title: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

text: In June 2015, Buzz Osborne, close friend of Cobain and lead singer of the Melvins, called the film "mostly misguided fiction" and wrote that "people need to understand that 90% of "Montage of Heck" is bullshit". In an interview with RiffYou.com, Osborne reinforced his criticisms, stating "I happen to know a lot of the stuff [shared in the movie] isn't true. If people want to believe it and think he was capable of doing all those things, that's their problem. But, I am not going along with it".


title: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

text: Morgen later addressed Osbourne's criticism of the film on the "Opie and Anthony Radio Show", stating "He [Buzz] thinks everything Kurt says is bullshit, which, I actually kind of believe him. That was kind of the whole premise of my movie, was that Kurt was very mercurial. He was always spinning tales. So I thought, rather than make a movie based on his interviews, I'm going to make a movie based on his art. I don't know if there's a single fact, this is not a movie about facts and stats."


title: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

text: In June 2015, after the film released, Dale Crover, another personal friend of Cobain, who played drums in both Fecal Matter, Nirvana, and Cobain's musical heroes the Melvins, was interviewed on a podcast with Jack Antonio about the film. He was also critical of the film, notably about the "fat retard girl" story featured in the film, which he denounced that story as being not true, stating "Like that story he tells about the 'fat retard girl,' that's totally fake. We would have known that story. Even talking to friends of mine from Aberdeen who saw it, it's like 'I never heard about that.' I mean, you can tell he's reading it from a piece of paper. He probably wrote it, but it's not about him. The names of the guys he mentions in there, 'Oh, I used to hang out with Bill and Bob and Jeff,' it's like, who? Those people don't exist."


title: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

text: In 2016, Krist Novoselic responded to Buzz's criticism of the film, stating "That's just Buzz, he's always been like that, but we love him so we just accept him for that. He's always had these opinions. Like, 'Oh, there goes Buzz again.' You never know what he's gonna say, but he means well, and he's a great musician. He's been a dear friend for a long time. That's the way it is."


title: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

text: Aaron Burckhard, Nirvana's first drummer, also was critical of the film, reflecting Osbourne's views in that it was "mostly bullshit"


title: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

text: Frances stated that "that movie ended up being not what I wanted it to be," and stated "The first half of the movie is really beautiful; the second half, we all ended up hating Kurt. We were all like, 'You whiny little b***h. What is wrong with you?' That wasn't reflective of what we were trying to convey."


title: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

text: Cobain's mother, Wendy, also had regret in relation to working on the film. She said that "I regret working with [Morgen]." Frances countered stating that while "I don't regret working with him," she did "regret not being in a headspace to be more involved. I was on a lot of drugs. I was not present. I was not capable of having authentic input."


title: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

text: Along with the film, a companion book of the same name was released. It is co-authored by Richard Bienstock and Morgen, who contributed a foreword. The book contains animation stills from the film as well as transcripts of interviews, photographs, and Cobain's artwork that were not featured in the film. Two editions of the book were published. Insight Editions published the North American edition, which contains 160 pages (). Omnibus Press published the British edition, which contains 208 pages, under the name "Kurt Cobain: A Montage of Heck" ().


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: Ladan and Laleh Bijani (Persian: ; 17 January 1974 – 8 July 2003) were Iranian conjoined twin sisters. They were joined at the head and died soon after their complicated surgical separation. Coincidentally, the twins were born a century to the day after the deaths of Chang and Eng Bunker, also conjoined twins, famously known as the "original" Siamese twins.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: They were born in Firuzabad, a city in southwest Iran, to Dadollah Bijani and Maryam Safari, members of a farming family from the nearby Lohrasb village. The Bijani sisters were lost in a hospital in 1979 after the doctors responsible for them had to suddenly leave for the United States during the revolution in Iran. The Bijanis' parents did not find the sisters again until several years later in the city of Karaj near Tehran, where Alireza Safaian had adopted them. While in his custody, Safaian attempted to protect them by sequestering them from the world as best as he could. In 1996, after years of searching, the girls' biological parents finally tracked them down and made contact. In their early twenties, the twins lived on their own in an apartment while attending law school.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: Ladan wanted to be a lawyer, while Laleh wished to become a journalist; in the end, they settled on Ladan's choice. They studied law for four years at Tehran University. Most other personal decisions also had to meet each other's approval. For these and other reasons, they had wanted to be separated since they were children. Laleh hoped that she could then move to Tehran, the capital city of Iran, to study journalism, while Ladan wanted to continue with graduate studies in law and then move to Shiraz.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: In addition, the sisters had different hobbies. While Laleh liked to, among other things, play computer games, Ladan preferred computer programming. Ladan also described Laleh as more introverted and herself as quite talkative.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: In 1996, they travelled to Germany, trying to convince doctors there to separate them; the German doctors however declined to operate, saying that the risk of separation surgery would be too high for both of them.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: In November 2002, after meeting Keith Goh, the Bijani sisters travelled to Singapore to undergo the controversial operation. Even though they were warned by the doctors that the surgery to separate them would still be very risky, the sisters were very determined. Their decision to proceed with the operation led to considerable international media interest.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: After eight months in Singapore, doing extensive psychiatric and legal evaluations, they underwent surgery on 6 July 2003, under the care of a large team of international specialists at Raffles Hospital, composed of 28 surgeons and more than 100 support staff working in shifts. A specially-designed chair was required that allowed the operation to be performed with both sisters in a sitting position.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: The attempt to separate the twins turned out to be very difficult, because their brains not only shared a major vein (the superior sagittal sinus), but had fused together. In addition, an undetected major vein hidden from the scans was discovered during the operation.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: The separation was achieved on 8 July 2003, but it was announced then that the twins were in critical condition, both having lost a large volume of blood due to complications of the operation.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: The separation stage of the surgery was completed at 13:30, but there was significant blood loss during the blood vessel repairing process, and Ladan Bijani died at around 14:30 on the operating table; her sister Laleh Bijani died 90 minutes later. Their deaths were announced by the chairman of Raffles Hospital, Loo Choon Yong.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: The sisters were buried in accordance to Shiite Muslim traditions in separate tombs, side by side, in Lohrasb. The sisters willed their property to blind and orphaned children.


title: Ladan and Laleh Bijani

text: A documentary about the operation was broadcast soon after. Later, people named 17 January as Hope's day.


title: Tifo

text: Tifo () is the phenomenon whereby tifosi of a sports team makes a visual display of any choreographed flag, sign or banner in the stands of a stadium, mostly as part of an association football match.


title: Tifo

text: Tifos are most commonly seen in important matches, local derbies and rivalries, and although the tradition originated at club teams, some national teams also have fans that organise tifos on a regular basis. Tifos are primarily arranged by ultras or a supporter club to show their love to the club, but are sometimes sponsored or arranged by the club itself.


title: Tifo

text: The tifo culture, like the origin of its name, has its roots in Italy and Southern Europe, and has a strong presence in Eastern Europe. It has much in common with the ultras culture and appeared at the same time in the late 1960s and early 1970s.


title: Tifo

text: Tifos, while highly prevalent in Europe, have become more widespread and more common in all parts of the world where association football is played.


title: Tifo

text: Some tifos are political and controversial, as observed in Poland, where a tifo is known as an "oprawa" or "oprawa meczu", and other countries.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: The Accursed Kings ( ) is a series of historical novels by French author Maurice Druon about the French monarchy in the 14th century. Published between 1955 and 1977, the series has been adapted as a miniseries twice for television in France.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: American author George R. R. Martin called "The Accursed Kings" "the original game of thrones", citing Druon's novels as an inspiration for his own series "A Song of Ice and Fire".


