Stephen A Smith went off on Rudy Giuliani while on Hardball. On the face of it, it doesn't bother me, but what does bother me is that he gave no real reason for why he thinks Rudy would be a dictator (LMAO). Just another Wilbon with a louder mouth.
There'd be "no foreign relations"? Nice train of thought, Smith, well spoken.
In kkk's 8pm post I asked what his new job was. So in fairness, I'll partially spill the beans as to what I do.
I write greeting cards.
Just kidding.
I work on technical documents for Industrial Gas Turbines and Gas Generators. What are those? Do a search I don't feel like explaining it. I work for a giant (evil) defense contractor. I have to deal with people in a foreign country on a daily basis, which is just so much fun. I'm kind of both an editor and writer of technical documents.
Speaking of working on technical manuals, I recently came across a typo that resulted in a particularly hilarious sexual inuendo. There was a sentence in a document dealing with applying torque to a nut (tightening a nut on a bolt). In this case the word "torquing" became "tonguing".
This resulted in: "Hold nut stationary during tonguing".
Honorable Mention, Toughest Man Alive, 21st Century: John Coward
Link
This British Airways co-pilot successfully landed a Boeing 777 after the plane experienced a complete, catastrophic failure of both engines and the plane's electrical systems. This occurred seconds before the landing approach. Only a handful of people were hurt.
Actor Heath Ledger died. Nothing against the guy, but he's just an actor. Not a big deal really. But I expect a lot of hyperbolic praise will be forthcoming from the media, giving him near saint status.
Finalist: Toughest Man Alive, 20th Century: William H. Rankin, Marine Corps pilot
Book
Rankin survived a "fall" (he had a parachute) from 44,000 feet in the 1950s. The engines on his plane seized, he ejected, but his chute opened too soon. It so happened that he was above a thunderstorm at the time. He spent 40 minutes WITHIN the storm clouds being buffeted around. Finally he fell to Earth, still alive. He is the only known human being to have been inside the clouds of a thunderstorm.
Finalist: Toughest Man Alive, 21st Century: Alcides Moreno, New York City window washer
AP story
Moreno fell an incredible 47 floors from a NYC skyscraper when his scaffolding fell. When the scaffolding gave way, he laid down flat against bottom of the platform, an action which probably resulted in his surviving the eventual impact.
Sir Edmund Hillary died yesterday. He reached the top of Mount Everest seconds before his Sherpa companion in 1953. Chalk another victory/oppression up for the white man. Couldn't he simply have let Norgay go ahead of him, in the interest of political correctness?
This study is creating a buzz about perceptions of high-priced wines versus low-priced wines. Everybody is talking about this, man they are just goo-goo over this story. People in the study were more satisfied with wines labeled at a high-price over the same wine labeled with a low price. So what? How is this not a no-brainer to everyone? Of course people are influenced by price, not to mention product labeling in terms of looks and packaging. The perception is, high price means better and we all fall into that trap more often than not.
Now I will say that lower priced generics or store brand products at the grocery store are, by and large, crap. There are certain products that I will always pay more for the brand because the brand name product is just plain better. But for other products, the generic version is fine.
My No-Generic-Ever list:
peanut butter (Jiff)
barbeque sauce (no store brand ever, may try an unknown premium brand)
salad dressing (same as BBQ sauce)
spaghetti sauce (same as BBQ sauce)
cookie dough (only Pillsbury or Nestle)
Nutri-grain bars
Quaker oatmeal (the kind you add hot water)
baked beans (Bushs)
orange juice
Generic Ok list:
bread
100% fruit juice, e.g. cranberry/apple juice
ice cream
some cereals
So I decided to watch Jericho last night to see what all the hubub is about. I wanted to find out what the deal was with the nuclear attacks, who was behind it, etc. Turns out that it was an inside job. Yep, forces in the U.S. government and/or U.S. military were behind the attack. Sound familiar? Is Alex Jones and other 911 truthers creative consultants on this show? I regret the space wasted on my DVR.
I made the mistake of turning on Rome today and of course he commented on the Quinn thing. "It better not be true." "I know you're smarter than that Brady." Yeah Jim, it's a real surprise a football player would rip on gays. Am I the only one who knows that there is a bigtime culture in football that is not hardcore anti-gay but is in fact steeped in gay jokes and the like. John Feinstein acknowledged this when he wrote his book on the Army Navy football rivalry. He encountered it while traveling with the teams for his book.
