YOUTUBE: Girlfriend Slam Dunk

Is you girlfriend super tiny? Do you love all things basketball? Want to see something the two of you can enjoy together? Check out this video of what appears to be a cheer stunt gone potentially wrong. I think my favorite part (other than the fact that the lucky girl actually made it throught the hoop) is that she clearly bumped her noggin a little on the rim and the guys are whoopin' and hollerin' like they won the NCAA tournament when she - the one who actually served as the focal point of the stunt - stands back rubbing her head.

Sergio del Limonar

WEB: Advanced NFL Stats

It's about that time of the NFL season where the armchair quarterbacks are starting to re-evaluate their participation in their current pools or make voodoo dolls of their now-dismal fantasy league picks. Is it too late to salvage the season? Should you just concede defeat, save some face, and flip to whatever Sunday afternoon movie from the '80's is playing on the other channels?

No! Check out Advanced NFL Stats, a non-NFL affiliated website, run by football enthusiasts, just like you!

The most useful aspect of the site is self-selected win-probability graphs which you can generate by choosing the year - all the way back to 2000 - and team. Weekly rankings and round-ups are published with humor and possibly just a twinge of bias on occasion. Regardless, they are helpful to those who are suffering in their current office pools.

The site also contains occasional articles which, while not always helpful for your gaming, can provide you with interesting insight into little known aspects of the sport (the Buccaneer's "Raheem Morris is an Optimistic Guy") or different perspectives (the run - pass balance study or irrational play calling).

Definitely bookmark this site, at least until January.

Sergio del Limonar

YOUTUBE: Kings Firecracker Jump Rope Show

In elementary school gym class we had a unit based on jumping rope. Most of us were really bad at it. I recall this being especially true when we were required to not only perform a double dutch jumping feat, but have to go through the anxiety-ridden task of entering the swinging ropes from the outside of those perilously swinging nylon ropes.

Well, these girls, from a group called the Kings Firecrackers, evidently do not share the fear and dread that my fellow gym class members and I felt. This video was shot during their half time performance at a US Naval Academy basketball game. I love how the crowd starts off thinking this might be something to take a bathroom break during and ends cheering and screaming.

Sergio del Limónar

YOUTUBE: Danny MacAskill

Danny MacAskill is a member of the Inspired Bicycles team and, evidently, has no fear and is made of bendable steel. Clearly deciding that riding a bike on the road or sidewalk is just to common-place and steps, speed bumps, and ramps have lost their romantic thrill-seeking luster, MacAskill has taken to short rides on fences, between signs, and over walls.

Backed by an awesomely appropriate song by Seattle-based rockers, Band of Horses, called "Funeral," the amazing video is a little like watching a squirrel run out onto the highway at rush hour to fetch a nut. You don't want to see it get crushed under a tire but you can't keep your eyes from following the furry creatures darting and maneuvering as it plays a potentially deadly game of Frogger. MacAskill makes you want to reach for an athletic cup to protect yourself but you can't with your hand over your mouth in awe.

The squirrel might get the nut; I'm hoping MacAskill keeps his.

Sergio del Limónar

WEB: Up Next In Sports

Inspired by the people behind the ever-popular Failblog and inspired in large part by the LOLcats phenomena, Up Next In Sports is a marriage of wit, captions, and perfectly timed photographs or mishaps captured on film.

Updated frequently, the site gives users the chance to supply both awkward and humorous sports-related pictures or create captions to images found elsewhere. Some of my personal favorites are the ones that resemble those framed one-word inspirational posters. Take the one pictured to the right, for example. The picture, of Argentinian tennis star, Juan Martín del Potro, tapping his hand to his racket cleverly states "High Fives: Not everyone has friends."

Being a native Minnesotan I also loved the self-loathing sentiment behind the sadly true photograph of Brett Favre, grinning ear to ear, holding up his new Minnesota Vikings jersey with the caption reading "There is snow in Hell." If it doesn't snow in the Land of 10,000 Lakes this year, we'll know what happened...

Sergio del Limonar

BOOK: Friday Night Lights

In honor of football season starting up this weekend, it seems appropriate that we give a big Zonino! to one of the best gridiron-themed books around - Friday Night Lights. This phenomenally narrated piece of non-fiction, written during the fall of 1988 by H.G.Bissinger, follows the always emotional season of high school football at Permian High School in Odessa, Texas.

Bissinger wraps the reader in all the intricacies of west Texas culture - the potlucks, booster meetings, post-game keggers, economic woes, racial lines, religious influences, political leanings and more - to paint a picture that convinces those of us not from this corner of the country that this is much more than a game. He justifiably makes the players, coaches, parents, alumni, and town-folk into more than just characters or personalities in a story. They become people that you feel you know; when they suffer a disappointment, it too becomes your disappointment.

While this book is about football, its soul is about people. It's about dreams - having them, wanting them, longing for them, and missing them.

Sergio del Limonar

YOUTUBE: Damien Walters

Somebody get this guy his own action movie franchise right now. Go! Seriously, Jackie Chan is too old and everyone else uses stunt doubles or computer graphics to help their action sequences.

With a little research it turns out the Damien Walters is a gymnast from England who was a world class competition tumbler and trampoliner. After this video hit Youtube, he has indeed gotten offers from Hollywood and has appeared as a stuntman in a couple films. I think the next step is get him his own movie. So what if he can't act?!? How many movies did Jean-Claude Van Damme make*?

Sergio del Limónar

*According to the good people at IMDB, Van Damme made 41. That's 40 too many.

WEB: Straight Cash Homey Dot Net

Brought to you by the one of the geniuses behind the Jake & Amir webisodes we Zoninoed back in June, comes Straight Cash Homey Dot Net.

This site has a similar premise to that of Cake Wrecks in that readers send in pictures on a common theme and then we collectively laugh at them. In this case it is an "international ridiculous jersey scavenger hunt." The entire site is dedicated to sightings of people wearing sports jerseys of players that were too terrible to warrant a uniform in the first place or, in some cases, never actually made the team!

The jersey's are great but the captions may be even better. Updated almost daily, this is a site to add to your bookmarked pages.

Sergio del Limonar