December 14, 2011
Train surfing is riding or climbing on the outside of a moving train. This activity is illegal in many countries, but is a common and usual way to ride trains in India, Indonesia, and South Africa. Individuals may train surf to avoid the cost of a ticket or as a recreational activity. With the creation of the internet, the practice of filming the act and posting online videos of it is on the increase worldwide.
The London Underground is now running an advertising campaign against ‘tube surfing.’ The advertisements now at most underground stations show a female figure with one arm and the caption ‘she was lucky’ next to it. In Germany, the practice was made popular on TV in the 1990s. There it was called ‘S-Bahn Surfing.’ Slowly, the former train surfing culture changed and integrated into the German graffiti culture. The phenomenon was forgotten until the millennium, but in 2005 it was rediscovered by a group from Frankfurt. The leader of the crew who calls himself ‘the trainrider’ famously surfed the InterCityExpress, the fastest train in Germany.
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December 14, 2011
Elevator surfing is an activity involving moving around on top of elevators, or jumping between moving elevators where possible. The activity is illegal in most locations and several people have died or been injured attempting it. Surfers can be crushed between the elevator and the top, sides, or bottom of the shaft, be struck by the counterweight, or simply slip or be knocked off and fall to their deaths. Elevator surfing typically occurs in skyscrapers or on college campuses, especially those with tall buildings. Most large buildings have groups of elevators close together, which are most commonly used.
To begin, participants will usually go into such a building early in the morning, before too many people arrive to use the elevators. Once in an elevator, they hold the elevator between floors and open the safety hatch. They then climb on top, release the emergency switch, and pull the last person out. Another method of entry involves opening the exterior doors on the floor above the elevator, and jumping on from there. Doors are either forced or opened with an elevator key. While easier to execute, this is uncommon unless no others are nearby. Accomplices will sometimes press buttons on the inside of the elevators to provide the movement. Movement can also be provided by means of service controls located on top of the elevator car.
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December 14, 2011
An illegal sport are activities banned because they are violent or dangerous. Some illegal sports, such as BASE jumping or elevator surfing, is argued to be purely adventurous. A counterargument is that the possibility of loss of life, rescues, and medical care that may be required for participants of these sports can end up costing the general public.
Other more well-known illegal sports, such as cockfighting and dogfighting, are barred on the basis of animal abuse. Some of these sports are often a gateway to other crimes, such as illegal gambling, illegal gun trading, and crimes against people such as assault and murder. Illegal sports are controversial due to the dangerous aspects attributed to them and the pain they can inflict on humans and/or animals. They also are controversial due to the perceived nature of some of them, notably of cockfighting and dogfighting, as being savage sports.
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December 14, 2011
Blood sport is any sport or entertainment that involves violence against animals, such as coursing or beagling (the pursuit of game by dogs), and combat sports such as cockfighting and dogfighting. The earliest use of the term is in reference to mounted hunting, where the quarry would be actively chased, as in fox hunting or hare coursing. Before firearms a hunter using arrows or a spear might also wound an animal, which would then be chased and perhaps killed at close range, as in medieval boar hunting. Later, the term seems to have been applied to various kinds of baiting and forced combat: bull-baiting, bear-baiting, cockfighting and later developments such as rat-baiting. The animals were specially bred, confined and forced to fight.
In the Victorian era, social reformers began a vocal opposition to such activities, claiming grounds of ethics, morality and animal welfare. Limitations on blood sports have been enacted in much of the world, through sports remain legal under varying degrees of control in certain locations (e.g., bullfighting and cockfighting) but have declined in popularity almost everywhere else. Proponents of blood sports are widely cited to believe that they are traditional within the culture. Bullfighting aficionados, for example, do not regard bullfighting as a sport but as a cultural activity. It is sometimes called a tragic spectacle, because in many forms of the sport the bull is invariably killed, and the bullfighter is always at risk of death.
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December 14, 2011
Insect fighting is an activity involving insects (and sometimes, arachnids, centipedes, millipedes and mollusks). It is practiced in areas in China, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand. Cricket fighting is a traditional Chinese pastime that dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Originally nurtured by emperors, it was later popularized by commoners. It is also a casual activity for youth in western countries and is known colloquially as ‘bugfighting.’
Some of the most popular species used are the Stag Beetle, Rhinoceros Beetle, Kabutomushi, Jerusalem Cricket, and Goliath Beetle, as their sheer size and jumping ability make them formidable opponents. They are trained by their owners to become stronger and more aggressive. With beetles, a small noisemaker is used that duplicates the female’s mating call (fighting beetles are male). Getting beetles to fight requires patience and is much different than other types of animal fighting. The loser is pushed onto its back by the winner, pushed off of a tree limb, or a predetermined area, or is killed.
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December 14, 2011
Sabermetrics is the specialized analysis of baseball through objective, empirical evidence, specifically baseball statistics that measure in-game activity. The term is derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the ‘Society for American Baseball Research.’ It was coined by Bill James, who is one of its pioneers and is often considered its most prominent advocate and public face.
‘The Sabermetric Manifesto’ by David Grabiner (1994) begins: ‘Bill James defined sabermetrics as ‘the search for objective knowledge about baseball.’ Thus, sabermetrics attempts to answer objective questions about baseball, such as ‘which player on the Red Sox contributed the most to the team’s offense?’ or ‘How many home runs will Ken Griffey hit next year?’