The real story here is not what Quinn did or didn't say, it is rather the ridiculous overreaction of the ghey guy. Calling 911 emergency over a verbal insult? You're foolish, sir.
Jay Leno has 15 vintage Vincent motorcycles. This goes against my usual attitude (if you're wealthy buy whatever you want, be conspicuous I don't care) but in this case I think that's bullsh*t. Those bikes are too rare for him to hoard 15 of them. Take 2 and move on Jay. Let some other wealthy people have one. The Vincent bikes are classics made from 1924 to 1955 in England and are rare and highly prized. The Black Shadow and the Black Lightning are two famous models. They probably became famous in America for being the fastest production bikes of the time and also Hunter S Thompson wrote about them. Currently there is a Vincent "Black Shadow" on sale on Ebay for $45,000.
Which leads me to my next topic....
Whatever happened to the "Dude yer gettin a Dell" guy? He must be somewhere.
Some recent cases in Ohio demonstrating how f'd up we are.
Case #1
A man's home is invaded by two robbers. One of the robbers stabs the man's son. The man has a gun in the house and shoots one of the robbers. Police arrive and while performing their investigation see a small bag of pot out in the open in his house. It also happens that the man disdains banks and keeps his savings in a safe in his house. Police seize every penny of his savings under the authority of a law that is intended to seize the profits of drug dealers. Eventually the city where the man resides takes his money...all of it, permanently. They take the money because they demand that he produce receipts, checks, etc. for the money and he doesn't have it. So they assume it's drug money. The guy is guilty until he proves that he's innocent. Bassackwards, sounds to me.
Case #2
Columbus Dispatch
Columbus, Ohio has an odd law that allows women to sunbathe topless in city parks. The police have begun an operation whereby they have an undercover policewoman hanging out at a park topless. This is done to catch perverts, etc. In one case a firefighter (the man had driven by the park on several occasions and seen her) went over to sit with her. I believe he went on his own volition but I'm not sure. This guy was a normal citizen by all accounts, was not suspected of any "perverted behavior" at the park. So he sits down and she begins to come on to him, eventually asking him to unzip and show her his wang, wanger, john thomas, you choose the term. I repeat, she asked him, he was not the one who offered to "pull it out". He then "pulled it out" and immediately several cops came rushing out of the bushes nearby to arrest him for indecent exposure. Way to go boys, you just saved the citizens from a real criminal there. Nice job. The judge was not swayed by defense claims of entrapment and found the guy guilty. What the hell, Columbus. Knock this crap off. Get your lady cop skanks to put a f**kin shirt on and leave men alone.
I don't get the buildup to the Patriots/Giants game. In order to equal the 1972 Dolphins they will have to win the Super Bowl. Until they get to the Super Bowl, I'm not interested. And besides, aren't the Giants already in the playoffs, which means they'll probably be resting players at some point and/or not playing all out to avoid injury?
My Xmas haul: 3 CDs, Mission Impossible Season 3, Lightscribe DVD+R discs, Quesadilla maker, Gamestop giftcard, a papoose type baby carrier, automatic adjustable wrench, ceiling light fixture for our kitchen (which I get to install) and some cash.
Well the baby arrived 4 weeks early. Oh, it's real fun dealing with an unexpected newborn in the house and trying to arrange 50,000 different things. My wife had a C-section, which went well. Her labor wasn't progressing so the doc took the easy way out. My wife's uncle by sheer coincidence was visiting the U.S. He lives in China and he said about 75% of all births in China are done by C-section. Well, you've got to assembly line things when you're dealing with however many billion people are in that lovely Communist dictatorship. That's all for now...your life becomes a series of 15 minute breaks to do what you want when you've got a newborn around.
Oh, yeah you guessed the arrival part of the entry subject. But what does the departure mean? That would be my life departing as I knew it.
And the white zone thing is from "Airplane".
Following up on my Bengals post, there was a Q&A with none other than Mike Brown in today's Cincinnati Enquirer. This is perhaps the most comical example of front office football buffoonery ever recorded.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention in the previous post that the Bengals do NOT have an official GM. When he took over the team as president in 1992, Mikey was basically the GM/President. When asked during this Q&A if he would hire a GM, he said no, we currently have a 3-headed GM consisting of himself, his daughter Katie Blackburn, and his son-in-law Troy Blackburn (Katie's husband).
