Ally comes up with a plan (doesn’t she always?), which is classic McBeal. Rather than backing down when faced with such little nuisances as the law, she decides that the inmate should artificially inseminate his fiancйe to get her pregnant, thus making their marriage legal.

After much negotiation, the passing of the cup and a run-in with the law, the fiancйe decides that this is no way to conceive a child (really, ya’ think?). Love wins out, however, and the couple is allowed to get married. A questionable happy ending, if you ask me. I mean, where will they go for their honeymoon, a trip around the yard?

Would you be willing to wait for your significant other if he or she was forced to serve jail time? Would you stand by that person if he or she was a convicted criminal? Talk about it on our Entertainment message board.

Time: Past, Present or Future?
The successful golfer must be constantly aware of where he is and what he needs to accomplish in the present frame.

Golfers are usually in the “past” when not playing well. Less than successful golfers have revealed that they think about the “bad shot” or the “good shot,” as opposed to the “present shot.”

Another problematic time focus is the “future”. Every golf course is known for its particular challenges and obstacles. Golfers who have played poorly because their mind was focused on upcoming obstacles, are not playing in the “here and now”.

The Here and Now
The golfer who attempts to focus must become aware that thoughts that are not in the “here and now” can rob performance:
“I can’t believe that last shot”
“I have that long fairway on the next hole”
“This wind is awful”
“He (or she) had a great shot”

These unproductive thoughts reveal the golfer’s fear that his opponent is golfing better. New “here and now” thoughts must be generated that focus on the process of hitting a winning shot.

Place
To be successful at golf, you must be where the club head meets the ball — nowhere else. When Greg Norman blew his lead at the Masters, he told reporters that the wind was responsible for the ghastly outcome. The wind was there for the other player, too, but from Norman’s comment it is easy to determine his focus — he was up with the wind and not down with the ball. He was in he wrong place at the right time.

The Zone
When a golfer becomes completely focused on the game, top golfers say they are in “The Zone.” The first step to being in The Zone is to pay attention to thoughts. The good news is that thoughts can be controlled. During a bad performance the golfer is often trying to control something he or she can’t — like the wind, the terrain or the last shot. The key is to let go of what you cannot control.

A Winning Strategy
One strategy for success is to say the word “trust” when preparing to hit the ball. This word sends the message that we are allowing the body to take control and hit the ball at that moment. The golfer must trust that his instincts know how to hit the ball. The purpose of this word, or any word, is to enable the golfer to get lost in what he is doing at that moment. The end result is complete concentration on the process of hitting the ball.

Another strategy is to develop rituals. Consistently use the same ritual. It can be touching your right sock with your left hand before you get into your stance. Rituals help to blank the mind and place focus on the ball.

If All Else Fails
If developing a solid mental approach does not appear to help, maybe the problem isn’t mental. A golf professional can help to identify problems with mechanics or physical conditioning.

Whatever your need, stay calm. This is a game. Remember, you play golf because you enjoy it. Even though it’s a tough game, it is supposed to be fun. Even the best golfers sometimes fall prey to the wind.

Add diminished energy to the fact that tennis is often played in extreme temperatures (at which appetite may decrease due to heat and humidity) and we have an athlete headed for impaired performance.

An exercising individual cannot function on fumes, and energy requirements are not “one size fits all.” Calorie requirements are based on body weight. The more one weighs, the higher the requirement. Here are the equations to calculate your energy and fluid needs:

Weight (pounds) x 23 = number of calories needed on a daily basis
Weight x .67 = minimum number of ounces of fluid per day

According to these equations, a 120-pound female tennis player needs approximately 2,760 calories per day and a minimum of 80 ounces of fluid.

She should eat the higher number of servings for each food group on the food guide pyramid to achieve 2,200 per calories per day. Follow these guidelines to achieve this caloric level: Meal Calories
Breakfast 600
Mid-morning 200
Lunch 700
Mid-afternoon 300
Dinner 600
Evening Snack 300

Each meal or snack should include:
carbohydrates ( rice, pasta, bread, cereal, fruits, vegetables or sweets)
protein ( poultry, fish, meat, eggs, cheese, soy, dried beans or nuts)
fat (oil, nuts or nut butters)
beverage

Many athletes experiment with different eating patterns, including the latest fads. Energy for exercise is derived primarily from carbohydrate-containing foods. To ensure adequate energy for practice and competition, each meal should be two-thirds carbohydrate, whether in a solid or liquid form. A meal of salad and chicken without bread, crackers or fruit will leave an athlete tired and weak during practice and competition.

