What does the Vatican want with Michael Phelps when this Brazilian chick Maya is flirting with death and mastering the circadian rhythms of the universe and emerging from all of it looking like Gisele and sounding like someone whose sole life achievement was finding a steady Oxycontin hookup? Seriously, I don't know if "extreme sports" are any more popular in the ratings than they were when last I checked; they seem a little too individualistic for the present zeitgeist but that means nothing, the real truth is that no one watches them on TV because they make kids want to kill themselves trying stupid stunts and old folks want to kill themselves for wasting their lives, the end.

*Ha ha, "like Jason" is what I thought while writing that. I figure I should probably make any sports reference I can actually think of even if it is embarrassingly a seven-year-old Nelly song.

Glenn Orgias had his hand chomped off by an 8-foot Great White shark last February, but after a few weeks of rehab he headed back to Bondi Beach to surf again. He admits he was "nervous" at first but once he hit the water, he was fine. Besides being without his left hand, of course.

"It was a totally different way of surfing," he said. "I felt like a was a ten- year-old kid learning all over again. It's definitely a new technique, a new way of learning how to do things, but its fun, I enjoy it."

Orgias joins a growing club of limbless surfers who continue to surf post-attack which, even if they do have the odds on their side, seems completely insane to me. Then again, if I step on a horseshoe on the beach it it would take me two years to go near the ocean again so I'm obviously the wrong person to rationalize their behavior.

Bondi Shark Attack Victim Surfs Again [TimesOnline] [Via AnimalNY]

The ocean is teeming with killer sharks, apparently. Luckily I never venture outside of the basement.

Veteran surfer Tim West, 25, and a friend were paddling about an eighth a mile off shore about 5 p.m. Wednesday when a shark came up underneath his board and went on the attack. "This is where it hit, majorly with the tooth still in it," West said while pointing to his damaged board. "It hit pretty hard. Then there are pressure dings in the top from the top jaw."

The signs should read 'Beaches closed, by order of Amity PD.' And let Polly do the printing.

Assistant San Mateo County Harbor Master Matt MacDonell said the details of the attack make him believe West had a run-in with a great white shark. "So what happened to him is the shark came up, bite the board, knocked him off the board," he said. "It took the board as if it was its dinner…It trashed with the board and then because it didn't taste any blood — it spit the board out."

Here's a closer look at the tooth embedded in West's board. Comical West quote: "I'm thinking eBay. Dude, I might do that. At first I wanted to just fix it and ride it again, but if I could sell for it two grand, I could get like four new boards."

Pillar Point is home to the Mavericks Surf Competition, which should be very interesting this year indeed.

Shark Attack At Famed Mavericks [KTVU2]
Surfer Attacked By Great White Shark At Mavericks [Surfer Magazine]

Because, let's be honest, only pansies brave a surf that isn't boiling.

But not in the case of pro-surfer C J Kanuha, who grabbed his board and paddled out to sea to get a closer look as the lava of the world's most active volcano, Kilauea, hit the waters.

Tentative at first, the adrenalin-junkie paddled to within 20ft of the lava, before moving back from water that reached 200C in places, melting the wax on his surfboard and burning his feet in the process.

C J Kanuha, the Genghis Khan of his generation.

Pictured: The surfer who kept his cool in the face of a volcano [Daily Mail]

Thanks to the great Mark Evanier for this find.

And in case you've ever wondered how surfboards were made in 1970, it was flour, eggs, and whole milk.

Today's Video Link [News From Me]

The Brechtian blockbuster features armed robbery, big-wave surfing, car chases, explosions, and no less than two extended skydiving sequences. Best of all, you could be the next Johnny Utah... the starring role of Keanu will be selected at random from the audience each night, and will read their entire script off of cue-cards. This method manages to capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance, even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting.

That's right; the Keanu Reeves role is played each night by a random audience member! If only they had done this with Hardball. The play has just been in Seattle, and is in Los Angeles beginning Oct. 12. So get out your surf board and your Ohio State t-shirt folks, one of you could be the next Johnny Utah. "You crossed the line. People trusted you and they died. You gotta' go down." Hell, yeah!

Point Break Live! [TheaterMania]
Point Break Live! [MySpace]

Some of the world's biggest names in surfing took on swells that reached up to 50 feet in height. But one of the most interesting sights of the day, according to our man, involved Byrnes.

Byrnes was with a group of people watching from a boat. These waves are huge and dangerous, but all of a suddden there's this 12-year-old kid out there on a surf board, just hanging out a little beyond the break. He's not in danger, but if he paddles in a few feet he will be. So Byrnes and these guys start yelling for the kid to paddle into the break. They're saying "Come on! Go for it!" I couldn't believe it.

It appears that the kid had enough sense not to try it. And blabbing to us about this is one thing, but I hope no one told the kid's mom. Or this woman, for that matter.

Maverick's Surf Contest [San Francisco Chronicle]
Life, Baseball & Eric Byrnes [MLB Blogs]