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Arsène Lupin III is a formidable thief capable of cracking all the safes in the world. A fictional character introduced by the mangaka (Japanese for “comicbook artist”) Kazuhiko Kato, better known as Monkey Punch, in the 10 August 1967 issue of Weekly Manga Action, Lupin is supposed to be the grandson of another fictional character, Arsène Lupin, a French gentleman thief and detective created by Maurice Leblanc, the best-selling early Twentieth Century pulp fiction author. As the world’s number one thief, in addition to safes Lupin is also a master at disarming traps and alarms. His journeys have proved him quite a talented driver and pilot as well, and he is an expert shot – with a pistol, no less.

For all his abilities, however, Lupin has a doltish, even idiotic look. Yet they belie his ferocious reasoning abilities and social charms; Lupin is able to get past folks with about the same ease as when negotiating safes, particularly booby-trapped ones.

When not practicing his art – he seems to steal more for the challenge than for any personal gain, frequently discarding treasures or not caring if he should lose them after first conquering the quest of acquiring them – Lupin enjoys fishing, gambling, and dating beautiful women – not necessarily in that order!

Giving rigor to the dubious proverb about honor among thieves, Lupin will frequently foil other criminals who are engaged in activities of a violent, murderous nature. Actually, most of his adventures involve not only the police, epitomized by his nemesis Inspector Zenigata, but really sinister characters of deep malice.

Immensely popular and voted amongst the Ten Most Iconic Anime Heroes, Arsène Lupin III has been ubiquitous in three television series, five feature films, nearly two dozen television specials, and several original video animations and videogames.

Marriage counseling has arguably become a rite of passage for modern American couples. Social conservatives lament such facts are proof that the social fabric has frayed considerably while others view such developments as a positive sign that everybody is owning up to reality at last.

Whatever the case, marriage counseling has certainly been a growth industry, though whether these kinds of trends will hold in such recessionary times remains to be seen. What is expected, nonetheless, is that the need for such services will only increase – particularly in recessionary times. For what most drives couples apart is not sex or the children but money.

Marriage counseling often reveals that the main issue eating away at a relationship is one of control, or who has how much say over what. This is why it’s essential to choose spouses with really similar values! But whatever the situation, the first thing to establish is clear and open lines of communication. Understanding is fundamental, and without good communications it is very unlikely for anything to be accomplished.

Interestingly, the decision to go into therapy or counseling often seems shameful but is really a good sign, a sign that the couple in question is still willing to try to work things out somehow. The very agreement, however reluctant, to enter into a possible make-up instead of heading straight into breakup shows that honest communication is desired, at least minimally.

Depending on the situation, things may be so bad that the counselor or therapist has to meet each party separately, but the fact that any attempt is being made at all at a reconciliation is hopeful. However, while reconciliation may be desired, it does not follow that breaking up, despite counseling, means failure. In cases of intractable differences, going separate ways might actually represent the best possible option for all concerned.

Dallas Cowboys merchandise are among the best-selling in any sport, but especially well-known among football fans, even those whose first-choice favorite may just be another team. That’s because the Cowboys are one of the most successful and storied outfits in all of football history, and it is memories of this kind that are evoked by all the varied forms of Dallas Cowboys merchandise available on the market, from clocks and towels to clocks and even license plates!

Perhaps the most common form of Dallas Cowboys merchandise to be found on fans and collectors are team jerseys, particularly those bearing the specific roster number of their favorite player. After that, however, must surely be those products bearing pictures, photographs or illustrations, of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders! No other team in American sports fields a cheerleading squad that is a veritable franchise in itself. It was purposely created to capitalize on female sexuality and boost in-game attendance, and its genius was to offer an “All-American” look and feel that played well not only nationally but around the world as well. For many foreigners, a real American girl was someone like a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, fun and fit. In the United States, their popularity lead to two made-for-TV movies about the squad along with other media like annual swimsuit calendars.

Oh, yes, and as for the team itself – it was the first modern-era expansion team, and can boast of many distinctive achievements as a business entity. But of course, no one buys team merchandise on the basis of business innovations, and even the venerable cheerleaders would be just another squad were it not for the club’s standout performances on the field. Founded in 1960, just a decade later the team grew to a serious national contender, and by the end of that decade was the undisputed “glamor team” of the entire sport, with a cheerleading squad that epitomized what an American girl should be like and winning players and coaches who embodied American can-do.

