Glass

I CAN'T BELIEVE that idiotic couple were having sex against the window in a high-rise building not worrying about caving through the window and falling to their deaths. Don't they have anything better to do than possibly spreading STDs, HIV and AIDS, which have killed a lot of young people as well as older people? Talk about college education. Robert F. Schaffer Philadelphia

The first time I ate at Villa di Roma, that 9th Street institution, I assumed that my "house red" was served in a water tumbler because all the wine glasses were dirty. A few glasses later I realized a water tumbler was a wine glass at the venerable Villa. But by that time, I didn't care. I just knew the wine tasted good with my mussels in red sauce. I've never been too picky about my choice of chalice. One of my most memorable imbibings was a late spring Saturday, sitting in an Upstate New York woods, sipping May a wine fragrant with woodruff and eating fresh strawberries.

A proposal to establish curbside pickup of glass for recycling has been presented to the Sharon Hill Borough Council. During a council caucus meeting Thursday night, Councilman Ralph S. Brower recommended that the borough consider purchasing a truck to collect glass at residents' homes rather than have residents bring the glass to receptacles at the borough hall. Brower said the borough would receive additional revenue if it picked up the glass and transported it to a glass company, or had the company pick it up at the borough hall.

Three businesses here, and in one in Buckingham, were burglarized Tuesday by someone who likes to remove glass from windows or doors. Police also are investigating two other commercial burglaries that occurred here three days before as possibly related. A window pane had been removed in one of those incidents. At least $2,200 in cash was taken in the four most recent incidents, along with some other valuables. Some cash and a commercial license were taken in one of the other burglaries.

Latest project for Channel 3's indefatigable Nancy "Who Needs Sleep?" Glass is Avenues, a woman-oriented show on cable's Lifetime network. It will debut Oct. 6 and air weekdays at 1 and 6 p.m. and Saturdays at 11 a.m. Glass will host the hour-long show with Linda Dano, the flamboyant Felicia Gallant on NBC's Another World. Avenues is the brainchild of Lifetime programming chief Chuck Gingold, Glass' former boss, and mentor, at Channel 3. Twice a week, after finishing her duties with KYW-TV's Evening Magazine, Glass will spend eight hours in New York taping two segments.

Wine glasses facilitate the ritual of wine tasting: judging the color, swirling, smelling and sipping. The ideal glass is clear and thin, making it easy to control the flow of wine into the mouth. RED WINE Red-wine glasses are larger than white and usually curved slightly inward at the top so the bouquet can collect above the surface of the wine. Fill the glass only half-full so there's room for the bouquet (and so your nose won't get wet when you sniff it.) WHITE WINE White-wine glasses are smaller than red, though an all-purpose glass with an 8- or 10-ounce capacity may be used for both.

Even in the darkness, you could hear and feel the glass cascading all around. "There was just this shower of glass," said Jane Mitchell, a library employee at Haverford College, who was on her way to the 69th Street Terminal. "I just felt this very strong swerve, and then glass. " Kimberly Worthen of Logan, also on her way to 69th Street, was in the second car, she said, when she felt the train go off the tracks, and then she saw sparks. "People were screaming," Worthen said.

The tattered index cards that Alex Kinnier and Russ Walters have been carrying in their wallets since the night before their graduation from Lehigh University in 1998 are still intact. And so are the rules, goals and time line that the two chemical-engineering majors, now 27, jotted on the cards that night in hope that those thoughts would help them stay focused on their dream of launching a business together one day. The index cards "kept us aligned," Kinnier said. "We took them out every time we talked.

A memorial service will be held Saturday for Joseph Diano, an artist in stained glass, who died Thursday. He was 83 and lived in Southampton, Bucks County. "He never thought about retiring," his daughter, Patricia Tougas, said yesterday. Tougas said her father still went regularly to the Willet Stained Glass Studio in Chestnut Hill, where he had worked nearly 45 years, until the Christmas before he underwent open-heart surgery two years ago. Diano, an Italian immigrant, came to this country with his mother in the early 1900s to join his father, a stonemason, and grew up in South Philadelphia, around 6th and South streets.

Garry Knox Bennett and Tom Patti work in ways that transcend current art trends. From their twin-bill solo shows at Snyderman Gallery, it's clear that neither of these nationally known artists fits into any mainstream pigeonholes. For Bennett, a burly California sculptor and metalsmith turned maker of wood furniture, surface is everything. He makes trestle tables, side tables, benches, chairs and lamps with the wizardry of an alchemist transforming his materials from rugged raw stuff into elegant abstract forms, with plenty of curvaceous bulges, fissures and checkerboard detailing that invite handling.

