I’m pretty confident about diving, but I always realize the risks. Nothing makes me sadder than being on a boat full of jock-headed morons pouring beer on their chests during a surface interval and yammering about who went deepest. I tend to try to dive very respectfully of the ocean and reef; take only photos and bring back only memories (or a scallop I harvested on the rock, with a license.)

A great book to read that gave me a much deeper understanding of why beer and cigarettes are dumb during a surface interval: Bove & Davis’ Diving Medicine. Its a bit technical but I found it to be a great source of the next-level-up in detail from most dive books.

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Man climbs onto the roof of the moving minivan he had been driving. He stands on the van’s roof until it crashes and throws him into the woods, police say.
The guy gets up, takes off all his clothes and then runs along the highway — until police are able to subdue him. It takes three Taser charges and some pepper spray. Did we mention the footlong gash on his torso, through which you could look at his internal organs?

Okay, I excised one word to make it unclear from which state the man hailed, forcing this post into compliance with internet stealing protocol and obscuring the location of a place that produces such crazy, ballsy motherfuckers.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in 22 years” [Crime Scene KC]

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Cameron Bieberle, 18, of Winter Park was thrown to the ground after the Cadillac sport utility vehicle he was holding onto hit a speed bump late Saturday night, investigators said.

“He was riding alongside a Cadillac Escalade, sitting in the cart and hanging onto the side,” said Kim Miller, spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol. “The Escalade hit a speed bump and he was ejected.

Man killed while car-surfing [Breitbart.com]

Naturally I turned to YouTube to help me understand what this might look like. The idiots in the video below are likely not the idiot in the article and perhaps they are still alive.

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“That’s obviously people who don’t know very much about golf,” he said. “To say it’s a one-in-a-million shot for an accident like that to happen, you know, and when it did happen, I was very remorseful, very upset that it happened.”

Pro Golfer Defensive About Killing Hawk[The Associated Press]

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[via TV in Japan]

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At a news conference in Brooklyn, state Atty. Gen. Andrew M. Cuomo said the arrests served as a message that “organized crime still exits. . . . We like to think it’s a vestige of the past. It’s not. It is as unrelenting as weeds that continue to sprout in the cracks of society.

Seems the Mafia still has its hat in the game. Every bit a part of America as baseball.

Full Story  [LATimes.com]

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Here ’s my favorites.
Chug your beer ( or take a shot ) every time:

– You see Peyton Manning in a commercial.
- The camera finds its way onto the Manning Family.
- An announcer makes reference to Gisele Bundchen!
- Randy Moss is noted as now being a hard worker or mature.
- Bill Parcells is brought up.
- You hear a player is giving it “110%”!
- You hear the word “Dynasty.”
- The Miami Dolphins or Don Shula or champagne are mentioned.
- “American Idol” is mentioned.
- Vince Lombardi’s name is brought up.

and one of my own:
Joe Buck forgets that Eli Manning isn’t Payton and calls him Payton.

read the whole list:
This Year’s Super Bowl XLII Drinking Game

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I needed a 5th or 6th lesson on how to read the Daily Racing Form—through a strange twist of fate, work is sending me to the track. Lo and behold: the DRF itself supplies a fantastic online tool.

How to Read the DRF [Drf.com]

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While it feels mostly modern—and McCutcheon’s Africa is certainly already over the crest of colonization—there are points where you can get a glimpse of the otherworldliness Africa must have once held. Over a hundred porters carrying gear through the long grass of veldts thousands of feet above sea above sea level. A bright, burgeoning Mombasa. Or this anecdote below, of a tribe of natives living in a cave high up the slopes of Mount Elgon.

It was nearly an hour’s climb to the ledge where the cave entrance appeared. Several naked men armed with spears stood upon the rocks, outlined in bold and striking relief against the velvety blackness of the cave entrance. They appeared curious but not unfriendly as we breathlessly panted our way on to the ledge where they stood waiting, spears in hand.

Our first impression was one of gasping wonderment. We seemed to stand upon a great stage of an immensity which words can not describe. It was a stage proportioned for giants. The rock prosscenium arched above us seventy feet and the stage was nearly two hundred feet wide. As an audience chamber one could look out over twenty-five thousand square miles of Central Africa.