title: The Accursed Kings

text: Set in the 14th century during the reigns of the last five kings of the direct Capetian dynasty and the first two kings of the House of Valois, the series begins as the French King Philip the Fair, already surrounded by scandal and intrigue, brings a curse upon his family when he persecutes the Knights Templar. The succession of monarchs that follows leads France and England to the Hundred Years' War.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: The first six novels of "Les Rois maudits" were published in France by Del Duca between 1955 and 1960, and the final volume was released by Plon in 1977. The initial six books were first issued in English (translated by Humphrey Hare) between 1956 and 1961, by Rupert Hart-Davis in the United Kingdom and by Scribner's in the United States, with periodic reprints through the 1980s. Between 2013 and 2015, HarperCollins reissued the entire series in print and audiobook, including the last instalment "The King Without a Kingdom", which had never previously been published in English.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: French King Philip the Fair rules with an iron fist, but is surrounded by scandal and intrigue. Philip's daughter Isabella, Queen of England, plots with the ambitious Robert of Artois to catch the wives of her three brothers—Marguerite, Jeanne and Blanche—in their suspected adulterous affairs. Robert's own motive is to avenge himself on Jeanne and Blanche's mother, his great aunt Mahaut, Countess of Artois, who he believes has stolen his rightful inheritance. Philip's younger brother Charles, Count of Valois, resents the power and influence of the common-born Guillaume de Nogaret, Philip's prime councillor and keeper of the seal, and Enguerrand de Marigny, Philip's Chamberlain. When Philip's self-serving persecution of the Knights Templar ends with the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay being burned at the stake, Molay curses his accusers—Pope Clement V, Nogaret and Philip himself—to the 13th generation. Marguerite and Blanche are sentenced to life imprisonment for their crimes, and their lovers Gautier and Philippe d'Aunay are tortured and executed. Jeanne, innocent of adultery herself but complicit in the scandal, is imprisoned indefinitely. Forty days after Molay's execution, Clement dies of fever; shortly thereafter, Mahaut's lady-in-waiting Béatrice d'Hirson arranges for Nogaret's painful death by means of a poisoned candle. Philip fears that Molay's curse is to blame; soon enough, he suffers a cerebral hemorrhage and collapses during a hunt, and dies days later.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: Philip's eldest son has been crowned Louis X, but his adulterous wife Marguerite remains imprisoned at the Château Gaillard. Seeking to remarry and father a male heir, Louis sends Robert of Artois to compel Marguerite to sign a statement, in exchange for her freedom, that her marriage to Louis was never consummated and that her daughter Jeanne is illegitimate. She refuses, and Louis' plan to secure an annulment and marry the beautiful Clemence of Hungary is further stalled by the papal conclave's failure to elect a new pope. Marigny finds that his enemies—led by Charles, Count of Valois—are systematically excluding him from the new king's inner circle. Louis' brother, Philippe, Count de Poitiers, and Valois both try to assert some influence over the indecisive king, Philippe for the good of the kingdom and Valois for personal gain. Desperate for freedom, Marguerite reconsiders, but her "confession" never reaches Robert. When he returns to her prison, Marguerite is ill from her confinement—and on Valois' orders, Robert's man Lormet strangles her to death. Though his initial efforts to destroy Marigny fail, Valois manages—with the help of the Lombard banker Tolomei—to assemble a barrage of criminal charges that sees Marigny executed.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: Louis, now a widower, marries the beautiful Clemence of Hungary. Her discovery of his illegitimate daughter prompts Louis to confess all of his sins to her, and he swears to do whatever penance she requires. Mahaut and Béatrice use magic to assure that Philippe takes back his wife, Mahaut's daughter Jeanne, from her imprisonment. Louis' uncle Charles, Count of Valois, continues grasping for influence over royal affairs by trying to secure the allegiance of the new queen, his niece by his previous marriage. Tolomei's nephew, the young banker Guccio Baglioni, marries noblewoman Marie de Cressay in secret. With encouragement from Robert of Artois, Mahaut's vassal barons revolt against her. Louis is compelled to intervene, and strips her of power when she refuses to submit to his arbitration. Mahaut poisons Louis with Béatrice's help, and he dies, leaving behind a pregnant Clemence and the court in turmoil.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: With Louis dead and Clemence pregnant, Louis' uncle Charles and brother Philippe plot against each other for the regency. Waiting in the wings is Marguerite's brother Eudes of Burgundy, who seeks to defend the rights of Louis and Marguerite's daughter Jeanne. Philippe outmaneuvers his rivals and assumes power. Having trapped the embattled cardinals together in Lyon, he forces a papal conclave that—with some subterfuge—elects Jacques Duèze as Pope Jean XXII. Marie de Cressay gives birth to Guccio's son in a convent, and within days Clemence gives birth to Louis' son Jean. With Clemence deathly ill, Hugues de Bouville and his clever wife Marguerite enlist Marie as wet nurse to the young king. The Countess Mahaut recognizes the infant Jean as the only obstacle between Philippe—who is married to her daughter Jeanne—and the French throne. Fearful of Mahaut, Hugues and Marguerite switch Jean with Marie's child Giannino when the baby king is presented to the barons by the countess. Poisoned by Mahaut, the infant dies almost immediately. Without direct proof of her guilt, and unsure of Philippe's involvement, the Bouvilles are compelled to keep their secret or possibly be implicated themselves. As Philippe secures his support and accedes the throne, the Bouvilles coerce a devastated Marie to raise Jean as her own and—as a means to keep the secret—never see Guccio again.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: Louis and Philippe's younger brother Charles IV is now the French king. His sister Isabella is still married to the English King Edward II, whose open favour of his lover Hugh Despenser and the extended Despenser family has marginalized Isabella and incited rebellion among Edward's vassal barons. When rebel Baron Roger Mortimer escapes imprisonment in the Tower of London and flees to France to plot against Edward, Isabella later follows on the pretext of negotiating a treaty with her brother, and joins Mortimer as his lover and co-conspirator. A guilt-ridden Bouville finally admits the truth about the French boy king to Pope Jean, whose link to Philippe encourages him to keep the secret. Mahaut seeks her revenge against Isabella—now popularly called the "She-Wolf of France"—by plotting her expulsion from France and certain death at Edward's hands. However, aided by forces from Holland and Edward's own dissenting barons, Mortimer and Isabella invade England and depose Edward in favor of his and Isabella's son Edward III. The daughter and wife of kings, Isabella does not want to give the order to have the elder Edward killed, but a jealous and petulant Mortimer forces her hand, and his minions brutally murder the imprisoned and humiliated former king, following Hugh Despenser's trial and most cruel execution.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: Charles dies and is succeeded by his cousin Philippe of Valois, thanks in no small part to the machinations of Robert of Artois. Meanwhile, young Edward III has married Philippa of Hainaut, and the popularity of his regent Mortimer is waning. When Mortimer orchestrates the execution of Edward's uncle Edmund, Earl of Kent, Edward reclaims the throne and has Mortimer executed. With Philippe in his debt, Robert reopens his claim on Artois, but is forced to forge documents that Mahaut has destroyed. In love with Robert and excited by danger, Béatrice poisons Mahaut, and then her daughter Jeanne, to aid Robert's cause. When his case unravels, Robert refuses Philippe's offer of a quiet defeat, and is subsequently implicated in a lifetime of crimes. Now a fugitive and outlaw, Robert spends years wandering Europe before he seeks out Edward. Convincing the English king to make his claim on the French throne with force, Robert is killed in battle just as campaign is picking up speed. Twelve years later, Giannino Baglioni is summoned to Rome by the self-declared tribune Cola de Rienzi, who reveals to the Sienese banker that Giannino is actually Jean I, the rightful King of France. Rienzi's murder, however, thwarts Jean's bid for the throne, and he eventually dies in captivity in Naples, the last direct victim of the curse inflicted upon Philippe's house. The epilogue to the novel suggests, however, that the curse would reverberate over the House of Valois and France itself until the burning of Joan of Arc in Rouen a century after the main events of the novel.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: Cardinal Talleyrand-Périgord recounts the troubled reign of Philippe's son, Jean II "The Good", who continues the reversal of fortune for France set in motion by his father. Jean creates discord among his lords by the disproportionate favour he bestows upon the handsome Charles de La Cerda, whose subsequent murder ignites a bitter feud between Jean and his treacherous son-in-law, Charles, King of Navarre. Encouraged by the Navarese and taking advantage of the turmoil in France, Edward III renews his claim to the French throne. His son, Edward, the Black Prince, mounts a relatively small but largely unchecked invasion of France. Finally confronted by Jean's forces, which vastly outnumber his, young Edward still manages to turn the tables and defeat the French, capturing Jean, his youngest son Philippe and many of his great lords.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: The 1972 TV adaptation of "Les Rois maudits" was broadcast by the ORTF from 21 December 1972 to 24 January 1973, and starred Jean Piat as Robert d'Artois and Hélène Duc as Mahaut d'Artois. Adapted by Marcel Jullian and directed by Claude Barma, its six episodes were directly based on—and named after—the first six novels in Druon's series. Dubbed "the French "I, Claudius"", the series was "hugely successful", and brought the novels "from cult to mainstream success". The production was shot in studio, with minimal sets. Bertrand Guyard of "Le Figaro" praised the production and cast in 2013. The series was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC in French with English subtitles in June–July 1974 and again in August–September 1975.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: In 2005, "Les Rois maudits" was again adapted in a joint French-Italian production directed by Josée Dayan, starring Philippe Torreton as Robert and Jeanne Moreau as Mahaut. Broadcast on France 2 from 7 November to 28 November 2005, its five episodes are named after novels 1–3 and 5–6 (the exception being "La Loi des mâles"). The series premiered with 8.6 million viewers, and the finale garnered over 6.2 million viewers. Overall "Les Rois maudits" averaged 7.2 million viewers, an audience share of 27.9%.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: The miniseries was nominated for a 2006 Globes de Cristal Award for Best Television Film or Television Series.


title: The Accursed Kings

text: According to John Lichfield, "The Independent" French correspondent and a friend of Druon's, ""Les Rois maudits" was written to make money very quickly ... [Druon] himself was not very proud of it." However the series was "popular and critically praised", and numbered among Druon's best known works. Lichfield noted:


title: The Accursed Kings

text: In his youth, Druon had cowritten the lyrics to "Chant des Partisans" (1943), a popular French Resistance anthem of World War II. In 1948 he received the Prix Goncourt for his novel "". Though Ben Milne of the BBC noted in 2014 that Druon is "barely known in the English-speaking world", American author George R. R. Martin called the author "France's best historical novelist since Alexandre Dumas, "père"". Martin dubbed "The Accursed Kings" "the original game of thrones", citing Druon's novels as an inspiration for his own series "A Song of Ice and Fire", which has been adapted for television as "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon". Martin's UK publisher HarperCollins began reissuing the long out of print "Accursed Kings" series in 2013, with Martin himself writing an introduction. He wrote:


title: The Accursed Kings

text: Writing for "The Wall Street Journal", Allan Massie praised Druon's "thorough research, depth of understanding and popular touch", noting that "Druon’s re-creation of medieval Paris is so vivid that it loses nothing in comparison with the evocation of the city in the greatest of French medievalist novels, Victor Hugo’s "Notre-Dame de Paris"". Massie added:


title: The Accursed Kings

text: In 2013, Stefan Raets suggested that "The Iron King" could be considered a grimdark historical novel. In a 2013 "Booklist" Starred Review, David Pitt called the novel "historical fiction on a grand scale, full of political intrigue, family drama, and characters who, while drawn from life, are larger than it". Russell Miller wrote for "Library Journal":


title: The Accursed Kings

text: "The Sunday Times" called "The Iron King" "dramatic and colourful as a Dumas romance but stiffened by historical accuracy and political insight" and a "blood-curdling tale of intrigue, murder, corruption and sexual passion". "The Times Literary Supplement" described it as "barbaric, sensual, teeming with life, based in wide reading and sound scholarship ... among the best historical novels".


