We receive shoals of press release -- many useless, some unintentionally humorous, a handful that are quite helpful... and a bucket or two (in all these categories) that are read just because they have some sort of list.People are captivated by rankings, whether done by experts or ordinary folks.Like all incoming PR, the lists are sent in by agencies, companies or individuals who want to get their name out there.We'll post lists on this blog from time to time, and will start with this one from Virtual Tourist (www.virtualtourist.com), a travel-community website whose comments and reviews are penned by its members. Virtual Tourist is a bit different for three reasons: It indeed started as a community project (at the University of Buffalo); though now owned by Expedia, it's clearly more an experiment in social media than a a profit center; it gets publicity through its ever-expanding array of top-10 lists.What are pushing now? An "8th Wonder of the World" competition: June 3 through Sept. 28, people are encouraged to weigh on on which listed destination should win the honor.There are a little more than 300 from which to choose. Nominees range from the expected (Yellowstone National Park, Stonehenge) to the odd (Stew Leonard's, a business in Connecticut that is supposedly "The Disneyland of Dairy Stores"; the "largest Bass Pro Shop in the World," in Springfield, Mo.).Attractions that have gotten on the ballot are, in turn, touting their presence on the list -- looking for votes.The end effect, of course, is to drive more travel fans to the virtualtourist site. The winner will be announced in October.Take a look at the nominees -- you'll see some familiar places from our area. Among them:Biltmore Estate, in AshevilleBrookgreen Gardens, in Murrells Inlet, S.C. (above; Sun-News photo by Charles Slade)Crabtree Falls, on the Blue Ridge ParkwayFranklin Street, in Chapel HillGreat Smoky Mountains National ParkLiberty Bridge, in Greenville, S.C.Lumber River, near LumbertonN.C. Zoo, in AsheboroRockingham County, N.C.P.S.: If you're rooting/voting for a nominee close to home, be aware that the Skunk Train of Fort Bragg (shown below) isn't in the Carolinas: It's in Fort Bragg, Calif.
Source:http://goingclt.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-contest-list-and-skunk-train.html
A contest, a list... and The Skunk Train Images
... the Noyo River on the Skunk Train route. This section of the track
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Skunk Train— John A. Vlahides Like
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contest, a list... and The Skunk Train
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Thousand Words in Hundreds of Pictures
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Ed here: Day of The Outlaw is one of the most powerful and unique westerns I've ever seen. The relationship between Robert Ryan and Burl Ives puts this in my top ten westerns. The dancing scene here is one of the most chilling and remarkable sequences ever put to film. The final half hour is worthy of John Ford at his best as a FILM director. Psychologically Ford couldn't have pulled it off. Director Andrew De Toth directed many of my favorite B crime and western pictures. He wrote many major films but always preferred to direct lower-budget because he said big stars defined the film rather than the writing and acting. Jack Warner said he would triple De Toth's budget if he'd put John Wayne in the picture. But De Toth told him he thought Wayne was "big and stupid." In a rage Warner cut the budget on the film even more and told him he had fifteen days to shoot it. De Toth brought it in in fourteen under budget. It's one of my favorite B crime films "Crime Wave." He was right. Sterling Hayden did a much better job than Wayne would have. De Toth later explained that he liked protagonists who were conflicted, remorseful sometimes, and agitated. So do I. Think of Anthony Mann's protagonists, especially James Stewart.Here from the U.K.'s Telegraph is reviewer Tim Robey's excellent take on the picture.Tim Robey recommends... Day of the Outlaw (1959)In his weekly column, Tim Robey recommends a film that is indisputably worth two hours of your time. This week: Day of the Outlaw, a mesmerising Western that continually redefines what heroism might mean.Every great Western is a unique statement on them all. Consider how many of the best examples are about how the West was lost, not won – and how they like to blur the binary sort of morality we might associate with gunfights at dawn. André de Toth's mesmerising Day of the Outlaw keeps redefining everything it's saying: what heroism might mean, what an outlaw is, how best to deal with one. If your routine matinée Western offers the sure ground of favourite stars trading banter on the same old backlots, this is more like clambering up a rocky outcrop which could tumble at any moment.It was filmed in wintry Oregon, doubling as a tiny Wyoming town with the entirely apt name of Bitters. Russell Harlan was the cinematographer, but it could hardly look less like Howard Hawks's glowing, sunset-hued Rio Bravo, which he shot the same year. Harlan's use of monochrome here is pitiless, frigid, unconsoling. The mountains enclose every exterior shot, and snow is everywhere. Matching the movie's grim visage with a rugged one of his own, Robert Ryan gives a central performance that's ruthlessly tough. As the story begins, he's riding in to air a grievance about barbed–wire fences, and we immediately quail for whoever's on the receiving end.What really stands between Ryan's Blaise Starrett and local farmer Hal (Alan Marshal) isn't the fence. It's Helen (Tina Louise), the lover Starrett missed his chance to marry years before. The movie's first 20 minutes culminate in deadlock, a stand–off, and a bottle being rolled along the bar: when it falls, they'll draw. It doesn't fall. The movie chooses this inspired moment to introduce its real threat: seven army deserters, led by dying captain Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives), who barge in and hold the whole town to ransom.Ryan, hitherto suspected to be the villain of the piece, is suddenly placed in the strange position of being its hero: the only man able to stand up to this brutal incursion of desperate, sex-starved men. All except Bruhn are immediately eyeing up the town's women, and before long de Toth is staging a tense bar-room dance sequence, like some ceilidh from hell. To incongruously jaunty honky-tonk piano, Bruhn's men swing their captive partners around the room like rag-dolls.for the rest go here:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/recommendations/10047540/Tim-Robey-recommends...-Day-of-the-Outlaw-1959.html
MacPCGenre: Action Release Date: 8/6/2013 Publisher: Reverb Publishing Developer: Threaks Beatbuddy: Tales of the Guardians
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