The best cruise ships on which to get married

The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents The best cruise ships on which to get married.



 
If you’re planning a wedding on the high seas, some options are better than others, according to one cruise specialist.

Miami-based cruise company Landry & Kling released its top ten ships for group events and business meetings this week, naming vessels from a variety of lines for the suitability of hosting a special event.

The travel agency, which specializes in organizing large events at sea ranging from business meetings to theme cruises and reunions, picked ships with between 56 and 2,700 cabins, including the enormous Allure of the Seas.

Many were chosen for the excellent range of on-board activities — Sea Dream II’s water sports marina platform, for instance, or fact-finding tours on board National Geographic Endeavor — although all offer superior service, state-of-the-art function space and private group dining, says Landry & Kling.

Cruise lines are used to planning weddings, and many employ specific members of staff to assist with the details of such events, with larger vessels also offering chapels on board and services such as cake, flowers and music.

However, the list of ships who have captains that can officiate ceremonies (a popular request) is more limited as there are considerable legal restrictions.

According to popular cruise website CruiseCritic, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara Club Cruises and Princess Cruises are among those with captains available to marry passengers.


Top ten ships for events and meetings

- SeaDream II (SeaDream Yacht Club)
- Liberty of the Seas (Royal Caribbean)
- Celebrity Millennium (Celebrity Cruises)
- Silver Spirit (Silversea Cruises)
- Pride of America (Norwegian Cruise Line)
- Seven Seas Navigator (Regent Seven Seas)
- MSC Splendida (MSC Cruises)
- Allure of the Seas (Royal Caribbean International)
- Carnival Dream (Carnival Cruise Lines)
- National Geographic Endeavor (Lindblad Expeditions)

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Porsche Panamera Turbo S revealed

The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents Porsche Panamera Turbo S revealed.



 
Porsche has released details on its new high-power Panamera sedan, set to go on sale this summer.

The new Panamera Turbo S provides a power boost to the Panamera Turbo’s engines, delivering 37 kW more with increased torque from the 4.8 liter, V8 engine, which has been treated to improved turbochargers and modified engine control.

Using the Launch Control feature, it can manage 0-100 km/h in 3.8 seconds and a top speed of 306 km/h, despite a fuel consumption similar to that of the Panamera Turbo — 11.3 l/100km using Michelin tires.





Other features added include Dynamic Chassis Control to stabilize the vehicle and Torque Vectoring Plus, which applies a variable torque split to the rear wheel to improve traction and agility in variable driving situations.





It is priced at $173,200 in the US and €167,076 in Germany. The model is set to be on show at the New York International Auto Show this April.

Source: AFPrelaxnews





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World’s largest Rolls-Royce showroom unveiled

The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents World’s largest Rolls-Royce showroom unveiled.



 
The world’s largest Rolls-Royce dealership has opened in Abu Dhabi as the luxury brand continues its expansion in the Middle East.

Spanning a massive 9,687 square feet, the showroom includes just five Rolls-Royce cars, but also houses a coffee bar, “customer configuration lounge,” and is linked to a new on-site Rolls-Royce service facility.

To mark the opening of the new facility, Rolls-Royce launched a Spirit of Ecstasy Centenary Collection Phantom Drophead Coupé, which forms part of a collection of 100 highly bespoke Rolls-Royce Phantom models.

The Middle East region continues to be an important driver in RR’ global growth, contributing over 15% of the company’s global sales in 2010.

This makes the eigth Rolls-Royce dealership to be built in the Middle East, which is now home to nearly 10 percent of all of the brand’s 82 dealerships worldwide.

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Audemars Piguet Millenary Tour Auto 2011

The luxury Lifestyle blog (the home of luxury Lifestyle) presents Audemars Piguet Millenary Tour Auto 2011.





Serving as Official Timekeeper of the Tour Auto for the sixth year running, Audemars Piguet is launching a limited edition watch to commemorate the event.

With its distinctly retro touch, the 2011 Audemars Piguet Millenary Tour Auto Chronograph masterfully captures the vintage spirit of the Tour Auto race.

The new watch is available with a 47 mm case, fashioned from steel. Its back side is embossed with the Tour Auto logo.

Housed in the case is a black dial, with its circular-grained surfaces reminding of the finish on certain historical cars.

It is circled by a flange with a tachometric scale. The display features a three-hand layout. Moreover, it is equipped with silver-toned hour, minute and seconds counters. The date indication is arranged between 4 and 5 o’clock.

The functions, provided by the new Audemars Piguet Millenary Tour Auto 2011 watch, are driven by an in-house manufactured automatic AP caliber 2385 movement.

