Steve Nash is a rare thing in the NBA, it really is an amazing journey he has taken to be an MVP of the NBA. Little white guys don’t usually get very far in the modern NBA, or so I’m told.

The Phoenix Suns have made the most of this extremely talented guy.

I personally like that he comes from a soccer family and might end up playing and/or owning part of an English premier league team, Tottenham Hotspurs.

Regardless of all that, great commercial and Nash seems like the real deal on and off the court.

Just what this world needs, more wealthy dogs.

What is running through the minds of rich folk leaving their fortunes to their beloved pets?

I mean, seriously, these people leave billions to pets who have no idea what they have inherited.

I just read an article about 3 happy pups who inherited $800,000.  Now, they aren’t as rich as Leona Helmsley’s little maltese Trouble, but they still have a $400,000 estate, plus the other $400,000.

These people must be insane to leave that kind of money in the hands of their dogs.  Their little pooches are only going to live another 6 months to a year after their owner’s passing… so why?

The dogs — named Buckshot, Katie and Obu-Jet — inherited $400,000 and a house in Hagerstown with the death last year of owner Ken Kemper. Altogether, their estate is worth about $800,000.

The beagle and two Labrador mixes were strays when Kemper adopted them. They now live at their house with caretaker Roy Grady.

They might not be aware of their wealth, but they do know that on one night a week Grady treats them to spaghetti dinner, with meatballs and garlic bread.

That’s it? vet bills and spaghetti with garlic bread?  they better be eating off a gold plate for only getting one day of luxury as rich dogs.

Read more about these living the rich life.

 Update 2/21/08: I was looking into this more when I ran across a video on MSNBC… MSNBC is sort of late on the story, but it is informational as well.  Click here to check it out.

Talk about volunteering, these women give up their uteruses for families to use. Although, the Indian women are making more than they would in 15 years, but, they still are devoting 9 months to a family.

These Indian women are doing a noble cause for families who have issues conceiving children on their own.

Dr. Nayna Patel, the woman behind Anand’s baby boom, defends her work as meaningful for everyone involved.

“There is this one woman who desperately needs a baby and cannot have her own child without the help of a surrogate. And at the other end there is this woman who badly wants to help her (own) family,” Patel said. “If this female wants to help the other one … why not allow that? … It’s not for any bad cause. They’re helping one another to have a new life in this world.”

Although, how long will the process continue without rich families just deciding that pregnancy is far too much work for their manicured hands?

Critics say the couples are exploiting poor women in India — a country with an alarmingly high maternal death rate — by hiring them at a cut-rate cost to undergo the hardship, pain and risks of labor.

“It raises the factor of baby farms in developing countries,” said Dr. John Lantos of the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, Mo. “It comes down to questions of voluntariness and risk.”

Patel’s surrogate mother agency is one who only accepts the people who are in serious need, or desire to have their own children. Patel only accepts those who cannot have children due to complications such as uterine cancer

Patel also makes sure that every surrogate mother is in good stable health, and as already had one child of their own.

This article was very interesting to me because I have always looked at adoption. I know that adoption is super expensive, but at the same time cost doesn’t matter when it comes to having a family of your own. I had never thought about the surrogate mother option. Thinking of the families who are desperate to have their own little children, surrogate mother sounds like a pleasant option, it’s cheap and Patel makes it sound safer with contracts. Unfortunately the market for surrogate mothers will become corrupt, just as corrupt as the adoption market.

You hear those horror stories about families being tricked into thinking they are getting a healthy baby girl from anywhere, China, Russian even the United States. They go through the process only to get conned into more fees, or the little girl could possibly get kidnapped and sold again. There are plenty of sick-minded fools out there only to make a buck. The surrogate market will be easily attacked if the Government doesn’t regulate.

Click to read more about Patel’s surrogate mother agency.

As if you didn’t know, Andrew Laidlaw of Kirkland, WA breaks 3 year old record.

That’s right, Andrew has done it and lives only minutes from me.

I must admit, Galaga was my fav arcade game.

