#it also arrived super fast like it shipped on sunday and its already in our customs like. damn

[the-kipsabian]

i hate how complicated everything needs to be ugh

like generally ordering from japan is so simple and cheap, like their shipping costs are like nothing and its great

that is if the store offers overseas shipping. and if it doesnt you have to go through the hoops of delivery services, which cost at least the same amount as the product youre buying if not a whole lot more (and then including customs and what have you local delivery fees oof)

everything sucks except the baka gaijin zines that ship overseas and only cost me like five bucks to get through customs so thats honestly the highlight of my day

[cashmereleopardscarf15-blog]

Cashmere Leopard Scarf

To obtain your order with Reduced Packaging, select the verify subject on the Shipping net web page throughout checkout. Register to obtain unique supplies tailor-made to you, plus rewards and promotions earlier than anyone else. Just choose ‘YES’ during step three on the next web page and never miss a thing. In caramel tones, our monster leopard scarf is a worthwhile chilly weather funding piece https://strandfirm.com/product/cashmere-leopard-scarf/.

Depending on the shipping supplier you select, delivery date estimates could appear on the transport quotes page. Please hand wash with neutral detergent after which dry within the air. Knitted cashmere could also be dry cleaned, or ideally, washed by hand. To return an alpinecashmere.com merchandise, e mail to obtain a return authorization quantity and pay as you go return label. Please notice, we can't supply pay as you go return labels for worldwide returns. Customers are answerable for the transport for all returns coming from exterior the United States.

Take your type to the wild side with this leopard print Autograph scarf. Please e-mail us on to advise us you're returning the garment and if you'd like a refund or change for another garment. All 100 percent cashmere, our scarves, hats and socks are loving made by hand in the tiny kingdom of Nepal. Scarves are uniquely hand woven and hand printed making each bit super luxurious and super soft.

Unleash your wild facet with our leopard print scarf matching beanie and wristwarmers. A luxurious scarf in classic leopard print and crafted using Grade A cashmere. This is a timeless accessory that may elevate any outfit and maintain you toasty by way of the colder months.

All one hundred laptop cashmere, our leopard cashmere scarf, hats and socks are loving made by hand in the tiny kingdom of Nepal. 1) Selecting top quality cashmere materials, retains you heat all day long. Please note we're unable to offer a price match for merchandise bought by the use of unbiased retailers, or being shipped internationally. Every time you placed on or wash your cashmere, it goes to reward you by turning into considerably softer. Please be assured that these cookies do not retailer any non-public information. Please observe, we cannot provide prepaid return labels for worldwide returns.

Shown here with an Yves Saint Laurent sweater, shoes and bag, Vionnet pants, The Row jacket and a Philippe Audibert bracelet. Register to receive unique provides tailor-made to you, plus rewards and promotions earlier than anybody else. Just select ‘YES’ during step 3 on the next page and never miss a thing.

We have the correct to disclaim a credit rating if the merchandise returned doesn't meet our return policy requirements. To return an alpinecashmere.com merchandise, e mail to obtain a return authorization number and prepaid return label. Leopard prints are recurring motifs throughout Saint Laurent’s runway exhibits and this brown fringed scarf captures the assertion look. It’s woven in Italy from nice cashmere that’s delicate to the contact and hallmarked with a small gold logo plaque. Printed on 100 percent cashmere, completed with an eyelash hem. Every time you put on or wash your cashmere, it's going to reward you by changing into slightly softer.

I purchased this scarf on-line after plenty of deliberation contemplating hearty value. The service I acquired in native M&S meals corridor on select up left me very upset. I had acquired notification my parcel was ready for pick up.

Snow Leopards stay and thrive at excessive altitude within the Himalayas. In the case of an exchange, if the garment is in inventory we are going to dispatch it inside 2 enterprise days of receiving the returned garment. If there's a distinction in worth between the returned garment and the garment you want to change for, we are going to contact you to organise cost.

Staff arguing with me in retailer in entrance of orher prospects made me actually feel very uncomfortable. The scarf is so mild and warm, it is a pleasure to wear - which I already have. This wrap is famous as 100 percent cashmere, however the weave and thread rely could be very associated to that of a burlap bag. To calculate the overall star rating and proportion breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how latest a evaluation is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It moreover analyses critiques to verify trustworthiness.

Registering for this website allows you to access your order status and history. Just fill in the fields beneath, and we’ll get a model new account arrange for you very quickly. We will solely ask you for information necessary to make the purchase course of faster and easier. If you already have gadgets in your basket, please observe that they wiil be shipped to the nation you will select.

We don't compromise; making an attempt attractive and feeling good are mutually essential for us. Woven in Italy from a lustrous cashmere-and-silk mix, this elegant scarf showcases a fundamental leopard print. Meticulously finished with hand-rolled edges, its elongated silhouette makes for a extraordinarily versatile accent. Free Fast Shipping on Orders $150+ & Free Returns |Details Enjoy free quick shipping on orders of $150 or extra and free returns at RalphLauren.com only. Take your style to the wild aspect with this leopard print Autograph scarf. Personalized gadgets and present packing containers cannot be returned.

Staff arguing with me in store in entrance of orher clients made me really feel very uncomfortable. Will be very heat and helpful for the NZ winter and I will have the flexibility to wear many various ways. I knew it will go well with her as she wears a lot of black coats and jackets in her skilled function.

I had purchased the storm leopard for myself and loved it. So I purchased this as a birthday gift for my daughter-in-law however she doesn't like prickly wool and so forth. I was very happy to see her sporting it soon after. She tells me she ‘loves the headband, nice warmth & not prickly at all contemplating I am so sensitive to wool products’.

We have on no account met a Leopard print we didn’t love !! And we are large followers of this lovely deep cobalt blue shade. This cashmere scarf was created to put on all winter lengthy with leather-based jackets and smart blazer suits to offer you a luxurious look. Update your 2018 accent assortment with the hanging colours of our new scarf. Created from the best cashmere and silk and featuring our basic leopard print, unique to Leatham Cashmere, this scarf will smarten any outfit.

We will send you an e mail as quickly as we obtain the returned garment and purpose to course of your return inside 2 enterprise days of receipt. All gadgets returned should be within the similar situation in which they'd been obtained. Please observe that lots of our products are individually crafted by professional artisans. Slight variations are a pure outcomes of this process and add to the distinctive magnificence and persona of each piece. Our leopard scarves are hand-woven and hand-printed in Nepal. The weavers "costume" the loom in a width that is greater than the completed dimension, and make it longer, too.

My new scarf was beautiful over easy black pants and prime, appeared very glamour. If you already have gadgets in your basket, please notice that they wiil be shipped to the nation you'll select. Items are shipped to you immediately by our manufacturers, using tracked, contactless delivery. With our lovely Brodie items, we generally suggest sizing up or down depending on the specified fit, a few of our hoodies and jumpers look great oversized! We at all times recommend checking your measurements against our measurement information, and also wanting by way of our product pages to see which fit we predict works best.

Slight variations are a natural results of this process and add to the distinctive beauty and persona of every piece. ALL FLASH SALE ITEMS FINAL SALE. All other claims have to be made within 10 days of delivery for a refund. Please notice, we don't ship on Saturdays, Sundays, and U.S. holidays. Shipping time is calculated based on when the order is shipped, not when the order is positioned. We wish to get your Alpine Cashmere objects to you as soon as attainable and so strive to ship orders placed by noon EST the same day, however that isn't assured. Yves Saint Laurent scarf is rectangular and has a fringed trim.

In the unlikely occasion that the garment is defective on arrival, incorrect or damaged in transit, please notify us immediately on receipt of products. If we're unable to offer you a different, we're going to refund your value of the merchandise. This is a one hundred pc cashmere fine-woven scarf, however it is large sufficient to additionally make a comfortable wrap. The background is the pure white colour of the cashmere goat hair, with pale camel and black spots display printed on the particular person objects. A tremendous delicate feather weight cashmere scarf that includes a black, gray and white snow leopard print. This is a brilliant silky, ultra soft scarf that is a good layer all year round.

[cashmereleopard]

Really Feel Cashmere Leopard Scarf

This stunning fringed cashmere leopard scarf measures 70 inches end to end-a a lot beneficiant size to wrap the wearer in a big selection of ways. Soft and lofty like cashmere, the timeless leopard print is spot-on to accent any black outfit and even elevate jeans. Whether it’s cashmere or cotton silk, your Brodie pieces ought to look pretty a lot as good as you are feeling wearing them. You can safely machine wash your garment in a 30-degree wash, with the one exception being our designs that embrace foil. Handwoven leopard cashmere scarf printed by hand with hanging leopard prints in all of the richest style colours imaginable.

Cookies permit us to report information about looking out through our website to have the power to offer you personalised offers. Note that there are restrictions on some products, and a few merchandise cannot be shipped to international locations. Modifying the language does not modify the chosen nation and forex.

Ralph Lauren presents packaging designed to attenuate waste. To obtain your order with Reduced Packaging, choose the check subject on the Shipping internet web page throughout checkout. Register to obtain unique supplies tailored to you, plus rewards and promotions earlier than anybody else.

The background is the natural white color of the cashmere goat hair, with pale camel and black spots screen printed on the person items. Personalized devices and current packing containers can't be returned. I purchased this scarf on-line after plenty of deliberation considering hearty price.

This firm clearly cares very lots about who they're and their buyer's expertise. I suppose I will get plenty of use of the wrap this winter. We just isn't going to settle for returns of used, dirty, or damaged merchandise. We have the proper to disclaim a credit score score if the merchandise returned does not meet our return coverage requirements.

Just choose ‘YES’ during step three on the next page and never miss a thing. My new scarf was beautiful over simple black pants and prime, appeared very glamour. Leopard prints are recurring motifs throughout Saint Laurent’s runway reveals and this brown fringed scarf captures the assertion look. It’s woven in Italy from fine cashmere that’s delicate to the contact and hallmarked with a small gold emblem plaque. If you have already got gadgets in your basket, please observe that they wiil be shipped to the country you will select. We offer refunds or exchanges on undamaged/unworn objects, where the tag remains to be hooked up, within 14 days of the date of supply.

Embrace nice and splendid layers with this pure cashmere scarf from hush. With a sizeable length and width, this scarf is roofed in a catchy leopard print that is relevant and on-point season after season. I ordered this on-line and was actually dissatisfied as quickly as I opened the parcel. For practically £70 I was anticipating an opulent merchandise - but it fell correctly brief. And we are big followers of this stunning deep cobalt blue color.

The leopard print is simply on one aspect of the fabric and the standard of the cashmere wasn’t as anticipated. Machine wash your one hundred pc cashmere scarf underneath the wool setting with temperature set as cold, and spin it at 500 rpm. You can also hand wash your cashmere scarf in chilly water. Handwoven cashmere scarves printed by hand with hanging leopard prints in all of the richest fashion colours conceivable. Asneh's leopard scarf is crafted from the softest cashmere, expertly woven and show printed by hand. Scarves are uniquely hand woven and hand printed making every bit super luxurious and large gentle.

Smooth out the garment on a transparent, dry towel and permit it to dry naturally, molding it again to its authentic shape as it dries. ALL FLASH SALE ITEMS FINAL SALE. All different claims should be made inside 10 days of supply for a refund. Please observe, we do not ship on Saturdays, Sundays, and U.S. holidays. We make magnificence easy with trendy laid-back designs for real life. All our designs are made from cashmere, silk and totally different pure fibres. Our products are fall-in-love-pieces in irresistible prime quality and design.

Instead, our system considers things like how current a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It moreover analyses evaluations to verify trustworthiness. Items are shipped to you instantly by our producers, utilizing tracked, contactless provide. Instead of hanging, retailer your cashmere folded so it's going to keep its form.

The service I acquired in native M&S meals corridor on choose up left me very upset. I had acquired notification my parcel was ready for choose up. Staff arguing with me in store in entrance of orher prospects made me actually feel very uncomfortable. The scarf is so gentle and warm, it is a pleasure to wear - which I have already got. This course of adds bulk, softness and loft to the finished scarf. Pashmina is the conventional name for the very most interesting grade of cashmere wool.

The blue colors on this woven cashmere leopard scarf shade into each other and offers a relaxed and harmonious look. Perfect to wear on chilly spring days with a light-weight colored jumper or jacket. I bought this scarf on-line after plenty of deliberation contemplating hearty value. The service I obtained in local M&S food corridor on pick up left me very upset. I had received notification my parcel was ready for decide up. Staff arguing with me in store in front of orher customers made me really feel very uncomfortable.

To replicate the insurance coverage insurance policies of the delivery firms we use, all weights shall be rounded up to the next full pound. They additionally enhance the functionality and personalization of our website online, such as the usage of videos. Receive by Thursday, May 27, must you order by three PM ET and select Fast shipping at checkout.

Please be assured that these cookies don't retailer any non-public information. This supply isn't applicable to purchases being shipped internationally. Take your kind to the wild aspect with this leopard print Autograph scarf. Please e-mail us on to advise us you're returning the garment and if you'd like a refund or change for one more garment. Our leopard scarf is a recent tackle a timeless basic. It’s crafted from the softest cashmere, expertly woven and display printed by hand.

We will arrange a return postage label so the item can be returned to us when in a position. We will send you an e-mail once we obtain the returned garment and aim to process your return within 2 enterprise days of receipt. We don't compromise; attempting beautiful and feeling good are mutually essential for us. Woven in Italy from a lustrous cashmere-and-silk mix, this elegant scarf showcases a basic leopard print. Meticulously completed with hand-rolled edges, its elongated silhouette makes for a extraordinarily versatile accent. Free Fast Shipping on Orders $150+ & Free Returns |Details Enjoy free quick delivery on orders of $150 or further and free returns at RalphLauren.com only.

The supply present is routinely utilized at checkout when normal delivery is chosen and the edge is reached in a single transaction. Orders arrive within three to 4 business days if orders are positioned by three PM ET . Orders containing fragrances, rugs, or lighting and orders higher than 30 items aren't eligible for quick delivery.

