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FinnFreak
02-12-2009, 9:35am
Do you guys think she was at Jen's party?
No. But almost certainly on the stereo.
John - ;)
shaniafan339
02-12-2009, 9:50am
I bet Jennifer Aniston's a huge fan of Shania's TDIMM...
John - ;)
HAHAHA :funny: I never thought of that... I bet you're right John!!! lol
FinnFreak
02-12-2009, 10:56am
KRIS-TV, TX - February 12, 2009
Artist creates sculpture of former first lady
http://scottsustek.com/images/barbara_bush_sm.jpg
Sculptor Scott Sustek with First Lady Laura Bush, and study bust for life-size bronze
for Laura's Library, opening Spring 2009.
SAN ANGELO, Texas -- Scott Sustek said he usually "works with some pretty crusty characters": war veterans, musicians, cowboys, "old guys with wrinkles."
So when the San Angelo artist was asked to create a life-size sculpture of former first lady Laura Bush for a new library near Austin, he gave the job serious thought.
"I think it's much easier to sculpt Mark Twain than Shania Twain," he said.
Creating a likeness of such a popular public figure is particularly tricky, the 38-year-old former Austin teacher added.
"She's such a familiar and well-loved person, especially in Texas."
In order to get the sculpture right, he knew he would have to meet with the president's wife in person.
He contacted Mrs. Bush through a friend who had gone to high school with her.
The first lady's secretary e-mailed him: "Washington or Crawford?"
She also told him he would have exactly one hour on the busy schedule.
Scott loaded his equipment and headed to the presidential ranch near Crawford on a cool, cloudy day last August.
After a check by Secret Service security, he drove up to the ranch house.
"President Bush came out to greet me, walked me up to the house and introduced me to Laura. He was excited that I lived in West Texas. I was living in Wall then, and he asked me a lot of questions about the gin and the cotton crop."
Scott spent the next hour measuring, photographing and observing the former Midland librarian on the ranch house porch.
"I told her, 'Do whatever you normally do today and let me work and observe you.'"
What did he notice?
"The angle in which she holds her head; the way she holds her shoulders; all of that is important in creating a likeness.
"She's a very beautiful person. The way she carries herself is very elegant and gracious."
Was an hour enough time to capture her?
"My mission was to get in there, get all the information I could in the short time I had, and be on my way. Once I have the measurements with my caliper, that's all I really need. That and a couple of good profile pictures."
Back in San Angelo, he created a likeness of Mrs. Bush from clay. He stayed in weekly contact with the first lady and her staff, e-mailing photographs of the work in progress and asking for their feedback.
The result?
She is sitting on what will be a limestone boulder, holding a book, the one she and her daughter Jenna co-wrote.
A short stack of her favorite books rests beside her: "Bridge to Terabithia," "Secret Garden," "Little House in the Big Woods," "Old Yeller," "Charlotte's Web" and "Goodbye to a River."
Across from her, a small, barefoot girl, also created from clay, listens to the woman read.
Scott designed the sculpture so that other children can curl up next to Mrs. Bush and read their own books.
"She wanted to have a piece where kids could sit with her, sit in her lap," he said.
That's fine with him.
"My sculpture traditionally has been work people can touch. Kids can get on it. We engineer it so it can't really be hurt. You're not going to mess it up."
Will children in an Obama age recognize the former first lady?
It doesn't matter, he said.
"I hope that kids who don't know who she is will see her as a friendly lady who wants to read them a book."
On a late January visit, the finished clay sculpture sat in his large, airy studio just east of San Angelo.
The next day, he drove it to a foundry near Austin, where the process of casting it in bronze began.
The bronze will be unveiled at a dedication ceremony in Austin this summer.
Scott's work can also be seen in San Angelo. He created "The Fiddler," a bronze bust that, until recently, was on display in the San Angelo Regional Airport terminal building.
He also carved the stone owl perched next to the Sunken Gardens along South Abe Street.
Current projects include two life-size western sculptures that will be displayed outdoors in San Angelo.
Scott, who also does welded steel and glass sculpture for galleries, said he hopes to eventually offer art classes.
"It's therapeutic for people to create," he said. "It's fun. It's play."
http://www.kristv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9833340&nav=menu192_2
John - :)
tonyme
02-12-2009, 11:27am
:funny: LOL Thanks for that
shaniafan339
02-12-2009, 6:29pm
HAHA... That's cool!! ;)
Thanks!!!
dreamer
02-12-2009, 7:34pm
interesting thanks
uniquestar
02-12-2009, 8:23pm
Thanks for the article!
FinnFreak
02-13-2009, 7:55am
Christian Science Monitor, MA - February 13, 2009
A love that doesn't quit
A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
There are thousands – more like millions – of sentiments offered up on the subject of love. Quotable lines from Socrates to Shakespeare to Shania Twain – the joys of feeling it, the woes of losing it, and everything in between. Because so much of society's focus is on the "Lost and Found" aspects of love, it's a vulnerable emotion indeed.
Complete article (http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0213/p19s01-hfcs.html)
...and, on that particular note: A Happy Valentine's Day To All..!
John - ;):up:
What a great quote, thank you John! :) Happy Valentine's day to you too!
shaniafan339
02-13-2009, 1:59pm
That's neat!
Thanks! ;)
FinnFreak
02-16-2009, 11:48am
Nepalnews.com, Nepal - Monday 16 February, 2009
In Search of Wisdom:
Where does success live?
Being successful is not sufficient in life. We may have set goals for ourselves and reach them with great speed, but the ultimate search of a human mind is always “happiness”. In the absence of happiness, all achievements amount to very little. Therefore, a thoughtful human should not set his or her goal inspired by lesser things like big mansion, much money in the bank, or looking better than “her”. A person may make more and more money over time without being happy.
By Dr Pramod Dhakal
What is success? Where does it live? How can it be found? Why are we concerned about it? These are some of the key concerns of humans from time immemorial. Texts written millennia ago gave much importance to this subject and it remains as relevant today. Despite so much cumulative progress made by humans, we often find ourselves in a rat race with no end in sight, and our hard work does not seem to lead to desired end. Yet some people seem to find success with relative ease! This article explores definition, key attributes, and a pathway to success in a hope to reveal why some people are more successful than the others.
What is Success?
Success could mean many things to many people. The commonality of all is in that it is associated with some form of goal set by individuals and their social environment. Owning a hut may be success to some, while for others it may require a mansion. For others with completely different set of goals, criteria for success may range from being included in a team to winning a medal in Olympics. Even achieving one goal may lead the person to set a bigger goal, and the inability to reach the latter may be taken as a failure. This confuses us and makes us run after all sorts of likely or unlikely places for success. Allowing for myriads of possibilities, I write what success means to me.
Success is a loosely defined measure of accomplishments in reference to desires and expectations. Success, therefore, means “achievement” and failure means “non-achievement” in relation to what was expected. A person is successful if he or she achieved the result as expected. Therefore, a success is not the signifier of the absolute state of our deed, wealth, position, reputation, or power but of our achievement in relation to what is believed to be normal for us in the context of our surroundings. If the expectation is that I would be an average student in the class and if I indeed become an average, I am a success. If I emerge among the top five students, I am a better success. This remains true even in the absence of a numeric scale to measure success; humans are very good in inventing imaginary scales! Therefore, the secret to success is to meet or beat expectations, whether they are of our own or that of others.
Then there are two types of successes - comparative and objective. A comparative success is an achievement made in relation to others such as being first in the class. This is often associated with establishing a social status. An objective success is associated with personal growth and meeting of goals and objectives. Siddhartha became Buddha not by constantly doing better than his peers but by renouncing comparative route and pursuing his own vision to the end.
Where does success live?
Since success appears to be concentrated disproportionately in the centre and less in the margin of the society, it begs some investigation. How do environment (surrounding, friends, neighborhood), social-demography (gender, age, caste, class), living-condition (money, housing, family size), academic-background (higher degree, good school, educated parents), intentions (awareness, vision, goal), intensity (motivation, action, perseverance), and incidence (early-experience, sudden-discovery, luck, timing) play role in our success? When do people of humble beginnings achieve great feat? These questions are of interest to our inquest.
Some people seem to cross great barriers to reach success. Genghis Khan, Mandela, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa became inter-generational world icons. Jim Carey, Celine Dion, and Shania Twain became famous contemporary artists. John Carnegie, Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffet achieved riches. All from humble beginnings! They are a living proof that all adversities fall short in front of dream, vision, intensity of actions, and continuously creative thinking and self-learning. No book or university could have made these people the way they are.
Swami Vivekananda sums up the secret to success of these people in a few sentences. “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success. That is the way great figures are produced.”
I can do nothing but to concur with Vivekananda. The only way a person can fulfill his or her vision is through passion, persistence, and devotion. As much as it is important to set our visions and plunge into actions with passion and persistence, it is also important to critically analyze our successes and failures. Such inquiry would let us understand our strengths and weaknesses, and reveal what opportunities and threats that lie ahead. As our actions start producing results, we should pay close attention to them and discover the areas where we have made the most improvements and build our foundations with those strengths. Given that we have a goal to achieve, the areas we are weak can be covered by delegating them to suitable others.
Compromising on your vision simply because you do not yourself have all the required traits to plan or execute properly is often a poor choice. It is perfectly desirable to get things done from those who are better than you. Chinese philosopher Confucius imparts a good wisdom and complements these ideas in saying, “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
A glance into the lives of people who reached great success from humble beginning and what Vivekananda advised lead me to conclude that “success lives in the confluence of intention, intensity, and incidence.” The intention is the vision that leads to formulation of achievable goals. And the reach and clarity of a vision is shaped by the value of the person who envisions. And our values determine the intensity and flow of psychological energy that propel us from within. The intensity is the amount of passion poured into the actions taken to achieve the goals. The very same passion should lead to greater awareness, inquiries, discoveries, and improvements. And incidence is the positive impetus built by timing, early-successes, incidental-encounters, and factors beyond us!
How can it be found?
The most difficult part of being successful is in knowing where the success lives. Once you know it, finding it is reasonably simple. You will find that there is not extraordinary magic behind most successes. A multiplicative effect of a series of ordinary differentiators can lead a person to heights of success. Successful people accomplish a series of small achievements in every step of their way and strive to continuously self-improve, whereas most people are a mixed bag of achievements and non-achievements. This may be better explained through an example.
Imagine that there were five people born equal and no one came out of the womb holding achievements on their hands. They had to live a life of ten thousand steps, each step taking them higher and higher up on a mountain. They had equal caliber, intellect, and opportunity for taking those ten thousand steps. And consider each of these steps represented something they do; fetch the water, plant the paddies, herd the cattle, kill the flies, run the trails, wash the clothes, cook the food, talk to friends, read the books, write a program, sell the products, and so on. Each of those steps came with an expectation placed on them. Imagine that the average size of those steps is 1m - call it a measure of success. Because the height of each step was a fuzzy measure and never exact, they had a safe wiggle room to slightly skimp on those steps or to stretch a bit. And all five people took the same first step. If the first person always chose to make his next step 0.999 of the earlier one (lethargic), the second took 0.999m steps every time (below-normal), the third took 1.000m steps (normal), the fourth took 1.001m steps (above-normal), and the fifth did 1.001 times better than his own last step (performer). Then after the ten thousand steps, these people would have climbed 1000m, 9990m, 10,000m, 10,010m, and 22million meters respectively. The difference between the 1m and 1.001m was an unnoticeable 1mm but its effect was huge. Therefore, continuous self-improvements made by a tiny factor every steps of the way can lead to enormous success over the lifetime of a person.
The moral of this example is twofold. First, marginal differentiators can lead to profound win in the long run. An athlete just a notch better than others may win a gold medal while an almost as good competitor may not win any medal. A product a notch better than another often captures disproportionately higher share of the market because market often over-rewards the achievers and under-rewards the rest. Second, we get further ahead through continuous self-improvement than by doing better than the next person. Beware! Being first in the class simply amounts to be better than the next person not the continuous self-improvement!
Think of a high school student who discovers her athleticism by running the fourth fastest in her class. Encouraged, she practices regularly, beating her own records. Doing that she goes on winning the race at her school, then in higher level of competitions until she reaches the fullest of her capabilities, which may very well be an Olympic gold medal – the highest possible achievement! Therefore, the greatest of all secrets to success is in practicing continuous self-improvement in the things we do repeatedly in life. And the word continuous means that striving for improvement should be our second nature, or habit.
Self-improvement is necessary not only in the technical and quantitative space but also in qualitative space and human relations. Successes in most fields require collaboration of many people. Therefore, abilities to impart positive image, make others feel important, being considerate of others, and praising good traits of others can bear much value in successes of larger magnitude. The easy path of dwelling much on mining the negatives on others is detrimental to our success. Only positive attitude wins.
It is, however, easy to overlook the value of self-improvement in the first glance. In the surface it looks as if we quickly reach a point of maximum improvement in anything we do. This happens because we often view improvements as a single tracked railway line and imprison our thinking with rules and norms. A passionate and free mind, however, will not be held hostage by the end of the single tracked line, but it will see previously un-thought-of possibilities. Such minds stumble upon explosion of inventions. This process makes us discover beyond what we had known from the past and seek new ways of doing things and new things to do.
