Put your face on your stamps

The US postal service is going to offer personalized postage stamps.

Instead of the traditional flags or flowers, you can put anything from your children, your portrait or a corporate logo on the stamp using your home computer.

While cute, they are a little costly.

A sheet of 20 first class stamps costs more than twice as much as traditional 37-cent stamps.A package of twenty stamps for use on a standard 1-ounce envelope runs $16.99. The price includes $7.40 for the twenty 37-cent stamps, $2.99 for shipping, and the costs of photographic-quality printing.

This is the first time the postal service has parted from tradition and allowed living people on stamps. Because the stamps fall under USPS regulations for metered mail, they are exempt from regular stamp rules, which prohibits living people on stamps and only allows those who have been dead at least 10 years.

Stamps carry a bar code and serial number to prevent counterfeiting.

Each submitted design will be reviewed for controversial or copy written material.

More information on custom stamps is available at US Photo Stamps

Boston is top sports city

From FOXSports

Over 12 months, stretching roughly from July to July, Boston was the Hub of the sports universe that the Sporting News covers -- a city that celebrated and commiserated, exulted and agonized (again) over a year's most dramatic victories and cursed defeats.

Taking into account not only the sheer quantity of courses in its year-round sports feast and the depth and breadth of fan fervor (OK, and often angst), but also the quality of the teams in the sports we cover, Boston is our Best Sports City for 2004.

The Top 25

1. Boston
2. Oakland-San Francisco-San Jose
3. New York-Long Island-New Jersey
4. Houston
5. Los Angeles-Anaheim
6. Miami-Fort Lauderdale
7. Detroit
8. Dallas-Fort Worth
9. Philadelphia
10. Minneapolis-St. Paul
11. Chicago
12. Denver
13. Atlanta
14. Tampa-St. Petersburg
15. Seattle
16. Indianapolis
17. Baltimore-Washington
18. St. Louis
19. Nashville
20. Phoenix
21. Charlotte
22. New Orleans
23. Salt Lake City
24. Pittsburgh
25. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C

Teen Choice Awards

Below is a complete list of winners of the 2004 Teen Choice Awards. The Show will be broadcast this Wednesday on FOX, so don't read if you don't want to know who won what.

Movies:
Date Movie: "50 First Dates."
Movie, Comedy: "Shrek 2."
Movie Actor, Comedy: Adam Sandler, "50 First Dates."
Movie Thriller: "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
Movie Actress, Comedy: Lindsay Lohan.
Movie Actress, Drama/Adventure: Halle Berry, "Gothika."
Movie Hissy Fit: Lindsay Lohan, "Mean Girls."
Movie Blush: Lindsay Lohan, "Mean Girls."
Movie Sleazebag: Seann William Scott, "American Wedding."
Movie Breakout Star Actress: Lindsay Lohan, "Mean Girls," "Freaky Friday."
Movie Your Parents Didn't Want You to See: "American Wedding."
Television:
TV Show, Drama/Action Adventure, "The O.C."
TV, Reality/Variety: "Punk'd."
TV Show, Late Night: "Saturday Night Live."
TV Breakout Show: "The O.C."
TV Actress, Drama/Adventure: Jennifer Garner, "Alias."
TV Actor, Drama/Adventure: Adam Brody, "The O.C."
TV Sidekick: Sean Hayes, "Will & Grace."
TV Personality: Ashton Kutcher.
TV Breakout Star, Female: Mischa Barton, "The O.C."
TV Breakout Star, Male: Chad Michael Murray, "One Tree Hill."
Reality/Variety TV Star: Ashton Kutcher, "Punk'd."
Reality/Variety Jackass: Simon Cowell, "American Idol."
Music:
Single: "Toxic," Britney Spears.
Album: "Confessions," Usher.
R&B Artist: Usher.
R&B Track: "Yeah," Usher with Ludacris and Lil Jon.
Love Song: "I Miss You," Blink-182.
Hook Up: "Yeah," Usher with Ludacris and Lil Jon.
Tour of the Year: No Doubt and Blink-182.
Song of the Summer: "Pieces of Me," Ashlee Simpson.
Additional Awards:
Ultimate Choice Award: Mike Myers.
Courage Award: Bethany Hamilton.
Male Athlete: Tony Hawk.
Female Athlete: Mia Hamm.
Comedian: Adam Sandler.
Fresh Face: Ashlee Simpson.

