pretty women

pretty women

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Megan Bush didn't know what pitch she hit Friday night. Opposing pitchers often don't know what hit them when they face Bush and the Gators.
Behind a one-hitter from Stacey Nelson and Bush's one big hit -- a solo home run deep into the left-field bleachers in the sixth inning -- Florida beat Michigan, 1-0.

For the second Women's College World Series game in a row (and really the fourth game in a row, including a super regional against California), a Gators offense that averages nearly 6.6 runs per game produced considerably less than that but just enough to back up Nelson's brilliance.
And that's sort of the point. Florida's lineup is one giant fail-safe mechanism.
When all the parts are working, it's a juggernaut. When some parts malfunction, or get taken out of play by great pitchers such as Jordan Taylor and Nikki Nemitz, there are too many redundancies built into the system to ever allow for catastrophic hitting failure.
Consider Bush, the sophomore shortstop who was hitting eighth in the lineup when I first got a glimpse of this year's Gators at a tournament near Palm Springs in February (all she did from that spot was hit a grand slam off an elite pitcher, Fresno State's Morgan Melloh, to turn a potentially tense game into a run-rule win). Coming off a big home run in Thursday's win against Arizona, Bush found herself hitting fifth against Michigan.
Nemitz said she thought she tipped off the changeup that Bush blasted, but the power-hitting infielder said she didn't really know what pitch it was -- she just saw it come in and swung as hard as she could to send it back the other way. Good as a freshman, when she hit 13 home runs and drove in 41 runs, Bush has been ever better this season. Her average is up nearly 80 points and her strikeout-to-walk ratio has been cut in half.
"I think more than anything, it's just the way she plays with confidence," coach Tim Walton said. "Everybody always talks about the hole in her swing, and they talk about this and they talk about that. But when she swings with confidence -- I don't know what pitch it was either because the kids don't throw real, true changeups; they throw kind of a deviation from an offspeed pitch. When you see her hit and then get long -- I saw her get long, and when she gets that swing, it's going. It just her confidence, no question."
So why was Bush hitting seventh or eighth for so long before Friday night? Because where else was she going to hit? Her move up the lineup card against the Wolverines was part of a series of moves that landed Kristina Hilbreth in the No. 8 spot and Kim Waleszonia in the No. 9 spot. Hilbreth had one of the highest averages of any hitter in conference play and Waleszonia was a first-team all-conference player the past two seasons.
There simply aren't any weak spots in this lineup. And so even when opposing pitchers shut parts of it down for an extended period, someone, somewhere will come up with the necessary run production.
Has Walton ever faced a lineup as deep as the one he torments opposing coaches with?
"I'd have a hard time finding it," Walton said. "Tennessee might have had it a couple of years ago; Arizona always has a deep lineup; UCLA this year has a deep lineup. But to me, we've got some tough outs. We struck out nine times and, I think, eight [Thursday] night, but we've got some tough outs. Your first hit is coming from your eight-hole hitter; Kim gets a hit. I mean, we're pretty tough. We're pretty pleased with where we're at."

katrina halili hayden kho

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jay leno last show

jay leno last show

The king of late-night television stepped down from his throne last night with tears in his eyes.
Jay Leno, who took over "The Tonight Show" in 1992 from Johnny Carson, passed the torch to Conan O'Brien after 3,800 performances.
Thanking those who helped make "this show the No. 1 show," the 59-year-old fixture in America's homes for 17 years managed to smile even as his eyes welled.
He'll stay with NBC, hosting a new, five-times-a-week primetime show in an earlier 10 p.m. slot in the fall.
Leno's finale opened with a standing ovation from the audience and a monologue targeting politicians and other favorites.
"Seventeen years," he began. "I want to thank all the people who made it possible. Michael Jackson, Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton. We could not have done this show without them."
The audience was still laughing when he recalled, "When I started my hair was black, and the President was white."
He followed with a favorite target over the years: "I'm almost embarrassed to mention this. I'm cleaning out my office today, I find O.J.'s knife. I had it the whole time."
About the future, he said, "People ask me, 'Oh, what are you going to do after the last show? Are you gonna go on vacation?' This kind of thing. ... I'm going to a secluded spot where no one can find me: NBC prime time."
But at the end, Leno turned serious as the camera panned to his wife in the audience, saying, "One of the things I'm proud of, I'm leaving this dance with the same girl I came in with."
His legacy?
"Well, there is a kind of legacy," he said, smiling. "Here's the answer. Take a look."
He gestured to the curtain, which rose to reveal a passel of kids, the offspring of writers, assistants and others who worked on the show.
"The answer is 68," Leno said with a grin. "We have 68 kids."
And a legion of very loyal fans.
Sal Schembari, 50, a retired federal employee originally from Syracuse, spent the night on a lounge chair outside "The Tonight Show" studio ticket booth with his son to be sure to get in for the finale.
Why?
"Because Jay is all class, as they say in New York," he replied, with many others in the crowd nodding in agreement. Read more: "Jay Leno's last stand on 'Tonight'"

machine gun mccain

machine gun mccain

"Watch out for the old man," Curt Branom said gleefully, sweeping past Nancy Pelosi and John Travolta as he headed to the stage of "Beach Blanket Babylon" wearing big white hair and a medal-cover ed purple smoking jacket.

