BRAD GARRETT'S COMEDY CLUB

Category: Comedy

Best known for his role on the Emmy award-winning sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, Brad Garrett returns to his Vegas roots with his comedy club at the MGM Grand. It is a good place to check out when you need a break from work.

Prices from: $56.40 and up

Age restriction: Must be 21 years of age or older

Show Length: 115 minutes

MAC KING COMEDY MAGIC SHOW

Category: Comedy, Magic

Mac King Comedy Magic Show is different every afternoon, with lots of audience participation. He is willing to make fun of himself instead of his guests in order to make everyone feel welcome and entertained. The afternoon is kid-friendly from start to finish. Still, whether you're eight or 80, you won't be able to figure out King's secrets.

Prices from: $40.90 and up

Age restriction: No age restriction

Show Length: 90 minutes

THE MENTALIST, GERRY MCCAMBRIDGE

Category: Comedy, Magic

Using his skills as a “mentalist”, Gerry McCambridge shocks the crowds as he uses his abilities to predict just what audience members will do next. Anyone who has seen the show has walked away in disbelief, amazed by his unusual power.

Prices from: $34.99  and up

Age restriction: Under 13 will not be admitted into the theater

Show Length: 75 minutes

ROCK OF AGES

Category: Plays & Musicals

The cheerful Rock of Ages brings audiences back to the times of big hair and even bigger bands with 28 popular rock songs from the 80s including “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” “I Wanna Know What Love Is,” “Here I Go Again,” and more.

Rock of Ages has been nominated for five Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical. It also received a Drama League nomination for Distinguished Production for a Musical.

Prices from: $74.00 and up

Age restriction: Must be 15 years of age or older

Show Length: 125 minutes

    Living in a modern society has its advantages and disadvantages. One disadvantage is that you often have to live closer to other people than you would like to. Sometimes, your neighbors make a noise that you are not comfortable with.

    The best way to solve this problem is to talk with your neighbor first. You should be very polite and ask your neighbor if he knows how thin the walls of your homes are. This way doesn't criticize (批评) his behavior; it simply points out that he may not realize how far his sound travels. Tell him that you know that sometimes you make noise as well, but that you do your best to keep it down. Often this will solve the problem right away, but sometimes the neighbor may become angry.

    If your neighbor becomes angry with you, there are some more steps you can take. You might write a letter to the neighborhood committee（居委会）. Make sure you write down the source of the noise and the time in the letter. They will review the situation and decide whether your neighbor is out of line. Some noise is considered to be reasonable, even if it bothers you. So you may prepare a good pair of earplugs (耳塞).

    Even if your neighbor makes too much noise, you don't have to live your life in discomfort. It's always a good idea to be friendly with your neighbors. You may clean the rubbish in front of his door. He's sure to appreciate behavior like this and be more open to your suggestions about noise level.

    People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions — and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.

    Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly(均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.

    "We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions," Jack said. "Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth."

    According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.

    The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.

    It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than Westerners did. "The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions," Jack said. "Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less."

    In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.

    German engineers Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz built the first successful gasoline engines in 1885.After 1900, however, the United States became a leader in automobile production.

    The first cars were handmade and very expensive. Only people in rich cities could afford them. The first company to make gasoline cars in the U.S. was the Duryea Motor Wagon Company. Then, in 1901, Ransom E. Olds Began mass-producing his car, the Oldsmobile. In 1913Henry Ford made great strides in the mass production of cars by using an assembly line in his factory. Mass production meant that each car was less expensive to make. Now car ownership was affordable for the average person. By 1916there were more than one million cars in the United States.

    The automobile gave people the freedom to travel anywhere there were passable roads. Families that lived great distance apart could travel by automobile to visit each other. People could visit places they had never seen before.

    Before the mass production of cars, people lived close to work. Their means of transportation included walking, riding a bicycle, using a horse and carriage, or taking a train. The automobile gave people the ability to live farther away from work. The result was that gradually people moved out of the cities to the less crowded suburbs.

    The automobile industry created millions of jobs. The jobs were not just in the auto factories, where the cars were assembled. Workers were needed to make auto parts, run gas stations and repair shops, and work at new motels and restaurants that served people who traveled by car. Jobs became available at car rental companies. People were needed to build roads. These jobs and many others still exist because of the automobile.

    You may probably meet most of the powerful graduation speakers, here who are well-known people in their fields. I think the schools couldn't have picked better speakers than them, because they set good examples, deeply inspiring us in our daily life.

    1) Steve Jobs, Stanford University:

    "Remembering you're going to die, and the best way I know is to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. There is no reason not to follow your heart. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice... "

    2) Oprah Winfrey, Stanford University:

    "I consider the world, this Earth, to be like a school... And the secret I've learned to get ahead is being open to the lessons from the grandest universe of all. Don't react against a bad situation. And the solution will arise from the challenge. So don't give up easily, acting with responsibility... "

    3) Bono, University of Pennsylvania:

    "For four years you've been buying, trading, and selling everything you've got in this market-place of ideas. Your pockets are full, even if your parents' are empty, and now you've got to figure out what to spend it on... The world is more flexible than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape... "

    4) Michael Dell, University of Texas at Austin:

    "Now it's time for you to move on to what's next and obtain your desire. But you must not let anything prevent you from taking those first steps. Don't spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity, or sometimes you'll miss the right opportunity. Recognize that there will be failures and obstacles. But you will learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others."

    Moscow city authorities have begun using comics (漫画) with characters from Russian fairy tales to explain to migrants (移民) how they should behave. They say a 100-page guide is needed to "keep a positive image" of the city and could help reduce "tensions" between natives and migrants. But critics have pointed out that foreign migrants and natives may be regarded as antagonists in the manual (手册).

    Russians and migrants have repeatedly flooded in Moscow recently. Many migrants from ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia, the Caucasus (高加索) and North Caucasus, arrive in Moscow every year, attracted by the capital's job opportunities and relatively high salaries. A significant number of them work in the Russian capital illegally.

    The new guide in Russian seeks to explain the "dos" and "don'ts" to migrants. They are urged not to cause trouble, by staring at women, or eating or talking loudly on the streets. They are also warned that the police may routinely (例行公事) stop them to check their documents.

    In the manual, Russia's famous "three warriors" are meant to represent the city's law enforcement agencies (执法机关), while Prince Yuri Dolgoruky (a historical character) is used for tours around Moscow. Meanwhile, Vasilisa the Wise and The Snow Maiden test the reader on Russia's language and history. A special section of the book explains the importance of following Moscow's strict residency and employment rules, stressing that migrants could otherwise be deported (驱逐出境) or banned from entry.

    The manual was written primarily for illegal migrants, Alexander Kalinin, who heads the group Support for Working Migrants in Moscow, told BBC Russian.

    "We want to raise their level of law awareness," he added.

    Migrant characters had initially (最初) been identified as representatives of different nationalities, but the book's authors later decided to drop this idea so as "not to offend anyone", said Mr. Kalinin.

    "The old conflict between Russian heroes and non-Slavic invaders is being revived," Yevgeny Varshaver, a migration expert told BBC Russian. He also suggested that the language used in the book would be "difficult" to understand for some migrants who were not native Russian speakers.