authenticguccishoes

ON a Wednesday: "Ma'am, your cab is here," I said to a woman who shook her rumpled mane, which had a barely connected hair clip dangling in the back.

"Where are your, um, friends?" asked another woman — dressed in a gold lamé minidress and bright white thigh-high boots — who was helping me get the woman out of the booth.

Ms. Mane pointed toward the restrooms. "Where are my car keys?" she asked.

"You can pick them up tomorrow," I said, knowing that technically you cannot deprive someone of her personal property — it's against the law — but chances were that she probably wasn't going to call the police, at least not tonight.

Ms. Lamé and I finally located the friend (and the friend's newest friend) by the bathroom. After allowing the friend to compose herself, including straightening out her hair and putting on some clothing she had sort of misplaced, we loaded the group into the cab and sent them on their way.

I then turned to Ms. Lamé.

"Thank you so much. That went a lot easier with your help."

She picked up her Pellegrino water. "No problem," she said blinking a very black eyelash nonchalantly.

9:50 p.m. that same Wednesday: "Hey!" I yelled, causing two heads to pop up from two women's midsections. Both women were lying on their backs on the bar booth table. "You guys can't do that in here!"

"Why not?" said one of the men, wiping a trail of drool from his face.

"Those ladies have had enough, and we don't allow body shots."

I was suddenly in a brief argument with the two women, exclaiming such phrases as, "No, you can't," "You aren't getting anything else to drink," "Yes, we have your car keys."

If it wasn't for the intervention of a woman in a gold lamé dress and white thigh-high boots, the conversation could have gone round and round for 10 minutes.

I looked at the clock; 10 minutes to closing. Thank goodness.

9:30 p.m. that same Wednesday: I glanced again at the lady in the white boots and gold mini-dress sitting at the bar. People don't often dress like that unless they are looking for attention. And often times that attention can be bad.

Meanwhile the two women sitting in the adjacent booth were starting to squeal louder and louder. Gone were the eyeglasses and most of their inhibitions. The two gentlemen who had been sitting at the bar abandoned their barstools and now, armed with several shots of tequila, moseyed on over.

9:15 p.m. that same Wednesday: "We are going to take that booth," said a woman with her brown hair held up neatly by a leather hair clip.

"Yes," said her blond friend, peering over her eyeglasses. "Please send our bottle of wine over."

Well, so much for our conversation, one that had encompassed the fact that both had advanced college degrees, both were in their 40s, unmarried and heavyweights in their respective fields. Too bad, I thought, it had been articulate and intelligent, whether it was about the wine or about the weather.

8:50 p.m. that same Wednesday: The three women sat at the bar almost simultaneously, but not together. One was wearing a skintight gold lamé dress and white thigh-high boots, and while her dark eye makeup made her appear slightly sinister the rest of her attire produced a different feeling altogether.

The other two — calmly self-confident and wearing designer jeans, carrying demure but pricey handbags, accessorized tastefully but not heavily, and with no wedding rings — were clearly self-made career types.

Subconsciously I made a choice. I helped the two women first, even though they all had sat down at the very same time. An expensive bottle of wine later and I turned to Ms. Lamé. I made a mental note; I'd better keep an eye out.

By the end of the evening, I had two thoughts:

. There's no such thing as "just another day" in the bar business.

. Over the years I have learned that the people who first look like they are going to be trouble usually aren't, and the people who don't usually are.

One of Ahwatukee's most anticipated day of events proved a success from sunrise to post-sunset.

The 16th annual Festival of Lights Wine & Beer Tasting Festival on Saturday drew nearly 1,000 guests clad in colorful sundresses and shirts to the Foothills Golf Club clubhouse and expansive lawn.

They noshed on area restaurant offerings and sampled more than 50 wines and beers, while keeping a close watch on coveted silent auction items such as the framed and autographed Steve Nash jersey with its starting bid of $700.

"I bid on several items but I don't think I'll win anything," said Connie Nelson-Askew, executive director of Ahwatukee Foothills Family Y, who was attending with her senior program director, Sandra Franks.

