Houston

Houston (ⁱ/ˈhjuːstən/ HYOO-stən) is the most populous city in Texas and the fourth most populous city in the United States. With a census-estimated 2014 population of 2.239 million people, within a land area of 599.6 square miles (1,553 km²), it also is the largest city in the Southern United States, as well as the seat of Harris County. It is the principal city of Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, which is the fifth most populated metropolitan area in the United States.

Houston was founded in 1836 on land near the banks of Buffalo Bayou (now known as Allen's Landing) and incorporated as a city on June 5, 1837. The city was named after former General Sam Houston, who was president of the Republic of Texas and had commanded and won at the Battle of San Jacinto 25 miles (40 km) east of where the city was established. The burgeoning port and railroad industry, combined with oil discovery in 1901, has induced continual surges in the city's population. In the mid-twentieth century, Houston became the home of the Texas Medical Center—the world's largest concentration of healthcare and research institutions—and NASA's Johnson Space Center, where the Mission Control Center is located.

Patrick Bateman

Patrick Bateman is a fictional character, the antihero and narrator of the novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, and its film adaptation. He is a wealthy, materialistic Wall Street investment banker leading a double life as a serial killer. Bateman has also briefly appeared in other Ellis's novels.

Biography and profile

Bateman works as a specialist in mergers and acquisitions at the fictional Wall Street investment firm of Pierce & Pierce (also Sherman McCoy's firm in The Bonfire of the Vanities) and lives at 55 West 81st Street, Upper West Side in the American Gardens Building (where he is a neighbor of actor Tom Cruise). In his secret life, however, Bateman is a serial killer murdering a variety of people, from colleagues to the homeless to prostitutes. His crimes—including rape, torture, necrophilia, and cannibalism—are described in graphic detail in the novel.

Bateman comes from a wealthy family. His parents have a house on Long Island, and he mentions a summer house in Newport. His parents divorced sometime earlier, while his mother became sick and now resides at a sanatorium. His father, who first appeared in Ellis' preceding novel The Rules of Attraction, grew up on an estate in Connecticut, and now owns an apartment in the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan. He is assumed to be dead as he is mentioned only in past tense during the novel. Bateman's younger brother Sean attends Camden College (and is a protagonist of Ellis' previous novel, The Rules of Attraction, in which Patrick Bateman was first introduced). Bateman attended Phillips Exeter Academy for prep school. He graduated from Harvard College in 1984 and Harvard Business School two years later, and moved to New York City.

American Psycho

American Psycho is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by Patrick Bateman, a serial killer and Manhattan businessman. The Observer notes that while "some countries [deem it] so potentially disturbing that it can only be sold shrink-wrapped", "critics rave about it" and "academics revel in its transgressive and postmodern qualities."

A film adaptation starring Christian Bale was released in 2000 to generally favorable reviews. In 2008, it was confirmed that producers David Johnson and Jesse Singer were developing a musical adaptation of the novel to appear on Broadway. The musical premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London in December 2013.

Development

Ellis researched murders at the New York Public Library. His first draft of American Psycho left all the grisly scenes until last, to be added in later. In 2010, to one interviewer, Ellis commented:

Plot

Ames, Iowa

Ames is a city located in the central part of the U.S. state of Iowa in Story County. Lying approximately 30 miles (48 km) north of Des Moines, it had a 2010 population of 58,965. The U.S. Census Bureau designates the Ames metropolitan statistical area as encompassing all of Story County; combined with the Boone, Iowa micropolitan statistical area (Boone County, Iowa), the pair make up the larger Ames-Boone combined statistical area. While Ames is the largest city in Story County, the county seat is in the nearby city of Nevada 8 miles (13 km) east of Ames.

Ames is the home of Iowa State University of Science and Technology (ISU), a public research institution with leading Agriculture, Design, Engineering, and Veterinary Medicine colleges. ISU is the nation's first designated land-grant university, and the birthplace of the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, the world's first electronic digital computer. Ames hosts one of two national sites for the United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which comprises the National Veterinary Services Laboratory and the Center for Veterinary Biologics. Ames is also the home of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service's National Animal Disease Center. NADC is the largest federal animal disease center in the U.S., conducting research aimed at solving animal health and food safety problems faced by livestock producers and the public. Ames has the headquarters for the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Gabriel Iglesias

Gabriel J. Iglecias (born July 15, 1976), known professionally as Gabriel Iglesias and comically as Fluffy, is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer and voice actor. He is known for his shows I'm Not Fat… I'm Fluffy and Hot & Fluffy. He employs storytelling, affected voices and sound effects in his act, whose other trademarks include references to his weight and his use of Hawaiian shirts. He has been called a "comedy genius" by Hector Saldaña of the San Antonio Express-News.

Early life

Gabriel Iglesias was born Gabriel J. Iglecias in San Diego, California, the youngest of six children to a single mother. He is of Mexican heritage. His mother placed a letter "c" in his surname in retaliation for his father's absence during his birth, though he does not use this spelling in his everyday life, preferring to use the one with the "s". He grew up in Riverside, Corona, Santa Ana, Baldwin Park, and Compton before settling in Section 8, low-income housing in Long Beach, where Iglesias spent most of his youth.