Game Rider Quotes

He loved them deeply, but sometimes love becomes a power game between the ambitions that parents have for their children and the ambitions that children have for themselves.

You'd better get onto MI6. They'll be in charge of security at the airport." "Of course." Sir Graham moved toward the door. He stopped and turned around. "And what happens if you're wrong?" he inquired. "What happens if these soccer players do somehow get killed?" Kellner shrugged. "At least we'll know what we're dealing with," he said. "And they lost every single one of their games while they were in Nigeria. I'm sure we can put together another team.

When you aren’t committed to the outcome of the game, there is no way you can win.

Hunting, bathing, gaming, laughing: that's living (venari lavare ludere ridere occest vivere).

... sometimes love becomes a power game between ambitions that parents have for their children and the ambitions that children have for themselves.

Vermax left a clutch of eggs somewhere in the depths of Winterfell’s crypts, where the waters of the hot springs run close to the walls, while his rider treated with Cregan Stark at the start of the Dance of the Dragons. As Archmaester Gyldayn notes in his fragmentary history, there is no record that Vermax ever laid so much as a single egg, suggesting the dragon was

It would be so much easier if I could just be a student instead of always a pawn in a bigger game – and I had no illusions. I was no center of the storm. I was no rook or bishop. I was a pawn and nothing more.

cramped compartment for the overhead lockers. As Alex reached up for his own travel bag, the Game Boy almost fell out of his grip. Troy’s head snapped around. Alex saw a flash of alarm in her eyes. “Be careful with that!” she

No nerve, hey? Not half a man!... Buster Jack, why don't you finish game? Make up for your low-down tricks. At the last try to be worthy of your dad. In his day he was a real man.... Let him have the consolation that you faced Hell-Bent Wade an' died in your boots!

(Speaking about ponies engaging in a game of running around and chasing a ball with "imaginary riders") Along with everything else about it, it seemed to be a parable for life. Going forwards and backwards and round in circles, striving ever forward only to have to run like crazy backwards to get the ball again, realizing that your enemy is after the same goal and you're actually helping him toward it and getting roughed up and possibly killed while you're at it but still feeling the comradeship of being in the game all together.

For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.

Ashwin has only lied to me once, and that was when he tried to convince me he wasn’t capable of caring about you. In any game Ashwin is playing, you’ll always be the queen.” “I think it’s his tell, Kora. Efficiency. When he feels something he doesn’t know how to process-compassion, caring even just the urge to help someone-he has to rationalise it, so he claims he’s just being efficient.

Italy still has a provincial sophistication that comes from its long history as a collection of city states. That, combined with a hot climate, means that the Italians occupy their streets and squares with much greater ease than the English. The resultant street life is very rich, even in small towns like Arezzo and Gaiole, fertile ground for the peeping Tom aspect of an actor’s preparation. I took many trips to Siena, and was struck by its beauty, but also by the beauty of the Siennese themselves. They are dark, fierce, and aristocratic, very different to the much paler Venetians or Florentines. They have always looked like this, as the paintings of their ancestors testify. I observed the groups of young people, the lounging grace with which they wore their clothes, their sense of always being on show. I walked the streets, they paraded them. It did not matter that I do not speak a word of Italian; I made up stories about them, and took surreptitious photographs. I was in Siena on the final day of the Palio, a lengthy festival ending in a horse race around the main square. Each district is represented by a horse and jockey and a pair of flag-bearers. The day is spent by teams of supporters with drums, banners, and ceremonial horse and rider processing round the town singing a strange chanting song. Outside the Cathedral, watched from a high window by a smiling Cardinal and a group of nuns, with a huge crowd in the Cathedral Square itself, the supporters passed, and to drum rolls the two flag-bearers hurled their flags high into the air and caught them, the crowd roaring in approval. The winner of the extremely dangerous horse race is presented with a palio, a standard bearing the effigy of the Virgin. In the last few years the jockeys have had to be professional by law, as when they were amateurs, corruption and bribery were rife. The teams wear a curious fancy dress encompassing styles from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. They are followed by gangs of young men, supporters, who create an atmosphere or intense rivalry and barely suppressed violence as they run through the narrow streets in the heat of the day. It was perfect. I took many more photographs. At the farmhouse that evening, after far too much Chianti, I and my friends played a bizarre game. In the dark, some of us moved lighted candles from one room to another, whilst others watched the effect of the light on faces and on the rooms from outside. It was like a strange living film of the paintings we had seen. Maybe Derek Jarman was spying on us.