Andrew Laidlaw of Kirkland, WA scored 2,729,350 points while playing on the TGTS settings, which allow the player to start with five ships and never earn any bonus ships. Andrew’s incredible video recorded performance includes these amazing statistics:

Ending Stage: 225
Number of Shots: 15,691
Number of Hits: 12,417
Accuracy Percentage: 79.2%

More here on Twin Galaxies - The Official Electronic Scoreboard

As for the title of the post, you really can get a Sweet Jesus doll at mysweetjesus.com, here is a little bit of copy if you need it from the site:

Welcome to MySweetJesus.com, the home of the adorable My Sweet Jesus doll. The My Sweet Jesus doll is cute and cuddly and brings comfort to Christians of all ages. He’s the perfect gift for Baby Showers, Baptisms, First Communions, Birthdays or any occasion! (Seniors love him, too!)
My Sweet Jesus is not only soft and comforting, he’s also a wonderful reminder that Jesus is with us always. Even if we just need a hug!

Click here to read the great reasons why you or a loved one should have a My Sweet Jesus Doll.

Read the touching story of the creation of the My Sweet Jesus Doll.

Presidential candidate Ron Paul voices his opinion about the death of Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto.

Bhutto led Pakistan from 1988-1990 and 1993-96, but both times the sitting president dismissed her amid corruption allegations. She was the first female prime minister of any Islamic nation.

Ron Paul also goes on to talk about how he feels about the war,

“Here we are right now we’ve supported Turkey all these years and turkey now is using our weapons and our money to bomb North Iraq, this has to quit.  How long can we continue to do this?  It just doesn’t serve out interest at all.” Ron Paul puts his opinion plain and simple.  Listen to his views on aiding other countries, he has interesting points.  He does not agree with the whole they don’t obey, we bomb them idea.

Looks like everyone has to be more careful at zoos.

Siberian Tiger, Tatiana, from the famous San Fransisco Zoo escapes from her enclosure and mauls three, one dead at the scene and two in stable condition at the hospital.

The two injured men, ages 19 and 23, were upgraded to stable condition Wednesday at San Francisco General Hospital after surgery to clean and close their wounds, said surgeon Rochelle Dicker. They suffered deep bites and claw cuts on their heads, necks, arms and hands.

Dicker said they were shaken up emotionally and would remain hospitalized for the day, but that because of their youth they would make a full recovery.

Unfortunately, the San Francisco medical examiner cannot identify the dead man, no one has called to claim the victim and he had no identification on him at the time of the attack.

My question is, how did this animal get out of its enclosure? The 300-pound tiger escaped from the enclosure, which included a 15-foot-wide moat and 20-foot-high walls. The zoo’s director is saying that the cat did not leave through an open door either. So, the only options are to have swam the moat and climbed the wall, or completely skipped the swimming and climbing and just leaped out into the public.

Those ideas seem a little far-fetched to me, I personally cannot see a 300-pound lazy tiger leaping that distance or climbing for that matter. Moreover, if it climbed, there would be claw marks in the wall of the enclosure. The crime scene, as they call it, is being investigated still.

Read more .

Update:

The first attack happened right outside the tiger’s enclosure — Sousa died at the scene. Another was about 300 yards away, in front of the zoo cafe. The police chief said the animal was mauling one of the survivors, and when officers yelled at it to stop, it turned toward them and they opened fire.

Only then did they see the third victim, police said.

The two injured men, 19- and 23-year-old brothers from San Jose, were in stable condition Wednesday at San Francisco General Hospital. They suffered deep bites and claw wounds on their heads, necks, arms and hands, said Dr. Rochelle Dicker, a surgeon. She said they were expected to recover fully.

Also, I was interested in this:

One zoo official insisted the tiger did not get out through an open door and must have climbed or leaped out. But Jack Hanna, former director of the Columbus Zoo, said such a leap would be an unbelievable feat and “virtually impossible.”

Instead, he speculated that visitors could have been fooling around and might have taunted the animal and perhaps even helped it get out by, say, putting a board in the moat.

Update Jan 2, 2008
More on Tatiana’s wild adventure in the San Fran Zoo:

According to police dispatch logs from the day of the attack, someone inside the cafe called 911 at 5:07 p.m. It is unclear when the brothers tried to notify people in the cafe about the attack.

The dispatch logs also show that zoo employees initially questioned whether early reports of the attack were coming from a mentally unstable person.

By 5:10 p.m. zoo employees reported that a tiger was loose, and by 5:13 p.m., the zoo was being evacuated and locked down.

For several minutes, the medics refused to enter the zoo until it had been secured. Meanwhile, zookeepers believed several tigers were loose, and hoped to tranquilize them.

