Datasets:
Recag
/
C4_2

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
Community
text
stringlengths
13
81.7k
"I don't feel the nervousness," he said. "I'm at home. These are my people. This is my family."
Shady Gamhour (Pensacola) won by TKO against Starr Johnson, 1:17 Round 2.
Fez Batista (Huddersfield, England) won split decision (2-1) against Lawrence Purifoy (Austin, Texas).
Devin Cushing (Pensacola) won by TKO against Dylan Blakesley (Ocala), 1:50 Round 2.
Anderson Hutchinson (Brazil) wins by unanimous decision against Jeremias Fernandez (Argentina).
Jacob Kilburn (Woodlawn, Tenn.) wins by unanimous decision against Elvin Brito (Lockport, Ill.).
Logan Woods (Nashville, Tenn.) won by KO against Leonard Williams (Pensacola), 2nd round.
Co-Main — Abraao Magalhaes (Fortaleza, Brazil) won by tap out against Tito Jones (Panama City), 3:59 Round 1.
Co-Main — James Freeman (Pensacola, Fontana, Calif) won by TKO against Charles Bennett (Ocala) 0:44 Round 2.
#10. BLACK SUNGLASSES WITH GREEN LENSES.
These are cult-lusted frames. It's funny because the average guy might not know what's up with this particular pair of shades but we guarantee that if you're angling for a PYT who knows anything about anything style-related, she'll recognize the three-prong, tell-tale, golden triangle at the hinge. These are constantly sold out because there's no visible branding and the entire silhouette is a little larger which is perfect for not only grown men, but men with broader noggins like Asian guys and black guys and Jay-Z. Yeah, he has these. No big deal.
What a wonderful place to escape to, this cute cabin in the woods! 2 BR/2 BA with a toasty fireplace! it has a great deck for watching the wildlife in a peaceful setting and it backs right up to the National Forest. Come check it out and watch your stress melt away.
Wonderfully located cabin on Links Golf Course. Lot is over 1/2 acre. There is a 30x30 garage/shop for all your toys. Easy access year round. The large deck surrounds the house and is covered in back. There is an addition of a large 2nd bathroom/utility with a large walk in closet and pantry.
Above: Barnes makes for some weird combos.
Well, this list sure feels a lot like 2015: a role-playing game from Obsidian Entertainment, a couple of games from Japan, and just the biggest card game in the industry.
Welcome to 2016. I’m Jason Wilson, the managing editor for GamesBeat (I’m the guy who, well, thinks he holds on the reins for Jeff, Mike, and Dean). Just as my approach to my top games of 2015 was a bit unorthodox last year, my take on my favorite games of 2016 is again different — this time, it’s a mix of the games that brought me wonder and joy — and also amazed my children.
Above: Dragon Quest Builders has a blocky world with realistic characters.
Dragon Quest VII came out earlier this year, but it’s just a bit too much for my 6 year old. But Dragon Quest Builders is an approachable way for me to introduce both him and his 4-year-old brother to the beloved fantasy world of smilin’ slimes and silly puns. They fell in love with it — the building is more streamlined than what you see from Minecraft, and the quests give you a sense of direction. They can fight the monsters running around, and they enjoy the story of rebuilding the world and preparing to take on the big bad. I just hope that Dragon Quest XI is as approachable as this is for them — and that I can thank this game for setting off what I hope will be years of adventures.
Above: Looks like Shinra has moved in.
This was one of the biggest surprises of the year for me. The mix of Pokémon-like monster collecting and odes to Final Fantasy’s lore-rich past make it an ideal game not just for series veterans but newbies, too — including children. It’s a great “My First Final Fantasy,” and my children are still begging me to play it with them a couple of months after its release. The combat system is also enjoyable, using a stacking mechanic with your monsters to help you plan your attack and take advantage of your enemies’ weaknesses.
Above: Give him a smooch!
I’m an old fart, but I’m also an old fart who once loved shooters. Back when Castle Wolfenstein and the original Doom were new, I loved racing through the levels, blasting everything that stood in my way. Now, 2016’s Doom isn’t just a HD remake of the iconic game from 1993, but it captures that old-school style of shooter. It’s challenging, it’s atmospheric, and it’s a helluva ride.
Above: Combat looks great up close like this — or from across the system. Also, blue lasers: definitely better than red ones.
