computing and gaming past. Keep your blades sharp, and your witticisms sharper! Until next time...

muzamil (not verified)
Text Adventure Games

Interesting article! Very well done! It's good to see interactive fiction (also known as text adventure games) get more of the attention it deserves.
In the same vein, there's a modern day interactive fiction publisher releasing new works of commercial interactive fiction that I think people
should know about. This interactive fiction publisher is Malinche Entertainment. Their website is and they've got a
lot to offer anyone interested in interactive fiction/text adventure games.

Rowdy Rob
Rowdy Rob's picture
Joined: 09/04/2006
As usual, great work, Bitsweep!

There's way too much here for me to comment on point by point (which I'm sure will be a relief to you!), but I had to chime in on some of the more minor points of the article:

1) AZTEC!!! For some reason, this game is rarely spoken of in "classic gaming" conversations, but we spent many an hour in my high school computer club playing this great game! The controls were excessively complex, but it was still a fun game. Kudos for mentioning it and posting a screen cap!

2) You had a high school computer club where you played games! So did I, and I've spoken about those experiences here before, to the amazement of some of the AA members. :-) Fun, if not necessarily scholastic, times!

3) You posted this:

bitsweep wrote:

Thanks to the lessons learned playing Super Quest, I always made sure to put more user-friendly features into not just the arcade ripoff games I wrote, but all the other types of software I was working on; the utility programs and bitmap converters/exporters and data-gathering daemons.

Do you still have any surviving copies of the software (particularly the GAMES) you wrote? It would be very interesting to see at least some screen grabs or video, if not the outright games themselves, for us to check out!

Sorry, none of this really has anything to do with "Super Quest," which was the point of your article. But, it was very interesting to read about a game that, while not necessarily a GREAT game in the classic sense, it was a very influential game TO YOU, warts and all. Did you play this game because you had limited access to a wider selection of CRPG games (i.e. Ultima, Temple of Apshai, Wizardry, etc.), or did this one particular game just happen to catch your fancy?

I had the fortune to have lived in an area that had many D&D campaigns at the time. In fact, I was a DM of a popular campaign myself! Actual table-top D&D is so different than any CRPG in my mind that I don't even equate them as similar experiences, no matter how hard publishers have tried to replicate the table-top experience. CRPG's are "videogames," and table-top RPG's are... RPG's. It's kind of like videogames based on movies. The inspiration may be from the same source, but the experience is totally different, even if both are fun in their own right.

Shawn Delahunty
Shawn Delahunty's picture
Joined: 08/01/2011
Thanks Rob

1) Yeah, I have "Aztec" to blame for one of the few 'C' grades I got in high-school... that stupid thing sucked up WAY too much of our time. Naturally, it was the first thing I had to try when I fired up the emulator. :-) I still remember the "Wall Fall Bug" that we used to skip ahead more quickly through the mazes. I never did manage to finish the dumb thing though.

2) No formal "club" had formed when I went through. The school-board WAS progressive enough to realize kids needed to "start learning them dang machines", but that was about it. It was used for those of us in the "advanced track" classes (school was so small it didn't even have AP classes), and for an "Intro to Computers" class in the business-track. As I was something of a teacher's pet, and the head of the Math Dept. had taught me every grade since 7th, he gave me a "permanent pass" to the room. I was kind of a fixture there my last 4 years in school--working on code through every study hall, every lunch period, and often for an hour or more after school... everybody knew me, and just let me do my thing, which was cool.

3) Well, sort of.... I have a bunch of tapes for my Vic-20 (still in the box), but sadly they seem to have mostly flaked apart. I haven't had the time or inclination to try to hand-wind through them or try to restore them. (3M used to offer a "tape restore" solution you could use to get sticky tapes apart, but that was ages and AGES ago...) To my great dismay, I have no printed listings of those programs (I had no printer), and my mother apparently threw out a box with all of my handwritten program listings in notebooks sometime in the mid 1990's.

All my Apple][ disks I gave to a friend in college, since he still had an Apple][c machine, and there seemed little point (then) to hanging onto them. I had bought a second-hand Amiga1000 and was totally enthralled with it. (DOH!)

I do have a couple partial handwritten listings, some character/bitmap sketches, and whatnot, which escaped the dustbin. I've put an autobiographical chapter/appendix into the "Philosophy of Embedded Programming Design" book that I'm nearly done writing, and I have made some scans of that material. When it looks like that is going off to the publisher, I'll go ahead and post some teaser material here. If I get a chance, I'll certainly try to recover what I can off those old tapes, and XFER it over to the PC-side.

One of the games I had at maybe 50%-60% completion was titled "Lost Labyrinth". It was directly inspired by SuperQuest, but was going to fix all the "problems", plus introduce custom graphics and so forth. (I still had never seen or played Ultima, Wizardry, or any of the others at that point.) That's the one where I have a 'partial' handwritten listing. Sadly, the code I have is only maybe the first 10% of the game. I'd always intended to get printouts of my stuff by borrowing a Commodore dot-matrix printer from a family friend, but could never arrange that.

EDIT: I just had a flood of memories about a "application disk" which I put together. I called the thing "Captain GargleBlaster's Utilities". There was a hi-res mode drawing of a cartoon character--basically a big Eyes+Nose+Moustache+Cape--that was the title/intro screen. You rebooted the Apple with the disk in the drive, and it would load the main "menu" program, that in turn would load and sub-launch one of the utilities I'd written. There was
- my very own "paint" program, written wholly in BASIC. I got fed up with the Koala-Pad/Paint thing which the school had bought, as you couldn't get pixel-perfect adjustment---the tablet sensitivity was iffy at best. It had flood-fills, pattern-fills, geometric shapes up to 8 or 9 sides, and offered the ability to "grab" part of the image and paste it. (My Lord but it was SLOW. But it worked.)
- a disk-sector utility which I was working on, meant for scanning for copy-protection junk
- a hexidecimal file loader/editor
- an incredibly crude attempt at a "Notepad" level word-processor. Yes, this was mostly in BASIC. And yes, it worked... mostly.
- 2 or 3 other ones I can't recall now...

Insofar as playing SuperQuest, yeah it was primarily my "main CRPG" because I was really poor. (Not "holes in my clothes" kind of poor, but I still got hand-me-downs from cousins and the like.) We begged/borrowed/wheedled whatever we could out of the older kids, or anybody who had a sibling at the local college who could get pirated/cracked stuff. Things like Ultima and Wizardry were just not things we could come by. I did play one friend's copy of Apshai a bit, and intended to copy the disk, but I think his parent's got weird about him bringing the game-disk to the school.

I also actually DID like the real-time twitch aspect of the game; it was exciting to play compared to the slower pace of Zork I&II. (We played those on the 4 TRS-80 machines which the school had initially bought.) I also loved the abstractness of it; being forced to use your imagination was a great thing. When I got to college, I actually lost many weeks on the UNIX workstations playing Moria, NetHack, and Rogue--even though by then I had easy access to cracked/borrowed copies of Ultima, Wizardry, and so on.