title: The Accursed Kings

text: "Les Rois maudits" was parodied on French television in the successful 1973 series "" starring Roger Pierre and Jean-Marc Thibault.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters are in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, and next to the Shinjuku Station. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange (it formerly had secondary listings in the Nagoya and Osaka stock exchanges), is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and is also one of the three only Japan Railways Group constituents of the Nikkei 225 index, the other being JR Central and JR West.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: JR East was incorporated on 1 April 1987 after being spun off from the government-run Japanese National Railways (JNR). The spin-off was nominally "privatization", as the company was actually a wholly owned subsidiary of the government-owned JNR Settlement Corporation for several years, and was not completely sold to the public until 2002.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: Following the breakup, JR East ran the operations on former JNR lines in the Greater Tokyo Area, the Tōhoku region, and surrounding areas.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: Railway lines of JR East primarily serve the Kanto and Tohoku regions, along with adjacent areas in Kōshin'etsu region (Niigata, Nagano, Yamanashi) and Shizuoka prefectures.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: JR East operates all of the Shinkansen, high-speed rail lines, north of Tokyo, except the Hokkaido Shinkansen, which is operated by JR Hokkaido.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: The Tokyo–Osaka Tōkaidō Shinkansen is owned and operated by the Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central), although it stops at several JR East stations.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: These lines have sections inside the Tokyo suburban area () designated by JR East. This does not necessarily mean that the lines are fully inside the Greater Tokyo Area.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: Below is the full list of limited express (including Shinkansen) and express train services operated on JR East lines as of 2022.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: During fiscal 2017, the busiest stations in the JR East network by average daily passenger count were:


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: JR East co-sponsors the JEF United Chiba J-League football club , which was formed by a merger between the JR East and Furukawa Electric company teams.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: JR East aims to reduce its carbon emissions by half, as measured over the period 1990–2030. This would be achieved by increasing the efficiency of trains and company-owned thermal power stations and by developing hybrid trains.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has stated that JR East's official union is a front for a revolutionary political organization called the Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Revolutionary Marxist Faction). An investigation of this is ongoing.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: The East Japan Railway Culture Foundation is a non-profit organization established by JR East for the purpose of developing a "richer railway culture". The Railway Museum in Saitama is operated by the foundation.


title: East Japan Railway Company

text: JR East holds a 15% shareholding in West Midlands Trains with Abellio and Mitsui that commenced operating the West Midlands franchise in England in December 2017. The same consortium has also been listed to bid for the South Eastern franchise.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions is a 2003 book by Ben Mezrich about a group of MIT card counters commonly known as the MIT Blackjack Team. Though the book is classified as non-fiction, the "Boston Globe" alleges that the book contains significant fictional elements, that many of the key events propelling the drama did not occur in real life, and that others were exaggerated greatly. The book was adapted into the movies "21" and "The Last Casino".


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: The book's main character is Kevin Lewis, an MIT graduate who was invited to join the MIT Blackjack Team in 1993. Lewis was recruited by two of the team's top players, Jason Fisher and Andre Martinez. The team was financed by a colorful character named Micky Rosa, who had organized at least one other team to play the Vegas strip. This new team was the most profitable yet. Personality conflicts and card counting deterrent efforts at the casinos eventually ended this incarnation of the MIT Blackjack Team.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: As revealed in the 2008 paperback edition of the book, Kevin Lewis's real name is Jeff Ma, an MIT student who graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1994. Ma has since gone on to found a fantasy sports company called Citizen Sports (a stock market simulation game).


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: Mezrich acknowledges that Lewis is the sole major character based on a single, real-life individual; other characters are composites. Nonetheless, Lewis does things in the book that Ma himself says did not occur.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: One of the leaders of the team, Jason Fisher, is modeled in part after Mike Aponte. After his professional card counting career, Aponte went on to win the 2004 World Series of Blackjack, and started a company called the Blackjack Institute. Mike also has his own blog.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: The team's principal leader, Micky Rosa is a composite character based primarily on Bill Kaplan, JP Massar, and John Chang. Bill Kaplan founded and led the MIT Blackjack Team in the 1980s and co-managed the team with Massar and Chang from 1992 to 1993, during which time Jeff Ma joined the then nearly 80 person team. Chang has questioned the book's veracity, telling "The Boston Globe", "I don't even know if you want to call the things in there exaggerations, because they're so exaggerated they're basically untrue." Whether the MIT Blackjack Team was "founded ... in the 1980s" is in dispute. An article in The Tech, January 16, 1980, suggests that Roger Demaree and JP Massar were already running the team and teaching a hundred MIT students to play blackjack by the third week of the 1980s, implying that the team had been founded in the late 1970s, before Kaplan joined, although Demaree and Massar have mostly avoided publicity.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: In its March 2008 edition, "Boston magazine" ran an article investigating long-lingering claims that the book was substantially fictional.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: Though published as a factual account and originally categorized under "Current Events" in the hardcover Free Press edition, "Bringing Down the House" "is not a work of 'nonfiction' in any meaningful sense of the word," according to "Globe" reporter Drake Bennett. Mezrich not only exaggerated freely, according to sources for both articles, but invented whole parts of the story, including some pivotal events in the book that never happened to anyone.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: The names of many of the characters and locations in this book have been changed, as they have certain physical characteristics and other descriptive details. Some events and characters are also composites of several individual events or persons.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: This disclaimer allows broad leeway to take actual events and real people and alter them in any way the author sees fit. But Mezrich went further, in both articles say.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: Though not originally intended to have a sequel, Mezrich followed this book with "Busting Vegas" (). "Busting Vegas" is about another splinter group from the MIT Blackjack Team. The events depicted in "Busting Vegas" actually took place before "Bringing Down the House". Despite heavy marketing, "Busting Vegas" did not do as well as "Bringing Down the House". It did, however, briefly appear on "The New York Times" Best Seller list. Despite again being listed as non-fiction "Busting Vegas" showed similar inaccuracies in recounting the facts with the main character Semyon Dukach contesting several of the events depicted in the book.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: A film adaptation of the book, titled "21" (so as not to cause confusion with the unrelated 2003 Queen Latifah vehicle "Bringing Down the House"), was released in theaters on March 28, 2008. The film is from Columbia Pictures and was directed by Robert Luketic.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: Kevin Spacey produced the film, and also portrays the character of Micky Rosa. Other cast members include Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Jim Sturgess, Jacob Pitts, Liza Lapira, Aaron Yoo, and Sam Golzari.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: Jeff Ma, Bill Kaplan, and Henry Houh, another team player from the 1990s, have brief cameo roles in the movie. "21" was filmed outside the buildings of MIT, in Boston University classrooms and dorms, throughout Cambridge and Boston, and in Las Vegas.


title: Bringing Down the House (book)

text: Says Mezrich, "...Kevin Spacey came to me about making a movie. He read the "Wired" adaptation of the book and became interested... The funny thing is filming may take place in casinos such as The Mirage and Caesar's Palace, where the real thing happened."


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: The sixth season of the science fiction television series "The X-Files" commenced airing on the Fox network in the United States on November 8, 1998, concluding on the same channel on May 16, 1999, and consisted of twenty-two episodes. The season continued from the 1998 feature film and focused heavily on FBI federal agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully's (Gillian Anderson) separation from the X-Files Division and the demise of the Syndicate—a "shadow government" group attempting to cover up the existence of extraterrestrials—in the two-part episode "Two Fathers" and "One Son".


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: The season was the first to be filmed in Los Angeles, after production was moved from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This move was done largely at the behest of Duchovny, who wished to be closer to his wife, Téa Leoni. Series creator Chris Carter opposed the move, although series director Kim Manners and Anderson approved of it, although to a less-vocal degree than Duchovny. The first half of the season also saw Mimi Rogers and Chris Owens' characters—Diana Fowley and Jeffrey Spender, respectively—become recurring characters.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: Despite debuting with high viewing figures and ranking as the twelfth most watched television series during the 1998–99 television year, the season saw a slight decrease in ratings from the previous one, a trend that would continue until its final year. The season received mixed to positive reviews from television critics; some critics and fans were alienated by the show, due to the different tone taken by most standalone episodes after the move to Los Angeles. Rather than adhering to the previous style of "monsters of the week", they were often romantic, humorous, or a combination of both.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: In Washington, D.C., Agent Fox Mulder appears before an FBI panel regarding his experiences in Antarctica. Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) tells Mulder that he and Scully have been denied reassignment to the division. Mulder goes to his former basement office, only to discover that Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens) and Diana Fowley (Mimi Rogers) have been assigned to the X-Files. Going against orders, Mulder and Scully track down an escaped alien in Phoenix, Arizona while Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) gives chase. Mulder and Scully eventually discover that Cigarette Smoking Man has been using Gibson Praise to locate the creature. Scully brings Gibson to the hospital, where it is determined that he has the alien virus in his blood. Later, Skinner is mysteriously poisoned by a nanorobot infection. The culprit is revealed to be Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea), a rogue FBI agent who formerly worked for the Syndicate, who continues to control the potentially debilitating nanotechnology in Skinner's system in order to achieve his goals.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: Mulder and Scully later learn of reports of rebel aliens burning doctors who were working on Cassandra Spender (Veronica Cartwright), an alien abductee and mother of Jeffrey Spender. Skinner takes Spender to the scene, where Cassandra asks for Mulder. She informs Mulder and Scully that the aliens are here to destroy all life on Earth. She claims that a rebel force of aliens are mutilating their faces to prevent infection by the black oil. Cigarette Smoking Man reveals everything to Diana Fowley, who agrees to help him and betray Mulder. Cassandra later escapes from a hospital and arrives at Mulder's apartment, demanding that he shoot her because she is the embodiment of fifty years of work by the Syndicate—an alien-human hybrid that will trigger colonization if the aliens learn of her existence.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: Fowley arrives and forcibly takes Mulder, Cassandra, and Scully to a CDC facility at Fort Marlene. There, Mulder runs into Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden). Marita tells Mulder that she was subjected to Syndicate-run black oil vaccine tests. Meanwhile, the Syndicate rendezvous at a checkpoint, preparing to be taken away by the Colonists, who are prepping for invasion. However, they are met by the alien rebels, who incinerate them all, including Cassandra; Cigarette Smoking Man and Fowley escape. Jeffrey Spender is then purportedly killed by Cigarette Smoking Man.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: Several months later, a metallic artifact with inscriptions is discovered on the beach of Côte d'Ivoire in Africa. After Mulder examines rubbings of the object, he begins suffering from a headache, seemingly caused by the rubbings. Mulder's condition worsens, but he gains telepathic abilities. Chuck Burks (Bill Dow) tells them that the symbols on the artifact are Navajo. Eventually, Mulder passes into an aggravated delusional state and is placed under observation at a hospital. Hoping to find an answer, Scully rushes to Africa and finds the massive wreck of a large spacecraft partially buried in the beach.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: After five successful seasons of "The X-Files", series creator Chris Carter wanted to tell the story of the series on a wider scale, which ultimately meant creating a feature film: the 1998 "X-Files" movie. The film grossed US$83,898,313 in the US and $105,278,110 abroad, giving a total worldwide gross of $189,176,423. In its opening weekend, showing at 2,629 theaters, it earned $30,138,758 which was 35.9% of its total gross. Initially, the fifth season of "The X-Files" was supposed to be the show's last. However, the series proved to be so lucrative for Fox that two additional seasons were ordered. Thus, the sixth season of the show began filming.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: After five seasons in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, production of "The X-Files" moved to Los Angeles. "The Beginning" was the first episode of the series to be filmed in Los Angeles, California. The move was instigated by David Duchovny, who portrayed Mulder, in order to increase his opportunity to find movie work as well as to give him a chance to be nearer to his wife, Téa Leoni. Series creator Chris Carter opposed the move; others, like series director Kim Manners and Gillian Anderson supported the move but were less vocal than Duchovny. Fox network officials eventually made the decision to film in California. According to Andy Meisler, "The very first shot of the season, a long look directly into a bright sun shining on a barren desert, was designed to boldly announce the show's arrival in Southern California." As a result of the move, the episode featured a largely new group of crew members, hired by Carter, Frank Spotnitz and new co-executive producer Michael Watkins; this necessitated the show's new crewmembers spending five weeks, receiving, unpacking, and cataloging filming material from their Vancouver counterparts. Because of the shift from Vancouver to Los Angeles, some fans of the series were alienated. Many accused the show of "Hollywood-izing" the series by adding notable guest stars as well as making the plots simpler and more enjoyable for larger audiences. According to Space.com, a number of fans of the show specifically loved "the moody ambiance filming around Vancouver lent the series [during seasons 1–5]", which the sixth season reportedly lacked.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: The move to Los Angeles also meant a drastic price increase for the series. Bruce Harwood, who played Lone Gunman John Fitzgerald Byers noted, "At the time, the exchange rate between Canadian and U.S. dollars was pretty dramatic. Somebody told me that the cost per episode doubled, even tripled, once they moved". In addition, the move further reduced the amount of expensive special effects the series was able to produce. Writer Vince Gilligan explained "everything in Los Angeles is more expensive across the board. […] It became apparent very quickly to me that we were no longer going to have things such as nuclear submarines descending through the ice and trains exploding in the middle of the woods".