Looking about the crowded room and the outdoor deck, Nelson-Askew said she was thrilled with the enthusiastic involvement of residents.

"When I think of all the volunteers it takes to put this together - well, it's amazing," she said. "They always do an incredible job. What I really love about this, though, is how it brings the community together."

FOL Committee president Kristine Kemper signed her name as the opening $75 bid on a pair of fashionable Ed Hardy sunglasses valued at $250. Her bid was quickly exceeded, but she was too busy to return to the auction table.

"I think it's done as well as it's ever done," Kemper said of the fundraiser. "We never, ever get any complaints, but we get tons of compliments."

Throughout the evening, those who attended recalled the main reason they were there.

"I love the holiday lights every year; that's why I put my blood, sweat and tears into this," said Jackie Klecka, FOL committee vice-president and former University of Phoenix public relations specialist who is the Festival of Lights spokeswoman this year. "We had a successful Kick-Off (November) this year and now this, so it helps us breathe a little easier."

The morning's opener - the annual Charity Golf Tournament hosted by the FOL and the Kiwanis Club of Ahwatukee to benefit area charities and services - brought 56 players, a far cry from the days of 100 teams. Temperatures that started in the upper 70s at the 7:30 a.m. tee time had golfers seeking any sliver of shade by noon when it reached near 100 degrees.

"Seems the Arizona summer has finally arrived," quipped Jim Crouch, Charity Golf Tournament chairman, former FOL president and husband of the current FOL president.

Though San Tan's Ford F-150 pickup truck at the 16th hole beckoned, no player made the 162-yard hole-in-one necessary to win it.

"Once again the Ahwatukee community came together in support of the Festival of Lights and the Kiwanis Club of Ahwatukee with sponsorships and prizes that helped raise several thousand dollars," Crouch said. "That money will help the Festival of Lights continue the holiday-light display again this year, and help the Kiwanis Club fund several programs for kids in our community - two causes we care deeply about."

Library's Summer Reading T-shirts Have Become a Palatine Symbol

You see people wearing them in the supermarket, at the Y or at the summer festivals in Community Park. Children wear them, and so do their parents – those colorful T-shirts the Palatine Public Library awards to those who complete its summer reading program.

“I think it's a source of community pride and unity when you see people wearing the shirts,” Library Director Susan Strunk said.

“It shows they've participated in something in the community,” adds library Communications Manager Andrea Lublink, who designed this summer's T-shirt and the previous two.

The Palatine library began its summer reading program in 1989. T-shirts were given away for the first time in 1995; that year's design featured rainforest animals. The library decided that the prize should be something a person would use, not a tchotchke that might be tossed in a junk drawer, said Gayla Swansen, manager of the popular materials department, which administrates the summer reading program.

The Friends of the Library, which has been affiliated with the Palatine library for more than 60 years, agreed to pay for the T-shirts. “It's a great incentive,” said Friends President Ann Marquardt. The Friends raises money for the shirts through its used book sales.

The library has given away more than 4,000 T-shirts every summer since 1998 except for 2005, when the total was 3,818. The year with the highest participation was 2002, when 4,933 T-shirts were awarded. That summer's T-shirt had a patriotic design. Each summer, elementary school children receive the most shirts – an average of 2,723 since 1998 – but the number of T-shirts awarded to adults has risen from a few hundred in the program's early years to more than a thousand.

“Kids are so proud when they get their shirts,” Marquardt says. “And the adults, too.”

The program's theme changes every year, and so does the T-shirt's design. Summer reading shirts have been adorned with cowboys, superheroes, undersea creatures, movies reels, safari animals, tikis, haunted forests and rock 'n' roll guitars. “People look forward to whatever it is,” Lublink said.

This summer's theme is “A Midsummer Knight's Read” (for the last few years, the Palatine library has used the same summer reading theme as the Illinois Library Association). Lublink, who started at the library as a graphic artist, began working on the T-shirt design in March. “The theme really drives what graphic images I use,” she said.