Ahhh... Nostalgia-gasm... :-)

Joined: 03/23/2008
Interesting article

A few comments:

1) According to the screenshot, it's John Carmody, not James Carmody.
2) I really don't think floppy disks were that expensive in 1983. I think you are drawing the wrong conclusion there.
3) I'm guessing the main reason you LOVED the game is that it was one of the only half-decent games that you had access to, and not because of anything inherent about the game...

Shawn Delahunty
Shawn Delahunty's picture
Joined: 08/01/2011

Urgh. I thought I edited this thing carefully... dangit. You are absolutely right. It IS "John Carmody"... my brain/ grabbed the 'James' from the following line.

As for you other 2 points Hammer:

#2 - 5-1/4" floppy disks were about $5-$6 _apiece_ at that time (1982-ish) at the very few local stores which had them, depending on brand/quality. (As mentioned, I grew up in a the middle of nowhere, in a dinky little town. You paid a hefty premium for this stuff.) That is about $11 apiece or so in today's dollars... So you didn't exactly just buy whole boxes of the things on a whim. I remember the price very clearly because it took one full week of starving myself of lunches in order to afford ONE new diskette. I was amazed when the price had dropped by 1985-6 to about $1-$2 per disk, and with my part-time job I could afford to buy a box of TEN (ooooh.... aaahhh...)

#3 - You guess at least partially correctly. I would love to have played UltimaII/III or Wizardry when they first came out, but economics and availability dictated otherwise. Basically, the dirt-poor among us played whatever pirated/cracked stuff we could manage to wheedle out of the older kids who had cars and jobs and older siblings in college and whatnot. The game itself though was a cool thing to play, as it had an different mix of features compared to a lot of other ones at the time. As I pointed out, it was very much LOVE/HATE. I hated the difficulty, but I loved it too because it challenged me--taught me to work rapidly to assess threat/reward/risk/evasion possibilities very quickly.

Much like some people got attached to Daggorath despite the horrific bugs which ruined it for most of us, SuperQuest "clicked" with me on a lot of levels.

Matt Barton
Matt Barton's picture
Joined: 01/16/2006
We really do appear to have a

We really do appear to have a lot in common, Shawn! As you know, I grew up in the middle of nowhere, too, specifically Urania, Louisiana, and later Sikes, an even smaller village nearby. I've always wondered if the isolation helped or hindered me in the grand scheme of things; I guess I had more time to think, but certainly less opportunities to get together with friends (much less friends who shared my interests!)

One thing I'd really like to know is how good your math teachers were. When I was a kid I always envisioned myself as a computer programmer, but the math classes I had in high school got to be so bad that I lost interest in the subject. Oddly enough, the only teachers who showed any passion for their subject were the ones in English, and they were willing to help me get into college. Looking at your story, it seems you ended up doing what I had planned, so I'm wondering if you hit a string of great math teachers, or at least teachers who didn't make you hate the subject. :)

Shawn Delahunty
Shawn Delahunty's picture
Joined: 08/01/2011
I was lucky/blessed/karmically-endowed

Thanks much for reading Matt!

I'm not prone to looking back and wondering "What If?" too much, but on the few occasions when I have, I can't help but realize 2 things:

(1) Growing up isolated/hindered/underpriveleged/etc. is a powerful, polarizing environmental factor in a person's mental/emotional/psyche/formative growth. Either they end up "feeling victimized" and go down that road for a long time (usually forever), or they grab the challenge and vow to overcome it, no matter how hard they have to work. This is a delicate balance, and the majority end up being "victims"--however if kids are encouraged, shown that "failing" is NOT "Failure", but a path to learning, growth, and a bigger success at the end, having to "struggle" can be the most profound motivator on Earth. There is a great quote, I think from Robert Heinlein; "Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy."

(2) My parents, family, and teachers were incredibly supportive--this was the key to not only 'surviving' #1, but using it as a springboard for the rest of my life. (We were pretty poor because of medical bills--my parents are actually both very bright--not because of lack of motivation/skill/intent.) The biggest part of this blessing was having my unceasing curiosity and advanced intellectual ability noticed and encouraged, from kindergarten onwards. Even reluctant or mediocre teachers love having a motivated, over-achieving student--so I didn't get shafted like some of the other kids.

There was another "teacher related" factor at work; I had the pure serendipitous status of being in a class full of "teacher's kids", again from kindergarten onwards. As with all small towns, "everybody knows everybody"; this was certainly true in the small school system where I grew up. As such, nearly all the teachers took an extra interest in "doing a good job" since their kid was in "Janet's math class", so they'd better make sure her daughter Suzie learns grammar and English composition properly. In that sense, I sort of "rode the wave" of this familial self-interest.

However, as your experience with crappy Mathematics teachers shows, it's all in the quality and effort of the teaching. (My younger sister is a great example of this. She "rode the 2nd wave of teacher's kids" in much the same way. However, she had a different 7th grade Algebra teacher--frankly the woman was an incompetent, mean, vicious witch, who taught non-standard methods, and insisted on using a different textbook than all the other algebra teachers. The result? My sister, who in many ways is smarter than I am, HATES math--she got terrible grades in Algebra, and was actually yelled at and _down-graded_ by this teacher for solving problems using the easier-to-remember, standard algebraic formula manipulations I had showed her. Yet it isn't lack of skill on my sister's part--I literally taught her everything she needed to know to pass her senior Calc final, in about 2 days flat--it's that she had a severe emotional/mental block instilled into her by that horrid woman.)

I was more fortunate--except for a certain English teacher in 11th grade, and his drunken ass couldn't dissuade or deter me at that point; I had formed into a "full person" by that point. As for my math experience? Superb--the head of the Math department at our dinky little combined Jr/Sr high-school was a fantastic gentleman (and I'd been in classes with his middle son since first grade) who always encouraged me. He happened to just be a damn good teacher too, who took his job seriously.

I don't mean to turn this into a lengthy rant, but I guess you really hit a nerve. I think teachers should be some of the best-paid working "PROFESSIONALS" around, on par with doctors--they have some of the most important jobs that exist. Naturally, I also think the screening and reviews should be equally picky and harsh. (Of course, that ties in to my opinions about lazy citizenry, politics, ethics, morals, and a whole host of other issues I'll steer clear of for now.)

Matt Barton
Matt Barton's picture
Joined: 01/16/2006
Hehe, I figured as much,

Hehe, I figured as much, Shawn.

Regarding teachers, as you know I've been an instructor and then a professor all my life (short as it is!). What I generally see is that almost everyone involved has their priorities mixed up. The teachers complain about bad, lazy students. The students complain about boring, ineffective teachers (and woe if they have an accent.) The worst teachers have the attitude that it's not their job to be interesting; the student should be entirely self-motivated and rise to whatever "high standard" the teacher sets. They also enjoy "proving themselves right" about the students being dumb or lazy by asking hard questions, disparaging their abilities or even "their generation," etc. A lot of the dreadful witch-teachers you mentioned are the ones who a step further, abusing or making fun of students and (IMO) disgracing their occupation.

