Video Voice Quotes

Hey!" said the guy in the video. "Greetings from your friends at Camp Half-Blood, et cetera. This is Leo. I'm the..." He looked off screen and yelled: "What's my title? Am I like admiral, or captain, or-" A girl's voice yelled back, "Repair boy." "Very funny, Piper," Leo grumbled. He turned back to the parchment screen. "So yeah, I'm...ah..supreme commander of the Argo II. Yeah, I like that! Anyway, we're gonna be sailing towards you in about, I dunno, an hour in this big mother warship. We'd appreciate it if you'd not, like, blow us out of the sky or anything. So okay! If you could tell the Romans that. See you soon. Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out!

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

I'm not over you. I dream about you every night. I watch that fucking video over and over just to hear your voice. Does that make you happy? Is that proof I cared?

This phone," he says finally. "I want this phone." She laughs. "No. S'mine." Janie, I don't think you understand. I want it." Sorry." It's got photo caller ID; Internet; video, camera, and digital recorder?! Holy Hannah... It's making me warm all over." Oh yeah?" Janie says in a sexy voice. "Wanna play with my phone, baby?" Hell yes, I do.

They were angry, I thought. Horrified. These teenagers, with their hormones, making out beneath a video broadcasting the shattered voice of a former father.

Please! Please! Tell me someone has recorded your practices together. Ooh! Tell me you’re doing a live video of them. I would watch every minute. Give me all your competition dates in advance. It’ll be the Hunger Games on ice. I’ll buy everyone in the family front row seats,” she cried out, her voice full of laughter.

There are different types of censorship. There is the outright ban on a book type. Then there are the type where the ones who can give it voice, squash it by burying it under search engine algorithms and under other news, videos or books of their own agenda or publication. A smart consumer should be free to choose what to read and what to believe. That choice on a consumer-oriented website, is really what is best for the consumer. - Strong by Kailin Gow

Women in the online gaming community have been harassed, threatened, and driven out. Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist media critic who documented such incidents, received support for her work, but also, in the words of a journalist, 'another wave of really aggressive, you know, violent personal threats, her accounts attempted to be hacked. And one man in Ontario took the step of making an online video game where you could punch Anita's image on the screen. And if you punched it multiple times, bruises and cuts would appear on her image.' The difference between these online gamers and the Taliban men who, last October, tried to murder fourteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai for speaking out about the right of Pakistani women to education is one of degree. Both are trying to silence and punish women for claiming voice, power, and the right to participate. Welcome to Manistan.

I listened to the men's voices outside, muted by my car walls. "...went at it with a flamethrower in the online video. Didn't even pucker the paint." "Of course not. You could roll a tank over this baby. Not much of a market for one over here. Designed for Middle East Diplomats, arm dealers, and drug lords mostly." "Think she's something?" the short one asked in a softer voice. I ducked my head, cheeks flaming. "Huh," the tall one said. "Maybe. Can't imagine what you'd need missile-proof glass and four thousand pounds of body armor for around here. Must be headed somewhere more hazardous." Body armor. Four thousand pounds of body armor. And missle-proof glass? Nice. What had happened to good old-fashioned bulletproof?

I realized that my eyes were closed and opened them. Augustus was staring at me, his blue eyes closer to me than they'd ever been, and behind them, a crowd of people three deep had sort of circled around us. They were angry, I thought. Horrified. These teenagers, with their hormones, making out beneath a video broadcasting the shattered voice of a former father. I pulled away from Augustus, and he snuck a peck onto my forehead as I stared down at my Chuck Taylors. And then they started clapping. All the people, all these adults, just started clapping, and one shouted "Bravo!" in a European accent. Augustus, smiling, bowed. Laughing, I curtsied ever so slightly, which was met with another round of applause.

I loved the quiet places in Kyoto, the places that held the world within a windless moment. Inside the temples, Nature held her breath. All longing was put to sleep in the stillness, and all was distilled into a clean simplicity. The smell of woodsmoke, the drift of incense; a procession of monks in black-and-gold robes, one of them giggling in a voice yet unbroken; a touch of autumn in the air, a sense of gathering rain.

We are now ready to tackle Dickens. We are now ready to embrace Dickens. We are now ready to bask in Dickens. In our dealings with Jane Austen we had to make a certain effort to join the ladies in the drawing room. In the case of Dickens we remain at table with our tawny port. With Dickens we expand. It seems to me that Jane Austen's fiction had been a charming re-arrangement of old-fashioned values. In the case of Dickens, the values are new. Modern authors still get drunk on his vintage. Here, there is no problem of approach as with Austen, no courtship, no dallying. We just surrender ourselves to Dickens' voice--that is all. If it were possible I would like to devote fifty minutes of every class meeting to mute meditation, concentration, and admiration of Dickens. However my job is to direct and rationalize those meditations, that admiration. All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over. Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder-blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. Let us be proud of being vertebrates, for we are vertebrates tipped at the head with a divine flame. The brain only continues the spine, the wick really runs through the whole length of the candle. If we are not capable of enjoying that shiver, if we cannot enjoy literature, then let us give up the whole thing and concentrate on our comics, our videos, our books-of-the-week. But I think Dickens will prove stronger.

I love you, Taryn," sobbed Greta. "I really do. I should have told you that before." A loud voice overrode the recording. "That is not me." "Greta, it's a video," said Taryn. "We can all see you on it, clear as day." "It's not me," Greta insisted. "Woman, we know what you look like.

Good lord. Building stone patios, chopping wood, and walking everywhere was a workout video he needed to put on the market. ASAP.

We are each our own best effort. And we’re satisfied until we see a photograph or hear a recording of our voice. All the worse is the torture of video, to witness the squawking, gawky monster we’ve created. The you that you’ve chosen from all possible yous to create. The one life you’ve been given, and you’ve dedicated it to perfecting this staggering yammering artificial Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from the traits of other people. Anything original, anything innately you, it’s long ago been discarded.

10 ways to raise a wild child. Not everyone wants to raise wild, free thinking children. But for those of you who do, here's my tips: 1. Create safe space for them to be outside for a least an hour a day. Preferable barefoot & muddy. 2. Provide them with toys made of natural materials. Silks, wood, wool, etc...Toys that encourage them to use their imagination. If you're looking for ideas, Google: 'Waldorf Toys'. Avoid noisy plastic toys. Yea, maybe they'll learn their alphabet from the talking toys, but at the expense of their own unique thoughts. Plastic toys that talk and iPads in cribs should be illegal. Seriously! 3. Limit screen time. If you think you can manage video game time and your kids will be the rare ones that don't get addicted, then go for it. I'm not that good so we just avoid them completely. There's no cable in our house and no video games. The result is that my kids like being outside cause it's boring inside...hah! Best plan ever! No kid is going to remember that great day of video games or TV. Send them outside! 4. Feed them foods that support life. Fluoride free water, GMO free organic foods, snacks free of harsh preservatives and refined sugars. Good oils that support healthy brain development. Eat to live! 5. Don't helicopter parent. Stay connected and tuned into their needs and safety, but don't hover. Kids like adults need space to roam and explore without the constant voice of an adult telling them what to do. Give them freedom! 6. Read to them. Kids don't do what they are told, they do what they see. If you're on your phone all the time, they will likely be doing the same thing some day. If you're reading, writing and creating your art (painting, cooking...whatever your art is) they will likely want to join you. It's like Emilie Buchwald said, "Children become readers in the laps of their parents (or guardians)." - it's so true! 7. Let them speak their truth. Don't assume that because they are young that you know more than them. They were born into a different time than you. Give them room to respectfully speak their mind and not feel like you're going to attack them. You'll be surprised what you might learn. 8. Freedom to learn. I realize that not everyone can homeschool, but damn, if you can, do it! Our current schools system is far from the best ever. Our kids deserve better. We simply can't expect our children to all learn the same things in the same way. Not every kid is the same. The current system does not support the unique gifts of our children. How can they with so many kids in one classroom. It's no fault of the teachers, they are doing the best they can. Too many kids and not enough parent involvement. If you send your kids to school and expect they are getting all they need, you are sadly mistaken. Don't let the public school system raise your kids, it's not their job, it's yours! 9. Skip the fear based parenting tactics. It may work short term. But the long term results will be devastating to the child's ability to be open and truthful with you. Children need guidance, but scaring them into listening is just lazy. Find new ways to get through to your kids. Be creative! 10. There's no perfect way to be a parent, but there's a million ways to be a good one. Just because every other parent is doing it, doesn't mean it's right for you and your child. Don't let other people's opinions and judgments influence how you're going to treat your kid. Be brave enough to question everything until you find what works for you. Don't be lazy! Fight your urge to be passive about the things that matter. Don't give up on your kid. This is the most important work you'll ever do. Give it everything you have.

For some young artists, it can take a bit of time to discover which tools (which medium, or genre, or career pathway) will truly suit them best. For me, although many different art forms attract me, the tools that I find most natural and comfortable are language and oil paint; I've also learned that as someone with a limited number of spoons it's best to keep my toolbox clean and simple. My husband, by contrast, thrives with a toolbox absolutely crowded to bursting, working with language, voice, musical instruments, puppets, masks animated on a theater stage, computer and video imagery, and half a dozen other things besides, no one of these tools more important than the others, and all somehow working together. For other artists, the tools at hand might be needles and thread; or a jeweller's torch; or a rack of cooking spices; or the time to shape a young child's day.... To me, it's all art, inside the studio and out. At least it is if we approach our lives that way.

Got something!" one of the men yelled. "Is it Mike?" another called, rushing from our sides. As everyone converged on the scene, Nick's voice rang out, choked with barely contained laughter. "Forget it. It's—uh—nothing important." "What the hell do you mean?" the first man said. "Maybe this is all a joke to you, son, but. . ." The rest of the sentence trailed off as we burst into the clearing to find one of the searchers bending over a ripped shirt. Torn clothing littered the ground, more hung from bushes. Nick held up half a pair of white panties and grinned at me. "Wild dogs? Or just Clayton?" "Oh God," I muttered under my breath. I walked over to snatch the underwear from him, but he held it over his head, grinning like a schoolboy. "I seeParis , I seeFrance , I see Elena's underpants," he chanted. "Everyone's already seen much more than that," Jeremy said. "I think we can safely resume the search." Peter plucked Clay's shirt from a low-hanging branch and held it up, peering through a hole in the middle. "You guys can really do some damage. Where's the hidden video when you need it?" "So this—uh—wasn't done by wild dogs?" one of the searchers said. Peter grinned and tossed the shirt to the ground. "Nope. Just wild hormones.

You still there, guys?" "We're here!" said Svoboda. A thought struck me. "Did you watch me strip on Dale's video feed?" "Yup! Thanks for the show!" "Ahem," said Dad's voice. "Oh, relax, Mr. B," said Svoboda. "She kept her underwear on." "Still..." Dad protested.

Here's a list of the things you'll need. I jotted it down in the parking lot." Keri unfolded the paper and read the list twice, trying to get a sense of what she was in for. BRING: Bug spray; jeans;T-shirts; several sweatshirts,at least one with a hood; one flannel shirt(mandatory); pajamas(optional); underwear(also optional); bathing suit(preferably skimpy); more bug spray; sneakers; waterproof boots; good socks; sunscreen; two rolls of quarters. DO NOT BRING: Cell phone; blackberry; laptop; camera,either still or video; alarm clock; voice recorder, or any other kind of electronic anything. She had no clue what it meant, other than Joe wanting her half naked and unable to text for help.

