Cheeseburger

NEW YORK - Wendy's third-quarter loss widened as the fast-food company paid off costs related to selling the Arby's chain. Shares of Wendy's tumbled more than 5 percent in early trading to $5.20. Wendy's lost nearly $4 million, or a penny per share, missing analysts' estimates. In the same period a year ago, when it was still attached to Arby's, the chain lost $909,000, which was break-even per share. This quarter's loss was largely from costs related to selling Arby's in July, including expenses for cutting jobs and retaining other employees.

Andy Burgers are always on the menu Saturday night. Asked to recall a memorable speech by his head coach during his six seasons with the Eagles, cornerback Lito Sheppard could come up with only one thing. "I'll treat you to some cheeseburgers," he said, laughing about Andy Reid's signature Saturday night ritual. "He says that every week. It's the snack after the meeting. There are other things you can eat, but the cheeseburgers are always on the menu. " Reid's cheeseburger promise has been consistent since he became the head coach in 1999, with one exception.

When lawyer Carol Fritz decided to add "actress" to her resume last year, one thing stood in her way: She wanted to list her weight as 148, 10 pounds lighter than she actually was. "I like to think of myself as an honest person," the Powelton Village resident says. "I was ready to post that resume on the Internet with that number, so I needed to get there. I just needed an extra push. " That extra push for Fritz was using a financial incentive to help her reach her weight-loss goal.

Jeff Weinberg felt queasy, but it didn't deter him from doing major damage to an oversize cheeseburger as he sat in his Madison Square Garden seat, awaiting the opening face-off of Wednesday's Flyers-Rangers game. Weinberg, 25 and a self-described spreadsheet analyst from Clifton, N.J., is a die-hard Rangers fan. That means he was born to suffer. It also means he knows the answer to the question that all of New York seems to be asking these days: Will the National Hockey League players go on strike at noon tomorrow?

The last meal. It's a condemned prisoner's last free choice, a final moment of dignity and, perhaps, even pleasure. And it's one of those odd details of life people want to know. Make that an odd detail of death. Whether it's a cheeseburger with fries, a steak and potatoes or even a bag of chips, the last meal is always dutifully reported in news accounts, along with the last words. Last meals - like the one that presumably will be served tomorrow in Delaware to condemned murderer Billy Bailey - go down in history, just like the names of presidents, the victors of wars and the life stories of sports heroes.

There are easier ways to celebrate high school graduation than to run for your baseball team's life. For verification, check with Matt McAllister . . . who perhaps by now has even stopped panting. What a day to remember for McAllister, a 6-foot, 175-pound pitcher-third baseman, and the other baseball playing members of Archbishop Wood High's senior class. From graduation at 11 a.m., in Villanova's Pavilion, to a 10-6, come-from-way-behind win over West York in a PIAA Class AAA first-round playoff at La Salle High's Ward Field (4 p.m. start)

Armed with only a positive attitude, a lanky blond co-ed from the College of New Jersey has succeeded where bigger men have failed. Much bigger. Indeed, Kate Stelnick, a 5-foot, 7-inch 19-year-old who hails from Princeton, weighs barely 115 pounds versus her chief competitor, who rolls in at 420. Yet she is apparently the only American - indeed, the only person on Earth - to eat a six-pound hamburger with five pounds of fixings in under three hours. Truly well done.

Description: Quarter-pound fresh, not frozen, hamburger, plus American cheese, red onion, lettuce, tomato, pickle and mayo on a toasted, buttered bun. Chain: Wendy's. Price: $3.99 plus tax. Location: 15th and Chestnut streets. Order time: 11 minutes. Review: Everyone in the Chain Gang agreed this was a tasty cheeseburger, but it was not hot and it was certainly not juicy. We can, however, understand why Wendy's is not trying to market a "Lukewarm Gray 'N Dry" cheeseburger.

The trash crisis and the pollution of our air, our water and our land have become topics that we hear about regularly now. Two especially frightening situations are the pollution and destruction of our oceans, results of which we saw this summer - dead dolphins and trash on our beaches - and the destruction of our atmosphere. What is causing these related crises? One major cause is the huge volume of material that we throw "away" daily. Styrofoam cups, plastic bottles, plastic product wrappers, cardboard boxes, and on and on and on. While the sheer amount of trash is mind-boggling enough, even worse is that much of it is not biodegradable, meaning that if it's dumped into landfills or oceans, it doesn't break down, but remains essentially intact forever.