понедельник, 8 октября 2012 г.

Retailers gear up for Christmas shoppers. - The Pueblo Chieftain (Pueblo, Colorado)

Byline: James Amos

Nov. 22--Local merchants are expecting a lot of business Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that annually signals the start of the Christmas shopping season, although Pueblo's corporate-owned retail stores mostly refused to comment. Vivian Lopez, manager of the Seabel's store on Union Avenue, said Tuesday that shoppers will have a lot more to look at this year. The owners of Seabel's closed the Wooden Spoon at the Pueblo Mall and increased the offerings inside Seabel's, she said.

The store now has boutique clothing, shoes, gourmet cooking supplies, jewelry, lotions and gels and holiday T-shirts among its variety of products. 'We've got tons of merchandise,' Lopez said, 'and we've changed our store around. We have a whole new gourmet food and gadget area. It's going to be a phenomenal shopping experience.' Herb Critchett at Johnson Sport & Ski on Court Street said his store also expects a lot of shoppers Friday. Critchett forecast that business, aided by a healthier economy, is expected to be better than last year.

'Everything in general is going good right now,' he said of sales. 'We're doing a lot in archery and bows. Letter jackets have been real good.' At Pueblo Records and Tapes on Pueblo Boulevard, Manager Jane Baird said she expects the day to be 'busy, busy, busy.' 'It's hard to say if it will be better than last year,' Baird said. 'I'm hoping it's going to be better.' Other store owners weren't sure if Friday's flood of shoppers will reach them. Hank Cervantes, owner of the Pueblo Military Surplus store on Union Avenue, said that some years he has had a lot of business on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and some years he hasn't. 'It's pretty hard to predict,' he said.

Most of the big-chain stores, which account for the bulk of the shopping expected on Friday, refused to discuss their expectations.

Wal-Mart has three stores in the Pueblo area and is easily the area's largest retail force, doing hundreds of millions of dollars each year. A management spokesman at the Wal-Mart on Dillon Drive referred calls to Wal-Mart's corporate media office. A spokeswoman there said managers at Wal-Mart stores have asked that reporters not be allowed to call them because they are too busy getting ready for the holiday shopping season. A Dillard's spokeswoman at the Pueblo Mall said she was unsure what the Dillard's media policy is, so she declined to comment 'just so I don't get in trouble corporate-wise.'

A Target management official who identified herself only as Amy said the store expects a large number of shoppers on Friday. 'We bring in more help for the holidays,' she said, but declined to make any more comment. A Barnes and Noble Booksellers spokesman said that store expects to be busy Friday. The holiday season is an important time for book sellers and the Pueblo Barnes and Noble will be opening early at 8 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. to accommodate Friday's expected rush of customers. Manager Joe Weis at the North Side Kmart on North Elizabeth Street said he expects a lot of people to come shopping on Friday. 'We always expect a lot,' he said. Weis said Kmart has scheduled additional workers and brought in more inventory for the Friday rush. 'It's traditional,' he said.

Copyright (c) 2006, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

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воскресенье, 7 октября 2012 г.

One voice: Leaders breakfast speaker says Decatur must show united front to make progress. - Herald & Review (Decatur, IL)

Byline: Chris Lusvardi

Oct. 27--DECATUR -- Gloria Davis challenged Decatur business leaders to check differences of opinion at the door and unite in trying to improve the community.

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Davis, who is in her first year as school district superintendent, spoke at the Community Leaders Breakfast Thursday at the Decatur Conference Center and Hotel, telling leaders to speak with one voice.

'Our vision is to make sure that as a community, we all speak with one voice,' Davis said. 'We cannot be on separate pages when it comes to the critical element within our community, and that is our children. It is all about them.'

The event's featured speaker, Ira Blumenthal, picked up on her theme and had the audience clink their glasses with spoons, one table at a time. The entire room soon was filled with the sound of clinking glasses.

'This community is prospering because it started with one glass and then you linked together,' Blumenthal said.

Audience members were impressed with how the speakers conveyed similar messages.

'That's the way you get things done,' said Chris Shroyer, Main Street Bank & Trust Decatur regional president. 'You start rallying people around the same type of message, and before you know it, it turns into this global mission you've got all this support for.'

Blumenthal, who turned 60 Thursday, entertained the crowd of about 750 people with motivational stories about how to succeed and overcome myths in business.

He said Michael Jordan was the first one at practice and the last one to leave, even though he didn't need to be. He also quoted another sports legend, hockey player Wayne Gretzky, telling the leaders to take chances.

'You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take,' Blumenthal said. 'You cannot score unless you shoot. You've got to continue taking shots right here in Decatur.'

Although she gave a shorter speech than Blumenthal, it was Davis who many of the leaders wanted to hear from as she continues to outline her vision for the school district.

Shroyer, who heard Davis give a speech for the first time, said he wanted to see her plan and how she delivers her message.

'It came across loud and clear,' Shroyer said. 'I think she's probably able to deliver that same kind of message to her staff and the teachers and really what kind of audience she has with that same type of vigor. I think that's going to be a positive thing for the district going forward.'

Davis hopes to work with the leaders to get the community more involved in the schools.

'The success of the school district is clipped to the success of the Decatur community,' Davis said. 'It is not separate. It is not an island unto itself. It is something that has to be a physical part of what we do as we move forward as a Decatur community.'

Chris Lusvardi can be reached at clusvardi@herald-review.com or 421-7972.

Copyright (c) 2006, Herald & Review, Decatur, Ill.

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суббота, 6 октября 2012 г.

A mother's memoir of life in St. Elmo. - Chattanooga Times/Free Press (Chattanooga, TN)

Byline: Jan Galletta

Oct. 7--The St. Elmo neighborhood where the late gridiron great Reggie White spent much of his childhood was a friendly location, where folks seldom locked their doors, said his mother, Thelma Collier, 62. The Chattanooga woman and her two oldest children lived in several homes within the community, but she said many of their best times took place in a rented residence on Balcomb Street, which the family occupied from the time her famous son was 4 years old until the end of his second-grade stint. 'Everybody in the neighborhood was very good and looked out for each other,' she said. 'Everyone was protective of each other's children, and they (children) felt free to go outside. It was safe.'

There was little traffic on Balcomb, and children often played in the street while their parents sat and chatted on their front porches or on those of their neighbors, according to Ms. Collier. She said her sons Julius Dodds, 48, and Reggie (1961-2004 ) walked to the St. Elmo School, now apartments. Daughter Christie Collier wasn't born until 1971 and went to Brainerd, Ms. Collier said. 'Reggie was good in English, and Julius was an honor student in everything,' said Ms. Collier, 'but because Reggie was bigger than the others at St. Elmo, he watched out for all the little kids.' On one occasion, he came home mud-covered from having plucked a friend out of the sewer where some bullies tossed the younger boy, she said. But his usual after-school routine was to play sports at St. Elmo Recreation Center and to rush home to see the gothic TV soap 'Dark Shadows.' 'Then he'd get scared at night and want to come sleep with me,' she said. She said that when he misbehaved, her younger son lost his showwatching privileges instead of getting a spanking, perhaps because 'he grew so much, so fast; every day, it was like he was just swelling,' she recalled. Young Reggie fed his appetite with trips to the nearby Kay's Kastle and ran to the former Red Food store on Broad Street to fetch groceries for his mother. She said, 'One time, he was being treated for bronchitis -- probably, it was that sarcodosis which (later) killed him -- and was put on a diet. 'But that didn't last long; we didn't get along too well on that soup and Jell-O diet,' she said. Holidays were fun for St. Elmo's young set in the '60s, according to Ms. Collier. She said she and her mother, who lived in Wheeler Homes, would cook for days, setting up three tables to seat their extended family. On the Fourth of July, 'we had picnics and shot off fireworks in the yard,' she said. 'One Halloween, I put Reggie in a wig and dress to trickor-treat, and a neighbor told him he was the prettiest little girl she'd ever seen,' said Ms. Collier. 'After that, he went as a cowboy or Batman.'

Summer vacation often found her boys boarding the bus for a ride to the Warner Park pool or piling into Ms. Collier's father's car for swimming and a cookout at Booker T. Washington State Park, said Ms. Collier. She said they made cups of fruit-juice 'frozens,' which they scooped out with spoons, and sold hot dogs at church socials to aid the youth program at the Piney Woods church they attended. 'Reggie loved animals, and he was always bringing something like hamsters home,' said Ms. Collier. 'One time he was outside and called me to come see his dog. There was this big Doberman just straddling the windows of the porch looking in. We kept it two weeks and found it another home.' It was in the St. Elmo neighborhood that Ms. Collier met her late husband, Leonard. She said that he taught Reggie to drive and bought him a 1960 Cutlass he later took to class at Howard High School. Now an East Brainerd resident, Ms. Collier said, 'I'd like to move back to St. Elmo one day. 'It was about the best neighborhood I ever lived in. And it was such a nice place to raise children.'

E-mail Jan Galletta at jgalletta@timesfreepress.com

Copyright (c) 2006, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn.

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пятница, 5 октября 2012 г.

Saigon brings taste of Vietnamese to Lodi. - The Record (Stockton, CA)

Sep. 28--LODI -- The menu at the Saigon Grill fails to include the phrase 'some assembly required' for the variations of pho, the classic Vietnamese beef-and-noodle soup and unofficial national dish. Close to a quart of the scalding clear broth is accompanied by rice noodles, bean sprouts, thinly sliced rare beef, sliced green onions, chili pepper slices, a sprig of basil and a wedge of lime. You decide what and how much you want to add to the broth, turning the pho ($6.95) into a thick stew. Meanwhile, the newly opened Saigon Grill has assembled an impressive menu of Vietnamese cuisine. Some dishes are practically indistinguishable from Chinese fare, while others show their similarities with Thai food with an emphasis on grilled meats, cilantro garnishes and herbs such as lemongrass. Saigon Grill is on the site of a former Chinese restaurant, but extensive remodeling has left no hint of its predecessor. It is immaculate with modern Asian decor, plus two LCD TV screens tuned to news or sports channels. The unisex bathroom is spotless. Saigon Grill fills a dining niche in downtown Lodi. It's less than a block from the Lodi Stadium 12 cinema, next to a city parking lot and rounds out diners' choices of the growing number of restaurants in the city's entertainment district. It's the city's only Vietnamese restaurant and well worth a visit. The pho broth at the Saigon Grill is a basic beef broth with just a hint of a floral herb that lets you know it didn't come off a grocery store shelf. Although flank steak is the classic meat in pho, diners also can have their soup authentic style, a combination that includes beef tendon ($7.50). Other choices include meatballs and chicken. Appetizers range from deep-fried rolls ($4.75-$5.25) to shrimp grilled on a peeled sugar-cane skewer ($7.95). The crispy egg rolls ($5.25) were light, fresh and don't last long on a plate. The standard price for a rice plate with grilled pork, chicken or beef is $7.95, or $9.50 if you choose shrimp. During a recent visit, the chicken was flavorful with a sweet and salty marinade, if not slightly overdone, with a healthy serving of rice. A plate is enough to satisfy two diners if they're not too hungry. Sweet and sour chicken ($7.95) was no different at Saigon Grill than at most Chinese restaurants. It included chunks of pineapple, onion and green pepper, and the variation of sauce that typically leans more toward sweet than sour. The vegetable chow mein also leaned toward the Chinese style but lighter on sauce that allowed the flavors of mushrooms, snow peas, tofu, bok choy and broccoli to emerge. The Saigon Grill offers family-style dinners for up to $38.95 for four people, and entrees no more expensive than $12.95 (steaks or salmon). The menu includes 62 items, plus additional side orders and beverages that include tapioca and coconut milk drinks. A drink menu includes beers and local wines. Service is friendly, and drink refills are offered quickly. Although the restaurant is busy, diners can get in and out within an hour. Table service includes chopsticks as well as a fork and spoon. Perhaps the only things missing from the menu are smaller, lower-cost lunch servings. Questions? Comments? Contact Entertainment Editor Brian McCoy at (209) 546-8293 or bmccoy@recordnet.com. A copy of The Record's restaurant-review policy and recent reviews can be viewed on the Web at http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=ENT04

Copyright (c) 2006, The Record, Stockton, Calif.