The worst students aren't necessarily the "dumbest" or the least motivated, but rather the ones that have a sense of unearned privilege or entitlement; they already know the topic better than the teacher, or the class isn't valuable and worth their time, or the teacher shouldn't cover "boring" material. In short, the kind of nitwits who wouldn't be able to learn diddlysquat from even the world's greatest teacher.

My attitude is that I should try to make the subject matter interesting, using humor whenever possible, get to know the students, and be friendly without making friends with them. I expect students to do the work I assign, try their best to get it right, and be polite and helpful to their classmates as well as to me.

Shawn Delahunty
Shawn Delahunty's picture
Joined: 08/01/2011
and the truth shall set them free...

Couldn't agree more.

That great math teacher I had? The first day I had him, 9th grade Trig, he opened up by saying something like this:

"Understand something. I'm not here to impress you, or to hold your hand. I already KNOW this material, and don't need to prove to you that I do. I'll do the best job I can of presenting it. But if I skip something, or something seems unclear to you, it is YOUR responsibility to pipe-up, raise your hand, get my attention, and ASK. I will gladly re-explain or even offer extra-help in a free period if you're having trouble. You may have to do extra problem sets if that's the case, but I will make sure you learn the material.

HOWEVER.... if on the day of a test, you come up to me and say, 'Mr. O'Neil, I don't quite get that part about sine/cosine relations...' you are going to FAIL that test. I am not going to help you on that day--I expect you to have put in the effort beforehand."

It was great. No B.S. No drama. No arrogance.

I had a similar experience in the very first lecture of my Physics class, freshman year in college. The instructor? Dr. Young--one of the authors of the standard Sears, Zemansky, and Young physics textbook used in colleges all over. His quote (badly remembered):

"I'm here today, not because I need to be. I'm head and chair of the department, a long-standing professor, a researcher, and about a thousand other things. I'm here today because I WANT to be. I specifically insist on teaching Freshman Physics. Why? Because I want to get you before anyone else, before you've had your opinions and emotions warped. Understand something today....

A university, an edifice of "higher learning", at it's very best, is meant to be a place where we ALL come together. We ALL admit our COLLECTIVE ignorance, including me, and we ALL work to do something about it. You will get out of this experience, ONLY what you are willing to put into it."

As is obvious, both of those speeches have really stuck with me through the decades.

For what it's worth Matt, it sounds to me like you're right on track.

Bill Loguidice
Bill Loguidice's picture
Joined: 12/31/1969
My issues with math were

My issues with math were somewhat similar. I was never a particularly gifted math student, but did have a fondness for the process. Once I hit seventh grade though, a series of poor teachers combined with my own lack of inherent ability pretty much doomed me to NEVER again catching up in the higher level maths, from Algebra upwards. It was all I could do to pass those classes in college, never truly having that "aha" moment where I understood them in any way. That's what stopped me from pursuing a programming career--I NEVER would have survived the math, even though I demonstrated skill on the BASIC side of things. The combination of my own wiring with the poor teaching doomed me to that.

There actually wasn't a dramatic difference between my math classes and English classes in terms of quality - though I never had English classes near as bad as some of my math classes - but the difference was my inherent ability with writing and fondness for reading was able to easily overcome any teaching deficiencies. Sadly, even though I have a passion and interest in science, my math deficiencies carried over into that and again, a combination of that lack of foundation and a few key poor teachers along the way pretty much doomed any prospects in that avenue.

In any case, no complaints overall with how my life has turned out, and I'll always be the last one to talk of any regrets or changing the past. I believe we are products of our past and since I like who I am as I write this, I wouldn't change a thing.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Type: response

text:
Friday, August 6, 2010

Sanyo offers new full HD waterproof camcorder – the Xacti VPC-CA102YL...

A full HD compact and waterproof camera recorder from Sanyo is dubbed Xacti VPC-CA102YL. This waterproof camcorder capable of taking 14MP still photos, able to record MPEG-4 video in AVC/H.264 format for easier online video sharing. Other mentioned features including 14.4MP CMOS sensor, 38mm wide-angle lens, 5x optical zoom, 12 x double-range zoom, 2.7-inch TFT LCD display with 285 degrees turn, mini HDMI port, USB port, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, read SD, SDHC or SDXC memory cards, Wi-Fi data transfer via Eye-Fi SD cards technology, 1080 60i at 1920×1080 pixels resolutions. Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA102YL has a dimension of 3.37×1.47×4.34 (WxDxH), weighing about 5.5 ounces. The waterproof features withstand up to 10 ft depth. Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA102YL camcorder will be available by August this year. Price: USD349.99.

No comments:

Post a Comment

warcinfo:
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-17
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for April 2017
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf


text:
by Nathan Wei, MD, FACP, FACR

Nathan Wei is a nationally known board-certified rheumatologist and author of the Second Opinion Arthritis Treatment Kit. It's available exclusively at this website... not available in stores.

Click here: Second Opinion Arthritis Treatment Kit

Valdecoxib (Bextra) was officially removed by the FDA in 2004.

Valdecoxib was a cyclo-oxygenase-2 selective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that was indicated in the US for the treatment of osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and menstrual pain. According to the FDA, patients taking valdecoxib had reported serious, potentially life-threatening skin reactions, including Steven-Johnson Syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis. Skin reactions were reportedly most likely to occur in the first 2 weeks of treatment but could happen any time during therapy. In a few cases, reactions resulted in death.

Valdecoxib was associated with an increase in MI and stroke in CABG patients.

The Pfizer study, which included more than 1500 patients treated after CABG, showed an increased cardiovascular risk in patients receiving valdecoxib compared with placebo. Observed risks included thromboembolic events such as myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular events, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism.

While this drug, like other non-steroidal drugs did what it was supposed to do, it also apparently caused more than its share of side-effects. Another drug in this class, Vioxx, was previously removed from the market because of a marked increase in cardiovascular events.

Get more information about bextra as well as...

• Insider arthritis tips that help you erase the pain and fatigue of rheumatoid arthritis almost overnight!

• Devastating ammunition against low back pain... discover 9 secrets!

• Ignored remedies that eliminate fibromyalgia symptoms quickly!

• Obsolete treatments for knee osteoarthritis that still are used... and may still work for you!

• The stiff penalties you face if you ignore this type of hip pain...

• 7 easy-to-implement neck pain remedies that work like a charm!

• And much more...

Click here Second Opinion Arthritis Treatment Kit

Return to arthritis home page.

Copyright (c) 2004 - All Rights Reserved

How to Beat Arthritis! Get our FREE monthly Ezine and get your life back!

Enter your E-mail Address
Enter your First Name (optional)

Don't worry — your e-mail address is totally secure.
I promise to use it only to send you Insider Arthritis Tips.


WARC-Truncated: length

text:
How Much Broadband Speed Do You Really Need?

