Cruise ship smackdown: Symphony of the Seas vs. Norwegian Bliss | Steel Downpipe Roll Forming Machine

You can use the touch pad to input destinations into the navigation system, or search for a name in the phone book – but from the driver’s seat, that’s a left-handed process, which is awkward unless you happen to be left-handed, or ambidextrous.

This lady cornered me at a party a while back and asked me what it meant when her cat started tearing big chunks outa the carpet, sharpened his claws on the Lazy Boy and all the hair fell off his tail. I said, “Ma’am, it means it’s time to git a new cat!”

The first few hours I spent at the W.S.L. Surf Ranch, a wave pool built for surfing in the farmlands south of Fresno, California, were for me a blur. I was fine on arrival, hiking through a little forest of scaffolding, eucalyptus, and white tents with a publicist from the Kelly Slater Wave Company, which built and runs the place. The valley heat was fierce but dry. House music rode on a light northwest breeze. We passed a bright-red antique row-crop tractor parked on wood chips. Then I looked to my right and felt my mind yaw. The wave was probably six hundred yards away, a sparkling emerald wall, with a tiny surfer snapping rhythmic turns off the top. I had come expecting to see this wave, out here in cotton fields a hundred-plus miles from the coast. Still, my reaction to it was involuntary. Kelly’s Wave, as it’s known, seems designed to make someone who surfs, which I do, feel this way: stunned, turned on, needy. Surfers spend much of their lives looking for high-quality waves. Now a machine has been invented that churns out virtually flawless ones on command. “We call it the smile machine,” someone, possibly the publicist, said. I had trouble paying attention. Every four minutes, I had to turn and crane to watch a wave make its way the length of the pool.

Them that writes “COWBOY” in the blank space after ‘occupation’ on the IRS form; they’re what I’m talkin’ about. Real cowboys; the backbone of the cattle business.

But like any artist who is self-unemployed, he has plenty of time to kill. He told me he was settin’ in the sale barn one mornin’ visitin’ with the geezers and watchin’ Noah’s Ark run through the ring. They ran the assorted single lambs, odd hogs, box of baby chicks and day-old Holstein calves through and had moved on to the beef cows and calves.

But what if those generous Indians had chosen to take their bounty to the wild game feed at the VFW, instead? And in their place, the pilgrims were met by a crew of cowboys on their day off? These pre-Revolutionary buckaroos would have passed around their own Wild Turkey. Soon as everybody was tuned up and visitin’ like used-car salesmen, preparations would have been made for chuck. They’d have barbecued a couple Spanish goats, some buzzard jerky, a side of javelina, and a bucket of quail. Not to mention a jackrabbit they’d run over on the way into camp.

There’s plenty of good hands that could answer that ad and fit right in. If he gits the job you can bet yer silver snuff can lid he’s a cowboy. A reporter asked me awhile back if I was a cowboy. I said no. That name is reserved for them that make their livin’ punchin’ cows. It didn’t bother me to be mistaken for a cowboy, matter of fact I’m proud of it. But that honor belongs to that particular feller who gits up everyday, puts on his spurs and goes to work.

Camera designer Alessandro Gibellini is developing a rare but lucrative business in modern large-format models.

Dame Nellie Melba’s visit to this city must be regarded as an event of musically historic importance.”

BILLY STRITCH "LUCKY TO BE ME" at New York’s legendary Birdland Nov. 25, Dec. 2 & 9 at 6:00 pm Acclaimed pianist/singer Billy Stritch brings his new solo show "Lucky To Be Me" to the Birdland stage for three shows only (November 25, December 2 and 9 – Saturdays at 6:00 pm). This show will include Billy’s arrangements of songs by Gershwin, Kern, Hoagy Carmichael, Cy Coleman and other giants of American popular music and stories of his career thus far. These shows also commemorate the 20th anniversary of Billy’s first appearance at Birdland in 1997 when he premiered his Brazilian CD "Waters Of March" and will include selections from that recording as well. Billy will be joined by bassist Neal Miner (November 25, December 9) and Tom Hubbard (December 2). Billy Stritch is one of the premier singer-pianists on the New York and national jazz and cabaret scenes. He began his career in Houston, Texas, where he formed the vocal trio Montgomery, Plant and Stritch. The trio performed all over New York and Europe from 1983 until they disbanded in 1990. A chance meeting with Liza Minnelli in March of 1991 resulted in her asking him to create vocal arrangements for the record-breaking… (read more)

As the name that they go by suggests, The Hood Internet are quite clearly an act in thrall to the possibilities that the internet has opened up, these past few years, for hip hop as a genre; it’s especially true of alternative hip hop, whereby artists play by different rules and experiment more than the mainstream side of the style would really allow. The Chicago duo – comprised of ABX and STV SLV – were primarily concerned with mashing up other hip hop tracks to begin with, after they formed in 2007, but have since gone on to pursue original material, in the form of their one album to date, FEAT; the album features underground guest spots form the likes of Tobacco, Class Actress and Cadence Weapon. In addition, the pair have also pursued slightly sillier things, like Album Tacos, a series of photoshopped classic album covers with tacos covering the original content, but they’ve also played live sets, which has seen them mash up classic hip hop cuts in a slick and often comical manner; it’s little wonder, then, that they’ve managed to carve out a cult fanbase, one that’s no doubt eagerly awaiting the next move from the duo in the studio.

Chickens come several ways: as hawks, peals, pox and coffee-flavored (chicory), BBQ’s, fried, in past little lumps called McNuggets and with their tail between their legs! You can get them in a basket, in a bucket or in a coop with fries.