I don’t have a lot of an idea about why this video was made, but anytime we can celebrate the athletic achievements of our future robot overlords I’m game.
I’d just like to remind our future masters that bloggers can be very helpful in spreading the robot message and so I should be spared in the first wave.
[Gizmodo]
With New Year’s fast approaching, people are making resolutions left and right, take Martin Parnell, a semi-retired Calgary mining engineer has made quite a unique one.
Starting 9 am, January 1st, Parnell will be out on the road and starting his first marathon of the year — the first of 250 that he intends to run in 2010.
5 days a week Parnell will be on the roads, taking off only Fridays and Saturdays for rest. This wasn’t Parnell’s first plan though, initially he intended to run 365 marathons but after seeing his doctor — a mountaineer who has climbed Everest — the 54-year-old was told he should cut his plans back a bit, thus settling on the mere 250 marathons instead.
His goal is to raise $250,000 for a charity called Right to Play, “an international humanitarian organization that uses sports and play programs to improve health, develop life skills and foster peace for children in developing countries. It also has programs in 4,500 schools in Canada.”
Parnell only took up running seven years ago after his older brother challenged him to a marathon, within 6 months he was qualifying for the Toronto Marathon and then the Boston Marathon, which he ran for the first time in 2004.
“Obviously, I liked it and I just kept going,” he said.
Twelve of the 250 marathons will be official races, in places like Calgary, Boston and Vancouver, but the rest will be on the certified marathon course near his home. Parnell will be sending real-time data tracking his location, speed and heart rate to his website, marathonquest250.com along his nearly 7,000 mile journey.
“I kind of like challenges where I don’t know if I can do this,” Parnell said, “I think it can be done. And I like that.”
In 1867 the first-ever Belmont Stakes was run, since then the third and longest leg of the Triple Crown of horse racing has been run through thick and thin; world wars, great depressions, the Carter administration, none of these were big enough to stop the race. That all might change this year. The NY Racing Association, who runs the Belmont, Aqueduct and Saratoga race tracks may not be able to open for the Spring-Summer season due to budgetary concerns.
“Anytime you face the possibility of not running the Belmont spring meet, and therefore the Belmont Stakes, it is a serious situation,” spokesman Dan Silver said Monday.
NYRA President Charles Hayward has reported previously that the Association is likely to run out of operating money in May or June.
One of the major stumbling blocks has been the delay in naming an operator for the slot machines at Aqueduct, which was approved in 2001 but has yet to be enacted.
Last year the NYRA received a state bailout of $30M to help stave off bankruptcy, but that money will be gone by spring meaning the Triple Crown may find itself a Double Crown for the first time.
Don’t let the her super-cute looks fool you, 22-year-old Anastasia Ashley is not just another pretty face, she’s one of the world’s top surfers. Starting from age 5, Ashley has been out on the waves and along the way she has won some of the most prestigious awards out there; she won the Rookie of the Year from the ASP and the Pro Surf Tour of America’s women’s tour championship at the ripe ol’ age of 16! She was also recently a finalist for PETA’s Sexiest Vegetarian contest which is almost reason enough for me to pay attention to PETA, almost.
I think I’m going to have to watch a lot more surfing from now on, because, seriously, these women are RIDICULOUS.
Hosting the WWE’s Monday Night Raw, Johnny Damon found himself the center of some unwanted touches when he was amorously attacked by octogenarian wrestling legend Mae Young. He can deny it all he wants, but he wanted it; why else would he have dressed that way?
The Moelltal glacier in Carinthia, Austria is a very popular spot for skiers and snowboarders across Europe. Featuring more than 35 miles of slopes and a special snowboard Fun Park, it’s easy to see why. One recent visitor, Austrian snowboarder Kurt Welden, 31, nearly found his funtimes turning into DEATHTIMES when he went over a cliff.
Hanging on desperately, he was able to dig some snow away and help get a better grip on his precarious position. Rescue workers came to Welden’s aid, but it took them over an hour to reach him and get him free using a helicopter.
One of the rescuers said afterwards: “The fear was that the snow that was at the edge of the cliff could have been dislodged, taking the man down with it.
“But in the end we managed to pull him to safety. He was shocked but otherwise unhurt.”
