Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 3/29/2009

3/29/1982:
Chariots of Fire, a British-made motion picture about two English sprinters striving to compete in the 1924 Olympics, is the surprise winner of the Oscars for Best Picture at the Academy Awards ceremonies in Los Angeles. The movie focuses on the exploits of real-life athletes Harold Abrahams (played by Ben Cross) and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleston) as they deal with the class struggles and mores of postwar Great Britain. An inspiring musical score by Vangelis establishes an ethereal backdrop to the emotional film.

Birthdays:
Walt Frazier b. 1945
Teofilo Stevenson b. 1952
Earl Campbell b. 1955
Brian Jordan b. 1967
Jennifer Capriati b. 1976

SCARY STUFF

George Shuman, a veteran Washington, D.C., policeman, follows the success of 18 Seconds with a new crime tale featuring Sherry Moore, the beautiful, blind psychic who is called in by the police for her special talent of being able to “see” the last 18 seconds of people’s lives by touching them. Sherry is menaced by a serial killer whose twisted psyche must be interpreted from events that reach back almost 20 years. Shuman creates a truly creepy atmosphere, and gives us a fallible, very complex, haunting character in Sherry Moore.

LAST BREATH: A SHERRY MOORE NOVEL, by George D. Shuman (Simon & Schuster, 2007)

LEGAL BRIEFS

FROM ACTUAL COURT TRANSCRIPTS:

Q: “Were you acquainted with the deceased?”
A: “Yes, sir.”
Q: “Before or after he died?”

Q: “To the charge of driving while intoxicated, how do you plead?”
A: “Drunk.”

Q: “The respiratory arrest means no breathing, doesn’t it?”
A: “That’s right.”
Q: “And in every case where there is death, isn’t there no breathing?

NOT AS FAST AS YOU THINK: A HOUSEFLY ONLY FLIES AT ABOUT 4.3 MPH.

GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE

See the answer tomorrow.

Q: Bath, site of England’s only hot springs, has been a resort since the days when the ancient Romans ruled Britain. What English novelist described the life of leisure there in the city’s early 19th-century heyday?

a) Charlotte Brontë b) Jane Austen c) George Eliot d) Emily Brontë

Answer: B, Jane Austen.


On Say That Again!:

In the end, those of us who walk away not winning win more than just a loss.

The Apprentice contestant Audrey, after getting fired