Travel deals to bowl games open for WVU, Marshall football fans

Marshall University Football 2015 Intro Video
By Elaina Sauber, City of Charleston Reporter

As the Mountaineers and Thundering Herd gear up for their respective upcoming bowl games, ticket sales and travel packages have opened up to fans.

On Jan. 2, West Virginia University will take on Arizona State University in the 2016 Motel 6 Cactus Bowl, at Chase Field in Phoenix. Kickoff is at 8:15 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, which means a 10:15 p.m. kickoff for viewers in West Virginia.

The WVU Alumni Association and Mountaineer Athletic Club are offering a travel package for fans. It includes a three-night stay at Hyatt Regency Hotel, which is within walking distance of Chase Field; a WVU Welcome Reception and access to the Official WVU Pre-Game Party, according to PrimeSport, the official fan travel provider for the WVU Alumni Association. Prices start at $515 for a group of four to a room, and up to $875 for a single guest.

Airfare is not included in the travel package, said Kevin Berry, WVU Alumni Association associate director.

Fans are coming from all over the place, he said, such as Pittsburgh, Charleston and Washington, D.C. We decided with this, to focus on taking care of fans needs when they arrive in the Phoenix area.

Plane tickets from Yeager Airport in Charleston to Phoenix start at about $500.

Berry added that the alumni association is also planning additional fan-related activities during the stay, which runs from Dec. 31 to Jan. 3. Those will be outlined in an upcoming release, he said.

National Travel in Charleston is offering individualized travel deals for those who want to attend the game but have more flexibility in their travel options, representative Molly Murphy said.

Marshall Universitys football team will travel later this month to Florida for the St. Petersburg Bowl. The Thundering Herd will take on the University of Connecticut at 11 a.m. Dec. 26 at St. Petersburgs Tropicana Field.

Marshall Athletics is partnering with Anthony Travel to help fans book flights to St. Petersburg. Depending on the departure and return dates, tickets start as low as $280 for a round-trip flight from Charleston to Tampa, Florida.

Fans can make reservations at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront, where the football team is also staying, for $219 per night. Visit anthonytravel.com/marshall-bowl for more information on reservations, and herdzone.com to purchase tickets to the game.

National Travel also is working with nearby hotels to offer lower rates for Herd fans, as well as Allegiant Airlines, a low-cost carrier, for cheap, direct flights out of Huntington.

Reach Elaina Sauber at elaina.sauber@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-3051 or follow @ElainaSauber on Twitter.

Source: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article/20151207/GZ01/151209598

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Powerball winning numbers drawn; Ohio Lottery results for Wednesday

How to win the Powerball Lottery

CLEVELAND, Ohio Powerball selected numbers Wednesday night for a $145 million jackpot.

The numbers are 7-10-16-46-56 Powerball 1 Powerplay 2x.

Classic Lotto"s jackpot increases to $16.2 million for Saturday after no tickets matched the winning numbers from Wednesday"s drawing. The numbers are 17-20-35-37-38-42 Kicker 424636.

Wednesday"swinning Ohio Lotterynumbersare:

Pick 3 evening: 151 (midday 207)

Pick 4 evening: 3954 (midday, 9148)

Pick 5 evening: 87739 (midday, 77262)

Rolling Cash 5: 1-15-33-37-39

Pick 3 winnersreceive $500 for a $1 straight bet and the odds of winning are 1-in-1,000.Pick 4 winnersreceive $5,000 for a $1 straight bet and the odds of winning are 1-in-10,000.

TheRolling Cash 5jackpot for the next drawing is $130,000 for hitting all five numbers and the odds of winning are 1-in-575,757.

Drawings for Pick 3, Pick 4 and Pick 5 are twice daily, at 12:29 p.m. and 7:29 p.m. The drawing for the Rolling Cash 5 is each night at 7:35 p.m.

Classic Lottodraws at 7:05 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The odds of winning the jackpot with a $1 ticket are 1-in-13,983,816.