Everyone wants to have access to good internet speed. The real question here is - how much do you really need and how do you get it? Read on and learn! Access to the internet has truly become a need for most people nowadays.

Business owners use it to get in touch with clients and partners quicker. They also make sure that their offices and establishments are properly equipped with internet in order to ensure efficient output from their workers.

In the same way, students heavily rely on the technology whenever they need to complete school projects and assignments. Families and friends also access the internet whenever they need to communicate with each other via chat, email or social media sites. Additionally, the internet is also a valuable tool when it comes various other purposes such as online shopping, downloading movies, playing games, and many more.

Of course, you can only make the most of the internet if you are subscribed to the right provider and are signed up for the right service. There are countless of available internet packages in the market and you need to be wise as you choose which one to spend your money on. Consistency of performance is very crucial in order to have a hassle-free experience.

A good question to consider is how much broadband speed you really need. Besides, good internet speed means quality experience for you as a user.

For example, the quality of videos you watch or audio you listen to via online streaming will either be good or bad depending on the speed of your connection. Buffering will be minimized, if not totally avoided and this is always a great thing. Downloading will not be too much of a hassle either. Your entertainment experience will be a positive one and will not be as frustrating when compared with using a low-speed internet.

Now there are two considerations you need to keep in mind as you assess the performance of your preferred package – bandwidth and speed. To give you an idea, bandwidth is the conduit size used in order to transmit data. Speed, on the other hand, is the rate of how long it takes for the data to travel. Logically, it follows that a larger bandwidth means increased speed rates.

Now this is the part where you have to be careful as a customer. Companies often highlight the speed ranges they offer but the problem here is that you can never really be sure about the exact performance they can deliver. While they have knowledge about the capacity of their systems, they do not have total control regarding when the data will travel or the demands placed on the network.

If you can read reviews posted by other users, then that would be for your best advantage. This will make it possible for you to see the differences between various offers from several internet service providers. You may also tap online resources such as websites that allow you to do accurate comparisons. Simply enter your location and you will be able to retrieve relevant information about packages which may be perfect for your needs. All it takes is a few seconds and you’ll get instant access to all these valuable details.

By: Dave Laybare Carter

Article Directory:

Submitted On Apr 16, 2014. Viewed 334 times.

Dave Carter is an independent consultant for small businesses. His expertise in consumer electronics is backed up by 12 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Anyone can compare broadband deals easily by accessing internet comparison sites.

blog comments powered by Disqus


text:
Home » Business » Strategic Planning

How To Write A Sticky Note Business Plan

Mar 2, 2008
If you"re like most creative entrepreneurs, the thought of writing a business plan is not the highest item on your priority list. You'd rather explore new ideas, create products and services, develop a new speech, or work with your clients... than sit down and write a plan.

But, to be successful in business, you need to have a plan in place. The good news is you don't have to write a formal (bank-friendly) business plan to keep your business on track. In fact, until recently, I used my self-made "sticky note business plan" to keep track of my business goals and plans.

The "sticky note business plan" is a simple and fun tool you can use anytime, any place to keep your business pointing in the right direction. Here are a few simple steps to get you started:

Gather Your Planning Supplies
Thankfully, you won't need fancy computer software, or heavy reference books to write your plan. All you'll need is a wall, six poster boards, three pads of sticky notes, scotch tape, a note pad, a Sharpie marker and a pen. It'll also help to have a quiet place and a few hours of time to enjoy this process. You may even want to light your favorite candle and play some relaxing music.

Lay Out Your Plan
Tape the six poster boards up on the wall. Once the boards are up on the wall, grab your notepad. Sit down for a few minutes and quietly think about the aspects of your business you want to plan. For example: do you need to design a new product or event, do you want to create a marketing plan, do you need a timeline plan for the next 3 years of your business, is it time to plan the launch of a new service?

Use your notepad to collect all of your ideas and decide on the six main categories you want to include in your plan. Next, write each category on six separate sticky notes using your Sharpie marker. Then, stick one note on the top center of each poster board... so each board is labeled for one of your six topics.

Download Your Ideas
Here comes the fun part. Get your pen and sticky notes and begin to write down every single idea that comes to mind for each category. Don't edit or censor any ideas. Simply write them down and stick them on the poster board for that category. Try to stay with one category at a time as best you can. But, if other ideas keep coming to mind, write them down and pop them on the appropriate poster. Let the ideas flow and enjoy the process of getting everything on paper.

Organize Your Ideas
So, now that your ideas are on the poster boards, begin to organize them. Look for themes, sequences, and categories of items. Physically move the sticky notes on the poster board to group ideas together. Sometimes I'll organize ideas by timeline, sometimes I'll organize by concept... you can organize them in the way that makes sense to you.

Put It All Together
Now, step back and take a look at your whole plan. After going through this process, you may discover some items need to move higher on your priority list; while other ideas may need to be dropped from your plan completely. The right things to do (and the order in which to do them) will surface now that you have the whole plan in place. Next, rearrange the posters so the highest priority plan is at the left side of the wall and the lower priority plan is to the right side of the wall. Finally, transfer your highest priority tasks to your calendar to make sure you begin executing your plan.

Keep Going
As you make progress with your plan, continually re-evaluate where you are... and keep moving forward with your projects. Personally, once I complete a concept from one of my poster boards, I remove the sticky notes so I can visually see my progress and all that I'm accomplishing. You may enjoy doing the same thing.

Now that you know how to write your "sticky note business plan", you'll discover it's actually FUN to work on your plan. And, it's a huge asset to your business.

Copyright 2008 Christine Kloser
About the Author
Want To Use This Article in Your Ezine or Website? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Christine Kloser "The Conscious Business Coach," publishes the revolutionary 'Conscious Business Connection' ezine. If you're ready to transform "what is" to "what's possible" for your business, get your FR^EE tips now at http://ConsciousBizReport.com
Please Rate:
(Average: Not rated)
Views: 279
Print Email Share
Article Categories


text:
Home » Self Improvement

Towards Or Against Your Desires?

Aug 17, 2007
Are you moving towards or against what you want?

Every action you take supports something, some result.

The question is - are you taking the actions that support the results you would rather have in your life?

If not, are they supporting something opposite of what you want or are they neutral? Either way they are not supporting your desires.

If you have all the same thousands of thoughts tomorrow as you did yesterday -- you will be the same as yesterday.

Us humans have the type of brains that we have for a reason, so that we can change our lives. We don't need to keep doing and living the same over and over.

To get anywhere, a group of small steps put together in the same direction lead you to your destination. But if your thoughts and behaviors do not lead down the path of your desire, where are you going? You will at least be delayed by the inconsistency of your actions or even halt any progress all together.

There is always a reaction to every action, everything you think and do leads to something. Is it what you want or not? What you live with now is the result of previous thoughts and actions.

Everything is perpetuated when you continue to take the same actions.

So, desiring something different is great, but you need to adjust your thinking and your actions in order for anything to be different.

