Do You Have Too Many Piles Of Cash Lying Around?

Think you've run out of pointless things to waste money on? Worried that somewhere out there, someone is being less frugal than you? Unsure if there are any sports left that do not have ridiculously overpriced equipment? My friend, let me introduce you to the one-hundred-and-thirty-six-dollar, carbon-fiber ping pong paddle:

The battle for rumpus-room supremacy will never be the same.

"You Don't Deke Margaret Atwood"

In honor of the Sharks actually making it out of the first round of the playoffs, I give you Margaret Atwood: Poet, Novelist, Goalie.

Introducing: Alphabracket

This year, inspired by a contest on another blog, I created my first-ever bracket for the March Madness. I am not what you would call a serious basketball fan*, so I have no idea which teams are likely to win, or why. But sheer randomness in my picks would never do; I would never remember who I was cheering for, and I tend to drop coins when I try to flip them. I needed some sort of methodology for choosing my teams, which is why I settled on: alphabetically.





I don't see how this could possibly fail.


*Unless what you call "a serious basketball fan" is "someone has never actually watched or cared about a basketball game." I don't know how you do things.

Why the Biathalon Is the Greatest Sport of All Time

Or, at least, why it should be.

When Guys Shop

Fun fact about me: I have no ability to estimate the actual size of a thing based on the dimensions. This has led to certain problems, specifically in the area of buying earrings online. (Honestly, why do they make those things so huge? Do they think we have steel-reinforced earlobes?) So it was that when Cameron said he wanted to get a big new TV, and that he thought 55 inches would be about right, I said, "Hmm, sounds biggish, sure." (That the diagonal was only eleven inches shorter than my actual total height somehow failed to occur to me.)

Biggish:




I'm not complaining, just surprised. It is a large television. But the high-def is fantastic and our SuperBowl party should be a big upgrade over last year's, where it was too much trouble to peer at the tiny screen of my old TV, so everyone pretty much just sat around and ate snacks.

Craziest Use of a Regular Polygon You Will See All Day

(Hat tip @BillCorbett, via the Twitwire)

Real Athletic Event I Am Totally Not Making Up

The International Yoga Asana Championship*

2009 International Yoga Asana Championship from Mike McInnis on Vimeo.

(Warning: Prolonged exposure to the accompanying music may cause brain damage. And the reggae is kind of a surprise.)


I wonder, what is the smack-talking like at a yoga championship?
"You call that meditation?"
"My grandmother could align her chakras better than that!"
"Hey, nice mat!"
"You really think you're gonna achieve liberation from all worldly suffering and the cycle of birth and death with toe positions like that? Please."


Further questions:

Do the kids competing in the youth championships have hypercompetitive yoga parents living through them in the wings?

Why has no one come up with high-tech specialized clothing for this event? Is there a marketing opportunity here?

Is there an app for this?


*Yes, I did tweet this. But then Karen pointed out that there was video, and it was clear that this needed a more in-depth treatment. But I went with this blog post instead.