Epic Video: Brad Walker

Spokane native and University of Washington graduate Brad Walker qualified for the Beijing Olympics in the pole vault.

He finished third during the trials yesterday, not having his best performance. He cleared 18-6.5 feet.

But three weeks earlier he set the American Record at 19 feet 9 3/4 inches. Here is that vault.

From Kirkland to Titan

We here at Just South of North love showing our readers the Pacific Northwest athletes that make it to the big time.

Well, perhaps one of the largest PNW natives (literally) is Michael O'Hearn. Name ring a bell? Probably not. But how about Titan? That doing a little more for you? Yeah, I figured.

Mike plays Titan on the NBC hit show American Gladiators. Titan is the captain of the Gladiators and

As an athlete, Mike is a 4 time Mr. (Natural) Universe.

He also has won Mr. California, Mr. USA, Mr. American and Mr. International. He is a 4-time Power Lifting Champion, and 2-time Iron Warrior: Decathlon of Strength Strongman Champion.

In other words, he is known for being really buff.

But his roots are in Washington.

O'Hearn, grew up on a farm in Kirkland, WA and comes from a large family of 9 siblings of which he is the youngest of 5 boys. He began competing in bodybuilding at the age of 15 when he won the Teenage Washington State competition. In college O'Hearn was a 3-time All State Defensive Tackle and All American football player.

He also has appeared as the cover model on more than 400 issues of various fitness, martial arts and bodybuilding magazines as well as for the covers of more than 100 romance novels.

Romance novels. Hilarious. But I would never make fun of him for that. Especially to his face.

Epic Video: Backflip off waterfall

This is what people do in the midwest. 40 foot waterfall outside of Cedarville, Ohio.

Reasons why you're still single

- Because you, a fourty-year-old man, just guilted a 12-year old out of a foul ball by yelling "Oh come on!" in his face, resulting in him giving you the ball. And then you did a mini-fist pump.

This will be an ongoing thing as I see more and more examples of "Reasons why you're still single."

Please feel free to add on at anytime

I survived a Japanese Game Show a big letdown

When I saw the previews for ABC's "I survived a Japanese Game Show" I was very excited. I liked watching the Japanese Game Shows on TV and figured this show would feature American's playing the same crazy competitions.

Instead of just a show that has them competing, it is like Big Brother. Which, I find a Big Lame.

I did like watching the contestants fall on their faces during the competitions, but I REALLY REALLY could have done without the drama in between.

This is one show that will not be on my summer swizzle. It sucked more than pond scum.

Instead, I will watch Family Guy reruns on tbs.

Epic Video: Family Feud is back

Family Feud came back today. This time it is celebrities trying to win money for their charities. In honor of the Feud coming back on the air, here is the worst episode of Family Feud ever.

Just watch. It's horrible but hilarious! The question: "Name an animal with three letters in its name." His answer: "Alligator."

The best part, that's not the worst answer they give. Just watch.

A trip to KC

This past weekend I decided to take a trip to Kansas City. Yes, Kansas City. The city home to the worst sports teams in the nation. The last place Royals in MLB, the last place Wizards in MLS and the last place Brigade in AFL.

But despite this I went anyway.

The trip started with heading down I-29 into Iowa. Coming to the border some lady in a booth made me pay $1 to enter the state. On the return trip she charged me $10 to leave. Yeah, got to love the midwest.

But the trip was great. I saw the world's largest shuttlecocks at the Kansas City Sculpture Park.



Some headless dudes in the park.





And a huge waterpark called Oceans of Fun. It was a great weekend in a city that is TERRIBLE at sports.

(yes, the Royals lost while we were in town)

So, coming back to Omaha we decided to catch some real baseball as the College World Series was going on. The game last night was great! Fresno State beat North Carolina 6-1 and made it look easy. I guess we now will see which of the Bulldogs (Georgia or FS) can get it done in the end.

Pinch Me

Thanks to Casey, who's been keeping this site alive the past couple of weeks. I've been swamped at my new job, which is editor-in-chief of a new newspaper in the Spokane area, HomeTeam Sports.

Yesterday, our first issue got back from the printers and it's pretty freakin' sweet to see a lot of hard work finally get on paper. If anyone wants to check out the online version it's at http://www.htsports.org/.

And now if we can only get Casey to do weekly outdoor articles, we'd be able to take over the world...

Local ties to NBA championship

More Northwest ties to winning. Brian Scalabrine, a graduate of Enumclaw High School was on the inactive roster of the NBA champion Boston Celtics.

See the article here.

What was he thinking?

Lincoln police arrested a man for running on a bike trail in his thong underwear Friday.