In order to see and live something different, you must gradually take more action towards what you want and less against. You will always be supporting something, which will it be?

The way to begin change is to take a look at what you are doing each day and make appropriate adjustments that support your desires. If you leave this up to, 'when I think about it', you will soon forget about it.

To succeed, set up a small system to interact with on a daily basis, something you can schedule and plan into your day, something you will be more likely to get into a routine with, something to interact with, utilizing more of your senses.

Take the time to think about what you did and what you thought about, at the end of each day.

With this you begin to see that you have a choice over your thoughts and actions rather than continuing to let everything be automatic.

Write your discoveries down and analyze them - do they help move you towards or against the life you want?

You can do this at the end of the day just before going to bed or first thing in the morning. Do what works for you. If you find you can't remember enough in the morning, better do it at night.

Don't let frustration with failure to immediately change get you to stop your efforts. At first you might automatically revert back to how you have done it before, as this is your habit. And habits want to remain as they are. You must be persistent.

At first you may not even notice that you have not changed your action until when you sit down to analyze the day. After as while you will begin to notice during the day whether you have reverted back or stayed on track. At some point you will catch yourself as you are doing what you don't want to do, and then you become aware just before you do it, enabling yourself to choose to do it differently.

Stick with it. Small daily adjustments in how you think and act can lead to huge changes in your life if you persist. Failure never meant stop, it means - try again!

Changing your life to be how you envision usually does not happen with one large event; rather it is the compilation of small changes you make in your thinking and action.

Remember action - reaction? Doing something towards change once in a while will give you once in awhile results.

Start with something small and not very emotionally charged and you will find that your small successes will lead to more confidence and determination enabling you to increase your personal power over your habits.

Personal growth is your responsibility - you decide to go towards or against what you really want each day.
About the Author
John Halderman, writes and speaks with intent on helping you get effective results with your personal growth. For self-improvement tools, tips and resources for living a satisfying life get the "Effective Personal Development Newsletter" and a bonus report http://www.activepersonaldevelopment.com
Please Rate:
(Average: Not rated)
Views: 246
Print Email Share
Article Categories
    • Artists
    • Gambling
    • Humanities
    • Humor
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Photography
    • Tattoos
    • Television
    • Classic Cars
    • Motorcycles
    • Recreational Vehicles
    • SUVs
    • Trucks
    • Vans
    • Branding
    • Business Opportunities
    • Careers and Jobs
    • Corporate
    • Customer Service
    • Direct Mail
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Ethics
    • Financing
    • Franchising
    • Home-Based Business
    • Human Resources
    • Import and Export
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Market Research
    • Marketing and Advertising
    • Negotiation
    • Network Marketing
    • Networking
    • Organizational
    • Presentation
    • Project Management
    • Public Relations
    • Small Business
    • Strategic Planning
    • Team Building
    • Telemarketing
    • Training
    • Data Recovery
    • Databases
    • Games
    • Hardware
    • Networks
    • Operating Systems
    • Programming
    • Security
    • Software
    • Spyware and Viruses
    • Ask an Expert
    • College and University
    • Home Schooling
    • K-12
    • Languages
    • Online Education
    • Psychology
    • Accounting
    • Credit
    • Currency Trading
    • Debt Consolidation
    • Insurance
    • Investing
    • Leasing
    • Loans
    • Mortgage
    • Mutual Funds
    • Personal Finance
    • Stock Market
    • Structured Settlements
    • Taxes
    • Wealth Building
    • Coffee
    • Cooking
    • Gourmet
    • Recipes
    • Wine and Spirits
    • Acne
    • Aerobics
    • Alternative Medicine
    • Beauty
    • Cancer
    • Cosmetics
    • Depression
    • Diabetes
    • Diseases and Conditions
    • Fitness Equipment
    • Fitness
    • Hair Loss
    • Heart Disease
    • Medicine
    • Men's Health
    • Muscle Building
    • Nutrition
    • Skin Care
    • Supplements and Vitamins
    • Weight Loss
    • Women's Health
    • Yoga
    • Arts and Crafts
    • Babies
    • Collecting
    • Elderly Care
    • Genealogy
    • Hobbies
    • Parenting
    • Pets
    • Pregnancy
    • Woodworking
    • Feng Shui
    • Gardening
    • Home Appliances
    • Home Security
    • Interior Design
    • Landscaping
    • Affiliate Programs
    • Article Marketing
    • Auctions
    • Audio
    • Banner Advertising
    • Blogging
    • Broadband
    • Domain Names
    • E-Books
    • E-Commerce
    • Email Marketing
    • Ezines and Newsletters
    • Forums
    • Internet Marketing
    • Link Popularity
    • Pay-Per-Click
    • Podcasting
    • RSS
    • Search Engine Marketing
    • Search Engine Optimization
    • Security
    • Social Media
    • Spam
    • Video
    • Viral Marketing
    • Web Design
    • Web Development
    • Web Hosting
    • Copyright
    • Cyber Law
    • Intellectual Property
    • National, State, Local
    • Patents
    • Regulatory Compliance
    • Trademarks
    • Buying
    • Selling
    • Baseball
    • Basketball
    • Boating
    • Cycling
    • Extreme Sports
    • Fishing
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Hockey
    • Hunting
    • Martial Arts
    • Running
    • Scuba Diving
    • Soccer
    • Swimming
    • Tennis
    • Dating
    • Divorce
    • Marriage
    • Weddings
    • Astrology
    • Buddhism
    • Christianity
    • Faith
    • Hinduism
    • Islam
    • Judaism
    • Meditation
    • Metaphysical
    • New Age
    • Cable and Satellite TV
    • Cell Phones
    • Communication
    • Gadgets and Gizmos
    • GPS
    • Satellite Radio
    • Video Conferencing
    • VoIP
    • Clothing
    • Electronics
    • Fashion
    • Gifts
    • Jewelry
    • Causes and Organizations
    • Environment
    • History
    • Holidays
    • Men's Issues
    • Nature
    • Philosophy
    • Politics
    • Women's Issues
    • World Affairs
    • Air Travel
    • Camping
    • Cruises
    • Destinations
    • Outdoors
    • Article Writing
    • Book Reviews
    • Copywriting
    • Fiction
    • Non-Fiction
    • Poetry
    • Quotes
    • Screenplay
    • Tools and Resources


text:
Home » Internet » Internet Marketing

What the Four Tier Annihilation Method Brings You

Jun 13, 2008
Who doesn't want to earn much with doing so little? The Four Tier Annihilation Method then is one thing worth considering. This particular system has its own stand alone modules that greatly generate huge amounts of money, even if you left it untouched. So what is really with this Four Tier Annihilation Method?

Module 1. This module is called the "Foundational Methods". Here, you are taught how identify possible zones where you can profits huge amounts of money. Another system called the Legal Highjack System is found in this module. This will teach you how to effectively leverage those geographical factors so that you can gain advantage in profiting big income. And since nobody is perfect, this method will uncover common mistakes most internet marketers do, and them transform those mistakes into your account's deposits. Additionally, there is also a method that allows you to gather items you need with prices far from its original wholesale rate.

