A ball is a round object with various uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can be used for simpler activities, such as catch or juggling. Balls made from hard-wearing materials are used in engineering applications to provide low friction bearings, known as ball bearings. Black-powder weapons use metal balls as projectiles. Although many types of balls are today made from rubber, this form was unknown outside the Americas until after the voyages of Columbus; the Spanish were the first Europeans to see the bouncing rubber balls which were employed most notably in the Mesoamerican ballgame. Balls used in various sports in other parts of the world prior to Columbus were made from other materials such as animal bladders or skins, stuffed with various materials; as balls are one of the most familiar spherical objects to humans, the word "ball" may be used to refer to or describe spherical or near-spherical objects.

"Ball" is used metaphorically sometimes to denote something spherical or spheroid, e.g. armadillos and human beings curl up into a ball, we make a ball with our fist. The first known use of the word ball in English in the sense of a globular body, played with was in 1205 in Laȝamon's Brut, or Chronicle of Britain in the phrase, "Summe heo driuen balles wide ȝeond Þa feldes." The word came from the Middle English bal (inflected as ball-e, -es, in turn from Old Norse böllr from Proto-Germanic ballu-z, a cognate with Old High German ballo, Middle High German balle from Proto-Germanic *ballon, Old High German ballâ, pallâ, Middle High German balle, Proto-Germanic *ballôn. No Old English representative of any of these is known. If ball- was native in Germanic, it may have been a cognate with the Latin foll-is in sense of a "thing blown up or inflated." In the Middle English spelling balle the word coincided graphically with the French balle "ball" and "bale" which has hence been erroneously assumed to be its source.

French balle is assumed to be of Germanic origin, however. In Ancient Greek the word πάλλα for "ball" is attested besides sphere. A ball, as the essential feature in many forms of gameplay requiring physical exertion, must date from the earliest times. A rolling object appeals not only to a kitten and a puppy; some form of game with a ball is found portrayed on Egyptian monuments, is played among aboriginal tribes at the present day. In Homer, Nausicaa was playing at ball with her maidens when Odysseus first saw her in the land of the Phaeacians, and Halios and Laodamas performed before Alcinous and Odysseus with ball play, accompanied with dancing. Among the ancient Greeks, games with balls were regarded as a useful subsidiary to the more violent athletic exercises, as a means of keeping the body supple, rendering it graceful, but were left to boys and girls. Of regular rules for the playing of ball games, little trace remains; the names in Greek for various forms, which have come down to us in such works as the Ὀνομαστικόν of Julius Pollux, imply little or nothing of such.

Pollux mentions a game called episkyros, looked on as the origin of football. It seems to have been played by two sides, arranged in lines, it was impossible to produce a ball, spherical. Among the Romans, ball games were looked upon as an adjunct to the bath, were graduated to the age and health of the bathers, a place was set apart for them in the baths. There appear to have been three types or sizes of ball, the pila, or small ball, used in catching games, the paganica, a heavy ball stuffed with feathers, the follis, a leather ball filled with air, the largest of the three; this was struck from player to player. There was a game known as trigon, played by three players standing in the form of a triangle, played with the follis, one known as harpastum, which seems to imply a "scrimmage" among several players for the ball; these games are known to us through the Romans. The various modern games played with a ball or balls and subject to rules are treated under their various names, such as polo, football, etc.

Several sports use a ball in the shape of a prolate spheroid: Ball Buckminster Fullerene "Bucky balls" Football Kickball Marbles Penny floater Prisoner Ball Shuttlecock Super Ball The dictionary definition of ball at Wiktionary

A pitch book called a Confidential Information Memorandum, is a marketing presentation used by investment banks, corporate finance firms, business brokers and other M&A intermediaries advising on the sale or disposal of the shares or assets of a business. It consists of a careful arrangement and analysis of the investment considerations of the client business and is presented to investors and potential investors with the intent of providing them the information necessary for them to make a decision to buy or invest in the client business. Key areas covered in a typical pitch book include information on the investment highlights, key financial figures, the company's core customers and diversification of the customer base, barriers to entry for competitors and plan to achieve future projections, future growth opportunities, strength of management team, scalability of operations, opportunities in the external market place and known risks, not to mention disclaimers. Full-service investment banking conglomerates, a.k.a.