Our products are fall-in-love-pieces in irresistible high quality and design. We do not compromise; looking attractive and feeling good are mutually crucial for us. In caramel tones, our monster leopard scarf is a worthwhile cold climate investment piece. In this classic colour means, it will work with all of your current wardrobe and will look good draped casually round your neck.

In the case of an change, if the garment is in stock we'll dispatch it inside 2 business days of receiving the returned garment. If we don't have it in stock, but it will be arriving into inventory shortly, we'll notify you and you may decide whether or not you wish to wait or obtain a refund. If there is a difference in price between the returned garment and the garment you want to exchange for, we are going to contact you to organise fee.

Snow Leopards stay and thrive at excessive altitude in the Himalayas. For tremendous soft and cosy layering, our irresistibly luxurious leopard print scarf will add a elegant finish to any outfit. Please observe, we cannot present prepaid return labels for worldwide returns. Customers are responsible for the supply for all returns coming from exterior the United States. Luxurious handcrafted cashmere knits and hand woven scarves from Nepal. A Lily and Lionel signature, the leopard print has been shrunk to a micro scale this season for an abstract, polka dot design, on a caramel-toned backdrop.

Depending on the shipping provider you choose, delivery date estimates may seem on the shipping quotes page. This item has been hand loomed, hand frayed and hand stencil printed. With our stunning Brodie items, we sometimes suggest sizing up or down depending on the desired fit, some of our hoodies and jumpers look nice oversized!

In this basic color way, it will work with all of your present wardrobe and can look good draped casually spherical your neck. Enjoy free returns and exchanges within 30 days of the order cargo date. giant sq. leopard print scarf with contrast ysl intials accent and fringed edging. Unleash your wild side with our leopard print scarf matching beanie and wristwarmers. Take your fashion to the wild facet with this leopard print Autograph scarf. Please e mail us on to advise us you would possibly be returning the garment and if you need a refund or trade for an additional garment.Printed on one hundred laptop cashmere, completed with an eyelash hem. All 100 percent cashmere, our scarves, hats and socks are loving made by hand in the tiny kingdom of Nepal. Scarves are uniquely hand woven and hand printed making each bit super luxurious and super soft. 1) Selecting prime quality cashmere supplies, retains you heat all day long. Please note we're unable to supply a worth match for products purchased by means of unbiased retailers, or being shipped internationally. Every time you put on or wash your cashmere, it goes to reward you by turning into considerably softer.We at all times recommend checking your measurements in opposition to our size information, and in addition looking by way of our product pages to see which match we expect works best. By following the tips within the chart you'll have the ability to ensure your clothes will be the good dimension for you. Please observe we're unable to supply a value match for merchandise sold through impartial retailers, or being shipped internationally. Items are shipped to you directly by our manufacturers, utilizing tracked, contactless delivery. Pashmina is the traditional name for the very best grade of cashmere wool.Please additionally observe that the shipping rates for many items we promote are weight-based. The weight of any such merchandise could be discovered on its detail page. To reflect the policies of the delivery firms we use, all weights might be rounded as a lot as the following full pound. When you place an order, we will estimate transport and supply dates for you primarily based on the provision of your gadgets and the transport options you select.

[chrysaliseuro2019]

Lapping it All Up

It's Sunday morning and time to part company with Sue and Peter. It was a fun 5 days. We are heading to Helsinki and they will drive the car back to Riga where it all commenced. They are stopping the night at Parnau. Rainy day again as we said our farewells and they dropped us at the ferry terminal. Saw an amusing sign at the terminal which pointed to the very short term car park (15 mins). It said " Kiss and Sail" which was very apt. We had laughed our way through Latvia and Estonia with them and had covered a bit of ground in those 5 days. Despite it bucketing down Liz did a quick sortie after they left to take a photo of the sign. This led to one of those amusing moments. Something you very rarely see Liz do - "run". If I said a sort of Donald Duck style of running I might be close to the mark. Possibly even being flattering. There is a lot of action, arms flapping, feet akimbo, head rolling from side to side and forward momentum is not speedy. The ferry ride from Tallin to Helsinki takes about 2.5 hours. We had basic tickets so it was first in best dressed for seats. A number of bars and cafes on board and as soon as boarding started the regulars made for prime positions. We had to stow our luggage and were given a bit of a bum steer, in terms of where to store them, by one of the staff so a lot of seats had gone by the time we were free to look. Anyway we snagged a couple of uninspiring but fine seats in a a cafe and settled back for an uneventful trip. Despite the rain it was petty calm and we had a snack, read and blogged. Interestingly they had a couple of stages with musos performing. I might expect that on a cruise ship in the Bahamas but not somehow on a couple of hours ferry in the Baltics. One stage was on the upper deck where quite a raucous bar was in full swing. The wind and rain were coming down on the uncovered end though plenty of cover. Singer was flat as a tack and slaughtered Ed Sheerin's " A Girl Like You" (a bit of a holiday anthem as you hear it a lot in beach bars etc over here). The audience didn't care. They were all getting tanked. Another singer was close to us in a neighbouring area and he was playing the guitar and performing solo with some electronic instrumental help. Not too bad, middle of the road - Eric Clapton, Jonny Cash etc but more importantly his voice I was better. I strolled around looking at the duty free shop where the Finns on board were fairly determinedly stocking up on booze which is much cheaper in Estonia than Finland. This included people with several slabs of beer. Liz noticed that many of those slabs were being consumed on board. It was certainly a lively ship. Trip was easy and we worked out we could get a tram into the city and quite close to our hotel from the ferry terminal. A bit of a scramble getting off but we were in no rush so took our time. Slight problem though, it was raining quite steadily. We headed for the tram stop which was close by but in a master stroke of planning the ticket machine was exposed to the elements and quite a queue. This included the guy who had no idea what to do, did not appear to have the right money (possibly any money), whose credit card would not work and who consequently held us all up in the hissing rain for 5/6 minutes - could have been longer. This on top of the 7/8 mins we had already been waiting. In the end the couple behind paid for him. Liz was now huddled under the tram shelter while I stood out there in the pak-a-mac. No point in two of us getting wet(ter). By the time I got to the front of the queue the wind had set in and rain was horizontal so jeans and shoes pretty soaked. Guys behind (equally wet) who seemed local provided some guidance on the payment process but even they stuffed it up a bit so another minute or two of soaking. Anyway at last I had two tickets in my hand but the various delays meant we just missed a tram by about a minute so had a 6/7 minute wait for the next one. Still, under some shelter, though I was drenched. We duly trundled off for the 10 minute ride and I couldn't wait to get out of my jeans and shoes. I made the mistake of sitting down which was even more uncomfortable so quickly sprang up. Anyway the Hotel Helka was only about a 10 minute walk from the tram stop. Liz did a good job of getting us off at the closest stop and guiding us home. At last, out of that gear and into the shower. All was well and Hey! We were in Finland. Time to explore and we headed off into town. Basically heading for the main square and market square. First impressions were that it was more modern than Riga or Tallinn and a little less atmospheric. Plenty of shopping malls, cafes etc. and even the older buildings which were often quite attractive, of the the six storey terrace variety, did not seem that old. Made our way to market square where there were a number of stalls selling local "products". Very soft hats, wood carvings, paintings, the usual fridge magnet memorabilia stuff but also fox, wolf and reindeer pelts and extremely sharp hunting type knives in scabbards - not sure exactly what the purpose of them was. The market was starting to close but quite a few stalls selling food were in full flight. Now around 4.00pm and we had only snacked post breakfast so were hungry. The offerings were often local delicacies and we couldn't resist sharing a plate of fried Vendace (very similar to sardines) with garlic sauce. Just on a paper plate, pretty decent serve (30 or so smallish fish) you eat the lot, heads and all, and we wandered around happily chomping on them. Very delicious and sauce not too garlicky at all but tasty and needed. It was sun over the yard arm time and we looked for a decent pub/ venue to have a drink. Plenty of craft beer here though we had heard horror stories about the price of alcohol. We couldn't quite find what we were looking for in terms of character but settled on a cafe/bar and sat outside. Rain had stopped but not exactly balmy. After that we continued to wander through the back streets though being Sunday a lot of places closed. Did find a good looking Pho joint which was a possibility if all else failed. Liz loves her Pho. We headed back for the hotel. The Helka is a little boutique hotel and quite quirky. They had a little Swiss style bird house (no birds) that you could deposit your keys in when you left. The coffee mugs in the room had an inscription inside the rim which read " Stolen from Hotel Helka" Staff very friendly and a range of nice touches. We determined that dinner would be in their relaxed little bar/cafe area downstairs. Some good craft beer on tap and bottled and rose OK too. I had the salmon on bread with salad. Big chunks of salmon served cold - excellent. Liz had the coconut and sweet potato soup which was also very good. A local porter and IPA for me (both good especially the porter) rose for Liz. All very laid back and sat very happily not feeling we had to traipse about town. Not too late a night headed up around 10.30 for the usual blogging, reading and planning next phase. Greece definitely on. Thessaloniki as a kick off point looking the goods. Also need to ensure we have a flight out of there to London about a week after arriving in Greece as flying home from London. All pretty tortuous evaluating alternatives but in the end have to bite the bullet and its Turkish airlines to Thessaloniki and BA from there to London though the poms charging usuriously. Liz doing sterling work with bookins Next morning at 11.00 we were going on a free tour of Helsinki. After a great breakfast at the Helka (we expected nothing else given its form to date) we headed for the meeting point a 20 minute fast walk away, back at market square. Our guide was a young and vivacious lady who had spent time in Canada hence a slight North American accent. Super smart and despite a crowd of around 35-40 with a microphone headpiece and a resonant voice she was easy to hear. We covered a lot of ground both literally and metaphorically. Some aspects were: Lutheran religion is the main one for Finns. Apparently a not unusual fall away in those following a structured religious approach in Finland though you have to attend a religious camp for a week when in your late teens if you want to be married in church. A lot of the design of the buildings in the older parts of Helsinki was under the auspices of the German architect Engels in the 19th century. He had spent time in St Petersburg and hence there are similarities between the cities (though not the flamboyant stuff). Education is subsidised in fact you are paid to attend for your first 5 years at Uni. Food is also subsidised for uni students and is free at kindergarten. Start school at 7 pre that it's kindergarten where formal lessons are minimal. At junior school the first 5 years are pretty hands on - sewing, woodwork etc. no homework in that period. Health care free for all though dental must be paid for unless impacts health more generally. We were starting to understand why prices were so high with all those taxes. The guide (Maria I think) quipped that they all live a good life but it's hard to get rich. They were ruled for hundreds of years by the Swedes and then from early 19th century by the Russians. They gained independence in 1917 and in that period also had a bloody civil war. Fought against the Soviet Union in 1939 and collaborated with the Germans to fight against the Soviet Union 1941-44. They did not persecute minorities however. Then they also had to fight against the Germans to remove them from Finland as the tide turned at the end of the war. They are proud to have maintained their independence throughout despite some land losses to the Soviet Union. In winter the harbour freezes over so all boats must be lifted out and stored in dry dock including some pretty large fishing boats. Ice breakers were also visible in the harbour. It was a wide ranging, interesting tour with plenty of fun thrown in. Amazing coincidence of a couple from Melbourne, Meredith and David, being on the tour more especially because Meredith taught the preps at Camberwell primary around the time our kids went there. She didn't teach them as it turned out. Liz and Meredith swopped school and other local stories ++. David was an interesting character. He had worked for the CSIRO and was a resin expert. He had for the last umpteen years supported businesses making wood paneling and other resin involved products around the world. This included a 5 year stint for the whole family living in Italy while he worked there. He had most recently been working in China and had come straight to Finland from there. Yet again there's a lot of different stuff makes the world go around. Nice guy to chat to. Pommie origins though born in Australia and we had a good time dissecting Brexit. He has the same problem as us may lose his European passport. We were interested in the big issues! We did that nattering over a coffee and tea that stretched for about an hour and a half post the free tour. After that Liz and I headed for the market square again and needed something to eat. Beside the square was a pretty attractive and ornate indoor market building. Really it was a tasteful food hall with a range of tidbits you could buy to eat immediately or take away including exotics like reindeer jerky. We plumped for a couple of open sandwiches which we consumed at a little eating area outside by the docks. One was cured salmon and the other was prawns in a sweet chilli sauce. We shared the first two but so tasty we went again. Me for the prawns and Liz for the salmon. Just very nice sitting there with this scrumptious food. Back to the market square and as opposed to yesterday evening all stalls were in full swing so we had a good look around at the knick knacks but did not purchase. Time to go our own ways. We both went looking through shops though Liz also found a strange square which looked like a lunar landscape. People were skateboarding and sitting around the square and it all seemed a bit unexpected in what seems like quite a conservative city. I stumbled across the City Museum. This was a very quirky place which essentially probed some alternative aspects of Helsinki and Finland. One of the highlights was an exhibition by 5 Finnish artists. It was titled "Objection". Essentially it was about disagreement and the role that it plays in our society (particularly Finnish society). Each artist illustrated a different story. One was about Hjalmar Linder the wealthiest man in Finland who fled to Sweden during the 1918 civil war. On his return he found that members of the losing side were still being persecuted (killed) so he wrote a letter to the newspaper saying "enough of this bloodbath" which broke ranks with his peer group. He was then hounded out of the county and eventually died penniless, slashing his own wrists. Another was about left wing activism in the 1930s and 40s. It was being suppressed and so a password " Have you seen a running dog" was used to identify sympathisers. Essentially how people find a way to "object" Yet another was about a book "the Price of Our Freedom" still found in many Finnish homes. It contained a photograph and short description of each of 26000+ people who were killed in the Winter War 1939-1940. The artist had taken the photographs of key people in the book and turned them into ghost like portraits using hundreds of layers of pictures - "the Price of Freedom". Separately there were also general narratives about what Helsinki was like in the past. Pretty rough and ready in the 1920s apparently. Also a photograph gallery with some fantastic photos of Helsinki in the past including one which captured the docks area including market square. I couldn't see a date but perhaps 100+ years ago. All these photos were available for purchase. I kept wandering post the museum. Just walking lost really. Took in a few shops and generally soaked up the city. Liz did much the same. No acquisitions. Liz grabbed a bit of shuteye and we met up again around 7.00 in the hotel bar/restaurant. We decided not to move. The restaurant which the guy in "Radio" restaurant in Tallin recommended was closed ,being Monday night, and the informal dinner they served at the Helka had been pretty good the night before. We both had the open sandwich salmon. Thick chunks of salmon. Liz not the greatest salmon fan (she prefers her fish to be white) but enjoyed it, and I certainly did including polishing a few remnants of salmon from her plate. Of course a couple of craft beers also supped. Liz took it easy as a bit tired and slightly heady. It was relaxing and we headed up around 10.00. I took a quick stroll to walk off dinner but boy had it got cold. I think you can probably keep the Finnish summer. Here we were 12th August and it might have been about 16 degrees out but with a healthy wind that felt around 12-14. I was wishing I had a scarf. This reaffirmed our decision to head back to some warmth in Greece.