Sample Meal Plan — 2,700 Calories
Breakfast
Cinnamon-raisin bagel with 2 tablespoons of peanut butter
8-ounce glass of orange juice
8-ounce glass of water
Mid-Morning
Sports bar (with at least 30 grams of carbohydrate)

12-ounce glass of water
Lunch
Tuna salad sandwich with 3 ounces of tuna and 1 tablespoon of light mayonnaise on 2 slices of whole grain bread with lettuce and tomato
Piece of fruit 12-ounce glass of cranberry juice and seltzer water

Mid-Afternoon
8-ounce flavored yogurt with Ѕ cup of cereal mixed in 12-ounce glass of water

Dinner
2 cups of pasta with sauce

Salad with a 3-ounce chicken breast and 2 tablespoons of dressing

12-ounce glass of low-fat milk
Mid-Evening
1 cup of frozen yogurt or sherbet

12-ounce glass of lemonade or other non-caffeinated beverage

External Obliques
Lie on your back on the floor with your knees bent and your hands placed behind your head with your elbows pointed out to the side.

Cross your right leg over your left, then lift your left shoulder and turn in the direction of your knees (opposite shoulder to opposite knee). At the top of the movement, your elbow should be pointing directly at the ceiling. Do not pull the elbow forward in front of your face or across your body. Your hips and lower body should remain stationary on the floor — do not roll into the movement.

Return to start position.

Start with one set of 10 to 15 repetitions, then repeat on the opposite side.
Internal Obliques
Begin in the same start position as the previous exercise.

Cross your right leg over your left, then lift your right shoulder and curl your right elbow toward your right knee (same elbow to same knee). Be sure not to pull your head toward your knee. Lift and turn. Your elbow should be pointing up to the ceiling at the top of the movement. The lifting shoulder should be completely off the floor while the resting shoulder remains on the floor.

Return to start position.

Perform 10 to 15 repetitions, taking two seconds to raise the leg and four seconds to lower it.

Start with one set of 10 to 15 repetitions, then repeat on the opposite side.
Additional Points to Remember
Perform the exercise two to three times per week on nonconsecutive days.

Maintain normal breathing and stop if the exercise causes pain.
As with all exercises, this movement may not be appropriate for people with certain physical limitations. If you are unsure, check with your physician first

The Reseller Advisory Council to the Computing Technology Industry Association’s Finance/Credit Section identified past due lease accounts receivable as one of the major financial problems in the channel. Further research into the problem showed that there are three critical steps to funding a lease: 1) Credit Approval 2) execution of the lease documents and, most importantly, 3) the receipt of a customer approved Delivery and Acceptance (D&A) document. It is extremely difficult to receive lease funds without the timely completion of all three components.

To solve this problem, the Finance/Credit Section of CompTIA designed and certified a Document of Understanding (shown on the next page), which fully discloses the functional responsibilities of the lease company, the customer and the reseller. This document clearly outlines what must be done by each party to ensure a seamless, trouble-free transaction, which results in payment within the Reseller’s terms. It was designed with the involvement of the major lease companies serving the technology industry as well as several resellers and distributors.

Resellers should ensure that product is not delivered until written approval is received from the lease company. Partial shipments should certainly be avoided unless the customer has directed the Lease Company to fund partial shipments and the Lease Company has agreed to do so. Standard practice is to fund the lease after all products and services are delivered and installed to the satisfaction of the customer. This satisfaction is communicated to the Lease Company via the D&A document.

It is important to understand that the lease company is under no legal obligation to fund without the D&A. Many resellers have experienced bad debt losses due to the inability to get a signed D&A and the customer has either gone out of business or was unable to obtain funds from another source.

With a little advance planning and good communication between all three parties, leasing can be a valuable tool. Without adequate planning, it can be a painful experience. The key to utilizing leasing successfully is insuring that all parties to the lease transaction understand their responsibilities. Use of the document may help in communicating the responsibilities of each of the parties to the lease. You may want to edit it for your own needs or local conditions. Any comments or suggestions will be
passed along to the Finance\Credit Section of CompTIA (send comments and suggestions to Channel Financial Control).

