April 14, 2008
New Nike Olympic Shoe, Strangely Attractive
Posted by Groonk at 07:56 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport, The Future
June 06, 2007
London did Something Horrible to 2012 Olympics Logo
The jagged emblem is based on the date "2012" and comes in a series of very bright shades of pink, blue, green and orange in a modern take on the Olympic colours.
Lord Coe, chairman of the London 2012 organising committee said: "This is the vision at the very heart of our brand.
"It will define the venues we build and the Games we hold and act as a reminder of our promise to use the Olympic spirit to inspire everyone and reach out to young people around the world. It is an invitation to take part and be involved.
The only reason it would "reach out to young people" is because the damn thing looks like a 6 year old let his 3 year old brother play with photoshop for an afternoon.
Get off it, London. Rethink that noise. Previous Olympic logos managed to not look like a hot mess.
And your noise apparently induces brain sickness:
A segment of animated footage promoting the 2012 Olympics has been removed from the organisers' website after fears it could trigger epileptic seizures.[...]
Christopher Filmer rang BBC London 94.9FM to say he suffered a seizure while watching the footage on television and his girlfriend also suffered a fit and needed hospital treatment.
"The logo came up on TV and I was thinking about the 2012 Games and then I was out," he said.
(via telegraph.co.uk, warrenellis, bbc news)
Posted by Groonk at 06:34 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Marketing, Sport
October 15, 2006
Fingerskilz, for when Hand Puppetry Just isn't Enough
This is a testament to what cubicle work does to your mind.
Also, it's flamin' odd.
Their girlfriends must love them.
(via 7d and the fingerskilz blog)
Posted by Groonk at 06:28 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport, Video
April 24, 2006
Naureen Zaim is Superhot
Just had to say it. She's a feast of fine for my eyes.
If I'm reading her website right. She's an artist to boot.
Sexy. Athletic. Smart. What can't she do?
I should star a supermodel category. I will when I'm ready to be super-spammed straight to hell.
(via Mr Playboy Radio AJ Gentile and Naureen Zaim)
Posted by Groonk at 12:33 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Art, Artist, Sex, Sport
January 15, 2006
Return of the Haka
I'm not much into team sports, but if more teams did the haka before each game, I'd watch every single one. Would even be tempted to participate.
Below you find New Zealand's All Blacks performing the haka before a game:
The Haka returns to my mind after visiting Kung Fu Monkey's site offhand.
Thanks to You Tube, I can visually share the Haka experience on this site.
English translation:
Tis life! Tis life!
Tis death! Tis death!
Tis life! Tis life!
Behold! There stands the hairy man
Who will cause the sun to shine!
One step upwards...
Another step upwards
The sun shines!
Posted by Groonk at 02:39 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Culture, Sport, Video
January 08, 2006
Rock Crawling buggies
The 'sport' doesn't interest me. The buggies do.
(via b55seddel)
Posted by Groonk at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Research, Sport, Video
December 02, 2005
Jontel, the 3rd Grade Pool Shark
And he qualified for the U.S. Pool Players Association national tournament:
"My grandpa bought me a little pool table, and then I started shooting on my grandma's big table," he said.
Jontel is the second-youngest competitor in the amateur pool league's history. The youngest was 7-year-old Austin Murphy of Folsom, Calif., now 11, who won this year's championship for boys ages 14 and younger at the Billiard Congress of America Junior Nationals.
[...]
"He is the epitome of good sportsmanship," Whiting says. "He shakes hands and always says, 'good shot,' whereas some of the adults throw down their cues and run out huffing and puffing."
(via dunc)
Posted by Groonk at 04:23 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
November 04, 2005
Fraction Found a Shocker
For those of you who don't know, learn about the Shocker.
(via matt fraction)
Posted by Groonk at 03:57 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Funny, Sex, Sport
October 13, 2005
Southern Sports Weekly
My friend Ponzu has a new sports site up and running. It's called Southern Sports Weekly.
Get the latest sports news. Play Football Pick'em. Go to his forums. Get the schedules for your teams. Talk about your favorite teams. Swap tickets. Make plans for tailgate parties.