“If Bears were Bees,
They would build their nests at the bottom of the trees,
And that being so (if the Bees were Bears),
We should not have to climb up all these stairs.” – Winnie-the-Pooh
In times of anxiety and stress, we do not take a pause from everything else to think of new possibilities, discover our latent potentials, and invent ways to overcome existing challenges. This is because we often over-depend on our knowledge.
Knowledge is the sum total of our past information, beliefs, values, and cultural conditionings. It has infinite utilities, and we could expand our thinking sphere and ability to enter into ever-deeper areas of understandings in the process of acquiring it. Consequently, knowledge is prized as the best of all commodities a human can possess. Yet, the very same knowledge can also become an inhibitor of learning. Knowledge is like a light shining upon us from one side and creating a shadow – the prejudice and tunnel-vision – on the other side. Knowledge, therefore, has the power to predispose us to stereotypical thinking and we may see no way out of our present condition. In fact knowledge is solely responsible for creating an attachment with the familiar and the fear of the unknown, which are collectively the greatest inhibitors of our success.
Only when we can free ourselves from the biases we carry from our past understandings and beliefs, the energy of creativity and inventiveness bursts from within us. A learning and inventive mind is aware, inquisitive, sensitive, swift-in-action, and patient for results. It is calm and pays attentions to subtle changes in the environment, people, relations, and systems. Creativity is simply an attitude or an approach. Once we shift ourselves from a pessimist frame of mind to an optimist one, we involuntarily think on how something can be done rather than finding why it can't be done.
Lastly, we must understand our values and be guided by them to be successful. Values represent the emotionalized truths built in our mind. People can, therefore, even give up their lives to uphold their values. Our values feed the psychological energy that is needed for us to be devoted to a cause. The intensity of that energy determines how strong, aware, receptive, and intent we are to our cause. When we become disinterested in a cause it is often because our inner values do not coincide with the values embodied in the cause. On the contrary, no ridicule, prosecution, and death can deter us if we are pursuing something that embodies our endeared values. Therefore, whether to be social entrepreneur or a business entrepreneur should be determined by looking inside our inner values. If we seek success for the purpose of upholding our values, positive results come sooner and easier, and success becomes our reality.
Why should we have success?
Being successful is not sufficient in life. We may have set goals for ourselves and reach them with great speed, but the ultimate search of a human mind is always “happiness”. In the absence of happiness, all achievements amount to very little. Therefore, a thoughtful human should not set his or her goal inspired by lesser things like big mansion, much money in the bank, or looking better than “her”. A person may make more and more money over time without being happy.
Often time people equate success with riches. However, our objective in life should not only be to keep ourselves away from poverty, but also from the ills of the riches. There can be poverty in riches as well. Buddha chose material poverty to be rich in something immaterial. Yet it is so tempting to choose the opposite path. Success would also lead to happiness if the immaterial realm were also factored in the pursuit of success. It is said that those people whose success is inspired by serving a purpose higher than serving the self find tremendous joy in whatever they do. Even scientific studies have concluded that money buys you happiness but only if you give it away!
Warren Buffet achieved riches, yet seemingly not for the same reasons as others as he is giving his wealth away to those who do not have. He lives humbly and is warning against the rise of “dynastic wealth.” He seems to have figured that there is a higher end beyond the end of the single track. He tells us that we have responsibility towards those whose early “incidence” happened to be an encounter of poverty, neglect, and rejection. We have especial responsibility towards fair and equitable providence of education, care, and encouragement in society.
Conclusion:
Success lives in the confluence of intention, intensity, and incidence. Therefore, we should not be blinded by our past knowledge and remain free, sensitive and aware so that we could discover new ideas and new visions. Once a vision is set, we should embrace it as part of our life, constantly thinking, dreaming, and listening to everything that relates to it. Once learning, thinking, and inventing becomes our habit, we start discovering and utilizing the positive sides of everything and everyone, we become continuously self-improving, and success follows our footsteps.
(Dhakal is a former faculty member of Tribhuvan University and holds a Ph D in electrical engineering. He is Executive Director of Canada Forum for Nepal (cffn.ca) and lives in Canada. He can be reached at: pdhakal@gmail.com)
(Editor’s Note: Nepalis, wherever they live, as well as friends of Nepal around the globe are requested to contribute their views/opinions/recollections etc. on issues concerning present day Nepal to the Guest Column of Nepalnews. Length of the article should not be more than 1,000 words and may be edited for the purpose of clarity and space. Relevant photos as well as photo of the author may also be sent along with the article. Please send your write-ups to editors@mos.com.np)
http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2009/others/guestcolumn/feb/guest_columns_08.php
John - ;)
dreamer
02-16-2009, 12:21pm
thanks
shaniafan339
02-16-2009, 2:17pm
Thank You John! ;)
dreamer
02-16-2009, 4:02pm
Hopefuls vie for 'Firelands Idol' title
By AARON KRAUSE - Reflector Staff Writer | Monday February 16 2009, 11:36am
Steve Chambers sang a song Sunday whose lyrics seemed to perfectly describe the status of his marriage.
BUY PHOTO
It was no accident me finding you
Someone had a hand in it
Long before we ever knew
Now I just can't believe you're in my life
Heaven's smilin' down on me
*
As I look at you tonight
I tip my hat to the keeper of the stars
He sure knew what he was doin'
When he joined these two hearts
I hold everything
When I hold you in my arms
I've got all I'll ever need
Thanks to the keeper of the stars
Chambers dedicated his singing of "Keeper of the Stars" during the Firelands Idol semifinal round to Arlene, his wife of 14 years.
Judges were apparently impressed enough with Chambers' heartfelt rendition to award him a spot in next Sunday's finals round. It will take place at 2 p.m. at Edison high School.
(NOTE - Nearly 40 pictures of this event appear in a ReflectorCam 2.0 gallery titled "Firelands Idol" on this Web site. Click here to view them.)
Chambers was one of 18 people who qualified for the finals.
Area performers ranging in age from 9 to 72 either sang, danced, sang and danced, played the piano and guitar for the right to ultimately be dubbed "Firelands Idol." The finalists will receive cash prizes and more.
Chambers made his song personal. Chambers had gotten divorced from his previous wife after eight years of marriage.
Then he and Arlene met through others and his life turned around.
"All 14 years have been fantastic," Chambers said, describing his marriage to Arlene as a "smooth highway."
That is also an apt way to describe how he felt before the performance. Chambers said not only wasn't he nervous, he enjoyed himself on-stage.
"I don't care if I win or lose," he said.
Chambers thinks highly of Firelands Idol.
"I think it's a great chance (to perform), especially for the young kids," he said. "They were fantastic."
The competition might prove to be the launching ground for country singer hopefuls Brandon Fries and Haley Olds.
Fries, 11, of Norwalk and Olds, 15, of Monroeville, performed in the "Kiddie" and "Teen" categories, respectively.
Fries, who said he enjoys singing fast-paced songs, sang Shania Twain's "Rock This Country. He has performed several times in front of audiences.
On Sunday, Fries rocked Edison High School, if the crowd's reaction was any indication.
Fries not only sang, but danced and tried to engage the audience.
Still, Fries said he didn't expect to advance.
"I was like shocked," said the youngster, who has performed with local children's theater groups.
So has Olds, who sang "Bless the Broken Road."
Olds won the "Kiddie" division during the last Firelands Idol competition.
"I'm really excited," Olds said with a laugh, adding she had a big grin on her face when her name was called.
"I was actually kind of nervous," the 15-year-old said. "Everybody was amazing."
Following this Sunday’s competition, one winner in each of the four age categories will be awarded at least $100. The four winners also will perform in the national touring show of the “One Night with You” Elvis Presley tribute April 18 at the Ernsthausen Performing Arts Center at Norwalk High School in Norwalk.
shaniafan339
02-16-2009, 4:03pm
Thanks Misty! ;)
dreamer
02-16-2009, 4:09pm
:cry: dang this is taking so long
uniquestar
02-16-2009, 7:06pm
Thanks for posting!
dreamer
02-16-2009, 7:15pm
you are welcome
dreamer
02-16-2009, 8:02pm
Chi Omega, Pi Kappa Alpha top winners in Greek Fest
Amber Pickett
Issue date: 2/17/09 Section: Campus News
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The sisters of Chi Omega step en route to a first place finish at Steppin. Chi Omega and fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha won overall top places in Greek Fest.
Media Credit: University Relations
The sisters of Chi Omega step en route to a first place finish at Steppin. Chi Omega and fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha won overall top places in Greek Fest.
Greek Fest 2009 kicked off last Monday, Feb. 9 with this year's theme "Greatness".
Each year for Greek Fest, a charity organization is selected to receive the profits of Greek Fest. This year, the selected charity was Habitat for Humanity.
Fierce competition among the fraternities and sororities started Monday with the Greek auction. The sororities and fraternities could enter up to five members from their organization to be auctioned off to bidders.
Tuesday night, Line Dance was the start of the performances put on by the greeks. The object of line dance is to dance in a well-choreographed routine while staying in line. The fraternities and sororities have the choice of which song they would like to dance to.
The brothers of Sigma Chi took home first place and Best of Show, dancing to the song from the movie Night at the Roxbury, "What is love", while the brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon took second place, dancing to the song, "Push it", by the duo Salt and Pepa.
The sisters of Chi Omega took first place at line dance with their performance to the song, "Circus" by Britney Spears, and "A show out", by DJ Unk. The sisters of Alpha Delta Pi took home second place and Best of Show with their performance to the song, "Man, I feel like a woman," by popular country singer Shania Twain.
Lip Sync was held Wednesday night and this year's theme was "Cartoons". The brothers of Pi Kappa Alpha blew everyone away with their first-place performance of a blast -from-the-past cartoon routine with shows such as, "The Care Bears," "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "The Smurfs" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks."
The brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon took 2nd place and Best of Show with their creative and entertaining imitation of today's popular kids' cartoon - Dora the Explorer.
The sisters of Chi Omega creatively intertwined the theme of lip sync with things related to their sorority, winning them 1st place in the lip sync competition. Chi Omega had an elaborate backdrop painted, "Hootie Tunes", and owls dressed as cartoon characters throughout the stage. The sisters of Alpha Delta Pi took home 2nd place and Best of Show with their outstanding performance centering around two girls going through a toy box, reminiscing over cartoons they watched as kids.
A very intense Step Show held Friday night concluded this semester's Greek Fest. The brothers of Kappa Alpha Order busted out of coffins during their performance with a creepy/scary musical background that added emphasis to their theme. They took 1st place and Best of Show. The sisters of Chi Omega stunned the audience with their theatrical and circus themed performance, earning them 1st place and Best of Show in Steppin.
The brothers of Pi Kappa Alpha took 2nd place in Steppin and the sisters of Alpha Omicron Pi took 2nd as well.
Overall, the brothers of Pi Kappa Alpha and the sisters of Chi Omega took home the win for Greek Fest 2009. The brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and the sisters of Alpha Delta Pi took 2nd.
shaniafan339
02-16-2009, 8:21pm
Thanks! :) Shania's music still got it ;)
FinnFreak
02-18-2009, 6:02am
Macleans.ca, Canada - Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Welcome to Canada, Mr. President
Presidential stopovers in Ottawa have included fishing trips, protests and back-breaking labour
By Rachel Mendleson
Since Barack Obama will be in Ottawa this week, we thought it timely to look back at some previous presidential visits to our nation’s capital.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: August 1943
The city proclaimed a half-day holiday to mark the first-ever U.S. presidential visit to Ottawa. About 27,000 people jammed Parliament Hill to hear FDR’s public address. During his car tour of Ottawa, spectators held up black Scottie dogs as a show of support for his dog Fala.
Harry S. Truman: June 1947
While in Ottawa, Truman met with Mackenzie King and Governor General Alexander. During his parliamentary address, Truman praised Canada for achieving internal unity. When he was finished, politicians thumped their desks in approval. Truman’s trip to the capital included lunch at the Chateau Laurier, a tree-planting and a state dinner at Rideau Hall. He also traveled to Montebello, where he fished for trout. It was his second trip abroad after the Second World War.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: November 1953, July 1958
Both visits to the capital included a parliamentary address. In 1953, more tickets were sold to the House of Commons gallery than there were seats, and some spectators had to be turned away. In 1958, Ike drew fire for his virulent defence of U.S. trade interests in his speech. It was during his second visit that he and PM John Diefenbaker agreed to set up the Canada-United States Committee on Joint Defense. While in Ottawa, Ike played a round of golf at the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club and took a trip to Gatineau Park.
John F. Kennedy: May 1961
When JFK and Jackie arrived on Parliament Hill, there were reportedly 50,000 people there to greet them. It was their first post-inauguration trip. Jackie looked on from the visitors’ gallery during the President’s Parliamentary address, during which he famously said: “Geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies.” He even tried to articulate a few sentences in French — albeit poorly. And he hurt his back while planting a tree on Parliament Hill.
