The Milestone Mo-Tel today. Winners get one free night. Losers get two. (That's the second time we've used that joke today.) If the whole world loves a winner, we have a weekend full of love ahead of us. Let's get started! The most obvious winners will be declared Thursday when either Clint Robertson or Brandy Kuentzel wins the right to become Donald Trump's latest Apprentice for one year. (We hope that the loser isn't stuck for two years ...) One of the three remaining teams on "The Amazing Race" will win a million smackers on Sunday. (Perhaps eating that sheep's head may have been worth it.) It's almost guaranteed that none of these winners will make Barbara Walters' list of the year's "Most Fascinating People," (most fascinating to her, anyway ...) but we’ll find out for sure Thursday. (Our guess for #1 on her list? The cameraman who smears the Vaseline all over the lens that photographs her.) And on Friday, they'll be handing out the Nobel Prizes. The Nobels aren't like the Oscars; everyone already knows who won and the winners have actually accomplished something that matters, rather than playing loveable oddballs. Saturday we'll see some sports winners. In the afternoon, someone (Cam Newton? Andrew Luck? LaMichael James?) will win the Heisman Trophy as the nation's finest college football player, and in the evening, either Georges St-Pierre or Josh Koscheck will take the welterweight championship at UFC 124 in Montreal. We assume the combatants will not resort to wheeling around the ring in roller skates, but while it would be appropriate (given that Thursday marks the anniversary of their 1884 patent), we'd have to warn them that such a thing would be just plain dangerous.) Sunday also marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore, which ensured that George W. Bush became the nation's 43rd president. Whether that made the country a winner or a loser, we'll leave up to you. Falling into a similar category is Larry King's retirement from his CNN talk show on Friday. (As with President Bush, we won't say whether that's a plus or a minus.) Weary travelers were winners 85 years ago Sunday, when the Milestone Mo-Tel, the world's first motel (short for "motor hotel"), opened in San Luis Obispo, California. If we stretch the definition of "winner" to include those whose birthdays fall this weekend, then we're lousy with winners. For example, Thursday sees the birthdays of both Margaret Hamilton (1902) and Redd Foxx (1922). Hamilton is best known for her role as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 classic, "The Wizard of Oz." Despite her indelible portrayal of one of the screen's great villains, Hamilton loved children and was a lifelong advocate for charities that benefitted kids and animals. Foxx was someone whose work, on the other hand, was decidedly not for kids. A veteran of the black vaudeville entertainment venues known as the "Chitlin' Circuit," Foxx recorded a series of "party records" in the 1950s that were both filthy and hilarious. He reached a mainstream fame in the '70s when he starred in "Sanford and Son," where his frequent feigned heart attacks were one of the show's running gags. In a supreme irony, he suffered an actual heart attack while rehearsing for another television show, but no one believed was it real until it was too late. Sunday would have been the 95th birthday of Frank Sinatra. The greatest popular singer of the 20th century, Sinatra was also an Oscar-winning actor, starred in numerous TV specials that consisted of nothing but him singing with his guests, and was the biggest attraction in Las Vegas when that title actually meant something. Monday, we celebrate the 192nd birthday of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln who was criticized in her time for her extravagant and spendthrift ways, and committed to a psychiatric hospital by her son Robert. While she was undoubtedly depressed, wouldn't any woman who’d lived through the death of three sons and the murder of her husband (while sitting next to him) feel the same? She was eventually declared competent and released, but her health was broken, and she died three years later. If birthday celebrants are winners, so too are those is show business who meet success, like performers and lovers of country music, who can celebrate the 83rd anniversary of the first broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry on Friday. The Opry has been a staple of radio and television in the decades since it debuted, highlighting the best in country, from Hank Williams and Minnie Pearl to Clint Black and Carrie Underwood. Someone who's appeared at the Opry (but has yet to be inducted into its member ranks) is Taylor Swift. Perhaps the Opry has been waiting for her to turn 21 - in which case, it need wait no longer! The Grammy-winning singer reaches her majority on Monday. Thursday will see the annual airing of the Rankin-Bass animated Christmas special, "The Year without a Santa Claus," which features memorable turns by Snow Miser and Heat Miser (who are also not members of the Opry). Friday is also the 55th anniversary of the "Mighty Mouse Playhouse's" television premiere. In TV's early days, broadcasters were desperate for material to air, so old movies and cartoons were natural fodder, and Paul Terry's "Mighty Mouse" cartoons were some of the oddest programs to come to the screen. Mini operatic melodramas, they featured the eponymous rodent singing his was through battles with the villainous Oil Can Harry. Mighty made a brief comeback in the 80s in a brilliant TV series produced by Ralph Bakshi, but he's been in retirement since self-appointed censor Donald Wildmon mistook the mouse's flower sniffing for drug use. (No, really.) Wildmon isn't the only well-intentioned, if-misguided, protector we mention, though, since Thursday is the anniversary of the founding of the John Birch Society, which has been protecting Americans from the Communists lurking under their beds for 52 years. Legitimate do-gooders have something to celebrate this weekend, too. Thursday is the U.N's annual International Anti-Corruption Day, dedicated to wiping out, well, corruption and promoting the rule of law, and Friday is both Human Rights Day and the beginning of Human Rights Week. We end by noting a delightful juxtaposition on Thursday. December 9, 1792, saw the first cremation in America, when statesman Henry Laurens died at his plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, and per his will, his body was burned. On the same date in 1886, Clarence Birdseye, inventor of frozen food was born. We're reminded of the choice Curly Howard was given in a Three Stooges short: to be burned at the stake or to have his head cut off. He opted for the former, on the reasoning that a hot stake's better than a cold chop. Good night! Suggested Sites... NBC: The Apprentice - Trump's hair; you're fired! CBS: The Amazing Race - who will be eliminated -- next? UFC 124 - they're at it yet again. The Very First Motel - the story of the Milestone. Sinatra.com - the Chairman of the Board.