Greg Maddux the last 300 game winner?

Chicago Cub's Greg Maddux beat Philadelphia for his 300th victory this week. Why is this so important? Because not only does the win cement Maddux's spot in Cooperstown, but he may be the last pitcher to win 300 games in a career. When Grover Cleveland Alexander won his 300th game in 1924, Chicago Tribune beat writer Irving Vaughan didn't consider the stat important enough to mention in his game story. Times have changed and so has pitching in baseball. "The bar of excellence for pitching has gone from 300 wins to probably 275 or 250," said New York Met's left-hander Tom Glavine who, with 259 career wins, is the closest active pitcher other than Maddux to 300. "That's just a recognition by people that offense has been so enhanced over the last decade or so and it's harder and harder for pitchers to go out there and . . . succeed at a high level." But baseball's emphasis on offense is only one reason 300-game winners have apparently gone the way of flannel uniforms and the spitball. Five-man rotations have reduced the number of starts a pitcher gets, and pitch counts and relief specialists have reduced the number of innings they'll pitch once they get to the mound. Add in that lucrative contracts are making careers shorter and you wind up with a pitcher such as Boston's Curt Shilling, a six-time all-star and two-time runner-up for the Cy Young Award who has fewer career starts (359) than Alexander had wins. "That's just an unconceivable number to me," Schilling said of 300 wins. Which brings us back to Alexander, the only other pitcher to win his 300th game in a Cubs uniform. While 300-game winners hadn't become commonplace by the time Alexander became one in 1924, they weren't unusual, either. Alexander was the 11th to win that many and the fourth to do so in a dozen years, so perhaps the milestone didn't bear mentioning in The Tribune. But only 10 men have done it since -- with Roger Clemens, who won his 300th last summer, the only one to do so in the past 14 seasons. All of which makes Maddux's desire to treat today like just another start laughable. "You win as many games as you have over the years and now everything is supposed to change because you're going for 300?" he told USA Today. "It's not normal. I want to keep things as normal as possible." Maddux, 38, got his start in Chicago but won 204 games in 11 years with the Atlanta Braves before re-signing with the Cubs as a free agent this winter. And aside from his 300th win, with five more victories he can extend to 17 his record of consecutive seasons with 15 or more wins. That, Maddux told The Associated Press, is the record he's aiming at. "When it's all said and done, yeah, you might look back and pat yourself on the back," he said. "Right now for me, personally, I would much rather win 15 games and have a chance to pitch in the postseason. That means more to me than winning 300. "I know in order to do that I'll bypass [300] somewhere along the way. It's hard to say it's just another game, but it is." Here is the list of 300 game winners. 1. Cy Young 511 2. Walter Johnson 417 3. Grover Cleveland Alexander 373 Christy Mathewson 373 5. Warren Spahn 363 6. Pud Galvin 361 7. Kid Nichols 360 8. Tim Keefe 341 9. Steve Carlton 329 10. John Clarkson 327 11. Eddie Plank 326 12. Nolan Ryan 324 Don Sutton 324 14. x-Roger Clemens 322 15. Phil Niekro 318 16. Gaylord Perry 314 17. Tom Seaver 311 18. Hoss Radbourn 310 19. Mickey Welch 309 20. Lefty Grove 300 Early Wynn 300 x-Greg Maddux 300

Saved!

According to MTV, R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe and his Single Cell Pictures partner Sandy Stern are in talks to turn their latest hit, "Saved!," into a TV series and Broadway musical. I didn't see the movie "Saved!", but it is on my list to "rent" when it goes to video. I want to see it because I like R.E.M. and Mandy Moore. I know the movie got mixed reviews but seems like it could make a good TV show.

