Hello everyone!

 

I found a story that if you fly especially this weekend, you should read.

 

 

Middle Seat: Space Race — A Battle Looms for the Overhead Bins

 

As checked-bag fees pile up, travelers should brace for carry-on overload.

The carry-on-baggage police will soon be out in force at airports.

 

As American, United and US Airways prepare to start collecting fees on every piece of checked luggage, including $30 round trip to check one bag and an additional $50 round trip to check a second, they are also getting ready to strictly enforce limits on carry-on baggage — which are commonly flouted — in hopes of minimizing delays and disruption as flights board. Battles with customers likely will ensue, and fliers will be peppered with baggage-rule announcements, adding more aggravation to the already trying travel experience.

 

AMR Corp.'s American and UAL Corp.'s United will station airline employees or hired contract workers at entrances to security screening lanes to intercept customers exceeding the carry-on limit of one bag small enough to fit in an overhead bin and one "personal item" like a purse or briefcase. That could slow passengers trying to get through security, and collecting the fee at ticket counters and airport curbs could make lines longer. Boarding airplanes could be slower, too, with heightened stress as customers maximize carry-ons to avoid fees and then push to board early enough to find space in overhead cabin bins.

 

American plans to more aggressively pull customers aside at boarding gates if the airline thinks they have too much carry-on baggage, as well as step up announcements about size limits in gate areas and on airplanes. United says it is still formulating its plans, but may try to gate-check bags for customers in later boarding groups before boarding begins for fully booked flights.

 

All three airlines say it's possible that metal templates — which prevent larger bags from making it through X-ray machines — will be reintroduced. That's a tactic that angered many customers in the past and was eliminated when the Transportation Security Administration took control of screening after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

 

"It's something we've looked at in the past and may look at again," says Mark Dupont, American's senior vice president of airport services planning.

 

United is in favor of bringing back templates, says Senior Vice President Scott Dolan, and US Airways Group Inc. President Scott Kirby says a return of baggage templates is "likely" at some airports. While security checkpoints are controlled by the TSA, airlines can pressure the federal agency to allow templates if a checkpoint serves a single airline, or several airlines with the same policy on templates.

The TSA says it is "closely monitoring" the situation and could move staff if there's a broad shift from checked bags to carry-ons. TSA spokesman Christopher White says the agency hasn't yet received any requests to reinstall templates. It could be a hard sell. "Strictly enforcing baggage limitations is an airline function," says Mr. White. "TSA is focused on security."

 

US Airways says it will add staff to help with increased transaction time at ticket counters, but as customers adjust and check fewer bags, the problem should dissipate. One area of concern: With more carry-on bags, some flights that already have the maximum number of bags loaded in cargo holds may have nowhere to put more bags if overhead bins fill up at departure time.

 

"Carry-on rules will be enforced," Kirby says. The airline does hope the new fee will result in customers packing lighter.

 

Less luggage will reduce airlines' fuel bills a bit since the heavier planes are, the more fuel they burn. US Airways says its fuel costs per passenger, including international flights, now average $299 on a round-trip ticket, in line with estimates compiled in last week's Middle Seat column. Its average round-trip fare is under $500, US Airways says.

 

That leaves the airline little choice but to impose fees, says US Airways Chief Executive Douglas Parker. "We think that it's a change that is appropriate and required," he says. The fee will stick unless US Airways finds consumers won't fly an airline with a first-bag fee, Parker says. A more likely outcome is that rather than change airlines, travelers will change how they pack — toting less on trips and stuffing as much as they can into carry-on cases.

 

Another cost-saving change: US Airways is ending free sodas on its flights beginning in August. Coffee, bottled water and soft drinks will cost $2; alcoholic drinks will be raised to $7 from $5.

 

For many travelers, the most odious aspect of the baggage fee is the anticipated battle for overhead-bin space. To make sure they can find room, some customers already push their way through boarding queues. Passengers struggle to stuff large bags into small bins, and flight attendants often find themselves taking bags off planes and checking them to their destinations once bins fill up. All this will likely get worse, though the airlines say that the new fee won't be collected in airplane cabins from customers who can't find space for their allowed carry-on bags.

 

Bin battles can delay flights and leave customers frustrated. "This fee will just cause many people to drag all their worldly possessions into the cabin," says Michael Patnode, an American customer from Boston angered by the new fee. He'd prefer more realistic fares instead. "Any business that charges less than its costs deserves to go bankrupt, and it's clear the airlines have cut their costs to the point that the product is completely unappealing," he says.

American's Dupont says much of the response his airline has received from customers after first announcing the fee has centered on concerns about the airport and boarding experience. American says it is prepared to deal with the changes and hopes bottlenecks won't be created.

 

The airline's baggage operation has struggled for many months. Through the first four months of this year, American has been worst among major airlines in baggage reliability, mishandling at least one bag for every 141 passengers, and worst among all U.S. airlines in on-time dependability. In 2007, only US Airways was worse than American among major carriers in the on-time category.

 

American's first-bag fee, which applies to travel in the U.S. and Canada, went into effect for tickets bought Sunday or later. American says it will affect more than 24 million fliers annually, or roughly one-third of domestic passengers. (About half of its customers don't check bags.) Elite-level frequent fliers or people buying full-fare coach tickets or first-class tickets are exempt, as are passengers connecting to international flights and active-duty military personnel.

 

The rules are complicated — even Dupont had to check when asked on how the fee applied to so-called code-share arrangements, when one airline sells another's seats as its own. (The rules of the first airline you fly apply, regardless of which airline sold you the ticket.)

 

All told, American will increase revenue by more than $350 million annually with the fee. That's a small drop in the oil barrel, since it expects to pay $2.6 billion more for fuel this year than in 2007, but the carrier says it hasn't been able to raise fares enough to cover its costs, so it's instituting new fees.

 

American says it hopes to minimize the impact on check-in lines at airports by making its kiosks able to collect fees with a credit-card swipe. Skycaps, too, will be able to collect baggage fees, and the $2 fee to check bags curbside with a skycap will be dropped.

 

While United and US Airways both matched American's first-bag fee late last week, other airlines have resisted, at least so far. That could change any day, especially if competitors see customers paying the fee with no drop in ticket sales. But some carriers may see the first-bag fee as an opportunity to differentiate service at a time when it's hard to distinguish between U.S. airlines.

 

Continental Airlines Inc., for example, tried to set itself apart from the pack by continuing to serve meals on flights after 2001 when other airlines were switching to buy-on-board sandwiches and snacks. Continental did match the $50 round-trip fee for checking a second piece of luggage, but not the first-bag fee yet. A spokesman declined to comment on baggage fees.

