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Shorts And Shirts IF YOU thought childhood games like dodge ball ended with fifthgrade, think again. The Up High/Down Low Dodgeball League of LosAngeles is carrying on the team sport with all the excitement of agroup of over-caffeinated kids, but with the edgy style of thecreative types, comedians and club promoters who make up the teamsthat play every Monday night at the Bellevue Recreation Center inSilver Lake. Inside the rec center, the roar of supporters and the screeching ofsneakers make the scene sound like a high school basketball game.But walk through the doors and music from the likes of Depeche Modeand Digable Planets blares from the speakers, revving up theplayers and fans who look like an American Apparel ad on steroids. Extra-short gym shorts, vintage shirts, thigh-high tube socks andmetallic leggings topped off with sweatbands in every color of therainbow run back and forth in a blur. Players hurl little rubberballs with the fervor of women waiting to enter the doors of theManolo Blahnik sample sale. There are six balls flying at a time --at the players, into the stands -- though the object, of course, ispelting someone on the opposite team and getting him or her "out."Some players are fueled by a happy hour cocktail, others just pureadrenaline. All of them take their personal style to new levelswhen on the court. Team $tatu$ Faction's unifying colors are black and gold. CatChiang paired her gold foil T-shirt with matching metallic hotshorts and yellow New Balance sneakers. Her teammate Kai Harrellsports a skull bandanna finished off with a skeleton scarf over hismouth, bandit style. Bandannas are a requirement for TeamBandan-a-rama, whose members wear different-coloredbandannas aroundtheir necks, with leggings and V-neck tees. While most groups have T-shirts or some kind of uniform piece, it'sTeam PNDB that hits hardest in pink tuxedo-front T-shirts worn withactual tux pieces such as vintage powder blue vests and cummerbundson the waists of athletic shorts. Accessories are as much a part of the game as the rest of theoutfit, and there's no shortage of glitter and graffiti here.Brooke Alexejun, who is on the currently undefeated team, World WarIV, wears graffiti print Reebok high-tops with her uniform whileother players opt for more girly footwear, such as shiny silvershoes from Tom's. The style is a long way from the schoolyard, but the enthusiasm forthe game is right out of grade school. And judging by the length,so are some of the shorts.

Design Wedding Gown STEPHANIE Faoro's wedding day was saved by a "hero"holding a pair of scissors, fabric and sewing machine. The Mt Waverley bride walked down the aisle on Saturday in herfairytale wedding gown which she picked up only the day before. Last year, Stephanie found her perfect design at a Ringwooddressmaker. But after paying the full $2200 in May, she sensedsomething was wrong. "I kept asking them whether it would be ready and they keptassuring me it was fine," Stephanie said. Even Rene Tamasauskas, of Oakleigh's Tamasauskas Design,commissioned to make the matron-of-honour and flowergirl dress,said the bride was overreacting. But when Stephanie arrived for her fitting on May 27, thedressmaker had gone out of business. "They said there was no money, no dress, at which point Iburst out into tears," she said. Stephanie then rushed to Tamasauskas Design with nothing more thana roll of silk duchess satin and hope. "By Friday the lining and the skirt were already done and bythe next Wednesday it was finished," she said. "They are my heroes. They were able to make the same dress andonly charged me $1500." Ms Tamasauskas said the dress was made with the least amount oftrauma possible. "We don't have second chances in this business because we arealways working to deadlines," Ms Tamasauskas said. "All you need is some scissors, some fabric, a sewing machineand a mannequin." Stephanie married Matthew Kelly at Nathania Springs Receptions inMonbulk on Saturday, with her daughter, Madeleine, 2, as the flowergirl.