This summer's navy blue T-shirt features a gold dragon sleeping upon a treasure trove of books. A knight and princess lurk in the background. Lublink knew from the start that she wanted a dragon on the shirt, but adds, “We didn't want a scary dragon.”

Registration for the summer reading program began Wednesday, June 1. The program concludes July 31. A Palatine library card is required to sign up.

This summer, for the first time, the library has taken the program online. “We're trying to make it as easy as possible for patrons to sign up and participate,” Swansen says. “We're excited about the online. We think it gives an opportunity for people who can't always come in.”

Instead of filling out a log sheet, participants will track their progress on the library's website. Another change this year is that the program will be based on the number of pages read (the goal varies by age group) rather than the number of books. Patrons can visit the popular materials desk behind the central staircase for assistance with signing up and maintaining their summer reading accounts. “We want to give that personal service,” Swansen says.

When participants reach the halfway point of their reading goal, they will receive coupons from the Buehler YMCA, Jason's Deli, Medieval Times, Photo's Hot Dogs, Spunky Dunkers and Sonic Drive-In. But the T-shirt that comes at the end remains the grand prize.

Many area libraries have summer reading programs, but only Palatine awards T-shirts. “It's something that sets us apart and makes us unique from any other community,” Strunk says. “It's part of our brand.”

The main reason other libraries don't give away T-shirts, Swansen says, is because they are expensive prizes. This summer's shirts will cost the Friends of the Library $3 apiece. “You have to have a Friends board that's really willing to fund them,” Swansen says.

If T-shirts are left over at summer's end, the library donates them to charities in developing countries. Strunk once received an e-mail from a patron who visited an orphanage in the Mexican state of Baja California and was surprised to see a group of children wearing Palatine library shirts. The patron took a picture of the children and sent it to Strunk.

Closer to home, the one place you are most likely to find people wearing previous years' T-shirts is the library itself. “We see them all summer long,” Swansen says.

FAIRBANKS — Alaska State Troopers gave 31 tickets — at $110 apiece — for violations of life jacket regulations Saturday on the Chena River.

Capt. Burke Waldron, in Anchorage, said Tuesday troopers picked a nice day to patrol a river popular with recreational boaters.

“There is no dedicated campaign going on,” he said. “There was a high level of traffic on the river.”

Waldron said the law requires boaters younger than 13 years old to wear a life jacket when in open-decked boats, including rafts and canoes. The law also requires a boat to have at least one flotation device for each person on board. Flotation cushions count for adults, he said.

Because of the cold water, Alaskans are generally better about wearing life jackets than people in other states, Waldron said.

“But especially in rural Alaska, we have some life-jacket issues,” he said. “A lot of people don't think that $49.95 raft they bought at Wal-Mart requires a life jacket.”

Troopers patrolling the Chena on Saturday also charged a boater with possession of marijuana. The same evening, a man drowned after he fell out of his canoe on Olnes Pond off the Elliott Highway, and troopers said alcohol was involved.

There also is a misconception that operating a non-motorized boat under the influence of drugs or alcohol is not a crime, Waldron said. Troopers plan to be out in greater numbers June 24-26 to crack down on boating under the influence of drugs or alcohol, he said.

There have now been two recreational boating deaths in Alaska this season, said Jeff Johnson with the Alaska Office of Boating Safety, the agency that provides life jackets for the Kids Don't Float kiosks. Like nine out of 10 such accidents in the state, both victims were adult men, he said.

“This is right along our regular fatality profile for the season,” he said “It's unfortunate, because it's very preventable.”

The most important way to avoid such deaths is to have life jackets on your boat, he said.

Recreational boating accidents have claimed 162 lives in the last 10 years, far more lives than commercial fishing accidents. People often are surprised to hear that recreational boating accidents occur as frequently in fresh water as in salt water, Johnson said.

In a filing made today with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, PSE&G has proposed to lower winter natural gas bills this fall by an additional 1.1 percent for residential customers. If the request is approved by the BPU, it will result in the seventh decrease in a row in natural gas supply charges, for a total savings of 32 percent since January 2009, when wholesale prices started to drop. The latest decrease would be on top of 16 percent decreases implemented in 2010.