A small army of slaves had gone ahead to prepare for Khal Drogo’s arrival. As each rider swung down from his saddle, he unbelted his arakh and handed it to a waiting slave, and any other weapons he carried as well. Even Khal Drogo himself was not exempt. Ser Jorah had explained that it was forbidden to carry a blade in Vaes Dothrak, or to shed a free man’s blood. Even warring khalasars put aside their feuds and shared meat and mead together when they were in sight of the Mother of Mountains. In this place, the crones of the dosh khaleen had decreed, all Dothraki were one blood, one khalasar, one herd.

We became ruthless with the Arab,” a 1st Division soldier wrote. “If we found them where they were not to be, they were open game, much as rabbits in the States during hunting season.” Another soldier explained: “Here Arabs live all over. Some we shoot on sight, some we search, and some we make a deal with to buy eggs and chickens.” Soldiers boasted of using natives for marksmanship practice, daring one another to shoot an Arab coming over a hill like a target in an arcade. Others fired at camels to see the riders bucked off, or shot at the feet of Arab children “to watch them dance in fear,” as one 34th Division soldier recounted. At

Girls seemed to have it easy in comparison. They mostly stood there in blue frocks or tight jeans or frilly skirts or whatever and handed out judgement, like flocks of Caesars in lipstick, crushing my fledging ego with their precious thumbs. And just like Caesar, they never seemed to earn the right to do that, it was theirs by birth. Who had decided this? I sure was never consulted. I had no choice, forced to bury my head in a game I had never agreed to join. I resented girls for it, and that cost me dearly. It nearly crippled me for life. But the winds of power were beginning to shift now. Just as those girls were becoming women, approaching the big 30 and being overtaken by a new batch of free riders, I was starting to get noticed. Time was a great leveller, and time was here.

It was as Harry dodged another Bludger, which went spinning dangerously past his head, that it happened. His broom gave a sudden, frightening lurch. For a split second, he thought he was going to fall. He gripped the broom tightly with both his hands and knees. He’d never felt anything like that. It happened again. It was as though the broom was trying to buck him off. But Nimbus Two Thousands did not suddenly decide to buck their riders off. Harry tried to turn back toward the Gryffindor goalposts — he had half a mind to ask Wood to call time-out — and then he realized that his broom was completely out of his control. He couldn’t turn it. He couldn’t direct it at all. It was zigzagging through the air, and every now and then making violent swishing movements that almost unseated him. Lee was still commentating. “Slytherin in possession — Flint with the Quaffle — passes Spinnet — passes Bell — hit hard in the face by a Bludger, hope it broke his nose — only joking, Professor — Slytherins score — oh no . . .” The Slytherins were cheering. No one seemed to have noticed that Harry’s broom was behaving strangely. It was carrying him slowly higher, away from the game, jerking and twitching as it went.

Motor-scooter riders with big beards and girl friends who bounce on the back of the scooters and wear their hair long in front of their faces as well as behind, drunks who follow the advice of the Hat Council and are always turned out in hats, but not hats the Council would approve. Mr. Lacey, the locksmith,, shups up his shop for a while and goes to exchange time of day with Mr. Slube at the cigar store. Mr. Koochagian, the tailor, waters luxuriant jungle of plants in his window, gives them a critical look from the outside, accepts compliments on them from two passers-by, fingers the leaves on the plane tree in front of our house with a thoughtful gardener's appraisal, and crosses the street for a bite at the Ideal where he can keep an eye on customers and wigwag across the message that he is coming. The baby carriages come out, and clusters of everyone from toddlers with dolls to teenagers with homework gather at the stoops. When I get home from work, the ballet is reaching its cresendo. This is the time roller skates and stilts and tricycles and games in the lee of the stoop with bottletops and plastic cowboys, this is the time of bundles and packages, zigzagging from the drug store to the fruit stand and back over to the butcher's; this is the time when teenagers, all dressed up, are pausing to ask if their slips shows or their collars look right; this is the time when beautiful girls get out of MG's; this is the time when the fire engines go through; this is the time when anybody you know on Hudson street will go by. As the darkness thickens and Mr. Halpert moors the laundry cart to the cellar door again, the ballet goes under lights, eddying back nad forth but intensifying at the bright spotlight pools of Joe's sidewalk pizza, the bars, the delicatessen, the restaurant and the drug store. The night workers stop now at the delicatessen, to pick up salami and a container of milk. Things have settled down for the evening but the street and its ballet have not come to a stop. I know the deep night ballet and its seasons best from waking long after midnight to tend a baby and, sitting in the dark, seeing the shadows and hearing sounds of the sidewalk. Mostly it is a sound like infinitely patterning snatches of party conversation, and, about three in the morning, singing, very good singing. Sometimes their is a sharpness and anger or sad, sad weeping, or a flurry of search for a string of beads broken. One night a young man came roaring along, bellowing terrible language at two girls whom he had apparently picked up and who were disappointing him. Doors opened, a wary semicircle formed around him, not too close, until police came. Out came the heads, too, along the Hudsons street, offering opinion, "Drunk...Crazy...A wild kid from the suburbs" Deep in the night, I am almost unaware of how many people are on the street unless someone calls the together. Like the bagpipe. Who the piper is and why he favored our street I have no idea.