It operates at a frequency of 21,600 vibrations per hour and offers a 40-hour power reserve.

The new Audemars Piguet watch is accompanied by a hand-sewn black leather strap with a lozenge-pattern stitching.

The model is issued in a limited edition of 150 pieces and is delivered in a presentation box.

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Duck Season, Rabbit Season

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Have you ever felt shot?

I mean, have you ever taken a shotgun blast to your lower right spine, right at the belt-line, directly under the love handle. It comes out of nowhere. You just wake up and you can't move a muscle. You try to rise and it hits you like a stab wound. You're fucked and you know it. It's like watching your arm fall off and saying, "Oh shit, that's gone."



Oh shit, my back is gone. I threw it out. No doubt walking all over god's green Earth in the rain for hours looking for that fucking Dentist. I must have strained my back because even though it's weak, its stronger than my stomach muscles. Like everyone keeps telling me, my core muscles are out of shape. Really, I've built a considerable gut that needs to be shaved down. That's the problem. I'm too front heavy and it's making my back muscles strain harder to keep me standing erect.



I should be walking all bent over forward, dragged down by my increasing belt size. Still I fight against gravity and I'll win. I know I will, as soon as the weather changes. I want to do my walks again. It cleared my mind. It gave me an extreme clarity that I could use to make decisions from a distance. Damn near made me clairvoyant. I need my long walks also, to look at the New York women go by. Ha ha. I'm not joking. It's the best spectators sport ever known to man.



So getting in shape is indeed very much on the horizon. I will at that, and there is no one that can change that fact. I want to do well with myself this year. There's something about 2011 that has the feel of death to it. Maybe it's because my father is gravely ill, which hangs over my head daily, but I think I wear it's mantle pretty well. Many people would be all depressed and slowed down. Morbid and grim all the time, but I think I'm learning a good lesson from my father, which I can only describe as a stiff upper lip.



I spent some days with him and he only talked about his death once. For five minutes. The rest of our conversations revolved around the trivial. And still, all around us were reminders that he was going to die. Friends coming over to wish him well and to ask how he's doing ("Hell, I'm dying," he would laugh at them). A visiting nurse service dropping by with medications and wanting to monitor his vitals. Paperwork out the ying-yang from his military records, to birth certificates and the so forth to hand to the appropriate people. And through it all, he dealt with it as if dealing with selling a car.



Shit, I would be terrified. I hate the thought of a slow death, and this is slow. I never wanted to go slowly. My father is hoping that the final stroke will happen when he falls asleep. He hopes he'll just close his eyes one evening and slip away. I don't think so. He has the luck of my life. Or maybe I have the luck of his life. The short end of the stick at all times. If there is a fifty-fifty chance for me, trust me, I'll draw the short end every time. Knowing this, what I do when I have a fifty-fifty chance is pick, then stop and pick the other. This way I duck my first inclination that will be the short end. But that doesn't work either. It's like life switches it around at the last minute to catch me anyway.



In any event, I'm hoping my father gets the end he hopes for, but if it was me, I would prepare myself for the worst. That's another reason why I want to be there before he goes to hold his hand and give him moral support. It's times like that that you want someone there that loves you, and I do love my old man.



But all of this has nothing to do with my back. My back, which is once again in the way of my life, adding to my further suffering, as I had said before.  Life loves to see me in pain, because I have been the spawn of the Devil and I'm doomed to Hell. Whatever. However I offended mother nature, I'm having my ass handed to me, largely because I stop fighting constantly and take breaks that are way too long and too deep to be appreciated or tolerated.



So, like I said, there is something about 2011 that makes me want to get up and kick some ass, and I'm just watching the days click by. Soon, very soon, the bell will ring and the gates will open and I'll burst out, hauling ass down the track. I'm ready.

Shit, my winter vacation is over. It's time to get back on the stick.

Peace,

HobobobSource URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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Cats in zero gravity

USAF experiment with cats on the vomit comet
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Affordable Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Miami Heat Tickets

Hey Minnesota Timberwolves fans! As you may know, basketball season is sadly coming to an end in just two short weeks. Tomorrow night at 7pm, the Minnesota Timberwolves will host the Miami Heat at the Target Center in Minneapolis. This will be the third to last home game of the season for the Wolves, just ahead of the Phoenix Suns on Wed. April 6th and the final game against the Houston Rockets the following Wed. April 13th. If you would like to show your support for the Minnesota Timberwolves during the last few games of their 2010-2011 season, check out our supply of Minnesota Timberwolves tickets and order yours now! We have a very nice variety of seat locations for each game, with prices starting as low as $25 each for the Miami game; $9 for the Phoenix game or $4 for the Houston game. Get yours today! 
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A Message From Clyde Barker

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 "Don't be an asshole Hobobob. You're missin' out. A woman with a gun can be your right hand man, fool! She'll even go down in a hail of bullets by your side, son. Try 'em, you'll like 'em."






