This may come as a surprise to Grey’s Anatomy fans but Patrick Dempsey, also known as Dr. Derek Shepherd or “McDreamy” on the ABC drama, is an avid race car driver. He’s a regular in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series in a GT class Mazda RX-8. This weekend, Dempsey will take a step up in the world of motorsports as he will drive in the greatest of all sports car races, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Continue reading
Author: Steve Murray
Wednesday Link-Off: Simply Smashing
After one Sunday Link-Off, don’t be surprised to see it moved or cancelled soon. Anywho, for now, we have Eva Longoria from her recent Mexican GQ shoot. After the jump, NASCAR driver Kyle Busch took his custom guitar trophy and pulled a Pete Townshend.
Picture this in your mind. It’s October 1995. You’re at the Skydome in some temporary grandstands surrounding a basketball court. “Ladies and gentlemen, get on your feet. Here is the starting lineup for your TORONTO TARANTULAS!” (Wall Street Journal)
Roger gets no respect. Federer won the French Open but he would have liked a little help from security. (Deadspin)
We’ve done a bit of wrestling reporting here at The Lowdown Blog but we’ve never covered any moments as amazing as these. (Bleacher Report)
I don’t think throwing this one back would be such a good idea. (St. Petersburg Times)
The recent European Union parliamentary elections produced an interesting result. Riding a wave of sympathy for their almost namesake file-sharing website, Sweden’s Pirate Party has won a seat in the European parliament. (CBC)
A look at the most bizarre children’s shows in the history of television. “Puff the Magic Dragon” should have made it simply for its name. Mind you, I always thought “Bananas in Pajamas” is actually a stoners’ show. (Boston Globe)
Your daily dose of the failed crime blotter. (Toronto Star)
Earlier this week, I looked at a possible F1 race boycott by the teams. It actually wasn’t the first time that the teams would have walked away from the race. (F1 Fanatic)
Some say he feeds by drinking pollen from flowers and he sheds his skin every autumn… All we know is he’s not the Stig. But he is the Stig’s horticulturalist cousin. (EADT24)
Well, this makes sense. An intern at a newspaper writes an article so good that it’s given the front page. Then he gets fired. (Canadian Journalism Project)
We may have jumped the gun on that Twitter lawsuit settlement with Tony LaRussa. Mind you, since the AP did too, you gotta cut us some slack. (Sporting Madness) Continue reading
Twitter’s Millionaires Club: Are They Worth Following?
Earlier in the year, there was one battle that seemed to captivate star watchers worldwide: Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN in the battle to be the first person (or company) to have over 1 million followers on Twitter. Kutcher won the battle but he may not win the war. As of writing, 16 of Twitter’s elite have crossed the million followers mark. The question I’ve been wondering is not why would that many people follow them. Like the James Bond theme, it’s a case of “you know my name.” Rather, are these cewebrities actually tweeting anything worth reading? Continue reading
F1 Turkey: Of Brawn, Boycotts, and TSN2
Another round of the 2009 F1 circus and another Jenson Button master class. Or should I call it a Brawn master class? Button won his sixth grand prix of the season going away. However, there was a chance that it wasn’t to be and I’m not talking about Sebastien Vettel. Meanwhile, Canada wishes TSN would just go away and give F1 coverage to someone else. Continue reading
Sunday Link-Off: Drop The Puck
Welcome to the first ever Sunday linkdump on The Lowdown Blog. To your right is Katy Perry who has been featured in the old Weekend Link-Off series.
While the UWO Students’ Council is throwing fees at Mustang Athletics, students at NCAA colleges in the USA aren’t so willing to throw cash on to a fire. (New York Times) See UWO, this is what happens when you elect a president who would rather be homecoming queen than president.
If you’ve been keeping up with the Phoenix Coyotes soap opera, you know that The Great One will be out over $9 million if the team isn’t sold for enough money. Turns out that there are a lot of people that could be short money including the Boy Scouts. (Globe and Mail)
Speaking of hockey, what happens to the hats that are thrown to celebrate a hat trick. (Puck Daddy) True story: I was at a Soo Greyhounds game where a Soo player got a hat trick. One guy threw his hat on the ice. A linesman picked up the hat and gave it to a game staff member who gave it back to the guy that threw it.
