Pataphysical Studios was bursting with art, poetry, music and dance on this first sunny day of the season. The good doctors spent an enchanted afternoon playing together, diving fearlessly into wondrous new dimensions.

This week, we had two new visitors: Dr. Rafe and his son Dr. Leo, who picked up the vibe right away and seemed to enjoy this next-to-last demo of the ‘Pataphysical Slot Machine, before its move to the Figurines Ranch. We also held an initiation ceremony for Dr. Jardin, who received her own purple lab coat from Dr. Rindbrain, to the ritual chant of ‘Gooble gobble, we accept her, one of us’.

We then discovered another important new ritual: dance breaks! As ‘Johnny Be Good’ started playing, we all started shaking our buns uncontrollably -- and kept on rockin’ through many more tracks from the past. … Judging from the grins on everyone’s faces, this is likely to become a mandatory ritual from now on (albeit a hard one to shoot in low-light, pardon the blurs).

In other news, Drs. Igor and Rindbrain taught calligraphy to Drs. Canard and Figurine, so they may make many more words beautiful. Dr. Skidz concocted mysterious plans to paint an art virus on canvas. Dr. Canard whistled to the Golden-Crowned Sparrow, who just flew back in our neck of the woods. Dr. Figurine added a new infinity snake symbol from Dr. Rindbrain to her coat. Dr. Fabio got the sounds working for the Bali Cuckoo Clock and Time Flies wonderboxes. Dr. Igor got all other boxes to play sounds, except one: Mother of Yes — which we will tame next week, just in time for our move. :)

Spring is back in the inspiration island. Time for all art makers to come out and play … Follow your bliss!

View more 'Pataphysical photos: www.flickr.com/photos/fabola/albums/72157623637793277

Watch 'Pataphysical videos: vimeo.com/album/3051039

Learn more about Pataphysical Studios: pataphysics.us/

Charlotte Russe trench

Vintage plaid shirt

Urban Outfitters shorts and flats

Vintage beret

Do you ever have an uncontrollable desire to “be more”? I do. And I know it’s something I’ve talked about before (ok, so I’ve killed this subject) but I obsess over improving myself... read more.

What's the VERY first thing that you do when you get a new gadget, toy, gizmo or doo-dad?

You take it apart of course, and then try and put it back together.

At least that's what I always do.

And I do the same with photographs.

I can take a perfectly good image, tweak it beyond comprehension and end up with a total 'botch' job.

And this was no exception, though I came oooohhh sooooo very close to just leaving it alone. I was intrigued by all the varying shades of light in its natural state and felt that it should be left "as-is".

I really, really wanted to say, "Believe it or not folks, this is SOOC."

But the burning temptation within me became just too overwhelming and though I did my very best to resist this uncontrollable urge to tweak, I simply surrendered and lost the battle.

So sad.

I felt it mildly important to point out, however, that this photo was taken in a Walmart parking lot as the sun slowly descended below the horizon. Who would ever guess that a Walmart parking lot could look so pretty?

Correction ---> NOT the parking lot itself, But the view FROM the parking lot.

There's also a face in there. Do you see it? NOT in Walmart, but IN the image. Located just to the right of the tree trunk.

Our days seem to gravitate around this room lately... notice potty seat:) But my real reasoning behind this is...

Every time I see any of these commercials here ... I laugh, uncontrollably!

More to the story... blogged

Who won your 'Great Debate'?

Under or Over?

Happy Bench Monday!

texture credit: pareeerica

A year ago, this happened.

I wanted to recreate that shot on this grey spring day. Easy enough, except that I left my tripod in the house and Ben, my back up tripod, is wearing a crappy pair of boots that had a hole in them. That won't work. The ground is completely saturated with water, over a foot deep in places, the river has flown over the banks and has flooded our only way to the woodpile!

So, what do we do? Instead of walking back up to the house (a mere 5 minute walk), I piggyback Ben across approximately 100 metres of sopping wet river-trail. Every time he hops on my back, I squeal, "Shit! We're going down!" I can feel him laughing almost uncontrollably as he rides along, he's thoroughly enjoying this.

We make it, my legs shaking and I climb back up onto the wood pile (less confidently than last winter) and he gets the shot. I rush him though, someone's spotted a beaver swimming in the flooded forest that I wanted to see.

Happy bench, Monday!

This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.

The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.

As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.

The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.

Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.

Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.

Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.

In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.

However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.

Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.

With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.

In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.

Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.

As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.

In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.

Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.

The luxury end of Goldberg's wonderful sequence of curvaceous, petal-planned apartment blocks around Chicago, the best-known of which is Marina City.

Goldberg claimed that the exteriors were an uncontrollable consequence of the plans, but I suspect he may also have quite liked the way they looked... I certainly do.

