Steps (novel)

Steps is a collection of short stories by a Polish-American writer Jerzy Kosinski, released in 1968 by Random House. The work comprises scores of loosely connected vignettes, which explore themes of social control and alienation by depicting scenes rich in erotic and violent motives. Steps won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1969.

Overview

Steps was Kosinski's second novel, a follow-up to his successful The Painted Bird released in 1965. It consists of a series of short stories, reminiscences, anecdotes and dialogues, loosely linked to each other or having no connection at all, written in the first person. Samuel Coale described the narrator as "nothing more than a disembodied voice howling in some surrealistic wilderness." The book does not name any characters or places where described situations take place.

The book has been interpreted as being about "a Polish man's difficulties under the harsh Soviet regime at home played against his experiences as a new immigrant to the United States and its bizarre codes of capitalism." The stories reflect upon control, power, domination and alienation, depicting scenes full of brutality or sexually explicit. Steps contains remarkable autobiographical elements and numerous references to World War II.

18 Steps

18 Steps is an EP by Trey Anastasio that was included as a bonus with pre-orders of Bar 17 from his official website. The disc contains nine new songs, which are outtakes from Bar 17. Like the tracks on Bar 17, the tunes featured on 18 Steps were recorded over roughly a three-year period, from the spring of 2003 to the summer of 2006. 18 Steps can be found in select independent record stores, online auctions, and is still available for download via LivePhish.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Trey Anastasio, except where noted. 

Twelve-step program

A twelve-step program is a set of guiding principles outlining a course of action for tackling problems including alcoholism, drug addiction and compulsion. Originally proposed by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as a method of recovery from alcoholism, the original Twelve Steps were first published in the 1939 book Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism. The method was adapted and became the foundation of other twelve-step programs.

As summarized by the American Psychological Association, the initial steps were six as follows:

Overview

Twelve-step methods have been adapted to address a wide range of alcoholism, substance-abuse and dependency problems. Over 200 self-help organizations—often known as fellowships—with a worldwide membership of millions—now employ twelve-step principles for recovery. Narcotics Anonymous was formed by addicts who did not relate to the specifics of alcohol dependency.

Buzz!

Buzz! is a series of video games originated by Sleepydog Ltd., developed by Relentless Software and published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles. They are quiz games that see the players answering trivia questions while competing in the fictional game show, Buzz!. Created specifically with multi-player party gaming in mind, the series launched in October 2005 and to date comprises 18 games; including 13 in the Buzz! series and five Buzz! Junior titles. The series made the transition to the PlayStation 3 with Buzz!: Quiz TV in 2008. The sixteenth game in the series Buzz!: Brain of the UK was released in March 2009. The latest Buzz! game is Buzz!: The Ultimate Music Quiz which was released in October 2010.

In 2006 the second game in the Buzz series, Buzz!: The Big Quiz, won the BAFTA award for Best Casual and Social game.Buzz!: Quiz TV has been nominated in the Best Social Game and Best Multiplayer Game categories for the 2009 BAFTA video game awards.

Jeskola Buzz

Jeskola Buzz is a freeware modular software music studio environment designed to run on Microsoft Windows via Microsoft .NET. It is centered on a modular plugin-based machine view and a multiple pattern sequencer tracker.

Buzz consists of a plugin architecture that allows the audio to be routed from one plugin to another in many ways, similar to how cables carry an audio signal between physical pieces of hardware. All aspects of signal synthesis and manipulation are handled entirely by the plugin system. Signal synthesis is performed by "generators" such as synthesizers, noise generator functions, samplers, and trackers. The signal can then be manipulated further by "effects" such as distortions, filters, delays, and mastering plugins. Buzz also provides support through adapters to use VST/VSTi, DirectX/DXi, and DirectX Media Objects as generators and effects.

A few new classes of plugins do not fall under the normal generator and effect types. These include peer machines (signal and event automated controllers), recorders, wavetable editors, scripting engines, etc. Buzz signal output also uses a plugin system; the most practical drivers include ASIO, DirectSound, and MME. Buzz supports MIDI both internally and through several enhancements. Some midi features are limited or hacked together such as MIDI clock sync.

Buzz (TV series)

The Buzz was a Canadian comedy television series that aired on The Comedy Network. The show was hosted by Morgan "Mista Mo" Smith and Daryn Jones. The show originally aired in the mid-90s as a community channel show on Rogers Television before getting a network deal in 2000. In 2001, the show won a Gemini Award in the "Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Program or Series" category. The 2003 season saw them take the show to New York, London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. The show ended in 2005.

Created in Toronto, the show found a place on the Comedy Network when The Tom Green Show left to MTV. The show uses sketch comedy, non-sequiturs and guerrilla comedy. The two hosts, Daryn Jones, a geeky theatre major, and Mista Mo, an "almost real rapper" often riff on the racial tensions between them.

Recurring sketches and characters