The flats flew open and the crowd cracked up at the sight of cranky John McCain, singing "Johnny B. Goode" in a shtick-filled number with silver-domed Bill Clinton, a ridiculously buffed Governor Arnold and other satirized pols. Backstage at "BBB" - the perennial San Francisco treat that's celebrating its 35th year - another and equally entertaining show was unfolding with the same happy madness.
Tall Ellen Toscano plucked off her big brown Pelosi wig and tossed it to props manager Bob Memmo, a meticulous man who sets up the fast and endless stream of costume changes choreographed in very close quarters. He'd just helped 22-year veteran Renée Lubin - the sensational soul singer who morphs from Tina Turner to Oprah to Beyoncé and the all-blue lady who pops out on a lion's tongue - plop on her waxy block of a Michelle Obama wig ("Ready with the wig," he said with the pleasant cool of a NASA control guy).
A few feet away, in a 25-by-15-foot space filled with towering fruit bonnets and wigs the size of shrubs, costumer Ty Yamaguchi was helping Toscano yank off the black leather pants she wore for Pelosi's "Leader of the Pack" number and into her Sarah Palin glasses and suit, accessorized with a rather large pistol. (Toscano also makes hay with Britney Spears and a stumbling cameo by Amy Winehouse with a big bag of crystal meth on her head and a double-jumbo bottle of Jack Daniels in her hand.)
At the same time, Doug Magpiong, who plays Arnold and Elvis and shares the dancing poodles and Hassids numbers with Paulino Durán and Ryan Rigazzi, was putting on his Travolta shades. Durán stripped down to his red bikini, strung gold medals around his neck, grabbed a giant bong, drew smoke from some theatrical cigarette device and got poised to pounce onstage.
"Total method acting," joked Durán, who, like the others, seemed to be having a ball on both sides of the curtain.
"Welcome to the craziness," said Show White, one of the original characters that the late Steve Silver built into the flexible structure of this machine-gun-speed, old-school vaudeville, quintessentially San Francisco show. He was the wizardly artist and producer who created the show for a laugh in 1974 - it opened June 7 that year in the back room of the Savoy Tivoli - never suspecting that the sublimely silly stuff he'd been cooking up on the streets of San Francisco would turn into America's longest-running musical revue.
Snow, whose international hunt for a prince provides the spine of a show that changes with the news, has been played for five years by Shawna Ferris, a UC Irvine music theater grad who eventually sheds her Disney frock for Madonna's pointy cone bra .
"I love to be onstage here, and watching all these crazy people I work with," Ferris said. "It's a blast." Val Diamond had slipped off her Italian chef costume from the opening "Mambo Italiano" number and got ready to go back out as the old French whore. A big-voice singer and gifted comedian, Diamond joined Silver's merry band 31 years ago and has played many parts - her Jewish mother routine, with its comic cantorial chanting, is as memorable as her wrenching rendition of Burt Bacharach's "Anyone Who Had a Heart" - and worn many humongous hats. She likes the lusty Gallic gal best.
"This crusty old French whore. What's not to like?" Diamond said with a laugh. "If we were doing 'Macbeth,' I might have a little trouble after 30 years. But this show is just so silly. It's fun." Stage manager John Camajani has been with the show as long as Diamond. He's a big, good-humored man who was alternately yanking open flats and closing curtains, handing off mikes and tossing wigs and props to Memmo as they came offstage.
"Because of all the real fast changes the crew does with the cast, everything has to be in the right place at the right time," Camajani said. "The Velcro has to stick. The buttons have to snap." He has yet to tire of the mayhem. "I just love the atmosphere. These kids keep me young. They keep me feeling up." They have the same effect on audiences, who keep the place packed, seven performances a week, even in the midst of a recession. Tourists come and so do locals, curious to see what new characters are being spoofed and hungry for what the show's longtime director, Kenny Mazlow, calls pure entertainment.
"It just keeps changing and evolving," said producer Jo Schuman Silver, who kept the show bubbling along after her husband died of complications from AIDS in 1995. The show's popping rhythm - things come and go in a flash, so if you didn't like or get that, how 'bout this? - was set by Steve Silver, who got bored easily.
"It's faster than ever," Schuman Silver said backstage after the rousing "San Francisco" finale. "If Steve were around today, this is how the show would be. Now it's quicker than ever, because that's how the world is today." She and Mazlow stay on top of the news and are constantly adding new bits that keep things current. They work with Music Director Bill Keck to find the song that fits. If the bit flies with the audience, it's in, if not, it's gone.
The bathroom-stall Sen. Larry Craig is still in the show, along with Hillary, Martha Stewart, a hilariously long-nailed Barbra Streisand and the Octomom. Caitlin McGinty plays those ladies and Craig is done by Branom, a one-time accountant who has appeared on and off in "BBB" since '94.
"I play all the nasty old white Republicans," said Branom, who was wearing Craig's "I'm Not Gay" T-shirt beneath the absurdly regal, pink-poodle-wigged outfit he wears as foppish King Louis XIV. While Craig was onstage singing "I Will Survive" in blue boxers, Phillip Percy Williams was donning his dandy Oil of Olé Latin lover threads. After a quick appearance, he dashed backstage to get into his witch doctor garb for the Jewish number. ("No, a RICH doctor," Diamond's yenta tells Snow White).
Memmo and Yamaguchi helped Williams put on a 50-pound, bone-bearing Afro. "Witch doctor comin' in," Memmo announced as Williams gracefully sailed backstage without bumping into anybody. Off came the Afro and grass skirt, with its excitable banana, and Williams, who plays James Brown and Barack Obama, jumped into his Tiger Woods attire, put a golf trophy on his head, grabbed the club proffered by Camajani and hit the stage.
As the finale approached, Diamond was helped into a metal harness that supports the trademark 300-pound San Francisco cityscape hat she wears.
"It's against human nature to be wearing something like this, but you do it," she said with affection.
Branom, who swears his curly black Jonas Brothers wig makes him look like Gilda Radner's Roseanne Rosannadanna, explained why this dizzying show is still a gas.
"It's spontaneous, it's real, you feel that something new could happen every night," he said." It's a great job. You have your days free and you have nights doing this, playing with some of your best friends. What could be better?" {sbox}
Beach Blanket Babylon plays at 8 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 6:30 p.m. Fri., 6:30 and

misunderstanding lyrics

misunderstanding lyrics

There’s a bit of a twist to yesterday’s big Bob Dylan story about a poem handwritten by the legend when he was 16 being auctioned off by Christie’s for $10-15k: A reader alerted Reuters that the poem is almost exactly transcribed from country singer Hank Snow’s song by the same name, “Little Buddy.” The auction has been updated with this new information, but it will be interesting to see how this unfolds in the media today.
See, Dylan has been dogged by plagiarism accusations for most of his career. Even his recent albums Modern Times and Love and Theft have been revealed to have uncanny similarities to other works. You might think this misunderstanding about one of his earliest known works would drive the poem’s price down, but fans of the lauded songwriter may actually find this early evidence of Dylan’s open cribbing to be an even more revealing and interesting part of his creative process.
If he were really trying to maliciously steal from other artists, why does he get so easily caught? Looks like even the auction houses have gotten tangled up in Dylan’s games.

google wave

google wave
SAN FRANCISCO -- What would e-mail look like if it were invented today, rather than several years ago? Meet Google Wave, a preview application shown off Thursday at the Google I/O conference.
The Google Wave site is now up and running, although access to the application will be restricted. Google Wave was developed by the Google Maps team, led by Lars Rasmussen and his brother Jens.
"One of the best times of my life was in 2005, just after the launch of Google Maps, when developers started doing crazy things with the APIs," Rasmussen said, adding that he hopes developers will do the same with Wave.
What is Google Wave? Think of an open-source version of Gmail constructed via instant messaging. To start a wave, two users start what is essentially an instant-message session, which can be archived as a conversation. Other users can then be invited to join each wave or conversation, and there's even a "playback" feature to track the process of the conversation. Google also said it intends Wave to be a platform as well as a protocol, with the appropriate tools and extensions for each.
In fact, it might not even be accurate to call it a reinvention of e-mail. Google executives tied the instant-message/e-mail model to real-time document collaboration, even search, and extended it to the Web and to blogs.
Not surprisingly, images can be attached easily. What's fascinating, however, is that those images or embedable objects can also be Wave gadgets: for example, in a demo, a Google Map of Bora Bora was dropped into a wave. However, Rasmussen was able to manipluate the map in real time from his own screen, and the changes showed up dynamically on the screen of Stephanie Hannon, the project manager.
Real-time updates seem to be a critical element of Wave. Not only can conversations be updated in real time, but users who allow others access to their wave can allow those users the ability to update thier waves in real time.
Rasmussen displayed the design document overseeing Wave, which featured not only collaborative editing but also embedded conversations within Wave, an interesting tweak to the collaborative toos already inside Microsoft Office and other suites.
Want to publish a wave to a blog? No problem. A tool called "Bloggy" allows you to publish the entire wave, which can itself be updated like a normal wave.
Rasmussen and Hannon also said that the Google Wave model will be extended to Android for mobile updates. Integration with Firefox was also demonstrated as well.
Google will provide APIs so that developers can integrate their own code in to Google Wave. One of the ones demonstrated was with Twitter.
Tools called "Searchy" and "Linky" also will allow embedded links and real-time search. Google has come up with extensions called robots, which are embedded tools. The search is real-time, too: in one demo, Hannon searched for "wave". Rasmussen, on his screen, saved his wave as "wav," then again as "wave". When he added the final "e", the document showed up in Hannon's search. Saving it again as "wav" instantly removed it from the list of search results. The team even added a real-time spell-checker.
Waves can be made private. Although Google monitors the ongoing waves so that it can add links and other real-time capabilities, making a wave private blocks Google from viewing it at all, Hannon said.
In an amazing closing demonstration, adding a robot called Rosie allowed real-time translation, character by character. That closing demonstration earned Rasmussen and Hannon a standing ovation from the assembled developers.
No word yet on when Google Wave will be launched, but all I/O attendees will be given accounts for a more in-depth preview, most likely on Friday.

jared ashley

jared ashley

John Rich claims he didn't punch the lights out of an aspiring star.
But the latter half of Big & Rich was charged Thursday with assault and harassment for allegedly smacking a former Nashville Star contestant in the face.
Jared Ashley sued Rich over the alleged smackdown and the country rocker countersued for defamation in April, claiming Ashley muddied the Rich name by accusing him of such a thing.
Rich turned himself into Nashville police today to be booked on two misdemeanor counts of assault and one count of harassment, after which he was released on a $2,000 bond.
The "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" singer said in a statement afterward that the charges are false and that he rejected a $2.9 million settlement offer from Ashley to drop his lawsuit.
"I trust that the truth will come out through the process of our American justice system and that I will be completely exonerated at the end of the day," he said.
Big & Rich have been on hiatus while Big Kenny tends to a nagging injury, giving Rich time to release his second solo album, Son of a Preacher Man, in March.
Former Danzig bassist Jerry Montano sued the duo's beleaguered half in November, saying he suffered severe injuries in a fight with Rich the month before.