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Embroidered book covers

How breathtakingly gorgeous are these embroidered book covers by Jillian Tamaki? She made them for Penguin Books, and rumor has it that they'll be available this fall. SO beautiful. (I'm sure Jane Austen would have wholeheartedly approved. I love Emma's little freckles!)

P.S. More + amazing + book covers.

(By Jillian Tamaki, via Black Eiffel)Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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Diminished Capacity

This film was directed by Terry Kinney, who you might, or, more likely, might not remember as one John Cameron, and who you might also know as a co-founder of the noted Steppenwolf Theater here in Chicago, Illinois. The latter is key, and it is key because "Diminished Capacity" (2008) is soooooooo Chicago. First of all, it stars Matthew Broderick, the guy who long ago starred in a movie as a character who Time Magazine recently said is the one film character most deserving of a statue here in the Windy City. It features a Mr. Cub (i.e. Ernie Banks) cameo. It features stock footage of Buckingham Fountain (real original). It knows of the long simmering feud between St. Louisans and Chicagoans. Its most crucial plot point involves a rare baseball card featuring the likeness of Frank Schulte, a right fielder for the Cubs in 1908. ("From now on I'm rooting for the 1908 Cubs. At least I know they can win.")

Broderick is Cooper Kennedy, a cartoon editor in Chi-town, and recent victim of a Grade 3 Concussion, getting better but not fully recovered, who one day gets a call from his mom (Lois Smith) down Missouri way who explains his Uncle Rollie (Alan Alda), in the midst of tying fishing line to his typewriter set at the end of a dock so the fish in the lake can, ahem, type poetry for him, might be in the need of a permanent stay at a mental health facility. So Cooper drives in to see what's up. Rollie, it seems, is also suffering from memory loss and suffering from unpaid bills but has an ace in the hole - that aforementioned Schulte baseball card, mint condition, that may be the last of its kind. Fetch the right price and all his material ills are cured.




Of course, there's also the town drunk who's aiming to steal that very baseball card and there's the sister of the town drunk, Charlotte (Virginia Madsen), who has divorced her husband and once, long ago, was Cooper's flame and who happens to be in the town grocery store at the same time Cooper turns up there and explains she will soon be trekking northward to Chicago where she hopes to sell a painting of hers to a restaurant.

So....Cooper, Rollie, Charlotte, and Charlotte's son all light out for The City Of Big Shoulders and a baseball card convention where Mad Dog McClure (Dylan Baker, so perfectly cast because he is so not a Mad Dog) and Lee Vivyan (Bobby Cannavale), dueling baseball card luminaries, the former kind and generous, the latter cold as Lake Michigan in late January, will both maneuver to purchase this all-important card.

Curiously, though, for being so Chicago, a city that doesn't do anything half-assed, a city that picked itself up after a Great Fire, a city that was burning Jay Cutler's jersey before the recent NFC Championship Game even ended, "Diminished Capacity" is so lightweight. It starts as, sort of, a dramedy and then morphs into, maybe, a grown up "Garden State" and then the third act is....well, God only knows. It's sweet and sad and slap-sticky and convenient and even for just a brief minute or two digresses into Heist territory and the way it kind of summarizes everything in a blip, without feeling like the resolutions have been truly earned - like Cooper's Grade 3 Concussion - is extremely sitcom-y. Yuck.

Consider this world of the baseball card convention. It is not often glimpsed in the cinema. It could have been different, maybe even unusually exhilarating. Occassionally, it is, such as in the moment when Mad Dog McClure, an epic Cubs fan, has an epic Cubs Fan Breakdown over a blown game and his wife - clearly having been through this dozens of times before - treats him so gently in its aftermath. This is quality stuff. But then consider Lee Vivyan's diatribe on Joe DiMaggio's shoelaces and their eventual payoff. That's it? Is this supposed to be wacky or quirky? The screenplay doesn't know and never figures it out.

None of the actors are sleepwalking, all seem willing to do their best, but what can you do when you aren't given much? How about poor Virginia Madsen who ever since being nominated for an Oscar for "Sideways" (2004) has fallen victim to a syndrome I have officially named after her - Virginia Madsen Syndrome - wherein the only parts she gets are those of The Supportive Spouse? Granted, she's not a spouse here but she is, essentially, The Supportive Significant Other. Even after we learn she has sold her painting to that Chicago restaurant the movie doesn't let her or us be happy about it. Instead it just hurries instantly right back to Cooper and Rollie's problems. C'mon, man, the woman who gave the transcendent Why I Like Wine monologue in "Sideways" deserves better.