After the jump, more links and don’t call the WWE Champion “fragile”. Continue reading
Hockey (Last) Night In Canada: All Tied Up
After a big win in game three, the Penguins had an opportunity to ride the momentum to a tied series. However, if history has anything to teach us, game four was when the Pens wilted under the pressure last year. Detroit was without its MVP candidate Pavel Datsyuk once again. Would these counteracting factors favour the home side or the visitors? Continue reading
E3 2009: Thursday Roundup
Sadly, we’ve come to the end of the 2009 edition of the Electronic Entertainment Expo. That doesn’t mean that we were short of things to talk about. Even on the final day, announcements were being made and new details were coming out about recently unveiled games. Continue reading
E3 2009: Wednesday Roundup
With most of the press conferences over and done with, the attention at E3 turns to the individual games. Over the final two days of the expo, we’ll take a look at some of games making waves. We also have a quick recap of the Konami press conference. Continue reading
Wednesday Link-Off: General Oddities
Starting on Sunday, we’re adding a third link-off to the weekly lineup. Imaginitively, we’re thinking of calling it “Sunday Link-Off”. But first, this is Maria Sharapova who was sadly bumped from the French Open. After the jump, the coolest mayor in the world.
Teenagers are using hugs as a greeting. Naturally, parents are worried that these are public displays of affection and will lead to groping and other lewd behaviour. (New York Times) As an aside, I always found hugging to be an odd greeting. Will I turn one down? No, but I’m fond of the sharp nod and/or a quick twitch of the eyebrows as a greeting.
In honour of the Stanley Cup Finals, here are the top ten stories involving the grandest prize of them all. (Real Clear Sports)
For just over €7500, you can own your very own F1 race car. (F1 Fanatic) Some assembly required. Does not include engine, cooling unit, fuel tank, wheels, tires, electronics, or suspension. But it’s still a good deal.
I’ll take irony for 200: A Canadian think tank that was looking into changing Canadian copyright laws has withdrawn its reports on intellectual property. It turns out that they plagerised parts of their report from an American lobby group. (Globe & Mail)
They’re brothers from other mothers and (apparently) different political parties. Or at least that’s what Dubya called Bill Clinton when the two were together in Canada. (Yahoo/AP)
Silvio Berlusconi, your favourite world leader, is up to some of his old tricks. Now he’s promising cruises and sea-side vacations for those left homeless by last month’s Italian earthquake. (FOX News)
A word to soccer fans in Nigeria: It’s not worth cheering for any team. A Nigerian Manchester United fan ran down and killed four Barcelona fans after the game of the century. (BBC)
The war on Scientology has a new ally: Wikipedia. (The Register)
Sergio Garcia has been voted prom queen. Not that Sergio Garcia, an L.A. high school student of the same name. (InGameNow)
We’ve all (or most of us) seen the McCafe ads on TV. Well, it turns out that McDonald’s grand plan involves more than fancy coffees designed to destroy Starbucks. It involves whole chain of McCafe coffee shops to destroy Starbucks. (Daily Telegraph)
Just because he’s in full riot gear doesn’t mean this Roman police officer didn’t have a good time after the Champions League final. (Deadspin)
The latest in Microsoft’s series of epic failures is their new search engine, Bing. You’ll love the story behind the name. Talk about trying too hard. (New York Times)
Wait, here’s another one. In what will likely be the most controversial game ever, an ex-Guantanamo Bay is helping to develop a game based on the prison camp. Bad news for Microsoft is that it’s being developed exclusively for the XBox 360 and Windows. (Kotaku)
If you’re really into getting as much NHL Draft coverage as humanly possible, Eric Smith at Hockeybuzz has you covered. He has some of the results from the draft combine. (HockeyBuzz) Continue reading
E3 2009: The Sony Outlook
The last console manufacturer to go up on the main stage was Sony. The maker of the Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable had some new hardware coming out in addition to the big game unveils. So what did Sony have for us? Find out after the jump. Continue reading