Police say 26-year-old Randall Ralston was arrested for indecent exposure.

Officials say they found him running around Holmes Lake wearing his socks, shoes and a thong.

My big question is WHY?!?! What would ever make someone think that this was a good idea? But hey, at least he was wearing socks.

Tales of the unbelievable

First off, hats off to Just South of North writer Brandon for graduating from Eastern Washington University this past weekend. Yeah, believe it or not, they actually gave him a diploma. And I saw pictures to prove it. So, all you doubters, pay up.

Thousands showed up to Woodward Field to watch Brandon. Yes, they were only there for him.

But a place where nobody showed up was to the ballot box in Pillsbury, North Dakota. The town was having an election and no one showed up.

The mayor, Darrel Brudevold said the low turnout is unusual.

"I dare say a half-dozen people usually make it to the polls," he said. That represents about a quarter of the residents in the Barnes County farming community, in southeastern North Dakota.

Wow! Six whole people usually come to the voting. And my guess, they are all relatives of the mayor. Sounds like the town I grew up in.
Because no one showed up, not even the Mayor to vote for himself (he said he had crops to tend to that day) it will now go to the state election officials with what to do next.

I demand a recount!


In Colorado, people can now purchase scratch-n-sniff lottery tickets. The tickets came out today and come in three scents: chocolate, bouquet and coffee.

Lottery officials say the scents are activated when players scratch off the latex on the tickets' play area, since that area is covered in scented ink.

I say the smell should be based on how much you win. If you loose (like you usually do with scratch tickets) it should smell like poo.

Plus, poo scented lottery tickets have got to help stop gambling.


The popular game, Sudoku has called a trial that has been going on over three months to be aborted.

In Sydney, Australia the drug trial was called when it was found that for most of the trial jurors had been doing Sudoku during the hearings.

Four to five jurors had been playing the addictive number sequence game, local media reported. The judge was alerted after some of the jurors were observed writing their notes vertically, rather than horizontally.

Have you ever seen 12 angry men starring Henry Fonda? Yeah, this was nothing like that. Horrible analogy. I apologize.


Coldplay is back on tour. I saw them once while working at the White River Amphitheater in Auburn, Washington. That was an amazing show.

That was probably the best summer job anybody could have. Stand around and get paid to watch concerts.

Epic Video of Greatness: A Drag and Drop World

This video is pretty neat. Not sure what it has to do with the product of a cell phone, but neat looking.

Epic Photo: Celebrities at the NBA Finals

What are they thinking in this picture?

Sylvester Stallone -- HEY UH WAAAAA, HOLD YEAH, ADRRRIEEENEEEE, HEY YA KNOW? I LIKE KITTY KATS. WHOAH, DRAGGGGOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Eddie Murphy -- Man these are great seats, I'm sitting right next to Steven Spielberg, maybe I can get in one of his movies and revive my flatlining career. Or at least something that doesn't include me providing a voice for a talking Donkey.

Steven Spielberg -- I got it! Eddie Murphy as Indiana Jones' son in Indy 5. It's golden. I can do anything I want because I'm Steven Spielberg and people will still come and watch my movies. It's genius.

Tornado sirens suck

I am writing this from a basement. Being located in Lincoln, Nebraska, I figure I could have expected tornadoes. But this is insane.

The sirens are going. And incase you have never had the luck of hearing one, they sound exactly like the creatures from War of the Worlds. A high pitch screech that seems to be coming from all around.

Just about every channel is showing coverage of these storms. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I have have never seen anything like this. It is just crazy. And the basement of my apartment smells kinda funny.

The sky is super dark (no, not cause the sun set) there is tons of thunder and lightening. And it is torrential down pouring. The weather guy said that it is good as long as it keeps raining, cause the rain stops the clouds from creating an up swirl and thus a tornado.

Hopefully no hail comes, but the roads everywhere are flooding. And the tempature has just plumeted. It was about 85 degrees 30 minutes ago. Now it is about 65.

There are sirens going off everywhere. Now I can't hear the tornado sirens because of all the firetrucks, police and ambulances. It is raining so hard you can only see about 10 feet in front of you.

I will post this as soon as I can get back upstairs. Until then, I will sit in this odd smelling basement and hope the monsters that are making that noise don't show up.

GRIFF-TASTIC

He did it. 600 Homers. Congrats to Ken Griffey Jr.

I can remember playing kickball and softball in grade school and sometimes we'd pretend to be our favorite baseball players. Kids would actually get into fights over who got to be Griffey.

I'd always end up being John Abbott for some reason.

