Odds and Ends

WENATCHEE, Wash. - They look like simple yellow flowers amid golden hills, but the blooms on the front of the new North Central Washington telephone book are really just weeds.

Even the former U.S. Forest Service employee who won the annual Cover Photo Contest sponsored by Hagadone Directories Inc. knew it showed Dalmatian toadflax, listed as a noxious weed by Washington, Oregon, Idaho and other states.

"It's pretty, but it's very obnoxious," said Terry Nowka, coordinator of the Chelan County Noxious Weed Control Board for 13 years. "Every year I catch little old ladies digging it up and planting it in their flower beds."

Each toadflax, imported from southeast Europe as an ornamental plant, produces not only flowers that resemble snapdragons but about 500,000 seeds and an extensive root system that helps it overwhelm native vegetation and threatens ecosystems.

Roger Wallace, who won the same competition in 2003, said he has taken a few shots of weeds and isn't ashamed. "I don't see what harm it does to have a noxious weed on the phone book cover," Wallace said.

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MACHIAS, Maine (AP) - A 54-year-old man who routinely complained of fake chest pains to avoid paying the tab for restaurant meals may have gotten his just desserts.

A judge sentenced Elias I. Elias on Friday to 90 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to theft of services.

The sentence followed the recommendation of District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh, who said the Aug. 5 incident at the Townhouse Restaurant marked the 13th time that Elias tried to skip out on the check by pretending he had trouble breathing and was having a heart attack.

"He has 18 convictions just since 2003," the year Elias moved to Maine from California, and has been jailed numerous times, Cavanaugh said.

Authorities said Elias would order dinner and drinks, eat and enjoy, then fake his need for medical assistance when the check arrived. He would be taken to a local hospital but usually left before police arrived.

Elias' court-appointed attorney, Jeffrey Davidson, told the judge that the homeless and unemployed man just wanted to eat a restaurant meal "like anybody else."

"Even if he didn't have dignity, he wanted to feel like he did," Davidson said.

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - The New Jersey Lottery could generate a different kind of green, if plans for a new environmentally beneficial game get off the ground.

Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell promised to discuss the idea for a lottery game to benefit the environment with the state treasurer, but cautioned that approval of such a game is not a sure thing.

Green Action Alliance Chairman Ed Knorr came up with the idea for the "Best Dam Lottery Game," whose proceeds would be dedicated to public and private well testing for senior citizens and low-income households in the state.

The already lucrative Lottery generated $765 million for higher education and other institutions in 2003.

Campbell apparently would put off any discussion of the game until consideration of the DEP's 2006 budget.

"Given the current dedication of lottery revenues to support the state's educational programs, including higher educational opportunities for senior citizens, I believe an expanded dedication of a new lottery may negatively impact existing programs supported by these receipts," Campbell wrote to Knorr.

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EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - Too young to remember those clunky cell phones of the early 1980s? Look no more.

The Telephone Pioneer Museum has got the number of phone lovers and others who are just plain curious.

The quirky museum in Eugene has phones galore on display - Pink Princess phones, old fashioned desk phones, even a 1980's cell phone about the weight of a brick.

The volunteers - all retired phone company workers - who staff it still marvel that so few folks come by.

"There's a lot of people that don't even know it's around," said 80-year-old Fred Wiechmann, who started as a janitor in 1949 with the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. before moving into several other positions, such as splicer and lineman.

The museum houses a broad range of fascinating things, from replicas of Alexander Bell's harmonic telegraph transmitter to a switchboard used by the Shaniko Hotel in Eastern Oregon from 1907 to 1947.

Wiechmann said kids who tour the museum want to know where the redial button is on the old phones. He said he holds up his index tells them, "There's your redial, right there."