University of Minnesota basketball coach Tubby Smith recently sent an e-mail telling the students to stop their profanity-laced chants... [The unimaginative chant from the student section was "F--- Ohio State"].At the high school level, students from a wealthy suburban Minneapolis school were taunting an opposing basketball player from a less upscale area (presumably during a free throw, though the situation wasn't specified) with a chant of "Food stamps! food stamps!"
Michael Josephson, founder and president of the California-based Josephson Institute's Center for Sports Ethics, pointed to current "political dialogue, which is full of vitriolic, angry, idiotic language. People get the idea that's OK, and there's a real danger in that."
Consequences, such as penalties and ejections, are in place to deal with sportsmanship issues among athletes, said Kevin Merkle, associate director for the Minnesota State High School League. "But the fans get to be a tough one," he said. "You get that mob mentality and sometimes it can be difficult to control."
At a standing-room-only auction last weekend, Interasia Auctions sold more than 3,000 lots for a value of 98 million Hong Kong dollars (US$12.6 million). And at another sale earlier in the week held by Zurich Asia, a leading stamp auction house, two Cultural Revolution-era stamps sold for more then HK$600,000...More at the link.
The Interasia auction was led by a block of four stamps [above] known as “Mao’s Inscription to Japanese Worker Friends” from 1968, the largest existing multiple of this rare Cultural Revolution stamp. It fetched HK$8.9 million, a record for a Chinese stamp at auction.
The “Great Victory of Cultural Revolution,” an unissued stamp depicting Mao Zedong and Lin Biao, a Chinese military leader, sold for HK$632,500. It was reported to have been printed at a time when Mao was trying to elicit Lin’s support during the Cultural Revolution.
“The Whole Country is Red,” which sold for HK$690,000, shows a map of China that includes Taiwan. According to Mr. Mangin, the Zurich Asia director, the stamp was issued at post offices for just a few days before unleashing an uproar when Communist officials caught the error. The stamps were quickly withdrawn from the market but a few were lost to the public.
In Washington County there have been several reports of a 7-foot hairy creature with pointy ears. Steve Krueger was doing his job on Nov. 9 -- removing road-side deer carcasses overnight for the Department of Natural Resources.There is also a second report:
Krueger said he had just made a pick-up along a remote road near Holy Hill about 1:30 a.m., and he was in the cab doing some paperwork. When his parked truck started shaking, he looked in the rear view mirror and got the scare of his life.
He said his flashing lights illuminated a huge hairy beast standing on its hind legs -- dragging a deer off the open tailgate.
"All I saw was the creature. One paw -- or whatever was on it -- reaching over to grab the deer. The head looked like a cross between a bear and a wolf," said Krueger. "It had big pointy ears like a wolf. It scared the living heck out of me. I threw it into drive and off I went."
He said the creature was the color of a bear and had a snout like a bear.
Painting contractor Rick Selchert said he may have seen the same creature. He said he was driving only a few miles from Holy Hill in October 2004 , just after dawn, when a strange beast -- at least 200 pounds -- crossed the road in front of him.I wonder if it could be a bear with the mange?
"I seen it come up out of the brush from one side of the road. And it come across the road," he said. "The head was really round and the ears were kind of pointy. I never seen nothing like that."
Mandy English was just 13 when she hurled the note requesting a penpal into the sea during a 1979 school trip to Scotland. Two years later Richard, then just six, spotted the glass bottle on the beach and sent a reply by postcard. Mandy never wrote back because of the age difference.Further details and pix at the link, via Nothing to do with Arbroath.
But while sorting through keepsakes last week, she found the 1981 card and realised its schoolboy sender had the same name as Richard, her boyfriend since last June.
"We got on the lake about 9 in the morning,'' said Jeff Klein, 26. "We weren't in our fish house long before a guy from another house not far away said he saw the biggest muskie of his life pass below his fishing holes, headed for us. He told us to get ready.''The rest of the story is at Dennis Anderson's column in the StarTribune.
Klein, of Waconia, and pals Jason Mechtel of New Germany, Minn., and Ryan Schmakel of Waconia quickly lowered their baits into the lake.
"All of the sudden, one line took off,'' Klein said. "The line was running and running. Finally, I said, 'I have to set the hook.' And I did. Real hard. The hook busted.''
Then Schmakel's and Mechtel's lines began to unfurl. And unfurl. When they stopped, the pair began to reel, figuring they had hooked a muskie akin to Moby Dick, or Disney's Nemo.
Klein knelt on the floor, an elongated gaff in one hand, peering into the dark fathoms, ready to do battle.
But instead of a finned creature, he was greeted by a mysterious air bubble that gurgled up from the water below.
Followed by a ... hand and arm. Holding a rope.
"I jumped back to the other side of the house,'' Klein said...
"The choice is largely a matter of personal preference, dictated by habit. In surveys of American consumers and of bath and kitchen specialists, 60–70% of respondents prefer over.Those with time to kill during this blizzard are invited to peruse the entire article, but what caught my attention were quotations from two celebrities:
Despite being a trivial topic, people often hold strong opinions on the matter. Advice columnist Ann Landers said that the subject was the most controversial issue in her column's history. Defenders of either position cite advantages ranging from aesthetics, hospitality, and cleanliness; to paper conservation and the ease of detaching individual squares. Celebrities and experts are found on both sides..."
Favoring "Over": Jay Leno, comedian. Leno "...will even change the paper at others' houses, saying if people don't have it right, they obviously don't know which way it's supposed to go."