Back during the Beijing Olympics, I fell for Australian swimming sensation Stephanie Rice, and I know that if she were to meet me she’d feel the same way. She must have sensed that because, since the Olympics and her breakup with a fellow swimmer she has been linked to several men but according to her, none of the rumors are true.
“Everyone’s always ‘Steph, you need a boyfriend’ and I’m like ‘I know, but apparently I have four’. Believe me, one would be just perfect,” she said.
Stephanie also added that while she’s busy with training and being in the public eye, that isn’t stopping her from looking for a gentleman friend. “I can definitely fit it in, that’s not my problem and I’m not making that an excuse,” but it’s not always easy knowing people’s motivation. “It’s hard to tell if people like the idea of (a relationship with Stephanie Rice) or if they really like you,” she said.
Well, Stephanie, despite having never met you, I can say that I’m in it for YOU and not your fame. Sure, you have worldwide fame, gold medals, sponsorship deals and seemingly you have it all, but without the proper life-companion, it’s all useless. Let’s take this journey through life together, let’s meet up, say halfway, how about we meet in LA?
Call me!
Also, can someone buy me a plane ticket to LA?
And the rest of you, stay away!
I’m really into surfing recently; well, one particular aspect of surfing, the incredibly hot women who do it. We saw young hottie Alana Blanchard in all her glory, but 9-time Panamanian champion Sonia “Pucha (Sugar)” Garcia can give her quite the battle; which is something I’d pay good money to see.
I mean, how can you NOT love a vocation where the women are athletic and hang out in skimpy bikinis all the time, it sounds like heaven to me. The 34-year-old Garcia has captured plenty of titles, and hearts, along her career, although none can be as important as capturing my attention. Let’s go out paddling Sonia!
I’m not incredibly well-versed in the world of MMA, but I have a feeling that when you try and bodyslam your opponent and in the process knock yourself unconscious that you are doing it wrong.
I never played lacrosse in high school because that was at the same time as the tennis season and also the musicals; y’know, because I’m like THE most masculine dude ever. Since I never played, I have no compunction with poking fun at those who do, and who better to aid in the process then the folks over at Inside Lacrosse who cover the college game have released their 2nd annual Face-Off Yearbook All-Name Team. The criteria to be included are strict:
The main qualification is to have a first name that no one has ever heard of. Now, the tricky distinction comes down to differentiating between names that might have some ethnic heritage or lean more toward hippie than preppy.
The name has to be unique, and most importantly, it has to have a certain air about it. Basically, it has to sound like it fits in Judge Elihu Smails’ family, and belongs in a Tuesday afternoon foursome with Spaulding and his chums at Bushwood Country Club.
Without further delay, here are the 1st team winners:
Ridge Flick — Sr., A, Air Force
Ashton Hotchkiss — Sr., A, Roanoke
Gibbs Preston — Sr., A, McDaniel
Forest Sonnenfeldt — Fr., M, Princeton
Keaton O’Hara — So., M, Bellarmine
Caldwell Rohrbach — So., A, St. Lawrence
Zeppy O’Geen — So., F/O, Herkimer
Briggs Davis — So., LSM, Middlebury
Baxter Lanius — Fr., D, Lehigh
Dayton Gilbreath —So., D, Air Force
Brogin VanSkoik — Sr., Potsdam
Brewster Knowlton — So., G, WNEC
All excellent choices, and they have a second and third team as well that you can check out by going to their page HERE. Me, I’d have made sure Austin Milton Winter and Blaze Yeager were on the first squad, but then again, I’m the dude who played tennis and then did high school musicals so…
The small African nation of Eritrea had quite the surprise when their national soccer team arrived on the tarmac after being knocked out of the Cecafa cup for East and Central African nations; when the plane landed it held only the coach and a team official, the players were missing.
Nicholas Musonye, the head of Cecafa, confirmed that the players did not return to their repressive homeland, making this the third time the Eritrean team has defected.
“The Eritrean federation have done their best to bring a team to the competition – unfortunately these boys had other ideas,” he said. “Definitely they are in Nairobi – we have so many Eritreans here – they must be somewhere.”
The government of Eritrea is extremely constraining and that, combined with wide-spread poverty and a strict service regime leads to many Eritreans emigrating anywhere else.
The Eritrean government however denies that its citizens are leaving and claim the UN is lying about the situation.
[BBC]
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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