For things to change, somebody somewhere has to start acting differently. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s your team. Picture that person (or people). Each has an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side. You’ve got to reach both. And you’ve also got to clear the way for them to succeed. In short, you must do three things: → DIRECT the Rider FOLLOW THE BRIGHT SPOTS. Investigate what’s working and clone it. [Jerry Sternin in Vietnam, solutions-focused therapy] SCRIPT THE CRITICAL MOVES. Don’t think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors. [1% milk, four rules at the Brazilian railroad] POINT TO THE DESTINATION. Change is easier when you know where you’re going and why it’s worth it. [“You’ll be third graders soon,” “No dry holes” at BP] → MOTIVATE the Elephant FIND THE FEELING. Knowing something isn’t enough to cause change. Make people feel something. [Piling gloves on the table, the chemotherapy video game, Robyn Waters’s demos at Target] SHRINK THE CHANGE. Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant. [The 5-Minute Room Rescue, procurement reform] GROW YOUR PEOPLE. Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset. [Brasilata’s “inventors,” junior-high math kids’ turnaround] → SHAPE the Path TWEAK THE ENVIRONMENT. When the situation changes, the behavior changes. So change the situation. [Throwing out the phone system at Rackspace, 1-Click ordering, simplifying the online time sheet] BUILD HABITS. When behavior is habitual, it’s “free”—it doesn’t tax the Rider. Look for ways to encourage habits. [Setting “action triggers,” eating two bowls of soup while dieting, using checklists] RALLY THE HERD.

From Walt: The Grapes of Wrath, Les Misérables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby-Dick, The Ox-Bow Incident, A Tale of Two Cities, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote (where your nickname came from), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, and anything by Anton Chekhov. From Henry: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Cheyenne Autumn, War and Peace, The Things They Carried, Catch-22, The Sun Also Rises, The Blessing Way, Beyond Good and Evil, The Teachings of Don Juan, Heart of Darkness, The Human Comedy, The Art of War. From Vic: Justine, Concrete Charlie: The Story of Philadelphia Football Legend Chuck Bednarik, Medea (you’ll love it; it’s got a great ending), The Kama Sutra, Henry and June, The Onion Field, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Zorba the Greek, Madame Bovary, Richie Ashburn’s Phillies Trivia (fuck you, it’s a great book). From Ruby: The Holy Bible (New Testament), The Pilgrim’s Progress, Inferno, Paradise Lost, My Ántonia, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Poems of Emily Dickinson, My Friend Flicka, Our Town. From Dorothy: The Gastronomical Me, The French Chef Cookbook (you don’t eat, you don’t read), Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals From Death Row, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Something Fresh, The Sound and the Fury, The Maltese Falcon, Pride and Prejudice, Brides-head Revisited. From Lucian: Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Band of Brothers, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Virginian, The Basque History of the World (so you can learn about your heritage you illiterate bastard), Hondo, Sackett, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Bobby Fischer: My 60 Memorable Games, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Quartered Safe Out Here. From Ferg: Riders of the Purple Sage, Kiss Me Deadly, Lonesome Dove, White Fang, A River Runs Through It (I saw the movie, but I heard the book was good, too), Kip Carey’s Official Wyoming Fishing Guide (sorry, kid, I couldn’t come up with ten but this ought to do).