Lyndon B. Johnson: May 1967
While in Canada for Expo 67, Johnson spent some time at the prime minister’s official retreat on Harrington Lake, where he met with Lester B. Pearson. As the story goes, a security stopped PM Pearson on his way to the bathroom to ask him who he was and where he was headed. “I’m the Prime Minister of Canada and I’m about to go and have a leak,” he reportedly answered.
Richard Nixon: April 1972
Vietnam War protestors greeted Nixon when he arrived in Canada. Despite his infamously acrimonious relationship with Pierre Trudeau, he opened speech to the House of Commons with a joke about Ottawa’s weather, and cheered Canada for being a fine neighbour. “The Canadian-American example is an example for all the world to see,” he said. The Great Lakes Pollution clean-up agreement was inked during his visit.
Ronald Reagan: March 1981, April 1987
During Reagan’s address to Parliament in 1981, NDP MPs sported black armbands to indicate their opposition of the U.S. involvement in El Salvador. Though his relationship with Brian Mulroney was much warmer than it had been with Trudeau, Reagan only visited Ottawa once while Mulroney was in office. When Reagan spoke in the House of Commons in 1987, he was interrupted by MP Svend Robinson, who implored the president to “Stop Star Wars now.” During their time in Canada, Nancy Reagan urged students at Ottawa’s Brookfield High School to “say no to drugs.”
George H. W. Bush: February 1989, March 1991
George and Barbara traveled to Ottawa less than a month after Bush’s inauguration. While the President met with Mulroney, Barbara read to local students at a nursery school in Fern Hill. Among the pupils was the PM’s son, Nicholas.
Bill Clinton: February 1995, October 1999
Jean Chrétien, with whom Clinton had a close relationship, took the President on a tour of the Centre Block while Hillary skated on the Rideau Canal. During his first address, Clinton touted Canada as an example “of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity and respect,” and spoke of the “ties that bind the United States and Canada.” In 1999, he came to Ottawa to dedicate a new Embassy building.
George W. Bush: November 2004
Though George W. was scheduled to address Parliament in May 2003, he cancelled the trip, citing the war in Iraq. Others suggested that the President’s relationship with Chrétien, which had become strained, was to blame for the change in plans. When he did arrive in Ottawa in November 2004, some 5,000 protestors demonstrated against the Iraq war. The first couple visited a Gatineau archival presentation centre, where they reportedly set eyes on Shania Twain’s songbook, and one of the earliest baseball rule books.
http://blog.macleans.ca/2009/02/17/welcome-to-canada-mr-president/
* * *
The Light Sound Journal, Italy - 18-02-2009
Audio Analysts Gets Crown I-Tech HD
Audio Analysts continues a tradition of excellence and takes live sound to a higher level with Crown I-Tech HD.
For Audio Analysts, excellence in tour sound is a tradition that began over 35 years ago. The company’s commitment to excellence and delivering the highest quality sound has made it the choice for sound reinforcement for the biggest names in music including Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Shania Twain, Sammy Hagar, Norah Jones, The OffSpring, No Doubt, and Ringo Starr. It’s with this mission in mind that Audio Analysts has chosen the new Crown I-Tech HD amplifiers to power its tour sound division.
For Audio Analysts, the quality of performance of the new I-Tech HD comes to no surprise. “We have been using Crown amplifiers since the early 1970’s. I can remember when we were utilizing the D-75, D-150, and D-300. Over the years we’ve tried other brands but we always come back to Crown as our flagship amplifier,” stated Albert Leccese, Vice President of Engineering for Audio Analysts.
I-Tech HD features a new user-inspired DSP engine co-developed with BSS called OMNIDRIVEHD. The new LevelMAX limiter suite offers higher SPL out of existing loudspeakers while at the same time better protection and minimal sonic degradation. Harman HiQnet™ System Architect™ mirrors the typical browser navigation interface to provide tour sound professionals with an interface to access a host of power configuration and control functions.
“We are always searching for the best possible audio products for our customers. Our world-class clients strive to play at the top of their game, which demands superior performance on our part. The Crown I-Tech HD is a testament to that attitude, which validates our continued support for our clients. Audio Analysts strives for innovative technologies that reinforce our efforts to supply our clients with the best equipment at a fair price,” stated Leccese.
“Audio Analysts reputation in the live sound industry speaks for itself. When we build a product such as I-Tech HD we go straight to customers like Audio Analysts and get their thoughts and opinions on what they need to see in an amplifier. We take pride in knowing Audio Analysts have and will continue to use Crown products such as I-Tech HD because they believe in what we are providing, stated Marc Kellom VP of Marketing for Crown.
“The new Crown I-Tech HD offers users an unparalleled sound quality. These amps deliver a lot of power for their small size and weight. Also, the next generation DSP allows for more precise algorithms for system EQ and tuning. Of course with Crown you have the ability to easily network your amplifiers as well as utilizing Harman HiQnet System Architect. Ultimately Crown gives you the best bang for your buck, when you look at the price and what you get in terms of performance and features,” added Leccese.
www.harman.com
http://www.lightsoundjournal.com/viewnews.php?id=20614
John - :)
Thanks for these, John! :great:
shaniafan339
02-18-2009, 11:07am
Thanks!!! :) ;)
dreamer
02-18-2009, 12:11pm
thanks
dreamer
02-18-2009, 4:13pm
:faint: sweet Shania
Brit_girlAmanda
02-18-2009, 5:29pm
Jimmy Lane: Before they were stars
By JIMMY LANE
For The Norwich Bulletin
Posted Feb 18, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did you know Shania Twain and Faith Hill both had jobs at McDonalds? For Twain, she was supporting her brothers and sisters while living in Canada after her parents were killed in an automobile accident. Hill had other jobs. She worked selling T-shirts at Fan Fair, was a receptionist at a music publishing company and packaged fan merchandise for Reba McEntire.
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/entertainment/x286841062/Jimmy-Lane-Before-they-were-stars
dreamer
02-18-2009, 5:31pm
haha
thanks
I dont feel moved for faith hill
Brit_girlAmanda
02-18-2009, 5:37pm
Shania was given the title 'Employee of the month' at McDonald's.
Shania was given the title 'Employee of the month' at McDonald's.
Of course she was, with her lovely smile and the way she's so nice to everyone she probably had people coming back 3 or 4 times a day just to see her.:funny:
dreamer
02-18-2009, 5:44pm
definately Employee of the world
definately Employee of the world
I second that :)
dreamer
02-18-2009, 6:01pm
let's start a petition :D :p
dreamer
02-18-2009, 6:05pm
:biglaugh: to make Shania McDonalds employee of the world! :p
:biglaugh: :biglaugh: That's a good one :D
shaniafan339
02-18-2009, 8:07pm
Shania was a really good worker! She sure deserved that Employee of the Month! :p
:biglaugh: to make Shania McDonalds employee of the world! :p
Sounds like a good idea
captainCorr
02-19-2009, 12:37pm
Making Celine latino friendly
Matthew Coutts, National Post
Published: Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A group of Spanish academics at the Université de Montréal has established a research group to tackle the question of why Celine Dion, who is worth more than $250-million and has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide, has failed to capture the Latin American market.
The Research Group on Spanish in America has been designed to provide the Quebec diva with the tools to break into the market by studying her current Spanish-language songs, revising their translations, critiquing her pronunciation and looking for ways to expand her catalogue of Spanish-language music.
The group is helmed by Enrique Pato, a Université de Montréal Hispanic studies professor, who says Ms. Dion would need to correct diction faults evident in the four songs she currently has recorded in Spanish, including an airy version of All by Myself. The professor, a Madrid native, says Ms. Dion needs to pronounce each "Z" as though it were an "S" and learn to roll her "Rs" as Latinos do.
"Her pronunciation is really good but there are tiny mistakes that she could do better," Mr. Pato said. "It is really important for people to learn about artists and culture from other countries, and I think the best way to introduce yourself to another country is to speak the language."
At age 40, Ms. Dion has sold more records than any other woman in history, headlined an exclusive five-year showcase at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and has garnered two decades of accolades that include Junos and Grammy victories, Academy Awards and the Order of Canada. Her French and English-language records have topped charts in Canada, the United States, Europe, Africa and Asia and she is ranked the fifth richest woman in entertainment, according to Forbes magazine.
Ms. Dion's agents were not able to comment on her success in Spanish-speaking nations, but it does seem tame compared with elsewhere. Her latest record, Taking Chances, managed to reach 40th place on the Mexican album chart and as high as eighth on the Spanish album chart.
Her current 132-city Taking Chances World Tour only included four stops in Spanish-speaking regions: a stadium appearance in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 31, and three Mexican stops in early December.
The Research Group on Spanish in America comprises 14 Master's and PhD students of Quebec and Latin American origin and is intended as a learning tool for linguistics students. The university noted that neither Ms. Dion nor her manager-husband, René Angélil, commissioned the research group, but Mr. Pato said the final product will be provided to her record label with the hope it will be of use in expanding her entertainment empire into Latin America.
He said if Ms. Dion released a Spanish album she could expand her potential fan base by over 400 million people.
"I don't know why people don't realize that here in Canada we have at least two of the most important singers in the world, Celine Dion and Shania Twain," Mr. Pato said. "We chose Celine Dion because we are in Montreal, you know."
The researchers have no plans to launch a study of Ms. Twain's Spanish-language oeuvre.
National Post [source (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=1299624)]
shania megafan
02-19-2009, 12:59pm
Cool, thanks for posting :up:
dreamer
02-19-2009, 1:05pm
thanks
That's a great quote, come back Shania :bow:
Please comeback Shania :)
dreamer
02-19-2009, 6:09pm
yes *sigh* come back to us soon
shaniafan339
02-19-2009, 7:03pm
Thanks
Be very careful what you think about Shania Twain
Be very careful what you think about Shania Twain. Not only is she a national hero in her homeland of Canada, she’s popular in America too, with the bestselling country album of all time to her name. Now, new technology developed by scientists in Toronto enables Canadians to detect how you feel about their favourite singer – without you even saying a word.
A team of researchers from the University of Toronto has developed a brain-scanning headset that can detect a person’s preferences, with an accuracy of 80%. The headset is fitted with fibre-optic cables that emit infrared light at around the same frequency as a typical TV remote control.
This harmless radiation is beamed into the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain associated with decision-making. Here it is scattered by blood vessels, and the reflections are picked up by sensors on the headband. By measuring the amount of oxygen in the blood, researchers can decode brain activity and determine whether a person prefers Twain’s country pop to, say, the crooning of Céline Dion.
Previous brain-reading systems required people to sing songs in their heads to trigger a response, and used the expensive MRI scanners found in hospitals. The new technology is based on cheap, lightweight infrared emitters and needs nothing more than its user to decide which of two options they favour.
Researchers are hoping to develop a brain-reading headset to help disabled children express themselves. The next logical step would be a head-mounted remote control to enable people to choose channels or control video games without lifting a finger. Best of all, nobody would hog this remote control, because everyone’s mind works differently. Increased brain activity indicates acceptance for some people and rejection for others, meaning headsets need to be calibrated personally.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5774191.ece
What an interesting article!
DollyShania
02-22-2009, 10:23am
Well I know I have Shania on my mind!
shaniafan339
02-22-2009, 1:07pm
Interesting! If they ever do that on me they'll discover I'm a total SHANIA NUT!!!!!! :D:D:D
Interesting! If they ever do that on me they'll discover I'm a total SHANIA NUT!!!!!! :D:D:D
Just like a lot of us
Interesting, but I'm not sure I want people knowing all my secrets.:eek:
Interesting article, thanks Andrew :)
uniquestar
02-22-2009, 6:48pm
Thanks for posting Captaincorr!
dreamer
02-23-2009, 12:33pm
thanks
ravshania
02-27-2009, 7:59am
dey ll 5nd only Shania in me...:love:
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
canoilers
02-27-2009, 2:04pm
Here is the video for Edmonton hosting the 2010 Grey Cup, you'll notice a very familiar face just over the half way point. :D
http://www.shaniaforums.com/showpost.php?p=1188597&postcount=329
OMG its my next door neighbour!
What is she doing there?
canoilers
02-27-2009, 2:14pm
Must be an Eskie fan, but then again who isn't. :p
shaniafan339
02-27-2009, 2:18pm
I love it how they randomly show SHANIA!!!!!! :D:D:D:D
It's all football, then poof.... SHANIA!
:bounce:
Delta High School showcases talent
updated 5:46 a.m. ET Feb. 27, 2009
What Delta High School's student body lacks in size, it makes up for in talent.
About 30 of Delta's 220 students showed off their art, music and poetry skills Thursday evening during the continuation school's second-annual Spring Showcase.
From an original instrumental composition written and performed by Delta students to a rendition of Shania Twain's "From This Moment On," creativity and talent abounded.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29425018/
shaniafan339
02-27-2009, 2:53pm
Thanks! ;)
greek fanatic
02-27-2009, 6:40pm
OMG its my next door neighbour!