Paradox Interactive’s known for making grand strategy games … of a rather historical bent. Games like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis have setting hundreds of years ago. Hell, the publisher’s most modern strategy hit is Hearts of Iron, which takes place in World War II. Stellaris takes the company’s game design into space for the first time, and it provides a counter-point to games like Master of Orion or Galactic Civilizations III. Here, you’ll find more emphasis on exploration and developing your civilization’s culture and ethos than in other 4X interstellar strategy games. Does war happen? Sure, but I don’t feel as railroaded into conflict as often as I do in other space games.
Above: Tyranny’s art is gorgeous.
Obsidian Entertainment’s latest in a string of excellent role-playing games tacks into a different direction — here, the darkness has already won, and you play as the voice of the law in a world where your choices aren’t always between good and evil. Like Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny throws a modern shine on the classic role-playing games of the 1990s like Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale (though it does limit your party to four members). It has its own magic and combat system that stands apart from Pillars, too, taking in combos among party members.
Above: Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE brings Persona-like gameplay to the Wii U.
The latest console role-playing game from the makers of Persona and Nintendo’s Fire Emblem strategy series gave me a reason to put something new into my Wii U for the first time all year when it debuted in June. And I’m still chipping away at this delightful and weird Atlus game. It leans more toward Persona than Fire Emblem, featuring a similar demon-powered RPG style as the Shin Megami Tensei series. It’s gorgeous as well, with bright colors you don’t find enough in today’s game design.
This long-running strategy series from Sid Meier and his Firaxis studio feels more complete at launch than it has since the debut of the franchise’s first game back in … 1991. It offers the same, “just one more turn” gameplay that’s made building your civilization so compelling for 25 years. It’s a bit more cartoony, taking its visual cues from the mobile Revolution series, but it somehow fits the franchise quite well. And by pulling buildings out of your cities and turning them into districts (like encampments for your military, campuses for your sciences, and so on), Firaxis has made you think more about where you settle and how you lay out your civs. Those adjacency bonuses that come from districts matter, after all.
Above: Overwatch is celebrating Christmas.
Blizzard Entertainment’s 2016 hit did something that Team Fortress never accomplished: get me into a team shooter. I fell for Overwatch from the first time I played it, piloting D.Va and her mech across the battlefield and blasting everything that got into my way. I later learned I could use the mech’s self-destruct and dash abilities to launch an improvised bomb on the map — something I still try to do at least once a match, just to make me laugh. But what grabbed me was how I could play Mercy and make a significant difference to my team’s performance without firing a shot — by just healing my teammates. And thanks to its cartoonish violence, I can feel OK playing this in front of my kids — something I can’t say for other shooters (even one on this list!).
My favorite role-playing game this year comes from Red Hook Studios, by far the smaller group of game designers on this list. It does something that no other game accomplishes in 2016 — making me feel dread. You recruit adventurers to help you clean out your ancestral home of the horrors, but these twisted terrors can do more than rend your flesh. They can drive you insane, which could have positive benefit … or make your warrior a gibbering glop of impotent rage. The strategy comes from creating a party with the best skills and powers to take on different parts of the mansion while managing their insanities and other ills. Oh, and don’t get too attached to that Highwayman who’ve you leveled up a few times — when characters die, they head to the graveyard. No Phoenix Downs or resurrection spells in this dungeon!
Above: This is a gross Turn 2 board.
My favorite game of 2015 is also my top game this year, but for other reasons (besides being my most-played game of 2016). Blizzard’s Team 5 (the design group that designed Hearthstone) faced a gargantuan task for the first four months of the year — planning its Standard set rotation scheme while also prepping its first set of 2016, the 134-card Whispers of the Old Gods expansion. It pulled the task off, revitalizing (for a time) the $1.2 billion card-game market leader while at the same time creating a raft of new decks to play (and new controversies, thanks to the random-based old god Yogg-Saron). But Blizzard has shown a willingness to listen to its players unlike ever before, fixing some cards that the community felt were broken, changing the draft pool in the Arena mode (where you take random cards and make a deck), and polishing off the year with a raft of changes to how its esports works and the enjoyable Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion. Through all of this, I continued to play nearly every day, listening to three podcasts on how to play and its culture, reading articles, and testing decks.
But what made Hearthstone so fun for me this year was how I gave up on trying to beat ladder decks and just embrace what I find fun — silly creations focusing on random cards doing wacky things and control decks that lead to near-impossible combos that essentially win matches. And in the process, I earned my first three golden hero portraits, and I’ve learned more about how to play than any time when I was trying to see how well I could counter the best decks (or try them myself).
I want more from Hearthstone — better draft modes, new modes, and a better ladder system — but unless Team 5 makes radical changes, I see myself playing just as much, if not more, Hearthstone in 2017.