Get your shit together, man!
Posted by Groonk at 03:10 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
September 06, 2005
Lance Armstrong likes Pissing off the French
And who doesn't really?
"While I'm absolutely enjoying my time as a retired athlete with Sheryl and the kids, the recent smear campaign out of France has awoken my competitive side," Armstrong said. "I'm not willing to put a percentage on the chances, but I will no longer rule it out."
(via myway)
Posted by Groonk at 09:13 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of On the French, Sport
July 26, 2005
He Done it
I'm late to the party. I know this.
I also knew Lance won on Sunday. Just had so many things on me mind lately.
Keep kicking everybody's ass.
(via yahoonews)
Posted by Groonk at 04:14 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
July 10, 2005
Tour de France Watch
I'm keeping up with Lance this year.
(thanks to medicmike for the oln link)
Posted by Groonk at 03:08 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
July 06, 2005
Fish, Chips, Silly Sausages and coming soon...Olympic Sex
Not to detract from London's joy but you do remember Olympic Sex don't you?
(via ponzu)
Posted by Groonk at 07:44 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
April 22, 2005
Ukrainians Go Deeper
They also stay down longer and eat what they kill.
A Ukrainian team has set a new depth record for caving.The team was part of a project that has made breaking through 2,000m its goal for the past four years.
(via bbcnews)
Posted by Groonk at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
April 09, 2005
Insane basketball shots
A video made by skateboarders.
(via boingboing)
Posted by Groonk at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport, Video
April 02, 2005
I must go Down to the Sea and Surf
I relented and watched the movie Step into Liquid that I DVR'd a month and a half ago.
I should have watched that damn thing sooner. SiL turned out to be as "fucking cool" as I thought it'd be.
look closer
SiL is further proof to me that I was meant to be born and raised in a coastal surfing city.
Surfing genius Taj Burrow(pictured above) has an atypical how-to-surf website.
Just a little something to read before you step into your first wave.
Posted by Groonk at 07:17 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
March 02, 2005
That's One Bad Mother...
Shut your mouth!
Only talking about off-road Segway.
I can dig it!
(via gizmodo)
Posted by Groonk at 05:02 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
February 10, 2005
Jeep Hurricane
The new Jeep Hurricane will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine.
(via teknesia)
Posted by Groonk at 02:58 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
January 30, 2005
3 Wheeled Bad-Assedness
I want need one of these suckers.
Take a Formula One driving position, three wheels, a high-power 550cc v-twin engine designed for motocross, put an additional electric motor into each wheel, and an ingenious tilt system. Finnish student Heikki Naulapaa designed this vehicle as the main project in his design degree at the Royal College of the Arts in London. It landed him a dream job in the design department at Aprilia and maybe, just maybe, the adventurous company might build this excitement machine. With specs like that and a low aerodynamic profile, the hybrid would match any 1000cc superbike in performance and blow a Ferrari into the weeds.
(via gizmag)
Posted by Groonk at 12:52 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
January 05, 2005
They call it the 'Einstein Flip'
A unique BMX stunt, created in a collaboration between a physicist and one of the UK’s top international stunt riders, was performed for the first time today (5th Jan 2005) to mark the launch of Einstein Year at the Science Museum in London.Einstein was a keen cyclist and although there is no evidence to suggest he ever attempted a “360-degree back-flip with table-top”, or even a humble wheelie, it is claimed that inspiration for his theory of Special Relativity came to him while riding his bicycle.
One hundred years after the publication of his landmark papers on Special Relativity, Brownian Motion and the Photoelectric Effect, cycling and science will come together once more in another world first: a BMX bicycle stunt designed by a physicist.
Haven't found a video of this one...yet.
Posted by Groonk at 02:34 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
August 27, 2004
FIG asks Hamm to give up gold
The FIG is full of shit.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - World gymnastics officials asked Paul Hamm to give up his gold medal as the ultimate show of sportsmanship, but the U.S. Olympic Committee told them to take responsibility for their own mistakes and refused even to deliver the request.In a dispute over scores that has turned into a political squabble, the head of the International Gymnastics Federation suggested in a letter to Hamm that giving the all-around gold medal to South Korea's Yang Tae-young "would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of fair play by the whole world."