What is she doing there?
:biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh:
Here is the video for Edmonton hosting the 2010 Grey Cup, you'll notice a very familiar face just over the half way point. :D
http://www.shaniaforums.com/showpost.php?p=1188597&postcount=329
Thanks Sean
faithfully
03-03-2009, 4:04am
Here is the video for Edmonton hosting the 2010 Grey Cup, you'll notice a very familiar face just over the half way point. :D
http://www.shaniaforums.com/showpost.php?p=1188597&postcount=329
:eek:Any photos of Shania from this event ? :boogie:
:eek:Any photos of Shania from this event ? :boogie:
Yes I have some, I will have to find them.
shaniafan339
03-03-2009, 2:14pm
Oh cool!!! :D:D:D Can't wait to see them ;)
FinnFreak
03-04-2009, 9:39am
Showbiz Spy - March 4 2009
Taylor Swift: "Shania Twain Has Influenced my Career"
http://www.showbizspy.com/files/imagecache/small/files/taylor-swift_2.jpg
By Adam
Taylor Swift says Shania Twain has had a "strong influence" on her career.
The 19-year-old star - who recently embarked on her 2009 Fearless Tour - has revealed that she models herself on country singer-songwriter Shania.
She tells Orange, "She's such a strong influence on me and my career."
"She's so independent and confident - she wrote her own stuff and took her music worldwide."
"I've been writing songs since I was 12," Swift added. "As soon as I picked up a guitar and learned three chords I wrote my first song. I would play guitar for four hours straight every night until my fingers were bleeding.
"I couldn't put it down. As soon as I discovered songwriting it's all I wanted to do."
http://www.showbizspy.com/article/182689/taylor-swift-shania-twain-has-influenced-my-career
John - :)
greek fanatic
03-04-2009, 9:42am
Go Taylor :great:
shaniafan339
03-04-2009, 11:27am
That's great!!! I love that she looks up to Shania like that!! ;)
I'm loving Taylor atm, her second CD is amazing, & she a Shania fan too :boogie: :boogie:
tonyme
03-04-2009, 12:15pm
That's a great article, thanks! I love Taylor too but I prefer her debut
Brit_girlAmanda
03-04-2009, 2:18pm
It's nice that Shania is seen as a role model to young country acts like Taylor and they have a passion for writing their own material and being original.
That's sweet, Taylor seems like she's nice like Shania is.
Brit_girlAmanda
03-04-2009, 5:52pm
Jimmy Lane: Country stars have modest appetites
By JIMMY LANE
For The Norwich Bulletin
Posted Mar 04, 2009 @ 11:17 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the past year we have had the chance to ask most of country music’s biggest stars what their favorite food is. Despite all of their fame and riches, I was surprised at how many of them enjoy modest, simple homestyle meals.
When Blake Shelton is on the road he won’t let the tour bus pass a Cracker Barrel, where he will almost always order country fried steak. He called it the “pinnacle of Southern food.” Jason Aldean said he gets his favorite treat every Christmas — sausage balls. He likes to nibble on them while watching a “Christmas Story.” Trisha Yearwood is a great cook, and her specialties are sweet potato pie and pecan pie.
Brad Mates of Emerson Drive said he loves mashed potatoes. Considering she is a redneck woman, it is not too surprising Gretchen Wilson chooses pizza, with a Jim Beam chaser. Although he is not a vegetarian per se, when asked, Randy Owen (formerly of the group Alabama) said his favorite food is vegetables.
Dierks Bentley could eat Mexican food every meal. Montgomery Gentry’s Eddie Montgomery claimed if he could choose his last meal it would be chicken and dumplings. Shania Twain loves any kind of pasta meal. Gary Allan likes coming to the Northeast because his favorite meal is fresh lobster. Sammy Kershaw is from southern Louisiana so it comes as no surprise his favorite food is boiled crawfish.
George Strait has a ranch in Texas, where he raises cattle and rides horses, and when he’s done for the day, he’ll sit down to a big rare steak. On the other side of the spectrum are vegetarians Kellie Pickler and Carrie Underwood. Pickler’s favorite food is french fries and Underwood’s favorite is cheese pizza. Jessica Simpson said she loves anything fried.
As slender as she is, it is interesting that Taylor Swift loves to finish every meal with a slice of her favorite dessert, cheesecake. Keith Urban craves sushi, and makes it a point to visit a sushi bar at each stop of his tour. Joe Nichols is also a sushi nut.
It is said Elvis Presley had a cook at his Graceland mansion that would make him fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches. Some of today’s biggest stars are also hooked on unusual sandwiches. Alan Jackson’s favorite is a pineapple and mayonnaise sandwich. Toby Keith enjoys fried bologna sandwiches. Martina McBride loves meatball sandwiches while Kenny Chesney is a big fan of the peanut butter and pasta sandwich.
Jimmy Lane is the 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. disc jockey and program director at WCTY (97.7 FM) in Norwich. E-mail him at jimmy@wcty.com
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/ente...odest-appetites
shaniafan339
03-04-2009, 7:11pm
Thanks Amanda ;)
faithfully
03-05-2009, 5:54am
Good choice Shania:D I love pasta and tomato sauces :]
Brit_girlAmanda
03-05-2009, 5:24pm
Scent of a celebrity
By Christopher Muther, Globe Staff | March 5, 2009
Aside from making fun of those ridiculous soft-focus Elizabeth Taylor commercials for White Diamonds, I had never thought much of celebrity fragrances until I heard last week that Celine Dion was about to introduce her sixth (!) fragrance, Halle Barry and Queen Latifah have fragrances coming soon, and adult film star Jenna Jameson has a new perfume of her own. Jenna Jameson? Isn't this getting a little out of hand?
"Getting out of hand? How many fragrances does Jennifer Lopez have?," asks Candace Corlett, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a New York consulting firm. "There's an entire generation of consumers out there that only knows about celebrity fragrances and doesn't know about the classics. Now it's stack 'em high and watch 'em fly."
Once upon a time, all we had was the classics. Scents like Chanel No. 5 and Shalimar sat in the boudoirs of women across the country. There were celebrity fragrances - hello, Mae West - but not every pop star, soccer player, and Hollywood starlet West of the St. Louis Arch inked a deal to develop a fragrance. If you'd like to blame someone for the onslaught of celebrity fragrances, please lift your hands and point your fingers in the direction of Jennifer Lopez.
"We're in the middle of an explosion of celebrity fragrances," says Chandler Burr, New York Times perfume critic and author of the book "The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York." "There's a single woman who created the celebrity boom. Her name is Catherine Walsh, and she's at Coty. She signed Jennifer Lopez."
Lopez's fragrance, called Glow, was such a massive success in 2002 that it prompted beauty houses Coty, Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, LVMH, Clarins, BPI, and Proctor & Gamble, to seek out more celebrities to boost the $2.68 billion high-end fragrance market in the US. Celebrity fragrances accounted for $170 million of that market last year, according to market research company the NPD Group. As a result, Christina Aguilera the fragrance, Kylie Minogue's Showtime, and Jessica Simpson's Fancy are finding their way to stores.
According to award-winning perfumer Christophe Laudamiel, who has developed fragrances for Tom Ford and Ralph Lauren, only a small percentage of celebrities are actively involved in developing their fragrances. Sorry to disappoint, but this means that Celine Dion probably did not don a white coat and toil for weeks in a secret lab to develop her modestly named Sensational.
"I'd say there are about 5 to 10 percent of celebrities who are actively involved at all stages," says Laudamiel. "There is another 45 percent who will come in a few times during the process and offer their opinions. The rest, another 45 percent, come in at the end and choose between two or three scents that have already been developed."
It's easy to see the appeal of bringing in celebrities to sell a fragrance. They have a built-in fan base, which means that less marketing is necessary. For the celebrity, it means free promotion and the cache of teaming with a leading beauty house. There's nothing bad about celebrities adding their names to perfume and cologne. In fact, according to Burr, it's the same thing that fashion designers have been doing for years.
"Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan are basically celebrities, and they're lending their names to perfumes," Burr says. "It's not automatically absurd."
But with beauty houses eager to repeat the success of Glow or White Diamonds, we have been assaulted with strings of celebrity smell-a-like perfumes. How else can you explain Britney Spears's four fragrances?
"It's like Hollywood," says Boston-based perfumer Neil Morris. "If there's a hit, they start developing a sequel instead of creating something new. So you're left with a string of scents that smell similar. These companies are spending millions, so they're less willing to take chances."
Lest you think that I'm being a snob about celebrity fragrances, I went on a smelling mission and found that some of them were quite good. True, Tim McGraw's McGraw smells like a damp wool sweater that was left in a compost pile and Minogue's Showtime smells like a carnival exploded in a bottle. But there are some, such as Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely, which are gorgeous.
"J.Lo's Glow is quite good," Burr says. "And Britney Spears's Fantasy is also excellent. It's all about who they partner with. Shania Twain's perfume is horrific, Christina Aguilera's is pretty bad, and Jessica Simpson's collection is for 12-year-old girls in the Midwest."
Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com.
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/fashion/articles/2009/03/05/scent_of_a_celebrity/
What an insensitive thing to say! :mad:
Brit_girlAmanda
03-05-2009, 5:42pm
That guy has horrific taste, Shania's perfumes are far from anything but. Women have to wear them besides, not men.
Hockeystick
03-05-2009, 5:57pm
Horrific? :furious:
greek fanatic
03-05-2009, 6:16pm
these people are trash that only care about expensive houte cuture crap,and 'horrific" is just a mean thing to say,its one of the best perfumes i've ever smelled,far from being cheap,its really fresh and i would NEVER pay 70 Euros for some Euro trash perfume,it ain't worth it,is just the brand you are paying for.
stupid stuck up fashion people:furious:
Britney's is good? OMG :rolleyes:
shaniafan339
03-05-2009, 6:56pm
:mad: Horrific :eek::mad:
That guy doesn't know what he's talking about!!!!! :(
I LOVE Shania's perfumes!!! :]
BrocSimon
03-10-2009, 5:27am
Shania Twain was asked by the spanish edition of Cosmo if she preferred Britney or Christina. As you all know (Or maybe just me as a Shania fan and Britney fan.) Shania and "Mutt" wrote and produced Britney's song "Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know" on the Oops!... I Did it Again album. Mutt sang backup vocals in the song. Even if you don't like Britney you should hear it, definite Shania tones in the song. Shania also prepared one other song that didn't make it to the album.
Here's the article.
In the new issue of the Spanish edition of Cosmo Girl, Shania Twain comments on Britney Spears. “It’s pretty remarkable how sweet and real this girl is, keep in mind she’s been in the business since she was a little girl, and I just admire that, I really do,” Twain said. On Britney vs. Christina Aguilera, Twain added, “I don’t know man, they are completely different girls, both can shake it, but I think Britney is a better performer though, she knows what to do on stage and how to keep it going.”
She also commented to WENN when asked what she thought about Britney's meltdown in early 2006. Of course now Britney is all better but here's the article;
WENN reports Shania Twain thinks Britney Spears has been given a rough ride by the media. “Britney’s a really sweet kid but things can get rough in this business. Sometimes it can be really hard,” Twain said. “I was lucky. It didn’t happen to me until I was an adult. I was in my twenties when I got my first record deal and almost 30 when things went really wild. I knew right from the start that I didn’t want to be part of the circus that goes with this business. It’s different for kids like Britney, she was big since she was a mousketeer.”
Just goes to show how greatly compassionate Shania is.
ravshania
03-10-2009, 5:32am
thnx 4 d info pal...;)
i luv d wy Shania answrs 2 al media ppl...she is jst awesm in al hr wys...:up:...
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
Shania Twain was asked by the spanish edition of Cosmo if she preferred Britney or Christina. As you all know (Or maybe just me as a Shania fan and Britney fan.) Shania and "Mutt" wrote and produced Britney's song "Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know" on the Oops!... I Did it Again album. Mutt sang backup vocals in the song. Even if you don't like Britney you should hear it, definite Shania tones in the song. Shania also prepared one other song that didn't make it to the album.
Here's the article.
In the new issue of the Spanish edition of Cosmo Girl, Shania Twain comments on Britney Spears. “It’s pretty remarkable how sweet and real this girl is, keep in mind she’s been in the business since she was a little girl, and I just admire that, I really do,” Twain said. On Britney vs. Christina Aguilera, Twain added, “I don’t know man, they are completely different girls, both can shake it, but I think Britney is a better performer though, she knows what to do on stage and how to keep it going.”
She also commented to WENN when asked what she thought about Britney's meltdown in early 2006. Of course now Britney is all better but here's the article;
WENN reports Shania Twain thinks Britney Spears has been given a rough ride by the media. “Britney’s a really sweet kid but things can get rough in this business. Sometimes it can be really hard,” Twain said. “I was lucky. It didn’t happen to me until I was an adult. I was in my twenties when I got my first record deal and almost 30 when things went really wild. I knew right from the start that I didn’t want to be part of the circus that goes with this business. It’s different for kids like Britney, she was big since she was a mousketeer.”