UPLAND >> It was a job not many were willing to take in the summer of 2016. Upland was in need of an interim city manager after just firing its top executive.
The departure marked the fourth consecutive city manager, dating back to 2005, to leave amid controversy.
Then came Martin Thouvenell, who spent three decades working for the city in various capacities. He quickly began to stir things up, and much like his 17-month tenure, his departure was met with mixed emotions.
On Monday night, after city and local leaders showered him with accolades and praise for serving on an interim basis, a majority of the council approved a consulting contract that could net Thouvenell $108,000 in the next year.
As a consultant, Thouvenell would be getting a pay bump. It was a move that infuriated some at the meeting.
Thouvenell is expected to help new City Manager Bill Manis, who starts in January 2018, lead the search for a new police chief, focus on Memorial Park renovations, and work on issues with San Antonio Regional Hospital, said Mayor Debbie Stone.
Stone was confident Thouvenell would complete the work in under a year.
After the meeting, Thouvenell confirmed, saying he expects to finish his work in six months.
“It would be fairly difficult to abandon those projects right now and hand those over to somebody because they’re fairly technical in nature. They are big projects for Upland and we’ll be talking more about them soon,” he said.
Thouvenell can be a man of few words, but he never held back during council meetings. Often quick to shut down any rumors or misinformation shared by the public.
When the council first brought him on board, Thouvenell was paid $75 an hour. But in February 2017 they gave him a six-month extension, and the council agreed to increase his pay to $80 an hour or up to $76,000 for 960 hours. The contract was extended a second time, from Aug. 7 to Dec. 31. As a retired state employee collecting a pension, Thouvenell is only allowed to work 960 hours in a fiscal year.
During his tenure, Thouvenell has been spearheading moves to increase revenues and stop the threat of operating in a deficit.
But in the last year, both Police Chief Brian Johnson and Fire Chief Paul Segalla left under a cloud of controversy – both were hired by Thouvenell’s predecessor.
His biggest move was to lead the effort to disband the city’s fire department after more than a century of service and turn fire protection over to San Bernardino County. The move could save Upland $3.2 million a year.
Under Thouvenell, the council was presented with a financial stability plan which included implementing parking fees at the Metrolink lots and seeking energy efficient building upgrades. The deal will inject $2 million worth of needed equipment improvements into city buildings that will reduce maintenance needs over the next several years. The upgrades are expected to save $3 million over the span of 25 years. Both items were approved this year.
The interim city manager was highly vocal about the need to consider a sales tax to address Upland’s financial issues but never put forward a plan for the council to vote on.
Councilman Gino Filippi said Upland’s staff appreciated his guidance as the city overcame staff shortages and budget concerns.
Residents like Ramella weren’t alone in raising questions, April McCormick called the contract bloated and said the council’s decision to approve it was a fatal flaw in their future reelection bids.
“We just celebrated this man as though he’s leaving. He’s not going anywhere, he’s actually going to go home and receive $9,000 every single month from the city council,” she said.
Councilman Sid Robinson disagreed, saying the contract was average for what cities pay. Although the cities are not comparable in size and budget, Ontario earlier this year awarded its former city manager Greg Devereaux a $120,000 contract for the 2016-17 fiscal year.
Others residents like Eric Gavin, who is also a paid consultant for the city on homeless issues, applauded Thouvenell for the direction he had taken the council.
In addition, Marcelo Blanco, who was representing the Upland Police Management Association, voiced support for his consulting contract.
“He has done a great job as an interim city manager, and we believe his work is not done yet. We know he’ll be an asset to the new city manager, an invaluable resource to you, and ultimately the community,” he said.
Councilwoman Janice Elliott was the lone official to oppose the contract, voicing her concern that only the council could nullify the pact.
Elliott said she didn’t see the need for a year-long contract to facilitate a smooth transition, adding that Deputy City Manager Jeannette Vagnozzi, staff and another consultant, was available.
She said she also believed Thouvenell’s presence could potentially undermine the new city manager’s authority and motioned that the terms of the contract be amended to be shortened to two weeks with only a $4,500 stipend.
Elliott’s response drew a long applause from the audience but failed to get the support of the rest of the council who were in support.
Although many residents questioned whether Thouvenell would impede the new city manager, Manis later stood at the lecturn and squashed any of those concerns. Thouvenell agreed and has already spoke to the city’s next top executive about his new role.
Filippi defended the move, saying he spoke with Manis earlier that day about the contract. In their conversation, Manis acknowledged he would be in a position to have to hire a consultant to find the new police chief.