When my sister starts dating someone, I expect a full report. Vivid descriptions, photos, videos, oil paintings—I don’t care. Even those dick pics I mentioned, which you never sent.” “Isabel.” I lowered my voice. “Shut up. He will hear you.” We were only a few feet away from the group. She cocked an eyebrow and then tilted her head slowly. Dammit. “He is dating you. What’s the big deal with him hearing you talk about it with your sister? You’ve seen his penis. We are allowed to discuss it.” She rolled her eyes. “Actually, I think we are expected to do that. I’m sure he’s talked to his friends about your bubbies.

Think about it: If you have saved just enough to have your own house, your own car, a modicum of income to pay for food, clothes, and a few conveniences, and your everyday responsibilities start and end only with yourself… You can afford not to do anything outside of breathing, eating, and sleeping. Time would be an endless, white blanket. Without folds and pleats or sudden rips. Monday would look like Sunday, going sans adrenaline, slow, so slow and so unnoticed. Flowing, flowing, time is flowing in phrases, in sentences, in talk exchanges of people that come as pictures and videos, appearing, disappearing, in the safe, distant walls of Facebook. Dial fast food for a pizza, pasta, a burger or a salad. Cooking is for those with entire families to feed. The sala is well appointed. A day-maid comes to clean. Quietly, quietly she dusts a glass figurine here, the flat TV there. No words, just a ho-hum and then she leaves as silently as she came. Press the shower knob and water comes as rain. A TV remote conjures news and movies and soaps. And always, always, there’s the internet for uncomplaining company. Outside, little boys and girls trudge along barefoot. Their tinny, whiny voices climb up your windowsill asking for food. You see them. They don’t see you. The same way the vote-hungry politicians, the power-mad rich, the hey-did-you-know people from newsrooms, and the perpetually angry activists don’t see you. Safely ensconced in your tower of concrete, you retreat. Uncaring and old./HOW EASY IT IS NOT TO CARE

I return my attention to the video, his voice blasting in my ears. I cross the street without an arm to hold me back.

Fuck, her voice is pure smoke. The kind you really only hear in porn videos. I suck in my bottom lip, biting back a groan.

The voice came from the other side of the divider, an older man, bald, who wore a leather vest over a dark blue button-down shirt, like a Radio Shack manager who moonlighted as a forest brigand.

TJ frowns; she can’t write about willing wind and water in the official report. Voicing elements is a rumor. However, she remembers what her grandmother said five decades ago when she was a child; (it was shortly after the war): “Anyone who trains hard can be a Grade A by the time they’re forty or fifty. But it takes decades more to become strong enough to voice one element.” “One element?” TJ asked. “Do you want to voice the entire universe then?” “Can’t I?” Grandmother didn’t answer, not directly anyway, as most great masters do. They never say you can’t do this or no one can do that or that thing is impossible just because they couldn’t do it, or because they hadn’t found it yet. True masters answer differently. Wisely. Like her grandmother answered that day. “Do you know why we evolve, Tirity?” “Because we’re supposed to?” TJ replied. “Yes. It’s in the grand design. We’re ‘supposed to’ evolve. Not just in body, but also in mind,” she said. “In time. You see, time is the key. If given infinite time, you can evolve your mind infinitely. But we live only for a hundred years or so.” “A hundred years is ‘only’?” “You’re so young, Tirity! But yes, it is little for a complete cognitive evolution. Most hard trainers can prolong it to a couple of hundred years. They even get to call the wind or grow a giant plant that could touch the clouds. But voicing everything in the universe? I think only God can do it, the God who created everything with only words. And if God created the world so that he could see how far the humans can evolve, then I’d say, yes, even a human could get godly power. Godlier than voicing one or two elements. If. Given. The. Time.” “How much time?” “More than thousands of years, maybe. Could even need millions, who knows? …” TJ smiles drily; she remembers how her eyes sparkled at the thought of becoming a goddess who could voice everything. She dreamed of flying in the air or walking in space. She thought of making her own garden full of giant flowers where only enormous butterflies would dance. Some days, when she played video games in VR, she even dreamed of voicing the thunder and lightning to join her wooden sword. She thought time could help her do it. But she didn’t know then, time only makes you grow up. Time steals your dreams. Time only turns you into an adult.

How to describe the things we see onscreen, experiences we have that are not ours? After so many hours (days, weeks, years) of watching TV—the morning talk shows, the daily soaps, the nightly news and then into prime time (The Bachelor, Game of Thrones, The Voice)—after a decade of studying the viral videos of late-night hosts and Funny or Die clips emailed by friends, how are we to tell the difference between them, if the experience of watching them is the same? To watch the Twin Towers fall and on the same device in the same room then watch a marathon of Everybody Loves Raymond. To Netflix an episode of The Care Bears with your children, and then later that night (after the kids are in bed) search for amateur couples who’ve filmed themselves breaking the laws of several states. To videoconference from your work computer with Jan and Michael from the Akron office (about the new time-sheet protocols), then click (against your better instincts) on an embedded link to a jihadi beheading video. How do we separate these things in our brains when the experience of watching them—sitting or standing before the screen, perhaps eating a bowl of cereal, either alone or with others, but, in any case, always with part of us still rooted in our own daily slog (distracted by deadlines, trying to decide what to wear on a date later)—is the same? Watching, by definition, is different from doing.

But I couldn’t block out the sound of his voice. “Hayden wasn’t the son I expected to have,” he said. “I’d imagined playing catch in the yard, watching football on the weekends, going fishing. The things I’d done with my dad; the things I do with Ryan. It was the only kind of relationship I knew how to have with a son.” His voice cracked. “But my second son didn’t enjoy any of those things. He loved music and video games and computers. I didn’t know how to talk to him. And now I’ll spend the rest of my life wishing I’d learned how.” He lowered his head, as if he were trying to hide the fact that he was crying.

Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand), the first single from Eat Me, Drink Me, features a video filmed by Titanic director James Cameron. In it, Manson croons to Wood, who – with bobbed hair, gloves and a demure frock – blankly masturbates in an audience of writhing lesbians, Manson’s image reflected in her heart-shaped glasses. I wanted to like the song, but found Manson’s threadbare voice and overdubbed music annoying, and the chorus - 'Don’t break my heart/and I won’t break your heart-shaped glasses' – suggested a pugilistic retribution ('Dump me, and I’ll punch your lights out!') more in keeping with Norman Mailer than Nabokov.

Rashid did not give in. "Look how his hands move on the contols," he told her. "In those worlds left-handedness does not impede him. Amazingly, he is almost ambidextrous." Soraya snorted with annoyance. "Have you seen his handwriting?" she said. "Will his hedgehogs and plumbers help with that? Will his 'pisps' and 'wees' get him through school? Such names! They sound like going to the bathroom or what." Rashid began to smile placatingly. "The term is consoles," he began but Soraya turned on her heel and walked away, waving one hand high above her head. "Do not speak to me of such things," she said over her shoulder, speaking in her grandest voice. "I am in-console-able.

Finally he must have noticed his vice grip on Austin, because he made a disgusted face and threw Austin’s arms down. “I am the Dom here. I am in charge,” he insisted, but then all the anger left his voice. “And being in charge means controlling myself—my own urges—too. Maybe more so than I ever try to control you.” He petted Austin’s hair. Leaned in to press their foreheads together briefly, the way he always did when he was overcome with one of those emotions he refused to tell Austin about.

The videos described were of me talking into the camera, seeming to narrate some personal stories-I cry in one- but Ping Xi had dubbed everything over. Instead of my voice, you heard long, angry voice mails Ping Xi’s mother had left him in Cantonese.

Carly heard the click of Shadowfax’s hooves as she came over to them. She snorted in Carly’s face and bumped her nose against her shoulder. As Carly petted her, Shadowfax hooked a foreleg over Carly’s hip as though to draw her closer for a hug and laid her head over Carly’s shoulder with a soft rumble. “Good horse. Thank you for biting that awful man.” “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Justin, said with wonder in his voice. “I swear to God, you’re like a video game Druid, sending animals to do your bidding.

As we were wrapping up the book, I sat down and thought about all the lessons I’d learned over the past two years. I couldn’t list them all, but here are a few: Never complain about the price of a gift from your spouse--accept it with love and gratitude. You can’t put a price on romance. Take lots of videos, even of the mundane. You will forget the sound of your children’s voices and you will miss your youth as much as theirs. Celebrate every wedding anniversary. Make time for dates. Hug your spouse every single morning. And always, ALWAYS, say “I love you.” Believe in your partner. When you hit hard times as a couple, take a weekend away or at least a night out. The times that you least feel like doing it are likely the times that you need it the most. Write love notes to your spouse, your children, and keep the ones they give you. Don’t expect a miniature pig to be an “easy” pet. Live life looking forward with a goal of no regrets, so you can look back without them. Be the friend you will need some day. Often the most important thing you can do for another person is just showing up. Question less and listen more. Don’t get too tied up in your plans for the future. No one really knows their future anyway. Laugh at yourself, and with life. People don’t change their core character. Be humble, genuine, and gracious. Before you get into business with someone, look at their history. Expect them to be with you for the long haul, even if you don’t think they will be. If they aren’t someone you could take a road trip across the country with, don’t do business with them in the first place. Real families and real sacrifices live in the fabric of the Red, White, and Blue; stand for the national anthem.

One night, walking along 8th Street in the East Village, I saw some adolescent boys, out too late and unattended. They were playing an arcade video game set up on the sidewalk, piloting a digital spacecraft through starlit infinity, blasting everything in their path to bits. Now and then, the machine would let out a robotic shout of encouragement: You’re doing great! So the urchins flew on through the make-believe nothingness, destroying whatever they saw, hypnotized by the mechanical praise that stood in for the human voice of love. That, it seemed to me, was postmodernism in a nutshell. It ignored the full spiritual reality of life all around it in order to blow things apart inside a man-made box that only looked like infinity. You’re doing great, intellectuals! You’re doing great. Much

The BDS on campus operation is organized by, among others, a group in Chicago, Illinois, called American Muslims for Palestine, or AMP. For years, AMP, through its sponsorship of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), has been sending strategists, digital and communications experts, graphic designers, video editors, and legal advisors to colleges all over America and running flashy events in expensive hotels for the purpose of delegitimizing Israel, minimizing pro-Israel voices on campus, and harassing Jewish and pro-Israel students in order to deter them from supporting Israel. The embodiment of Cancel Culture. Managing such a sophisticated network of political operatives, extensive marketing, and (pre-COVID) ritzy gatherings at nice hotels is extremely expensive.11 So where is the money coming from? I

We live in a largely addictive society that continues to reinforce the defenses we learned as children; this reinforcement comes in the form of a negative social pressure to soothe ourselves, to try to obtain instant gratification. . . Many people who suffered deprivation in childhood continue to accept substitute gratifications in the forms of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, television, video games, overwork, and other activities that distract them from experiencing their real lives.

All these feelings started when we were ten. I have this real clear memory of us wrestling in Malik’s front yard. I was The Rock and he was John Cena. We were obsessed with wrestling videos on YouTube. I pinned Malik down, and while sitting on top of him in his front yard, I suddenly wanted to kiss him. It. Freaked. Me. Out. So I punched him and said in my best The Rock voice, “I’m laying the smackdown on your candy ass!” Basically, I tried to ignore my sexual awakening by imitating The Rock.

