Stick

Stick or the stick may refer to:

Objects

Stick (film)

Stick is a 1985 crime film directed by and starring Burt Reynolds, based on the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard.

Plot

Ernest "Stick" Stickley, a former car thief, has just been released from prison. He meets up with an old friend, Rainy, whose "quick stop" near the Florida Everglades before they go home is an illegal drug deal that goes sour. With his friend dead, Stick needs to hide out for a while to elude the killers (who must eliminate him as a witness).

While lying low, Stick finds himself in the right place at the right time when he helps a wealthy eccentric named Barry get into his locked car. Hired as a driver, he has a comfortable home with a stable job and tries to make up for lost time with Katie, his teen-age daughter. He also finds a new flame in Kyle, a financial consultant who acts as a business adviser for Barry, who must decide what of Stick can be salvaged.

Before he can move on, however, Stick confronts drug dealer Chucky to demand the money owed to his murdered friend. Chucky refuses and sends albino hit-man Moke after the ex-con. Stick can't get on with his new life without cleaning up old business first. He becomes the target of Moke as well as the cartel that employs Chucky, led by the voodoo-obsessed Nestor.

Stick (comics)

Stick is a fictional American comic book character owned by Marvel Comics who appears in their shared Marvel Universe.

Fictional character biography

The mysterious Stick is a blind sensei who trained Matt Murdock. Stick has made it his mission to keep the Chaste pure and clean from any evil infection. He forbade another of his prominent students, Elektra Natchios, from remaining in their ranks because of her vengeful personality, in spite of her formidable progress.

Stick is quite punishing and arrogant with his charges. He encountered Wolverine in his feral state and brought him back to reasoning, in part because of continued battering from his bō and hard nosed advising.

Eventually, the Hand sought to wipe out Stick and the good warriors of the Chaste altogether. Stick thwarted an assassination attempt by four Hand operatives; he then summoned the other members of his order to New York City. With the assistance of his clan, Stick defeated Kirigi, the Hand's most lethal ninja at the time. The Hand regrouped and attacked Stick and his band of warriors that now included Daredevil and his former lover, the Black Widow. The Hand had almost overpowered the small band of warriors, when Stick and Shaft resorted to an ancient technique that drained the life force from all ninja present. Unfortunately, the technique resulted in the explosion of Stick and his comrade as a result of the excess energy they had absorbed. Despite their losses and the escape of the superheroes, The Hand considered the destruction of their nemesis and leader of their enemy a victory and turned their attention to other schemes.

Connect (users group)

Connect, a 501(c)(6) non-profit association, is Hewlett Packard's largest independent enterprise business technology community.

Formed from the consolidation of Encompass, HP-Interex, and ITUG in May, 2008, Connect is a community of more than 70,000 HP customers, partners and employees. Through a strategic business partnership with HP, Connect engages its members through education, community, philanthropy, and advocacy to HP.

This community of IT professionals delivers information technology solutions for complex and multi-system computing environments, focusing on HP technologies, including HP-UX, HP's NonStop, Blade, HP Helion, Enterprise Storage, Enterprise Unix, OpenVMS, Linux and Windows.

Through its advocacy channels, the Connect membership provides feedback and direction to HP and their partners and has been instrumental in influencing the direction of many HP technologies.

History

The respective Users organizations have been of significant importance as to the development of technology in the so-called mini computer business (departmental computing). It has survived multiple mergers and takeovers, as well as multiple hardware platforms and software platforms. During its history it has been a tradition of self-service and mutual support amongst customers to complement the official vendor support.

Rivers, Roads & Rails

Rivers, Roads & Rails is a matching game similar to dominoes, but with 140 square tiles and in some respects similar to Bendomino. The game consists of square card pieces featuring different coloured tracks. The game was created by Ken Garland and Associates and first published in 1969 under the name Connect. Since 1970 it has been produced by Ravensburger, first in an abstract form, and since 1984 under the current theme with artwork by Josef Loflath. It has also been known under the name Contact.

Game play

Setup

A large area like a tabletop or the floor is used. The tiles are turned face down and all players randomly draw ten tiles and place them face up in front of them. The youngest player is the first player to start. The starting player randomly chooses a face-down tile, and turns it face up in the center of the play area.

Playing

Beginning with the starting player, each player on their turn draws a face-down tile (while there are ones remaining). Each tile has at least one of the river, road or rail on it. The player chooses one of his or her tiles and places it so that it matches up with river, road and/or rail on the tiles that have already been played. If that player cannot play a tile, then they must pass. Play then proceeds to the next player (rules don't specify which direction) until all of the tiles of one player have been played, or no one can play a tile.

Connect (album)

Connect is the fourth studio album by Australian band Sick Puppies, and was released on 16 July 2013 by Capitol Records. This was the last album to feature Lead vocalist and guitarist Shimon Moore, who was kicked out of the band on 20 October 2014.

The album debuted at No. 17 on the Billboard 200 album chart, their highest charting position to date, with 18,195 copies sold. Connect sold 16,318 albums in its first week.

A preview of the first single "There's No Going Back" was released on YouTube on 10 May 2013. The single was released on 20 May 2013.

Music

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic highlighted that "the trio's fourth album, are varied and its themes are ambitious, tackling disconnect and politics", but it "doesn't mean the Australian trio necessarily sounds adult, however."

Critical reception

Connect garnered generally mixed reviews from music critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic called the album "a richer musical experience than the group's previous records", but wrote that the band was "still hampered a bit by their desperate desire to be taken seriously, but the back half of Connect, written largely on acoustic guitars, shows that their strength is not in attitude but rather in softer sonic textures." At Alternative Press, Reed Fischer felt that "Connect grates far too often to live up to its name."