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четверг, 4 октября 2012 г.

Friendship has its privileges for brands, pix.(Fox Searchlight Pictures plans for markeing its movie 'The Ringer') - Daily Variety

CAN A MOVIE have friends? That's a question I've been pondering since discovering the MySpace.com profile of 'The Ringer,' the Fox Searchlight comedy starring Johnny Knoxville as a corporate lackey who tries to rig the Special Olympics.

MySpace, for those of you living off the grid, is the social-networking Web site acquired by Searchlight's parent company, News Corp., for $580 million last summer. There are about 40 million people who use MySpace to fashion online identities for themselves, organize their offline lives, download music, post pictures of their friends and hook up.

One of the curious things about MySpace is that you don't have to be a human to join. The profiles of real-life teenagers commingle indiscriminately with profiles for corporate entities like NikeSoccer, Vans Warped Tour, Cingular, Starbucks, the Toyota Scion and the Dell DJ Ditty, a variation on the iPod Shuffle with an FM radio.

Click on the profile for the Dell DJ Ditty and you're presented with a short commercial starring the company's spastic mascot, Mitch Ferrence, 'maestro of air guitar, lip sync and dance' along with a collection of videos and testimonials from more than 100,000 friends. Here's a note from one of the Ditty's 'friends,' a 20-year-old guy named Kit from Eagle Pass, Texas: 'Mitch, I mold my lifestyle to yours and it rocks.'

Turns out 'The Ringer' is even more popular than Mitch. According to MySpace, the movie has 261,000 friends.

THE IDEA OF BEING friends with a movie, a brand or a fictional character is kind of pathetic. But it's a mark of a cultural shift that's only gradually dawning on big media companies as they struggle to connect with a generation of consumers spoon-fed on wireless technology.

One of the best ways to reach these networked youngsters is to create content that slips seamlessly into their everyday social discourse: quirky downloads, games, wallpaper, screensavers, buddy icons and sweepstakes.

Hence the viral effectiveness of things like Mitch Ferrence air-guitar videos or slapstick short films from 'Viva La Bam,' a 'Jackass' spinoff on MTV (403,733 friends on MySpace).

Producer Matti Leshem is trying to establish the same traction for the USA Rock Paper Scissors League, which is just what it appears to be: a sports league for rock paper scissors players, promoted in thousands of bars across the country, with a tournament in Vegas, a cash prize of $50,000 and a one-hour special on A&E, all of it announced earlier this month at the TCA, along with a sponsorship deal from Anheuser-Busch. 'The point is, I didn't want to sell a

TV show,' Leshem told me. 'I wanted to create an experience that was tactical and could spread on the Internet and on television, where it could reach the widest possible audience.'

The USARPS (just 154 friends so far) has some PR work to do if it hopes to close the distance with Mitch Ferrence or 'Viva La Barn.' Buts its fans are downright evangelical. As Joe, a high school senior from Elmurst, Ill., puts it: 'Soon One Day I will Rise through the ranks and become NUMBER 1!! EYE OF THE TIGER'

TALK TO SUNDANCEGOERS

about the efficacy of the various marketers there and most of them say the least obnoxious was Moviefone, which hired 40 actors from Salt Lake City, dressed them in Moviefone snowsuits and deployed them on Main Street as 'do-gooders,' feeding parking meters, unloading trucks and offering directions.

The Moviefone do-gooders were, in a sense, the real-world equivalent to the Dell Ditty mascot. They were walking billboards posing as friends.

MySpace had a presence at the Sundance Film Festival, too. The company was there to promote MySpace Film, a new feature designed to enable users to promote their own film and videos. MySpace also threw a party for the Beastie Boys concert film 'Awesome: I F**kin' Shot That!,' a documentary directed by fans using Sony Hi-8 digital cameras.

'Awesome' is evidence of what companies like Yahoo!, MSN and MySpace like to say is a paradigm shift from 'mass media to my media,' in which the goal isn't just to create content for consumers, but to provide consumers with the tools to create it themselves.

It's a good way to make friends, provided it's clear that 'friendship,' thus defined, is something you have to pay for.

среда, 3 октября 2012 г.

Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky., Suzi Bartholomy column: Free Rein: Fundraiser to help disabled riders.(Column) - Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, KY)

Byline: Suzi Bartholomy

Sep. 21--Saturday looks like it will be a good day to take the kids to the country. The weatherman said it will be mostly sunny and 90 degrees, which is almost balmy compared to the triple-digit temperatures of a month ago.

Take advantage of the good weather, load up your cowgirls and cowboys and drive out to the Bittel Equestrian Center on U.S. 60 West. It will not only be a fun outing for youngsters, but it will help support Dream Riders of Kentucky, an organization that teaches children and adults with physical, mental and emotional needs to ride a horse.

This is the third year that Dream Riders has held a Fall Jamboree. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. there will be pony rides, hayrides, horse show, petting zoo, inflatable bouncers, face painting, horse painting, River City Clowns and games. Admission is $10, which includes everything but concessions.

There is no charge for parents.

Dream Riders is the inspiration of Mike Clark and a group of Daviess Countains who wanted to expose their children and others to a therapeutic riding program that builds confidence and improves balance and speech. Children with learning and physical disabilities sometimes feel left out when they see their classmates participate in activities that are out of their reach.

Kids with disabilities can't participate in school sports, said Suzy Higdon, whose daughter, Haley, is one of the independent riders in the program. 'Kids who don't fit in at school can find their place here,' Higdon said.

'Horses are Haley's life,' said Higdon, who is vice president of Dream Riders. 'She couldn't roller skate or ride a bike, but she can ride a horse.'

Clark has a daughter with Down syndrome and wanted to level the playing field for her and other children and adults who have physical and mental limitations. He also wanted to do something in honor of another daughter of his who was killed in an automobile accident.

'She had the uncanny ability to help anyone,' Clark said.

Besides Higdon and Clark being equestrians they are educators and have incorporated activities in the riding program that improve their clients' speech, balance and confidence. Clark, president of Dream Riders, is principal at Mary Carrico Catholic School in Knottsville and Higdon is a speech therapist.

When Dream Riders started five years ago it had 12 riders. Today more than 300 children and adults ride on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Friday mornings.

'It's all free to the riders,' Clark said.

The jamboree is the organization's main fundraiser. 'It costs $45,000 a year' to operate the program, Clark said.

'Dream Riders is a good example of the power of volunteerism,' Clark said. More than 100 teens and senior citizens donate thousands of hours assisting the riders, grooming the horses and mucking out their stalls.

Even severely disabled children can ride, Clark said.

'We want to engage their bodies and their minds,' he said.

One of their routines while riding around the arena is to carry a plastic egg in a spoon, which improves their balance. The simplest tasks are monumental to them, and riding makes them happy, Clark said.

To see more of the Messenger-Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.messenger-inquirer.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

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A unique approach: Michael Wade's background is different from most of the other Scott Robertson competitors. - The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, VA)

Byline: Randy King

May 19--Unlike the majority of the 173 contestants in this year's Scott Robertson Memorial, Michael Wade wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

He didn't grow up in a posh country club setting in which anytime he wanted something he could say, 'Oh, just stick it on Dad's tab, he'll take care of it.'

A new car? Wearing the latest chic-fashion clothes? Forget that.

Nope, Michael Wade grew up on the other side of the tracks. Until eight years ago, deep rough for this kid had nothing to do with a golf course.

'I was went into foster care when I was 5 years old,' Wade said. 'In a four-year span after that, I was in 13 different foster homes.'

Life was difficult. Then he got a much-needed mulligan, courtesy of Marvin and Sandy Wade, who adopted him in 1999. Marvin Wade, a longtime pastor who now preaches God's word at Floyd's Beaver Creek Church of the Brethren, has never made a bigger save.

'Michael come up rough, there was a lot of the bad there,' said Wade, who since has adopted a second child, 7-year-old daughter Sarah. 'He's been great for us. So it's been a blessing both ways.'

When Michael was 10, Marvin Wade introduced his new son to golf. The kid has been swinging a club ever since.

'I was good at baseball and I wanted to play baseball, but I hurt my shoulder somewhere along the way and I couldn't pitch very long,' Michael recalled. 'So I started leaning on golf. I like the atmosphere. It was more relaxed than other sports.'

Being adopted by loving, caring parents and being introduced to a game he now lives and breaths 24/7 makes Michael Wade snicker these days when he turns on The Golf Channel and see the network's 'Big Break' show.

'I'm so fortunate to be brought into the family and situation I have now,' said Wade, his voice cracking in emotion. 'Hey, it's part of my story. It makes me who I am today. It makes me have the will and determination that I have to keep going and to win.'

Wade has won plenty the past few years. Still, there are some naysayers among the area's other top juniors who contend he's stockpiled most of his ever-growing golf resume by beating Class B-caliber talent on such circuits as the Plantation Junior Golf Tour.

'That tour doesn't have the kind of players you'll find in the AJGA,' said Steve Prater, head professional and renowned junior instructor at Roanoke Country Club, site of the Robertson.

'But that's OK. I'm telling you, Michael Wade is legit. He can play the game. He's going to play in college somewhere.'

Wade is playing in his first Robertson. It's the kind of big-time stage against top-notch national competition that he's wanted to experience.

'I had never made the field until this year,' said Wade, who in January's mid-semester break transferred from Bassett High to Floyd High, where he will play golf this fall as a senior.

'I know these guys are the big names, but I can play with them. I just haven't had a chance to prove it yet because I haven't played in a big enough tournament to prove it.'