I once read the most widely understood word in the whole world is ‘OK’, followed by ‘Coke’, as in cola. I think they should do the survey again, this time checking for ‘Game Over’. Game Over is my favorite thing about playing video games. Actually, I should qualify that. It’s the split second before Game Over that’s my favorite thing. Streetfighter II - an oldie but goldie - with Leo controlling Ryu. Ryu’s his best character because he’s a good all-rounder - great defensive moves, pretty quick, and once he’s on an offensive roll, he’s unstoppable. Theo’s controlling Blanka. Blanka’s faster than Ryu, but he’s really only good on attack. The way to win with Blanka is to get in the other player’s face and just never let up. Flying kick, leg-sweep, spin attack, head-bite. Daze them into submission. Both players are down to the end of their energy bars. One more hit and they’re down, so they’re both being cagey. They’re hanging back at opposite ends of the screen, waiting for the other guy to make the first move. Leo takes the initiative. He sends off a fireball to force Theo into blocking, then jumps in with a flying kick to knock Blanka’s green head off. But as he’s moving through the air he hears a soft tapping. Theo’s tapping the punch button on his control pad. He’s charging up an electricity defense so when Ryu’s foot makes contact with Blanka’s head it’s going to be Ryu who gets KO’d with 10,000 volts charging through his system. This is the split second before Game Over. Leo’s heard the noise. He knows he’s fucked. He has time to blurt ‘I’m toast’ before Ryu is lit up and thrown backwards across the screen, flashing like a Christmas tree, a charred skeleton. Toast. The split second is the moment you comprehend you’re just about to die. Different people react to it in different ways. Some swear and rage. Some sigh or gasp. Some scream. I’ve heard a lot of screams over the twelve years I’ve been addicted to video games. I’m sure that this moment provides a rare insight into the way people react just before they really do die. The game taps into something pure and beyond affectations. As Leo hears the tapping he blurts, ‘I’m toast.’ He says it quickly, with resignation and understanding. If he were driving down the M1 and saw a car spinning into his path I think he’d in react the same way. Personally, I’m a rager. I fling my joypad across the floor, eyes clenched shut, head thrown back, a torrent of abuse pouring from my lips. A couple of years ago I had a game called Alien 3. It had a great feature. When you ran out of lives you’d get a photo-realistic picture of the Alien with saliva dripping from its jaws, and a digitized voice would bleat, ‘Game over, man!’ I really used to love that.

I’m not interested in you. I will never be interested in you. In fact, I’m fucking allergic,” he says, his jaw clenched. “To you. I’m allergic to your big silver eyes and your pouty pink lips. To your blushing cheeks and your breathy voice. I’m allergic to the way you can’t stop watching me. I told you I’m not interested in Disney movies, didn’t I? I meant it. So I suggest you find someone else to play damsel in distress with. Someone else to solve your teenage problems. Someone your age, someone who’s probably still going through a fucking growth spurt or someone who spends his weekends playing video games and jerking off. From now on, if I catch you looking at me across the hallway or if I find you within ten feet of my office or me without reason, my sister’s best friend or not, I’ll personally make sure you never see the outside of that brick wall and those black metal gates for the rest of the year.” And then before he straightens up, he adds, “And I might be closer to your dad’s age than yours, but I do remember what people call you. And I also know what your name is, Bronwyn.

Imagine you live on a planet where the dominant species is far more intellectually sophisticated than human beings but often keeps humans as companion animals. They are called the Gorns. They communicate with each other via a complex combination of telepathy, eye movements & high-pitched squeaks, all completely unintelligible & unlearnable by humans, whose brains are prepared for verbal language acquisition only. Humans sometimes learn the meaning of individual sounds by repeated association with things of relevance to them. The Gorns & humans bond strongly but there are many Gorn rules that humans must try to assimilate with limited information & usually high stakes. You are one of the lucky humans who lives with the Gorns in their dwelling. Many other humans are chained to small cabanas in the yard or kept in outdoor pens of varying size. They are so socially starved they cannot control their emotions when a Gorn goes near them. The Gorns agree that they could never be House-Humans. The dwelling you share with your Gorn family is filled with water-filled porcelain bowls.Every time you try to urinate in one,nearby Gorn attack you. You learn to only use the toilet when there are no Gorns present. Sometimes they come home & stuff your head down the toilet for no apparent reason. You hate this & start sucking up to the Gorns when they come home to try & stave this off but they view this as evidence of your guilt. You are also punished for watching videos, reading books, talking to other human beings, eating pizza or cheesecake, & writing letters. These are all considered behavior problems by the Gorns. To avoid going crazy, once again you wait until they are not around to try doing anything you wish to do. While they are around, you sit quietly, staring straight ahead. Because they witness this good behavior you are so obviously capable of, they attribute to “spite” the video watching & other transgressions that occur when you are alone. Obviously you resent being left alone, they figure. You are walked several times a day and left crossword puzzle books to do. You have never used them because you hate crosswords; the Gorns think you’re ignoring them out of revenge. Worst of all, you like them. They are, after all, often nice to you. But when you smile at them, they punish you, likewise for shaking hands. If you apologize they punish you again. You have not seen another human since you were a small child. When you see one you are curious, excited & afraid. You really don’t know how to act. So, the Gorn you live with keeps you away from other humans. Your social skills never develop. Finally, you are brought to “training” school. A large part of the training consists of having your air briefly cut off by a metal chain around your neck. They are sure you understand every squeak & telepathic communication they make because sometimes you get it right. You are guessing & hate the training. You feel pretty stressed out a lot of the time. One day, you see a Gorn approaching with the training collar in hand. You have PMS, a sore neck & you just don’t feel up to the baffling coercion about to ensue. You tell them in your sternest voice to please leave you alone & go away. The Gorns are shocked by this unprovoked aggressive behavior. They thought you had a good temperament. They put you in one of their vehicles & take you for a drive. You watch the attractive planetary landscape going by & wonder where you are going. You are led into a building filled with the smell of human sweat & excrement. Humans are everywhere in small cages. Some are nervous, some depressed, most watch the goings on on from their prisons. Your Gorns, with whom you have lived your entire life, hand you over to strangers who drag you to a small room. You are terrified & yell for your Gorn family to help you. They turn & walk away.You are held down & given a lethal injection. It is, after all, the humane way to do it.

In lots of ways, television purveys and enables dreams, and most of these dreams involve some sort of transcendence of average daily life. The modes of presentation that work best for TV—stuff like “action,” with shoot-outs and car wrecks, or the rapid-fire “collage” of commercials, news, and music videos, or the “hysteria” of prime-time soap and sitcom with broad gestures, high voices, too much laughter—are unsubtle in their whispers that, somewhere, life is quicker, denser, more interesting, more… well, lively than contemporary life as Joe Briefcase knows it.

I’d made a point of meeting our closest neighbors the first week we moved in, because it seemed like a good precaution to assess them early for threats, or as possible resources in an emergency. I don’t count the Johansens as either. They are just . . . there. Most people just take up space anyway. The whisper comes and goes in my head, and it frightens me, because I hate remembering Melvin Royal’s voice. That was nothing he’d ever said at home, ever said to me, but I’d seen the video of him saying it at the trial. He’d said it utterly casually about the women he’d torn apart.

I said, "I want to wear something funny and cool. Marjorie, could I wear your sparkly baseball hat?" The three of us looked at Marjorie. Now I remember thinking that her answer could change everything back to the way it was; Dad could find a job and stop praying all the time and Mom could be happy and call Marjorie shellfish again and show us funny videos she found on YouTube, and we all could eat more than just spaghetti at dinner and, most important, Marjorie could be normal again. Everything would be okay if Marjorie would only say yes to me wearing the sparkly sequined baseball hat, the one she'd made in art class a few years ago. The longer we watched Marjorie and waited for her response, the more the temperature in the room dropped and I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. She stopped twisting her spaghetti around her fingers. She opened her mouth, and vomit slowly oozed out onto her spaghetti plate. Dad: "Jesus!" Mom: "Honey, are you okay?" She jumped out of her seat and went over to Marjorie, stood behind her, and held her hair up. Marjorie didn't react to either parent, and she didn't make any sounds. She wasn't retching or convulsing involuntarily like one normally does when throwing up. It just poured out of her as though her mouth was an opened faucet. The vomit was as green as spring grass, and the masticated pasta looked weirdly dry, with a consistency of mashed-up dog food. She watched Dad the whole time as the vomit filled her plate, some of it slopping over the edges and onto the table. When she finished she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "No, Merry. You can't wear my hat." She didn't sound like herself. Her voice was lower, adult, and growly. "You might get something on it. I don't want you to mess it up." She laughed. Dad: "Marjorie..." Marjorie coughed and vomited more onto her too-full plate. "You can't wear the hat because you're going to die someday." She found a new voice, this one treacly baby-talk. "I don't want dead things wearing my very special hat.

John Isidore said, “I found a spider.” The three androids glanced up, momentarily moving their attention from the TV screen to him. “Let’s see it,” Pris said. She held out her hand. Roy Baty said, “Don’t talk while Buster is on.” “I’ve never seen a spider,” Pris said. She cupped the medicine bottle in her palms, surveying the creature within. “All those legs. Why’s it need so many legs, J. R.?” “That’s the way spiders are,” Isidore said, his heart pounding; he had difficulty breathing. “Eight legs.” Rising to her feet, Pris said, “You know what I think, J. R.? I think it doesn’t need all those legs.” “Eight?” Irmgard Baty said. “Why couldn’t it get by on four? Cut four off and see.” Impulsively opening her purse, she produced a pair of clean, sharp cuticle scissors, which she passed to Pris. A weird terror struck at J. R. Isidore. Carrying the medicine bottle into the kitchen, Pris seated herself at J. R. Isidore’s breakfast table. She removed the lid from the bottle and dumped the spider out. “It probably won’t be able to run as fast,” she said, “but there’s nothing for it to catch around here anyhow. It’ll die anyway.” She reached for the scissors. “Please,” Isidore said. Pris glanced up inquiringly. “Is it worth something?” “Don’t mutilate it,” he said wheezingly. Imploringly. With the scissors, Pris snipped off one of the spider’s legs. In the living room Buster Friendly on the TV screen said, “Take a look at this enlargement of a section of background. This is the sky you usually see. Wait, I’ll have Earl Parameter, head of my research staff, explain their virtually world-shaking discovery to you.” Pris clipped off another leg, restraining the spider with the edge of her hand. She was smiling. “Blowups of the video pictures,” a new voice from the TV said, “when subjected to rigorous laboratory scrutiny, reveal that the gray backdrop of sky and daytime moon against which Mercer moves is not only not Terran—it is artificial.” “You’re missing it!” Irmgard called anxiously to Pris; she rushed to the kitchen door, saw what Pris had begun doing. “Oh, do that afterward,” she said coaxingly. “This is so important, what they’re saying; it proves that everything we believed—” “Be quiet,” Roy Baty said. “—is true,” Irmgard finished. The TV set continued, “The ‘moon’ is painted; in the enlargements, one of which you see now on your screen, brush strokes show. And there is even some evidence that the scraggly weeds and dismal, sterile soil—perhaps even the stones hurled at Mercer by unseen alleged parties—are equally faked. It is quite possible in fact that the ‘stones’ are made of soft plastic, causing no authentic wounds.” “In other words,” Buster Friendly broke in, “Wilbur Mercer is not suffering at all.” The research chief said, “We at last managed, Mr. Friendly, to track down a former Hollywood special-effects man, a Mr. Wade Cortot, who flatly states, from his years of experience, that the figure of ‘Mercer’ could well be merely some bit player marching across a sound stage. Cortot has gone so far as to declare that he recognizes the stage as one used by a now out-of-business minor moviemaker with whom Cortot had various dealings several decades ago.” “So according to Cortot,” Buster Friendly said, “there can be virtually no doubt.” Pris had now cut three legs from the spider, which crept about miserably on the kitchen table, seeking a way out, a path to freedom. It found none.