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: Series creator Chris Carter also served as executive producer and showrunner and wrote five episodes. Spotnitz was promoted to executive producer and wrote five episodes, and wrote the story for a further two episodes. Vince Gilligan was promoted to co-executive producer and wrote seven episodes. John Shiban was promoted to producer and wrote six episodes, and wrote the story for one other episode. New writers in the sixth season included David Amann who joined as executive story editor and wrote two episodes, and Jeffrey Bell who also wrote two episodes. Freelance episodes were written by Daniel Arkin and Jim Guttridge, and a further episode was written by Ken Hawryliw, who was the series' property master from 1993 to 1998. Duchovny also wrote his first episode solo, as he previously collaborated with various writers, including Chris Carter, on three other episodes. Other producers included producer Paul Rabwin, co-producer Lori Jo Nemhauser, and Bernadette Caulfield who joined as producer.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: Producing-directors for the show included producer Rob Bowman, producer Manners, co-executive producer Michael Watkins, and consulting producer Daniel Sackheim, who together directed the bulk of the season's episodes. Manners directed seven episodes, Bowman directed six, Watkins directed three, and Sackheim directed one. Series creator Chris Carter directed two episodes, while cast member David Duchovny directed his first episode of the series. The remaining two episodes were directed by Peter Markle and Bryan Spicer.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: The sixth season of "The X-Files" debuted with "The Beginning" on November 8, 1998. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 11.9, with a 17 share, meaning that roughly 11.9 percent of all television-equipped households, and 17 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. The episode was viewed by 20.34 million people, a marked increase from the fifth season's finale, "The End", which was viewed by 18.76 million viewers. However, the debut marked a drastic decrease from the fifth season debut, "Redux", which garnered 27.34 million viewers. As the season continued, ratings continued to drop. The last episode of "The X-Files" to reach over 20 million viewers was "The Rain King", which attracted 21.24 million. The season hit its nadir with the eighteenth episode, "Milagro", which was viewed by 15.20 million viewers. The season finale, "Biogenesis", earned a Nielsen rating of 9.4, with a 14 share, and was viewed by 15.86 viewers, marking a 22 percent drop in viewers when compared to the season premiere, and a 15.5 percent drop in viewers when compared to the previous season finale. The season ranked as the twelfth most watched television series during the 1998–1999 season, with an average of 16.39 million viewers.


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: The season received positive reviews from television critics. However some fans were alienated by the show in its sixth season, due to the different tone taken by most stand-alone episodes after the move to Los Angeles. Rather than adhering to the previous style of "monsters of the week", they were often romantic, humorous, or a combination of both. Several episodes—"Dreamland" and "The Rain King" in particular—were criticized for their reliance on humor or for their lighter stories. Fans on the internet began calling the less-scary episodes ""X-Files" Lite". Other episodes were derided for their mediocrity. Paula Vitaris from "Cinefantastique" called the episode "Alpha" a "run-of-the-mill monster-of-the-week episode". Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book "Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen", called the episode "Trevor" ""The X-Files" at its most generic".


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: However, not all the sixth-season episodes were poorly received. The season's third episode, "Triangle" was largely lauded as a masterpiece by critics. The episode, which was shot in real time to look like it was filmed in four uninterrupted eleven-minute takes, was called a "classic" standalone episode and one of the "highlights of season six". The "Two Fathers"/"One Son" story-arc, which featured the destruction of the Syndicate, was called one "of the most coherent, [...] almost unbearably tense, hours in the series' run" by one critic. Finally, the Duchovny-penned "The Unnatural", which featured the story of an alien who fell in love with baseball, was praised by critics for its plot, directing, and originality. One review praised Duchovny's directing "excellence" while another referred to its ending as "heartbreaking".


title: The X-Files (season 6)

text: The sixth season earned the series eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations, with one win. It won for Outstanding Makeup for a Series for the episodes "Two Fathers" and "One Son". Gillian Anderson received her fourth and final nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, and Veronica Cartwright received her second consecutive nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Other nominations included Bill Roe for Outstanding Cinematography for a Series, Mark Snow for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore), Heather MacDougall for Outstanding Single Camera Picture Editing for a Series, Outstanding Art Direction for a Series, and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series. This was the final season the series received Golden Globe nominations, with Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny and the series as a whole receiving nominations.


title: National Treasure (British TV series)

text: National Treasure is a four-part 2016 British television drama by Channel 4, written by Jack Thorne. It stars Robbie Coltrane as Paul Finchley, a once successful comedian of the 1980s and early 1990s, now hosting a television quiz show. He is accused of raping several young women in the early 1990s. Julie Walters plays his wife Marie and Andrea Riseborough plays his daughter Dee.


title: National Treasure (British TV series)

text: The drama is inspired by Operation Yewtree, a police operation that resulted in the prosecution of a number of veteran TV performers.


title: National Treasure (British TV series)

text: "National Treasure" received universal acclaim from critics, with a Metacritic rating of 81 out of 100 based on 21 reviews.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: The 2015 SummerSlam was the 28th annual SummerSlam professional wrestling pay-per-view and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It took place on August 23, 2015, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York and was the first of four consecutive SummerSlam events to take place at the arena. It was the first SummerSlam since 2008 to be held outside of Los Angeles as its Staples Center was the exclusive home for SummerSlam from 2009 to 2014. It was also the eighth SummerSlam to be held in the New York metropolitan area. The Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey was originally supposed to host SummerSlam, but due to its closure in April 2015, the event was relocated. It was also the first SummerSlam to be four hours in length, a length previously reserved only for WrestleMania. This was also the last SummerSlam event to be held before the reintroduction of the brand extension in July 2016.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: The event was the second night of what was billed as a "triple-header" at the Barclays Center, with having taken place the previous night, and "Raw" the following night. Ten matches were contested at the event, with no match on the pre-show. In the main event, The Undertaker defeated Brock Lesnar in controversial fashion; Lesnar put Undertaker in his Kimura lock and the timekeeper rang the bell after seeing the Undertaker tap out, but since the referee did not see Undertaker submit, the match continued. The confusion allowed Undertaker to surprise Lesnar with a low blow before trapping him in the "Hell's Gate" submission hold, which caused Lesnar to pass out, giving Undertaker the win.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: SummerSlam is an annual pay-per-view (PPV) and WWE Network event, produced every summer by WWE since 1988. Dubbed "The Biggest Party of the Summer," it is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series, referred to as the "Big Four". It has since become considered WWE's second biggest event of the year behind WrestleMania. The 2015 event was the 28th event in the SummerSlam chronology and was scheduled to be held on August 23, 2015, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: The Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey was originally supposed to host SummerSlam, but due to its closure in April 2015, the event was moved to the Barclays Center. Additionally, WWE increased SummerSlam's length to four hours, a length previously reserved only for WrestleMania. The event was also scheduled as the second night of what WWE billed as a "triple-header" at the Barclays Center, with having taken place the previous night, and "Raw" the following night.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: The card consisted of ten matches that resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches, with results predetermined by WWE's writers. Storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, "Raw" and "SmackDown".


