The Graduate Sequel as a Novel

Charles Webb has written a follow-up novel to his original novel which was made into the film The Graduate. The book will revisit Ben Braddock and his now-wife Elaine ten years later, as they home school their two children in upstate New York. Also Mrs. Robinson is somehow featured in its story. At the present time, there is no plan to follow up the new book with a film. However, it's not impossible. Webb's last novel, New Cardiff, was adapted into the film Hope Springs.

Wikipedia has this article about Webb whose personal life is interesting, if a little bizarre.

Lance, We Never Doubted You!

Lance Armstrong, winner of seven straight Tour de France titles, was cleared of doping in the 1999 Tour de France on Wednesday, and anti-doping authorities were blamed for misconduct in dealing with the American cyclist.

British Hotel Bans F-Word

A British hotel, Linthwaite House Hotel in the picturesque Lakes District, is offering football-free breaks for "soccer widows" desperate to escape wall-to-wall coverage of the World Cup. Any guest who overhears a member of staff mentioning the f-word ("football") will be given a free glass of champagne. The sport supplements are being taken out of daily newspapers and, instead of blanket TV coverage of the big games, guests will be offered a string of romantic movies on DVD such as Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman. According to the hotel manager, the bookings are starting to stream in. The World Cup finals in Germany start on June 9, with the final in Berlin on July 9.

Podcast: Filmspotting

Filmspotting is an excellent site for podcasts of movie reviews, criticisms, top 5 lists, marathons and everything else that is film experience. Chicagoans Adam Kempenaar and Sam Hallgren host the podcasts, recently presenting #102. I have downloaded all the past 100 and am having a great time "at the movies" while I walk, work and ride.

Until recently Filmspotting has been known as Cinecast.

Dutch Pedophilia Political Party

Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party, the Charity, Freedom and Diversity party, to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals.

"A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, a party founder, told a newspaper. "We want to make pedophilia the subject of discussion. We want to have a voice. Other politicians only talk about us in a negative sense, as if we were criminals."

The Netherlands, which already has liberal policies on soft drugs, prostitution and gay marriage, was shocked by the plan. Eighty-two per cent of the public polled wanted the Government to do something to stop the new party.

The party supports allowing pornography to be broadcast on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to late evenings. It also said people should be allowed to go naked in public and promotes legalizing all drugs and free train travel for all.

Return of "The Rocket"

Roger Clemens agreed to terms Wednesday on a one-year deal with the Astros to come back for a 23rd season, or at least the remaining four months of the current season. The seven-time Cy Young Award winner ended his seven-month retirement by accepting a deal that will pay him approximately $14 million -- the pro-rated value of a $21 million seasonal contract -- to pitch for the Astros for the balance of the current season. Clemens' arrival couldn't come at a better time for the Astros, who are 8-14 in their last 22 games. Houston's offense has been inconsistent but the Astros are also in dire need of more pitching.

Schedule for the Rocket's Relaunch:
June 6 Class A Lexington
June 11 Double-A Corpus Christi
June 16 Triple-A Round Rock
June 22 Houston Astros

Chile Gets Latest Telescope

The 8.4m (28ft) Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a telescope which will be 50 times as powerful as other survey telescopes, will be built on a mountain in Chile. It will join the existing Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, on Cerro Pachon, an 2,640m (8,800ft) mountain peak in northern Chile. The telescope will scan the entire sky every three nights, and the observatory will be able to produce color movies of objects that change or move on rapid timescales. The decision to place the LSST on Cerro Pachon followed a two-year period of testing and analysis of the atmospheric conditions and quality of astronomical "seeing" at four sites in Chile, Mexico, and the Canary Islands. The LSST should be under construction by 2009 with a planned completion date in 2012.

Wallaby Milk to the Rescue

According to this article, researchers from the Victorian government's Department of Primary Industries have found that Tammar wallaby breast milk contains a highly-potent compound which is active against a wide variety of fungi and bacteria including antibiotic-resistant superbugs. The compound was found to be effective against a relative of the hospital superbug MRSA, or golden staph, as well as ecoli, Streptococci, Salmonella, Bacillus subtilus, Pseudomonas spp, Proteus vulgaris, and Staphylococcus aureus. The bacteria-fighting compound is deemed 100 times more effective than penicillin.

Nike Plus

According to this article, Nike has teamed up with Apple to launch a wireless link between your running shoes and your Apple iPod. With a transmitter popped into your trainer and a receiver attached to the base of your iPOD, the system will feed back data from the sensor that monitors your time, distance, and pace which can be heard over the music on the iPOD. The system should be ready for sale in a couple of months.

Imminent Birth

I don't really know why I care about this, but I am checking the news websites continually today for THE birth announcement of the WMBB, the offspring of the WMBC. According to Mr. Pitt, the birth is imminent! It's magic how the premiere of his first biological child will coincide with the premiere of his ex-wife's fourth-in-a-row stinky movie. I can say that because I've personally spent my money to see the first three and being a slow learner will probably go see number four!

The Willie Way

Willie Nelson shares his worldview in his third book of jokes, aphorisms, and heartfelt personal stories. According to Willie, "This book is my way of sharing a little of what I’ve learned in seventy-two years of making music and friends on this beautiful planet. I don’t know if the things I write here will change your life, but they sure changed mine." Possibly the funniest line from the book is Willie's view on marijuana of which Willie is an unapologetic advocate. Here's Willie's unique take on the subject: "I'll support a war on drugs, but not a war on flowers or herbs."

