Yahoo's taken a bold step...they're overhauling their infamously bloated front page, and some people are getting a peek at it. At first glance there aren't major feature changes, but the whole thing just looks a lot cleaner. It's about time!

Click to enlarge

junosand (mark) submitted a FOX Sports article with tips on how to win your NCAA Tournament pool. There's a ton of them, here's a few:

Don't pick the No. 16 seeds

If you're desperate, try for a No. 15 seed to make a big splash. Four of them have won first-round games;

Pick at least one No. 3 or No. 4 seed to lose: There have only been three times in the last 21 seasons that a No. 3 or 4 seed did not go down in the first round.

There's too many more to go through here, but it's not too late to change your bracket so get on it!

dave submitted a Washington Post article about how a wheelchair athlete has filed a federal suit against her school to be allowed to compete alongside her teammates.

Tatyana McFadden , who won two medals at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, doesn't expect to compete against others on the field, but does want to be on the track at the same time.

The Howard County school system allows her to practice with the Atholton High School team, but has ruled she must compete in separate wheelchair events. That means she mostly competes by herself, said Lauren Young of the Maryland Disability Law Center, which filed a federal suit on McFadden's behalf.

"She's not asking to be competitively scored against able-bodied runners, but she doesn't want to be forced to run around the track all by herself," Young said.

Mark Blom , an attorney for the school system, said the school system has worked extensively with the 16-year-old McFadden, who has spina bifida, to allow her to be a part of the team and to incorporate wheelchair events into track competitions, but is against merging the two types of events.

"She essentially wants to do her event in a completely different event," Blom said.

It makes sense not to have her going around a track by herself, but this hardly seems like the way to correct that. It's not like she is going to be racing with the runners. I would think it would be distracting to both the runners and spectators while also not helping her own situation any. The mother was quoted as saying "High school sports is 'not about winning or losing, it's about learning a whole lot of other things,' Deborah McFadden said. 'Part of it is being with your friends. When you have a disability, it sometimes isolates you.'" I don't think that her competing by herself during another event would really decrease that isolation, but we'll see what the courts have to say.

According to the Seattle PI, both Cingular and T-Mobile are temporarily halting Motorola Razr sales due to a defect that has been discovered which sometimes causes calls to get disconnected.

Motorola said Friday the glitch affects only a limited number of phones and it does not expect any impact on financial results. "Motorola continues to ship new Razr handsets in volume to customer distribution centers and retail availability is expected to be normal across all markets by next week," spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch said.

Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile suspended Razr sales over the previous two days as a precaution so its customers didn't get stuck with defective phones. "It's virtually impossible to identify at retail which units have the defective component," said Peter Dobrow, a T-Mobile spokesman.

A component in the defective Razrs was discovered to be cutting off calls when the flip phones opened. Motorola was working to fix the problem and said no phones were being recalled.

dave submitted a link to the Whirlyball website and also to photos of the game in action.

WhirlyBall, dubbed "The worlds only totally mechanized team sport" is best described as a combination of Hockey, Lacrosse, Basketball and Polo played while riding an electrically powered machine, similar to a bumper car, called a WhirlyBug™. Although the WhirlyBug™ resembles a bumper car, it is a far superior machine. Quicker, stronger and far more maneuverable, the WhirlyBug™ powers you and your team down court in a fast paced, fun filled five on five game.

Ever get a credit card application in the mail? Of course you have, unless you're some weird superfreak. And I am assuming you don't apply for every card you receive an application for. So what do you do to discard those other applications? If you're like me you rip it up a bunch and throw it out. But how effective is that? If this story is any guide, this is not effective.

You should probably buy a shredder today.

I get a heck of a lot of credit card applications in the mail. A bunch for Visa, quite a few from Mastercard and tons of them from American Express.

I almost always tear them in half and throw them away. Sometimes, if I am feeling particularly paranoid, I'll tear them into little bitty pieces. Is that good enough? Could a determined and dexterous criminal gather all the bits, tape them together and apply for a card in my name? Would a credit card company balk when confronted with an obviously resurrected application?

A test was in order, and when the latest application arrived from Chase Mastercard, I was equal to the task.

To summarize the rest, not only did the guy tape together the application he tore up, he put down a different address and his cell phone number. Sure enough, the card arrived at the other address and he was able to activate it using his cell phone.

By the way, to stop receiving such credit card applications in the first place: 1-888-5-OPTOUT is an automated service run jointly by the four main credit bureaus. With one phone call you can opt out of pre-screened mailings from all four bureaus. You'll usually see this number in the fine print of any credit card application you receive, as it is required by law.

dave submitted what's actually a bit of a nauseating story from ESPN.com. A minor league Illinois baseball team is going to unveil "baseball's best burger" at their stadium this year. They're touting it as a meal and dessert in one.

The ballpark sandwich will include a hamburger topped with sharp cheddar cheese and two slices of bacon -- all between a "bun" of Krispy Kreme Original Glazed donuts.

Funderberg [Grizzlies general manager], who has said he has eaten at least 10 of the Grizzlies' new creations as part of a "sampling process," said the team hopes to sell 100 to 200 of them a night at $4.50 each. He calls it a bargain, considering it is a meal and a dessert in one.

It could be the hottest sandwich to hit the sports world since the Roethlisburger. That sandwich, invented in 2004 to honor Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, is available at a place called Peppi's and includes ground beef, sausage, scrambled eggs, grilled onions and American cheese.

The Grizzlies are no strangers to self-promotion through caloric innovation. Two years ago they introduced what they called "Baseball's Best Hotdog," a dog topped with two strips of bacon, sauteed onions, sauerkraut and cheddar cheese sauce. They upped the ante last year with the "Swiss Brat," a bratwurst with a slice of Swiss cheese in the middle of it, topped with sauerkraut.

The independent team, headquartered near St. Louis in Sauget, Ill., is in its sixth year of operation.

Excuse me, I'm going to go throw up now.

dave submitted an MSNBC article about the Nixon transcripts from a while back. There are some great quotes there:

"Can we tell them 'no?' When I talked to the president, he was loaded."
—Henry Kissinger to his aide in October 1973 when British Prime Minister Edward Heath's office tried to set up a telephone call with Nixon about the Arab-Israeli war

This exchange between White House chief of staff Alexander Haig and Kissinger reveals Nixon jokingly threatening to drop a nuclear bomb on Congress as it moves to impeach him in March 1974:
Haig: "I was told to get the football."
Kissinger: "What do you mean?"
Haig: "His black nuclear bag ... He is going to drop it on the Hill."

"Look, people get drunk ... People chase girls. And the point is, it's a hell of a lot better for them to get drunk than to take drugs. It's better to chase girls than boys."
—Nixon on a graphic account of Amb. Arthur Watson's groping stewardesses while drunk on a March 1972 flight to Washington

There's plenty more, so follow the link.

dave submitted a story from iol about the Pope and others who have iPods.

The Vatican - The Pope likes to unwind by listening to his iPod. Pope Benedict XVI was given an iPod Nano as a present by staff at Vatican Radio.

Officials have loaded it with religious music, plus pieces by Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin. He has been spotted around the Vatican using his iPod and distinctive white earphones.

According to The Sun a spokesperson said: "He is very pleased with the iPod. The Holy Father likes to unwind listening to it and is of the opinion that this sort of technology is the future."

The Queen, President Bush and Tony Blair all own an iPod.

Who "spotted" the Pope with his iPod? The Poperazzi? God, I'm awful.

It's actually been up for a few days now, but I only just saw the trailer for X-Men: The Last Stand and it's pretty awesome.