monkey nonsense

oops cnn….

(sorry, i don’t have any image processing programs on this computer so the image quality is crap and it’s a huge bmp)

Thursday, October 13, 2005; Posted: 10:50 a.m. EDT (14:50 GMT)

HILLSBORO, North Dakota (AP) — It’s the thought that counts when it comes to a marriage proposal.

Chris Mueller, 25, was nearly finished etching the big question into a harvested soybean field when he realized the ‘m’ in ‘marry’ took up too much room.

Since he couldn’t erase a plowed field, he had a decision to make.

“I figured it would look better to spell it wrong and get a laugh out of it, rather than botch it all,” Mueller told the Grand Forks Herald. “I could have fit all the letters in, but it would have looked tacky.”

Instead, it read: “KATIE WILL YOU MARY ME?”

Mueller’s next step involved taking his girlfriend, Katie Goltz, for an airplane ride under the guise of looking for deer. At first, she missed the misspelling. Goltz was caught up in the message.

“I scanned it, noticed what it said and was speechless,” she said. “I said ‘yes’ and cried like all girls do.”

But on closer inspection, Goltz realized “marry” was a letter short.

“I thought it was so sweet that he spelled it wrong,” she said. “I thought it made it more cute and more special.”

Mueller’s father, Tom, twice used fieldwork to send romantic messages to his wife, Diane.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

from: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/13/marryme.ap/index.html

By BROOKE DONALD
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 13, 2005; 8:45 PM

BOSTON — The Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding soap opera is now a musical opera. The figure skating saga that captivated the country 11 years ago _ with the ubiquitous video of Kerrigan crying “Why me?” after being attacked and hit in the knee _ is the basis for “Nancy and Tonya: The Opera,” to be performed at Tufts University next spring.

Kerrigan became a household name when an associate of Harding’s clubbed her on the knee with a baton as she left the ice during practice at the 1994 U.S. championships in Detroit.

The attack prevented Kerrigan from competing, but she recovered to win a silver medal at the 1994 Olympic games in Lillehammer a few weeks later. Harding finished out of the running.

“This is the classic envy story and it was just so strange and got stranger by the day,” said Elizabeth Searle, who wrote the opera’s libretto.

Videotape of Kerrigan _ her face contorted in agony, grabbing her knee and wailing “Why me? Why me?” _ was a TV staple in the days after the attack.

Harding, the cigarette-smoking, pickup-driving bad girl, had said she would “kick some butt” in the Olympics.

Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Stone, and two other men served time for planning and carrying out the attack. Harding pleaded guilty to covering up the attack but didn’t serve any time. She received a lifetime ban by the U.S. Figure Skating Association and apologized in person to Kerrigan.

“Tonya and Nancy was the first completely insane scandal that took over the country,” Searle said.

Attempts to reach Kerrigan and Harding on Thursday by phone and e-mail were unsuccessful.

The 43-year-old Searle said she did not consult the two skaters about the one-act opera, which was pieced together using actual quotes uttered by the women and others involved in the scandal. Searle plucked from newspaper reports, FBI transcripts and her previous novella about the skating rivals, “Celebrities in Disgrace,” which is being made into a short film. Tufts graduate student Abigail Al Dorry is writing the music.

The opera opens with Kerrigan and Harding holding dueling news conferences at the 1994 Olympics, just weeks after the attack on Kerrigan.

“There are elements of parody in it, but I really feel for this story,” Searle said. “Girls in America are either raised to be Tonyas or Nancys. I think any girl can relate to these two women and what they went through.”

from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301821.html

let’s go see it!!

Fiona Hudson
08oct05

A TOWN has banned posters promoting a children’s movie because of a local superstition about rabbits.

Officials on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, have baulked at posters for the feature film Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit because the word is taboo there.

Locals instead refer to rabbits as “underground mutton”. The word is considered bad luck because rabbit burrows have been linked to land slips.

Quarry workers extracting Portland stone, the type used to build St Paul’s Cathedral, used to walk off the job if they saw one of the animals.

Amended posters with the word “bunny” will be used instead.

from: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,16849301%255E2902,00.html. Thanks Steph!

Wednesday, October 5, 2005; Posted: 3:27 a.m. EDT (07:27 GMT)

LONDON, England (CNN) — Vancouver is the world’s most desirable place to live, according to a new survey, while Papua New Guinea’s Port Moresby is at the other end of the scale.

The Canadian city, nestled on the Pacific coast, was one of four locations in that country to rank at the top of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s livability survey, which looked at conditions in 127 cities.