FIG president Bruno Grandi tried to send the letter Thursday night to Hamm through the USOC, which declined to pass it along.
link via 7d
Posted by Groonk at 06:07 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
August 25, 2004
Cautionary Tale
Do as I say, not as I didn't:
Every cyclist knows it's a good idea to carry, on every ride, a bike tool, a patch kit (I'm fond of whatever Wal Mart or Academy Sports has at the time I'm there), a frame pump, and something to carry it all in. Some of us even carry an extra tube, just in case a temporary patch job won't cut it.
So - what did I do yesterday? I went riding with only the patch kit. No means of getting a flat tire off the rim, and even if I could have done that, I couldn't have filled the patched tube with air.
Carry the essentials, boys and girls. You'll need them when some dumbass edges you into a pothole too nasty for your little road bike tires to handle.
Posted by Groonk at 11:24 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
August 20, 2004
Swifter, Higher, Stronger - 2012
There have been talks of other contenders - Moscow, Russia; Madrid, Spain; Istanbul (not Constantinople), Turkey; Leipzig, Germany; Havana, Cuba; Paris, France, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
But these were the sites I found most readily.
Posted by Groonk at 05:11 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
Stranger Than Fiction
Now...
Maybe it's because my sports of choice - kayaking and biking - are not only recognized, but are IN the Olympics. And maybe it's because I have a hoity-toity view of sport. And perhaps I have some male machismo about the topic. Whatever the case, I can't accept that some things are 1) recognized by IOC as sports and 2) some recognized things aren't in the Olympics while things like badminton and trampoline ARE.
Some of my favorites:
Life Saving - a wonderful, necessary, admirable pursuit. But not a sport.
Bridge & Chess - boardgames...yes. Sport...c'mon.
Rugby - why is Badminton in the Olympics, but rugby isn't?!?!?
Golf - if a fat man can do it, it ain't a sport.
Automobile - sorry to you NASCAR types, but when the driver can run his ass around a track at 200+ mph without the car, your "sport" will have my respect. Until then, it's just an impressive display of engineering . And I know the drivers have great coordination and reflexes - but so do 12 year olds in front of their X-Boxes.
That is all. Back to your day.
Posted by Groonk at 04:12 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
Ghosts of Olympics Future
Just in case you can't wait for the next round.
Posted by Groonk at 03:43 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
Keeping the Olympic feeling flowing
Did you know that the USA women's olympic softball team has dominated the event since its inception in 1996?
As of this posting, their standing is 7-0.
Goddamn.
They are fairly easy on the eyes too.
Just throwing that out there.
Posted by Groonk at 02:17 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
August 19, 2004
Be Like Lance
I'm having Lance/Tour withdrawals...so I went looking for more info.
I have the helmet in the markings of the US Postal team but I don't have the bike. Anyone willing to part with $5K+, feel free to contact me.
Posted by Groonk at 10:38 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
August 17, 2004
Sound Like A Winner!
Continuing my Olympics lust...
Listen to the workout music of the athletes.
I always wondered what they listened to - now I know. And you can too.
Posted by Groonk at 08:37 AM | Comments (1) | Ministry of Sport
August 16, 2004
Thank You, Zeus and Co.!!!!
You know what the best thing about the Olympics is? It's not the worldwide comraderie, the display of peak physical prowess, or even the chill that goes down your spine when you hear the National Anthem playing because one of our athletes realized a dream, not only for themselves, but for all of us...
No - it's not that.
It's the hot female athletes. And since I'm running this ship now, I'm gonna direct you to a couple of my current favorites:
1) Mohini Bhardwaj Dark hair, dark eyes, a gymnast. Need I say more?
2) Misty May Look at her stomach. LOOK AT IT!
Well - that's all from me today. I gotta go take advantage of the nice weather and ride my bike.
