Blogging.

Resolved: Blog more.

PEDs in NASCAR (and not just Flying J coffee).

Ron Hornaday's 2007 NASCAR Craftsman Trucks Series championship is now shrouded under a cloud of doubt after the racer admitted to using HGH and Testosterone from December 2004 to January 2006. Hornaday, who currently sits second in the 2008 Trucks Series standings, told the espens that the drugs were shipped from a Florida clinic to his home in North Carolina under his wife's name, and that he used them to treat an undiscovered thyroid problem that since has been corrected.

Hornaday says he "couldn’t see a difference," so he stopped using.

First Andy Pettitte, then Ron Hornaday. Athletes failing in their attempts to use performance-enhancing drugs is a troubling trend. These guys are winners, damnit.

Seriously, Flushing is a shit-hole.*

Bundesliga club Hamburger SV has partnered with a local cemetery to give their fans the chance to ascend to the afterlife from a club-sanctioned graveyard, complete with a view of HSH Nordbank Arena and grass from the pitch covering their plot. From the AP:

Fans of the German soccer club Hamburger SV now have the chance for the ultimate resting place—their own cemetery and a grave covered with the original grass from the team’s playing field.

Fans traveling to their final resting place will enter the afterlife through a large replica of a goal. Because that's not tacky at all.

Alfred McLane**, a representative for Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall, shot down rumors that the Mets would try something similar near CitiField, saying, "Flushing is already a fucking boneyard. What would be the point?"

* Not a lie.

** No such person.

Shef shuffles to 250K.

Well, unlike the first one, at least No. 250,000 was hit by a player of some historical legitimacy. Let's hope Gio Gonzalez has more of a career than Cherokee Fisher. The Beane hopes he will, at least.

Let's see, how'd I do?

• Second week of September? Check.

• Penchant for speaking in the third person? Check.

• Tendency to show up the competition? Check.

• David Eckstein?

Well, can't win 'em all.

Oscar Pistorius is why the fuck we watch.

The feeling may be muted by the lack of life-and-death exigency, but sports nonetheless comprehensively capture the full range of the human condition. Quoth the nasal-voiced "Wide World of Sports" voice-over:

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. The human drama of athletic competition.

What he said -- that's why we watch.

Oscar Pistorius is why we watch.

Pistorius has a congenital condition that prevented his legs from forming below the fibula. He was amputated below the knees at 11-months-old. In a perverted way, he's lucky to never have known regular legs and lost them. He's been forced to cope since he was born.

Cope he has.

Pistorius has made a name for himself after challenging and winning the Olympic ban on runners who must use prosthetics to compete in track and field events. He narrowly missed qualifying for the Beijing Games but dominates Paralympic competition.

Oscar Pistorius' quest of competing in the Olympics is inspiration incarnate. The wonder of a man with no legs competing at the highest levels of sport is no freak show; it's triumph of the highest magnitude, an achievement to be celebrated.

Oscar Pistorius transcends banal questions of winning and losing. He stomps in the realm of sublime on a pair of magic legs.