 

Delta Air Lines Inc. last week said it didn't plan to charge for the first bag. "This would not be good for customers, and it could be operationally difficult as customers try to bring all of their luggage onto the aircraft," says spokeswoman Betsy Talton.

 

To that, many travelers say amen.

 

Hello everyone!

 

I found a story about George Carlin's memorial service; this sounds like the way he wanted to be remembered.

 

 

Published - Jun 30 2008 04:42AM PDT | AP

 

Hello everyone!

 

When I looked at the news this morning on the 'net, I was shaked to the core. Beloved was just here an hour before; you always worry when your beloved drives a big rig, but never would you think that you might see or be involved in a multiple helicopter crash in midair!

 

 

 

 

Hello everyone!

 

I was surfing the 'net and found this story about one of my favorite sodas (when I drink one.)

 

 

A Virginia woman who auctioned off a bridesmaid spot in her wedding party got a pleasant surprise courtesy of Dr Pepper.

The winning eBay bid of $5,700 was made by a representative for Dr Pepper Snapple Group who told hairdresser Kelly Gray Wednesday night that the beverage company wouldn't be honoring the online bid. Instead, it would be donating $10,000 for her wedding and supplying all the beverages, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reported Thursday.

"I want to pass out, and I can't stop crying," Gray said shortly after the end of the auction which she conducted to help pay for her previously planned low-budget wedding. "I'm very, very thankful, and very blessed."

Dr. Pepper Snapple reportedly told Gray it would launch a Web site to find her a bridesmaid or provide a surprise guest for the slot.

Hello everyone!   One of the biggest part of my job is to drive from one adult to another which means I drive between 100-130 miles every five days for work. My boss just sent us a wonderful email from the IRS. If you drive for your job, you must read this since it's effective July 1, 2008.     IRS Increases Mileage Rates through Dec. 31, 2008   IR-2008-82, June 23, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today announced an increase in the optional standard mileage rates for the final six months of 2008. Taxpayers may use the optional standard rates to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes. The rate will increase to 58.5 cents a mile for all business miles driven from July 1, 2008, through Dec. 31, 2008. This is an increase of eight (8) cents from the 50.5 cent rate in effect for the first six months of 2008, as set forth in Rev. Proc. 2007-70. In recognition of recent gasoline price increases, the IRS made this special adjustment for the final months of 2008. The IRS normally updates the mileage rates once a year in the fall for the next calendar year. "Rising gas prices are having a major impact on individual Americans. Given the increase in prices, the IRS is adjusting the standard mileage rates to better reflect the real cost of operating an automobile," said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. "We want the reimbursement rate to be fair to taxpayers." While gasoline is a significant factor in the mileage figure, other items enter into the calculation of mileage rates, such as depreciation and insurance and other fixed and variable costs. The optional business standard mileage rate is used to compute the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business use in lieu of tracking actual costs. This rate is also used as a benchmark by the federal government and many businesses to reimburse their employees for mileage. The new six-month rate for computing deductible medical or moving expenses will also increase by eight (8) cents to 27 cents a mile, up from 19 cents for the first six months of 2008. The rate for providing services for charitable organizations is set by statute, not the IRS, and remains at 14 cents a mile. The new rates are contained in Announcement 2008-63 on the optional standard mileage rates. Taxpayers always have the option of calculating the actual costs of using their vehicle rather than using the standard mileage rates.   Mileage Rate Changes Purpose    Rates 1/1 through 6/30/08    Rates 7/1 through 12/31/08  Business 50.5 58.5   Medical/Moving     19 27 Charitable 14 14

 

 

 

Hello everyone!

 

I was surfing the 'net and found this interesting story from New York for a great cause.

 

43 grand for the blood of Tony Soprano

Published - Jun 25 2008 03:58PM PDT | AP

 

 

 

 

 

One used, black and beige short-sleeve polo shirt, a tank top and black pants: $43,750.

Inflation run amok? Nope, just the premium you pay for the blood of Tony Soprano.

Twenty-five outfits worn by James Gandolfini's alter ego raised $187,750 at auction Wednesday for a charity that aids wounded soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gandolfini attended part of the Christie's auction with a soldier from the nonprofit Wounded Warrior Project.

The highest bid was for the faux-bloodstained suit of clothes, including the shirt, tank top and pants the actor wore in a scene when Tony is shot by a demented Uncle Junior.

The next highest bid was $21,250 for a four-piece costume that included a blue, red and yellow striped robe and boxer shorts that Tony wore in numerous episodes of the smash HBO series.

Other top-selling outfits included a tan cotton bathrobe with lavender trim and 'S' insignia on the breast pocket that was featured in the pilot when Tony fetched the morning paper and fed the ducks in his pool. It fetched $13,750.

All of the outfits were authenticated by Gandolfini and many had the original production tags attached.

 

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

 

 

Hello everyone!

 

I was surfing the 'net and found a disturbing story from NC. Have you heard?

 

 

Police say pregnant soldier's death 'suspicious'

23-year-old is second pregnant GI to die in North Carolina this year

 

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Authorities say they are investigating the "suspicious" death of a pregnant soldier whose body was found at a Fayetteville motel.

Spc. Megan Lynn Touma was identified Tuesday, two days after her body was found in a motel room. The 23-year-old dental specialist with the 19th Replacement Company was from Cold Springs, Ky., and was originally born in Seoul, South Korea.

The Fayetteville Police Department called the death suspicious. Authorities said they do know not the cause of death but said Touma was seven months pregnant at the time.

Touma is the second pregnant soldier to die in North Carolina this year. Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach was found dead near Camp Lejeune in January, and a fellow Marine has been charged in her death.

 

Police are calling a pregnant soldier's death "suspicious" after officials found her body Sunday at a Fayetteville, N.C., motel just days after she arrived at Fort Bragg from Germany.

Spc. Megan Lynn Touma was identified Tuesday, two days after her body was found in a motel room when guests complained of a foul odor. The 23-year-old dental specialist with the 19th Replacement Company was from Cold Spring, Ky., and was born in Seoul, South Korea.

The Fayetteville Police Department called the death suspicious. Police told FOX affiliate WRAL-TV it appeared Touma had been dead for a couple of days and the condition of her body made it difficult to determine the cause of death.

The state medical examiner has completed an autopsy on Touma, FOX News has learned, but results have not been released yet to authorities.

"We're shocked, first and foremost," said Maj. Angela Funaro, a spokeswoman at Fort Bragg, at a press conference Wednesday. "It's always sad when you lose a soldier and on top of that, here's a beautiful young woman; she was seven months pregnant. It's just sad and deeply troubling.

