VampireS Sumo

Ancient Greek pottery is frequently signed, sometimes by the potter or the master of the pottery, but only occasionally by the painter. Hundreds of painters are however, identifiable by their artistic personalities, where their signatures haven′t survived they are named for their subject choices, as “the Achilles Painter”, by the potter they worked for, such as the late Archaic “Kleophrades Painter”, or even by their modern locations, such as the late Archaic “Berlin Painter”.

For 200 years the Corinthians sold their pottery all over the Greek world, and Corinth became a wealthy and busy trading center. In metalworking and pottery, the work was very hard. The potters could be found in a part of Athens known as the Kerameikos, or Potters’ Quarter. They acquired their clay from the quarries at Cape Colias, six miles from the city. They mixed it with ochre or vermilion to color it yellow or red, and turned it on simple wheels. The molded articles were then dried in the sun and specialized painters decorated them by hand. The Sphinx, an imaginary creature of ancient myths, is most remembered for the riddle given to her by the Muses, “What creature has only once voice walks sometimes on four, sometimes on three, and sometimes on two, and is weakest when it walks on four? “Man!” She often sat perched on Mount Phicium, asking each passing person a riddle. If they answered her wrong, she would eat them. It is also believed that The Sphinx leaped to her death when she asked Oedipus a riddle and was given the correct answer. The Egyptians, Greeks and peoples of the Near East all had stories about such a creature. The Egyptian Sphinx usually had the head of a man and the body, legs, feet and tail of a lion. The Greek Sphinx usually had the head of a woman and according to Greek literature, lived on a high rock outside of the city of Thebes. The Great Sphinx that stands at Giza near the Great Pyramid in Egypt is 240 feet long and approximately 66 feet high and is one of the most famous monuments in the world.

The ancient Greeks were the firs to develop a democratic way of life. More than 200 years age, they started the idea that every citizen should take an active part in Government, historians regard them as the founder of western civilization. Greek civilization was far more advanced than any other historians were. Orators, philosophers, and poets were Greek. The Greeks were the first to study botany, geometry, medicine, physic and zoology on a scientific basic. They also held the first athletic games.

The ancient Greeks called themselves Hellenes, and their land Hellas. They never formed a national government, but a common culture, religious, and language united them. Greeks called anyone whose active language was Greek a Hellene, even if he did not live in Greece, and anyone not speaking Greek a barbarian. Greek civilization developed on a rocky, mountainous peninsula that juts onto the Mediterranean Sea from southeastern Europe, and on the Islands in the nearby sea. The people of each plain and island formed an independent community called a city-state. No city-state had enough good land to support its entire people. Communities quarreled with one another instead of uniting. Athens and Sparta became the most famous city-states.

Ancient Greek pottery can be purchased at our online antiquities store

Keep your original images intact.

Many people will want to work on their mages using an image-editing program. This could include cropping, changing the levels, hues and saturation. You might even be doing more advanced image manipulations.

Perhaps you are saving the images either before or after image manipulations.

The golden rule is: never work on the original. Always make a copy and work on that.

Why should you do this?

Because, if the original is changed then you may very well lose some of the data within it. For example, compressing an image will mean a loss of data which will result in some loss of quality of the image.

If you compressed the original then it is lost forever. If a “copy” of the original was compressed, you always have the original file to hand.

You can open the original, work on it and then use “save as” to save it as another file with a different name (if your original was, for example cat.jpg then you could save it as “cat1.jpg”).

If you do this then you will always be able to retain the data in the original image. You never know when you might need this – for example when performing a new manipulation on the image.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site theshutter.co.uk theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at thephotographysite.blogspot.com thephotographysite.blogspot.com

The second round of the playoffs is the most interesting, as four teams have had bye weeks while their opponents just played. Extra time to rest and prepare can be a significant edge for a team, both straight up and against the number.

Home field, too, is key. The Colts just manhandled the Chiefs, making them 9-0 at home this season. However, the Colts are 4-4 SU, 3-5 ATS on the road and now have to head to Baltimore. This brings up the subject of betting trends, too, which I would advise you to proceed with caution.

The Colts, for instance, had gone 28-12 straight up on the road in the regular season since Tony Dungy took the reins in 2002. However, they have now lost 4 straight road games heading into this weekend. And here’s the thing about the Colts’ road woes: These losses didn′t come against good teams. Of the four opponents, only one had a record above .500, yet the Colts lost the games by a combined 40 points!