Mega Millionsdraws on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 p.m. The odds of winning the jackpot with a $1 ticket are 1-in-258.9 million.

Powerballdraws on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. The odds of winning the jackpot with a $2 ticket are 1 in 175,223,510.

The official Ohio Lottery siteoffers more information on instant tickets, raffles and other lottery games.

Source: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/12/powerball_winning_numbers_draw_36.html

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Marshall football notebook: UConn"s Cummings has history with Herd

2014 Ultimate Marshall Thundering Herd Football Highlights

CLEARWATER, Fla. Mike Cummings has gotten back in the trenches with Marshall this week, as his Connecticut offensive line figures out how to block the Thundering Herds cat-quick defense.

Cummings serves as offensive line coach and co-offensive coordinator. He coordinated the offense in 2014, before 31-year coaching veteran Frank Verducci was brought on to run the unit.

Cummings was hired at Marshall by coach Bob Pruett, who abruptly resigned shortly thereafter. Mark Snyder retained Cummings, who worked as an offensive line coach and recruiting coordinator, throughout his 2005-09 tenure.

Diaco and Cummings were on the same Eastern Michigan staff in 2000-01, and Cummings ran the Central Michigan offense for four seasons before heading to UConn.

Hes a valuable staff member, Verducci said. Great communicator, great motivator, the Xs and Os speak for themselves.

Saturdays St. Petersburg Bowl will be Cummings fourth bowl game, including MUs 2009 appearance in Detroit.

Big man in booth

Anthony Becht wasnt hard to miss at Marshalls practice Wednesday at Clearwater. Hes still roughly 6-foot-6, but the former West Virginia great tight end appears lighter than his NFL-listed 270 pounds.

Becht is the color analyst on ESPNs broadcast Saturday, working with play-by-play man Tom Hart. Tiffany Greene will patrol the sidelines.

Not surprisingly, Becht renewed acquaintances with Herd coach Doc Holliday. Of course, Holliday was at WVU during Bechts time in Morgantown.

He came in there came in about a 200-pound tight end, believe it or not, or a wide receiver, Holliday recalled. He grew into being a tight end, and what a great career he had.z

Some inside knowledge

Athletic directors are paid to know about coaches, so Herd tight end Ryan Yurachek knew one brain to pick about Diaco father Hunter Yurachek, athletic director of UConn league rival Houston.

Hunter painfully knows of Diacos work, as the Huskies handed the Cougars their only loss this season.

Its funny. Hes not the greatest guy as far as football knowledge, in the world, Hunter Yurachek said of his dad. He started talking on the phone after we learned we were playing [UConn], and he doesnt know what hes talking about. Actually, after watching some film, some of what he was talking about is true.

If youre wondering, Ryan has a seat in the Peach Bowl to watch the Cougars play Florida State.

Home advantage, Huskies

During its extended stay in Pinellas County, UConn is enjoying finer practice digs at Calvary Christian High School. Marshall will have the second of its two practices today at Clearwater Central Catholic, about five miles to the south.

Calvarys nice stadium has a respectable weight room adjacent to its stadium, and the Huskies are using it. After their practice Wednesday, most players made a beeline to the room.

Marshall, which has the shorter stay of five days, is not lifting this week.

From a strength and conditioning piece, we try to keep the in-season development going, Diaco said. We dont believe in just a maintenance. We try to get stronger, faster and always get better there.

And if we can eat right and sleep and then keep that up, you like to think that down the stretch, into November and December, youll have a chance to be more physical in a game.

By at least one account, the Huskies have drawn the better team hotel in the Vinoy Renaissance St. Petersburg Hotel and Golf Club. MU is about nine blocks away at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront.

MU stayed at the Vinoy in 2011, and one of the two current players who made that trip remember it fondly. One of Marshalls first functions Tuesday was held there.

Just when we went to the [Vinoy] last time, I said, Yeah, this is the nice hotel, D.J. Hunter said. I wish we were in this hotel, still.

