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= = = Legend of Sealed Book = = = |
Legend of Sealed Book () is a Chinese animated feature film produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio. It is also referred to as Book Which Came from the Sky, Tales about the Heavenly Book and Secrets of the Heavenly Book. |
The film was produced with rigorous dubbing, fluid combination of music and vivid animations. The story is based on the classic literary work "Ping Yao Zhuan" (平妖传, "The Suppression of the Demons") authored by Feng Menglong. |
Yuangong, the deacon, opens the shrine and exposes the holy book to the human world. He also carves the contents of the book on the stone wall of white cloud cave in the mountains. He is then punished by the Jade Emperor to guard the book for life for breaking heaven's law and betraying the holy secret to humankind. In order to pass this holy book to human beings, he must get by the antagonist fox. |
The movie was republished on two disc DVDs. The first disk contains the movie, the second contain other work from the director Wang Shuchen. |
= = = Robin Scherbatsky = = = |
Robin Charles Scherbatsky Jr. is a fictional character created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for the CBS television series "How I Met Your Mother", portrayed by actress Cobie Smulders. Robin is the on-again, off-again love interest of Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) and Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), and a close friend to Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel). |
Show creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas always intended for Robin Scherbatsky not to be the mother of Ted Mosby's children, stating that the show is about how "Ted meets the perfect woman, and it’s [still] not his final love story." In various interviews, Bays and Thomas said that "a pretty famous actress" turned down the role of Robin; they revealed in February 2014 that Jennifer Love Hewitt had turned down the part. They then cast Cobie Smulders, an unknown. Bays and Thomas later said: "Thank God we did for a million reasons... when Ted’s seeing her for the first time, America’s seeing her for the first time — the intriguingness of that propelled the show going forward and kept the show alive." |
Robin Charles Scherbatsky Jr. was born on 23 July 1980 to a Canadian father, Robin Charles Scherbatsky Sr. (Ray Wise), and an English mother, Genevieve Scherbatsky (Tracey Ullman), in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has a teenage sister named Katie (Lucy Hale). She has a difficult relationship with her father, who raised her as if she were a boy. |
Robin had a minor career as a bubblegum pop singer under the stage name of Robin Sparkles, with one hit single, "Let's Go to the Mall." After an accompanying music video and the ensuing year-long mall tour, she developed a serious aversion to shopping malls that lasted for years. Robin followed "Let's Go to the Mall" with the "artistic follow-up" "Sandcastles in the Sand", which tanked. |
As Robin Sparkles, she also appeared on the Canadian educational children's show "Space Teens" with Alan Thicke and Jessica Glitter (Nicole Scherzinger), about two teen girls traveling through space in a curling stone–shaped spaceship who "solve mysteries using math". The aforementioned show was heavy with unintentional sexual innuendo, such as the song "Two Beavers Are Better Than One". Robin attempted to shift from teen pop to grunge by adopting a new stage name, "Robin Daggers", and penning a track entitled "P.S. I Love You", a dark, angry love song about her infatuation with Paul Shaffer (in an episode parodying Alanis Morissette and her single "You Oughta Know") Robin performed the song at the 84th Grey Cup, effectively ending her career in music. As an adult, Robin is embarrassed by her teenage stardom. |
After moving to New York City in April 2005, Robin became a news anchor for a New York cable news channel, Metro News 1, and later became a host of her own early-morning talk show. |
Robin lives in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. In September 2005 she meets Ted Mosby, the show's main character, and they are immediately attracted to each other. They go on a date in which Ted steals a blue French Horn for her, but Ted spoils his chances with her by impulsively saying he is in love with her. They resolve to be friends, but their relationship is complicated by lingering romantic feelings. Robin is reluctant to date Ted because he wants to get married and settle down, but they become a couple anyway at the end of season one. They break up at the end of season two after realizing that they want different things. While it is difficult at first to remain in each other's lives, they eventually become close, trusted friends. At the end of the fifth season, she moves back in to Ted's apartment after her boyfriend Don (Benjamin Koldyke) breaks up with her and moves to Chicago. |