It's not easy being gorgeous

So says Halle Berry in this Associated Press story

LONDON -- It's not easy being gorgeous. Halle Berry should know. "Beauty? Let me tell you something — being thought of as a beautiful woman has spared me nothing in life," she said. "No heartache, no trouble. Love has been difficult. Beauty is essentially meaningless and it is always transitory." At a news conference Monday to promote her new movie, "Catwoman," the 35-year-old Berry criticized the obsession with beauty and youth that she said prompted some to get plastic surgery. "Personally, I'm really saddened by the way women mutilate their faces today in search of that," said Berry, who won an Oscar for "Monster's Ball." ...Read full story

Read a good book lately?

USA TODAY BESTSELLERS

Key: F-Fiction; NF-Nonfiction; H-Hardcover; P-Paperback

1. "The 9/11 Commission Report" (Norton) (NF-P)

2. "The Notebook" by Nicholas Sparks (Warner) (F-P)

3. "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown (Pocket Star) (F-P)

4. "Hello, Darkness" by Sandra Brown (Pocket Star) (F-P)

5. "The Wedding" by Nicholas Sparks (Warner) (F-P)

6. "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown (Doubleday) (F-H)

7. "Bleachers" by John Grisham (Dell) (F-P)

8. "My Life" by Bill Clinton (Knopf) (NF-H)

9. "R is for Ricochet" by Sue Grafton (Putnam) (F-H)

10. "Skinny Dip" by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf) (F-H)

11. "The South Beach Diet" by Arthur Agatston (Rodale) (NF-H)

12. "The South Beach Diet Good Fats Good Carbs Guide" by Arthur Agatston (Rodale) (NF-P)

13. "The Bourne Supremacy" by Robert Ludlum (Bantam) (F-P)

14. "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren (Zondervan) (NF-H)

15. "Sam's Letters to Jennifer" by James Patterson (Little, Brown) (F-H)

16. "The Rule of Four" by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason (Dial) (F-H)

17. "The Five People You Meet in Heaven: A Novel" by Mitch Albom (Hyperion) (F-H)

18. "Blindside" by Catherine Coulter (Jove) (F-P)

19. "Deception Point" by Dan Brown (Pocket) (F-P)

20. "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin) (F-P)

21. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" by Mark Haddon (Vintage) (F-P)

22. "Digital Fortress" by Dan Brown (St. Martin's) (F-P)

23. "Shadow Divers" by Robert Kurson (Random House) (NF-H)

24. "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold, (Back Bay) (F-P)

25. "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" by David Sedaris (Little, Brown) (NF-H)

26. "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss (Penguin) (NF-H)

27. "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger (Harvest) (F-P)

28. "The Vanished Man" by Jeffery Deaver (Pocket) (F-P)

29. "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi (Random House) (NF-P)

30. "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel (Harcourt) (F-P)

31. "The Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger (Broadway) (F-P)

32. "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov (Spectra) (F-P)

33. "When He Was Wicked" by Julia Quinn (Avon) (F-P)

34. "Ten Big Ones" by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's Press) (F-H)

35. "Prophecy" by Sylvia Browne (Dutton) (F-H)

36. "The South Beach Diet Cookbook" by Arthur Agatston (Rodale Press) (NF-H)

37. "The Bourne Identity" by Robert Ludlum (Bantam) (F-P)

38. "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire (ReganBooks) (F-P)

39. "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy; translated by Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky (Penguin Classic) (F-P)

40. "Imperial Hubris" by Anonymous (Brassey's, Inc.) (NF-H)

41. "Sense of Evil" by Kay Hooper (Bantam) (F-P)

42. "Isle of Palms" by Dorothea Benton Frank (Berkley) (F-P)

43. "The Manchurian Candidate" by Richard Condon (Pocket Star) (F-P)

44. "Dark Horse" by Tami Hoag (Bantam) (F-P)

45. "The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah" by Stephen King (Grant) (F-H)

46. "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson (Vintage) (NF-P)

47. "The Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach (Broadway) (NF-H)

48. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee (Warner) (F-P)

49. "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter (Warner) (NF-P)

50. "Dude, Where's My Country?" by Michael Moore (Warner) (NF-P)