Finally, he got his shot in Friday's first round of the Robertson. The kid rose to the occasion, posting a rock-solid round of 1-over 72 that leaves him tied for sixth and only three shots off the lead.

'Good, maybe I finally made myself known a little bit,' said Wade, smiling. 'But I'm not done yet. I want to win this thing.'

Marvin Wade was there for every blow Friday.

He couldn't have been prouder of how his kid responded under immense pressure.

'He wants to win,' Marvin said.

'He's got a lot of game, but he hasn't had the chances in life that a lot of kids have had. But he's making the most of it now. Michael feels like this is a big door that has a chance to open up for him.'

If he's anything, Michael Wade is a fighter. Nothing has ever come easy for him. Shoot, he carded a 12-under-par 60 on April 30 at Blacksburg Country Club. As fate would have it, Wade was playing alone, meaning his course-record round wasn't 'official' in the books.

'People probably don't believe it, but I understand that,' Wade said.

'I shot it. It happened. I wouldn't lie. Lying is one thing I can't stand.'

If he can somehow pull off the biggest upset in Robertson history, no further evidence of the validity of Wade's game will be required.

'Think that would show 'em?' a smiling Wade responded. 'Man, I hope so.'

Copyright (c) 2007, The Roanoke Times, Va.

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вторник, 2 октября 2012 г.

Alluring lures. - Independent Record (Helena, MT)

Byline: John Harrington

Dec. 10--Looking at Luscious Lures, it's easy to see how, with pin-up-style paintings of mermaids, they'd catch the eyes of prospective buyers. What's harder to know is whether they'll catch anything else.

'They catch fish -- they'll catch any kind of fish,' insists Aaron Cundall, the Helena man who invented the lures shortly after retiring from a 24-year career with the Army and Montana National Guard. 'Any kind of a fish that goes after a crank bait or lure will go after this.' 'It's taken me three years to get everything up and running,' said Cundall, perhaps better known to some Helenans as 'Elmo' of the band Little Elmo and the Mambo Kings. 'I'm having such fun with it. People love it.'

Cundall said he first had the idea for the lures while casing aisle after aisle of fishing products at a Bass Pro Shops store in Texas. 'It hit me, looking at all those lures: 'There's no fine art on any of these,'' he said. 'So I decided, 'I'm going to put mermaids on fishing lures.''

Working with a partner in Australia he met through an earlier motorcycle sale, Cundall developed the designs, and with his partner's help, found a manufacturer in China to produce the first rounds of product. The images on the spoons are reminiscent of the starlets from the middle of the last century, which Cundall said is the idea. 'I always loved the pin-ups of the 1940s and '50s,' he said. 'They have a degree of innocence to them, but also a degree of naughtiness. They're fun.'

The lures may be imported, but many other Luscious Lures products are more local, including hats and T-shirts as well as wooden gift boxes that contain several products, made at Helena Industries. Cundall hopes to get the lures carried by places like Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops and other major outdoor retailers. The product wasn't done in time for the 2007 fishing season, but he's got samples out across the country with an eye toward 2008.

In the meantime, he's marketing one store at a time throughout central Montana. The rundown of stores where the lures are for sale doesn't help answer the question of whether they're for serious fishing or not. They're found at Capital Sports and Yacht Basin, but also in the gift shops at the airport and St. Peter's Hospital. 'We figure with the lead time at some of these retailers, it will be 30 months to get to the point where it's rolling real well,' Cundall said.

To see more of the Independent Record, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.helenair.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Independent Record, Helena, Mont.

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понедельник, 1 октября 2012 г.

Thirsting for new brew. - Daily News (New York, NY)

Byline: Elizabeth Lazarowitz

Oct. 12--Nevermind the backwards baseball caps and the plastic cups -- this was no drunken frat kegger.

At the New York City Homebrewers Guild's latest meeting, there was talk of the characteristics of 'crystal,' 'black patent,' and 'cara-pils' malts, how to make a wort-chiller and whether 'Cascadia hops' make beer taste like grapefruit juice. In addition, of course, to lots of homemade brew.

Minus start-up costs of around $50, making your own beer can cost less than half of what you would pay in a store for premium commercial brands or microbrews. For many of these self-proclaimed 'beer geeks,' though, brewing at home is a labor of love.

'If I drink a Guinness stout, and I want it to be less 'roasty,' they won't make it that way for me,' said Phil Clarke, a veteran beer brewer and editor of the Ale Street News, referring to the beer's smoky flavor. 'If I make it myself, I can make it how I want it.'

That includes beer flavored with spruce needles and his trademark McSpoon's Scotch Ale, which he brews to be almost 'cloyingly sweet.'

Membership in the American Homebrewers Association has grown 16 percent in the past year to about 11,500, said American Homebrewers Association director Gary Glass.

Homebrewing took root in the 1960s as beer connoisseurs looked for alternatives to the standard brews being produced by the big beer companies, Glass said. A microbrewing boom in the 90s created scores of specialty beer brands, but homebrewers still prefer their own products.

'Why do people still like to cook when there are so many restaurants to go to?' Clarke said.

In a Guild member's Brooklyn backyard last Sunday, he fussed with the thermometer in a large steel pot propped on a gas turkey fryer, impatiently waiting for the water to boil so that he could add in a can of malt extract. Around him, about 15 people were trying homemade beers made with exotic flavors like hibiscus and a blend of ginger and kaffir lime leaves.

Nearby, Sean White, a baby-faced beer fan who works at a Dean & Deluca deli counter, lifted the cover off a rigged sports cooler full of 'mash' -- crushed barley malt and hot water -- letting out a musky vegetable smell.v

He and pal Adam Winkel, a computer programmer, were making a batch of 'all-grain' brew they hope to serve at the Brewtopia beer festival at the Javits Center on Oct. 20 and 21.

In 'all-grain' brewing, brewers make the wort, or unfermented beer, from scratch, so it can cost just $5 to $8 per case of beer. But it also means hours more labor, and, for Winkel, dragging a 50-lb sack of grain on the train from Westchester to his New York apartment.

For the novice brewer, a basic equipment kit costs around $40 to $50. It usually includes food-grade plastic buckets for fermenting and bottling, plastic tubing for transferring the beer, a bottle filler for obvious purposes, a thermometer, a hydrometer for measuring the liquid's density and therefore its alcohol content, and a bottle capper.

On top of that, you'll need some kitchen basics like a large stockpot and a long nylon or metal spoon.

A pre-measured kit of beer-making ingredients costs between $25 and $30. It will have malt extract (a sugar solution made from malted barley), specialty grains (which add color and flavor), hops (which give beer its characteristic bitterness), sugar (which gives it fizz), and yeast.

Two cases of new, empty bottles cost about $20, but many beer drinkers recycle bottles from store-bought beer. Caps run $2 for about 150 and may be included in a kit.

New Yorkers can legally brew up to 200 gallons of beer per two-person household each year. That adds up to a substantial 1,920 bottles of beer on the wall.

'You have to drink beer while you're making beer,' said John Naegele, a financial planner who got into beer making about 15 years ago because the initial investment was much less than for making wine. 'But there's a limit to how much, because you don't want to forget you're making it. You won't get very good beer that way.'

MCSPOON'S SCOTCH ALE

16.5 oz. Crystal malt

4 oz. British chocolate malt

1 oz. Black patent malt

($1.50/lb each = $2)

6 oz. Peat-smoked malt

($4/lb = $1)

3 lbs. M&F Wheat Dry Malt Extract

10 lbs. M&F Extra Light Dry Malt Extract

($3.33/lb each = $43)

2 oz. Northern Brewer hops

($3.50/2 oz. bag = $3.50)

1 teaspoon Irish moss

($1.19/oz. = 20 cents)

1 pack Wyeast Scottish or Irish Ale Yeast

($5 per pack = $5)

Makes: 2 cases Grand total: $55

--Recipe by Phil Clarke

To see more of the Daily News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.NYDailyNews.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Daily News, New York

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business

News.

воскресенье, 30 сентября 2012 г.

SPINE-TINGLING ART: How to promote ink cartridge re-use? Paint models' naked backs. - Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN)

Byline: Claire Joseph

Sep. 14--The message: use ink responsibly. The medium: paint.

The canvas: human bodies. Body artists plied their skills Wednesday, painting strictly Minnesota matter on models' backs in downtown Minneapolis.

Bob Dylan, Prince and Kevin Garnett were among the main attractions for 'Human Art Gallery: Paintings on a Human Canvas,' sponsored by OfficeMax. The event was aimed at OfficeMax's environmentally friendly ink-cartridge-refill program. While OfficeMax employees chatted with people on their lunch breaks about the consequences of irresponsible ink use, models displayed the beauty that can be found in ink. Royal Palmer, a Burnsville model and actor, showed off an image of the Walker Art Center's 'Spoonbridge and Cherry' sculpture while lying on the ground of a First Avenue parking lot. 'This is a difficult pose to be in,' Palmer said, 'but when I was getting painted, it was really fun. It's neat to see the finished product.' Palmer's back displays the spoon and cherry image with a woman's mouth, wide open, as if she were about to eat the cherry. It 'portrays the public eating up the art scene,' said airbrush and body-paint artist Dawn Svanoe of Madison, Wis. Svanoe spent the past week designing and creating stencils for the piece. Wednesday morning, she painted it, along with 'Purple Rain' and 'Border Battle' at the event. 'Purple Rain' paid homage to music icon Prince, and 'Border Battle' showed the rivalry between the Vikings and Green Bay Packers with the words '40 Years of Cold War.' The exhibit featured 10 human-art designs, including images of famous Minnesota musicians, icons, athletes and sports teams, including the Twins. OfficeMax is offering discounts for customers who bring in old ink cartridges they would like recycled, said company spokesman Bill Bonner. 'It is estimated that people throw away 300 million ink cartridges a year,' said Heather Schwartz, one of the event coordinators, 'and they are not biodegradable.' Claire Joseph can be reached at cjoseph@pioneerpress.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business

News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

суббота, 29 сентября 2012 г.

Not enough proof Bears' offense is really better. - Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)

Byline: Rick Morrissey

CHICAGO _ One of the great, all-time corrections in sports journalism history came about 20 years ago in Denver.

After much adding, dividing and general calculating, a newspaper columnist had discovered the ultimate proof of parity in the NFL: The league had become so balanced, he wrote, that the average record the season before had been 8-8.

The next day, after hearing from more than a few readers, the chagrined columnist wrote that, upon closer inspection, he had to admit the average record every season is 8-8. Has to be. Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose in equal measure. He regretted the error and his confusion.

There's a reason we writers don't major in math in college. But the point the columnist was trying to make about parity 20 years ago is still valid today. There are a lot of average teams in the NFL.

Here's the difference: At least in the middle of all that mediocrity, we had some great teams to have and to hold _ the 49ers of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and the Cowboys of Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith, to name a couple.

