Etc...

Mine's red and has wheels

The British Airways crew finished preparations for the flight from London's Heathrow Airport to the US earlier this week, locked the plane door, and rolled the jetway back to facilitate taxiing for takeoff. But while the cabin was full, not a single passenger was aboard. Confused? The flight was added to the carrier's regular schedule because it was the best way to ferry thousands of pieces of luggage to American travelers who had to leave them behind last week when storms knocked out the airport's conveyor belts.

Also this week, if you missed it, a new star was added to the famous Walk of Fame in Hollywood - commemorating a 70-year career in films. And there in - um - person as the ceremony took place was the beaming honoree himself ... Donald Duck. Or, rather, an actor in duck costume.

In sports, there are watchers and there are doers. People fond of extreme sports tend to fall into the latter camp. The best of them annually converge at the the X Games, which ended in Los Angeles last Sunday. ESPN provided TV coverage, but most "extreme" fans are more eager to pursue their edgy, alternative sports, which often feature a combination of speed, height, risk, and spectacular stunts, than they are to watch others do so. In its latest Superstudy of Sports Participation, SGMA International, the trade association of sporting goods manufacturers, finds inline skating the most popular extreme sport in the US. The top 10, with number of participants (in millions):

1. Inline skating 19.2
2. Skateboarding 11.1
3. Paintball 9.8
4. Artificial-wall climbing 8.6
5. Snowboarding 7.8
6. Mountain biking 6.9
7. Trail running 6.1
8. BMX bicycling 3.4
9. Wakeboarding 3.3
10. Roller hockey 2.7