Dawn asks, “What happens when you have nothing to do, own a sharp knife, have a large lime, own a patient cat, drink too much tequila and it’s football season?” Well…

Have a great weekend! Some good Week 4 NFL action Sunday. And try to get out and catch some of the fall colors!

I grew up in Miami and remember it as primarily a football town. Baseball was an “also ran” sport. Apparently it still is if this news story is any indication. During a recent game between the Florida Marlins and the Washington Nationals, there were only 400 fans in a stadium that can seat nearly 75,000…

Could it be that the exorbitant salaries payed to major league baseball players have finally driven ticket prices beyond the reach of Miami fans? Larry? Ken?

Article removed by editor.

If you fly out of Sacramento International Airport, you may have noticed one of the more unusual art forms I’ve seen in some time, an aerial view of the Sacramento River woven into a carpet for the floor of the pedestrian bridge connecting the terminal to the parking garage. The image represents approximately fifty miles of the Sacramento River starting just outside of Colusa, California and ending about six miles south of Chico.

Although I’d noticed the carpet on occasion while hurrying across the bridge to catch a flight, I’d never taken (nor had) the time to study it. I recently made it a point and was amazed at the detail and scale of the project.

The artist, Seyed Alavi, received a Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University and a Masters of Fine Art from the San Francisco Art Institute. His public art projects are often engaged with the poetics of language and space and their power to shape reality and include site-specific installations for The New Museum of Contemporary Art and Franklin Furnace in New York City; The University Art Museum- Cal State Long Beach; The Museum of Santa Cruz County; The deSaisset Museum; The University Art Museum, Sonoma State; The University Art Museum, Cal State San Bernardino and San Francisco’s Capp Street Project.

Next time you fly into or out of SMF, take a few minutes to check out the large-scale art work right under your feet. You’ll be impressed.

I‘ve been under a lot of stress these past several months, more than the level I normally carry, and it’s taken its toll on me. One of the bi-products of too much added stress is greater difficulty managing it. As a result, my muscles have become more tense (and stay that way to the point of pain and fatigue), I can’t relax or sleep, and I’ve become my “other” self, the serious, brooding one even I don’t enjoy.

Last evening I was reminded of something Dr. Theodore Rubin once wrote:

“I must learn to love the fool in me — the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool.”

Stress is exhausting and deadly. I need to become reacquainted with my inner fool.

Here’s a list you don’t see every day courtesy of deputydog by way of James. I’ve featured tattooed men (and ladies) before, but this goes waaaay beyond reason. And I should warn you that a couple of the videos aren’t for the squeamish. But that said, take a look at what some may call body art, others might call obsessive/compulsive and more than a few would call insanity. Here are three from the list to give you a preview…

I suppose this is not unlike some people, usually women, that can’t seem to get enough plastic surgery. We’ve all seen them on TV and most will agree they’re obsessive. This seems to me to fall into the same category. What do you think?

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the American Film Institute revised its lists of the 100 greatest American films and 100 greatest movie songs of all time (Registration required to download.) In the venerated #1 song spot was Judy Garland’s soulful and iconic rendition of Over the Rainbow from the beloved family classic, The Wizard of Oz, and it would be hard to argue with their selection.

A close second, though, and one of my all time favorites, was As Time Goes By from the movie Casablanca. Surprisingly, it wasn’t written for the film and the movie version was never released as a single. Still, it’s hard not to associate the song with “Rick’s Café Américain. “  For me , it will always belong to Bogie and Bergman.

I’m sure most of you know at least some of the lyrics and will appreciate this video clip edited from the movie and featuring As Time Goes By. It brought back fond memories for me. You too?

According to this Associated Press story, one of our whack-a-doodle U.S. Senators, a barber with a law degree (an interesting combination) has done just that:

Fed up with the threats, tired of natural disasters, the state’s longest-serving state senator is using his legal muscle against who he says is the culprit — God. State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha sued the Almighty in Douglas County District Court last week.

Chambers, who skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians, said he filed the lawsuit to show that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody…

Chambers, incidentally, once sued to bar legislative prayers in the Nebraska Legislature. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the lawsuit.

Will somebody please tell me why the good people of Nebraska keep re-electing this guy? Not that he’s the only whack-a-doodle we have in Congress, but give me a break!

In a recent article, BBC News reported on research concluding that a compound extracted from tangerine peel can kill certain human cancer cells, information I thought worth sharing…

According to a research team at Leicester School of Pharmacy, Salvestrol Q40 - a type of phytoalexin (a chemical produced by plants to repel attackers, such as insects or fungi) extracted from tangerine peel, can kill certain human cancer cells. “Salvestrol Q40 is found at higher concentrations in the peel of the tangerine than in the flesh of the fruit, and is converted into a toxic compound by the cytochrome P450 CYP1B1 enzyme:

As a result, the researchers found, it proved to be 20 times more toxic to cancer cells than their healthy equivalents.

