Padraig Parkinson won the first ever UKIPT Galway poker tournament last night, winning nearly $182,000, making this the 7th World Series of Poker event that he has cashed in on. With the win, Parkinson wins the unofficial “Irish” title and a free seat at the English Poker Tournament — London next year.
Never one to live up to a stereotype, Parkinson was feeling awfully good after his win: “I was born just down the road so I can’t believe that I won it.
“If anyone wants a drink, I’m buying!”
Tom Smallwood beat the competition and the assumptions that his name arises in upsetting the reigning Professional Bowlers Association player of the Year, Wes Malott, 244-228 in the PBA World Championships on Sunday. The former assembly-line worker for General Motors who was laid off nearly a year ago took home his first PBA Tour title, his first “major” title, a $50,000 first prize, a two-year exemption to continue his PBA Tour career and his first chance to bowl in January’s PBA Tournament of Champions.
“It’s surreal,” Smallwood, 32, said. “It has been a wild ride.”
“I was already so nervous in the 10th frame, I told myself I couldn’t possibly get any more nervous,” he added. “The right lane was my good lane anyway, so I figured if I threw a decent shot, I’d be OK.”
Always sure of his skill, Smallwood never attempted to get on the tour until after he lost his job, so he competed in the PBA Tour Trial in suburban Detroit, finishing 3rd and starting his bowling career.
“I wouldn’t be here otherwise,” he said. “Getting an exemption is so hard to do.”
Ironically, Smallwood recently got a call from the General Motors jobs bank, offering him a chance to go back to work.
“The lady who called asked me if I wanted to come back to work, but I told her no,” he said. “She asked what I was doing. I told her I’m now a professional bowler and that I’d be on ESPN this weekend. At first she didn’t believe me, but the lady sitting next to her was a bowler, so I wound up talking to her for a while. Now I think the people at GM are fans.”
Sad news for those of you who were planning on crashing the curling events at the Vancouver Olympics on the hunt for a hottie, Canada’s Jennifer Jones, one of the better looking curlers out there performed poorly and failed to qualify for the team. Despite having won the last 2 Canadian Championships, Jones’ team just couldn’t put it all together when it counted and so they’ll be watching the Olympics from home.
“We’re hugely disappointed,” Jones said. “We worked three years for this but we just came out and things just didn’t go our way. Sometimes I think it’s just not meant to be. I mean, we didn’t play as well as we liked and I don’t know why. It was really just one bad end, a couple of bad shots every game and we just couldn’t recover.
“Only one team gets to win and unfortunately it’s not going to be us.”
Well, there’s always NEXT Olympics right! In the meantime we can admire Jennifer from a distance.
[CTV]
I dare you to show me a person with bigger set of stones than British photographer Andy Willsheer who was on hand at the Pomona Raceway for the Auto Club drag racing finals. As Steve Gasparrelli started off the line his car hit an oil slick and immediately swerved out of control, heading towards the barrier and exactly where Willsheer was standing. In an instant a hulking tower of metal was flying out-of-control right for him. Without panicking, Willsheer stood his ground, snapping photograph after photograph despite the inherent danger. The car ultimately came to a rest a mere 3 feet from him, and while everyone else rushed away, Willsheer stayed put and got the shot. Awesome!
Winner of a Congressional Water Safety Award in 1978, Bill Dance is a legend in the bass fishing world who has had a fishing show since the 1960s, his most recent version (Bill Dance Outdoors) airs on the Versus network in between hockey and the constant showings of Bloodsport. The long-time fisherman has had a number of bloopers during his day, and this 3 minute clip captures some truly hilarious ones.
Say what you want about the inanity of fishing — I agree — but these bloopers are absolutely amazing, I’m almost tempted to buy one of his DVDs to see more. I won’t but I’m tempted.
The camera guy falling off the clip completely slays me, that shit is PRICELESS.
With waves as high as 50 feet, the Quicksilver in memory of Eddie Aikau was held on Tuesday on the North Shore of Oahu. Greg Long of California ended up the winner of the day, taking home a $55,000 prize while riding 40-50 foot high waves in each of his runs.
“I’m so happy just to be here, invited into the biggest event of big waves in the world with all my heroes, I’m so excited,” said Long.
In second place was surfing legend and one-time Baywatch cast member Kelly Slater.
Two British women are attempting to make history as they set out on a 3,000 mile journey rowing across the Atlantic Ocean. Annie Januszewski (left), 40, and Mel King (right), 37, are looking to break the record for transatlantic travel by an all-female crew. The record right now is 75 days, but the pair are looking to do it 70.
To aid them along in their journey, the women have a unique hook, they’re going to do the whole journey naked. Originally they were going to just do the trip in their bras and underwear (to prevent chafing from their clothes) but changed their minds and are going to do the whole trip sans clothes now.
Among the challenges ahead for the women are 35 foot waves, days rowing for over 15 hours and of course, sunstroke and burns. But at least they won’t have to worry about tan lines!
