| Hot Gadgets That Unleash Your Inner Geek
The holidays are a time for shoppers and wish-list makers to get in touch with their inner geeks. They're in good company. Shoppers will spend $22.1 billion on holiday consumer electronics this year, according to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association. .
Teen`s Interview With John Lennon Yields Oscar Nod
A 1969 encounter between a 14 year-old Beatles fan and John Lennon has inspired "I Met the Walrus," a five-minute Canadian film contending for an Oscar for best animated short. Think "Almost Famous" with the Beatles. Except this portrait of a young boy in a dream landscape is told from his lips. The voice track for "I Met the Walrus" is based on an interview Jerry Levitan did 39 years ago with a surprisingly accommodating John Lennon. Levitan, now a lawyer in Toronto, recalls doorstepping as a fake photographer to get into Lennon and Yoko Ono's room at the city's King Edward Hotel. "My heart was beating so fast. I was like Al Pacino in 'The Godfather,' where he's in the restaurant with the planted gun and about to kill the cop," he says, remembering how he summoned the courage to knock at Lennon's door.
Adviser: Shooter was a good student
As a junior, he was a peer helper. As a sophomore, he was on the chess team and a supporter of the fine arts program. "Fine arts was a way to escape reality, and at the same time they gave you new goals to reach," he was quoted in his sophomore yearbook. Catherine Manske of Palatine graduated a year ahead of Kazmierczak but said she hung out with him frequently in the two years they were on band together. She played flute while he was a tenor saxophonist. "Neither one of us were that good, so we would talk a lot. He liked to hang out with the older kids," Manske said. "He was one of the nicest kids at the school and really normal. I don't think he was on any medication when I knew him." She remembered one quirky thing. He signed her 1997 yearbook with "don't hit any old ladies crossing the road." "We thought that was kind of weird," said Manske, who graduated with Kazmierczak's sister.
Foe of pipeline finds plot in lost notebook Notes: 'Ignore negative ...
With several witnesses looking on, including one with a digital camera, Southern Nevada Water Authority staff member Andy Belanger removed the rubber band from the padded notebook and carefully removed its contents. One by one, each document, map and handwritten note was run through a photocopier and returned to its place in the notebook. When a page was copied incorrectly, the duplicate was shown to the witnesses so they could see what it was before it was torn in half and thrown away. The process took more than 15 minutes and was executed with the care of election workers or crime scene investigators. Watching from the doorway of the copy room, a water authority official couldn't help but laugh. "It's not often we have a whodunit," he said. .
Trail camera can be hunter's best friend
One of the neatest inventions of the last decade is undoubtedly the trail camera. The mainstream media, Internet and our e-mail box is flooded with cool, unbelievable and astounding pictures of wildlife. Trail cameras have been around for years but only in the last five has there been an explosion in their use. With features increasing as prices drop, it won't be too long before every tree in the woods will have a recording device attached. If you aren't a hunter, you might not understand the hullabaloo. Hunters, however, understand that trail cameras have revolutionized the manner in which we scout for deer or other big game. Instead of sitting for untold unproductive hours before the season just to observe the area, you can simply put out a trail camera or two and more effectively monitor the daily routine of all the deer in your area.
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