Bulge Bracket banks, compete to win the business of established clients as either the lead or co-manager of a syndicate. If a firm is less established, the firm, not the investment bank, tends to make the pitch to secure the relationship. Of the United States Securities Act of 1933 The pitch book is used by investment banks to market themselves to potential clients, it provides the bank with a chance to show and prove why the client should instruct them instead of any competitor. The pitch book is not to be confused with a public information book, an internal resource for the investment bankers to glean transactional and historic information on a particular company. There are several types of pitch books, from general pitch books providing an overview of a firm to pitch books designed to best present the firm to potential service partners or, in M&A, to investors; the pitch book may employ a SWOT analysis. "Comps", or Comparable Company Analysis may be presented. In a comp, an investment bank presents industry specific details, macro- and microeconomic and company specific analyses, which support reasoning for a particular valuation.

There are many contributors to an intermediary's pitch book. In an investment bank contributors may include anyone from an analyst to an associate, a vice-president or the managing director; as an example, a table of contents or outline will open the pitch book for discussion. Name and department present a management description of the deal team and other contributors within the firm’s internal wealth of resources. An "overview", "financing requirements", as mentioned a description of the company's universe, the "comparable company analysis" are all essential elements to an investment banking pitch book. Downes, John & Goodman, Jordan Elliot.

Emmer Sewell is a contemporary African-American artist. Sewell is known for her sculptures made of found objects, her work is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sewell grew up on a farm in Perry County, near the town of Marion, she was one of fourteen children born to a dairy employee. Her parents were strict and organized mobilizing the children to harvest crops, tend to or slaughter their cattle, or immaculately clean the house and surrounding fields. Sewell's first memories of drawing came from the rests, she would draw in the open patches of mud on her parents' property. Sewell carries her parents' habitual, ritual cleaning into her work, as she is tidying, sweeping her yard, rearranging its contents to make her charms and protective sculptures. A performative child, Sewell excelled in school in music, performing arts, arithmetic. Although most of her work is contained on her property, her oeuvre reads as a series of stages where her knowledge and spirituality perform.

Sewell's work undulates through her childhood home and stretches from the road to the back edges of her property. Mundane objects such as mailboxes and old refrigerators become vessels for history and Sewell's personal spirituality, a syncretism of southern American Christianity and West African-derived ancestor propitiation. An X with dots in each quadrant pervades her work. Sewell described " I put it on refrigerators and those things—symbols of God." Comparing this symbol to ancient Roman symbols that are now ubiquitous, "That is a sign of history. That sign is a great symbol of things. It’s no mean thing to it, nothing devilish in it, it is not. It is a symbol to recognize by, it is a symbol of recognized ways... Them little dots in it make it a star. Let you know you got good running. Knowledge can make you be a star You can use your knowledge and background."Other notable assemblages include a generations-old doghouse bordering the woods, many Black Panther inspired scarecrows, which stand guard against animals in her crops and people entering her property, shrines to ancestors or biblical tales which are assembled on tree branches

"Love Thy Trophy" is the fifth episode of the second season of the animated series Family Guy, a holdover from season 1. It aired in the United States on Fox on March 14, 2000. In the episode and his neighbors create an award-winning float at a local parade; the trophy in question becomes the neighbors' obsession, they begin fighting when it disappears. Meanwhile, Meg acquires a Prada purse with money from her new job as a waitress, she has falsely claimed that she is a teen mom and that baby Stewie is her neglected son for increased tips, subsequently causing him to be removed from his family and placed in a foster home. The neighbors set aside their differences and recover Stewie, losing Meg's Prada purse in the process; the end of the episode reveals that Brian buried the trophy due to his natural urge to bury shiny things. For Quahog's yearly harvest festival parade with floats, the theme by Peter, "The episode of Who's the Boss? where Tony sees Angela naked in the shower", is randomly selected.