Directory categories: Reality TV, College Football, Al gore, Hotels and Motels, Country Musicians

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Alfred Nobel: "Boom goes the dynamite!" Welcome to this the very special Nobel Prize-week edition of The Spark! Let others bask in the sham glow of the Oscars and Emmys. The Nobels are the Big Prizes -- as we'll see as we travel through the week. We're too excited to wait, so let's begin! Monday: hile almost nothing can top the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which will be awarded today, we'd like to think that National Taco Day comes close. Celebrate medicine by clogging your arteries, we say! That's not all, though. This week is also World Space Week, commemorating not only the 1957 launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik I, (the world's first artificial satellite), but also landmarks like SpaceShipOne, which, in 2004, became the first private craft to fly into space, winning the Ansari X Prize. And don't forget World Animal Day, a day to celebrate all our furry, feathered, and finned friends. (Many of whom them may be uninvited guests in the athletes' village at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India. Athletes and animals vying for the same living space seems a scenario tailor-made for Buster Keaton, whose 115th birthday we note. Keaton was the greatest of the clowns who populated silent film in the 1910s and 1920s; his physical feats and creativity were seldom equaled. And although his personal life hit the skids in the early '30s, he never stopped working, and he lived long enough to see his films rediscovered in the 1960s, and his genius acknowledged. Today is also the birthday of writer Damon Runyon (1880). Runyon started out as a street-wise sportswriter, reporter, and columnist in 1920s New York, and he came to know a vast number of characters from all strata of society, from gamblers and con men to socialites and evangelists. He portrayed them in a language all his own, in a series of short stories that paint the Big Apple as a giant amusement park. Those stories were adapted into the musical "Guys and Dolls," which opened in 1950 and became an instant classic. For all the characters Runyon described, few had the colorful grotesqueness of the cast of "Dick Tracy," the venerable comic strip that made its debut in the Detroit Mirror this day in 1931. Created by writer and artist Chester Gould, Detective Tracy fought such oddities as The Mole, Pruneface, "Itchy" Oliver, and Flattop Jones (not to mention Flattop Jr.). Gould died in 1985, but the strip continues to this day with its unique mix of grotesque villains who meet gruesome deaths. Fun for the whole family! Not as bizarre -- but with as colorful a cast of characters -- was the Orient Express, the luxury train that ran from Paris to Istanbul starting in 1883. In novels and films, the train's passengers are usually portrayed as committing espionage, blackmail, murder, or any number of other unsavory exploits. While the original train stopped running in 2009, a private company picked up both the route and the rail cars -- although nowadays the full route is offered only twice a year. We were going to remark that, if any of those characters on the Orient Express gets too nefarious, the Supreme Court is back in session today and could take care of them. But of course, the Court has no jurisdiction in Europe, so the point is moot. The Court does have jurisdiction in South Dakota, where, in 1927, the first carving began on Mount Rushmore. Over the decades, there have been calls for other presidents to join Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, but those petitioners are out of luck, since there's no more rock that can be sculpted. Tuesday: Today's Nobel category: physics. Who will follow in the footsteps of Einstein, Bohr, and the Curies? Today's birthdays: Larry Fine (1902), the most valuable of the Three Stooges, who provided the necessary buffer between Moe and Curly, Shemp, Joe, and Curly Joe. Ray Kroc (also 1902), the milkshake-machine salesman who, became the head of McDonald's and terrorized untold millions of cows. In 1922, cartoonist Bil Keane was born. Keane created "The Family Circus." Even though the strip has long since been taken over by Jeff Keane (the red-haired, oval-headed one), it has spawned innumerable parodies and is both loved and loathed by millions. Not realy "birthdays," but also making their debuts today were "Monty Python's Flying Circus" (which premiered on the BBC in 1969) and the first of the James Bond films, "Dr. No," which opened in 1962. (Let it be noted that Sean Connery was not the first Bond, though. Barry Nelson portrayed American secret agent "Jimmy Bond" in a 1954 