Posted by Groonk at 04:48 PM | Comments (4) | Ministry of Sport
August 14, 2004
Olympic recap
on site:
Olympics Online
Olympic Wallpapers
The Alabama Contenders
The offical Mascots
OLYMPIC SEX
A funny little Olympic Cartoon
off site:
NBC Olympics
They have vid links and sport specific focus
BBC Sport Olympics 2004
Watch the Olympics live online
Posted by Groonk at 07:04 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
August 13, 2004
Olympics Online
US Olympic Team.com
Personalize your page for your favorite events.
Athens 2004
The monster site for this year's games.
Daily Summaries
Schedule and results
Thanks to MedicMike..who's on top of this Olympic jazz.
Posted by Groonk at 04:55 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
Kerri
holy galoley.
link via medicmike
Posted by Groonk at 03:02 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sex, Sport
July 28, 2004
Three from AL
The 2004 U.S. Olympic Team roster ... by state.
I used to live 30 minutes from Opelika.
link via MedicMike
Posted by Groonk at 05:11 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
July 25, 2004
Lance won!
"If I'm here, I race to win." --Lance Armstrong
You've definitely proved that fact, Lance.
Thanks to MedicMike and 7d whose Lance enthusiasm bordered on insanity.
Posted by Groonk at 07:43 PM | Comments (2) | Ministry of Sport
July 22, 2004
Phevos and Athena
The Olympic mascots look farked up.
In this way, Phevos and Athena represent the link between Greek history and the modern Olympic Games.
Phevos and Athena represent the values of Olympism: participation, brotherhood, equality, cooperation, fair play.
via 7d
Posted by Groonk at 11:40 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Art, Marketing, Sport
July 20, 2004
Lance in yellow
With a name like Armstrong, you better be a winner. Vids of Lance winning stage 15.
links via medicmike
Posted by Groonk at 04:50 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport, Video
May 20, 2004
Cruisin Deals Gap
Pentacleus(orange striped jacket) has been on me for weeks to post the photos of him and his dad tooling around Deals Gap.
Photographed by Killboy
Father
Son
Riding
Along
Maybe next year I can go and get my own pics of the event.
Posted by Groonk at 05:30 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
Dodgeball, for adults?
What is my future city up too?
"It's ridiculously fun. It's high-energy, you don't stop moving. There's sensory overload," said Colleen Finn, who founded the Portland adult dodgeball league this year.And throwing a ball hard at someone can be fun, too.
Grown men and women are turning dodgeball into a recreational sport, with pickup games and championship tournaments.
via 7d
Posted by Groonk at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
May 18, 2004
The view from Barber Motorsports Park
Pentacleus grabbed his son and his dad and went down to Barber Motorsports Park to watch all the motorcycles.
And these are the pictures he took:
Posted by Groonk at 09:26 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
May 12, 2004
Tampa Bay Lightning May Offer Free Beer
I like watching hockey in the stadium.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - The Tampa Bay Lightning is hoping to tap into larger crowds by offering unlimited free beer to season ticket holders.But the sudsy sale may not reach its goal if safe-driving advocates have their way.
Police and several area chapters of Mothers Against Drunk Driving say the hockey team's offer is irresponsible.
I would love watching hockey if there were free beers. That's like Magic Shell chocolate topping on 3 random flavors of ice cream.
I would have a DD, of course.
via 7d
Posted by Groonk at 04:13 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
March 02, 2004
Rock Paper Scissors World Championship
Ponzu dropped this on my door this morn.
Funny.
I'll only participate when it graduates to Rock-Paper-Scissors-Spock-Lizard. I need the challenge.
Posted by Groonk at 06:01 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Funny, Sport, Weird
February 02, 2004
The Naked Janet
Well not naked... there's a little star thing on it for pete's sake. Go figure the one Superbowl I miss has a naked Janet Jackson in it. What a freaking burn.
The NFL claimed outrage over the stunt:Statement by NFL Executive Vice President Joe Browne regarding the Super Bowl halftime show: "We were extremely disappointed by elements of the MTV-produced Halftime show. They were totally inconsistent with assurances our office was given about the show. It's unlikely that MTV will produce another Super Bowl halftime."
