Fighting Only Gets You Somewhere


Book Description

Everyone has a battle in life that they've had to face. For me, well, it wasn't something that a typical teenage girl had to deal with. No, it wasn't a lifelong disease or some crippling addiction I was trying to beat either. But, in a way, I guess you could say it was. My battle only got harder and 10 times more complicated when I met a Nixon. Then it got even worse when I met the rest of the Nixon clan. While I wouldn't say that my life was normal before I met William Nixon, I was actually trying to make it that way. I was trying to distance myself from what I'd wrapped my whole life around. But one mistake - one stupid decision to go back to the warehouse - undid two years' worth of hard work. Now I was back to where I started - addicted, bloodied, crippled, and diseased. Only, I wasn't really. That would mean I was home and in reality I was the furthest thing from it. If I were home that would mean most things would be back to the way they were. But they weren't. They couldn't be. There was only one thing that always seemed to stay the same. The place I could never escape. The place that drew me back time and time again. The warehouse. All I can say though is fighting only gets you somewhere. And I learned that the hard way.




Casablanca: Declassified


Book Description

Casablanca in the 1950s was a hotbed of secrets and intelligence gathering between the old world and the new. The hot war for the independence of Morocco and the Cold War between the United States and Russia were simultaneously being fought. The French were battling the Moroccan United Liberation Front, who sought independence from France. The United States had a nuclear-weapons presence in Morocco as a deterrent to the Soviet Union's aspirations during the Cold War. Set in the hypnotic vistas of North Africa and Europe, Casablanca: Declassified puts a human face on this confluence of powers and cultures, as it follows the exploits of individual American (CIA), French, Moroccan, and Soviet intelligence personnel (KGB), each jostling to get the upper hand in the high-stake games of diplomacy, international intrigue, suspense, spying, and romance. While two American airmen maintain complex nuclear weapons just below the surface, a Soviet spy network devises an ingenious way to infiltrate their base and gather intelligence on American nuclear capabilities. Meanwhile, the French attaché knows his nation's imperial days in Morocco are numbered, but along with his American CIA friend continues to use their charm in pursuit of an American jazz singer. Smoked-filled nightclubs, colorful Berber tribesman riding camels in the desert, unspoiled Casablanca beaches, postwar Italy and Germany, bar brawls in Gibraltar, Spanish bullfights, and airplane dogfights in the skies are just some of the dynamic landscapes of Casablanca: Declassified. Together, they offer a rare glimpse into the special and secret character of time and place that has been all but forgotten, yet whose legacy continues to reverberate to this day. For more great reads go to: www.drglennmcosh.com "An easy, enjoyable read which proves that times have not changed too much in the world of national conflicts and spying." -Emilia McCusker, Former Air Force Intelligence




It's A Mind Game Life


Book Description

Growing up, all we had to do was our chores and do good in school, and half of us couldn't do that. Our parents kept things from us because it wasn't for us. Later on in my life, as we became teens, our parents shared current events. One day, my dad said he was going to write a book; this book was called It's a Mind Game: the Man within the Man by Sampson Brown Jr. I connected and started reading it, and before I knew it, I was relating to some parts of the book that was inspired by the power of positive thinking and the million-dollar secret hiding in your mind books. My book will teach you how to recognize and live the mind game if you want to see goodness. They need to make the change from negative to positive, and you don't have to change the government, just yourself. I dedicate this book to my children, grands, family, and friends.




This Is the Day


Book Description

ECPA BESTSELLER • The New York Times best-selling sports star and media icon motivates readers to stop postponing dreams and start making them happen now because—this is the day. Beyond Tim Tebow's exploits as a Heisman-winning football player, he is widely known and respected for his exemplary character and personal excellence, which have made him a role model for millions. When Tim interacts with the public, he often encounters people who feel “stuck”—unable to take action on matters ranging from daily life to pursuing lifelong dreams. In response, Tim often identifies a crippling fear or lack of courage, to which he advises: “now is the time to take some risks, to quiet the voices of defeat, to step forward and make a mark, because this is the day.” In this inspiring, motivational book, readers will receive the advice and encouragement to daily move from “pause” to “play” in finding deeper meaning and success. Tim illustrates the book's themes with stories from his personal life that will delight all readers, including his an update on his dream pursuit of a baseball career.




Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game


Book Description

Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game is the first scholarly book to focus exclusively on the long-running Ultima series of computer role-playing games (RPG) and to assess its lasting impact on the RPG genre and video game industry. Through archival and popular media sources, examinations of fan communities, and the game itself, this book historicizes the games and their authors. By attending to the salient moments and sites of game creation throughout the series’ storied past, authors Carly A. Kocurek and Matthew Thomas Payne detail the creative choices and structural forces that brought Ultima’s celebrated brand of role-playing to fruition. This book first considers the contributions of series founder and lead designer, Richard Garriott, examining how his fame and notoriety as a pioneering computer game auteur shaped Ultima’s reception and paved the way for the evolution of the series. Next, the authors retrace the steps that Garriott took in fusing analog, tabletop role-playing with his self-taught lessons in computer programming. Close textual analyses of Ultima I outline how its gameplay elements offered a foundational framework for subsequent innovations in design and storytelling. Moving beyond the game itself, the authors assess how marketing materials and physical collectibles amplified its immersive hold and how the series’ legions of fans have preserved the series. Game designers, long-time gamers, and fans will enjoy digging into the games’ production history and mechanics while media studies and game scholars will find Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game a useful extension of inquiry into authorship, media history, and the role of fantasy in computer game design.




Cold


Book Description

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER A tragic plane crash that leaves two women stranded and fighting for their lives kicks off this sweeping and hilarious novel from award-winning writer Drew Hayden Taylor that blends thriller, murder mystery, and horror with humour and spectacle. Elmore Trent is a professor of Indigenous studies who finds himself entangled in an affair that's ruining his marriage; Paul North plays in the IHL (Indigenous Hockey League), struggling to keep up with the game that's passing him by; Detective Ruby Birch is chasing a string of gruesome murders, with clues that conspicuously lead her to both Elmore and Paul. And then there's Fabiola Halan, former journalist-turned-author and famed survivor of a plane crash that sparked a nationwide tour promoting her book. What starts off as a series of subtle connections between isolated characters quickly takes a menacing turn, as it becomes increasingly clear that someone—or something—is hunting them all. Taking tropes from the murder mystery, police procedural, thriller, and horror genres, Drew Hayden Taylor weaves a pulse-pounding and propulsive narrative with an intricate cast of characters, while never losing the ability to make you laugh.




The Stuff Games Are Made Of


Book Description

A deep dive into practical game design through playful philosophy and philosophical play. What are video games made of? And what can that tell us about what they mean? In The Stuff Games Are Made Of, experimental game maker Pippin Barr explores the materials of video game design. Taking the reader on a deep dive into eight case studies of his own games, Barr illuminates the complex nature of video games and video game design, and the possibilities both offer for exploring ideas big and small. Through a variety of engaging and approachable examples, Barr shows how every single aspect of a game—whether it is code, graphics, interface, or even time itself—can be designed with and related to the player experience. Barr’s experimental approach, with its emphasis on highly specific elements of games, will leave readers armed with intriguing design philosophy, conceptual rigor, and diverse insights into the inner life of video games. Upon finishing this book, readers will be ready to think deeply about the nature of games, to dive into expressive and experimental game design themselves, or simply to play with a new and expanded mindset.




Nothingness and Somethingness


Book Description

How could an ignorant, insane, inane, incapable creature talk about spiritual, immaterial, nonphysical sign that requires highly rational, intellectual, celestial, transcendental energy, which prerequisites delicate extramentality impressions beyond mundane entity? We have killed humanity in the name of humanity, it is to the end of its last breath, and it is useless to attempt to save it. The question in debate is much more serious, complicated, and also obvious than we have realized. It is not just the question of who, or what we are, but how we have come into this world, and how we have lived without given it real earnest thought. How do we present, draw, or paint a colorless, weightless, countless, faceless, and faultless space? There are always emptiness, void, cavity, darkness, ignorance in the air, clear sky craving for life, and crying for help. Space the only unique element, is everywhere, covering everything indiscriminately offering freedom, and democracy only to enslave all for its purpose to show its true face, feature, and fable. The exact example of perfect nothingness is where, nothing can be found, nor a being exits, but in form of ignorance within emptiness of self. Everything is continuation of nothingness extended everywhere forever, it is the beginning, and the end of all things considered. If intelligence does not learn what nothingness is, it never reaches to other end to see somethingness.




Toby Wheeler: Eighth-Grade Benchwarmer


Book Description

TOBY WHEELER LOVES basketball and playing pickup games at the local rec center. No coaches, no practices, just nonstop action with his best friend, JJ, at his side. But lately JJ's been acting like he's too busy for Toby, and Toby knows it will only get worse once basketball season begins at their junior high. That's because JJ is the star of their school team, while Toby is just an ordinary gym rat.When Coach Applewhite offers Toby a chance to join the team, Toby's eager to prove he can keep up with JJ. But then the coach announces the lineup, and Toby's hopes of playing ball with JJ are history: he's an eighthgrade benchwarmer! Befriending the coach's daughter only makes matters worse. Now the only way Toby will get in the game is if he starts thinking like a team player, on and off the court.




One Percent


Book Description

"One percent" is a story about a young woman's life where she travels to the depths of her inner most personal experiences that shaped and defined the broken woman she was and showed how she gained restoration. The first of her battles began with her birth to two drug addicted/alcoholic parents where she was given days to live that led to a lifelong search for acceptance and love.