eBay sale of Cubs fan’s loyalty halted
Current mood: apathetic
eBay sale of Cubs fan's loyalty halted
—James Janega
October 9, 2008
Another Cubs curse?
The online auction site eBay yanked an auction on Wednesday in which a heartbroken Cubs fan offered to sell his team loyalty to the highest bidder, saying the listing violated the company's policies to sell only tangible items and to promote only charities it has vetted.
Minneapolis resident Scot Moore, 30, promised he would root for the winning bidder's favorite sports team — forever. And he said money from the winning bid would go to two Minneapolis theater companies that perform for low-income audiences.
Cromulent Shakespeare Co. and the new Prufrock Theatre are both funded by Springboard for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) non-profit. But eBay wasn't buying.
"It violated policies," said Karen Bard, eBay's pop culture expert.
Moore's Cubs loyalty wasn't tangible enough to sell, Bard said. In addition, "the seller didn't have the proper documentation in the listing for how you list a charity."
Moore offered to show eBay the charity documentation for Springboard but hadn't heard back from the online auctioneer by Wednesday evening.
The Wheaton native hopes to relist his loyalty, perhaps in conjunction with "a fielder's mitt," and restart the bidding at $50. It was frustrating, he said, because bids had already reached $7,100.
"$7,200 would fund a whole season at Cromulent," Moore lamented. And who was buying?
"That $7,100 bid, that was a White Sox fan," he said. "I actually had not seen a bid yet from a Cubs fan."
Cubs to host rally at Daley Plaza
Current mood: cheerful
Want to celebrate the Cubs' National League Central title? Come party on Tuesday at Daley Plaza.
Cubs fans will be able to show their support for the team at Postseason Rally 2008, to be held in downtown Chicago from 12 p.m. to 12:45 p.m. CT.
Hall of Famer Billy Williams, WGN Radio's Ron Santo and Cubs chairman Crane Kenney were scheduled to appear. Actor Jim Belushi will be the emcee and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley are expected to attend.
"Tuesday's celebration is a great way for Cubs fans to gear up for the postseason run," said Matt Wszolek, director of sales and promotions for the Cubs. "We truly have the best fans in baseball and the rally at Daley Plaza is a testament to them and the accomplishments of the 2008 Chicago Cubs."
The rally is open to the public and free of charge. It will be held, rain or shine.
The expression "Dreamtime" was coined in 1899 by Spencer and Gillen (who conducted formative anthropological work on Australian prehistory) from alcheringa of the Arrernte language. "Dreamtime" is often used as a collective term for all the Dreamings of the indigenous peoples, though "The Dreaming" is a synonym for "Dreamtime" and is culturally preferred by Indigenous Australian peoples. "The Dreaming" in modern scholarship often refers to the "time before time", "time outside of time" or "time of the creation of all things", as though it were the past. But The Dreaming in a real sense is also present and in the future. The anthropologist and historianW.H. Stanner preferred "the Dreaming" to "the Dreamtime" and saliently describes it as "the Everywhen".[2] This is an apt and evocative approximation to what the Indigenous Australian Peoples refer to in translation as the "All-at-once" Time which is experienced as a co-existing confluence of past, present and future.
This does not counter the Indigenous Australians People's concept of linear time, but it informs and qualifies it. Indigenous Australians considered the Everywhen of the Dreaming to be objective, whilst linear time was considered a subjective construction of waking consciousness of one's own lifetime. This is in the converse of the European concept which views dreams as subjective and linear time as objective.
A man was riding his Harley along a California beach when suddenly the sky clouded above his head and, in a booming voice, the Lord said, 'Because you have tried to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish.
The biker pulled over and said, 'Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over anytime I want.' The Lord said, 'Your request is materialistic, think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required reaching the bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take! It will nearly exhaust several natural resources. I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of something that could possibly help mankind.'
The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, 'Lord, I wish that I and all men could understand women; I want to know how she feels inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothing's wrong, and how I can make a woman truly happy.'
The Lord replied, 'You want two lanes or four on that bridge?"
She’s attacked during exhibition at conservation center in Florida
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updated 5:04 p.m. HT,Sat., March. 29, 2008.
WELLINGTON, Fla. - The owner of a wildlife sanctuary was attacked by two cheetahs and hospitalized with about 40 puncture wounds to her extremities and back, authorities said.
Judy Berens was airlifted Saturday to Delray Medical Center, but it appears her injuries are not life-threatening, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said.
Berens owns and operates Panther Ridge Conservation Center, which provides homes for exotic cats, authorities said.
She was conducting an exhibition with two male cheetahs in an enclosure on Saturday when one became distracted by a ball being bounced outside, the sheriff’s office said. The cheetah moved toward the ball quickly and knocked her to the ground.