television adaptation of "Casino Royale.") And not exactly a "debut," but something to be noted is that October 5 is the most common birthday in the United States. That makes sense, since it would mean that most of those children were conceived on New Year's Eve. (We'll let you do the rest of the math ...) All those children need education, so it's appropriate that Tuesday is also World Teachers Day. Wednesday: This time of year, it's hard to not think of baseball, especially with the Major League playoffs beginning today, so it's fortunate that there are two baseball-related events. In 1880, the Cincinnati Red Stockings were kicked out of the National League for selling beer. (Hard to imagine any franchise today going without beer sales.) And speaking of "going without," in 1945, restaurateur Billy Sianis and his pet billy goat were ejected from Wrigley Field during Game 4 of the World Series. Sianis took the occasion to curse the team, which went on to lose the Series -- to which the team has never since returned. (The Cubs, of course, won their last world championship in 1908.) A winning team needs chemistry, which is perhaps why the Nobel Committee chose today to award the prize for that discipline. (We're hoping to win the Nobel for strained transitions.) For those not so interested in baseball, but who are still looking for a pastime, we offer Balloons Around the World, dedicated to those artists who twist and sculpt inflated rubber bladders. If balloons don't tickle your fancy, you might head to Dallas, where the Fall Toy Preview opens, giving consumers and retailers a clue as to what will be the hot toys this holiday season. We have to wonder what will be this year's Cabbage Patch Kid, the red-hot can't-get-it doll that debuted 27 years ago tomorrow. If toys and balloons aren't your speed, you might screen "The Jazz Singer," to commemorate its 1927 opening. The film wasn't the first talking picture by any means, but the combination of Al Jolson and its story proved a powerhouse that was the death-knell for silent movies. If musicals aren't your speed, how about a movie starring Bette Davis? Davis may well have been the greatest actress in the history of the movies, garnering 11 Academy Award nominations (winning two), whose career spanned the decades from 1931 until her death on this day in 1989. Davis did a couple of Broadway musicals (which is unfortunate, given her overall lack of a voice), but neither of their scores made the "Great American Songbook," so you’'ll have to depend on Michael Feinstein, whose PBS series on the Songbook begins airing tonight. Thursday: Birthdays of the day: 1859: Thomas J. Wise. Wise was one of England's foremost bibliographic experts, who made a fortune selling rare books and first editions for outrageous prices. The books Wise sold were rare and first editions, but not in the way he alleged. The fact was that he forged most of them. (None of them, of course, would have been alleged to be by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, which will be announced today.) Rssian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin turns 58 today. We assume he'll pose shirtless and perform feats of strength, as is his wont. We further assume he won't don a black t-shirt and try to make his biceps look huge, as does today's other birthday boy, Simon Cowell, born in 1959. And please, if you would, take a moment on this, the ninth anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan, to reflect on all the lives lost and changed forever. Friday: The late Harvey Pekar would have turned 71 today. Pekar's comic series "American Splendor" gave new life to the independent comics movement, as he turned his mundane daily life into art. Not so arty are the books of R.L. Stine, who was born in 1943. Stine and his innumerable ghost writers have turned out scores of young adult horror novels designed to scare kids and throw parents into throes of agony because their children aren't reading better books. In movies, actress Sigourney Weaver turns 61 (and it's a damn fine-looking 61, we may add), and the biopic of Secretariat opens, just four days after the 21st anniversary of his death. Secretariat was probably the greatest racehorse of all time, whose athleticism and personality won him millions of fans -- and many of whose racing records still stand, decades after they were set. One of the few awards Secretariat did not receive was the Nobel Peace Prize, which will be announced today. Saturday: Something for everyone today. It's the birthday of Lt. Col. Alfred Dreyfus (1859), the French Army officer who was falsely convicted of treason, and whose imprisonment on Devil's Island sparked international outrage and exposed a vast strain of anti-Semitism