The Second Module. This is the module called the Digital Takeover. Here, you can use some of today's most recent trends in building huge wealths, namely the PLR Flip and the Resell Flip. This PLR flip, or the Private Label Rights helps you in building a virtual empire enough to make you an ideal site. On the other hand, the Resell Flip is practically all about duplication. You copy and paste, and bam!; there goes your profit. Online marketing is all about traffic building. This second module also helps you tap into the most targeted traffic sites all over the world. Additionally, you can 'steal' traffic from other marketers especially if you know how to do it the right way, thus giving you profits all the more.

The Third Module. In this module, it is all about generating and more generating of online traffic. Perhaps the most easy way is the Arbitrage Site Flipping. It is similar with being a real estate broker. You earn more if you sell more. Only, there is not much an investment or leg works involved. Furthermore, you can have those expensive websites at lower rates if you consider this systematic method. Additionally, the PR Domain Flips let you acquire those domains and make use of them out of their real value.

The Fourth Module. It is in this particular module where you get to unite the sellers and the buyers and make money out of it. This is also the module where the secrets from those successful online marketers are finally revealed.

All in all, the Four Tier Annihilation Method is indeed practical for people who simply want to earn more with less time involved in marketing. With the systems "one page methods", more than a dozen of them actually, you will no longer have to worry about studying hard just to get the hang of this type of marketing. Experience the best in online internet marketing today. Grab your own copy of the Four Tier Annihilation for a fast, worry-free, and learning way of earning much money.
About the Author
Before you purchase the Four Tier Annihilation Method, read my comprehensive review of the Four Tier Annihilation Method at Four Tier Annihilation Method Review .
Please Rate:
(Average: Not rated)
Views: 124
Print Email Share
Article Categories


text:
Home » Internet » Web Development

Key Tips and Guidelines to Choose a Web Development Company

Dec 3, 2016
In the contemporary online environment, each and every business owner needs to find a competent and suitable web development company to register its presence in the cyberspace. Taking profits from your business to the next level is almost impossible without having a website these days. To serve this purpose, you need to seek the services of a professional company that can work with you, just like your own business partner.

There are so many things that may go fully against if you don't opt for the services of a top web development company in Delhi. In this article, you are going to find some key tips and guidelines that could be of immense significance to you when searching for a great service provider.
  • The successful development of a professional website may be a daunting task even for the best of companies boasting of state-of-the-art services.
  • The developmental process involves highly baffling and intriguing phases that can be accomplished error-freely only by a team having both vast experience and proven expertise in the domain.
  • Please check the track record of the service provider looking very minutely into how many projects it has developed so far and with what type of calibre.
  • After visiting the portfolio, please don't forget to make calls to those parties for whom the company has already delivered the projects.
  • Staying not only well-informed with the latest trends, but also having technical competency to perform the development jobs on all the contemporary platforms is one of the salient characteristics of any great company that you must recognise.
  • Go deeper into what type of methodologies of the company adopts to accomplish different projects. It is of crucial importance because technical edge is the backbone of any business website.
  • Make sure that the company is fully capable of rendering a website that is both mobile friendly and search engine friendly. Both these aspects play a crucial role when you want to take your products and services to your target audience utilizing digital marketing solutions.

  • In recent past, Delhi has become home to the world's best web solution providers. Corporate entities from across the globe find the Best Website Development Companies in Delhi to serve their purposes. The companies located in this region have earned a formidable reputation in the field of professional web designing and development. Be it expertise in the technical aspects or the commitment to deliver fully customised solutions for projects dealing with any industry verticals, these Indian companies have no rival across the globe. So, if you stay a little bit choosy and apply your prudence, you will find yourself able to get the services that can serve your purpose very well.
    About the Author
    This article has been written by a technical writer working with a leading top web development company in Delhi
    Please Rate:
    (Average: Not rated)
    Views: 101
    Print Email Share
    Article Categories


text:
Home » Home and Family » Hobbies

The Art of Continuity in Movie Making

Oct 30, 2007
There are ten million film makers in America today. Most of them are amateurs, but the number who migrates to professional ranks grows constantly as television enlarges its demands for motion pictures of all kinds.

Pictorial continuity is the indispensable framework of every soundly constructed motion picture, whether it is a Hollywood epic, TV film, newsreel, documentary, cartoon or home movie.

Without it, any movie, no matter how elaborately or expensively made, is amateurish; but with it, the raw beginner can achieve a professional touch. It is the answer to how to shoot a movie story.

The Meaning of Continuity

Pictorial continuity is a rather fancy term, but we like it, because it states so precisely what we're out to describe. The dictionary explains "continuity" as an "uninterrupted, close union of separate parts". Pictorial continuity, therefore, in a fully rounded definition, would be the proper development and connection of motion-picture sequences to create a smoothly joined, coherent motion-picture story.

The Long Shot

We say these elements are simple and that they correspond to the stages by which the human eye views action.

This first shot which establishes the scene is the long shot, the "LS".

Well, then, take your first long shot. Pick up your camera and guided by what your eye sees in the viewfinder, shoot.

Right now, your LS can be taken from a nice, steady, stationary position. From where you stand in the doorway, you are far enough back to take in your subject and a great deal of his surroundings - enough to establish the locale.

You and your eye want to get as close to your subject as you can. As you move in toward your subject, your eye instantly, automatically, and continuously keeps readjusting itself to the changing perspective and proportions of the scene. It takes in increasingly more and more of your subject's face, hair, shoulders, tie, shirt, the articles on his desk and less and less of the rest of his surroundings, such as the wall, the window, and the body of the desk

This is the way you want it. After all, the vital part of the scene is your subject, not his location. You want to cut out as much of the extraneous, distracting locale as you can, and come as close to his face as your eye, and politeness, will allow. This is your close-up, the heart of your picture.

The Medium Shot

But before discussing the close-up, we must look at the technique by which we duplicate the eye's transition from long shot to close-up with the camera. This brings forth the inevitable question. Why is a transition shot needed at all?

The argument is a follows: We say that the close-up is the heart of the picture. We take the LS, which no one disputes is essential for establishing the location of the scene. So, once the scene is established, why waste the audience's time and the photographer's film on a transition shot, why not go directly to the close-up?

A great jump will not do. It is too abrupt. There must be a midway or transition shot - the medium shot.

The medium shot, or "MS", is transition shot bridging the jump from long shot to close-up, and building up the subject.

The Close-up

It is the close-up, the "CU", to which the LS and MS, properly executed, pave the way.

When your camera takes its close-up. your audience will see your subject's face, his head and shoulders filling the screen, his every expression vivid and alive. In the full meaning of the term, he will be "big as life".

It is sadly neglected by the home movie cameraman today.

Now you know the basics of continuity, which will make your movie "come alive".
About the Author
Long Lost Manuscript Resurfaces Revealing The Secrets Of How To Make a Movie On A Budget And Not Have The Film Script Suffer!

