When Shawn Pyfrom (aka Andrew, Bree Van De Kamp’s gay son) joined Desperate Housewives little did he know what a stir he would cause with gay men (and straight women) across the world. Sadly for us, having been relegated to, mostly, back-burner in the latest series, Pyfrom is packing his bags and heading out of Wysteria Lane…

Filling a gaping Sex In The City shaped gap in the gay must-see TV schedule of 2004, Desperate Housewives has gone on to acquire a huge gay following during it’s five series run. It was in series one that the high camp comedy-drama introduced its first gay character played by handsome 22 year old Pyfrom.

Initially in the closet, 16 year old Andrew’s raunchy poolside outing with his then-boyfriend Justin (Ryan Carnes) caused a wave of publicity making Desperate Housewives one of the very few American prime time network TV series to ever air a gay kiss.

Series creator Marc Cherry’s focus on the character has dwindled in recent seasons, however a brief return to main story line came for Pyfrom when writers capitalized on America’s recent and ongoing same-sex marriage debate, with Andrew getting engaged to his doctor boyfriend.

The 6th series of Desperate Housewives will be aired in September on ABC with People magazine reporting that Pyfrom may continue to make sporadic guest appearances while pursuing other interests. Gay couple Lee McDermott (Kevin Rahm) and Bob Hunter (Tuc Watkins) are expected to feature in the forthcoming series.

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Links for this story:

http://tvwatch.people.com/2009/07/28/shawn-pyfrom-leaving-desperate-housewives/

Americans relied on their local newspapers for more than information during the United States’ Great Depression.

Newspapers during that time also provided a service to quilters. Many newspapers published quilt patterns for their readers during the Great Depression.

1930 newspaper quilt patterns were very common in rural U.S. states. The Kansas City Star actually began printing patterns for quilters in 1926. The newspaper carried on the tradition until 1961. The quilt patterns were published weekly at first, then as interest seemed to dwindle, the patterns were printed monthly before being pulled from the publication all together. In all, just over 1000 quilt patterns were published by the Kansas City newspaper. Collectors have found copies of all of them and now offer a compilation for sale.

The Kansas City newspaper was not the only one to publish newspaper quilt patterns. Many other rural papers did the same.

The 1930 newspaper quilt patterns helped preserve part of the country’s heritage. Even though times were tougher than ever economically, the 1930 newspaper quilt patterns focused on the things that were truly important to quilters of that day and served as an emotional boost as well.

One popular 1930 newspaper quilt pattern was “The Magic Vine.” The design was presented as a series in a newspaper column written by Florence LaGanke Harris. In addition to the weekly quilt pattern, Harris wrote a fictional story about a quilting group. Readers followed the antics of the group and its fictional leader, Nancy Page. As readers followed the goings-on of the imaginary quilting group, they also stitched along with each week’s pattern. Readers were so engaged by the weekly column and quilting that they submitted their own quilt designs for consideration. The end result from Harris’ column was a quilt of beautifully appliqu?flowers with vines that entwined. Another of the popular 1930 newspaper quilt patterns included in Harris’ weekly column was the “Memory Bouquet.” The quilt featured 9×12 inch blocks appliqu?with various flowers. Imagine the cheery look of the finished product with its hollyhock, tulips, violets, carnations, zinnias, jonquils and more!

The weekly 1930 newspaper quilt patterns gave quilters some much needed enjoyment and thrifty entertainment. In addition to providing reasonably priced quilt patterns during The Great Depression era in the United States, the quilts also focused on an important part of life in the 1930′s: the children. Many patterns for children featured nursery rhymes. Some quilts featured one single nursery rhyme while others compiled several children’s favorites onto one quilt top. The patterns were designed so that they could be appliqu?or embroidered. Redwork was popular on quilts at the time!

The 1930 newspaper quilt patterns were a direct reflection of life during the Great Depression. Quilters saved money by using the patterns. They continued providing necessary warmth for their families and offered the quilts they made from the 1930 newspaper patterns as gifts for many occasions.

If you would like to create your own quilt from 1930 newspaper quilt patterns, they are available — usually as copied images or in books. There are several collections available that could be appliqu? embroidered or hand painted. To find your own collection of 1930 newspaper quilt patterns, check your favorite hobby or book store for a book or dvd of all the available patterns. The Internet is another great source of finding 1930 newspaper quilt patterns.

Restaurant City, as one of the most popular Facebook games currently on the Internet, has become something of a lightning rod for those looking to master a game that takes a bit of skill and a whole lot of time. One of the fundamental aspects of playing the game well is to create and manage employees in such as way that they can handle all of the different layouts that would allow you restaurant to succeed. There are a lot of things to juggle – but if you can do it properly, you’ll be well on your way to having a high quality, well run restaurant.

How to Hire and Set Employees

You can hire employees at set intervals in the game. The first two employees are provided to you when you first start playing the game at level 1. You will be one of your own employees and then you can go and hire someone else from your friends list to be your first waiter and to start serving customers. After you have hired those first two, you will also be able to add employees at level 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, and 17. That will give you a total of 8 employees to run your restaurant – a generally good number that will allow you to handle just about anything that you set up in your layout.

Keeping the Employees Happy

The thing about employees is that they generally do everything on their own. You don’t need to cut or prepare food as in Cafe World and you don’t need to worry about things like rotation or positioning nearly as much. They will do their jobs without any prompting. However, you will need to go in and rest your employees or feed them regularly enough if you want them to be able to continue serving successfully.

There is a meter tied to your employees that ranges from 1 to 100%. Each increment of 25% will drop the happiness level of your employee and slow them down, resulting in worse performance and less income for you, as well as a dropped popularity score.

To keep this score high and to maintain a level that will keep those employees happy, you either need to rest them or you need to feed them. The best route is to feed them as it is much less expensive in the long run. That said, you will need to spend a bit of time maintaining them every time you logon – if you can do that, you’ll be okay with your employees and can change your focus to how they are positioned in your layout.