Just goes to show how greatly compassionate Shania is.
I wonder how new this is, and no source?
uniquestar
03-10-2009, 7:27am
I wonder how new this is, and no source?
Same question as Tony
shaniafan339
03-10-2009, 2:30pm
That's neat!!! Thanks!!! :D:D:D
When did this take place? ;)
I would like to know the source
shaniafan339
03-10-2009, 2:42pm
Yeah, me too!!!
I wonder how new this is, and no source?
I agree on that
BrocSimon
03-10-2009, 6:09pm
What do you mean by source? It was spanish cosmo? I got it from searching shania twain britney spears on google out of curiosity if she'd given any advice to her or anything. It was from the website popdirt.
shaniafan339
03-10-2009, 6:10pm
Oh ok.. thanks! ;)
SHANIANUTS!
03-10-2009, 6:11pm
I think Annette made a better mouseketeer than Britney.;)
shaniafan339
03-10-2009, 6:13pm
What??? Annette was a mouseketeer??? :eek:
SHANIANUTS!
03-10-2009, 6:16pm
Annette Funicello
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1344/625253158_de7567a1a0.jpg
shaniafan339
03-10-2009, 6:18pm
That's not the Mod here? right? :funny: :p
SHANIANUTS!
03-10-2009, 6:20pm
....right...
shaniafan339
03-10-2009, 6:24pm
It is our Mod! :eek:
That's Cool! ;)
BrocSimon
03-11-2009, 5:33am
Are you serious?! I'm newer here and that was my first post. But I can't tell if you guys are joking about her being the mod!
Why would she be running a Shania Twain forum?
She's not our mod! Thanks for the info about the source
shaniafan339
03-11-2009, 11:27am
I didn't think so... Didn't make much sence!
Thanks Tony ;)
FinnFreak
03-11-2009, 11:52am
Confusion runs in our blood, eh..? ;)
John - :p
FinnFreak
03-12-2009, 7:09am
Quick DFW / The Dallas Morning News - Thursday, March 12, 2009
Feel the power of terrible music
By GORDON KEITH
We all have songs that immediately drain the life force out of us. For whatever reason, they are perfectly matched to some raw nerve in us that makes us want to claw the eyes out of a moose when we hear the familiar opening chords.
But we can't, because we have no energy. That's what life-force drainers do. Your heartbeat slows, your eyes glaze over and you couldn't even nibble a ham sandwich if someone held it to your lips.
For my friend George, it is "Dancing Queen" by ABBA. I don't understand why. "Dancing Queen" is a song most people LOVE. It generally makes people so joyful they hump the air, but for George, it is kryptonite. One man's hit is another man's drainer.
So what is my song kryptonite? Well, there are many.
If you want to go old-school, there is the creepy song "Send in the Clowns." It is all slow and full of clowns, and renders me comatose in less than 10 seconds.
If you just want to slow me down but not totally disable me, then you can play "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce. I love Jim Croce, but this one always ties me to a tree and punts me in the scrotum.
In the '90s, a song came out called "What's Up" by Four Non Blondes. Do you remember this bit of bowel movement? There are weird tempo changes, bad lyrics and a voice that see-saws from sing-songy to something that sounds like a schizophrenic being beaten with a shoe.
Every Christmas, just as I am getting ready for Santa Claus, my life is destroyed by Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime." One year, as I was hanging outdoor Christmas lights, this song came on the radio. I fell two stories and flattened a doghouse. Couldn't help it. My muscles immediately atrophied.
There are many more, like Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like a Woman." I have requested that song be played at my funeral, just to make sure I am dead. And Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" makes my car seek concrete embankments.
What is your song kryptonite? Let me guess – anything by Santana.
I know the feeling.
Hear Gordon on "The Ticket" KTCK-AM (1310) weekdays from 5:30 to 10 a.m. E-mail him at gordon@gordonkeith.com
http://www.quickdfw.com/sharedcontent/dws/quick/columnists/gkeith/stories/DN-play--gordoncolumn_0312ick.ART.State.Edition1.4aa98a4.ht ml
There are many more, like Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like a Woman."
I have requested that song be played at my funeral, just to make sure I am dead.
:shocked: - !
:biglaugh: - !!!
Samba Pa Ti & Oye Como Va rooools.
John - :p
:biglaugh: :biglaugh:
Thanks John
shaniafan339
03-12-2009, 10:53am
Thanks!!! ;)
RKSTFan
03-13-2009, 10:41pm
The following article excerpt is from a long article talking about Sugarland re-mixing their songs and attempting to become stars in Britain.
Alan Cackett, editor of Maverick, says country is now at its lowest ebb in the UK since the early 1970s, when it was often on television and high in the pop charts. The last country star to make it really big internationally was Shania Twain, whose Come On Over album sold 4m copies in the UK alone – after it was remixed as a “pop crossover” product in 1999.
Source (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a8af977e-0f5c-11de-ba10-0000779fd2ac.html)
dreamer
03-13-2009, 11:56pm
Thanks
shaniafan339
03-14-2009, 1:22am
Cool, Thanks :)
Come On Over was huge in the UK, thanks for this :)
dreamer
03-16-2009, 3:47pm
Presenter fails to make it to next week's final
Monday, 16 March 2009
Coleen Nolan became the latest celebrity to be given the boot from Dancing On Ice last night.
The presenter, 44, lost out in a skate-off against Donal MacIntyre after the pair ended up in the bottom two following a public vote.
Coleen, who performed with an injured rib, skated to her wedding song You're Still The One by Shania Twain.
‘The only thing that will keep you in is the John Sergeant vote,’ said judge Nicky Slater.
Ray Quinn, Jessica Taylor and Donal will compete in the Dancing On Ice final on Sunday 22 March.
dreamer
03-16-2009, 3:49pm
my pleasure;)
She danced with an injured rib :shocked: owwwww!
That's gotta be hard.... :shocked:
shaniafan339
03-16-2009, 4:34pm
Ouch!! :eek:
dreamer
03-16-2009, 4:39pm
she was strong like Shania is
dreamer
03-16-2009, 5:10pm
'Nothing to do' leads artist to career
Bettie Marlowe
Banner Staff Writer
Monday, Mar 16, 2009
[click to enlarge]
Billie Nipper
For someone whose art is seen nationwide in all circles, Billie Nipper didn't start with ambitions toward an art career. In fact, her first efforts came about because she had "nothing to do," when her husband's work took them to Cleveland, Ohio, after being married a year.
"I bought a starter set at an art shop," she said. And she hid everything she did -- "It was horrible," she confided. But her husband thought differently. He proudly showed off her efforts, which Nipper said was embarrassing. She admits to being a "basically shy person."
That was a year after she married J.L. Nipper. Her first commissioned work was in Cleveland was a husband-to-wife gift.
A Cleveland native, Nipper met her husband at Bradley High School -- he was a senior; she, a sophomore. "Nip" was a basketball player, captain of the team, and showed horses for his father. So all the children grew up around horse shows.
They lived in Cleveland, Ohio, eight years, moving back home to Tennessee when she was expecting their son.
Many things have happened since then, but "I learned from everything," she said. And after going through the death of her husband seven years ago and her own bypass surgery 13 years ago, Nipper said nice things are happening again. She is still painting -- commission work, painting horses mostly.
In fact, she just finished painting the new World Champion Walking Horse. She started with the Walking Horse Association in 1976 and is the official artist for the Breeder's Association Tennessee Walking Horse. Although she does other breeds, Nipper specializes in the walking horse.
Locally, her work can be seen (and bought) at the Creative Art Guild's Craft Palette Gallery at Five Points. That is an outgrowth of her work with the late Jean Turner, who started the Creative Arts Guild and the Nillie Bipper Festival, which is celebrating 42 years. Nipper is the only living active charter member. She said she did not have much self-esteem. But Turner laughed at her fears and friends pushed her into entering art shows.
Turner had the idea for a festival which would highlight local talent, but with juried-quality entrants. She put out an ad about starting the festival and Nipper said her husband "pushed me into it." To further their plans, she and Turner went to the Plum Nelly Festival at Lookout Mountain on the state line.
They agreed it was a great show and Nipper was inspired. She said, "Wish we had something like that," and it started the ball rolling.
Nipper became chairman of the show and together they "learned how" to carry out a festival.
First the guild members tried to come up with a catchy name. John Bradley and Perry Skates took a cue from the TV show "Laugh-In" and submitted the name "Nillie Bipper," just reversing the first letters of her name. It was short and catchy and became the official name of the Cleveland festival.
However, when the name was published, calls began pouring in about the "mistake" in the newspaper. Friends of Nipper were outraged that her name was misspelled. Finally, the calls were so frequent, the answer became, "We'll correct it."
Eventually, everyone caught on -- the event became the Nillie Bipper Arts and Crafts Festival. "It worked for us," the namesake said.
That was 42 years ago. Starting with 13 friends, the festival began on the property of the Knights of Columbus on S. Lee Highway. "People thought we were out of our minds," Nipper said.
Later it moved to a farm and then Red Clay State Historic Park. "At the park," she said, "we mapped out parking with a machete and twine."
It was decided to put on one good show a year with juried quality and originality. The shows could be bigger, said Nipper, but we don't accept commercial work. "We wanted an outlet for the local families."
The festival had to move from the park one year because of park construction, but went back to continue the annual event.
Then Tri-State Exhibition Center became the venue for the festival -- the first time they didn't have to worry about weather. This will be the fourth year at Tri-State and it's more convenient for vendors, she added.
Nipper said her greatest blessing is her family. "They are very supportive," she said.
Thirteen years ago when she had five-bypass heart surgery, she was glad doctors found something wrong in time before it became a heart attack. There was no damage and after "giving it time," she got back to work.
But, she said, the artistic talent was not inherited -- it didn't show up in her son Joel and daughter Jeanna. He leans toward music and her daughter to creative writing.
She has three grandchildren, but her great-granddaughter Skyler is a different story. It seems the artistic talent skipped a couple of generations, because, Nipper said, "she loves to paint (creatures)." With Skyler, she added, "I just give her supplies and let her go. She loves to paint horses (pink and blue). Like her great-grandmother, Skyler, 6, loves horses and is the fifth generation to show.
Nipper's gallery on Celebration Grounds of Shelbyville is only open during walking horse shows. The big show -- when they crown the World Champion -- lasts 11 days.
Of course, Nipper not only paints horses -- she raises them too. After all, she married into the business. She has two breed mares and two show mares. One colt, "Party Doll," is out of the World Champion The Whole Nine Yards. "I like raising the babies," she said.
And she said horses have helped her -- "without them, I would be just another artist." Occasionally, she will take a break from horses and do Tennessee landscapes.
She was commissioned to paint Zsa Zsa Gabor and her horse and a painting for Shania Twain also, as a gift from her husband. For that, she was sent photos and video, but because of tight security, was not allowed to see her in person. "I had to work through her agent -- had a hard time not being able to see her."
When the World's Fair came to Knoxville, Nipper was contacted about a presentation to President Ronald Reagan with something to represent Tennessee -- a walking horse painting, they thought would be appropriate.
Nipper suggested a plate with her painting of the first walking horse. She later received a thank-you letter from the President, saying that "Nancy collects plates."
She has sold "stuff" to other celebrities, especially country music stars. She is in the Walking Horse Hall of Fame, the Agriculture Hall of Fame, Who's Who's in Walking Horse Breeders and received an award from the Walking Horse Trainer's Association.
She is currently the president of the Walking Horse Club in Cleveland.
Nipper said she thought she was supposed to paint like the grand masters when she started. But her advice to budding artists (of any age) is "be yourself."
She said to do what you love to do and "let it come from the heart."
"I didn't learn 'how to paint' -- I am amazed I can do it. I thought I'd just be a housewife," she said. "I didn't plan to be an artist, but I worked hard."
For the commercial artist, she said, exposure is the main thing. "Get into the public. Go to lots of shows."
She said she learned from every painting -- had a challenge to keep trying.
"I have had ups and downs in being an artist, but you get through it with encouragement," Nipper said. "I enjoy life and being with people who enjoy things I do."
And finally, "I've paid my dues."
greek fanatic
03-16-2009, 5:25pm
this is really interesting,Thanks Misty:up:
dreamer
03-16-2009, 5:26pm
no problem everyone
shaniafan339
03-16-2009, 5:31pm
Thanks ;)
Thank you, Misty. I can't believe that woman skated with a broken rib.:eek:
Brit_girlAmanda
03-17-2009, 6:35pm
http://newsblog.projo.com/2009/03/beauty-product.html
Beauty product firm Coty to lease office near CVS hub
Tue, Mar 17, 2009
Beauty product firm Coty Inc. in mid-2009 will open an office in Cumberland -- near the headquarters of drugstore chain CVS Caremark Corp. (CVS:NYSE), according to the Economic Development Foundation of Rhode Island.
Coty sells cosmetics, fragrances, skin care and toiletry products under brands that include: Calvin Klein, Kenneth Cole, Gwen Stefani, Sara Jessica Parker, Shania Twain and Vera Wang. The company had sales of $4 billion for the year ended June 30, 2008.