The float built by Peter, Quagmire and Joe wins, but the men cannot agree on whose house the Golden Clam trophy should reside in. They decide to place it above the road, suspended by the statues from the float; the next day the trophy is missing. Meg gets a job at a pancake house, she lets the restaurateur, believe that Stewie is her baby so she will get the job. She realizes that allowing customers to think Stewie is a crack-addicted baby and she is his single mother results in higher tips. Stewie plays along. A woman named Sandy Belford from Child. On Spooner Street the neighbors fight over the missing trophy and Joe and Cleveland are quick to badmouth the Griffins, leading CPS to place Stewie in a foster home where he lives with children from a variety of ethnic origins; the neighbors put their conflict aside to retrieve Stewie. When an espionage mission fails, they trade Meg's Prada bag for Stewie; that night, Rod Serling reveals. Brian assaults Serling with a shovel and proceeds to bury him. Meanwhile, Quagmire has sexual intercourse with Sandy.

During the credit roll, Stewie is seen in bed with a fever after withdrawing from Flappy's pancakes. The episode was written by writing team Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman and directed by Jack Dyer before the conclusion of the second production season. In addition to the regular cast, voice actress Tara Strong, actress Debra Wilson guest starred in the episode. Recurring guest voices include Lori Alan, Mike Henry, Danny Smith, Jennifer Tilly, Patrick Warburton. In his 2008 review, Ahsan Haque of IGN rated the episode a 9.3/10, saying that "the story in this episode flowed remarkably well" and the cutaways were "kept to a minimum", thus the story giving most of the humor. He noted that "Love Thy Trophy" had "a few interesting character revelations". Callaghan, Steve. “Love Thy Trophy.” Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1–3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 56–59. Delarte, Alonso. “Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 2.” Bob’s Poetry Magazine May 2005: 11–12. Love Thy Trophy on IMDb "Love Thy Trophy" at TV.com

A unified primary is a proposed electoral system for narrowing the field of candidates for a single-winner general election, similar to a nonpartisan blanket primary, but using approval voting for the first round. In the US, most primary elections are party-specific: voters select a political party, either as part of the voter registration process or at the ballot box, may vote only for candidates sharing that same party affiliation; these primary systems use plurality voting, where each voter may express a preference for one candidate per office. The candidate in each party receiving the most votes advances to the general election. Voters not affiliated with a major political party may or may not be able to participate in these primary elections, depending on jurisdictional rules, candidates not affiliated with a major political party may be nominated to the general election by other processes such as minor party conventions or petition; the non-partisan blanket primary is a single primary election in which all voters may participate, all candidates appear on the same ballot, regardless of party affiliation or lack of party affiliation.

The top two most-voted candidates will appear in the general election. This is intended to allow non-partisan voters and candidates to participate, to allow more moderate nominees in the general election. However, the non-partisan blanket primary still only allows voters a single choice per office, is therefore prone to the spoiler effect, where candidates espousing similar ideologies split votes, helping candidates with opposing ideologies to win. Like a blanket primary, the unified primary has only one primary election, in which all voters participate, all candidates appear on a single ballot regardless of political party affiliation. Unlike a blanket primary, the unified primary uses approval voting in the first round, in which voters may express support for any number of favored candidates, intended to eliminate vote splitting and spoilers; the top two most-approved candidates will appear in the general election. Proponents posit that the Unified Primary system will increase voter choice by allowing all voters to participate in all stages of the election process, by allowing voters to express support for more than a single candidate, by allowing all candidates to compete in a uniform election process, regardless of political party affiliation or lack of affiliation.

