The Rayburn House Office Building is a labyrinth of beige offices.

And then, theres ... Rep.Aaron Schocks new digs.

Bright red walls. A gold-colored wall sconce with black candles. A Federal-style bulls-eye mirror with an eagle perched on top. And this is just the Illinois Republicans outer office.

Its actually based off of the red room in Downton Abbey, said the woman behind the front desk, comparing it to the luxurious set piece at the heart of the British period drama.

This was a bold room. But the confidence was a mirage. For on Capitol Hill, caution is king when it comes to the micromanagement of ones image, even in the case of how a congressman decides to decorate his office.

And sometimes, a friendly outsider can inadvertently ruin a communications directors day.

A blond woman popped out of an inner office. Want to see the rest? she asked.

She introduced herself as Annie Brahler, the interior decorator whose company is called Euro Trash. She guided me to Schocks private office, revealing another dramatic red room. This one with a drippy crystal chandelier, a table propped up by two eagles, a bust of Abraham Lincoln and massive arrangements of pheasant feathers.

Then, my phone rang.

It was Schocks communications director, Benjamin Cole.

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Hes got a Downton Abbey-inspired office, but Rep. Aaron Schock wont talk about it.

Lisa Myers
Meet Lisa! An interior decorator who is also an avid wine drinker.

By: IgnitedUSA

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Lisa Myers - Video

Mellinda Abbott, formerly of Billerica, has expanded her Lexington-based accounting business to a storefront at 1310 Main St. (Route 38) in Tewksbury. Abbott is a former accounting manager at Wang Global. SUN / Ryan McBride

Sun staff photos can be ordered by visiting our SmugMug site.

TEWKSBURY -- As a young accounting professional, she worked alongside the likes of Joe Tucci and Frank Caine at Wang Global, helping to bring the one-time tech darling out of its 1992 bankruptcy and into the waiting arms of its eventual suitor, Getronics N.V., seven years later.

Two decades later, Mellinda Abbott thrives by serving small businesses from her Lexington-based boutique firm, which recently opened a second office at 1310 Main St. (Route 38) in Tewksbury.

And she remembers exactly when it was time to run her own shop.

"My first day back from maternity leave was 9/11," she said during a recent interview at her Tewksbury office. "I had been working for a small accounting firm and I realized, 'There's no mystery to this,' and that it was time to hang my own shingle."

So as to save on overhead (and make use of her husband's construction skills), Abbott opened her first office at a building the couple owned in Lexington. They deployed the same strategy in Tewksbury late last fall, after a salon in the building they owned closed.

"I really wanted to come to this community," she said. "And I founded this practice because I want to keep accounting simple and straightforward for our clients."

Abbott, whose firm comprises three full-timers and four part-time employees, said she sees herself not just as an accountant, or even an auditor ("although I am an auditor at heart"), but as a small-business adviser.

"Clients should feel able to do what they are supposed to do, which is grow their business," she said.

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Former Wang exec opens accounting firm in Tewksbury

What To Expect From An Interior Decorator For Institutions
This article explains what to expect when you decide to hire an interior decorator for institutions. Visit Us:- http://alliedstudios.in/category/institutional/

By: Kunti Sharma

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What To Expect From An Interior Decorator For Institutions - Video

Courtesy of Sundance International Film Festival

Viola Davis and Jennifer Lopez in 'Lila and Eve'

An instant camp classic, especially because it takes itself so adorably seriously

Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)

Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez, Shea Whigham

Charles Stone III

Lila and Evestars Viola Davis as a mother grieving over her dead son, who teams up with another bereaved mother, played by Jennifer Lopez, to seek revenge on the gangsters responsible. Its an instant camp classic, especially because it takes itself so adorably seriously. It will be the perfect film for girlfriends of both genders to watch together in giggling gaggles when it screens eventually on Lifetime, one of the films producing partners. Viewers may enjoy devising drinking games that involve doing shots every time our avenging angels whack some dude, or glugging a glass of wine every time theres a patently obvious clue leading to the films big silly climactic twist.

In truth, star/executive producer Davis nearly ruins the fun, the big spoilsport, by projecting such quiet dignity as a woman racked with pain. But even she cant save this hot, nonsensical mess. Plus Lopez, her one-time castmate from Out of Sight,is on hand with her Acting Face and meticulously applied, please-take-me-seriously no-make-up make-up to suck any claims the film might have to serious drama right out of the air. For Jenny from the Block, this is her second go round as a woman hell-bent on vengeance after the deliciously ludicrous Enough (2002). They should have made this an outright sequel and called it Enough, Already.

