A while back, the Mad-City Ski Team, along with the Beaverland Must-Skis, Badgerland and Wisconsin Rapids Aqua Skiers, put together the largest human pyramid ever behind one ski boat powered by 3 Evinrude Motors. I previously posted a couple pictures, now here is the video…
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=1790004384873565927&hl=en
World Record Pyramid
If you can get past Barefoot Central‘s incredible old school website layout (i.e. borderline unreadable), you can find some really good footing videos. For one of the better ones, go to this page and click on the link labeled “Best Start on Footstock History” (wording of that is kinda funny, but still watch the video.)
To think the guy came all the way from Australia and then did that. Long trip for nothing.
I love The Muppets and this is too funny not to pass along…
As some of you know, I have an HD TV now. Works great. DirectTV carries HDNet and HDMovieNet, both great channels. I have found one thing that shouldn’t be shown in HD.
I’m not picking on Whitesnake in particular. I saw that they had an hour long concert airing on HDNet, so I recorded it. The songs of their’s that I recognized, they did a really good job with. They nailed their power ballads “Is This Love” and “Here I Go Again” and jammed out to “Still of the Night”. There are just some things that don’t need to be seen in HD.
First off, style wise, I don’t think they’ve changed since the 80’s in regard to their dress. Like Jerry Seinfield said (paraphrased), they found a look and they’ve stuck with it. But underneath their big hair, they have old wrinkly faces. It just doesn’t look quite right. You think they’re 20 somethings and they you see they’re not. And HD makes it very evident.
The band isn’t the worst part. Just like the band, the crowd looks like the are all dressed from 80’s and they don’t look nearly as good. Some looked done right scary. Remember how when old people would try and dress up like rockers from the 80’s back in the 80’s, well these are the rockers from the 80’s and now they’re the old people.
If you want to see them in all of their glory, go check out the video for “Here I Go Again“. Guys, it has Tawny Kitaen in it. Gotta watch it.
If you jump on over to Evinrude’s website, on their main page they have a little flash video that at the end, if you watch closely, shows the world record pyramid being pulled off the dock and then a shot of Jerry Wesner (Mad-City Ski Team’s triple rig driver) showing some love to the engines.
I browsed through some more of their website, watching some testimonial and hole shot videos, but didn’t see any other pyramid shots.
Still waiting to stumble on the infomercial on TV, but haven’t seen it yet. I did find this clip, which I’m guessing came from the infomercial on YouTube though.
And if you want to read an interesting discussion about outboard motors, go here. Just some of the poster’s pictures make it worth while. Although they do mention the infomercial, they don’t mention the show skiing portion of it. Too bad.
I posted about Soul, a barefooting movie a while back. Well here is a water skiing movie called The Secret Spot. The trailer looks pretty slick.
Basically, they took a camera crew down to a spot on some isolated river, brought some skiers, footers, wakeboarders, and hydrofoilers and let them tear it up in front of the cameras on the glass calm water. You can find the list of all the athletes in the movie over at IMDB.
Here’s the trailer.
This movie falls at the other end of the spectrum from Blood Diamond. But like Blood Diamond, this movie is also based on a true story.
For those of you who don’t know and didn’t pick up on it from the trailer, this movie is about a crocodile in Africa. A very large crocodile. The trailer calls the croc a serial killer. 300 victims probably qualifies it as one.
It is hard to say that this movie is good, it isn’t. But for those looking for a popcorn horror flick that will make you jump a couple times and laugh at many inappropriate spots, this movie is worth adding to your Netflix queue or watching sometime in an unedited fashion.
It has a lot of good lines such as “If I have to stuff you up my ass to get you through customs, you’re coming back to America.”
I won’t go into many details about the movie, I don’t want to ruin what there is of the story. But it does star the guy who played John Doe and plays Lincoln Burrows in Prison Break, Dominic Purcell. And in probably a bit of embellishing the truth, there is a scene where the croc, name Gustave, could probably run down a horse, completely unbelievable.
But I did do some searching on the web to see if the inspired by a true story is legit. I found this article on National Geographic that contains many of the elements of the movie. So the movie isn’t complete fiction.
Here’s the trailer:
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-8089421807756093396&hl=en
Trailer
Between Badger games today, I started browsing the Barefoot Central website and came across this video. It shows some pretty slick barefoot endurance racing video clips set to Thunderstruck by AC/DC.
What is barefoot endurance racing? It is a relay race, each footer goes as long as they can until they are exhausted or fall. The boat goes back to pick them up and another footer jumps in and the boat takes off. There is usually some sort of set distance, say 20 miles that the racers have to go. First team done, wins.
A popular race is the Dam to Dam race put on by the Austin Barefoot Ski Club in Austin, Texas. Here’s a clip of that one.
Links:
Barefoot Central
NASCAR on the Water Video
Austin Barefoot Ski Club
Dam to Dam Video
Back in the summer of 2005, I had a run in with Kyle Klubertanz. He was/is (not sure) dating a girl I skied with on Mad-City. We were in a bar up north playing Bubble Hockey. After the game, which ended in a tie, we got to talking about hockey a little. I didn’t try to coach him, tell him what to do specifically, he’s obviously a very good hockey player. I just mentioned one thing to him in particular. On their power play (from the 04-05 season) I told him how they were passing too much. Nobody was taking a shot. Also, the passes weren’t quick. It was pass, dribble, pass, dribble, pass, dribble… I mentioned that they needed to pass-pass-shoot. I don’t know if it was me mentioning this to them or just that their coaches came to the same conclusion I did but their power play was noticeable different in 05-06. They had a pretty good season too.
Now back to tonight & Pass-Pass-Shoot…
The Badgers did that twice tonight and it resulted in goals. Two of them to be exact. In hockey, you see a lot of passing. On power plays, it is instrumental. But to score goals, the passes need to be crisp and accurate. And quick. By quick I mean the time between receiving the pass and passing or shooting the puck is very brief. And quick. The puck just needs to be on the blade of the stick for an instant.
Tonight, the Badgers did it perfectly. Pass-Pass-Shoot. The plays were that were quick.
The first one was a three on two rush towards Minnesota’s goal. The Badger in the middle made a pass to the wing on his left and then hesitated for just a moment to hold up in front of the goal. The goalie moves to play the wingman with the puck who instantly passes it back to the guy in the center. The center gets the puck back and taps into the net. Pass-Pass-Shoot-Goal!!!
The second one was just as pretty. Badgers on a power play. Guy at the top of the keep passes it to the guy low by left pipe. Bang & goal!!!
Here’s a highlight video over on UWBadgers.com that shows the two scoring sequences.
Crisp, accurate, quick passes and quick release shots meant two goals for the Badgers tonight. Not big slap shots, nothing really hard or nasty. Just quick shots.
Pass-Pass-Shoot-Goal.
Those two goals ended Minnesota’s 22 game unbeaten streak. It was a big win for the Badgers. 2-1 over the Gophers. Here’s the official recap.
I’m not one to blatantly post an ad or infomercial here. In fact, other than movie previews, I don’t believe I have. Well, that is about to change. If you can make it through the first 60 seconds of this video, the rest is pretty amazing. Don’t think my fingers would work on the tiny keyboard’s keys, but his do.
Drums Please (spoken like the opening of Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince)
Disclaimer: I don’t know if this product is on the market, was on the market, or will be on the market. Other than it is a dual keyboard that incorporates a normal keyboard like I typed this post on and a very tiny piano type keyboard that you’d play the piano on, I really don’t know anything about it other than it appears to be a product from Creative that at least one person can play very well.
Mad-City Wedge 