Buzz Bin

by Inlander Staff & r & Pre-Turkey Workout & r & If you value that precious laying-on-the-floor-after-Thanksgiving-dinner moment but still would like to work some kind of activity into your Turkey Day routine, don't forget about the Turkey Trot. Starting every Thanksgiving at lower Manito Park, you can join in the fun at 9 am. Costumes encouraged.





Someone to Cheer For & r & For the second straight year, the Cougars managed to save their best for last by beating the Huskies. But also for the second straight year, the team the Inland Northwest is left to root for is the EWU Eagles. The Big Sky champs are headed to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where Erik Meyer will lead Paul Wulff's squad against Northern Iowa. After only close losses this year, and with last season's playoff experience to build on, it looks like this team is ready for a run. There's no TV on this one, but tune into 1510-AM KGA at 5:05 Saturday for the action.





AMPAS Prognostications & r & We're in Oscar season now, but it wasn't always thus. Of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture as recently as 1994 and '95, only one (Sense and Sensibility) was released during November or December. (The other four '95 nominees were all summer releases: Apollo 13, Babe, Braveheart and Il Postino. Three of the films nominated in '94 -- Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show and The Shawshank Redemption -- were released in September, while Four Weddings and a Funeral and Forrest Gump appeared even earlier that year.)


Since then, with some indie-film exceptions, the pattern has been for the five slots to be filled by four end-of-year releases and perhaps a summer blockbuster.


Conclusion? The odds look long for two May releases, Crash and Cinderella Man.





Java Junket & r & Somebody finishes drinking a cup of coffee every 1.3 seconds -- and that's just in Coeur d'Alene. Coffee is traded like Big Oil now, which means Big Ag farming methods and lots of chemicals. From your $3 latte, Third World farmers often receive just two cents.


All of which is good reason to support all the fine organic and fair-trade coffee purveyors in our region, including the folks at Gourmet Way on Government Way in CdA. Visit www.qai-inc.com and www.cafeavion.com.





Whoops! & r & According to our subhead in last week's story about Zag Sean Mallon, he only has one year left to play. No, he has not revealed his secret to leave school a year early. Yes, he has two years left of eligibility. No, we weren't good at math in high school.