More important than trends, as far as I′m concerned, are matchups. Despite the big win over Kansas City, you still can’t ignore the Colts woeful rush defense. The Dallas Cowboys ran 36 rushing plays in their win. Then the Tennessee Titans more than doubled the Colts’ ground output in Week 13, which was nothing compared to the next week. The Jaguars ran for 10 times more yards than the Colts (375 to 34), and used 42 carries to do it. That’s the same number of attempts Houston made when the Texans shocked the Colts two weeks later.

On Saturday the Chiefs’ Larry Johnson had just 13 carries and was held to 32 yards. Impressive, but that was one game, and at home. The Colts are going to need to do it again versus the Ravens, then again against either the Patriots or Chargers should they advance. All those teams have strong offensive lines and running backs.

This is why it’s essential to be patient when analyzing games, because oddsmakers can adjust their lines based on what just happened. Think back with the Colts the last few years in the postseason. In 2003 they flattened Kansas City on the road scoring 38 points, then the next week they scored 14 in a loss at New England.

In 2004 they flattened the Broncos at home 49-24, then the next week scored 3 points at New England. All the money poured in on the Colts that game, pushing the Pats from a 3-point favorite to pick ‘em. Final score: Pats 20, Colts 3. Be cautious of one standout performance in the playoffs. The team they play Saturday, the Ravens, is 7-1 SU/6-2 ATS at home this season and 19-5 SU, 16-8 ATS their last 24 home games.

The Patriots are 7-1 SU/ATS on the road and Bill Belichick is 12-2 SU, 8-5-1 ATS in the playoffs. However, the Chargers are 8-0 SU/5-3 ATS at home. Last week the reports were that the Patriots were going to spread the field and go no-huddle against the Jets in an attempt to prevent what the Jets had done to confuse the Pats blocking schemes in the previous meeting.

New England went no-huddle early on and the game sailed over the total easily. This week I heard Pats coach Belichick mention that the teams that have been successful against the Chargers this season are the ones that establish ball control to keep the San Diego offense off the field. That might be their strategy Sunday, at least in the first half.

Bryan Leonard is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League.
Read all of his articles at procappers.com/Bryan_Leonard.htm procappers.com/Bryan_Leonard.htm

ISO wasn’t easy to change on early digital cameras.

First, here’s a quick definition: ISO stands for the International Standards Organization. What it really indicates is a digital sensor’s sensitivity to light.

A low ISO is less sensitive and a high ISO is very sensitive.

Further translated: a high ISO like 3200 means that the sensor can capture a clear photo, even in low-light conditions. A low ISO like 100 requires a lot of ambient light for clear shots.

So why is this setting so often ignored? It’s harder to sell the benefits of ISO (which is pretty confusing to anyone who is not a camera junkie) versus something simpler like speed (2 photos per second or 5 photos per second…which one’s faster?).

Well, I′m here today to try to illustrate the benefits of ISO. It is a prominent feature on all of the latest digital cameras, and is something that you should be aware of when you’re trying to take photos in available light.

Benefit #1 - Clear hand-held photos

Here’s the problem: you′re taking photos indoors on an overcast day. The only way that you can get a proper exposure is to slow down the shutter speed to 1/30 of a second.

The camera’s shutter needs to stay open 1/30 of a second to let in plenty of light. Unfortunately, the longer the shutter stays open, the more likely your photo will turn out blurry. The blur is caused by camera shake when you hold the camera in your hands.

While blur is sometimes desirable to illustrate motion, most ot the time it’s not the effect you want.

You really want to get a clear photograph, but there isn′t enough ambient light. You think you’re stuck with two options: use a flash, or attach the camera to a tripod so it’s stable.

But here comes ISO to offer up a third alternative: set your ISO to 800 or 1600.

This boosts the light sensitivity of the camera’s sensor, so you’re not forced to keep the shutter open so long. With a shutter speed of 1/125 or 1/250 you can now hold the camera in your hands and get perfectly clear available-light photographs.

Benefit #2 - Atmosphere

As you increase the ISO on your digital camera, you also increase the noise in the photograph. “Noise″ is the appearance of dots and specks, typically in shadow areas of the image.