The cheetah then pounced on her and began biting and clawing her, said Gabriella Ferraro, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman. At some point the other cheetah attacked her as well, Ferraro said.
Several people entered the enclosure and rescued her, authorities said.
Ferraro said the cheetahs remain on the property in cages. Wildlife officers are investigating the attack, but so far it appears there no violations and no laws were broken, Ferraro said.
HOUSTON - NASA engineers are studying the potentially serious contamination of a vital joint used to turn solar arrays aboard the International Space Station (ISS) after a spacewalking astronaut collected samples of the grit on Sunday.
U.S. astronaut Daniel Tani used orange tape to pick up what he today's spacewalk.
The material could force the joint to draw too much power and stall, or cause significant damage to its internal mechanism if left unchecked, he added.
Tani found the debris while inspecting the starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ), a 10-foot (three-meter) wide gear that sits between two massive girders on the right side of the side of the station's backbone-like main truss. The samples he collected will be returned to Earth aboard the shuttle Discovery once its STS-120 astronauts June shuttle flight, but it only began experiencing slight current spikes and vibrations over the last 50 days. An engineer discovered the vibration almost by accident after noticing the view from an ISS video camera shake, station managers said.
A similar rotary joint on the port side of the station's main truss is performing as designed to rotate its own solar wings, NASA said.
An astronaut fixed a torn solar panel on the International Space Station on Saturday in a risky procedure that involved riding a robotic arm to the damaged area in order to install cufflinks on the torn wing, according to the Associated Press.
In an emergency mission, spacewalker Scott Parazynski rode the 90-foot robotic arm to the far end of the shuttle complex as the crew extended the wing to its full length. He then clipped a hinge wire and, guided by fellow spacewalker Douglas Wheelock, installed the cufflinks. The 2.5-foot-long rip had occurred while astronauts were unfurling the new array on Tuesday, but NASA officials weren't sure how the damage was incurred, Reuters said.
The International Space Station is a research facility that is in orbit 240 miles above the Earth's surface. The station uses the solar panels to generate its electricity by capturing sunlight and converting it into power.
Check out this CNET News.com gallery for more photos of the International Space Station and the ripped solar array.
is the name given to a wild hog hybrid that was shot and killed in Alapaha, Georgia, United States, on June 17, 2004 by Chris Griffin on Ken Holyoak's farm and hunting reserve.[1] It was alleged to be 12 feet (3.6 meters) long and to weigh 1,000 pounds (450 kg). Originally it was considered a hoax.[2]
The animal's remains were exhumed in early 2005 and studied by scientists from the National Geographic Society for a documentary. In March 2005, these scientists confirmed that Hogzilla actually weighed 800 pounds (360 kg) and was between 7.5 and 8 feet (2.25 and 2.4 meters) long, diminishing the previous claim. DNA testing was performed, revealing that Hogzilla was a hybrid of wild boar and domestic swine.[3] Hogzilla was part domestic (Hampshire breed) and part wild boar. However, compared to most wild boars and domestics, Hogzilla is still quite a large and extraordinary specimen. [4]
According to the examiners, Hogzilla's tusks measured nearly 18 inches (46 cm), and nearly 16 inches (41 cm), which was a new record for North America.
Dispute with National Geographic Society
Ken Holyoak, the man upon whose farm the boar was shot and killed, has disputed the findings made by the National Geographic Society documentary. Holyoak said that Hogzilla weighed 1,000 pounds (450 kg) when he weighed it on his farm scales, and that he personally measured the hog's length at 12 feet (3.6 meters) while it dangled by the straps from a backhoe. It is possible he measured from end of hoof to nose (while suspended with gravity stretching the animal) rather than from end of tail to nose (as a creature might be measured while alive and in a standing position), which might account for some of the discrepancy between his measurements and those of National Geographic.
"As with any organic being after death, tissues will decompose and the body will atrophy, making actual measurements change over time," Holyoak said. "Have you ever seen a raisin after it was a grape?"
Nancy Donnelly, the producer of the National Geographic documentary, stated that the scientists who made the measurements had already accounted for "shrinkage" when they stated their estimates.
Since the discovery of Hogzilla, the small town of Alapaha, which lies about 180 miles south of Atlanta, Georgia, has seen a surge in visitors [citation needed], comparable to that generated by other purported anomalies of nature such as Bigfoot. Alapaha has accepted the legend of this odd hog into its community. Recent fall festivals have focused on the animal, including a parade featuring a Hogzilla princess, children in pink pig outfits and a float carrying a Hogzilla replica.
apathetic
cheerful
The entire script was written on the front and the back of a paper bag