Podcasts

With my new mp3 player in hand, I am discovering podcasts: how to download and manipulate the podcasts . It's a whole new world to me. I am especially intrigued by the level of information available and intelligence and interests of people out there in the wide world. Like bloggers, these people seem to have found their niche in the dotcom world. The best place to start, if you're interested in listening to podcasts, is a podcast directory like podcast alley . Start by picking a podcast genre from the left sidebar and go from there. You'll be surprised at what is out there!

Discovery's Crawl

Space Shuttle Discovery's four-mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B is underway! The move brings NASA one step closer to the STS-121 mission, targeted for launch no earlier than July 1. Mounted on the Mobile Launcher Platform and carried by the mammoth Crawler-Transporter, Discovery emerged from the assembly building at 12:45 p.m. EDT. The "stack" rolls along at less than one mile an hour, and is expected to arrive at the launch pad sometime this evening. The STS-121 mission is targeted for launch no earlier than July 1.

Guilty Pleasure

Only people who have actually tried this are allowed to comment on this "recipe" from Ro*tel. It is my guilty pleasure and once you try it, it'll be yours too.

Ingredients:

* 1 lb. pasteurized processed cheese spread, (Velveeta), cut into 1" cubes
* 1 can (10 oz.) Diced or Whole RO*TEL Tomatoes & Green Chilies

Directions:
In a saucepan, combine ingredients; stir over low heat until cheese spread is melted. Or microwave: Place ingredients in a covered casserole. Microwave on HIGH until cheese spread is melted, about 5 minutes, stirring once. Serve with tortilla chips.

Yoakum on mp3

Currently playing in my ears from my mp3 player is Mr. Dwight Yoakum. Thanks, Kel!

When David Letterman said to Dwight, "You wear that hat all the time. How much hair DO you have?"

He answered, "More than you think and less than I'd like."

Terrific answer!

Here's What I Dread

The San Francisco Giants are coming to Minute Maid Park for a series of three games with the Houston Astros, starting tonight. As the luck of the rotation goes, two of the three pitchers the Giants will bat against are pitchers who made their major league debuts in April 2006. Added to this is the fact that Minute Maid Park is a hitter's paradise and you have the formula for that cheat Barry Bonds to hit number 714 in Houston against the Astros. I Hate That!

Dragonfly Migration Revealed

Billions of common green darner dragonflies (Anax junius) migrate every year but until now hardly anything was known about their routes or strategy. New research into the migration behavior is available from a team of researchers from Princeton University. Detailed flight path information was made possible by tiny radio transmitters developed by the team. A transmitter weighing about a third of a gram was attached to green darner dragonfly's thorax with a couple of drops of superglue and some eye-lash adhesive. Then a team tracked the movements by following the signals from a receiving airplane.

According to this article in BBC Science, the dragonflies tended to only move after two nights of cooler temperatures, indicating a cold front was approaching with favourable north-westerly winds. They also tended to change direction when they met a large body of water, ensuring they never became stranded out over the sea. Two insects were recorded flying out over the ocean before reversing and skirting down the coastline. The data also revealed that the dragonflies' migration patterns are strikingly similar to those of songbirds, suggesting there is a strong evolutionary link to their behaviors.

Happy Mother's Day

Our family's new mom with her daughter Ella Grace

Playlists to MP3 Portable Player

Now that I have my playlists ready, I need to transfer the songs to my MP3 player

1. With WMP (Windows Media Player) open, I plug in the MP3 player to the computer USB port.
2. From WMP select "Sync" from the selections available.
3. Select the PlayList from the drop-down menu "Sync List".
4. Choose the PlayList I want to copy to the MP3.
5. Click "Start Sync".
6. Repeat from step 3 for adding more PlayLists.

How to Make a PlayList

After ripping all my CDs to Windows Media Player, I am ready to make playlists from the collected songs. Playlists are lists of songs (or other audio files) that you can create to organize your library.

• Open Windows Media Player. The window is divided into three sections. On the far left of the Library window under All Music there are 8 subsections. All these subsections contain the songs I ripped with each subsection organizing the songs by a different grouping. All I am interested in now is the alphabetized list (by first letter) under All Music Album Artist, so I will open Album Artist on the + sign to see all the music I ripped listed by the artists' names.
• Select an artist two ways: one, by clicking on the + sign by the artist's name I will see all the albums I ripped by that artist or two, by clicking on the artist's name I will see all the songs I ripped by that artist. In either case the ripped songs will show in the large middle window. There is other information included with the song titles also. The length of each song could be important when making a playlist.
• Now I am ready to make the playlist. Look at the far right side of the window. It's blue. I see Now Playing List at the top with a down arrow. I click that arrow and go down to New List then Play List. Click on Play List and I am ready to make some decisions about the songs I want in my playlist.
• From the large middle window, I can drag song titles into the right (blue) window to build a list of items for my playlist. Lots of options are available now. I can use one or more songs from the artist I have open, then close that artist and open another to add to the playlist.
• After the playlist is complete to my satisfaction, I open the drop down box again and click Save Playlist As and get a new window for naming the playlist. I will give the playlist a meaningful name so I can know which one this is after I have a lot of playlists saved. I'll call this one Music for Fast Walking 1.

Hint: When I couldn't remember what the song sounded like, I put on my headset, selected the song from the middle window song list, and listened to a bit of it by clicking the Play arrow at the bottom of the window (or double click the song title). After listening, I clicked the Stop button and made the decision whether or not to add to the playlist.