But peace, too, is a living thing and like all life it must wax and wane, accommodate, withstand trials, and undergo changes. Such was the case with the peace Josephus Famulus enjoyed. It was unstable, visible one moment, gone the next, sometimes near as a candle carried in the hand, sometimes as remote as a star in the wintry sky. And in time a new and special kind of sin and temptation more and more often made life difficult for him. It was not a strong, passionate emotion such as indignation or a sudden rush of instinctual urges. Rather, it seemed to be the opposite. It was a feeling very easy to bear in its initial stages, for it was scarcely perceptible; a condition without any real pain or deprivation, a slack, luke-warm, tedious state of the soul which could only be described in negative terms as a vanishing, a waning, and finally a complete absence of joy. There are days when the sun does not shine and the rain does not pour, but the sky sinks quietly into itself, wraps itself up, is gray but not black, sultry, but not with the tension of an imminent thunderstorm. Gradually, Joseph's days became like this as he approached old age. Less and less could he distinguish the mornings from the evenings, feast days from ordinary days, hours of rapture from hours of dejection. Everything ran sluggishly long in limp tedium and joylessness. This is old age, he thought sadly. He was sad because he had expected aging and the gradual extinction of his passions to bring a brightening and easing of his life, to take him a step nearer to harmony and mature peace of soul, and now age seemed to be disappointing and cheating him by offering nothing but this weary, gray, joyless emptiness, this feeling of chronic satiation. Above all he felt sated: by sheer existence, by breathing, by sleep at night, by life in his cave on the edge of the little oasis, by the eternal round of evenings and mornings, by the passing of travelers and pilgrims, camel riders and donkey riders, and most of all by the people who came to visit him, by those foolish, anxious, and childishly credulous people who had this craving to tell him about their lives, their sins and their fears, their temptations and self-accusations. Sometimes it all seemed to him like the small spring of water that collected in its stone basin in the oasis, flowed through grass for a while, forming a small brook, and then flowed on out into the desert sands, where after a brief course it dried up and vanished. Similarly, all these confessions, these inventories of sins, these lives, these torments of conscience, big and small, serious and vain, all of them came pouring into his ear, by the dozens, by the hundreds, more and more of them. But his ear was not dead like the desert sands. His ear was alive and could not drink, swallow, and absorb forever. It felt fatigued, abused, glutted. It longed for the flow and splashing of words, confessions, anxieties, charges, self-condemnations to cease; it longed for peace, death, and stillness to take the place of this endless flow.

Elvis was pretty slick. Nonetheless, I knew that he was cheating. His four-of-a-kind would beat my full house. I had two choices. I could fold my hand and lose all the money I’d contributed to the pot, or I could match Elvis’s bet and continue to play. If a gambler thought he was in an honest game, he would probably match the bet thinking his full house was a sure winner. The con artist would bet large amounts of money on the remaining cards, knowing he had a winning hand. I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, as if struggling to decide whether to wager five hundred pesos or fold my hand and call it quits. I knew there were five men between me and the door and watched them from the corner of my eye. Even if I folded and accepted my losses, I knew they would not let me leave without taking all my cash. They had strength in numbers and would strong arm me if they could. The men stared, intently watching my next move. I set down my beer and took five one hundred peso notes from my wallet. The men at the bar relaxed. My adrenaline surged, pumping through my brain, sharpening my focus as I prepared for action. I moved as if to place my bet on the table, but instead my hand bumped my beer bottle, spilling it onto Elvis’ lap. Elvis reacted instinctively to the cold beer, pushing back from the table and rising to his feet. I jumped up from my chair making a loud show of apologizing, and in the ensuing pandemonium I snatched all the money off the table and bolted for the door! My tactics took everyone by complete surprise. I had a small head start, but the Filipinos recovered quickly and scrambled to cut off my escape. I dashed to the door and barely made it to the exit ahead of the Filipinos. The thugs were nearly upon me when I suddenly wheeled round and kicked the nearest man square in the chest. My kick cracked ribs and launched the shocked Filipino through the air into the other men, tumbling them to the ground. For the moment, my assailants were a jumble of tangled bodies on the floor. I darted out the door and raced down the busy sidewalk, dodging pedestrians. I looked back and saw the furious Filipinos swarming out of the bar. Running full tilt, I grabbed onto the rail of a passing Jeepney and swung myself into the vehicle. The wide-eyed passengers shrunk back, trying to keep their distance from the crazy American. I yelled to the driver, “Step on the gas!” and thrust a hundred peso note into his hand. I looked back and saw all six of Johnny’s henchmen piling onto one tricycle. The jeepney driver realized we were being pursued and stomped the gas pedal to the floor. The jeepney surged into traffic and accelerated away from the tricycle. The tricycle was only designed for one driver and two passengers. With six bodies hanging on, the overloaded motorcycle was slow and unstable. The motorcycle driver held the throttle wide open and the tricycle rocked side to side, almost tipping over, as the frustrated riders yelled curses and flailed their arms futilely. My jeepney continued to speed through the city, pulling away from our pursuers. Finally, I could no longer see the tricycle behind us. When I was sure I had escaped, I thanked the driver and got off at the next stop. I hired a tricycle of my own and carefully made my way back to my neighborhood, keeping careful watch for Johnny and his friends. I knew that Johnny was in a frustrated rage. Not only had I foiled his plans, I had also made off with a thousand pesos of his cash. Even though I had great fun and came out of my escapade in good shape, my escape was risky and could’ve had a very different outcome. I feel a disclaimer is appropriate for those people who think it is fun to con street hustlers, “Kids. Don’t try this at home.