It is tough buying educational toys because, well, how would you actually measure whether something is educational, especially when it involves very young children even toddlers? Actually, numerous child psychologists believe that just about anything is “educational” for a child, particularly at really young ages when almost by definition anything they come into contact with teaches them something about the world, about which they know virtually nothing!

When you do not know a lot to begin with, everything is educational, isn’t it? And so the world is full of educational toys as a result, as any object may be played with and, in the very playing with, help to develop the motor skills and cognitive abilities which toymakers claim their products foster in a child.

And yet clearly there are toys that do seem to somehow provide a lot more than entertainment value, such as programmable robot kits. So perhaps a better way to think about educational toys is to not regard them as being absolutely educational or not, in which case it is arguable that a plaything could be made of almost anything and that play itself is an inherently educational activity.

The misunderstandings, as ever (according to most semanticists, anyway), concerns semantics, or meaning. If we mean by the term not merely something that can be played with such that skillsets of some kind are fostered, but instead those toys which are obviously much more capable of fostering a skillset, particularly one that is not readily developed otherwise, then shopping becomes substantially easier!

Thus, it will turn out that puzzles like a Rubik’s Cube are very educational while alphabet blocks are much less so. And as parents, we want to encourage our kids to not only explore but push their intellectual envelope, so while good old-fashioned dolls and the like might stimulate the imagination, a lot more ingenious toys can also stimulate such higher-order faculties as pattern recognition and problem solving.

It all started when I was swimming pool resurfacing just last week. I typically see her only in her bikini, which is quite an eyeful all right, but this time she wasn’t wearing one.

No, despite the hot summer sun she was all dressed up in a business suit. But her buxom bosom couldn’t hide itself, all the same, and her generous shapely hips filled up every centimeter of her mini-skirt.

I looked up from swimming pool resurfacing, of course, and greeted her the way I usually do, politely, professionally.

“I like that pink skirt you’re wearing.”

I answered that they were shorts, fashionably baggy and made out purposely to look like skirts.

“They look wonderful on you, honey.”

Now usually I’d assume she was being polite, but for some reason I suspected – hoped – that this being my last day on the job before school starts, which meant that there was a subtext to our conversation now.

“I’ve never ever seen you like this, Mrs. Fugon. You look wonderful!”

“I’m glad you think so. I sort of wore it just for you.”

And there I was, in the middle of swimming pool resurfacing when she and I somehow found ourselves kissing and fondling one another. I told her how lovely she was and she said the same of me. We spoke of our shared secret yearning all the days of this long summer now so suddenly short seeing how I was heading off back to college across the country and we lastly decided to confess to one another.

“There’s always the weekends, Amy. Not to mention the holidays.”

I began to protest that there would by no means be enough time for me to spend time with her – all the usual sentimentality that comes with being so young, I now understand scarcely a week later, but she hushed me with a kiss and told me never to say never.

“And do not call me Mrs. Fugon; you know it’s Claudia.”

Regrettably, it didn’t quite come to pass that way. I blame youthful exuberance for embarassing her, though she was very gracious in demurring.

Well a girl can still dream!

Plastic water tanks are a far cry from the armored behemoths also called tanks, but they do share a curious historical connection. Yes, that’s correct, modern plastics were invented after World War II, while tanks first made their debut in the waning years of the Great War, but there’s something of a relationship.

While not plastic water tanks, military tanks were first so named by their British creators in an effort to disguise their research and development. It was hoped that by classifying these inventions basically as “tanks” on paper, any German spies who might have gotten a hold of the secret documents that referred to them could perhaps be mislead. As it turned out, the label stuck and tanks have been known as just that ever since.

In English, anyway. In German, and many other languages, they’re known as only “armor,” a more appropriate term that’s a recognized synonym in the English-speaking world, particularly among military circles. A far cry from today’s plastic water tanks indeed, but the thought is never far away in the minds of military history buffs.

The connection is a little more than simply etymological, really, as the earliest designs did resemble nothing more than basic water tanks to those who had the security clearance to see them. Tanks have dominated the battlefield for over sixty years, and even nowadays they form the core of most conventional land warfare tactics.

