Category: Miscellaneous

During Tuesday’s Egypt Cup match between Ahly and Kima Aswan, Ahly striker Amir Sayoud struck a penalty kick of dreams. Bad, bad dreams.I REMEMBER WHEN I was around 13 years old and I scored an own goal from the halfway line. No shit. Our keeper had kicked the ball down field, and it came to me, hovering around the centre circle.

I’m an airplane seat scavenger, picking up the newspapers and magazines other travelers have left behind.THAT’S MY ONLY excuse for reading USA Today’s recent article, “Guests’ videos star in hotels’ online ads.”The proliferation of websites that permit any user to upload video–among them, YouTube, Triporia, and TripFilms — has had an interesting, and perhaps unexpected, outcome: travel industry marketers are recruiting amateur videographers to push their products.

Photo by crashmattbEva Holland gives you the night tour in Nashville.Let’s be clear: This is not a guerrilla guide to Nashville’s secret underground indie-rock haunts or its little-known hipster underbelly.No. This is a guide to the Nashville you’ve always known existed, but probably never thought was worth visiting.

Robert Hirschfield plays a role in his teacher’s film.MY FRIEND ISABELLE once told me of the time she asked her over-rehearsed question about consciousness to her teacher, the late Nisargadatta of Bombay. He ordered her out of his upper room with the flick of his stern finger. Banished for three long days from his ferocity and bidi smoke, she suffered terribly.

A gallery of fire and absurdity from this year’s annual gathering in Black Rock City.IT WAS WHEN the massive Trojan horse exploded in the distance, that I remembered why I’d come home. Above me, a masterful musician slid his gloved fingers along the “Earth Harp” – massive strings reached from his platform and attached to the surreal Temple of Transition a hundred feet away.

Two months ago we came up with an idea that had our friends and family questioning our sanity. An idea that intrigues, confuses, and sparks wild conversations in the break room. We figured No Impact Man had done it, as well as The Dervaes Family, Rachel Munston, and countless others.AND SO, ON January 9, 2010 we unplugged our fridge.

It sucks to be the unpopular kidTHE UN WORLD TOURISM BAROMETER says that Africa came stone last as a popular destination for foreign visitors last year. Putting this into perspective, Europe gets something like ten times as many visitors in a year to a geographic area around the size of both the Sudans and Algeria glued together.

Sea stacks are the kind of rock formations you’d expect to see in a dream.THESE SHEER ROCK FACES rise straight up from coastal oceans around the world, eroded from coastlines by wind and water. Even at their shortest, they’re the dictionary definition of ‘epic’.A surprising amount of climbing history has happened on stacks, including the UK’s first E7, The Bells, The Bells, and Chris Sharma’s famous solo Es Pontas.

Ask three fishermen how to get ready for a trip and you’ll get four answers.The idea of fishing is simple: hook, line, and game fish.The act of fishing though is far more complex. An angler’s craft reveals her personality and reflects traditions born of a unique place. One angler sits on an upturned-bucket and uses a cane pole and red worms to take shellcracker from the Pascagoula River.

Even after he’d moved to Moscow, Richard Cashman found the pull of Red Square irresistible.I FELL ASLEEP WITH THE WINDOW OPEN, again, and I don’t know if it’s the freezing air or the sound of the snow plough rattling past my window that wakes me. My alarm hasn’t gone off, so it can’t be 7.30 yet. I close the window and curl up under the covers a while longer.

While fictional sports stories are good, reality is far harsher, more uplifting, and generally crazier. Matador presents ten extreme sports movies demonstrating just that.1. Touching the Void (2004). This story of Joe Simpson’s near-disastrous ascent of Siula Grande in Peru had me sitting up at night, gripping my duvet so tightly that my sleepy boyfriend woke up and asked me what the hell was the matter.

A snapshot of the situation in the horn.CONTINUING OUR SERIES on the famine currently affecting the horn of Africa, I put some questions to SandraNgwena, who spent the last month working on the Horn of Africa crisis.You’re currently on the ground. Can you please tell us exactly where you are, how you got there, and what’s happening around you at the moment?

This might be hard to believe, but we may currently be living in the most peaceful time in human history.THE IMPORTANT QUESTION to ask here, according to Steven Pinker in this article at the Wall Street Journal, is: “How bad was the world in the past?” It certainly feels like a very violent time, most likely due to mass media coverage (i.

Road Warrior Megan Wood upgrades to a micro four thirds camera in Belize.I’M A WRITER, NOT a photographer. But I was tired of coming home from trips with disappointing pictures taken with my point-and-shoot camera. When I found out I was going to Belize for three months, I knew it was time to take action.

Taking time to meditate may conversely give you more time, and space, in your busy life.There’s always time to meditate / Photo Troy B ThompsonLike most people, I often calculate my day once my head has cleared out the grogginess of the previous night’s sleep.I need to get up, eat, shower, take entirely too many supplements, make sure I don’t forget any of the 20 things I need for the day such as my cell phone, keys, food, sunglasses, etc, squeeze in a yoga or dance class, push through any writing blocks while staring at my computer for hours on end.

Brandon recalls the experience of getting terribly sick in an equatorial-region hostel dorm room and having no way out.YOUR THROAT SORE at first, and within an hour your eyelids hot, your eyes burning, and feelings of dizziness, followed by worry about getting sick.The people behind you, their footsteps, and the reoccurring curiosity, awe, or horror about whether or not you’re actually going to be sick, on this street, with someone that keeps talking to you, that won’t shut up, and then at the market, where they’ve laid out on wooden tables whole raw chickens with flies and skinned cow heads, bladders, livers.

Tim Patterson gets lost for the last time in Vermont’s Lowell Mountains.AHAB GOT MORE THAN he bargained for. Up from Boston for the weekend, expecting nothing more than a mild hike, he ended up slogging through wild blackberries, stepping in fresh moose shit, and nervously bypassing NO TRESPASSING signs that had been posted by a certain Col.

And if you’re feeling crafty, how to make the wax yourself.WARNING: don’t attempt this technique when waxing your car. The purpose of waxing a board is to create a sort of grippable surface for your feet – bumps and ridges are a good thing. The water side of the board should be nice and slick. If you’re a first-timer, this vid will help:How To Wax A Surfboard from Tidal Push on Vimeo.

Whenever experienced climbers and mountaineers put crampon to ice, they accept some degree of danger.ACCIDENTS CAN OCCUR EVEN at relatively benign roadside crags. Still, there are certain mountains that command respect from even the most experienced climbers, mountains that continue to inspire awe and anxiety decades after their first ascents.

Tereza Jarnikova reflects on a brief encounter.I MET JOHANN on a Greyhound bus going from Boston to the nation’s capital. I was, I admit, looking for small talk, and there’s a certain type of bearded friendly face that seems to invite that sort of thing. He was lounging in the furthest back seat, wearing a torn shirt, fully at ease, and the seat next to him was one of two empty.