okcupid

okcupid

Internet dating boom amid recession
Miserable Britons looking for love to ease doom with Online Dating
The onset of recession has certainly focused Britons' minds in terms of tightening their purse strings and doing everything they can to hold on to their jobs.But it would appear that another major side-effect of the economic doom and gloom is emerging - an increased desire to find that special someone to help get through these tough times.
In particular, online dating providers have noticed a significant spike in activity at a time when huge numbers of companies are struggling to simply keep their heads above water.There are a number of theories behind this trend, according to a new report by the Economist.Britons may now have more time to devote to their love lives and feel an increased need for companionship, or perhaps they are taking the pragmatic view that being in a relationship can help spread financial burdens.Greg Waldorf, boss of marriage-focused site eHarmony, which has over 20 million members, offers the following explanation in an interview with the news provider: "People who have been single for years are suddenly focused on finding someone."Going through difficult times with someone special is better than doing it alone."The argument seems to be supported by the facts, with a recent survey by eHarmony revealing that 25 per cent of women felt that recession-induced stress is making them more inclined to seek a long-term partner.In addition, the online dating service noted that visits to its website were higher than average on days when the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by more than 100 points.Meanwhile, Sam Yagen, head of OkCupid, which is aimed at younger, more casual daters, has seen its users increase the number of instant messages they send per day on its site from 6,000 in September to the present 18,000.As he explains, being in a relationship means that "you can just play Scrabble instead of going out for the evening".Interestingly, it would also appear that the financial landscape is creating a bigger desire among Britons to find a bit on the side.AshleyMadison, an online dating site which specifically caters for people looking to have an affair, has also recorded a major upsurge in interest in its services."The majority of relationship discord stems from economic troubles," boss Noel Biderman told the Economist."They want to do something that makes them feel better about themselves."Although it is questionable as to whether cheating will make someone feel better about themselves in the long run (particularly if they get caught), it seems clear that the need for forging closer ties with the opposite sex is well and truly in vogue.Read more: http://www.uknetguide.co.uk/Lifestyle_and_Leisure/Article/Internet_dating_boom_amid_recession-104100.html#ixzz0GsXLwxPX&B

papyrus font

papyrus font

As the sun was setting, the last few rays of light sparkled off the brilliant pink and purple hair windswept into her face. Delicately scrawling a number “2” into my reporter’s notebook with an art pen, Sarah Hood described why she was so fascinated with typography.
“I fell in love with ITC Tiffany Heavy,” Hood said while sketching the number in her favorite font with careful trepidation. “For me, everything needs to be as ornate as possible. My whole senior project and thesis was about stimulation. I need something that’s constantly stimulating — bright lights, color, crazy noises. So simple, clean, sleek fonts — they’re lovely and well-designed — but they can’t keep my attention for very long.
Where to draw the line?
Hood, who will soon graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in design, is among 17 seniors exhibiting their work this weekend at the Creative Research Lab. The program itself, Design in Conversation, is an attempt to transform the works of these design students into person-to-person dialogue. The CRL, normally reserved for art exhibitions, will have a dedicated space for design students’ work — but don’t call the designers “artists.”“Oh no,” Hood said, “Don’t ever call a designer an artist. That’s a huge debate in the design community right now: Where do we draw the line between artist and designer?”Yet Hood’s work in the exhibit seems to border on the abstract. In one piece, a video shows the process of melting ice cream, Bomb Pops popsicles and whipped cream, with each medium shaped in the form of a font. Hood said the aim of her work was to stimulate an almost perverse perspective for people watching the video.
“I melted Bomb Pops down into molds, re-froze them and videotaped them melting,” Hood said, grinning with enthusiasm. “It’s making you sit down and watch the melting process from beginning to end, and it’s kind of masochistic and sadistic. You rush home from the grocery store because you don’t want your ice cream to melt, for example, but sitting down and watching a video of the process, you’re like, ‘Oh no no don’t melt.’ It’s enjoying to watch, like a kid with a magnifying glass on ants.”
Cult typography
As she finished scrawling the “2,” Hood described why she is drawn to psychological stimulation in her design pieces.
“I need something to distract me and keep me busy,” Hood said. “I was always the one in class who didn’t do everything black and white, sleek, minimal — I’m so the opposite of that. As I got more into typography, it helped me realize how I want to design — to be mature but with more personality.”
At a South by Southwest screening of the horror film “A Haunting In Connecticut,” audiences were ecstatic and genuinely frightened. A movie that would have probably received a standing ovation ended with credits typed in Papyrus font — causing audience members to groan and scoff in disapproval. One man, who had previously been jumping in fright at quick cut-scenes throughout the film, called out “amateur!” when the credits rolled. That kind of impact, Hood affirms, is why she was drawn to typography in the first place.
“There are whole cults behind fonts, like huge petitions to ban Comic Sans,” Hood said with a laugh. “There’s always typography drama. Like, if a design student goes to the mall and sees a business sign in a bad font, they wonder who would pay money to see that.”
Designers get ready
Rachel Tepper, exhibit committee head for the program, said the goal of the show is to inspire discussion about the designers’ work.
“We spend the entire semester preparing for the show,” Tepper said. “I think it’s important to know that our program is a liberal-arts approach to design, so we take design theory and history classes and ground our work in thinking, not just design. We took action words like ‘provoke’ and ‘explore’ and grouped our work under these categories to trigger conversations, to make people think about why does this provoke or how does this explore.”
Tepper, a designer herself, also focused on typography but was more interested in the history behind fonts. Her work centers on revisiting and updating a font originally created by Elizabeth Friedlander, a Holocaust refugee who was forced to leave Germany in the 1930s. Friedlander never received credit for the typeface she created, so Tepper decided to pay homage to her legacy by transforming the font into Sans Friedlander, a sans serif font.
“I like to create pieces that are very thorough, with a light, soft touch,” Tepper said while averting her eyes and smiling. “I think that I design well that way because it kind of reflects my shyness. It’s understated.”

dame edna

dame edna

Dame Edna Everage is probably the most popular and gifted woman in the world today.
The widely-loved international home-maker, talk show host, gigastar, fashion icon, swami and most sought-after friend to the rich, famous and royal, is making a return to the United States with what she describes as her “First Last Tour.”
“In this show you will see me up close and personal Possums, perhaps for the last time! Close enough to see my beauty and personal enough to feel my love, and even, in some cases, my reluctant disapproval. I’m sharing and caring with those who need it the most — YOU, my adoring audiences.”
This is to be a “First Last Tour” because Dame Edna has decided to devote more quality time to her seriously dysfunctional family. Don’t miss this historic show or your loved ones will never forgive you, and neither will Dame Edna!
Dame EdnaTuesday, June 2, 7:00 p.m.Show runs thru June 7Civic TheatreThird and B StreetDowntown San Diego

29 year old with 21 kids

29 year old with 21 kids
A Tennessee man, Desmond Hatchett, has fathered at least 21 kids at the ripe old age of 29. His brood includes 11 different mothers, and ranges in age from newborn to 11 years old. Now that’s a man on a mission!There’s a couple problems with this situation, however. For one, he cannot afford to support them all. Hatchett works a minimum wage job and when it comes down to it, each child only gets $2 per month. That’s not a lot of money to pay the groceries. Another issue? Because he can’t support all of his 21 children appropriately, the state (and taxpayers) have to step in.It begs the question . . . how many is too many? And who, if anyone, is to blame for this situation? Hatchett? The moms? Certainly the kids aren't to blame!He says he’s done having children, but at the age of 29, he’s got a lot of baby-making years left in him.There’s one silver lining in all this . . . while he can’t afford to pay for them, Hatchett does attest that he is a good father and knows all the names, ages and birthdates for all 21. Well, props to you for that, sir.One thing is for sure, this guy has no problem with his sexual health . . . or fertility. Perhaps next time he should stay away from the JaxiStrips. Want to be as sprung as this guy? Maybe you should get some Jaxi Strips - They're on sale now!