Lease process
Document of Understanding

To ensure the satisfactory implementation of a lease transaction, the following steps must be taken to complete the transaction to the satisfaction of the parties involved. Signature below indicates agreement by all parties that each understands and agrees to perform the functions as indicated.

Computer Reseller

* Approve the Lease company relationship
* Provide customer information and serial numbers, where appropriate, to the Lease Company.
* Understand the Lease Company process.
* Deliver and install product and services on a timely and complete basis.
* Provide invoice/documentation, which passes clear title to the Lease Company.

Lease Company

* Provide and communicate a prompt credit decision.
* Provide a purchase order/written approval to ship product to Customer.
* Notify Reseller immediately of any issues that may delay processing.
* Timely preparation and retrieval of all lease documentation.
* Payment of customer accepted Reseller invoices within ___ days of invoice date.
* Provide prompt response to customer on any issues concerning lease.

Customer

* Ultimately responsible for prompt payment to Reseller in the event of non-payment by lease Co.
* Understand and agree to Reseller terms of _____ days from invoice date.
* Provide communications link between Reseller and Lease company.
* Provide information requested to Lease Company for credit approval.
* Provide access to the Lease Company for equipment audit process.
* Authorize Lease Company to fund partial shipments if all product is not available.
* Execute and deliver to lease company Delivery and Acceptance Document within ___ days of Reseller invoice date.

But ad buyers are painfully aware that banners are routinely ignored (on average) 99.3 percent of the time. They are uniformly despised by most industry creatives. And-with few exceptions (see “Banner Branding,” p82)-they have the emotional allure of truck stop neon.

“Eighty percent of what’s out there is what I call gratuitous digitization,” says Smith. “It’s a waste. Throw out all the gee-whiz stuff, and you know what? I’d rather have a color brochure.” At a much-publicized industry conference in August hosted by Procter & Gamble (see “FAST Start, Slow Going,” p86), aimed at spearheading new models for online advertising, Time’s president of new media, Linda McCutcheon, summed up the stunted evolution of the industry when she suggested that the standard Internet ad banner “had become the dancing Lucky Strike girl” of the industry.

Lacking sufficient processing speed and bandwidth to deliver many of the elements of emergent “rich” media-such as streaming video and sound-and lacking enough sophisticated measurement standards (how often users click on a banner ad is a woefully inadequate gauge of success) to assure ROI and drive capital investment in new advertising models, the Internet has so far left the branding equation out in the cold.

If powerful branding tools are to be discovered and, eventually, mined on the Net-they will have to meet a new set of standards. Old branding was apples (and Apple); new branding is oranges.

“Brand is a complex phenomenon,” McKenna explains. “We have to change our idea that brand is simply ‘awareness.’ Consumers are aware of many things that do nothing to change their behavior.” The challenge, he notes, is that the Internet is inherently not a passive experience-where traditional branding has been most successful. “All other media is one-way or broadcast. With the Internet, the power of choice is totally in the hands of the consumer, and for that reason, it is a revolution for marketing.”

The time has come, McKenna adds, to find a new branding equation that accommodates the shift to consumer power and choice. “For the past hundred years, producers have been assuming that a well-known name is a shortcut to information,” he says. “In a world were information is disposable and choice and price are higher values than brand, how we engage and retain our customers has to be reevaluated. Everything we have seen in terms of marketing using the Internet has been experimentation.”

Just a year ago, according to industry surveys, advertisers’ primary motivations in advertising on the Web were to generate traffic and get out product information. Today, the elusive concept of “brand-building” is now at the top of the list. But as everyone in the ad industry knows, there isn’t much yet to show.

“The industry has an ad model that’s still classic New York,” Smith says. “It’s a headline, a beautiful color picture, and a tag line. That’s their hammer and they hit everything with it. Well,” Smith says, shaking his head, “[online] consumers are getting totally bored with that.”

While it might well be blue-sky time for creatives like Smith who dream up ways of engaging online consumers, it’s getting closer to bottom-line time. The online ad business is currently worth between $500 million and $1 billion a year-less than a drop in the bucket against the $73 billion the top 10 advertisers spent in 1997, according to Competitive Media Reporting. “No one wants to be the one out there with arrows in our back,” he adds. “We gotta prove that some things are working.”