Question: We moved into a home with 20-year-old sliding glass doors that were treated with what appears to be a thin plastic coating or plastic shield for sun glare. Is there any way to remove this coating? One slider has clouded over, and the coating has chipped and blistered in spots. It could be a broken seal, but the areas that have no coating are perfectly clear. Answer: The best solution I've read is from my buddies the Carey Bros. of San Francisco: Spray the coating with ammonia, cover it immediately with Saran Wrap, wait 45 minutes, and then scrape it off with a broad-blade putty knife.

Dorothea Daniels Glass, 92, a former Melrose Park resident who overcame prejudice against working women to become a respected specialist in rehabilitation medicine, died of heart failure Saturday, April 20, at her home in Palm City, Fla. "My mother walked into the room and you felt better," said her daughter, Deborah. "She was a trailblazer with class. " Known informally as Thea, Dr. Glass was born in New York City and graduated from Cornell University just before the start of World War II. Her mother and aunt had gone to medical school, and she wanted to follow suit.

I RA GLASS is the Jessica Simpson of public radio. Not the new, pregnant designer Jessica Simpson. The old, singing, can't dance a lick Jessica Simpson. That Jessica used to surround herself with dancers to hide her own immobility. And that brings us to Glass. The "This American Life" host will present the world premiere of "One Radio Show, Two Dancers," a night of stories and dance, courtesy of Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass , Saturday and Sunday at the Annenberg Center.

Free vision exams and glasses for children who cannot afford them will be offered at Wills Eye Institute on Saturday, the annual mass screening day that typically attracts more than 1,000 children and their parents. Walk-in registration (no appointments) for children 18 and under runs from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Jefferson's Alumni Hall at 10th and Locust Streets, followed by vision screenings and, if necessary, more detailed medical exams and selection of glasses in nearby buildings.

It was getting late. A pleasant, memorable evening of barhopping was coming to an end. We'd sampled some of the best pubs and ales Amsterdam has to offer. One more stop, one more Heineken, and we'd call it a night. From the vantage point of an ages-old corner booth, my brother Rob and I reveled in the ambience: the music and dancing, the camaraderie, the warmth and the cozy atmosphere so characteristic of Amsterdam and the Dutch. What better than a "borrowed" Heineken glass to capture the memory?

What kind of building do you get when you cross the über-cool, urban minimalism of the Apple stores with the indulgent, diet-busting excess of the Cheesecake Factory restaurants? Would you believe an architectural confection that is as visually sublime as it is intellectually rich? I'll admit that when I first heard that the popular suburban temple of caloric overload was touching down at 15th and Walnut Streets, the news didn't exactly stoke my appetite for good design. I imagined a generic box, done up in flat, lifeless stucco the color of American cheese, elbowing its way onto a corner that has been occupied for the better part of a century by three ordinary, but charming, commercial buildings.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Hugo Chavez's body will be preserved and forever displayed inside a glass tomb at a military museum not far from the presidential palace from which he ruled for 14 years, his successor announced Thursday. Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's acting head of state, said Chavez would first lie in state for "at least" another seven days at the military academy where he was brought Wednesday. A state funeral will be held Friday attended by 33 heads of government, including Cuban President Raul Castro and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I GET A CHILL whenever I listen to James Brown soulfully sing "It's a Man's World. " I especially like to shout, "You got that right!" when he says, "But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl. " Those lyrics come to mind as we celebrate Women's History Month - it's not a man's world anymore. Sunday marked 100 years since thousands of women marched down Pennsylvania Avenue demanding the right to vote. They were taunted and pushed, but they pressed on. So, too, have women pressed their way into jobs in the private and public sectors.

"The voice-activated wearable computer ... it's coming from IBM," a commmercial declared a dozen years ago, while showing a dude wearing funny eyegear and shouting , scaring pigeons in Venice's St. Mark's Square. Finally, such a device could be out this year - but from Google, and, as folks have been hearing since last spring, it's called Google Glass . The buzz got louder this week with two appearances by Google cofounder Sergey Brin, one at an after-Oscars party, another speaking at a California innovation conference.

Two bullets struck a SEPTA bus en route in West Philadelphia early this morning, and medics treated a passenger who reported to be struck by shattering glass. SEPTA spokeswoman Heather Redfern said it was not clear if the bus was the intended target when the bullets hit the G route bus about 12:45 a.m. Redfern said police informed SEPTA other vehicles in the area were also hit by bullets. The bus was struck at about 56th and Market Streets and came to a stop at 56th and Vine.