A special setup for 'Uncontrollable Urge'. Note that he is using 'Bob 1' guitar pics ;)

The guitar is a 'Tone-Rite' with the middle two strings removed, a specially wired Boss Distortion pedal and another effect down at the bottom.

Basanta Utsav literally means the 'celebration of spring'. ...

Annually celebrated in March, the festival is an occassion to invite the colourful spring season with utmost warmth. What is appreciated is the grace and diginified manner in which Vasant Utsav is celebrated in Bengal as compared to uncontrollable Holi witnessed in most parts of India. The beautiful tradition of celebrating spring festival in Bengal was first started by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan.

.

This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.

The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.

As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.

The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.

Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.

Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.

Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.

In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.

However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.

Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.

With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.

In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.

Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.

As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.

In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.

Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.

This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.

The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.

As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.

The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.

Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.

Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.

Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.

In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.

However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.

Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.

With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.

In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.

Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.

As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.

In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.

Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.

The inspiration for this Wasteland Scavenger came directly from the DC comics universe. The character "Bane", enemy of Batman, to be exact.

The tanks on his back are filled with a potent Mutagen that is pumped through hoses throughout his body. This Mutagen has increased the subjects strength, agility, and intelligence. Not to mention made him extremely ugly. The Mutagen also causes uncontrollable rage.

This Memorial and Prayer page is dedicated to my aborted and living children.

It comes from my own heart, from my own personal experiences, my own personal learnings in my life and from my own personal regrets from the mistakes I have learned that I have made in my past.

When reading, please remember it is my Children's Memorial & Prayer page and that it is not a debate page of whether anyone agrees or not, nor is it a place to leave "mean" comments and I ask that it be respected as such.

My writings I share, come from my heart and whether one agrees or not, that is a part of you which I respect, and this is a part of what my life has taught me, that is all, it is not designed to offend anyone.

If you wish to "air" out a debate, I ask you to please do so upon your own page and not upon a Childrens Memorial and Prayer page.

Sorrowfully, this June 2008, I have had to ban someone for debating, and writing mean, disrespectful comments from the passions of their heart, that were uncalled for, which I don't like to do.

I realize the subject of "abortion" is a sensitive subject and don't want to "offend" anyone, but also feel that it would be a sad day in this world if one is not aloud to express themselves, their lives, and their own regrets in a respectful manner about what they have personally experienced and regret, and is simply trying to honor the children they love so very much.

I pray you can understand what I am trying to express in the best way I know how.

Now, that that has been said, this is my story:

When I was young, I fell deeply in love with my first love Tommy. We became engaged. We wanted a boy and a girl. I realize now, we should have "waited" and taken the proper steps, but we were young, foolish, and let our hearts run our heads. I got pregnant before we got married to which I do regret. I moved away and he deserted me not knowing I was pregnant as I didn't yet know either. I found out I was pregnant when I was 6 1/2 months. Upon the advise for many different reasons, of good-willed friends and certain family members, I had a abortion when I was 6 3/4 months. Obviously, I didn't have the knowledge or experience then, that I do have now, or I would have never accepted what I had done.

The day of the abortion, I was terrified and confused. I was dropped off alone to face it. I sat in a waiting room, still unsure of what I was doing was right. I really didn't want to do it. Another girl who was also awaiting the same fate, sat near me, telling me of her story of how she had done this many times before and claimed it was nothing. I was in shock at her words, as I, personally wasn't comfortable with the thought of what I was about to do. I kept hearing the words of my good-willed friends and certain family members and now this girls words, and I wanted to cry, because this is not what my heart and head were saying. I knew I was pregnant with a precious child, the child that Tommy and I had so planned for and tho he had deserted me, I didn't want to abort this child which was my baby! I so, wanted to cry. I had heard the words: "How can you raise a baby alone?" "You don't have a job, and noone can help you care for this baby!" etc..

