When she's in the mood to push my buttons, my significant other, the delightful and charming Ms. D, frequently alludes to the questionable timeline concerning my birth date. She derives much mirth from the fact that I was born something less than nine or ten months after my parents wed and hints that this indicates a certain amount of premarital hanky-panky. Standing on my dignity ('cause it's higher than the coffee table), my reply is that I have it on good authority that I owe my early entry into the world to Tabusintac Hill. Said hill was once considered to be an abomination of the first water. The Tabusintac, like all hills, had an up and a down. In this case, the up and down were distinguished from each other by a sharp curve at the bottom. The main North/South New Brunswick highway slavishly followed the hill's contours. If you were heading north, the road led you into a ravine and you were faced with a steep uphill incline that, in winter presented a challenge to at least half the vehicles trying to climb it. In true snow country fashion, steep, icy hills were conquered by getting a running start, building up a lot of speed and praying that Mr. Newton's rules concerning inertia would work in your favour. Headed south, the problem became keeping your car under control so that you didn't go shooting into the trees when the road curved to the left. My parents were taking a trip to the Miramachi in December of '56 and were driving a Pontiac borrowed from one of my father's friends. My mother was pregnant with a bundle of bad attitude and misery that would turn out to be me. I assume that my father was driving with that mix of panache and insouciance that my mother tended to describe as reckless behaviour. In any case, as he rounded the corner at the top of the hill, the road was apparently free of snow and ice and there was no reason to slowdown. Until the moose stepped out onto the road just ahead of them. after the story ends, the character Pick the correct answer from the following options: - stopped telling this story - believes it's the moose's fault he was born early - not enough information - believes he was born premature
stopped telling this story

I'm sitting at the airport on a Sunday morning waiting for my flight to Las Vegas for the now-annual pilgrimage to the NamesCon conference. A few years ago, Vegas was one of my "bucket list" places one of those iconic cities that one should visit at least once in their life. For me, once was enough. This is now my 4th (I think?) trip to Vegas, and while the city has a lot to offer, it's just not my cup of tea. For one thing, I'm not a gambler, like at all. I don't have anything against it, I just don't enjoy it. It either feels pointless or stressful to me. The city itself makes me a little sad in some cases, it reeks of desperation. Last time I was there, my cab driver entertained me with stories of how she was working 3 jobs to save up enough to join some mega-massive bingo game. She won a small jackpot a few years back and that allowed her to work only one job for a few months. She was hoping to win again so she could cut back to 1 or 2 jobs. I wondered how many people do similar things gambling their money away, in big or small chunks, in the hopes of that big score and in the process, putting themselves in a not-great financial situation. I suppose as long it makes them happy, then it's all OK, but I can't help but think someone like my cab driver might be happier overall if she only worked 1 job instead of 3, instead of working extra jobs to save up money to gamble her way to financial freedom. But that's for her to decide, not me. The juxtaposition of extreme and in-your-face wealth and the homeless people on the Strip also makes me sad. It's difficult to see people begging for food and sleeping on the street while all around you, millions of dollars are poured into creating a massive playground with every type of indulgence possible. But I'm the first to say that I've enjoyed staying in some of the nicer hotel properties there and eating several excellent meals at some of the finer restaurants in the area, so I'm not exactly helping to solve the problem. the author's trip to Las Vegas probably lasted: Pick the correct answer from the following options: - not enough information - a few days - several months - 20 minutes
a few days

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is a great film, and often regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. I never much paid attention to how the film was lit, but on examination I don't know what I think of the lighting. Maybe i'm totally wrong, but the lighting seems quite obvious when you pay attention to it, which makes me thing it could have been done better? Certainly the lighting is masterfully done, in the way it properly exposes the characters faces and splashes off and around certain props and objects, adding a great deal of dimension to many of the shots. But it does look quite obvious, once you pay attention to it, especially when you can see multiple shadows coming from a single character. All that said, the lighting is still pretty masterful and I'm very intrigued to properly analyse it. The first shot of the scene has extremely beautiful (even though it is obvious 😉 ) lighting. As the cowboy stands in the hallway you can tell that there is a strong key light coming from the left of the frame, that will light his face once he steps out of the shadows. It seems like there is another light, maybe coming from high up near the roof, lighting the right hand side of the frame, near the back of the hallway. Most likely facing towards the character to light him from his right hand side, to seperate him from the background. The lighting setup of this shot is extremely beautiful the way it enhances the various pieces of wood and props within the frame, and how they've managed to keep the cowboy drenched in shadows as he sneaks around, even though there is quite a lot of light within the frame. It looks like they may have used a cutter to achieve that effect as its a very specific area, essentially just the top half of the cowboy thats drenched ins shadow. Theres also this curious black circular shadow which exists at the very top of the door near the cowboys head which permanently stays extremely dark, much darker than the rest of the shadows in the frame. I wonder how they achieved this effect? Maybe a... What lighting effect does the author seem most confused by? Pick the correct answer from the following options: - not enough information - the various pieces of wood and props in the frame - the black circular shadow - the shadow on the cowboy
the black circular shadow