florida lottery

florida lottery
The fattest jackpot since Florida became part of Powerball - $222 million - had tickets flying out of the machines at a rate of $850 per minute Tuesday.
That was up from $660 the night before as Floridians lined up for a crack at what is currently the largest jackpot in the world, according to lottery officials.
The odds of winning the big prize remain long - one in 195 million - but a ticket buys at least a rich fantasy life until tonight's drawing at 10:59.
Michael Alexander could think of ways to spend that bailout package.
New house. Helping family and friends pinched by a slow economy. Charity. And OK, vintage Mercedes with gull wings.
"This is the biggest jackpot I've ever heard of," said Alexander of West Palm Beach, who endured a short wait to buy a ticket at a gas station on Okeechobee Boulevard.
Florida Lottery spokeswoman Amanda Marquardt said temporary terminals have been added in Miami, Orlando and Tallahassee.
"This the largest Powerball that Floridians have been able to play since we became part of it Jan. 4," she said.
The current series of Powerball jackpot rollovers has generated $23.2 million for education since April 11.

is love alive lyrics

is love alive lyrics
When last we heard from the Thermals, they were railing against the political establishment with "The Body, the Blood, the Machine," a scathing allegory about, in the words of singer-guitarist Hutch Harris, "a fascist Christian government ruling the U.S. with an iron fist and going to war with the world."
These days, they have a new message: "Oh-way-oh, a-whoa-oh."
On "Now We Can See," the fourth studio album from the Portland, Ore., indie-rock band led by San Jose natives Harris and Kathy Foster, the Thermals achieve new levels of pop accessibility and sonic clarity — albeit in a concept album about death. Harris and Foster return for a rare hometown show Friday at the Blank Club for KSCU-FM.
Harris, a Prospect High School alum, says the title track's wildly catchy wordless chorus was inspired by the band's time on the road with the Hold Steady and the Cribs in support of "The Body."
"Both bands were doing a lot of 'oh-ohs' and 'whoa-whoas,' " Harris says. "You see how the audience responds — it's so amazing. 'Cause there's no words to learn, but you can totally sing along. When you hear a whole crowd singing along, that's so fun. One of the big goals of this band is to get people singing along, jumping around and shouting."
Harris and Foster got their start playing in South Bay bands like Haelah and the Urban Legends, performing DIY shows with like-minded friends in alternative venues such as the Knights of Columbus Early this millennium, the two musicians, at the time a couple, moved to Portland and formed a new band. The first Thermals CD, 2003's "More Parts Per Million," was a defiantly lo-fi affair, recorded on cassette in Harris' kitchen. Since then, the band has gradually upped the ante in fidelity, letting its lyrical and melodic gifts shine through more clearly.
"Each one of our records has been a little more produced sounding, a little more hi-fi," says Harris, who adds that the group continues to release bare-bones demo versions for fans who prefer the old sound. "We love lo-fi, and we have made really lo-fi records, but at the same time we also enjoy really produced records."
Eric Fanali, a KSCU DJ and concert promoter, says he became aware of the band around the time of its second CD, whose name we can't print in this paper.
"That's when I first really noticed — wow, this is more than just your typical pop-punk indie band," Fanali says. "Really sharp lyrics."
But live, Harris' incisive intelligence is paired with an exhilarating physicality.
"I can't believe he can do that," Fanali says. "There's so many damn lyrics, and he's jumping up and down, just pounding the guitar. It's a very exciting live show."
The scathing wit and furious honesty of "The Body" brought the group its best notices to date, but when it came time for a follow-up, the two knew they wanted to try something different.
"There was no real plan for this record, except that we wanted to try to have no politics or religion," Harris says.
The band's contract with Sub Pop had ended, and rather than re-up, the two decided to pay for the recording themselves and shop for a deal later.
"We didn't have a deadline for ourselves, because we just didn't want to rush it," he says. "We really felt pressure to make the next record better or as good as the last one. We didn't want to get stuck releasing something that we just kind of felt OK about."
A song called "When We Were Alive" proved to be the entree into the new record — a look back at life from beyond the grave, tinged with fear and regret, but also a joyous sense of release.
The duo entered the studio with producer John Congleton, known for his work with bands like the Polyphonic Spree and Explosions in the Sky. Since the band's third drummer, Lorin Coleman, had left after the "Body" tour, the two recorded the new album as a duo, with Foster playing drums as well as bass.
Westin Glass has taken over the drum stool for this tour and, Harris hopes, for quite a while longer. But Harris and Foster plan to carry on regardless.
"We have gotten used to people coming and going," Harris says. "If for some reason Westin was to quit, we would just keep soldiering on and making more Spinal Tap jokes."
The Thermals ultimately signed a one-record licensing deal with Portland's Kill Rock Stars label, while maintaining ownership of the master recordings.
Though Harris is looking forward to eating his mom's home cooking, drinking iced tea on the patio and shopping at Streetlight, his heart is firmly in Portland. The Thermals are even bringing two Portland bands with them: Shaky Hands and Point Juncture, WA.
"When you actually add up all the bands that Portland has right now, it's totally the indie-rock capital of the world," he says, referring to acts like the Shins, the Decemberists and Modest Mouse. "We're all about Portland."

chynna phillips

chynna phillips

Chynna Phillips is coming out with a new album, Got a Feeling, featuring the offspring of musicians that will hit itunes just in time for Father’s Day. The album will feature songs originally made famous by their fathers and is a tribute to them. The album, “A Song For My Father,” is scheduled to release June 2, and will feature 14 tracks. The album list includes Salvador Santana performing Carlos Santana’s “Evil Ways;” Gunnar and Matthew Nelson performing Ricky Nelson’s “Travelin’ Man;” Jen Chapin doing Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle;” and Louise Goffin doing Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s “Up on the Roof.”
Chynna Phillips Biography
Chynna Gilliam Phillips, often misspelled China Phillips, was born February 12, 1968. She is the daughter of Philip and Michelle Philips and is best known for being a member Wilson Phillips. She is also the half-sister of actress Mackenzie Phillips, Bijou Phillips, Jeffrey Phillips, Tamerlane Phillips, and Austin Hines.
Chynna was born in Los Angeles, California. In the late 1980s, Phillips formed the musical group Wilson Phillips with her childhood friends Carnie and Wendy Wilson. The group released their first self-titled album in 1990, which went on to sell eight million copies. In 1992, the group released their second album, Shadows and Light, but it was deemed a commercial failure despite being certified platinum. Phillips left the group shortly thereafter, citing exhaustion. In 1995 she released a solo album, but it did not have much success. Wilson Phillips reunited in 2004 for their third album, California.
Chynna Phillips is also an actress. She appeared in films such as Some Kind of Wonderful, Caddyshack II, Say Anything and in the 1989 television biopic Roxanne: The Prize Pulitzer.
Chynna Phillips and William Baldwin married in 1995, and have three children: daughter Jameson (born 2000), son Vance (born 2002), and daughter Brooke (born 2004).

kari byron pregnant

kari byron pregnant

Kari Byron is pregnant and very happy about it. She announced her pregnancy in February 2009 and since then she continued working busting Myths. And right about now, she is actually testing Pregnancy Myths, whether pregnant women carve for pickles and ice-cream.
Kari is an artist and television co-host from San Francisco and it is best known for her part in the MythBusters show. She is one of the host along with Tory Belleci, Grant Imahara and of course the two main characters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman.
The soon to be mother had done a photo shoot and interview for a famous men’s magazine FHM, wearing a red bra and a lab coat and recreating one of the most popular experiments, “Diet Coke and Mentos” experiment. Kari Byron is a 34 years old woman and is married to artist Paul Ulrich.