The dimensions and the imposing magnitude of the place almost took one’s breath away. Two regiments of soldiers could have marched upon that stage. There was even room for a squadron of cavalry to manœuver. Upon the well-beaten floor were the tracks of cattle, showing that from time immemorial the cave people had driven in their herds for shelter or for safety in times of tribal warfare; and in places the solid rock was worn smooth and deep by the bare feet of centuries of naked people.

And yet, in spite of the titanic proportions of the cave, there was something quite homelike about it. It almost suggested a prosperous farm-yard. There were chickens walking about, with little chickens trotting alongside. There were wickerwork graneries standing here and there, while around the inner edge of the great entrance hall were little mud and stick woven houses five feet high, which gave the effect of a small village street.

Free eBook! [Gutenberg.org]

Previously: Great Men: Peter Hathaway Capstick, Hunter and Writer [Dethroner]

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From Pink Tentacle’s round-up of projected 2008 trends in Japan:

When it comes to nubile young female athlete idols, the letter “B” stands for beach volleyball and badminton. In 2007, beach volleyballer Miwa Asao raised eyebrows when she released a gravure DVD and posed for sexy Sabra magazine, while badminton doubles team Kumiko Ogura and Reiko Shiota (together known as “Ogushio”) were the subject of a popular photobook. In 2008, “B” might also come to signify bowling, as 17-year-old bowling idol (or bowdol, as some like to say) Rina Asada rises to stardom. Last year, Asada began appearing regularly on Nihon TV’s “P-League” late-night bowling program, which features amateurs and professionals competing in tournaments. She also won the women’s national high school bowling championship in July and has been selected as a member of Japan’s national team. Some say her popularity could help spark a bowling craze among the nation’s youth.

Japan 2008: The year in preview [Pink Tentacle]

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Unlike most race videos that end in fire and tears, this one ends with the lil’ tire that could. Safe for work! (Thanks, Michael!)

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I went on my rant before and I’ll do it again, except it will be shorter. I really think the hall of fame should do one of two things: reject the ball, or display it in a way that does now show the asterisk and makes no recognition of said branding.

Cliff notes: Go fuck yourself, Marc Ecko.

Vote756.com

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Fashion designer Marc Ecko is allowing Internet users to vote to either give the ball to the Hall of Fame, brand it with an asterisk before sending it to the Cooperstown (N.Y.) museum or place it in a rocket ship and launch it into space.

Pardon me for injecting my own opinion into the matter, but if you blast the ball into space, you should be trampled by a fucking rhino. Sending a baseball into outer space isn’t eliminating the record, or destroying Bonds, or giving me back the last year of my life I spent listening to shit about the record — it is a waste of a badass rocket ship and a perfectly good baseball (that commemorates one of baseball’s biggest records).

The ball should goto Cooperstown untouched as a part of MLB history and to not give Marc Ecko any more publicity. It would probably be more appropriate to brand the ball with the asterisk and send it to the hall of fame to not only recognize the actual record, but also recognize the the non-stop controversy that came with it (true or un-true). Then again, the asterisk would officially write in the record books that Bonds is a cheat and put Marc Ecko’s name in history of Major League Baseball, where it does not belong.

Vote. [Vote756.com]
Public to decide fate of 756th home run ball [Reuters]

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College Humor’s latest installment of “Prank War” was so unbelievably harsh I didn’t think it could be real, but Deadspin interviewed the prankster and he claims it’s the real deal. The send-up? A fifth-inning announcement a Yankee’s game indicates a man has proposed to his girlfriend. The problem is, he wasn’t the one who put up the ad.

Inside The Yankee Stadium Proposal Prank [Deadspin] (Thanks, Chris!)

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[Via Home Run Derby]

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On Aug. 31, 1987, Dave Bresnahan was the Michelangelo of potato sculpting. He sacrificed five fine tubers to the spud gods – death via peel – before settling on the correct shape. He drew red lines on the winner to simulate seams, only to see them erased by the potato’s weeping. He wielded that peeler like a true artiste.

Because in order to pull off the greatest prank in baseball history, Bresnahan needed to shape a potato like a baseball.

Tater toss [Sports.Yahoo.com]

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