We're still going to Loggerhead this afternoon, right?” Hi glanced around, then dropped his voice. “For that...home movie thing?” I nodded. “We might as well deal with what we can. Let's take the afternoon shuttle. I'll think of an excuse for Kit, thought I'm open to suggestions.” “Ben?” Shelton asked. “Not today. I think the two of us need a little distance.” The bell rang. We gathered our things and headed for the door. “Tell Kit we're cutting a music video,” Hi suggested as we walked. “Something real gangster, so we need to smash-cut our dance routines. Lay down some visuals. We could offer to let him rap over the second verse.” I gave him a thumbs-up. “Foolproof. Anyone need a locker stop?

I go to one of my favorite Instagram profiles, the.korean.vegan, and I watch her last video, in which she makes peach-topped tteok. The Korean vegan, Joanne, cooks while talking about various things in her life. As she splits open a peach, she explains why she gave up meat. As she adds lemon juice, brown sugar, nutmeg, a pinch of salt, cinnamon, almond extract, maple syrup, then vegan butter and vegan milk and sifted almond and rice flour, she talks about how she worried about whitewashing her diet, about denying herself a fundamental part of her culture, and then about how others don't see her as authentically Korean since she is a vegan. I watch other videos by Joanne, soothed by her voice into feeling human myself, and into craving the experiences of love she talks of and the food she cooks as she does. I go to another profile, and watch a person's hands delicately handle little knots of shirataki noodles and wash them in cold water, before placing them in a clear oden soup that is already filled with stock-boiled eggs, daikon, and pure white triangles of hanpen. Next, they place a cube of rice cake in a little deep-fried tofu pouch, and seal the pouch with a toothpick so it looks like a tiny drawstring bag; they place the bag in with the other ingredients. "Every winter my mum made this dish for me," a voice says over the video, "just like how every winter my grandma made it for my mum when she was a child." The person in the video is half Japanese like me, and her name is Mei; she appears on the screen, rosy cheeked, chopsticks in her hand, and sits down with her dish and eats it, facing the camera. Food means so much in Japan. Soya beans thrown out of temples in February to tempt out demons before the coming of spring bring the eater prosperity and luck; sushi rolls eaten facing a specific direction decided each year bring luck and fortune to the eater; soba noodles consumed at New Year help time progress, connecting one year to the next; when the noodles snap, the eater can move on from bad events from the last year. In China too, long noodles consumed at New Year grant the eater a long life. In Korea, when rice-cake soup is eaten at New Year, every Korean ages a year, together, in unison. All these things feel crucial to East Asian identity, no matter which country you are from.

The unfortunate truth is that right now men's voices dominate and we see the results. Popular products from the tech boom - including violent and sexist video games that a generation of children has become addicted to - are designed with little to no input from women. Apple's first version of its highly touted health application could track your blood-alcohol level but not menstruation. Everything from plus-sized smart phones to artificial hearts have been build at a size better suited to male anatomy. As of late 2016, if you told one of the virtual assistants like Siri, S Voice, and Google Now, 'I'm having a heart attack,' you'd immediately get valuable information about what to do next. If you were to say, 'I'm being raped,' or 'I'm being abused by my husband,' the attractive (usually) female voice would say, 'I don't understand what this is.

It was in Cleveland that Magic Slim became the most successful pornographic film producer in America. His training center was a key link in a human trafficking supply chain stretching from the former Soviet Republics in Eastern Europe to the United States. Trafficking accounts for an estimated $32 billion in annual trade with sex slavery and pornographic film production accounting for the greatest percentage. The girls arrived at Slim’s building young and naive, they left older and wiser. This was a classic value chain with each link making a contribution.  Slim’s trainers were the best, and it showed in the final product. Each class of girls was judged on the merits. The fast learners went on to advanced training. They learned proper etiquette, social skills and party games. They learned how to dress, apply makeup and discuss world events.  Best in-class were advertised in international style magazines with code words. These codes were known only to select clients and certain intermediaries approved by Slim. This elaborate distribution system was part of Slim’s business model, his clients paid an annual subscription fee for the on-line dictionary. The code words and descriptions were revised monthly.  An interested client would pay an access fee for further information that included a set of professional  photographs, a video and voice recordings of the model addressing the client by name.  Should the client accept, a detailed travel itinerary was submitted calling for first class travel and accommodation.  Slim required a letter of understanding spelling out terms and conditions and a 50% deposit. He didn’t like contracts, his word was his bond, everyone along the chain knew that. Slim's business was booming.

Josh, you saw him," Tally says, "What did he look like? Did he look nice?" "He looked like a person," Josh grunts. "Don't be a spoilsport," Tally says, and Caid hears her smack Josh on the arm. "Shortish, blondish, thinish," Josh says. "Thank you, Josh," Caid says, "Your way with words astounds me yet again." "Well, whatever," Tally says. "What did you guys talk about? You said he's nice?" "We talked about a lot of things. And yeah, he's—I mean, we traded numbers, so hopefully he'll call." "I hope so, too," Tally says. "I'm glad you have somebody to hang out with now." "Because I was such horrible company?" Josh says, voice thick and deep like he's got a mouthful of ice cream. "I wouldn't say horrible," Caid says. "Unbearable, maybe. Like one of those YouTube videos that never loads." And with that, he shoots a shit-eating grin in Josh's direction, and shovels a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.

Max.” It was a sharp whisper to reinstate the silence and Max did not know what kind of acerbic retort waited on the other side of his stilted pause. Kevin had never snapped at him before, but there was a part of him that thought it would happen today. His brother turned to face him, his deep blue eyes lined with tears and burning with anguish. “You’re my brother,” he said, his voice low and unsteady. “You already know how I feel…and I know how you feel…so there’s no need to talk about this. And if you mention his name again, I’m gonna ask you leave.” Max nodded. That wasn’t the verbal lashing he was expecting but it made him understand his role in the situation. Kevin hadn’t played video games all day for the entertainment. He had done it for the distraction. And he hadn’t allowed Max to sit in his room for so long because he intended to open up. He had kept Max there because he wanted the silent comfort, the pillar of strength only a brother could provide. - Kevin to Max

Trina, I never expected to fall in love again. I thought I got my shot, and I was okay with that, because I had my girls. I didn’t realize anything was missing. Then came you.” Ms. Rothschild’s hands are covering her mouth. She has tears in her eyes. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Trina.” Ms. Rothschild starts choking on her candy, and Daddy leaps up off his knee and starts pounding her on the back. She’s coughing like crazy. From his tree Peter whispers, “Should I go do the Heimlich on her? I know how to do it.” “Peter, my dad’s a doctor!” I whisper back. “He’s got it.” As her coughing subsides, she stands up straight and wipes her eyes. “Wait. Were you asking me to marry you?” “I was trying to,” Daddy says. “Are you all right?” “Yes!” She claps her hands to her cheeks. “Yes, you’re all right, or yes, you’ll marry me?” Daddy asks her, and he’s only half kidding. “Yes, I’ll marry you!” she screams, and Daddy reaches for her, and they kiss. “This feels private,” I whisper to Kitty. “It’s all part of the show,” she whispers back. Daddy hands Ms. Rothschild the ring box. I can’t quite make out what he says next, but whatever it was, it makes her double over laughing. “What’s he saying?” Kitty asks me, just as Peter says, “What did he say?” “I can’t hear! Both of you be quiet! You’re ruining the video!” Which is when Ms. Rothschild looks over in our direction. Shoot. We all pop back behind our respective trees, and then I hear Daddy’s wry voice call out, “You can come out, guys. She said yes!” We run out from behind the trees; Kitty launches herself into Ms. Rothschild’s arms. They fall over onto the grass, and Ms. Rothschild is laughing breathlessly, her laughter echoing through the woods. I hug Daddy, and meanwhile Peter’s still playing videographer, recording the moment for posterity like the good boyfriend he is. “Are you happy?” I ask, looking up at my dad. His eyes brimming with tears, he nods and hugs me tighter. And just like that, our little family grows bigger.

Karzac and many of the hospital's employees were glued to the video screen, watching in horror as people were running away, some of them not getting far before being torn apart by priests in their red robes. "They're eating them!" One of the nurses wept as they all watched. Karzac schooled his face; he'd seen this before, just not to this degree or on his home planet. The cameras, some of them, now focused on the vampires who were fighting the priests, allowing the people to run away as best they could. "Those are the vampires," another physician said, the awe in his voice unconcealed. "Those monsters are exploding when they're killed," someone else observed. "Come, I think we're needed there more than here," Karzac said. "Leave half behind. Those who are willing, come with me." He gathered up as much in the way of supplies as he could and headed toward the door. Several followed his lead. "Look, there's a female vampire," someone said as Karzac made his way through the sliding glass doors of the emergency room. Karzac smiled grimly at the comment.

Some 30 years ago, I was influenced by Dr. J Robertson McQuilkin, who was president of Columbia Bible College in Columbia, SC, a great Bible teacher and Christian leader. His wife developed short-term memory loss, and then she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the early 1980’s. He abruptly resigned his position, cared for her full time and then wrote a book, A Promise Kept. I remember thinking that he must really love his wife! God used this man’s example and his relationship with his wife to plant thoughts and feelings that would grow year by year, and be used to mold Gini and my relationship to one another and the importance of our marriage vows to one another “in the sight of God and these witnesses”. I now know that the “witnesses” include many who are still observing us today, as the Lord helps us to graciously love one another completely and unreservedly “til death do us part” If you have not watched this video with our vows and voices, please do so or pass this message on. On the website as alternate video just below the main one or http://vimeo.com/65673042 To get the book Gini and I wrote, www.ReadTheJourneyHome.com

Back in the early 1990s, the FBI started worrying about its ability to conduct telephone surveillance. The FBI could do it with the old analog phone switches: a laborious process involving alligator clips, wires, and a tape recorder. The problem was that digital switches didn’t work that way. Isolating individual connections was harder, and the FBI became concerned about the potential loss of its ability to wiretap. So it lobbied Congress hard and got a law passed in 1994 called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, requiring telcos to re-engineer their digital switches to have eavesdropping capabilities built in. Fast-forward 20 years, and the FBI again wants the IT industry to make surveillance easier for itself. A lot of communications no longer happen over the telephone. They’re happening over chat. They’re happening over e-mail. They’re happening over Skype. The FBI is currently lobbying for a legislative upgrade to CALEA, one that covers all communications systems: all voice, video, and text systems, including World of Warcraft and that little chat window attached to your online Scrabble game. The FBI’s ultimate goal is government prohibition of truly secure communications. Valerie

What did Kavinsky say about it?” Chris asks me. “Nothing yet. He’s still at lacrosse practice.” My phone immediately starts to buzz, and the three of us look at each other, wide-eyed. Margot picks it up and looks at it. “It’s Peter!” She hot-potatoes the phone to me. “Let’s give them some privacy,” she says, nudging Chris. Chris shrugs her off. I ignore both of them and answer the phone. “Hello.” My voice comes out thin as a reed. Peter starts talking fast. “Okay, I’ve seen the video, and the first thing I’m going to say to you is don’t freak out.” He’s breathing hard; it sounds like he’s running. “Don’t freak out? How can I not? This is terrible. Do you know what they’re all saying about me in the comments? That I’m a slut. They think we’re having sex in that video, Peter.” “Never read the comments, Covey! That’s the first rule of--” “If you say ‘Fight Club’ to me right now, I will hang up on you.” “Sorry. Okay, I know it sucks but--” “It doesn’t ‘suck.’ It’s a literal nightmare. My most private moment, for everybody to see. I’m completely humiliated. The things people are saying--” My voice breaks. Kitty and Margot and Chris are all looking at me with sad eyes, which makes me feel even sadder. “Don’t cry, Lara Jean. Please don’t cry. I promise you I’m going to fix this. I’m going to get whoever runs Anonybitch to take it down.” “How? We don’t even know who they are! And besides, I bet our whole school’s seen it by now. Teachers, too. I know for a fact that teachers look at Anonybitch. I was in the faculty lounge once and I overheard Mr. Filipe and Ms. Ryan saying how bad it makes our school look. And what about college admission boards and our future employers?” Peter guffaws. “Future employers? Covey, I’ve seen much worse. Hell, I’ve seen worse pictures of me on here. Remember that picture of me with my head in a toilet bowl, and I’m naked?” I shudder. “I never saw that picture. Besides, that’s you; that’s not me. I don’t do that kind of stuff.” “Just trust me, okay? I promise I’ll take care of it.” I nod, even though I know he can’t see me. Peter is powerful. If anyone could fix such a thing, it would be him. “Listen, I’ve gotta go. Coach is gonna kick my ass if he sees me on the phone. I’ll call you tonight, okay? Don’t go to sleep.” I don’t want to hang up. I wish we could talk longer. “Okay,” I whisper. When I hang up, Margot, Chris, and Kitty are all three staring at me. “Well?” Chris says. “He says he’ll take care of it.” Smugly Kitty says, “I told you so.” “What does that even mean, ‘he’ll take care of it’?” Margot asks. “He hasn’t exactly proven himself to be responsible.” “It’s not his fault,” Kitty and I say at the same time.