Based in New York City, Coty employs more than 8,500 people at offices in 30 countries. This summer, it will move an undetermined number of workers to a 5,500-square-foot office in the Cumberland Commerce Center, a two-building development inside the Highland Corporate Park in Cumberland.
Coty wants workers in Rhode Island to handle its sales to CVS Caremark, a Coty spokeswoman said.
CVS Caremark has made its home in a 500,000-square-foot headquarters in the park -- which is partly in the Town of Cumberland and partly in the City of Woonsocket -- since 1982. CVS is expanding its presence in the park, constructing two buildings with a total of 300,000 square feet on the Cumberland side of the complex.
The drugstore chain, which operates 6,800 stores nationwide, also is making a big push in its cosmetic sales.
CVS debuted Beauty 360 in 2008, a two-store test operation to sell high-end cosmetics. CVS hopes to open 50 Beauty 360 outlets by the end of 2009.
dreamer
03-17-2009, 6:36pm
thanks
shaniafan339
03-17-2009, 6:39pm
Cool, Thanks!!! :)
dreamer
03-18-2009, 12:28am
Fleurant Point - More than 60 women took part in the third annual International Women's Day celebration at the Fleurant Point Community Hall on Sunday March 8.
Enlarge Photo
Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge
Sylvie Guité, left, paying tribute to linda howes “Woman of the day”.
An enthusiastic word of welcome by Angela Wolff led the group into a contagious chatter as she invite the ladies to cross the floor and greet an unknown. The vibrant energy continued throughout the day as numerous talent took to the stage.
After an introduction to Women's Day presented by DeeAnne McNally and a quiz on the progress of women by Julie Schlie, we were taken on a quick world tour with women from different countries by Dawn Adams: Canada, China, and Afghanistan. Sylvie Gallant continued our voyage across the ocean as she charmed our audience with song and accordion music.
One of the highlights of the day was our fashion show by Studio Mode, Atholville. A preview of spring fashion was appreciated by everyone. Several of the models are now looking for agents!
Throughout the day, we were entertained by several young rising stars: Sarah Walker, Courtney Hayes, Jodi Keays, and Kimberly Cyr. Kimberly shone as a model and as Shania Twain, and made us laugh as she introduced us to "laughter yoga."
Linda Hawes was vividly surprised when her dear friend, Sylvie Guite, declared her Woman of the Day.
Linda is very well known in the community for her musical talent as a piano teacher, a church organist, and a composer who recently released her first CD, A Moment In Time.
Linda above all is a very spiritual person whose accomplishments would inspire any woman. Linda this month will receive her master of theology degree from a university in Missouri, after four years of study.
A meal was preapred by Geraldine Campbell, and served by her three sons, along with young hostesses Courtney, Jodi, and Sarah.
Numerous gifts donated by sponsors were drawn. The grand prize winner was Rena Gallant of Broadlands who won a round trip for two from Campbellton to Montreal from Via Rail Canada.
faithfully
03-18-2009, 3:41am
:hmmm:at least somebody hasn't forgot who Shania is:p
shaniafan339
03-18-2009, 11:08am
Thanks :D
Brit_girlAmanda
03-18-2009, 3:45pm
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/News/MostEmailed/891843/Coty-retains-OMD-25m-media-business/
Coty retains OMD for £25m media business
LONDON - Coty, the international cosmetics company, has decided to retain OMD to handle its £25m media planning and buying business in the UK after a final head to head battle against WPP's Maxus.
The review includes the media business for Coty’s Prestige business and its Beauty division.
The pitch process has been run by Coty’s international marketing director Signum Graeff.
The reappointment has been confirmed by a Coty insider who admitted the company was impressed with the expanding Maxus network but OMD provided a strong defence.
A Coty spokesman said OMD is expected to sign a new contract before the end of the week.
According to The Nielsen Company, Coty spent £25m on media in 2008, including £12m on TV and £11.3m on press.
Coty was founded in Paris in 1904 and since its acquisition of Unilever’s fragrances division (UCI) in May 2005 can claim to be the world's largest manufacturer of mass-market fragrances.
Coty Beauty brands include adidas, Pierre Cardin, Rimmel and Stetson while Coty Prestige includes brands Calvin Klein, Chloé, Jennifer Lopez, JOOP!
The company is also known for its cooperation with celebrities and has created fragrances for stars including Celine Dion, David and Victoria Beckham, Desperate Housewives and Shania Twain, Vivienne Westwood.
At the end of last year, Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech agreed to become the face of Coty’s Adidas Active men's body care products.
For 2008, the privately-held company reported net sales were up 26% to $4bn; $2.1bn for its prestige division and $1.9 billion for its beauty division. Coty's European operations generated the strongest growth, up 54%, followed by North America (23%), Asia (7%) and Africa (7%).
Despite the global economic downturn, chief executive Bernd Beetz is hoping to achieve annual sales of $5bn in 2010.
dreamer
03-18-2009, 3:46pm
cool thanks
Desperate Housewives? :huh:
yeah :weird: i was thinking the same thing :hmmm:
shaniafan339
03-18-2009, 7:45pm
Thanks :p
Reenee
03-20-2009, 10:05am
http://theleavesarelikecrunchy.blogspot.com/2009/03/southerners-theyre-just-like-us-part-ii.html
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Southerners – They’re Just Like Us?! – Part II (http://theleavesarelikecrunchy.blogspot.com/2009/03/southerners-theyre-just-like-us-part-ii.html)
Since I’ve temporarily run out of creative things to write about, I thought I’d show you some more pictures of my trip to the South last summer.
At this bar we went to on the strip in Nashville (which was actually a lot of fun), they had this picture of Shania Twain. It’s very artistic and it may be signed. But it’s kind of weird. I do love me some Shania though, her music is awesome. Plus, anyone who isn't on Team Shania, is on Team Other Woman. Team Shania rules!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0cz4NpsP06U/ScAdoVuJaKI/AAAAAAAAAoI/BLxCeXTymwE/s320/DSCN6959.JPG
greek fanatic
03-20-2009, 10:18am
:eek::bow::bow:this is amazing thank you Rene:D
Reenee
03-20-2009, 10:25am
:eek::bow::bow:this is amazing thank you Rene:D
Kinda cute, huh?:D
Reenee
03-20-2009, 10:29am
Here is a blurb about Shania, she is #4, her picture comes up first, can't miss it.
http://houndstv.com/wp02/778/best-worst-2008-music-autographs-fans-in-canada/ file:///D:/PICTURES/1%20%20PICTURES/NEW%20FINDS/3154106002_a9c593653d_o.jpg
Is this supposed to have all this code showing?
greek fanatic
03-20-2009, 10:32am
Here is a blurb about Shania, she is #4, her picture comes up first, can't miss it.
http://houndstv.com/wp02/778/best-worst-2008-music-autographs-fans-in-canada/file:///D:/PICTURES/1%20%20PICTURES/NEW%20FINDS/3154106002_a9c593653d_o.jpg
Is this supposed to have all this code showing?
Madonna is on their "worst autograph singers":funny::funny:
Reenee
03-20-2009, 10:35am
Madonna is on their "worst autograph singers":funny::funny:
Not surprising!:funny:
greek fanatic
03-20-2009, 10:37am
Not surprising!:funny:
i wouldn't want an autograph from her anyway:biglaugh:
shaniafan339
03-20-2009, 2:29pm
Interesting, Thanks!! :)
I wonder why this code is showing :eek:
Try editing your post Rene, and put a space between the "/" and the "[IMG]"
Wow, that's lovely, Rene. I wish I had the talent to draw like that. Very nice.
SevenUp!
03-20-2009, 6:45pm
That's for sharing Rene, very cool:up:
Thanks Rene for this :hugs:
uniquestar
03-21-2009, 2:13am
That is cool!
I would love to draw Shania :cry:
I would love to draw Shania :cry:
What's stopping you Tony?
ravshania
03-21-2009, 10:49am
I would love to draw Shania :cry:
wud luv 2 c dat pal...:bounce:
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
tonyme
03-21-2009, 11:04am
I never drew portraits of real people, ever! I guess I'm too scared to try it
ravshania
03-21-2009, 11:07am
gv a try pal...;)...u nvr knw wat talnt cums out...:boogie:
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
wud luv 2 c dat pal...:bounce:
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
Yeah me too :D
SHANIANUTS!
03-21-2009, 11:12am
I never drew portraits of real people, ever! I guess I'm too scared to try itI guess I am nuts but I thought I saw some from you of Shania.
tonyme
03-21-2009, 11:14am
Nope, never
SHANIANUTS!
03-21-2009, 11:15am
Then it is about time!;)
tonyme
03-21-2009, 11:39am
I guess I should give it a try! :nervous:
ravshania
03-21-2009, 11:57am
I guess I should give it a try! :nervous:
gud luk Tonies...if u hv n e diffclty...jst let me knw...i ll hlp u out wit dat...:up:
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
shaniafan339
03-21-2009, 2:14pm
I'm sure you'll do a great job Tony!!! :D
dreamer
03-21-2009, 4:15pm
yes Tony try try try!
dreamer
03-21-2009, 4:25pm
Dancers delight Laconia crowd
By JOHN KOZIOL
jkoziol@citizen.com
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Picture
Erica Gilbert and Carl Young received a score of 29 from the three judges for their country-style dance performance during Friday evening's Dancing with the Community Stars at the Laconia Middle School.
(RAY MONGEAU/CITIZEN PHOTO)
* Order a print of this photo
Carl Young said everything he knew about dancing he learned from his father, Bob.
On Friday night, in front of a large, enthusiastic audience assembled in the Laconia Middle School gymnasium, the son went the father one better, winning with his partner, Erica Gilbert, the Laconia Main Street's Dancing with the Community Stars title that eluded his father last year.
"I learned all my moves from my dad," said Carl Young — who is head instructor at the Eastern Dragon Karate School in Belmont where his father is a grand master — "just better."
Gilbert, who is a Laconia native and has taught dance for the past six years at the Ninth State Movement studio in Plymouth, and Young got 29 out of 30 possible points from the three-judge panel as well as receiving more than 50 percent of the overall popular vote.
He, dressed in all black, complete with cowboy hat, and she, dressed as country girl, danced to Rascal Flats' "Backwards."
In the competition where community members are paired with dance professionals, as on the popular television program, Gilbert and Young, said judge and last year's winner Sharon Cavanaugh, stood out in a very strong field.
Picture
Carl Young and Erica Gilbert win this year's Dancing with the Community Stars. Their country-style dance performance netted them a total of 29 out of a possible 30 points from the three judges.
(RAY MONGEAU/CITIZEN PHOTO)
* Order a print of this photo
That field included Jeff Greeley, the attendance coordinator at Laconia High School, and Christy Dunn of Broadway North-Heidi Noyes School of Dance; student Robin Barnes and Moe Montminy, both of Broadway North; and Laconia police officers Adam Marsh and Robb Sedgley who danced, respectively, with Amelia Frates and Sarah Sedgley — Robb's wife — both of whom were representing the Frates Creative Arts Center.
Gilbert, who was a judge during the inaugural Dancing with the Community Stars and who competed last year, said she and Young practiced their routine for four weeks, twice a week.
"He was really pretty good because he teaches karate," Gilbert said of her partner. "He moves well; he picked it up really quickly."
Winning the dancing crown was "pretty cool," said Gilbert, while Young added, "It's been a wonderful experience for sure."
Cavanaugh, who is a Laconia police sergeant and who won last year while dancing with Ian Jamieson of the Frates Creative Arts Center, saluted the new champions, telling Gilbert and Young, "Nice job. You deserve the 'ten.'"
Asked which she preferred — judging or competing — Cavanaugh said it was the former.
"It's much easier on that side of the table than on the floor," she said, adding that all the competitors in the 2009 Dancing with the Community Stars were "awesome" thus requiring the judges and audience to make some difficult decisions.
Warren Clement, who is a co-founder of Laconia Main Street and who also came up with the idea for Dancing with the Community Stars, said Friday's show was filled with "energy, excitement and enthusiasm."
Not all of the performers Friday night were human. "Bella," a six-moth old Maltese, came along with Lu Ann Martin and, to the delight of many, she "danced" to a Shania Twain song.
"She did really well," Martin said of her young charge who, she added, might be back next year.
dreamer
03-21-2009, 4:29pm
my pleasure
shaniafan339
03-22-2009, 12:49am
Thanks :)
ravshania
03-22-2009, 3:55am
thnk u...:)
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
Raider_Man
03-22-2009, 5:52pm
Thanks Misty :bounce:
Brit_girlAmanda
03-24-2009, 2:50pm
Victor Wooten plays Legends
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
by PATRICK BABCOCK
Lifestyles Reporter
Legends was bouncing Thursday night when bassist Victor Wooten and drummer J.D. Blair came to town.
The duo came to Appalachian State University as a part of their “2 Minds 1 Groove” tour.
Wooten is best known as the bassist for progressive bluegrass group Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.