"We want to find out what happened to her, and we want to make sure that we and her family get all the answers that we can to find out what happened here," Funaro continued.

WKRC-TV, a CBS affiliate in Cincinnati, reported that Touma was married. WKRC reported Touma's maiden name as Heine, and her brother Brad Heine's MySpace page featured a tribute to his sister.

"At this time she's single," Funaro said, adding Touma divorced her husband in 2007.

Touma had just arrived at Fort Bragg on June 12 after spending three years assigned to the U.S. Army Dental Activity Clinic Bavaria in Bamberg, Germany.

She had opted to live off base while she was settling in to her new assignment at Fort Bragg, Funaro said.

"We want to convey the pride we feel in the job Spc. Megan Touma was doing serving our country," members of the 18th Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg command group told the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer in a written statement. "The loss of Spc. Touma is very tragic and our heartfelt sympathy and prayers go out to the loved ones she leaves behind."

Funaro said she hadn't verified reports Touma had requested Fort Bragg as an assignment.

Touma was awarded the Army Achievement Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon, according to the paper.

Touma is the second pregnant service member to die in North Carolina this year. Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach was found dead near Camp Lejeune in January. A fellow Marine, Cpl. Cesar Laurean, has been charged in her death and is awaiting extradition from Mexico.

Military officials said they didn't know if Touma had filed any complaints against anyone at her last post or here.

"We have no knowledge that she had any complaints or filed any complaints at her previous assignments, and she only got here on the 12th of June so it's hard to imagine that she had any here," Funaro said.

A private memorial service for Touma will be held Friday at Hope Chapel.

 

 

 

Autopsy results awaited in pregnant soldier's death

Posted: Today at 5:38 a.m.
Updated: 23 minutes ago

Authorities on Tuesday were awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death of a pregnant Fort Bragg soldier, whose body was found last weekend at a Fayetteville motel.

Spc. Megan Lynn Touma, 23, was identified Tuesday. Officials found her body in a room at the Fairfield Inn on Morganton Road after guests complained of an odor coming from it. She was seven months pregnant at the time of her death, police said.

The decomposed condition of her body has made it difficult to determine the cause of death, police said, so her body was sent to the State Medical Examiner's Office in Chapel Hill for an autopsy.

The Fayetteville Police Department called Touma's death suspicious. The department has been inundated with calls for information from media nationwide and has refused further comment until autopsy results come back or there are other developments in the case.

Fort Bragg officials said Touma was assigned to the base June 12. A dental specialist from Cold Spring, Ky., who had been in the Army for five years, she previously was assigned to Army dental clinics in Germany and at Fort Drum, N.Y., officials said.

"We were shocked," base spokeswoman Maj. Angela Funaro said Wednesday. "It's always sad when you lose a soldier, but on top of that, here's a beautiful, young woman – she was seven months pregnant. It's sad and deeply troubling.

"We want to find out what happened to her and make sure we and her family get all the answers that we can."

The Army is cooperating with Fayetteville police in their investigation, providing access to people to help establish a timeline, she said.

Touma was last seen by base officials on June 13, Funaro said, but there were a number of tasks the soldier needed to carry out to complete her transition to Fort Bragg.

She was staying at the motel while she looked for off-base living quarters, Funaro said. It was unknown whether the room was registered in her name.

Touma divorced last year, Funaro said. Her ex-husband's whereabouts were unknown Wednesday.

Funaro said she thought Touma requested the assignment to Fort Bragg, but she wasn't aware of any relationships the soldier might have had with others in the area.

Touma's friends from Kentucky described her as outgoing and an avid runner. She was a cheerleader and a member of the cross country team in high school, they said.

"(She was) just a sweetheart, always full of energy," friend Connie Nelson told WKRC-TV, a CBS affiliate in Cincinnati. "I can't imagine anything terrible like this happening to Megan. She was an awfully good kid."

"She lived to run. She loved to run. She loved to meet people. She loved laughing. She'd just do anything to make anybody smile," friend Hope Hamlet told the station.

Touma was from a military family, friends said, and she enlisted shortly after graduating from high school.

She is the second pregnant service member to die under suspicious circumstances in North Carolina in recent months. Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach was found dead near Camp Lejeune in January. A fellow Marine, Cpl. Cesar Laurean, has been charged in her death and is awaiting extradition from Mexico.

The 19th Replacement Company, where Touma was assigned, has scheduled a private memorial service for Friday.

 

 

 

 

 

updated 1 hour, 56 minutes ago

WOBURN, Mass. - A British man who fled the U.S. after his wife and baby daughter were shot to death in their home was convicted on Wednesday of murdering them.

Neil Entwistle, 29, was charged with fatally shooting his wife, Rachel, 27, and daughter, Lillian Rose, in their Boston-area home in January 2006.

Prosecutors said Entwistle killed the two because he was dissatisfied with his sex life, and despondent about not being able to find a job and wanted to start a new life.

Entwistle claimed his wife killed their 9-month-old child, then committed suicide.

Jurors started deliberations Tuesday and told the judge they had reached a verdict after 2 p.m. Wednesday.

'Two sides of Neil Entwistle'
The couple had just moved into their rented home and appeared to be happy and madly in love with their daughter, according to numerous witnesses who testified during the three-week trial.

But prosecutor Michael Fabbri said evidence pointed to "the two sides of Neil Entwistle," including his visits to Internet sex sites in the days and weeks before the slayings.

A defense attorney told the jury that Rachel Entwistle shot the baby and committed suicide and that Neil Entwistle covered up her actions to "protect her honor."

Fabbri dismissed the defense theory, noting that the couple had recently returned to the United States so Rachel could be near her family in Massachusetts. The couple had lived in England for several years before that.

"Why would Rachel commit suicide?" Fabbri asked.

"She was back home, she had her home, she had her car, she had her family, and she thought she had a loving husband," he said.

Defense attorney Elliot Weinstein, said police failed to consider suicide because they immediately focused on Entwistle as a suspect when he flew home to England the day after the killings.

Entwistle told police he returned home from running errands on Jan. 20, 2006, and found his wife and daughter cuddled together in bed, dead from apparent gunshot wounds.

"Neil found Rachel and Lillian dead. Neil saw that (.22-caliber gun) and knew instantly what happened, and in those moments, he knew what he had to do," Weinstein said.

Suicide theory
Weinstein said Entwistle returned the gun to the home of his father-in-law, Joseph Matterazzo, so his wife's family would not know she had committed suicide. Police later determined that Matterazzo's .22-caliber handgun was used in the killings.

"Everything that Neil did after finding Rachel and Lillian in that bedroom, he did because he loved them," Weinstein said.