So the NFL is upset over a naked breast yet the cheerleaders skirts leave nothing to the imagination? I call bullshit on them.
Anyway, see the tit I missed. Drudge has it, but I'm not for sure how long.
I might post it in a few weeks. Depends on if I still care about the whole affair.
7d caught me up on the bold event.
Update: It seems MTV has wiped their site clean of their news hype made days before "the flashing." But Drudge has a link to the google cached version. As quoted by MTV PR:
"I don't think the Super Bowl has ever seen a performance like this," Duldulao added. "The dancing is great. She's more stylized, she's more feminine, she's more a woman as she dances this time around. There are some shocking moments in there too. It's a lot of pressure, there's so many creative people and creative artists, you want to make sure everything is different, and I think she's going to do that. She's doing her job well."
People are funny when they try to cover up their shit.
Posted by Groonk at 09:41 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sex, Sport
January 10, 2004
Jocks to GIs
A unique pen pal board found by medicmike:
Too often these days, the mixture of sports and war proves rhetorically combustible, leading directly to misplaced profundities and furrowed-brow pleas for perspective. The grim visages of sportscasters appear, sermonizing on the relative insignificance of a ball going through a hoop.And then, of course, back to the game.
It's no coincidence that extended peacetime elevated our games and those who play them. Absent Pattonesque heroes, we gradually substituted those who can shoot or hit or throw a ball better than the more common among us. Which makes sense, in a nonsensical way: War and sports are the primary fantasies of childhood. (Male childhood, anyway.) Proof of how seriously we now take our games is there in our overpowering need to link them-unlike movies or plays or nights out with friends-to the unrelated events of faraway dictators and local presidents.
[...]
In war, the games don't necessarily become small. They just become games again, reverting to their original purpose: diversion. Much-needed diversion. "There's an anxiety I feel all day long," says Swin Cash, the Detroit Shock guard. "I can't shake it." Her brother, Steven Menifee, is a college graduate who enlisted in the Army following Sept. 11 and is now in Iraq. "Pretty much the only release I have is to get in the gym and work out for a couple of hours, play some basketball and let my mind go," says the WNBA star. "That's my sanity, the part of my daily routine I'm holding onto. But every second there's a silence, I'm back to thinking about it. He's not ready for what's happening over there. I think about him and wonder how many others are like him: too young."
There should be no surprise at the number of jocks bound by blood or friendship to the war in Iraq. Most American athletes grow up in the kinds of families and neighborhoods that make pro sports a dream and the military a viable career option. And, every day, the list of athletes with all-too-real, all-too-close connections to the war seems to grow longer.
Posted by Groonk at 08:37 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport, USA, War
January 08, 2004
Lovely pool playing ladies
Jennifer Chen and Jeanette Lee have given me new reasons to watch billiards on ESPN2.
links via medicmike
Posted by Groonk at 03:59 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
December 19, 2003
Last Great Race on Earth
The Iditarod is almost underway:
You can't compare it to any other competitive event in the world! A race over 1150 miles of the roughest, most beautiful terrain Mother Nature has to offer. She throws jagged mountain ranges, frozen river, dense forest, desolate tundra and miles of windswept coast at the mushers and their dog teams. Add to that temperatures far below zero, winds that can cause a complete loss of visibility, the hazards of overflow, long hours of darkness and treacherous climbs and side hills, and you have the Iditarod. A RACE EXTRAORDINAIRE, a race only possible in Alaska.From Anchorage, in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast, each team of 12 to 16 dogs and their musher cover over 1150 miles in 10 to 17 days.
reminder via medicmike
Posted by Groonk at 11:08 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
December 01, 2003
XMA
Vid caps from Xtreme Martial Arts on Discovery Channel:
The documentary starred Xtreme Martial Arts stars Mike Chaturantabut and Matt Mullins. The doc made a few interesting points but mostly felt like a 2 hour advertisment for Cruise's latest Movie The Last Samurai. A flick I feel drawn to and reluctant about.
