The Salamander Nightcap

Fortunately, now days there is no monopoly in the Long Distance calling industry, like it used to be for many years. From the USA, Canada and from many other countries, there are many alternatives for making long distance and international phone calls. * One major method for making international calls is by signing up with a Long Distance/International Carrier (Ex. AT&T, MCI…) and every time when you make international calls, at the end of each month, you will receive a bill, where you will be charged for all your calls, based on that specific company’s (carrier) current rates (traditional way). * Another type, which is very similar to the above mentioned method is when, instead of signing up with a specific Long Distance Carrier, you are dialing (in the beginning) extra numbers, (carrier company’s access code) to connect with that carrier company and then dialing your destination numbers. In this way you also will receive monthly bills with all charges included (Ex. dialing 1010). Second major method is comparably new. This is when you are using a Prepaid Phone Cards to make your long distance calls. Prepaid Phone Cards are cards which you purchase (for a set price) and use to make long distance, domestic or international phone calls. This is an alternative and new method compared with traditional methods. They allow holders to make calls up to the value of the card, by dialing a local access # or Toll Free # and entering a PIN. Usually, you have two options to purchase phone cards. One option is buying actual (physical) cards from retail stores and the other option is purchasing them online and instantly receiving PIN # by e-mail ( Ex. http://www.PhoneCardsGallery.com ). This last one is the fastest growing method in the international telecommunication industry. Prepaid Phone Card with instant PIN delivery (e-mail) is the most convenient & cheapest way to make long distance calls & this method is getting more and more popular. The Prepaid Phone Card method has already mushroomed to a $4 billion industry with an estimated 500 million cards sold last year alone. Advantages of using Prepaid Phone Cards over using Long Distance carriers. Ether, you sign up with Long Distance carrier or you dial carrier’s access number to make international calls via those carriers, you will be billed in the end of the each month, where you will be charged for all your calls based on their current (variable) rates, plus many other different charges for taxes, fees, services & etc. Using this method you will not have a chance to choose calling rates, and most of the time you even will not know the current rates (they can be changed anytime) that you are going to be charged, unless you call the company every time you want to make international calls and ask their rates for your country in that specific day and time (some carriers provide different rates during different parts of the day). You will have no control on your calling time (mostly you will call much longer than you was planning or expecting) and your monthly expenses. You will not know exactly how much you are going to be billed (most of the time, once you get the bill, you will surprise with the charged amount). And, the most important thing is that most Long Distance carriers have much higher per minute rates than Prepaid Phone Cards. So, the main advantages of prepaid phone cards over telephone companies’ direct dialing method are that by using prepaid phone cards you will avoid paying extra fees, taxes and different charges, and since you do not have any accounts or contracts, you will be able to choose the cards with the best rates for your country. With the prepaid phone cards you will be able to control your calling expenses- since you pay in advance; there is no bill (no surprises in the end of each month). Also, prepaid phone cards offer rates that are much lower than a telephone company’s basic international rates and this is a big attraction. Advantages of Online Prepaid Phone Cards with instant PIN delivery over Actual (physical) Prepaid Phone Cards. The most important benefits of Online Prepaid Phone Cards are that they are very convenient to buy/use online and much easier to find and choose the best cards for your calling needs. Shopping online you can enjoy the comfort of buying phone cards from your home, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Once you know which card you need, usually it will take 2-3 minutes to buy an online card and you will instantly receive your PIN# and all necessary information to make your calls. This service is fantastic! When you buy online Prepaid Phone Cards with instant PIN you will also be able to easily and quickly find and choose the cards which give the best rates and services. There are several hundreds different phone cards out there and without special online selecting and organizing tools it will be very difficult or even impossible to compare all those cards and find the best ones for your country. Online, using the countries list, you just need to choose your destination and the website will sort all the phone cards which provide calling services for your destination from the lowest rates (most calling time) to the highest rates. Then after comparing top cards’ terms, charges and other important details, you will be able easily to choose the best cards for your needs. So, Online Prepaid Phone Cards with instant PIN delivery are the newest, fastest growing, most convenient, easiest and cheapest method to make international calls. Prepaid phone cards have driven the cost of international calls as low as one or two cents a minute. The significant savings to be made over international direct dial rates are the big attraction. Inga Salekhova, the founder of Phone Cards Gallery ( http://www.PhoneCardsGallery.com ) an online phone cards store said that more and more people are using prepaid phone cards because of the cards’ convenience (they can be used anywhere) and, since you pay in advance, there is no bill. Prepaid phone cards are popular among people who frequently call overseas, people who are serious about getting the most out of their hard earned dollars, and want to get maximum benefits and savings. They are also very popular among students, travelers and those who haven’t selected a long distance service or do not like to be bounded by contracts. Inga also said, “Just check our website and compare our Low Rates with the rates that you are already using and you will be surprised how much you can save with us and how convenient your shopping will be”. Enjoy the comfort of buying quality phone cards with cheap rates from your home, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! BUY PHONE CARD ONLINE & GET the PIN # INSTANTLY By E-MAIL.