[orbemnews]

F.D.A. Clears Johnson & Johnson’s Shot, the Third Vaccine for U.S. WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday authorized Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, beginning the rollout of millions of doses of a third effective vaccine that could reach Americans by early next week. The announcement arrived at a critical moment, as the steep decline in coronavirus cases seems to have plateaued and millions of Americans are on waiting lists for shots. Johnson & Johnson has pledged to provide the United States with 100 million doses by the end of June. When combined with the 600 million doses from the two-shot vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna slated to arrive by the end of July, there will be more than enough shots to cover any American adult who wants one. But federal and state health officials are concerned that even with strong data to support it, some people may perceive Johnson & Johnson’s shot as an inferior option. The new vaccine’s 72 percent efficacy rate in the U.S. clinical trial site — a number scientists have celebrated — falls short of the roughly 95 percent rate found in studies testing the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. Across all trial sites, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine also showed 85 percent efficacy against severe forms of Covid-19 and 100 percent efficacy against hospitalization and death. “Don’t get caught up, necessarily, on the number game, because it’s a really good vaccine, and what we need is as many good vaccines as possible,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said in an interview on Saturday. “Rather than parsing the difference between 94 and 72, accept the fact that now you have three highly effective vaccines. Period.” If Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine would have been the first to be authorized in the United States instead of the third, “everybody would be doing handstands and back flips and high-fives,” said Dr. James T. McDeavitt, dean of clinical affairs at the Baylor College of Medicine. On Sunday a committee of vaccine experts who advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet to discuss whether certain population groups should be prioritized for the vaccine, guidance that state health officials have been eagerly awaiting in anticipation of the F.D.A.’s authorization. One administration official familiar with the distribution of the vaccine said that shipments would begin on Monday and deliveries could arrive as soon as Tuesday. Johnson & Johnson has said it will ship nearly four million doses as soon as the F.D.A. authorizes distribution and another 16 million or so doses by the end of March. That is far fewer than the 37 million doses called for in its $1 billion federal contract, but the contract says that deliveries that are 30 days late will still be considered timely. The federal government is paying the firm $10 a dose for a total of 100 million doses to be ready by the end of June, substantially less per dose than it agreed to pay Moderna and Pfizer, which developed its vaccine with a German partner, BioNTech. Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine will allow states to rapidly increase the number of people who have been fully inoculated. Unlike the other two vaccines, it can be stored at standard refrigeration temperatures for at least three months. Dr. Danny Avula, the vaccine coordinator for Virginia, said the Johnson & Johnson shipments would boost the state’s allotment of vaccine next week by nearly one-fifth. “I’m super-pumped about this,” he said. “A hundred percent efficacy against deaths and hospitalizations? That’s all I need to hear.” He said the state was planning mass vaccination events specifically for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, partly to quell any suspicion that it is a lesser product targeted to specific groups. “It will be super clear that this is Johnson & Johnson, here’s what you need to know about it. If you want to do this, you’re coming in with eyes wide open,” he said. “If not, you will keep your place on the list.” Michele Roberts, the assistant secretary of Washington State’s health department, said that it would be difficult to explain the technical aspects of how Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine trials differed from those of other drug makers. Because the studies were conducted at different times and with different protocols, precise comparisons can be problematic. All three trials showed the vaccines provided strong protection against Covid-19, especially for severe disease. Updated  Feb. 27, 2021, 6:11 p.m. ET Understanding the subtle contrasts requires a lot of “scientific literacy,” she said. “There are so many different factors at play. But those aren’t, you know, quick public messages.” Even some clinicians misinterpret the differences among the Covid-19 vaccines, health officials said. “They assume it’s apples to apples but it’s apples to oranges, or worse, apples to tires,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Last week, Dr. Shah said, the leader of one group of specialty health clinics in his state initially turned down his offer to ship doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, saying his health practitioners were concerned it was less efficacious than the other two. He said he told him: “Stop right there. We need to have a Zoom conversation right now with your entire medical staff.” Instead, he carefully explained Johnson & Johnson’s results to the provider, who then spoke with his staff. Twenty minutes later, the provider sent him a message saying: “We’re on board. Send us the J & J.” Some state officials have been frustrated by what they view as a lack of a coordinated plan from the Biden administration on how to deploy the new vaccine. Governors have asked the White House for guidance, but administration officials have so far left it up to the states to decide. Even though Johnson & Johnson received ample federal support and agreed to manufacture at risk, federal officials familiar with its operation said the company took an overly conservative approach to production, emphasizing scaling up on the back end of its contract. As a result, Johnson & Johnson is expected deliver the bulk of its 100 million doses in the late spring or early summer. The country will still need them: By the end of May, Pfizer and Moderna have promised to ship enough doses to vaccinate 200 million Americans, leaving roughly 60 million eligible adults still uncovered. But with the spread of more contagious variants of the virus, health officials are anxious to vaccinate as many Americans as fast as possible. Johnson & Johnson produced its first batch of roughly four million doses at its Dutch plant, federal officials said. The company’s new plant in Baltimore is expected to supply the bulk of its doses for the United States. Americans are becoming more open to getting Covid-19 vaccines, according to the latest survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been monitoring attitudes since December. Fifty-five percent of adults now say they have either received one dose or will get it as soon as they can, up from 34 percent in December. But Rupali Limaye, who studies vaccine hesitancy at Johns Hopkins University, said she worried about whether health officials and community leaders would sufficiently emphasize the strengths of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, including how well it prevents the onset of severe Covid-19, hospitalization and death. “People will want to know: Why is this one so much less and what does it mean for us?” she said. “I’m worried it’s going to cause more questions than confidence.” Absent more direction from the federal government, state health officials are consulting with each other about where to direct the new source of supply. Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, which represents state health agencies, predicted that “many states are going to be a little bit cautious” about where they initially ship the vaccine. “You don’t want to say, ‘OK, we’re going to use this vaccine for our rural populations because it’s easier to ship.’” That may trigger a backlash from people who wrongly suspect that for some reason or another, they are being offered a second-rate vaccine, he said. Dr. Shah of Maine said the new vaccine was particularly well-suited for drive-through vaccination sites, partly because it appeared less likely to trigger the kinds of side effects that require monitoring. Health officials in other states said it might also make sense to direct doses toward transient population groups who might be less likely to show up for second shots. Colleges might be particularly interested. Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, the state epidemiologist in Arkansas’s health department, said the vaccine’s easier storage conditions could also increase the number of vaccinations in other nonmedical settings, like senior centers or sites in underserved communities that lack pharmacies or health care providers. In order to limit possible confusion, some state health officials said that they initially plan to direct the new vaccine to new sites, not ones that are already administering the other vaccines. Dr. Shah said that some pharmacists in Maine would rather handle one type of Covid-19 vaccine at a time. Although that may change, Dr. Shah said, “Every day matters. Anything that is introduced into the workflow that slows down the pace of vaccination hurts us.” Carl Zimmer contributed reporting. Source link Orbem News #clears #FDA #Johnson #Johnsons #shot #Vaccine

[crapfutures]

Et in Orcadia ego

In a recent post (‘scrap futures’) we mentioned a project we’re doing with Laura Watts from ITU Copenhagen and partners in Scotland that involves building a gravity battery on the small island of Eday in Orkney.

We’ve just returned from that island-to-island journey. It was quite a trip, a proper eye opener. We arrived on Sunday evening with nothing - no tools or materials of any kind - and by Thursday we were running a public demo of a gravity-powered Casio keyboard playing Ode to Joy. Here is a brief (and highly subjective) travelogue and technical account of the process, which was not unlike a 72-hour Scrapheap Challenge, but involving the whole community.

The northward trek

Three of us left Madeira early on the Friday, bidding farewell to sunshine and flower blossoms. The fourth in our party, Mohammed, coming from rural Sweden, met us that night in Inverness. By Saturday morning we had reached Kirkwall, on the Orkney Mainland. Laura arrived on the next flight, and over a lunch of fish and chips we shared our thoughts about the gravity battery, including what sort of scrap we might use to make it - an old motorcycle, a car or tractor, even a crashed Vespa someone had mentioned. There was also the question of what we should do with the energy it released. Previously we had powered a record player; this time we had in mind a lamp, or an old radio playing The Shipping Forecast. None of us had ever been to Eday, an island of ten square miles with a population of just 130 people.

The wind picked up and the afternoon ferry was cancelled, so we headed over to Stromness on the other side of the Mainland to spend the night in the atmospheric Stromness Hotel. Enrique waxed poetic on the irony of Silicon Valley’s dreams of colonising Mars, when we were stranded ten miles from our destination by a bit of wind. But we made the best of it, and after a full Scottish breakfast with haggis on Sunday morning we drove back to Kirkwall and caught the afternoon ferry. We arrived after dark, windswept and seasalted, and followed the island’s only road to the only year-round accommodation, the hostel, where we met our documentary filmmaker, Aaron Watson. The trip north had taken three days, leaving only three days to build for the demonstration.

Build Day 1

We woke Monday morning to the sound of a large wind turbine spinning fast outside the hostel, telling us the weather conditions. In fact the island grid is powered entirely by renewable energy - Eday’s experimental and community-driven use of renewables, including wind, tidal, and solar, as well as storage in hydrogen fuel cells, is the main reason we were keen to visit. Even the electric heaters in the hostel are powered at certain times by energy overflow from the wind turbine outside. Everyone we met on Eday was extremely well versed in energy generation and storage, including the seven children of the local primary school who spoke knowledgeably about electrolysers and curtailment.

We met Clive, our local fixer and project partner with Eday Renewable Energy Ltd., after a solid breakfast of porridge and bacon butties. Before we set out to gather scrap materials and tools, he gave us a pep talk of sorts: ‘This may look like chaos. But I assure you the machine will be built, it will be demonstrated, and you will leave happy on the ferry Friday morning.’ In the car he pointed out the island’s landmarks and mentioned some of the people we would likely meet that day. As far as we could tell you were not allowed to have the same name as anyone else on the island - when a second Kate arrived she was renamed Katie, and the second Mike became Mick. This we decided was as good a definition of a small island as any we’d heard. Clive warned us that the community would need some convincing before they got involved. We should expect questions like: What’s in it for Eday?

The first stop of the morning was the Old Church, which had been bought by a woman from London with big plans in the 1980s and has sat derelict ever since. Here we found an old motorcycle, a red Kawasaki, parked in the middle of the church amongst other scrap (a Super 8 camera, a record player, a typewriter). The bike had only 12,000 miles on the odometer, but it was buried under a thick blanket of corrosive pigeon shit, and all of its insides were seized beyond reasonable use. We took a lot of photographs. At the second stop, the New Church a minute down the road, we found a large brass bell salvaged from a sunken steamship. We thought we might use it as a weight for the gravity battery. Permission would have to be sought, Clive said. The third stop was an old mechanic’s back garden, full of rusted cars and a jumble of engine parts. ‘Did he die?’ someone asked. ‘No, just left the island’, Clive replied. James opened the hood of an old BMW and found a live rabbit inside.

We checked out the building site next, a shed by the pier used mostly for deliveries. It had a forklift and plenty of room - the first real success of the day. We would have to clear out twice a day when the ferry docked, but aside from that it was ours. We agreed it would do very nicely. Our other Eday contact, Andy, who works with Clive, met us at the shed. From there we drove to an old quarry on the far side of the island, a five-minute journey. As we walked around the site, staring up at the sheer sides from the quarry base, someone had an epiphany about making a gravity-powered keyboard. Andy, it turned out, not only knew how to play (he was currently the church organist), he had also been the keyboardist in an eighties band called Freeez, who had a number one single in the US dance charts (‘IOU’). We all agreed that if we could get hold of a scrap keyboard the issue of what to do with the energy released by the gravity battery was solved.

After lunch at the hostel we met some people from the community in a building next to the island shop. The key moment in this meeting was the suggestion that Mick, who was spotted leaving the shop outside, had an old motorcycle in his barn; someone ran out to talk to Mick and he kindly agreed to let us follow him home. He was a large man in a CCCP shirt, who told us in a Liverpool accent to mind the ducks and sheep. He opened the barn and dragged out an old dirt bike, its wheels clogged with hay; he used an axe to free up the front wheel, and four of us rolled it up the driveway in the rain and waited as someone found a van to bring it back to the pier shed. We were cold and wet, and the light was fading on our first day, but we had a motorcycle and a rough plan. We ate a hearty dinner at Roadside, the island’s former pub turned occasional restaurant (actually just a dining room in a private house), and then returned to the hostel to drink whisky and sleep.

Build Day 2

We arrived at the shed Tuesday morning at 9.05am to find several islanders already waiting in boilersuits, ready to work. We introduced ourselves, made some tea, and set up to start cutting into the bike, while Clive got on the phone to order a new chain from the Mainland - the only part the bike was missing. We quickly sourced some necessary tools from generous community members, including an angle grinder (Aaron the filmmaker’s favourite, because it made a photogenic shower of sparks), a lathe, and a socket set, and got to work. By lunch the bike was stripped, leaving only the parts necessary for the gravity battery - the frame, engine, and rear axle. In the afternoon two of us went to the school to give a workshop while the others stayed back at the shed. The wind blew and the rain poured down. Countless cups of tea were consumed. Soon the day was over, the children went home, the shed was locked up, and at the hostel Mohammed made his special dhal. It was Halloween night on a remote Scottish island, so obviously we watched The Wicker Man. More whisky was consumed.

