10 Instances of Literary Censorship

10 Instances of Literary Censorship – http://pulse.me/s/C81es

50 books, 50 offers, 25 hours at Book Depository coming Thursday 28th November

Not sure how many of you out there still love to get their hands on physical books, but I’ve posted about the Book Depository website before.  They offer discounted books, with free shipping around the world.  Not sure how much you actually save in UK versus say maybe getting it from Amazon, but in Hong Kong, and many other countries, Amazon charges an arm and a leg to deliver, so the Book Depository website has been a fantastic find for me, particularly for my cooking books.

This Thursday, they will be doing another mad sale for a day.  Basically, they put up one book per half hour, with a bigger discount then usual.  The only caveat is that they have a limited number of each book.  So, if you want that particular book, you’d best be quick.  With it running for 25 hours, that’s 50 books that will be up for sale; all with free shipping around the world.  How awesome is that.  Click here for more details.

6 Great East Asian Writers You Didn’t Read in Class

6 Great East Asian Writers You Didn’t Read in Class – http://pulse.me/s/wZ0as

Liverpool teen Harry Wilson set to become youngest Wales cap

http://sportsrepublic.mobilesrepublic.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=3&articleid=14006203

Liverpool & Arsenal Line Up Move For MLS Wonderkid Dubbed ‘The Next Thierry Henry’

Liverpool & Arsenal Line Up Move For MLS Wonderkid Dubbed ‘The Next Thierry Henry’ – http://pulse.me/s/rQ12X

It’s curtains until January….

Transfer windows.  They divide the football community.  Some love them, with the drama they bring; others loathe that they carry on until the season has started.  I do prefer them to when transfers could happen all season long, but in recent years Liverpool have done so badly in them that it’s almost like it would be better if we did away with transfers altogether.  This time around we did a fair bit of business early in the window and I’ve talked about most of those.  Mignolet has been an instant success, as has Toure.  Aspas looks like he might have the skills to do ok, but needs working on his strength.  Cissohko has had a torrid start with that early injury, and Alberto hasn’t really had much of a competitive run, although he’s probably one for the future.  So would we be getting any more players in?

What a difference a week makes… oh wait hang on….

Last two games saw us win one nil.  Up next was United.  Would I be happy with another one nil…. you betcha.  Did I expect it?  No… not in the slightest.  Now that’s not to say I didn’t think we could win, on the contrary.  The thing is Toure was out injured, and van Persie has been known to be a bit of a nuisance.  However, we also had a man on fire at the other end.  The one thing I never thought would happen was for one of the teams to come away with a clean sheet.  How happy am I that I was wrong there…..

Two games in… New nails please!!

One game, one win, one clean sheet.  A great start to the season.  Now don’t get me wrong, I was as ecstatic as any Liverpool fan last week when Mignolet made the dream debut with a last minute penalty save, honestly I was.  However, for this week I would have been happy for fans to be asking if Mignolet was even in goal.  A nice easy week, where our front men clicked perfectly and our keeper got to sleep throughout the game.

Of course, the chances of that happening were unlikely given Aston Villa’s start to the season.  Sure they lost to Chelsea and were given some very dubious decisions against Arsenal, but they had played well in both games, and, in Agbonlahor and Benteke, they have two strikers that are capable of causing trouble for any defense.   Agbonlahor has the height and strength that is always a threat at set pieces and Benteke is on an astonishing period of goal scoring form.  They’re also a fairly pacy side, and our ability to counter attack and break away would always have less chance of successful given that pace.

So, would this be another nail biter, or would our attack start to click together? Would Coutinho’s quality finally be rewarded with a deluge of goals?  Well, let’s see…..

The sad state of gaming

A couple of months ago I received an invite to Ingress.  I was quite pleased about getting an invite to it, as here was a game that was trying to do something completely different.  the concept behind Ingress is that the world we live in suddenly has these portals all around us, which exude eXotic Matter (XM).  There are two factions in the world, the Enlightened, who have chosen to accept XM is able to advance our lives; and Resistance, which will fight against XM.  Of course that’s just a story, something to draw you into the experience.

The game play involves players on either side fighting for control of these portals, and creating links and fields to take overall control of the maps.  The XM is kind of like your usual energy bar, but instead of this getting replenished over time, it gets replenished as you walk around collecting it.  You have a circle of influence and any XM in that circle is drawn to you.  You can then use that XM to hack portals; deploy resonators to take/keep control of those portals; or create links, with each triangle of links creating a field.  The area of those fields is all added up to show which faction has the most control of a map.

And we’re off

Summer.  That long period of time that football fans hate.  When the league finishes and it is weeks before another ball is kicked competitively.  Every two years it’s made worse due to there being no World Cup or European Championships to fill that gap.  Well, as of yesterday, it’s finally over and the Barclays Premier League kicked off once again.

The setting for the curtain raiser just so happened to be Anfield this season.  Liverpool would get the chance to kick of the season at home, and their opposition was Stoke.  The glorious green carpet on the field, the red netting in the goals, the Kop End were all ready to start us off again.

Liverpool had spent the summer bringing in a number of new purchases, and the question for most fans would be how those new purchases would fit into the squad, if at all.  Stoke, however, had been ringing the changes from their end too.  Gone was rugby aficionado Tony Pulis, and in his place came Mark Hughes.  Would we see the same bullying Stoke from the last few seasons, or would we see a sudden change  towards attacking football that Mark Hughes seems to favour?  It promised to be an interesting curtain raiser, would it be exciting though?