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About five years ago, Hunter says, he invested almost $70,000 in an invention: an inflatable raft that would sit under furniture. The pitch was that when high-rainfall areas were flooded, consumers could pump up the device, allowing a sofa to float and remain dry.Read about more wacky investments here.
Taurasi joined her on the Dynamo roster two winters ago, reuniting the two friends from their UConn days. Still, because of difficulties with the coaches and a brutally cold winter, that 2005-06 season was so unpleasant it wore down even relentlessly upbeat Taurasi. She compares it to the episode of "Married With Children" when the Bundys travel to Lower Uncton, an English town living under a constant dark cloud. Lower Uncton became her code for anything that went wrong during the season.
"My goal was to make one Russian smile a day -- one Russian," she said. "That lasted a couple days and I gave up."
North Carolina Tar Heels
Roy Williams is soft. His hands look manicured. They have never pulled tobacco from the dirt. He has never gutted a fish fresh from the sea. Soldiers shoot soft men in the back rather than follow them into battle. Williams should look out. He should watch his back. But junior forward Tyler Hansbrough is a 2-ton bull in baby-blue shorts. When he broke his nose last year, he saw red. He charged. His horns went down and gored opposing players. I would fight with this man. I would die for him. If a bullet met him, I would cradle his head till he left this earth. After the platoon's soldiers shoot Roy Williams in the back, they'll follow Sergeant Hansbrough into combat. Hansbrough and UNC charge to the Elite Eight.
As forward Brendan Shanahan added: “The difference is, we’re in parking spaces and they just park anywhere. We actually park in the lines. They just pull up to the door and get out of the car.”
Basketball is a tall man's game. But in the Philippines, where men are short and hoops is an obsession, something's got to give. Several native "big men" are barely taller than 6 feet 3 inches, the standard height for NBA guards. Dunks are so rare in the PBA that the league has toyed with the idea of making slams worth three points. The league adds a dash of high-wire athleticism by allowing each team to hire one foreign-born star. But permitting American 7-footers to play would wreak havoc among the Lilliputian locals. As a result, the PBA bans imports taller than 6 feet 6 inches.