Build Day 3

The challenge now was how to get the gravity battery over the fence and down into the quarry, our chosen site for Thursday’s demo. We noticed a large tractor - who did it belong to? Could somebody drive it there? Health and safety was still a headache that Andy was dealing with, negotiating with the property owners in England and the insurance company. It was blowing a gale all the previous night and all morning; the rain beat down on the corrugated iron roof of the shed, making it hard to hear anyone speak.

On the positive side, people from the community were beginning to get excited about working together on this strange and unexpected project. Old habits were shifting as people from different parts of the island who rarely spoke to each other met and pitched in as a team. Hamish and Mel, native Orcadians, came to join in and brought their son Robbie, an apprentice engineer. An old Casio keyboard was found, and after some minor tinkering was brought back to life. The chain arrived by afternoon ferry. Calculations were underway for rigging a pulley over the quarry edge. More people showed up, to work or to watch. Clive told us stories of moving to London in the late sixties, working in Carnaby Street, seeing the Stones in Hyde Park. ‘What brought you up to Eday?’ we asked. ‘Cheap innit’, he said with a smile. We met other southerners who said the same thing. But their attachment to the place had obviously gone very deep.

On Wednesday afternoon we went to use the lathe in the shed of a friendly guy named Mike, another Englishman and ex-submariner who lived in the old schoolhouse. Mike left a note in the shed telling us what to do if a blackbird showed up at the door - he had trained the bird to come in and ask for food when it was hungry. Sure enough the bird showed up, looking at us expectantly until we passed it some raisins and a biscuit. When we finished our machining Mike invited us into the main house. In what turned out to be one of the highlights of our week in Eday, Mike showed us not only a display he’d made on the history of the school, but also - leading us through a hole in the wall - no less than a full-sized model of the inside of a submarine, complete with salvaged periscope, control panels, and torpedo launchers. We walked through room after room, through sleeping quarters with life-sized mannequin sailors, until we reached the end and emerged back into the schoolhouse. We shook hands with Mike, somewhat unsettled by what we’d just seen, and returned to the pier shed.

That night at dinner we discussed our visit to Eday as a three-act play. The first two acts, we decided, had established the principal characters and their relationship to the world they lived in. The inciting incident of Act One was our arrival on the island, with a mad plan to build a gravity battery from scrap. The rising action of Act Two was the first three days of building, where we pitched in with the community to make the thing we’d set out to make - the spectre of public humiliation creating tension and driving us forward. The character arcs of ourselves and everyone in the community developed under this pressure; Andy and Clive even told us that relationships between community members had been altered - for the good - by our presence. People who hadn’t spoken to each other in years exchanged words; old feuds were put to rest or laid aside. For our part we gained insights about ourselves, our roles, and the nature of our work.

Every story needs a climax, and it usually involves collectively overcoming a crisis. So it was not unexpected that we should receive a phone call at dinner that night, the night before the public demo, telling us that the absentee landowner would not allow access to our chosen site, the quarry, without insurance - and negotiations with the insurance company had reached an impasse. Andy was trying his best to provide evidence of due diligence to both parties; but insurance is about predictability, and is naturally risk-averse. Testing a gravity battery made from scrap in an abandoned quarry with children present is not an ideal scenario from the insurer’s perspective. How could we bridge the gap between health and safety, on one hand, and daring innovation and experimentation, on the other? How could we achieve a satisfying resolution and leave happy, as Clive promised, on Friday morning?

Demo Day

Andy, as we mentioned above, was a professional musician in his previous life - he had played on Top of the Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test. So when he sat down to rehearse for the demo on Thursday morning, perched on a wooden crate in shorts and hiking boots and a down jacket, tapping at the keys of a salvaged Casio, the other islanders laughed and jibed goodnaturedly: ‘You’ve come a long way, Andy!’ The crisis at the quarry had been overcome, or rather bypassed completely, by ten o’clock: just as the insurance problem was solved, we decided it would be easier to stage the demo at the pier near the shed, so that no major moving of equipment would be involved. Now momentum was gathering towards the final event and resolution.

The demo was scheduled for after lunch. Word spread and by late morning a small crowd started to gather. We were busy with small jobs: like untangling rope for the pulley to suspend the mass, a 25-litre water container, from a long metal pole extending off the fork of a tractor Hamish had driven over from his farm. The motorcycle chassis that formed the heart of the machine was strapped to a wooden pallet. We only had to figure out how to lift the weight into the air - in Madeira we had used a solar panel, but that was not an option in Orkney. Various attempts were made, including hooking up the battery from Mike’s car, but with no success.

The school bus pulled into the parking lot in front of the pier shed and the children got out. They lined up in front of the crowd and showed drawings of the gravity batteries they had designed earlier in the week. One child broke down under the pressure and sobbed loudly, but eventually held up his drawing between shaking hands. The weather was calm and dry. We handed out Madeiran sweets to the kids, who wore reflective vests for safety. Everyone stood facing us in a semicircle and waited for the show to begin. At the last moment a solution was found: James improvised an attachment to a rechargeable electric drill and used it to drive a super low-gear winch, slowly raising the water container. It seemed a bit of a cheat - though in fact it wasn’t, since the island’s grid is powered by renewables - but the mass was now suspended, the energy was stored until needed, and that was the main point. We called for everyone’s attention; released the mass; wires were connected and the keyboard came to life. Andy played ‘Ode to Joy’, followed by ‘The Flintstones’ for the children. The performance lasted several minutes, then the keyboard fell silent at the instant the water container touched the ground. The crowd went wild. We did it again, and then again - the last time letting the kids take turns banging out some noise. It was a success. We cleaned up as dusk fell.

That evening there was a gathering at the community centre. Andy led a discussion with ourselves and some of the islanders, including Hamish and Mel and their children, ‘Submarine’ Mike, Ivan and his son Jordan, and many others, that felt productive. It verged at times on emotional, as people discussed past achievements like the installation of the massive community-owned wind turbine, along with possible futures of the community and the island itself. We tried to impress the point that, given enough time and ideal conditions, their energy storage solution (or ‘Newton Machine’) would not be a gravity battery - which was something we had created out of the particular materials and terrain of Madeira - but rather a bespoke solution for Eday, built not from Madeiran sucata but from Orcadian bruck, taking advantage of local conditions, like a flow battery made with seawater. But we had three days to produce something spectacular with the community, so we decided to make an Eday version of a gravity battery - and according to those terms, we succeeded. As we sat around talking into the night, surrounded by absolute darkness except for the lights of neighbouring islands and the hostel in the distance, we also agreed that the machine we built was, in some real sense, a social machine.

We hoped that our strange event on Eday, our intervention of sorts, had made an impact on the community. We received a positive sign from Andy the day after we returned, in the form of a message that read: ‘I'm about to order my very first angle grinder, just so I can make my own sparks, just for the sheer fun of it.’ He said he’d been inspired to ‘have a go’. Between Andy’s words (and music), Clive’s stories, Mike’s submarine, Mick’s motorcycle, Ivan’s joyful exclamations of ‘happy days!’, the schoolchildren’s imaginative designs, and Hamish’s son Robbie melting aluminium in a kitchen pot with a blowtorch to cast parts for the gravity battery, we concluded that some good had come of the trip. Still ahead, Laura will write up our experiences on Eday from an ethnographer’s perspective, and Aaron will make a short film to present at our exhibition in Barcelona early next year. The gravity battery itself, meanwhile, remains on the island - being too heavy to transport - and will hopefully power Andy’s reconfigured Casio keyboard through the winter months.

Images:

Julian Hanna and James Auger.

[gocchisama]

Rollercoaster of Emotion : A Keyakizaka Story

The “Republic of Keyakizaka” concert took place the week end of 22-23 July, in FujiQ conifer forest. With a schedule matching mine, i had the privilege to attend the two days full of keyakizaness, from unique scenery inside the park to the sharp performance of the girls. I will attempt to bring as much anecdote from the inside as i can, and yes there’s a lot of things to say!

The concert took place near the popular attraction park FujiQ Highland.

Getting tickets as a foreigner might be an hassle. I had to create a Rakuten account, an EMTG account, have a credit card that works, a japanese phone number and address. You can get the last two by submitting to tenso, a japanese service specialized in shipping Japanese goods. After that, it was first come first served so web servers were saturated from fans multiple connections, disabling the service for those who have poor internet. Fortunately the venue capacity was big (12 000 seats) and some gave up because the venue was too far from tokyo (2 hours from bus/3 from train). 6 hours after the start of the selling, i managed to buy 2 tickets (i didn’t choose seats). Something hard, was also to book a bus ( most japanese fans rushed to this service as well) and all hotel were book. I got lucky to find a very affordable airbnb (guesthouse online service) and managed to secure a super early Bus from tokyo to the venue. Vacations were finally starting!

A sneak peek of the queuing line for Keyakizaka goods. There’s three of them.

There’s a reason i wanted to come early: exclusive goods! I wasn’t satisfied with the towel available on the official online store, but the one sold at the venue was a real “coup de coeur”. Hirate Yurina being a very popular member, i didn’t wanted to face a sold-out situation. I arrived at 10AM and the show started at 5PM(afternoon). But there was already a massive line worth 1.5 hours! Easy to tell that Goods are really popular items of collection. I thought i was going to wait in hellfire, but weather was cloudy and the forest around were kind of absorbing the heat. Also we were waiting below the fujiyama rollercoaster so it was fun to see people getting scared 60m above our line. What surprised me was how disciplined fans were : patiently waiting their turn, and quickly purchasing their goods. What looked really long actually moved quite fast. Aki-p was also prepared : there was a huge amount of package behind the selling staff to fulfill everyone’s otaku needs. Thumbs up for japanese neat organization!

Exclusive goods were affordable and high quality.

i was positively surprised at the goods prices. 3000Y 100% cotton T shirts, 3000Y lighsticks and 2000Y the god of items, the oshi towel. Aside from the oshi towel, the biggest value for me was the exclusive fanclub keyakizaka bandana (the one on my bag) with the unbeatable price of 300Y. There was also this 4500Y exclusive T shirt with handmade blazer “humility, kindness, bond” but i skipped due to budget reasons. The highlight was also keyakizaka photoset : for 1000Y, they give you a set of 5 random pictures, either from special silent majority (kohaku version) to futari season (gold uniform). I had a good pull with yuipon, moriya, shida manaka. When i got out, there were hundreds of fans trading like crazy to complete their sets! Some had 30 000 Y worth of photos, just to get a chance to have their oshimen sets complete. As you can expect, a lot of fans keep popular members set for their own collection, and to trade them is very rare. The trading was a raging battle and with my poor 5 pictures, i didn’t tried to join the fray. Even though i could probably catch  Yurina... let’s hope for another chance in the summer tour!

There was so many keyakizaka fans that the park could have been renamed Keyakizaka land.

Keyakizaka performing in Conifere forest was undoubtly a big collaboration with FujiQ Highland. Sony management get a big venue and promotion from FujiQ, while FujiQ ultra boost its attendance rate with all the wota coming to have a good time in the park. I won’t be surprised if they do it again. The scenery was unreal : almost 70% of the park customers were wearing their oshi towel and keyaki T-shirts. After all, the 1500Y admission pass was free for those who had concert tickets (but you have to pay the biggest rollercoasters). It was a great opportunity for group of friends to attend both fujiQ and keyakizaka GIG, but also couples and families. There was members panel scattered over the whole park and fans had to search for their oshi (see above). You could see who were popular according to the lane of fans waiting to get the perfect shot. Zuumin, Monarisa, Neru always had a lane. Techi was very well hidden (at the near edge between 2 rollercoaster) and had like 100 members queuing for her! It took me 1h to find the panel and take a picture, but the hide and seek game was fun.

About the sociology : after a lot of observation, i would say the ratio is 75-25 boys/girls, and most of them were very young 15-20 years old. They probably didn’t lived the Acchan era, and that explain why AKB is declining : AKB didn’t managed to appeal to this new fandom; Nogizaka and Keyaki did. I haven’t seen goods related to other idol group, even from Nogizaka. It was really all about Keyaki. I’ll be honest, it was hard to connect with fans. Langage barrier, also they were already hanging in groups of friend/Focus on trading. I chatted a bit with fans when i was queueing in Fujiyama rollercoaster, and they were surprised i came from France, but that’s about it. On a side note, Fujiyama has nice attractions like Eee janai ka (see videos on youtube) so please check it out for one day (you don’t need more, and go on weekdays) if you have the opportunity to do so!

The actual venue, with a big stage looking like a castle with flags ornaments.

The actual venue was very convenient. There were a lot of staff guiding fans and you just had to cross the bridge to be at the concert. Lot of policemen, security was strict, checking bags and ID. Impossible to resell ticket thanks to this, even with accompany status (the concert didn’t sold out anyway). How it was organized : seats were spread through blocks. For example, if you get A block, you’re very close to the stage, and if you get the number 7-9, you are in the center of the venue. Kami seats were not A1(on the edge, but still good), but A7 (sooo close). Since i bought ticket late, i had F2, which is quite bad, but i was already glad to be there. I had the big left screen to follow the concert (picture above). You were given a balloon to use it during Sekai ni wa ai shikanai. Saturday i would say was filled at 95%, and Sunday was 90%. Mission accomplished.

The girls appeared in brand new horsemen-inspired costume, holding (*cough* confederate *cough*) flags.