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: At WrestleMania XXX in 2014, Brock Lesnar defeated The Undertaker to end his undefeated WrestleMania streak. Four months later, Lesnar defeated John Cena at SummerSlam to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, but lost it the following year at WrestleMania 31 in his match against Roman Reigns when Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank contract and won the championship. Lesnar received his rematch against Rollins at Battleground, and was closing in on the win when The Undertaker returned and attacked Lesnar, causing Lesnar to win by disqualification, but not win the championship. The following night, a rematch between Lesnar and Undertaker was scheduled for SummerSlam. This would be Undertaker's first SummerSlam match since 2008, and his first pay-per-view match outside of WrestleMania since Bragging Rights in 2010.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: Ryback won the Intercontinental Championship in an Elimination Chamber match at Elimination Chamber. On the June 1 episode of "Raw", Ryback was scheduled to make his first title defense against The Miz, but Big Show attacked The Miz, preventing the match from occurring, and confronted Ryback. At Money in the Bank, Big Show defeated Ryback by disqualification after Miz attacked him; therefore, Ryback retained the championship. On June 22, Ryback was scheduled to defend the title against Big Show and Miz in a Triple Threat match at Battleground, but after Ryback sustained an injury, the match was postponed and, on August 6, rescheduled for SummerSlam.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: At Money in the Bank, Bray Wyatt attacked Roman Reigns during the Money in the Bank ladder match, preventing him from winning the match. At Battleground, Wyatt defeated Reigns after Luke Harper interfered and attacked Reigns, reuniting The Wyatt Family with Wyatt in the process. On the July 20 episode of "Raw", Dean Ambrose managed Reigns as he defeated Harper by disqualification. On the August 6 edition of "SmackDown", Reigns challenged Wyatt to a tag team match at SummerSlam, with Reigns and Ambrose facing Wyatt and Harper, which Wyatt accepted.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: On the June 18 episode of "SmackDown", Alicia Fox allied with The Bella Twins (Brie Bella and Divas Champion Nikki Bella) by helping Brie win her match against Paige, forming "Team Bella". On the July 13 episode of "Raw", Charlotte, Becky Lynch and NXT Women's Champion Sasha Banks made their WWE debuts; Charlotte and Lynch allied with Paige, later naming their team "PCB", while Banks allied with Naomi and Tamina, naming their group "Team B.A.D.". At Battleground, Charlotte defeated Brie and Banks in a Triple Threat match. On August 10, it was announced that Team Bella, PCB and Team B.A.D were scheduled to compete against each other in a Three-Team Elimination match at SummerSlam.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: At Battleground, The Prime Time Players defeated The New Day to retain the WWE Tag Team Championship. On the July 20 episode of "Raw", Los Matadores defeated the Prime Time Players, after a distraction by the New Day. On the July 27 episode of "Raw", The Lucha Dragons defeated Los Matadores. On the July 30 episode of "SmackDown", The Lucha Dragons and Los Matadores defeated The New Day and The Ascension. On the August 3 episode of "Raw", The New Day and The Ascension defeated The Lucha Dragons and Los Matadores in a rematch. On the August 6 episode of "SmackDown", The Prime Time Players teamed up with Mark Henry to defeat The New Day. On the August 10 episode of "Raw", The New Day defeated Los Matadores. The Prime Time Players were then scheduled to defend the championship against The New Day, Los Matadores and The Lucha Dragons in a Fatal Four-Way tag team match at SummerSlam.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: On the May 25 episode of "Raw", Stardust confronted special guest Stephen Amell while losing to Neville. On the July 13 episode of "Raw", Stardust defeated Neville. On the August 10 episode of "Raw", where Amell was again a special guest, Neville defeated King Barrett, but was then attacked by Stardust. Stardust then assaulted Amell, who entered the ring and attacked Stardust in return. Amell and Neville then persuaded Triple H backstage to make a tag team match at SummerSlam, with Amell and Neville facing Stardust and Barrett.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: On the July 20 episode of "Raw", United States Champion John Cena challenged WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins to a WWE World Heavyweight Championship match, but Rollins refused. On the July 27 episode of "Raw", Cena again challenged Rollins, but The Authority instead forced him to defend the United States Championship against Rollins. Cena defeated Rollins, but sustained a broken nose during the match. On the August 3 episode of "Raw", Rollins challenged Cena to a "Winner Takes All" match at SummerSlam, for both the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and the United States Championship. On the August 11 episode of "Tough Enough", Cena accepted Rollins' challenge.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: On the June 18 episode of "SmackDown", Kevin Owens defeated Cesaro. On the June 29 episode of "Raw", Cesaro defeated United States Champion John Cena by disqualification after being attacked by Owens, therefore not winning the championship. On the July 20 episode of "Raw", Cesaro teamed up with Cena and Randy Orton to defeat Owens, Rusev and Sheamus. On the July 23 episode of "SmackDown", Owens attacked Cesaro after his match against Seth Rollins. On the July 27 episode of "Raw", Cesaro attacked Owens after his match against Orton. On the July 30 episode of "SmackDown", after Owens attacked Cesaro during his rematch against Rollins, Dean Ambrose and Cesaro defeated Owens and Rollins in a tag team match. On the August 13 episode of "SmackDown", Cesaro was set to face Owens at SummerSlam.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: At Battleground, Randy Orton defeated Sheamus. On the July 20 episode of "Raw", Orton, John Cena and Cesaro defeated Sheamus, Kevin Owens and Rusev. On the July 27 episode of "Raw", Sheamus attacked Orton during his match against Owens. On the August 3 episode of "Raw", Orton, Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns defeated Sheamus, Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper. On the August 10 episode of "Raw", Orton defeated WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins by disqualification after being attacked by Sheamus, therefore not winning the championship. Sheamus then attempted to cash in his Money in the Bank contract on Rollins, but was stopped by Orton. On August 17, a match between Orton and Sheamus was scheduled for SummerSlam.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: On the May 18 episode of "Raw", Lana ended her association with Rusev and started a relationship with Dolph Ziggler, turning face in the process. After making numerous unsuccessful attempts to sway Lana from Ziggler, Rusev started a relationship with Summer Rae. On the July 6 episode of "Raw", Rusev attacked Ziggler, resulting in Ziggler sustaining a throat injury. On the August 17 episode of "Raw", Ziggler returned and attacked Rusev. The same night, Ziggler was set to wrestle Rusev at SummerSlam.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: On the August 17 episode of "Raw", Jon Stewart was announced as the special guest host for the event.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: In the first match, Randy Orton faced Sheamus. The match ended when Orton attempted an "RKO" on Sheamus, however Sheamus countered and executed two "Brogue Kicks" on Orton to win the match.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: Next, The Prime Time Players (Darren Young and Titus O'Neil) defended the WWE Tag Team Championship against The New Day (Big E and Kofi Kingston), The Lucha Dragons (Kalisto and Sin Cara) and Los Matadores (Diego and Fernando) in a Fatal 4-Way tag team match. The ending saw O'Neil executed the "Clash of the Titus" on Fernando but Big E pulled O'Neil out of the ring. Kingston pinned Fernando to win the title.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: After that, Dolph Ziggler faced Rusev. In the climax, Rusev applied the "Accolade" on Ziggler but Lana attacked Summer Rae, distracting Rusev. Ziggler performed a Superkick on Rusev, knocking him onto a broadcast table. The match ended in a double countout.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: In the fourth match, Stephen Amell and Neville faced Stardust and King Barrett. Neville executed a "Red Arrow" on Barrett to win the match.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: The next match was a Triple Threat match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship between Ryback and Big Show and The Miz. The end came when Big Show executed a "KO Punch" on Miz but Ryback knocked Big Show out of the ring with a Clothesline. Ryback pinned Miz to retain the title.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: In the sixth match, Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose faced The Wyatt Family (Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper). As Wyatt attempted "Sister Abigail" on Ambrose, Ambrose countered and executed "Dirty Deeds" on Wyatt. Reigns executed a Spear on Wyatt to win the match.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: The seventh match was a Winner Takes All match for both the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and the WWE United States Championship between WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins and United States Champion John Cena. Cena executed an "Attitude Adjustment" on Rollins for a near-fall. Rollins executed an "Attitude Adjustment" on Cena for a near-fall. As Rollins attempted a "Pedigree," Cena countered and applied the Figure Four Leglock on Rollins. Rollins countered but Cena reached the ropes, forcing Rollins to break the hold. Cena executed a second "Attitude Adjustment", but in the process, Rollins inadvertently kicked the referee. Jon Stewart, the host of SummerSlam, ran to the ring with a chair, assumingly helping Cena but struck Cena with the chair. Rollins took advantage and executed a "Pedigree" on Cena on the chair. Rollins then pinned Cena to win the match.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: The next match was a Three-team elimination match between Team Bella (WWE Divas Champion Nikki Bella, Brie Bella, and Alicia Fox), Team B.A.D. (Sasha Banks, Naomi, and Tamina) and Team PCB (Paige, Charlotte, and Becky Lynch). Brie Bella eliminated Team BAD by pinning Tamina after a diving "Bella Buster". Lynch pinned Brie after a Pumphandle Uranage to win the match for Team PCB.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: In the main event, Brock Lesnar (with Paul Heyman) faced The Undertaker. During the match, Undertaker attempted a Chokeslam on Lesnar but Lesnar countered the attempt and executed three German Suplexes. Lesnar executed an "F-5" through a broadcast table on Undertaker. Undertaker executed a Chokeslam and a "Tombstone Piledriver" on Lesnar for a near-fall. Lesnar applied a "Kimura lock" on Undertaker but Undertaker touched the ropes, forcing Lesnar to break the hold. Undertaker performed a "Last Ride" on Lesnar for a near-fall. Lesnar executed two "F-5s" on Undertaker, both for near-falls. In the climax of the match, Undertaker applied "Hell's Gate" on Lesnar, who countered the move and put Undertaker in another "Kimura Lock". At that time, the timekeeper rang the bell after seeing the Undertaker supposedly indicating submission; since the referee hadn't seen a submission and never stopped the match, the match continued. Thinking himself the winner, Lesnar released the hold. Whilst the referee argued with the timekeeper, Undertaker surprised Lesnar with a low blow and applied "Hell's Gate" again; Lesnar refused to submit, giving Undertaker the middle finger before passing out to give Undertaker the win.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: The event received positive reviews, with much of the criticism going to the endings of the "Winner Take All" and the Undertaker/Brock Lesnar matches. Will Purett from Prowrestling.net said the two main matches had bad endings. Purett was "infuriated by the finish in Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar" because "wrestling finishes in 2015 based on incompetent refereeing are bad ideas." Also, he criticized the idea of the Undertaker as the first man who defeated Lesnar in a singles match since WrestleMania 29, saying that "The Streak, [...] was sacrificed for a retirement tour." Jason Powell, from Prowrestling.net praised the Cena vs. Rollins and the Undertaker vs. Lesnar, but likewise criticized both finishes.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: Benjamin Tucker of the "Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter" attended in person both WWE SummerSlam and (a day earlier in the same venue). He gave TakeOver a 9.0 score, noting that it was "met with near-universal praise", higher than SummerSlam, which rated 6.5 and "was met with ridicule and scorn by the night's end". Tucker criticized SummerSlam in comparison to TakeOver, saying that "the main show writing could learn something from NXT, not WCW 2000", because "NXT provided simple stories, but they were easy to follow and made the viewer root for the good guys to prevail", in addition to "no chicanery". Yet SummerSlam had convoluted stories, "confusingly-presented characters" and "terrible" swerves. Tucker also felt that none of the SummerSlam matches reached the level of the NXT Women's Championship match the night before, "but the main event was wrestled well, as was Owens-Cesaro, Sheamus-Orton, Rollins-Cena (the probable match of the night)".