I didn't know how to speak up for myself and I needed help. The abortion answer was all that was given to me. The nurse called my name, and I was "prepped". As the reality set in, and time grew closer, my heart was pounding through my chest with fear and instant regret, as I knew this was not what I wanted to do. They put me in the operating room, gave me a pill to calm my nerves and everything became a blurr as things went fast then. All I can remember was not wanting to do this! They brought in a big, huge Jar machine to which I was horrified to see. It had fluid in it and floating "things" that I was trying to determine what they were, and then they hooked this thing up to me. I asked what it was, but the doctor and nurses were hustling about, prepping me. A nurse tried to turn my head away from it and I repeated my question. She, hesitatingly, told me it was the machine to perform the abortion. I looked back at it and then became horrified as I heard it being turned on. I soon realized, they were vacuuming my child out of me and that the fluid in this machine had baby parts in it floating about! I screamed in tears for them to stop. It hurt bad and I couldn't bear what I had seen or was realizing. I began, uncontrollably, to ball, begging them to stop, trying to get off the table and was shoved down. All I heard was a voice from one of them, saying they can't stop now, it's too late. A nurse pushed my head again away from the machine, but all I can remember was fighting, screaming, crying, begging and that horrid glass machine with all those precious babies floating about. I can't tell you how long it was before they did stop. Another nurse made me take another pill. It seemed like forever before they did stop. I felt the whole thing was barbaric and hated everyone at that moment. When they were done, I can't remember, anything more, as now I was in deep shock and in terror. I just stared in terror at that big, huge glass jar, realizing my poor baby had just suffered a worst fate than I. I couldn't speak a word but I do remember hearing myself still uncontrollably sobbing. The rest was a blurr. I remember at one point being put in a room and then I was sent home. Noone talked to me, counseled me, comforted me... The last thing I remember was being horrified that my relative who was supposed to pick me up, who said tell noone of this, didn't pick me up. She had sent a boy from my new school to pick me up. I barely knew this guy, meeting him only once or twice before. He was peppy talking like nothing had ever happened. The whole 45 minute ride home was deafning. His voice faded in and out. I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. It was horrible. When I got home, everyone barely spoke to me, noone asked how I was, what had happened, was I ok. I suppose they were afraid to ask. I went into my bedroom, depressed and still in shock from the terror, and laid there upon my bed, just sobbing. I never felt so alone. That was my little Kelly Ann Chace that had died a horrible death on 10 February 1979.

After that, I had sworn I would never have another abortion again but sadly that wouldn't be. I would later, under pressure by others to forget my 1st love, get out of mourning and to move on with my life, would date a young man who ended up being the wrong choice for me. The sweet, showering gifts, kind young man eventually turned into a abusive monster whom wouldn't let me leave. He became very forceful to which I won't go into here. Long story short, I became 2 1/2 months pregnant with twins, to which he was glad of at first, but then suddenly decided that he didn't want them and he forced me to have another abortion at the very same clinic. (He had known of my first). Out of fear for my life and theirs, I obeyed. Again, the same horror and terror. This time, when they stopped they put me in a room to rest, but my belly swelled rapidly up like 9 months pregnant and the excrusiating pain became unbearable. A nurse tried to shove crackers down my throat. Soon they realized that they hadn't gotten all the baby out and that I had twins and rushed me back into that butchering room for another repeat abortion with no time to give me calm medicine as I was dying. I screamed, I balled, and I begged while fighting. My twins Joseph and Mary were born and died that day on 04 November 1980. I had to take a bus home alone to find my house empty while he was partying. I did finally rid myself of that looser guy after many attempts to leave him, but I was left with alot of pain and deep regret.

Since then, I got my life together and did move on, but those two haunting days and events never left me. In July 1987, I was pregnant again and started hemorridging badly in New Hampshire while on vacation. The doctors said I might be miscarrying but I continued to be pregnant til October. On October 9, 1987, I went for my sonogram. My first surviving daughter Corin & I saw my Little Peewasu's rapid heart beat and we were excited to see her little sister or brother. I went to release my bladder after the visit and suddenly what looked like a baby's little arm fell out. I screamed for help. The nurses ran in and ran out to get the doctor. They put me back in the room to do another emergency sonogram. The horrible words, "Your baby is dying and you are loosing your life, we must perform an abortion" were said. I was in denial as we had just seen her little precious heart beat and insisted I go home. The doctor firmly stated, that I wasn't thinking clearly, I was loosing my life, it must be done and that he would only give me a few hours to go home to come to terms with it, or he'd be forced to call the police and have them bring me in. I went home in shock and in fear again, coming to terms with it when I went to a friends house for support and I started hemoridging so badly I ruined her king size quilt. I grew very weak and couldn't even sit up. With her convincing, I was admitted into the hospital and at 8:00 PM. they took my little Peewasu. I awoke from the anesthesia in a hospital room directly across from the nursery. I soon realized what had just happened, and then saw the babies in the nursery. I started to ball my eyes out and turned to my right as not to look at them, but soon realized there was a young mother in the bed next to me breast feeding her newborn born about the same time Peewasu was born and died. She didn't know what just happened to me and congratulated me and began telling me her story. I couldn't take it and tho very weak, I got up out of bed, to try to run from her and that room. I got near the nurses desk and suddenly got sick and dizzy and fell to the floor in faint. When I awoke a young gentleman who was a patient was yelling at the nurses for not covering my body up and he asked me what was wrong. I barely got the words out- "They aborted my baby and put me next to the nursery with a new mother breast feeding her baby!". He turned to scold the nurses for insensitivity of the hospital. They put me on a "gernie" and got me a new room. I don't know how long I was in there but I asked the doctor to help me bury my baby as I wanted to give her or him the proper funeral. His cold words stunned me. He simply stated, he didn't think he should help, and I shouldn't be doing this to myself, my baby is just a "MASS" and that I have no right to bury my child. I was devestated! As sick as I was, I wasn't going to let anyone tell me my beloved child, whom my daughter and I witnessed her precious heart beating was just a "mass" and didn't deserve a decent and proper Christian burial. We argued with him leaving upset with me. I called a local funeral parlor and told a gentleman that I needed someone to fight to help me bury my child and this beautiful, kind, good man, helped me. He fought for my Peewasu and my families right to bury her/him. Because I was so very ill, for quite sometime, they waited for me to get better and be released from the hospital and we buried my precious child. That sweet man made a cross and put my baby's name on it til my stone I had ordered came in. It was a private funeral and I finally put to rest my beloved child. The doctor was so mad at me for this that he wouldn't even issue a death certificate to which I have yet to bring the courage to fight for.