The show was finally starting! Big new instrumental intro to lift the atmosphere, again with the army style. People wavering their greenlighstick, all standing up. Techi was standing in the middle with her badass stare like the leader of the army. After this intro, they played Overture and followed by the 3 first singles. First thing i wanted to confirm : No zuumin (imaizumi Yui) also Yonetani nanami chose to focus on her studies in the meantime. Anyway choregraphy went smoothly and the crowd was cheering and doing the mix (wota chant). It’s our way to tell the girls we’re enjoying our time and mutually motivating ourselves. It’s our way to communicate! Overall members had good expressions, like Moriya, Yuuka and Neru, but also Satoh shiori and uemura rina that were dancing on my side. Others like Berika and Techi were kind of warming up, trying to avoid making mistakes.

There were a lot of interactions between fans and the group. Shida Manaka particulary enjoyed shooting on fans but also members.

Aozora and Bokutachi no sensou were pretty original : they put the crowd into work sending big floating air balls that we were bumping around the venue, and girls had waterstream to shower the first lanes. Other members had waterguns. It was really festive and even though bokutachi no sensou is not my favourite song, people were having fun. Aozora to marry is a fan favourite, as the calls were very strong.

Techi entering the scene the coolest way possible

Techi was singing live, with a playback running behind. A double edged sword as if her pitch was off, it could be distinguishly heard, so she focused a lot on her singing. Her voice is more girly than the studio version, which was cute. However, because she wanted to do good, she was restraining herself and her moves lacked expressions. She didn’t interacted much with the crowd, making her cold. As if she was aware of her mistake, she did significantly better Sunday and she felt much more natural. Hearsaying on my way home, a lot were satisfied with her performance, as her aura is “yabai” (so impressive)

Yurina’s performance was followed by Hiragana keyaki 2 songs, “hiragana keyaki” and “boku wa tsukiatteru”. I was pleasantly surprised at how genki, smiling and fluffy the girls were, lifting up the crowd even more. They were so much more expressive than Kanji singles it kind of woke up everyone. The song in studio is standard orthodox idol, but it is a killer during live performance because the lyrics are easy to remember and moves easy to mimic. Very good surprise, i saw myself tagging along, leaving behind all regrets to look ridicule. At the end, Sasaki kumi took charge of the MC. I can see she is comfortable with talking, but topics to talk about could be improved. Other girls were short to comment.

Waterworks  were giving density to the rare performed “Otona wa shinjite kurenai”

Kanji are back with the great “otona wa shinjite kurenai” and the very anticipated “eccentric”. Very solid performance, very sharp and powerful. The girls are in their element and Techi is finally unleashing the darkness within her. We don’t have mix in this song, but people were amazed and couldn’t speak much. It gaves a stronger feeling than Silent majority. Less mainstream, much deeper. I really liked it. Great follow up with Eccentric, people argued the choregraphy was a hit or miss, but i would say definitevely a hit! If felt like the girls were having erratic spasm, but did synchronized move as well. Very technical. The song itself is good, and i saw myself doing the wakame dance (waving my arms), shuffling my towel (while they use their shoes) and shaking my chest. (that was weird).

Something i noticed too in Hohoemi Ga kanashii and Wareta Smartphone. Because Techi is a little bit cranky and mechanical, the chemistry with Neru is not perfect. Techi shines in dark songs, but on her path to become a great idol, she needs to express herself more in normal situation. It feels like Neru is assisting her rather than being a balanced pairing. On the other song, Berika is reminding me of Paruru, doing the barely minimum during performance. I know it’s funny to put someone awkward in a sexy song, but i don’t think it’s helping her to grow. The contrast with the sexyness of Moriya is making her look bad. She looks more comfortable in songs like Aozora ga chigau. In the meantime, Mona risa are fooling around while Yuuka try to focus on the choregraphy. I personally like Wareta smartphone.

Sometimes the wota culture can be misunderstood. 

We reached a climax with the 3 last songs, “Kataru nara mirai wo”, “Takaku tobe” and “Te wo tsunaide Kaerou ka”? Kataru Nara is an absolute jewel of choregraphy and the mix were really strong. Before that we had a Hiragana and Kanji dance medley very similar to what happened in Ariake. Some moves were recycled, but i don’t mind as the girl had little time to practice. Special shoutout to Suzumoto Miyu who is by far the best dancer of the groupe. Saito Kyoko dance battled with her and she was very decent too. As people were hyping, they send Takaku tobe which once again blowed me away at how popular of a song it was. Perhaps the instrumental got changed to sound more upbeat, but everyone was tagging along with the moves and quirky mimics. Hiragana songs are really popular! To answer to that, Kanji Keyaki used Te wo tsunaide, another popular song that worship the yuukanen pairing. People were warming up at Yuukanen chasing each other, in a very cute way. The cheering was pretty even with Takaku tobe.

The Encore escalated quickly, with loud screams and fireworks.

To me the big highlight was the encore, Fukyouwaon. People knew it was the last powerful song so we kind of put everything to it. The girls exploded and the pyrotechnics made it look like a warfield. It was so funny i shouted “boku wa yada” with Techi similar to if i was in hellfest, surprising people next to me (i thought it was part of the mix , sorry). Anyway, people did their best mix and you couldn’t hear the rollercoaster next to us. Fukyouwaon went from the “weakest” A-side to “best A-side on stage” haaands down. It was truly marvelous and you could see the girls were enjoying the crowd hype as their moves were growing in power (Techi was smiling from enjoyment).

Finally we finished with our anthem kanji/hiragana together, Keyakizaka no Uta. We kind of let loose after the final rush and enjoyed the last bit of time together. We had fireworks and it almost felt the girls weren’t aware. Since we were around 7PM, it was night and you could completely see the fireworks. People were having a blast. I heard “sugeee” “yabaaai” “majiiii de” from everywhere when it started to lighten up the sky.

Aki-p used credit card platinum. It was very effective.

In conclusion, it was a great experience to live as a fan. You could either skip Saturday or Sunday as it was the same setlist. Unfortunately, Yonetani and Zumiko absence were quite heavy, leaving their fans bittersweet. Also there was only eccentric as new song, making fans craving for more. That’s why it can’t beat Ariake coliseum yet. But fear not! Because Keyaki summer schedule is very busy; they still have to perform the summer tour, handshakes, summer sonic, fuji rock and Tokyo idol festival. I think Zuumin will come back avoiding the hectic schedule, just in time for their biggest stop, Makuhari Messe. Keyaki story is not over yet!

I was impressed once again by japanese crowd control. They brought special train for people to come back safely to tokyo. The guideline was perfect, and they regulate trains so people don’t overcrowd it. Also it was free, so i only paid 500 yen to come back from Fujisan to Chiba! They really do the maximum for the fans and i’m really grateful.

It’s not all the time you see a town full of wota, wearing their oshi towel like it’s pretty standard; to see fans helping each other to take turns of 2shots, praising their respective oshimen quality; a young daughter refusing his also-fan dad to accompany her in handshake to not be embarassed in front of her oshimen... Now i realized what the true meaning of “republic of keyakizaka” is : people bonding, having fun together, enjoying life around the positive energy that brings the group.

- Gocchisama

En route toward new keyaki adventures! Thanks for reading.

[furederiko]

Would you look at that? It's my 1400th post! In Kyuranger episode 33, the team reunites with several old friends, as they welcome a new arsenal to their ranks!

NOTE: In case you somehow missed the notice, this belated recap-view is for the episode that aired on October 8th, 2017. Expect the one for episode 34 that aired a few days ago (on Sunday, October 15th)... soon-ish! ;D

- No intro narration? That feels weird. - With ORION's heroic sacrifice, the Rebellions are now left homeless, and without any necessary transportation. So much for their plan to head out into the Crux System to locate the whereabouts of Don Armage, right? Well... not exactly. - A familiar face teleports her way out of the blue. Yep, Eris returns! Her arrival heralds two major reveals. First, she pretty much confirms that the past has INDEED been altered. Remember how I was kind of concerned how Eris would play a part in the quest for Argo, knowing that Orion has passed away in battle 300 years ago? Turns out, that part of history has been rewritten. She no longer knew the white warrior, and it was none other than Commander Xiao who delivered the Carina Kyu Globe for her safekeeping (as well as entrusting the Vela Kyu Globe to the Vela Tribe, as we'll see later on through his... picture show). Second, in the event of anything bad happening to ORION, Eris has been asked to deliver a special message from Xiao (via the Capricorn Kyu Globe). And it speaks about... Fun fact: Do pay attention to Spada and Raptor's fun reaction when Eris shows up! XD - Legendary Battle Orion Ship!!! Turns out, Orion was building an intergalactic battleship for the past heroes' fight against Jark Matter. As has been teased in the closing scene last week, apparently Xiao took over the development, and completed the process in Orion's sake. It means Xiao was the one who hid the ship as well. - The coordinates that Xiao sends on his message leads Lucky and Tsurugi to... Orion's grave. Aaaawww -_-. At the same time, the others discover a hidden passage underneath the location. Unfortunately, Vice-Shogun Kukuruga is also on the move, tailing our heroes alongside Menaster of the Aries System, Twistler. The Jark Matters don't really have any clue of what the Kyurangers are doing there. Well, at least, until Balance spills the bean. - You see, Twistler unfortunately casts his power on Balance, Hammy, and Spada, that alters and twists their personalities. Balance becomes all classy and sophisticated, Hammy with her hair pulled back (NICE look!) behaves like an old-lady, and Spada is... a rude punk? LOL. This is worse than our regular body-switch trope, because not only they have become a completely different person, they also respond others by doing the opposite of what is being told. So much so, that Naga has to paralyze them using Aries Kyu Globe. - As for the Battle Orion Ship? Well... the 2nd team has already located it. I know what you're thinking... "That was FAST!". Surprise, surprise, the bridge's interior looks exactly like ORION's. Likely due to budget concern and to prevent spoilers ("Episode of Stinger" and web-series "High School Wars" would be released prior to this episode), it still makes sense knowing who is behind its completion. Oh, but there's a bonus item. A cold-sleep capsule is placed in the center, one which Lucky, Kotarou (seriously guys, again?), and Garu jump in to open without any care in the world. - Do we even need to guess who's inside? Of course it's none other than... Xiao himself! He's not even fazed or confused like his 'cold-sleep bro' Tsurugi was (the two even shared the spotlight in the ending sequence), seemingly more than prepared to encounter the Kyuranger's familiar faces. Aaaaawww for sweet reunion! Remember when he and Champ promised to find a way back to the present time? THIS is Xiao's way. Completely ignoring the fact that he's basically putting himself in a dangerous gambling situation. I mean, seriously, if ORION hasn't been destroyed, would the team even search for this ship and find him? Probably NEVER. LOL. And Champ? What about our wrestling robot? I'll get back to this later... - It's not Xiao if he doesn't start blabbing tall-tales right away. Both Raptor's and Naga's reactions to his shenanigans are priceless as usual. But having emotions puts the latter on a different sneer & jeer-ish level that is just... amazing. Even Stinger and Kotarou are tagging along this time as Naga breaks the 4th wall, while Lucky simply doesn't get it. Comedy gold! - Interestingly, Xiao confirms that he's aware of Don Armage's 'revival' as well. Does this imply that the current Armage is in fact the same one that Leo Red Orion had defeated in the past? He also reveals that... Battle Orion Ship can NOT be activated without the Orion Kyu Globe. Which is a problem, because the item could NOT be found in the past. So how will they counter Kukuruga's sudden air strike then? Leave that task to Phoenix Soldier and his Gigant Phoenix. Because while Naga brilliantly manipulates poor-twisted Balance, Hammy, and Spada to fight (what a FUN roll call! How I wish every member is altered), Lucky has a more important task: awakening the Orion Kyu Globe. - That's right, Orion's power has been passed down to Lucky, so he's the only one who can activate it. And it's a moving sequence too, because we get to see Orion again... albeit only in spirit form. Aaaawww, that makes me sad. Hmmm... if his spirit shows up, this confirms that he's DEFINITELY not the new Don Armage. There goes my Darth Vader theory then! LOL. That also means, Lucky's backstory might not be as important nor elaborate as we all presumed... Fun fact: Just like Akyanba, Kukuruga proves that he's also a smart antagonist. Not because he can absorb attacks and returns them. Kukuruga actually stops Leo Red before he can utilize the Supreme Kyu Globe! YIKES. Had Orion's club is not available nearby, he could've been a complete goner... - Orion Voyager debuts! True to its namesake, the golden colored arsenal is shaped like its original owner's weapon. It also activates Battle Orion Ship, with Raptor immediately jumping in to maneuver its first official lift off. The sequence gets better, because when Leo Red Orion boards the Voyager, it transforms the battleship into the team's 4th mecha, the Orion Battler. Sweet homage to ORION, right there! And I'll be damned, it's a sentient robot too. It runs off on its own halfway through battle! - Actual design might be bricky and tacky to look at, with a blue-gold color scheme that seems to be a common/standard of many Super Sentai secondary mecha. But even I have to admit, just like Gigant Phoenix, Orion Battler looks really good and visually impressive in action. I like how the ship's landing platform serves as some kind of coat-tail on the robot's back. Giving off the impression that it's wearing a cape or long coat! One more thing, I've been wondering how any passenger inside the ship would be affected by the transformation, since the battleship basically rotates 90 degrees to stand up. So it's such a pleasant surprise that this episode actually shows what happens to the other Kyurangers on the bridge LOL. A nice minor detail, considering the show could've simply ignored this fact and just ran along with it. - Back to the case of Champ. While the team is busy tidying up their new home, Stinger is quick to address the elephant (or should I say 'bull'? Nice 'flower' arrangement, by the way ;D) in the room: "What happened to Champ?". My oh my, this is one of the downside of having so many members. When one of their own is gone, the others don't immediately take notice! Seriously though, even I somehow had forgotten about him during my first viewing. According to Xiao, Champ put him to cold-sleep, and then went out to locate... Professor Anton. - This raises its own concern, because we all know Anton is a Jark Matter operative. Situation gets more dire, as Kukuruga and Akyanba seem to have discovered Anton's laboratory. One that contains the one and only... Champ!