Here are some choice samples:
What's served for lunch? Right you tight-ass, gotta check the prices on the vegetable tray.
King Kong, rabbits...my head is spinning.
Jesus, now elephants too?
You're not sure who Hines Ward is? It's kind of important seeing how Pittsburgh is in your division.
Awwwwwww, he's glum.
Finally a decent horror moive...from 27 years ago. After the crap movies I saw for Halloween, I finally saw a decent one this weekend. "The Burning" is a classic summer camp slasher from 1980. In a word, awesome. I love the free-wheeling, PC-free attitude of those times. Kids at summer camp swearing, smoking, running around with beebee guns shooting at people. In other things that would get you expelled and sent to a social worker these days. The story involves a mean summer camp caretaker who is horribly burned in a prank gone bad. Of course he exacts his revenge with hedge clippers. Fuckin A.
During NBC's laughable green segment during the SNF halftime show, Matt Lauer referred to Al Gore as one of the "best minds" on Climate Change. Best minds? What exactly is his science degree in?
So the purpose of the segment is turns off the lights in the studio for the halftime show to demonstate being green. I'm not kidding. They had candles on the desk. Yet their generators were certainly still going, the giant plasma screen was on behind Costas' head, all the power necessary to video link to Lauer on the other side of the world was not shut down. This had to be an SNL skit, right?
We got our email notice about a Holiday Party at work today to take place December 14th. That's right, Holiday Party, not Christmas Party. Earlier this month we received an email about the Thanksgiving Luncheon that will take place November 14th. Ah PC split personality, I love it. Why is it OK to willy nilly use the word "Thanksgiving", and yet "Christmas" must NOT be used. Everyone knows it is because of Christmas that we have this party, but we must not name it so.
Well, I've been watching my Halloween horror movie line-up and here goes.
Land of the Dead: Not very good, I didn't enjoy it. Well, it didn't suck completely but it just wasn't entertaining. I still like "Dawn" better as well as "Night". I never liked "Day" much and guess what? Romero is remaking "Day". Why I have no idea. The one good thing about "Land" is the cameo by "Dawn" make-up artist Tom Savini as a zombie. He also had a cameo in "dawn" as a crazed biker chopping up zombies with a machete. Good stuff.
Hatchet: Pretty disappointing. I was looking forward to this, but it was a mess. It was too much of a homage/parody of Jason movies and seemed like it couldn't decide which it was. The "bad guy", a deformed backwoods type with overalls, was just silly. I guess they meant him to be silly, I don't know. There was no attempt to give him quality make-up, he looked like he was wearing a rubber suit. It clearly wasn't supposed to be legitimately scary, but it went a bit too far in the other direction. There were plenty of bare breasts and plenty of gore.
Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Meyers: Not bad, I enjoyed it. It cleared up for me the mysterious guy at the end of H5, although that whole Satanist storyline got put on the back burner/ended up on the cutting room floor. They did not flesh out the backstory on that at all. In the movie, they are trying to "capture/control" Michael's evil. But that takes a backseat to Michael doing his usual mayhem. All in all, a good flick with a good nude scene to boot.
The Burning: Have yet to see this. Now this I'm looking forward to seeing. It's the real deal, made in the early 1980s horror. Before horror movies became comedies later in the decade with the Freddy sequels. I'm sure it will be chessy, but I'm also sure it will be over-the-top and feature plenty of nude chicks. I'll report on this later in the week.
Well, I guess I'll let it out. A kid will be arriving in our house and it isn't going to be a cat or a dog. Yep, the Terror's are expecting. A boy to be exact, due December 9th. Well, at least it'll get me off a couple weeks work....I'M KIDDING. Yes indeed, get ready for another right-winger coming into the world. I just might pipe Rush, Boortz, Beck, Medved right into his crib. But all kidding aside I'm sure I'm in for a wild ride and it's going to be great.
One thing's for sure, the kid is going to have a tennis racket and/or golf club and/or baseball glove placed in his hands as soon as he can take those first steps. Scholarship baby, scholarship, followed by million dollar paychecks, followed by new house on the coast for daddy.