I was blessed one more child after this, my beloved son. My kids when they got older, I told them of my past, and how I deeply regret my abortions. I wanted them to know so it would never happen to them. Telling them was the hardest thing I had ever had to do besides burying my baby. I wanted them to understand that life had taught me, that sex should be not taken for granted whether engaged or married or otherwise. Sex is a act to procreate a life. Conception is the act and moment 2 living cells come together to fuse into 1living cell and is the start of life! These facts are undesputed in Science, the Medical Field, and in Religion! When one becomes instantly pregnant, we say, "She is a mother, pregnant with child", not clouding it with deliberate clouding of misinterpretion of words and their true meanings by devalueing pregnancy because of stages of Life growth! The Pregnant woman has a due date that is destined for the living child to grow in the mothers womb. Only living things can grow. The birth is a new stage of growing as the baby comes into the world and will continue to grow and doesn't ceize til death. How any other words can come into play in such a well-known fact, is beyond my understanding now, as God teaches me life's precious valuable lessons and I grow now in my learnings. God created, and he alone, gives the gift of Life and loves each individual and all of his children very dearly! Life is not a choice for us, because it is a gift from God, as he chooses to trust us to protect and raise his precious child. I can tell you this because I have my own personal experience in this issue to which I am totally regretting with much heart ache as Truth and Fact domineer clouded facts, fears, worries, past errors, and past history that I have had..I told them that when I was still too young to know better, in my searches for love and life, I made some very dangerous choices, gambling with the precious gift of life for the sake of love before I was ready to care for such a gift. I thought it was ok. since I was engaged as I had self-committed for life to the relationship I chose. What my inexperience hadn't told me, was that the act I did, should have waited til marriage and had been pre-planned so I was better equipped to handle the situation. Never-the-less, my serious error in my choices in a partner for life, and the act of creation, had serious consequences as we had created a child to which I would be deserted by the Father, and left alone with serious decisions to make. Then I had to tell them the truth that abortion means abort- which means to terminate- (Kill)- STOP the growth of my beloved precious gift of a child and his/her life. I told them everything and how I deeply regret what I had done and how it will haunt me til the day I die, as reality and truth had been revealed to me. I told them that I deeply love them, and that I was sorry for making the errors in my life and that I wanted to share with them in hopes they never make the horrible mistakes I had made and personally learned.. Those are the grose details and cold, hard facts that noone wants to hear about or tell of, and they avoid telling you, and that I live with in haunting nightmare every day and that I won't even discuss the physical pain I felt for it is not worthy to discuss!I killed my innocent baby who did nothing but love me and depend on me for protection from day one of her conception. I failed to protect her against the clouded words and thoughts thrown at me, and against my own choice because I was ruled by fear, worry and confusion. There was two of us, not one of us, so it should have never been just my choice as I gave my choice up the day I chose to conceive! How did I ever let my head get so clouded from the truth? I cry and mourn every second of the day in my soul for regret of what I have done. What I wouldn't give to turn back the hands of time!!

My children, Praise God, learned from my errors, and did not make the same mistakes that I made. I now pray the most Holy Rosary, every time I get the chance as I do pray that noone else goes through what I went through and worst yet, what my precious babies went through. I made this page, from the love of my heart, from the regret of what I have shamefully done, and for the love of my beloved children as their sweet Memorial and Prayer page. I didn't get to bury my first 3 beautiful children so it is here that I do. This is their gravesite for they deserve atleast that. My living children deserve that, as they had to learn from their mother, why their beloved siblings didn't get a chance at their lives to be furthered and why their lives were cut short. This is not easy for me to write about but I must for all their sake. I pray for forgiveness because I do have to answer to them one day and to our beloved father. I'm sorry my beloved children.

I start here with my own beloved children who already faced Abortion:

In Loving Memory and sad, deep eternal regret~~

1) Kelly Ann Chace (10 Feb 1979- 10 Feb 1979 chosen abortion) age- 6 3/4 months Providence, RI.

2) Joseph and Mary Sherman (04 Nov 1980- 04 Nov 1980 chosen abortion) age- 2 1/2 months, Providence, RI.

