New Attitude

Rice isn't likely to play in a football bowl game this year -- the Owls haven't since 1961 -- but they have on their nonconference schedule three teams that probably will. After meeting UCLA on Saturday at the Rose Bowl, the lowly Owls, who have won only one of their last 18 games, will play No. 2 Texas at Reliant Stadium in Houston, then at No. 9 Florida State. "It's no question that staying healthy is one of our biggest concerns," Todd Graham, Rice's first-year coach, said Tuesday.

He's 41 years old. He's just quit working at the wine shop where he'd been employed since the month before his 21st birthday. And now he's doing something he's never done before: He's buying wine with his own money. As a buyer at the high-volume Wine Exchange in Orange, Kyle Meyer spent most days tasting and evaluating wines. He had a generous wine budget too, and he brought bottles home to taste. In 20 years, he never had to buy wine for himself. When he left the store in December, he had a 100-bottle stash, and by mid-February he was plain out. And so Meyer did what most of us do and went to the closest place where he could get reasonably good wine at a decent price.

Those Clippers ads are something: New Team, New Attitude, New Season They forgot to add, Same Results: Losing Patrick Drohan Monrovia

Mike Richards needed time to digest the trade that sent him from the Philadelphia Flyers to the Kings in June. He had grown up a Flyer, was their captain, enjoyed the life of a rich, single athlete in a passionate city that reveres or reviles those who wear its name on their uniforms. "The first day I talked to him after the deal was done he was in a little bit of shock still. So I left it for probably a month and a half," said Kings Coach Terry Murray, a former Flyers assistant.

President Fidel Castro held talks with six U.S. congressmen, discussing the U.S. embargo and international events, participants said. Most of the congressmen later met with about a dozen of the island's leading dissidents, who say they are seeking peaceful changes to Castro's one-party system. Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass.) said Castro, who also entertained two senators last week, was conciliatory. "The tone reflected a new attitude . . .

So what's the secret to the Miami Dolphin defense, which has largely carried the team? A little cockiness, a little swagger. And, oh yes, a lot of talent. "This year is a whole new attitude," said defensive end Jason Taylor, who already has 5 1/2 sacks after getting only 2 1/2 last season. "I've just been playing with a lot more confidence. You've got to walk around with borderline cockiness and a swagger. If you don't have it, you're not going to make it."

Coach Sam Wyche says the Cincinnati Bengals have a new attitude. The Bengals' defense, ranked last in the National Football League, forced six turnovers and scored a touchdown Sunday to lead the way to a 26-21 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. "Intensity is the only word," Wyche said. "You either play with resolve or you don't. They played with vigor. There was some popping of leather going on out there that you don't hear every week."

Aries (March 21-April 19): You'll make considerable progress with a project you hold dear. Write down your acceptance speech now. Taurus (April 20-May 20): Since no one can agree on what a successful life includes, you make up your own rules. You decide what constitutes a good time and a meaningful relationship. Gemini (May 21-June 21): There's a movement, activity or person you've long found interesting but have been wary of getting swept up in. You'll have the opportunity to find out more.

PEOPLE sometimes take trips for deep reasons. They're turning 50 and feel compelled to see Florence; they've just recovered from an illness and want to trek in the Himalayas; they're divorcing and need to escape the anguish. Psychologically motivated trips like these are, in a sense, gambles with life. The transition or crisis makes people more willing to free themselves from routine, feel in a heightened way or make life changes based on events on the road. They are my favorite kinds of trips.

Marques Anderson is a member in good standing with the UCLA secondary again. He is still the backup to Ryan Roques at left cornerback, but is holding steady, and playing in the nickel package is a lot better than the direction Anderson was headed about three weeks ago.

Aries (March 21-April 19): You'll make considerable progress with a project you hold dear. Write down your acceptance speech now. Taurus (April 20-May 20): Since no one can agree on what a successful life includes, you make up your own rules. You decide what constitutes a good time and a meaningful relationship. Gemini (May 21-June 21): There's a movement, activity or person you've long found interesting but have been wary of getting swept up in. You'll have the opportunity to find out more.

"What Not to Wear," which begins its eighth season Friday night on TLC, is the most hale of makeover shows, and also, in the spiritual sense, the most healthy. Its first message is this: There are no ugly women in the world, only ugly clothes, and those can easily be changed. Its second is that by changing your clothes, you can change yourself. "I was preoccupied even in high school with the concept of self and identity," host Stacy London said recently from New York, where the show is based, and where she majored in German philosophy and literature at Vassar, a little while back.

It was only five years ago that Miami accounting firm director Richard Berkowitz thought he had a problem during tax season relating to his younger workers. "When I told them it was mandatory they come in on the weekend, they looked at me like I was out of my mind. " Today, his younger workers are much easier to manage. The recession has brought a shocking reality to the Generation Y professionals who stumped baby boomers when they first entered the workforce with their desire for work/life balance over the corner office.

It seems appropriate that this Daytona 500 falls on Valentine's Day, the day NASCAR hopes its fans will fall back in love with its sport. The Great American Race is NASCAR's great American opportunity to rekindle a dying love affair. NASCAR must transform what has become the mundanely monotonous Dulltona 500 back into the deliriously dramatic Daytona 500. NASCAR entered the American sporting consciousness in 1979 when CBS first televised the race wire-to-wire on a day when the entire East Coast, because of a blizzard, was stuck in the house watching TV. That historic, histrionic race ended with Cale Yarborough and the Allison boys wrecking each other on the final lap and brawling on the backstretch as the ultra-popular Richard Petty breezed by for the victory.

When President Obama called the slaughter of innocents in any part of the world a "stain on our collective conscience," one of the examples he cited was the violence unleashed in Darfur by the Muslim-led government of Sudan. Yet instead of bristling over the mention of Darfur, Sudan's government greeted Obama's speech as a sign that relations with the United States can improve.

Those Clippers ads are something: New Team, New Attitude, New Season They forgot to add, Same Results: Losing Patrick Drohan Monrovia

Every fall, I dig my bare feet into the soil and look around the garden with sadness. Soon chilly days will prevent me from working outside shoeless, and nippy nights will send me indoors. I'll have to wait until next summer to pot plants by moonlight. I wonder, where did the summer go? Now many of my favorite heat-loving plants are becoming inactive.

After a restless night that followed several missed shots and one big missed opportunity, the Colorado Avalanche awoke Wednesday in Denver with a fresh perspective: It could be worse. Colorado failed to eliminate Dallas Tuesday night, when the Stars won, 4-1, to send the Western Conference finals back to Texas for Game 7 Friday night. "I'm sure everybody was rolling in bed saying, 'Oh, we could have finished them,' " Colorado forward Claude Lemieux said Wednesday.

SHANGHAI -- Back, back, back? It's early -- actually it won't start until the opener against China on Aug. 10 -- but U.S. basketball fans who tuned out after all the recent disappointments, or emigrated, will be happy to know this year's Olympic team looks great! Of course, leaving aside the 2004 train wreck when the U.S. lost its first overseas exhibition, lost its opener in Athens and two more games besides, when didn't it look great at this point? Meanwhile, the U.S.

Anthony Rosa's outbursts were so bad that he was kicked out of 12 day-care centers in eight months. Anthony, 7, who was diagnosed with high-functioning autism, would throw violent tantrums when he was afraid or confused and once threw sand in a teacher's eyes because he didn't get a turn to ride a tricycle during recess. His mother, Michelle Rosa, came to expect a call at any time asking her to take him home for bad behavior, making it hard for her to keep a full-time work schedule.