But Fabbri said the suicide theory "does not make commonsense." Holding the long-barreled gun before the jury, Fabbri said that in order to find suicide credible, the jury would have to believe that Rachel Entwistle shot her baby through the chest, had that bullet lodge in her own breast, then raise the gun over her head and shoot herself at the top of her head, just beyond her hairline.

"It could not have happened the way they said it did," Fabbri said.

Fabbri told jurors that it may be difficult for them to comprehend how a man could kill his wife and baby daughter. But he urged the jury to consider a string of failures in Entwistle's life in the months before the killings.

After moving to Massachusetts, Entwistle was unable to find a job and had several Internet-based businesses fail. He had been looking for sex online through Web sites for escort services and a swingers' site called AdultFriendFinder.com.

Weinstein said Entwistle had no motive to kill his wife and daughter, and said the Web sites he visited are used by millions of people every day.

 

Update:

A British man who fled the U.S. after his wife and baby were shot to death was convicted of murder Wednesday by a jury that rejected defense claims that the mother killed her daughter and herself as they snuggled in bed.

Neil Entwistle, 29, closed his eyes and shook his head slightly upon being found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Rachel, 27, and their 9-month-old baby, Lillian Rose.

His parents immediately maintained their son's innocence and said he had not received a fair trial.

"We know that our son Neil is innocent, and we are devastated to learn that the evidence points to Rachel murdering our grandchild and then committing suicide," his mother, Yvonne Entwistle, said outside the Middlesex District Courthouse.

"I knew Rachel was depressed. Our son will now go to jail for loving, honoring and protecting his wife's memory," she said.

Prosecutors allege Entwistle was in debt and dissatisfied with his sex life when he shot his family with his father-in-law's gun in January 2006. He then traveled 50 miles to return the gun to his father-in-law's home and bought a one-way airline ticket home to England. He was extradited less than a month later.

The defense called no witnesses, but Entwistle's attorney claimed during closing arguments that Rachel Entwistle shot her baby and committed suicide. Entwistle claimed he returned the gun because he wanted to preserve his wife's honor.

Prosecutors rejected the suicide claim, saying the bullet that killed Lillian went through the breast of Rachel Entwistle, who then would have had to have raised the gun over her head to kill herself.

Jurors deliberated a day and a half before convicting Neil Entwistle of murder and two weapons charges.

Sentencing was scheduled for Thursday morning. In Massachusetts, the sentence for first-degree murder is automatically life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Rachel Entwistle's family did not immediately comment on the verdict.

Prosecutors said Entwistle had been in a downward spiral since moving to the United States four months before the killings. He had been unable to find a job, had had several Internet businesses fail and had just moved into a $2,700-per- month rented home in Hopkinton.

But a police detective testified about computer records that showed Entwistle trolled the Internet for local escort services and joined an online swingers' site.

During the trial, jurors heard Entwistle discuss the killings in his own voice on three hours of recorded phone conversations he had with a state trooper in the week after the murders. He sobbed as a grisly crime scene video depicting the bodies of his wife and daughter was shown to the jury.

Entwistle told police he returned home from running errands on the morning of Jan. 20, 2006, and found his wife and daughter cuddled together in bed, dead of apparent gunshot wounds.

He stammered after Sgt. Robert Manning asked him repeatedly if he had done something "out of character" the day his wife and daughter were killed.

"No, no, no," he said.

"Of course, no, I couldn't do that. Why would I do that?"

He struggled to explain why he never called police or sought medical help for his wife and daughter before flying back to England the day after the killings.

Entwistle told Manning he was distraught and wanted to be consoled by his parents in Worksop, England. "Looking back on it, I don't know why I did things in the way that I did," he said.

 

 

 

 

 

Hello everyone!

 

Found an article that might interest you guys.

 

 

 

 

Don't succumb to retailers' simple ploys. Here's how they get you to buy -- and 10 ways to fight back.

By The Simple Dollar

 

Nick Tahou Hots
Restaurant Information
Street address	320 West Main Street
City	Rochester
State	New York
Zip	14608
Website	www.garbageplate.com

Hello everyone!

 

I was surfing the 'net and found this weird dish from New York that has been around forever; have you heard about it?

 

 

A white hot garbage plate.

 

A hot dog garbage plate.

 

 

 

Hello everyone!

 

I was surfing the 'net before I went to bed tonight and found a really weird story from Australia.

 

 

 

Ian is selling his whole life — home, car and even job — on eBay, blaming it all on his wife. But is it just a ploy to make him a millionaire?

On paper, at least, Ian Usher's life sounds pretty close to perfect.

The 44-year-old Briton, who emigrated to Perth in Western Australia six years ago, describes it thus: "I live in a nice house in a beautiful area of a fantastic city, in one of the most amazing countries in the world. I have a car, a motorbike, a jet ski, spa and much more.

 

"I live a great lifestyle; I go skydiving, snowboarding, diving, jet-skiing and kite-boarding. I have some great friends. I have a good job working with some wonderful people."

But Usher is also surrounded by the agonising memories of a failed marriage. And, in a desperate bid to escape them, this week put his whole life up for sale week on internet auction site eBay for the starting price of one Australian dollar.

"My whole life is for sale. Whatever it is, it's all going up for sale in one big auction," he says. "Everything I have and everything I am."

And when Usher says everything, he means everything. The sale includes his house and everything in it, his car, his motorbike, even his friends and his job (in a rug store), dependent on a two-week trial period.

Then there is all the equipment that goes hand in hand with Ian's outdoor, adventurous lifestyle: kite-surfing gear, bodyboards, a mountain bike and a skydiving outfit.

The package, thought to be worth at least A$500,000 ? or £230,000 ? is a pretty attractive one for anyone open-minded enough to believe they can purchase themselves a ready-made life and seamlessly pick it up where Usher leaves off.

But in truth, the whirlwind of publicity that has greeted Usher's announcement is likely to be far more lucrative.

On the highly elaborate website he has set up in readiness for the auction in nearly 100 days' time, Usher gives tantalising details about his life story and the events leading up to the sale.

He has clearly suffered heartache, although he is mysterious about exactly what went wrong with his marriage.

As he intriguingly explains on the website, which has already received thousands of hits: "I met and married the best girl in the world.

"I love her with all my heart and she loved me, too. However, after more than 12 years together and five years of fantastic married happiness, I was hit with a bolt from the blue. I was blindsided at about 11pm on a Wednesday evening by a shocking and awful discovery."

 

To find out what happened, internet users will have to make a one-off payment of A$2.95 ? about £1 ? to download four parts of Usher's autobiography, which contains graphic details of his relationship with Laura.