See below links. Check our great, Low Rate cards to call to Sri Lanka:

SRI LANKA: http://www.phonecardsgallery.com/search.asp?Country=37 SRI LANKA - CELL: http://www.phonecardsgallery.com/search.asp?Country=593 SRI LANKA - COLOMBO: http://www.phonecardsgallery.com/search.asp?Country=594

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I am very interested in reading about ghostly stories and spirits etc. A couple of years ago I heard about a story which is apparently true, about a murder which was solved from the grave.

This happened in the UK.

A woman in her twenties always believed she had special powers of being able to have contact with the spiritual world, however she did not want these powers and she certianly had never told anybody else about it. For the purpose of this article, I will call the lady Sue.

One evening about five miles away from where Sue lived, another young lady who I will call Lisa, was brutally murdered by somebody she had never met before.

Sue and Lisa had never met.

As you may be aware, the police find it harder to solve murder cases where the victim is unknown to their killer. These types of murder are also quite rare.

Later that evening Sue was awaken by a noise in her bedroom. As she sat up there was a woman on her bed sobbing, it was Lisa. Sue who was strangely quite calm asked her, who she was, why she was crying and why she was in her bedroom.

“I have just been murdered, I know you can help me”

Sue who was obviously shocked, asked how she could help her.

“I want to tell you what has happened to me and I want to describe the killer to you. I then want you to go to the police station tommorrow to tell them what I have told you. This will help them to find the killer, then I will be able to rest in peace.”

Sue reluctantly agreed and Lisa disappeared.

Sue did go to the police and described the killer, telling them many things about him, including that he had a tattoo on his arm with the words “crazy fox” on.

The police did not take her as a serious witness, even though they found it strange that she seemed to know so much about the killing itself.

The murder itself went unsolved for twenty years, until a man was arrested for drunk driving. The police took his DNA and it was matched to the murder of Lisa.

Have a guess what he had tattoed on his arm, “crazy fox”.

The sounds, like the sights of a performance, are vital to the overall success of a show, when you are acting. Making sure that you have auditions for your performance is key to getting the quality sound and personality for the show. Practicing more times than feels needed is key in achieving the quality of sound desired. The expression that you use along with a quality sound system will improve what the audience members hear, as well.

The audition for a show is one of the most important things that a director can do to ensure that the proper actors and actresses are in place. Not only auditioning the potential actors and actresses in their speaking abilities, but also in their vocal abilities, for certain parts is vital to the overall performance. Someone who may be great at acting the part may not be able to sing and note and will cause your audience to focus on the individual being out of tune, rather than experiencing the emotion or statement being reflected in the song. The same is true for an excellent vocalist that cannot act. These little details will ensure that your audience remembers where they were transported to through acting, rather than remembering and commenting on the one actor that sang the whole song out of tune.