There are no great teams in the NFL these days, unless the Steelers are hiding their inner `85 Bears and I'm missing it.

Which brings us to this year's Bears. We're being told not to panic about the Rex Grossman Wheel-Spinning Tour. We're being told that good teams have been known to struggle in exhibitions and that the real Grossman was on display Thursday night. That the other guy had been an imposter.

That's all fine and dandy, and I suppose if you subscribe to the theory the Bears can turn it on any time they want, then you're feeling quite relaxed right now. But there is an opportunity here just begging to be grabbed.

If the Bears are as good as they say they are _ and Lovie Smith, Coach Serenity, says they are very good _ they're one of several teams with a legitimate chance to get to the Super Bowl. Hey, I'm just going by what he seems to be saying.

This is where the sense of urgency comes in. This is where the panic starts tugging at your sleeve. If the Bears are that good, it sure would be nice if they left a few clues indicating so. Throw us a bone. Make us feel a little better about things. OK, you give us Grossman's touchdown pass against the Browns on Thursday. A start.

The fact of the matter is that, right now, the Bears are a leap of faith, or at least a decent hop of faith. You figure the defense, if the entire unit doesn't clutch a knee in unison in Week 2, is going to be good, borderline great. You figure the offense will be better than last year because anything would have to be better than last year.

But that's the galling part of this. The Bears are supposed to be much better offensively this season. We've been spoon-fed the promise of Grossman for so long that some of us were full of hope.

So imagine the shock when Grossman looked like Kyle Orton with a better arm in the first three exhibitions. Until Thursday night in Cleveland, he was the king of the overthrown pass. Nobody led a receiver by 10 yards the way our Rex did. But he finally looked good against the Browns in a brief appearance. Finally.

That's not four quarters at Green Bay.

The picture that has been painted of Coach Serenity as a man with a quick trigger finger, as a coach not afraid to make lineup changes_I don't see it. A cold-blooded coach at least would have mentioned that Brian Griese might be, you know, a decent alternative at quarterback.

Instead, we get Smith chanting, 'We like Rex.'

This is a peculiar organization. Linebacker Lance Briggs gets demoted for missing the voluntary off-season workouts. He gets his job back the second day of training camp. Wow, lesson learned.

Running back Cedric Benson gets reprimanded for not standing with his teammates during an exhibition game. How do the Bears react to the brouhaha? By vowing to get to the bottom of who leaked the news to the media.

If they spent as much time trying to fix their offense as they do trying to be Donald Rumsfeld, we would be talking seriously about the Super Bowl here instead of just wondering about it.

This is supposed to be a time of optimism for the Bears. Instead, the quarterback position is still very shaky, taking Grossman's body of work into consideration. Thomas Jones is upset that, after rushing for 1,335 yards last season, the Bears seem more interested in another number _Benson's $17 million in guaranteed money.

Smith has the look on his face that says he will be laughing about all this turmoil come playoff time. Here's hoping he's right.

Here's hoping the Bears don't end up with the NFL's average record.

___

(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.

Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

пятница, 28 сентября 2012 г.

Young cook savors competition. - The Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, NC)

Byline: Chick Jacobs

Sep. 19--Kasey Bass picked up her first cooking pot at age 5.

She hasn't put it down since.

Now 13 and a student at Coats-Erwin Middle School, Bass ranks cooking as one of her favorite pastimes.

'Actually, probably my favorite,' she said.

And certainly the most lucrative. Her recipe for Turkey Veggie Supreme earned her $250 at the recent North Carolina Turkey Festival competition.

'It's fun to do things like this,' Kasey said, brushing away an occasional gnat that wanted to check her culinary skills. 'It's creative, and you get to enjoy what you've created with other people.'

In fairness, it should be noted that Kasey comes by her cooking skills naturally. She comes from a long line of cooks in central North Carolina. Her aunt, Donna Barefoot, was a previous competitor in the turkey contest and a regular at North Carolina State Fair competitions.

'She's the one who got me started in cooking,' Kasey said. 'We'd watch her in the kitchen when we were little, and she'd have us start helping.'

Although she prefers baking -- 'I love making desserts, cookies and things' -- Kasey's entry in the cookoff was a careful consideration of flavor and nutrition.

'I wanted to try something that was easy to make, but nutritious,' she said. 'It's easy to make something quickly, and nobody really has the time to sit and watch things cook all day. But can you make it work without taking all day?

'So it took some time to get the right ingredients. I think it came out pretty good.'

When she's not in the kitchen, you can look for Kasey outdoors. She loves sports, especially softball and basketball.

'I can be competitive,' she said. 'I guess that can be in the kitchen, too.'

1 pound ground turkey

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 (1-pound) bag of frozen vegetables, thawed

3 cups hot mashed potatoes, combined with Velveeta prepared cheese to taste, or

3 cups Velveeta instant potatoes

In a medium skillet over medium high heat, cook the turkey until brown, stirring to separate the meat. Drain off the fat.

In a 2-quart shallow baking dish, mix turkey, half the soup, Worcestershire sauce and veggies.

Stir remaining soup into mashed potatoes. Spoon potato mixture over meat mixture.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until hot.

If you know a cook you'd like to see in Cook's Corner, contact Chick Jacobs at jacobsc@fayobserver.com or 486-3515.

To see more of The Fayetteville Observer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.fayettevillenc.com/.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

четверг, 27 сентября 2012 г.

San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Morning Buzz column: A prodigy gone bust.(Column) - San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, CA)

Byline: John Ryan

Aug. 30--This one ceased being worth a laugh many years ago. It's just so sad.

Todd Marinovich -- whose father, Marv, served as the role model for the current generation's most obsessive and out-of-control sports parents -- could be headed to prison after the latest in a long string of drug-related trouble.

Police said Marinovich, 38, was skateboarding near the Newport Pier boardwalk about 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning and ran away when officers tried to stop him. When they found him hiding in a carport six blocks away, they said, he had powdered methamphetamine, a metal spoon and a hypodermic needle inside his guitar case. He is being held without bail on a felony possession charge and a probation violation.

The way we see it, Todd Marinovich was treated as a full-grown football player from the time he was born. Then when he left the Raiders and football forever in 1992, his life started over. According to that calendar, he's 15 and deserves some mercy.

Pops, on the other hand . . .

Contact John Ryan at jryan@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5266.

To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

среда, 26 сентября 2012 г.

Big East can relax, but not too much - The Charleston Gazette (Charleston, WV)

MORGANTOWN - The Big East can probably rest easy for a while andnot have to worry about looking over its shoulder to see doom, gloomand the Big Ten approaching.

Whether or not the league should rest easy, well, that's anothermatter entirely.

It is, after all, only a matter of time. It always is and for theforeseeable future always will be. As the BCS league with the mostto lose and the least to gain in any sort of shuffling andrealignment of the 64 current college football power brokers, theBig East as it is currently constituted will always be vulnerable.

So why can the league rest easy for the time being? Well, thereare those who will argue that it cannot. Look at how rapidly theconference landscape changed just in the last week. One day the BigTen was sticking to its 12- to 18-month expansion timetable and thePac-10 wasn't even considered a player, at least in the short term.Within a week, the Pac-10 had added Colorado, the Big Ten hadplucked Nebraska, the Big 12 was - in a span of just 48 hours - leftfor roadkill and then revived in an even stronger form, and the Pac-10 - in that same two-day time frame - went from college sports'potential Goliath right back to David in a sense, having lost thechance to add Texas and Oklahoma and being left to debate therelative merits of Utah.

Shoot, look even at the Big East, which one day was salivatingover the prospect of adding Kansas and Missouri and the next wasback to perhaps foraging for Conference USA's best.

Whew.

Those who will argue that no one knows when the same sort ofrapid-fire, mind-boggling shifts might occur are right, but only toa point. It could very well happen and probably will. But not thisweek or next, not this month and probably not this year. Truth betold, college football may be safe from such upheaval for at least afew years.

The reason? Presidents, purely and simply.

No one can deny that all of this maneuvering is simply an armsrace. There is absolutely no other reason for the Big Ten or the Pac-10 or any other league to begin recruiting members other than tomake themselves bigger and badder. The bigger and badder they get,the more money they reap from television. The more money they have,the bigger and badder they can continue to get.

University presidents, though, will sully themselves only to apoint in such a battle for pigskin preeminence. Big Ten commissionerJim Delany talked in the weeks leading up to those recent eventsabout how his league didn't want to be seen as igniting some sort ofcollegiate athletics Armageddon. You can trust that the message camestraight from the Big Ten presidents for whom he works.

Each and every one of them is loathe to be painted as anythingother than an academician first. Yes, they all understand thesignificance of college athletics and the branding it brings totheir universities, but to be responsible for orchestrating thecalamity that would befall victims of conference expansion (i.e.,the member institutions of the Big East, Big 12, etc.), well, thatis so against the very principles they stand for as to be positivelyrepulsive.

And guess what? Nothing that happened last week painted a singlecollege president in a light other than that of looking out for thebest interests of his university while treading not the slightest onanyone else. Talk about your sighs of relief. The Big Ten addedtelevision value and got to the 12-school level needed to stage afootball championship game, the Pac-10 did the same with Coloradoand Utah, the Big 12 not only survived but will now thrive with muchthe same value and fewer spoons in the pot, and the Big East (aswell as the SEC and ACC) were not affected in the slightest.

Don't think for a moment that every Big Ten president isn'tabsolutely thrilled with that outcome. They have a stronger, soon-to-be richer conference, and in order to get there they sacrificedno other institutions. Plus, they have perhaps staved offcongressional intervention, which was certain to be an issue hadmultiple institutions been adversely affected (and still looms inregard to the BCS itself, although Utah's move to the Pac-10 mightget Orrin Hatch off their collective backs). And so now, if anyonehas the temerity to go to those presidents asking that they furtherexpand by raiding the Big East or the ACC, the answer is simple:We've already won. Let's leave it at that for now.

Will the landscape eventually change again? Sure. But not thisyear and probably not next if the presidents have their way, whichthey will. And by the time those same presidents are receptive tohearing further arguments, who knows what else will have happened toreshape the playing field and alter the participants?

All of which brings us back to the original question: While theBig East can afford to relax, should it?

The answer, of course, is easy: No. Whether it be in a year ortwo years or whenever, the same issues are going to arise. Asinarguably the smallest and most vulnerable of the six BCSconferences (vulnerable precisely because it is the smallest andwithout much football star power, and because of its location woveninto the Northeastern media markets), it will be a target. In fact,it will be a much more exposed target should the Big 12, asexpected, come out of this round of expansion even stronger.

How to strengthen the Big East, though, is the tricky part, andnot only from the perspective of its presidents, who also are loatheto disrupt and adversely affect other institutions. But hasn't thatalways been the case? No one wants to destroy what the league hasgoing for it on the basketball side, but that is at odds with what'sbest for the more lucrative football side. Everyone seems to havewhat they think is the logical solution, but those are usuallysimplistic formulas that fail to address all the issues.