According to Usher, who grew up in Barnard Castle, in Yorkshire: "It tells the story of my life in the UK prior to moving to Australia, working on the beach as a jet ski hire business owner, of how I met the girl I was to marry later, of the struggles we went through to be together, of how we eventually came to live in Australia and of what happened here to bring me to this point in my life, ready to get rid of everything that I am and was."

The first part is free and the three subsequent parts will be released in the middle of each month in the run up to the auction on June 22.

The key question ? just what happened to his marriage ? will not be revealed until the final part just days before bidding commences at noon.

Those who pay up may be a little disappointed. The "shocking and awful discovery" to which Usher refers is not as dramatic as he hints.

On that fateful night, according to one friend, Usher's wife Laura, originally from Baguley in Cheshire, simply told him that she no longer loved him and wanted to move on with her life.

"Ian hadn't seen it coming at all," says the friend. "He thought they were blissfully happy and had no idea that Laura felt like that."

And a quick glance at Part One suggests that his skills as an author are no match for his talent as a publicity-seeker.

But Usher tries to justify the price: "Why charge for this? Well, obviously, it has taken a long time to write the story and I guess that I feel that I am sharing a huge part of myself with the world and baring my soul ? surely that's got to be worth three bucks?"

The tome begins unpromisingly: "As usual, I woke a couple of minutes before the alarm was due to go off and rolled over to turn the radio on. I looked up at the curtains and could see the sun was shining."

Nevertheless, Usher's plan to sell his life could be far more ingenious than anyone has so far given him credit for.

Even if nobody ends up buying his life, by the time the auction comes around, he may have made himself a millionaire from downloads alone.

But, according to friends, Usher's reason for selling his life is genuine.

"Laura was the girl of his dreams," says Bruce Jones, who once ran a jet ski business in Scarborough with Usher and was best man at his wedding to Laura Hancock.

"I was in touch with him when they split up and it was very much a case of him saying: 'Right, what am I going to do now then?'

"He has always done completely crazy things with his life and I'm not surprised he's doing this."

Friend and journalist Simon de Burton adds: "He hates any sort of conventional existence. He can't hack it. He keeps on doing weird things.

"He has always been like that. He's an incredible man and his life is pretty amazing."

Indeed, before deciding to sell his life, Usher had worked variously as a dumper truck driver at a remote gold mine, an outdoor pursuits instructor, a hamburger van owner, a rug store manager and a mobile phone salesman.

He is also passionate about sky-diving and film-making.

Privately educated at Barnard Castle School in the North-East of England, he left school at 18 and went to work on a kibbutz in Israel before studying for a bachelor of education degree in Liverpool.

After he graduated, he worked at outdoor pursuits centres and as a youth trainer for British Rail.

Eventually, he went into partnership with his childhood friend Bruce Jones and the pair set up Scarborough Jet Skiing.

It was while working there that the then 32-year-old Usher met his future wife, Laura Hancock, then a 17-year-old A-level student on holiday with a schoolfriend called Kate.

In his graphic and intimate online book, Usher describes the moment he first laid eyes on her at the beach: "She had light ginger hair tied in a short ponytail at the back and a fringe that was just long enough that she had to keep pushing it out of her greyish-green eyes.

 

"Her gaze was direct and I felt almost as if I knew her from somewhere. She had a rounded, attractive face and a lovely smile. She was very slim and from what I could see, she had a lovely figure."

That first night, he and his friends took Laura and Kate to a pub and to a nightclub. There, while smoking joints of cannabis, Usher admits he kissed both girls.

He writes: "Bloody hell, I thought, this could be it. Two of them ? and schoolgirls too!"

Later that night, he turned his attention to Laura alone. He writes: "I had my hands on her slim waist and thought I had never seen anyone as sexy and attractive as she was right then."

The pair spent the night together and Usher discovered Laura had never had sex before.

"We explored each other's bodies and found plenty of ways to please each other without ever coming close to actually having intercourse."

When Laura's parents found out about the relationship, they tried to stop her seeing Usher on account of the age gap between him and their daughter, but Usher pursued her nevertheless.

The pair married at Scarborough register office in November 2000 ? with a reception at a Chinese restaurant followed by a pub crawl through the town.

They moved to Australia the following year after selling virtually everything they owned and, until November 2005, when Laura dropped her bombshell, Usher thought he and his wife, a talented painter, were blissfully happy in their Antipodean utopia.

"Laura is a lovely girl and we all thought that she and Ian were perfectly matched," says Bruce Jones. "Sadly, it wasn't the case. Some people discuss their problems, but she simply told him it wasn't working."

Friend Simon de Burton adds: "He rang me up after it happened. He was genuinely upset. He thought she was the girl of his dreams."

To make matters worse, the couple were having a house built when their relationship fell apart.

"Laura and I chose the house together and intended it to be our family home," explains Usher. "I now live alone in a house that was being built for us to live in together. I still have all of our furniture that we bought together in our previous home.

"I still have the car we owned. I am still surrounded by all the memorabilia of our years together. Everything here is connected with that past life and as I cannot have that life anymore, then I don't want to hang on to it desperately.

"It's time to let it all go and move on to the next big adventure that life has to offer."

According to his friend Bruce: "He takes things in his stride very easily.He's a very matter-of-fact person.

"I spoke to him about what he's going to do when the auction is over and he said he will take his passport to the airport and buy a ticket on the first flight out of there, wherever it is going.

"It could be London, it could be Hong Kong. I have no doubt he will do it."

But to any normal person, Usher's actions seem drastic ? to put it mildly. He readily admits: "I am still not sure whether this is inspired madness, complete foolishness, or just some sort of mid-life crisis.

"I appreciate that many people have had to cope with much more than I have and have had much more sadness in their lives. This is just my way of dealing with what has happened to me."

What Laura Usher thinks of it all remains to be seen. She is still living in Australia, working as an artist, and it is hard to believe that she will thank her estranged husband for revealing the most intimate details of their relationship to the world via the internet.

According to one friend: "Ian doesn't want to air his dirty linen in public. This isn't about punishing Laura."

Usher himself pleads heartbreak: "Despite my life being busy and fulfilled, I still miss my wife so much. Everything around me is simply a reminder of the wonderful past we shared."

Whether or not "selling" his life will help him move on finally remains to be seen. Certainly, by the time it is all over ? and the full story of their relationship has been aired ? it is questionable that the wife he lost will look back on their time together with such fond memories.

 

Any comments out there?

 

Hello everyone!

 

I found a follow up story about George Carlin from Time Magazine. Any comments out there?

