A Washington Heights man spent 48 hours, 15 minutes and 1 second watching sports to win this year's third annual Ultimate Couch Potato competition at the ESPN Zone in Times Square. Jorge Cruz, a "public affairs assistant" for Con Ed, bested three other competitors, including two-time defending champ Stan Friedman, who stood up from his chair at 5 a.m. today after 41 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds of continuous sports watching. The contestants had taken their seats at 11 a.m. on New Year's Day and were allowed to eat and drink as much as they wanted for free, but were only allowed to use the bathroom every eight hours. Falling asleep resulted in immediate disqualification. more ›

At 5:48 a.m. this morning, while you were no doubt sleeping your life away, 47-year-old research librarian Stan Friedman was seizing the garland of immortal glory by winning his second straight Ultimate Couch Potato competition. This year's contest/publicity stunt pitted four contenders against each other in a competition at the Times Square ESPN Zone to see who could watch sports longest without falling asleep. Going into the competition yesterday morning, cocky Queens contestant John Scheer sneered, "Stan is a librarian. I own lots of books—I own him." And after just five hours, Scheer was the first to drop out. Last year it took Friedman 29 hours to best his competitors; this year he coasted—er, idled—to victory in just 18 hours, 48 minutes and 17 seconds. Speaking to the Daily News, he explained the secret to his mastery of sitting and watching TV: "My mind wanders a lot. I can leave here mentally." more ›

We get a lot of promotional crap sent to us here at Gothamist headquarters. Some of it is greatly appreciated, like last week's bottles of "bail out" Kahlua, that talking Pet Lawyer, and the bitterly fought-over roll of toilet paper. Others, like today's mailing from the ESPN Zone, are just a tad...sub par. To advertise their Ultimate Couch Potato competition, set to take place on January 1st in Times Square, ESPN's p.r. company Fed Exed a cardboard box containing one raw potato. Not a potato salad, not potato vodka, just one lonely little uncooked tuber. (Last week they sent us soil and seeds! Next week a backhoe?) Of course we scoff now, but given the imploding economy, maybe we should just be grateful and preheat the oven.
more ›