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: After winning the WWE United States Championship and retaining the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against John Cena, Seth Rollins was confronted and attacked on the following night's "Raw" by a returning Sting, who grabbed the WWE World Heavyweight Championship belt, signalling a challenge for the title. The match was set for Night of Champions. Jon Stewart also revealed that he had interfered on behalf of Rollins in order to prevent Cena from tying Ric Flair's record of World championships, who Stewart is a huge fan of. Stewart was confronted by Flair, who told him that he doesn't mind having his record tied or broken by someone who he respects, and John Cena hit Stewart with an Attitude Adjustment before leaving. A rematch for the United States Championship was granted by The Authority as they stated that all championship titles will be on the line, forcing Rollins to defend both titles back-to-back at Night of Champions, at which he lost the United States Championship to Cena but defeated Sting to retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: Following the controversial loss to The Undertaker, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman called out The Undertaker for one last match that night but instead Bo Dallas appeared and attempted to convince Lesnar to start "Bo-lieving". Lesnar responded by delivering a number of German suplexes on Dallas, and ending the beatdown with an "F5" before leaving. At Night of Champions, a Hell in a Cell match to settle the feud between Lesnar and Undertaker was scheduled for Hell in a Cell.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: After Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose's victory over The Wyatt Family, a rematch was booked the following night on "Raw". Midway through the match, a mysterious man (later revealed to be Braun Strowman) interfered on behalf of The Wyatt Family. The new Wyatt Family challenged Reigns and Ambrose to a 6-man tag match at Night of Champions. Reigns and Ambrose refused to reveal their partner until right before the match; their mystery partner was Chris Jericho, who passed out to Strowman's bear hug. Thus, The Wyatts defeated them.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: On the following night's "Raw", The New Day defeated The Lucha Dragons. After the match, the Dudley Boyz made their return to WWE, performing a "3D" on Xavier Woods through a table and confronting The Prime Time Players. The New Day would go on to retain their titles through 2015 and 2016. On December 13, 2016, The New Day's reigns reached 479 days, officially breaking the record set by Demolition to become the longest single reign in WWE history. 5 days later, at the pay-per-view , they lost the titles to Cesaro and Sheamus.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: Kevin Owens started setting his sights on the WWE Intercontinental Championship leading to a feud with champion Ryback. On the September 7 episode of Raw. Owens interrupted Ryback's interview and then attacked him, costing him a Lumberjack match against Seth Rollins on the September 10 episode of Smackdown while Owens was one of the Lumberjacks. On the September 14 episode of Raw, Ryback was granted permission by The Authority to defend the Intercontinental Championship against Owens at Night of Champions. Owens would defeat Ryback at Night of Champions to win the WWE Intercontinental Championship, his first major title since debuting on the main roster.


title: SummerSlam (2015)

text: The 2015 SummerSlam was the last SummerSlam event to occur before the reintroduction of the brand extension in July 2016, which again split the roster between the Raw and SmackDown brands, where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform. As such, another world championship was introduced. After the WWE World Heavyweight Championship became exclusive to SmackDown and renamed to WWE Championship, the WWE Universal Championship was introduced for Raw with its inaugural champion crowned at the 2016 SummerSlam.


title: Dylan Bruno

text: Dylan Bruno (born September 6, 1972) is an American actor and former model. His first major film role was a supporting part in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), followed by a lead role in the horror film "" (1999). On television, Bruno portrayed FBI agent Colby Granger in "Numbers" and disgraced former Army Ranger Jason Paul Dean in "NCIS".


title: Dylan Bruno

text: Bruno was born September 6, 1972 in Milford, Connecticut, to actor Scott Bruno and the late Nancy (née Mendillo) Bruno. His older brother is film and television actor, director and producer Chris Bruno. Growing up, the brothers lived in Milford with their mother and spent time with their father on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.


title: Dylan Bruno

text: In 1994, Bruno earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Engineering from MIT, where he played varsity football as a linebacker. "When I got into MIT, I just decided it was an opportunity I didn't want to turn down," he said. "I actually found out that I had the second-lowest SAT scores at MIT. The guy with the lowest score and I would always hang out together and be like, 'Yeah, we're the second-to-last and last dumbest guy in the school.'" Upon graduating, Bruno worked for a robotics company before deciding to pursue a career in acting.


title: Dylan Bruno

text: In 1995, while working as a model for Calvin Klein, Bruno made his television acting debut on the NBC series "High Sierra Search and Rescue". He made his film debut in "Naked Ambition" (1997). In 1998, he had small roles in "Saving Private Ryan" and "When Trumpets Fade" and competed in and won a special episode of "American Gladiators" (1989–96). He co-starred in "" (1999), "Where the Heart Is" (2000), "Going Greek" (2001).


title: Dylan Bruno

text: He portrayed an L.A.P.D. cop in "The One" (2001), a rock musician in "The Simian Line" (2001), and Harry "Blaine" Mayhugh, Jr., in "The Pennsylvania Miners' Story" (2002). He also appeared in "The Anarchists -Cookbook" (2002).


title: Dylan Bruno

text: In May 2010, he joined "NCIS" for three episodes, playing a disgraced U.S. Army Ranger who worked for a Mexican drug cartel; in the Season 7 finale, his character died in a gunfight.


title: Dylan Bruno

text: Bruno has done voice-over work for several products such as Bacardi Silver, Coors Light, Chevrolet, Jeep, Virtual Boy, and Sony Handycam. In addition to his voice-over work, Bruno is the current narrator of the Discovery Channel program "Rides".


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: The Isuzu MU-X is a mid-size SUV produced by Isuzu. It is a body-on-frame SUV based on the D-Max, and the successor to the MU-7.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: The predecessor to the MU-X, the Isuzu MU-7 is an Isuzu D-Max pickup-based SUV with a three-row seating arrangement. The MU-7 was released in Thailand in November 2004, being advertised as a "Sport Utility Wagon". The MU-7 has the same front fascia and chassis as the D-Max but has a covered rear end instead of a truck bed. Unlike the MU-X, the MU-7 retains the same wheelbase as the D-Max. It was only available in some markets such as Thailand, the Philippines and India. In the Philippines, this model is called the Isuzu Alterra.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: Since the early launch, the drivetrain choices are 4x2 and 4x4. All come with one engine: the 3.0 4JJ1-TC DDi iTEQ engine. A special suspension set reserved exclusively for MU-7 is called MOVE suspension. The front suspension consists of double wishbone, torsion bar, anti-roll bar, gas-type shock absorber, while the rear configuration is an SUV-type leaf springs via gas-type shock absorber.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: In the late third quarter of 2006, the MU-7 range of models was updated and separated as Primo (4x2) and Activo (4x4). With a new 3.0 4JJ1-TCX DDi iTEQ, new transmissions were implemented as well: MUX five-speed manual and MaxMatic-III automatic transmission. Also new was the interior, incorporating a console with wood decoration and new "best" seat upholstery.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: And just as for the Gold Series and D-Max, both MU-7 Primo GS and Activo GS also receive gold Isuzu badges in 3 locations. All Gold Series models also come equipped with a new navigation entertainment system incorporating a new reverse assist, all optional from early 2008. Primo and Activo received Wide Vision blind-spot rear view mirror. Also added was the additional new low-cost 4x2 model, the S (with DDI ITEQ 3.0-litre (146 PS)), which was priced below the Primo.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: MU-7 Platinum models commenced in the Thai-market on 1 November 2008. Frontal changed a bit by platinum tone, and included a revamped fenders and side trims (by lower tone). All models also received platinum painted engines. MOVE suspension for Activo and Primo models were also retooled. The S model also received an automatic transmission as optional.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: MU-7 Super Platinum models were introduced in the same month as D-Max. Exterior changes include a newer front bumper, newer style alloy wheels (except S), and newer blind spot rear view mirrors. Models with 3.0 VGS Turbo also received light silver decorations at the scoop rim.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: In April 2011, MU-7 "Choiz" was revealed at the Bangkok Motor Show, with new alloy wheels and small changes to the interior.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: In December 2011, the MU-7 "Choiz" was facelifted, with new alloy wheels. It was available in 4WD, 2WD 3000 VGS Turbo and 2WD 3000 Ddi.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: The MU-X had its world premiere in Thailand on 31 October 2013 and sold on 6 November 2013. The MU-X is a product from the collaboration between General Motors and Isuzu. As the result, it shared its platform with the Chevrolet Trailblazer/Holden Colorado. Due to an agreement with GM, the Trailblazer was released prior to MU-X.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: In Australia, it was launched in December 2013. To date, the MU-X has been sold only in Thailand, Australia, Paraguay, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, China and India. Isuzu Motors has plans to market it overseas in 50 countries. In December 2013, the MU-X was showcased at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show, but it is not sold in Japan.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: In Thailand, the MU-X was available in three trim levels, being: Base (CD), Standard (DVD) and High (DVD Navi).