Overall: This episode was undeniably the Super Sentai love letter to that iconic anime by the title "Uchuu Senkan Yamato". From the shape of the new battleship, the cannon sequence (which is a brilliant follow-up to Xiao's previous remark), down to the tune of its BGM, everything just felt like non-stop homage to the classic series. I have to admit, a 'reveal episode' like this sort of lost its charm upon second viewing. But when I first saw it via stream (without sub), it was genuinely entertaining and more enjoyable to experience. Like I've said above, Orion Battler is an impressive 4th robot. Yet it's far more impressive to know that the writers are addressing trivial and at times minor details that even the most devoted audience would've missed. IMHO, that's the sign of good writing! Next weekTomorrow: Champ Wars - A Luchador Story... PS: If nothing unexpected and incidental happens along the way, recap-view for episode 34 is expected to arrive tomorrow. Same time, same channel!

Episode 33 Score: 8,1 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: October 17th, 2017 - Version 3.02. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

[pantryplanet65-blog]

The 9 Best Breakfast Spots in Paris, One for Every Mood

It’s no secret that Parisians (still) aren’t big on breakfast.

“I don’t know, maybe try Google,” was the response from my hairdresser when I asked her for breakfast recommendations in the area. We were in the heart of Oberkampf, a dining destination of late due to its many cultish neo-bistros. Young and seemingly hip, I figured she’d have some clue about where to score a decent avocat toast before noon.

But for her, like many Parisians, the day started with coffee (espresso, black) and a cigarette. End of story.

I live in Paris, but I’m not French. I’m not a flapjacks-and-sausage-links American, but I need something in my belly to start the day. Usually I’m happy with my same-ol’ homemade oatmeal or the occasional bakery croissant. From my apartment, walk any direction and within 5 minutes, you’ll stumble on a boulangerie pumping out its buttery, sweet calling card.

But some days, I want more—a perfectly folded omelet, a not-so-average granola bowl, or (gasp) a cold-pressed green juice.

On those days, here are my favorite places to find a little extra for breakfast in Paris.

Mood: breakfast at a friend’s place (that always smells like fresh-baked cookies)

It might be impossible to get a dinner reservation at Mokonuts (they close every day at 5 p.m.), but you might stand a chance at snagging a table for breakfast if you come early—like, very early. I arrived at 8:50 a.m. on a Friday morning, just five minutes after doors opened, and already the small 11th arrondissement café was nearly full. And as chef and co-owner Omar told the table to my left, they hadn’t even started making the filter coffee yet. We were all there, just waking up.

The coffee would arrive soon, as would pastry chef and co-owner Moko. “Sorry I’m late,” she announced to the room minutes later, all smiles, then made her way to the tiny open kitchen, where she took her position next to her husband.

Since 2016, Moko and Omar have been dazzling the Parisian food scene with their unfussy, very tasty food. She, a lawyer-turned–pastry chef, prefers rustic sweets to fine desserts, choosing bold ingredients like loquats, rhubarb, black olives, miso, and sesame. And he chefs it up on the savory side, mixing his Lebanese and Parisian roots with experience at culinary temples like NYC’s Daniel.

Lucky for us, they do breakfast every weekday, with options like housemade sourdough toast smothered in labné and sprinkled with za’atar; sourdough waffles, served sweet (maple syrup and butter) or salty (chorizo and eggs); and even a dainty granola bowl, with Moko’s ever-changing homemade granola mix and perfectly ripe citrus fruits, aka les agrumes.

Breakfast at Mokonuts is a small victory for early risers.

Mood: sunny diner with elevated eats

On a recent rainy Saturday, 20- and 30-somethings clustered outside Echo, a newish cafe in the 2nd arrondissement, patiently awaiting tables to free up. I joined the ranks and am happy to report: It’s worth the wait.

Inside, the bright, California vibes are matched by a menu of fresh-meets-delicious Los Angelino cuisine. Think sandwiches stuffed with scrambled eggs and Mexican chorizo; colorful, herbed-up grain bowls; and for the sweet-leaning (like me) yogurt with the works: caramelized bananas, smooth tahini, and few slabs of homemade granola—as tasty as it is fun to smash with your spoon, crème brûlée–style.

While the miniature kitchen is serious—Chef Mailea Weger, who cooked at L.A.’s Gjusta and Gjelina, runs a tight ship—the atmosphere is casual-chill. A faint soundtrack competes with the diner-style bustle of people chatting and plates shuttling between the kitchen and tables.

And to make sure no box goes un-ticked, the coffee comes from the local favorite roaster, Belleville. It’s the kind of place where you truly want to try every item on the menu. (I’m tryin’.)

Mood: a lil’ bit a this, a lil’ bit a that

“It’s tapas-style breakfast,” the waitress explains as she hands us the breakfast menu at Holybelly 19. They recommend ordering two to three dishes per person, and that’s a good thing—there are so many dishes I want to try.

A block from the Canal Saint-Martin, Holybelly 19 is the original location of the popular cafe (19 rue Lucien Sampaix), which closed to move to a larger location down the street, then recently reopened to offer a new, slightly buttoned-up breakfast menu. As their motto goes, “It’s good because we care,” and you can tell they truly do: Every dish has that extra touch to make it memorable.

Take their oeuf a la coque: one sublimely dippy egg alongside tiny, toasted soldiers with beurre noisette, creating a delicious sweet and salty situation. Both the ham and the grainy Dijon mustard in the Jambon Prince de Paris & moutarde a l’ancienne are exceptional quality. Their smoked pork croquettes are fried to crispy perfection, and the filling is tender and light, without the usual bechamel. The sweet-toothed among us (cough cough) will love their fresh-made doughnut holes with warm dulce de leche, or the kasha porridge with poached pear.

You can expect a wait, especially on weekends, but you can also expect fast service and a very satisfying breakfast.

Mood: manic, pixie, plant-based

Paris invites overdoing it. The more butter/wine/cheese/carbs, the better. If you’re being moderate in Paris, take a second to ask whether you’re doing it wrong. For the rest of us, when our bodies start pleading for something virtuous, there’s Wild & the Moon.

Wild has several locations and a pretty big menu of nutritious foods and potions: nut milk–based smoothies, super food–spiked bowls, and the royal straight of lattes (golden, matcha, rose, charcoal, and chai). They’ve got regular lattes, too.

Dishes are on the pricier side, and service is less-than-speedy, but everything is quality. On a Thursday morning, I order the blue magic bowl, or as I like to call it: smurf breakfast. It’s laced with spirulina (which is apparently packed with antioxidants) and comes topped with a kiwi, blueberries, shaved coconut, and a housemade granola that’s so earthy, I swear I found a wood chip. It’s sweet, though, so I chew on.

Wild has a morning rush, but many patrons take their smoothies and immune-boosting shots to-go, so you can usually find a table. Enjoy your pixie-dream, plant-based breakfast, then spend the rest of the day redoing all the damage.

Mood: all the beautiful tchotchkes fall into place

The Parisian outpost of New York’s favorite French bistro is just as good as the original. But I was happy to discover that at Buvette Paris, in the buzzy Pigalle neighborhood, early birds will score a table, pas de probleme.

Recently, I arrived at 10:15 a.m. on a Sunday—a time when New Yorkers would have already hit a spin class, knocked back a macrobiotic juice shot, and started queuing for brunch—and was delighted to be the second table seated.

The short menu covers the breakfast staples, and does them very well. Take their smoked salmon toast: a basic brunch order, but all of the details nailed (thick, homemade brown bread, buttery smoked salmon, a generous schmear of cream cheese speckled with more chopped salmon, and a perfectly poached egg, yolk so bright you’ll wonder where they keep the chickens onsite).

Here’s where you go to dig into creamy scrambled eggs with exceptional quality ham; pain perdu spiked with cognac and fresh crème; or a classic melted gruyère–filled croque, with jambon (monsieur), mushrooms (forestier), or a fried egg (madame). Wash it down with some fresh-squeezed blood orange juice, and consider yourself ready to climb the slopes of nearby Montmartre.

Mood: serious food, hip-hop soundtrack

An offshoot of the popular Frenchie restaurant, F.T.G. (Frenchie To Go) is the chill younger sibling, with a menu that Chef Greg Marchand describes as the street foods of London and New York, revisited “à la sauce Frenchie.”

Street food might be a stretch for some of the breakfast items (show me a city where they eat buttermilk pancakes with fruit compote on the street). But they do offer delicious, elevated spins on basic breakfast foods, plus housemade pastries like their crumbly, bacon-and-maple scones.

I pop into F.T.G. on a recent Friday morning. With The Roots humming in the background, I tear into their BEC (that’s New York speak for bacon, egg, and cheese) on an English muffin. “They get it,” I think to myself. They get what makes a proper BEC: the greasiness, the drippy egg, the hit of sriracha. But they chef it up a notch with thick-cut bacon, aged, slightly funky cheddar, and a fluffy, sturdy house-made muffin. They also, to my amusement, serve it with a fork and knife. Though I leave the flatware untouched, I’m instantly a fan of the F.T.G. style.

Mood: old-school Paris with a side of oeufs

In his timeless collection of essays, Paris to the Moon, O.G. expat-writer Adam Gopnik tells the story of two Saint Germain cafés: Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore. They’re a block apart—you could literally throw a baguette from one and hit the other. Frequented by Sartre and de Beauvoir, Les Deux Magots used to be the fashionable of the two. But soon enough, the tourists infiltrated, hungry to sit in the presence of genius. The literati sought higher, tourist-free ground in Café de Flore, and it’s reigned le plus chic ever since.

Chicness aside, I go to Café de Flore for the eggs; they have a special menu dedicated to les oeufs. Any time of day, you can order one of their overpriced—and textbook perfect—egg dishes, like a bright yellow omelet; jammy, soft-boiled eggs with soldiers and sweet butter; or gently scrambled eggs with smoked salmon.

Especially on a sunny day, it’s hard to score a table on the terrace, where you can watch the fabulous tote shopping bags from nearby Sonia Rykel. But, as Gopnik tips us off, those in-the-know opt for the indoor, upstairs dining room, which resembles “the cocktail lounge of a Howard Johnson.”

Why choose inside? Who can tell. It’s arbitrary, just like the dethroning of Les Deux Magots. Restaurants fall victim to the same whims as fashion. But I’ll happily sit inside or outside at Café de Flore. I’m just there for the eggs and the old-school Paris ambiance.

Mood: consider a neck scarf

For that friend whose Instagram is full of minimalist, perfectly composed dishes, La Maison Plisson is a slam dunk. Sitting pretty on the edge of the Marais, it’s part café, part chichi market featuring a selection of carefully chosen local products. It’s not quite the place to stock up on groceries (more Dean & Deluca than Whole Foods), but who knows? A couple mimosas might inspire you to splurge on that 80-euro/kilo truffle-laced Brie.

I’d recommend grabbing a seat on the enclosed sidewalk terrace, to feel a part of the Marais scene while you graze over a picture-ready breakfast—like a fresh-baked tartine served with fancy beurre, honey and a selection of teensy jams; their regional cheese selection on a blond wooden board; or a fluffy cube of brioche perdu, dusted with powdered sugar.

Afterwards, continue your chic morning by strolling down the block to Merci, the concept-store-meets-café where you will likely be compelled to buy something, even if it’s just a pricy canvas tote—because everything is just so damn cute.

Mood: New York brunch with a kawaii filter

On a quiet corner in the 2nd arrondissement, the crowd slowly trickled in on a recent Wednesday morning. The vibe is more “sleepy Tuesday in the West Village,” but if you’re hankering for an açai bowl and don’t mind a few flower petals sprinkled on top, then Sunday in Soho is your place.

With patches of raw concrete wall, pastel pink accents, and a poster trifecta reading “good vibes served,” this airy café was no doubt designed with an eye toward Instagram—and homesick New Yorkers looking for a taste of home (or at least one inspired by home).

The menu feels like someone traveled across the Atlantic, took note of the breakfast and brunch-y dishes, then gave them a flirty, French makeover. Take their “bodega” sandwich: a thick BEC served with lightly-dressed greens. I’ve never seen a bodega serve breakfast sandwiches with side salads, but then again, they usually don’t come on toasty, buttery brioches either, and I’m not mad about it. Sundays in Soho serves other staples, like Greenback Toast (aka avo toast) and Sunday Pancakes, on top of which fresh flowers also make a cameo. Their baked goods are made in-house daily.

All around, it’s a laid-back nook, great for a little journaling and fueling up before starting your day in Paris.

Did we miss anything? Share your Paris restaurant recommendations in the comments below.

Source: https://food52.com/blog/23938-best-breakfast-restaurants-in-paris

[selleradvisor]

How To Sell On Amazon – Everything You Need To Know!

Have you heard about people “Selling on Amazon?” And find yourself wondering, “What does ‘selling on Amazon’ even mean?”  Or, “How does selling on Amazon work?”

Well, you are in the RIGHT PLACE!

Back in 2008, I found myself out of work and not wanting to go back.  So I dove into selling stuff online with everything I had.

And it panned out!  You can see more of my story on my about page.  I won’t give you all of the details here since you came here for the How To Sell On Amazon FBA information.

The short story is that a few years after I started my online selling venture, we turned selling on Amazon into a six-figure business that supported our family of three.  

While working part time!

You can listen to the interview my husband and I did with Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income Podcast (episode #99) a few years ago.

The purpose of this post is to give you a 1,000-foot view of what it means to sell on Amazon so you can make an informed decision about whether this is the right move for you (and your family).

First, What Does Selling On Amazon FBA Actually Mean?

Usually, when I mention to people that I sell on Amazon, one of three things happens.

1. They look at me with a tilted head and glossed-over eyes … Like I just spoke a different language and they are trying to interpret what I said.

Then the conversation either moves in a different direction or they get really interested and have a bunch of questions!

2. They say, “Oh, like selling on eBay?  I know someone who’s done that before.”

3. They know what I’m talking about and say, “So what do you sell?”

In those first two scenarios, I try to explain the best I can (you know, the 3-5 minute version) how selling on Amazon actually works and what it means to use Amazon FBA.

