In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.

Collects more than 1,400 English-language proverbs that arose in the 20th and 21st centuries, organized alphabetically by key words and including information on date of origin, history and meaning.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas—until now. James Patterson shows the real Vegas in a dazzling journey through “lively tales of those who labor and dream in Sin City" (Kirkus). “Wild and wonderful…The magic of Sin City doesn’t just happen. Patterson and Seal tell its secrets in beautifully presented snippets that often overlap not just surprisingly, but charmingly too.” —Telegraph (UK) Las Vegas is on Luxury Standard Time: every clock in the airport is a Rolex. No dream is too big, no wish is too small—the VIP hosts in Vegas fulfill guests’ every (legal) desire. Jackpots hit when least expected. The Nevada Gaming Control Board has days to find a man who unknowingly won over $200,000 at the slots. “I love love”: the inventor of the Elvis impersonator wedding and the drive-thru wedding has performed hundreds of marriages—and believes in them all. Glamorous yogis take a helicopter across the desert to the Valley of Fire, where they perform sun salutations to the glory of Las Vegas. A gambling VIP “whale” loses $1 million at the casinos, yet still leaves saying, "Had a great time. I'll be back." ​ In What Really Happens in Vegas, full of surprises for both newcomers and Las Vegas regulars, James Patterson and Vanity Fair contributing editor Mark Seal transport readers from the thrill of adrenaline-fueled vice to the glitter of A-list celebrity and entertainment.

The thirteen chapters of this book comprise an intriguing and informative entry into the world of proverb scholarship, illustrating that proverbs have always been and continue to be wisdom's international currency. The first section of the book focuses on the field of paremiology (proverb studies) in general, the spread of Anglo-American proverbs in Europe, and the phenomenon of modern proverbs. The second section analyzes the use of proverbs in the world of politics, including a chapter on President Obama, while the third concentrates on the uses of proverbs in literature. The final section ends with detailed cultural studies of the origin, history, dissemination, use, function, and meaning of specific proverbs. Noted scholar Wolfgang Mieder shows that proverbs matter in culture, literature, and politics. Proverbs remain part and parcel of oral and written communication, and, he demonstrates, they deserve to be studied from a range of viewpoints. While various chapters deal with a variety of issues and approaches, they cohere through a rhetorical perspective that looks at the text, texture, and context of proverbs as speech acts that make a noteworthy impact on culture and society. Whether proverbs appear in everyday speech, on the radio, on television, in films, on the pages of newspapers or magazines, in advertisements, in literary works, or in political speeches, they serve as formulaic verbal devices to add authoritative weight through tradition, convention, and wisdom.

trans*for*ma*tion NOUN A marked change, of something or someone, usually for the better. Nature provides an amazing example of a transformation. A butterfly's life begins as an egg that becomes a larva. At its appointed time, a caterpillar breaks out and then begins to eat, and eat, and eat. Then the caterpillar spins a thread into a shell-like covering around its body. Inside this cocoon, the caterpillar changes into a pupa. The pupa grows into a beautiful, colorful, and graceful butterfly. People also go through transformations. From conception until death, we go through a series of changes. Once conceived, the life cycle stages begin and progress to produce a newborn baby. The baby grows and becomes a toddler, which then matures into an adolescent. Adulthood follows, and the process continues through mid-life through to old age. This experience is a natural transformation. There is also a spiritual transformation that we all should go through. This alteration involves changing on the inside and revealing it on the outside. You go through a conversion from living a worldly lifestyle to living a Christian life that is pleasing to God. You should desire and seek to achieve this spiritual makeover with all of your might. Many will confess to being a Christian, but are they really like Christ? You can't just name it and claim it. You have to live it. To be a Christian means to be Christ-like. You must learn to live like Christ, to love like Christ, forgive like Christ, even bless like Christ, etc. Some may say that living a Christian life is easier said than done. Why is that so? I think mainly because we have inherently conformed to this world, and this world promotes pretty much everything except Christian living. Sadly, the vast majority of those who call themselves Christians in these last days are as far from Christ as they can possibly be. They think they are living for Jesus with all of their wickedness and false doctrines and evil lifestyles. I believe that people want this transformation but are not too willing to take the necessary steps to make this process change. This change isn't always easy, but it is absolutely obtainable. You may ask, "What is required to live a Christian life?" The answer is in the Holy Bible. Transformation -- Living a Christian Life can be summed up with one Bible verse: "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Rom. 12:2). Many have conformed to the ways of the world. They need a renewing of their mind. They need to get back in alignment with the will of God. This book's purpose is to reunite you with God, His Word, and His will for your life, which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Los Angeles magazine is a regional magazine of national stature. Our combination of award-winning feature writing, investigative reporting, service journalism, and design covers the people, lifestyle, culture, entertainment, fashion, art and architecture, and news that define Southern California. Started in the spring of 1961, Los Angeles magazine has been addressing the needs and interests of our region for 48 years. The magazine continues to be the definitive resource for an affluent population that is intensely interested in a lifestyle that is uniquely Southern Californian.

In the spirit of Gretchen Rubin’s megaseller The Happiness Project and Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss, a journalist embarks on a project to discover what it takes to love where you live The average restless American will move 11.7 times in a lifetime. For Melody Warnick, it was move #6, from Austin, Texas, to Blacksburg, Virginia, that threatened to unhinge her. In the lonely aftermath of unpacking, she wondered: Aren’t we supposed to put down roots at some point? How does the place we live become the place we want to stay? This time, she had an epiphany. Rather than hold her breath and hope this new town would be her family’s perfect fit, she would figure out how to fall in love with it—no matter what. How we come to feel at home in our towns and cities is what Warnick sets out to discover in This Is Where You Belong. She dives into the body of research around place attachment—the deep sense of connection that binds some of us to our cities and increases our physical and emotional well-being—then travels to towns across America to see it in action. Inspired by a growing movement of placemaking, she examines what its practitioners are doing to create likeable locales. She also speaks with frequent movers and loyal stayers around the country to learn what draws highly mobile Americans to a new city, and what makes us stay. The best ideas she imports to her adopted hometown of Blacksburg for a series of Love Where You Live experiments designed to make her feel more locally connected. Dining with her neighbors. Shopping Small Business Saturday. Marching in the town Christmas parade. Can these efforts make a halfhearted resident happier? Will Blacksburg be the place she finally stays? What Warnick learns will inspire you to embrace your own community—and perhaps discover that the place where you live right now . . . is home.