Favoring "Under": Ann Landers, advice columnist: "I'm very compulsive about it. The toilet paper needs to be hung down along the wall. I'll actually rearrange it myself if I'm over at someone's home and I see it hung over the top."
... 19-year old Andrej Pejic is not your usual male model as you can see from these pictures showing his two starring turns on the catwalk this past week for Jean Paul Gaultier.More at the Telegraph.
The gorgeous blonde Veronica Lake ringer in gold and furs at Gaultier's menswear show? Pejic. The beautiful hourglass bride at the finale of Gaultier's haute couture show in Paris, resplendent in ruffled tulle and feather headdress? Pejic again.
"His name is Ralph Bruno, and 25 years ago he was an apprentice pattern maker from Milwaukee who was reupholstering his mother's living room furniture when he found himself holding a leftover cushion.
On a whim, he burned holes into the cushion until his mother shooed him outside because of the awful smell. In his backyard, he painted the cushion yellow and fitted it on his head...More at the Los Angeles Times.
That night, in a direct rebuttal to the Chicago fans who have long ridiculed Wisconsinites with the infamous one-word mockery of their state's most beloved product, he wore the invention to a baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago White Sox.
Ralph Bruno thus became the Original Cheesehead.
"All my friends made fun of me; they thought I looked like an idiot," Bruno recalled this week. "But then a bunch of pretty girls came over and asked to wear it."
... the company [Foamation] has fewer than 10 employees who make the cheeseheads by hand in a nondescript warehouse near Milwaukee. Business gets so big before Bears games that they brought in several temporary workers this week...
In 1995, Frank Emmert of Superior, Wis., claimed that jamming a cheesehead over his face saved him from death during the crash landing of a light plane during his return from a Packers game."
China's booming wine market has created an astounding demand for empty bottles of famous wines, with fraudsters paying up to £300 for a good bottle that can be filled with a less celebrated vintage. Counterfeiters have begun collecting empty bottles and then refilling them to scam rich Chinese. A particular favourite is Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982, which sells for over £2,000 an intact bottle at auction...The story brings back some pleasant memories. Three of my college roommates worked their way through school as bartenders. One of the perks of the jobs was that they were often allowed to take the nearly-empty bottles at the end of parties, which we would then finish emptying back at the dorm and refill with the cheapest possible liquor from local discount stores. Then, when we later hosted our own parties, schoolmates would act sophisticated by saying "Ah... Johnny Walker Black Label... you can always tell a fine whisky." Or not. We knew better.
Mr Huang said his firm collected empties from bars and restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing and that the run-up to Chinese New Year, in February, was peak season, as counterfeiters targeted wine lovers looking to celebrate in style... In the past year China has become the world's fastest-growing wine market with legions of millionaires anxious to appear sophisticated...
Wanted Oats, He Got Cats
Error of Grain Merchant’s Typewriter Brings Swarms of 5,000 Felines
Neligh, Neb., Jan. 1. – The substitution of a lower case letter “c” for the letter “o” in an advertisement in the Sioux City, Omaha and local newspapers has caused John C. Trothers, a grain merchant here, all kinds of trouble.
Trothers, wishing to replenish his supply of oats, concluded to advertise. Writing his advertisement on a typewriter, he manifolded* it and sent copies to the newspaper as follows:
“Wanted – Delivered on track at Neligh, 10,000 bushels of cats. Will pay highest market price.”
Not noticing the error, he awaited results, which came sooner than he expected. Within a week cats of all kinds and descriptions commenced to arrive, consigned to Trothers. Some were sent prepaid and others collect. They came from the East, the West, the North and the South.
Mark Moody was talking on his mobile phone and enjoying a smoke on the ledge when two policemen asked if he was trying to kill himself, even though he was just 12ft from the ground...More at the link, via Nothing to do with Arbroath.
An indignant Mr Moody refused to let the police into his flat but they apparently forced their way in anyway and allegedly dragged him out of the window sill and threw him on his front before handcuffing him.
The trial lawyer from New York was then taken to a psychiatric hospital, where medics immediately realised the error and apologised...
Mr Moody had been smoking away on the window of his Peck Slip home on a warm August day when he caught the attention of the two policemen.
One allegedly asked: 'Are you about to commit suicide?'
Mr Moody replied sarcastically: 'If I was going to commit suicide, this would be a pretty dumb place to. If I jumped from here, I'd just sprain my ankle.'
He explained that he did not want to get smoke in the apartment...
The Geminid meteor shower, which peaks this year on Dec. 13th and 14th, is the most intense meteor shower of the year. It lasts for days, is rich in fireballs, and can be seen from almost any point on Earth...For best viewing, seek a location with minimal light pollution. Based on satellite imagery, an excellent place would be North Korea:
This month Earth will pass through the Geminid debris stream, producing as many as 120 meteors per hour over dark-sky sites. The best time to look is probably between local midnight [Dec 13th] and sunrise on Tuesday, Dec. 14th, when the Moon is low and the constellation Gemini is high overhead, spitting bright Geminids across a sparkling starry sky.
A company which makes the world’s biggest knickers has been forced to make even larger underwear – for women who are a size 74 with 105 inch waistlines. The Big Bloomers Company was set up by mother and daughter Dianne and Laura Mannering earlier this year making underwear up to XXXXXXXXL for 35 stone women. But they have been inundated with calls from obese women around the world claiming they are too small.Further details at Nothing to do with Arbroath and at the company's website.