Although she is a reporter for "fluff news pieces" at the end of news segments at the time of first meeting Ted, over the series she works her way up to be lead news anchor at Metro News 1. She briefly takes a prominent anchoring position in Japan, only to return to New York and, with help from Barney, host her own talk show. |
Robin is also an avid gun enthusiast, shown in multiple episodes brandishing a Desert Eagle, as well as having a subscription to "Guns & Ammo". |
She has dual citizenship in Canada and the United States. |
When an old boyfriend humiliates her, Barney comforts her, and they have sex. This initially causes friction between her and Ted, but he ultimately accepts it. Barney and Robin have what they believe is a no-strings-attached sexual relationship for a few months, but they become an official couple after some aggressive prodding from Lily. They soon realize that they don't work as a couple, however, and break up. They remain friends, but it is implied Robin never truly lets Barney go. Despite spending most of "Challenge Accepted" plotting with Barney to find a way to prevent Ted from pursuing a meaningless relationship and rekindling her relationship with him in the process, she also pressures Barney into approaching Nora (Nazanin Boniadi), a woman he likes. However, when Barney asks Nora for a cup of coffee, Robin realizes she may still have feelings for him. |
In the season 7 premiere episode "The Best Man", Lily confronts Robin about her feelings for Barney, and advises her to tell him. She is about to do so when Barney pulls her onto the dance floor at a wedding. Whatever tension there is between them is broken when Barney receives a call from Nora. Barney isn't sure what to say to Nora and asks for Robin's help; Robin feeds Barney the words that she had intended to say to him, which he uses to convince Nora to meet him again. In "The Stinson Missile Crisis", Robin assaults a woman setting out to destroy Barney's relationship with Nora and is sent to court-mandated therapy with a therapist named Kevin (Kal Penn). They start dating shortly after. Their relationship is tested when Robin cheats on him with Barney, and she decides to break up with Kevin. She changes her mind when Kevin tells her how much he cares for her, and they stay together. After Kevin proposes to her, Robin thinks she is ready to settle down, but he ultimately takes back his proposal when she says that she is unable and unwilling to have children. |
In the seventh season, Robin discovers that she is unable to have children. Although she had always believed she did not want to have children, she is devastated by the knowledge that she no longer has the option. She lies to the gang about why she is depressed, saying that she has just found out she can't be an Olympic pole-vaulter. Ted senses that something more serious is going on, however, and surprises her by putting up Christmas decorations in her apartment and comforting her as she cries. |
In the episode "Tailgate", Robin is put in charge of a New Year's Countdown show on her news station. The host, Sandy Rivers (Alexis Denisof), gets drunk live on the show and Robin is forced to replace him. Just before midnight, she says, "When that ball drops, we all get a fresh start, and, I don't know about you, but I could really use one." In the season finale, it is revealed that she will be the bride at Barney's wedding. |
Her romantic feelings for Barney resurface in the eighth season when he begins dating Patrice (Ellen D. Williams), a cheerful coworker for whom she has an irrational hatred. When Barney announces that he is going to propose to Patrice, Robin is heartbroken. However, in "The Final Page", Barney reveals that his courtship with Patrice was an elaborate ruse designed to get Robin back; he then proposes. Robin accepts. |
The final season of the show depicts the 56 hours before her wedding to Barney. On her wedding day, she gets cold feet when she learns that Ted went to great lengths to find a locket she had buried years before; she takes it as a "sign from the universe" that she should be with Ted. Wanting her to be happy, Ted tells her that he no longer loves her in that way. She goes through with the wedding after Barney vows to always be honest with her. |
The series finale, "Last Forever", reveals that Robin and Barney divorced after three years because her hectic travel schedule prevents them from spending any time together. Robin leaves the group upon realizing that she can't bear to be around Barney, who has resumed his womanizing lifestyle, or Ted, who is now happily involved with Tracy McConnell (Cristin Milioti). She and the gang drift apart over the ensuing years, but she is there for Ted and Tracy's wedding, where she makes her peace with Barney, who has recently had a daughter and is pleased to see that fatherhood has made him a better man. |
By 2030, Robin is a very successful television news anchor and lives with her dogs in New York. The last scene of the show depicts Robin looking outside her window to see Ted, who is now a widower and wants another chance with her, holding out the blue French horn from their first date. She smiles at him with tears in her eyes. |
