Your current home “décor” is ugly, shabby, and boring, but you can’t afford lots of new stuff. Or maybe your house is filled with tired old junk that you just can’t bear to throw away. Or maybe you bought all your furniture at a big box store, but it irritates you that it all looks like you bought it there. You have a solution—or, rather, a whole houseful of solutions. In this newest Big-Ass Book, do-it-yourself guru Mark Montano presents 105 practical, simple, and decidedly unboring projects for every space in your home. Montano’s wizardry—accomplished with masking tape, spray paint, and glue—transforms everything from accessories, to walls and windows, to lighting, to major pieces like headboards, tables, dressers, and chairs. (And there’s even a chapter on turning the anonymous items you got at IKEA into one-of-a-kind treasures.)

    100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses is the perfect book for anyone seeking clear and sensible guidance on avoiding the recognized pitfalls of the English language.Each word on the list is accompanied by a concise and authoritative usage note based on the renowned usage program of the American Heritage® Dictionaries. These notes discuss why a particular usage has been criticized and explain the rules and conventions that determine what’s right, what’s wrong, and what falls in between. Troublesome pairs such as affect / effect, blatant / flagrant, and disinterested / uninterested are disentangled, as are vexing sound-alikes such as discrete / discreet and principal / principle. Other notes tackle such classic irritants as hopefully, impact, and aggravate, as well as problematic words like peruse and presently.A great graduation gift or stocking stuffer for anyone who cares about language, 100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses is guaranteed to help keep writers and speakers on the up-and-up!

    It’s synonymous with premium quality, delicious flavor, conscientious farming, and optimum health. It’s what we need to feed our kids, it’s what we deserve to feed ourselves. And thanks in part to Myra Goodman, co-owner and cofounder of Earthbound Farm with her husband, Drew, organic food is now available just about anywhere fresh food is sold, becoming more mainstream every day. Not only has Myra been growing organic food for over twenty years, she has been cooking with it, too. In Food to Live By she combines her twin food passions, serving up hundreds of recipes, ideas, shopping and cooking tips, health notes, and more. Illustrating the book are full-color photographs throughout that bring readers right into the breathtaking California sunshine. This is perfect cooking for friends and family, packed with irresistible dishes for weeknight dinners and casual entertaining, festive breakfasts and fall picnics. Recipes are all about the ingredients and their intrinsic qualities, not fancy techniques or time-consuming steps. Marry chicken with three simple accompaniments— rosemary, lemons, and garlic—and it’s transformed. Heighten the flavor of a springtime fava bean and orzo salad with an unexpected fava bean “pesto.” Combine Meyer lemon juice and soy sauce to create a marinade, tenderizer, and sauce that results in a perfect grilled flank steak. Food to Live By also includes a wealth of information about organic farming and how to make the wisest food choices; there are full-color Field Guides—to gourmet greens, apples, heirloom tomatoes, winter squash—and Farm Fresh ingredient guides to sorrel, corn, melons, avocados, organic poultry, asparagus, artichokes, ginger, and more, featuring what to look for plus care and handling. The book is a boon to food lovers.

    He tended to the faces of every A-list star and did the makeup for countless music videos, magazine shoots and fashion shows. However, few would have predicted his incredible rise given the heartwrenching difficulties of his childhood. But at a young age, he discovered his talent for applying makeup and dreamed of leaving his small Southern town to make it in the fashion world of New York. He did just that and within eight months he was working for Vogue magazine. During his amazing career, Kevyn kept detailed diaries of every assignment he received and filled each entry with polaroids, names and places. A BEAUTIFUL LIFE showcases the most exciting of these pages and brings the behind-the-scenes world of fashion, celebrity and music to life for the reader. And of course it contains a 'greatest hits' of Kevyn's favourite celebrity makeup tips, some revealed for the first time ever. Kevyn was so beloved by his fans and his famous friends because of the message behind his makeup: self-respect and tolerance. For Kevyn, leading A BEAUTIFUL LIFE was first and foremost about inner beauty and this book builds on that le

    This approach will captivate students and encourage them to think critically about the nature of public administration today. Introducing Public Administration provides students with a solid, conceptual foundation in public administration, and contains the latest information on important trends in the discipline. To further engage students and deepen interest in its narrative, the text uses unique chapter-opening vignettes called Keynotes, chapter ending case studies, and a series of boxes throughout that offer real-life excerpts and alternative theories.

    The topic couldn’t be timelier: As more people are going hungry while simultaneously more people are morbidly obese, American Wasteland sheds light on the history, culture, and mindset of waste while exploring the parallel eco-friendly and sustainable-food movements. As the era of unprecedented prosperity comes to an end, it’s time to reexamine our culture of excess.Working at both a local grocery store and a major fast food chain and volunteering with a food recovery group, Bloom also interviews experts—from Brian Wansink to Alice Waters to Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen—and digs up not only why and how we waste, but, more importantly, what we can do to change our ways.