“I asked Mr. Manis if he had a choice who to assist with that function it would be Marty. I don’t think that’s beyond reason,” Filippi said.
Councilwoman Carol Timm said Upland would most likely have to hire multiple consultants to get the projects done. Upland either hires one it doesn’t know or hires a consultant who knows what he’s doing, she explained.
“I would rather hire him, somebody we know gets the jobs and knows about these projects,” Timm said.
Timm was actually one of the two council members who wanted to keep the previous city manager and acknowledged she hadn’t met Thouvenell before he joined on an interim basis.
Where has Our Gina gone wrong? Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has had a rough time of it recently. Her near $200 million stake in the Ten Network is practically worthless, and according to media reports, Rinehart's $13 billion Roy Hill iron ore mine in Western Australia (she owns 70%) is still suffering teething problems. It is still to reach its rated production rate of 55 million tonnes a year, despite and promises in late 2016 that this figure would be hit early 2017. The mine started in February 2016. Roy Hill CEO Barry Fitzgerald said late last year: “But we will certainly achieve a 55 million tonnes annualised rate early in the New Year.” We're yet to see it.
Channel Ten is in big, big trouble.
A major row is brewing in American letters. At issue is the text of Raymond Carver's 1981 short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love; a canonical work of "minimalist" fiction, much admired for its spare, laconic style, and its way of configuring ordinary life to yield unexpectedly powerful emotions.
Like most people interested in the form, I was knocked out by these stories when I first read them, and I continue to reread them frequently with undiminished pleasure. I like their chaste preference of action, dialogue and curtly objective description, over the kind of ruminative authorial guff that blurs and sinks the work of so many other short story writers. I love the dead-on accuracy of what they choose to tell, and the uncompromising silence they maintain on what they choose not to. The image of a man sitting with the entire contents of his house out on the lawn becomes a totally fresh way of conveying the hurt of a broken marriage in Why Don't You Dance? About the marriage itself you learn nothing - but this too, this disciplined reticence, feeds its disturbing energies back into the situation.
In The Bath, a slightly creepy baker calling about an uncollected birthday cake becomes - by one of the most diabolic sleights of hand I know of in any short story - a personification of all the forces in life that oppose happiness, well-being, existence itself. His call resolves nothing, but its cruelly timed incursion gives a story of individual loss (the family's child has gone into a coma after being hit by a car) a shattering universality.
Well, it turns out that Carver wasn't quite the coolly surgical artist that these impeccable deployments of the said and the unsaid suggest. His editor at Knopf, Gordon Lish, cut the stories radically before publication, jettisoning as much as half of the original in some cases, reshaping them and changing the way they ended. Carver wasn't at all pleased with the results and begged Lish to withdraw the book from publication - to no avail. The book came out, was rapturously received and Carver's reputation was made.
Now his widow, Tess Gallagher, wants to bring out the original versions, restored to their pre-Lish expansiveness by the Carver scholars William Stull and Maureen Carroll. She isn't advocating pulling the Lish versions from the shelves, but she does seem intent on launching a "real" Carver; a kinder, gentler, "life-affirming" (in the words of Stull and Carroll) Carver as an alternative option for the book-buying public. Knopf is opposed to the idea, and a legal battle appears to be in the offing.
As precedents for this kind of restoration, Stull and Carroll cite, among other things, Plath's Ariel, and Lawrence's The Lost Girl. Personally I think The Waste Land would be more apposite. As Pound's cuts did with Eliot's original, Lish's audacious slashings liberated Carver's densely expressive artistry from the superfluous connective tissue of his rather mediocre ruminations (you can see samples of the changes online at the New York Times website). Does this diminish Carver's achievement? No more than Pound diminishes Eliot's. The writer is the writer is the writer. It would be fascinating to see an edition of the original manuscript showing the cuts (as in the facsimile edition of the original Waste Land) but the idea of allowing the restored version to supplant the edited version as some kind of "authoritative" text is incredibly depressing.
The case is complicated by the fact that Carver himself, unlike Eliot, seems to have persisted in preferring his own original versions (though this is a murky matter too). He went on to publish a rewrite of The Bath entitled A Small Good Thing. In it, the painfully bleak ending is replaced by an upbeat reconciliation scene, with the baker turning out to be a sweet, vaguely Christ-like guy, and the parents reconvening at his store where he plies them with some heavily symbolic warm bread and pastries - a scene of saccharine religiosity that betrays the hard truth of the tale, replacing it with the sentimental wishfulness of the teller. A lot of people prefer it, but then a lot of people prefer bad art that makes them feel good to good art that makes them feel bad. I call it a rewrite because at the time I thought that was what it was: I assumed Carver had got religion and no longer found his earlier vision of things palatable. The writing too, more digressive than before, seemed of a piece with his later stories which, to my mind, were becoming steadily less compelling (his poems, on the other hand, were getting better and better - they really do convey a large-souled, "affirming" sensibility). But according to Stull and Carroll this "rewrite" was in fact the original version of the story, and Carver was merely reclaiming his own work.
