Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to the 1996 mod Team Fortress for Quake and its 1999 remake. It was released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows and the Xbox 360. A PlayStation 3 version followed on December 11, 2007. On April 8, 2008, it was released as a standalone title for Windows. The game was updated to support OS X on June 10, 2010, and Linux on February 14, 2013. It is distributed online through Valve's download retailer Steam; retail distribution was handled by Electronic Arts.

In Team Fortress 2, players join one of two teams comprising nine character classes, battling in a variety of game modes including capture the flag and king of the hill. The development is led by John Cook and Robin Walker, creators of the original Team Fortress. Announced in 1998, the game once had more realistic, militaristic visuals and gameplay, but this changed over the protracted nine-year development. After Valve released no information for six years, Team Fortress 2 regularly featured in Wired News' annual vaporware list among other ignominies. The finished Team Fortress 2 has cartoon-like visuals influenced by the art of J. C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell and Norman Rockwell and is powered by Valve's Source engine.

Flashpoint (TV series)

Flashpoint is a Canadian police drama television series that debuted on 11 July 2008 on CTV in Toronto. In the United States, the series originally aired on CBS, then aired on Ion Television; in the United Kingdom it aired on Universal Channel. The series has been broadcast on the Canadian French-language network V in Quebec since 9 March 2009. The series was created by Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern and stars Hugh Dillon, Amy Jo Johnson, David Paetkau, Sergio Di Zio and Enrico Colantoni. It was announced January 25, 2011 that Ion Television had acquired all rights to the show held by CBS including the option to continue production.

After the fourth season of Flashpoint concluded, a fifth season was ordered; starting to air in Canada in September 2012. On May 1, 2012 the producers announced that the fifth season would be the last of the series. The series finale aired on December 13, 2012.

Plot

The show focuses on a fictional elite tactical unit, the Strategic Response Unit (SRU), within a Canadian metropolitan police force (styled on the Toronto Police Emergency Task Force). The SRU are tasked to resolve extreme situations that regular officers are not trained to handle, including hostage-taking, bomb threats, and heavily armed criminals. Although the team is seldom seen doing so, they do sometimes discuss the "day job" of serving high-risk arrest warrants. Equipped with high-tech tools and a cache of weapons and explosives, members use negotiation tactics and intuition to try to avoid the use of deadly force, which they exert only as a last resort. The outcome of a given situation is often determined by a split-second decision, hence the show's title.

Sniper (1993 film)

Sniper is a 1993 American action film starring Tom Berenger and Billy Zane as snipers on an assassination mission in Panama. It was shot in Queensland, Australia, and debuted at number two in the United States. It initiated the Sniper film series and was followed by four sequels: Sniper 2, Sniper 3, Sniper: Reloaded, and Sniper: Legacy.

Plot

Master Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Beckett, an experienced sniper, and his spotter Cpl. Papich are on a mission to assassinate a Panamanian rebel leader in the jungle; however, they are extracted in daylight instead of night time, which results in Papich's getting killed by a sniper. Beckett runs back under fire to haul Papich's body to the helicopter. Later, Beckett is paired up with an inexperienced civilian, Richard Miller, to eliminate a rebel general financed by a Colombian drug lord. Miller is a SWAT sharpshooter, but he has no combat experience or confirmed kills. On the way to the staging area, Miller's chopper is attacked by a guerrilla, who kills several members of the crew. Miller is unable to take out the attacker; instead, the chopper's dying gunner makes the kill. The co-pilot believes Miller is responsible, and Miller earns a false reputation.

Smile

A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a "Duchenne smile". Smiles performed without the eye contraction can be perceived as "fake".

Among humans, smiling is an expression denoting pleasure, sociability, happiness, or amusement. It is distinct from a similar but usually involuntary expression of anxiety known as a grimace. Although cross-cultural studies have shown that smiling is a means of communication throughout the world, there are large differences between different cultures, with some using smiles to convey confusion or embarrassment.

Historical background

Primatologist Signe Preuschoft traces the smile back over 30 million years of evolution to a "fear grin" stemming from monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth to portray to predators that they were harmless. The smile may have evolved differently among species and especially among humans. Apart from Biology as an academic discipline that interprets the smile, those who study kinesics and psychology such as Freitas-Magalhaes view the smile as an affect display that can communicate feelings such as love, happiness, pride, contempt, and embarrassment.

Smile! (novel)

Smile! is a children's book by Geraldine McCaughrean. In 2004 it won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize Bronze Award.

References

Smile (musical)

Smile is a musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch and book and lyrics by Howard Ashman. It was originally produced on Broadway in 1986. The musical is based loosely on the 1975 comedy film of the same title, from a screenplay by Jerry Belson.

Original Film

The original 1975 film was directed by Michael Ritchie with a screenplay by Jerry Belson. It starred Barbara Feldon as Brenda DiCarlo, Nicholas Pryor as Andy DiCarlo (Brenda's husband in the film), Bruce Dern as Big Bob Freelander, Geoffrey Lewis as Wilson Shears, Joan Prather as Robin Gibson, Annette O'Toole as Doria Hudson, Melanie Griffith as Karen Love, and choreographer Michael Kidd as Tommy French. The movie was filmed on location in Santa Rosa, California with the pageant festivities at Veteran's Memorial Auditorium.

Production

The original production opened on Broadway on November 24, 1986 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre and closed on January 3, 1987 after 48 performances. It was directed by Ashman with musical staging by Mary Kyte. It received a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical as well as Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical (Michael O'Gorman) and Outstanding Costume Design (William Ivey Long).