Coming attractions

As the teams wrap up their pre-bowl workouts today, they will enjoy their last big fun event of the week this afternoon, the Beach Bash in Madeira Beach. The travel parties went to Busch Gardens on Wednesday.

Both squads have a walk-through practice Friday at Tropicana Field, site of Saturdays 11 a.m. game.

Source: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/sports/20151223/marshall-football-notebook-uconns-cummings-has-history-with-herd

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Complaints from customers as Lush website crashes as Boxing Day sales begin

LUSH CHRISTMAS MAIL VLOG!

Cosmetics firm Lush have been forced to take down their website due to technical problems on Boxing Day.

The Poole-based firm, who saw people queuing outside their Bournemouth store throughout the first day of their post-Christmas sale, tweeted around 11.30am to say their site had crashed.

Inundated with complaints from people halfway through their orders, the company later updated customers, just before 5pm, to say: "The website has temporarily been taken down for maintenance. We would like apologise for the disappointment caused by today"s issues."

The company say they are working to fix the problems as soon as possible.

Customers are being told the website is down while the issues are sorted. There is no estimated timeframe for it to be fixed at present.

More follows

Source: http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/14168594.Complaints_from_customers_as_Lush_website_crashes_as_Boxing_Day_sales_begin/

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Photos: Frank Beamer"s last bowl game

Metallica Salutes Frank Beamer
$NEWLINE$NEWLINE$NEWLINE$BEGINSCRIPT src=\"http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.0/jquery.min.js\">$ENDSCRIPT$NEWLINE$BEGINSCRIPT src=\"http://host.coxmediagroup.com/cop/digital/common/js/handlebars-v3.0.0.js\">$ENDSCRIPT$NEWLINE$NEWLINE$NEWLINE$NEWLINE$NEWLINE$NEWLINE$BEGINSCRIPT>$NEWLINE(function($) {$NEWLINE\t// INIT$NEWLINE\tvar feed = "";$NEWLINE\tvar template = "";$NEWLINE$NEWLINE\tvar feed_url = "http://host.coxmediagroup.com/cop/digital/common/cache/cacher.php?saveas=ddn_cinesport_main&format=rss&json_url="+encodeURIComponent("http://cinesport.daytondailynews.com/rss.xml");$NEWLINE$NEWLINE\t$.get(feed_url)$NEWLINE\t\t.then(function(result) {$NEWLINE\t\t\tfeed = JSON.parse(result);$NEWLINE$NEWLINE\t\t\tvar feed_trunc = [];$NEWLINE\t\t\tfor(var i=0;i ", "id": "writecapture76160637", "widget_prototype": "writecapture_widget"});$NEWLINE$BEGINSCRIPT type=\"text/javascript\" src=\"http://host.coxmediagroup.com/cop/digital/sites/common/js/cmgo_right_rail_addons.js\">$ENDSCRIPT ", "id": "writecapture80077169", "widget_prototype": "writecapture_widget"});

Source: http://www.daytondailynews.com/gallery/sports/photos-frank-beamers-last-bowl-game/gCYm6/

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3 Tips for Handling a Steam Sale and Accepting Your Mortality

Xmas Carnage: Don"t Be A Hero! - PART 2 - Steam Train

Forget Black Friday. Forget Cyber Monday. If youre playing games on your PC, the only hot deals that matter this time of year pop up during Steams holiday sale, which started on December 22 and will end on January 4.

People like to joke about the the difficulty of resisting the allure of Steam sales, but if you dont have a plan of attack it can become a legitimate problem. On the one hand, how do you say no to an 80 percent discount? On other hand, there are going to be so many games that are deeply discounted, youre going to have to say no to something. You only have so much money. More importantly, you only so much time.

Over the years, Ive developed a few techniques that help me get through this difficult shopping season. Its also the season for giving, so Ill share them here with you in hope that they can help you as well.