Annie said: “I’ve just turned 40 but I’d like to get it straight that I’m not going through a mid life crisis. Hopefully being nude will allow us to shave days off our time. I know it’s going be the hardest thing I’ve ever done and boy, is my bum going to suffer.”
The team is leaving the Canary Islands today, as part of the Atlantic Rowing Race 2009 and hope to reach Antigua in February. If they make it, they’d be only the 7th all-female crew to make the crossing, and presumably the only ones to do the whole thing naked.
The trip isn’t just for the two women though, when they reach Antigua they’ll have raised over $50,000 for the MacMillan Cancer Support charity.
“I have always, always wanted to do something of this magnitude and what could possibly be bigger than rowing the Atlantic and setting a world record?” Annie said.
[The Sun]
I’m not as up-to-date as I should be with the latest happenings in the surfing world. For instance, I have been INCREDIBLY remiss in not highlighting the talented Alana Blanchard. The 19-year-old from Hawaii has been surfing since she was a child and winning professional competitions since she was 15. In 2003, while surfing with her best friend Bethany Hamilton, a tiger shark swam by and bit off Hamilton’s arm. Along with her father and brother, Alana helped get Bethany to shore and then to the hospital where she was operated on and three weeks later was back to surfing. So, not only is she incredibly hot, but also a good person too! And handy with a tourniquet which is always useful.
Even more useful, how hot surfer girls wear incredibly small bikinis all the time and love to show off their bodies. Thank you surf gods.
Kain Saul is an Australian freestyle motocross rider and a few weeks back he attempted something that had never been done before, a backflip using a Harley Davidson. Of course, an actual Harley bike is far too heavy to be flipped in the air and so with some help from a local Harley dealership they installed a giant Harley engine onto a motocross bike frame. Checking in at nearly 570 pounds the bike still retained plenty of that Harley heavy bike allure. All set, Saul gets the bike in place, engages the 100 HP engine and let’s her rip.
Surfers from around the world have been making their way to the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii in the hopes of competing in the Quicksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau event, which hasn’t been held since 2004. The event is only held in perfect conditions, and requires waves to be at a minimum of 40 feet high. With record surfs, this might be the year to resurrect the competition and so hundreds of top surfers from around the globe have been flying in to Hawaii. While the contest hasn’t officially started that hasn’t stopped everyone from getting out on the waves and letting loose.
And I have another very aesthetically pleasing surfing post coming later today that will knock your socks off.
*(UPDATE)* The Quicksilver will start today at 10:00 PST
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban stopped by WWE’s Monday Night Raw last night as the guest host, in a shocking development, his night was not limited just to hosting duties. When the unnecessarily enraged Sheamus was in the ring with Cuban he just couldn’t help himself. First Cuban takes a knee to the groin (something I’m sure that delighted NBA commissioner David Stern) and then found himself picked up by the fiery(crotched) Sheamus and then thrown through a table. Pretty standard Monday night for a billionaire.
I just hope Cuban learned his lesson, NEVER TRUST A GINGER, us redheads be dangerous and easily roused to anger. You’ve been warned.
In 1999, Jesus Leonardo placed a bet at an OTB window in Manhattan, when the race was over he had lost and threw the ticket on the floor in disgust. But then, all of a sudden there was announced that there was an inquiry and soon the results were changed; now he was a winner, $900 to be exact. Alas, he’d already tossed the ticket into the garbage, and after fruitlessly searching for it, couldn’t find the winning ticket. Despite tearfully pleading with the manager, Leonardo was told there was nothing that could be done. However, the manager suggested that if he wanted to take the trash home and look through it, he was welcome to do so.
Taking her up on the offer, Leonardo took the bag home. He never found his winning $900, but did find 2 other tickets worth a combined $2,000. Ever since he’s been a stooper — “a person who hangs around racetracks and betting parlors picking up tickets thrown away by others.”
“This has become my job, my life,” he said. “This is how I feed my family.”
On average Leonardo makes anywhere from $100 – $300 a day, feeding ticket after ticket into the scanners looking for winners. With the help of some friends, he has branched his operations out, getting the garbage from 5 OTB locations which he then digs through on the lookout for lost treasure. Leonardo says that he makes on average over $45,000 a year, which he pays taxes on. Back in 2006 he had his best single ticket finding a Pick 4 that someone had tossed worth $9,500, not too shabby. According to the New York State Racing and Wagering Board nearly $8.5 million in racing bets go unclaimed each year, meaning that Leonardo is only getting a small slice of the larger pie.
“At first, my wife thought I was crazy, but then she realized I was finding a lot of money in winning tickets, sometimes $200 a day,” he said. “After a while, she didn’t think I was so crazy.”
[NY Times]
The Slanch Report has started an online petition asking the MLB Network to air the Dock Ellis no-hitter he threw on June 12, 1970 against the San Diego Padres. The moment was a seminal piece of baseball history and is certainly worthy of being rerun.
Please join us in this cause and sign the petition below so we can all share in this special and fantastic moment of baseball history. THANKS!
SIGN THE PETITION HERE! AND PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND PASS THIS ALONG!
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