Oh, and I've been going to various baby classes at the hospital. I'm dead certain my dad never had to go to a baby care class or birth class, etc. But these days it's expected that the father is going to take part in every microsecond of the birth. Yippee.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article.../710310438/1081
http://www.prideofdetroit.com/story/2007/10/31/05312/660
I like an original, well thought out Halloween costume. Jon Kitna, the Detroit Lions quarterback, and his wife showed up at a Monday Halloween party wearing an outstanding costume, in my opinion. But first a little backstory. Last year one of the Lions coaches was arresting for DUI--he drove through a Wendy's drive thru completely naked and drunk. Pretty funny, but also it turns out he was an alcoholic. Well, Kitna goes to the party dressed as a naked guy and his wife dressed as a Wendy's employee. Not bad. He's catching some heat in Detroit over this for being mean or whatever, but I'll cut him some slack because it's been a year. If the arrest had happened a couple weeks ago, then you have to lay off, but the time factor allows me to give him a pass.
David Copperfield is being accused of sexual assault by some lady while he was in the Bahamas. So far the reports are very tenuous at best. He has not been arrested or anything. But now, enter the media. Yes, the media God love them. They are trying to find stories, any story, that could cast Copperfield in a negative light. Get this--there is a story about a guy who attended a Copperfield show with his wife here in the States. (I heard audio of this story on the Phil Hendrie Show, I couldn't find a print link.) Well, what is this guy's deal? Apparently Copperfield sent his assistants to ask his wife if she wanted to come backstage and meet him (they weren't aware she was married to the guy). When they found out she was married they dropped the whole thing and everyone went their merry way. OH MY GOD. You mean to tell me that entertainers pick up women at their shows? NO WAY. And this story is presented in such a way that is trying to show Copperfield as a predator. Jesus, the media.
The Bengals suck. Why they suck is not known by people outside of Cincinnati. Bengals owner Mike Brown's first priority is not winning. He doesn't particularly care if they win or not. He doesn't do what's necessary to field a winning team. All NFL teams are of course a business and they wish to make money, but at the same time they care about winning. Not Mike Brown. The Bengals are just as capable as any other team of acquiring high quality NFL talent. This isn't high school folks, this isn't a case of "well, their school is bigger than ours and they have better players than we do." The Bengals could have acquired the same difference makers that have helped the Colts, the Patriots, etc. to become winning teams. A typical NFL team will have 10 to 20 scouts. The Bengals have 1 person designated as a scout and 3 assistant scouts. Their marketing department has 18 management people and of course more beneath them.
A few years back, Mike Brown threatened the city with taking his team away from Cincinnati if they did not give him a stadium, i.e. have the people of Cincinnati pay for it. We should have told him fine by us and have a nice day. But people gave in, in part from efforts by a "citizen" who was all over the media citing the advantages of having an NFL team in the city. (There are advantages but of course the people also want a winner.) This guy, after the whole thing was over and the deal was done, was found to be on the Bengals payroll. Brown got his stadium and a whole lot more. He is guaranteed a sellout by the city. If people get pissed and stop showing up to the games, it matters not to Brown. He still gets 100% sellout money from the city. In addition, he doesn't pay utilities for the stadium. The city pays all utilities. Nice.
The Bengals bring nothing but ridicule and embarrassment to the city and it's all on Mike Brown. May the cancer fairy visit the bastard and rid us of him for good...oh wait, his daughter, Katie Blackburn, will take over the team when he croaks. This city is screwed.
Just watched PTI with the two hosts commenting on a controversy surrounding NBC's Dateline and NASCAR. Dateline wanted to investigate anti-Muslim sentiments in the country, based on a Washington Post/ABC News poll showing increased bigotry in America. Naturally they chose a NASCAR event to find the bigotry. NASCAR fans are largely from the South, people with southern accents are bigots, ergo, there will be plenty of bigots at a NASCAR event. The Dateline crew had Muslim looking men walking around at the race at Martinsville, Va. No one bothered them, there were no racial incidents.
Wilbon was cool with what Dateline did, saying "NBC is trying to create news where news does exist".
Oh, so Wilbon is indicting the NASCAR fans as bigots, with no proof.
Neither one of the hosts mentioned that nothing happened to the two Muslim looking men.
