Fur Fighters

Fur Fighters is a video game developed by Bizarre Creations and published by Acclaim for the Dreamcast in 2000, then later for Microsoft Windows. The game was designed very much as a standard third-person shooter, but used a world populated by cute little animals as its setting. As a result, the game's depiction of violence is very cartoon-like without losing any of its intensity. In 2001, an updated version for the PlayStation 2 was released as Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge. On July 20, 2012, members of Muffin Games, ex-Bizarre Creations staff, announced a conversion for iPad, called Fur Fighters: Viggo on Glass.

Gameplay

Mai (singer)

Mai (舞), real name Mai Kudo (工藤 舞, Kudō Mai, born July 18, 1984) is a J-Pop singer from Hokkaidō, Japan. She is a talent of the Fit One management company and part of the artists' roster of Rhythm Zone owned by Avex Entertainment Inc. She originally debuted as "Ruppina". As Ruppina, she recorded the song "Free Will" which was used as the 9th ending theme of the Japanese anime series One Piece.

History

Mai, the Psychic Girl

Mai, the Psychic Girl, known simply as Mai (舞) in Japan, is a manga written by Kazuya Kudō and illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami.

The main character is Mai Kuju, a 14-year-old Japanese girl with powerful psychic abilities. She is being pursued by the Wisdom Alliance, an organization which secretly strives to control the world. The alliance already controls four other powerful psychic children, and it has hired the Kaieda Intelligence Agency to capture Mai.

Media

Manga

Mai, the Psychic Girl is one of the first manga series to be fully published in English. It, along with The Legend of Kamui and Area 88, were published in North America by Eclipse Comics and Viz Comics in a bi-weekly comic book format starting in May 1987. As it was one of the forerunners of manga popularity in the West, Mai was chosen for localization due its middle-ground artwork: neither "too Japanese or too American". It was present in the "flipped" format that was the norm with early localized manga. Mai proved popular enough that second printings were needed of the first two issues.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, as he is known in Europe (October 22, 1783 – September 18, 1840), was a nineteenth-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ultimately settling in Ohio in 1815, where he made notable contributions to botany, zoology, and the study of prehistoric earthworks in North America. He also contributed to the study of ancient Mesoamerican linguistics, in addition to work he had already completed in Europe.

Rafinesque was eccentric, and is often portrayed as an "erratic genius". He was an autodidact who excelled in various fields of knowledge, as a zoologist, botanist, writer and polyglot. He wrote prolifically on such diverse topics as anthropology, biology, geology, and linguistics, but was honored in none of these fields during his lifetime. Today, scholars agree that he was far ahead of his time in many areas. Among his theories was that ancestors of Native Americans had migrated by the Bering Sea from Asia to North America.

RAF-977

The RAF-977 was a Soviet (now Latvian) van made by Riga Autobus Factory (RAF) based on components from the GAZ-21 Volga. It was introduced in 1958 and was manufactured in two main styles: a 10-seat minibus and an ambulance. In 1961, an updated version called the RAF-977D was put into production; this had a one-piece windshield, instead of the split, and Volga steering wheel among its other detail changes. Variants included the 977I ambulance and a special Intourist model, which had better seats, roof lights, and sunroof.

The RAF 983, based on the 977, was a fire department vehicle.

The shortened RAF 978, powered by the Moskvitch 407's 45 hp (34 kW; 46 PS) 1,360 cc (83 cu in) engine, was not a success, in part because the engine lacked torque, and ride quality suffered due to the shortened wheelbase.

In 1969, it was replaced by the improved RAF-677DM. This had a wider passenger door and fewer but longer side windows (three on driver's side and two on passenger's, rather than five and three before). The ambulance now had the same number of windows, rather than fewer; it was now the 977IM, and the tourist variant was the 977EM.

RAF-2203

The RAF-2203 Latvija (nickname Rafik) was a minibus designed and developed by Rīgas Autobusu Fabrika from 1976–1997. They were widely used throughout the USSR as fixed-run taxis (the Marshrutkas), medical cars, used for Latvenergo and as a special services vehicles. It was the successor of the RAF-977.

This van used the 2,445 cc (149.2 cu in) engine of the GAZ-24, between the front seats (not unlike the Dodge A100), with independent front suspension also from the GAZ-24 (but springs from the GAZ 13). It borrowed headlights and brake system parts from the Moskvitch 412, outside door handles from the Moskvitch 408, and 15 in (38 cm) wheels of the GAZ-21 Volga. The single rear door hinged at the top, rather than the more-usual side-opening. There were two major models: one, the 2203, seated ten plus driver and passenger, powered by a 95 hp (71 kW; 96 PS) 2,445 cc (149.2 cu in) with 8.2:1 compression; the other, the 22032, a twelve-seat "route taxi", had longitudinal seats and lower 6.7:1 compression (to use more readily available 76 octane petrol), and produced only 85 hp (63 kW; 86 PS). (The 2203-02 would run on liquified propane). An ambulance, the 22031, was soon added to the range, and made up fully a third of all 2203s built; there was also a 22035 for blood donor clinics. These were joined by the 22034, for fire departments.