I’m a news junkie, so I read a LOT of headlines in any given day. Last week, something that caught my eye was a lot of commentary on the wires about the possible phasing out of tax breaks from the government on things like updating your house to be more energy efficient, a.k.a “going green”.

That’s why I feel better when I hear about things like the BP Solar Decathlon. That’s when BP partners up with the U.S. Department of Energy to sponsor an event where 20 university teams from around the world design, build and operate livable, energy-efficient, and entirely solar-powered houses. It happens every other year and culminates in a week-long competition on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

This year, the Solar Decathlon is October 11–19. Trust me, that’s the PERFECT time to spend some time on the Mall. DC is splendid in mid October. I was born and raised in the area.

BP is one of the main corporate sponsors (actually, the only energy company sponsor) of the 2007 Solar Decathlon. They’ve been involved with the competition since its inception in 2002.

If you don’t live in the DC area and can’t get there to see the cool concepts being brought to the table by the participating teams, you can check out BP’s blog about the event. All of the teams, as well as an on-site reporter, will post throughout the competition. Check it out at www.bpsolardecathlon.com.

The more we all make advances in solar power and other energy-conserving tactics, the sooner we can look at the world and feel confident in our stewardship.

The media is finally reporting medical updates about John Graziano, the unfortunate passenger in Nick Bollea’s car that fateful night in August when Bollea (Hulk Hogan’s son) crashed his car into a tree in downtown Clearwater.

Court officials are calling Graziano “incapacitated”. A private nurse who has worked with Graziano says he is in a coma-like state, though his mother claims he is improving. In any event, Graziano is unable to make his own decisions and may live the rest of his life needing care around the clock. Tomorrow the courts will decide who is going to be named as his guardian.

Graziano is still listed as in critical condition at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg. Clearwater police have given the case to state prosecutors and they will determine whether to file charges against Bollea by next month.

I used to have an enviable credit rating. While my credit is still OK, it sure did take a hit during my marriage. The X wasn’t so great with money, if you know what I mean. The fact is, Americans who have credit issues or bad credit is steadily on the rise. I don’t need to seek credit counseling or special services just yet, but more and more often I speak to friends that do.

It’s a sign of the times that there would be a website called BadCreditOffers.com. It’s basically, as their tagline states, a user’s guide to bad credit. The site lists resources you can use to begin rebuilding your credit, be it through home loans, car loans, or credit cards. It’s essentially a listing of services and offers you can compare and contrast to seek what might work for your individual situation.

Be on the lookout to see more services such as this. Americans as a whole want to be people with admirable credit habits. We’ve all taken some hits with the real estate market, rising gas prices, and fluctuating job rates. There are a lot of people out there just looking to get back on track.

I was just cruising around the net looking at different teacher lesson plans, ferreting away good ideas in my noggin. I came across the lesson plan to end all lesson plans.

It involves showing a clip from Eddie Murphy’s The Nutty Professor film to teach the digestive system, including bacterial induced flatulence and the lower bowel area. Ahem. I know.

The clip shows the Klump family around the dinner table eating and being generally gassy.

Mama Klump: I think I do remember hearing somethin’ on TV about colon cleansin’. They say everyone should have one. I’m thinkin’ about gettin’ me an appointment and go down and get my colon cleansed thoroughly.
Papa Klump: You want your colon cleansed? Fine, I’m gonna clean mine! [Farts.] There, my colon is clean. My colon is squeaky clean!

The lesson plan suggests asking students about gas, what foods are being eaten in the clip that cause gas, the role bacteria plays in gas, chewing food, and the benefits of the colon cleanse.

As an assessment, the lesson plan suggests you have the student chart the pathway through the digestive system of one of the foods shown being eaten in the clip, and so forth.

It would probably really engage the students. That’s the upside. The downside is that it’s gross. But then, I suppose with children of a certain age, that’s actually another thing in its favor.

You might be choking on your mid-day coffee right now and saying, “Huh?! How in the world could flippin’ hair bows be cut throat? You need to get out more, Ms. Suncoast Scribe.”

I know. It sounds so silly, doesn’t it.

Here’s the thing about this particular cottage industry. There are two major camps.

One camp is comprised of the people who actually make the hair bows and sell them online or in local boutiques. They are selling their handicrafts just like any other cottage industry. It can get mildly catty, as some product sellers will turn in other product sellers on eBay and other tactics to try and shoulder out the competition.

The other camp, though, is comprised of people making a killing (yes, very large amounts of money) selling eBooks about how to tie knots and make bows. Competition between these people is absolutely fierce. A handful of these sellers regularly threaten to sue one another or intended patents and intellectual property issues, even though the ideas in question are centuries old knot tying techniques. One seller employs moles to buy other sellers’ instruction packets so she can compare and contrast them to her own. That is always followed by a flood of threatening e-mails she sends out to anyone who she perceives as competition.