The movie is diverting but forgettable. It's a game being watched from the Wrigley Field Bleachers on Friday Afternoon. Friends. Sun. Old Style. What's the score again?Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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Fear the Amalgam Horde

The BBC reports that the winner of this year’s Diagram Prize for oddest book title is….

….Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way. Written by by former dentist Michael Young, the book offers a guide on how to build an empire in the dentistry field.

In his book, Young argues that despite the western world viewing the legendary warrior in negative terms, his warmongering tenacity is required to build a successful business.

Its closest rival was 8th International Friction Stir Welding Symposium Proceedings, which details the development and application of friction stir welding at a German symposium last May.

This year's other shortlisted titles were What Colour Is Your Dog?, The Italian's One-Night Love-Child, Myth of the Social Volcano and The Generosity of the Dead.

Well there you have it… if Genghis Khan had the Golden Horde what do you call dentists that use is tactics? The Amalgam Horde?
Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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The Great Gagarin cover up

Today’s Telegraph carried an article titled Soviet Union lied about 1961 Yuri Gagarin space mission

Ach here comes the great “Gagarin space flight hoax,” I thought. Given that a lot of people do not believe that there was ever a Moon landing, why not deny the first manned space mission.

Well it isn’t quite like that:

Apparently Soviet officials and covered up the fact that he had landed more than 200 miles away from where they were expecting him… according to a new book.

The book 108 Minutes That Changed the World apparently reveals revealed that scientists twice miscalculated where he would land which is why there was nobody there to meet him when he finally touched down some 500 miles south of Moscow.

The Soviets also lied about the manner of his landing, claiming that he had touched down inside the capsule itself when in actual fact he landed separately via parachute. The reason they lied, said the book, was to skirt strict rules that would have prevented them from officially registering the flight as a world record.

Is that it? It must be a slow news day…Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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Mini Cooper

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The Shrill Cry of the Banshee

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"HELP ME! SOMEONE CALL THE POLICE! I'M BEING ASSAULTED HERE!"

Paula screams outside my door. I yawn. This is probably the seventh time this month that she has been assaulted in her room by the same man that she has a restraining order on. Somehow he constantly ends up in her room, day in and day out. And then one day, out of the blue, she is screaming out the above again in the corridor.



Strike that! Not ONE DAY, but late in the fucking night! I'm talking about 3:00AM! This bitch has the nerve to stick her water-head out of her door and scream. Honestly gang, I want to go over there with a baseball bat...and HELP HIM! If this man is such a fucking recidivist, what's the point of bringing him into your house time and time again? Are you a glutton for punishment? I guess you are because he still is beating your dumb ass!



It never fails with her. Time and again. I wouldn't mind if he hospitalizes her, but all he does is slap her in the face after she slaps him. Or threatens him to do something dumb, like slap an apple off of her shoulder. Trust me people, it hasn't turned into a violent act as of yet. It's that dumb, childish, I'm-crazy-in-love-shit that this is about. They slap each other around and argue and the next day they can't live without one another and making babies with all of those stupid assed Skek names, like Rolandshaka, and shalinda, and Lexus. I love Lexus. They're naming their kids now after cars that they use their dampened socks to wipe their windshields with to get a buck.



Oh yeah, don't put it past Paula to go out side with a squeegee and her underpants and dab them in a curbside puddle. Then come to your car and wipe down your windshield and scrape off the filth. Then roam to the driver's side of the car with their hand out. When they used to come to my car with that shit, I used to turn on the wipers. And being homeless, I never did that shit.



Yeah, like I said, I wouldn't mind if she had her ass whipped. Then she wouldn't invite this dumb fuck into her home every fucking day, and then when he gets out of hand, comes and stands in FRONT OF MY DOOR at 3:00 in the morning shouting for someone to call the police. Why doesn't she call them? She has a cell phone. Or simply leave your house and go downstairs and tell the security guards on the first floor to call the cops and stay in their office until they get there.

No, this bitch yells and then goes back into her room and argues with the fucker. Two minutes later he storms out of the room. Five minutes and the cops arrive asking her what is happening and she says that the guy has already left. This scenario plays out over and over again, time and again, to the point that it's a joke. Like the boy who cried wolf. After awhile you pray that the wolf does appear and the boy is eaten.