Click here for FREE online ebook!

Please Rate:
(Average: Not rated)
Views: 174
Print Email Share
Article Categories
    • Artists
    • Gambling
    • Humanities
    • Humor
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Photography
    • Tattoos
    • Television
    • Classic Cars
    • Motorcycles
    • Recreational Vehicles
    • SUVs
    • Trucks
    • Vans
    • Branding
    • Business Opportunities
    • Careers and Jobs
    • Corporate
    • Customer Service
    • Direct Mail
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Ethics
    • Financing
    • Franchising
    • Home-Based Business
    • Human Resources
    • Import and Export
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Market Research
    • Marketing and Advertising
    • Negotiation
    • Network Marketing
    • Networking
    • Organizational
    • Presentation
    • Project Management
    • Public Relations
    • Small Business
    • Strategic Planning
    • Team Building
    • Telemarketing
    • Training
    • Data Recovery
    • Databases
    • Games
    • Hardware
    • Networks
    • Operating Systems
    • Programming
    • Security
    • Software
    • Spyware and Viruses
    • Ask an Expert
    • College and University
    • Home Schooling
    • K-12
    • Languages
    • Online Education
    • Psychology
    • Accounting
    • Credit
    • Currency Trading
    • Debt Consolidation
    • Insurance
    • Investing
    • Leasing
    • Loans
    • Mortgage
    • Mutual Funds
    • Personal Finance
    • Stock Market
    • Structured Settlements
    • Taxes
    • Wealth Building
    • Coffee
    • Cooking
    • Gourmet
    • Recipes
    • Wine and Spirits
    • Acne
    • Aerobics
    • Alternative Medicine
    • Beauty
    • Cancer
    • Cosmetics
    • Depression
    • Diabetes
    • Diseases and Conditions
    • Fitness Equipment
    • Fitness
    • Hair Loss
    • Heart Disease
    • Medicine
    • Men's Health
    • Muscle Building
    • Nutrition
    • Skin Care
    • Supplements and Vitamins
    • Weight Loss
    • Women's Health
    • Yoga
    • Feng Shui
    • Gardening
    • Home Appliances
    • Home Security
    • Interior Design
    • Landscaping
    • Affiliate Programs
    • Article Marketing
    • Auctions
    • Audio
    • Banner Advertising
    • Blogging
    • Broadband
    • Domain Names
    • E-Books
    • E-Commerce
    • Email Marketing
    • Ezines and Newsletters
    • Forums
    • Internet Marketing
    • Link Popularity
    • Pay-Per-Click
    • Podcasting
    • RSS
    • Search Engine Marketing
    • Search Engine Optimization
    • Security
    • Social Media
    • Spam
    • Video
    • Viral Marketing
    • Web Design
    • Web Development
    • Web Hosting
    • Copyright
    • Cyber Law
    • Intellectual Property
    • National, State, Local
    • Patents
    • Regulatory Compliance
    • Trademarks
    • Buying
    • Selling
    • Baseball
    • Basketball
    • Boating
    • Cycling
    • Extreme Sports
    • Fishing
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Hockey
    • Hunting
    • Martial Arts
    • Running
    • Scuba Diving
    • Soccer
    • Swimming
    • Tennis
    • Dating
    • Divorce
    • Marriage
    • Weddings
    • Astrology
    • Buddhism
    • Christianity
    • Faith
    • Hinduism
    • Islam
    • Judaism
    • Meditation
    • Metaphysical
    • New Age
    • Cable and Satellite TV
    • Cell Phones
    • Communication
    • Gadgets and Gizmos
    • GPS
    • Satellite Radio
    • Video Conferencing
    • VoIP
    • Addictions
    • Coaching
    • Goal Setting
    • Motivational
    • Stress Management
    • Time Management
    • Clothing
    • Electronics
    • Fashion
    • Gifts
    • Jewelry
    • Causes and Organizations
    • Environment
    • History
    • Holidays
    • Men's Issues
    • Nature
    • Philosophy
    • Politics
    • Women's Issues
    • World Affairs
    • Air Travel
    • Camping
    • Cruises
    • Destinations
    • Outdoors
    • Article Writing
    • Book Reviews
    • Copywriting
    • Fiction
    • Non-Fiction
    • Poetry
    • Quotes
    • Screenplay
    • Tools and Resources


text:
Unknown Graffiti Artist's avatar Unknown Graffiti Artist

The value of graffiti as art is contested. When illegal, graffiti is inherently anti-establishment and this view point is affirmed by typical themes presented in street art. What if graffiti promotes ideas accepted by the mainstream? Can graffiti cease to be vandalism? Recreating iconic images of Gerald Ford in Grand Rapids with stencils and spray paint raises some questions: Does painting popular images legitimize graffiti as an acceptable form of communication within community standards? Is this style of graffiti art or mere decoration? A new Ford stencil, featuring his wife Betty, faces Fulton street on the exterior of the B.O.B. The image is inspired by Ford's quote from his inaugural presidential address "I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman."

Entry Details
  • Art form: 2-D
  • Depth: 0'
  • Medium: Paint
  • Width: 10'
  • Year created: 2012
  • Height: 6'


text:
Your Account
Order Status
Customer Service
My Cart   Cart #: 0
Items: 0   Total: $0.00
My Wish List
ArtScroll Loyalty Program – earn reward dollars.
Click here for details
ArtScroll Classics  |   Browse Categories  |   Best Sellers  |   New Releases  |   Coming Soon  |   ArtScroll App  |   ArtScroll Gift Certificates
ArtScroll Gift Finder

The page you requested is being updated or no longer available. Please try your request again later. If you are unable to find the product you are looking for, try using our search feature or contact our customer service department at 1-800-MESORAH - 1-800-637-6724.

If you received this message while placing an order, Please check MY ORDERS. If your order was accepted it will show as being IN PROCESS with today’s date.
If no order is showing, we ask you to resubmit the order.

Thank you


text:
The Invisible

Blu-Ray & DVD Version Covered In Review

Cover Art and Menus: 4/10
I’m kind of neutral on this one. The packaging is standard, nothing special, nothing exciting, nothing much to talk about at all really. The menu has that crazy cool clickity click through each item. I think they went back to 1992 and got the sound effect. So, as far as the outside goes, and the navigation on the disc, we are not talking about a whoop-de-doo kind of a deal.

Features: 2/10

  • 13 Minutes Of Deleted Scenes – Sometimes deleted scenes don’t do much to forward the story, so it makes sense to cut them out. This time, however, a whole side story is wiped out. In the process the editing gurus who did their stinky magic made the whole movie seem like things weren’t always falling into place. I guess that’s what happens when you want to get rid of some stuff but you didn’t film enough other stuff to fill in the gaps.
  • Music Videos – Ugh..(= boring and pointless)
  • Feature Audio Commentary With Director & Writer Christine Roum – It’s cool to listen to a director talk about making her movie. The problem is, sometimes the movie doesn’t have enough grab for me to sit through it more than once. I dabbled, but didn’t listen to the whole thing.
  • Feature Audio Commentary With Writer Mick Davis – Again, if the movie had really caught my attention I would be glad to go through it 2 and then 3 times for all the chit chat…but it didn’t.