In contrast, FairVote, a national election reform non-profit that advocates instant-runoff voting, theorized that it is that general election races would have two finalists from the same major party in districts where a majority of voters affiliate with that party, thereby reduce voter choice in the election that has statistically higher turnout than current primary elections. Election method simulation of various voting systems indicate that an election system comprising approval voting in the first stage and a vote between the top two approved in the second stage is the highest-performing simple two-stage voting system on the criteria of Bayesian regret and propensity to elect the Condorcet winner; these simulations confirmed early election science research that found that the most efficient simple two-stage voting system allows two or more votes in the first stage and a single vote between two candidates in the second stage. The use of approval voting on an open field of all candidates for partisan office as a replacement for current party-nominated primary systems was first publicly proposed in November 2011 by brothers Mark and Jon Frohnmayer in the form of a draft ballot initiative.

The text of the failed Oregon Ballot Measure 65, which would have instituted a top-two primary system, served as the foundation for the draft, modified to allow voters to select as many candidates as favored for each office. The Frohnmayer brothers are sons of former Oregon public official Dave Frohnmayer, whose plurality loss to Governor Barbara Roberts in Oregon's 1990 gubernatorial election was blamed in part on an independent candidate in the race who siphoned off conservative votes. A formal petition drive to institute the Unified Primary system in Oregon began in October 2013. Petitioners completed the sponsorship phase of the initiative process by collecting more than 1,000 verified signatures from registered voters to advance the measure toward the November, 2014 ballot; the term "unified primary" was adopted by petitioners for what they say is etymological accuracy and to distinguish it from other primary system reform initiatives, notably open primary. The pairing "unified primary" was advanced by Oregon's Attorney General in the draft ballot title for this initiative: "Changes Election Nomination Processes.

Several variations of this measure have been filed to date: 2014 Initiative Petitions 38 and 51. The campaign did not collect the 87,213 signatures required to get Petition 54 onto the ballot. Frohnmayer joined the campaign for STAR voting, an alternate voting method which would replace blanket/unified primaries with a single election that uses a score ballot and automatic runoff, though still promoting the unified primary under the name "Equal Top Two"; the STL Approves campaign is seeking to adopt the Unified Primary in St. Louis city elections. Ori

The bronze frog is a subspecies of Lithobates clamitans found in the southeastern region of North America. The bronze frog grows up to 2–4 in. Distinguishing characteristics include a bronze to brownish body, a white belly with dark, irregular blotches, a bright-green upper lip and nose. Males may have yellowish throats. Bronze frogs are smooth-skinned, like all true frogs, they have long hind legs with webbed toes. Two dorsolateral folds runs two-thirds the length of body; the tympanum is larger in males. Bronze frogs are solitary, they remain under cover, in crevices, most of the time. Male bronze frogs court females with a distinct call. Researchers agree that the mating call of the bronze frog sounds like someone plucking a loose banjo string. Named for its body color, the bronze frog may be difficult to find until warm, humid evenings, when its mating call is heard. Colloquially referred to as the "banjo frog", the primary breeding call is an explosive "clunk," or "cloink" repeated several times in succession, but less powerfully each time.

Like many species of frogs, the males voice an aggressive call when concentrations of these frogs are high in breeding areas. This call is a quick, spitting sound that sometimes precedes an attack on a competitor. Bronze frogs are found in the southeastern portion of the United States, from North Carolina to the eastern third of Texas. Bronze frogs are found in shallow streams, marshes, springs and bald cypress swamps with plenty of vegetation, they are active both night. Bronze frogs eat a variety of arthropods, they eat flies, fish, small snakes, crayfish and other frogs. It reaches sexual maturity in the first full summer after metamorphosis. Breeding season lasts through the summer. Females lay 2,000–4,000 eggs in small masses attached to underwater vegetation. Eggs are 1.5 mm when grow to 6 mm as cells divide. Incubation is one to two weeks. Tadpoles are green with dark spots, they grow 1.0 -- 1.5 inches. Bronze frogs live seven to 10 years. State of Texas: Bronze Frog US Geological Survey: Rana clamitans