running through France's government and society. For the more sensationally-minded, it's the 120th birthday of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. "Sister Aimee" was a circus in herself, exhibiting equal measures of religious fervor and a genius for self-promotion -- to the point where she faked her own kidnapping in 1926. Over the decades, though, her fame faded, and she died of an accidental overdose of Seconal in 1944. (And, coincidentally, a television film was made about her fake kidnapping that starred Bette Davis as her mother.) As loud and boisterous as McPherson was, Jacques Tati (1909) was silent. Tati was a French writer/actor/director who achieved worldwide fame with his comedies featuring himself as the befuddled Monsieur Hulot, a gentle and quiet man who was baffled by the modern world. In December, "The Illusionist," based on an unproduced screenplay of his, will open in the U.S. -- starring a animated version of Tati. For the adventurous, Kona, Hawaii, will today feature the Ironman Triathlon World Championships, wherein competitors will take on a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike race, and a 26.2-mile run -- and then ask for more. If that sounds too strenuous, you might want to take a trip to Manhattan, where the ice rink at Rockefeller Center will open. Seems a bit early to be taking part in winter sports, but we suppose anything is possible in New York. Of course, even skating may seem a bit much for some, so we'll just remind them that it's Moldy Cheese Day, devoted to the tasting and enjoyment of smelly fromage -- the smellier and moldier, the better. Lastly, we note with sadness that, had history run a different course, we'd be celebrating the 70th birthday of the late Beatle John Lennon and the 30 years of music we've been robbed of because of his untimely murder. Sunday: To end the week, we suggest you dig out your fancy duds to celebrate Tuxedo Day, which marks the anniversary of the tuxedo dinner jacket making its debut in New York City in 1886. The coat got its origins when the members of the exclusive Tuxedo Club in Tuxedo Park, NY (and you wondered how the coat got its name ...) began looking for a new style of jacket that was less formal than a cutaway but was still dressy. If you’'re in a mood to travel, you might take your tux and head to London for the grand reopening of the Savoy Hotel. The Savoy originally opened in 1899 and was the last word in luxury and opulence, featuring electric lights and elevators, and bathrooms with hot and cold running water inside most of the room. The hotel's been closed since 2007 while it's undergone a $350 million renovation, which promises to bring it into the 21stst century and beyond. If London sounds a bit expensive, you might try traveling to Pyongyang to celebrate North Korea's Party Foundation. After all, it's the 65thth anniversary of the founding of Workers Party of Korea. If you run into Kim Jong Il, you might give him a lovely cake (since it's National Cake Decorating Day) -- though you might likelier be reminded that it's World Mental Health Day. But the Dear Leader isn't the only reminder of the varying degrees of mental well-being. For example, today would have been the 86thth birthday of film director Ed Wood. Wood is generally considered to be the worst director who ever lived, and his masterpiece, "Plan 9 from Outer Space," is thought to be one of the worst movies ever made. (We've seen worse, personally.) Wood was less mentally unstable than he was incompetent, so who else might we think of when speaking of poor mental health? How about the good citizens of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, who bought and dismantled London Bridge, moved it to their desert town, and reopened it on this day in 1971? Or the well-meaning folks who'll be traveling to Ashton, England, for the World Conker Championships? What is conkers?, you may ask. It's a game where two players take horse-chestnut seeds, run stringa through them, and then swing them at an opponent's conker. The first player to break the other's seed wins. We don't get it, but they love it. Our final note for the week is to call attention to the day's date: 10/10/10. 10+10+10=30, and "-30-” is the old newspaperman's code for the end of a story, which we'll take as our cue. See you next time! -30- Suggested Sites... Food Network: Taco Recipes - food doesn't get much simpler or better. International Buster Keaton Society - how many people still love Buster? Damfino! Roadside America: More and More Rushmore - Mount Rushmore: it's not just for South Dakota anymore. How to Make Balloon Animals - anything more difficult than a snake is beyond us. Sound Film History - let's hear it for the movies.