1. Organize your Steam Library

My Steam Library, which has held all of my PC games for about a decade, is divided into four categories.

First, there is the default GAMES category, where all new purchases wait until I sort them. From there, they almost always go into the HAVENT FINISHED category, where I keep the games I am actively trying to play to completion. Once I finish a game, I move it into the FINISHED category, where Ill keep it until Im sure I dont want to play it again for a story Im writing. Once I feel safe enough that Im not going to play the game anytime soon, I uninstall it.

Finally, there is the dreaded f**k IT category. It might as well be called the s**t list, where I keep games that I havent finished, currently have no intention to keep playing, and which I probably rage quit out of literally muttering f**k it to myself. Most of the games on this list arent installed, because a rage quit is usually followed by a rage uninstall.

This is the most important category. Youre going to buy games that you dont like. Thats okay. Use this list to guide your future purchases. Dont buy downloadable content for games that are in the f**k IT category, obviously, and if Spelunky is already on it, maybe you dont need to buy another super difficult roguelike ever again, even if its $3.00 on sale.

2. Steam sales arent the only sales

The Steam Store is likely the first thing you see when you want to launch a game on your PC, so it makes sense to think that its the best place to buy your games, especially during a crazy holiday sale.

Thats true most of the time, but not always. Amazon also has a huge digital PC games sale, and it might have a better deal on the game you want than Steam. Most of Amazons digital PC games redeem through Steam anyway, and it also has deals on games you cant get through Steam, like Titanfall.

Steam is rules the PC gaming landscape, but its still always worth shopping around.

3. Accept the fact that you are going to die

The average life expectancy for a human being in the United States according to The World Bank is almost 80 years. Thats pretty good, but still, none of us are getting out of this alive.

Even if you lived that long and spent most of your waking hours playing games, you probably wouldnt have time to play every game Steam has on sale to completion.

Thats OKAY!

Games have taught us to be completionists. They reward players for getting all those 120 stars in Super Mario 64, or getting a platinum medal on every race.

h**l, even now, against my better judgment, Im trying to get a 100 percent completion rate in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This is a really ill-advised endeavor, but I cant help it. Its a compulsion, but you cant indulge it all the time, even if you tried.

I believe this same completionist mentality makes Steam sales more difficult to resist. You start collecting games like Pokmon. Gotta catchem all, even if you dont have the time to play them.

In previous years, Valve even played into this by gamifying sales, giving players free stuff for buying a certain amount of games or completing a goal in a game that was currently on sale.

The only way to be truly responsible during your Steam holiday shopping is to fully internalize this truth. Life is finite. Youre not going to read all the books you buy and you dont have the time to play the games you want to buy.

By all means, go nuts. Buy games you wouldnt have bought otherwise, but remember you can refund Steam games, not time. If you dont like something, move on. Make use of that f**k IT category, and remember that the there are no continues at the end of real life, only the abyss of non-existence.

Source: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/3-tips-for-handling-a-steam-sale-and-accepting-your-mortality

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Steam Is Down Causing Chaos For PC Users [Updated]

PSA: Something has gone horribly wrong with Steam (servers now back up)

Well, despite threats from multiple hacking groups, it is not Xbox Live or PlayStation Network this Christmas, instead its the PC users that are suffering.

Steam is currently on complete black out, with chaos flying all over the place. As Kotaku report, peoples purchase historys getting mixed up and front pages in Russian for non-Russian speakers. Word on the street is that this is actually a catastrophic cache error, rather than a mass hacking though. Ive heard this explanation from a few, so thats what we are going with right now.

For now, its actually advised, instead of tearing your account details out of the service, to just leave your account alone if possible

Ill update as more comes to light.

Updated: Steam Community Manager KillahInstinct has taken to the Steam Communitysaying that this is not a hack and that if people do end up accidentally seeing your purchase history:

Creditcard info and phone numbers are, as required by law, censored and not visible to users

Source: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/12/25/steam-is-down-reportedly-because-of-caching-error/

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