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: CD and DVD-trim levels are available with the 2.5-litre engine. These trims are called the 2.5 VGS CD and 2.5 VGS DVD respectively. when equipped with the 5-speed automatic (or 5-speed manual, which is 4x2 only). The DVD Navi trim level is available with both the 2.5- and 3.0-litre engines, with the 2.5-litre engine, it is called 2.5 VGS DVD Navi, In 3.0-litre engine with automatic transmission, it is badged as 3.0 VGS DVD Navi.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: On 9 September 2014, Isuzu Philippines Corporation launched the MU-X to retire the Alterra. It was available in 3 trim levels, LS, LS-M and LS-A. However, only the 2.5-litre engine has been made available due to fuel quality concerns. The two lower variants were only available in 2WD and Manual Transmission while the High LS-A can be had in 2WD or 4WD with Terrain Command.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: In October 2015, Isuzu Philippines Corporation introduced the 3.0-litre "4JJ1-TC" engine with an output of and of torque. This engine differs from the global 3.0-litre engine as it is still Euro II compliant and produces less power than the "4JJ1-TCX". Apart from the new engine, a chrome tailpipe finisher, 3.0 TD chrome emblem and daytime running lights are fitted as standard on the 3.0-litre models to differentiate them from the 2.5 models.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: In September 2017, as part of the 20th anniversary of Isuzu Philippines Corporation, the heavily revised Isuzu MU-X debuted in the Philippines. The Philippine-spec Isuzu MU-X gets similar features from its Thai-spec model. It gets the newer 3.0-litre "4JJ1-TCX" with Blue Power, Euro IV compliant. This new engine also powers the 2018 D-Max.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: On 14 February 2017, the facelifted MU-X was revealed in a teaser video and website. The facelifted MU-X debuted on 4 March 2017 prior to the Bangkok International Motor Show. This facelift including integrated LED front and tail lights, improved interior quality with the addition of soft material, two-tone interior, improved NVH. Engines remained the same as the outgoing model.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: The second-generation MU-X was revealed on 28 October 2020 in Thailand. It shares the same platform with the third generation D-Max, which in turn is also closely related to the third generation Mazda BT-50.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: The MU-X in Thailand is offered with two engine options, which are the 1.9-litre turbodiesel unit and the 3.0-litre turbodiesel engine. The 1.9-litre is used for four variants, namely the 1.9 Active, 1.9 Luxury, 1.9 Elegance and 1.9 Ultimate, while the "4JJ3-TCX" engine is exclusive to the 3.0 Elegance, 3.0 Ultimate and 3.0 Ultimate 4WD. The 3.0-litre engine received a power bump compared to the previous generation, from to .


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: The MU-X for Australian market was launched on 30 July 2021. It is available in three grades: LS-M, LS-U, and the top-of-the-range LS-T.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: The second generation MU-X was launched in the Philippines on 22 September 2021. It is offered in five grades: LS 4x2 RZ4E A/T, LS-A 4x2 RZ4E M/T, LS-A 4x2 3.0 A/T, LS-E 4x2 3.0 A/T and LS-E 4x4 3.0 A/T.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: The second generation MU-X was launched in South Africa on 15 November 2021. It is offered in four grade levels; LS 4x2, LS 4x4, LSE 4x2 and ONYX 4x4. All models are powered by the same 3.0-litre turbo diesel engine.


title: Isuzu MU-X

text: The second generation MU-X was launched in Indonesia during the GIIAS 2021. It is only offered in one grade level, a 1.9-litre 4x4 automatic.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Alex Skolnick (born September 29, 1968) is an American musician. He is best known as the lead guitarist and one of the songwriters of the thrash metal band Testament and has played with several other bands, including The Alex Skolnick Trio, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Savatage and the heavy metal supergroup Metal Allegiance.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Skolnick began his musical career at the age of 15 when he joined the local Bay Area thrash metal band Legacy, which eventually became Testament, and performed on five albums with them, between "The Legacy" (1987) and "The Ritual" (1992). By the time he left Testament in 1992, Skolnick had found considerable fame among the thrash metal and guitar communities; "Guitar World" magazine named him one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and as one of the "fastest guitarists of all time".


title: Alex Skolnick

text: After his first departure from Testament, Skolnick went on to pursue various musical careers, including briefly replacing Criss Oliva in Savatage for their album "Handful of Rain" (1994), and starting his jazz band The Alex Skolnick Trio in the early 2000s, which remains active as of 2021. He briefly reunited with Testament in 2001 for the re-recordings of their early songs on the album "First Strike Still Deadly", and then returned to the band on a permanent basis in 2005, contributing to four more albums.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Skolnick was born and raised in Berkeley, California, in a non-traditional Jewish family. His parents, Jerome Skolnick and Arlene, both PhD graduates from Yale University, taught sociology at New York University and University of California, Berkeley.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Skolnick began playing guitar at age nine. He was influenced by Eddie Van Halen, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Johnny Winter, Randy Rhoads, Michael Schenker, Yngwie Malmsteen, Kiss, and Scorpions. He was a student of guitarist Joe Satriani.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Skolnick joined the San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal band Testament, then-called Legacy, in 1984 as the replacement of original guitarist Derrick Ramirez. Skolnick was just eighteen years old when he recorded his debut album with Testament, "The Legacy" (1987), which received critical acclaim from both music critics and fans alike. The band's next four albums, "The New Order" (1988), "Practice What You Preach" (1989), "Souls of Black" (1990) and "The Ritual" (1992), cemented Testament's reputation as one of the premier bands of the thrash metal genre and nearly gave them the same level of popularity as the "Big Four" (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax). In late 1992, several months after the release of "The Ritual", Skolnick opted to leave the band, citing his weariness of playing thrash metal music and his desire to explore musically outside of Testament as the reasons behind his departure.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Skolnick returned briefly to Testament by re-recording old material for their ninth album "First Strike Still Deadly", as well as the Thrash of the Titans performance in 2001. He officially rejoined the band in 2005 for a short European tour with some American dates appended. A CD/DVD release was put together from the London show of May 8, 2005. On April 29, 2008, Testament released "The Formation of Damnation", its first studio album with original material in nine years and with Skolnick in sixteen years. Their next album, "Dark Roots of Earth" (2012), debuted at No. 12 on the "Billboard" Top 200 Albums chart, at No.1 on the "Billboard" Hard Rock and Rock albums chart, and No. 9 on the World Chart. Skolnick has since recorded two more albums with Testament, "Brotherhood of the Snake" (2016) and "Titans of Creation" (2020).


title: Alex Skolnick

text: After his first departure from Testament, Skolnick joined the band Savatage in 1994 for the recording of "Handful of Rain", as well as its follow-up live album and home video release "Japan Live '94". In 1991 he recorded and toured with the Stuart Hamm band. He also played guitar for Ozzy Osbourne in 1995. In 2004, he made a guest appearance on Lamb of God's "Ashes of the Wake" album, recording a solo for the album's instrumental title track.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: During the mid to late 1990s, Skolnick led several projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Skol-Patrol, a funk band featuring Michael Manring that played themes from police shows. He recorded two albums with Attention Deficit, a trio with Manring and Tim Alexander of Primus. In the late 90s, he collaborated with electric violinist Joe Deninzon (who he met in New York City at the New School) in the band Stratospheerius, recording "The Adventures of Stratospheerius" album. He also appears on their "Live Wires" album.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: In 1998, Skolnick moved to New York City and began devoting all of his energy to jazz, enrolling in The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music and graduating with a degree in jazz performance. Since 2002, he has toured and recorded as the Alex Skolnick Trio, a jazz group known for rousing bebop renditions of classic rock and heavy metal tunes. The trio has performed at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, Musikmesse Frankfurt, Germany, the National Center for the Arts, Mexico City, and the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City. Skolnick's trio has been praised by "Down Beat", "Jazziz", and "The Village Voice". Their album "Veritas" (Palmetto) reached No. 7 on the iTunes jazz chart.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Skolnick released a DVD Jazz tuition set with Rock House Method in May 2010. He recorded the album "What's Next?" with pianist Randy Klein in 2012.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: On June 21, 2012, Summer Solstice Day, Skolnick announced his world music album "Planetary Coalition" at the annual Make Music New York festival sponsored by "Guitar World" magazine. He said that he intended to have, "musicians from all over the world, driven by acoustic guitar and bringing together inspirational melodies, in-depth improvisation and the passion of the musical styles of Gypsy, Middle Eastern, Indian, Latin, East Asian, Mediterranean, Balkan/Eastern European, African and other indigenous lands – Planetary Coalition has been guided by a single hope: that by weaving the threads that connect musical expressions with regional identities, we can bridge the gap between diverse cultures and people, and increase awareness of the ecological and social issues facing the planet, our island in the sky."


title: Alex Skolnick

text: "Planetary Coalition" was released by ArtistShare on November 11, 2014 to commemorate the centennial of the end of the First World War. The album gathered over twenty musicians from five continents, including Indo-Canadian ghazal singer Kiran Ahluwalia, Argentine bassist Pablo Aslan, Chinese pipa player Yihan Chen, American violinist Rachel Golub, Cuban drummer Horacio Hernández, Albanian accordionist Raif Hyseni, Palestinian oud player Adnan Joubran, Turkish kanun player Tamer Pinarbasi, Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, Israeli percussionist Gadi Seri, and Yacouba Sissoko, a kora player from Mali.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: The project endeavored to combine artistic, ecological, political, and social issues, as well as showcase the landscape and architecture of other countries. Maddy Samaddar Johnson, an architect and urban planner, was hired as a consultant.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Skolnick used a variety of guitars, including steel string, nylon string, acoustic, and electric. All compositions were by Skolnick, except two which were composed by Skolnick-Joubran and Skolnick-Hernandez. The tune from Mali and from China were first-time guitar-kora and guitar-pipa duos of traditional songs from those regions.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: The album was praised by many publications, newspapers, and blogs. "Guitar World" magazine chose "Planetary Coalition" as one among the top 50 albums of 2014 and among the top 10 acoustic guitar albums of the year.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Skolnick's memoir, "Geek to Guitar Hero", was published in January 2013 and received positive reviews from Anthony Bozza, Bradford Morrow, Ned Vizzini, and Brad Tolinski, editor in chief of "Guitar World".