Digital camera manufacturers have gone to great lengths to minimize noise, even at high ISO settings. This is due to benefit #1 above.

But sometimes you might want that noise in your photograph. Let’s say you’re taking shots on a foggy day, and the mood of the scene could really use some noise, to give the photo an old-time look.

Boost the ISO as high as it will go (usually 3200) and that noise will appear in your photo. In black and white, it really adds to the atmosphere and the quality of the image.

Benefit #3 - Fast shutter speeds

One of the best uses of a really fast shutter speed is to freeze motion.

If you take a lot of photos of sporting events, you need to be using shutter speeds around 1/1000 of a second or faster. There are not many days where there is enough ambient light to use these super-fast shutter speeds.

The only way that you will be able to catch all the action is if you increase your ISO. If you don′t want noise in the photo, just increase the ISO enough to get the shutter speed you want. If ISO 400 will get the job done, then use that.

Summary

I hope that this brief introduction has opened your eyes to the usefulness of ISO settings on digital cameras.

I think that the ability to change ISO on the fly is one of the biggest advantages that digital cameras have over film.

With film you’d have to shoot an entire roll at one ISO setting before you could switch to another (or you had to have 2 cameras with different ISO films).

With digital you can change the ISO anytime, anywhere. It gives you complete flexibility and control over the photos that you take.

Changing the ISO setting does take some getting used to, and it’s still not easy to do on some digital camera models.

I am sure though that once you start using it, you’ll find yourself saying “Please, sir, may I have some more?”

Chris Roberts purchased his first digital SLR camera 3 years ago, and hasn’t looked back. He continues to learn and write about new and emerging digital SLRs to this day on his web sites, the digital-slr-guide.com Digital SLR Guide and the digitalslrguide.typepad.com Digital SLR Guide Weblog

Hap

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—-Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan….
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

-Thomas Hardy

“…why bother, if life’s going to make its own choices?”

-Michael Caine as “Jasper” in Children of Men

Many films of the past have portrayed the ultimate decimation of mankind and desolation of the earth through battles against such epic monsters as giant insects, giant mammals, aliens, diseases, and the list goes on. It’s been an entertaining genre for the thrill-seeking film enthusiast, to see how creatively film makers can bring about the destruction of the earth.

Time has brought us to an age where, though the same themes of films and novels remain popular, the agent of evil that is brought upon mankind is a little closer to our perception, and not nearly as outlandish. Concerns about the end of the earth being brought about, not by a 60 foot green monster from Mars, but by the human population has manifested itself into both the film industry and literature.

Alfonso Cuarón’s “Children of Men” is an exciting and emotionally moving film about the bleak future of our world in which the infertility of women has turned the earth into a chaotic, desolate, and war-drenched reality. There have been no births in 18 years, and the tragic death of the current youngest human being on the planet opens the film to a crowd of desperate and shocked faces glaring at the TV screen of a street-side coffee shop.

Theo Faron, (played by Clive Owen) is the disillusioned, less-than-heroic hero of the story, whose obvious vulnerability as a simple human being allows the viewer to not just sympathize, but empathize with his struggles as many people have some idea of what it is to feel so isolated or so afraid, almost to the breaking point, as Theo does. The world has become a fiery playground of a war-hungry nation that has slipped into paranoid frenzy, intent on securing “their homeland” and “their way of life” by driving out every immigrant in England. The film is colored in a vast palate of black and grey, and from the very beginning we are drug into the decrepit ruins of a world that has been, and is now moving on, very likely to the end.

The little coffee shop that Theo has just left is blown to bits and screams are heard from every direction. Within the background of the score we hear a high-pitched ring, like the loud ringing in the ears after a concert, or after being in a club all night. This phenomenon is explained later by Theo’s ex-lover Julian Taylor, (Julianne Moore), after Theo is caught on the streets at gunpoint and shoved into the back of a huge grey van. She is revealed to be an important player of a group, the “Fishes”, which has dedicated itself to protecting and restoring the rights of immigrated people. The ringing you hear is the sound of ear cells dying, their “swan song” so to speak, she says. “After it disappears you’ll never hear that frequency again”. Julian advises him to “enjoy it while it lasts”. The distracting ringing in the ear reflects the slow decay and inevitable death of the world in which we find Julian and Theo. It is struggling for those last few gasps of breath before the end, and refuses to go down without a fight. Indeed, a violent and hate-filled civil war among an army that is the human race struggling for survival has begun.