Eric Metaxas emerged as a leading voice on Christian masculinity in the Obama era. Metaxas wasn’t new to the world of evangelical publishing, or to evangelical culture more generally. Raised in the Greek Orthodox Church, Metaxas got his start writing children’s books. In 1997 he began working as a writer and editor for Charles Colson’s BreakPoint radio show, and he then worked as a writer for VeggieTales, a children’s video series where anthropomorphic vegetables taught lessons in biblical values and Christian morality. (Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber became household names in 1990s evangelicalism.) Belying his VeggieTales pedigree, Metaxas brought a new sophistication to the literature on evangelical masculinity. As a witty, Yale-educated Manhattanite, Metaxas cut a different profile than many spokesmen of the Christian Right. If Metaxas’s writing wasn’t exactly highbrow, his was higher-brow than most books churned out by Christian presses. More suave in his presentation than the average evangelical firebrand, Metaxas was a rising star in the conservative Christian world of the 2000s. After Colson’s death in 2012 he took over BreakPoint, a program broadcast on 1400 outlets to an audience of eight million. That year he also gave the keynote address at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he relished the opportunity to scold President Obama to his face, castigating those who displayed “phony religiosity” by throwing Bible verses around and claiming to be Christian while denying the exclusivity of the faith and the humanity of the unborn. In 2015 he launched his own nationally syndicated daily radio program, The Eric Metaxas Show.

My greatest desire is to be human. In Islam, it is taught we are born man but we must evolve to be Human. To be human is to know compassion for others. to understand Ethics and morality, all of which we are born with but still must learn in practice.Our intellect does not make us human. Intelligence as shown that we separate ourselves more from humanity through our evolution of inventiveness than we have ever before. We depend on our gadgets to tell us to think and what to think. We have become servants of I-Phones and pads and computers and slaves to clocks that have now become our task master. We answer to alarms and "Tweets" and " FB Notifications like pavlovian dogs wagging our tails at each blip of a cybernetic announcement. We are further losing ourselves to technology that we thought would make our lives easier but has simply made it more complicated and filled it with less time for interaction with our fellow man because we have lost sight of verbal communication. Of being in eye contact with each other because our heads are leaning down into video screens and our ears are covered with sound buds.. We have become an extension of our devises when we should be an extension of each other in a real physical world and not the matrix of AI and computer stimuli we have become sadly slaves to. I want to be human and see the true smile of my friends and hear the real voice of their ideas and not typed words of color on a screen. I want to experience the knowledge of seeing my fellow men and woman talking verbally to each other and espousing real IDEAS and not merely replaying sound bytes hey have heard from the latest PROGRAMMING. I want to be HUMAN and know the Humanity of my brotherhood of HUMANS!

If I Knew If I knew it would be the last time That I'd see you fall asleep, I would tuck you in more tightly and pray the Lord, your soul to keep. If I knew it would be the last time that I see you walk out the door, I would give you a hug and kiss and call you back for one more. If I knew it would be the last time I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise, I would video tape each action and word, so I could play them back day after day. If I knew it would be the last time, I could spare an extra minute to stop and say "I love you," instead of assuming you would KNOW I do. If I knew it would be the last time I would be there to share your day, Well I'm sure you'll have so many more, so I can let just this one slip away. For surely there's always tomorrow to make up for an oversight, and we always get a second chance to make everything just right. There will always be another day to say "I love you," And certainly there's another chance to say our "Anything I can do?" But just in case I might be wrong, and today is all I get, I'd like to say how much I love you and I hope we never forget. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, young or old alike, And today may be the last chance you get to hold your loved one tight. So if you're waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today? For if tomorrow never comes, you'll surely regret the day, That you didn't take that extra time for a smile, a hug, or a kiss and you were too busy to grant someone, what turned out to be their one last wish. So hold your loved ones close today, and whisper in their ear, Tell them how much you love them and that you'll always hold them dear Take time to say "I'm sorry," "Please forgive me," "Thank you," or "It's okay." And if tomorrow never comes, you'll have no regrets about today.

He’s hot—and he’s FBI. Everyone knows you have that Fed fetish. I bet he owns handcuffs,” she adds, with a dramatic wink. “And there is no way he’s bad in bed. No way. You know how you can just tell sometimes by looking at a guy? Just by the way he moves? That’s what you need. A guy who knows what he’s doing in bed. And at the very least this guy is packing.” “Wait. Are you talking about my brother?” Sophie interjects. Sophie has a half-brother I’ve never met. “Obviously, Sophie. How many federal agents do I know?” Everly responds in a ‘duh’ tone of voice. “It’s actually a great idea, but please do not talk about my brother’s junk in front of me. It’s disgusting.” Sophie winces and rubs at her baby bump. “I think Boyd’s a bit of a player though. He’s never even introduced me to anyone he’s seeing. But good plan. You guys talk about it. I’m going to the restroom.” She pushes back her chair and stands, then immediately sits again, looking at us in a panic. “I think my water just broke.” “I’ve got this,” Everly announces, waving her hands excitedly as she flags down the waitress. “I’m gonna need a pot of boiling water, some towels and the check.” “Oh, my God,” Sophie mutters and digs her cell phone out of her purse. “Just the check,” I tell the waitress. I turn back to Everly as Sophie calls her husband. “You’re not delivering Sophie’s baby, Everly. Her water broke ten seconds ago and her husband—the gynecologist—is in their condo upstairs. So even if this baby was coming in the next five minutes, which it is not, you’re still not delivering it at a table in Serafina.” Everly slumps in her chair and shakes her head. “I’ve been watching YouTube videos on childbirth for months, just in case. What a waste.” She sighs, then perks up. “Can I at least be in the delivery room?” “No,” we all respond in unison.

But the psychological change accompanying these technologies is more subtle, and perhaps more important. Consciously and unconsciously, we have gradually grown accustomed to experiencing the world through disembodied machines and instruments. As I stood in line to board an airplane recently, the young woman in front of me was primping in her mirror—straightening her hair, putting on lipstick, patting her checks with blush—a female ritual that has been repeated for several thousand years. In this case, however, her “mirror” was an iPhone in video mode, pointed at herself, and she was reacting to a digitized image of herself. I take walks in a federally protected wildlife preserve near my home in Massachusetts. A dirt trail winds for a mile around a lake teeming with beavers and fish, wild ducks and geese, aquatic frogs. Bulrushes and cattails wrap the perimeter of the pond, water lilies float here and there, rippling when a fish goes by. In the winter, the air is crisp and sharp, in the summer soft and aromatic. And a thick silence lies across the park, broken only by the honking of geese and the croaking of frogs. It is a place to smell, to see, to feel, to quietly let one’s mind wander where it wants. More and more commonly, I see people here talking on their cell phones as they walk around the trail. Their attention is focused not on the scene in front of them, but on a disembodied voice coming from a small box. And they are disembodied themselves. Where are their minds and bodies? Certainly not present in the park. Nor can they be located in the electromagnetic waves and digital signals flowing through cyberspace. Only their voices can be found at the other end of their conversations, in the offices and boardrooms and homes of the people they are talking to. They are attempting to be several places at once, like quantum waves. But I would argue that they are nowhere.

and realized it was smarter to disappear. Even Royal took a turn. He told me about a life consumed with vanity, with material things, with ambition. He told me about the only daughter of a powerful man—exactly what kind of power this man wielded, Royal hadn’t entirely understood—and how Royal had planned to marry her and become heir to the dynasty. How the beautiful daughter pretended to love him to please her father, and then how she had watched when her lover from a rival criminal syndicate had Royal beaten to death, how she’d laughed aloud the whole time. He told me about the revenge he’d gotten. Royal was the least careful with his words. He told me about losing his family, and how none of this was worth what he’d lost. Edythe had whispered Eleanor’s name; he’d growled once and left. I think it must have been while Royal or Eleanor was talking that Archie watched Joss’s video from the dance studio. When Royal was gone, Archie took his spot. At first I wasn’t sure what they were talking about, because only Edythe was speaking out loud, but eventually I caught up. Archie was searching right there on his laptop, trying to narrow down the options of where he’d been kept in his human life. I was glad he didn’t seem to mention anything else about the tape—the focus was all on his past. I was trying to remember how to use my voice so that I could stop him if he tried to say anything about the rest of it. I hoped Archie was smart enough to have destroyed the tape before Edythe could watch. The stories helped me think of other things, prepare myself, while the fire burned, but I was only able to pay partial attention. My mind was cataloguing the fire, experiencing it in new ways. It was amazing how each inch of my skin, each millimeter, was so distinct. It was like I could feel all my cells burning individually. I could feel the difference between the pain in the walls of my lungs, and the way the fire felt in the soles of my feet, inside my eyeballs, and down my spine. All the different agonies clearly separated.

In America a child can no longer visit the place where she was born a shopping mall stands there instead. In America a grownup can no longer see the school where she learned the art of growing sad a freeway goes through there now an overpass her memories of brick turn to glass the suburb goes from white to black and time speeds up so much she has to stay young forever and reset the clock every five minutes just to know where is there and there is everywhere because she lives in time and not in any space! In our country here the future is in ruins before it is built a fact recognized by postmodern architecture that grins at us shyly or demonically as it quoted ruins from other times and places! There are no buildings in America only passageways that connect migratory floods the most permanent architecture being precisely that which moves these floods from one future ruin to another that is to say freeways and skyways and the car is our only shelter the architecture of desire reduced to the womb a womb in transit from one nowhere to another!” Saddened by his own vision and sensing smugness in the audience, Wakefield is revolted by his desire to please the foreigners. He coughs. He is portraying his own country now for the sake of… what? Applause? There isn't any. He veers down another path. “The miracle of America is of motion not regret in New Mexico the has face of Jesus jumped on a tortilla in Plaquermine a Virgin appeared in a tree In Santuari de Chimayo the dirt turned healer a guy in Texas crasahed into a wall when God said Let me take the wheel! And others hear voice all the time telling them to sit under a tree or jump from a cliff or take large baskets of eggs into Blockbuster to throw at the videos the voices of God are everywhere heard loud and clear under the hum of the tickertape and all these miracle and speaking gods are the mysteries left homeless by the Architecture of speed and moving forward onward and ahead!” Wakefield throws his hands into the air as if to sprinkle fairy dust on the room; he is evoking the richness of a place always ready for miracles.