Posted by Groonk at 03:46 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
November 21, 2003
Make them play fair
So the reason my digital cable is out of this world is because ESPN, Fox Sports, and other sports-themed channels keep hiking their prices up?
WTF?
The only time I watch sports is if I'm at the event with a beer in one hand and a surly comment on my lips.
Learn more about the sports conglomerate's wicked, wicked ways from http://www.makethemplayfair.com/.
via Teknesia
Posted by Groonk at 03:27 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
October 22, 2003
All Japan Ninja Championships
Ninja battles are go!
Battling it out in such events as Walking on Water, Moat Wall Climbing, Moat Wall Diving, Water Spider River Crossings and Star Throwing, combatants took part in the All Japan Ninja Championships.The Ninja Games took place in Koga, a sleepy backwater in Shiga Prefecture that lays claim to being one of the homes of ninjutsu, or "stealth arts," a martial arts technique that has made Japan famous across the globe.
Koga, which sells itself as a tourist destination through its centuries old connection to Koga-style ninja, this year welcomed 84 contestants for its 20th annual ninja contest, Shukan Shincho notes.
via dph
Posted by Groonk at 12:43 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport, World
October 19, 2003
That Guy
Even Wheaton's offering "That Guy" safe harbour:
Tell you what. You keep coaching that team, and if you ever come to Los Angeles, I'll get some hired goons, and we'll take you out for a beer at one of the best pubs in the city. If anyone tries to fuck with you, those hired goons will kick their punk asses while we exchange high-fives. It will be sweet!In the mean time, when someone gets in your face about the Cubs losing, you can say, "Hey! Wil Wheaton says back the fuck off!"
Posted by Groonk at 07:24 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
October 08, 2003
Cubs win first postseason series since 1908
ATLANTA (AP) -- Sammy Sosa sprinted across the outfield, high-fiving his teammates along the way. Thousands of Cubs fans sang Take Me Out To The Ball Game over and over. Mike Remlinger strolled toward home plate -- a beer in one hand, a cigar in the other -- and simply shook his head in disbelief.
Ron Santo and Ernie Banks, College of Coaches and the curse of the goat, Harry Caray and Jack Brickhouse -- this one's for you. In one magical evening, the Chicago Cubs ended 95 years of frustration.
Posted by Groonk at 12:21 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
July 03, 2003
Go db racers, go!
This is just silly:
Troy Irving's 18-year-old Dodge Caravan has a heck of a sound system: 72 amplifiers -- you got it, 72 -- and 36 big 16-volt batteries to put out the 130,000 watts of power needed to rumble his nine 15-inch subwoofers.
Growing sport
dB (as in decibel) drag racing is an obscure but growing international "sport" in which competitors go head-to-head for two or three seconds at a time -- hence the name drag racing -- to establish whose sound system is loudest. The 2002 record, set by a German team of secretive audio engineers, was 177.6 dB.The roar of a 747 on takeoff is usually quantified at about 140 decibels, although there's really no way to correlate the wide-spectrum noise of jet engines in open air with a low-frequency pure tone inside a highly reflective enclosure. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, with every 10 dB increase equivalent to a doubling of perceived sound (otherwise known as noise), dB drag racing enthusiasts create some seriously loud tones. (Another rule of thumb: All else being equal, every three dB of increased sound from a typical dB drag racing system requires a doubling of amplifier power.)
Bolting doors shut
Such noise would turn your brain to tofu if it weren't generated into uninhabited, tightly sealed space, such as the interior of a vintage Caravan. Competitors in the Extreme class bolt doors shut. Irving uses industrial jig clamps and a threaded one-inch steel rod and nut through the window for extra security. Drag racers replace windows and windshields with Plexiglas up to two inches thick, secure panels with turnbuckles fit for an America's Cup racer and, in some cases, fill the doors with concrete. Then, while the tone burst is generated, team members lie spread-eagled on the roof and push against the car from the outside to bolster it that little extra bit. One Extreme competitor in search of ultimate stiffness used an armored truck, so we can expect to see Iraq-campaign M1A1 Abrams tanks doing sonic smoky burnouts as soon as they're declared surplus.The sound that leaks out is pretty much what you hear when you inadvertently turn your home stereo on with the volume all the way up and a loose speaker wire: a rattling, destructive, marrow-fluttering hum.
