Etc...

Is it latex or oil-base?

Remember when there was a website dedicated to watching corn grow? A couple of years ago, CornCam enticed Internet users around the world (and around the clock) to "cheer as the mighty stalks battle wind, hail, and rainstorms" on a farm outside Monticello, Iowa. Well, if the concept worked once, why not again? To find out, an eight-week, 24/7 live webcast in Britain has begun offering "Watching Paint Dry." Visitors to www.uktvstyle.co.uk may vote on the color and the finish they like best after each is applied to a wall. Those attracting the fewest votes will not reappear.

On Saturday at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., sensational thoroughbred Smarty Jones will attempt to win the final leg of horse racing's coveted Triple Crown. Sixteen other horses are scheduled to break from the gate, but Smarty Jones will enter as the class act of the field, having previously won the Kentucky Derby by 2-3/4 lengths and the Preakness in Baltimore by 11-1/2 lengths. To become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978, however, he must outrun the other 3-year-olds over a mile and a half, the longest race of the three and the one that has snuffed out many Triple Crown bids. The 11 horses that Smarty Jones will join if he prevails Saturday, and the year in which they captured the Triple Crown (Seabiscuit, by the way, didn't vie for the Triple Crown, but beat War Admiral in a match race the year after the latter's dominating Triple Crown performance):

Sir Barton 1919
Gallant Fox 1930
Omaha 1935
War Admiral 1937
Whirlaway 1941
Count Fleet 1943
Assault 1946
Citation 1948
Secretariat 1973
Seattle Slew 1977
Affirmed 1978 - 'The World Almanac Book of Facts 2004'