Only two more shopping days until I return to the final days of the City Council campaigns. Then, we'll have fun taking apart the campaigns. Any dirt yet? Any mudslinging. You know, the good stuff. Or is everyone behaving? My wife is now looking over my shoulder -- literally -- so I have to pretend that I'm just checking ball scores. See ya in two days. Here's Wild Card ...

Filed under: MLB

In honor of both March Madness and The Sporting Blog finding video of the horrifically soul-crunching defeat suffered by Memphis against Louisville in a recent C-USA title game, I'm taking nominations for a tournament. In the same vein as "the ur-tard" Bill Simmons' "Levels of Losing", I'd like to see your nominations for the most painful defeat any team has ever suffered. This is limited to actual sporting defeats, as including something like the Hank Gathers incident would most likely be a run-away winner. Events from all sports (Even NASCAR and soccer) will be accepted into this tournament. Right now I have a few examples that are locked into the tournament. I'm hoping for 16 or even a full 32. I'm looking for gut-wrenching defeats, be it in the manner of losing, or the result of that loss.

Seven-Minute Marketing

If you are in search of flowers, local residents will point you in his direction, saying: "Go see the hat man; his flowers are as colourful as his hats."

Spreading Your Word. Once you have determined your personal brand image, you need a strategy to broadcast it to your target audience. Visibility and persistence are critical to ensuring that your personal brand is communicated to customers. This means that you must live your personal brand at all times; if that is challenging, then you probably were not honest during the defining process and need to rethink. Here are three ways to share your personal brand with consumers:

Face-to-Face. Interactions with consumers at your store or office provide the greatest opportunities to acquaint them with your personal brand. If your customer base is too large or spread out, you can use other personal communications vehicles — including e-mail, direct mail and personalized letters — to convey your image.

2008 Predictions: Macworld's annual forecast of the year ahead

With the calendar flipping from one year to the next this past week, it's only natural to wonder what the next 365 days have in store. It's even more understandable if you're a Mac fan. After all, Macworld Expo looms just a week or so away, and with that annual trade show comes the promise of new and exciting developments from Apple and beyond.

So without further ado, here's this year's edition of our fearless forecasts from four Mac observers hoping to be able to say the sweetest words in the English language by this time next year: I told you so.

Kristin Day column: 'Day Trippin'

At the start of my sophomore year at ECU, I announced to my family I was dropping my standing as a pre-law student and studying journalism. It's a big jump from the law to the press, but that's not what seemed to bother my mother. She couldn't understand why I chose newspapers over television.

How two brutal killers fuelled the DNA debate

Dixie's DNA was similarly entered into the database for a relatively trivial and unconnected offence. He might have got away with stabbing Sally Anne, and then raping and biting her as she lay dying, had he not been involved in a pub brawl during a World Cup football match nine months after attacking her. It was then that his DNA sample was taken as a matter of routine. Within five hours Dixie was in custody for the killing.

Even so, civil liberties groups were yesterday adamant that only the DNA of sexual or violent offenders should be entered into the database. Britain, they claim, is heading for a universal forensic database introduced by stealth.