So here it goes (the longer version):

Amazon.com is the largest online retailer.  In fact, it’s quickly becoming the largest search engine as well.

People often head to Amazon when they are looking for something — even before searching Google.

When they do actually search Google for a physical product, Amazon is usually ranked #1 there!  So Amazon is just grabbing up all that traffic from online shoppers.

I tell you this because it is one of the main reasons we sell on Amazon rather than trying to build our own e-commerce site.

Imagine trying to compete with Amazon.com for traffic.

The good news is this: Amazon allows us to sell on their platform, thus SHARING that traffic with us.  

Yes, this comes at a cost, but that cost doesn’t compare with trying to build a website and spending money on marketing.

You may not have even realized that Amazon has 3rd-party sellers (people other than Amazon the company) who sell on the site!

Here is an example of a product page on Amazon; the red arrow shows that if you click on the “Add to Cart” button, you are buying from Amazon.com.

The blue arrow shows other sellers, people like you and I, who are sharing that page with Amazon.

Now, why would someone choose to pay MORE from one of those 3rd-party sellers?  Instead of just ordering from Amazon and paying less?

That’s a great question, I’m glad you asked

The goal for most sellers on Amazon is not to COMPETE with Amazon for sales, but to get sales when Amazon runs out of stock on an item or when they are not even selling the item to begin with!

Let’s look at a different item and see what things looks like when Amazon doesn’t have the item in stock at all.

In this picture, we can see that “Mikes Super Store” is selling the party set.  He is also using the “Fulfilled by Amazon” program.  

That means that as a Prime member, I am able to order from “Mike” and get the same treatment as I would buying direct from Amazon!

So I don’t look at Mike any differently than I would if Amazon were selling the item.  And the truth is, most people don’t even notice that it doesn’t say “Sold by Amazon.com.”  They just see Fulfilled by Amazon and that they can get Two-Day Shipping on the order.

Then they click Buy It Now!

You see, “Selling on Amazon” means that you get to list your products for sale on the Amazon.com website.  Then Amazon’s buyers get to purchase from you.  

All the while, you haven’t had to create a new website, spend money on ads to get customers or even ship your items to the customer…

Wait…What?!?

That’s right!  Now let’s get to the reason we use and recommend you use the Fulfillment By Amazon Program.

What Is The Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) Program?

Now we are getting into why selling on Amazon using FBA beats out so many other e-commerce business models!

When we talk to anyone who wants to start selling on Amazon, we always recommend that they use the FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) program.

This means that Amazon handles a big portion of the selling process for us sellers.  Actually, they handle the hardest and most time-consuming parts!

Let me list the steps of selling a product on Amazon so you can see what parts the seller handles and what parts Amazon handles (when we use FBA):

You find a product to sell on Amazon

You list the product on Amazon.com (does not go “live” at this point)

You prepare the items to send to Amazon’s warehouses

You ship the items to Amazon’s warehouses

Amazon unpacks and stores your inventory for you

Your product shows up live on Amazon.com (according to where you listed in step #2)

Your product is featured as a Prime Eligible purchase

Amazon BUYER places an order from you

The Amazon warehouse workers find and ship your product to the customer

Your customer receives the product in 2 days (if they are a Prime member)

The Customer is happy!

As you can see, we are responsible for finding products we want to sell on Amazon, listing them and preparing them to sell.

Once the products are listed and are ready for sale, we “hand them off” to Amazon and they do the rest!

When the product is sold, Amazon handles finding the box, scheduling the shipment, packing the item and making sure it gets to the buyer on time.

Fulfillment By Amazon is the MAIN reason that I stopped selling on eBay and went all-in with Amazon.

When I was selling on eBay, even though I was clearing almost $2,000 a month in profit, I didn’t have much room or ability to scale the business.  If I wanted to make more money, it meant I had to find more products, create more listings, store more inventory, ship more items and deal with more customers.

I was already spending a lot of time on the business.  I couldn’t imaging DOUBLING IT.

So, when I realized that I could sell more items on Amazon without adding to my daily workload, I was sold!  Can you see the appeal now?

I can now send items into Amazon and then take a week off if I want to.  That’s because all of my sold items will be processed and handled without any input from me!

There is another way to sell on Amazon where you DO NOT ship your items to Amazon.  This is called Merchant Fulfilling.  I am going to keep this post all about selling on Amazon using FBA so I won’t get all into MF other than to say that, with merchant fulfilling, you handle all of the steps above

The Biggest Benefit Of Selling On Amazon FBA

I know I mentioned that with merchant fulfilling you have to do all of the work.  But to be totally honest, that isn’t even the biggest benefit of using the FBA program!

The biggest benefit is that when you use the Fulfillment By Amazon program, your products become Prime Eligible!  I touched on this a little when I showed the picture of “Mikes” party supplies.

Amazon does a ton of marketing to get people to join its Prime Program.  People spend almost $100/year so that they can have unlimited “free” 2-day shipping on items sold on Amazon.com.  There are other benefits as well, but let’s just focus on this one.

So if someone spends $99 to get free shipping, do you think they are going to choose to buy from a seller who offers free shipping or from someone they have to pay an extra shipping cost to?  

Even if the merchant fulfilling seller offers free shipping, buyers still have to wait longer than the Prime 2 days for the item to arrive! If you are a Prime Member yourself, I think you know the hassle of having to wait and pay extra for shipping, right?

As a Prime buyer myself, I ALWAYS choose FBA sellers over merchant fulfilled sellers.  EVEN IF the price is higher.  I trust that the item will arrive quickly and as described. Amazon has a trust factor built in that people have come to know and believe in.

And THIS is where the power of being an Amazon FBA seller comes in!

Amazon has trained us as buyers to look for Prime Sellers!  

Take a look below and see which seller you would choose to buy from if you are a Prime member.

If I place an order from the first seller, I will receive the item on SUNDAY, which is in 2 days. I am writing this on a Friday and the second seller probably won’t even ship my order out until MONDAY.  And because they are in TN and I am in CA, we are probably looking at an additional 5 days for me to receive the order.  So, maybe next FRIDAY I will get it.  Possibly longer.

The thing is, I honestly would choose seller number one, even if they were like $5-$7 higher than the merchant fulfilled seller.  Just for the convenience of fast and easy shipping.

Thankfully, many people think the same way that I do, so this business model works REALLY WELL!

Ready To Start Your Own Business Selling on Amazon FBA?

Now that you know the benefits and reasons why the Amazon FBA business model works, you should have a good idea whether this is something that you want to try for yourself.

So let’s take a look at how someone gets started in their own Amazon FBA business.

Finding Products To Resell On Amazon

There are 5 different business models that people use for selling on Amazon.  

The way that we teach people to “source” (the term for finding products) in our Amazon Boot Camp course is “Retail Arbitrage”.

This means buying products from retail stores, either locally or online, and then reselling the products on Amazon.

The goal of Retail Arbitrage is to find products that are being sold at enough of a discount in the store that we can “flip” them on Amazon for a profit even after paying for the item and Amazon taking its “cut,” which is about 30% of the total selling price.

To find the products, we head to local stores with our smartphones in hand.  Then we use a scanning app on your phone that will tell us what the product is currently selling for on Amazon.  We can then enter our cost of the item and the app will tell us if we would make any profit.

By scanning, I mean we use the camera on our phone, with the app open, and then “scan” the item’s UPC barcode.

Testing The Process With Products You Have Around Your House

Since you are not yet selling on Amazon you can’t use a scanning app, but I can show you another way to see what we would see in stores.

There is an online Amazon Profit Calculator that we can use to see the same details the scanning apps give us.

Say, for example, that you recently purchased this red can opener.  You paid $10 for it on 75% off clearance at Target.

Typing the item name into Amazon, we can see (at the time of this writing) that this can opener is listed for almost $30.

Next we would look the item up on the Amazon FBA Calculator and add in:

#1 the price it is selling for on Amazon and

#2 the inbound shipping cost.  I calculate this at roughly $.50 a pound.  We get really good rates as Amazon FBA Sellers through the program.  Since this was at home, I am considering it a zero cost item.  

When you click “calculate,” you will get #3 - the profit on that item if it sells for the price listed.  

Because you actually paid $10 for the can opener, you could then deduct that from the $19.43 and get a “profit” of $9.43!

See below for the example and how to use this calculator.

Now take a look around your house and do this process with a few items.

I don’t want you to find products that you can actually resell on Amazon, I just want you to look at the process of how we sell on Amazon.  And how we find products in stores.

Ready To Start Your Own Amazon FBA Business?

Once you have decided that you want to actually start the process of selling stuff online, you will need to have an Amazon seller account and a few basic supplies before you can get going.

The seller account is required in order to use the scanning apps I mentioned previously.  I know it may feel like jumping the gun since you haven’t found anything to sell yet, but it’s a catch-22 in this case.

From this point forward, if you are a person who prefers to see things laid out in a step-by-step fashion and watch videos to learn, it’s a good time to check out my Amazon Boot Camp video course, because I leave no stone unturned!

Create Your Amazon Seller Account

The following video is from The Amazon Boot Camp course and shows you the teaching style I have for the training

One important note:

Amazon recently changed its “Free Month Of Pro” policy.  So if you sign up for the Pro account as recommended in the video, you will actually be charged the $39.99 right away.

Start Looking For Products To Sell On Amazon

Once you set up your account (whether you do the free one or the paid one), you can start using the Amazon Seller App to scan items in stores or in your house.  Here is my tutorial on how to use the different Amazon seller scanning apps and how they work.

You are well on your way to finding profitable products to resell on Amazon!  

Don’t Forget The Supplies For Your Amazon FBA Business

Like I mentioned previously, you do need some basic supplies before you can start selling items on Amazon.  You can wait until you have found some profitable products before getting these supplies; you just can’t send those products in to Amazon without having them.

The basics are: computer, smartphone, printer, labels, boxes, shipping tape and a scale.

You can see all of our recommended Amazon Seller tools here.  This will give you the exact versions of everything that we use!

Know Someone Else Who Could Use This Information?

Do you know someone else who could benefit from selling on Amazon?  How about clicking on one of the social share buttons below, and see if this could be the life-changing moment for someone else in your life, too

[chloeandgregoztravels]

It’s been a while since we have posted, so a little game of catch up for now, last blog post we were just back in Adelaide for a few weeks ironing out car issues and spending time with family. Our 6 year anniversary saw us spending a beautiful and fancy evening at Windy Point restaurant, overlooking Adelaide on the night of the beautiful super moon, we fattened ourselves with a 7 course degustation menu, honestly the most delicious meal of my life… so far. We were even treated with a goodie bag from the manager of olive bread and eggs for breakfast “so our experience wouldn’t end this evening”. What a wonderful, thoughtful idea!

Our next adventure has been moving to Sydney, roughly a 15 hour drive that we broke up over a couple of days but in itself was mostly uneventful, other than the couple we spotted that were travelling with their cat (apparently its pretty common in Australia to take your cat around with you as I’ve since seen several out and about with their owners, even one looking mildly distressed in a handbag/cage whilst in Coles – our local supermarket.)

But anyway, once we arrived in Sydney we were reunited with part of our farming family, the main reason we chose Sydney, and after a weekend of celebrating it was time to house hunt. For the life of me I cannot understand some people, I hadn’t realised what a challenge it would be to find somewhere to live in a major city. Our house viewings began optimistically, so much so that we believed we had found the ideal place first time but it turned out that we were not what they were looking for, so we searched further. We visited a traumatising flat in which the lounge was filled with blankets that hid a makeshift room for a man who was sitting there on a gaming computer, the kitchen was slowly falling apart and the bathroom that I couldn’t have been persuaded to step into clothed, let alone shower in! Our room also held a rather obese man sleeping in the third bed in the room, it should be noted that the viewing was at 4pm and we are pretty sure that only one of the single beds was for the both of us… Moving swiftly on!

Another place seemed reasonable but the landlord was looking for more short term tenants, quite commonplace in the far eastern beach suburbs. The next place was near our friends and we were excited as the apartment building looked ideal, but as we went to knock on the door the sound of a screaming child had me thinking otherwise (I believe adverts for apartments should list everyone you will be living with…) Later, we had a viewing which ticked all the boxes but it wasn’t a furnished bedroom and was a little pricey so we considered it a fallback but with one more place to see we thought we were just going to accept living on the breadline.

But our luck was to finally kick in and we found the place I happily call home! A stunning apartment near our friends house, 2 friendly housemates, air con and bonus swimming pool & gym access! Our new housemate Douglas is probably my new favourite person, who often treats us to delicious home cooked, traditional Chinese tasters (not like anything back home, the real thing!) he is the funniest guy I know (except Greg of course) and you couldn’t meet anyone kinder. Jojo is so sweet if a little shy and very busy so we don’t get to see her as much.

So in short, we have learnt we need to stop going for the first thing we find as our home is 100 times better than the first one, so thanks to the Swedish couple that thought we weren’t good enough 😋

Next up job searching, luckily for me I managed to swing a job at a friends work, an easy job pick/packing in a warehouse for Esteé Lauder, it is rather boring but I’ve met some good friends and my manager is unbelievably nice I’ve already had 2 BBQs, 2 free goodie bags of makeup products and once a month enjoy a discount at the staff shop (I’ll be a make up queen one day 😂 just kidding everyone knows that’s not the life for me, this girls too lazy!)

Greg had a more varied experience starting in a coffee bean packaging company before moving onto unloading shipping containers with our friend from farming Spencer. It was constant work but the pay was not sustainable for long. Luckily both Greg and Spencer got a job at Estée Lauder as well and are both working in the warehouse in goods in and replenishment type rolls so we all travel in together.

It definitely is a job that we can all start saving money as well as enjoy our weekends, which is a first for me after working as a waitress for so long! The next few weekends were spent celebrating a few birthdays, good weather, partying the nights away and spending Sundays recovering.

