Every generation produces explorers and adventurers who strive to ‘push the envelope’. Today the envelope is flying off Alpine cliffs or jumping from helicopter skids wearing a ‘wingsuit’, a sort of ‘batman’ outfit that turns a human being into a soaring creature that hurtles toward the valley below at speeds well over 100 mph. The people who do this are addicted to adrenaline thrills few of us can even imagine. This is living on the edge of the edge…
Wingsuit Flying
Ludovic Woerth & Jokke Sommer | YouTube | 25 Jan 13
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I’m not much of a basketball fan. I hardly ever watch the game on TV. Maybe the NBA finals. Lately, however, I have noticed the buzz surrounding Jeremy Lin. This fellow has certainly excited the world of basketball with startling plays and a pile of baskets to his credit. I plan to watch the Knocks on Sunday just to catch a bit of ‘Linmania’. Nevertheless I think it’s useful to remember that while Lin in certainly exciting and fun to watch he has quite a way to go to even come close to the orbit of the game’s greatest player, Michael Jordan. The other night Lin scored 38 points and made headlines everywhere. Jordan routinely scored over 40 and occasionally topped 65 points in one game. That’s one man scoring more then half the points of his entire team. And he wasn’t 9-feet tall. I give Jeremy Lin all kinds of credit and support. I hope he becomes another Michael Jordan. But he’s got a long, long way to go…
Football. A bunch of mastodons dressed in steel plate armor butting heads and performing strange victory dances. Basketball. Lots of very tall gentlemen running back and forth, occassionally jamming a large orange ball through a hoop. Golf. Old men dressed in nice slacks whispering to each other while puffing cigars. Tennis. All sorts of people running around batting a yellow ball back and forth and screaming about how badly they did it. None of these athletic pursuits holds a candle to Cricket. Cricket. Sport of aristocrats and landed gentry. If you understand it you’re in a distinct minority…
I don’t know what’s so special about this video clip from Andy Murray’s match with Michael Llodra at the Australian Open. I play tennis about five times a week and this is pretty standard for my matches…
Let me tell you, some people are simply, inhumanly, assuredly, out of their blinking minds when it comes to taking unnecessary risks. Like this fellow…
I play tennis. A lot. I have been known to vent my frustration on rare occasions by brushing my racket on the ground. (OK, maybe more than ‘rare’ and maybe more than ‘brushing’). While I have never creamed four rackets in a row as Marcos Baghdatis does here I certainly understand his mood. It’s a tough sport…
This is a phenomenal little film about a guy who can ski down anything. Looks like it was filmed in British Columbia. On a rainy day no less. A work of art, both the film and the skiing. I love the end where he takes his skis off, gets on a bus to ride back up hill and do it again. Very cool video…
OK class, everyone ready to risk their lives traversing the most dangerous pathway on the planet? El Caminito del Rey (English: The King’s little pathway) is a walkway, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in the province of Málaga, Spain. Once the site of a dam it is now a place where insane people like to make YouTube videos to scare the bejesus out of folks like you and me. The question is, what in the world are the two barefoot dudes doing in the middle of the path? Sit back, relax and whatever you do, don’t look down…