missing link found

missing link found

Feast your eyes on what a group of scientists call the Holy Grail of human evolution.
A team of researchers Tuesday unveiled an almost perfectly intact fossil of a 47 million-year-old primate they say represents the long-sought missing link between humans and apes.
Officially known as Darwinius masillae, the fossil of the lemur-like creature dubbed Ida shows it had opposable thumbs like humans and fingernails instead of claws.
Scientists say the cat-sized animal's hind legs offer evidence of evolutionary changes that led to primates standing upright - a breakthrough that could finally confirm Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
"This specimen is like finding the Lost Ark for archeologists," lead scientist Jorn Hurum said at a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History.
"It is the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail. This fossil will probably be the one that will be pictured in all textbooks for the next 100 years."
A team of amateur fossil hunters discovered the near-perfect remains inside a mile-wide crater outside of Frankfurt in 1983.
Experts believe the pit was a volcanic caldera where scores of animals from the Eocene epoch were killed and their remains were kept remarkably well-preserved.
Though the pit has been a bountiful source of other fossils, the inexperienced archeologists didn't realize the value of their find.
Years later, the University of Oslo bought the 95%-intact fossil, and Hurum studied it in secret for two years.
His colleague, Jens Franzen, hailed the discovery as "the eighth wonder of the world."
"We're not dealing with our grand, grand, grandmother, but perhaps with our grand, grand, grand aunt," Franzen said.
The unveiling of the fossil came as part of a carefully-orchestrated publicity campaign unusual for scientific discoveriy

new moon poster

new moon poster
In honor of the official film poster release issued by The Twilight Saga: New Moon studio Summit Entertainment this morning, here are a few of the best fan-made posters (meaning, not official in any way, despite their beauty and excellence) out there on the web.

Ranging from mock-ups of stars such as Dakota Fanning to illustrations of certain sequences from the book by Stephenie Meyer, these posters are quite lovely to look at.

So, tell us, which is your favorite? Comment below and let us know which one and why!

Be sure to check out the new official one-sheet for The Twilight Saga: New Moon here!

mary louise parker tub

mary louise parker tub
Mary-Louise Parker has always been fine with the sex scenes in her role as Nancy Botwin, a marijuana-selling suburban mom in the Showtime series Weeds, but she thinks that a recent nude scene of her in the bathtub took things a little too far.

"I didn't think I needed to be naked," she tells MORE magazine in its June issue. "I fought with the director about it, and now I am bitter. I knew it was going to be on the Internet: 'Mary Louise shows off her big nipples.' I wish I hadn't done that. I was goaded into it."

The show's co-executive producer, Roberto Benabib, defended the moment, stating that the nudity was necessary to convey the character's vulnerability. "We felt at that point in her life, defenses had been so thoroughly stripped away," he says. "There was a nonchalance to the nudity that informed the scene … I thought it was wonderful, one of the five best scenes Mary-Louise has ever done [on Weeds]."

Despite being bitter over the nude scene, Parker still very much enjoys playing her character on the show. "I like it the more extreme it is," she says. "But I don't like it when it's crass and crude for humor's sake, and I don't like when it's sentimental, when she's a sweet mother. To me, she's not that."

Parker also talks about the pressures to look young in Hollywood, but she's not giving in to the knife anytime soon. "Somebody told me that they'd read I had all this work done, and showed me a picture and it was totally airbrushed ... it made me so mad," she says. "I don't like what that says to other women. I'm 44 and I look okay for 44. I'm not trying to look 34."




zee avi

zee avi

If there were ever a study to test the boundless possibilities of music via You Tube, I'm thinking Malaysia might be a good place to start. For there is probably no other way to explain how the beautiful, chirpy talents of singer song writer Zee Avi landed on the roster of Jack Johnson's Brush Fire Records other than the divine timing of an internet video she made the day before her 22nd birthday. After a whirlwind year of label buzz and continually falling into the hands of the right people (including White Stripes/The Shins manager Ian Montone and Matt Costa) who loved her music, Avi found herself on a plane. She flew from her hometown of Kuala Lumpur to L.A. on an inevitable quest to record her Monotone/Brushfire self-titled debut.

The album officially hits stores tomorrow and the 23-year old songstress is already hitting the ground running with a FREE in-store performance at Finger Prints record store in Long Beach at 7 p.m. The store has had it's hands full with great in-stores lately, including Black Lips and Iron and Wine (which we failed to warn you about last week, sorry). And Avi's toe-tapping blend of prohibition-era jazz and effervescent folk offers another great chapter to a recent history of memorable shows. It's a sound so brilliant and airy that it can make songs like "Poppy", her grim tale of a relationship marred by drug use, sound like something you'd hear at a garden wedding among actual Poppies (no, not the heroin kind). It also doesn't hurt when you share your touring band members with Matt Costa, some of whom you will recognize should you stop being a lazy ass and arrive at the show on time to get a good look.

And since you'll be voting in the special election tomorrow anyway (right?!) why not make a special selection (yeah, I took it there) and choose to support indie music at an indie music store. Really, does it get much better than that on a Tuesday? Follow me after the JUMP and check out one of Avi's many You Tube videos along with a link to her Myspace...yeah, they've got that in Malaysia too.

cleveland marathon

cleveland marathon

Jack Staph, executive director of the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon, said the event set a mark with about 12,400 runners and walkers who registered for Sunday's marathon, half marathon and 10K and Saturday's first-ever 5K.

According to the marathon Web site, the number of actual finishers was around 10,000: 416 for the 5K and 9,500 for the other three races combined.

The 10K, half marathon and full marathon each started at St. Clair Avenue and East Ninth Street at 7 a.m., so runners headed north toward the lake into a stiff wind (East Ninth is a natural wind tunnel even on calm days). It made 46 degrees at the starting bullhorn feel like about half that. Teeth chattered. Goose bumps leaped from uncovered legs. Some runners tried to keep their muscles warm clad in "Bill Belichick chic," aka Hefty bags with arm-holes cut out.

But aside from the wind, which was mostly at runners' backs in this year's reconfigured course, Mother Nature laid out what runners like to call "no excuse weather" - coolish and clear.

Making a comeback?

Pre-race activities included brief welcomes by Mayor Frank Jackson and Councilman Joe Cimperman, whose ward includes downtown Cleveland. Obviously, both know how to run and win, at least politically. It seems that Cimperman is also keenly familiar with pounding the pavement physically, reminding an observer that he clocked a 3:38 in a Pittsburgh marathon in 1996.

"I need to start [running] again," he said.

Medic!

All in all, the event went off with few major medical issues. Dr. Robert Dimeff of Cleveland Clinic Sports Health said 55 runners were treated at the medical tent, mostly for bumps, bruises and fatigue - no heat stroke or cardiac problems.

Three people were transported to emergency rooms for further treatment, although only one was a runner. One fan fell and banged his or her head. A volunteer stepped in a hole and did the same. And one marathoner fell at around mile 16, suffered a gash above his eye, but continued and finished the final 10 miles. Dimeff wouldn't identify those treated because of privacy issues.

But, as it turns out, the unstoppable runner with the gash was 69-year-old Francis "Bud" McNellie of Bedford, one of only three people who have run all 32 Cleveland marathons. His son, Mark, head football coach at Lake Erie College, said it took about 20 minutes to stop the bleeding before his father picked himself up and continued the race.

Better half:

Race officials said 60 percent of the half marathoners were women - a number that continues to increase. For all three races Sunday, 4,960 women and 4,540 men crossed the finish line.

Cha-ching:

Race day is also a big charitable fund-raising day. Teams of runners representing 11 charities were registered this year, and that doesn't even count the number of participants running to raise money for less-publicized causes of their own.

Happy ending:

Race organizers were pleased that the change in the course route resulted in a more scenic finish, creating a dramatic corridor along Lakeside Avenue between City Hall and the Convention Center, while grassy Mall C allowed a comfy spot for fans and participants to gather afterward.

Pregame meal:

Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed, even for a third-place finisher.

Just ask Heath Boylan, 23, of Mount Vernon. He finished third Sunday in the men's half marathon despite a series of mishaps.