“Zoo personnel have the tiger in sight and are dealing with it,” reads a 5:17 p.m. note on the transcript.

By 5:20 p.m., medics had located one victim — presumably Sousa — with a large puncture wound to his neck. The tiger was still loose.

As medics attended to the victim, an officer spotted the tiger sitting down before it fled and began attacking another victim, according to the logs.

At 5:27 p.m., less than 20 minutes after the initial reports, the officers killed the tiger.

Zoo officials say the tiger likely climbed over the wall of its enclosure, which was about 4 feet below the recommended minimum for U.S. zoos.

Wow, read that? Zoo in trouble now…

Queen Elizabeth has joined the many other YouTube members to deliver and broadcast her speeches in a more efficient way.

This is her Christmas speech for 2007, in the video you also get to see her very first broadcasted speech on TV from 1957.

The Queen’s channel also has archived broadcasts from her speeches over the last 50 years.

Buckingham Palace on Sunday said the 81-year-old monarch will post her traditional Christmas Day message — normally broadcast on television — on the video-sharing Web site as well this year.

At the same time, a new Royal Channel has been unveiled on YouTube, allowing Web surfers to view the queen’s first Christmas broadcast in 1957, as well as other archive footage of the royal family and its events.

This Queen is no ordinary 81 year-old, most 81 year-olds do not accept change well.  Last year her speech was broadcasted through podcast.  This year she hopes to reach out to a more diverse crowd with her YouTube account.

She is one hip lady, go check out her .
Also, read the rest of the article about her YouTube channel here.

One of the best things about Christmas is need for cable to run Die Hard. Not your traditional holiday film but one of the best action films ever made.

I have seen Die Hard every time it’s on and it never gets old. Just a great mix of action, humor and holiday spirit.

I couldn’t remember when it first came out (1988) so I went to IMDB and looked it up, as usual, I got caught up in the trivia.

Here is one I’m not sure any human should know but someone did. Even frame-by-frame it’s hard to see but it does look like a misspelling:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): On the ambulance used for the escape near the end, “Department” in “Fire Department” is misspelled “Deparment”. But, it isn’t a real ambulance, and furthermore, it was painted by people who don’t speak English.

Enjoy your day (Christmas celebrations or not).

Point of interest, Scene Stealers has Die Hard in “Eric’s Top 10 Non-Christmas Christmas Movies“

Paul Brant, a 70 year old man from Indiana, purchased a truck Friday using loose change. It is estimated that he had approximately $26,000 in quarters and dollar coins.

Paul Brant was raised to be ‘thrifty,’ his father’s advice obviously stuck.  The truck he purchased Friday was not the first large amount of money he has spent all in change.  Back in 1994 Brant purchased a new Dodge pickup and a new Dodge Neon using nearly $36,000 in quarters.

Brant had to be escorted to the dealership by a Sheriff and Deputy with his rolls of quarters.  The dealership called in an armored car to count and handle all the change.  Apparently banks won’t accept that much change, but Brant still got his new pickup, money is money.

“As long as you don’t put your hands back in the till, it really adds up,” he said.

Brant stored his change in coffee cans, water jugs and piggy banks over the years, and was escorted by sheriff’s deputies as he brought the rolled coins to the dealership.

Read the rest of the article here.

Who doesn’t love Chuck Norris, he is possibly the coolest icon ever.

Chuck Norris has been in the news recently for being a supporter of Mike Huckabee, video , and his recent lawsuit with Penguin Publishers.

Norris is suing Penguin Publishers for unfairly exploiting his name. They published the book The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 facts about the World’s Greatest Human back in November. Norris is upset because he thinks the comical book is misleading towards its readers, some of the ‘facts’ from the book portray Norris as engaged in illegal activities. Other ‘facts’ in the book are just racist and lewd, I can see why Chuck Norris would be upset about this book. But in all reality, the book is just in good fun. Chuck Norris could never make truth to any of those so called facts in the book, Chuck Norris is my homeboy.

The book capitalizes on “mythical facts” that have been circulating on the Internet since 2005 that poke fun at Norris’ tough-guy image and super-human abilities, the suit said.

It includes such humorous “facts” as “Chuck Norris’s tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried” and “Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits,” the suit said, as well as “Chuck Norris can charge a cell phone by rubbing it against his beard.”

To read the rest of the article go .

Check out more Chuck Norris facts here.

My favorite Chuck fact: “Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.”