 

 

 

 

 

How George Carlin Changed Comedy

When the culture began to change in the late 1960s — when the old one-liner comics on the Ed Sullivan Show were looking pretty tired and irrelevant to a younger generation experimenting with drugs and protesting the War in Vietnam — George Carlin was the most important stand-up comedian in America. By the time he died Sunday night (of heart failure at age 71), the transformation he helped bring about in stand-up had become so ingrained that it's hard to think of Carlin as one of America's most radical and courageous popular artists. But he was.

Carlin started doing stand-up comedy in the early '60s and had fashioned a successful career by the middle of the decade: a short-haired performer with skinny ties, well known to TV audiences for his sharp parodies of commercials and fast-talking DJs and a "hippy dippy weatherman." But as he watched the protest marches of the late '60s and absorbed the new spirit of the counterculture, Carlin decided that he was talking to the wrong audience, that he need to change his act and his whole attitude.

So he grew long hair and a beard and began doing different kinds of material — about drugs and Vietnam and America's uptight attitude toward language and sex. Fans of the old George Carlin weren't ready for it. Carlin got thrown out of Las Vegas twice for material that today would seem tame (one offending routine was about his own "skinny ass"). At the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wis., he so riled up a conservative crowd with his jokes about Vietnam that he nearly caused an audience riot. Even Johnny Carson banned him as a Tonight show guest for a time because of his reputation as a drug abuser.

But by the early '70s Carlin had completed a remarkable change, opened up a new audience for stand-up comedy and helped redefine an art form. Like Lenny Bruce — whom he idolized and who helped him get his first agent — Carlin saw the stand-up comic as a social commentator, rebel and truthteller. He challenged conventional wisdom and tweaked the hypocrisies of middle-class America. He made fun of society's outrage over drugs, for example, pointing out that the "drug problem" extends to middle-class America as well, from coffee freaks at the office to housewives hooked on diet pills. He talked about the injustice of Muhammad Ali's banishment from boxing for avoiding the draft — a man whose job was beating people up losing his livelihood because he wouldn't kill people: "He said, 'No, that's where I draw the line. I'll beat 'em up, but I don't want to kill 'em.' And the government said, 'Well, if you won't kill people, we won't let you beat 'em up.'"

Most famously, he talked about the "seven words you can never say on television," foisting the verboten few into his audience's face with the glee of a classroom cut-up and the scrupulousness of a social linguist. While his brazen repeating of the "dirty" words caused a sensation (and prompted a lawsuit that eventually made it to the Supreme Court, resulting in the creation of the "family hour" on network television), his intention was not just to shock; it was to question our irrational fear of language "There are no bad words," said Carlin. "Bad thoughts. Bad intentions. And woooords."

Fuzzy language and fuzzy thinking were always among Carlin's favorite topics. He marveled at oxymorons like "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence," and pointed out the social uses of euphemism: "When did 'toilet paper' become bathroom tissue'? When did house trailers become 'mobile homes'?" He reminisced about his class-clown antics and Catholic upbringing in the rough Morningside Heights section of New York City. He took on all the taboos, even the biggest one, God. How could the Almighty be all-powerful, mused Carlin, since "everything he ever makes ... dies."

In the 1970s Carlin was selling out college concerts, releasing bestselling records (his breakthrough 1972 album, FM & AM, spent 35 weeks on the Billboard pop charts, revitalizing a comedy-record business that had fallen on hard times). When NBC introduced a new late-night comedy show in 1975 called Saturday Night Live, Carlin was the comedian they turned to as the first guest host. And when HBO began rolling out its influential series of "On Location" comedy concerts, Carlin was among its most popular stars, headlining a record 14 one-man shows for the network, the last just a few months ago.

Carlin was a product of the counterculture era in lifestyle as well as comedy. His drug use became so heavy in the mid-'70s that it began to affect his health (he had a heart attack in 1978, the start of heart problems that eventually killed him) and his career as well. "I really wasn't being as creative," Carlin admitted years later. "I lost years. I could have been a pole vaulter in those years, and instead I was kind of like doing hurdles."

But in the early '80s, after kicking his drug habit, he revived his career, becoming a kind of curmudgeonly uncle, with small-bore "observational" humor and an aphoristic style. Then, in the '90s, he tacked back to harder-edged political material, railing against everything from the environmental movement to the middle-class obsession with golf. Even in his late '60s, Carlin could be as perceptive on the cliches and buzzwords of the era as ever: "I've been uplinked and downloaded. I've been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I'm a high-tech lowlife. A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, bicoastal multitasker, and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond..."

Carlin's material grew increasingly dark in later years, to the point where he was cheerleading (with only a trace of irony) for mass suicide and ecological disaster. "I sort of gave up on this whole human adventure a long time ago," he said a couple of years ago. "Divorced myself from it emotionally. I think the human race has squandered its gift, and I think this country has squandered its promise. I think people in America sold out very cheaply, for sneakers and cheeseburgers. And I don't think it's fixable."

But Carlin's career, and his comedy, was anything but a downer. He was unique among stand-ups of his era in remaining a top-drawing comedian for more than 40 years, with virtually no help from movies or TV sitcoms. His influence can be seen everywhere from the political rants of Lewis Black to the "observational" comedy of Jerry Seinfeld. He showed that nothing — not the most sensitive social issues or the most trivial annoyances of everyday life — was off-limits for smart comedy. And he helped bring stand-up comedy to the very center of American culture. It has never left.

Richard Zoglin's book Comedy on the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America was published earlier this year by Bloomsbury.

George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian

Hello everyone!

 

I heard about this early this morning; very upsetting to hear that one of our favorites comics of all time had died so young.

 

 

 

Hello everyone!

 

This is one of the most upsetting stories that I have ever read. Do you know this little boy?

 

 

Mom Abandons Toddler, Leaves Him In Wal-Mart

Police Hope To Find Boy's Mother

Child Protect Services asks anyone with information about him call 800-800-5556.

 

I found a video on YouTube that shows the "mother" and the little boy. I wasn't able to copy and paste it, but here is the link

Hello everyone!

 

 

Stock Chart (Year)

 

 

 

Hello everyone!

 

I heard a snippet on the news and was shocked by what I found in the actual story. Any comments out there?

 

 

Teen ‘pregnancy pact’ has 17 girls expecting

Girls at a Mass. high school agree to raise their babies together

 

updated 3:40 p.m. PT, Thurs., June. 19, 2008

 

 

Teens  make pregnancy pact   June 19: A group of teenage girls enter into a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. WHDH's Linda Ergas reports.

BOSTON - A Massachusetts city is investigating an apparent teenage "pregnancy pact" that has at least 17 high-school girls expecting babies, four times more than last year, including many aged 16 or younger.

A high school health clinic in the city of Gloucester became suspicious after seeing a surge in girls seeking pregnancy tests. Local officials said Thursday nearly half of those who became pregnant appear to have entered into a pact to have their babies together over the year.