How cool is Griffey Jr. regardless of what team you root for? This cool.

No more gap on Sundays? Oh just wait...

After a 15 year career, Michael Strahan is retiring. Read the full report from FoxSports Jay Glazer here.

My call, he will be on television by this upcoming season. Have you seen this guy during his Fox interviews. He is hilarious! I wouldn't mind watching him and the famous gap on gameday coverage.

Washington native sets new American Record in Pole Vault

It was quite a day for Washington natives in the professional sporting world today.

Today marked the Nike Prefontaine Classic, and 14,221 fans were in Eugene, Oregon to watch.

A number of meet records fell, but no one was more watched than Spokane native, Brad Walker.

Walker, a graduate of University high school in Spokane, and the University of Washington, cleared an American Record in the pole vault. He cleared 19 feet 9 3/4 inches.

After two attempts at the World Record of 20 feet 2 inches, he called it a day.

"I've never heard cheering like I heard at my second attempt at the WR. It startled me. It's overwhelming. But I'll take that any day of the week. It was great."

Walker will be back at Hayward Field on the University of Oregon campus in a few weeks for the Olympic Trials. The 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials will be held June 27-July 6.

Another Northwest native, Tommy Skipper of Sandy, Ore. and University of Oregon graduate, finished 6th in the pole vault at 17 feet 8 3/4 inches.

And as for another Washington athlete, Kasey Kahne of Enumclaw won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Race today at Pocono. It was his third win in the past four races. But only two count toward point standings, as his win at the All-Star race isn't a point qualifying event.

With the win Kahne moves up to 9th in the overall NASCAR standings, 365 points behind the leader.

Not too bad of a day for professional athletes from the Pacific Northwest.

Epic Video: Olympic Matrix

This is one of the coolest things we at Just South of North had seen in a while.

In honor of the upcoming summer Olympics. Enjoy.



Here's the real site: http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=3537

What was Big Brown thinking?

The Belmont Stakes proved to be an incredible bust for Big Brown, who won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness only to fall short in the third leg of the Triple Crown. What was very odd about the whole deal was how the horse wasn't able to kick into his "extra gear" around the third turn of the Belmont.

The Jockey even admitted to "not having a horse" by the end of the race which meant that it just didn't want to run. What was going through Big Brown's head at that moment? He had a chance of glory and choked on a bigger scale than A-Rod, the Patriots and Coach Bombay playing in pee-wee hockey.

Here's what I think could of possibly been going through his mind...

1. This horse in front of me has some major ass gas, why the hell would I want to get closer?

2. I'm a horse, I have no idea why all these small mammals are here. I could throw off this dude sitting on top of me but he weighs like 80 pounds and I'm pretty sure the fall would kill him. Okay, he's hitting me to go faster. SCREW THAT! I'm going to head on over to this guard rail here to take a dump.

3. I want to make my owners look like complete jack-asses.

4. Really could use some 'roids at the moment.

5. Man, I'd love to win this race but I've seriously got to piss. I mean I could of done it back at the starting gate but I didn't think I needed to go this bad. Whoah, one more gallop and my bladder is going to explode.

6. Why is an elf riding me?

7. Whoah! Pony, third row on the green. Wow, what a hottie!

8. Those brownies were a bad idea. Never let Snoop Dog in my stable before a race ever again.

9. Who's the drunk guy in the first row? Oh wait, that's my trainer.

10. Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!

Anyways, I feel kind of sorry for Big Brown, his owners and trainer were classless and completely disrespectful to the sport of horse racing (they guaranteed victory) during the Triple Crown season, so it was natural for bad luck to get back to him.

And if you can, try and find video or a photo of Big Brown's trainer walking back to the stable after the race. It's like a two minute race and this dude has his entire shirt drenched in sweat.

Yikes!

And you thought Total Recall was fiction

Remember watching Total Recall and thinking how cool the X-ray vision glass was. Well it's just become a reality, only a little more perverted.

BALTIMORE — Body-scanning machines that show images of people underneath their clothing are being installed in 10 of the nation's busiest airports in one of the biggest public uses of security devices that reveal intimate body parts.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently started using body scans on randomly chosen passengers in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Denver, Albuquerque and at New York's Kennedy airport.

Airports in Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas and Miami will be added this month. Reagan National Airport in Washington starts using a body scanner today. A total of 38 machines will be in use within weeks.

"It's the wave of the future," said James Schear, the TSA security director at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where two body scanners are in use at one checkpoint.

Schear said the scanners could eventually replace metal detectors at the nation's 2,000 airport checkpoints and the pat-downs done on passengers who need extra screening. "We're just scratching the surface of what we can do with whole-body imaging," Schear said.

