Then I took a nap. Then I ate a salad, with a new salad dressing that has no right to be so good, I think it is full of sweet delicious heroin. (It is Annie's Tuscany Italian Dressing, if you want to be a sad addict like me. Balsamic vinegar is the new gateway drug. I would put this stuff on grass clippings or a piece of paper if there was no spinach in the house.)

1st Place: "Life Doesn't Come From Non-Life"
Patricia Lewis (grade 8) did an experiment to see if life can evolve from non-life. Patricia placed all the non-living ingredients of life - carbon (a charcoal briquet), purified water, and assorted minerals (a multi-vitamin) - into a sealed glass jar. The jar was left undisturbed, being exposed only to sunlight, for three weeks. (Patricia also prayed to God not to do anything miraculous during the course of the experiment, so as not to disqualify the findings.) No life evolved. This shows that life cannot come from non-life through natural processes.

2nd Place: "Women Were Designed For Homemaking"
Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker.

Honorable Mention:
"Mousetrap Reduced To Pile Of Functionless Parts" - Kevin Parker (grade 7)
"Dinosaur & Man Walked Together" - Donny Findlay (grade 6)
"Rocks Can't Evolve, Where Did They Come From Mr. Darwin?" - Anna Reed (grade 6)

PORTLAND, OR--Nicholas Higby, a graphic designer laid off in January, is on his way to mastering unemployment, the 34-year-old reported Monday.

"Yeah, I don't mean to brag, but I definitely have this down cold," Higby said. "Of course, I'd rather find another job, but until the economy turns around, I'm doing a pretty kick-ass job at the not-working thing."

Lucent sank 22 cents, or 11.5 percent, to $1.70. Lucent warned it would not meet its targets for profitability in the current fiscal year due to a weak wireless market and said it expects wider third-quarter losses than Wall Street foresaw.

I was at the gym today, running on the treadmill, and the TV directly in front of me was showing a new televised atrocity called "First Date" or "Date Time" or somesuch. Judging from what I saw they might as well call it "Single For A Reason".

It was showing on TLC, which I thought was supposed to be "the woman's network," but you'd never know it from the guy they had on the show today. He was to women what bovine spongiform encephalopathy is to cows. […]

Para Para Sakura (2001)

Synopsis: "Para Para Sakura" unofficially translates to "Wacky Dance Craze Cherry Blossom." Yeah, that about covers it.

My Take: Okay, confession time: I rented this from Netflix thinking that the title was a movie based on Para Para Paradise, a video game like Dance Dance Revolution that uses your hands instead of your feet.

I would soon be punished for my ignorance. And how.

The main character in this movie, a dance instructor, is played by famous Taiwanese pop star Aaron Kwok, whose character falls in love with Cecilia Cheung, who plays the most high-strung, irritating, high-maintence woman ever. This would all be well and good, except she's the leading lady, and you realize halfway through the movie that you have to like her.

And once you realize this, everyone bursts into song and dance. […]