I think we all collectively have gone a little crazy. We worry about the wrong things. I have an acquaintance, Christy, whose twelve–year–old son managed to get into a very violent PG–13 movie. I don’t know how many machine–gunnings, explosions, and killings this boy wound up witnessing. As I recall, the boy had nightmares for a week afterward. That disturbed his mother—but not as much as if her son had stumbled into a different kind of movie. “At least there wasn’t any sex,” she said with dead–serious concern. “No,” I said, “probably not a single bare breast.” I didn’t add that most societies do not regard the adult female breast as being primarily an object of sexual desire. After all, it’s just a big gland that makes milk in order to feed hungry babies. “You know what I’m talking about,” she snapped. “I mean graphic sex.” We were sitting in a café drinking tea. She cut off the volume of her speech at the end of her sentence, whispering and exaggerating the consonants of S–E–X as if she needed me to read her lips—as if giving voice to this word might disturb our neighbors and brand her as a deviant. “I don’t think children should see that kind of thing,” she added. “What should children see?” I asked her. I am not arguing that we should let our children buy tickets to raunchy movies. I never let my daughters bring home steamy videos or surf the Internet for porn. But something is wrong when sex becomes a dirty word that we don’t even want our children to hear. Why must we regard almost anything sexual as tantamount to obscene? I think many of us are like Christy. We wouldn’t want our children—even our very sexual teenagers—to see certain kinds of movies, even if they happened to be erotic masterpieces, true works of art. It wouldn’t matter if a movie gave us a wonderful scene of a wife and a husband very lovingly making love with the conscious intention of engendering new life. It wouldn’t matter that sex is life, and therefore must be regarded as sacred as anything could possibly be. It wouldn’t even matter that not one of us could have come into the world but for the sexual union of our fathers and our mothers. If a movie portrayed a man and woman in the ecstatic dance of love—actually showed naked bellies and breasts, burning lips and adoring eyes and the glistening, impassioned organs of sex—most people I know would rather their children watch the vile action movie. They would rather their “innocent” sons and daughters behold the images of bloody, blasted bodies, torture, murder, and death.

She tilts her head to the side after taking a sip of her tea, studying us. “You know, I can’t get over how beautiful you two are together. One of those couples you love to follow on Instagram, you know, the really cute ones that are so sickening in love that you can’t get enough of them.” Way to drop the love bomb, Mom. Jesus. Thankfully Emory doesn’t show any kind of hatred for the term but instead says, “Like Jennifer Lopez and A-Rod?” “Yes,” my mom answers with excitement. “Oh my gosh, I’m obsessed with watching their stories. The little videos they do together, I just can’t get enough of them. J-Rod,” my mom says dreamily. “Oh gosh, what would your couple name be?” She thinks about it for a second. “Emox . . . or Knemory. Oh I love Knemory. Sounds so poetic.” “Knemory does have a nice ring to it,” I add. “I don’t know, what about Emorox?” “Ohhh, that sounds like a name that belongs in The Game of Thrones.” Taking on a more masculine voice, my mom says, “Look out, Jon, Emorox is coming over the hill, with her fire-spitting dragons, Knemory and George.” “George?” Emory laughs out loud, covering her mouth. “Why George?” “Well, look at the names they have in that show? They’re all exotic names you’ve never heard before—Cersei, Gregor, Arya—and then in waltzes good old Jon Snow. It’s only fair that the dragons have a lemon in the bunch as well.” “Uh, Jon is anything but a lemon, Mom,” I defend. “He was raised from the dead.” My mom’s mouth drops, pure and utter shock in her face. “Jon Snow dies?” Shit. Emory elbows my stomach. “Where the hell is your GOT etiquette? You never talk about the facts of the show until the air is cleared about how far someone is in watching. You are one of those people who spoils everything for someone just catching up to the trend.” *Ahem* “I mean . . . uh . . . he doesn’t die.” “You just said he is raised from the dead,” my mom says. Feeling guilty, I reply, “Well, at least he’s still alive, right?” She slumps against the cushion of the couch and mutters, “Unbelievable.” “I’m sorry, Mrs. Gentry, that your son is a barbarian and broke your GOT trust.” Pressing her hand against her forehead, my mom says, “You know, I blame myself. I thought I taught him a shred of decorum, I guess not.” “Don’t blame yourself,” Emory coos. “You did everything right. It comes down to the hooligans he hangs out with. There’s only so much you can control after they leave the nest.” “You’re absolutely right,” my mom agrees and leans across the couch to smack me in the back of the head. “Hey,” I complain while rubbing the sore spot. I look between the two women in my life and I say, “I don’t like this ganging up on me shit.” “You wanted us to get along, right?” Emory asks. “Well, I happen to like your mom, especially since she complimented my bosom.” “Ah, I see.” I continue to look between the two of them. “You’re okay with my mom catching you with your shirt off now, moved past the embarrassment?” Emory’s eyes narrow. “With that kind of attitude, it might be the very last time you see me topless.” My mom raises her fist to the air, as if to say, “Girl Power.” And then she says, “You tell him, Emory. Don’t let him push you around.” “I wasn’t pushing her around—” “You keep that beautiful bosom under lock and key, and if you have a temptation to show anyone, just flash me.” “Mom, do you realize how wrong that is?” “Want to go to the bathroom right now, Mrs. Gentry?” “I would be delighted to.” They both stand but before they can make a move, I pull on Emory’s hand, bringing her back down to my lap. “No way in hell is that happening. Jesus, what is wrong with you?

The Day of Judgment was coming and sinners were going to burn, burn, burn in the fire of hell. “Repent”, he roared. “You don’t have to anything to sin you just have to think it. Yes, sexual fantasies were a sin. All this sinning must stop”. He asked for loud music to stop videos and televisions to be thrown into the bin. They were corrupting our innocent kids. “Repent, repent “he roared again. His temper was so bad he looked flushed and had to ask the choir to sing to regain his voice. The choir sang Jesus Loves You. Everybody was talking about Fr. Shaw’s sermon from the pulpit for the whole week.

Your brand is the unique persona and identity of you, your company, product or service that sets it apart from others in the same market space. It is the image you or your business present to the world. A brand is composed of many different pieces which, together, capture the attention of your buyers. Some of the pieces are physical, but much of branding is intangible; ideas and thoughts put into words, pictures and videos. When small business owners ask themselves “What is branding?” the answer is, “the essence of the business, products or services.” Your personal brand conveys the way you are perceived; and how you want people to see and feel about you, your business and your products or services. You may want to sound very dignified and reinforce your ‘expert status’ and credibility depending on your products or services. Or you may want to sound approachable, edgy and smart. Whatever voice you choose, carry it into all your messaging, marketing materials, and web presence (your platform).

Don Pardo, the "Saturday Night Live" announcer whose career spanned the history of television and who made memorable appearances in sketches and music videos that played on the booming cadence of his voice for laughs, died Aug. 18 at his home in Tucson. He was 96.

In May 2016, there appeared a website called WhoIsElonMusk .com. Most prominent on the site was an autoplaying video on the home page that featured foreboding music and the dark, smoky-voiced narration of a true-crime TV show. It spent two minutes shifting through B-roll footage and clips pilfered from documentaries about Musk.

I took a shower, threw my covers back, and slipped into bed wearing nothing but Jamie’s T-shirt. I clutched the note to my chest as I pressed the button to listen to my nightly message. I went sailing today with Chelsea, he said. I thought about your hair whipping across your face, your pink cheeks, and the huge smile you had on your face as we sailed across the bay. I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you. I can’t get you out of my mind. I’m always thinking about you. Me too. I pressed END and reached down beside the bed to where I had set the note. When I read it again, this time I cried. Katy, my angel, I had to go to Portland. My father had a heart attack and they don’t know if he’s going to make it through the night. Please don’t leave. If I can’t get back by tomorrow, I’ll send a car and get you a flight up here. Please, please don’t leave. I have something really important to tell you besides the fact that I am completely in love with you. —J In the morning, the note was crumpled up on my chest. I got up and spread it out on the counter. I underlined the last line and then wrote WHY? underneath it. I stuffed it into an envelope and mailed to it the R. J. Lawson Winery. I laughed to myself as I wrote Attn: The Owner. I spent Sunday in my apartment, not moping. I did a yoga video, edited some of Beth’s latest article, and then devoted the afternoon and evening to a marathon of MythBusters, during which I learned that Jack’s death in Titanic was totally unnecessary. Had that selfish bitch, Rose, given up her life jacket to tie under that wooden door, it would have been buoyant enough to hold them both. Damn her. I slid into bed at seven and listened to Jamie’s latest voice mail over and over.

If you had an Internet connection and lived in North America at the time, you may have seen it. Vasquez is the man behind the “Double Rainbow” video, which at last check had 38 million views. In the clip, Vasquez pans his camera back and forth to show twin rainbows he’d discovered outside his house, first whispering in awe, then escalating in volume and emotion as he’s swept away in the moment. He hoots with delight, monologues about the rainbows’ beauty, sobs, and eventually waxes existential. “What does it mean?” Vasquez crows into the camera toward the end of the clip, voice filled with tears of sheer joy, marveling at rainbows like no man ever has or probably ever will again. It’s hard to watch without cracking up. That same month, the viral blog BuzzFeed boosted a different YouTuber’s visibility. Michelle Phan, a 23-year-old Vietnamese American makeup artist, posted a home video tutorial about how to apply makeup to re-create music star Lady Gaga’s look from the recently popular music video “Bad Romance.” BuzzFeed gushed, its followers shared, and Lady Gaga’s massive fanbase caught wind of the young Asian girl who taught you how to transform into Gaga. Once again, the Internet took the video and ran with it. Phan’s clip eventually clocked in at roughly the same number of views as “Double Rainbow.” These two YouTube sensations shared a spotlight in the same summer. Tens of millions of people watched them, because of a couple of superconnectors. So where are Vasquez and Phan now? Bear Vasquez has posted more than 1,300 videos now, inspired by the runaway success of “Double Rainbow.” But most of them have been completely ignored. After Kimmel and the subsequent media flurry, Vasquez spent the next few years trying to recapture the magic—and inadvertent comedy—of that moment. But his monologues about wild turkeys or clips of himself swimming in lakes just don’t seem to find their way to the chuckling masses like “Double Rainbow” did. He sells “Double Rainbow” T-shirts. And wears them. Today, Michelle Phan is widely considered the cosmetic queen of the Internet, and is the second-most-watched female YouTuber in the world. Her videos have a collective 800 million views. She amassed 5 million YouTube subscribers, and became the official video makeup artist for Lancôme, one of the largest cosmetics brands in the world. Phan has since founded the beauty-sample delivery company Ipsy.com, which has more than 150,000 paying subscribers, and created her own line of Sephora cosmetics. She continues to run her video business—now a full-blown production company—which has brought in millions of dollars from advertising. She’s shot to the top of a hypercompetitive industry at an improbably young age. And she’s still climbing. Bear Vasquez is still cheerful. But he’s not been able to capitalize on his one-time success. Michelle Phan could be the next Estée Lauder. This chapter is about what she did differently.