Christmas Day we had a traditional roast dinner cooked by my good friend Jo and I, drinking like tomorrow didn’t matter. Then we headed to Coogee beach where the celebration was in full swing I couldn’t believe the sheer amount of people and for those of though who saw any photos from that day you’ll know that even the authorities were not prepared. I had a great day nonetheless, the sea was rough like I’d not experienced before and we’d had far to much to eat and drink to feel safe to swim, there were plenty of people far worse than us being dragged from the sea coughing and spluttering by lifeguards only to say thanks and walk straight back in! It was warm though so paddling my feet was enough to keep me happy, the day went so fast and Boxing Day was a day of recovery.

New Year’s Eve, wow, what a night. A group of us booked tickets to Watson bay hotel and although I thought we wouldn’t be able to see the fireworks from there I was surprised at 9pm when the first small display started and we could see 3 different sets! What else can I say about an evening full of good friends, lots of drinks and amazing midnight fireworks to see in the new year…

Playing catch up It's been a while since we have posted, so a little game of catch up for now, last blog post we were just back in Adelaide for a few weeks ironing out car issues and spending time with family.

[orbemnews]

GM, Ford and other carmakers can't get enough chips. It's a huge problem Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said that if the problem drags on through the spring, the company’s earnings could take a $1 billion to $2.5 billion hit. It’s not just an issue for Ford. GM (GM) is shutting some plants in the United States, Canada and Mexico next week due to the insufficient supplies, while Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler (FCAU), Toyota (TM), Nissan (NSANF) and Honda (HMC) have also been affected. “Despite our mitigation efforts, the semiconductor shortage will impact GM production in 2021,” GM said in a statement this week. “We are currently assessing the overall impact, but our focus is to keep producing our most in-demand products — including full-size trucks and SUVs and Corvettes — for our customers.” The backstory: Leading semiconductor manufacturers reassigned capacity from automakers last year after the pandemic hurt car sales, instead shipping chips to companies that produce smartphones, gaming systems and other tech gadgets that were in high demand. Now, supplies remain tight, and carmakers are struggling to secure the chips they need. The tiny parts are essential to production. The average car has between 50 to 150 chips, which are used in a growing number of applications, including driver assistance systems and navigation control. Bottlenecks may persist for months, weighing on the auto sector as it tries to recover from the pandemic. It could even force some companies to raise prices. “The current chip shortage poses a big threat of further slowdowns in production for the entire industry,” Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at Edmunds, told clients this week. Investor insight: Wall Street is mostly looking past the turmoil, sending auto stocks higher as companies make increasingly bold commitments about future production of electric and autonomous vehicles. Ford said Thursday it will invest invest $29 billion in electric and self-driving cars, though it needs to play a bit of catch-up, my CNN Business colleague Chris Isidore reports. EVs already make up nearly 3% of Volkswagen’s global sales, while GM announced last week that is expects to exclusively sell emission-free vehicles by 2035. But the longer the chip shortage drags on, the more it could hurt the industry — even as lockdowns end and demand for cars starts to pick back up. Up next: How bad is it? Investors will monitor Toyota, Nissan and Honda earnings next week for additional details. Kuaishou stock soars in biggest IPO since 2019 Kuaishou’s stock skyrocketed Friday as the TikTok-like video app scored the world’s biggest IPO since the coronavirus pandemic began. The details: Shares closed at 300 Hong Kong dollars ($38.70) apiece, a 161% jump over the 115 Hong Kong dollars ($14.80) issue price. The company raised a total of 41.3 billion Hong Kong dollars ($5.3 billion) in the offering, my CNN Business colleague Michelle Toh reports. If the company exercises an over-allotment option, the total raised could hit 47 billion Hong Kong dollars ($6.1 billion). Big picture: It’s the world’s biggest tech listing since Uber’s IPO in May 2019, and the largest public offering globally since Saudi Aramco’s in December 2019, according to Refinitiv. Kuaishou is one of China’s leading social media firms. The Tencent-backed company, whose name means “fast hand” in Chinese, owns an eponymous short-video and live-streaming app. Its platforms and mini programs have more than 300 million daily active users. It gets most of its revenue from the live-streaming business, where users can buy virtual items and present them as gifts to their favorite hosts. Live-streaming transactions accounted for 84% of revenue in 2019, according to a stock exchange filing. It also makes money off online advertising. “This is an incredible outcome,” said David Chao, co-founder and general partner of DCM, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm with $4 billion under management. His company was one of the earliest investors in Kuaishou, leading one of its first funding rounds back in 2014. DCM still has a 9% stake in the social network, which is now worth more than $14 billion. The firm said that would generate a return of roughly 600 times its original investment. That said: The listing also comes as the tech sector faces an escalating regulatory clampdown in China. Tensions with regulators derailed Ant Group’s IPO late last year. Kuaishou alluded to that risk in its filings, pointing to “the fact that the internet business is highly regulated in China.” Super Bowl LV will be a bonanza for gambling companies The Kansas City Chiefs or Tampa Bay Buccaneers? We don’t know who will win Super Bowl LV. But the big sports betting and fantasy firms are already champs, my CNN Business colleague Paul R. La Monica reports. See here: DraftKings shares have surged 35% this year ahead of Sunday’s game. Its stock is up 260% since it went public last April following a merger with a “blank check” special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. This is the third Super Bowl since the Supreme Court legalized sports betting at the state level in 2018. More than two dozen states and Washington, D.C. have since approved measures allowing bets to be placed at physical locations (known as sportsbooks), via mobile apps or online. That means 2021 could be the best year yet for the gambling giants. Shares of UK-based Flutter Entertainment, owner of DraftKings rival FanDuel, are up about 67% in the past year. Casino owner Penn National Gaming, which bought a big stake in Barstool Sports last year, has soared nearly 300% since the beginning of February 2020. “Demand is off the charts,” said FanDuel CEO Matt King in an interview with CNN Business Thursday. “This will be biggest event in the company’s history.” Major growth: For 2019’s Super Bowl, Robins notes, DraftKings was able to take bets from users in just one state: New Jersey. Last year, the app was live in five states. Now, it’s up to 12. Game on. Up next The US jobs report for January arrives at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists surveyed by Refinitiv expect to learn that America’s economy added 50,000 jobs last month, after shedding 140,000 positions in December. Coming next week: Earnings season marches on with results from Fox Corporation (FOXA), Twitter (TWTR), GM (GM) and Uber (UBER). Source link Orbem News #Carmakers #chips #Ford #GMandothercarmakersareindesperateneedofchips-CNN #huge #investing #Premarketstocks:Ford #Problem

[furederiko]

Recap time!!! And I'm not just talking about this post being a recap-view, because really, Kyuranger episode 27 is indeed a RECAP-episode! A journey back in time, both literally and figuratively...

- If you didn't see it coming, then well... you're not alone. Me neither! The show isn't even actually pulling off something 'new' here, because it IS that time of the year for mid-season recap (for comparison sake, Zyuohger had theirs in episode 27 as well). I guess Kyuranger has been so fast-paced and its plots are so tight, that I honestly didn't expect a clip-show to land on my feet. Especially following a melancholic cliffhanger that involves one of its member turning evil. - Then again, this IS TOEI we're talking about, so it's not like they're going to abandon their annual pattern, right? Inspite of that, the company almost always (mind you, not every year fares the same) finds a way to make a Super Sentai clip-show to be... FUN to watch. In the case of Kyuranger, it's through an unexpected occurence within the ORION, during its 'Time Travel' journey: stowaways onboard the spaceship!!! Fun fact: In my opinion, it's a fitting episode to do a recap. The team reviews their adventures so far, while onboard the ORION as they travel back in time? Coincidence? Not really. Clever writing, if you ask me. Oh and yeah, we're getting twice of them a year now. The second clip-show will usually take place later after the New Year break. - Just to refresh our memory, the 'Time Travel' team consists of (in numerical order) Stinger, Champ, Raptor, Spada, Commander Xiao, and Tsurugi. Everyone immediately splits up to apprehend these intruders. Who are they? The lesser Indavers, a.k.a. the Jark Matter cannon fodders. Oops, I mean grunts. How did they come onboard? Apparently, Akyanba told them to infiltrate the spaceship during that Barbeque moment. Yeah, another good proof of her cunningness. - Oh, before you wonder why ORION had such poor security, the answer is too obvious: Balance was alone in the spaceship at the time. And he was also tweaking the system to integrate Holorogium. That's probably why the security didn't alert their presence back then. Holy Moly indeed! Gotta love Tsurugi's 'holy moly'-s hillarious outburst though... XD - Stinger and Champs apprehend the Yellow-striped Indaver in what seems to be the Private/Training Room. Xiao and Raptor catch a White-striped one in the Small Engine Room. Tsurugi and Spada corner and interrogate the Blue-striped in the Kitchen. The fourth is a feminine-looking Purple-striped one. This one (he? she?) is chased by Xiao... who then clumsily hurts his back, forcing Stinger and Champ to take over, but is later chained-down by Spada using the #40 Andromeda Kyu Globe. - These Indavers bring their own surprise to the story. First of all, they can actually SPEAK. Turns out, they have been wearing masks/helmets all these time! So they are basically the show's equivalent to the... StormTroopers, right? With one key difference: these helmets prevent them from communicating, hence why we haven't heard them talking until now. Second, they are lifeforms called Inda. 'Blue' claims that they are fed up of being poorly treated by the Shogunate. That's the reason why they sneak into the ship and wants to join the Rebellion. Hmmm... is that the honest truth? Third, two of them have showed up in previous episodes before. A clever twist that provides an excuse to include footage from past episodes, even if it might merely be an afterthought. - Speaking of past episodes, here's a quick list of what the clip-show includes: 1) Kyuranger's debut episodes. The core ones are from episode 1 to 5. The extra members are from episode 9, 10, and 21. 'Blue' reveals he was one of the Indavers who got hit by Lucky's 'meteor shower' when he first used Leo Kyu Globe on Planet Jugjug. While 'Yellow' was among the Indavers who got kicked by Ursa Minor Skyblue when he utilized the 'giant' power of Ursa Major Kyu Globe for the first time. 2) Voyagers. Along with their various mecha combinations for Kyuren-Oh, Ryutei-Oh, Ryutei Kyuren-Oh, Gigant Phoenix, and of course Kyutamajin. 3) Kyu Globes. The Change and Skill varieties, including what categories they can be classified into. According to Spada, there are ones that can be used for attacks, for utilitarian purposes, for plain fun, as well as... strange ones. No kidding, that's his actual words! Oh, and yes, there are plot-related ones, like the Argo Navis components. 4) Random scenes from various episodes, including that small crossover with Gavan and Dekaranger, and 'Rivalry of the Reds'. Mainly the ones showcasing the tumultuous bond between the members. - Speaking of bond, we get to see briefly how team 'Save Naga' is doing as well. Hammy is still feeling guilty and down about Naga, Kotarou is looking concerned about that, Lucky and Balance are both annoyingly optimistic and carefree as always, while Garu is still unsure about Tsurugi. Oh yeah, that last one reminds me. This episode confirms that Tsurugi still retains his self-centered personality! It's more tone-down than before, of course. He still doesn't like to be ordered, and even thinks the Kyurangers are being too kind and naive to show sympathy for the four Indavers. He firmly thinks, that they deserve to be thrown into the time hole instead. Ouch!! - And well, about that? Turns out he's right. There's a fifth Indaver, 'Red', who has been hiding in the Main Computer Room all these time. He reveals (albeit hillariously ignored with the Barbeque talk) that the Indas are created by Jark Matter, so it's completely unlikely for them to rebel. Those other four was merely a diversion so he can mess around with the system, and sabotage the 'Time Travel' plan. - The ORION is forced to land... in the Cretaceous Era! As soon as they step out, the team even encounters the real Gabutyra (notice the hair? And how it just plain ignores them as they bicker? LOL). After a failed-attempt to sway Tsurugi into their side, these Indavers go ahead and challenge the team. With the hope that their victory earns them a promotion into Tsuyo-Indavers or Malistrates, that is. Completely forgetting how they are also... lost in time. LOL. They even have their own roll call sequence, as Jark Sentai, Go-Indaver. - Team (sans Raptor, who stays behind to repair the ORION) decides to deal with them... without even transforming into Kyurangers. Yes, we're getting a very early (and clearly incomplete) suitless roll call!!! In the end, Tsurugi ruthlessly and selfishly (should we be surprised?) breaks the rule, and transforms into Phoenix Soldier to wipe out all Go-Indaver with his Phoenix End. The others are occupied with Xiao's back issue anyway. LOL. - The fact that Jark Matter tries (and fails) to stop them from going back in time, proves that something big DID occur back then. Can the 'Time Travel' team uncovers the secret behind Don Armage's seemingly immortality? Will the 'Save Naga' team be able to rescue one of their own who was lost in the darkness? That my Toku-loving friend, is the story for another day...

Overall: I know what some of you are thinking. A recap/clip-show episode already?! Then again, one would easily admit, that it WAS definitely enjoyable. Part of it was our classic 'Bad Guys turn Good' trope of the season, but the rest of it was just plain having fun. And I'm not any bit complaining about that. After a doze of emotional rollercoaster, this was one of the lighter episodes that's obviously aimed to be that way. After all, we DO need to take a breather every now and then, right? Today's episode is excellent to those who haven't been keeping up with the show. But the good thing is, even for a clip-show, Kyuranger still manages to 'shake things up' (easily reminded me of Go-kaiger). This episode still offered something new to its world-building/mythology, and progressed the story even if not in a major way. Of course, things are expected to be heating up again real soon. So hold on to your horses, and prepare yourself for another round of wild ride... Next week: Balance vs Naga. Oh Nooooo....!! And Sir Orion makes his official debuts!!! PS: Yeah, feel free to call me inconsistent, but I've decided to change Sir Olion's name into Sir Orion once again. Because... well, we'll likely get the answer to that this Sunday. Also, the spin-off series "Kyuranger High School Wars" will be arriving very soon on September 9th, 2017. It is directed by Koichi Sakamoto, and will be exclusively available on TOEI Tokusatsu Fan Club app. You can check out its first official trailer online! Looks fun, doesn't it?

Episode 27 Score: 7,9 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: August 29th, 2017 - Version 2.12. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.