When you appeal to the Rider inside yourself or inside others you are trying to influence, your game plan should be simple. First, follow the bright spots. Think of the Vietnamese children who stayed well nourished against the odds,

Girls seemed to have it easy in comparison. They mostly stood there in blue frocks or tight jeans or frilly skirts or whatever and handed out judgement, like flocks of Caesars in lipstick, crushing my fledging ego with their precious thumbs. And just like Caesar, they never seemed to earn the right to do that, it was theirs by birth. Who had decided this? I sure was never consulted. I had no choice, forced to bury my head in a game I had never agreed to join. I resented girls for it, and that cost me dearly. It nearly crippled me for life. But the winds of power were beginning to shift now. Just as those girls were becoming women, approaching the big 30 and being overtaken by a new batch of free riders, I was starting to get noticed. Time was a great leveller, and time was here.

Time traveller He calls himself a time traveller, He travels anywhere and anytime, He is a very adept traveller, Who knows how to bypass time, We once met suddenly, When the traveller was travelling the highway of life, He was pacing very efficiently, And that day I happened to be on the same highway of life, As I was about to cross a junction, He stopped there too, And enquired if I knew how this highway of life did function? “I may not know that better than you,” Was my polite and slow answer, “Ah haa, you appear to be a stranger on this highway, Come let me introduce you to few tricks old and quite a few newer, So, come let us go this way.” Said the traveller as we both stepped on the highway, And paced towards a destination of his choosing, It was a beautiful experience anyway, Though his few ways were very amusing, Then we stopped at a far away corner, And he pulled something from his bag, He was smart but this thing seemed smarter, He opened it and removed the safety tag, Now he turned to me and said, “Look at the sky, what do you see?” And I without being reticent said, “The sky, the Sun, that is all I see,” Looking at me he replied, “I thought so, and here is the fact, You see the sky and just the Sun, But you miss the real act, Time invested cannot be undone, You see I am a time traveller and I travel with it, Today on this highway, tomorrow on another, But I never miss the destination even by a bit, And as we were walking together, I asked you what you see when you look at the sky, You should have said, nothing, I have no time for it, Because the Sun will be there, so will be the sky, Being the time travellers we are not allowed to sit, We have to keep on moving and always seeking, Until we reach our destiny, Now this for you is my lesson worth heeding, If you are to find your final destiny, So let the Sun be, let the stars shine, and let the sky spread its magical blue, You keep travelling, moving, from one destination to another, Then you shall be a time traveller too, Like none other, like none other, So we switched lanes on the highway, He rode in a direction new, And now I was a lone rider on my life’s highway, Having realised what is known to just a few, That to be the time traveller, We should not wander but travel with a fixed aim, Because a true traveller is like a true lover, Who knows love and destiny are not a game, So for the real time traveller, it is always one destiny and one love, Though crossing many destinations is a part of it all, But the passion for love and to love, Supercedes the lure of destinations all! Now I often see the time traveller on the highways that I cross, We just bow our heads and move ahead, Because we have a destination to cross, To reach the final destiny of love, and in this pursuit we shall always stay ahead!

It was still the Wild West in those days, the Far West.… It was a land of vast silent spaces, of lovely rivers, and of plains where the wild game stared at the passing horseman. It was a land of scattered ranches, of herds of long-horned cattle, and reckless riders who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or of death. In that land we lived a free and hardy life, with horse and with rifle. We worked under the scorching midsummer sun, when the wide plains shimmered and wavered in the heat; and we knew the freezing misery of riding night guard round the cattle in the late fall round-up. In the soft springtime the stars were glorious in our eyes each night before we fell asleep; and in the winter we rode through blinding blizzards, when the driven snow-dust burnt our faces.… We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst; and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living.

Don't do this. Riders are known to die during War Games, and she's safer with me.' Dain argues. 'Anything could happen once we're away from Basgiath, let alone you taking her beyond the wards.' 'I'm not dignifying that with a response. This is an order.' Dain's eyes narrow. 'Or has this been your plan all along? To separate her from her squad so you can use her to get your need for revenge on her mother?' 'Dain!' I shake my head at him. 'You know that's not going to happen.' 'Do I?' he fires back. 'He's made a big deal out of the whole if-she-dies-I-die thing, but do you know it for a fact? Do you know Tairn won't survive your death? Or has it all been a ploy to earn your trust, Violet?' I suck in a sharp breath. 'You need to stop right now.' 'Please do quit while you're behind, Aetos,' Xaden seethes. 'You want the truth? She's a fuck of a lot safer with me beyond the wards than she is with you within them. We both know it.' The look in his eyes is similar to the one in Sgaeyl's, and it dawns on me why she chose him. They're both ruthless, both willing to annihilate whatever stands between them and what they want. And Dain is in Xaden's path.

The thunder of the other riders loud in her ears, Claray didn't hesitate, but threw herself protectively to her knees in front of the wolf, her arms instinctively going around him, lest any of the men thought to attack the beautiful creature. Of course, the wolf thought this a fine game and promptly started licking the side of her face, her head and shoulder and anything he could reach, making happy little whining sounds of greeting as he did. At which point, Stubborn Bastard decided he wasn't to be left out and started to nibble and lick at the back of her head as well.