3) Peewasu Cowaesuck Barron (09 Oct 1987- 09 Oct 1987 8:00 PM.) Aborted because of Life-threatning reasons 6 1/2 months, Wakefield, RI.

I've got an uncontrollable urge to wear these to the Devo/Blondie show at Stubbs in Austin this September...

Cobra courier and chauffeur. Very dangerous both behind the wheel or on her own. Raised in the swamps of Louisiana into a mean and uncontrollable fighter. She could have joined the military but chose Cobra instead.

Always loved the concept of Vypra. It's been a pet peeve of mine when she's portrayed by some as a ninja just because her original figure was a jinx repaint and disregard her filecard that states otherwise.

Basanta Utsav literally means the 'celebration of spring'. ...

Annually celebrated in March, the festival is an occassion to invite the colourful spring season with utmost warmth. What is appreciated is the grace and diginified manner in which Vasant Utsav is celebrated in Bengal as compared to uncontrollable Holi witnessed in most parts of India.

The beautiful tradition of celebrating spring festival in Bengal was first started by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan.

Pataphysical Studios was bursting with art, poetry, music and dance on this first sunny day of the season. The good doctors spent an enchanted afternoon playing together, diving fearlessly into wondrous new dimensions.

This week, we had two new visitors: Dr. Rafe and his son Dr. Leo, who picked up the vibe right away and seemed to enjoy this next-to-last demo of the ‘Pataphysical Slot Machine, before its move to the Figurines Ranch. We also held an initiation ceremony for Dr. Jardin, who received her own purple lab coat from Dr. Rindbrain, to the ritual chant of ‘Gooble gobble, we accept her, one of us’.

We then discovered another important new ritual: dance breaks! As ‘Johnny Be Good’ started playing, we all started shaking our buns uncontrollably -- and kept on rockin’ through many more tracks from the past. … Judging from the grins on everyone’s faces, this is likely to become a mandatory ritual from now on (albeit a hard one to shoot in low-light, pardon the blurs).

In other news, Drs. Igor and Rindbrain taught calligraphy to Drs. Canard and Figurine, so they may make many more words beautiful. Dr. Skidz concocted mysterious plans to paint an art virus on canvas. Dr. Canard whistled to the Golden-Crowned Sparrow, who just flew back in our neck of the woods. Dr. Figurine added a new infinity snake symbol from Dr. Rindbrain to her coat. Dr. Fabio got the sounds working for the Bali Cuckoo Clock and Time Flies wonderboxes. Dr. Igor got all other boxes to play sounds, except one: Mother of Yes — which we will tame next week, just in time for our move. :)

Spring is back in the inspiration island. Time for all art makers to come out and play … Follow your bliss!

View more 'Pataphysical photos: www.flickr.com/photos/fabola/albums/72157623637793277

Watch 'Pataphysical videos: vimeo.com/album/3051039

Learn more about Pataphysical Studios: pataphysics.us/

Oooohh...... that's just unfortunate.

Um, I now have an uncontrollable desire to say "say hello to my little friend " over and over again here.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term: "Gotta shake hands with the man"

Hahaha I love totally unplanned ridiculous crap like this.

Yes, I am a complete child about such behaviour.

SOOC thanks to the sun's natural um, placement. ;)

P.S. I suck at shadow puppets.

The Royal Aircraft Establishment's red, white and blue Aerospatiale/Westland Puma HC.1 ZA941 providing SAR cover during the 1982 Farnborough International Airshow.

Unfortunately, during a post maintenance flight while on anti-tank weapon trials at the French Camp de Canjeurs Air Base, she entered an uncontrollable left-hand turn crashing nose down into trees into a valley south of the base.

Two ground engineers who were aboard her were lost on impact and the two pilots were severely injured.

Scanned 35mm Transparency

The way I looked at the world was changed in a crazy way when the Blurry Vision came. It was almost a psychedelic experience. Movement around me would become blurry. Colors and motions ran before my eyes uncontrollably. Car rides, people passing a few steps by me, kids twirling, etc., anything involving movement affected me. I used to say that I have a 3D chip implanted in my eyes because of its intensity. I hated to have to deal with It with and the fact that I couldn't control it was exhausting. I wanted to just freeze the world to stop its constant motion.

The photo is mostly about accepting that life is uncontrollable,the only way to live it is not caring.

Panthera leo, Mana Pools, ZM.

This chap sunning himself at Mana Pools is a big brute…. notice that his face has been rearranged by an opponent’s claw / fang…his left nostril has a huge split and the cheek below the left eye is heavily scarred. Life in the wild is tough and unforgiving…

I was spread eagled on the ground about 20 yards from him for this shot….I think it’s a reasonable image, notwithstanding the uncontrollable twitching of my extremities!

Thank you for your visit... I am grateful for your Faves, and would be pleased if you were to comment on my work...

Visit my Flickr stream for other related images:

www.flickr.com/photos/momathew/

I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.

