Terrell Owens, San Francisco 49ers



Damn!

"Residents of sprawling suburbia are more likely to be overweight and have high blood pressure than people living in compact cities, according to a study released Thursday," according to an article in The Chicago Tribune

San Diego Union-Tribune image

What?

According to Gina Keating in an article (Reuters/San Diego Union-Tribune): The reason that sharks usually stop attacking after striking people "is that they are covered with rubber or have a scuba tank on their back," Domeier (Dr. Michael Domeier, Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research) said. "If you are not wearing a wet suit (the shark) may come back and eat you."

Read about it: article in the LA Times.

New images



A new collection of images from United States warship USS Howard were published today. Click the FOTO button and check 'em out.

audblog audio post

gbv rocked spaceland, & tonite they'll be rocking sunset junction, a outdoor fest in silver lake.

back door cafe's located directly across from spaceland, where gbv are playing. beaut afternoon in LA. It's time for a brew. must remember not to get 2 fucked.

REDLANDS, CALIF. - Guided by Voices, the Dayton, Ohio-based rock and roll outfit, are performing at Spaceland in Los Angeles this evening. Posting from about an hour east of L.A. in the town called Redlands. More later.

Hanging on for Hope, a song off of The New Amsterdam's latest album Worse for the Wear, is a good song on a really good album.

One of the hallmarks of Worse for the Wear is the kick drum/bass guitar interplay, with its melodically organic twinings through the songs' open spaces. It's mesmerizing stuff; though not fully represented in the above mentioned tune.

songs are Spoils of the Spoiled, All Our Vice and Hover Near Fame.

USS Howard (DDG 83)

The Howard is a U.S. Navy guided missle destoyer, one of the deadliest and most lethal lots of sovereign American territory floating on international waters today. This blog boarded the USS Howard on Saturday, August 16th for what was titled the Family Day Cruis+9e, in Naval lay speak it was a dependents cruise.

The Howard is one of the the newest class of destroyers, called the Arleigh Burke class, that were originally commissoned July 4, 1991. The Burke-class destroyers have the following types of weapon systems that are standard equipment: Anit-Air Warfare (AAW), Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Anti-Surface Warfare (ASUW), Mk-41 Vertical Launch System or Tomahawk Armoured Box Launchers (ABL) and at least four M-60 automatic rifles mounted at various locations around the ship for security. The weapon systems are integrated around the Aegis combat system and the SPY-lD, multi-function phased array radar.

The Howard is an awesome example of American know-how put to use. This warship, and others of its class, are considered the most powerful surface combatant ever put to sea. During the cruise, we received a live fire weapons demonstration that was incredible in its force and potential lethality. The CiWS demonstration fired armour-piercing depleted uranium and tungsten ordinance that nothing on the ocean's surface could withstand. A smoke target was dropped on the surface of the ocean, some 30 miles off the coast of San Diego, and as Howard, like a shark, circled the target, the CiWS was unleashed from two miles away and the target was showered with thousands of rounds in a matter of seconds. The loud boom sound of that gun was from out of this world. The 5" forward gun was even louder.

Pictures to come.

The United Nations' copyright agency, WIPO, ruled that a United States citizen who registered the domain bimbo.biz may hold it over the protest of the large Spainish company Bimbo S.A..

Bimbo S.A., a subsidiary of Mexico's Grupo Bimbo, one of the world's largest baker, in their filing with the WIPO stated that "Californian Lars Taylor had been guilty of bad-faith "cybersquatting" -- setting up a fake site with a famous name to sell it at a profit -- and sought a ruling ordering him to hand it over," according to a Reuters article made available on Yahoo! News.

It's a great day when an individual citizen beats a large multi-national company. Especially when the fight deals with domain names in the WIPO's jurisdiction, an organization that has been accused of being beholden to corporation over the rights of individuals.

Do you believe in miracles?

That's how Al Michaels described the final moments of what is known as The Miracle on Ice, the game in which the United States Hockey Team beat the goliath known as the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Herb Brooks, the coach of the 1980 Olympic Hockey team, died today in an auto accident in Minnesota.

This blogger was a young-buck 14 year old living in Rantoul, Ill, when Coach Brooks assembled his team and won the gold medal. That year was a tough one because the economy was in a bad recession, Americans were taken hostage in Iran and there was barely enough money to keep my large family fed. The times were bleak.

The U.S. Hockey team's success in 1980--they were one of the biggest underdogs in the history of sports--provided wind in the sails of a depressed nation that lasted for what seemed like forever. We had something to be happy about in a very dark time. The gold medal was a gift of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel, that provided an extra push for the people to work that much harder.

The country eventually made it out of its economic shithole with a lot of hard work, but no one who was alive and thinking during the Miracle On Ice will ever forget it and the goodness that came out of it.

Rest in peace, Coach Brooks.

Ken Stringfellow ~Touched~ is incredible at first listen, up to song 4 at least.

dodger stadium. first visit. cubs 3 dodgers 1 top of 8th.

audblog audio post

The next governor of California?



The New York Times wrote this about Mary Carey, the adult films actor and candidate in the October California recall election:

One new candidate, the pornographic film actress, Mary Carey, 23, is running in her first race since winning her second-grade vice presidency. She fielded questions in Los Angeles today about the dignity of the governor's office.

"This is America," Ms. Carey said. "I am just as dignified as Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I can speak English."