He has released solo material to high critical acclaim and won two Nashville Music Awards for Bassist of the Year and three Bass Player magazine’s Bass Player of the Year Awards.
He has played with such artists as Mike Stern, Branford Marsalis, Chick Corea, Dave Matthews and Prince.
Blair is the drummer for country star Shania Twain’s band and played the Super Bowl XXVII halftime show with them, but has played with Victor Wooten on and off since the release of Wooten’s debut solo album, “A Show of Hands,” in 1996.
“I had a great time tonight,” Blair said. “I have a great time every night. The people I’ve met tonight have been very friendly, and I guess everybody around here is like that.”
Wooten was slightly more critical of his performance.
“It felt pretty good,” Wooten said. “It wasn’t my best, it wasn’t my worst.”
He’s always enjoyed playing at Appalachian, he said.
“College towns in general are just fun,” he said. “The students that come are just excited. The Flecktones have always have always had a good time, a good experience in Boone. [They have in] all of North Carolina, but Boone in general, and because of that, the Flecktones have laid a nice bed for me to able to come through, so I’ve always had a great experience here, plus I have a lot of friends here.”
Student reaction to the show was exuberantly positive.
“I had never seen Victor Wooten before Thursday,” freshman electronic media broadcasting major Annie L. Sadler said. “To be perfectly honest I didn’t really know who he was until the day before when my boyfriend who plays bass was talking about him. Now I feel kind of stupid because his concert was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.”
However, Blair’s name was overshadowed by Wooten’s to a fault, Sadler said.
“Yeah, it was weird,” she said. “I didn’t even hear J.D. Blair’s name regarding the concert, but he was definitely my favorite of the two.”
A particularly heart-warming part of the concert was when Wooten’s children performed on stage with Blair and their father, Sadler said.
Wooten’s array of foot pedals made for a large variety of tones for his bass.
Blair’s setup included a Theremin, a synthesizer that reacts without contact by its user.
Along with the music and gadgets, the duo even brought some advice for the students.
“Keep the vibes positive, do your homework and don’t fail,” Blair said. “It’s not good for you.”
http://theapp.appstate.edu/content/view/4967/40/
dreamer
03-24-2009, 2:56pm
you beat me to it amanda :p
thanks
shaniafan339
03-24-2009, 4:23pm
Awesome! Thanks!!! :D
dreamer
03-24-2009, 4:27pm
oh Shania we need moooooooooore of you
ravshania
03-25-2009, 9:55am
thnx Amnda...;)
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
shaniafan339
03-25-2009, 7:20pm
oh Shania we need moooooooooore of you
We sure do :hugs:
dreamer
03-25-2009, 7:31pm
:cry: now
shaniafan339
03-25-2009, 7:32pm
That would be nice ;)
ravshania
03-26-2009, 1:46am
:boogie::boogie::boogie:
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
FinnFreak
03-26-2009, 8:39am
The National Post - Thursday, March 26, 2009
The awards have evolved since 1970 to reach a wider audience
http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/www.nationalpost.com/arts/1428318.bin?size=404x272
Shania Twain was not pandering. How dare you suggest such a thing!
By Maria Kubacki
Nickelback, Sarah Mc-Lachlan, Bryan Adams and Michael Buble: This year's Juno Awards boasts a lineup of so many big-name artists that it might as well be the Grammys -- or, depending on how you feel about Nickelback, possibly a music festival in hell.
Love them or hate them, there's no denying the international stature of this year's performers and presenters. These days, homegrown musicians more than hold their own on the world stage, and Juno organizers have plenty of big names to choose from.
But in the beginning, there was Anne Murray -- and as one of the country's few recognizable names, she was called upon to appear at the Junos so often that it got be, well, a little embarrassing.
"It was always a struggle because there were a relatively limited number of genuine Canadian stars, and it was always tough going back to the Anne Murrays of this world, who got a little tired," says retired Universal Music Canada boss Ross Reynolds, a founding board member of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), which has been organizing the Junos for nearly 40 years.
Reynolds, who was chair of CARAS from 2001 to 2006, remembers the bad old days when Juno organizers had the unenviable task of scaring up acts to perform at the fledgling Canadian music awards back in the 1970s.
Murray still holds the record for most Juno awards -- 24 in all, four of them in 1980 alone. But the Canadian music industry has come a long way since the days of scrounging around for talent when the Junos were in their infancy.
The origins of the awards go back to 1970, when the publishers of the music industry trade publication RPM organized the Gold Leaf Awards in Toronto, with RPM readers voting on the winners.
The following year the awards were renamed in honour of Pierre Juneau, then head of the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and responsible for implementing the Canadian Content Regulations in 1971.
The Junos were first telecast in 1975 on CBC, and by 1978 were reaching an audience of more than two million.
But the show was far from polished, and then-unknown names sometimes got mangled: Bruce Cockburn was once introduced as Bruce ****-Burn.
There were other memorable gaffes -- such as when disco queen Patsy Gallant (best remembered for her 1976 hit From New York to L. A.) got so excited upon winning an award that she bypassed the stairs and awkwardly clambered up onto the stage with her dress in disarray, inadvertently mooning the audience in the process.
Then there was the show in the early 1980s, when Bob Dylan appeared to be confused while presenting an award to Gordon Lightfoot. "He wandered onstage," recalls Reynolds, "absolutely stoned, looking around at the set, totally oblivious to the fact that there was a show going and that he was on television."
And who could forget Shania Twain playing Juno host in a series of body-hugging dresses based on NHL uniforms, or when Alanis Morissette whipped off her clothes to appear in a "nude" bodysuit with a cartoonishly enormous patch of faux pubic hair?
The evolution of the Canadian music industry is the single biggest reason the Juno Awards have gone from bush league to legit. Before Canadian content rules were introduced in 1971, requiring commercial radio stations to play 30% homegrown music (now 35%), there wasn't much of an industry to speak of.
"There wasn't the infrastructure," says Reynolds of the Junos' early days. "There were branch operations here that just promoted the U. S. hits. Radio didn't really want to play Canadian records."
There were no places for bands to play, no promoters, no agents, no record companies that took the time to promote domestic product, says Reynolds, who arrived in Canada from the U. S. in 1978.
Now artists no longer have to leave Canada to become successful -- the Tragically Hip have never managed to break through in the U. S. but are huge stars at home.
The Junos have grown and changed along with the Canadian music business, in the process becoming such a mainstream cultural institution that they've drawn criticism for being too commercial, too predictable, too boring -- and not representative enough of the full range of Canadian music.
This year's host, comic Russell Peters, admits he never had any interest in the Junos. "Look, the Junos really didn't have any appeal to me," he said recently. "Call it like it is: It was made for older, white Canadians, and I was neither of those."
Peters would like to see urban music get a higher profile at the awards.
Other complaints have focused on the quantity vs. quality question. The nominations for the major Juno categories --including album of the year, artist of the year and group of the year -- are based on sales as well as votes from CARAS members, which explains why a mega-selling but critically panned band like Nickelback leads the pack with five nods this year.
Categories such as alternative album of the year and adult alternative album of the year were introduced in recent years (alternative album in 1995 and adult alternative in 2005) to recognize worthy acts that might not sell as many albums as artists in the major categories.
There have also been attempts to make the awards more relevant to Canadians across the country. The Junos were an industry-only event until 1995, when they were held at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. They've been staged at arenas ever since, in front of screaming fans rather than blase, seen-it-all industry types.
The awards started out as a mainly Toronto-centric affair, but in 2002 -- the year CTV took over the telecast -- organizers took the show on the road, staging the show in St. John's. Since then, they've been held in Ottawa, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Halifax, Saskatoon, Calgary and now Vancouver. Next year they'll come full circle, back to St. John's.
Stephen Stohn, the current chair of CARAS and one of the executive producers of the Juno broadcast, wants the Junos to go even further and become a year-round event. Stohn would like the Junos to celebrate "a much broader array of music, and sometimes more eclectic music than you might see on the national television broadcast."
Stohn imagines taking cameras into a local club and filming a young singer-songwriter -- "just put it on the Internet under the Junos banner," in advance of the Juno Awards themselves.
"You can imagine the constraints of a two-hour television show," Stohn says. "There's only so many performance slots. It'd be great to really reach out to all the musical genres and properly reflect them."
http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=1428317
John - ;)
FinnFreak
03-26-2009, 8:45am
eBroadcast Australia - Mar 26, 2009
Ronni Rae Rivers is Simply The Best
Glamour Aussie artist Ronni Rae Rivers has just released her cover of the Tina Turner classic Simply the Best. The song which is infamous to all footy fans, made its debut in the 2009 season at the Sharks V Panthers game last Saturday evening, where Ronni performed it live.
Ronni Rae Rivers, otherwise known as RRR, has recorded the song to aid to the Victorian bushfire disaster. All money raised from the sale of this single, will be going to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.
RRR recorded the song at the Opera House, completely free of charge and Rivers was joined by Shania Twain and Keith Urban band member, Randall Waller, who arranged the new version, while the songs writers, Mike Chapman and Holly Knight, have kindly waived their royalty entitlements for the tribute version.
Ronnie Rae’s version of Simply the Best is now available on iTunes and is selling for just $1.69. “Hopefully all NRL fans get behind the song and download it. Not only will it evoke memories for them from a glamour period of footy, but of course all the money raised goes to an incredible cause.” Rivers said.
http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/enews/music/Ronni-Rae-Rivers-is-Simply-The-Best-260309.html
John - ;)
Thanks for those, I didn't know that Randall was in Keith Urban's band as well! :shocked:
shaniafan339
03-26-2009, 9:50am
Thanks for those Articles! ;)
ravshania
03-26-2009, 9:56am
thnk u pal...;)
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
Reenee
03-26-2009, 10:06am
For Canadian glitz and glamour, the Junos are it
By Alex Strachan, Canwest News ServiceMarch 24, 2009
Sarah McLachlan is set to perform at the Juno Awards this Sunday in Vancouver.
The. Best. Junos. Ever? Maybe so, maybe not. Time, and Sunday's 2009 Juno Awards road show in Vancouver, will tell.
One thing is already certain, though. The Junos have always, will once again -- and possibly always will -- cast the film industry's Genie Awards and TV's Geminis in the shade when it comes to glamour, prestige and word of mouth. For sheer glitter, glitz, glam appeal and -- most importantly, for the TV viewer watching from home -- pump-up-the-volume entertainment value, no other homegrown entertainment industry awards show comes close.
Why? It's certainly not the awards themselves. The Junos are spread out over several evenings, and feature a head-scratching array of categories. The choices can be anticlimactic, arcane and downright eccentric, when they're not forgettable. Quick: Who won the 2008 Juno Award for CD/DVD Artwork Design of the Year? (Answer: Tracy Maurice and Francois Miron, for Arcade Fire's Neon Bible. Now you know.)
For the real answer, you need look no further than your TV set. It's all about the show.
Just as this year's Grammys buried 10 televised trophy presentations in between 22 live performances, the Junos will focus on the performance aspect of Canadian music, and the performers themselves. Bryan Adams is slated to perform, along with Sarah McLachlan, Divine Brown, Serena Ryder and Simple Plan, among others. In all, there will be 14 live performances, spread out over two hours. (The Grammys traditionally run for three hours.)
This year's presenters include Feist, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello and Nanaimo, B.C.'s native daughter, Diana Krall.
Viewers clearly approve. Ratings for last year's Junos in Calgary, hosted by returning emcee Russell Peters, show that 1.45 million music devotees stuck around for the entire show, a 56 per cent jump over the previous year when 925,000 viewers hung in for the long haul. More than four million Canadians tuned in to watch at least some of the broadcast.
Last year's ceremony was the most-watched Junos show since the 2003 ceremony in Ottawa, hosted by Shania Twain, when two million viewers stuck around to watch Blue Rodeo, Avril Lavigne and Our Lady Peace perform. Just as tellingly, that telecast eclipsed the audience for that year's Grammys for the first time. To put that in perspective, try to imagine a scenario in which more Canadians watch the Genies than the Oscars, or choose the Geminis over the Emmys.
The secret to the Junos' success isn't just a question of entertaining the viewer at home, of course. It helps that homegrown music artists like Feist, Twain, Adams, Nickelback, McLachlan, Krall, Alanis Morissette, Nelly Furtado, Michael Buble, Measha Brueggergosman and countless others are as familiar, recognizable -- and comfortable -- on the world stage as the Coldplays and Madonnas of the music world.
The producers of the Junos, like the producers of the Grammys before them, have been smart enough to realize that the show's the thing -- that nobody outside a handful of industry insiders cares who wins Recording Engineer of the Year. What matters is whether the sound will be bright and lively, rather than anemic and soulless; whether Nickelback will rock the house and tear the rafters down; and whether McLachlan will nail her ballad-of-the-moment with soul-stirring strength.
Chances are, they will. And chances are, anyone who sees them will be talking about the Junos Monday morning.
The 2009 Juno Awards airs Sunday, March 29 on CTV at 9ET/5PT and 9 PT.