This is also to annoy if not to incite me to action. Which it does not. But honestly, I couldn't care less if I heard her body pummeled to death against my door. I still wouldn't move from one ass cheek to another. Fuck that. She steps outside, screams, wakes me the fuck up, and my normally two hours sleep is curtailed to one. Now I'm tired all day long. All day. That shit is painful. Now I have to try to sleep during the day, where it's lawful for everyone to make as much noise as they wish.



Try to sleep during the day and you know what I'm talking about. Even your kids make fucking noise that they don't at 3:00AM. So what are you going to do now Hobo? Start boiling a pot of water when I hear him knocking on her door and she lets him in. When she hops out to scream for someone to call for the police....well actually to do nothing more than to wake me from slumber, I'll jump up, grab that pot of scalding water and throw it at her face. And as she screams bloody murder, then I'll call the cops and blame her boyfriend.



This will work because they no doubt have a rap sheet in the precinct by now of domestic sort-of violence an arm and a leg long. The police will say that it was only a matter of time until it became physical to the point of abuse and no longer love taps.

Problem solved. I told you I have the answers to everything that ails you.

HobobobSource URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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Colleen Gleason Launches New Vampire Series

I'm happy to be hosting Colleen Gleason today to celebrate the release of The Vampire Voss, the first in her new vampire series. Not only have Colleen and I been friends since we both finaled in the Golden Heart in 2003, but I'm a big fan of her work as well.

For those of us who are fans of your Gardella Vampire Chronicles, tell us how your new vampire series, the Regency Draculia, differs.

Both series are set during Regency-era England, with the Gardellas around 1819-1820 and the new series during the Napoleonic War—specifically in 1804.

The biggest differences are in the vampire mythology and also in the structure of the series. The Gardellas are really more of a historical urban fantasy series, following the life—and loves—of one heroine, Victoria Gardella. The books are really all about her as a sort of superhero (a vampire hunter) in a historical time period. There are no “good” vampires in the Gardellas, they aren’t ever the protagonists or heroes/heroines. The vampires are all evil, and meant to be slain.

I took a different tack with the Regency Draculia. These books are definite vampire romances, with a spotlighted hero and heroine in each book and a happy ending for them at the end of each story. There are over-arching subplots and romances—a la Suzanne Brockmann and Eloisa James—but each book does end happily for the main couple.

The mythology of my Draculia vampires is much different from that of the Gardellas as well, for in these books, there are vampires that run the gamut from being totally evil to being vampires with a conscience. The vampires in these books have basically sold their souls to Lucifer, and they are living their immortal lives with this knowledge—and with all of its benefits and repercussions.

One of the things that make my vampires different is that each of them has an Asthenia--a specific weakness.

Like the vampires of legend who recoil at the sight of silver, and who are weakened by its presence, each of my vampires have a similar “Achilles Heel”—in this case, I call it their Asthenia. And for each Dracule, it’s something different. For one, it could be sapphires. For another, it could be an oak tree. For another, it could be grass or horses or rosemary.

After writing the Gardella series, you began writing post-apocalyptic stories as Joss Ware. What brought you back to vampires?

I love to write historical novels (in fact, the Joss Ware series almost feels historical in some ways, due to the lack of infrastructure and limited technology in that world), and when it was suggested that I try my hand at a true vampire romance novel, set in the Regency, I jumped on it. I love that time period, and I’ve come to love my vampires too. ;-) After writing five books with all-evil vampires, it was a fun and interesting challenge to twist my brain a different way and to write about sexy, dark, compelling vampires.

Why do you think vampire stories continue to ride a wave of popularity?

I think there are several reasons, one of which is the aspect of escape. We—or many of us—read for escape, and what better place to escape than to a place where we know it’s not real...and where things are often much darker than they are in our own world.

Another thing, however, that I think makes vampires popular is the environment in which they live: darkness, sensuality, forbiddenness (is that a word?)...all of that makes these characters intriguing and compelling. And there’s the sexual aspect—the penetration, the need, the angst and the reality of what is it like to live forever? Those are all fascinating, titillating aspects of vampire lore, and each author approaches them in a different way.

As a reader, which authors of vampire stories do you enjoy most?

Some of my favorites are Lara Adrian and Jeaniene Frost, but I confess that I don’t read very much in the way of paranormal romances...simply because I write them.

I am a huge Buffy fan, however. ;-)

Tell us a bit about the characters in The Vampire Voss, the first in your new series.

Voss, the Viscount Dewhurst, has been a vampire for a hundred and fifty years. He agreed to sell his soul to Lucifer, and now he has everything he’s ever wanted: immortality, scads of money, imperturbable power, and all the women he can handle. If a man were to live forever with all the power and pleasure and money he ever wanted, I believe he would be just like Voss: Selfish, hedonistic, and, at some point, bored with it all.

