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2009: Products I Can’t Live Without

at the creation of each year i traditionally publish a list of my favorite startups and products. this is the fourth year i’ve done this - foregoing lists: 2006, 2007, 2008. you guys get to pick the winners of the crunchies - this list is all mine. this is a list of the products i lean to use daily. some are benefit of lift weights (wordpress, amusing, zoho, etc.), some are for fun (myspace music, hulu, etc), and some are useful as both (digg, skype, youtube, etc.). but i utilization most of them every daytime, or nearly every era, and i would not be as productive or happy without all of them. the rota changes a bit from year to year, and is also getting longer (see chart). just three products demand been favorites all four years: techmeme, skype, wordpress. techmeme continues to be the news aggregator i check multiple times per day to deter up on tech information. skype is the instant messaging and voip platform that i use most commonly, and wordpress software powers all of our blogs. i’ve added nine new products, including united gadget (which i’ve left off in the past): animoto, friendfeed, hulu, iphone 3g, myspace music, pandora (which was on in foregoing years) docstoc/scribd and yammer.

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What’s On Tonight: Football Playoffs, iCarly, Smother

Filed under: Programming, What To Watch Tonight, Reality-Free

kick the bucket your local tv listings on more.

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Woman, 114, in line to be named world’s oldest

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Learning More From Hollywood Than From High School

watching movies may be no substitute for luxurious private school. but even bad download horror films have masses to teach.

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Brandy Facts

Brandy FactsThe word Brandy comes from the Dutch word brandewijn, (”burnt wine”), which is how the straightforward Dutch traders who introduced it to Northern Europe from Southern France and Spain in the 16th century described wine that had been “burnt,” or boiled, in order to distill it. The origins of Brandy can be traced back to the expanding Moslem Mediterranean states in the 7th and 8th centuries. Arab alchemists experimented with distilling grapes and other fruits in order to make medicinal spirits. Their knowledge and techniques soon spread beyond the borders of Islam, with grape Brandy production appearing in Spain and probably Ireland (via missionary monks) by the end of the 8th century. Brandy, in its broadest definition, is a spirit made from fruit juice or fruit pulp and skin. More specifically, it is broken down into three basic groupings.

Grape Brandy is Brandy distilled from fermented grape juice or crushed but not pressed grape pulp and skin. This spirit is aged in wooden casks (usually oak) which colors it, mellows the palate, and adds additional aromas and flavors.

Pomace Brandy (Italian Grappa and French Marc are the best-known examples) is Brandy made from the pressed grape pulp, skins, and stems that remain after the grapes are crushed and pressed to extract most of the juice for wine. Pomace Brandies, which are usually minimally aged and seldom see wood, are an acquired taste. They often tend to be rather raw, although they can offer a fresh, fruity aroma of the type of grape used, a characteristic that is lost in regular oak-aged Brandy.

Fruit Brandy is the default term for all Brandies that are made from fermenting fruit other than grapes. It should not be confused with Fruit-Flavored Brandy, which is grape Brandy that has been flavored with the extract of another fruit. Fruit Brandies, except those made from berries, are generally distilled from fruit wines. Berries tend to lack enough sugar to make a wine with sufficient alcohol for proper distillation, and thus are soaked (macerated) in high-proof spirit to extract their flavor and aroma. The extract is then distilled once at a low proof. Calvados, the Apple Brandy from the Normandy region of Northwestern France, is probably the best known type of Fruit Brandy. Eau-de-vie (”water of life”) is the default term in French for spirits in general, and specifically for colorless fruit brandy, particularly from the Alsace region of France and from California.

Brandy, like Rum and Tequila, is an agricultural spirit. Unlike grain spirits such as Whisky, Vodka, and Gin, which are made throughout the year from grain that can be harvested and stored, Brandy is dependent on the seasons, the ripening of the base fruit, and the production of the wine from which it is made. Types of Brandies, originally at least, tended to be location-specific. (Cognac, for example, is a town and region in France that gave its name to the local Brandy.) Important Brandy-making regions, particularly in Europe, further differentiate their local spirits by specifying the types of grapes that can be used and the specific areas (appellation) in which the grapes used for making the base wine can be grown.

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Citizen Scandal: Cop Finds Stolen Gun In Broken Toilet

here’s a headline that’s perfect for law & order to slash from. a cop in athens, tennessee was interviewing a robbery suspect in his hotel area when he asked if he could use the bathroom. upon finishing his biz, the police officer discovered that the toilet wouldn’t flush. lifting the tank lid, he found one …

Unexpected Xmas guest in Pennsylvania

a pennsylvania family did not realise they had an unexpected christmas guest until a shackle who had been in their attic over the extent of days emerged wearing their clothes. stanley carter surrendered after police took a dog to search the home…

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Hollywood Goes To The Dogs; But They Like It There

hollywood did indeed go to the dogs with a $51.8 million four-day accomplishment for warner bros.’ “marley and me,” which also put wb once more $1.74 billion, eclipsing sony’s $1.6 billion 2006 profits, fbla’s box division guru steve mason reports.

Brad Pitt’s starring film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” followed at $39.1 million and Adam Sandler’s comic turn for kiddies “Bedtime Stories” collected some $38.6 million to close out this post-Xmas stellar weekend.

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Everyone complains about the Internet and its effect on the movie biz, but last weekend says movies are as big as ever. Maybe video will be the one that will suffer.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

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Infosthetics Takes a Break…

on this side of the planet, the summer has simply started. from now infosthetics is finally taking a long break out of to get away from it all, and hand down enjoy the western side of its spectacular proprietor country in a +2,500km (+1,500 miles) motorhome road trip. straightforwardly, postings will be dramatically less for the next weeks, unless you positively crave to pay attention to concerning some gorges, beaches, dolphins, whale sharks, and the inevitable sunburn.

You might want to consider to browse through some of the previous posts or explore the infosthetics, visit some [fusioncharts.com] of the [techsmith.com] great sponsors [visualthesaurus.com] on the right side, or explore the infosthetics or HistoryShots shops to discover some great presents for your data-addicted friends and family. Casual visitors should also subscribe to the RSS feed to get notified when infosthetics is back up and running on its normal cruise speed.

Please note that most posts will be closed for comments as the 99%-correct spam filter will inevitably buckle down under the +3000 spam comments per day.

Hope to see you back soon!

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This Bright Winter Morning

Gravity phone

The first rays of morning light illuminate their tiny faces as I round the corner of the stairs.

How long have you been holding her like that? I ask in a scratchy morning voice.

Shhh…she answers. I think she’s having a bad dream.

I remember when my big girl was a baby herself, when I held her for long hours by moonlight, thinking the dark night would never end. I remember wondering if my own mother held me the same way, if she stayed awake the way I do now hoping the morning will be happy and bright.

She cries sometimes, wishing for a sister, and I feel guilty, knowing I have three and will not offer her even one. She cries and then one of her favorite littles comes to spend the night, and she’s in heaven. The sisterless know better than anyone how desperately we need each other, how everything changes in the company of another whom we dare to call sister, to call friend.

May you wake, dear shutter sisters, on this bright winter morning, knowing how grateful we are for your company, for your eyes, for your lens, for your unique and beautiful way of seeing each other and this beautiful world. Merry Christmas.

Leave a comment and win the chance to have one more little surprise to top off your holiday season. Today’s giveaway is the lovely Sisterhood necklace from Blue Poppy Jewelry.

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