Davis plays Lila, a working single mother in a rough Atlanta neighborhood whose eldest son Stephon (Aml Ameen) is about to go off to college when hes killed accidentally in a drive-by shooting. Lila falls to bits, and can barely cope with looking after her remaining teenage son Justin (Ron Caldwell). The police show precious little enthusiasm for finding Stephons murderer, and just to add insult to injury, Holliston (Shea Whigham, Boardwalk Empire), the detective in charge of the case, barely remembers who Lila is when she comes in to speak to him. But it's made clear later that hes not really such a bad guy because he likes Columbo, and makes fun of his partner Scaketti (Andre Royo) for using big words, and we all know people with large vocabularies are snobs who have to be taken down a peg, right?

In search of solace, Lila joins a kind of 12-step support group for bereaved woman that has some kind of super-treacly name like Mothers of New Angels. There, Lila approaches Eve (Lopez), a former interior decorator who shares Lilas anger and frustration with the police's ineffectualness. Eve agrees to become Lilas sponsor for the group, and over glasses of red wine one night, the women find a gun in Justins book bag. Lila is horrified, but Eve eggs her on to go to the drug-dealing corner where Stephon was killed to look for someone who might know who shot him.

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Lila and Eve: Sundance Review

The braised beef short rib at Table No. 10 in East Village.

The mounted faux animal heads on the walls at recently opened Table No. 10 are more than an interior decorators whimsy.

Theyre testament to the carnivores paradise that awaits on the menu of this two-story restaurant/bar that opened last July at 10th Avenue and J street in San Diegos East Village.

Table No. 10 so named for the kitchenside chefs 10-seat table on the ground floor is co-owned by executive chef Jason Gethin and restaurateur Cooper McLaughlin. Gethin came to East Village from Encinitas, where, as founding executive chef of Union Kitchen & Tap, he was widely known for his mastery with meats. With his on-site smoker and passion for braising and roasting, Gethin made Union Kitchen the place to go for bison burgers, smoked pork tenderloin and wild boar osso bucco.

Although vegetarians will find a decent number of dishes to their liking at Table No. 10, meat-eaters will be in hog heaven. Gethins new winter menu features pig ear tostadas, grilled quail, suckling pig rillettes, rabbit and grits, crispy chicken skin and chateaubriand for two. Even the fresh-baked Parker rolls are served with a tub of creamy house-made marrow butter.

The pig ear tostada at Table No. 10. / Jim Sullivan

That sits just fine with McLaughlin, who grew up hunting and fishing in Montana. A former chemist in the pharmaceutical industry, he got into the restaurant business in 2007, when he converted his old East Village loft apartment into The Corner Bar. The recession crippled business at the burger joint, and McLaughlin said he learned a lot about the industry as the economy gradually recovered. The married Mission Hills father of two closed Corner Bar last spring to convert it into Table No. 10, with an all-new kitchen designed to Gethins specifications, including an in-house smoker and a sous-vide machine.

Table No. 10 has a Western/industrial vibe, with open ceiling, metal chairs, wood tables, colorful banquettes and hanging exposed bulbs. The menu, billed as modern American fare, is presented in what looks like a medical chart with prices ranging from $4 to $16 for bites, $6 to $10 for sides, $12 to $16 for small plates and most large plates in the $22 to $28 range. But if you're really starved, there's a huge buffalo rib eye tomahawk steak for $92.

Among the many standout proteins on Gethins menu: the tender-sweet and smoky duck ragu with house-made pasta, the 24-hour braised short rib that melts in your mouth, the excellent beef tartare with quail egg and house grain mustard. And pescavores will appreciate the perfectly charred octopus with fried caper berries, the mouthwatering scallops in brown butter and the whole fish special, on my visit a delicate and moist bronzino, which the server deboned tableside.

The pig ear tostadas (essentially mounds of carnitas piled on fried pork ears) come with a lovely cilantro aioli and surprising caviar gel beads of concentrated jalapeo, but the ears were too chewy for my taste. And while the quail dish was seasoned well, it came out a little dry.

Excerpt from:
Table No. 10 a meat-lovers paradise

The three Rs, as they were known in business, were long ago anointed by Mr Benson as his successors, with Rita LeBlanc taking on the highest profile as he promoted her to co-owner of the Saints.