Sure, adding football members seems smart, but how much wouldEast Carolina or Memphis or Central Florida really add? Perhaps anyor all or those schools (or any others that would seem available;Army, Navy, luring back Boston College) might add value, but enoughto increase per-school revenues? Doubtful, and certainly notsignificantly, if at all. And while it would help the schedulingside of football, would any of those schools make the Big East anyless vulnerable the next time the Big Ten comes calling? Not likely.

How about tossing Notre Dame to the curb if it doesn't sign upfor football? That does absolutely nothing for the football side ofthe league (which is the issue) and diminishes (although to whatdegree is arguable) the basketball side. Kicking out Notre Damemight be wise if it forces the Irish to then join the Big Ten andsatisfy that league's hunger, but for how long?

Oh, and convincing Notre Dame to simply become more involved inthe football side (perhaps by increasing the number of games itplays against league schools) is questionable, too. The Irish havealready agreed to do that once and the most significant result was apower play to try and get Connecticut and Rutgers to play seriesthat included no games at Connecticut or Rutgers, but instead inSouth Bend and at neutral sites. Gee, thanks.

Of course, there is always talk of a split between the footballand basketball schools in the Big East (and then forming some sortof alliance between the two), an idea which seems to be picking upsteam. Perhaps that is ultimately what is going to have to happen.After all, adding schools to the football side makes the basketballside even more unwieldy than it currently is.

But again, is it worth potentially destroying what is arguablythe best basketball league in the country in order to add to thefootball side schools whose value (both financially and certainly interms of fortifying the league against future raids) is suspect atbest?

These and others are the questions with which the Big East has tograpple. Fortunately, though, recent events seem to have bought themat least a little more time.

They would be well advised not to relax, but to use that timewisely.

вторник, 25 сентября 2012 г.

Brent's office party - Scotland on Sunday (Edinburgh, Scotland)

THE demise of humour at Dens Park has been greatly exaggerated.For a kick-off, Dundee manager Jim Duffy is in playful mood. Havingbeen asked for some time with his defender Brent Sancho, he informsthat there are a number of ladies harbouring such a desire. Except,he laughs, he's sure they are after more than an interview. Thereasons may not be instantly recognisable to all but that's because,while the packaging may be to some tastes, it's what's on the insidethat's really attractive.

There's a depth to Sancho that is lacking in the stereotypicalfootballer. Intelligent and warm, his stimulating views on the meatyissues of life and death, education, philosophy, psychology, racism,the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and their legacy on life inhis adopted hometown of New York, are captivating and tackled withopenness and integrity. But on the more frivolous topics of sport,his dream of opening a Caribbean restaurant or his favourite books,he is equally engaging. The serious issues provoke well-thought-outviews and arguments, while an infectious 110-watt smile embraceslight-hearted moments.

It's that grin and the accompanying laughter, which, combined withDuffy's teasing, make a mockery of the headlines declaring a sense ofhumour bypass on Sandeman Street. 'Of course we are in a serioussituation,' he says of their drop into the relegation dangerzone.'But it's not the first time we've had to pull together. I've beenhere almost two years now but there's times when that feels like alifetime. The events that have taken place on and off the field, itseems never-ending at times. But I think adversity sometimes bringsout the best in people and in the situations where you need innerstrength, you learn more and you cherish life, football, yourprofession that bit more. If you want the rainbow you need to weatherthe rain.'

It's an admirably-positive philosophy considering the hand whichlife has dealt him. Experiencing a series of ups and downs in thepast few years, the Trinidad international, who emigrated to New Yorkas a 15-year-old, lost two friends in the Twin Towers tragedy, thensuffered more heartache when his international room-mate and boyhoodfriend, Mickey Trotman, and then, one month later, his cousin, diedin separate car crashes. He arrived at Dundee shortly before the clubwas plunged into administration, and, as he and his team-matesdrowned their sorrows, he was submitted to racial abuse andsubsequently forced to clear his name after being charged withassault.

In between it all he also graduated from university with majors inpsychology and sports science, and carved out a football career whichhas taken him across the USA, on to Finland, home to Trinidad and nowto Tayside, where today he faces friends and former colleagues, NachoNovo and Marvin Andrews.

'It sometimes just feels like I've been there, done that! I'veseen a lot and I've been through a lot of life-learning experiencesand they have helped me as a person, on and off the pitch,' says thedefender, who will celebrate his 28th birthday tonight by havingdinner with his team-mates and friends, including the Rangers duo.'It's made me a more well-rounded individual. You can sit and weepand wonder 'why me?' but if life gives you a silver spoon then Ithink you don't really get to understand or enjoy the meaning oflife. I think some of the things I've been through, although theywere tough on me at the time, have helped me a lot in terms of beinga better human being.'

His study of psychology did not end the day he graduated. The partplayed by the mind, in sport and in everyday life, is of constantintrigue. In his spare time, he only turns to his Playstation if hisbrain is about to overload on the latest information he has garneredfrom the internet, or from books, and his long-term plans revolvearound the psychology of sport.

'Footballers have a lot of spare time and I like to think I use itwisely. I look at life after football and think, 'yeah, I've gotthings I can do after football because of I have an educationalbackground.' I like the challenge of learning and love reading aboutpsychology and it has helped me put things that have happened in mylife into perspective.'

But it does have its pitfalls. He laughs as he recalls his firstday at university. 'In my first day in psychology class, the firstthing I did was start questioning whether or not I was crazy becausethe professor started laying out traits of schizophrenics and forother types of psychological disorders and I started thinking, wait aminute that kind of sounds like me but it was the same for everyoneand when you question things, you get a better hold of who you are.Once you understand your mind off the pitch, it helps you gear yourmind for things on the pitch and that helps you become a betterplayer.'

An amalgam of laid-back Carribean beach bum and win-at-all costsNew Yorker, his recognition of both traits means he has managed tochannel them both positively.

'That's the funny thing with me. I'm such extremes. On the pitchyou wouldn't think I am the same easygoing person I am off the pitchwhen I tend to be very relaxed and easygoing but on the pitch I'm theother side of that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and I kinda just go to theother extreme and battle, to prove people wrong and to win.

'Off it I'm just relaxed and a very laid-back, cool guy and veryquiet - you don't hear me much but on the pitch it's a differentstory because when I go out there I want to win. If you look back onthe life of Brent Sancho, you'd see me living in Trinidad and thenspending nine years in New York and I think both places are reflectedin the kind of person I am.

'New York is fast-paced and there's an attitude where you have tosucceed in life. There's no failures over there - no ribbons ormedals for second-placed and I've learned that attitude all the waythrough university and living there but there's also my Carribeanside, my West Indian side, being from Trinidad, where it's allcoconut trees and lying back on the beach, so the way I live my lifeis a mix of both. But I love challenges. Even when I decided to goprofessional, I started late. I was 21 and I'd finished universityand a lot of people didn't give me much of a chance but for me thathelped. I like when the odds are stacked up against me. I like beingthe underdog. I like that mental fight and I think I've become abetter human being and a better football player because of thechallenges I've had to face.'

The battle with racism has been a virtual constant in his life. Aguy who wears his heart on his sleeve, he also wears it on his wrist,which is adorned with a 'Stand Up, Speak Up' anti-racism charitywristband.

It was a racist slur directed at him on a night out in Dundeewhich led to the player and team-mate Stephen McNally facing assaultcharges. Although he was ultimately cleared, the court case stilltook its toll on Sancho and his parents. His dad was besieged by themedia in Trinidad, and family, drip-fed inaccurate information in aperverse game of Chinese whispers, required daily updates from areassuring Sancho, who deep down needed reassurance of his own.

'Again, I've been through a lot in my life but that was one of thetoughest, sitting in court, knowing you are innocent but feelingguilty because you are sitting in a dock. It was a surreal world. Ikept thinking this can't be happening but it was and all becausesomeone had too much to drink and started saying things theyshouldn't have. But I try to find the silver lining in every cloudand I'd say I learned a lot about myself and, though, initially, Imight have been angry, I can't say I hate the person who put methrough that. I sympathise with them and hope they get to learn aboutblack people and the pain and suffering that something like thatbrings to someone. I hope that in retrospect they have learned fromthat and other people have learned too.'

He looks to New York for inspiration. A city of diverse culture,there was very little integration before the terrorist attack on theTwin Towers. 'But since then, people have realised life is too short.Now you go out in The Village and there are black and white peoplesitting together and it seems normal. And it's a generation thing.Hopefully the next generation will see that and realise that's theway it should be.'

понедельник, 24 сентября 2012 г.

Stay Outside! - Santa Fe Reporter

Zen and the Art of Camping

If your camping enthusiast obsessively shaves every ounce off his pack, gift him or her Fozzils ($19.95), an origami serving set that combines Zen-style solace with picnic pleasure. The set includes a dish, cutting board/funnel, spoon, strainer and peace of mind, and is available at Sangre de Cristo Mountain Works (328 S. Guadalupe St., 984-8221).

Wave of the Future!

Nothing says hot like a fanny pack, and nothing says efficiency like a fanny pack that has replaced cumbersome zippers with state-of-the-art magnetic seals. The Reel Life (500 Montezuma Ave., in Sanbusco Market Center, 995-8114) has the new William and Joseph Surge Mag Series Fanny Pack ($99.99). It allows the winter fisherman's chilled, stiff fingers to singlehandedly access his (or her) kit and kaboodle.

Simple and Cool

Flylow Ail-Purpose Gloves ($25) are waterproof, supple and durable. Made of abrasion-resistant pigskin and manufactured independently in the Western Hemisphere (Denver, that is), Flylow's back-to-basics work-style gloves are the ultimate all-purpose mitts for backcountry, the resort or just getting the ice off your windshield. Pick them up at Santa Fe Mountain Sports' new location (1221 Flagman Way, 988-3337).

Get Em Hooked

The Watcher Master River Landing Net ($99.99) is made in the USA, gorgeously handcrafted and surprisingly practical. The ultra-light-weight net's no-snag PVC-molded bag keeps hooks in the fish and not in the trash because of another ruined net. Find one for the fisherperson in your life at High Desert Angler (453 Cerrillos Road, 988-7688).

Snugly Being the Operative Word

Your comfort is Alpine Sports' (121-B Sandoval St., 983-5155) concern. Colorful, casual and comfy, the Marmot Flair Fleece Jacket ($90) comes in black, turquoise or plum and is the perfect companion for lining a winter coat. It's much softer than most fleeces and fits snugly, so it also looks better.

Take Myofascial-licious

Winter runners are in too much of a hurry to always properly care for those hard-working muscles and aching bones. Nevertheless, sprint into The Running Hub (527-B W. Cordova Road, 820-2523) to give the runner in your life the pleasure of the Pro-Tec Foam Roller ($25). The high-density massager improves flexibility and eases upper and lower back tension.