title: Alex Skolnick

text: He has been active in blending music with works of art and literature. In 2007, he contributed a solo for Egyptian artist Nader Sadek's project, "Faceless". The song was only to be heard in an art gallery in New York. In 2012, he performed live at the Feature Inc Gallery in New York, for a musical interpretation project for the works of visual artist Douglas Melini.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: Skolnick plays electric ESP Guitars and Godin hollow-bodied models with Seymour Duncan pickups. He formerly played Heritage and Ibanez guitars.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: In 2009 Heritage released Alex's first signature guitar. His signature is a solid body based upon the H 150/157 model. In his early years with Testament he endorsed Ibanez guitars and mainly played the 540SLTD model. Alex endorsed Charvel guitars and was featured in their ads around 1995. For amplification, he uses Budda amps and several Marshall amps including the discontinued Marshall ModeFour hybrid amps.


title: Alex Skolnick

text: In 2013, Budda released a signature amp for Skolnick, called the Preceptor, and later in the same year it was announced that Skolnick was signed to ESP guitars, with an ESP and LTD model in the works for 2014.


title: Oval

text: An oval () is a closed curve in a plane which resembles the outline of an egg. The term is not very specific, but in some areas (projective geometry, technical drawing, etc.) it is given a more precise definition, which may include either one or two axes of symmetry of an ellipse. In common English, the term is used in a broader sense: any shape which reminds one of an egg. The three-dimensional version of an oval is called an ovoid.


title: Oval

text: The term oval when used to describe curves in geometry is not well-defined, except in the context of projective geometry. Many distinct curves are commonly called ovals or are said to have an "oval shape". Generally, to be called an oval, a plane curve should "resemble" the outline of an egg or an ellipse. In particular, these are common traits of ovals:


title: Oval

text: An ovoid is the surface in 3-dimensional space generated by rotating an oval curve about one of its axes of symmetry.


title: Oval

text: The adjectives ovoidal and ovate mean having the characteristic of being an ovoid, and are often used as synonyms for "egg-shaped".


title: Oval

text: The shape of an egg is approximated by the "long" half of a prolate spheroid, joined to a "short" half of a roughly spherical ellipsoid, or even a slightly oblate spheroid. These are joined at the equator and share a principal axis of rotational symmetry, as illustrated above. Although the term "egg-shaped" usually implies a lack of reflection symmetry across the equatorial plane, it may also refer to true prolate ellipsoids. It can also be used to describe the 2-dimensional figure that, if revolved around its major axis, produces the 3-dimensional surface.


title: Oval

text: In technical drawing, an oval is a figure constructed from two pairs of arcs, with two different radii (see image on the right). The arcs are joined at a point in which lines tangential to both joining arcs lie on the same line, thus making the joint smooth. Any point of an oval belongs to an arc with a constant radius (shorter or longer), but in an ellipse, the radius is continuously changing.


title: Oval

text: In common speech, "oval" means a shape rather like an egg or an ellipse, which may be two-dimensional or three-dimensional. It also often refers to a figure that resembles two semicircles joined by a rectangle, like a cricket infield, speed skating rink or an athletics track. However, this is most correctly called a stadium.


title: Oval

text: The term "ellipse" is often used interchangeably with oval, despite not being a precise synonym. The term "oblong" is often used incorrectly to describe an elongated oval or 'stadium' shape. However, in geometry, an oblong is a rectangle with unequal adjacent sides (i.e., not a square).


title: Monoculture

text: In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time. Monoculture is widely used in intensive farming and in organic farming: both a 1,000-acre cornfield and a 10-hectare field of organic kale are monocultures. Monoculture crops have allowed farmers to increase efficiency in planting, managing, and harvesting, mainly by facilitating the use of machinery in these operations, but monocultures can also increase the risk of diseases or pest outbreaks. Diversity can be added both in time, as with a crop rotation or sequence, or in space, with a polyculture or intercropping (see table below).


title: Monoculture

text: Continuous monoculture, or monocropping, where farmers raise the same species year after year, can lead to the quicker buildup and spread of pests and diseases in a susceptible crop.


title: Monoculture

text: The term "oligoculture" has been used to describe a crop rotation of just a few crops, as practiced in several regions of the world.


title: Monoculture

text: The concept of monoculture can also extend to (for example) discussions of variety in urban landscapes.


title: Monoculture

text: In an agricultural context, the term describes the practice of planting one species in a field. Examples of monoculture include lawns, fields of wheat or corn, or an apple orchard.


title: Monoculture

text: Note that the distinction between monoculture and polyculture is not the same as between monocropping and intercropping. The first two describe diversity in "space", as does intercropping. Monocropping and crop rotation describe diversity over "time".


title: Monoculture

text: In crop monocultures, each plant in a field has the same standardized planting, maintenance, and harvesting requirements resulting in greater yields and lower costs. When a crop is matched to its well-managed environment, a monoculture can produce higher yields than a polyculture. Modern practices such as monoculture planting and the use of synthesized fertilizers have reduced the amount of additional land needed to produce food, called land sparing.


title: Monoculture

text: Monocultures of perennials, such as African palm oil, sugarcane, tea and pines, can lead to soil and environmental problems such as soil acidification, degradation, and soil-borne diseases, which ultimately have a negative impact on agricultural productivity and sustainability. Diverse rotations of crop monocultures can minimize the risk of disease and pest outbreaks. However, the shorter the rotation (fewer crops included) the higher the risk. There are examples of short, two-year rotations selecting for pests that are adapted to such rotations.


title: Monoculture

text: In forestry, monoculture refers to the planting of one species of tree. Monoculture plantings provide greater yields and more efficient harvesting than natural stands of trees. Single-species stands of trees are often the natural way trees grow, but the stands show a diversity in tree sizes, with dead trees mixed with mature and young trees. In forestry, monoculture stands that are planted and harvested as a unit provide limited resources for wildlife that depend on dead trees and openings since all the trees are the same size; they are most often harvested by clearcutting, which drastically alters the habitat. The mechanical harvesting of trees can compact soils, which can adversely affect understory growth. single-species planting also causes trees to be more vulnerable when they are infected with a pathogen, attacked by insects, or affected by adverse environmental conditions.


title: Monoculture

text: Lawn monoculture in the United States was historically influenced by English gardens and manor-house landscapes, but its inception into the American landscape is fairly recent. Aesthetics drove the evolution of the residential green areas, with turfgrass becoming a popular addition to many American homes. Turfgrass is a nonnative species and requires high levels of maintenance. However, the drive for its widespread use primarily came from social pressures. At the local level, governments and organizations have begun to take monocultural practices into their own hands (think Homeowner Associations). Various issues related to maintenance of private property have occurred, such as maintaining aesthetics and real estate value. Disagreements in residential maintenance of weeds, lawns, etc, have resulted in civil cases or even direct aggression against neighbors.


title: Monoculture

text: Like agriculture, the high levels of maintenance required for turfgrass created a growing demand for chemical management, i.e. pesticides, herbicides, insecticides. A 1999 study showed that in a sample of urban streams, at least one type of pesticide was found in 99% of the streams. One major risk associated with pesticides on lawns include exposure of chemicals into the home through the air, clothing, and furniture which can be more detrimental to children than to the average adult.


title: Monoculture

text: While often referring to the production of the same crop species in a field (space), monoculture can also refer to the planting of a single cultivar across a larger regional area, such that there are numerous plants in the area with an identical genetic makeup to each other. When all plants in a region are genetically similar, a disease to which they have no resistance can destroy entire populations of crops. the wheat leaf rust fungus caused much concern internationally, having already severely affected wheat crops in Uganda and Kenya, and having started to spread in Asia as well. Given the very genetically similar strains of much of the world's wheat crops following the Green Revolution, the impacts of such diseases threaten agricultural production worldwide.


title: Monoculture

text: In Ireland, exclusive use of one variety of potato, the "lumper", led to the Great Famine of 1845–1849. Lumpers provided inexpensive food to feed the Irish masses. Potatoes were propagated vegetatively with little to no genetic variation. When "Phytophthora infestans" arrived in Ireland from the Americas in 1845, the lumper had no resistance to the disease, leading to the nearly complete failure of the potato crop across Ireland.


title: Monoculture

text: Until the 1950s, the Gros Michel cultivar of banana represented almost all bananas consumed in the United States because of their taste, small seeds, and efficiency to produce. Their small seeds, while more appealing than the large ones in other Asian cultivars, were not suitable for planting. This meant that all new banana plants had to be grown from the cut suckers of another plant. As a result of this asexual form of planting, all bananas grown had identical genetic makeups which gave them no traits for resistance to "Fusarium wilt", a fungal disease that spread quickly throughout the Caribbean where they were being grown. By the beginning of the 1960s, growers had to switch to growing the Cavendish banana, a cultivar grown in a similar way. This cultivar is under similar disease stress since all the bananas are clones of each other and could easily succumb as the Gros Michel did.


title: Monoculture

text: The term is also used where a single breed of farm animal is raised in large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).


title: Monoculture

text: Many of today's livestock production systems rely on just a small number of highly specialized breeds. Focusing heavily on a single trait (output) may come at the expense of other desirable traitssuch as fertility, resistance to disease, vigor, and mothering instincts. In the early 1990s, a few Holstein calves were observed to grow poorly and died in the first 6 months of life. They were all found to be homozygous for a mutation in the gene that caused bovine leukocyte adhesion deficiency. This mutation was found at a high frequency in Holstein populations worldwide. (15% among bulls in the US, 10% in Germany, and 16% in Japan.) Researchers studying the pedigrees of affected and carrier animals tracked the source of the mutation to a single bull that was widely used in livestock production. In 1990 there were approximately 4 million Holstein cattle in the US, making the affected population around 600,000 animals.