Great, wonderful, how fantastic. That creepy airport security guard with the Brett Hart hair and food-stained uniform gets to see the full monty, all in the name of national security.

For the full story head on over here.

"Oh, excuse me miss, it looks like you'll have to go through the scanner again. Whoops, there it goes again you're going to have step through once again."

"You're holding your car keys in the scanner, sir."

"So I am, good catch."

Epic Photo: Avoid the Noid

Yes, it is truly him.

Epic Video: Mariners Manager flipping out

The state of baseball in Seattle is terrible. The Mariners are currently sucking it up on an epic scale, which leads to wonderful little clips like this...



Godspeed John McClaren.

I thought CBS was for old people

What happen to the good days of CBS when they showed Walker Texas Ranger and Touched by an Angel?

CBS announced on Wednesday that Swingtown, which, until the strike hit, was supposed to launch midseason, now will get a summer debut. The nontraditional launch time for a scripted series, executive producer Carol Barbee tells the Reporter, actually "is perfect for Swingtown since the pilot takes place on the Bicentennial Fourth of July." Ahh, memories of me donning knickers for a Rogers Elementary School play....Swingtown, for those who can't remember back to last May's upfronts (when it was first brandished), follows couples experimenting with sexual and social mores in 1970s Chicago.

For the full article, head over here.

CBS has a reputation for being pretty conservative and catering to a slightly older audience (read: bingo halls) than the other networks. And now we have a show about swingers? Is this their answer to Desperate Housewives? Is Andy Rooney going to make a guest appearance? What the hell is wrong with television these days?

Thanks to Curtis from Douchebaggery on Display for the heads up on this story.

Epic Video: New Indiana Jones Movie Lego style

Found this mocking of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It is hilarious.

WARNING: Contains spoilers.

Epic Video: Kiwi!

A tale about a kiwi bird.

Can I buy a vowel?

In Middleton, Pa. students opened their yearbooks to find that a handy dandy computer function called "spell checker" had given them new names.

Middletown Area High School's yearbook listed Max Zupanovic as "Max Supernova," Kathy Carbaugh as "Kathy Airbag" and Alessandra Ippolito as "Alexandria Impolite," just to name a few.

The company that printed the yearbook said it was their fault and that they would give stickers with the correct spellings.

Yeah! Stickers! I love stickers!

Oh, and then he calls out yearbooks everywhere.

"It happens all the time, every year," Ed Patrick said. "Look at any yearbook in the country."

High school is supposed to be the best time of my life! Now I'm remembered as an Airbag! Thanks jerk!

In other news, police in Arvada, Colo. are searching for two men who robbed a convenience store. The best part, for masks they wore women's thong underwear. Hold up! Pause right there! What? And why?

Well here is how it went down...

Guy 1: Are you ready to do this?!?! We're going in now!

Guy 2: Wait, I forgot our clown masks in the car!

Guy 1: Man! We spent 12 dollars and 32 cents on those. And they were gonna look SO cool. What are we gonna do now?

Guy 2: Well, there is a laundry mat next door. We could find something in there to cover our faces.

Guy 1: Like dryer lent!

Guy 2: Or, maybe a t-shirt...

Guy 1: Oh.

Inside the laundry mat:

Guy 1: How about these? They look like masks.

Guy 2: That's a pair of briefs! And they're stained! No way.

Guy 1: Then lets just go with these thongs.

Leaving the store:

Guy 2: Thong, thong, thong thong thong. Oh yeah...

Guy 1: Shut up Sisco. Just drive!

I got gas

Well it seems everybody out there is either talking about the current gas prices, or complaining about them. So what state has the lowest gas prices? That would be Wyoming. At $3.73 a gallon on average. All I have to say is duh. First of all, the last time I was there, there were about 12 people in the whole state. And secondly, 10 of those people were riding horses.

Andria Baker never missed a day of school. From kindergarten through her senior year. And her father gave her a car because of this. I'm not really sure why so many people are talking about this. But perhaps the dumbest quote I've heard in while came from the article.

Andria Baker, 19, said she probably would have gone ahead with her quest for perfect attendance even if a new car had not been promised.

Ummm....am I the only one thinking "No way" on this? Am I?

So Clay Aiken is going to be a dad. Yeah, the singer will father the child for his long time friend, Jaymes Foster. The best part. Her name is Jaymes. And more rumors spread...

Oh, and Sex and the City came out on the big screen. No I did not see it. I've never seen the show (didn't have HBO when it was on). But this guy says its OK for the guys that want to see it.