Jasper Palmer (Michael Caine) is pretty much the last of Theo’s friends in the world. He is a jaunting, outgoing and hippie-looking old individual with a taste for smoking in its many shades. He lives with his wife, who is nothing more now but a zombie deprived of any hint of human-likeness outside of the shell that is her human body, presumably after going through some horrible experiences during her career as a photo-journalist. All of them are crawling through their lives, trying to stay alive amidst the constant threat of violence from those of opposing opinions regarding instinctual reactions and panicked states. On one hand, the government tries to clean out the cumbersome pests that have made their way into their land looking for safety and security. On the other, those who stand up for those people, but who have fallen into the same trap and lust for violence and rage.

We soon find out exactly for what Julian has contacted Theo for when she explains that she needs to get a certain young woman to the coast. Theo reluctantly agrees and we enter the house of Nigel, (Danny Huston), where he tries to get help. Nigel has managed to partially save some historic pieces of work, but it seems that in this dying world, history plays no significant part. Where the end is drawing near, who has time to appreciate accomplishments of the past?

When Theo finally meets Kee, (Claire-Hope Ashitey), we discover she is a young girl he must help to get to the coast to meet the ship named “Tomorrow” that will take her to safety at the Human Project. She is pregnant.

In a scene where Julian is shot by members of her own group who are later revealed to have different plans for Kee’s child, the music in the background is layered with a tinnitus ring that mirrors Julian’s quickly fading life. Later when they are pursued by the police, two policemen are shot out of panic when Theo’s car is stopped as they are racing to safety and for Julian’s life. They are later portrayed as terrorists who have murdered two cops and should now be considered armed and dangerous. From our perspective, they are innocent bystanders caught up in the madness.

Theo takes up new responsibility as he must guide Kee and her caretaker to safety, after staying with a group of people whose interests are shown to be different from those of Kee.

Theo takes them to the home of Jasper, where he helps make plans for them to be taken to the prison areas where they hold immigrants in order to get where they need to be with the help of an old friend of his, Syd, to acquire a boat and meet the “Tomorrow”. They soon realize they have been followed by their former allies who are now after Kee and her baby to use him (or her) for their own political purposes and after Theo leaves with Kee and her caretaker, Jasper is shot and killed.

In a little shabby, cold room later that night, we witness the birth of Kee’s child, by far the most emotionally evocative and powerful scenes in the movie. Kee is alone, having never been exposed to childbirth or indeed having ever seen a pregnant woman. She struggles through it and in the end produces a beautiful baby girl.

Eventually with the help of Theo, Kee reaches the “Tomorrow” and the birth of hope in that world.

What I loved about this film is its richness in portrayal and allegorical symbolism that so greatly defined one man’s vision of the world as it is and what it will become in the future, should our reckless and massively destructive behavior of consumption never change. There are many interesting subtleties that point us at different facets of human interpretation throughout the movie.

Clad in a bulky, ugly grey pair of socks, Theo’s feet appear front and center in a shot in which Theo is relaxing in Jasper’s home. Throughout the movie, the feet reflect the personal journey that Theo is going through in a more visual, simple, symbolic way. Theo is floating through life at this point in Jasper’s house, devoid of all hope for the future and disconnected from life. The blatant appearance of his relaxed state with his feet crossed and lounging on the table suggest to me his own passive attitude of lost hope and carelessness, as if he has consented to drown in the chaos that has become of the world. He will “put his feet up”, sit back, and watch as it all goes to hell.

As the movie progresses, Theo’s peril and role he has been thrust into wakes him up to the terrors around him and likewise, his bare feet, receiving numerous wounds and pains, are forced to endure the harsh realization that this dying world around him cannot be ignored.

Towards the end of the film, when he finally grasps a hint of hope as plans are made to get him and Kee to the coast, he is presented with a pair of shoes. He has finally found steady ground, and a clear path he can now travel to the end.

Now, instead of being a bystander, comfortable on the couch in his socks and drifting through existence, he is “dressed” in a purpose and a new vision for possible hope in the future with the “Human Project”.