The implication is that if he had lived he might have done exactly what his widow is proposing to do now, possibly even going a step further and suppressing the Lish edition. Certainly he seems to have felt uncomfortable with the Carver persona created by the collaboration (if that's the word) with Lish. And judging from these earlier versions, as well as his post-Lish work, that persona is at best only a partial reflection of Carver's actual temperament as a writer.
Who are we, then, to oppose such a project? Ethically, I think that even allowing for all the uncertainties, the rights and wrongs of the case probably stack up in Tess Gallagher's favour. But in literature there's no right and wrong, only good and bad. Pragmatism trumps "authenticity", a dubious notion at the best of times. Auden didn't want his great poem September 1939 included in his Collected, but at this point it belongs to us, not him, and we have no intention of letting it disappear. The great taxi scene in Conrad's The Secret Agent is said to have been partially written by Ford Maddox Ford, but we wouldn't dream of cutting it in the name of "authenticity" or anything else. Bowdler's Shakespeare on the other hand... Etcetera.
LD put the shaving bag under his arm again and once more picked up the suitcase. "I just want to say one more thing, Maxine. Listen to me. Remember this," he said. "I love you. I love you no matter what happens. I love you too, Bea. I love you both." He stood there at the door and felt his lips begin to tingle as he looked at them for what, he believed, might be the last time. "Good-bye," he said.
"You call this love, LD?" Maxine said. She let go of Bea's hand. She made a fist. Then she shook her head and jammed her hands into her coat pockets. She stared at him and then dropped her eyes to something on the floor near his shoes.
It came to him with a shock that he would remember this night and her like this. He was terrified to think that in the years ahead she might come to resemble a woman he couldn't place, a mute figure in a long coat, standing in the middle of a lighted room with lowered eyes.
"Is this what love is, LD?" she said, fixing her eyes on him. Her eyes were terrible and deep, and he held them as long as he could.
L.D. put the shaving bag under his arm and picked up the suitcase.
He said, "I just want to say one more thing."
But then he could not think what it could possibly be.
I can't imagine why anybody would want to turn the clock back on that.
Authorities say eight people have been hurt, three critically, in an explosion and fire at a commercial building in south Los Angeles County.
County Fire Inspector Keith Mora says the blast was reported shortly before 10 a.m. Tuesday at a business in La Habra.
Arriving firefighters found flames showing from the building. The fire has been contained.
Mora says the building houses a rim polishing business.
SENIOR ADVOCATE Mohammad Ahmed Khan, husband of late Shah Bano, died here this morning. He was 94. Ms Bano had passed away some years back. Shah Bano?s court battle had created a nationwide social upheaval when she demanded maintenance after she was divorced from her husband.
SENIOR ADVOCATE Mohammad Ahmed Khan, husband of late Shah Bano, died here this morning. He was 94. Ms Bano had passed away some years back. Shah Bano’s court battle had created a nationwide social upheaval when she demanded maintenance after she was divorced from her husband.
A 62-year-old Muslim lady hailing from Indore and a mother of five, she was divorced in 1978. As she had no means to support herself and her children, Ms Bano approached the court in order to secure maintenance.
By the time the case had reached the Supreme Court, seven years had passed. The Apex Court invoked Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code and ruled that she should be provided maintenance money, similar to alimony. The orthodox section of the community perceived this as an encroachment on Islamic Personal Law and protested against the judgement.
In 1986, during the premiership of Mr Rajiv Gandhi, the Congress enjoyed absolute majority in Parliament and the Protection of Rights on Divorce Act (for Muslim Women) was passed, nullifying the judgement.
Critics strongly contend that this act was socially unjust especially for a woman with no means of support. They believed it was passed in order to safeguard the entire Muslim vote bank.
The civil rights movement is an aspect of the country's history of which all Americans can be proud.
Minority leaders fought for a just cause through nonviolent methods and an appeal to basic principles of human rights. The movement was an inspiration to oppressed people around the world, and its success can be judged by looking at the current occupant of the White House.