Dr. Tan said Salvestrol was found in other fruit and vegetables, such as the brassica family, which includes broccoli and brussels sprouts.

However, the compound tends to be produced at higher levels when infection levels among crops are high.

Therefore, the use of modern pesticides and fungicides, which have cut the risk of infections, have also led to a drop in Salvestrol levels in food.

CYP1B1 has been found to be expressed at a high frequency in a wide range of human cancers of different histogenetic types, including cancers of the breast, colon, lung, esophagus, skin, lymph node, brain, and testis.

Via Hyscience.

Blame Dennis for this groaner…

Back in the days of the Old West, a westbound wagon train was lost and low on food. No other people had been seen for days. And then they saw an old Rabbi sitting beneath a tree.

The wagon train leader rushed to him and said, “We’re lost and running out of food. Is there someplace ahead where we can get provisions?

“Vell,” the old Rabbi replied, “I vouldn’t go up dat hill und down d’other side. Somevun told me you’ll run into a big bacon tree.”

“A bacon tree?” asked the wagon train leader.

“Yah, ah bacon tree. Trust me. For nuttin vud I lie.”

The leader returned to the wagon train and told the pioneers that if nothing else, they might be able to find food on the other side of the next ridge. “So why did he say not to go there?” some pioneers asked. “Oh, you know the Jewish, they don’t eat bacon. It’s against their religion,” the leader replied.

So the wagon train went up the hill and down the other side. Suddenly, Indians attacked and massacred everyone except the leader, who managed to escape back to the old Rabbi, who was enjoying a “glassel tea.”

The near-dead man shouted. “You fool! You sent us to our deaths! We followed your instructions, but there was no bacon tree. Just hundreds of Indians who killed everyone.”

The old Rabbi held up his hand and said, “Oy, vait a minute.” He reached in his pack and pulled out an English-Yiddish dictionary and began thumbing through it.

‘Gevalt, I made myself ah big mistake. It vuz not a bacon tree, it vuz a ham bush!

This is alarming:

Pasadena (UPI) - A U.S.-led international team of astronomers discovered that Neptune’s south pole is much warmer than the rest of the planet.

The researchers published the first temperature maps of the lowest portion of Neptune’s atmosphere, showing the warmer south pole is providing an avenue for methane to escape from the deep atmosphere.

“The temperatures are so high that methane gas, which should be frozen out in the upper part of Neptune’s atmosphere, the stratosphere, can leak out through this region,” said Glenn Orton of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Orton is lead author of a paper appearing in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. In the paper, the astronomers report the temperature at Neptune’s south pole is higher than anywhere else on the planet by about 18 degrees Fahrenheit. The average temperature on Neptune is about minus 392 degrees Fahrenheit.

The findings were made using the Very Large Telescope located in Chile, operated by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere.

I hope Al Gore is on the case. I just know SUVs are somehow involved… More

The SU-35 is the prototype for the SU-37, a super-maneuverable thrust vectoring Russian fighter. Two Lyulka AL-37FU vectored-thrust afterburning turbofans (30,855 lb thrust each) give the aircraft it’s extreme flight characteristics. Amazing!

Thanks Michael!

This video clip is dedicated to my brother-in-law, Ray, whose disdain for “bird feeder raidin’ squirrels” in his back yard is legendary in Chicago suburbs. It made the “Best of YouTube” list.

“You can’t send me to prison. Who’ll look for the ‘real killer’?”O.J. Simpson walked free yesterday after posting $125,000 bond on armed robbery and kidnapping charges. He left the lockup a few hours after a Las Vegas judge set bail during a nine-minute hearing. Which begs the question: How does a guy with no visible income and no ability to pay the Goldman family any of the $33.5 Million he owes them for the wrongful death civil judgment awarded them for the death of Ron Goldman, come up with $125,000?

Anyway, he’s out and apparently returned to Miami pending his arraignment. Personally, I hope he gets the maximum sentence which I’ve heard could be life (I doubt it’ll go that way, but wouldn’t that be sweet justice?) I’ve heard thirty years, too, so it’s anyone’s guess at this point.

An interesting side note; It seems Marcia Clark, the prosecutor who tried Simpson’s double-murder case in 1995, sat in the front row of the courtroom. This time her hair was bleached blond and her role was a reporter for a tabloid TV show. Funny how things work out sometimes, isn’t it? But a bleach blonde? Go figure!   More

Aye matey, it be…

Click on th’ image fer more information an’ t’ larn t’ talk like a buccaneer, ya scurvy cur whut deserves th’ black spot!

An’ har be some information linkin’ global warmin’ t’ th’ decreasin’ number o’ sea dogs, ya scallywag who ortin’ t’ be keel hauled!

An’ finally, har be a likeness (2005) of me very own grand-scallywag, a true buccaneer of the salty seas if ever thar was one…Cap’n Jake hisself!