The dining room in Nigel’s home, along with the high tech futuristic video game that occupies his son at the dinner table, is just an example of the many creative touches that reveal Cuarón’s vision. Perhaps most delightfully surprising was the floating inflated pig alongside two tall industrial towers seen clearly outside his windows as he and Theo are talking. “Algie” (the affectionate nickname given to him by his creators, Pink Floyd), floats majestically and can also be seen on the cover of the Pink Floyd album “Animals”. This is a provocative correlation with the themes regarding humanity used within the film. In the album’s lyrics to such tracks as “Pigs (three different ones), “Dogs”, and “Sheep”, the words ominously reflect unique metaphors for human beings; perhaps we are more animal like than the animals themselves. As the philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek comments in the commentary that is provided with the DVD, “a good portrayal looks more like the person portrayed than the person himself”. His observation is that the film portrays a very deep and truthful imitation of reality, a more “real” reality than reality itself that brings out the low, bitter truths, underlying the illusions, which we predominantly prefer to ignore.

Technology in a modern age has changed the face of communication, industry, media, and many other vital areas of societies all over the world. With the onslaught of newer and newer developments, it seems we are constantly running just to keep up with our aspirations. What are we leaving behind? Passing by without so much as a glance?

There is much to be said about the impact of modern technology and progress on the human mind and human relationships. In Richard Stivers’ book Shades of Loneliness, Stivers goes into a fascinating discussion about the effects that modern technology has had on the human population, focusing primarily from a mental perspective. “Technology makes human relationships abstract, and thus impersonal” (17). As we depend more and more for information on the news we see on TV, we create for ourselves a kind of “watered down” version of what is going on, and on top of this, we tend to watch television with a sense of the “constant present”, where watching shows and commercials on TV gives us a sense of being “up-to-date” and in the “now”.

The most critical objectification of experience occurs in the mass media for a number of reasons. First, the media are the paramount source of information for most people. Second, reality appears to be in the media. There appears to be a one-to-one relationship between visual images and reality, even though the media necessarily take images out of their cultural and historical context and thus reconstruct them. (19)

Ironically, there is a growing isolation of people through the advancement of communication forms. We no longer need to go out and meet with a friend or colleague when we can instant message them online, or send a quick text on the cell phone. As philosopher and historian Tzvetan Todorov states, modern technology and globalization allows “isolated individuals to have as much power as a whole state”.

Visual pictures presented to us on TV replace and destroy gradually our sense of meaning and symbolism. “According to Guy Debord, “we now live in a world of visual representation, a mirror world in which the image is more important than and indeed defines reality” (Shades of Loneliness,137).

The effect that I see coming from the massive expanse of industry and technology is the way in which we are inventing and creating more and more ways for us to do less and less of the work we let the experts handle what we don’t understand, and we consume more and more to fulfill our own personal and isolated pleasures while discarding at leisure what we don’t need, ignoring the consequences. What Cuarón’s film visualizes so vividly is a picture of a world in which all of these human behaviors are taken to the extreme, and through several brilliant devices of symbolism, conveys the essence of human emotions and instincts that may drive us to engage in a destructive and hateful course of action as a mode of survival. The depersonalization of a technological world only deepens and provokes those instincts to desire personal gratification as “television and related media place me at the center of the universe” (137).

The mass media reinforces and deepen the fragmentation and depersonalization that bureaucracy and technology unintentionally create. There is no temporal and meaningful relationship among programs and commercials. Therefore television in its total impact destroys the experience of event time. One is left with duration time, the continuous time of description. (Shades of Loneliness, 136)

The film “Children of Men” has displayed, for me, a brilliant insight into a version of raw reality that we see only after we step out from in front of the television. Personal and symbolic meaning is a vital factor in the human ability to live a life sensitive to other human beings, and to make connections and form personal beliefs regarding the world’s processes. The isolation and fragmentation of people today are conditions to which a massively expanding technological society and globalization contribute, but are not sole causes. The utopian visions for the world encompass many ideas, but the inevitable obstacle is that they cannot coexist, as stated by anti-globalization activist Naomi Klein. No matter what your personal beliefs and political views regarding these issues, I believe “Children of Men” is a fantastic and imaginative creation which showcases the director’s ability to thread into a passionate story the symbolism and connotation that directly relate and directly point to our own human society as it exists in the present.