The Robin Sparkles song "Let's Go to the Mall" was included on the video game "Just Dance 3". |
= = = Fred L. Crawford = = = |
Fred Lewis Crawford (May 5, 1888 – April 13, 1957) was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan. |
Crawford was born in Dublin, Texas and attended local public schools. He went to business college at Peniel (now part of Greenville, Texas), and attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He engaged in accountancy at Des Moines, Iowa, and Detroit, Michigan, 1914-1917. He built, financed, and operated beet sugar mills in various sections of the United States, 1917-1935. He also engaged in manufacturing, ranching, and overland transportation. He was director of the Michigan National Bank and the Refiners Transport & Petroleum Corporation of Detroit at time of his death. |
In 1934, Crawford was elected as a Republican from Michigan's 8th congressional district to the United States House of Representatives, defeating incumbent Democrat Michael J. Hart. Crawford served in the 74th Congress and the eight succeeding Congresses, from January 3, 1935 to January 3, 1953. In 1952, he was defeated in the Republican primary election by Alvin M. Bentley, who went on to win the general election. |
As a member of the Committee on Insular Affairs, Crawford attended the inaugural ceremonies of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1935 and the Republic of the Philippines in 1946. His notebooks and other materials related to those events are archived at the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan . Crawford was the ranking minority member on the Committee on Public Lands in the 81st and 82nd Congresses (1950–1952). |
Crawford retired to his farm at Allentown in Prince George's County, Maryland. He died in Washington, D.C. and is interred in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Suitland, Maryland. |
= = = Diving at the 1948 Summer Olympics – Men's 3 metre springboard = = = |
The men's 3 metre springboard, also reported as "springboard diving", was one of four diving events on the diving at the 1948 Summer Olympics programme. |
The competition, held on Friday July 30 and on Tuesday August 3, was split into two sets of dives: |
Twenty-seven divers from 16 nations competed. Eddie Heron of Ireland competed in the preliminary round but withdrew along with the rest of the Irish Amateur Swimming Association squad in protest at FINA's refusal to allow swimmers from Northern Ireland to compete for the team. |
= = = Desert Orchid Chase = = = |
The Desert Orchid Chase is a Grade 2 National Hunt steeplechase in Great Britain which is open to horses aged four years or older. It is run at Kempton Park over a distance of about 2 miles (3,219 metres), and during its running there are twelve fences to be jumped. The race is scheduled to take place each year in late December during the course's Christmas Festival. |
The race was first run on 27 December 2006. It is named in memory of Desert Orchid, a popular racehorse who died several weeks earlier. Desert Orchid won Kempton's most prestigious event, the King George VI Chase, four times between 1986 and 1990. His ashes were scattered at the racecourse on the day of this race's inaugural running. The event has replaced the Castleford Chase in the National Hunt calendar as a Grade 2 chase over 2 miles. |
= = = 40th Group Army = = = |
The 40th Group Army was a military formation of the People's Liberation Army, active in various forms from 1949 to 2017. It was last located in the Shenyang Military Region and the Northern Theater Command. |
During the Korean War, the 40th Army was part of the People's Volunteer Army. It was composed of the 118th, 119th, and 120th Divisions. |
In the morning of Oct. 25, the 118th Division of the 40th Army ambushed the 3rd Infantry Battalion of ROK 6th Division, destroying the ROK unit as an organized force. |
The 40th Army attacked the 9th and 38th Infantries of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division about eighteen miles northeast of Kunu-ri along the Chongchon River. |
In May 1989, the 40th Army’s 118th Infantry Division and Artillery Brigade were deployed to Beijing to enforce martial law and suppress the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. |
According to reports, the 40th Army was disestablished in mid 2017. "China Defense Blogspot" said that its higher-readiness units with modern equipment were '..likely be merged with neighboring GAs. [T]he 118th Combined Arms 8x8 Light Mechanized Infantry Brigade will likely to be part of the 39th GA moving forward.. Others units such as 119th and 191st Motorized Infantry Brigades with their older TOE will probably be disbanded all together.' |
= = = Johnny Walker (DJ) = = = |
Johnny Walker (born as James Lewis Embrey in New Albany, Indiana; August 13, 1948 – March 1, 2004) was an American radio personality, best known as a disc jockey on WFBR, a Baltimore, Maryland AM radio station from 1974 to 1987. |
