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Coaches drop in
on surfing teams

High school students, that is, students who attend high school (not the other kind), probably suspected there would be a catch to elevation of surfing as an officially sanctioned team sport. Their hopes of simply heading off campus to "practice their sport" (opposed to simply "cutting out to go surfing") were dashed when the school board decided that each school "surfing club" would have to have three coaches. Coaches will have to be in the water with the kids making sure nobody actually has any fun surfing. Turns out, the surf teams will be more strictly supervised than other sports teams. Bummer, dudes.

Now the news ...

Woman bounces back

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) » A 70-year-old woman survived a nine-story fall from a condominium tower when she landed on a canopy.

Rescuers said the woman was cleaning her balcony when she fell at the Coral Ridge Towers and hit a first-floor canopy. She was alert and talking when rescuers arrived.

(She mainly was talking about "That first step ... watch it ... it's a doozy.")

Crocs are buffaloed

DARWIN, Australia (AP) » Police and wildlife rangers plan to shoot bothersome buffaloes in northern Australia and feed them to crocodiles after the bulky beasts were blamed for a rash of traffic accidents.

Nine men were slightly injured after their bus collided with a buffalo crossing a road in the town of Nhulunbuy. (Why the buffalo crossed the road is an age-old question.) Thousands of buffaloes roam wild in northern Australia, causing significant damage to the environment.

(Rangers said after feeding the buffaloes to the crocs, they'll feed the koala bears to the dingoes, the emus to the kangaroos and the wombats to the platypuses. It's all part of a new Weird Animal Control and Feeding Act.)

New species is tasty

NEW YORK (New York Times) » Wildlife scientists have discovered a new species of guinea-pig-like rodent in markets in Laos.

The kha-nyou is about a foot long with a six-inch tail and diverged from other species of rodents millions of years ago.

"To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary," said wildlife expert Robert J. Timmins.

(To find it being sold for food in Laotian markets is, well, kind of disturbing. Ironically, its Laotian name kha-nyou, in English, means "tastes like chicken.")

Honolulu Lite on Sunday

In Sunday's Honolulu Lite I'll tell you how you can furnish an entire home with beds, chairs, dressers, sofas, washing machines, coffee tables, ceiling fans, microwave ovens and even the "porcelain convenience" ...

ALL FOR UNDER $1,000!

QUOTE ME ON THIS
"One way to solve all the traffic problems would be to keep all the cars that aren't paid for off the streets." -- Will Rogers