(Stivers, Richard. Shades of Loneliness: Pathologies of a Technological Society. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. US. 2004.)

I am a second year English major at Wright State University in Ohio. Writing in depth essays regarding my own personal experience with films is something I do for fun.

Do You Know the Best and Worst Roulette Bets?

The outcome of every spin of the roulette wheel is independent of any other and is not influenced by prior spins.

Even if you have ten black numbers after ten spins, the chance of getting red in the next spin is the same as to get black.

As roulette is a game of pure chance, you need to know the odds of the bets and place the ones with the best chance of success

American & European Roulette

The odds in Roulette are very easy to calculate.

The wheel is divided into either 37 or 38 slots, depending on whether you are playing the European version (single zero), or the American version which has an extra space in the double zero slot.

The zero space(s) represent the house edge. The house advantage in single zero Roulette is 2.7% and is 5.26% for the double zero game

How to Calculate Roulette Odds

European Single Zero Game American Double Zero Game

(35 - 36)/37 x 100 = -2.70% (35 - 37)/38 x 100 = -5.26%

Bets to Avoid

The bets to avoid in this game are probably all single number bets and the five number bet (only found on double zero wheels) because these types of bets have the largest disparity between true odds and actual payouts.

Bets to Place

If you plan to play Roulette, stick with the bets whose odds almost mirror their payouts. These “even money” bets include betting on Even, Odd, Low (numbers 1 through 18), High (numbers 19 through 36), Red, or Black. All of these wagers pay out at 1 to 1.

Roulette Odds: Best Bet on the Table

Look for a European single-zero wheel that offers the rule ‘en prison.’

If you make an even money bet and the ball lands on zero, the croupier doesn′t rake in your wager. Instead, your bet is ‘imprisoned’ or held hostage, and you are forced to keep it on the table until the next spin. If your bet wins, you can remove it from the table.

This bet cuts the house edge on even money bets in half, down to just 1.35%.

To find out more on online-roulette-strategies.com/roulette-articles.html how to play roulette and maximise your winnings visit our site: online-roulette-strategies.com online-roulette-strategies.com

Spring practices are in the books and fall camps will be here before you know it so that means getting an early jump on the 2006 NCAA football season. Knowing the teams now will save you time in August and Matt Fargo is here to help you get a grasp of what to expect this upcoming year. We go from worst to first in this 2006 College Football Preview.

#33 – UCLA Bruins 10-2 SU 7-5 ATS

Fargo’s Take Dreams of a possible National Championship after an 8-0 start were burst when the Bruins were hammered at Arizona last season. Getting shellacked at USC in the regular season finale put an end to a possible berth in a major bowl but UCLA did recover with a win against Northwestern in the Sun Bowl. Now the Bruins must replace the three biggest playmakers on offense, quarterback Drew Olson, running back Maurice Drew and tight end Marcedes Lewis, as well as go about trying to fix one of the worst defenses in the country. UCLA finished 113th in total defense, 116th in rushing defense and 108th in scoring defense so being able to win 10 games showed how important the offense was. There are numerous players who will be asked to step in and contribute right away and while there is no chance the Bruins can match their win total from 2005, another bowl game is very likely.

Returning Starters on Offense – 4 Olson had a spectacular season with 34 touchdowns and six interceptions while throwing for close to 3,200 yards. Another Olson, Ben, will be taking over as the new signal caller and if his season is anything like his potential, he could have a very good year. He has the availability of two returning starters at receiver and the top three pass catching wideouts are all back. Replacing Lewis is impossible and that will be a huge part of the offense that will be missed. The running game should be solid as Chris Markey, who rushed for 561 yards on 5.1 ypc behind Drew, has slashing ability and could be a 1,000-yard rusher. He will benefit from three starters coming back on an offensive line that is not only big but quick. UCLA was 5th in the country in scoring offense a season ago, averaging 34.2 ppg but something along the lines of its 25.8 ppg average in 2004 is likely for this season.

