HEROES IN THE REAL WORLDTM MADAGASCAR

MADAGASCAR - The fourth largest island in the world, it’s uniqueness lies in the diversity of its people, the landscape and the unusual biodiversity, including unique animal species and natural resources.

We went to Madagascar in the fall of 2009 to produce a documentary about humanitarian efforts to educate the children in rural areas.  Our subject for this video has been Dr. Peter Balasky, a prominent veterinarian from Davie, Florida in the United States.

Aside from running his hospital (Balasky Animal Hospital), Dr. Balasky has spent the last ten or so years building schools and hiring local teachers to provide educational opportunities in remote villages and areas of Madagascar.   The schools are free to whoever attends.  Dr. Balasky, through his non-profit organization “Friends of Madagascar”, has built or reconditioned fifteen schools throughout Madagascar, his favorite being the Green School in Miandrizato, near Sandrandahy in the central highlands.  Dr. Balasky is also involved in Conservation efforts and personal health issues in Madagascar. bad credit loans

We flew into the capital city - Antananarivo, in the center of the island. unsecured loans  The pictures you see at the top of this page are from that city.  It’s not too hard to fall in love with this place and its people, especially the children.

America Texas Burger Japan McDs

It's common for U.S. companies doing business in Japan to make use of their American-ness as a bad credit loansmarketing tool, and businesses like Jack Daniels, KFC, L.L. Bean and Coleman are very good at accessing the iconic imagery of America to make their products appealing to Japanese consumers. So is McDonald's, which has brought back its Big America Texas Burger, an actual product despite sounding like a parody you might read in The Onion. I did my duty as a Japan blogger and had one for lunch the other day, and it was quite good as far as semi-synthetic pseudo-food goes, basically a Quarter Pounder on a custom unsecured loans bun with chilli, onions and bacon. The TV commercial is as cheesy as the burger concept (if you'll excuse the pun), with rugged cowboy-types eating the burger with the Footloose theme playing in the background. After the Texas Burger promotion ends, McDonald's will sell the Manhattan Burger, the Miami Burger and the Idaho Burger, the last of which will presumably involve potatoes in some way.

Did someone say Miku-donald's?

Final Fantasy 14

As many of us already know, Final Fantasy 14 had a bit of a disastrous launch. The pay to play MMORPG from Square Enix, which released in late September 2010, received largely negative reviews across the board, with an average aggregate score of 48.64% on GameRankings (as of this writing). I personally had a chance to play FF14 in its beta testing phase and aside from a terrible interface, I was largely impressed with what the game had to offer. The purpose of this piece is not to bash on Final Fantasy 14, as I personally think the game has a lot of potential, but to explore the possibility of the game relaunching as a free to play title. I personally think it’s  not only possible, but likely in the future. Why do I think Final Fantasy 14 will be free to play? Read on.

Final Fantasy 14 – Gorgeous Graphics

#1 Free to play would Revive the Playerbase
Although Square Enix hasn’t officially released any subscription numbers for the game, it’s easy to estimate the game’s popularity by simply looking at the total number of players online at any given time. Looking at these figures, it’s easy to notice that fewer players have been logging into the game since release. On October 4, 2010 Final Fantasy 14 had about 43,000 players online at once across all of its servers. On October 25 it only had 36,345 players online. For a game that just launched, these numbers are incredibly disappointing. One easy way for Square Enix to turn these numbers around would be to drop the monthly subscription fee and embrace free to play. Players who bought the game could be compensated with premium credit in the game’s new cash shop. Going free to play would act as a much needed phoenix down for the declining playerbase.

Final Fantasy 14 Players Online in October

#2 Free to play would Increase Revenue
Pay to play games dropping their subscription fees isn’t exactly a new concept. Dungeons and Dragons Online originally released back in Feb 2006 as a pay to play MMORPG, but relaunched as a free to play game three years later. Since going free to play Dungeons and Dragons enjoyed a huge surge in playerbase and their revenues increased over 500%. Since The Lord of the Rings Online dropped their subscription fee, their total concurrent players increase 300% with total active players surging over 400%. Revenues for the game also doubled since going free to play. These are just two exmaples of pay to play games going free to play; there are many more. By dropping its subscription fee, Final Fantasy 14 would not only increase revenues, but also reach a much larger audience the same way The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online did.

The Lord of the Rings Online Enjoyed a 300% Increase in Playerbase Once Going F2P

#3 Players are Upset with the Current State of the Game
As is, many Final Fantasy 14 players are upset with the current state of the game. This doesn’t mean the game can’t change later, but those extremely frustrated with the game today will likely quit, and getting those interesting in the game to give it a second try later in the future could prove to be difficult. Final Fantasy 14 has a lot to offer, but many players don’t want to pay monthly given the current state of the game. Realizing that players are upset, Square Enix extended the free month of playtime that came with the game from 30 days to 60 days, meaning Square Enix hasn’t even collected a dime of subscription revenues as of Nov 10. What’s going to happen when players are asked to fork over $14.99 a month to continue playing? Going free to play would give players an incentive to stick around while Square Enix adds new content and irons out all of the bugs.

Final Fantasy 14 Has Beautiful Graphics but limited content and numerous bugs

#4 Japanese Developers Aren’t New to Free to Play
Even though most free to play MMORPGs today are either from China or South Korea, Japanese game developers aren’t new to the concept. Uncharted Waters Online is a successful Japanese developed free to play MMORPG available on both the PC and PS3. The game has proven to be a success in Japan and launched in English on the Netmarble portal in late 2010. The game is available in the West only on the PC, the PS3 version is Japan only. Techmo Koei, the Japanese developer behind the Dynasty Warriors franchise recently launched Dynasty Warriors Online as a free to play game world-wide through Aeria Games. The game has been available in Japan since the middle of 2006. If Final Fantasy 14 did go free to play, it most certainly would not be the first Japanese developed free to play MMORPG. unsecured loans

Dynasty Warriors Online – A Free to Play Japanese Developed MMORPG

#5 Free to Play is the Future
Let’s face it – free to play is the future of MMOGs. New free to play MMOs and MMORPGs are launching each and every month, with many of them being extremely high quality games. On top of this, more and more pay to play MMORPGs are dropping their subscription fees. Sony Online Entertainment already released a free to play version of EverQuest 2 while Pirates of the Burning Sea and Champions Online announced that they would be going free to play in early 2011. North America has always been the biggest market for subscription based games, but with so many of these games in dropping their subscription fees, it will be difficult for Final Fantasy 14 to justify its fee. bad credit loans

Pirates of the Burning Sea is Dropping its Subscription Fee

Final Fantasy 14 is an interesting game with a lot to offer. As a big fan of Final Fantasy franchise, FF14 is a game I would personally try getting into if it went go free to play. What are you thoughts on Final Fantasy 14? Would you consider playing it if were to goes free to play? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

African cats

Our oceans are larger than our landmasses, and countless—many undiscovered—creatures dwell within their titanic depths. But rather than convey the mysteries of the ocean deep by focusing on the lifecycle of a few sea critters, Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, makers of the breathtaking Oceans, thought bigger, absorbing only as much of the sea's wonders that time, money, and technology allowed, presenting our majestic oceans to us as an eye-catching collage of beauty and dread, environs as mysterious and worthy of our protection as the air that fills our lungs.

Disneynature's new film, African Cats, isn't quite so philosophically minded. More like a Disneyland attraction, it grossly anthropomorphizes the circle of life that connects the lions and cheetahs that live in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve. The doc's visual approach, as fetching as it is dodgy, isn't the problem per se: Directors Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey's near-obsessive fixation on documenting the instinctual imperatives of their subjects is studied, hypnotic even, though you're always aware of who the G-rated film is directed at (a slow-mo shot of a hungry lioness chasing after a wildebeest culminates with the lioness sinking her teeth into her prey, but from the blocking they may as well be necking). What really boggles the mind is Samuel L. Jackson's ghetto narration, which, as curiously and tastelessly written, would have us believe that the lives of African cats are not unlike the lives of…people living in the ghetto? unsecured loans


Meet Fang, leader of the river pride, who clearly didn't get his bad-ass name until after a fight—probably with some pimp—left him with a broken tooth. Everything's aight in this particularly scenic hood when the zebras and wildebeests are chillin' on their terrain, but when the seasons take them elsewhere, a turf war ensues between Fang's gang and northsider Kali's posse. Caught in the middle of the lion drama is the courageous Sita, a foxy cheetah explicitly referred to as a "single mother," but what happened to her baby daddy is left completely to our imaginations. In the end, all that's missing from this vision of Africa-as-Compton is the bling.

African Cats is rich in on-the-plain minutia, but the plain doesn't always feel like a plain, as the film's anthropomorphization of its cast of critters is rife with allusions to African American social reality. There's a whole lot of a territory-pissing, some wife-swapping, even a hyena-initiated drive-by that claims the life of a bunch of Sita's cubs. You watch this animal-kingdom melodrama wishing it was completely divorced from the alliteration-rich, pun-friendly narration ("Fang the protector demands the lion's share" is a notable howler), which an overzealous Jackson eagerly delivers with the cool, smug menace of Kaa from The Jungle Book. With it, a passable Discovery Channel special is not only infantilized but given bad credit loans the feel of a Spike Lee joint.

Skyfall imax

The newest James Bond movie "Skyfall" is currently being shot for its release in U.S. theaters November 9. The movie, which will be put out by Columbia Pictures and MGM, is likely to benefit the two movie studios as well as movie theaters around the world. Sony owns Columbia Pictures, but it represents a small portion of its overall business so it should have a minimal impact. Two other big winners from the movie and James Bond franchise are profiled below.

Amazon 
Author Ian Fleming created the James Bond character back in 1953. Fleming wrote 12 books featuring James Bond and two short stories before his death in 1964. Since Fleming's death, several other writers have written books about the James Bond character.
Amazon's Thomas & Mercer unit will publish all the James Bond books in the United States starting in the summer. The deal also gave Amazon the e-book rights to produce the books for Amazon's bestselling Kindle. The Amazon deal is for 14 James Bond titles. The new "Skyfall" movie is not based on a book but will help spur demand for the previous titles, which had been hard to find in the American book markets. The 10-year deal in the United States will be exclusive to Amazon. bad credit loans
It is unknown how much cash Amazon had to pay to the Fleming family estate to get the rights to the books. The deal is a good way for Amazon to maintain its dominance in the e-books market. Scholasticfound out all too quickly how important the digital rights for a book series could be. Harry Potter J.K. Rowling maintained the rights to the series for electronic distribution. The move paid off for her as the books took in $1.5 million in their first three days on the market.
Amazon shares are trading at $189.98 as of Friday's market close. Shares will be traded heavily this week as the leading online retailer reports first-quarter earnings Thursday April 22. As I mentioned before Amazon is getting involved in sales of every item thinkable to consumers. Shares are trading well off of their 52-week high price of $246.71. In order to invest in Amazon, you would have to put aside the triple-digit price to earnings and focus on the company being number one in many areas of retail. Shares are expensive at this level in my opinion.
Recommendation: Hold

Imax
Imax recently announced that "Skyfall" will be hitting its screens around the world. The movie marks the first in the James Bond series to be featured on Imax screens. The movie will be released in the United States on November 9, on Imax screens and internationally in October with the international release date.
There are rumors that "Skyfall" could come to Imax theaters the same date as their international counterparts. This would give the latest James Bond movie a head start of exclusive time in Imax theaters, which could benefit the company greatly. This was a move the company tried with a successful early launch of "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol."

Imax continues to add movies to its already heavy 2012 lineup. Recent additions were "The Avengers," "The Hunger Games," "Battleship," "Frankenweenie," and now "Skyfall." The success of "The Hunger Games" and "Titanic 3D" should be shown in Imax's next earnings report. "Gravity," starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, will be shown on Imax screens starting November 21st. "The Hunger Games" returned to Imax screens for an additional week, which shows off the company's tremendous ability to capture additional revenue whenever it can.

Shares trade at $23.12 and are well off of their 52-week high of $38.00. Imax shares are one of my top 10 picks for 2012. The stock was up 33.33% in the first three months of the year, but as a shareholder I believe there is lots of upside left. The upside comes from a growing international base of theaters and the company's amazing 2012 lineup. Look for shares to hit $40 by the end of the year.
Recommendation: Buy

The Movie
The new "Skyfall" movie comes out on November 9, and will go up against "Anna Karenin," starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law. The last James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace" opened against limited releases and foreign movies. "Anna Karenina" is an adaptation off a Leo Tolstoy novel by the same name and will likely make $10 million or less its opening weekend. Holdovers from the week before include "Red Dawn," "The Guilt Trip," and "Wreck-it Ralph." The key thing to remember is "Breaking Dawn Part 2" opens the following weekend so "Skyfall" will likely only lead the box office for one weekend and will need to capitalize the theater counts it has for its premiere.

James Bond celebrates 50 years in 2012 and is rumored to be making a scheduled appearance at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England. Daniel Craig was personally invited by the Queen to help open the Olympics. Craig will be in character and take on a new mission to open the games. The short video and liver performance will be directed by Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). Whether the opening ceremonies feature James Bond will be seen, as some are reporting this as a cruel April Fool's joke to fans of the series. unsecured loans

The James Bond movies have improved both theater counts and box office revenue throughout the 2000s. The last release "Quantum of Solace" was shown on 3,501 theater screens (compared with "Casino Royale's" 3,443). The movie took in $67.5 million during its opening weekend before clearing a domestic total of $168.4 million.

Look for the movie to be shown on 4,000 screens and hit the $70 million mark during its opening weekend for the first time in James Bond history.

'Zerg Rush' Easter Egg

If you love surprises from Google in the form of Easter Eggs, then here is something new for you to play with. Google's new Easter Egg has now come to the notice, which is quite interactive. It's more of a game that lets you hit and collect scores.

No matter what you are doing, you are suggested to go to the Google home page and search for the keywords "Zerg Rush". The search results will appear, but those links/results won't be clickable. Immediately after the search results appear, a chunk of little Os from the Google logo will start dropping from the top of the screen.

Now here the real fun starts! Use your mouse to click and destroy the Os - or zerglings - before they wipe out your search results, and form two large Gs on the page.

As the game ends, users are allowed to share their scores via Google+, thereby letting their followers know that how many zerglings they managed to target.

This Easter Egg is said to be a reference to a strategy used in the real-time strategy game StarCraft, which was developed by Blizzard Entertainment.

Google's new Easter Egg is so interesting that it went viral this morning in a short time frame, and also started trending on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

This gag is the latest in a long line of Google Easter Eggs. It is not the first time that Google has come up with such an awe-inspiring Easter Egg. In the past also, Google easily managed to grab the eyeballs of users with its top-drawer Easter Eggs. unsecured loans

Google's "Let it snow" Easter Egg, which was released in December, was another pleasant surprise. On typing the words "Let it snow" in the search box, snowflakes started falling in the browser from the top of your screen, and slowly covered Google's search results.

Besides, there is another Easter Egg - "do a barrel roll" - that was observed last year, and is still one of popular Easter Eggs from Google. It completely rotates Google's search results.

In June last year the search engine giant marked bad credit loans the the Gay and Lesbian Pride Month with an Easter Egg on its search results page. For search results for terms such as "gay", "lesbian", "transgender" and "lgbt", Google displayed a rainbow, signifying the rainbow flag of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) movement at the end of the search bar.

Cutty Sark launch

The Queen will relaunch the world famous Cutty Sark later, five years after a major fire nearly destroyed the vessel.

The icon of British maritime history will open to the public after the £50m restoration of the world's last surviving tea clipper.
"It's been blood sweat and tears," said Richard Doughty who, as director of the Cutty Sark Trust, has been involved in every step of the huge project.
"It really has been a rollercoaster. But the great survivor Cutty Sark survived that fire," he said.
"I remember the fire chief calling me that day and saying the ship was alight from stem to stern. Not only have we been able to bring her back but we have saved so much of the original timber, the original features."
Luckily, at the time of the fire in 2007, unsecured loans the restoration work was already under way which meant around 50% of the ship had been removed.

"The damage could have been a lot worse," Mr Doughty told Sky News. He reflects now on how the blaze turned out to be a blessing in disguise - triggering an outpouring of donations.
Every inch of what was left of the 143-year-old vessel has been painstakingly put back together in Greenwich, London. At every turn her history is reflected.
Launched in 1869 from Dumbarton in Scotland, the Cutty Sark visited most ports around the world, transporting everything from fine teas to gunpowder, whisky to buffalo horns.
She made her name as the fastest ship of her era during her time in the wool trade.
In an amazing feat of engineering the Cutty Sark has been raised 11ft in the air.
Visitors can walk underneath the vessel and view the lines of her hull and the innovative design which enabled her to reach the record speed of 20mph from Sydney to London.
The restoration is a source of fierce local pride according to Bill Edgerley, a volunteer with the Cutty Sark Trust.
"She represents something special. This is a memorial to the merchant seamen. To lose the ship would have been to diminish that memory," he said.
And he added that local people are hugely passionate about the ship: "Everyone is so excited. They really feel it is part of their history."
Today, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, who campaigned to get the Cutty Sark brought to Greenwich back in the 1950s, will relaunch the vessel. bad credit loans
The event will open a new chapter in the extraordinary life of this ship.