Paul Hunt: Women's Gymnastics

Thanks to GBG

Man Who Used Stick To Roll Ball Into Hole In Ground Praised For His Courage

SAN DIEGO—A man who used several different bent sticks to hit a ball to an area comprised of very short grass surrounding a hole in the ground was praised for his courage Monday after he used a somewhat smaller stick to gently roll the ball into the aforementioned hole in fewer attempts than his competitors. "What guts, what confidence," ESPN commentator Scott Van Pelt said of the man, who was evidently unable to carry his sticks himself, employing someone else to hold the sticks and manipulate the flag sticking out of the hole in the ground while he rolled the ball into it. "You have to be so brave, so self-assured, so strong mentally to [roll a ball into a hole in the ground]. Amazing." The man in question apparently hurt his knee during this activity.

From The Onion.

You Walk Wrong

It took 4 million years of evolution to perfect the human foot. But we’re wrecking it with every step we take.

Walking is easy. It’s so easy that no one ever has to teach you how to do it. It’s so easy, in fact, that we often pair it with other easy activities—talking, chewing gum—and suggest that if you can’t do both simultaneously, you’re some sort of insensate clod. So you probably think you’ve got this walking thing pretty much nailed. As you stroll around the city, worrying about the economy, or the environment, or your next month’s rent, you might assume that the one thing you don’t need to worry about is the way in which you’re strolling around the city.

Well, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you: You walk wrong.

Look, it’s not your fault. It’s your shoes. Shoes are bad. I don’t just mean stiletto heels, or cowboy boots, or tottering espadrilles, or any of the other fairly obvious foot-torture devices into which we wincingly jam our feet. I mean all shoes. Shoes hurt your feet. They change how you walk. In fact, your feet—your poor, tender, abused, ignored, maligned, misunderstood feet—are getting trounced in a war that’s been raging for roughly a thousand years: the battle of shoes versus feet.

Last year, researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, published a study titled “Shod Versus Unshod: The Emergence of Forefoot Pathology in Modern Humans?” in the podiatry journal The Foot. The study examined 180 modern humans from three different population groups (Sotho, Zulu, and European), comparing their feet to one another’s, as well as to the feet of 2,000-year-old skeletons. The researchers concluded that, prior to the invention of shoes, people had healthier feet. Among the modern subjects, the Zulu population, which often goes barefoot, had the healthiest feet while the Europeans—i.e., the habitual shoe-wearers—had the unhealthiest. One of the lead researchers, Dr. Bernhard Zipfel, when commenting on his findings, lamented that the American Podiatric Medical Association does not “actively encourage outdoor barefoot walking for healthy individuals. This flies in the face of the increasing scientific evidence, including our study, that most of the commercially available footwear is not good for the feet.”

Okay, so shoes can be less than comfortable. If you’ve ever suffered through a wedding in four-inch heels or patent-leather dress shoes, you’ve probably figured this out. But does that really mean we don’t walk correctly? (Yes.) I mean, don’t we instinctively know how to walk? (Yes, sort of.) Isn’t walking totally natural? Yes—but shoes aren’t.

“Natural gait is biomechanically impossible for any shoe-wearing person,” wrote Dr. William A. Rossi in a 1999 article in Podiatry Management. “It took 4 million years to develop our unique human foot and our consequent distinctive form of gait, a remarkable feat of bioengineering. Yet, in only a few thousand years, and with one carelessly designed instrument, our shoes, we have warped the pure anatomical form of human gait, obstructing its engineering efficiency, afflicting it with strains and stresses and denying it its natural grace of form and ease of movement head to foot.” In other words: Feet good. Shoes bad.

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Extreme Water Sliding

328. Extreme water sliding - BestofYouTube.com

Elastic Woman

Thanks to Dr. MH

Insane Air Racing

Saw this yesterday on TV, amazing.

More information here and more videos here.