Richard Avedon

None of my photographs may be reproduced without my permission. ©2010

Scientific Name: Pseudoarachnia armoralis

Family: Arachnorb

Olimar's Notes:

Although this creature is commonly associated with spiders, it is actually the result of a separate evolutionary line of insectoid creatures. Since the spherical body section supported by the creature's legs carries most of its internal organs, there appear to be no other features that would correspond to a head or abdomen.

Louie's Notes:

Poisonous. Consumption results in prolonged writhing and uncontrollable mirth.

Photo and Creation © 2009 Filip Johannes Felberg

Olimar and Louie's Notes © Nintendo

Mina sits in the corner left alone sobbing almost uncontrollably, Trey sits watching her with a smile and walks across the room to put his hand on her chin tilting her face up, "Don't cry little lady." Trey projects to Mina, "You're just gonna have to accept those days of pussy eatin' be over for you. You ain't no lesbian no more, nah, now... You just a dog... I'm fittin to go find you your collar..."

Mina looks up at Trey as he stands and says to him, "Why are you involved?"

"Excuse me?" Trey asks, Mina repeats, "Why are you involved in this? If this is all about that guy getting revenge for his brother... Then why do you hate me so much too?"

"Hate?" Trey questions, "Nah girl I ain't hate you, this is just business see... Brother... Wait what brother? What revenge?" Trey questioned Mina, both looking just as confused as the other.

sldesignnotebook.blogspot.com/2016/02/oh-no-you-didnt.html

Avatars come in all shapes, horses, dogs, cockroaches, blah blah blah. However when posing as a human being, there are certain looks that send me into uncontrollable laughter.

I don't want to dis' anyone for their style taste, but really. This look was a conscience decision, bought and paid for with Filthy Linden Lucre. I wish I could have talked with her, got to know her and what influences her style.

Just for fun, i've posed in my Tooter Claxton avatars - absolutely HYSterical.

today was full of torrential rain, lunchables, aimless driving, uncontrollable laughter.

blowing off homework, watching pointless tv shows, enjoying the weekend.

so what do you say we let life live itself.

uncontrollable stillness

it was below freezing

and we were waiting in line

to see santa clause

and some of his helpers

at the department store.

miss gabi happened

to stand still for a instant

so I took this photograph.

once inside santa's tent,

however,

it was a total disaster.

miss gabi was crying uncontrollably

and reaching for her mother.

and miss gabi's sister,

izabel,

was sticking to cely's leg like glue,

with her face buried in cely's coat.

there was no way that either one of them

was going to have anything to do

with the dude in the red suit.

they say that first impressions are everything,

and this one didn't go so good,

so I guess it's lumps of coal

in the stockings for both of them.

ho, ho, ho! merry christmas!

Run Rage

run rage (n) - 1. uncontrollable anger experienced by a dog when running in difficult positions, often leading to violent behavior 2. road rage quadruped style

Hard to imagine this was just a few months few months ago.

This is the present view of Wolcott Falls from the upper viewing platform. The town fathers (or maybe mothers) seem to be able to cut back the trees at the bottom but those coming in from the side would appear to be uncontrollable.

HERE is the last picture I could find with a clear view. Taken 4 years ago.

This is a painful and sad thing to post, espicailly after my Change picture that I posted (I will post more). Just to be clear, for those of you that have seen and read my description in my Change picture, I have changed in so many ways. I have grown, but it hasn't been a complete 180. Change takes time to be completed. In all realness, we never stop changing.

Coming from the mind of a self-harmer: Me.

Please read this. For so long I have tried make people understand, tried to put it in words that make sense, and now I think I have. Pease comment. I want to know your thoughts and feelings, the good and the bad. But please I don't want no, "This is completely shit, you shouldn't do this, you're so f*cked up!" bullshit. In other words, don't insult me.

My hands still shake, uncontrollably. They are shaking right now. My leg is shaking too. But my mind feels relatively calm. My body shakes, but my emotions are calm. My hands type faster than usual. My body is in frantic motion, but my mind stays calm. Maybe this is how it feels the first time somebody commits murder. Except I don’t possess the too loud beating of the heart, and the nervousness. The typing is helping calm my hands, so I can finish what I have started. It’s too late to turn back now. Good thing I don’t really want to turn back.

Sensitivity. That is what my skin feels, everywhere. I’m sure making love right now, would feel more amazing then in the past. My feeling of touch is heightened.

Pain. Physical. Red. Blood. It’s everywhere now. Emotion. Calm.

The shaking has stopped, and I am clean, sanitized. I can breathe, and I feel better. I have a very very slight headache, but it was worth it.