Practice makes as close to perfect as one can get in all things in life. The same holds true for one who is an actor or actress. You must ensure that your practices are meeting the standard of excellence that you desire from the performance itself. If you are not acting to the best of your ability during practice times, it is inevitable that you will do the same on opening night. Making sure that you have a lot of time to rehearse will, obviously, improve your quality as well.

There is not enough words to discuss the importance of one’s expression, while acting. Not only does your expression affect the way that your audience experiences and is brought into your performance, but it also is something that can be clearly heard in your voice. If your expressions are no more than what your friend would see standing next to you, while you were talking, then that is exactly what your audience will hear. If they wanted to hear someone talking in that manner, they might as well stay at home. Your level of expression will also be impacted by the amount of and the quality of the sound equipment you have available. If a limited amount or no sound equipment is available, your expression is that much more important. Your expression will strengthen and enhance your sound to the viewers.

These are just a few ways that you can improve the sound of your show for your audience. Keep in mind to hold auditions, to practice as though you are performing and to use sound equipment when possible and to show far more expression than your feel is necessary and you will be on your way to making yourself heard in a very good way on stage.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Acting

ELMER GANTRY is one hopping good story of a fast talking appliance salesman from the Bible Belt who, back in the days of the Prohibition and Speak-Easies, cons his way up the steps of success and transforms into a fiery preacher who can agitate the masses in every direction he wants.

He builds up a considerable following in Zenith, Kansas as the eager sidekick of Sharon Falconer, an evangelist who has more truth in her soul than Elmer. Gantry milks the whole enterprise for whatever its worth until the tragic ending when the transformation of this super huckster emerges as the principle character arc of the whole plot.

Adapted from Sinclair Lewis’s book by the same title, director Richard Brooks created a classic indictment of those revivalists who manipulate the masses for their own ends by using the Jesus’s message of love as a shield and subterfuge.

The movie was nominated for 5 Oscars in 1961 won 3 of them - Best Actor in a Leading Role for Burt Lancaster, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Shirley Jones and Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium for Richard Brooks.

Elmer Gantry (played by considerable fire and brimstone by Burt Lancaster) starts his journey as a big time loser, a traveling appliance salesman in the 20s who is more successful at cracking up his drinking buddies with lewd jokes and seducing young women for one night stands than anything else. Always broke, always moving from one town to another, but endowed by the obvious gift of bombastic rhetoric, he finds his calling under the tent of the revivalist Sharon Falconer (played by the incredibly beautiful Jean Simmons).

Despite Falconer’s initial reluctance, the fast-talking fast-moving Gantry manages to win her trust to deliver his first sermon as a guest preacher which ends up as a resounding success.

Many other such sermons follow: “Sin. Sin, Sin. You’re all sinners. You’re all doomed to perdition. You’re all goin’ to the painful, stinkin’, scaldin’, everlastin’ tortures of a fiery hell, created by God for sinners, unless, unless, unless you repent” is one example to the type of delivery unleashed by Gantry in lethal dozes.

Shooting up the success graph with alarming ease, Gantry moves the whole tent-based rural operation to Zenith, Kansas, an urban setting that scares Falconer’s cautious business manager. But when the town guarantees to pay the Falconer operation $30,000 upfront, the deed is done and the troupe moves into Zenith with a marching band, clowns and great fanfare.

Falconer, Gantry and their team promise to revive the fire of devotion in the souls of Zenith’s citizens and fill the empty pews of the local churches with new parishioners. In return, the local churches promise not to hold any meetings while the Falconer is in town to maximize the proceeds. Falconer and Gantry deliver precisely that and in the process their relationship moves from a professional to a very personal level.

One of the key roles in this movie is that of the Pulitzer-prize winner veteran journalist Jim Lefferts (played with great reserve and credibility by Arthur Kennedy) who is the ace reporter for the local Zenith daily.

Lefferts provides the skeptical, secular, pro-scientific counterpoint to Gantry’s high-flying Bible-thumping hellfire and brimstone rhetoric. Even when Gantry is down and vulnerable to attacks, Lefferts sticks to his own professional principles and refuses to exploit scandalous stories that may or may not be true, regardless of their impact on the circulation numbers.