Everything is going along just fine—if not becoming a little routine after more than a century of pure hedonism with no negative consequences—until he meets Angelica Woodmore…who is the first woman he finds himself unable to enthrall and seduce.

Angelica is one of three sisters (the eldest of whom is featured in the second book in the series, The Vampire Dimitri) who has a bit of the “Sight”, courtesy of their half-Gypsy grandmother. She becomes a pawn in a struggle between two factions of vampires (if I may....the “good” vampires versus the “bad” vampires).

Because of who he is, Voss is studiously neutral in this struggle—playing both sides—because he wants to use Angelica’s powers for his own protection. And Angelica is terrified of vampires.

So...you can see where this is going. ;-)

And then add in all of the aspects we love about Regency romance: the balls, the dance cards, the manners and repartee, the powerful, rakish viscounts and the bored, brooding earls...and you’ve got a good feel for the series.

Also, there are two more books in the series, coming in early May and early June: In The Vampire Dimitri, we meet a tortured, brooding vampire who has come to strongly regret his bargain with Lucifer and who is trying, in vain, to break that bond. Too bad the woman he falls for is fascinated by his Draculean bent. And in The Vampire Narcise, we meet a damaged female vampire who believes that love isn’t for immortals—because nothing can last forever, especially for someone whose soul is not their own.

Thanks so much for having me here! I’m going to give away a copy of the second book in the series, The Vampire Dimitri, to a commenter today.