But it was also no secret within the hierarchy of the Saints, the winners of the 2010 Superbowl, that there was a growing animosity between Mrs Benson 67, a former interior decorator, and Ms LeBlanc, 38, once considered her grand-fathers favourite .

That hostility was well-known to insiders but a revelation this month to fans accustomed to seeing the two women photographed on either arm of Mr Benson at Saints and Pelicans games.

It wasnt just to gender-balance the portraits, wrote Jeff Duncan, a Times-Picayune correspondent who has covered the family drama. The two women cant stand each other.

In a war largely waged through anonymous briefings to local media, confidantes of Mr Benson have portrayed Ms LeBlanc as unreliable and abrasive, with a tendency to berate staff. Allies of three Rs have in turn depicted Mr Bensons third wife as a profligate and domineering gold-digger.

What does not appear in dispute is that Mr Bensons daughter from his first marriage and her children have never warmed to Mrs Benson, whom the two-time widower married in 2004. She has in recent years turned her husband into a prolific philanthropist, who has donated tens of millions of dollars to good causes, notably educational, in his native New Orleans and to sporting charities.

Lawyers for his ousted heirs have filed explosive court challenges seeking to throw out his decision to hand his wife ownership of the two sports franchises worth an estimated $1.76 billion and his banking, car dealership and ranching interests.

In filings this week, they alleged that Mr Benson has exhibited a pattern of bizarre behaviour and asked a court to order him he undergo an examination by a geriatric psychiatrist as they claim he is unable to make his own business decisions.

They cited the Dec 27 letter barring them from contact in their case, arguing that they did not believe it was written by the tycoon. His family also cited a recent episode when Mr Benson reportedly could not name the current US president, guessing first Ronald Reagan and then Harry Truman. Sources at the National Football League told the New Orleans Advocate that the confusion occurred after he was treated for concussion sustained when he fell from a podium.

Mr Benson and his lawyers have for their part asked a judge to dismiss the case, contending that they had no legal basis to challenge his wishes. They noted that the jilted heirs are still beneficiaries of various trust interests that Mr Benson has established for them, and they will continue to enjoy the hundreds of millions of dollars they have been given.

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The extraordinary family battle for control of New Orleans Saints and a $2 billion fortune

Raj Vadgama, the man who ran across India
Raj Vadgama is a man who did a literally ran across the country. He covered 10000 km throughout India during his Bharathon. His aim was to spread the message of unity for over 5 months. The...

By: NDTV

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Raj Vadgama, the man who ran across India - Video

Let #39;s Play System Shock - Episode 39: Worst Interior Decorator EVER
Finally, we begin to infiltrate Shodan #39;s domain...

By: Enchantermon

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Let's Play System Shock - Episode 39: Worst Interior Decorator EVER - Video

January 26, 2015 04:21:28 GMT

Fisher honors her mother in her funny speech, while the Life Achievement honoree pokes fun at her daughter's 'Star Wars' hairdo when accepting the trophy.

helped the SAG-AFTRA pay tribute to her mother Debbie Reynolds at the recently concluded SAG Awards. The 58-year-old actress was on hand to present the Life Achievement Award to the "Singin' in the Rain" star that night.

"I'm very close to this year's Lifetime Achievement Award honoree," Fisher said when introducing her mother. "This is an extraordinarily kind, gifted, and funny woman who would give you the shirt off her back if Vivien Leigh hadn't once worn it in 'Gone With the Wind'."

She added, "She has been more than a mother to me, not much, but definitely more. She's been an unsolicited stylist, interior decorator and marriage councilor. ... Admittedly, I found it difficult to share my mother with her adoring fans, who treated her like she was part of their family. She has led two lives, public and private, sometimes concurrently, sometimes not."

Reynolds, who has been in show business for 66 years, delivered an equally funny speech when accepting the prize. "Of course I had a wonderful hairdo in that picture," she said, referring to her hair in "Singin' in the Rain". "Some of you may not remember this but I had a bun. At the back of my head I had a big bun, an ugly bun. I'd warned my daughter Carrie who'd just gotten a part in a picture, Princess Leia in 'Star Wars' and I said 'Carrie be careful of any weird hairdos.' So luckily, George [Lucas] gave her two buns. Thank you, George."

Mentioning the song "I Ain't Down Yet" which she sang in 1964's musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", she assured people, "Well, I ain't down yet," before concluding, "Thank you all for this wonderful award."

AceShowbiz.com

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Carrie Fisher Presents Mom Debbie Reynolds With Life Achievement Award at SAG Awards