I’m not much of a gambling man, but I have been known to throw down a sixpence or two on the local American football contest. Alas, some men are just better gamblers than I. And while gambling isn’t much of a sport, it still mostly involves the urge of competitive nature, and when it involves a retard dying, then I’m all for giving it attention. Especially when that retard died in my old stomping grounds of Broward County, Florida.

Timothy Jordan celebrated his 46th birthday by getting hammered and taking a swim. One of his friends apparently bet him $50 that he couldn’t swim across a canal. Timothy lost that bet when he died from drowning. You know, in all seriousness, I know it’s mean to joke around about someone’s death, but as a person who vehemently defends Florida as a place that isn’t completely full of morons, this kind of crap just really sets my fight back a few hundred years.

Did he at least die with dignity, Sacramento Bee?

Deputies say Jordan was drunk when he stripped down to his boxer shorts and jumped into the canal. He made it about halfway across when he started struggling.

Divers recovered his body just after 4 a.m.

For those of you unfamiliar with South Florida, there are canals everywhere. There was a canal down the street from the house I grew up in and when I was a kid, my friends and I would try to jump it with our bikes. And it was easy because it was like 6 feet across. In fact, most canals are pretty narrow, so it blows my mind that this guy couldn’t swim 10 feet. But then again, I don’t really know anything about Ol’ Einstein and his swimming habits, so whatever. But I do know that canals are f*cking gross and usually filled with alligators, so great job, TJ.

All of your vacation stories about ‘almost touching hot lava!’, ‘kissing a dolphin!’ and ‘sexual intercourse with Dikembe Mutombo!’ are now put to shame in comparison to the story of a duo of Germans who’ve decided to swim over three hundred miles by October with their flock of pet ducks in tow. As a person who gets winded after two minutes of treading water, I’m mortified by the thought of swimming so long without the assistance of little floaties and a mechanized kickboard that propels me to relaxation.

Maybe they’re bringing the ducks, so they can hook them up like a horse and buggie which will again prove to nature that humans are the vastly superior race. In fact, I may try to do this at my local swimming pool (and by local swimming pool I mean digging through the trash at the Clarion Hotel for thrown out keycards that’ll let me use illegally use their facilities). Get out of my way, old people! My abuse of ducks is more important than your water aerobics! The couple (Add them on facebook!) will begin their journey today, which confounds me. Do they realize they’ll be missing Shark Week?

Two Germans set out on an unusual summer holiday on Monday, beginning a 500 km (311 miles) swim down a river from central Germany to the North Sea with seven pet ducks.

Starting in the town of Kassel, 33-year-old Pia Marie Witt, 58-year-old Wilfried Arnold and their ornithic companions will swim down the Fulda and Weser rivers, hoping to reach the North Sea port of Bremerhaven by mid-September.

Witt and Arnold aim to swim 10 to 15 km per day — an order too tall for the seven runner ducks, which will swim for about 20 minutes a day, following by car or boat when exhaustion kicks in. -Yahoo!

Wait wait wait, these ducks can drive, too?! How do they decide which one gets to steer?

Some videos, like that goal celebration for earlier today, have punchlines that are stunning, instant. This is not one of those videos. This is guy, presumably on another continent, that’s so far gone that he can’t even put on his shorts without thinking that the garment is actually a shirt. Just watch him. Hey comrade, that’s not a shirt. He just doesn’t learn, and even when he gets help, he’s so confused. Warning: this video may contain mild gayness. I know some of you are prudes about that sort of thing. Read the rest of this entry »

Two Muslim women were thrown out of a community swimming pool in southern France for wearing “burkinis,” swimwear designed to cover the entire body, including a hood over the head. Burkas were recently banned by the French government.

They were asked to either change into conventional bikinis or one-piece costumes or leave the swimming pool.

A holiday camp spokesman said: “The husbands became very irate that their wives were not allowed to swim with their bodies covered, and one of them threatened violence [with a bowling ball].”

Muslims? Threatening violence? Surely you jest. But apparently the pool had different ideas about the ban.

Regional government official Marie-Paule Bardeche said: “This is an issue stemming from the holiday centre’s own regulations.

“They state men and women must wear ordinary swimwear for hygiene reasons. Men are not even allowed to wear long shorts in the water.” –IOL.

France is on record as calling the burka “an insult to the country’s values.” Muslim tradition dictates that women keep their heads covered whenever in public. And there’s plenty of room to argue about this. London is basically bending over backwards to accommodate the Muslim community. And oh yeah, there’s that who Ground Zero mosque business. I made a poor joke earlier in the post about violence, but most Muslims just want to live their lives in observance of their faith. That’s a constitutional freedom that we Americans enjoy, and probably take for granted more than we’re willing to admit.

Remember when Michael Phelps was caught with a bong right after he won eight gold medals in Beijing and the whole planet went bonkers with how you could never imagine such a respected athlete THROWING IT ALL AWAY?! Well now, don’t you feel stupid. Here’s Phelps discussing Woods’ predicament, and really this is just for irony, since Phelps has learned the cruel lesson of not sharing ANYTHING with the media. Seriously, media people suck. Except for all the people in the media that I know personally. Those people are just misunderstood.

Most of us know Anne Vyalitsyna as supermodel Anne V from SI’s swimsuit issue, but this weekend she’ll trade in her two-pieces and body paint for running shoes as her efforts to raise money for people with disabilities culminate at the New York City Marathon this weekend.

I’ll be guiding Alexander Dmitriev from Russia for the first 4 and last 6 miles of the marathon. He got in a car accident at the age of 26 and will be participating in a wheelchair.

We are clearly in difficult economic times, but I promise, this donation is worth it, and every dollar, no matter the contribution … counts.

Achilles Track Club coordinates programs with both disabled children and injured former military personnel. Donations can be made from that website; so far Anne has raised $3,925.00. Well, 3,926 if you count my boner. Maybe I’m over-valuing that…