The Smarmy Carny

Tennis, anyone?

When I first received these awesome rooftop tennis pictures in an e-mail, I thought they looked amazingly cool . . . and amazingly fake. Much to my surprise, however, I found out that these pictures are authentic!

The Burj Al Arab hotel invited Andre Agassi and Roger Federer to come play some friendly games of tennis on their grass ::wikipedia("cantilever", "cantilevered"):: helipad.

Despite my reluctance to believe the photos, my trusted resources at snopes.com confirm this to be real. I'm horribly impressed. It's the world's highest tennis court.

Of course, when I was in my college tennis court, we would always get upset when the ball flew out of the court area and over the fencing. (This explains why I prefer racquetball!) Just imagine the time to retrieve your ball from this court!

Jason McElwain, a Greece student, is also the student assistant for his high school basketball team. He is also diagnosed as "highly functioning autistic."

After Jason's team gained a substantial lead, Jason entered the game and promptly airballed a three-pointer. He then missed a layup. After that, however, Jason hit six three-pointers, tying a team record in just ten minutes of play.

You can also view another video report at break.com

Go ahead and buy the book "Potty Time With Elmo." Chances are, you'll receive a helpful, delightful little book that will encourage your youngster to start using the potty. Of course, there is that small chance that Elmo will threaten to kill you, instead.

Interestingly, the company that manufactures the book has said that there have been multiple complaints regarding this problem, so it's not just a single, isolated incident or a spoof.

The study results aren't yet in, but perhaps death threats are simply more effective than the "success-reward" method of potty training.

Then again, perhaps Elmo has snapped, and he'll finally get that court-ordered psychiatrist.

Be sure to keep reading . . . after all, who knows when they'll discover that the book "Elmo Wants a Bath" threatens to drown your child if they don't wash behind their ears?

Have you ever been frustrated at folding clothes?

Do you wish there was a faster, easier way to fold your shirts?

Would you demand that a video be made available for you to learn how?

If you answered any of these questions with "Yes" or "No," then this video is for you. Not only can you watch and be amazed, but you can watch a few more times and try and see how it is done.

You have now entered the classroom. Go ahead and learn how to fold a shirt.

After having watched the video about five times, I went home and was able to (basically) recreate the method on my own. I imagine that with some practice, I could to this on a regular basis. The trick here is to not let anyone else know that I have such powerful information in my hands, lest I end up living a life of t-shirt servitude!

Napoleon Dynamite

This rules. Dominic Ranz Ebarle Errazo, a 13-year-old from South Carolina, stood up to spell his word in the spelling bee. The word? Chinook . . . but that really doesn't matter.

Errago asked for the definition of the word, and once it was given, he gave a decent Napoleon Dynamite impression and said "Do the chickens have large talons?"

It sounds to me like one of the judges says "We'll check that," followed by (what sounded like) the commentator saying "What was that?" You can hear plenty of discussion from the audience along with one person who actually has a clue give a brief round of appreciation. The commentator then asks "Was that a secret message?"

It's a good thing that Errazo chose the fifth round to make the fun reference, as he went out the following round for missing a simple, common word "nyctapelagic." Everyone knows it's "nyctipelagic!" Errazo ended up tying for 28th place.

Priceless. If I ran this blog for a living, I'd track him down and give him an interview.

Full-Court Shot, Part One

Allow me to use a fitting cliche here: I really dropped the ball on this one.

Back on February 2, I posted about an amazing 87-foot (full-court) shot made at the end of a high school game to give Guilford the lead over Randolph-Macon. The following day, Jordan Snipes appeared on local television (WFMY) news program. He was given a rack of 16 basketballs to try and repeat his performance. Not only does he sink a basket, several of his earlier attempts come amazingly close. I swear that this guy is more accurate from 87 feet than I am from the three-point line.

I know, I know . . . I can talk about it all I want, but you really just want to see the footage. Check it out.

Anyway, that was the following day. It only took me four months to post it.

Buzzer Beater

Here's yet another exciting end-of-game video from a men's basketball game between Chicago State University and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. As the clip begins, CSU is down by 3 points with 10.3 seconds remaining and they are inbounding the ball.

This is some suprising stuff from a team that went 9-19. The shots were made by David Inabnit and Kevin Jones, Jr. You can read this PDF file for a bit more information.

Oh, and just for the record, that was a 55-foot shot. Distance-wise, that's nothing compared to the 87-foot buzzer beater, but the culmination of events still builds an undeniable excitement.

I'm not sure what it is about basketball, but it certainly is one of the best sports as far as culminating in exciting endings. I would have to guess that's the case because it's relatively easy to score points, unlike hockey, American football, and European football. Not a whole lot of buzzer-beating slap shots out there in the NHL, especially this season.