Facebook could have a video of you fornicating wildly with a frisky German shepherd, with your Social Security number and bank details written in lipstick on the dog’s back, while some deep voice in the background read out your deepest, darkest secrets from childhood and adolescence, and you know what? No advertiser would give a shit.

driveway, her hip scraping as she tumbled, her skin torn and bleeding. She knew she should have worn trousers. The world rocked to a stop, balanced itself out and she opened her eyes. The Infected were standing looking at her, and Dusk strode through them, his eyes narrowed and his lips curled in hatred. And then Valkyrie was up and running. She was sore, she felt blood on her legs and arms, but she ignored the pain. She looked back, saw the mass of Infected surge after her. She passed the club gates and took the first road to her left, losing a shoe in the process and cursing herself for not wearing boots. It was narrow, and dark, with fields on one side and a row of back gardens on the other. She came to a junction. Up one way she could see headlights, so she turned down the other, leading the Infected away from any bystanders. She darted in off the road, running behind the Pizza Palace and the video store, realising her mistake when she heard the voices around the next corner. The pub had a back door that smokers used. She veered off to her right, ran for the garden wall and leaped over it. She stayed low, and wondered for a moment if she’d managed to lose the Infected so easily. Dusk dropped on to her from above and she cried out. He sent her reeling. “I’m not following the rules any more,” he said. She looked at him, saw him shaking. He took a syringe from his coat and let it drop. “No more rules. No more serum. This time, there’ll be nothing to stop me tearing you limb from limb.” He grunted as the pain hit. “I’m sorry I cut you,” Valkyrie tried, backing away. “Too late. You can run if you want. Adrenaline makes the blood taste sweeter.” He smiled and she saw the fangs start to protrude through his gums. He brought his hands to his shirt, and then, like Superman, he ripped the shirt open. Unlike Superman, however, he took his flesh with it, revealing the chalk-white skin of the creature underneath. Valkyrie darted towards him and his eyes widened in surprise. She dived, snatched the syringe from the ground and plunged it into his leg. Dusk roared, kicked her on to her back, his transformation interrupted. He tried to rip off the rest of his humanity, but his human skin tore at the neck. This wasn’t the smooth shucking she’d seen the previous night. This was messy and painful. Valkyrie scrambled up. The Infected had heard Dusk’s anguished cries, and they were closing in. he Edgley family reunion was taking up the main function hall, at the front of the building, leaving the rear of the golf club in darkness. That was probably a good thing, Tanith reflected, as she watched Skulduggery fly backwards through the air. The Torment-spider turned to her and she dodged a slash from one of his talons. She turned and ran, but he was much faster. Tanith jumped for the side of the building and ran upwards, a ploy that had got her out of a lot of trouble in the past, but then, she had never faced a giant spider before. His talons clacked as he followed her up, chattering as he came.

In order to construct a flawless imitation, the first step was to gather as much video data as possible with a web crawler. His ideal targets were fashionable Yoruba girls, with their brightly colored V-neck buba and iro that wrapped around their waists, hair bundled up in gele. Preferably, their videos were taken in their bedrooms with bright, stable lighting, their expressions vivid and exaggerated, so that AI could extract as many still-frame images as possible. The object data set was paired with another set of Amaka’s own face under different lighting, from multiple angles and with alternative expressions, automatically generated by his smartstream. Then, he uploaded both data sets to the cloud and got to work with a hyper-generative adversarial network. A few hours or days later, the result was a DeepMask model. By applying this “mask,” woven from algorithms, to videos, he could become the girl he had created from bits, and to the naked eye, his fake was indistinguishable from the real thing. If his Internet speed allowed, he could also swap faces in real time to spice up the fun. Of course, more fun meant more work. For real-time deception to work, he had to simultaneously translate English or Igbo into Yoruba, and use transVoice to imitate the voice of a Yoruba girl and a lip sync open-source toolkit to generate corresponding lip movement. If the person on the other end of the chat had paid for a high-quality anti-fake detector, however, the app might automatically detect anomalies in the video, marking them with red translucent square warnings

extraordinary capacity to say things that were not true. He always seemed to have complete conviction in whatever product he was selling or argument he was making. He had an uncanny ability to say with a straight face, things are not as you’ve been told or even as you’ve seen with your own eyes. He could commit to a lie in the frame of his body and in the timbre of his voice so fully, despite all statistical and even video evidence to the contrary.

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit—all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

Not anymore,” he replied coolly. “I knew that establishment was being monitored; only a fool wouldn’t expect those rooms were videoed. Yes, I intended to kill those three vampires, but not anyone else, and certainly not while leaving a tape behind with my actions documented. I did not do this deed.” “You were going to kill Flare, Patches, and Wraith?” Kira asked, shock plain in her voice. “I didn’t believe Radje when he said that . . .” Mencheres glanced down at her. “They tortured you. Of course I was going to kill them.

As I headed to the chair for a haircut, I wondered who she was. Long, silky blonde hair, parted on the side. Fair skin. Blue eyes with thick lashes. And a big, friendly smile. I thought I might have seen her once at a party, but I hadn’t talked to her, and I wasn’t sure. “Who was that?” I asked Connie Sue as I sat down. “Her name’s Jessica,” said Connie Sue. “She’s been through a lot lately, but she’s a sweet girl.” As I drove home, I kept replaying that moment over and over when our eyes met. I saw her face, her beautiful smile, and heard her warm voice again. I wish I’d said something more. When I got home, I walked in the front door of my rental house with Jessica still on my mind. My roommate, Trey, was sitting on the couch, holding a video game controller and staring at the TV. “Hey,” I said again, this time with confidence. He looked up, a little irritated I was interrupting his game. “I just met the girl I’m going to marry.

We wanted to give the Go West singer an image for “We Close Our Eyes.” He had a great voice, great presence, but terrible teeth. We said, “You have to get your teeth fixed.” We were brutal. We thought this was the sort of thing despot directors did. He fixed his teeth, we styled him, gave him a grease-monkey look, and it helped enormously.

One night, my husband, Rodney, and I were surfing YouTube videos when we stumbled on a video of a Fiona Apple concert. It was an “aha!” moment for me. I thought: This woman is telling the truth with her body. She’s not what you would typically call a good dancer, she was jerky and unconcerned about looking pretty, but something about her was raw and real. She was moving with her wounds, with her limitations—she was moving truthfully. She wasn’t hiding, and she wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable and expose herself through her voice and movements. Her courage and honesty made her dance mesmerizing and powerful. It penetrated something deep inside me. When you bow to someone and say, “Namaste,” it means, “The deepest part of me acknowledges the deepest part of you.” Fiona Apple’s performance was a Namaste from her body to mine. I want to have the courage to be as honest in my life, my teaching, and in this book as she was in that dance. Yoga can bring you to this kind of truth by helping you to observe, then to let go of, the habits you cling to and the stories you use to protect yourself. As you practice, you become intimate with your body, which many of us spend a lifetime either alienated from or waging war with. Yoga practice can pierce emotional places that most of us guard or avoid. Our bodies are intelligent, more a source of direct truth than our minds, but we rarely listen to the wisdom that’s buried in our beautiful chambers.

Take lots of videos, even of the mundane. You will forget the sound of your children’s voices and you will miss your youth as much as theirs.

Do you think there’s a point?” “Meaning?” “We know how the result is going to turn out.” “Do tell.” “I heard the tone in Berleand’s voice. He may have talked about premature and inconclusive, but we both know. And I saw that girl on that surveillance video. Okay, not her face and it was at a distance. But she had her mother’s walk, if you know what I mean.” “How about her mother’s derriere?” Win asked. “Now that would be solid evidence.” I just looked at him. He sighed. “Mannerisms are often more of a tell than facial features or even height,” he said. “I get it.” “Yes.

Moreover, the Call Center has also been operating a video counseling system (See-talk system) for the hearing or speech impaired. In order to enhance the convenience of the service, the Call Center established a chat and video counseling system for PCs and smart phones in order that the hearing or speech impaired who are unable to use the voice-based counseling service can

It was the tone of his voice that set Trager’s hackles off. Like the pimple-ridden idiot was judging her and finding her lacking. He was probably comparing her to the plasticized, animated girls on whatever video game he spent his time trying to beat.

La “Crisi Esistenziale” di chi ama l’amore e ha il coraggio di amare. Nell’epoca dove tante cose sembrano andate perse, e dove molti valori sembrano pian piano scomparsi, si trova spazio e l’ispirazione di far nascere una nuova canzone, con la quale si vuole comunicare i tanti disagi che il mondo attuale si appresta a vivere, le tante problematiche che spesso attanagliano l’essere umano, sempre preso da se stesso, e molto spesso distratto da tutte le cose che il mondo e la vita offrono. E' cosi che nasce “Crisi Esistenziale” il nuovo brano che dà il via al nuovo album di Savio De Martino, cantautore dalle mille risorse artistiche, un brano scritto dallo stesso Cantautore, sia per la parte letteraria, che per la parte musicale, un brano voluto, un testo ricercato, una canzone necessaria, una sorta di protesta, un modo di gridare e poter dire, BASTA !!! Questo stesso brano è stato anche proposto alla candidatura per le nuove proposte di Sanremo Giovani 2015, proprio perche’ i giovani possano valorizzare la propria vita e il futuro, trovando stimoli nuovi, trovando aiuto in chi ha potere, costruirsi un domani fatto di sogni da poter realizzare, Savio De Martino ancora una volta riesce a regalare nuove emozioni, il suo essere cosi poliedrico, rende questo artista, seppur giovane, capace di mettersi sempre in gioco e in discussione con vari generi musicali. Le sue tendenze variano dal Pop al Jazz, dal Blues alla buona Musica Leggera, in tanti anni di gavetta e di carriera è sempre riuscito a dire la sua, regalando al pubblico che lo segue con affetto e stima, tante emozioni e soprattutto tanta energia positiva. Lui innamorato della vita, innamorato della musica, e speranzoso che le cose e il mondo puo’ cambiare, una crisi cosi mondiale, dovrebbe far riflettere molte persone, e sensibilizzare chi ha il potere di essere a capo di tutto, ecco perché nasce questo nuovo brano per il 2015, dal titolo "Crisi Esistenziale". Genesi di Crisi Esistenziale di Savio De Martino Testo, Musica e Produzione sono di Savio De Martino attraverso la S.D.M. Production, la distribuzione avviene grazie alla Zeus Record S.R.L., gli arrangiamenti sono di Giuseppe Balsamo e Savio De Martino, le riprese video di “Pino Baylon Video” e la registrazione e mixaggio sono stati effettuati presso lo studio SG SOUND MUSIC ITALY di Savio De Martino. Il video è già disponibile su YouTube.

Do you ever notice that if you are doing a task, and you hear voices or music or other sounds on audio only, you can tune it out? If, however, you are trying to do a task, and you are trying to watch something on video, it is almost impossible to tune out the video. That is what prayer does—it takes something you believe about God that is ignorable and detached from how you live your life and makes it vivid.

OK, so this is what’s going to happen, Felipe. You’re going to tell me exactly what I want to know or things are going to get… interesting.” He took a syringe out of his pocket and removed the safety cap. He showed it to the policeman then slid it into his arm and depressed the plunger. Felipe fought against the tape. “What the hell is that?” “Don’t worry, it’s nothing dangerous. Just a muscle relaxant and some Viagra.” Bishop leaned in close. “You can feel it can’t you? A warm fuzzy feeling, all your muscles relaxing, except one. But that’s not a muscle is it?” “What, what are you doing to me?” “I’m not going to do anything to you. But my friend is. I’m just going to video it and send it to all your police buddies. Or maybe I’ll just put it on the internet for all the perverts to jack off to.” He opened the door. It took every ounce of his discipline not to burst out laughing. “Tell me, Felipe, are you familiar with the expression, I’m going to make a playground out of your ass?” Mitch stood in the doorway wearing a gimp mask and a pair of cut-off denim shorts. His muscular, hairy chest was strapped into a harness with a steel ring in the middle. He was holding a giant black rubber dildo. “What the hell?” screamed the bound man. Bishop used his knife to cut the tape holding him to the chair. “It’s OK, Felipe. You seem to be already enjoying this.” The policeman looked down at his raging boner. “Nooo, you can’t do this. You can’t.” Already his voice was slurring as the drugs kicked in.