Then the equation is disrupted. When Inez learns Francesca’s real identity, she disappears from the chat rooms. Without her digital dominatrix, Elaine finds her brilliant career starting to founder, and she launches a search for Inez.

Though the novel is heavy with of-the-moment titillations, Martha Baer manages to transcend easy, hip allusions. She slyly embroiders the Dilbert-like details of office life: Her sketches of Poplar & Skeen’s banal titles, goals and enthusiasms are hilarious (at a half-day workshop, Elaine and her colleagues divide into teams named Group Wilson, Group Taft, Group Roosevelt).

Baer has written a tribute to the headiness of ambition, the mysterious tangle of love and work, sex and power. There are some big ideas embedded in the story — occasionally, too big. And sometimes she veers from her precise prose and becomes downright pretentious.

But though she initially seduces us with graphic sex talk, Baer knows how to hold us captive in a tale. She keeps us wanting more, asking for it, begging for the climax.

Larry started out on the show in the Newman mail room. He met Victoria in that mail room and their relationship has had a wide variety of ups and downs. Larry moved up in Newman Enterprises and became an integral part of that team.

He married Victoria but that first marriage was filled with problems and they divorced. He married Nina and took her son as his own. They were happy for a while but then along came Tricia. Nina and Larry divorced and Larry started his fateful road with Tricia.

He stuck by Tricia for a long time and through many of her crazy days. But eventually he saw her for what she really was and divorced her. Of course this pushed Tricia over the edge and closer to ending Larry’s life.

At the end of his time on the show Larry was happy again with Victoria. They had found their way back to one another and were about to married but it was not to be. Tricia had one last plot up her sleeve and this time Larry would not survive. It was the end of a love story and the end of a long time character.

Larry is gone from the show but he lives on in the memories and lives of the people he left behind. Victoria, Neil, the Newman’s and the fans. It will take some time for the show and the fans to get adjusted to not seeing him every day.

Young and Restless Online wants to wish Scott Reeves the best in whatever he pursues in the future. We enjoyed watching him on the show over the years and will enjoy watching to see what he does next.

Here’s a great way to work the chest without ever lifting a barbell. This may seem unusual since the bench press is considered the king of chest movements. But bench pressing isn’t always necessary, or even preferable.

Training guru Vince Gironda advocated never performing bench presses. He felt they worked mostly the anterior deltoids and created a “bunchy” chest. Instead, he preferred dips which develop a wider chest that sweeps along the breastbone giving an “armor plated” appearance.

The following chest routine follows along that line of thinking and consists solely of cable movements. What’s especially interesting about this workout is that it targets the upper and lower pecs, yet it doesn’t require you to move from a single seated position! Here’s how it works…
Place an adjustable bench in between the cable station. Both the top and bottom cables will need handles.
While sitting at a 45 degree angle, take hold of the upper handles and, with a slight bend in the arms, bring the cables across your chest in the manner of a dumbbell fly.
Stay focused on keeping the elbows out to the side and make sure the bench is far enough forward to allow a good stretch of the arms. This movement can also be described as a “seated cable crossover.”
The main advantage to using a cable instead of dumbbell is that the tension remains constant throughout the movement. You can get a greater contraction by “crossing” your hands past the centerpoint, thus bringing out the “split” in the middle of the pecs. The upper cable fly will work the outer and lower pecs. Perform 10 to 12 reps and then continue with a few “short” reps to further fatigue the muscle.
After a short rest, grab the handles on the bottom pulleys and repeat the “flying” motion, meeting the hands in front of chest. The low handle flys should be more difficult, so you may want to alter the weight. But don’t. Instead, do less reps or “cheat” the weight up by pushing the cables in a pressing motion. This exercise is a favorite of the original Mr. Olympia, Larry Scott and will very effectively work the upper portion of the chest.
Once this set is completed, return to the first movement and repeat the entire exercise.

Drawing by Nelson Montana

As you can see, this routine doesn’t even require moving from one position! You remain seated in the same place the entire time. How’s that for convenience?

Try this routine in lieu of your standard chest workout. You may be surprised how well it pumps up the pecs!

Prevent PE

Wear bright clothing.
Never ride at dusk or in the evening.
Ride on bike paths or lightly traveled streets.
Use hand signals.

First Aid Kit Contents
Make sure your children know the rules of the road before you venture out to more populated roadways. Teach the necessity of “stop, look and listen” and get off your bike before crossing the street.