Sideline chatter 8/14

Bug off! Roach motel escapee has domino effect

Ma Lihua dreams of being the world's biggest pushover, but cockroaches might beat her to it.

Ma, a 24-year-old domino-laying expert from Beijing, has been putting in 13-hour days to set up tiles in Singapore, aiming to beat German Klaus Friedrich's one-person record of 281,581 dominoes toppled, set in 1984.

"There's been an ongoing problem with cockroaches getting on the floor, and they can wreak havoc with 350,000 dominoes," Brian Kim, an organizer for Monday's event, told The Associated Press. "It's caused some stress. It has caused some setbacks."

You could say that. One cockroach felled 8,000 dominoes.

And immediately proclaimed it a world record by a solo insect.

Quoth the mavens

Bill Scheft of Sports Illustrated, on Ohio State football: "The Buckeyes lost seven key players from last year's national champions -- four starters, and three guys Maurice Clarett said were stolen from the back of his car."

Chad Finn of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, on Carly Simon revealing, to the highest bidder, the person who inspired her "You're So Vain" hit single: "Derek Jeter hadn't been born when the song hit the charts in 1972, so there goes my first guess."

Lions coach Steve Mariucci, to the Detroit Free Press, on the difference between playing defensive end and tackle: "The defensive ends are on the outside edge; they're in the car-pool lane. The tackles are in the traffic; it's busy in there."

NBC's Jay Leno, on miners uncovering a 301-carat diamond: "It's something like the third-largest diamond ever mined in Russia. They say they're saving it for Kobe's next affair."

Yawkey Superspeedway

Michael Melo of Billerica, Mass., that ticked-off NASCAR fan who flooded Fox Entertainment with 530,000 e-mails when a Red Sox game aired instead of a stock-car race, has been ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution, a $2,000 fine and serve six months of home detention.

Message to Michael: Just be glad it wasn't 500 laps, without pitstops, around Fenway Park.

He just can't say no

Most scouts agree that Justin Britt, a 6-foot-4, 258-pounder from Cullman, Ala., High School is the state's No. 1 football recruit.

What they can't agree upon is what his college position will be.

"One (recruiter) would tell me how he would make a great SEC tight end," Cullman coach Mark Britton told the Birmingham News. "Another spoke about him playing middle linebacker.

"Another saw him as a defensive end, and another said they thought he could reach the NFL as a defensive tackle. One even asked me if I thought he could play fullback.

"My answer to them was yes, yes, yes, yes and, of course, yes."

Grousing about the weather

Great Britain has been so sweltering lately -- temperatures cracking 100 -- that hunters feared the grouse might not keep up their end of the bargain when hunting season opened yesterday.

"The grouse just don't like flying when it is so hot," Amanda Anderson of the Moorland Association told Reuters. "They just hunker down in the heather."

On the plus side, any birds bagged are already pre-broiled. -- Dwight Perry,

Seattle Times