For things to change, somebody somewhere has to start acting differently. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s your team. Picture that person (or people). Each has an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side. You’ve got to reach both. And you’ve also got to clear the way for them to succeed. In short, you must do three things: → DIRECT the Rider FOLLOW THE BRIGHT SPOTS. Investigate what’s working and clone it. [Jerry Sternin in Vietnam, solutions-focused therapy] SCRIPT THE CRITICAL MOVES. Don’t think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors. [1% milk, four rules at the Brazilian railroad] POINT TO THE DESTINATION. Change is easier when you know where you’re going and why it’s worth it. [“You’ll be third graders soon,” “No dry holes” at BP]               → MOTIVATE the Elephant FIND THE FEELING. Knowing something isn’t enough to cause change. Make people feel something. [Piling gloves on the table, the chemotherapy video game, Robyn Waters’s demos at Target] SHRINK THE CHANGE. Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant. [The 5-Minute Room Rescue, procurement reform] GROW YOUR PEOPLE. Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset. [Brasilata’s “inventors,” junior-high math kids’ turnaround]                             → SHAPE the Path TWEAK THE ENVIRONMENT. When the situation changes, the behavior changes. So change the situation. [Throwing out the phone system at Rackspace, 1-Click ordering, simplifying the online time sheet] BUILD HABITS. When behavior is habitual, it’s “free”—it doesn’t tax the Rider. Look for ways to encourage habits. [Setting “action triggers,” eating two bowls of soup while dieting, using checklists] RALLY THE HERD. Behavior is contagious. Help it spread. [“Fataki” in Tanzania, “free spaces” in hospitals, seeding the tip jar] ————— OVERCOMING OBSTACLES ————— Here we list twelve common problems that people encounter as they fight for change, along with some advice about overcoming them. (Note

Dark Elixir Troops Dark elixir troops include the Minions, Hog Riders, Valkyries, Golems, and Witches and fill specific niches that the regular troops do not such as cheap flying troops, wall avoidance, powerful ground-based splash damage and massive health. Generally, they are not as powerful as Elixir-based counterparts. The good thing is, they can be deployed in a very effective way. The Dark Elixir can be too hard to find and extremely expensive to train, and can be only trained in the dark barracks.                                   Minion Hog                              Rider                                Valkrie                                                 Golem                                           Witch

He hadn't really rejected her, had he? Or maybe she was reading into her memory of the moment what she wanted to see. Probably. Then again, he'd been hard. And he;s looked at her like he wanted to eat her. And she was totally game to be his buffet.

By the time they reached the lake, the sky was spitting raindrops at them. Dare pulled into the dirt parking lot nearest the little beach everyone in the club used for swimming. He killed the engine and turned in his seat to face her. "What d'ya think about..." The question died in his throat. Because under the helmet's clear visor, Haven wore the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen in his life. "God, I love riding," she said. She lifted the helmet from her head, shaking out her new brown hair. The movement made him hard. "What do I think about what?" She grinned up at the sky as a few fat drops landed on her face. "The weather," Dare said distractedly, just struck stupid by her declaration, her beauty, the knowledge that riding with him made so damn happy. She shrugged, her expression entirely untroubled. "I'm gonna get wet anyway." He swallows around the desire stalking through his body. "Are you now?" he asked, purposely playing on the innuendo of her words when he knew she hadn't meant anything by them. Just to see if she'd take the bait. Lips pressed together in a mischievous smirk, she looked him right in the eyes. "Sure hope so." Game. Fucking. On.

Life is a serious problem to a man over thirty. To a man under thirty it is simply a game.

Neil. The club is who you are. It’s—” “No! Who I am is a biker. A rider. Riding’s my fucking freedom, babe. Ain’t never gonna stop. But club member? Nah, not no more. Right now, Thorns is clipping my wings. Whole reason I joined, whole reason all the boys joined, was to live on our own terms outside of society’s rules and the fucking shackles they slap on your wrists, you know? But the club ain’t that way no more. Trig’s screwed it up. And I ain’t gonna let no one control me. Right now, I gotta play the game, yeah? But freedom’s coming, babe. And you’re a big part of that. I love you. I fucking want you and I’m gonna have you. Don’t give a fuck what no one says, who or what gets in my face, cuz I’ll pound it all into the ground. Pay the price to make damn sure I can always live free—WE can always live free. You feel me?

Osha,” Bran asked as they crossed the yard. “Do you know the way north? To the Wall and … and even past?” “The way’s easy. Look for the Ice Dragon, and chase the blue star in the rider’s eye.

