Archer & Armstrong

Archer & Armstrong are the title characters of the comic book series published by Valiant Comics.

Archer & Armstrong featured writing and art by comics creator Barry Windsor-Smith. After video game publisher Acclaim Entertainment purchased the rights to the Valiant Character Catalog for $65 million in 1994, the characters continued to appear in many Valiant titles, most prominently in the Eternal Warriors series. Acclaim then rebooted the Archer & Armstrong characters to make them more easily adaptable to video games. Valiant Entertainment is the current owner of the Valiant catalog including Archer & Armstrong.

Archer & Armstrong has been called "The best buddy team book of all time." by Ain't It Cool News, and "Superhero buddy book of the decade" by Wizard Magazine. Ain't It Cool News also said that "Not since Batman & Robin has a more important duo hit the comic world."

In 2008, Valiant released a deluxe hardcover of the Archer & Armstrong origin story, entitled Archer & Armstrong: First Impressions. The hardcover was later named one of the top ten graphic novels of 2008 by Diamond Comic Distributors and one of the best of 2008 by Ain't It Cool News.

1960 Armstrong 500

The 1960 Armstrong 500 was an endurance motor race for Australian made or assembled standard production sedans. The event was held at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in Victoria on 20 November 1960 over a distance of 167 laps x 3.0 miles = 501 miles.

This was the first event held in the history of the race later to become known as the Bathurst 1000, the race that would come to dominate Australian motor racing.

Jim Thompson, managing director of shock absorber manufacturer Armstrong York Engineering, was encouraged by his PR man Ron Thonemann to increase its business with major carmakers (particularly Ford and Holden) by sponsoring a race.

Outright controversy

Officially only class placings were awarded. In later years as the fame of the Bathurst 1000 grew, outright placings, particularly the outright winner, became more widely recognised. John Roxburgh and Frank Coad have been widely acclaimed as the outright winners of the event, and have been recognised in CAMS motorsport manual in more recent times. This has been the source of some controversy as claims the winners of class C, Geoff Russell, David Anderson and Tony Loxton covered the race distance in a faster time. The source of the discrepancy arises from the starting procedure which saw the classes released at thirty second intervals, with the Class D Roxburgh/Coad Vauxhall starting the race thirty seconds before the Class C Russell/Anderson/Loxton Peugeot. With surviving records not sufficiently accurate to say whether the Peugeot was closer than thirty seconds behind the Vauxhall at the finish, the issue has petered out over time.

1964 Armstrong 500

The 1964 Armstrong 500 was a production car race held on 4 October 1964 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia. The 500 mile race was open to Australian built production sedans of which 100 examples had been registered. It was the fifth Armstrong 500 and the second to be held at Bathurst although it is commonly referred to as the fifth “Bathurst 500”.

Official results reflected only class placings, with no outright winner recognized by the organizing body, the Australian Racing Drivers’ Club. The first car to complete the full 130 lap distance race was a factory backed Ford Cortina GT driven by Bob Jane and George Reynolds, the 1964 event being the fourth consecutive Armstrong 500 in which Jane had achieved an unofficial “line honours” victory.

Class structure

Cars competed in four classes based on the purchase price of the vehicle in Australian pounds. There was little change from the 1963 race. Class A entries proliferated, taking up space on the grid from a shrinking Class B. Ford Australia had a strong presence in Class C with three factory entered Cortina GTs and Australian Motor Industries entered two Triumph 2000s in Class D.

Crossroads (VH1 TV series)

Crossroads was a half hour alternative music video show that aired on VH1 weekdays between the years 1994 and 1998. Originally called Darcy's Music, the show was hosted first by VJ Moon Zappa and then by VJ Amy Scott VJ and premiered on October 31, 1994. The show was named after VH1's then-director of music programming, Darcy Sanders-Fulmer. The premise was that Fulmer (through an off-screen voice-over) picked her favorite videos which just happened to be alternative. Despite this, her voice was rarely heard. Most of the introductions were done by Moon, who constantly pointed out that the videos were Darcy's picks. During its second season the show was renamed Crossroads, a title the show kept for the rest of its run, and Moon Unit was dropped as the show's host. Crossroads adopted the instrumental break in the Jayhawks indie hit Blue as its theme song.

Crossroads was criticized by viewers for being a non show that aired standard rotation videos rather than alternative videos. Many alternative artists were never shown while Pop artists such as Hootie & The Blowfish, Natalie Imbruglia and even The Rolling Stones had videos air on the show. The few actual alternative acts that were featured had crossover hits and were in rotation on VH1. Despite this, the show's hosts insisted that the videos on the show were "Too peculiar for regular airplay" and "Left of center of mainstream". But the only few times a non-mainstream video was played on Crossroads was at the end of the show with the ending credits rolling over it and the video cutting off when the credits ended.

Battle Studies (album)

Battle Studies is the fourth studio album by American recording artist John Mayer, released November 17, 2009 on Columbia Records in the United States. Production for the album took place during February to August 2009 at Battle Studies recording studio in Calabasas, California, Capitol Studios in Hollywood, and The Village in West Los Angeles, California, and was handled by Mayer and Steve Jordan.

The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 286,000 copies in its first week. It achieved successful sales in several other countries and produced two singles that attained chart success. Upon its release, Battle Studies received positive reviews from most music critics. The album has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and has sold 880,000 copies in the United States.

Background

After the overwhelming success of Continuum, Mayer confessed to being intimidated about starting on a new album, however he didn't want too much time to pass without making new music. Speaking on his motivation to move on, he said "I think it got a lot easier when I realised that no matter what I do, it's not going to be Continuum, good or bad. And then that became really liberating." On October 1, 2009, Mayer posted via Twitter: "Track listing on Battle Studies is complete! Very interesting order... 11 songs. 45 minutes. Hit 'em hard and get out."

CMT Crossroads

CMT Crossroads is a television show broadcast on CMT that pairs country music artists with musicians from other music genres, frequently trading off performing one another's songs, and also dueting on some numbers.

History

Crossroads premiered on January 13, 2002, and so far there has been fifty-two episodes to date. Some artists have appeared in more than one episode such as Kenny Chesney, Martina McBride, and John Mayer.

List of performances

See also

References

External links