Morning!!!!! Wake up!!!! It's August 18, 2008!!

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY BEFORE FRESHMAN MOVE IN AT UOP!!!!

AHHH!!!!!

Okay. I'm calm.

August 18 is the 230th day of the year (231st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 135 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this date today, helium was discovered, Jimi Hendrix played the last unofficial day of Woodstock, and Dennis Rader was sentenced to 125 years in prison.

Happy Birthday to Frances Bean Cobain (daughter Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love), Selena Silver (don't say anything if you know who she is), Edward Norton, Felipe Calderon, and Robert Redford.

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Endorsements pure gold for Phelps

Having completed his Olympics gold rush, U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps is now poised to make another haul -- this time of the endorsement variety.

Phelps already is collecting about $5 million a year in endorsement checks from companies like Visa -- payments that came after he won six gold medals during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

His performance in Beijing, where he won a record eight gold medals, puts him in line to earn much more.

"He may be at $30, $40, $50 million a year in endorsements after all this is said and done," said David Harrow of the National Sports Lawyers Association.

 

Lost baby whale thinks yacht is mom

Australian media say a lost humpback whale calf has bonded with a yacht it seems to think is its mother.

The 1- to 2-month-old calf was first sighted Sunday in waters off north Sydney, and on Monday tried to suckle from a yacht, which it would not leave.

Rescuers towed the yacht out to sea, and the calf finally detached from the boat but still swam nearby, Australian Broadcasting Corp. and Channel 10 television news reported.

 

Converting gas-powered cars to electric

Larry Horsley loves that he doesn't buy much gas, even though he drives his '95 Chevy S-10 back and forth to work each day.

Horsley, a self-described do-it-yourselfer, simply plugs his truck into an electric wall outlet in his Douglasville, Georgia, garage and charges it overnight, instead of buying gasoline refined from mostly imported oil.

"If I can keep a dollar from going overseas, I'll spend two dollars," he said. The whole conversion, including the truck, cost him about $12,000, which parts dealers say is about standard.

...

The entire process is "basically straightforward," he said, after four months driving it on electric.

"Anyone who has basic mechanical skills can build one of these," Horsley said. "But it takes time," he said, about three months. Most of that period was spent waiting for the parts to be shipped.

 

 

Bear maulings up around Anchorage

Most times, in Alaska, the bear eats you.

But this summer, in a record year for maulings, Devon Rees managed a draw with the grizzly that leapt onto him as he sauntered home between a stream brimming with salmon and the busiest highway in the state.

"Bear comes flying out, gets its fight on," said Rees, 18, nursing his wounds on the couch of his grandmother's trailer perhaps 60 yards from the scene of the Aug. 4 battle. Bandages covered puncture wounds on the inside of both his thighs. His left eye was puffy from the swat of a massive paw.

"She was moving around like a dog will when it's fighting," said the 5-foot-11-inch, 215-pound Rees, who had been at a friend's house until 2 a.m. watching a movie called "Never Back Down." "It was fist to claw."

 

Ethier's home run gets Dodgers into tie for first

SI Scouting Report: Brad Ziegler

Bonds likely won't play in '08; grievance unlikely too

Woman accused of beating up fiance at prenup party

A Poulsbo woman was jailed after being accused of beating up her fiance at their prenuptial party. Kitsap County sheriff's deputies said the woman's 12-year-old son told her he saw her fiance kissing one of her women friends early Thursday morning.

Deputies said the woman, 31, gave her friends the boot, told her fiance to leave, too, and then started hitting him in the face.

When he left the house, they say, she tackled him football-style, punched him some more, threw his watch into the bushes and broke his glasses.

RAWR.

Seattle relieved to lose its high tech toilets

Cops say alleged robber locked keys in getaway car

Egyptian septuplets' mom hopes to hold them soon

DUMP! :]