Power Diet Shoes"Jim Fixx had multivessel coronary disease he couldn't do anythingabout, no matter how many veggies he ate or miles he ran," Califfsays. "Wearing a seat belt doesn't guarantee you aren't going toget killed in a car crash." Russert's death is a wake-up call to thousands of men who neverthought they might be courting a coronary, says Cam Patterson,chief of cardiology at the University of North Carolina-ChapelHill. "You wouldn't believe the calls we've been getting," Pattersonsays. "Here's an example of a high-profile person who everyonethought was healthy. When someone like that has a medicalcatastrophe, it causes everyone to focus." Warning signs Both men had ample warning they were prime candidates for heartattacks. Russert had been diagnosed with coronary artery disease,his doctor told MSNBC. Fixx had a terrifying family history,including a father who had a fatal heart attack in his early 40s. And both took steps to reduce their odds of the same fate.Russert's doctor, Michael Newman, prescribed medication andexercise. He told MSNBC that Russert performed well on a stresstest in April. Fixx, who reached the height of his fame beforecholesterol-lowering drugs were widely available, changed his diet,laced up his running shoes and ate up the miles. Russert's death seemed all the more shocking for the era in whichit occurred, one of rising optimism about potentcholesterol-lowering drugs and decreasing death rates from heartdisease. Just over a year ago, a team led by researchers at the Centers forDisease Control and Prevention reported that the death rate fromheart disease in the USA has dropped by 50% from 1980 to 2000,thanks to improvements in medical treatment and a reduction in riskfactors. The researchers credited those advances — including intensivecholesterol-lowering and blood pressure control for heart attackpatients and a drop in smoking rates — with saving anestimated 341,000 lives that would have been lost to heart diseaseif conditions in 1980 had persisted. For all those advances, however, medical science still has nodefinitive way to tell in a given individual when "something's justaround the corner," says cardiologist Sidney Smith at UNC. Thedifferent tests at doctors' fingertips provide varying amounts ofinformation but not, typically, what doctors and patients most wantto know. For instance, a routine stress test, performed using a combinationof a treadmill and electrocardiogram, can disclose heart rhythmabnormalities that occur during exercise when blockages prevent theheart's blood supply from meeting its growing demand. Nuclear andultrasound stress tests produce cloudy images and information onheart function. CT heart scans, a series of rapid-fire X-rays,reveal calcified blockages in the coronary arteries. None revealsan imminent heart attack. The best indicators, Califf says, are standard risk factors forheart disease: blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, diabetes,stress, diet, exercise and abdominal obesity. Reliable, not perfect, data Plugged into a formula called the Framingham Risk Score, the riskfactors provide reliable odds of a person's heart attack risk. Theodds are derived from real world experience — an ongoing,60-year-old heart study among thousands of residents of Framingham,Mass. But the Framingham score is imperfect, too. Half of all heartattacks occur in people who have no risk factors and 20% in peoplewith no major risk factors. The reason lies in the biology of the coronary artery. In landmarkresearch, Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic has shown that whencholesterol begins collecting in artery walls, it pushes themoutward, not into the channel where blood flows. So many patients— Russert included — experience no symptoms of heartdisease. Heart attacks occur when a plaque becomes inflamed and bursts,sending blood clots and debris downstream to lodge in arteriessupplying the heart. Standard diagnostic tests don't reveal theseinflamed cholesterol deposits or plaques. Over the past few years,researchers led by Paul Ridker of Harvard have shown that testingfor a chemical signal of inflammation, called C-reactive protein,or CRP, can add predictive power. But many heart attacks are still unpredictable. Russert's is atextbook example. Making positive changes UNC's Patterson says allowing fatalism to grow out of theuncertainty is the wrong thing to do, because you can dramaticallyreduce the odds that you'll be next by reducing the risk factors. "I try to eat well, avoid fatty foods, eat seafood a couple oftimes a week," he says. "I don't smoke. I have a regular exerciseregimen. I run three or four times a week. I try to build it intomy lifestyle." Not making such practices a permanent change is "a big mistakepeople make," he says. "It needs to be the thing you do on a dailybasis. "If there's one key message I try to get home to people, it'sthis," Patterson says. "There's great news. Over the last 30 years,we've substantially reduced deaths from heart disease in the U.S. "But it's still the leading cause of deaths and disability. Halfthe people who are walking around are going to die at some point ofheart disease."