"This has to be the worst running day in my life," said Boylan, who ran 1:16:11 and finished third behind winner Chris Paulett of Bath and Aaron Apathy of Parma. "I've run faster times on a daily basis. But maybe drinking that chocolate milk before the race wasn't a good idea."

It likely wasn't. Boylan said a few steps into the race, his right side began hurting. Halfway into the race, he suffered a stomachache. And later in the race, he was forced to take a bathroom break.

Regarding bathrooms:

Runners choosing to use one of 55 portable restrooms on Rockwell Avenue and East Ninth Street before the races had a monstrous wait.

By 6:40 a.m., each bathroom had a minimum of a dozen people waiting to use them.

barbara mandrell

barbara mandrell
Roy Clark, Barbara Mandrell and Charlie McCoy were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on Sunday in a ceremony saluting them for their music and for helping bring the genre to a mass audience. Clark co-hosted the TV show "Hee Haw" for more than two decades; McCoy served as the show's musical director for 18 years. Mandrell joined "Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters" on NBC as host in 1980.

jvc mini dv camcorder with 30x optical zoom

jvc mini dv camcorder with 30x optical zoom

Here is a very interesting camcorder from JVC which continues to legacy of quality products that the company develops. Everybody knows that when it comes to camcorders, JVC is always a good option also considering the price. I can say that JVC camcorders are great and cheap therefore these devices are perfect. This is the JVC GR-DA30US Mini DV Camcorder with 30x Optical Zoom review, if you really needed that, although it’s good that once in a while you take notice of some of the most affordable devices on the market.

The JVC GR-DA30US Mini DV Camcorder features a 30x optical zoom, and a 800x digital zoom, a 2.4-inch widescreen LCD monitor with 16:9 aspect ratio which can be positioned however you want it in order to take the best shots from different angles. This JVC camcorder sports NightAlive low-light mode which increases light sensitivity so that you can shoot bright videos when there isn’t enough light. On JVC GR-DA30US Mini DV Camcorder’s spec list you can also find 3D noise reduction, stick control, a data button, an auto button as well, DV input and DV output, and multiple language support including English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

The JVC GR-DA30US Mini DV Camcorder with 30x digital zoom measures 71 x 77 x 117 mm, and it weighs 410 grams. This JVC mini DV camcorder features a Firewire IEEE 1394 port, and a 115 minute data battery. Well, what can I say? The camcorder doesn’t feature a long list of specs and this is why it’s so cheap, however, when it comes to shooting videos or taking photos you will notice that there isn’t too much difference between another device like this which is more expensive. You can find the JVC GR-DA30US Mini DV Camcorder with 30x digital zoom at prices between $120 to $200 depending on your retailer.

danny ash

danny ash

Tranmere manager Ronnie Moore is hoping to bolster his squad in the coming weeks after releasing four players from Prenton Park.

Edrissa Sonko, Adnan Ahmed, Luke Waterfall and Danny Holmes have not been offered new contracts and are available to sign for other clubs.

Moore said: "I'd like to thank the four players for their time at Prenton Park and wish them all the best for the future.

"We came so close to the play-offs last season and know the areas we need to improve upon, so we'll be working hard over the summer to bring the right players to the club."

Rovers have offered new contracts to Antony Kay, Steve Jennings, Ben Chorley, Danny Coyne, Charlie Barnett and Ian Moore.

John Achterberg has been offered a contract as goalkeeping coach while Ian Goodison, Terry Gornell, Aaron Cresswell, Ash Taylor, Josh Macauley and Ryan Fraughan have all signed new deals this year.

m and t bank

m and t bank
M&T Bank Stadium is one of four sites being considered as a potential longtime future home for the Army-Navy football game, a source told the Times-Herald Record of Middletown, N.Y. The others are FexEx Field in Landover, Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia and the new Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

MORE COLLEGES: Michael Spinner, who had been associate director of athletics at Yeshiva, was named director of athletics at College of Notre Dame, effective June 1.

TENNIS: Roger Federer's dominance of Andy Roddick continued on clay with a 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-1 victory, while Rafael Nadal stayed perfect against Fernando Verdasco with a 6-4, 7-5 win to also reach the ATP Madrid Open semifinals. Federer improved to 18-2 against Roddick after their first career meeting on dirt.

CYCLING: Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway won the rainy seventh stage of the Giro d'Italia in Chiavenn, beating four riders in a sprint finish. Danilo Di Luca of Italy kept the overall leader's pink jersey. Lance Armstrong finished 142nd, 58 seconds behind, and lost an additional 18 seconds to the overall leaders.

Cynthia Nixon Engaged

The 43-year-old actress announced the engagement news at a rally for gay rights in New York City on Sunday (May 17). Cynthia even showed off her engagement ring at The Love, Peace and Marriage Equality rally, which supported New York Governor David Paterson’s proposed bill granting legal equality to same-sex unions.

“I think we would definitely [get married] if it became legal in New York,” Cynthia has told Access. “I don’t really want to get married to get married pretend. I think we’d like to do it in a real, actual, legal way that the state would recognize.”

Cynthia has two children, daughter Samantha, 12, and son Charles, 6, from her relationship with English professor Danny Mozes. Just a few months ago, Cynthia and Christine took the kids to Disneyland.

Cynthia will be reprising her role as high-power attorney Miranda Hobbes in the movie sequel of Sex and the City, out May 28, 2010.

Congrats to the happy couple!!!

critical thinking

critical thinking

Which country —- the United States or China —- will make the 21st century its own?

When President Obama recently called for American young people “to be makers of things” and focus on subjects such as science and engineering, it was partly a nod to China’s rapid growth. Had he lived, taught and consulted in China for the past 33 months, as I have, he might have urged American students first to follow his example and study the liberal arts. Only technical knowledge complemented by well-honed critical and creative thinking skills can help us regain our innovative edge. China’s traditional lack of emphasis on teaching these skills could undermine its efforts to develop its own economy.

I once challenged my Chinese MBA students to brainstorm “two-hour business plans.” I divided them into six groups, gave them detailed instructions and an example: a restaurant chain. The more original their idea, the better, I stressed —- and we would vote for a prize winner. The word “prize” energized the room. Laptops flew open. Fingers pounded. Voices roared. Packs of cookies were ripped open and shared. Not a single person text-messaged. I had touched a nerve.

Five of the six groups presented plans for, you guessed it, restaurant chains. The sixth proposed a catering service. Why risk a unique solution when the instructor has let it slip he likes the food business?

Although I admitted the time limit had been difficult, I expressed my disappointment and reiterated what I had expected —- originality —- and why. But they had been so enthusiastic that I couldn’t deny them a winner. After a polite discussion, the Haagen-Dazs gift certificates were awarded, but not without controversy. Runners-up complained that an identical concept had been on TV the night before.

My students weren’t recent college grads. They were middle managers, financial analysts and marketers from state-owned enterprises and multinational companies. They occupied the space in the developing economy that has spawned a small industry of articles about “China’s great talent shortage.” Most were intelligent, personable men and women, not without talent or opinions, but they had been shaped by an educational system that rarely stressed or rewarded critical thinking or inventiveness.

The scenario I’ve described occurred in different forms throughout my two years at the school. Papers were routinely copied from the Web and the Harvard Business Review. Case study debates meant to be spontaneous were jointly scripted by the opposing teams and memorized. Students frequently posited that copying is a superior business strategy to inventing and innovating. When they considered the wealth that Chinese industry had amassed in such a short time, it was hard for them to believe otherwise.

Throughout the semesters, like students everywhere, they wanted to know exactly what they needed to memorize for the mid-term and final. Considering it takes me a week just to memorize several Chinese phrases, I had to respect their skills.

Still, I reminded them that their exams would require analysis and often re-explained at their request the difference between analysis and summary.

My Western-trained colleagues, foreigners and Chinese, tell similar stories. It’s not that university students in the West hadn’t also needed coaching in critical thinking, but they weren’t so blindly locked into such a seemingly entrenched style. It doesn’t help, of course, that certain important topics related to politics and business have to be avoided in my Chinese classes.

