Tuesday evening: This and that

1. I know it's terrible, but every time I hear about Maoist rebels in Indian, I think of cats in berets looking like Che Guevera.

2. I am a geek. I am covering hockey tomorrow and Friday, and I spent about 30 minutes examining possible American Hockey League playoff-clinching scenarios.

3. I am boosting the signal, because Coronation is looking for Gate volunteers, and Barbeta specifically referred to it as Gate.

Greetings Again.

I am requesting help at the Gate for Coronation. I need  2 people at 9 AM, 1 person each at 10 & 11 AM, as well as 3 or 4 people each at 12 and 1 PM.

These are 1 hour shifts so you won't get too chilled. It will be FUN!

You can reply at harpnfiddle @ pobox.com (without the spaces)

Lady Barbeta

4. It would have been spiffy if the Albany paper had noted, somewhere in its UConn-Stanford women's championship preview that the Stanford coach attended U. Albany.

5. Interesting changes at Yelp.

6. Today we lost one of the most important women in American History -- Wilma Mankiller.

Rapid City Journal

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Former Cherokee Nation Chief Wilma Mankiller, one of the few women ever to lead a major American Indian tribe, has died. She was 64.

Tribal spokesman Mike Miller said Mankiller, who became one of the nation's most visible American Indian leaders during her 10 years as chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, died Tuesday.

Mankiller had battled lymphoma, breast cancer and several other health problems. On March 2, 2010, Mankiller's husband, Charlie Soap, announced that his wife had stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer.

As the first female chief of the Cherokees, serving from 1985 to 1995, Mankiller led the tribe in tripling its enrollment, doubling employment and building new health centers and children's programs.

7. Below is an X-ray of Corey Williams' knee cap. Corey is a freshman pitcher at Vanderbilt University who took a line drive to the knee, which split his knee cap in half. Here is a video of Williams still making the throw to first and getting the batter out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nle8-1K-wTw

Mattel playing games with Scrabble?

There was much teeth-gnashing on the Web today after Mattel announced a new version of Scrabble, which will allow proper names.

Here's a good summary from CNet.

Don't worry, everyone. The Scrabble you know and love isn't changing.

When I read this morning that starting this July, the Scrabble rules will change to allow the use of proper nouns, I had to check today's date to make sure it wasn't somehow still April Fools' Day.

But no, according to every calendar I could find, today is April 6, and so the story from the BBC seemed to have been the real deal. In that story, a Mattel spokesperson is quoted as saying the rule change, which is expected to be introduced in a new version of Scrabble to be released in July, will "add a new dimension" to the game and "introduce an element of popular culture into the game."

Fantastic, I thought, as I found other versions of the story littering the Web everywhere, and went looking around the Web for similar news like, for example, the NBA will soon allow players to run up the court without dribbling, the Senate will allow cloture with 45 votes, the Federal Aviation Administration is now happy for you to breathe cigarette smoke into your cell phone in the bathroom on a plane . . . .

Details on EK Coronation Auction

Here are some details for the auction to benefit the Pennsic Royal Fund scheduled for Coronation this Saturday.

This will be a ticket-style auction. You will be able to buy a length of raffle tickets for $5, and then put the raffle tickets into the cups for whichever items you are most interested in. You may know this as a ticket-tray auction.

The auction begins at 11 a.m., and we will start drawing the winners at 4 p.m. This will work a lot better if people are there at 4 p.m. to pick up any items they win. You may have others pick up for you.

There will also be packages of cookies and other items available for a set price.

Finally, the “Ladies In Their Undergarments” ( http://tinyurl.com/medievalundies) calendar will be on sale.

We are still looking for donation items. This is an excellent time of year to donate a service or item for a camping event, for instance an invitation for two people to dine at your camp, or, say, a beer-tasting for four Friday night at War of the Roses.

In addition, if you are autocrating an event and could donate admission for a certain number of people, that would be very cool.

Please contact me at liamstliam (at) gmail.com.

If you are dropping items off, I plan to be at the auction table by 10 a.m. at the latest.

Several folks have commented that they would be willing to sit at the auction table.

I am covered from 2 p.m. on (though I could use a second person from 2-3 p.m.)

That leaves hourly shifts starting at 10, 11, 12 and 1.

Court is scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. and should end around 1 p.m., if that is going to play into your decision.

Again, please contact me at that address.

Thank you for your indulgence.

Liam