Myofascial-licious

Winter runners are in too much of a hurry to always properly care for those hard-working muscles and aching bones. Nevertheless, sprint into The Running Hub (527-B W. Cordova Road, 820-2523) to give the runner in your life the pleasure of the Pro-Tec Foam Roller ($25). The high-density massager improves flexibility and eases upper and lower back tension.

Myofascial-licious

Winter runners are in too much of a hurry to always properly care for those hard-working muscles and aching bones. Nevertheless, sprint into The Running Hub (527-B W. Cordova Road, 820-2523) to give the runner in your life the pleasure of the Pro-Tec Foam Roller ($25). The high-density massager improves flexibility and eases upper and lower back tension.

Myofascial-licious

Winter runners are in too much of a hurry to always properly care for those hard-working muscles and aching bones. Nevertheless, sprint into The Running Hub (527-B W. Cordova Road, 820-2523) to give the runner in your life the pleasure of the Pro-Tec Foam Roller ($25). The high-density massager improves flexibility and eases upper and lower back tension.

the Pen!

The Fisher Trekker Space Pen ($30) is good no matter the situation you throw its way. If this pen is good enough for outer space, it's perfect for the winter sportsman. Santa Fe Pens (500 Montezuma Ave., in Sanbusco Market Center, 989-4742) carries the pen as well as the pressurized refi liable ink cartridges. The pen clips conveniently to lanyards, belt loops or gloves and even writes reliably upside down.

Say No To Ninja Cyclists

Jf you know cyclists who ride in low visibility, late at night or during blizzards, keep their wheels parallel and underneath them with Black Burn's Flea Rear Light ($29.99) at rob and Charlie's (1632 St. Michael's Drive, 471-9119). This ultra-light and ultra-bright clip-on flasher comes with a long-lasting rechargeable battery and is solar charger compatible.

Harlot Hour

Bike N Sport's (524-C W. Cordova Road, 820-0809) The Roxanne ($80) is local Santa Fe company Harlot Clothing's simple, chic and warm winter sport top. There's no embarrassing neon Lycra for the modern lady cyclist; it's all about strength, durability and practicality. The 'dri-wool microblend' eliminates odor and reduces moisture - two side effects of biking that are even worse than Lycra.

Don't Worry. Ride Happy

Santa Fe's newest bike shop, The Broken Spoke (1403 Second St., 992-3102), can assuage all kinds of worry with the Xtreme Sports IO ($10) and the IT Clip ($4). The ID bracelet gives EMTs access to emergency contact info and life-saving medical records for a $5 annual subscription. The IT Clip keeps Mamma E happy, as it allows her children to recycle goat-head-ruined tubes and convert them into practical and earth-friendly bungee cords.

Myofascial-licious

воскресенье, 23 сентября 2012 г.

Buzz, with some bugs; We make noise over Cuban, Beckham, but history suggests a few cicadas in the ointment - Chicago Sun-Times

So I come back from the All-Star Game in San Francisco, and guesswhat's gone?

Cicadas.

Every last one of the horde -- dead, worm food, mulch. Fromnatural causes. Many were recycled through my dog's stomach, I mightadd.

For all of you who wrote in a few weeks ago angrily decrying mypassion for 'cicada baseball,' wherein the bug becomes the ball --wildly uncontrollable, with a break at the end that is sick --please relax.

My children, to whom I taught the game, are not damaged from theexperience. They still know the difference between an occasional bugsplat and dogfighting at Michael Vick's.

Me, I promise never to hurl a cicada again.

For 17 years.

- Mark Cuban's hat is now officially in that Cub buyers' ring.

Pitcher Carlos Zambrano says he'd enjoy playing for an owner likeCuban.

'He don't like to loss,' Big Z said Friday. 'I don't like toloss. I could be fine by him.'

Me, I like Cuban just fine. I like the fact you can e-mail himand he will e-mail you back, no matter how lowly a creature you are.

I also like that before he got married he had a virtuallyunfurnished mansion in Dallas, through which he used to roller-blade.

I further like the fact he offered to let Dennis Rodman move inwith him, or something like that, if he came to the Mavericks, orsomething like that.

I also like the fact he had the shrewdness to sell Broadcast.comto Yahoo for billions just before the tech meltdown of the early2000s, after which Broadcast.com might have been worth peanuts

But here's what I don't like.

Cuban lives in Dallas, and the Cubs live in Wrigleyville.

As much as he hates 'to loss,' as much as we all hate 'to loss,'what does that mean?

How many NBA titles have the Mavs won under Cuban's direction?

I remember asking him a few years back when it would be prudentfor a bruised investor to get back into the stock market.

'Never,' he said.

'You mean, like, never?' I asked.

'Never.'

Gee, Apple stock has done OK.

And Halliburton.

Yes, Cuban screams at refs, and he wears his team's jersey, andhe routinely gets fined by NBA commissioner David Stern for hisoutbursts, but what does that mean? Do you want the whiniest kid atthe playground running your sandlot team? His second team?

But here's the thing that truly blows my mind, makes me as leeryof Cuban as any wannabe sports rich guy with more dollars thansense: He had Steve Nash as his point guard, and he got rid of him.

Steve Nash.

That, in my opinion, rivals the old Tribune owners losing GregMaddux. And don't we all agree the old owners were morons?

- Good God, David Beckham and his stick-figure wife have come toAmerica to save us from football, basketball, baseball, golf,tennis, darts, hot-dog-eating, and every other competitive sport weenjoy.

'WELCOME TO L.A., DAVID BECKHAM,' says the cover of this week'sSports Illustrated, with the sub-head, 'Will He Change the Fate ofAmerican Soccer?'

I mean, why should he?

Beckham may have Hollywood looks and an ever-changing hairdo anda five-year, $32.5 million deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy, butwhat does any of that mean to a sport that fits in with the Americandemand for scoring, on-field stardom, hand usage and violence aboutas well as a spoon in a chainsaw drawer?

In soccer all you have to do is kick the ball 50 yards away fromsomebody to negate his importance, and scoring a goal every thirdgame is considered an offensive onslaught for one man.

'My family has now moved to Los Angeles, something we're lookingforward to ... and in our life everything's perfect,' Beckham saidwhen introduced to the hometown crowd in mighty Carson, Calif. 'So,on to my new challenge.'

'Everything's perfect' should be a huge clue right there. What isthis guy, a Stepford Husband?

I think he should sit down with Scary -- I mean, Posh -- Spice,his blank-faced, bony wife, and say, 'Let's eat a sandwich, luv.'

Victoria Beckham -- talent-less, aging, starving, falcon-eyed,driven to be something -- literally terrifies me. I would rather belocked in a dark room with Ronald McDonald.

These two English people are way too eager to be creatures wedon't need in this country, more gossip-column celebrities without abrain cell between them.

And as to saving soccer?

Beckham is a heartthrob, I guess, for young girls, 'Bend It LikeBeckham' fans and Us magazine readers. Sort of a solo dude fromMenudo.

But for the rest of us?

Soccer is fine every four years at World Cup time.

This is about the 50th time soccer was going to 'explode' in theUSA. Remember Pele and Freddy Adu?

I say nil-nil to the new two.

- The Oklahoma football team must forfeit all nine of its winsfrom the 2005 season, including its win over Oregon in the HolidayBowl. This is because the Sooners used a couple of players who hadbeen paid for work they had not performed at a Norman cardealership.

That made them no different from a lot of car salesmen, but tothe NCAA it's a no-no.

The dumbest thing is, you can't really un-do a sports win orloss.

The players know what happened, how they felt, what they gainedor lost right then on the field or court.

So you add a 'W' to your record and years down the road a littlekid asks, 'How bad did you beat Oklahoma, Grandpa?' And you can say,'Well, l'il Billy, we didn't, really. Not by the score, anyway.'

суббота, 22 сентября 2012 г.

NAMES & FACES - The Washington Post

Two thousand dollars a plate just doesn't buy what it used to.

We hear that Ohio Republicans were stumped Thursday when they satdown for their Bush/Cheney '04 fundraiser in Columbus and found . . .plasticware. But the attendees were especially puzzled when theyreached for their forks. There weren't any.

'The lack of silverware was not the Hyatt Regency Columbus'sidea,' senior catering manager Theresa Mullins told us yesterday.'Apparently it's a trend in Republican fundraising.'

Perhaps it would make sense if plasticware were offered as asecurity precaution, but Mullins said that wasn't the case. 'It's inorder to prevent noise and clanging in the room. They [the Bush/Cheney '04 team] wanted to make sure that the room was very quiet.'

The good news is that to eat the food at these fundraisers(Thursday's luncheon, which raised $1.4 million, consisted of roastbeef sandwiches, a pickle wedge, fruit on toothpicks, chips andcookies), you don't need utensils.

'We were asked to design a menu that didn't need silverware,'Mullins explained. 'But we wanted to make sure people could spreadtheir condiments and that kind of thing,' hence the plastic knivesand spoons (for stirring).

But as one exasperated event-goer told us, 'So much for the highlife. . . . Limousine liberals in East Hampton and Malibu would neverstand for such a meager spread. No wonder Harvey Weinstein is sofat!'

It looks as though we won't be saying bye bye bye to JustinTimberlake anytime soon.

The 22-year-old singer with a multi-platinum solo recordingcareer, who recently signed on to headline a global ad campaign forMcDonald's, is now also a one-stop shop for ABC Sports. He willprovide music, star in promos and serve as a special sportscorrespondent for the network's NBA coverage. Not a bad deal for theformer Mouseketeer.

'This provides a unique integration of sports and entertainment,and Justin's interest and enthusiasm, not only in the NBA but in allsports, should help provide our broadcasts with a new, freshapproach,' said Michael Penn, senior vice president and executiveproducer of ABC Sports.

But that's not all for the pop star. He also has an NBC speciallined up, 'Justin Timberlake: Down Home in Memphis,' where he'llperform a few songs and provide his viewing audience with a tour ofhis home town. What with touring, guest-hosting 'Saturday NightLive,' etc., how ever does he find time to canoodle with hisgirlfriend, actress Cameron Diaz?

And the showdown begins: Who is to blame for the collapse ofRosie, the magazine? Rosie O'Donnell and her ex-publisher GrunerJahrUSA started their bitter courtroom battle Thursday.

After the magazine ceased publication in September 2002, GJslapped O'Donnell with a $100 million lawsuit. She countersued for$125 million. And based on the attorneys' opening statements, it'sgoing to get ugly.

'She went from being warm and fun-loving on TV to an 'uber-bitch,' ' GJ attorney Martin Hyman said.

O'Donnell's attorney, Lorna Schofield, didn't dispute reports thather client could be difficult to work with, saying, 'Rosie is notMother Teresa. She is loud, she has a temper and when provoked she isopinionated. She's gay and she is in a committed relationship and isthe mother of four. What you see is what you get.'