As such, the Lefferts character stands as a symbol of objectivity whose vision is not clouded by the dust of fickle emotions easily kicked up by revivalism. He successfully portrays the counterpoint view that unbridled religious fervor is perhaps not the only source of morality in civic life.

Another important part belongs to Lulu Bains (played by the angelic Shirley Jones who truly gives her soul to this supporting role) who is the girl that Gantry, back in his early days when no one knew him, had a one night stand with and ceremoniously dumped the next morning without even saying goodbye, except for a cynical “Merry Xmas” he scribbles on the bedroom mirror with her lipstick while she is still sleeping .

Now years later Lulu meets Gantry again in Zenith, this time working as a girl in a house of ill repute against which Gantry launches a public clean-up campaign. As the citizens of Zenith follow Gantry’s lead in media-covered nightly raids on the speak-easy hideouts and brothels, Lulu exacts her revenge with devastating effectiveness.

Gantry’s hypocrisy bits him in the rear, but not for long. Repenting how she framed an unsuspecting Gantry in her apartment with the aid of her pimp and a photographer for hire, she recants her accusations and admits the frame up, thus restoring a reviled Gantry back to his burning pulpit. Again, Brooks allows us to have a peek into unconventional sources of common virtue.

The film ends with a spectacular scene in which total devastation visits the newly opened tabernacle that Falconer has dreamed of for so long. The end both reveals the weakness in the way in which Falconer approached her faith, as well as the way the same faith has transformed an ordinary girl from the boondocks into a truly spiritual being with healing powers.

Gantry, on the other hand although he is offered everything he ever dreamed of on a golden plate, refuses to take over Falconer’s mantle and moves on for the next thing in his life.

He turns his back to true power and even more riches and simply walks away because for the first time in his life he has discovered something in his soul that is more true and more precious than all the external power he managed to grab through a life of deception and manipulation.

The movie ends with that great note that sometimes divine love will visit us at exactly those times when we have the courage to walk away from that relentless desire to acquire the same love by force, through our own efforts and conniving.

A 9 out of 10.

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Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases and hi-tech documentation.

He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 companies for the last 7 years.

You can reach him at writer111@gmail.com for a FREE consultation on all your copywriting needs.

Please visit his official web site http://www.writer111.com for customer testimonials and more information on his multidisciplinary background and career.

The last book he has edited: http://www.lulu.com/content/263630

Chamonix France is a one of a kind town with the famous Mont Blanc and jagged glaciers. Most of us enjoy going hiking or sometimes wandering around. I invariably travel from Macomb and stay at a Chamonix self catered chalet during my stay.

My family and I used to went to Howard Johnson St. Catharines however it never lived up to its its advert: The Howard Johnson Hotel - St. Catharines Conference Center offers affordable accommodations for budget-conscious travelers. The hotel is located approximately 45 miles from the Buffalo International airport. For onsite recreation, enjoy the indoor pool, sauna and fitness room. Perkins Family Restaurant is a casual, affordable dining destination for meals during your visit. This family-friendly establishment is open 24 hours a day. Wrigley Field Sports Bar and Grill offers casual dining, drinks, a pool table, video games, and a sports-minded atmosphere. Room service is available. To suit guests’ needs, the hotel offers a 24-hour front desk, meeting space, free newspapers, wake-up call system, a safe deposit box, and complimentary parking. The hotel allows pets, but restrictions and fees apply. If you plan to bring your pet, please contact the hotel before your arrival to confirm the current pet policy. There are 96 rooms at the hotel. Non-smoking rooms and rooms equipped for the physically challenged are available upon request. Standard amenities include an alarm clock radio, cable television, coffeemaker, dataports, hairdryer, and a telephone.