To enter to win, either ask me a relevant question about the series or writing, etc., and/or tell me...if you were a Dracule, what would your Asthenia be?
~~~
Thanks, Colleen. Can't wait to start this new series. You know how anxious I was to get my hands on each new Gardella book.

So, get to commenting, folks. :) There's a great new book up for grabs.Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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Epic Duran Duran Tickets

The English New Wave band Duran Duran formed in Birmingham in 1978 and became one of the most successful bands of the 1980s.  Since then, they have placed 14 singles in the Top 10 of the UK singles chart and 21 in the Billboard Hot 100 and have sold more than 100 million records. The band worked with fashion designers to build a sharp and elegant image that earned them the nickname "the prettiest boys in rock."  Their controversial music videos became popular in the early 1908s on the then-new music video channel MTV. If you would like to see Duran Duran at Epic Nightclub in Minneapolis on Friday, April 22nd, check out our Duran Duran tickets and buy yours while it's still a little early!  This one will sell out so don't be left outside without a ticket! Get yours now!
Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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A Friendly Message From a Grrrl With a Gun

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"Hobobob, eat your heart out."






Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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A handy guide to creating the perfect cheese plate

I may or may not be obsessed with cheese (are you, too?), so the fact that we live down the street from Murray's Cheese, the most amazing cheese shop that ever existed, is fabulous and a little dangerous. The shop is packed with incredible cheeses, meats, chocolates, breads and ice creams, and the cheesemongers are geniuses (and give samples!). Toby and I venture over there at least twice a week, and we're both fatter and happier for it.

So, my darlings, I'm thrilled to present this handy guide to creating the perfect cheese plate! I met with Murray's head cheesemonger Sydney Willcox to discover her tried-and-true tips, and the lovely Jamie Beck took photos. Here goes...
Overall pointers for putting together a cheese plate:
* When you invite friends over, buy one ounce per person per cheese; and stick to five to six cheeses total.
* Choose a fun variety of cheeses: different textures, countries, and all three milk types (goat, sheep, cow).
* Serve all the cheeses on one big board. You want your guests to start with the mildest and work up to the strongest, so place the cheeses in "clock order"--12 o'clock being the mildest and 11 o'clock being the strongest.
* Take the cheese out of the fridge at least an hour before serving. Cheese should be eaten at room temperature, when it's at its full flavor and texture.
* Put out a few different knives. Goat and blue cheeses crumble if you use a regular knife, so cheese wires are the best thing to use--if you don't have one, you can use dental floss! Softer cheeses work best with a butter knife. Harder cheeses, like parmesan, are good with a triangle-shaped knife. Cut circular cheeses in wedges, like a pizza.
* If you have leftovers, don't store the cheese in Saran Wrap, which will make the cheese sweat and leave a plastic-y taste. Cheese is living and needs to breathe, so wrap it in parchment or wax paper, and keep it in the most humid part of the fridge (usually the vegetable drawer).
Six cheeses for the perfect basic cheese plate:
(pictured clockwise from top)

1. Cremont is a bloomy, rindy, mild cheese, which debuted last year in Vermont. (The name "cremont" is a mix of "cream" and "Vermont"!) The cheese has both cow and goat milk. Luscious, coats your tongue, fudge-y, cake-y.

2. La Tur is the little black dress of cheeses! Everyone loves it. It's a mix of goat, sheep and cow--which is is pretty unusual. Flavorwise, you get a hint of all three animals--tang from the goat, lingering buttery fat from the sheep, milky sweetness from the cow. The texture feels almost whipped, like savory ice cream! At a party, this insanely popular Italian cheese will disappear first.

3. Pyrenees Brebis. Every single person I've has ever met loves this sheep's milk cheese. It's a huge crowd-pleaser. A lot of flavor, but very harmonious. Nutty, salty, floral, semi-soft. From the southwest region of France, where there are huge herds of sheep.

4. Cabot Clothbound Cheddar. Cabot makes lots of cheddars, but this is their artisanal (read: fancy!) line. What's cool about this cheese is that it's a partnership between Cabot and the Cellars at Jasper Hill--Cabot makes the cheese, which is then aged in the Cellars at Jasper Hill. There's actually a staff of guys (football-player size!) who flip these cheeses everyday, so they'll age evenly. The cheese is wrapped in cloth, which is a more English style of making cheese. Super strong cheddar; you get little crystals. You'll taste peanuts, caramel, earthy flavors. Eat from the inside out; then take the cloth off and then eat the rind--it almost takes like dirt, but it works so well with the other flavors. (P.S. It would make the best grilled cheese you'd ever have in your life.)

5. Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Made with raw Jersey cow's milk in Wisconsin. Very fruity and smooth. The American Cheese Society just named it "Best in Show" for the third time (it's the only cheese to have been awarded Best in Show more than once!). You've gotta try it.

6. Cambozola Black Label is a very, very delicate blue cheese. Just a tinge of that mineral flavor; very buttery with a bit of a cashew flavor. A great beginning cheese for people who think they might not like blue cheeses. (Once you put it on bread and add a grape, it will mellow out, if you’re feeling timid!) Blue cheeses and chocolate also go together really well--a great balance of salty and sweet.

Pair cheeses with: Dried cherries, walnuts, marcona almonds (I love these!), fresh grapes, crackers and French bread.
Yummy! Thank you so much, Sydney and Murray's! Have you tried any of these cheeses before? Do you have a different favorite cheese that you'd recommend? I'd love to hear...

P.S. More cheese-y posts!

(Photos by Jamie Beck for Cup of Jo)Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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Mystery Team

Jason, Duncan and Charlie, severely emotionally stunted high school seniors who still swill chocolate milk and, of course, have never partaken in the riches of kissing a girl, have been infamous in their small community for years as the Mystery Team, a bargain priced version of Encyclopedia Brown, taking "cases" proffered by children far younger than they, the only children left in town to give them any respect. But now reality beckons. Graduation is set to descend upon our team and send them off to scary college and the even scarier grown up world. Almost in defiance to this thought, when a little girl implores the Mystery Team to figure out who killed her parents, our somewhat lovable trio, at the desperate urging of Jason, decides to take on a real life murder case and immediately find themselves out of their element, not that they won't keep wading out further and further from shore.