His radio name was taken from Johnnie Walker, a brand of whiskey, which supported his persona which has been described as "madcap" or "shock jock", which on occasion drew the ire of the Federal Communications Commission. For most of those years, his show was the top rated in the morning drive-time. For a time he owned a self-named club that was promoted on the radio station. He also briefly worked at WFBR with Robin Quivers. His first radio job was at WLRS-FM in Louisville at the recommendation of future radio personality/consulatant Steve Warren, his school classmate at New Albany High School. |
He helped Ira Glass, host of "This American Life", get his radio start as his joke-writer while Glass was in high school. While in high school, himself, Embrey was a standout local magician. |
Walker's early career included on-air positions at AM radio stations WMAK (1300 kHz) in Nashville and WDXB (1490 kHz) in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had previously worked at WPTR in Albany, New York under the pseudonym "Wild Child". |
He died in 2004 due to complications associated with lung cancer. |
= = = Fédération Ivoirienne du Scoutisme Féminin = = = |
The Fédération Ivoirienne du Scoutisme Féminin ("Ivory Coast Federation of Female Scouting") is the national Guiding organization of Côte d'Ivoire. It serves 1,900 members (as of 2008). Founded in 1937, the girls-only organization became a full member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1963. |
Members of the federation are: |
= = = Shorter Views = = = |
Shorter Views is a 2000 collection of essays on race, sexuality, science fiction, and the art of writing by author, professor, and critic Samuel R. Delany. |
= = = List of NATO reporting names for equipment = = = |
This is a list of NATO names for fire control radars and ELINT systems. For additional reporting names, see NATO reporting names. |
= = = British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes = = = |
The British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to fillies and mares aged three years or older. It is run over a distance of 1 mile 3 furlongs and 211 yards (2,406 metres) as part of British Champions Day at Ascot in October. |
The event was established in 1946 and was originally called the Princess Royal Stakes. It was named after the Princess Royal at that time, Princess Mary. For a period it took place in September, and it later moved to October. |
The current system of race grading was introduced in 1971, and the Princess Royal Stakes subsequently held Group 3 status. |
The race was run at Newmarket in 2000, after being called off at Ascot due to a security alert. It was switched to Ascot's late September fixture in 2004. It took place at Newmarket again in 2005, as its usual home was closed for redevelopment. It reverted to October in 2007. |
The event was promoted to Group 2 level, transferred to Newmarket and renamed the Pride Stakes in 2008. It was named after Pride, a recent winner of the Champion Stakes. From this point it was staged during the venue's Champions' Meeting in mid-October. The title "Princess Royal Stakes" was assigned to a different race at Ascot, an event previously called the Harvest Stakes. The Pride Stakes had a purse of £100,000 in 2010. |
The race returned to Ascot and was given its present name in 2011. Its prize fund was now £250,000. Part of the newly created British Champions Day, it became the final race in the fillies & mares division of the British Champions Series. |
The British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes was upgraded to Group 1 in 2013. Its total prize money was doubled to £500,000. The title Pride Stakes was given to a Listed race at Newmarket formerly known as the Severals Stakes. |
Most successful horse (2 wins): |
Leading jockey (8 wins): |
Leading trainer (9 wins): |
Leading owner (4 wins): |
= = = El Atazar Dam = = = |
El Atazar Dam is an arch dam built near Madrid, Spain on the Lozoya River, very close to where the Lozoya joins the Jarama. The curved design of the dam is optimum for the narrow gorge in which it was built to retain water in the reservoir. Arch dams are thin and require less material to construct than other dam types. |
When the dam was built, the decision was made to use the dam to store and regulate water only and not to provide energy. Construction started on the dam in 1968 and finished in 1972. |
The dam is 134 m (440 ft) high and 52.3 m (171.6 ft) wide at the foundation. The reservoir capacity is 424,000,000 m (344,000 acre feet). It is a double curvature concrete arch buttress design. |
Monitoring of the dam revealed abnormal movement. Although dams normally move, the left side of the El Atazar Dam was moving more than the right because a support built on the dam's right made that side less flexible. In 1977 a crack was noticed in the dam. By 1979 the crack had grown to 46 m (150 ft) in length and was repaired. Inspection in 1983 revealed that the settling in the foundations and the movements of the dam had caused fracturing in the rock, resulting in significantly increasing the foundation's permeability. The crack has been treated and since then the problems have abated. |
= = = Mayday discography = = = |