That didn't stop Wilbon from saying: "if there is something untoward happening towards these gentlemen, that they said at a racetrack, then why is it happening"?
A lot of the time I like and agree with what Wilbon says. Then he pulls one of these and confirms to me that he has serious problems with race in this country.
I really sick of major sporting events starting at 8pm or later on a weeknight or even on a weekend. Hey, I may sound like a grumpy old SOB because I go to bed early because of work, but I'm thinking of future generations here. There are so many kids who are missing the majority of, for example, the World Series because the damn games don't begin until 8:30pm. 11pm rolls around and they're still in the 6th inning. A great college football game took place last night (well, the first 3 and a half quarters were apparently pretty boring) and very few young football fans got the chance to see it. Nor did they see anything beyond the first couple innings of the World Series game (providing they have responsible parents who get their ass in bed on a school night). There's a game on Saturday night, and it could well be the only game played on a non-school day.
I dare anyone to name the last World Series day game for crissakes.
Alright enough bitching. I think Fox's coverage is terrific. Well, besides the awful, tired, so 20-years-ago James Taylor singing the National Anthem, which Fox may not have had a hand in anyway. I guess I'm old when I consider Jeannie Zalasko to be pretty hot.
Remember when you screwed around in your yard or your friend's yard, doing kid things like playing fort, setting paper airplanes on fire, maybe the odd cherry bomb here and there? Well, things have progressed since those olden times. Like making an explosive device powerful enough to blow up a backyard playset and killing someone in the process.
cincinnati.com
What is the psychology at work where we have changed the way we say the year? New Years resolution: saying "twenty oh eight" instead of "two thousand eight", as in "nineteen oh eight" instead of "one thousand nine hundred eight".
The Ohio State Buckeyes are preparing for the title game on Monday night (the end of which I'll surely miss because I'll be asleep--play the damn game on a Saturday afternoon for crissakes). They are in the exact opposite position this year as they were in last year. Last year they were annointed the champions prior to the game; this time they are a non-entity and are said to be not deserving of playing for the BCS championship. There are plenty of criticisms, and yes insults, directed at the OSU team for their lackluster schedule and perceived slow, lumbering nature (how did lumbering Michigan do against speedy SEC Florida?). And those criticisms are reaching the eyes and ears of the players, courtesy of a DVD given to them that contains clips of various pundits and others pontificating on why they are so bad.
USA Today
I think the underdog has won every BCS title game, save one. I think that's the case and if so perhaps it bodes well for the Buckeyes. One thing is for certain--if the Buckeyes lose this game, it will harm their reputation for a long, long time. In this case the answer to the question "Is it better to have gotten to the championship and lost, or not gotten there at all?" is clearly that they would have better off to have not gotten there.
Well, there's one in every crowd. As you read the following, keep in mind that this guy is responsible for teaching kids.
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer opinion page, 31 October 2007.
Two of our finest men, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., were kidnapped and murdered in Iraq by truly evil people. The Leftists wackos started no thread at TSM about it.
They sure layed it on thick over Abu Gahrib and Gitmo though. Page after page of condemnation and insults at the American soldiers, military leaders, you name it. I'm sure Menchaca and Tucker would have gladly endured dog collars, fake electrical wires, and being stripped naked. I wonder how many times times the word "torture" was used by the Leftist scum in those pages.
Ah, but they have nothing to say about Menchaca and Tucker.
I used to start a thread each year honoring our military on Memorial day. I wouldn't bother anymore, what's the point. None of the vaunted Liberals had anything to say in those threads about the military then or now. And they didn't start any threads on their own. But they support the troops don't you know.
Heck, the insurgents are just defending their homeland that we invaded, right? They are the good guys fighting the occupying American military.
Nothing to say about Menchaca and Tucker? Wow.
ABC is rolling out a new "Ten Commandments" tonight. While listening to the various promos I always bust out laughing whenever Moses talks, not to mention just the audacity of remaking a DeMille classic is really treading on thin ice. The reason I laugh is the ridiculous upper crust Amero-British accent that Moses is sporting. Now, Hollywood has always given the ancient Romans British accents. Fine, whatever. The Romans need to come across as Imperial, the ruling elite, etc. and nothing says elite like a good British accent. But here we're talking ancient Egypt. Hebrews and Egyptians for crissakes. An ancient Hebrew with a British accent?