The appearance of attack helicopters and guided missiles have greatly diminished their striking power, as well as the asymmetrical warfare prevalent in conflicts these days render them ill-suited for most missions, but nothing on the horizon can match the tank in its useful combination of firepower, maneuverability, and defensive capacity. Though less used, the tank still figures eminently in offensive tactics and grand strategy and should find a role for itself in the decades yet to come.

As popular as the team is, it is an open question whether Dallas Cowboys merchandise would have been as popular as they are without the equally popular Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. These ladies are not just any ol’ football cheerleading squad members, but make up a veritable franchise in themselves.

No less than two made-for-TV movies have appeared about them, not to mention any number of Dallas Cowboys merchandise bearing their likeness somewhere on the product! For when you think of Texas football, you think the Cowboys – and when you think Cowboys, you think of their cheerleaders.

For sure the die-hard fan may prefer his Dallas Cowboys flag “straight-up” but many others who usually are not so hard-core would probably welcome a shot of the cheerleaders illustrating their fan merchandise! No other collection of young ladies so epitomize the American woman: young, fun, and fit; spirited; glamorous; intelligent.

Yes, regardless of the voyeurism involved these beauties know how to comport themselves and market themselves. Team try-outs obviously focus on athleticism and physical beauty but as spokesmodels for the team a good amount of social savvy and hence intelligence is needed, too.

The only other set of girls that have left such a deep impression on popular culture worldwide would have to be Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Bunnies. Interestingly, the Cowboys’ cheerleading squad actually started out mixed, with both males and females, as was high school and collegiate football tradition.

And indeed, it was local high school students that in fact made up the squad back in the 1960s. In 1969, however a deliberate attempt was made to increase in-game attendance by offering only female cheerleaders whose routines were unlike those prevalent at school games. By 1972, all cheerleaders were over the age of eighteen as their moves became increasingly more like sexy dance routines.

New York is one tough town. And it prides itself on its cut-throat lifestyle, even while the number of charities blossom as nowhere else. The serial success story that is Zalman Silber is an example of the businessman-turned-philanthropist. But isn’t it ironic that a place which worships material success gained by one’s teeth and nails, as it were, should find itself so concerned about appearing charitable, too? As if the rich are secretly ashamed of their fortunes – as if Balzac was right, that “behind every great fortune lies a great crime,” or as if Jesus was correct, that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle….”

As if, to be blunt about it, the rich give in order to assuage their guilt.

What is it about this world that should so often find the elevated so close to the base? One can observe dichotomies existing side-by-side, many times in peace and, even, complete ignorance of one another, even in New York, even in the 21st Century.

And one wonders if such philanthropy, targeted towards one’s own community, set up to benefit one’s own interests, are perfectly true acts of charity or just another way in which the ego manages to further inflate itself.

Such issues, of course, likely do not concern those like Zalman Silber, who give freely as they please and couldn’t care less about such quibbles. Indeed, it is safe to say that for those who do have the funds to give, giving is a pleasure in itself – akin to any other form of spending money.

Now that’s not as cynical as it may sound at first. For spending money is a form of experiencing one’s own power, one’s own ability to produce satisfaction and pleasure. It may well lead to egotism, and it often does, to be sure – but at its root is a simple human joy at being able to affect one’s surroundings, one’s world. It is the same joy that accompanies a child who can crawl, then walk, then run, then ride a bicycle, then drive a car, then pilot a boat or helicopter or airplane. The proper spending of money can be life-enhancing in a very deep way, far more so than the mere accumulation of creature comforts. The proper spending of money – as in charitable donations – allows one to give of oneself, in a sense, a very important sense. For money is power, and in cases of honest work to give money is to have given of one’s time and one’s very life – the time spent earning the money, the life devoted to productive work.

And such is, as the humanist Erich Fromm had noted in his many works on human psychology and human society, the most demeaning aspect of poverty, that one cannot give of oneself. For it is not he who has much, but he who gives much, that is rich – and yet, to give requires one to first have! And it is the misfortune of the poor that they can hardly provide for themselves, never mind share with others – though, strangely enough, survey after survey has found that the less money one has, the greater a percentage of one’s income tends to be given away in charity. It is as if the poor know something which escapes the rich. It is as if the New York of lights and smiles is unaware of something so basic that it can only be known to those whose lives involve the basics and no luxuries.