(via gizmodo)
Posted by Groonk at 04:53 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport, Technology
April 13, 2003
Le Parkour
I was all set to break new ground and create a comic featuring Le Parkour somehow. Then Warren Ellis went and did a Global Frequency story on it a month ago.
Here's a little summary on the whole shebang:
parkourdraw a straight line on a map of your home town. start from point a, and go to the point b. don’t consider the elements which are in your way (barriers, walls, wire fences, trees, houses, buildings) as obstacles. hug them: climb, get over, jump: let your imagination flow: you’re now doing parkour
attitude
to parkour, it’s also to know how to deny evidences, to keep a critical acumen. example; the streets. a marked out route, where we no longer need to wonder if we must take it or not. it’s here, we take it, that’s all. no thought needs to go into it at all. whereas the parkour’s attitude is to wonder; "perhaps there is another way to move forward, a way which hasn't been explored yet?" the parkour is the adventurous spirit dared in conquered fields and which is applied at both literal and figurative senses“it teaches me not be scared in life, when new situations come to me, i deal with them calmly, like I would do before a new jump” stéphane vigroux
creation
what could be defined as bungee jumping without elastic rope was created in lisses, in essonne 14 years ago by david belle. this one began as a child to play the “parcours du combatant”, under his father’s influence (troop soldier’s son in Vietnam between 9 and 18) and jackie chan’s movies. it’s a matter of moving with as much agility as possible, with silence. this parcours du combatant, david converted it with what he had. he didn’t have access to the jungle, but he had the city. so he started to climb all the things that he found in lisses. sébastien foucan, intrigued by david’s reputation, joined him when they still were in primary school, and the team was born.proposing a new way to deal with a static environment, the parkour seems like capoera on buildings, without safety wires. those cat looking men are urban acrobats.
it’s way too dangerous to be legal, but it isn’t officially illegal either, although because of the danger, those who practice stay more or less underground.
“we just claim the fact that we move differently, not that we take risks to get a pride and say to ourselves i do that and you don’t” david belle
The idea of people willingly throwing themselves up and off of buildings is brilliant to me. Hell, I couldn't and wouldn't do it, but it's fun to watch.
philosophy“the day when all will be flat, we’ll be dead” the people who practice parkour apply this principle on a physical level, and offers to transpose this attitude on a moral level. all depends actually on the way which the obstacle is taken. an obstacle in normal circumstances prevents us from going further, it paralyses. in parkour however, everything is viewed as an obstacle that can be used to create movement“ tell me how you move and i’ll tell you who you are”
parkour=thoughtlessness?
while interviewing other parkourists on internet, -it’s there that they can communicate, in sites like parkour.fr or pisteurs.fr, because the movie has spread throughout the world - we can see that they think too that the yamakasis carry with them a kamikaze image, even suicidal guys, nevertheless parkour has nothing to do with risk taking. To sebastien, we can go on a bench and do a more interesting trick than a jump from the 6th floor of a building, “in parkour, big muscled guys are clumsy guys” adds stéphane vigroux. what’s important for the traceurs, -and all the true parkourists from france and from elsewhere, is the grace and the lightness.besides, they have never had a grave accident with them, perhaps because david and seb don’t randomly do anything. each jump is calculated precisely. it has nothing to do with the image proposed by the movie. finally, the parkourists aren’t basically anti-police, or anti-society, they aren’t children of housing estates (evry is a green suburb), and they respect their environment.
on this subject, sebastien is losing his temper: “i can’t bear when someone tell me: “don’t touch this tree”, I say to myself “but this tree, I respect it more than you do, so get busy, go for a jog and stop boring me silly”for sure they don't respect all the signposts, or else they couldn’t practice, but isn’t it better than doing nothing at all and smoking drugs? furthermore, it is not in their interest to destroy their environment because it’s more than their work field
Posted by Groonk at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Sport