In addition, a reduction in electric prices, approved previously by the BPU, takes effect today. As a result, a typical PSE&G residential electric customer's monthly summer bill will be reduced from $147.77 per month to $140.50 per month, a decrease of 4.9 percent. On an annual basis, that customer's electric bill will decrease by 3.5 percent.

Under the proposal to further reduce gas prices, a typical residential heating customer using 160 therms in a winter month, or 1,050 therms per year, would see a bill decrease of $13.56 on an annual basis. This customer's monthly winter bill would be $181.88, a decline of $2.06.  

The company has asked that the gas reduction take effect on October 1. If approved, the typical residential customer who receives both electric and gas from PSE&G will see a total annual bill savings of $62.72 or 2.4 percent.

PSE&G makes no profit on the sale of natural gas. The company passes along what it pays to customers.

To say L.A. Noire, developed by Team Bondi with support from Rockstar Games, has been a long time coming would be an understatement. Originally unveiled as a Sony-funded, PlayStation exclusive in 2004, this open-world crime drama has been peaking legions of Rockstar fans' curiosity for quite some time. The end result is by far Rockstar's greatest departure from Grand Theft Auto, yet still embraces their signature sandbox framework. L.A. Noire is, at its core, a linear, story-driven experience that uses the city of Los Angeles, and the player's freedom to explore it, to reenforce the ever-present narrative. This uncompromising focus restricts the playground mentality typically associated with open-world games, but the rich, engrossing atmosphere and grounded story it helps create are more than worth the sacrifice.

Set in the 'City of Angels,' post World War II, L.A. Noire places players in the shoes of Cole Phelps, a decorated war veteran who returns to civilization and decides to put his skills to work in law enforcement. Through impressive diligence and deduction, Cole makes a name for himself by working a series of high-profile cases. Rather quickly, the fame accumulated from police work and wartime service places Cole at the center of organized crime that reaches the highest levels of society.

As hinted at above, L.A. Noire is structured around solving a series of cases that have distinct tales to tell, but also frequently and subtlely develop the game's wider plot arch. Each case generally compromises a mixture of investigation, interviews, interrogations and action sequences. While these sections all possess unique mechanics, they are woven together in very seamless, natural and unexpected ways that generally prevent things from feeling too repetitive, although it does fall into that trap at times.Truly intriguing plot lines also help keep the player's attention on unraveling the mystery.

The first step in most cases involve canvasing the crime scene for clues. Ultimately, this amounts to little more than wondering the environments and picking objects up here and there - not exactly an inherently engaging task, although one very reminiscent of classic adventure and point-and-click games. However, L.A. Noire shrewdly streamlines the process by providing subtle and organic feedback while the players investigate. When the player approaches an interactive object a number of things can happen to signal its relevance: The controller will vibrate and the background music will swell briefly. The sound design here really shines and feels completely at home within the detective context.

After some clues have been found, persons of interest need to be interviewed. Once a question has been asked, the player will need to determine whether they think the person's response is credible, suspicious or outright false. This can be done by reviewing the evidence collected or by reading body language and facial expressions. It's in the last area, animation, where L.A. Noire truly amazes. Each character's expressions and reflexes are lifelike, to the point where they frequently become indistinguishable from live-action footage and cross the highly touted uncanny valley. The success of this integral part of L.A. Noire hinged on pushing animation to the next level, and fortunately Team Bondi nailed it. There's a lot to praise here, including the convincing cast of actors, many cherry-picked from Mad Men.

That being said, all the production milestones don't completely spare the game from the pitfalls of branching conversation paths. There will inevitably be times when your thought process and that of the developers tried to predict won't match up. Fortunately, L.A. Noire never punishes the player for failing to get mostly "right" answers during conversation. In fact, if you get stuck, you can always use one of those Intuition Points that you've stacked from ranking up to eliminate one option, or “Ask the Community” for help should you not be able to tell if a suspect is lying.