Cluster Balooning

Like hot-air balloons, cluster balloons are flown in the very early morning, when winds are calm. In some areas, it is also possible to fly in the evening, in the hour or two before sunset. Preparations for a morning flight flight start before dawn. The balloons range in size from four to seven feet; depending on the mix of sizes, anywhere from 50 to 150 balloons may be needed. It takes a crew of fiften to twenty people about an hour and a half to inflate the balloons. Special hoses and manifolds are used to inflate the balloons to the desired size, based on the volume of the helium tanks. The inflated balloons are sealed using tape and cable ties, and are tied with nylon twine.

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Staring Competition

Greetings Staredown fans,

As the Commissioner of the NASP, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the official NASP website.

Since its founding in 1997, the NASP's foremost mission has been to unite the previously fractured elements of the Staredown community. The launch of prostaredown.com is yet another sign of the progress we've made in this regard.

With the upcoming release of Unflinching Triumph: The Philip Rockhammer Story, we firmly believe this is the perfect time for the launch of this website. J.R. McCord's documentary will shed new light on our athletes, fans, and the league that brought new legitimacy to this ancient sport.

Staredown is a sport that requires focus, concentration, and endurance. Through the course of history, from the caves of the Neanderthal Man to the playgrounds of suburban America, Staredown has been practiced by commoners and merchants, peasants and royalty alike. But only recently has this sport achieved the official recognition it deserves.

NASP Site.(National Association of Staredown Professionals)

Flying off a Mountain, Literally

Amazing, check it out.
Thanks to Jan

The Origin of Fantasy Football

But where did fantasy football come from? What unheralded genius is responsible for making every Sunday afternoon from September to January a national holiday?

His name is Wilfred Winkenbach.

Winkenbach, an Oakland area businessman and limited partner in the Oakland Raiders, along with Raiders Public Relations manager Bill Tunnel and reporter Scotty Starling developed the rules that eventually became modern fantasy football in the Milford Plaza Hotel during a 1962 team trip to NYC.

When he returned to Oakland, Winkenbach organized the inaugural eight-team league called the GOPPPL (Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Procrastinators League), which consisted of those who were either an administrative affiliate of the AFL, a pro football journalist or someone who has purchased or sold 10 season tickets for the Raiders’ 1963 season.

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Speed-walking Champion in Danger. Will He Run or Walk?

Yogi Berra on Politics

But for pure political insight -- now more than ever with the wide-open presidential races in both parties -- there is no one to match Yogi Berra, Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees and reigning philosopher of baseball. Here is how selected Yogi-isms can explain contemporary politics:

"I wish I had an answer to that, because I'm tired of answering that question."

Instead of claiming amnesia, Alberto Gonzales would have been shrewder to emulate this kind of candor during his hapless appearance last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The virtue of the Yogi quote book is that its wisdom is bipartisan. Hillary Clinton could also resort to this honest approach every time she is tempted to give a convoluted answer about her vote authorizing the Iraq war.

"Slump? I ain't in a slump ... I just ain't hitting."

This might as well be the slogan of the fast-deflating John McCain campaign. With disappointing fundraising numbers and drooping polls, the defrocked GOP front-runner is on his way to being benched by Republican voters.

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

Perhaps because of his baseball background, George W. Bush (aka "the Decider") is a master at this. Regardless of the consequences make a decision, any decision. This is about leadership.

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

Yogi's succinct restaurant review underscores the risks for Barack Obama if the novelty of his charismatic candidacy begins to fade. At the crest of a wave in the fall of 2003, Howard Dean was collecting major endorsements (Al Gore, unions like the SEIU) on a daily basis. The result? Many prominent Democrats decided there was no room for them in the Dean movement and migrated elsewhere.

"You can't think and hit at the same time."

This is Yogi's admonition that you should be guided by instinct. In the mouth of a presidential candidate, this sentiment becomes, "I don't read the polls."

Or to quote once more from the Gospel According to Yogi: "You've got to be careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."

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