The best of Robert Pollard

If you need to ask who's Robert Pollard, this blog suggests you come out of your self-imposed dark ages and google.

Pollard quotes from Harp magazine:

"My girlfriend likes the Jackson Five and I've been going around St. Louis buying them and people who know me look at me. I don't know if it's a pleasure, but I'm guilty"

"I bought two or three hundred albums on this last tour because I read this issue of MOJO about soft rock and bubblegum and that was the last frontier."

Prozac nation



The safety issue of a popular class of antidepressant drugs, S.S.R.I.s, is under debate again. The New York Times, a regular monitor of this issue, published a new article written by Gardiner Harris today.

Is it the weak dollar, the war in Iraq and France's resistance to it, or the events of September 11, 2001 that's causing a significant drop-off of Americans in Europe?

The Chicago Tribune published an Associated Press article written by Kim Housego on the possible causes as to why Europeans are seeing less American tourist.

This is the best quote from the article: "We simply don't like each other anymore," said Jacques Milbert, a mustachioed Parisian taxi driver. "If the Americans want to stay at home and eat burgers, that's their problem, not ours."

Printing the name of sexual assault victims

A debate is starting as to the fairness of withholding rape victims' names. If an accused is named publicly, shouldn't the name of the victim be as well? If the sexual assult accusations are false, is not the accused now the victim?

The Christian Science monitor lays out interesting premises as to the fairness (or unfairness) as to media policy of identifying rape victims by name.

The position of this blog is: sexual assult has many victims and a change in the current naming policy only serves to benefit the non-relevant curiosity of the media and its consumers. If the accused wasn't high profile, the name of the vicitim would garner little attention; however, when the accused is Kobe Bryant or people of that ilk, that's one siutation in which this type of policy change debates resurface.

If we trust our legal system, should we not wait for the process to play-out? If the process plays-out, and if the wrongly-accused is found to be the victim, should not that be enough at which time we name the accuser?

We should not take a chance at potentially re-victimizing the raped when there will be ample opportunity to right the wrong at the end of the legal process. If it were my father or my brother that was accused, the policy should stay the same because I also have a mother and sisters.

No more ladies night in San Diego



Two San Diego men, one a law student and the other a paralegal, won out-of-court settlements worth $150 million against a group of bars, which gave women reduced priced drinks or free to reduced cover charge as part of their ladies night promotions.

In an exclusive, this blog is first to report that the two men, Steven Surrey and Alfred Rava, are now on the Get 'Em Good short-list compiled by the Association of Jocks and Muscle-heads.

The San Diego Union Tribune reported that an attorney for the two plaintiffs "When asked about the social merits of these lawsuits, Erik Jenkins, one of the attorneys who filed the suits, made comparisons between ladies night discounts and the discrimination faced by African-Americans in the South."

In the San Diego tourist-frequented section, Kim Stafford, 25, a San Luis Obispo advertising executive who was hanging out on the patio of the Martini Ranch, was asked whether it was fair for a nightclub to charge men more than women to get in.

"Welcome to getting a haircut in America," she said. "You all pay $8. We pay $90."

Chris Williams, a Portland musician who was drinking a beer on the patio of Henry's Pub on Fifth Avenue, pointed out that he's been to gay bars where he's been given a cover-charge discount because he's a man.

"So I can't be offended the other way," he said.

Inside the Martini Ranch, Christy Dirkson and Debbie Murphy, who were sipping beverages at the bar, seemed perplexed at the idea that someone would file a lawsuit over something like this. Both work as cocktail waitresses at another establishment, and both agreed that there's one fail-safe way to get men into a bar – pack the bar with women.

"Men will always be in bars," Dirkson said. "Women need more incentive."

"Because women aren't as desperate as men are," her friend chimed in.

Movie madness

This blogger saw three movies over the weekend: Seabiscuit, Swimming Pool and Lawless Heart.

Yahoo! Movies describes Lawless Heart:

Devastated by Stuart's death, his brother-in-law, lover and best friend decide to take their lives in hand. Dan is a faithful and loving father and husband, until the day he meets Corinne. This buxom and sublime Frenchwoman seduces Dan with her honesty and hedonism, so much so that he wonders if he hasn't missed out on life. Nick, a homosexual restaurant owner, begins a relationship with a high-spirited young woman right after losing his lover, Stuart. When their apparently innocent relationship takes a more intimate turn, Nick is troubled by his feelings for his female comrade. Tim, carefree and charismatic, comes home after eight years abroad. Still looking for that "elusive something" that has been missing in his life, Tim finds it in a woman who works in a fashion boutique. But confronted with his future for the first time, the only thing that stands in the way is this unknown woman's past.

Of the three from this weekend, Seabiscuit was the favorite, and this blog predicts it will win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Swimming Pool was interesting for a total of 30 minutes; Lawless Heart was interesting, but lacked "oomph." Both were good movies and interesting to watch because they had characters who had potential to really kick some ass if they had the space to spread out, and this blogger was expecting that to happen, but to no avail. The stories were interesting, but the execution at the end left a lot to be desired, and the movies just didn't seal the deal for this blogger/viewer.

Seabiscuit has a great story and good performances. David McCullough, the noted historian, has a voiceover part in the movie, which added a lot for the authenticity of the historical aspects of the picture. (highly recommended)