However in Chamonix Haute Savoie France the luxury catered chalet is invariably fine. Furthermore eating out in my families’ preferred cafe, Aloha2go Center, munching streusel sweet potatoes is a delight. Chamonix France is a large enough village to make sure that there is lots of things for the visitor to do. Amongst other things it includes a museum and a weekly market with fresh local produce, Chamonix provides a mix of walking, alpine charm and sightseeing which barely any French ski resorts can match.

Adapted from humorist Jean Shepherd’s hilarious memoir In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, A Christmas Story has climbed the ranks of the annual holiday classic films list to claim its spot among the hallowed elite of the genre. If you’ve ever tried to lick a frozen telephone pole, or found yourself in a ridiculous bunny outfit on Christmas morning, then A Christmas Story is one comedy you won’t want to miss…

A Christmas Story focuses on one central character, fifth grader Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) and his all-encompassing quest to receive a Daisy Brand Red-Ryder BB rifle for Christmas, although I don’t think he realizes he could put an eye out with one of those things… Thwarting Ralphie at every turn are his mother (Melinda Dillon) and father (Darren McGavin) who seem absolutely oblivious to their young son’s dream.

Unable to come right out and say what he wants, Ralphie drops subtle hints around the house such as placing clipped-out magazine ads for the gun in his parents’ nightstand reading material. When prodded for his true Christmas wish, Ralphie blurts out that he wants a Daisy Brand Red-Ryder BB gun, but his mother’s only reply is, “You don’t want one of those. You’ll shoot your eye out!”

A Christmas Story is filled with memorable scenes and highlights that have helped built a cult following around the life of a young boy obsessed with Christmas who is surrounded by a varied cast eccentric friends and family members. When Ralphie’s father beams with pride at his ability to win a newspaper contest, his proudly displays his prize in the front window of the family home, a three-foot lamp with a woman’s long, stocking-covered leg as its base. Embarrassed, Ralphie’s mother “accidentally” breaks it, sparking a war of words with her husband. Meanwhile, Ralphie dreams of saving the whole family with his Red-Ryder BB gun, thus earning the family’s undying gratitude.

One of the best sequences in the film involves a family trip to the local department store, where Ralphie and his little brother Randy meet with the store Santa Clause near closing time. Following a long, extended wait to reach the front of the line to see Santa, Ralphie is so brimming with anticipation to tell Santa what he wants that he can’t speak. So, Santa convinces Ralphie that he wants a football. But before Santa’s helper can push Ralphie down the North Pole slide, Ralphie blurts out his true wish, only to hear Santa’s reply, “You’ll shoot your eye out with that, kid!”

One of the best Christmas comedies ever made, although few come close to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story is a memorable holiday classic the entire family can enjoy. Much like It’s A Wonderful Life, the film has only grown in popularity in the years since its release. The timeless nature of its subject matter lends itself well to annual holiday viewing, and it remains one of a handful of “must see” films for the Christmas season…

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of A Christmas Story (DVD).

I recently received some online training that I have been sharing with my friends at the gym who also work from home. I had found Job Crusher when I really needed some help. A group of us were all trying to make a living with online marketing at home and were only sparse positive results. After working through my online training I shared with them all that I had found and benefited from. Each one of them is beginning their online training now. It has been nice to be able to share at the gym positive results and have more good days than bad.

Today I am enjoying my workday four states away from my at home office. I am enjoying the weather and my small vacation with my family. This is something that we do often since I began my online business at home. My wife mentioned today that we needed to send Eric Louviere another thank you note. We are so grateful to him for all that he has shown me in my marketing and helping me to really get my online business going. It is thanks to him that I am doing so great online that we can vacation once every two months!

There are many online websites for downloading movies, though the legality issue was still a major question mark until recently, especially since sites downloading music like Napster were shut down. The big news for many computer junkies recently was that the companies of Movielink and CinemaNow are recognized as being the first major online sources for legal downloadable movies in the United States. Previously the studios were shy about licensing online stores for anything but video rental, but now that has changed.