Anquetil won the Grand Prix de Lugano seven times, I think,’ says Brunel. ‘After he’d won it six times, the organiser said to him it would be better if he didn’t come back next year, as he was finding it difficult to get sponsors because Anquetil kept winning. Then, in the winter, he changed his mind and said he could come after all, as he was a star, an important rider, but if he were to let Baldini win, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. “I’ve not got anything against you. It’s for the good of cycling,” the organiser explained. Anquetil said, “OK, but you have to pay me at the start. I don’t want to wait around after to be paid and have to face the journalists. And it’s double the normal rate. If not, I won’t come.” It was all agreed, but when he arrived he went to see Baldini and said, “Listen, don’t say anything to the organisers, but if you want, I’ll let you win today, but you must give me your appearance money.” Baldini agreed and gave him the money up front, so he took all three fees, and he went and won the race. Just for a laugh. It was just a game for him. He got on really well with Baldini. They were very good friends. In fact, Baldini is still a good friend of Jeanine. It wasn’t about the money for Anquetil. It was about having fun. He just wanted to have fun.

As I walk Sienna to her car, she squeals. “Holy crap, is that Rider Kingston?” Without my permission, my gaze slides across the street to the oversized man-child, who has the gall to be moving furniture shirtless while flexing his stupid abs. Judging by the other sweaty minions pouring out of the two-story, Rider’s getting new roommates too. My eye twitches again, and my focus snaps back to Sienna. “I thought you said you weren’t a fan of football.” “Oh, I’m not. I can’t sit through an entire game. But I am a fan of football players.” Her gaze turns ravenous as she scans my neighbor’s front lawn. Or, likely, the glistening eight-pack Rider’s put on display. “All that testosterone. Those bulging muscles. That deep, masculine grunting. Oh, yeah. Get me one of those!” She cackles, and Rider hears it. Of course he does. Shockingly, he deigns to speak to me. “Hey, Gabby,” he shouts. “How was your summer?” I’m not sure when he decided to stop ignoring me, but that’s better than pretending we’re friends, which we’ll never be. I close my eyes because I don’t need any reminders of his masculine beauty. And I definitely don’t need to see that sexy smirk, the one more powerful than his cannon that took the team to the playoffs last year. No, I’m not interested in the star quarterback. Not anymore.

Gabs, can we talk a second?” He clears his throat. Nothing good ever follows that statement. I brace myself for what’s sure to be an awkward conversation. “I just want to apologize for our… misunderstanding freshman year.” I’m silent for a moment, but the rush of anger that spikes my pulse has me responding before I think better of it. “You’d call it a misunderstanding, huh?” I roll my eyes. “Funny, I didn’t think I misunderstood anything, but if you want to mansplain it to me now, go for it.” Why make this easy for him? It’s always been difficult for me to make friends, but for some reason, Rider slipped through my defenses. I was assigned to tutor him in English. I remember meeting him in the library, and the shy smile he gave me. He was embarrassed to need help. It was the most endearing thing I’d ever seen, and I swear when he leveled me with those big gray eyes, the ground fell out beneath me. I’m a practical girl, but foster care made me cynical, and ending up with my aunt did nothing to help my outlook on life. But Rider was funny and sweet, not to mention ridiculously good-looking, and I went over faster than a felled log in a forest. This was before he was the golden boy of the football team. When he was just this guy Rider from some speck-of-dust small Texas town like me. Even though he rode the bench, I went to all of his games, and we’d grab pizza afterward and talk until late in the night. Although he didn’t outright say it, I knew he had a rough home life. He mentioned that his father was an ass. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and make it better. And I thought I meant something to him. That what we had was special. Until he became the starting quarterback.

leading jump trainers, Jean Bertrand de Balanda, whose brother had been a top showjumping rider and an Olympic gold medallist. Whilst

Sacrifice demands purity, and isn’t worth as much without it. This is why people get so pissed off when athletes get busted for performance-enhancing drugs. If sport were merely a competitive quest for excellence, pharmaceutical augmentations would be considered an innovation, and their side effects would be considered the price of doing business. We would feel the same way about doped-up athletes that we do about doped-up musicians: it might make them better at what they do. It’s part of the world they live in, although it’s a shame when they overdose or die. But if deep down, we know that sport is the sacrifice of a hunter’s energy, then doping destroys the purity of the ritual, and that’s what leaves us feeling robbed. It also spurs people to cheer for younger elite cyclists like Taylor Phinney, who conspicuously eschew not only banned substances but milder performing-enhancing measures like “finish bottles,” the crushed-up caffeine pills and painkillers that riders gulp down in the home stretch.5 The nutritional taboos of the Paleo Diet mesh perfectly with this mythos. The living root of sport is why Jerry Hill does one-legged box jumps in the Games, coaching from the floor of the arena: no excuses. And it’s why, when we see Chris Spealler carrying a 150-pound ball across the stadium, it seems like one of the great, for-the-ages moments in sport.