Similarly, those Internet tycoons who are apparently so willing to devalue our privacy are vehemently protective of their own. Google insisted on a policy of not talking to reporters from CNET, the technology news site, after CNET published Eric Schmidt’s personal details—including his salary, campaign donations, and address, all public information obtained via Google—in order to highlight the invasive dangers of his company. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg purchased the four homes adjacent to his own in Palo Alto, at a cost of $30 million, to ensure his privacy. As CNET put it, “Your personal life is now known as Facebook’s data. Its CEO’s personal life is now known as mind your own business.” The same contradiction is expressed by the many ordinary citizens who dismiss the value of privacy yet nonetheless have passwords on their email and social media accounts. They put locks on their bathroom doors; they seal the envelopes containing their letters. They engage in conduct when nobody is watching that they would never consider when acting in full view. They say things to friends, psychologists, and lawyers that they do not want anyone else to know. They give voice to thoughts online that they do not want associated with their names. The many pro-surveillance advocates I have debated since Snowden blew the whistle have been quick to echo Eric Schmidt’s view that privacy is for people who have something to hide. But none of them would willingly give me the passwords to their email accounts, or allow video cameras in their homes.

The constant needle and edge in their working relationship is matched by a cloak of secrecy the warring offices throw around their rival operations. Diana had to use all her guile to tease out information from her husband’s office before she flew to Pakistan on her first major solo overseas tour last year. She was due to stopover in Oman where Prince Charles was trying to woo the Sultan to win funding for an architectural college. Curious by nature, Diana wanted to know more but realized that a direct approach to Prince Charles or his senior advisers would receive a dusty response. Instead she penned a short memo to the Prince’s private secretary, Commander Richard Aylard and asking innocently if there was anything in the way of briefing notes she needed for the short stopover in Oman. The result was that, as she was travelling on official Foreign Office business, the Prince was forced to reveal his hand. In this milieu of sullen suspicion, secrecy is a necessary and constant companion. Caution is her watchword. There are plenty of eyes and ears as well as police video cameras to catch the sound of a voice raised in anger or the sight of an unfamiliar visitor. Tongues wag and stories circulate with electrifying efficiency. It is why, when she was learning about her bulimic condition, she hid books on the subject from prying eyes. She dare not bring home tapes from her astrology readings nor read the satirical magazine Private Eye with its wickedly accurate portrayal of her husband in case it attracts unfavourable comment. The telephone is her lifeline, spending hours chatting to friends: “Sorry about the noise, I was trying to get my tiara on,” she told one disconcerted friend.

goes stiff, and I pause where I’m standing a few feet away from the bed and the naked woman lying in it. A moment passes before I give her a curt nod. Yanking my black tee shirt over my head, I sit down on the edge of the hotel mattress and shove my feet into the motorcycle boots she’d taken off me earlier on my order. “Got a shoot in the morning,” I tell her, my voice bored. But even if my band wasn’t doing a music video this week, I wouldn’t

So, I challenge the voice in your head, starting today, to erase the phrase “I don’t have time” from its vocabulary. Instead, your voice must say, “It’s not a priority.” If you’re truly committed to building your life into something you’re proud of, then that has to take priority over Facebook, over video games, over watching cat videos on YouTube, over TV, and so on. Once we stop allowing ourselves to say, “I don’t have time,” and truly look at where our time is being spent, we will find some pockets of time here and there for focusing on growth and on the quests and missions we need to complete in order to level up.

Due to continuing user complaints regarding the quality of 3G mobile phone services, a quality assessment of voice and video calling

Prayer and Action Go Hand in Hand     “Prayer and action go hand in hand” (Nehemiah 4:17).     I remember the frustration experienced in my home because of homework. Each day my kids would return from school, we would argue over when and where and how to do their nightly assignments. The ordeal stressed us and caused family strife. I decided to take it to God in prayer. I hoped that God would change my childrens’ attitudes so that they would look forward to doing their homework.This, however, was not the case.   I learned that although I can pray to God and ask Him to help I must also be willing to be part of the solution.   I can’t just pray and then throw up my hands and carry on with my day. I can ignore the fear and worry but I still need to be willing to take action. I believe it was Joyce Meyer who said, “Don’t react, act.”  So I don’t need to react with ranting, raving, whining and nagging. I must rely on God’s guidance and proceed with a solid plan to resolve this homework issue.   God often answers prayer through people. He can and will divinely interject but usually He uses people who are willing and obedient. I can pray for wisdom and knowledge but I must also act upon that knowledge and “do” something. It’s not enough for me to say, “Dear Lord, help my child to do homework” without listening for His answer and being open to His guidance.   We devised a homework system through listening to the wisdom of others and spending time in quiet reflection with God. I realize that although my plan is working well now, I may need to change it in the future. As our family’s needs change I can ask God for His guidance and His wisdom. Then I must be open and listen for it. God wants to answer our prayers but He wishes to work though His creation, not impose His will upon it.       Prayer is intimacy ~ Elsie Montgomery         How Does God Reveal Himself?     “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near”(Revelation 1:3).     At my church, we worked through a Bible study by Beth Moore. A video series, entitled “A Heart Like His”, Beth invited us to join her on a journey to know King David, a man after God’s own heart.   Beth explained that when we ask God for something we shouldn’t be expecting Him to talk to us through the clouds. Instead, God speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. If we have a concern or problem or issue, we need to read the Bible to “listen” for God’s voice and His answer. Before opening the Bible, we need to pray that God would reveal Himself to us through the words on the page.   Beth gives the example of how God revealed Himself to Samuel through His Word, the Bible. Samuel 3:21 says, “The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.”  

The music video and the song’s lyrics are all about breaking the rules unapologetically…How confusing, then, that “Shake It Off” musically represents…Taylor Swift’s arrival as a run-of-the-mill, straight-and-narrow pop artist.” It cheers for individual distinctness in the most generic voice possible. But this tension isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It articulates a paradox central to white identity in a white supremacist society: for whites, the generic and the individual coincide because the generic is nothing but a false generalization of/from white existence and experience. In “Shake It Off,” what appears to be uncontrived expression is really the contrivances of whiteness as they materialize in Swift’s body and musical performance.

At my church, we worked through a Bible study by Beth Moore. A video series, entitled “A Heart Like His”, Beth invited us to join her on a journey to know King David, a man after God’s own heart.   Beth explained that when we ask God for something we shouldn’t be expecting Him to talk to us through the clouds. Instead, God speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. If we have a concern or problem or issue, we need to read the Bible to “listen” for God’s voice and His answer. Before opening the Bible, we need to pray that God would reveal Himself to us through the words on the page.   Beth gives the example of how God revealed Himself to Samuel through His Word, the Bible. Samuel 3:21 says, “The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.”   We often want to see God in a situation. Beth shares:   “I need to know You’re here with me. I need to know You’re working here. O, God, if I can just see You in the midst of this I can get through almost anything. Would You reveal Yourself to me? And He reminded me I’ll reveal Myself to you through My word.”   This also shows us the importance of memorizing scripture. When we are up against a problem, we can relate back to our memory of the Word and find the answers within.   God will reveal Himself to you through His word. He will make His presence known to you. Expect Him. That is His promise. He is looking for receptive hearts. So whether you are reading your Bible in the kitchen, the den or your bedroom, expect Him to reveal Himself to you.       Prayer is my half of an ongoing conversation between my God and me. ~ Donna Fawcett         Why Worry When We Can Pray?     “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:27)     The hill in the distance looked daunting. “You want to climb that?” I stopped walking to re-lace my shoes.

I screamed No! so hard behind my tape it felt like my eyes would burst. “Hurry—we’ve got to move, Abner,” Mom said. I froze. It was the same voice she’d used in her home videos. “I told you I could do it,” she said. “I made the Lord proud. You know I did.” He laughed. “I missed you, my love.

Kota, I can’t see—” “Hold on.” She mutes herself. I can see her profile. She’s saying something, but I can’t hear the words. That’s when it happens. The bathroom door behind her swings open, and Jake steps out through a billowing cloud of steam. Freshly washed and completely naked. I blink, a strangled whimper lodging in my throat. Holy crap. He’s perfect. I knew he was beautiful, but my fantasies fall short of the reality. His wet hair falls in his face as he towels off. First his damp locks. Then his wide, muscular chest. Down his washboard abs. And finally his groin where an enormous erection bounces against his stomach. I’m frozen until the sound mysteriously pops back on again, and his deep voice fills my room. “Let’s make this quick, Dakota. I gotta jet.” They’re definitely going to fuck. “Oh God.” I slam my laptop shut. My hands are shaking as I fling it away from me. Nausea sweeps over me so hard, I barely make it to the trash can before I lose my breakfast. Five minutes later, my phone buzzes from my nightstand, but I ignore it. The calls and texts keep coming. I don’t bother to check them because nothing my sister or Jake say will change my pathetic situation. Later that afternoon, Jake knocks on my door, calls my name, apologizes for not knowing I was on a video conference with my sister. My suitemate thinks I’m home, but since I don’t answer, they decide I must be out. I don’t budge from where I sit on the floor with a box of tissues. The sun sets and rises again. My suitemate comes and goes as the dorm comes alive, and by the time I finally dust myself off and stand, I’ve made my decision. I’m going to transfer schools. As quickly as possible.

I couldn’t shake the idea that I, too, was probably one conversation away from changing my own mind about something, maybe a lot of things. But I also recalled how many conversations I’d had that only made my convictions stronger. I thought about the truthers and all the conversations they had in New York. I wondered what made these interactions different. In the training, after the videos, Laura handed things over to Steve, and I got my first clue. He opened by telling the crowd that facts don’t work. A serene man with a gentle and patient spirit, Steve put away his persistent smile and raised his voice to address the audience on this point. “There is no superior argument, no piece of information that we can offer, that is going to change their mind,” he said, taking a long pause before continuing. “The only way they are going to change their mind is by changing their own mind—by talking themselves through their own thinking, by processing things they’ve never thought about before, things from their own life that are going to help them see things differently.” He stood by a paper easel on which Laura had drawn a cartoon layer cake. Steve pointed to the smallest portion at the top with a candle sticking out. It was labeled “rapport,” the next smallest layer was “our story,” and the huge base was “their story.” He said to keep that image in mind while standing in front of someone, to remember to spend as little time as possible talking about yourself, just enough to show that you are friendly, that you aren’t selling anything. Show you are genuinely interested in what they have to say. That, he said, keeps them from assuming a defensive position. You should share your story, he said, pointing to the portion of the cake that sat on top of the biggest layer, but it’s their story that should take up most of the conversation. You want them to think about their own thinking. The team tossed out lots of metaphors like these. For instance, Steve later said to think of questions as keys on a giant ring. If you keep asking and listening, he told the crowd, one of those keys was bound to unlock the door to a personal experience related to the topic. Once that real, lived memory was out in the open, you could (if done correctly) steer the conversation away from the world of conclusions with their facts googled for support, away from ideological abstractions and into the world of concrete details from that individual’s personal experiences. It was there, and only there, he said, that a single conversation could change someone’s mind.

Memories made by a person whose soul is no longer with me collect dust in my mind. They have become distorted. They have become buried. They have become forgotten. I listen to the sound of your voice in a video, just to remember its tune. I stare at a picture of you, just to remember the shape of your smile. I tell stories of you, just to remember the way you made me feel. I listen. I stare. I tell. But I forget. When the stars took you, they took my memories too.

He stilled midair, and then a slow grin spread across his lips. “Do you even know how to work that thing?” he said, his voice dripping with condescension. He said it in the way boys had been talking to her for her entire life, like she was an adorable baby panda. How cute that she thought she know how to play soccer or video games or knew a little about engines in cars, but they clearly knew more or played better.