'Why don't they want me?'

-- Elizabeth Smart, asking her parents why CBS didn't want her toplay herself in the film about her kidnapping and rescue, accordingto an upcoming issue of TV Guide.

-- Compiled by Anne Schroeder

NARROW FOCUS BY NBC DISTORTS OLYMPIC PICTURE - The Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY)

Everything is getting hazy. The lighting is dim. Faces appear,bathed in a surreal glow. Figures move in slow motion. Soft musicplays.

An afterlife experience? A glimpse into the great beyond?

Nah. Just another Olympic Moment -- the personality profiles ofindividual athletes that look like a Hallmark Card come to life.

The Olympics are the world's most spectacular and inspiringsporting event. Too bad it's filtered through the camera eye ofNBC-TV.

The network covers competitions involving Americans almostexclusively, force-feeds us gobs of warm-and-fuzzy features onindividual athletes, concentrates on major sports, and has anauseating weakness for corniness and cliche.

Granted, when you pay $456 million to broadcast the thing, yougo heavy on the home team and schmaltz. We don't expect much actualjournalism, and we're not disappointed.

The worst is the personality profiles that regularly interruptthe competition. Here's Bela, the gruff but gentle bear of a coach.Here's Dominique, the plucky young star who's fighting back frominjury. It's all soft music, hazy focus, slow motion. Everybody is'hungry for gold' or 'dreaming of Atlanta.' After a while, you'rereaching for the barf bag.

Knowing who these athletes are enhances our appreciation of theevents. But spare us the surreal glow and paint-by-numberssimplicity. It's like being spoon-fed pablum.

But it goes beyond that.

Given the concerns about the toll of intense gymnasticstraining on adolescents, the warm-and-fuzzy features edgeperilously close to propaganda.

For that matter, you don't get much perspective in the eventcommentary. We were told that 14-year-old Dominique was competing'with a 4-centimeter stress fracture in her tibia.' There's aquestion whether such an injury is a badge of courage or a productof self-abuse. Yet there was no ambiguity or hint of a larger issuein the commentator's voice, just admiration.

We expect NBC to focus on American athletes. But after a while,it's as if other countries are there only because the USA can'tcompete against itself. The U.S. athletes are the stars, the othersare mere bit players.

The Olympics are supposed to glorify the heights attainable bythe human body and spirit. Country is secondary to individualdemonstrations of grace, strength and courage.

Canadian TV is partial to Canadian athletes, but far lessemphatically than NBC. Canadian TV devoted a chunk of time Thursdayto the USA vs. Cuba in men's volleyball simply because it was agreat match.

How many events are shown on American TV that don't involve anAmerican competitor? For that matter, how many events do we see inprime time?

Thursday's night's USA vs. Cuba volleyball thriller was ignoredby NBC. Because the headline stuff gets shown to death, lesser --but equally dramatic -- events get overlooked.

In fairness, NBC does some things well. There was anextraordinary shot of Shannon Miller's foot nearly coming off thebalance beam during her routine. Viewers are so close to the actionthat they can count the athletes' nose hairs. There are occasionalfeatures on athletes from other countries. Studio host Bob Costasis easy to take.

And NBC-TV has no control over the Olympics' single largestirritation, the U.S. men's basketball team.

The presence of NBA players is testament to America's inabilityto lose gracefully.

We mustered the pros a couple of Olympics ago, after the restof the world caught up to our collegians. The USA's failure to winOlympic men's basketball gold in 1988 was treated as a nationalcrisis. The consensus: Better to blow 'em out with the big gunsthan to let the college guys settle for silver. And who cares ifthe games are as competitive as the Bills vs. Orchard Park High?

The result is a sorry spectacle. The gold medal is a foregoneconclusion. The only question is whether the NBA stars can stayawake until the end of the games.

At least the Olympics was special to the college guys. The NBAstars stay at a hotel, don't mingle with other athletes and -- mostsignificantly -- don't share their spirit. One gets the feelingthat their motivation isn't a gold medal, but the productendorsements the Olympic connection brings.

пятница, 21 сентября 2012 г.

50 YEARS OF UTTER NUTTERS; IT'S THE only book where Paula Radcliffe and Sir Steve Redgrave compete for space with a bearded lady and some bloke with 20ft fingernails. To mark the 50th birthday of the Guinness Book of World Records, we asked BRIAN McIVER to scour its pages for 50 of the wildest and weirdest human achievements in history. And no, there's no record for the most pointless record.(Features) - Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland)

Byline: BRIAN McIVER

1 MLongest Female Beard: Vivian Wheeler of Illinois, USA, grew an 11ins beard after her mum died and now works in a circus.

2 50 MBiggest Ball Of Cling Film: Chef Andy Martell made a ball 54ins round in Toronto, Canada, last year. 3 MMost Items Regurgitated: Stevie Starr, of Glasgow, swallowed a billiard ball, a bumble bee, a goldfish, a ring and a padlock and key. He brought up the ring locked inside the padlock.

4 MBiggest Butter Sculpture: A 160ft version of the Statue of Liberty was built at Sydney harbour in Australia in April. It melted.

5 1 MLongest Fingernails: In 1998, Shridhar Chillal, of Poona, India, had nails on his left hand with a total length of 20ft, 2.25ins.

6 MBiggest Belly-button Fluff Collection: Aussie Graham Barker has collected 15.41g of his own navel fluff since 1984.

7 MBowling ball Stacking: David Kremer, of Wisconsin, USA, stacked 10 in 1998. 8 MLongest Woman's Legs: Sam Stacy, of, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, has 49.75ins legs.

9 MMost Lightning Strikes Survived: Virginia park ranger Roy C Sullivan was zapped seven times between 1942 and 1977. He had his hair set alight and lost his eyebrows. 10 MLargest Underpants: The Exeter Council for Voluntary Service unveiled a pair of 31.29 ft wide, 16 ft tall pants on June 7, 2003.

11 MMost People Wearing Groucho Marx Glasses: US schoolboy Joe Kavanagh gathered 937 Grouchos in 2003. 12 MBiggest Scottish Country Dance: The Toronto Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society staged a 512-person reel on August 17, 1991.

MBiggest Hug: A total of 4703 people hugged for 10 seconds in Kristanstad, Sweden in 2001.

14 MBiggest Accordion Group: Dutch band The Stedeker Dansers assembled 566 accordionists in 2000.

15 MMost Worms Eaten in 30 Seconds: Mr C. Manoharan ate 200 in Chennal, India, last November. 16 MMost Socks Worn on One Foot: Kirsten O' Brien put 41 socks on one foot in London in May 2003. 17 MBiggest Bubblegum Bubble Blown: Susan Montgomery Williams, of Fresno, California, blew a 23-inch bubble in July, 1994. 18 MMost Cockroaches Eaten: Ken Edwards ate 36 in a minute on The Big Breakfast in March 2001. 19 MMost Cobras Kissed: Gordon Cates of Alachua, Florida, kissed 11 cobras in Los Angeles in September, 1999.

20 MMilk Squirting: Mike Moraal, of Vancouver, Canada, squirted some milk 2.615 metres out of his eye in Paris in September, 2001.

21 MMost Bees in Mouth: Dr Norman Gary held 109 for 10 seconds in LA in 1998.

MLoudest Burp: Paul Hunn's belch registered 118.1 decibels in 2000.

2223MMost Instruments in One-Man-Band: Rory Blackwell played 108 instruments at once in Dawlish, Devon, in May, 1989.

24 MFastest Turkey Plucker: Vincent Pilkington of County Cavan, Ireland, plucked a turkey in 90 seconds in November, 1980. MFastest Skiing Behind Motorbike: 25Gary Rothwell was towed at 156.4 mph in Liverpool in 1999. MFastest Ejection of Spaghetti From26Nose: Kevin Cole, of New Mexico, USA, blew a strand of spaghetti 19cm in 1998.

27 M Chainsaw Juggling: Tom Comet, of Canada, juggled three saws 44 times at the 2002 Edinburgh Festival. 28 MCream Cracker Eating: Sports agent Ambrose Mendy, of London, ate three cream crackers in 49.15 seconds in 2002.

29MFastest 100m on Unicycle: Pete Rosendahl did it in12.11 seconds in Las Vegas in 1994. 30 MMost Sheep Sheared in 24 Hours: New Zealanders Alan MacDonald and Keith Wilson machine-sheared 2220 in June, 1988. 31 MHighest Legal Base Jump (skydive without a plane): Nick Feteris and Glenn Singleman jumped from a Pakistani mountain ledge 19,300ft up. 32 MLongest Fall Survived Without Parachute: Stewardess Vesna Vulovic fell 33,330ft in 1972. She broke both legs.

33 MLongest Bout of Hiccups: Charles Osborne, of Iowa, USA, started hiccuping in 1922 and stopped in 1990. He died a year later.

34 MMost Common Skin Infection: 70 per cent of humans have athlete's foot.

35 MMost Valuable Tooth: One of Sir Isaac Newton's sold for pounds 730 in London in 1816. 36 MMost Fingers,Toes: Indian brothers Tribhuwan and Triloki Yadav have 12 toes and 10 fingers each.

37 MMost Artificial Joints: Charles Wedde, of Michigan, and Anne Davison, of Tyne and Wear, have both had 12 joint replacements. 38 MLongest Tongue: Englishman Stephen Taylor's tongue is 9.4 cm long. 39 MMost Tattooed Man: Tom Leppard, of Skye, has spots tattooed on 99.9 per cent of his body.

40 MMost Body Piercings In One Session: KamMa was pierced 600 times in a day in Sunderland in 2002.

41 M Hairiest Family: Mexican circus acrobats Victor and Gabriel Ramos Gomez have hair on 98per cent of their bodies. 42 MMost spoons balanced on face: 15, by American Tim Johnston in May this year.

MHair Splitting: British engineer Alfred West could split a hair into 17 strands. 4344 MMost Plastic Surgery: Peruvian Transsexual Fulvia Sandoval has had 64 ops. 45 M Oldest Male Stripper: Bernie Barker, of Miami Beach, is 64. 46 MLongest Ear Hair: Indian Radhakant Bajpal has 5.19ins ear tufts.

47 MBiggest Dog Biscuit: Made in the US in 1999, it was 7.7ft long and 1.9ft wide. 48 MBiggest Artificial Christmas Tree: 52mhigh and 62m wide - made by locals in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

49 MMost Rhinestones On AHuman Body: Spanish designer Maria Rosa Pons stuck 30,361 rhinestones sequins to a model in 2001.

50 MMost Guinness World Records Held: Ashrita Furma, of New York State, holds 20 records, for feats including milk bottle balancing and pushing an orange with his nose.

CAPTION(S):

четверг, 20 сентября 2012 г.