    Who can speak for Everyman? Who will articulate his love for Xbox 360, for Mama Celeste's frozen pizza, for the cinematic oeuvre of Bruce Willis? Enter Broetry--a stunning debut from a dazzling new literary voice. "Broet Laureate" Brian McGackin goes where no poet has gone before--to Star Wars conventions, to frat parties, to video game tournaments, and beyond. With poems like "Ode to That Girl I Dated for, Like, a Month Sophomore Year" and "My Friends Who Don't Have Student Loans," we follow the Bro from his high school graduation and college experience through a "quarter-life crisis" and beyond.

    Problems are designed to progressively enhance MATLAB-use proficiency, so students need not be familiar with MATLAB at the start of your course. Program scripts that are answers to exercises in the text are available at no charge in electronic form (see Teaching Resources below). *Supplement and Review Mini-Chapters after each of the text's three parts contain an extensive review list of terms, test-like problem sets with answers, and detailed suggestions on supplemental reading to reinforce students' learning and help them prepare for exams. *Read-Only Chapters, strategically placed to provide a change of pace during the course, provide informative, yet enjoyable reading for students. *Measurement Details and Results samples offer students a realistic perspective on the seldom-perfect nature of device characteristics, contrary to the way they are often represented in introductory texts. Content Highlig

    From basics such as cleaning vegetables and scrubbing a country ham, to show-off skills like making a soufflé and turningout the perfect biscuit—all are explained and pictured with clarity and plenty of stories that entertain. Traditional Southern recipes and ingredients are also given modern twists to make them relevant for today’s healthy lifestyle.With more than 750 recipes and 650 variations, making a perfect piecrust, a heavenly biscuit, mouthwatering vegetables, or crispy fried chicken is attainable for any home cook. The recipes and directions are easily accessible to kitchen novices as well as seasoned cooks-there is plenty here for everyone.

    You’ll cover all the basics, including precut options, standard quilt sizes and needle types. Plus, finish your quilt like a pro with yardage and cutting info for borders, backings, and bindings! Easy-to-use charts, tables, and illustrations are at your fingertips in this handy, spiral-bound guide that’s easy to take with you.

    Not the kind that grow in the ground, but a vintage drink mixer that will knock your socks off. “Mixologists across the country are reaching back through the centuries to reclaim vinegar’s more palatable past . . . embracing it as ‘the other acid,’ an alternative to the same-old-same-old lemons and limes,” said the New York Times. The history of shrubs, as revealed here, is as fascinating as the drinks are refreshing. These sharp and tangy infusions are simple to make and use, as you’ll discover with these recipes. Mix up some Red Currant Shrub for a Vermouth Cassis, or Apple Cinnamon Shrub to mix with seltzer, or develop your own with Michael Dietsch’s directions and step-by-step photographs.“Imagine a fizzy, soda-like drink that is drier and so much more sophisticated than soda, what with the sugar and botanical ingredients. Shrubs! Amazing! Wonderful!!” —Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist

    Whether it's to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace, or to find personal fulfillment, people are looking to develop their capacity for creative and innovative thinking in business and daily life. Many have turned to the growing literature of creativity to shed the shackles of conventionality and discover new ways of doing things. Now comes THE CREATIVITY CATALOG, a fresh and original take on the pursuit of innovation. Rather than start with the premise that creativity originates largely from within our minds, THE CREATIVITY CATALOG looks outward to the things we surround ourselves with in our home and work environments to uncover a trove of products deliberately designed to cultivate our mental faculties through hands-on experience. Among the products featured are furnishings, accessories, shelving, cookware, jewelry, and children's playthings. Pieces are attractively presented with 550 high-quality photographs and explanatory text, and supplemented by an introduction by author, educator and architect Donald Rattner on the history and future of interactive, touch-based design. Profiles of the designers and brands represented, and a list of further resources, round out this distinctive book.

    You'll read about the relationships between those beats. You'll also find complete analyses of three stories you know already--Hamlet, Casablanca, and Dr. No--to show you how the system works.Written with roleplayers in mind, Hamlet's Hit Points is an indispensable tool for understanding stories, in games and everywhere else.

    The 3rd edition is now available for sale or download. * * * * "Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python" teaches you computer programming in the Python programming language. Each chapter gives you the complete source code for a new game and teaches the programming concepts from these examples. The book is available under a Creative Commons license and can be downloaded in full for free from http: //inventwithpython.com "Invent with Python" was written to be understandable by kids as young as 10 to 12 years old, although it is great for anyone of any age who has never programmed before. This second edition has revised and expanded content, including using the Pygame library to make games with graphics, animation, and sound.

    These experts offer imaginative ideas, inside knowledge, and a wealth of advice for aspiring artists, along with instructions for a range of inventive looks using specialist techniques-from retro styles and Lady Gaga-inspired designs to underwater makeup and body painting.