The other top-ranking Canadian cities were Toronto, Calgary and Montreal.

Australia also fared well in the survey by the London-based group, with Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney scoring high marks along with Vienna, Austria, and Geneva and Zurich in Switzerland.

The EIU study assessed nearly 40 indicators in five broad categories — stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

“In the current global political climate, it is no surprise that the most desirable destinations are those with a lower perceived threat of terrorism,” said Jon Copestake, editor of the report.

Joining Port Moresby at the bottom of the list were Algiers, Algeria, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. Karachi, Pakistan, and Lagos, Nigeria, also ranked poorly. The EIU said 10 cities — all in Asia, Africa or the Middle East — had aspects of daily life that “present challenges.”

By contrast, the EIU said 63 cities fell into the top livability bracket.

“This reflects the fact that many global business centers have a developed infrastructure and widespread availability,” the report states. “Still, the overwhelming majority of cities in the top livability range are based in western Europe and North America.”

The report said Canada, “with low crime, little threat from instability or terrorism and a highly developed infrastructure,” is the most livable destination in the world.

“Although higher crime rates and a greater threat of terror puts U.S. cities below those of Canada, U.S. cities are still among the world’s most livable.” Cleveland and Pittsburgh had the highest American scores.

Only three cities in eastern Europe fall into this bracket along with 13 cities from Asia, the EUI said.

from: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/04/eui.survey/index.html

what the heck?! pittsburgh and cleveland were the highest ranking US cities? Canadia had four in the top rankings?! this ranking system is messed up!

The Associated Press
Monday, October 3, 2005; 1:41 PM

LOS ANGELES — Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage is a new father.

His wife, Alice Kim Cage, gave birth Monday to a boy, Kal-el Coppola Cage, in New York City, said Cage’s Los Angeles-based publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were available.

“They are healthy and happy and it’s quite lovely,” Wolf said by phone from New York.

Cage is a nephew of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.

The couple married in July 2004. It was the third marriage for Cage and the first for his new wife, who was 20 when they were wed. They met when Cage visited a Los Angeles restaurant where she was working as a waitress.

Cage, 41, who won an Oscar for his role in “Leaving Las Vegas,” has a son from a previous relationship.

His screen credits also include “Lord of War,” now in theaters, “Adaptation,” “Honeymoon in Vegas” and “Moonstruck.”

He was previously married to Lisa Marie Presley and actress Patricia Arquette.

from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100300596.html

Kal-El?! Isn’t that Superman’s Krypton-ese name?!?! bah!!!

Thursday, September 29, 2005; Posted: 10:15 a.m. EDT (14:15 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A lesson learned by centuries of beachcombers has been distilled to a physicist’s formula: to make the perfect sandcastle, use eight parts sand to one part water.

The physicists’ study, released on Wednesday before publication in the journal Nature Physics, is entitled, rather grandly, “Maximum angle of stability of a wet granular pile.”

And while it deals with sandcastles, it could also help determine the stability of retaining walls and the material they hold back, one of its authors said.

This study and those that follow on this subject might have implications for those preparing for or recovering from a watery disaster like a hurricane, physicist Arshad Kudrolli said in a telephone interview.

“Our study is the first step, in some sense, in trying to understand what’s the most stable angle that one can build, say, a retaining wall,” he said. “And if it fails, where would the material end up? How much part of the land will give way?”

Inspired by childhood memories of the seaside, the study’s authors worked on a simple model of what makes for the most stable construction involving liquid and particles.

In the case of a sandcastle, builders need to use roughly one-eighth the water to the amount of sand, though Kudrolli said there is a range of possibilities that would work.

“You need a mix of the two to get it right,” Kudrolli said in a telephone interview. “It could be more than that, or less than that would be just fine.

“It’s very forgiving, so that’s why we succeed, I guess,” he said with a laugh.

Despite the playful nature of the sandcastle example, Kudrolli noted that their model for what keeps a sandpile from disintegrating could lay the groundwork for questions about what kind of retaining walls would be most stable.

Even though engineers have designed such structures for hundreds of years, the science behind them is not very well developed, Kudrolli said.

The study used “idealized sand” — glass beads the size of sand grains — and water, seeing how the piles would stack up and when they would topple.

In an even simpler example of a pile of particles and liquid, Kudrolli and his colleagues envisioned four baseballs, stacked in a pyramid, with three on the bottom and one on top, bonded with “liquid bridges,” bits of water that got between and among the baseballs and helped bond them together.

Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

from: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/29/sandcastle.recipe.reut/index.html

Wednesday, September 21, 2005; Posted: 12:47 p.m. EDT (16:47 GMT)

LIMA, Peru (AP) — A chartered jet carrying 289 Gambian soccer fans pretended it needed to make an emergency landing so they could watch their team compete in the FIFA Under 17 World Championships, officials said Wednesday.

The plane, claiming to be low on fuel, landed Tuesday near the stadium in Peru’s northern coast city of Piura.

“It truly was a scam,” said Betty Maldonado, a spokeswoman for Peru’s aviation authority, CORPAC. “They tricked the control tower, saying they were low on fuel.”

Emergency crews were scrambled ahead of the unscheduled landing by the Lockhead L1011 Tri-Star, owned by Air Rum Ltd., Maldonado said.

The Air Rum plane, which she said was chartered by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, should have made its approach to the capital, Lima, but instead flew directly to Piura, entering Peruvian air space “without permission.”

The passengers were permitted to attend African team’s 3-1 victory over Qatar on Tuesday night, she added, but the plane remained in Piura on Wednesday while authorities determined what penalty, if any, to levy against the airline.

Gambian newspaper Daily Observer reported on its Web page Wednesday that the group of fans had been delayed for a week in a hotel in the small West African nation and were forced Friday to watch their country’s victory over Brazil on television.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Original posted at http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/09/21/fake.emergency.ap/index.html

Thursday, September 15, 2005; Posted: 10:23 a.m. EDT (14:23 GMT)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) — Anchorage zookeepers are installing a 16,000-pound treadmill to keep an isolated elephant from getting fat during the long, cold Alaskan winters.

The 20-foot-long treadmill was designed specifically for Maggie, a 23-year-old female African elephant that has become the subject of a national debate over the proper care for captive pachyderms.

“It looks just like a big people treadmill,” said Patrick Lampi, assistant director of the Alaska Zoo.

Because this is the first treadmill ever built for an elephant, zoo officials and an Idaho company studied mining equipment and treadmills used for race horses and racing camels, Lampi said.

Zookeepers said Zimbabwe-born Maggie would start using the treadmill in about two months.

The zoo is remodeling her indoor and outdoor spaces, making both about twice as large as before and adding a sandy area. In addition, the floor has been heated and the zoo is evaluating ways to make it softer, Lampi said.

Critics from Anchorage and around the nation have urged the zoo to send Maggie to an elephant sanctuary in a warmer climate and away from the near-Arctic zoo.

Elephants, particularly females, are herd creatures and need company, critics have said. But Maggie’s companion, an Asian elephant named Annabelle, died in 1997.

Maggie’s weight-loss program started more than a year ago, Lampi said, “She was slightly heavy for an elephant.”

With diet modifications and new exercise inducements, such as hiding food in baskets and other sites that require some work to reach, Maggie has slimmed down a bit and is now believed to weigh a little over 8,000 pounds.

“We estimate that she lost maybe 1,000 pounds,” Lampi said.

Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

from: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/15/elephant.treadmill.reut/index.html

Cheerleaders help police catch driver who left accident scene

Monday, August 8, 2005; Posted: 11:53 a.m. EDT (15:53 GMT)

ANN ARBOR, Michigan (AP) — A man who left an accident scene was tracked down with the help of some cheerleaders who witnessed the crash and turned his license plate number into a cheer, police said.

Members of the Lincoln High School varsity cheerleading squad from neighboring Ypsilanti were in Ann Arbor for a Universal Cheerleaders Association’s camp when they saw the wreck near the University of Michigan campus.

“I knew I was going to not remember it because there was too much going on,” coach Patricia Clark said Monday on NBC’s “Today.” “So, when I ran down the street and got the plate number, I yelled to the girls: ‘Remember this!”‘

The cheerleaders put their skills to work, chanting the license number.

“The coach just said it and we were saying it over and over, and then it just turned into a big chant since we kept repeating it,” said Kimmie Ostrowski, a senior captain for the team who also appeared on “Today.”

According to police reports, a truck hit a car stopped at a traffic light Wednesday, and the impact forced that car into another vehicle, which then hit another one.

The truck driver, found at his home, told officers he didn’t think the damage was severe enough to stop, police Lt. Mike Logghe told The Ann Arbor News.

The man wasn’t arrested and his name wasn’t released, but police said he could face a misdemeanor charge of leaving the scene of an accident.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

From: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/08/crime.fighting.cheerleaders.ap/index.html