To be fair, some of the eBooks are hundreds of pages long with high quality photographs. The downside is that a good number of those pages are filled with inane variations on one theme. Other eBooks, though, contain only one or a handful of different bow instructions accompanied by blurry photographs (it’s called a macro button, folks) and often published in a Word document.

It’s insane. I know.

Think back to when you were a kid and your own mother made you a hair bow or a little braided ribbon headband. There are people now that want to claim they invented those techniques. It’s not insane. I take that back. It’s asinine.

The latest bit of dram in the online bow making world centers around an instruction seller who developed a little wooden tool to clamp down and hold your bow center while you tie it off. She purports that it makes perfect creases. The product sold for $29.99 and has made her reasonably wealthy. Most people would agree her little wooden tool was unique and helpful.

That all changed when she employed money-saving tactics on her end and began offering an “improved” creasing tool that is quite simply a cheap plastic hair clip that looks like it comes a gross to a box from China. You can buy clips like that in 4-packs for less than $2 at most beauty supply stores. She still wants to charge $29.99 for one.

So, more than a few eagle-eyed individuals realized this tool with a bite was a simply a plastic hair clip and posted simple instructions with photos on how to use the cheap beauty store hair clips. I think that made the seller of the $29.99 tool lose her breakfast. She wasted no time in sending out vague threats about tossing around lawsuits.

I can only assume she was up all night fretting over the tens of thousands of dollars per year she would not make now that people have become wiser about the product.

So there you have it: a bizarre little online world where people want to claim they invented techniques for tying a knot and using plastic hair clips to hold ribbon steady.

I’m a typical girl. I love my bath salts, bath bombs, body butters, and frothy bubble wash as much as the next girl. The thing is a lot of the major brands of yummy-smelling bath and body products all kind of blend together. How are one company’s offerings really different from another’s? They all have the mandatory pear scent and musky vanilla and frilly tea rose. Why do I want to smell exactly like all of the other girls in town? – because we all know I am certainly nothing like the other girls.

If you agree with me, then you have got to Get in touch with your “Inner Biker” at Big Bad Mama Biker Body Works. It’s a whole line of natural bath and body products, but with a fierce attitude. Give the wanna-be tattooed-biker-chick inside of you a nudge. This stuff is wild, and irreverent, and just about the coolest thing I have seen in the world of bath and body – hands down.

Just listen to the names of some of their scents: Beer, Herb, Weed, Born2BWild, and Plain Nekkid. The best part is they all come packaged in a classic brown beer bottle, complete with a tattoo-style picture of Big Bad Mama herself. Hell yea!

I am placing an order as I write this. Yep, I am quite gifted when it comes to multi-tasking. I am also chewing gum. How’s that for super-hero coordination? I put in an order for the JailBait Biker Groove Lube Lotion™. I couldn’t resist a body lotion made with organic macadamia nut oil, shea butter, and extra virgin olive oil – AND scented in wild cherry to boot. It was a toss up between that and the Devils Food Biker Slick Chic Edible Massage Oil™, but I’m tragically single right now and not really finding myself in too many situations that require edible massage oils.

I will let you know all about the lotion when it arrives. I promise.

Here is the recipe I am trying tomorrow morning for a Star Fruit Pie. I’ve got so much sweet, ripe star fruit on the tree out in the back yard, that I am stepping up my efforts to use them all in creative and tasty ways.

1 quart sliced ripe Star Fruit (carambolas)
1 cup sugar
¼ cup quick cooking tapioca
2 Tbsp. butter or margarine
Nutmeg to taste
Pastry for 2 pie crusts

Prepare carambolas by paring off the edges of the ridges. Remove seeds and slice fruit in ½-inch slices. Combine tapioca and sugar and lightly mix with sliced fruit*.

Line a 9-inch pie pan with pastry. Spread prepared fruit over pastry. Dot with small pieces of butter and sprinkle with nutmeg. Roll the top pastry large enough to make a seal. Cut slits to allow for the steam to escape.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 425°F about 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown.

*Add ¼ cup of lime juice if carambolas are very sweet.

Today when I went to pick up Gigi from school, I buzzed to get in and nobody triggered the lock to admit me. For a long time. It was unsettling. Finally, Gigi’s teacher came to the front door of the school and opened it just a teensy bit. Motioning me inside, she told me the school was under lockdown.

What?

Apparently five public schools and all of the private schools in the immediate area were under lockdown while the police looked for the shooter(s) that fired at a car, killing one of the two brothers inside.

Holy cow.

Apparently schools and churches are magnet for freaks running from the police. After a manhunt, 19-year-old Gaylord Shaw was arrested just before 9:30 p.m. and charged with first-degree murder. That put him on-the-run for just about 9 hours.

It all started with an argument outside a convenience store around 12:40 p.m. Eventually, bullets were fired at the car that held brothers Michael Scott, 23, and Antonio Scott, 24. The Scotts sped off and crashed into a nearby pole. Michael Scott was killed and Antonio Scott was injured.

Reports of are not clear as to whether the bullets of the crash killed Michael Scott.