Returning Starters on Defense – 6 The best news about the stop unit is that there is no where to go but up. DeWayne Walker, who was with the Washington Redskins, takes over as defensive coordinator and his number one priority is to put some swagger into the defense that has gotten worse in all three seasons that head coach Karl Dorrell has been in Los Angeles. There is good experience throughout but this defense is ranked 7th in the Pac Ten heading into the season. The strength will be in the secondary once again but major help in needed in the front seven. Defensive tackle Kevin Brown is back after missing all of last season and he will provide a needed boost to the undersized defensive line. The linebackers will all be new starters and the top six features only one senior and one junior.

Schedule Oklahoma and San Diego St. are gone from the schedule but the replacements are Notre Dame and Utah so there is no advantage from that standpoint. A home game against Rice is the only other non-conference game on the schedule. Five of the nine conference games are at home with the only really tough test coming in the season finale against USC. The road games are difficult with Washington being the only sure win. Facing Oregon, California and Arizona St. away from home will likely result in three losses although the latter two come late in the season when the Bruins could be finding its continuity. It’s possible UCLA could be 5-0 heading into that game at Oregon and a win there would mean huge momentum going into the final out of conference game at Notre Dame.

You can bet on… Until the Bruins can take care of cross town rival USC, every season will be considered a disappointment. UCLA has not defeated the Trojans since 1998 but this could be one of the best chances in a while since USC is going through a “rebuilding” season and has to travel to the Rose Bowl. The Bruins are 14-5-1 ATS since 2000 against non-conference foes and the first game against Utah will be a good test. The Utes are a preseason top 25 team but UCLA is a solid 10-2 against the number in its last 12 home openers. The Bruins went 5-1 ATS last season as a home chalk and will be favored in their first six home games this year.

Matt Fargo is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League.
Read all of his articles at procappers.com/Matt_Fargo.htm procappers.com/Matt_Fargo.htm

There are certain rules you should keep in mind when playing Texas Hold’em in a card room. First of all, you must “buy in” to join a game. That means you must meet the table’s minimum buy-in, or the minimum amount of chips required to play. The usual minimum buy-in for a low limit game is $50. You buy the chips from the dealer. These are color coded, the color indicative of a chip’s value: $1 for white, $5 for red, $25 for green, and $100 for black. You purchase your chips from the dealer. Sometimes players can buy chips from each other, but this is often not allowed. Ask your dealer first if you are uncertain.

Be aware that games are generally played “table stakes”–that is, you can only bet with the playing money you placed on the table at the beginning of a hand. You cannot add to it money from your pocket or anywhere else, and you cannot withdraw it from the game either, during the course of a hand. However, you are allowed to buy in–put more cash on the table or buy more chips–between hands.

You can join a game that is already in progress, but in most cases you will be required to “post”–meaning that you must place in the pot a bet amounting to the small and big blinds combined. Otherwise, the dealer will not give you any cards. When you post, you automatically get to see the flop unless a player raises and you do not call. On the whole it is advisable not to post; instead, you should wait until you can take a blind position and join the game as a regular blind.

There are a number of rules of conduct that you should always take care to follow. If you don’t, you may be asked to leave the card room–and you may even forfeit whatever money you have in play! So take care to follow the correct conduct.

One very important rule is that you should never pick up your cards. Card rooms often have rules against players taking the cards off the table, and other players will see it as the sign of a novice player–exposing your weakness. When you are dealt your two pocket cards, just leave them lying face down on the table. To look at them, cup your hands around the cards and slightly turn up the corners so you can see the pips.

Players often do not verbalize their actions in poker. If they want to fold, they simply return their cards to the dealer without exposing them. To check, they tap the table with one hand. To call or raise, they set out chips or money, stating the amount if necessary.

Remember that in poker, actions speak just as loud as words. Even if you do not say anything, your actions will be construed as binding, and you cannot take them back. Therefore, be careful with how you act at a card table.

Never act out of turn. Aside from flouting conduct, you are giving yourself away to the other players. Wait until it is your turn before you call, fold, or raise. If you call out of turn, others may choose to fold–players who might have bet money into the pot before you made your bet.

Never splash the pot, or place your bets directly into the pot. Let the dealer place the bet in the pot for you. Otherwise, there may be questions about whether you put in the correct amount, and the dealer may have to pause the game and check the amount of money in the pot, causing unnecessary delay.