All I can think of when I hear this guy's accent is Joan Collins in Dynasty. It's not really a pure British accent, more like a pretenious American blue blood trying to sound British.
Well, Michelle Wie did not qualify for the U.S. Open. Now, I was all for Wie being able to attempt to qualify, but some of the commentators and sports journalists (ESPN of course) who agree with me are just pathetic. They are on Wie's side only because of political correctness. I just look at it as just another person who may have the ability to compete on the PGA tour. Watching the live cut ins on ESPN was a hoot--when it became clear she wasn't going to make it, the comments by the dumbass PC commentators were truly pathetic. One nitwit sportscaster on ESPN (don't know his name, he's a regular) kept saying "What went wrong, how come she fell back". The woman who was at the golf course was trying to explain how in the world this could've happened. Uh, maybe because she's a 16-year old girl with little experience on a PGA course under these pressure circumstances. Even the experienced men had trouble dealing with the pressure, etc. Steve Fleisch, who at one point was leading the Memorial tournament last week (one of the biggest and most prestigious events on the tour) failed to make it. Everyone was acting as though it was a disaster, it was as if Dwayne Wade just went 0-20 in the first half of the NBA final.
kkk brought up losing his wedding ring in his blog. I have a similar story, although in my case my wife found out that I had lost it. I'm a little older than kkk, but we're roughly the same generation and most of us take our rings off far more than our fathers did. As far as I know, my dad's ring has NEVER come off, it's fused to his finger. But our generation seems to not really be used to wearing rings full time. Mine comes off all the time. This can lead to trouble. Here's my story.
One day I realized that I didn't really know for sure where my ring was. I looked in all the normal places it could be, I checked every single pair of pants pockets, shirt pockets, every nook and cranny in my car, briefcase, bedside night table, every drawer in the house, desk at work, etc.
Then I remembered one of my favorite lines of all time, written by Arthur Conan Doyle in a Sherlock Holmes novel (I think it was "The Sign of Four").
"Once you have eliminated all possibilities, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
I'm telling you, this worked for me. It was amazing. I thought what remains, I know it isn't in any of the usual places, so what's left? I remembered that I had been vacuuming in the dining room and there were some small boxes in there. I remembered I had changed the vacuum bag and dumped it in the nearest thing handy, which was the boxes. Here's the critical part: I didn't know where to look for a new replacement bag, so I had emptied out the bag and reused it. Emptying the bag involved digging in through the one hole with my hands and taking out the stuff in there. Since my ring doesn't fit snugly on my finger, it can come off somewhat easily. I looked in the remains of all the dust and crap that had come out of the vacuum bag, and there was the ring. Thank you Mr. Doyle.
Yeah, it was really a Scotsman who would have been first in flight. He would have, nah nah nah. He was working on heavier than air flight before the Wright Brothers. But he died. Darn.
Today is the anniversary of the Wright Brothers flight. Some people just can't give credit to the Yanks where credit is due.
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display...irst_to_fly.php
Well, he MAY have, but you can't really say he WOULD have because he uh, DIED. In a GLIDER accident.
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was on a morning sports talk show in Cincinnati (2 Angry Guys) this morning, pimping his "reality league" web site or whatever it is. Shortly thereafter, he was injured in a motorcycle accident. Thank you for coming on a Cincinnati radio show, Ben, I for one am glad you did.
Speaking of the 2 Angry Guys, they got into hot water a couple weeks ago for putting out the idea that Griffey Jr. should be open to changing positions in order to reduce wear and tear on his body. Their opinions angered Jr and even got a mention on the ESPN show "Around the Horn". Jr made the comment that they hadn't played the game at this level, so they should shut up. And the talking heads on ATH said athletes shouldn't listen to the morons on talk radio.
Now former Reds star center fielder Eric Davis has echoed the view of the angry guys.
I wonder what Jr's comments will be now?
We all know the manly men that play Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey are true athletes, but what of other sports?
Tell me if the participants of the much maligned sports below are real athletes or not.
Pro Tennis player
PGA Tour Golfer
Race car driver (including NASCAR, Formula 1, Indy)
Pro Soccer player (MLS, English Premier League, etc.)
Pro Beach Volleyball
X Games (including skateboading, snowboarding, bikes on ramps)