"Some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Gloucester High School principal Joseph Sullivan told Time magazine, which broke news of the pact on its Web site.

Sullivan was not immediately available to comment. But local officials said at least some of the men involved in the pregnancies were in their mid-20s, including one man who appeared to be homeless. Others were boys in the school.

Carolyn Kirk, mayor of the port city 30 miles northeast of Boston, said authorities are looking at whether to pursue statutory rape charges. "We're at the very early stages of wrestling with the complexities of this problem," she said.

"But we also have to think about the boys. Some of these boys could have their lives changed. They could be in serious, serious trouble even if it was consensual because of their age — not from what the city could do but from what the girls' families could do," she told Reuters.

Under Massachusetts law, it is a crime to have sex with anyone under the age of 16.

The ‘Juno’-Jamie Lynn effect?
"At the very least these men should be held responsible for financial support, if not put in jail for statutory rape as the mayor has suggested," Greg Verga, chairman of the Gloucester School Committee, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Nationwide, teen pregnancies are showing signs of rising after steadily declining from 1991 to 2005. This trend was highlighted Thursday when Britney Spears' 17-year-old sister Jamie Lynn, star of Nickelodeon's popular TV show "Zoey 101," gave birth to a baby girl, according to People magazine.

"The data seem to be indicating that the declines that we had seen through the 1990s are coming to a close," said David Landry, a researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based nonprofit group focusing on reproductive issues.

Birth rates for teenagers aged 15 to 17 rose by 3 percent in 2006, the first increase since 1991, according to preliminary data released in December by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Landry cautioned against attributing the trend to Hollywood following the recent hit movie "Juno," in which a teenager gets pregnant and decides to have the baby, and "Knocked Up," a comedy about a one-night stand.

"The trend emerged before those movies," he said.

In Gloucester, the 1,200-student school administered 150 pregnancy tests to students in the past academic year. The school forbids the distribution of condoms and other contraception without parental consent — a rule that prompted the school's doctor and nurse to resign in protest in May.

"But even if we had contraceptives, that pact shows that if they wanted to get pregnant, they will get pregnant. Whether we distribute contraceptives is irrelevant," said Verga.

 

 

Years ago, my dad taught elementary school all day and then went to his second job of teaching adolescents deemed too unruly for regular high school. One evening, a student flipped a penny at him. Dad picked it up and put it in his pocket. The teens laughed, and another one flipped a penny. Then another one.

When my father had 12 cents in his pocket, he said, "Guys, I want to thank you. All I need is 38 more of these and I'm going over to the Fairfield and have a draft beer -- on you."

Not another penny was flung. He could see the horror in their faces: Man, I'm not gonna buy the TEACHER a beer!

As you can see, I come by my coin fascination honestly. But I also learned what he would call a "useful life skill": Sometimes you need to use nontraditional tactics to solve a problem.

In our culture, fathers are stereotyped as the ones who nag about money and responsibility. Check the Father's Day greeting card section and you'll see plenty of references to cash not growing on trees and the need to check one's oil regularly. You'll also read a lot about golf, TV remotes and naps.

My dad, Glendon Fisher, had zero interest in sports and rarely had the time to watch television. However, he may have invented the concept of the power nap, which he called "taking 20." He'd lean back in the recliner, say "Wake me in 20 minutes," and fall instantly to sleep. These brief snatches of shut-eye were a matter of survival, not self-indulgence. My father was and is the hardest-working man I have ever met, except maybe for his own dad -- but even that would be a tie.

The fine art of making do
He and my mother married right after high school and had four kids in five years. Dad worked a variety of jobs -- glass factory, truck driver, electrician in an auto plant -- until he realized that an education would help him build a better future. At age 30 he enrolled in college, the first in his family to do so.

Dad delivered newspapers, went to classes, worked various jobs, and somehow studied and completed his homework in a small house filled to bursting with four clamorous kids. He did well enough to win a fellowship for a master's degree in special education. (During that time he got a grant to create math lesson plans and used some of the money to pay a typist: me, age 12, thrilled to be earning 50 cents a page.)

Summers he either got his old auto factory job back or helped his father, a carpenter, build houses. In his spare time he did tons of improvements on our own home, from plumbing to wiring to remodeling the upstairs. It was years before I realized that most people call a handyman when things go wrong. We had a handyman on staff -- the guy taking 20 in the brown recliner.

Other than those little naps, Dad didn't sit still much. When he did, it was to do schoolwork, pay bills or write budgets on yellow legal tablets, figuring out how much he could give to the shoe store or the dentist that month. At times he devised ways to make a little extra: He built a produce stand for our garden surplus, and for a while took the job of recording police tickets for the township.

Mostly, he made do by making do. Requiring lumber for a project, he got permission to tear down an old house. If he needed an extra set of hands, he traded labor with relatives or friends. When in midlife Dad moved to the site of an old poultry farm, he got rid of the numerous dilapidated chicken houses by advertising "free firewood."

Once he bought a two-story Victorian house for $1. That is not a typo. Still in the habit of attending township meetings, he heard a request by the local bank to build a parking lot on an adjoining property. Dad offered to save them the trouble of tearing down the house on that property by buying it for a buck. He and his father put a new foundation on the site of my childhood home, which had burned down, and then he had the house moved there. My brother and his family moved in.

A chance to rest -- not that he's using it

After the house fire (and the divorce that preceded it), Dad sank what money he had into the chicken farm, an 18-acre parcel with a tumbledown farmhouse and more than its share of trash. (Apparently the previous owner didn't see any reason to pay landfill fees -- he just dumped unwanted stuff out in his woods.) For years Dad worked the two teaching jobs, spent weekends improving the property, and designed a small and extremely energy-efficient house. Eventually he built that house, after tearing down the old one, with help from his father and other relatives.

Much of his acreage is given over to Christmas trees; he plants 1,000 seedlings every year for a nurseryman who comes by every so often to harvest them. Dad also has his own small business, teaching country line dancing.

My father was lucky enough to remarry recently, to a lovely woman named Priscilla who is as thrifty and goal-oriented as he is. Yet neither of them is averse to spending money where it counts: vacations (it's about time!), home improvements and caring for family members. Dad poured a lot of money and time into building a small dwelling on his property for my grandparents, who spent winters in Florida and summers in New Jersey. He found a car for a grandchild who was down on her luck and, when it malfunctioned, gave her rides to work. 

A few years ago he visited Seattle when I was at my lowest point financially. Rather than go see the Space Needle, he took me to a warehouse club and treated me to canned goods, sacks of flour, sugar and pinto beans, and 100 postage stamps. He threw in several rolls of duct tape, too.