Ironically, the government that has enforced such restrictions and focused its schools so intensely on math and science seems to realize its efforts might be too effective. Highways, dams, bridges and airports have been built, every conceivable product manufactured and sold, but so few sophisticated marketing and management minds have been cultivated that it will be a long time before most people in the world can name a Chinese brand.

With this problem in mind, local partnerships with institutions such as the University of Southern California, Johns Hopkins, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Insead of France have been established. If not quite ready to create cadres of disaffected litterateurs and cineastes, Beijing recognizes it will take different kinds of thinkers to invent new products and sell them around the world.

And then there’s the “thousand-talent scheme,” a new government program intended to boost technological innovation by luring top foreign-trained scientists, including those of non-Chinese origin, to the mainland with big money and perks.

But the officials and professors who conceived this “scheme” are likely products of the educational system that generated the problem they are trying to solve. They are ambitious. They are confident. They want to push China forward. But worries about China’s research environment, hardly known for fostering independent thinking and openness, may overshadow lucrative salary offers.

“Money is important for practical issues,” Zhangqing Li, a University of Maryland professor, told Nature.com in January. “But the determinant factor is whether we would be able to be as productive in China as the U.S.”

Ultimately for China, becoming a major world innovator —- and by extension, a robust economic power —- is not just about setting up partnerships with top Western universities or roping off elites and telling them to think creatively. It’s about establishing an intellectually rich learning environment for young minds. It’s about harnessing the same inventive energy of the street markets and small-time entrepreneurs and putting it in the schools.

The Chinese don’t need expensive free-agent scientists. They need a new farm system —- and about 10 million liberal arts professors.

Randy Pollock, an Atlanta native, consults with businesses on management issues in China.

The 15 Worst Celebrity Plastic Surgery Disasters You Will Ever See

Bad plastic surgery happens when someone feels pressure to look good and they have more money than brains. Which pretty much describes the majority of celebrities out there.

Some of the following don’t quite look like human beings anymore, which would be tragic (this is voluntary! they didn’t have to look like this) if it weren’t so stupid. Most of these people were genetically blessed to begin with, which makes you wonder why they would risk their good looks just to hold off from aging a tiny bit longer. And many of the younger celebs on this list have absolutely no excuse at all, as good diet, exercise, and a healthy lifestyle would have fixed most of any flaws they felt they had.

Here are the fifteen worst celebrity plastic surgery disasters we could dig up, some of which are pretty damn horrifying:

15: Tara Reid
Surgery botched: Boob Job and Stomach Lipo
Photographic Evidence:

Tara Reid’s stomach looks to be about forty years older than the rest of her.

14: Gary Busey
Surgery botched: Veneers
Photographic Evidence:

As the Awful Plastic Surgery site puts it, his teeth look like chiclets.

13: Lil Kim
Surgery botched: Boobs, face work, skin lightened
Photographic Evidence:

Before:

After:

Lil Kim is headed down a path forged by Michael Jackson. Can’t wait to see what she looks like in twenty years.

12: Janet Jackson
Surgery botched: Breast Implants
Photographic Evidence:

Never good when you have a giant dent in your boob. Janet needs to head to an autobody shop pronto, get that dent pounded right out.

11: Jessica Simpson
Surgery botched: Lips
Photographic Evidence:

Luckily for Jessica not all bad plastic surgery is permanent. She talked about her lip enhancement, saying “I had that Restylane stuff … It looked fake to me. I didn’t like that. But… it went away in, like, four months. My lips are back to what they were. Thank God!”

10: Kenny Rogers
Surgery botched: Facelift
Photographic Evidence:

Rogers is someone else who’s not thrilled about his surgery, telling People:

Last year I had so many lines coming in at the side of my eyes up here. So I went in and got my eyes done, and I’m not happy about it. (The surgeon) is going to go in and fix that for me. They’re too tight around the eyelids for me. It drives me crazy.

9: Tori Spelling
Surgery botched: Breast Implants
Photographic Evidence:

Not too often you see a “legit” (using that word a little loosely) actress get breast implants that look like giant beach balls, but Spelling was willing to buck the trend. The money probably could have been a little better spent elsewhere. I hear French doctors have made some real advancements with facial transplants.

8: Hilary Duff
Surgery botched: Veneers
Photographic Evidence:

Neeeeeeeeigh *snort*

7: Victoria Beckham
Surgery botched: Breast Implants
Photographic Evidence:

Fittingly, it looks as if she’s had a couple of soccer balls implanted into her chest.

6: Donatella Versace
Surgery botched: Lips, facelift
Photographic Evidence:

And now we are starting to get to the people who are losing all traces of humanity. Versace isn’t content to grow old in a graceful manner, instead making a mockery of herself.

5: Vivica Fox
Surgery botched: Breast Implants
Photographic Evidence:

Gotta agree with Perez Hilton on this one, that is pretty disgusting. Fox apparently shares a surgeon with Janet Jackson.

4: Melanie Griffith
Surgery botched: Face lift and god only knows what else
Photographic Evidence:

This definitely deserves a before shot, just in case you are forgetting how normal Melanie Griffith used to be:

She’s only fifty years old, and she’s pretty much ruined her face. If I didn’t know it was her I would have honestly pegged the person in the first picture as a woman in her sixties.

3: Pete Burns
Surgery botched: Lips
Photographic Evidence:

If you’re wondering who Pete Burns is, don’t feel bad, he’s a fairly obscure singer (he’s the You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) guy), but his plastic surgery sins are definitely egregious enough to be included this highly on the list. Now granted part of what you’re seeing there is intentional (this is a guy who has accused Boy George of ripping off his image), but those lips are absolutely frightening. Burns agreed and actually filmed a special in the UK called Pete Burns’ Cosmetic Surgery Nightmares.

2: Jocelyn Wildenstein
Surgery botched: Everything she has attempted has apparently turned out terribly
Photographic Evidence:

Before:

After:

This woman has spent $4 million on plastic surgery. I would want my money back.

Jocelyn is a wealthy socialite whose husband began cheating on her. To win him back she began undergoing plastic surgery to transform into a giant cat. Her husband likes big cats. Naturally.

Didn’t work however, and her husband said “She seems to think that you fix a face the same way you fix a house”.

1: Michael Jackson
Surgery botched: Skin lightening, nose jobs, face lifts, etc. etc. etc.
Photographic Evidence:

Could it really have been anyone else? It’s incredible to forget how absolutely normal Michael Jackson looked back in the 70’s and 80’s (attractive even!) before turning into the sideshow freak that he is today. The guy is absolutely looney tunes so it’s kind of a shame that he was always able to find a doctor to do what he wanted. Everyone should have told him no after a certain point, which was probably in about 1985.

prabhakaran

prabhakaran

To the Sri Lankan government, Velupillai Prabhakaran was the leader of one of the world's most ruthless organisations and was comparable to Pol Pot or Osama bin Laden. But to his supporters, he was an indefatigable fighter for Tamil rights.

For three decades, Prabhakaran, 54, who had a fascination with Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great, eluded death, assassination attempts and capture as he single-mindedly pursued the goal of a homeland for the minority Tamils.

That goal came tantalisingly close as the supreme commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at one stage presided over what was in effect a rebel mini-state in northern Sri Lanka. The Tigers ran their own law courts, police force and Tamil Eelam banks and even their own time zone – half an hour behind the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.

But after the breakdown of numerous truces and outside attempts by Norway to broker a political settlement, an all-out army offensive this year has wiped out the Tigers as a fighting force.

The Sri Lankan military says its troops have killed the man they have been hunting for so long; that they shot him dead as he was trying to escape in an ambulance.

In previous rounds of fighting, Prabhakaran, who carried a cyanide capsule around his neck, reportedly told his bodyguards to kill him and burn his body beyond recognition rather than allow his capture.

Although demonised by the Sri Lankan authorities, Prabhakaran became the symbol of militant Tamil nationalism, appearing on posters, calendars, watches and the placards waved by his supporters around the world, even if they had misgivings about some of the Tigers' tactics – the government accused the rebels of using civilians as human shields and shooting fleeing civilians as the rebels were cornered in their last refuge in north-eastern Sri Lanka.