Directory categories: Civilian Space Travel, Animals, Insets, and Pets, Silent Movie Actors and Directors, Comic Strips, Passenger Trains

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Look at those masses huddling! (Photo by Shane Gallagher) America met its biggest sweetheart this week in 1885. On June 17th, the French transport ship Isère arrived in New York Harbor, docking at Bedloe's Island two days later. Not many sweethearts arrive in a box, but this one did; in fact, she arrived in 214 specially-built boxes, some of which weighed several tons. The "sweetheart" in question was, of course, the Statue of Liberty -- or, to give the lady her proper title, "Liberty Enlightening the World." Miss Liberty had last seen daylight in 1884 when her completed parts were assembled and she had towered over Paris. In fact, she would have been ready earlier (insert joke here about ladies taking ages to get ready ...) but since the Americans seemed to be dragging their heels in building her pedestal, the French decided to take it a bit easy on their end, too. We can scarcely blame them, since funding for that pedestal was by no means assured. It wasn't until two months after Lady Liberty had arrived on U.S. soil that enough money had been pledged and a home on Bedloe's Island was guaranteed for her -- nut thern, no one likes to see a lady out on the streets! She was greeted on June 19th by a flotilla of small boats, a cavalcade of cannon, and a hearty shout of "Bung jaw!" by Adolph L. Sanger, president of the New York Board of Aldermen. Sanger was "grievously upbraided" by his fellow aldermen, though not for his linguistic failings, but for his failure to bring any beer or sandwiches to this auspicious occasion. As it turns out, Sanger would have plenty of time to make those sandwiches. He'd have time to brew some beer, too, since Miss Liberty's full unveiling had to wait until 1886 -- and once again, it was the fault of that pedestal -- the damn thing still wasn't ready for her! In defense of that pedestal, even today it's a mighty piece of engineering. Built on top of Fort Wood (an 11-pointed star shaped fort), Mademoiselle Liberty's pedestal is an 89-foot high piece of masonry that remains one of the heaviest ever built. Reinforced with huge girders that continue upward to become part of the statue itself. So strong is that structure that, according to the National Park Service, a gust of wind capable of blowing the Statue over would have to be almost strong enough to blow over the island itself as well. On April 22nd, 1886, the last piece of the pedestal was finally completed and jubilant workers threw silver coins into the mortar. All that remained was for Liberty herself to be rebuilt, which took just four short months -- all ready for her first official public appearance on October 28th, when she was finally unveiled by President Grover Cleveland. Not a bad debut for a young immigrant girl from France. Suggested Sites... The History of Liberty - all you ever wanted to know about the Statue. Wikipedia: Statue of Liberty - facts, figures, and history. National Park Service: Statue of Liberty Stats - because who doesn't love numbers? New York Harbor Parks - a local take on Liberty.

Directory categories: Statue of Liberty, New York, New York City History, 19th Century French History, Grover Cleveland

Archived under: 19th Century, American History, Anniversaries, Architecture, Buildings, Europe, France, History, Immigration, New York, Parks, Presidents, Recreation and Travel, Sculpture, Statue of Liberty, Tourist Attractions, Travel, United States, Women