Dad believes in being prepared. He and Priscilla have a generator, years' worth of firewood cut and stacked, a cellar stocked with canned and dried goods, and a freezer full of foodstuffs bought on sale. (It was during a visit with them that I came up with the phrase "stealth stock-up.") They've put in a vegetable garden, too. If push comes to shove, he says, he can "tell the world to go scratch."

My father taught me a lot, and always by example: how to make do, how to figure your way around a problem if you can't go through it, and, most of all, how not to give up.

Oh, and how to pick up pennies. Some things are just bred in the bone.

 

Just a note; I too pick up pennies. One day, I found over three dollars worth of coins ~~

 

Any comments out there?

 

 

 

 

 

Hello everyone!   I found a story from MSN about Brangelina if you care. It seems that she has a lot to say lately and Brad doesn't seem to care.

June 12, 2008 A sure sign that it's true love between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? One fateful, ennui-filled evening, she grabbed a pen and doodled on his back, as one is won't to do -- and he was so tickled he made her impromptu design permanent. Entertainment Weekly quizzed the twinfanticipating, "Wanted"-promoting megastar about the oddball tattoo decorating her amour's lower back, a grouping of lines that some have speculated was inspired by the New Orleans levee system (see the ink stain here.) "I drew that," confesses Jolie. "We went to Davos [Switzerland]. It's not that we were bored at the World Economic Forum, but one night we didn't have anything to do, so I was drawing on his back." When asked why Pitt felt her sketch warranted an indelible mark on his body, she shrugged, "He just liked it! The picture everybody saw was kind of awkward, but it just lines up beautifully on his back, just enhances the part of the body I like." Angelina shows off the "angles and shapes" of her twin-stuffed belly at the Cannes Film Festival. As for the deeper significance of the tat, the French chateau-dwelling mom of Maddox, 6, Pax, 4, Zahara, 3, and Shiloh, 2, offers, "It's meaningful in that it's us making angles and shapes out of each other's body, that kind of a thing." Few topics are off limits in the EW interview for the forthright Jolie, who opens up about their double bundle of joy bombshell, her blood-sharing with ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton and how good sex is while pregnant (hint: It's very, very good). Here are some of the highlights: On how they'll handle six kids age 6 and under: "Well, we weren't expecting twins! So it did shock us, and we jumped to six quickly. But we like a challenge. We really don't know. His mom and dad are on standby to come out and help. And fortunately we can hire help if we need it, but we're going to try as we usually do to balance it as well as we can." On whether she has any regrets in life, like wearing that blood vial necklace from Billy Bob: "No! It was never a vial anyway. It was like a flower press. It was like from a slight cut on your finger and you press your fingerprint in. It was kind of a sweet gesture. I thought it was kind of romantic! I still love him dearly and think the world of him and I'm proud to have been his wife for a time. I don't believe in regrets. It's a dangerous habit to get into -- it makes you pause in your life if you start thinking back and questioning yourself." Maddox takes a break from contemplating war scenarios to take in the Italian Grand Prix with his dad. On her newest peculiar pendant: "Mad, our 6-year-old, draws lots of war scenarios. He's all into war and guns. So for Mother's Day he drew a machine gun, and Brad had it made into a necklace, which is really sweet. It's really cute. I think it's really good!" On balancing passion and parenting with Pitt: "... There's a side of us that's so mommy-daddy and then there's a side of us that's ... very man and woman. I'll leave it at that. We both like to ride motorcycles, we both like to fly planes, that's the spirited side of us. Then the other side of us is very focused on silly mommy-daddy things. So I guess that's extremes, but I just think of that as balance." On knocked-up nookie: "[Pregnancy] is great for the sex life. It just makes you a lot more creative. So you have fun, and as a woman you're just so round and full." On having Pitt at her beck and call: "The only thing that's hard for me now is with twins and having four kids, there's a lot of the doctor saying, 'Stop picking them up as much.' But we've worked out a system where Brad just lifts them to me every time they want to come up. I just don't bend down. I'll scream, 'Honey!' and he'll come running and lift them up. Or they climb on chairs, so it's not as big of a lift. So we're trying to follow doctor's orders, but I'm bending them a tiny bit." On her idea of a perfect Saturday: "I have a lot of those. Very simple things. On weekends we usually have family sleep. We always have one night a week where everybody stays up late, watches a movie, and stays in our bed. We have, like, a slumber party." On the difficulty of buying presents for Pitt: "Brad is the hardest person to shop for. He has impeccable design taste. And whenever he sees something he likes, he buys it for himself." On taking out Hitler: "I am a strong believer that without justice there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway ... I'm not somebody that just wants to hold up a white flag and say, 'Let's all just get along.' I think people that do horrible things should be held accountable. I don't think like in 'Wanted' -- which is an action movie -- people should [just] be killed. I think there should be trials and justice. But the idea behind 'Wanted' is not that she's a bad-ass assassin that just likes to kill people. It's that, if you ran into Hitler before he did everything, and you knew, should you shoot him? And I would." On talking politics with her Republican "Changeling" director, Clint Eastwood: "Actually, we don't disagree as much as you'd think. I think people assume I'm a Democrat. But I'm registered independent and I'm still undecided. So I'm looking at McCain as well as Obama. Clint can teach me about things domestically and I'm more aware of some things internationally. So it was less a debate and more things we found interesting. But for the first few weeks I was just too nervous to get into any deep conversation!" On being open about her knife-punctuated Goth girl phase: "The reason I talked about going through certain pains or even cutting myself is that I was already out the other side. I knew there were people that do that -- and somehow are happy that somebody admitted they did and discussed how they got out of it. I don't see the point of doing an interview unless you're going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make." On how she's either loved or loathed: "I think anybody that makes a decision about where they stand is going to cause strong opinions about them. But I think that's what you should be hoping for in life, so I take that as a very good sign. That some people support me and some people really don't like me tells me that I'm making decisions and I'm standing strong for something I believe in. I'm making choices in life. And that's the right thing to do."

 

 

 

 

 

Hello everyone!

 

I heard about this from a friend of mine who works for an insurance company but to hear that it's becoming nation wide is disturbing. In the town where we live, there are some people who after leaving their car outside for the night, find that their vehicle's gas tank was drilled out and the gas stolen that way. My friend tells me that people are using a drill of some sort and have a container to catch the gas under the vehicle. The only thing that they can do is tow it to the dealer to get the old gas tank removed and a brand new one installed since you cannot fix it.

 

 

 

 

A New Way to Guzzle Gas

Thieves are finding ingenious ways to steal gas from stations, pumps—and your car