From the time of its invention, the water cooler – and subsequently,delivery for office water – has been a long-lasting fixture in the modern office environment. Rather than a water fountain – which itself has its own cultural associations and connotations, even as a symbol of the American civil rights movement, another story for another time – many offices like the use of a free-standing water cooler fitted with the promptly recognizable five gallon tanks mounted to the top. Actually, this is what presents office water delivery its label, in that these five gallon jugs are actually delivered by truck to the office, usually all the time and usually in exchange for the empty jugs left from the previous month.

The preference for water for the office delivery and these free-standing units is normally one of function over form. Through there are the usual logistical aggrevations of having to actually manipulate the heavy, five gallon jugs received by office water delivery, the characteristics of the unit itself more than make up for it. Whereas a water fountain generally only offers cooled water out of a single spout, water coolers usually have a number of spouts, usually two or three. Obviously there is the basic spout, which when managed with a simple lever delivers cold water, but it is not unusual to find models with spouts for room temperature water, or even extremely hot, almost boiling water – perfect for use in making tea or instant coffee.

Aside from functionality, sanitation is a common reason for preference of office water delivery over locally available tap water by means of a water fountain. The reasonably sizable, free-standing units are often laden with various water purification technologies which, in addition to the large jugs of water which are already sanitized and purified at their bottling plants, make for the purest water available. Commonly office water coolers use some form of activated carbon filtering, which uses specially treated charcoal to filter larger impurities (salts, dissolved inorganic compounds, etc) out of the water.

In recent years, it has also been frequent for these units to be fitted with some kind of ultraviolent light treatment, which usually gets rid of what might be left over after charcoal filtering: dissolved organic compounds, bacteria, and so on.

Though unbelievably simple in design and purpose, the insufferable banality of the modern day office cubical labyrinth has made the ubiquitous water cooler a sort of social hub at the office. So recognizable is this fact that colloquial terms like “water cooler show” have been coined off of it, in reference to the kind of trite dialogue about popular culture expected amongst employees gathering around the unit. Even the phrase “word around the water cooler” in reference to rumors or gossip has entered the cultural lexicon. Interesting that such an oddly routine things as office water delivery could be, in a way, accountable for such widely identifiable cultural phenomena.

Storage CD media, it its most constrained, basic sense, is any medium through which data or information could be stored for subsequent access. This may range from around the printed page, to computers, to the human brain. For thousands of years, blank media was – while mixed – limited by techniques that involved physically marking an object (the storage medium itself) with information that could eventually be read by the human eye and refined from the brain.

These listed everything from scriptures hand written with paper and ink, to hieroglyphics carved into stone. However, within the last several decades, improvements in technology have opened a whole new path that has revolutionized the way humans record and maintain information: electronic storage media.

Many people are acquainted with electronic storage media in the varieties of optical discs, including CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray cds, all of which can store music, video, or practically any kind of data in any format that can be accessed using a computer. Optical storage media functions by recording data onto the surface of a disc, which stores information by encoding it in a binary file format in the form of “lands” along with “pits” – much like the crests and troughs of an ocean wave, respectively.

These nearly microscopic grooves represent data as binary code where lands equal a 1 and pits a 0, which is then read by reflecting a laserlight off the surface of the disc. The reflection of the laser is distorted by the set up of lands and pits – 1s and 0s – and these distortions are then read and construed as unique data. As the discs on their own might be a relatively fragile storage media, the amount of data they can store is immense. A regular CD can hold about 700mb of data, which if entirely dedicated to text data can store the same as thousands upon thousands of written pages.

Whilst written storage media containing this level of text data may weigh several pounds and be so physically cumbersome as to make transporting the data somewhat difficult, a CD weighing only a few grams can contain many books worth of text. What’s more is that while on paper, more data calls for more storage space, therefore increasing the physical weight and size of the medium, optical data weighs literally nothing so that a CD stuffed with data weighs a maximum of a CD with nothing on it.

And whilst making duplicate copies of this much written data would take dozens and dozens of man hours to manually replicate having a pen and paper, a duplicate CD could be copied and recorded within a couple of minutes. The downside is that, while paper storage media may be heavy and cumbersome, it requires nothing more to interpret than the human eye. Optical storage media, on the other hand, requires other equipment to interpret the data for the user, which by itself can be physically cumbersome and vulnerable to damage.