Movie: 5/10
I shilly-shally. I whiffle-waffle. I hem and haw. Some movies do that to my poor brain. I like it. I don’t like it. It’s semi-cool. It’s boring. All this for a movie I’m not sure I would recommend to most people? I know, it’s crazy.

Ok, let’s break it down. The Invisible is about a young dude who is bright, and handsome, and rich one minute; unseen, unheard, and questionably dreaming/dead/paranormal the next. He’s a victim of a certainly unfriendly act by a girl who wears a stocking cap to conceal her long flowing hair, and who has a very large chip and powerful punch on her shoulder.
Through his invisibility period he learns about people. He sees his domineering mother in a different light. He finds out his best friend is more frail and weak than he ever knew. But the kicker is, he learns a good lesson about life. What that lesson is, I’m still not sure, but it resembles forgiveness, open-mindedness, selflessness, stuff like that. The intended pay off of the whole thing is a bit more ambitious than the movie itself, but it still finds a way to work, somehow.

Do I sound confused? Well, that’s because I am. I watched The Invisible thinking so many things. The acting was kind of stock Hollywood acting school for 20-somethings. A little bit of trying to be deep and thoughtful, and a little bit of over the top pretend intensity.

The directing is overly stylistic with a lot of pointless angles and lighting effects, but there are often twinges of goodness with quality action sequences and use of locations.
Speaking of that, the sets and locations are actually quite nice. There are lots of groovy dark places, woods, rain, interesting buildings, which all adds a nice atmosphere to the somewhat gloomy story. There are some good moments with tricking the eye to make us feel like he is invisible to the world around him, but no great scenes of OH WOW THAT’S COOL.
There are some great action shots, again with the rain and some fighting and stuff, but the dialogue is never that good, or not good enough to balance things out.

There are LOTS of editing problems. We see part of a scene with a teenage girl that makes no sense at all, followed by a detective on the trail of something that has absolutely no lead in or explanation. (see deleted scenes, it will all make more sense). So, that kind of stuff really takes me out of a movie, and that is probably why I say it’s less good than it should be, but less bad than it could be. Hmmmm

Oh, and I have to mention this one thing that I have come to hate hate hate in movies. They take a beautiful girl, put a hat on her and tuck her hair up in it, and then she’s supposed to be unappealing. At one point she drops her locks and we see her as the stunner she really is. She’s too lovely to be as rough and dangerous as they want us to believe. That also took away my ‘leap of faith’, you know the one you take when you watch movies. The thing that tells you Wookies and Tin Men aren’t real, but it’s ok to believe it for a little while. This movie breaks that trust thing all the way through. I was convinced one thing was solid and real, and that was Marcia Gay Harding’s portrayal of the mother. She rocks!! Everything else, even the rain feels contrived and over thought out.

I won’t reveal the hooks and ‘ah ha’ moments. I’ll leave that to you to discover all on your own. I can say this, The Invisible is the best slightly above average movie I’ve seen in a long time.

Video & Audio: (By Ascully): 8/10
Another beautiful transfer from Buena Vista its getting hard to determine the difference in each Blu-Ray release from this company as they seem to have the transfer process nailed right now. Again the uncompressed soundtrack is included on the disc and is a step up from the 5.1 which is on the standard DVD. I only half enjoyed the movie but the presentation on Blu-ray disc and the DVD is hard to fault.
Value: 4/10
Rent it. Watch it. Return it. That would be my recommendation for most people. It’s not a bad flick, but it’s not something I have a strong desire to keep forever and ever. It will show up on cable someday and that will be a great time to re-watch it…at least for me

Overall Score 5/10

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


text:
455 Riverview Drive, Asheville, NC 28806

3 Bed

3.0 Bath

Estimated Payment (Monthly)
Based on 10% Down Payment at 5% APR Amortized over 25 years

MLS® #3270947 MLS® # 3270947 (Active)
    • Type: Residential
    • Style: Arts And Crafts
    • Bedroom: 3
    • Bathroom: 3.0
    • Garage: Other
    • Basement: Crawl
    • Size: 1,648 SqFt
    • Year Built: 2006
    • Community: Riverview

Arts & Crafts West Asheville home on desirable Riverview Drive. Walkable to Carrier Park, French Broad River Greenway, & RiverArts District. Less than 1 mi from West Asheville amenities. Features incl 9 ft ceilings on main w/ open floor plan & natural light. Spacious kitchen w/ breakfast bar, stainless appliances, granite, glass tile backsplash, & ample counter/cabinet space. Master suite w/ walk in closet. Hardwoods & tile on main. Mudroom w/ separate entry. Low maintenance yard on corner lot.

Property Features

  • Auction YN: No
  • CDOM: 16
  • Construction Type: Off Frame Modular
  • Driveway: Concrete
  • Elevation: 2000-2500 ft. Elev.
  • Exterior Construction: Cedar Shake,Fiber Cement
  • Exterior Features: Deck
  • Fireplace YN: No
  • Flooring: Carpet,Tile,Wood
  • Heating: Heat Pump - AC,Heat Pump - Heat
  • Listing Type: Exclusive Right
  • Lot Features: Corner Lot,Level
  • Lot Size Area: 0.090
  • New Construction YN: No
  • Parcel Number: 9638-91-2706-00000
  • Porch: Front
  • Sewer: City Sewer
  • Special Listing Conditions: None
  • Sq Ft Main: 824
  • Sq Ft Upper: 824
  • Street: Paved
  • Water: City Water
  • Water Heater: Electric
  • Zoning: Residential
  • Zoning Specification: RS8

Listed By

Mosaic Realty - Steph Cochran - BRE#289187
Contact Info

JD Jackson Associates Inc.

190 Merrimon Ave.
Asheville  North Carolina 28801

828-258-2222 Fax: 828-251-0877

Contact Us

The WNC Regional MLS® is not responsible for the accuracy of the information listed above. The data relating to the real estate for sale on this website comes in part from the Internet Data Exchange Program and the WNC Regional MLS®, and is provided here for consumers personal, non-comercial use. It may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing. Real Estate listings held by brokerage firms other than the office owning this website are marked with the IDX logo and detailed information about the name of the listing brokers. Data provided is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Last updated on Apr 30, 2017.


text:
Contributing to building better buildings

Ashley Groundwork’s Limited is a privately owned organisation based in and around the South of England. We specialise in groundwork’s and civil engineering within the Construction  industry.

We work with main contractors on commercial and residential schemes across the southeast.

Our specialist workers can handle drainage repairs, large commercial sites or environmental works for the waterways industry.

Ashley Groundwork’s is a rapidly growing organisation with an increasing client base.

Call us on 0800 634 5241 or email: