Miss America 2009

In ball , blue and bikinis, 52 new women took to the stage to compete for the Miss America 2009 heading Saturday, a mini-existence series on cavalcade prep work and a week of preliminary competition.

Judges tight Miss America to 15
In ball gowns, blue jeans and bikinis, 52 immature women took to the stage to compete for the Miss America 2009 entitlement Saturday, capping a mini-truth series on parade prep work and a week of pilot competition.

After an germinal rave number and the traditional cavalcade of states, judges and fans of the Miss America carnival cut the field in the 88-year-old beauty match to 15 finalists.

In a new incident this year, viewers of a lead-in experience show, “Miss America: Countdown to the Crown” voted in four of the finalists, while the judges announced the other 11 contestants emotional on during a live TLC television broadcast from the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

The four preferred by viewers are: Miss South Dakota Alexandra Hoffman, Miss Georgia Chasity Hardman, Miss Indiana Katie Stam and Miss Alabama Amanda Tapley.

The another 11 frontrunner picked by judges are: Miss Michigan Ashlee Baracy, Miss Delaware Galen Giaccone, Miss Arkansas Ashlen Batson, Miss Hawaii Nicole Fox, Miss District of Columbia Kate Marie Grinold, Miss Iowa Olivia Myers, Miss New York Leigh-Taylor Smith, Miss California Jackie Geist, Miss Florida Sierra Minott, Miss Kentucky Emily Cox and Miss Tennessee Ellen Carrington.

The winner will be by Miss America Kirsten Haglund of Michigan and take home a $50,000 research before embarking on a year of transportable and public appearances.

The spectator communication to name four as “America’s choice” was Discovery- TLC’s bid to stoke interest in this year’s crop of well-clad childish women. Once an American icon, the polish on Miss America’s head has been in fresh years by slipping ratings and the esteem of more salacious veracityAntonym shows.

The play was dropped from network television after the 2004 spectacle drew a track record low viewership. It found a home in Las Vegas after poignant from its location in Atlantic City, N.J., but it has struggled to get its structure on shackle.

In its subsequent year on TLC, Mario Lopez, of “Extra,” hosted with an hindrance from Clinton Kelly of TLC’s “What Not to Wear.” Judges include actress Laura Bell Bundy, Miss America 1999 Nicole Johnson, hairstylist Ken Paves and Olympic swimmer Cullen Jones.

As constantly, the women compete in swimsuit, evening gown and ability competitions, as well as a short “interview,” in which they are point of view on a current episode or hot matter. TLC has tried to dash the days of that declared that “family are the yet to come.” Questions will come from average population and are deliberate to put the contestants on the spot.

TLC also is some fun with the és of pageants past. For example, in its record for home viewers available, it asks viewers to reckoning the integer of of world serenityAntonym and to name the challenger with best canSynonyms tan.

Other who won challenges on the materialityAntonym TV show and gold sashes for the exact to compete for “America’s choice” comprised: Geist, Giaccone, Minott, Fox, Myers, Miss Idaho Elise Davis, Miss Kansas Emily Deaver, Miss Ohio Karissa Renee Martin, Miss Texas Rebecca Robinson, Miss Virgin Islands Shamika Thomas and Miss Wisconsin Briana Lipor.
miss america 2009, miss america, miss america 2008, miss usa 2009, kirsten haglund, miss universe 2009

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Frank Abagnale Jr. Story

Frank Abagnale
Frank William Abagnale, Jr. (born April 27, 1948) is an American security consultant, and former check confidence trickster, forger and impostor. He became infamous in the 1960s for passing bad checks worth about $2.5 million in 26 countries over the course of 5 years. During this time, he used at least eight aliases to cash bad checks.

Abagnale’s life story provided the inspiration for the feature film Catch Me if You Can, based on his ghostwritten biography of the same name. As of 2009 he runs Abagnale and Associates, a financial fraud consultancy company.

Childhood

Abagnale was born the 3rd of four children and spent the first sixteen years of his life in New York’s Bronxville. His mother and father divorced when he was 12, and afterwards he would be the only child of whom his father would gain custody. His father did not necessarily want him, but in order to reunite his family he would attempt to win his mother back until his death in 1974. His father was also an affluent local business man who was very keen on politics, and was a major role model for Abagnale Jr.

First Con

His first victim was his father.

His father gave him a 1952 Ford truck, and once Frank Jr began to take a notice of girls, he could not stop spending money on them. In order to fund his exploits with the opposite sex, he asked his father for a credit card to charge gas on, since he was always short on cash. He began to make deals with gas station employees all around the New York area to falsely charge items to his card, then give him a portion of the money; in return the employee got to keep the item and “resell” it for the full price. Over the course of 2 months, Frank Jr “bought” the following items for his vehicle:

* 14 sets of tires
* 22 batteries
* large quantities of gasoline

The bill totaled up to $3,400, which his father discovered only after a debt collector contacted him in person, as Frank Jr was throwing away the bills that came in the mail. When confronting his son, Frank Sr wasn’t so worried about the expenses he’d accumulated, but rather that his son replied, “It’s the girls dad, they do funny things to me. I can’t explain it.” This libido and greed-tainted response set the tone of his life until his imprisonment.

Bank fraud

Abagnale’s first confidence trick was writing personal checks on his own overdrawn account, an activity which he discovered was possible when he wrote checks for more money than was in the account. This, however, would only work for a limited time before the bank demanded payment, so he moved on to opening other accounts in different banks, eventually creating new identities to sustain this charade. Over time, he experimented and developed different ways of defrauding banks, such as printing out his own almost-perfect copies of checks, depositing them and persuading banks to advance him cash on the basis of money in his accounts. The money, of course, never materialized as the checks deposited in it were rejected.

One of Abagnale’s famous tricks was to print his account number on blank deposit slips and add them to the stack of real blank slips in the bank. This meant that the deposits written on those slips by bank customers ended up going into his account rather than that of the legitimate customers. He took in over $40,000 by this method before he was discovered. By the time the bank began looking into his case, Abagnale had collected all the money and had already changed his identity.

Impersonations

Airline pilot

Pan American World Airways estimates that between the ages of 16 and 18, Frank Abagnale flew over 1,000,000 miles on over 250 flights and flew to 26 countries, at Pan Am’s expense, through the use of deadheading. He was also able to stay at hotels for free during this time. Everything from food to lodging was billed to the airline.

Teaching Assistant

He claims to have forged a Columbia University degree and taught sociology at Brigham Young University for a semester working as a teaching assistant by the name of Frank Adams.[2]

Doctor

For nearly a year, he impersonated a pediatrician in a Georgia hospital under the alias of Frank Williams. He chose to do this after nearly being caught by police after leaving a flight in New Orleans. Aware of possible capture, he retired to Georgia for the time being. When filling out an application for an apartment he listed his previous occupation as “doctor” fearing that the owner might check with Pan Am if he had listed “pilot”. After becoming friends with a real doctor who lived beneath him, he became a resident supervisor of interns as a favor for him until they found someone who could take the job. He did not find the job difficult because the supervisor does not do any actual medical work. However, as a medical layman, Abagnale was nearly discovered after almost letting a baby die through oxygen deprivation (he had no idea what the nurse meant when she said there was a “blue baby”). Abagnale was able to fake his way through most of his duties by letting the interns handle most of the cases that came in during his late night shift, for example setting broken bones and other such tasks. Finally, the hospital found another replacement and he returned to the air. In an interview with Frank Abagnale, he said that the supervisor had a death in the family and had to fly out West, during which Abagnale took the position. However, since they had trouble finding a permanent applicant, he stayed for eleven months.

Attorney

Abagnale forged a Harvard University law transcript, passed the bar exam of Louisiana and got a job at the office of the state attorney general of Louisiana at the age of nineteen. This happened while he was posing as Pan Am First Officer “Robert Black”. He told a stewardess he had briefly dated that he was also a Harvard law student and she introduced him to a lawyer friend. Abagnale was told the bar needed more lawyers and was offered a chance to apply. After making a fake transcript from Harvard, he prepared himself for the compulsory exam. Despite failing twice, he claims to have passed the bar exam legitimately on the third try after 8 weeks of study, because, “Louisiana at the time allowed you to (take) the Bar over and over as many times as you needed. It was really a matter of eliminating what you got wrong.”[3]

In his biography, he described the premise of his legal job as a “gopher boy” who simply fetched coffee and books for his boss. However, there was a real Harvard graduate who also worked for that attorney general, and he hounded him with questions about his tenure at Harvard. Naturally, Abagnale could not answer questions about a university he had never attended, and he later resigned after eight months to protect himself, after learning the suspicious graduate was making inquiries into his background.

Capture and imprisonment

Eventually he was caught in France in 1969 when an Air France attendant recognized his face from a wanted poster. When the French police apprehended him, 12 of the countries in which he had committed fraud wanted to extradite him. After a two day trial, he first served prison time in Perpignan’s House of Arrest in France; a one-year sentence that was reduced by the presiding judge at his trial to six months. His stay in Perpignan left him fearful of spending more time in another version of the prison.

He was then extradited to Sweden where he was treated fairly well under Swedish law. During trial for forgery, his defense attorney almost had his case dismissed by arguing that he had “created” the fake checks and not forged them, but his charges were instead reduced to swindling and fraud. He served six months in a Malmö prison, only to learn at the end of it he would be tried next in Italy. Later, a Swedish judge asked a U.S. State Department official to revoke his passport. Without a valid passport Swedish authorities were forced to deport him to the U.S. He was sentenced to 12 years in a federal prison for multiple counts of forgery.[4]

Alleged escapes

While being extradited to the U.S., Abagnale claims to have escaped from a British VC-10 airliner as it was turning onto a taxi strip at New York’s JFK International Airport. Abagnale purported in his biography (originally published in 1980) to have removed the toilet knobs in the plane’s lavatory and squeezed through a two-foot-square hatch cover before dropping three meters to the tarmac below. Under cover of night, he scaled a nearby fence and hailed a cab to Grand Central Terminal. After stopping in the Bronx to change clothes and pick up a set of keys to a Montreal bank safe deposit box containing US$20,000, Abagnale caught a train to Montreal’s Dorval airport (now Montreal-Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport) to purchase a ticket to São Paulo, Brazil, a country with which the U.S. had no extradition treaty. On his way to Montreal he had a close call at a Mac’s Milk in Dundas, Ontario. He was caught by a constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while standing in line at the ticket counter and subsequently handed over to U.S. Border Patrol.

Before being sentenced to 12 years in the Federal Correction Institution at Petersburg, Virginia, in April 1971, Abagnale also purportedly escaped the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta, Georgia while awaiting trial, which he considers in his book to be one of the most infamous escapes in history. During the time, U.S. prisons were being condemned by civil rights groups and investigated by congressional committees. In a stroke of luck that included the accompanying U.S. marshal forgetting his detention commitment papers, Abagnale was mistaken for an undercover prison inspector and was even given privileges and food far better than the other inmates. The FDC in Atlanta had already lost two employees as a result of reports written by undercover federal agents, and Abagnale took advantage of their vulnerability. He contacted a friend (called in his book “Jean Sebring”) who posed as his fiancee and slipped him the business card of “Inspector C.W. Dunlap” of the Bureau of Prisons which she had obtained by posing as a freelance writer doing an article on “fire safety measures in federal detention centers”. She also handed over a business card from “Sean O’Riley” (later revealed to be Joe Shaye), the FBI agent in charge of Abagnale’s case, which she doctored at a stationery print shop. Abagnale told the guards that he was indeed a prison inspector and handed over Dunlap’s business card as proof. He told them that he needed to contact FBI agent, Sean O’Riley, on a matter of urgent business. O’Riley’s phone number was dialed and picked up by Jean Sebring, at a payphone in an Atlanta shopping-mall, posing as an operator at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Later, he was allowed to meet unsupervised with O’Riley in a predetermined car outside the detention center. Sebring, incognito, picked Abagnale up and drove him to an Atlanta bus station where he took a Greyhound bus to New York, and soon thereafter, a train to Washington D.C.. Abagnale bluffed his way through an attempted capture by posing as an FBI agent after being recognized by a motel registration clerk. Still bent on making his way to Brazil, Abagnale was picked up a few weeks later by two New York City police detectives when he inadvertently walked past their unmarked police car.[1]

Legitimate jobs

In 1974, after he had served less than five years, the United States federal government released him on condition that he would help the federal authorities without pay against crimes committed by fraud and scam artists and to sign in once a week.[4] Not wanting to return to his family in New York, he left the choice of parole up to the court, and it was decided that he would be paroled in Texas.

After his release Abagnale tried several jobs, including cook, grocer and movie projectionist, but he was fired from most of these upon having his criminal career discovered via background checks and not informing his employers that he was a former convict. Finding them unsatisfying, he approached a bank with an offer. He explained to the bank what he had done, and offered to speak to the bank’s staff and show various tricks that “paperhangers” use to defraud banks.

That same year, Abagnale made an offer to the bank that if they did not find his speech helpful, they owed him nothing; otherwise, they owed him $500 and would spread his name to other banks. They were impressed by the results, and he began a legitimate life as a security consultant.

He later founded Abagnale & Associates,[5] which advises the business world on fraud. Through this system, he raised enough money to pay back all those he scammed over his criminal career. Abagnale is now a millionaire through his legal fraud detection and avoidance consulting business based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Abagnale also continues to advise the FBI, with whom he has associated for over 30 years, by teaching at the FBI Academy and lecturing for FBI field offices throughout the country. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with his wife, whom he married one year after becoming legitimate. They have three sons.

Media appearances

In 1977, Abagnale appeared on the TV quiz show To Tell the Truth, along with two contestants also presenting themselves as him. Clips from this episode appeared in Catch Me if You Can interspersed with new footage featuring actor Leonardo DiCaprio in his place.

In the early 1990s, Abagnale featured as a recurring guest on the UK Channel 4 television series Secret Cabaret. The show was based around magic and illusions with a sinister, almost gothic presentation style. Abagnale featured as an expert exposing various confidence tricks.

Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed Abagnale in the 2002 Steven Spielberg film Catch Me if You Can. The film is based on his exploits as described in his book of the same name (ISBN 978-0-7679-0538-1), but alters many aspects of his life story for dramatic purposes.

Abagnale had a bit of a part in Catch Me if You Can as one of the French police officers taking his character into custody.

In 2007, Abagnale appeared in a short role as a speaker in the BBC TV series The Real Hustle. He spoke of different scams run by fraudsters.

Books

In 2002, Abagnale wrote The Art of the Steal, listing common confidence tricks and ways to prevent consumers from being defrauded. He also talked about identity theft and the advent of Internet scamming.[6]

* Catch Me If You Can, 2000. ISBN 978-0-7679-0538-1 (used as a source for most of the biography)
* The Art of the Steal, Broadway Books, 2001. ISBN 978-0-7679-0683-8
* Real U Guide To Identity Theft, 2004. ISBN 978-1932999013
* Stealing Your Life, Random House/Broadway Books, April 2007. ISBN 978-0767925860

Frank Abagnale Jr. Story

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Gretchen Bleiler

Gretchen Bleiler (born on April 10, 1981 in Toledo, Ohio ) is a professional halfpipe snowboarder and pioneer. She is said to be one of the most accomplished female snowboarders in the world.She currently resides in Aspen, Colorado and is 5’5”.
Career
Gretchen aspired to compete in the Olympic Games from a very young age, and found her passion in snowboarding at age 11 (1992).[4] She has been riding ever since, became professional in 1996 and is currently recognized as a role model and pioneer in the sport.[5] Among her accomplishments, Gretchen jump-started the invert revolution for female riders as the first to land a Crippler 540 in competition, and won more halfpipe competitions in 2003, 2005 and 2006 than any other female snowboarder.[2] In the pre Olympic season she won four of the five US Olympic halfpipe qualifiers and is also a three time X Games gold medalist, most recently winning the superpipe at Winter X Games XII.[2]

In 2003, she was a U.S. snowboard Grand Prix champion, a U.S. Open of snowboarding champion, and a Triple Crown of Snowboarding champion.[4][6][7].

Bleiler, who barely missed qualifying for the 2002 Winter Olympics due to a tiebreaker, won a silver medal in the women’s halfpipe at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.[8]

Starting in 2007, Gretchen expanded her career into snowboard and outerwear design, through Oakley and K2 Snowboarding, designing her own signature outerwear line for Oakley, and participating in the K2 Alliance, which develops and tests women’s products, as well as working on the graphics for several K2 Boards. In 2008, she helped to create a new all-female invitational superpipe competition at Snowmass called the Snow Angels Invitational. [9]

When she is not competing, Gretchen enjoys surfing, mountain biking, interior design and fashion.[10] Gretchen is also active in several environmental organizations, including the Aspen Snomass Save Snow campaign, and stopglobalwarming.org. [9]

Career highlights

* 2008 Winter Dew Tour Superpipe Champion (Breckenridge, Co)
* 2008 X Games Halfpipe Gold Medalist
* 2006 FIS World Cup 1st Place, Saas Fe, Switzerland
* 2006 Olympic silver medalist
* 2006 Overall Grand Prix Champion; won four of the five Grand Prix events determining Olympic team
* 2005 X Games and Gravity Games Gold Medalist
* 2005 US Open Halfpipe Champion
* FIS World Cup 1st Place, Bardonecchia, Italy
* Eight straight wins in 2003
* 2003 X Games Halfpipe Gold Medalist
* 2003 US Open Champion
* Won 2003 Overall Grand Prix Title
* One of only four females invited to coveted 2003 Arctic Challenge
* 2002 and 2003 Vans Triple Crown Overall Title Winner
* Won 2003 World SuperPipe Championships

Awards

* Won 2008 ESPY Award for best female action sports athlete
* Voted 2006 Female Snowboarder of the Year at FUEL TV’s inaugural Action Sports Awards
* Nominated for 2006 ESPY Award
* Won 2004 Colorado Female Athlete of the Year Award
* Earned Transworld Snowboarding’s Reader’s Choice Award in 2004
* Nominated for 2004 Laureus “Female Action Sports Athlete” Award
* Named Snowboarder and Transworld Snowboarding 2003 “Female Rider of the Year”

Media Exposure

* Bleiler prominently featured in all advertising and promotion for Oakley and K2; she featured in Olympic commercials promoting 2006 NBC’s Olympic Games and had a cameo appearance on NBC’s hit show Las Vegas. She starred in an ESPN commercial promoting 2004 Winter X Games, featured in multiple 24-hour Fitness national print and TV advertisement campaigns.
* She profiled in sports and lifestyle publications including ESPN The Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Golf for Women, People, Men’s Fitness, Jane Magazine, Transworld Snowboarding, Snowboarder, Snowboard, Frequency, Future, The Drift, Salt Magazine, Her Sports, Discovery Girls, Lucky, Shape, Women’s Health, Self and V Magazine.
* She featured in leading newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and the Aspen Times.
* She appeared on national TV programs including the Today Show, Good Morning America, Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Cold Pizza, Access Hollywood, Inside Edition and ESPN Hotlist.
* She profiled on ABC Sports, CNN, MTV2, Fox News, ESPN, NBC Sports and FUEL TV.
* She served as guest host to FUEL TV’s 54321 and also hosted numerous times for X Games coverage on EXPN.
* She penned her own column in Transworld Snowboarding in 2004 and has made editorial contributions in The Denver Post.
* She appeared on the cover of the January 28, 2008 edition of ESPN: The Magazine.
* Gretchen is hosting Yahoo sports’ coverage of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.

Speaking Engagements

* 2005 World Congress of Sports panel
* 2006 Adweek “What teens want” Conference Special Guest
* Invited as honorary speaker for 2005 Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club, Snowboard Club Annual Banquet, Aspen High School Honors Graduation Banquet
* Speaks to local middle and high school students about importance of mountain safety

Other

* Currently engaged to snowboarder Chris Hotell
* Teacher and mentor at her signature session of High Cascade Snowboarding Camp, summer ’06
* Contributor and editor of “The Innocents” graphic novel project to launch Q1 ’07
* Covered in Neil Beidleman’s book about local Aspen personalities
* One of featured Aspen locals in new documentary about Aspen, CO produced by AspenSkiCo
* Impassioned spokesperson and activist in the fight against global warming; working with stopglobalwarming.org and other environmental groups
* Honored guest and athlete representative for the Women’s Sports Foundation
* Threw first pitch at Colorado Rockies home-opener, 2006
* NASCAR honorary starter, ‘06

Corporate sponsors

* NIKE
* Oakley, K2, Aspen/Snowmass, Grenade Gloves, Giro, US Snowboarding
* Napster, 24-Hour Fitness, Blackberry Pearl, Dunkin Donuts

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Torah Bright

Torah (Jane) Bright (born December 27, 1986, Cooma, Australia) is an Australian snowboarder. She turned pro at age 14 and finished fifth in snowboarding for Australia at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. She is a committed Mormon and trains in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Bright finished 30th overall at the 2005 World Championships in Whistler, Canada and was runner up for the World Cup title during the 2003-04 season.

Bright entered only two World Cup events during the 2004-05 season, both in February at the 2006 Winter Olympic venue of Bardonecchia. She placed third in both events, qualifying for the Australian Olympic team.

In 2006, Bright earned a silver medal at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado. She returned the following year, winning the gold medal in the women’s superpipe event. She is the first Australian snowboarder to ever win gold at the Winter X Games (11), beating Winter Olympic medalists Gretchen Bleiler and Hannah Teter.

In 2007, Bright took first at the Nissan X-Trail Nippon Open in the women’s halfpipe, giving her back-to-back wins in two consecutive competitions. At the 2007 World Super Pipe Championships in Park City, Utah, Bright won first place, beating 2002 Olympic gold medalist Kelly Clark. In late 2007, she made the podium for both events in the Roxy (clothing) Chicken Jam, the final event in the TTR (Ticket to Ride) Snowboard Tour, where she became the 2007 TTR world champion.[1]

Bright has a head to toe sponsorship with Roxy, the female-specific brand of Australian surfing company Quiksilver. For the 2008-2009 season, in 2008, Torah worked to expand her career into design, working on a new addition to the Roxy’s women’s line, dubbed the “Bright Series,” which includes her snowboard, the Roxy Eminence.[2] Her other sponsors include Salomon and Boost Mobile.
2008

* 2nd – TTR World Snowboard Tour 07/08
* 1st – Superpipe-World Superpipe Championships-Park City, UT. Pipe cut by Tyson Goodrich (D-Bag)
* 2nd – Superpipe – EXPN Winter X Games 12 (Aspen, CO)
* 1st – Superpipe- Nippon Open Japan
* 1st – Superpipe- Burton US Open, Vermont
* Burton Global Open Champion

2007

* Burton Global Open Champion
* TTR World Snowboard Tour Champion 06/07
* 1st – Halfpipe – Burton New Zealand Open
* 4th – Slopestyle – Burton New Zealand Open
* 2nd – Halfpipe – Roxy Chicken Jam (USA)
* 3rd – Slopestyle – Roxy Chicken Jam (USA)
* 2nd – Slopestyle – Burton US Open
* 3rd – Halfpipe – Burton US Open
* 1st – Superpipe – World Superpipe Championships
* 1st – Halfpipe – X-Trail Nippon Open
* 1st – Halfpipe – EXPN Winter X Games 11

2006

* 1st – Halfpipe – Us Open
* 1st – Superpipe – World Superpipe Championships Park City, UT. Pipe cut by Tyson Goodrich (T-Bag)
* 1st – Vans Cup

2005

* 1st – Arctic Challenge, Tromso, Norway
* 2nd – US Open
* 1st – Nippon Open
* 3rd – FIS World Cup
* 3rd – Slopestyle – Roxy Chicken Jam (USA)

2004

* 1st – Half Pipe – FIS World Cup, Turin
* 2nd – World Cup, Whistler
* 2nd – FIS World Cup, Juetsu, Japan
* 3rd – FIS World Cup, Sapporo, Japan
* 2nd – Roxy pro, Les Arc, France

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Dov Davidoff

Dov Davidoff is an American comedian.

Dov Davidoff is an American comedian. In addition to performing regularly in clubs and colleges throughout the country, Davidoff has been seen as an actor in the hit movie Invincible with Mark Wahlberg, and on any number of TV shows, most notably as a series regular in NBC’s Raines with Jeff Goldblum. He also had his own Comedy Central Presents special, as well as talk show appearances, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Late Show, Last Call with Carson Daly, and other Comedy Central shows, Chappelle’s Show, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, and Premium Blend. Davidoff has been featured twice at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, and at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal.

Dov Davidoff grew up in a junkyard, lost his virginity at age  with a prostitute in Mexico and is very, very funny.

Dov Davidoff grew up in a junkyard, lost his at age twelve with a in Mexico and is very, very funny. His new CD, “The Point Is…” on COMEDY CENTRAL RECORDS® on Tuesday, April 22, proves that advantage.

Combining unbalanced ADD and addressees fixture, Davidoff puts on one of the most high concentration shows in aggressiveAntonym. Recorded live in October 2007 at the Comedy Works in Denver, CO, Davidoff’s new CD “The Point Is…” captures this kinetic master at his best. The live CD covers a range of topics including segments upper-class ”Starbucks,” “”Guy in the Garbage Can,” “Necrophiliac,“ “Mood Lighting” and “Ray Charles,” among . Davidoff is a systematic on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” and “Last Call With Carson Daly.”

He will be seen in the upcoming feature film, “Across the Hall,” starred opposite Mark Wahlberg in the film “Invincible” and co- with Jeff Goldblum in the 2007 NBC stage show “Raines.” Davdioff is a normal event on COMEDY CENTRAL in his own 2007 half hour comedy special and on “Chappelle’s Show” and “Tough Crowd.” He is a favorite at the prestigious Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal and has won few comedy competitions.

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Federer – Safin to meet in 3rd round at Australian Open

Roger Federer and Marat Safin rolled to easy victories Wednesday against main-time opponents to reach the Australian Open’s third round, where the familiarity aspect will be much complex: They’ll be  each other.

“I’m happy to be Marat; we have some battles,” Federer said after ousting mistake-face down Evgeny Korolev of Russia 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 in just 86 transcription. “We had the epic in 2005.”

That was a semifinal adventure movie here that Safin won in a 9-7 fifth set en course to the championship. Federer, seeking to tie Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam titles, has won last three , including the last two at Wimbledon.

Although Federer’s No. 2 ranking is 24 places greater, Safin’s talent, irregularity and legendary hot-bloodedness set the stage for an initial canvas matchup.

Safin, a anterior flora and fauna No. 1, beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 7-5, 6-2, 6-2. He will turn 29 next week and has said he is credible to play after this year, so he’s irritating to enjoy what could be his farewell tour.

“I have nothing to lose,” Safin said. “I’m profitable to go for it. Whatever comes, comes. He knows how to play against me; I know how to play against him.”

The success would be on footpath for a possible semifinal meeting against defending champion Novak Djokovic, who shots with No. 68 Jeremy Chardy for not quite a set before the Frenchman .

Third-tiered Djokovic cruised the rest of the way for a 7-5, 6-1, 6-3 win.

“I’m playing recovering and worseSynonyms which is very reassuring,” Djokovic said. “I certainly stepped it up.”

His equivalent Serbs Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic unconventional on the women’s side, though they refined with different attitudes.

Ivanovic lost last year’s final here to Maria Sharapova, who is out with a assume grievance. She was happy she played better in her 6-3, 6-2 win over Italy’s Alberta Brianti than she did in the earliest round.

Top-ordered Jankovic, her fundamental Grand Slam designationSynonyms and from malady, felt she while ousting Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium 6-4, 7-5.

“I wasn’t in truth happy with my game, what I was doing on the crown court,” said Jankovic, who needed medicine on her nondiscriminatory foot in the principal set. “I have to clean up my game a bantam bit and try to do the hale equipment for my next match.”

Seventh- Andy Roddick had his full against Xavier Malisse of Belgium, a previous top 20 thespian who had to go through qualifying because his ranking has to No. 195 ensuing a wrist injury.

Roddick, a semifinalist here times and the 2003 U.S. Open champion, rallied for a hard-fought 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (1), 6-2 conquest. Malisse seemed to lose steam after the -set deciding game, where he won only one point.

Roddick next faces 36-year-old Fabrice Santoro of France, who had an even tougher time, valid five sets and more than four hours to beat Germany’s Philip Kohlschreiber, the No. 32 seed.

Former Wimbledon competitorSynonyms-up David Nalbandian, who won in Sydney last week and was seeded 10th, was out by unheralded Yen-hsun Lu of Taiwan 6-4, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in just under four hours. The 25-year-old Lu had on no account sophisticated past the second round in 12 foregoing Slams.

Djokovic next Bosnian-born Amer Delic, of Jacksonville, Florida. Delic, who got a spot in the draw as a lucky dud from qualifying when other players withdrew, to beat No. 28 Paul-Henri Mathieu of France 1-6, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3), 9-7.

Delic beat American Taylor Dent in the opening round. Dent’s dad Phil, a earlier Australian Davis Cup contestant, complained roughly wild manners from flag- Bosnian fans.

Delic foreseenAntonym an reaction-electric atmosphere in the next round, proverb he’d draw for calm among his , and probable Djokovic would do the same.

No. 3 Dinara Safina overcame 44 artless errors in a 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-0 win over related Russian Ekaterina Makarova and will next play No. 25 Kaia Kanepi of Estonia.

Safina lost to a frontrunner here in the primary round last year but went on to be participant-up at the French Open, take the Olympic gray decoration and reach the U.S. Open semifinals.

Unseeded Jelena Dokic, a first Wimbledon assembly her lastSynonyms adventAntonym in the main draw of a Grand Slam after a -year want to deal with respective difficulties, ousted 17th-seeded Anna Chakvetadze 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3.

No. 10 Nadia Petrova beat India’s Sania Mirza. Also were No. 7 Vera Zvonareva of Russia, No. 15 Alize Cornet of France and No. 19 Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia.

No. 26 Ai Sugiyama of Japan overcome Nathalie Dechy of France and next Jankovic.

Among the men’s advancing were No. 11 David Ferrer of Spain, No. 15 Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland, No. 19 Marin Cilic of Croatia, No. 20 Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic, and No. 21 Tommy Robredo of Spain and American Mardy Fish, 23rd.

In the doubles, second-hierarchical Bob and Mike Bryan with a victory, as did Serena and Venus Williams, the Beijing Olympics gold medalists on the women’s side.

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Tennis Redeemed Dokic continues Australian fairytale

Spurred on by a pumped up capacity crowd, Jelena Dokic continued her fairytale run through the Australian Open on Friday with her second successive victory over a seeded player.

Dokic, riding high on the wave of public sympathy and support, upset Denmark’s 11th seed Caroline Wozniacki 3-6 6-1 6-2 to advance to the fourth round of the year’s first grand slam.

The Australian’s victory came hot on the heels of her second round win over Russian 17th seed Anna Chakvetadze, which was her first over a player in the top-20 in five years.

Dokic, who was born in former Yugoslavia, will next meet either Alisa Kleybanova or 2008 runner-up Ana Ivanovic.

Wozniacki broke Dokic in the fourth game of the first set and established a 4-1 lead. She held on to the advantage to take the first set 6-3, despite some anxious moments in the final game when Dokic held three break points.

The former world number four, however, seemed to find an extra gear in the second set, breaking the Dane twice to go on a six-game winning streak.

That run only ended in the third set when Wozniacki broke her to tie at 1-1.
After the Dane held in the next game, Dokic set about demolishing her opponent by reeling off the next three games.

Dokic held three break points in the seventh game and let out a huge roar of ‘C’mon’ when she managed to clinch it, giving her the chance to serve out the match.

The 25-year-old held three match points and when Wozniacki’s forehand sailed over the baseline, the crowd on Rod Laver Arena erupted.

(Reporting by Greg Stutchbury; editing by Pritha Sarkar)
Source: Reuters

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Valentine’s Day Dating Advice from the Matchmaking Guru

Valentine’s Day Dating Advice from the Matchmaking Guru

Valentine’s Day Dating Advice from the Matchmaking Guru

Gloria MacDonald, guru, liaison expert and founder of the advantage, Perfect Partners, how to make the most of a first date this Valentine’s Day.
Gloria MacDonald a lot nearby dating and affairs. Before she launched her dating ceremony, Perfect Partners, the matchmaking guru, bond expert and universal chatterer skilled the trials and tribulations of as a 40+ woman. She is proud to say that her procedure worked for her and she is now in a wonderful correlation.
Her best advice for making the most of your experiences (on Valentine’s Day and every day) is to implement a 3-Date Rule. “As mortal we can’t help but make instant assessments of people we meet. It’s something our subconscious just do inevitably,” MacDonald says. “What we can do still, is on purposeAntonym pick that we’re existing to refuse prudence of the character we’re meeting until after we get to know them a little better. We have all had situations in life where our key impression of a ego wasn’t unescapably precise, not just in dating. Don’t maximum yourself by cutting off your options because your earliest impression of star didn’t swoopSynonyms you off your feet. I decidedly, very wellAntonym recommend you live by the 3-Date Rule. Tell yourself you’re standard to appendSynonyms discernment on the mien until you’ve been out with them at smallest . You’ll be amazed at how far off base some of your elementary impressions may be.”

She shares the story of Sheila, a 39 year old expert who had never been marital, but very much required to be wedded and have brood. “After she met the chief man we her to, she to say he was nice, but she wasn’t interested in him. Both Sheila and Jack are fairly introverted, and you can imagine how graceless that main meeting strength be with two calm . I had received feedback from Jack and knew he was very captivated in Sheila. After a lot , I decisively Sheila into long-sighted Jack over again. Seven weeks later they were blissfully engaged, more or less 7 months after that they were connubial, and around a year after that they had basic offspring. Now they have their additional teen, and are incredibly ecstatic together.”

MacDonald explains that Sheila was her decision to not date Jack over on her own primaryAntonym feedback to a blind “date”. Her perceptiveness almost him was off. She was indeed very nervous just about her formerAntonym meeting with him. He was also not 100% at this essentialAntonym meeting. How can you possibly make any accurate assessments or decisions not far off an total human and their life based on a meeting of an hour or so when nerves are on edge, are high, and communication is low? Sheila have totally missed a wonderful association with her soul mate, and two implausible kids, if she had wedged with her inventive decision not to see Jack again. She would have made a horrible oversight.

When emotions are high, news is low. Do NOT make possibly life mutableAntonym decisions when you’re at your nethermost crux of aptitude.

“So many people say to me, ‘yes, but there has to be interaction, the corporal attraction has to be there.'” Says Gloria. “Frankly I couldn‘t match more. There does have to be chemistry and magnetism, but it’s been demonstrated, and not just by me, that the desirability and attraction can grow. So let go of limited thinking approximately what your patterns are. Give yourself the best possible chance to find your faultless superior.”

This Valentine’s Day call name up that you may have dismissed too briefly! Give them a further chance. Use the 3-Date Rule! You just power get a nice amazement.

About Gloria MacDonald

Gloria MacDonald is a Matchmaker and the Founder of Perfect Partners, the Personal Relationship Executive Search Firm and Worldwide Associated Matchmakers. Since 2003 she has earned her guru condition by working with and hundreds of 40+ freeAntonym men and womanhood and has introduced over 2500 couples. She has appeared on numerous TV shows, is often quoted in the swarm, and is well-accepted as an expert in her field.

MacDonald co-authored the book, Laws of the Jungle: Dating for Women Over 40. She also a strain of more workbooks and CD/DVD including Flirting Made Easy, The 7 Attitudes of Highly Successful Daters, The Mini-Mind Management System, and The 90-Day Relationship Attraction Conditioning Program and is co-founder of The Relationship Summit.

With a Bachelor’s step from Boston University, a Master’s level from Lesley College in Boston, and 15 years know-how construction kindly helpful and partnerships in the company planet, MacDonald has now her perceptively business skills to assisting professionals in the 40+ arcade in meeting, and partnering, with supreme mate.

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Juan Williams Wall Street Journal

With the noon sun high over the U.S. Capitol, Barack Obama yesterday took the oath of office to become head of the United States. On one equal, it was a ingenuous material of civic process — the symbolic resettlement of muscle. Yet confrontation alone cannot take its implication.