It’s like, an addict to something that makes sense, like alcohol, coke, meth. You feel frantic, fearful. You look for what you need, trying to walk, but you can’t stop yourself from running. Your hands shake, your eyes shift from side to side hysterically, and your breathing comes out as nothing more than small quick gasp for air. Then it’s in your hands, and you feel thankful, because you know what you need will soon be yours. Then you feel it, and although your hands are shaking and your breathing still isn’t normal, the calmness washes over you. You feel nothing but peacefulness now. You won’t think about your action till later, for now all you want is to feel. You don’t really feel the physical pain yet, because you can only feel the calmness, the relief. You no longer feel frantic, you no longer feel hysterical. Just peacefulness and overwhelming calmness. Even when you realize the minor pain your in, it really doesn’t feel like anything compared to the calmness.

Many of you can’t or won’t understand, and I get that, but read this. I wrote this during one of my “episodes” as I like to call them. This is exactly what I was feeling. People can’t realize how they feel (at least I didn’t) until they think about it. And this is it. It could be different for other people. But I know that with a lot of addictions (Although some of you would call it nothing more than a choice, something I choice to do, something sick and disturbed, and stupid), it begins with the need, the franticness, the fear (although fear of what, I’m not sure); they are some of the main emotions before the addiction is fulfilled, and the calmness washing over.

This isn’t something sick. One of my contacts once compared it to food disorders. She didn’t say they were the same at all, but she was just using an example, to try and show how self-harm is not something a person chooces. At first yes, but after a while, it’s no longer a choice. I like to compare it to addictions, more than to disorders. Like a smoker needs their cigarettes, like an alcoholic needs their alcohol, like a user needs their drugs, like a sex addict needs sex, I am a cutters who need to cut. Yes, we all took the first step by lighting the lighter, by opening the bottle, by trying the drug, by taking off the clothes, by picking up the razor. But after a while, after your have done it a few times, it becomes a necessity, something you need to do. Yes, we did start it, but we didn’t really choose to keep doing it. Yes, we could stop. Tell the smoker to wear a patch, the alcoholic to go to AA, the user to go to rehab. How many actually do it? Yes it may kill us in the end, even if we don’t mean for it to, even if we don’t want to die, but we don’t think about the future while we’re doing it. We think about now. We’re thinking about the calmness.

Dérive

How long will viewers have to wait for the first episode of the drama “Uncontrollably Fond,” starring miss A’s Suzy Bae and actor Kim Woo Bin? Possibly six months. The Korean media outlet Naver TV recently reported that KBS has still not confirmed the exact air dates for ...

asianpin.com/drama-starring-kim-woo-bin-and-suzy-may-not-...

adj. Crystalline

1. Transmitting light; able to be seen through with clarity

2. Resembling crystal, as in transparency or distinctness of structure or outline.

3. Distinctly or sharply outlined.

Cold Crystalline Water, Rawdon, Quebec, Canada.

PixQuote:

"I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable."

-Richard Avedon

Cancer causes when the abnormal cells grow uncontrollably in our body because of our normal control mechanism getting stopped. This leads the old cells to grow wildly and it forms new, abnormal cells that form new tissues termed as tumors. In some types of cancer, such as leukemia, tumors are not formed.Cancer does not have any special area to grow and it can be spread from any part of your body. Some types of cancer are very common in women, such as breast cancer. Men are more likely suffering from prostate cancer. These types of cancer can be curable and they are not as dangerous and severe as lung and colorectal cancer.

www.rizvicancercare.com

Japan Airlines Flight 123 Traveling Tokyo International Airport to Osaka International Airport

Wanted to do this flight as it should have been in Aug 1985, but as you know this flight crashed into a mountain killing all 15 crew members and 505 out of 509 passengers.

"I ride because of an uncontrollable passion. I ride because its a solitary action - a self medicating stimulator, motivator. It's something I set my goals to, do my best, race myself. It's all about me being in control. In NYC I ride to ride fucking fast. To get there - test myself, beat the subway, kick the shit outta cars. Its an uncontrollable passion that cannot be looked at objectively. 'I ride a bike in traffic' and it's the best thing I've ever done."

This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.

The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.

As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.

The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.

Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.

Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.

Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.

In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.

However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.

Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.

With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.

In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.

Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.

As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.

In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.

Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.

“I think all art is about control—the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.” — Richard Avedon

Since I was small I've loved fire. It can be so dangerous and uncontrollable, and this just gives me even more respect for it. Playing with fire is just what I do!!

I am not a sports guy, this revival in my walking after 2007 happened recently because of my uncontrollable blood sugar , I began walking rigorously since 10 Feb 2015 at the MET Grounds Bandra Reclamation, I walked in the mornings with a horrid pair of keds I did not want to spend money on keds I was not sure I would continue this regimen being poetically moody and impulsive ,,

While walking early morning I would see senior citizens young kids women girls playing tennis and including my old friend Happy Morning Gadiya a crazy tennis enthusiast ,who afte his tennis walked with me , and I met Mr Surendra Pawar Sab their tennis coach, he would greet me every morning with Happy Morning ... and a fence separated our partisan souls .

