I could read all day about Don Wildman.  Susan Casey’s profile of him in Esquire is equal parts fitness horror:

A deep growl booms out from the center of the room, where Don Wildman, the Circuit's master practitioner, wearing faded jeans and a Sonic Youth T-shirt, stands barefoot, holding a pair of fifty-pound weights. Muscular, lean, six-two, with a trim beard, he looks like Sean Connery, if Connery had borrowed the body of a U.S. marine. This gym, filled with cutting-edge equipment, occupies a wing of his home. I've heard about the Circuit, I've heard about Wildman, and I've come to see for myself what, exactly, is going on in here.

And life wisdom:

Humans waste a lot of energy worrying about things. Might get cancer, might go bankrupt. Might marry the wrong person or screw up at the office. Emerging from war, Wildman no longer had these kinds of concerns. At twenty, he'd crawled out of the darkest of pits, and in comparison, 1950s America looked like one big, golden party. Anything was possible. And no matter what went wrong now, it wasn't likely to result in death. "My father gave me a piece of advice once," Wildman says. "He said, 'Never walk. Always run.'"

And boy, has he ever.

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Remind me never to mess with a female Georgian journalist.

This is the dramatic moment a TV reporter was shot by a sniper as she reported live from war-torn Georgia. Tamara Urushadze took a bullet to her left arm in the flashpoint town of Gori as Russian forces continued their illegal occupation. Bravely, or foolishly, the 32-year-old brunette continued her report after a few moments as other journalists and aid workers dashed for cover.

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Here's a somewhat puzzling video of four Saudi Arabian people in a car driving down the highway at a reasonably high rate of speed.  The twist is that three of them are on the outside of the car and seem to be skating on the concrete surface.  In some sort of weird sandal, no less.

(via kottke)

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If you've been reading GF for a while, you know I'm fascinated by the Bugatti Veyron, which can touch 254 MPH full-out. It's the car I would own if I could live a life without price tags. YouTube is full of races between the Veyron and other cars, but here's a new one: the $1.6M supercar vs. a Eurofighter Typhoon, which is an incredibly advanced air-superiority/air-to-surface multi-role fighter.

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There is some debate as to whether or not this is a digitally altered video, but from my extensive research (watching it over and over while drinking white tea), I can safely say that it may, in fact, be fake. Then again, it may not. So, that said, the stuff depicted here is nearly superhuman. Or fake. You decide. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl39guVpofw]

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By the time this video finished playing, my hands were literally soaked with sweat, which, I suppose, tells me all I need to know about surviving this situation. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BbUhlIEZEY] [Via Cyn-C]

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You may have seen shots like this before (they're all over YouTube), but you haven't seen one done by a nine year old kid. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn9BT7pkQR8] [Via clusterflock]

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I'm a skier rather than a snowboarder, and quite bluntly, I do understand why resorts such as Deer Valley don't allow snowboarders on their slopes. Is it the right thing to do? That's up for debate, but the fact of the matter is that skiers and boarders ride a mountain differently, and there's often interference between the two. As a skier, it is more enjoyable not to have to worry about boarders harshing my line. I'm sure, from their perspective, they don't need me stomping theirs, either. It's a culture clash, and that requires management. It simply does. (The only physical altercation I've ever seen on the slopes was between skiers and four obnoxious snowboarders who were being first-class assholes in a crowded lift line and showing zero regard for anyone other than themselves. Just saying.) So, all that said, it's interesting that Burton is offering a $5000 cash purse to the person or crew who submits the best video documenting their poaching experience at one of the four remaining resorts that don't allow snowboarding (Deer Valley, Mad River Glen, Alta and Taos). It's more a marketing stunt than anything, and the intro video is, as kottke says, a perfect explanation for why these four areas don't want snowboarders. I'm glad to see, however, that Burton was smart enough to put some rules around this, otherwise god only knows what the legions of angst-filled boarders would do to score the five grand.

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Lil'Bit is a cat with two faces.  From the Telegraph:

Vets believe the cat, which has two mouths, two noses and four eyes, may have two brains, as one face can go to sleep while the other remains awake and it can blink independently on each one.

"When he purrs it is like he is purring in stereo," the cat's owner said.

I wonder which face you look at when you're reprimanding it for whizzing on your bed.

Just saying.

[Via BB]

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