If you want to know the truth about the latest equipment, don’t ask a pro. At least not one that’s speaking on the record. We’re told what to use and we have to be positive about it, even when it sucks. It’s been that way since the beginning of the sport. And while I’ve been in the game for a long time now, it is still surprising to see how bad some gear can be. I don’t know how the manufacturers stay in business.

Further research by Ernst Fehr and his colleagues has shown that, consistent with Andreoni’s finding, a large proportion of people can be categorized as conditional cooperators, meaning that they are willing to cooperate if enough others do. People start out these games willing to give their fellow players the benefit of the doubt, but if cooperation rates are low, these conditional cooperators turn into free riders. However, cooperation can be maintained even in repeated games if players are given the opportunity to punish those who do not cooperate.

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International cooperation on environmental protection is like the Roommate Game writ large. Each country prefers to remain passive while the others adopt costly abatement technologies to reduce CO2 emissions. A way out of this free-rider problem is to sign an international treaty

One way out of the free-rider problem is to change the payoffs in the payoff matrix

She'd been sent up to the field to fetch the mare, although perhaps "sent" was too strong a word. Her father had done nothing more than ask her if she'd go, because the mare would not come willingly to any of the men but led them all a tiring chase, whereas for Lydia she came directly, took the halter quietly, and let herself be led downhill as meekly as a lamb. To Lydia, it was a welcome chore. These first days of October had been busy ones that kept her in the garden cutting squash to dry and harvesting the beans for seed and digging her potatoes. There'd been pies to bake and pickles to be scalded- she had left the last to Violet, who made pickles best of any she had tasted- but the garden on its own had wanted more hours in the day than she could give it, and the digging left her shoulders sore, so it had been a great relief to start this day by simply walking up along the orchard wall into the upper field to find the mare. Her father had a mind to go to Hempstead to Aunt Hannah's, and the mare would take him there and back more swiftly than the wagon team. She was a gray, a four-year-old with something of a filly's mischief glinting in her eyes as she stopped grazing, raising her fine head, and watched Lydia approach. "There'd be no point," was Lydia's advice. "I've neither will nor energy to chase you so you'd have to play the game alone, which would be little fun." The mare flicked one ear in acknowledgement of this and gave in gracefully, and although she did not step forward, she at least stood still and did not run. Lydia wasn't entirely sure herself why the mare favored her, but they had shared this rapport from the very first day that her father had brought the mare home as a yearling. Just as a horse could sense a nervous rider or a cruel one, it appeared that the mare could sense Lydia already carried a full share of troubles and did not need more. Whatever the reason, the mare bent her head to the halter and made no complaint and submitted herself to be led.

Myron said that he knew nothing of ‘Hurlothrumbo’, or any other game. “I have noticed that when these games are played, money changes hands. If I played and won, it would give me no pleasure; but if I lost, I would be haunted by remorse. I would also feel foolish.” Schwatzendale showed his crooked grin. “You do not understand the joy of the hunt. To gamble is to play at prehistoric savagery.” “The metaphor is apt,” said Wingo. “The victor is a cannibal, feeding upon the substance of the victim.” “That is the thrust of our instincts!” Schwatzendale explained. “It is the contrast which generates so much triumph — or such tragic despair.” Wingo shook his head. “When Fay gambles, he often forgets what I shall call ‘amour propre’.” He addressed Myron. “I advise against gambling in general and with Fay in particular. He will deprive you of assets so neatly that you will never notice until you grope in your pocket and find not so much as a soiled handkerchief.” “Wingo is correct!” said Schwatzendale. “Given the chance, I will win the trousers from your arse, so that you have not even a pocket for the groping!” “Fay does not exaggerate,” said Wingo somberly. “Only Moncrief the Mouse-rider has beaten him, and Fay still smarts at the recollection.” Schwatzendale clutched his head. “Why must you utter that name? I shall never rest until —” “Until you have played him again, and lost more money, and known more shame?” “Never, never, never!” “Let us hope not,” said Wingo virtuously.

Of course he doesn’t have a claim. What were you expecting?” “A God damned sword,” Villiars said, “in a God damned stone.” “I wouldn’t count on any miracles this time, Villiars. It’s a free-for-all and Rience is an old dog, he knows how the game used to be played. While you sit here contemplating the impermanence of all men’s hopes and dreams, Rience is putting riders on the roads. He’s getting the word out, getting the barons in line. Next thing you know he’ll take Londinium, seize the privy seal and the treasury, and mint a bunch of coins with his face on them.