One accusation that cannot be leveled at "Mystery Team" (2009) is tone-deaf. This film, like it, hate it, indifferent to it, decides what it is from the opening scene and remains that way for a full - if stretched - 90 minutes. This is a ridiculous, sometimes gross out (two vomits, one hand-in-the-toilet), comedy that within its own little universe is as serious as "Silkwood."




Jason is the ringleader, meaning he's the most delusional, meaning he sincerely believes at the end of the school year they will open up a real detective agency, and Donald Glover (famously of "Community") treats his character with compassion and respect. Even when he's moonlighting in various "disguises", as absurd as they might be, he's not playing for laughs. He's a 7 year old in an 18 year old's body trying to infiltrate a place he is not supposed to be. He, as he must, finds first love with the as-always awesomely arid Aubrey Plaza, the older sister of the little girl whose parents have died, who at first rebuffs the Mystery Team's attempts at case-cracking, before giving in to their idiotic charms.

Duncan (D.C. Pierson) is the "brains" of the operation, full of random trivia useless to any "case", real world or not. "New Delhi is the capital of India!" He's also the only one with any grasp of a potential future. Charlie is the "muscle", which is to say he's entirely muscleless, and he is played by Dominic Dierkes in a performance that - to this reviewer - fell flat. His timing is actually good but he recites all his lines with an abrupt monotone that seems to leave every one of his punch lines hanging. I get that he's supposed to be a dim bulb but, well, one out of every three dim bulbs is very dull. Dierkes is very dull. He is upstaged by the group's "informant" - a dead-end convenience store employee played eagerly by Bobby Moynihan.

It's weird, I can't say I laughed much at "Mystery Team." Come to think of it, I only laughed out loud, for real, once, at a line involving cancer, which I won't repeat here because if you haven't heard it you deserve to discover it for yourself. But I do not mean to suggest I did not enjoy "Mystery Team." Because I did. I think this is because I tend to prefer, say, the dedicated if entirely hapless community production of "Henry V" as opposed to the facetious modern day spoof of "Henry V." Which might make me a bad person.Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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Holding Back The Tears of Mediocrity

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Be sad for me.

Well, kinda. Today is pity for Hobobob day today. I know, I know, I said that I didn't want your pity...but I meant that in a general way. Specifically though, I want you to bawl your eyes out for me. No, just kidding (no I'm not). Today I got another rejection notice from a publisher. That's sad now isn't it? I know, I know. If I'm going to try to be an author, there is no need to whine about a rejection slip. Wasn't it Woody Allen himself that said that he wallpapered his walls with rejection slips?



If he can go through that agony, then who am I? And honestly, I'm not all that thin skinned to have a problem with it. I mean, I can take rejection. I date women, don't I? Shit, I've been rejected by scores of women, but that never turned me into a fag. Fuck it, I just say, screw you and move on to the next. Well, that's unless you've stolen my heart first, and then we are talking about an entirely different paradigm.



But to lay out the law on this publisher's rejection, they always have something hack to say to you. One punk ass said to me, "This story couldn't grab my interest I'm afraid."  YOU'RE AFRAID? Please...wait until I get my hands on you! THEN yo' ass will be afraid. I'll give you something to be fucking afraid about. But I'll tell you the truth. I LIKED his rejection the best, because he reveals something. He reveals that he 'actually read my shit', and that he took the time "To type and sign a rejection notice to me." Amazing in this day and age.



So I have to hand it to him. He's the best editor that has ever sent me back a rejection notice. The rest of them, Editors and Agents, can suck on my sweaty balls. I'm not lying. Let's talk about these beat up, not wanting to work, looking for an easy score, blitzy-blaugh bastids that give you the same shit. They either say something like: "We are sorry to say that due to the commitments of our present clients, we cannot offer to read your material," and "With a full plate, I take on new writers only in exceptional circumstances, and your work is not, I am sorry to say, for me."



Do I have problems with Agent pricks like these? You bet your wife's horny ass I do. Fucking cheese-snacks are in the fucking WRITER'S MARKET, and online as accepting submissions! But when you send them something they state that they have full plates. What the fuck is that about? Take your agencies out of these publications. Just send them a letter, or call your fucking webmaster and say, "Shit, we've got too much to do. DON'T send us your shit." Save me the fucking postage and the fretting over your response. Just nip it in the bud, like your wives have done to your sex lives.



Then, there are the uppity smart asses, that come from cheerier backgrounds. These fucks spit in your face and then say: "We wish you the best of luck in your search for representation," or "I wish you the best of luck finding representation with the right agent and good fortune with your writing career." C'mon bitches, if you really cared you'd refer me to someone. HEY, doctors and lawyers do it. They know who's looking to start a practice and they send clients their way. It's called professional courtesy. They  do it every day. What's your excuse, huh? Underwear's too tight to take a shit every once in awhile?



And then I have one publisher that really did care. Care to make a side buck for them- selves. They referred me alright...to a vanity publisher. Yeah, and if I go and say that they sent me I can get 10% off the self-publication of my book. So let me get this right. I pay them $10,000 to print copies of my book and they turn around and charge me $9,000 and they give $900 to the publisher that I asked to publish my manuscript.



How does that shit make any sense. I want to firebomb these bitches for trying to make money out of, or by rejecting me. They get cash coming and going. And what do I get? Rooked. I'm telling you, Agents and publishers are breathing their last breaths. Books will either be going to the e-book market or online, and print publishers will be feeling the bite sooner or later. With e-book readers, it was a slow process. But now that people have flocked out by the billions to buy Ipads, and the tablet market is poised to boom as soon as other manufacturers get their products to market, e-books will be engaged in by more and more businesses that are not these big assed publishing conglomerates, and it will be the readers that will dictate what gets published and what will not.



That's the hobo future of publishing. A true proletariat revolution that will lead to us taking charge from the gatekeepers of the past. It will only be a matter of time. What do you think happens every time you download an e-book from Barnes and Noble? You are fucking the system, and after every system is fucked with sufficiently, it collapses underneath it's own greed and self-important mediocrity.

Fuck 'em all I say. And let the readers sort it out!

HobobobSource URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2011/03/
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