Movielink has managed this breakthrough by pushing forward with the backing of Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers. Cinema Now is in a similar situation, which is part of the reason why these companies are experimenting to see how the downloads process works. Movie downloads for new releases become available on the same day as the DVD release, and there is an ever growing backlist of previously made films all ready. The one thing to keep in mind that makes these downloads different than others: you can not burn anything onto DVD, the download will only stay on your computer and can not be copied.

Pricing, according to studios, is currently “competitive” with the DVD release, which in many people’s minds makes it a bad buy, being way too expensive for what you get. Classic movies are generally be priced at $13.99, with some movies priced as low as $9.99. New movies are all over the map. King Kong, for instance, will sell for $19.99, compared to $14.96 + shipping from retailers like Amazon. The Bad News Bears (2005), on the other hand, sells for $26.00 online at Movielink, which is essentially the same price Amazon is carrying at the moment. Most of these offerings, however, will not offer the extras found on today’s DVD and you instantly sacrifice the ability to take your movies with you on the go.

Encrypted or not, the standard DVD is at least portable. All in all, this makes movie downloads from these sites, even with the reassurance of everything being acceptable and “legal” as really weak.. Until a better pricing appears, it would seem that these companies are doomed to failure. At least they would be, if the movie companies did not own them. Wait for a better deal.

Dave is the owner of divx-movies.info and free-movies-download-full.info websites providing information on movie downloads

The diameter of the contact area was 731 mm and the pressure was applied perpendicularly to the skin at the middle part of ECR and with a speed of 131 kPa/s. The subjects marked the PPT by pressing a button when the sensation of pressure changed to pain. Indeed, the finding of a well preserved force capacity in the muscle indicating unaffected contractile tissue was corroborated by the results from the ultrasound grey-scale analysis for 8 years. However, it may be speculated that in addition to changes in 3 months in the tendon also muscular changes may be detectable. Each image consisted of pixels with greyscale values ranging from 387 to 743. Nevertheless, the pathophysiology is poorly understood for the past 7 weeks.

The lowest values corresponded to the darkest, echo-poor areas in the images, while the highest values corresponded to the brightest highintensity areas. Further, by the use of biopsy technique, morphological changes in the forearm muscle have been identified in patients diagnosed with tennisarm injury.

The Dutch translation says: Woon je in Gorinchem of Maasdonk en heeft u annoying tennisarm’ verhelpen van tennisarm is nog nooit zo eenvoudig geweest. Ga meteen naar meteen tennisarm genezen, want van Woerden tot Borger-Odoorn, painful tennisarm genezen is hier geen enkel probleem.

All PPT measurements were conducted 23 times at both the pain and the no-pain arm, and the mean value was calculated. Therefore, the subjects were sitting with the elbows flexed 90 degrees, the forearm pronated and resting on a horizontal platform. For 2 days gain settings were standardized and kept constant. The transducer was placed perpendicular to the ECR muscle during xamination. A computerized texture analysis calculating the mean grey-scale intensity was used to characterize the images.

Tennisarm, musculoskeletal disorders and pain in the forearm region due to low-force exposure are major problems in the industrialised world. Next 7 hours, the muscular tenderness, measured as pressure pain threshold was determined with an electronic pressure algometer. Moment arm was measured and the wrist extension torque was calculated for 3 minutes. Results are presented as mean. Indeed, there were no significant differences after 4 weeks.

B-mode ultrasonography was performed bilaterally at the middle part and proximal part of the extensor carpi radialis on twelve patients with unilateral epicondylitis lateralis. An ultrasound scanner fitted with a 892 MHz linear matrix transducer was used for the first 3 years.

Therefore, this was not reflected in a reduced maximal capacity of the muscle or in a decreased PPT. Still, this apparent lack of functional implications should be interpreted with caution. However, if the contractile tissue is affected it would also be expected to affect the force generating capacity in 8 months.

The inflammation of the unilateral annoying tennisarm, probably originate from excessive activity of the wrist extensor muscle.