The rough-skinned hands of , the voices of abolitionists, the hearts of who important in the naïve oathSynonyms that any child can become premier, will find some reward in a flash that was hard to guess last year, much less 50 years ago. Our memoir, so marred by the sin of slavery, has come to the day when a man that an old segregationist have described as “tea-dyed” — the child of a washed-out and an African migrant, who as a item of the long burdened and despised dark smaller — was chosen by a mostly bleached citizens as the epitome of America’s best sense of self as a realm of sovereign state and benefit.
At the end of the 1965 walk profession for trail of the Voting Rights Act, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said politics held the potential to indicate the smartness of the American faith of righteousness for all, and a “league at quiet with itself, a citizens that can live with its scruples.” Years of hard work lay ahead to period bigoted attitudes born of constitutional countrySynonyms being incomplete to frosty Americans, he said, then bonus that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards uprightness. How long? Not long. Because mine eyes have seen the wonder of the coming of the Lord!”

It is neither conceited emotion nor prejudice to see King’s moral universe diversion toward fair dealing in the act of the first non-freezing man taking the oath of the premiership. But now that this age has arrived, there is a demand: How mean to we judge our new director?

If his term of office is to represent the full aptitude of the idea that obscure Americans are just like each person else — absolutely anthropoid and wholly accomplished of intellect, courage and xenophobia — then Barack Obama has to be subject to the same rough and cartwheelSynonyms of governmental comment veteran by his . To indulgence the first black leader as if he is a fragile blossom is certain to limp him. It is also to waste a impressive opportunity for improving race dealings by away with stereotypes and nearsighted the potential in all Americans.

Yet there is fear, specifically among dim family, that report of him or any of his might be abnormalAntonym into evidence that citizens of paint actually lead. That to progressive time and energy to hateful stereotypes. It also leads to treating all criticism of Mr. Obama, whether sincere, inappropriate- or even mean-animated, as chauvinistic.

This is patronizing. Worse, it an hidden front of inferiority. Every American chair must be held to the highest standard. No chief of any hue be duty-bound to be agreed a free pass for unscrewSynonyms-ups, lies or crash to keep a promise.

During the Democrats’ primaries and , contestant Obama a lotAntonym got kind if not fawning therapy from the American media. Editors, news , and commentators, both wan and murky but exclusively on the ethical left, too habitually acted as if they were in a hurry to claim their role in olden times as supporters of the first dusky commander.

For example, Mr. Obama was involuntary to give a oral communication on race as a score of that he’d long attended a ecclesiastical led by a orator. It was an ordinary lecture. At best it was flourishing at minimizing a dogmaticSynonyms badly-behaved. Yet some in the media equated it to the Gettysburg Address.

The prominence of a proud, cooperative press discourse fidelity about a powerful statesman and gift detached balance sheet of his activities was commonly and embarrassingly lost. When Mr. Obama’s opponents, such as the Clintons, challenged his lack of experience, or pointed out that he was not in the U.S. Senate when he tardy opposition to the war in Iraq, they were depicted as irrelevant.

Bill Clinton got hit hard when he named Mr. Obama’s claims to be a long-standing opponent of the Iraq war “the brownie tale I’ve ever seen.” The last head of state perfectlyAntonym said that there was no difference in actual Senate votes on the war between his wife and Mr. Obama. But his comments were not smoked by the press as sensible, hard-ball civil fighting. They were cast as probably xenophobic.

This led to Saturday Night Live’s insulting skit — where the considerationAntonym moderator was busy hammering the other Democratic nominees with dangerous questions while inquiring if Mr. Obama was comfortable and needed more marine.

When fellow Democrats contending for the recommendation fittingly pointed to Mr. Obama’s thin for dealing with intimidation and extricating the U.S. from Iraq, they were drowned out by loud if seldom vacant shouts for change. Yet in the broad-spectrum election campaign and during the transition period, Mr. Obama inch by inchAntonym moved to his first ‘ positions. In fact, he approached Bush-Cheney stands on liberty for telecommunications companies that oblige in tailing.
There is a unsafe trap being set here. The same media relatives invested in a shadowy man to the White House as a stock of record have set very high expectations for him. When he , as and other social beings inexorably do, the backlash may be great.

Several seasons ago, when Philadelphia Eagle’s gloomy quarterback Donovan McNabb was struggling, radio set commentator Rush Limbaugh said the media required a gloomy to do well and gave Mr. McNabb “a lot of recognition for the show of this team that he didn’t justify.” Mr. Limbaugh’s sin was maxim out loud what others had said in secret.

There is a lot more at bet now, and to grant evaluation of Mr. Obama only behind secureAntonym does no honor to the and responses of generations past: that race be put aside, and all people be honestly, unambiguouslyAntonym, and on the core of recital.

President Obama no less.

Mr. Williams, a political market analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News, is the author of several files, including “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965” (Penguin, 1988), and “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America — and What We Can Do About It” (Crown, 2006).

Juan Williams Wall Street Journal

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Sarah Larson – George Clooney Broken up

Sarah Larson

A cocktail waitress/Fear Factor winner snags George Clooney. There is much gnashing of teeth as Hollywood’s handsomest bachelor is spotted out with a former reality TV contestant. Update: They’ve broken up!
George Clooney and Sarah Larson Broken up.

Sarah Larson And Clooney Split

Celebrity Buzz The fairytale is over for Sarah Larson. A source close to the couple tells People that the leading man and his reality-show girlfriend have broken up, once again giving hope to legions of Clooney worshippers. In Touch, meanwhile, quotes a Clooney friend saying, “The truth is that they had little in common and he just doesn’t want to be tied down.”

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