Risk Live

For the storytelling Risk Live, people have told embarrassing stories. These are just some of "true tales bravely told" that Kevin Allison, a member of MTV comedy show The State, encourages people to share. Risk Live is coming to Ybor City. 8:00 – 11:00 pm. Friday at the Attic. 1510 E Eighth Ave. Tampa. (828)773-9481. $ 20.

The Blind Side

All summer long, Tampa Theatre is showing classic Hollywood movies and Sunday features not only screen of 2009's The Blind Side, but also actor Quinton Aaron, who played Big Mike in the film, based on the true story of NFL player Michael Oher's life and adapted from a book by Michael Lewis. Proceeds benefit the Quinton Aaron Foundation to prevent bullying. 3:00 pm, Sunday. 711 Franklin St. , Tampa. $10, $ 7 members. (813) 274-8982.

Beers on the Pier

Explore the city of St. Petersburg's heritage at this fundraiser for the St. Petersburg Museum of History. You can taste more than 70 beers from 24 American breweries throughout the museum galleries of the St. Petersburg Museum of History. Plus, if that's not enough, there's live music. 6: 00 pm to 10: 00 pm, Saturday. $ 35. Proceeds benefit the museum. 335 Second Ave, NE, St. Petersburg. (727) 894-1052.

Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays’ Pride Night has always stood out for the Rays’ support of a local community, such as raising money for the Pulse Victims Fund. Get a lower-level ticket and a Pride hat for $ 30. Fans can purchase an upper-level seat for $7.11. A lower-level ticket for $ 7. Also this week, all fans get a free Fred McGriff for Saturday's 4: 10 pm game; Sunday's 1:00 pm game is Family Fun Day. Cars with four or more people get free parking and there are special events for kids during the game. Children who are aged 14 and younger can get free boards for drawing and enjoy drawing. (702) 823-2165.

My presentation was horrible. I knew it before I heard "we'll be in touch” from the client. Then the rest of my day was spent in relative silence，I was left alone. Eventually, I left my air-conditioned office and outside there was a heat wave.

I boarded a bus but couldn't tolerate it as its air-conditioner wasn't working, so I got off at the next stop and walked home. I declined to take off my jacket because “when it rains let it pour" was my philosophy.

A block from my building, I heard the water splashing and kids screaming. As I turned the corner, there were kids playing in the water. When they saw me in my suit they stopped the water and when they saw my mean look, they even got quiet.

Then I noticed the youngest kid no older than five, holding a water gun down by his side, eying me hard. I eyed him back. Suddenly, he shot his gun at me. As I took my first step toward him, another boy threw his water gun towards me. I caught it and pulled the trigger toward the five-year-old. He fought back but his shooter was no match for my power so instead, he turned his water gun on a few other kids who were shocked into stillness at what just happened. Then, I also turned my water gun on these kids and before long we were in all-out water warfare.

Needless to say, I was wet and laughed like I'd never done it before. I couldn't remember my last water fight and if I did, it couldn't have been as enjoyable as this one. It took a five-year-old to bring out the kid in me and help me realize that you may not be able to control disappointment but you can still welcome those things that make you happy.

If you've ever taken a road trip through Georgia or Alabama, you've noticed the fields of kudzu （野葛）from which towering leafy figures turn up. These "kudzu monsters" are fascinating to look at, but their funny appearance hides an ecological reality.

Kudzu's initial introduction into the US in 1876 was intended to provide farmers in Pennsylvania with a cover plant to fight against soil erosion（流失）. A few years later, the vine（藤）was marketed widely in the Southeast as a decoration for shading homes. By the mid-1940s an estimated 3 million acres of kudzu had been planted with the help of government support

As the South's economy and industry shifted in the mid-20th century, however, rural farmers began moving away for jobs in more urban areas, leaving their kudzu plants behind to multiply unchecked. Spreading at a rate of about 2,500 acres per year, it wasn't long before the plant earned the name "the vine that ate the South".

The most obvious methods to control kudzu include regular weeding and herbicidal use, but because those efforts have gained little long-term success over time, efforts to control kudzu have increasingly turned to more biological treatments, such as insects that eat the vine and even animals eating its leaves. With a small herd of goats or sheep, an acre of kudzu can be polished off in a single day.

Goats and sheep shouldn't have all the fun, though! Believe it or not, there are plenty of human-friendly kudzu recipes that are surprisingly palatable. Although the vines cannot be eaten, pretty much everything else is mouth-watering. The leaves can be cooked, eaten raw in a salad. The flowers can be used in jams, jellies, candy and even wine. The roots, which are filled with plenty of protein, fiber and iron, can be ground up and used for cooking.

Nowadays people rarely read for enjoyment, even though reading books used to be one of most people's recreations. It was an escape from the surrounding world, away from technology. However, these days has seen a sharp decline in how much time people spend reading books, news articles, short stories, and many other macro-reading materials.

Social media that have come out, such as Twitter and Facebook, have shortened the amount of time we need to read and process information. Twitter's character limit quickly summarizes information for readers so they do not have to bother opening and reading a longer article. Five minutes on Twitter can catch people up on their news for the rest of the day. Twitter and other social media sites can be regarded as micro-reading, which is a technology that takes bits of articles and summarizes them in a few brief sentences.

But Twitter isn't always able to thoroughly summarize a topic. A headline or summary can be misleading if the reader does not know the context. This can lead to misinterpretations of what an article is actually about.

The other day I was criticized for one of my columns. The criticism was strange, because it was barely connected to the article. When I countered their argument _f saying that this opinion wasn't related to the article, they said they didn't read the story, only the headline.

As a columnist, I spend a good amount of time writing these columns and I hope people can read them with great attention. There are points that I am unable to sum up in a single line. If readers don't bother to read the article and only read the headline, they are not going to get the point of the piece of writing. This is why, as a society, we can't fully rely on social media for all of our information.