Than I bought my youngest granddaughter Zinnia she played for two days than her mom told me her school was opening and with Ramzan it would not be able to continue ,,so I spoke to Pawar Sab and he said no problem .

His son Sahil all his volunteers began greeting me , and this evening after I finished my walk 4 km I took Mr Surendra Pawars interview ,..He was at Khar Gymkhana and we share some common benefactors like Mr Mohan Kumar Sab father of my friends Rohit Kumar and Gautam Kumar.

So Mr Pawar wants the kids of the common man to learn tennis he gives them rackets too and is highly dedicated , his fees are reasonable and pocket friendly.

And this is my humble tribute too this humble Marathi Manoos who respects everyone and if you are interested you can contact him in the mornings ad evenings at MET Tennis Court Bandra Reclamation.. the game is for everyone .. no membership.. first come first served ,,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=33-3RQ2MMOY&feature=youtu.be

“Life is short, Break the Rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, and never regret ANYTHING that makes you smile.”

~Mark Twain

(panel1)me: So this mushroom walks into a party

(panel2)me: and the host says hey we dont like your kind here

(panel3)me: and the mushroom says "why not? i'm a fungi!"

(panel4)me: get it get it? fungi? fun guy?! (insert uncontrollable laugh here)

always start out with a good joke to loosen em up.

15of 365

I have an uncontrollable need to be the best damn cake maker ever. Or at least... to be able to pull off a decent layered cake. Gotta start somewhere. This is my second attempt. Salted caramel cake with caramel cream cheese layers and vanilla bean butter cream burgundy ombre frosting and fresh flowers. Still have so much to figure out about baking the cake and dealing with frosting, but pretty pleased with how it's going so far.

Ryan Reynolds sobbing uncontrollably. Im not sure why..

Chaos Theory im guessing.

see all sizes

enjoy news on Ryan as well as 7000+ photos at ryanreynoldsfan.net/

The ultimate Ryan Reynolds fansite.

warning: viewing large may result in uncontrollable drooling...

First night in Savannah after checking into our hotel, my mom and I wandered (that's the Southern way of walking) over to the Historic City Market to look around and grab some down home Southern cooking. We ended up at Belford's of Savannah* and we were not disappointed.

We split the most amazing friend green tomatoes ever. My mom washed hers down with a strong, dark coffee and I cleansed my palette with a yummy peach sangria that our wonderful waitress recommended as a house speciality. The real taste-gasm was dinner though. My mom ordered the black and bleu steak salad - which she thoroughly enjoyed. I went out on a limb** and ordered the shrimp, greens, and grits...what I got was a life changing experience. It was really *that* good. Dinner @ Belford's really set the tone for the rest of our time in Savannah and everything we had to eat after was compared to it. While nothing came close (except for maybe the house made corn beef hash at Clary's) we still did a pretty good job eating our way through Savannah. Good thing we also did a lot of walking!

*There was a short 30 minute wait - Belford's is pretty popular and it was a Saturday night. So we taste tested pralines across the street at the Savannah Candy Kitchen and did a bit of window shopping...until my RADD (raccoon attention deficit disorder) kicked in at a little shop called Silver, Satin, and Beads. They had the most beautiful and unusual scarf "jewelry" hammered out of reclaimed aluminum and hand-made by a North Carolina artist. I'll have to snap a pic of it on a scarf at some point. They're absolutely gorgeous and I've never seen them before anywhere!!

**I'm rather peculiar about my greens and usually have to have them heavily spiced or covered in some pepper cider vinegar. These greens needed neither. They were perfectly wilted and tasted delish without any additions (other than the shrimp and grits). Also, for as long as I can remember I have been the self-proclaimed "only Southerner in the history of the South to hate grits." Seriously...there was never a grit alive that I found tasty. Until I met these sweet, crunchy little grit cakes. I wonder if Belford's ships...

From Belford's menu:

SHRIMP, GREENS AND GRITS

Local shrimp sautéed with apple smoked bacon.

Served over buttery grit cakes, wilted collard greens and Chardonnay butter sauce.

Topped with diced tomatoes, green onions and Parmesan cheese

Winner – Best Entrée – at the 2004 "Taste of Savannah" as judged by Southern Living Magazine

For Flickr this is finished now. I'll do some small things to correct a few details but this must be it for you :P

I hope this will go to the SBA show in London (mid April).

Now all I need to do is finish my other paintings that have to go too.

Watercolour on Fabriano 5

Back at Beachy Head the paragliders are flying every which way and Below us as well as above !! This one was heading down and disappeared into a cleft in the hillside - I think though it was a planned landing .

The number of flyers struggling up the hillside with an uncontrollable bundles of canopy and suspension lines - except one chap who walked up the entire hillside keeping the canopy fully open with just enough air to keep it open , and he made it .