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December 14, 2011
Atari Democrat, a phrase first popularized during the early 1980s, references both the video game brand Atari and Democratic legislators who suggested that the support and development of high tech and related businesses would stimulate the economy and create jobs. A 1984 article for ‘The Philadelphia Inquirer,’ defined the term as ‘a young liberal trying to push the party toward more involvement with high-tech solutions.’ Other commentators discussed a generation gap which developed during the 1980s between older liberals who maintained an interest in traditional visions of social liberalism and Atari Democrats who attempted to find a middle ground:
‘When the Atari Democrats first emerged in the early Reagan years, their commitments to free markets and investment won them much criticism from older liberals, who considered their neo-liberalism as warmed-over Reaganism. Mr. Leahy, who combines his environmentalism with an old-fashioned commitment to social programs, argues that the cutbacks of the Reagan years suggested that it had been a mistake for members of his Congressional class to take the old programs for granted. But some of the Atari Democrats argue that their commitment to innovative uses of markets and to the environment are complementary. Mr. Wirth, for example, has sought to bring his two passions together by arguing that market forces can be harnessed to protect the environment and work better than ‘command-and-control regulations.’
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December 13, 2011
Groundhopping is a hobby that involves attending matches at as many different stadiums or grounds as possible. Largely a soccer-related pastime, groundhopping probably found its origin in the 1970s in England. From the late 1980s fans in Germany started groundhopping as well. Currently it is especially popular in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.
There is no universal set of rules for counting ‘hopped grounds’, although a generally accepted one is that a match must have been seen at the ground. There are some formal organizations for groundhoppers, including the 92 club in England, which consists of groundhoppers who have visited matches in all stadiums of the Premier and Football League.
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December 13, 2011
Wok racing was developed by the German TV host Stefan Raab. Modified Chinese woks are used to make timed runs down an Olympic bobsled track. There are competitions for one-person-woksleds and four-person-woksleds, the latter using four woks per sled. Wok racing was inspired by a bet on a German TV show in 2003. Participants are mostly b-list celebrities. The typical racing woks are the ordinary round-bottomed Chinese pans, usually directly imported from China. The only modifications are that the bottom is reinforced with an epoxy filling and the edges of the wok are coated with polyurethane foam to avoid injuries.
Four-person woksleds consist of two pairs of woks, each of them is held together by a rounded frame. The two pairs are connected by a coupling. Due to the rather risky nature of the sport the participants wear heavy protective gear, usually similar to ice hockey equipment. To further reduce friction and the risk of injuries, the athletes wear ladles under their feet. To improve performance, the underside of the woks are often heated with a blowlamp before the race.
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December 13, 2011
Zoobomb is a weekly bicycling activity in Portland, Oregon during which participants ride bicycles rapidly downhill in the city’s West Hills. Zoobomb began in 2002. Participants carry their bikes on MAX Light Rail to the Washington Park station next to the Oregon Zoo. From there, participants take the elevator to the surface and then ride their bikes down the hills in the vicinity. This process is often repeated several times throughout the night. ‘The people that are going 35-mph-plus have backgrounds in BMX, mountain biking, bike messengering or downhill skateboarding. I don’t know that people showing up for the first time understand this.’
There is an emphasis on unusual bicycles, first and foremost the children’s bicycles or ‘minibikes,’ but extending to tall bikes, swing bikes, choppers, non-functional bicycles, skateboards, etc. The event is treated in a very lighthearted fashion, including a large amount of socializing between rides. Riders often dress up in costume or decorate their bicycles. Though many riders bring their own bicycles, the participants maintain a ‘Zoobomb pile,’ a tower of minibikes anchored to a bicycle rack at the Zoobomb meeting point for riders to borrow. The pile has become a local landmark.[3][5]A legally blind person ‘The Blind Bomber’ regularly attends (on a tandem bike, behind a sighted rider). Though not technically a race, there is some prestige in getting down the hill first.
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December 13, 2011
Kinetic sculpture races are organized contests of human-powered amphibious all-terrain works of art. The original event, the Kinetic Grand Championship in Humboldt County, California, is also called the ‘Triathlon of the Art World’ because art and engineering are combined with physical endurance during a three day cross country race that includes sand, mud, pavement, a bay crossing, a river crossing and major hills.
The concept of kinetic sculpture racing originated in Ferndale, California in 1969 when local sculptor Hobart Brown ‘improved’ the appearance of his son’s tricycle by welding on two additional wheels and other embellishments. Seeing this ‘Pentacycle,’ fellow artist Jack Mays challenged him to a race.
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December 13, 2011
The Idiotarod is a shopping cart race in which teams of five ‘idiots’ tie themselves to a (sometimes modified) shopping cart and run through the streets of a major metropolitan area. The race usually features people in costumes and themed floats. The races are fun competitions where sabotage, costume, and presentation are rewarded. Sabotage such as tripping competitors, throwing marbles or large obstacles in their paths, and the spreading of misinformation such as false route information are common.
The Idiotarod is named after the Iditarod, a 1,000 mile dog-sledding race in Alaska. Idiotarods take place in Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York City, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, Seattle, St. Louis, Toronto, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Washington, D.C. though the original race was founded in San Francisco in 1994 as the ‘Urban Iditarod.’
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