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The pennant race, well, that can wait for a minute, Macha must have thought. In the West, the fruit has garnered interest as an alternative sweetener. Bands such as High on Fire, Clutch, Poison the Well, Chimaira and headliner Lamb of God pulled themselves up from their studded bootstraps and slogged through basement shows and Elk’s lodges until they slowly but surely harvested fresh ear-share with their six-string scythes.The Sounds of the Underground lineup represents the dream of a certain type of young, passionate metal fan that trolls Internet sites like MySpace.com, DigitalMetal.com and PureVolume.com in search of the latest MP3s to download, peruses magazines like Revolver to read up on the bands and endures hours of liver- and kidney-rattling rock as a kind of cleansing ritual into the brotherhood of extreme metal conscripts, which is growing by the month.The tour, which rumbles into the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Friday, is the brainchild of four prime movers in this incipient but rapidly expanding scene — the House of Blues, management firm Entertainment Services Unlimited, booking agency Face the Music and metal label Ferret Records. “I have fond memories of all that.”Chalifour seconds those sentiments.

How the oaks make acorns in their sleep is anyone’s guess.Out there with my hose, I still can’t quite trust the experts who diagnose dormancy These summer-slumbering natives don’t seem dormant. Otherwise, they are just part of the village’s design, experienced by different people at various removes. The magazine the attendants handed out was 21st century, though barely, showing Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader,” greeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2001.The flight was only the first step backward, to the days before globalization brought a Starbucks to every corner. Mostly, though, he’s a machine, tasked with eliminating everything in his path.In a traditional cop show, that would make him an antihero, but “The Shield” has always been something different It’s a show about fury and action, not process and the law.

A police identification card was found near one of the bodies.In southern Iraq, near Basra where 8,000 British troops are based, a British soldier was killed when a roadside bomb detonated as his vehicle passed.Meanwhile, a website used by Islamic militants carried a posting purportedly from alleged insurgent mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi in which he vowed to personally lead Al Qaeda loyalists in defeating the crackdown. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been pushing for the state to start shifting the cost — and some control — of road building to the private sector, lawmakers last May authorized government agencies to build four demonstration projects in partnership with investment banks, shipping companies and other businesses.The companies would put up money for the projects, and in return could end up owning a share of them. Doyle, vice president of information and research for the National Sporting Goods Assn. But once inside, they met limited resistance compared with that mounted last week in Gaza.A rabbi and about 15 teenage boys were holed up inside a newly built religious seminary. rivals for a fifth straight year.Worldwide, stock investors seemed to ignore rising interest rates and another jump in oil prices, focusing instead on the good news of an expanding global economy.That may prove more of a challenge in the second quarter. Tokyo TOMOMI KUNISHIGE was practicing cursive English writing at university one day when she flipped over her notebook and was struck by the familiar look of the word “truth.” “The English handwriting looked just like calligraphy,” says the ebullient 28-year-old, who had been studying the ancient Japanese art since age 6.That’s when she decided to mess with tradition.With its fluid style and swooping lines, calligraphy is suited to improvisation.