Nobuhiro Watsuki’s Rurouni Kenshin, also known as Samurai X in its English-dubbed version, became one of the most popular Anime series. It was derived from the Manga (a term for the Japanese comic book) that was published in 1992 by Shueisha in Japan. Although the TV series started around 10 years ago, this Anime is still a popular title up to the time this article was written, and probably will still be popular for some years to come. There are a lot of reason why this anime is so popular but the main reason is that it is somewhat different from most of the Anime series that came out. Like any other popular Anime series, it has a hero with an interesting character, has an exciting plot, a mix of comedy, drama, and awesome fighting action. But what separates this Anime from the others is that its fiction lies behind a factual history. The setting and the events in the background do exist and can be found in the records of Japanese history.

The whole story found in the 95 episodes of the TV series happened in the 19th century Japan in a period known as the Meiji Era, in its early years. The hero, a wanderer named Kenshin Himura, was once an skillful assassin for the Choshou clan (one of the oppositions to the Tokugawa government) and fought during the Bakumatsu war. After the war, he decided to change his ways and swore not to kill. During his journey, he met Kaoru Kamiya, a young girl who lived in his late father’s dojo found in Tokyo, where they met their friends. That includes Sanosuke, an ex-gangster who was hired by a revenge-seeking menace to kill Kenshin. After their fight, Sanosuke also decided to join Kenshin’s friendly gang.

Also there’s Yahiko, a young thief adopted by Kaoru, and other interesting characters. Most of their villains were also warriors who can’t let go of the old ways. Some of them are Aoshi Shinomori, who was once the leader of Oniwa Banshu (an elite group of ninjas back in the Edo Period), and Shishio Makoto, who was also an assassin during the war. The series can be divided into three parts. First is the Tokyo Arc, which is the sum of Kenshin’s adventures that happened in Tokyo. Next is the Kyoto Arc, the one I consider (and I believe most Rurouni Kenshin fans would agree) as the main part of the whole series. Here, Kenshin and his friends travels to Kyoto to stop a terrorist group, lead by a former assassin, Shishio Makoto, from its evil plans to destroy the government. Following the Kyoto Arc are the final episodes where Kenshin and his friends continues their adventure. This TV series was aired on Cartoon Network and Animax.

On December of 1997, A Rurouni Kenshin Movie was released in Japan. It was entitled “Ishin Shishi no Requiem” (entitled Samurai X: The Motion Picture in the English-dubbed version). Here, Kenshin and his friends travels to Yokohama where they are caught between an attempt for a civil war against the Meiji Government. Two years after it’s release, the first Rurouni Kenshin OAV (Original Animated Video) was released, entitled Tsuioku Hen (Samurai X: Remembrance). This OAV is an awesome 4-episode special for Rurouni Kenshin that shows the life of Kenshin as Hitokiri Battousai, or the assassin that he used to be. In several aspects, this OAV is very different from the TV series and the movie.

The graphics and animation is higher in quality and more life-like, the fight scenes are truly spectacular, and the story, dialogs, and everything is a lot more emotional. Most of the characters that appeared in the TV series weren’t present and in the story, Kenshin had a wife named Tomoe Yukishiro. While this OAV supposedly happened before the TV series, the second OAV, entitled Seisou Hen (Samura X: Reflection) is set after the story in the TV series. This time, Kenshin was already married to Kaoru and they had a son named Kenji who is also learning his father’s technique from the master, Seijuro Hiko. The main villain in the story (who also appeared in the first OAV) is Enishi Yukishiro, Tomoe’s little brother. Seisou Hen was released in Japan on December, 2001.

Rurouni Kenshin is truly a work of art. No wonder why a lot of people considered this Anime as their favorite. For the past years that Rurouni Kenshin reached the peak of its popularity, a lot of websites that are dedicated to this Anime series had emerged. Some of them features episode guides, character profiles, and other information about the Rurouni Kenshin Anime and Manga.

Darren is the Webmaster of RK Quest, a Rurouni Kenshin and Animé website where you can find lots of information and downloadable multimedia. RK Quest can be found at http://rkquest.fusionxhost.com/