Winnipeg's silent film star.(Lillian Rich Nicholson) - Manitoba History

By all appearances, Lionel Edward 'Leo' Nicholson was born in 1894 with a proverbial golden spoon in his mouth. His father Edward was a Winnipeg grocery broker who could afford the best for his kids. Young Leo and his older sister Mae were frequent playmates with the children of the city's social elite. Their violin and piano performances were featured on the cover of Town Topics, the city's arts and culture magazine. Their mother Madge was one of Manitoba's first automobile owners, and she often took her two children on 'road trips' to rural Manitoba and the USA. The Nicholsons summered at the large family cottage on Lake of the Woods, entertained guests at the St. Charles Country Club, or took extended holidays in Europe, Japan, and China. They enjoyed the mineral waters of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and they wintered in California, Bermuda, and other sunny locales. As a teenager, Leo attended private school in Wisconsin, and raced his mother's car while home on holiday. And, after a tour of duty as a dashing fighter pilot with the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I, Leo married a movie star.

Leo returned from the war with a 19-year-old English bride named Lillian Rich. They settled into a comfortable home on Oxford Street in Winnipeg. The 5'3' dark-haired beauty must have immediately captivated her new father-in-law's heart. Seeing a future for her in Hollywood, Edward Nicholson bankrolled Lillian with $1,000 of his own money. She had publicity photographs taken in the summer of 1919, including one of her lounging playfully on the porch of her home, then headed off to Tinsel Town.

With Leo as her manager, Lillian's found immediate success on the silver screen. Her first role in the 1919 movie The Day Site Paid was followed by a flurry of roles, mostly dramas and Westerns with such stars as Tom Mix, Jack Hoxie, Harry Carey, and Ed 'Hoot' Gibson. She made five movies in 1920, seven in 1921, and six in 1922. (1) Then, none in 1923. What happened? Her 'sugar daddy' father-in-law, having sold his business in 1917, died that year in California after a long illness. Leo accompanied the body back to Winnipeg for burial. Lillian apparently decided that her marriage to Leo was now a liability: she locked up their California house and divorced him. Soon afterwards, her career was back on track; she appeared in six movies in 1924, and eight in 1925. Her career hit its peak in 1925 when she played 'the man-eating, social-climbing Flora in Cecil B. DeMille's extravagant The Golden Bed. She played her femme fatale in a blond wig and the New York Times thought she looked 'extraordinarily beautiful.'' (2) The next year, a role in the railroad movie Whispering Smith would be considered her only other notable performance. (3) Her movie output waned gradually in the early 1930s. Like many silent film stars, Lillian probably did not have a voice to suit the 'talkies' that were becoming common. Her career ended in 1940 after a series of uncredited roles as nurses or telephone operators, and she died quietly in January 1954.

Leo, meanwhile, looked for other employment in California. He allegedly tried his hand at directing movies although there are no records on what ones he made, if any. Then he had the idea of becoming a sports journalist in the new medium of radio, and began broadcasting football games in Los Angeles under the sponsorship of an automobile agency. In 1930, he moved back to Canada where, in Vancouver as kindly 'Big Brother Bill', he created a radio program to feature talented local children. (4) His love of sports reporting reasserted itself, however, and he began calling 'every sports event that has a book of rules' (5), including bicycle races, softball, golf tourneys, and salmon derbies. (6) He announced home games for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team in 1941 and, for a time, wrote a sports column for the Vancouver News-Herald newspaper. Known for his rapid-fire elocution, Leo was widely credited for popularizing box lacrosse in Canada, and for describing it as 'the fastest sport on two feet.' He remarried but had no children. He worked vigorously on behalf of Vancouver charities and war bond drives, but he died after a brief illness at a young age, just 52, in October 1947. Like his movie star first wife, there is no indication that Leo Nicholson ever returned to his home town and, like her, he is virtually unknown today. But for a brief time just after World War I, a silent film star was born on a quiet Winnipeg street, and nurtured by a wealthy local businessman whose son later 'made good' as one of Canada's first sports broadcasters.

Acknowledgements

A series of minor misadventures in Victoria, BC in late 2004 eventually led me to photograph albums compiled by Mae Nicholson Bawlf, sister to Leo. Among the wealth of information contained in them were clues to Lillian Rich's brief residence in Winnipeg. I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Alexandra Bawlf, her sister Virginia Bawlf, and her cousin Nick Bawlf (all of them descended from Winnipeg grain merchant Nicholas Bawlf), as well as Professor Gene Walz, in piecing together this little-known historical tidbit.

Gordon Goldsborough

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Notes

(1.) Lillian Rich's filmography can be found on several Internet sites, including http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0723678.

(2.) Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide, www.allmovie.com

(3.) Ibid.

(4.) 'Leo's Life Was an Exciting One', Vancouver News-Herald, 29 October 1947, p. 10.

(5.) 'Leo Nicholson Funeral Set for Thursday', Vancouver Sun, 29 October 1947, p. 1.

In October '10, it's time to hang 10 - Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)

Top 10 sports media- related things we see causing tension during

the 10th month of the 10th year of this decade:

10 You may be looking live now at the first day of the Ryder Cupcompetition on ESPN, but what time the sun comes up for day twodepends, again, on NBC's clock.

The network's call to go with a 5 1/2-hour digital delay (doesanyone use videotape anymore?) during Saturday's play in Wales meansit doesn't have to bump Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly latertonight and there's still time to cash in on some overnightinfomercials. But by the time we're allowed to view it - thatawkward 5 a.m., because that's how it lines up with an 8 a.m. EDTlaunch - the event could be decided and we'd already know about itthanks to our Internet machine.

'What? I didn't know that,' Paul Azinger, the 2008 U.S. Cupcaptain and an ESPN analyst tonight, told USA Today when told aboutthe Saturday TV delay. 'I don't even know how to comment.'

It's the Summer Olympics all over again. And this must be the NBCcompromise, after Dick Ebersol couldn't convince the Ryder Cuppeople to actually start their event in the dark with flashlights soit could be in prime time the night before on the East Coast.

9 The NHL's U.S. TV rights with Versus and NBC expire after thisseason, and commissioner Gary Bettman recently said 'we will havediscussions in the not-so-distant future ... we will deal with thenext contracts in the ordinary course.'

What's been ordinary about how the NHL buries its product on TV?And what's to wait for?

'There is a lot of hype and focus on it,' Bettman added. 'We arenot at the stage viewing it with the same level of scrutiny as it'sbeen getting. That's not to say it's not important.'

Read between the lines: Make sure your cable or dish system hasthe National Geographic Channel.

8 An Associated Press report on the Miami Heat's opening oftraining camp this week noted there were about 275 media credentialsgiven out and 'players posed for pictures with some reporters afterpractice, a sight that rarely, if ever, happens in Miami.'

Note to 'reporters:' There's a slight difference between being'embedded' and 'in bed' with the team you cover.

7 A new Deloitte survey shows while plenty of 3D TV sets areready to be sold, 83 percent of the respondents 'agree 3D is notimportant enough to buy a new television.'

And then there's wearing the glasses.

'Aside from possibly being uncomfortable and geeky, they are alsoa barrier to the multitasking that consumers engage in whilewatching TV, including surfing the Web, reading e-mail, talking oninstant message and reading books, newspapers and magazines,' saidDeloitte's Ed Moran in a story on Televisionbroadcast.com.

ESPN's programmers, who spoon-feed the key 18-to-34 maleattention deficit disorder demographic, couldn't factor that inbefore launching its own 3D TV channel?

6 The Lakers begin the 2010-11 season with all the contracts oftheir broadcasters - Joel Meyers and Stu Lantz on TV, Spero Dedesand Mychal Thompson on radio - needing to be renewed, or rejected,moving forward.

5 ESPN's change-over this week to a high-definition broadcast of'Pardon the Interruption' and 'Around the Horn' will be the greatestdeterrent to any future sportswriters aspiring to stroke their egoson TV. Except for Woody Paige.

4 Eric Karros' wide, wild goatee. Not a violation of his Fox MLBcontract?

3 CBS college basketball play-by-play man Gus Johnson, who usesthe catch phrase 'Rise and Fire' to no end, has launched a line of T-shirts with that graphic on it. A version on the NCAA.com storesells for $34.95.

For a 'lightweight ribbed' piece of cotton with short sleeves.

2 FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal writes this week:

'Baseball, due to its refusal to expand instant replay, is headedfor more controversy this postseason. And the sport's powers thatbe, led by commissioner Bud Selig, have no one but themselves toblame.

'Once again, baseball is about to walk straight through a glassdoor. I will not feel sorry for the sport when some blown calloccurs in Game 3 of the World Series and the play is shown to death -not just on all-sports networks but also all-news channels - turningoff even casual fans. ...'

A hint that Fox, which again carries the World Series and isRosenthal's employer, will load up with extra replay machines?

1 Immediately after the Texas Rangers agreed to a new 20-yearextension last week with the local Fox Sports Net channel for areported $1.5 billion, which figures to boost the team's playerpayroll by at least $25 million a year, speculation started abouthow this is a good sign for Dodgers current owner Frank McCourtlooking to line his pockets soon with a cash influx from Fox SportsWest/Prime Ticket.

Unless he goes ahead with a Dodgers' network; DTV is the workingtitle, according to divorce court records.

'Why would Fox be willing to shell out so much for the Rangers inan era when the LosAngeles Dodgers, a bigger market team with a morevaluable product and was once owned by Fox, takes in only about $45million a year for its cable rights?' asked the Dallas Morning News'Barry Horn. 'The answer is simple. Fox has done the math and thinksthe value is there.'

Once Fox does its due diligence with the Dodgers, and sees theMcCourts still are in charge, what value will it find?

WHAT SMOKES

Fox's ability to find a sponsor willing to finance a pushed-upfirst pitch to the third game of the upcoming World Series is astart in the right direction toward making the product more viewer-friendly for future generations. Yet it's hardly a major move, perse - a 3:57 p.m. PT/6:57 p.m. ET for the game set Oct. 30 -considering it's only an hour earlier from every other start time(except Sunday's Game 4, which will wait for the finish of Fox's NFLcoverage). 'We've said over the years that if advertisers werewilling to support earlier starts at prime time levels, we'd be ableto begin games earlier,' Fox Sports president Eric Shanks said in arelease. He noted Chevrolet is the sponsor (with parent-company GMstill 60 percent owned by the U.S. government) that stepped up.

Zenyatta's attempt Saturday at Hollywood Park to win her 19thrace in a row in a final prep for defense of the Breeders' CupClassic in November airs live on ESPN at about 4:10 p.m., busting inon the 'NASCAR Sprint Cup Happy Hour' and the college footballscoreboard shows. Joe Tessitore, Randy Moss, Jerry Bailey, HankGoldberg, Jeannine Edwards and Jay Privman make up the broadcastteam for the Lady's Secret Stakes. ESPN Classic (and ESPN3.com) willbe on live Saturday from 3:30-5 p.m. to do the pre- to post-racecoverage.

WHAT CHOKES