Sugiyama Out of Jewels 9th Ring Due to Injury

Bad news: Shizuka Sugiyama, our favorite up and coming mixed martial artist, is out of the next Jewels event due to an injury. According to Nikkan Sports, it seems she suffered a broken collar bone as well as a dislocated shoulder during training. Sugiyama was to face Mongolian wrestler and MMA newcomer Esui in a shootboxing match at Jewels 9th Ring being held July 31st.

Unfortunately, this is another sad note considering Sugi’s career seems to have taken quite a downturn recently. After she went 5-0 at the beginning of her career, Sugi is now only 1-2 in her last three fights. It seems that her first loss at the hands of Alexandra Sanchez took quite a bit out of her. She also notably skipped Jewels 8th Ring, which was held back in May, after her second loss to Miki Morifuji.

We were looking forward to seeing her take to the ring again, although with mixed concern as she was pitted against a noticeably bigger opponent in Esui. Regardless, we wish Sugi a quick and lasting recovery, and we await the day she dons her oversized marshmallow-like Jewels gloves once more.

Wallpaper Wednesday – July 2010 Edition

Back with another batch of wallpapers. We went through a few more this month compared to last, and I was pleased to find the above fanart image of Lum by Range Murata. It’s definitely bikini season!

Catch the rest of the images after the jump, and just as a heads up, as Lithobolos continues to contribute we’ll probably be seeing more idol pics popping up here.   Read more »

Ellen Page, Cisco, and the China Connection

Watching commercials sometimes gets me annoyed and rarely gets me angry. Most of the time, I just try and zone out as to not be influenced into buying something I don’t need.  This is not the case with the recent ads from Cisco featuring popular young actress Ellen Page. Not only do these commercials annoy with their cheesiness, fail to actually present a product I might want to buy, but they ironically make light of the human rights violations the company is perpetrating in their cooperation with the oppressive government of China.

The two main Cisco advertisements I have seen are: 1) where she goes to a classroom in her hometown and meets kids who are going on a virtual field trip to China and 2) where the small town’s city hall has a police control center with video screens connected to local surveillance cameras. Read more »

Hooray for Women’s MMA

In anticipation for the upcoming duo of women’s tourneys taking place at Bellator 24 (August 12th) and Strikeforce Challengers 10 (August 13th), we were scouting about for some highlights. The following video shows a collection of some of the best KO’s and subs. Enjoy!

Edit: Unfortunately the original posted video is no longer available, so here is another homage to women’s MMA.

Vaseline Promoting Self-loathing Skin Whitening in India with Facebook

Skin whitening is very popular in India despite the social and health consequences. Here are two articles, from Feministing and CBS News, about a new Vaseline campaign on Facebook India where people can whiten their profile picture.

Guess I’m going to have to buy another brand of lotion now.