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The Olympic Flame -- rendered in snow (Photo by Tim Gillin) It's time to break out the axes and chisels: snow sculpture season has officially begun! I'm one of those people who considers it a major accomplishment if I'm able to somehow stack three balls of snow so that they vaguely resemble a snowman, so I'm in complete awe of what goes on at the world's various snow-carving events. Teams of snow sculptors flock from around the globe to snow-sculpting competitions and create some amazing and complex pieces -- with tragically short life spans. The most well-known of these events are Zehnders of Frankenmuth in Michigan and the Budweiser International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge, Colorado. But there are also smaller, local festivals, including the GCI Snow Sculpture Competition in Alaska, the Idaho Snow Sculpting Festival in McCall, Snow Days in Chicago, and the Illinois Snow Sculpting Competition in Rockford. While Zehnders features ice carving as well, most of these local competitions seem to focus solely on snow sculpture. The size and artistry of these sculptures makes the competitions great family attractions and media events. And, as a bonus, there's generally an opportunity to see how these works of art are made, since they are, of necessity, built on-site. Of course, this shouldn't take all the fun out of making your own lowly snowman or other amateur snow art, nor should ambitious ice swans prevent anyone from having fun building with ice. So go out and play! Suggested Sites... The Ice Hotel - hotel in Lapland for people who reeeeally like ice. The Ten Thumbs Guide to Snow Sculpting - a snow sculptor explains his work. St. Paul Winter Carnival - one of the oldest winter carnivals in the world. Michigan Tech Winter Carnival - carrying on the snow statue tradition since 1922. National Ice Carving Association - note to amateur ice carvers: consult these folks before you pick up the chainsaw.

Directory categories: Ice and Snow Sculpture, Ice and Snow Sculpting Events, Ice Sculpting Supplies and Services, Winter Festivals, Winter

Archived under: Arts, Contests, Crafts, Design, Festivals, Ice, Outdoors, Recreation and Travel, Snow, Tourist Attractions, Winter

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The Janes Family in 1955 (Photo by Melissa Gutierrez) It's hard to believe it's the end of 2009 already. It seems like the year started about ten minutes ago -- and that it was the turn of the century about a week ago. As has been our custom the last couple of years, we approached our crack Spark staff and asked them what they were proudest of in the past twelve months. Michelle is learning to be less of a packrat after losing thirteen years' worth of email in a series of computer disasters. She's finally stopped crying, the uncontrollable twitching is getting better, and she’s pretty sure that a few years of therapy will help her learn to let go. Mike: This year, I finally achieved my New Year's Resolution of losing 40 pounds, cutting out all sweets, and I can bench-press three times my own weight! Next year, I'm going to win the lottery! Heather finally became a grown-up this year when she ditched the twin and bought her first full-size bed at the age of 25. She dreams big, so next year she's hoping to upgrade her current dresser to one that actually has wooden drawers. Eugenia shot the oyster. No one else was harmed in the process. Sarah: I read 35 books and purchased approximately 150 more. Chris: I've managed to convince my four-year-old picky eater, that yes, potato chips are in fact made out of potatoes. Next year's goal is to get him to actually eat potatoes. Dave fulfilled a lifelong dream of visited both Metropolis (the home of Superman) and Portmeirion, Wales (where the original "Prisoner" TV series was filmed). Fortunately, he was able to avoid "Rover" and escape. Next year, he hopes to visit Gotham City, Deadwood, and Freedonia. Helene ne comprend toujours pas ces Américains fous. Richard still hasn't been seen since he succumbed to his Facebook addiction. Best wishes to you and yours over the holidays and in the coming year (we’d say "the coming decade," but any fool knows that the first decade of the 21st century won’t end until December 31, 2010). Love, The Spark Household Suggested Sites... Shelfari - tell the world about the books you're reading and how you liked them. 10 Tips For Picky Eaters - the Mayo Clinic tells how to cure them, not encourage them. The Invention of the Potato Chip - you can thank George Crum of Saratoga Springs, NY. Portmeirion Village - more than a hotel, it's an icon. Awkward Family Photos - the Janes Family above would fit right in.

Directory categories: Weight Loss, Weight Training, Furniture Retailers, Potatoes, The Prisoner

Archived under: Books, Candy, Collecting, Computers, Cooking, Deadwood, Decorating, Design, Diets, Eating, Holidays, In Character, Motivation, New Year, Reading, Recreation and Travel, Roadside Attractions, Shopping, Social Networking, Superman, TV, The Spark, Tourist Attractions, United Kingdom, Yahoo!

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