JUNO AWARDS - Ratings through the years
* 2002 (St. John's) -- 1.36 million viewers; host Barenaked Ladies
* 2003 (Ottawa) -- 2.18 million viewers; host Shania Twain
* 2004 (Edmonton) -- 1.34 million viewers; host Alanis Morissette
* 2005 (Winnipeg) -- 1.22 million viewers; host Brent Butt
* 2006 (Halifax) -- 1.23 million viewers; host Pamela Anderson
* 2007 (Saskatoon) -- 925,000 viewers; host Nelly Furtado
* 2008 (Calgary) -- 1.45 million viewers; host Russell Peters
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
http://www.canada.com/entertainment/music/Canadian+glitz+glamour+Junos/1422320/story.html
ravshania
03-26-2009, 10:12am
:bow:...thnx a lot Renzie...Shania rulz...:kiss:
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
Thanks a lot for these :love:
shaniafan339
03-26-2009, 7:12pm
Thanks!!! :D:boogie:
dreamer
03-26-2009, 10:50pm
:bounce:
faithfully
03-27-2009, 6:28am
Nelly Furtado had the lowest :]:boogie::bounce::bow::biglaugh:
shaniafan339
03-27-2009, 2:11pm
I'm not surprised by that at all :funny:
shania megafan
03-27-2009, 2:21pm
Way to go Shania! :bounce:
faithfully
03-27-2009, 3:44pm
I'm not surprised by that at all :funny:
I thought she was the new Canadian Superstar.
greek fanatic
03-27-2009, 4:08pm
Nelly Furtado had the lowest :]:boogie::bounce::bow::biglaugh:
:eek:you are mean:uhh::funny::p
faithfully
03-27-2009, 4:37pm
:eek:you are mean:uhh::funny::p
:funny:I just love Shania:p
dreamer
03-27-2009, 9:59pm
Natalie Maines is sporting a new look these days. Check out this photo snapped yesterday in Venice, Calif. Of course, she’s not the first entertainer to dramatically change her look. For more historical hairstyles, flip through our ACM archive photo gallery, featuring the Dixie Chicks, Reba McEntire, Shania Twain and many more.
dreamer
03-27-2009, 10:00pm
No PC needed for new Sansa music player
Slot_radio Posted by Eric Benderoff at 5:53 p.m.
In a product category dominated by Apple Inc., the portable music players by memory-card maker SanDisk Corp. are often overlooked.
On Tuesday, SanDisk, which has delivered affordable and useful players under its Sansa brand, will release a digital music player with a new twist: It does not need a computer to work. That means there will be no song downloads to worry about and no playlists to manage.
Called the Sansa slotRadio, the $100 gadget is easy to use and instantly likable.
SanDisk’s approach will not appeal to everyone—it has some obvious limitations—but for casual music fans or those who are not particular about the music they hear for a workout, it might be ideal.
Here’s how the slotRadio works.
Sansa ships the player with a "mix" card pre-loaded with 1,000 songs. The songs are culled from the Billboard music charts with categories that include country, contemporary, alternative, hip hop and rock.
Additional cards will be available for $40—that’s 4 cents a song—including genre-specific playlists: alternative, ’80s, classic rock, country, etc. It’s unclear as of this writing what the selection will be at launch.
The first mix card offers familiar names, including Trace Adkins, Mary J. Blige, Kenny Chesney, Coldplay, Fall Out Boy, Kaiser Chiefs, Maroon 5, Ne-Yo, No Doubt, Shania Twain, Kanye West and U2.
Unfortunately, you can’t navigate to a particular artist or song when you want. In fact, the slotRadio has no navigation controls other than volume keys and forward/back buttons. You can skip ahead but you cannot scroll through a playlist to select songs.
There isn’t even a pause button—if you need to stop the music, turn the player off. However, the music will start where you stopped—a good feature.
This lack of control is similar to what Apple offers with its Shuffle line of iPods. That model constantly “shuffles” your music and you have little choice of what you will hear. (It is your music, downloaded from a computer, so one assumes all the songs make you happy.)
Apple has added more control to navigate playlists in its newest Shuffle, however.
Another nice feature: The slotRadio includes an FM radio.
You can use a computer to download songs into the slotRadio if you want. The mix cards are microSDHC cards from SanDisk, and there is a little room—about an album’s worth—to download your own music in the mp3 file format.
But with a fresh microSDHC card, you can download as much music as the card will fit. I put hundreds of songs onto a 16gb microSDHC card—a sweet product in its own right—and the slotRadio works fine. Again, I cannot control what songs will play besides being able to skip ahead and move back.
Will the slotRadio be a hit? I doubt it will shift much market share toward Sandisk, but it’s a nice niche player for folks who want an easy solution to portable music.
The new player goes on sale Tuesday (March 31) at slotRadio.org and will be offered nationwide at Radio Shack stores closer to Father’s Day.
Sounds like a good idea.
I've got a Sansa clip but there's no memory card slot on mine.
uniquestar
03-27-2009, 11:36pm
Thanks for the article!
shaniafan339
03-28-2009, 1:06am
Thanks for sharing! ;)
:cool: i have a sansa player, maybe i'll be getting this version soon :up: thanks for that misty!
Thanks for this Misty :hugs:
DollyShania
03-29-2009, 9:33am
Today on musicnotes.com, Shania Twain's From This Moment On, is the 5th highest country download this week.
http://www.musicnotes.com/country/
:)
This is amazing news, thanks for that :up:
tonyme
03-29-2009, 11:09am
Very good news! :)
:cool: now i love the sound of that! :D
shania megafan
03-29-2009, 1:38pm
That's great! :love:
shaniafan339
03-29-2009, 2:06pm
Awesome!!! :D:D:D
That's GREAT News!!! :love:
Thanks :)
FinnFreak
03-30-2009, 8:57am
GrandPrix.com - MARCH 30, 2009
Formula One and Universal Music
The Universal Music Group is the world’s leading music company and discovers, develops, markets and distributes recorded music through a network of subsidiaries, joint ventures and licensees in 77 countries. The company also sells and distributes music video and DVD products, and licenses recordings, encouraging the legal distribution of music online and over cellular, cable and satellite networks. It is also one of the world's leading music publishers and supplies music for films, TV, radio and the advertising industries.
The company just agreed a deal with the Formula One group to develop a cross-promotions called "F1 Rocks". This will mean that there will be more post-race concerts and other promotions which will benefit both parties. There are, for example, many synergies between a Grand Prix and a large concert as many of the facilities can be shared and this creates the possibility of increasing the number of fans for both activities.
Among the artists that Universal represents are the Black Eyed Peas, Bon Jovi, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge, the Pussycat Dolls, Lionel Richie, Gwen Stefani, Shania Twain, Stevie Wonder and Sting. The company also represents singers in Europe, Latin America and the Asia Pacific region, including Bryan Adams, Gianna Nannini (sister for former F1 racer Sandro Nannini), Elton John, Mika, the Rolling Stones, U2, Amy Winehouse and Zucchero.
The company is also the market leader in the classical music market, jazz and Broadway shows. It also controls an extensive catalogue of music from legendary recording artists from Louis Armstrong to The Who, which played after the Grand Prix in Melbourne.
The deal also means that Universal came use the Grands Prix to give some of its stars profile, while supplying F1 with celebrities, which does the F1 image good.
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21315.html
John - ;)
FinnFreak
03-30-2009, 9:07am
San Fernando Valley Business Journal Online - 3/30/2009
Just Around the Corner to the Light of Day
Firm Brightens Parks, Events
http://www.sfvbj.com/images/articles/9033009a.jpg
Visual Terrain partners Lisa Passamonte Green
(left) and Dawn Hollingsworth both have back-
grounds in the theater.
By Mark Madler
The principals at lighting design firm Visual Terrain consider a successful project to be one in which the lights are not noticed.
Not ignored by a visitor to, say, a shopping center or seated at a concert or strolling by a fountain, just not noticed because the lights blend in with the overall environment.
Lighting isn’t only about safety and function, it’s also about creating an environment and particularly how the visitor engages with that environment.
“It’s all about connecting people and creating an excitement and emotional control that people have,” said Dawn Hollingsworth, one of the three principals at Visual Terrain and the one most involved with the daily business operations.
Hollingsworth and partners Jeff Ravitz and Lisa Passamonte Green have long been involved with lighting design but didn’t come together as Visual Terrain until eight years ago following a merger. With 17 employees, the firm is considered large in an industry where designers often work solo or with one or two assistants.
Each member of the trio has their role at the Van Nuys-based company and they insist no fighting takes place over any territory. Each recognizes the strengths the others bring.
Ravitiz, for instance, travels the most, handling the live events that use Visual Terrain-designed lighting. While much of the country watched the Super Bowl on television, Ravitz was there in person to oversee the lighting for the halftime performance by Bruce Springsteen, a client for nearly two decades.
Green also does a fair amount of traveling and handles projects primarily at theme parks and entertainment centers. That leaves Hollingsworth to work on smaller scale projects while taking care of the administrative and operational duties at the offices located in a business park.
This division of labor was not by design but happened naturally as the three gravitated toward what interested each of them following the merger between Green’s firm and the one that Hollingsworth and Ravitz were partners in.
Green, in fact, admits to being frightened about taking on partners as she had operated on her own prior to the merger. But discussions with Hollingsworth eased her concerns when he showed a willingness for the three partners to grow together to have a successful business.
“You put them all together and they can answer any question you have about lighting,” said Rock Hall, principal and chairman of Technifex Inc., a Santa Clarita-based fabricator for themed attractions that worked with Visual Terrain on the “Titanic: The Experience” exhibit on the Fox Studio Backlot in Sydney, Australia, and a chandelier using crystal fiber optic strands at the Pechanga Casino in Temecula.
Working in five areas – architecture, themed attractions, concerts and live events, film and television, and special projects – Visual Terrain lighting can be found all over the world.
In addition to Springsteen, Ravitz includes the rock group Styx, country crooner Shania Twain and former Beatle Ringo Starr as clients using his concert lighting. Theme park attractions and displays include those at Six Flags parks, Kings Island, and Universal Islands of Adventure.
In the Los Angeles area, the firm has designed lighting at LA Live in downtown and at the Americana at Brand in Glendale. Prior to the merger, Hollingsworth designed the lighted columns leading to Los Angeles International Airport in such a way as to give visitors a sense they were someplace special.
Natural progression
Green, Hollingsworth and Ravitz all have backgrounds in theater but then pursued different directions with their careers.
Green went to the show lighting group at Walt Disney Imagineering, an experience that provided a strong foundation on which to start her firm when she struck out on her own.
Hollingsworth and Ravitz met in Chicago. Hollingsworth had gone from the theater to consulting work, architectural lighting and the manufacturing of lighting fixtures. She considered it a natural progression to join Ravitz in a design firm with another partner.
When Visual Terrain started in 2001, it was a time of mixing entertainment with other activities within a specially designed structure.
“You weren’t going to dinner anymore, you were going to have an experience,” Green said.
This convergence, exemplified by themed restaurants, has now evolved into lifestyle centers such as the Americana. For that project Visual Terrain designed all the lighting for the public areas and the building facades that brought all the architectural elements together to promote the brand of its developer, Rick Caruso.
While architecture is perceived to be a daytime experience, the designers at Visual Terrain use light to reveal space in a different way when darkness falls.
A private 1,600-acre project the company did in Dubai incorporated a double helix sculpture in a roundabout that appeared to spin when viewed from a passing vehicle during the daylight hours and then at night became a light source.
Technifex’s Hall has found that the Visual Terrain designers understand the special needs lighting has to fill. When lighting moving water, the team has a feel for position and angle of the lights so it looks good from the guest’s point of view, he said.
“If we are reflecting light off a mirror and don’t want the mirror to show. They understand how to make that work,” Hall said.
Peaks and valleys
By working in five different areas, the three partners find it easier to get through weak periods in any one sector.
The partners also employed a strategy of containing the company’s growth and not accepting work if there was not the staff to do it.
The global economic downturn has slowed the pace of large overseas projects, particularly in Dubai, that Visual Terrain contributes to.
What may come out of this situation is a more thoughtful design process, Hollingsworth said, a process in which the proper time is given to how lighting will fit in.
Taking time to make a better design can, in the end, save money.
“It is challenging to get people to think that way,” Hollingsworth said. “But good design practices will have a resurgence rather than fast practices.”
SPOTLIGHT: Visual Terrain
Year Founded: 2001
Revenues in 2007: $2.1 million
Revenues in 2008: $2.4 million
Employees in 2007: 16
Employees in 2008: 17
http://www.sfvbj.com/industry_article_pay.asp?aID=23090956.9015517.1763 502.31976603.2581068.256&aID2=135645
John - ;)
shaniafan339
03-30-2009, 2:04pm
Thank You John! :)
dreamer
03-30-2009, 4:46pm
cool
ravshania
03-31-2009, 1:22am
Today on musicnotes.com, Shania Twain's From This Moment On, is the 5th highest country download this week.
http://www.musicnotes.com/country/
:)
dats gr8 2 hear...:love:
thnk u so mch 4 dat...:up:
:) luvshania :) ravshania :)
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