Jockstrip: The world as we know it.

Billboard 'love search' not working out

ORLANDO, Fla., March 22 (UPI) -- An Orlando, Fla., bachelor who used a billboard to find dates says he might still be looking for love in all the wrong places but he remains optimistic.

John Smith rented a billboard along the city's Interstate 4 during December hoping the right woman would contact his helpjohnfindlove.com Web site, but he says the women he's met have been less than ideal, the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel reported.

"At this point, I would say, it was not successful," he said. "I had hoped to be dating someone seriously by now, but it just didn't work out."

Smith says the women who've responded have either been dating other people or simply wanted a meal out. With others, the chemistry simply wasn't right, the newspaper said.

But ever hopeful, he's been the subject of radio and television interviews and he's organized a bachelor auction with proceeds going to an Orlando charity.

And, if he does meet "the one," he and his significant other have an invitation to appear on the "Dr. Phil" show so the celebrity can give her the once-over.

Bed-pushing competitors prepare for Derby

LOUISVILLE, Ky., March 22 (UPI) -- Competitors say they are seriously preparing for the Kentucky Derby -- preparing to push custom-made beds in the Great Bed Races.

The annual Kentucky Derby Festival Great Bed Races event brings out five-member teams to push hand-built "racing beds" in a contest the week before the "real" Kentucky Derby, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

Those designing and building their beds are serious about them.

"These beds are the cream of the crop. They are lightweight ... everything you need to compete," said Carol Fogarty, organizer of a team sponsored by Northwestern Mutual Financial Network.

Their entry is all aluminum, complete with a Chevrolet steering wheel and 26-inch cart wheels.

"This year, we will be able to give it a good shot," Fogarty said.

Racers will compete in two classes at the April 26 event: a "Fun Division" for newcomers and a "Champions Division" for race-winning veterans, the Courier-Journal said.

Event welcomes spring with sock-burning

ANNAPOLIS, Md., March 22 (UPI) -- Members of a yacht club in Annapolis, Md., said the site hosted an event that welcomed spring by burning the socks of excited participants.

Saturday's waterside event at the Eastport Yacht Club featured hundreds of people taking part in a 30-year tradition aimed at celebrating the first day of spring, The Baltimore Sun reported.

"We got about 375 people, and they are tossing in their socks. One fellow even tossed in his jeans," yacht club member Susan Nahmias told the Sun.

"It is a fun way to say spring is here," yacht club founder Fred Hecklinger offered.

Sailors at the Downtown Sailing Center in Baltimore also embraced the spring tradition in their own way. Instead of burning scores of socks, participants in the center event donated more than 700 pairs of new socks to help individuals at a local mission.

"We always need socks," Helping Up Mission director Barry Burnett said of the donation to his site, which helps the poor and homeless.

It's a new LA city landmark, man

LOS ANGELES, March 22 (UPI) -- The Los Angeles City Council has named a Venice hangout for the Beat Generation as a city landmark, officials say.

The building, known as the Venice West Cafe, was the venue for disciples of writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg and other beat pioneers who sowed LA's counterculture movement from 1958 to 1966, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The style of the building on Dudley Avenue near Ocean Front Walk is "commercial vernacular," the Times reported, but the city Planning Department's Office of Historic Resources said the spot had "social and cultural significance."

The cafe closed in 1966, giving way to an upscale eatery, the report said.