Prabhakaran's supporters point out that at one stage he was willing to set aside the military struggle and fight for his goals through political means. In a rare press conference in 2002, when he shed his familiar green fatigues, the short and stout guerrilla leader said he wanted a negotiated political settlement and rejected the label of terrorist organisation, claiming that the Tigers were a liberation movement.

Still he looked distinctly uncomfortable when asked about the assassination of the former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was blown up by a female LTTE suicide bomber in 1991, describing it as a "tragic incident".

Because of such actions, the Tigers found it hard to shake off their reputation for brazen terrorism.

The youngest of four children, Prabhakaran was born on 26 November 1954 in the northern coastal town of Velvettithurai, on the Jaffna peninsula. An average student, he said in an interview that he was fascinated by Napoleon and Alexander the Great. He was also influenced by the lives of two Indian leaders, Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh, who fought for independence from Britain.

He became politically active as a teenager, radicalised by what he what he saw as discrimination by the Sinhalese majority against Tamils in politics, employment and education. In the early 1970s, Prabhakaran founded the Tamil Tigers, and in 1975 he was accused of being responsible for the murder of the mayor of Jaffna, the first of many assassinations for which he is blamed.

In 1983, he launched a guerrilla war, setting the stage for one of Asia's longest conflicts. His death should bring the military conflict to a close for now, but Tamil demands – backed by a vocal diaspora – for better treatment from the Sinhalese are unlikely to be silenced.

desperate housewives spoilers

desperate housewives spoilers

Be prepared to hear a lot about DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE star NEAL McDONOUGH’S appearance on today’s LIVE installment of THE VIEW. Not only did the actor spill the beans about his demise on the upcoming two-hour finale but then led the audience in an impromptu chorus of HAPPY BIRTHDAY for his daughter (leaving producer BARBARA WALTERS sitting steely-eyed and calculating what song clearances would co

earthquakes today

earthquakes today
Two new studies suggest the Lake Tahoe region has gone longer than usual without a large earthquake and may be due for a magnitude-7 temblor capable of spawning a tsunami that could flood shoreline communities.

The research targeting three major faults was conducted by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego.

They determined that earthquakes as large as magnitude-7 historically have occurred every 2,000 to 3,000 years in the Tahoe basin.

But they found that the largest fault in the basin — the West Tahoe Fault running along the west shore of the lake and out the south end just west of South Lake Tahoe — appears to last have ruptured between 4,100 and 4,500 years ago.

The new data suggests that the most recent ruptures along the West Tahoe and Incline Village faults each produced nearly offsets of about 13 feet. The most recent event along the Incline Village Fault occurred about 575 years ago, they said.

"These studies taken together show that the West Tahoe Fault is capable of a magnitude-7 earthquake — similar to large earthquakes that have occurred on the nearby Genoa Fault — but with the added danger of nearly 500 meters (1,600 feet) of overlying water, which is capable of spawning a large tsunami wave," said Graham Kent, a research geophysicist at Scripps.

Jeff Dingler, lead author on a paper in the April online issue of Geological Society of America Bulletin and former Scripps Oceanography graduate student, used a high-resolution seismic imaging technique, known as CHIRP, to supply a comprehensive view of faulting beneath the lake.

Scripps' Neal Driscoll developed the new digital CHIRP profiler for this study, which provided an unprecedented picture of deformation within the sedimentary layers that blanket the floor of Lake Tahoe, laying the groundwork for more detailed fault studies that continue today.

In another paper published in the April issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Scripps graduate student Danny Brothers investigated the rupture history of the West Tahoe Fault in greater detail.

Using comprehensive CHIRP and coring surveys of Fallen Leaf Lake, where the West Tahoe Fault crosses the southern end of the lake, the study confirmed the suspected fault length of over 31 miles.

When combined with the rupture offset size observed across the fault from CHIRP imagery, the analysis suggests an upper limit of a magnitude-7.3 earthquake for the basin's most dangerous fault.

The researchers said the new analysis — along with a slip-rate approaching 0.8 millimeter per year and the rupture timeline taking place between 4,100 and 4,500 years ago — places the West Tahoe Fault near the end of its characteristic earthquake cycle.

The researchers cautioned that some degree of variability is to be expected. Earlier research at the University of Nevada, Reno, suggests such an earthquake could produce tsunami waves some 10 to 33 feet high.

At 1,645 feet deep, Lake Tahoe is one of the one of the world's deepest freshwater lakes. It covers 191 square miles in a basin prone to earthquakes and catastrophic landslides.

A quake with a magnitude of 6 can cause severe damage, while one with a magnitude of 7 can cause widespread, heavy damage. An increase in one full number — from 6.5 to 7.5, for example — means the quake's magnitude is 10 times as great.

The West Tahoe Fault runs along the west shore of the lake and comes onshore at Baldwin Beach, then passes through the southern third of Fallen Leaf Lake, where it descends into Christmas Valley near Echo Summit.

hakia

hakia
there’s a feeling in the air of change — from one era to another and, more precisely, from one type of media culture to another. The hearings on Capitol Hill yesterday on the “future of journalism” reflect this transition in which traditional media are under intense pressure and fighting for their lives in some cases. These changes are not simply being brought on by the recession but by the pace of technology development and the corresponding tectonic shifts in the consumption of media.

Just as Microsoft was and is synonymous with the PC, Google has come to be synonymous with the internet in popular culture. But with the rise of mobility and “the cloud” the question arises: ten years from now will Google still be on top?

There has also been a paradox around search. It can’t and won’t remain the same in this dynamic environment, and although there have been some UI changes (as well as infrastructure changes to support those), it has been hard to imagine what the future would look like exactly. Sergey Brin, writing this years’ Founder’s Letter, addressed the state of Google but also looked into the future of search:

I think it will soon be possible to have a search engine that “understands” more of the queries and documents than we do today. Others claim to have accomplished this, and Google’s systems have more smarts behind the curtains than may be apparent from the outside, but the field as a whole is still shy of where I would have expected it to be. Part of the reason is the dramatic growth of the web — for any particular query, it is likely there are many documents on the topic using the exact same vocabulary. And as the web grows, so does the breadth and depth of the curiosity of those searching. I expect our search engine to become much “smarter” in the coming decade.

So too will the interfaces by which users look for and receive information. While many things have changed, the basic structure of Google search results today is fairly similar to how it was ten years ago. This is partly because of the benefits of simplicity; in fact, the Google homepage has become increasingly simple over the years: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-04-21-n63.html. But we are starting to see more significant changes in search interfaces. Today you can search from your cell phone by just speaking into it and Google Reader can suggest interesting blogs without any query at all. It is my expectation that in the next decade our searches and results will look very different than they do today.

One of the most striking changes that has happened in the past few years is that search results are no longer just web pages. They include images, videos, books, maps, and more. From the outset, we realized that to have comprehensive search we would have to venture beyond web pages. In 2001, we launched Google Image Search and via Google Groups we made available and searchable the most comprehensive archive of Usenet postings ever assembled (800 million messages dating back to 1981).

Larry Dignan thinks the reference in this letter to “a search engine that ‘understands’” is an indirect reference to Wolfram/Alpha. (it could equally be about claims made by Kosmix, Hakia, Powerset [Microsoft] and a couple of others.) In terms of the future of search, Twitter and other “Help Engines” could also represent a compelling new direction the market and industry could go.

Back to Google: today the company held a press briefing before Google’s annual shareholder meeting. It featured Dave Drummond, SVP, corporate development; Susan Wojcicki, VP product management; Kent Walker, general counsel; and Marissa Mayer, VP search products. They fielded an array of queries on everything from Eric Schmidt’s continued membership on the Apple board (he hasn’t considered resigning) to YouTube (”eventually [it will] be a successful and profitable business”). Here’s a factual rundown from both AllThingsD and TechCrunch (I wasn’t present).

There were no revelations apparently, though Eric Schmidt again pointed to the netbook arena as one that would see some Google-friendly developments in the near future.