IPPI vs. JELY
Pictures from the A-Consolation Finals game- I Prefer Pi vs. Chironex Fleckeri.

The game where my team (without me) took 5th place in the Pittsburgh Summer League.

IPPI vs. JELY

Once AOL identified the New Hampshire Spammer, he decided to cooperate with AOL. The spammer's cooperation, while helpful, didn't absolve him from paying for the harm he caused AOL members, and under CAN-SPAM, AOL was able to seize everything the spammer made during his "career." The result: AOL got the spammer's fully loaded Hummer H2, as well as a hoard of cash and gold bullion.

And to say "thank you" to AOL members for their help in tracking down this lawbreaker, AOL is giving these ill-gotten goods away to members through the AOL Spammer's Gold Sweepstakes.

America Online | Press Center | Spammer's Loot

Every billionaire needs a hobby. And every city, it has come to seem, needs an aquarium.

How convenient, then, that Bernie Marcus, who opened the first Home Depot store here in 1978, has spent the past few years designing, building and obsessing over a $200 million aquarium he hopes will be the world's most impressive fish tank.

As Marcus, 76, said in a recent interview at the offices of the Marcus Foundation, "I love big fish, OK?"

The Seattle Times: Atlanta hopes aquarium makes big splash

Revealed Friday in the journal Environmental Health, this is the first time the byproducts of illicit drugs like cocaine have been detected in river water.

More surprisingly, the level of residues translates into at least 40,000 daily doses of coke snorted by residents of the Po Valley -- a great deal more than official estimates of 15,000 doses of cocaine per month.

Wired News: Rivers of Coke

For the foodies out there, check out Noriko Takiguchi's (so far) five part series on 'How to Eat Sushi Properly' (links to earlier parts at bottom of the linked post). Not only does the series deliver on the title, but she also passes along tidbits such as the history of our epicurean debt to Yohei Hanaya, and the names of the best sushiyas in the Bay Area, with a little assist from commenters.

Due Diligence: Theory and Practice of Sushi

" 'Chappelle's Show' is over, man. Done," comic Charlie Murphy told TV Guide. "It took me a long time to be able to say those words, but I can say it pretty easy now, because it's the truth."

Chappelle's sudden "spiritual retreat" to South Africa on the eve of his show's third season has left the series in limbo since May. About half of a new season had been filmed before Chappelle left, Murphy said.

CNN.com - Actor: 'Chappelle's Show' is over - Aug 3, 2005

But Schmidt won quite narrowly -- she beat Hackett by a margin of 52-48 percent in a district in which Republicans badly outnumber Democrats and that Portman carried by more than 40 percentage points the last time around. So yes, the GOP retains the seat, but Republicans outside Schmidt's victory party probably aren't doing much celebrating this morning.

Salon.com - War Room

A team led by psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of UC Irvine found that it could persuade people to avoid fattening foods by implanting unpleasant childhood memories about them — even though the memories were untrue.

In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team said it successfully turned people off strawberry ice cream and, in earlier studies, it had done the same with pickles and hard-boiled eggs — in each case by manipulating the subjects to believe that the foods made them sick when they were children.

The scientists say they have also successfully implanted positive opinions about asparagus by convincing subjects that they once loved the vegetable.

Swallowing a Lie May Aid in Weight Loss, Research Suggests

This 1883 book is without question the worst phrasebook ever written. The writer, Pedro Carolino, who was Portuguese, did not particularly speak English, nor did he have a Portuguese-English dictionary available. Instead, he worked with a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French dictionary. The results, I'm sure you'll agree, are staggering.

English as she is spoke: Introduction

Russian media reported today that the owner of the American Language Center, Vardan Kushnir, had been killed. According to the reports, Kushnir's body with massive head trauma was found in his apartment in Moscow.

The American Language Center provides English language courses for Russian speaking people. In order to get new customers, the Center reportedly organized the largest SPAM campaign in Russian history. A huge amount of SPAM was (and still being) sent to over 20 000 000 e-mail addresses belonging to Russian speaking people. They say that you can hardly find a Russian who has never received a SPAM advertising the American Language Center.

We talked about him on TIA a couple of years ago. It really was only a matter of time.

F-Secure : Someone got too much SPAM ?