Never expose your cards or give out information unnecessarily, even after folding. This can alter the dynamics of a game after you have left it, and unfairly damage other players’ strategies. They may get rightfully angry with you for such an action. Sometimes cards do get exposed by accident, though. In such cases, every player has the right to see the card that was revealed. If you let one player see a card that you hold, all the others may ask to be shown it as well.

Craps is an exciting, fast-paced game, and one that can be extremely profitable to you if played correctly. However, in order to maximize your chances of winning, there are some bets that you need to avoid entirely. After reading this article, you will know what those bets are and why you should be avoiding them.

These wagers fall under the heading one-roll bets, meaning that a win or a loss will be solely dependent on the next roll of the dice, and nothing further. We’ll take a look at the one-roll bets available on the craps table, and why each and every one of them should be avoided if you want to be successful at the craps table.

Any 7: This is our first example of an awful bet. To start with, there are 36 different ways that the two dice can land. (If this is news to you, please stop playing craps.) Out of those 36 combinations, there are 6 ways to make a 7. That means the odds are 5:1 against making a 7. Casinos will pay out at 4:1 if you are successful on this wager. This means the house advantage is approximately 17%.

That last sentence is why you do not make that bet. You will see a pattern following here.

Any Craps: The craps numbers are 2, 3, and 12. There are 4 different ways of rolling these, so the odds against these numbers being rolled is 8:1. The house will pay out 7:1 on a successful wager. This gives the house a 11% advantage.

2 or 12: You can bet on either of these numbers individually. Obviously, each of these numbers can only be rolled one way, meaning that it is a 35:1 long shot that you will be successful. In the event that you are successful, the house will only pay out at 30:1. Again, this gives the house an advantage of around 17%. Avoid, avoid, and avoid.

3 or 11: Not really much better than the 2 or 12 bet. You are “only” a 17:1 shot to be successful here. Unfortunately, if you are successful, the house will “only” pay off at either 15:1 or, even worse, 14:1. Depending on which it is, this gives the casino an advantage of either 11% or 17%.

Horn Bet: This bet means that you are not just making one bad wager, but four bad wagers at the same time! A horn bet means that you are betting the next roll of the dice will be either a 2, 3, 11, or 12. You will bet 4 units on this wager, 1 unit on each of those four numbers. If a 2, 3, 11, or 12 is indeed rolled, then you will get paid off at the casino payout on that number. The casino will then keep the units you bet on the other three numbers. Again, this is not just one bad bet, but four of them simultaneously.

In short, if you want to be a winning craps player, there is really no positive cast to be made for placing a one-roll bet. If you have money burning a hole in your pocket, feel free to gamble it up! If you want to be profitable at the craps table (like most of us do), avoid these bets like the plague.

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Some days when we contemplate the divisive and deluded doings in DC, it helps to look away from the grandiose and revered buildings that have hosted our government since it was moved there from Philadelphia in 1800 and to contemplate the broad, green, and ever forward pushing Potomac, the generally placid river that just keeps rollin’ through it.

Here we see a boater speeding along, hoping the wind in his ears will clear his brain of brow-knitting complexities, while another one rows by, lazily fishing in a johnboat for its still bountiful population of largemouth bass, an inadvertently appropriate fish to find hard by the halls of ceaselessly yapping Congress.

We see in contemplating its broad banks, not only a respite from the din of the ever-raging spin at our backs, but the assurance that, whatever happens, somehow the nation will flow on toward its distant destiny in the great ocean of the human experience and we find, even in the trees along its shores, nature’s ultimate lesson in peaceful and patient growth and recognize in the birds that flit in and out of them one of nature’s examples of how sanely its usual creatures go about the basic processes of life.

We have, in fact, never seen a bird have a nervous breakdown or, unless deathly hurt or ill, too sad to chirp.

Perhaps from time to time we should require our elected officials to leave the contentious halls in which they usually contend to stroll down by the riverside and allow the widely flowing water to moderate the shortsightedness that urgencies impress on them and to invite the opening of their vistas.

But they’d have to walk, not only for the camaraderie, but because the taxpayers would never be at peace about paying the taxi fares and limo rates for such an unproductive occasion. Better to have them back in the buildings, insular and, at least as far as public appearances seem, intently dutiful.

Tom Attea, humorist and creator of NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway. Critics have called his writing “delightfully funny,” “witty,” with “great humor and ebullience” and “good, genuine laughs.”