Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Experience and television



It was a late night and an early morning today. My tail is wagging as I prep packages of my new book to send out to publishers. I hope they like it, because I worked really hard on it. My human thinks it's pretty adorable. It's a good lesson to try new things that you don't know if you can do or not. I love doing new things, and trying to enjoy the process is important. Amber felt bad because she is still smoking and this is the year she wants to put down the pack of fags for good. Looking at defects that we want to erase are good, and keeping our minds open and knowing that with alot of work, and the grace of God these things shall pass in time. Banging her head against a wall will just cause bruises.

The premiere of the show Amber is producing WRECKREATION NATION premieres tonight on Discovery channel. Amber is so excited, and I am running in circles from the anticipation. It's a good show, and Amber and her other producers worked incredibly hard on it. It's a magical experience seeing idea's come to fruition on the television screen.
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Here are a couple of things we covered in the show:
Chess Boxing is a hybrid sport which combines the sport of boxing with games of chess in alternating rounds. Chess boxing fights have been organized since early 2003. The sport was started when Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh inspired by fictional descriptions of the sport in the writing of Enki Bilal organized actual matches. To succeed players must be both skilled chess players and skilled boxers. The new novelty sport Chess-Boxing is gaining attention rapidly because it is both mentally and physically challenging. It’s a combination of both boxing and playing chess, two of the strongest sports involving physical strength and intellect. In order to win you must use your hands, and most importantly your brain.

The two opponents start by playing chess for four minutes then the two opponents combat each other in two minute rounds of boxing. This is repeated until someone wins. A victory can be achieved by either knock-out or check-mate.

This game requires equal skill at moving pawns and throwing punches.

The sport had its beginnings in a comic strip by the French author Enki Bilal, titled Equator Cold. The last work in Bilals “The Nikipol Trilogy” features a blood-stained chess boxing battle set in a fictional apocalyptic city in 2034.

In 2003, the young Dutch artist lepe Rubingh decided to bring it to life, but with less brutality, and he organized the first match in a bar.
The sport is now governed by the World Chess Boxing Organization (WCBO), whose motto is "Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board." The first world championship was held in Amsterdam in 2003 and won by Iepe Rubingh himself. The First Chess Boxing World Championship took place in Berlin in 2005.
In 2007 chessboxer David Depto lost a dramatic fight against “Anti-Terror” Frank Stoldt for the world title who in turn lost out to Nikolay Sazhin in 2008.


And...

Falconry is a recreational event although some consider it to be an art. Falconry involves the use of trained raptors (birds of prey) to hunt or pursue game. The Falcons hunt for rats, mice, rabbits, or ducks, and extreme practice must be used to train the raptors as well as their owners. Dogs on the ground mark the locations, and the bird is set free to hunt for it’s meal, swooping through the air at speeds up to 243 mph. There are several different applications in training that take place to teach the bird how to respond to lures, to robo-rabbits, then on to live bait.

Historically, falconry was a popular sport and status symbol among the nobles of medieval Europe and feudal Japan; in Japan the sport is called Takagari. Eggs and chicks of birds of prey were quite rare and expensive, and because the process of raising and training a hawk or falcon requires a great deal of time, money, and space, it was largely restricted to the noble classes. In Japan, there were even strict restrictions on who could hunt which sorts of animals and where, based on rank within the Samurai class.

In art and in other aspects of culture such as literature, falconry remained a status symbol long after falconry was no longer popularly practiced. Eagles and hawks displayed on the wall could represent the noble himself, metaphorically, as noble and fierce. Woodblock prints or paintings of falcons or falconry scenes could be bought by wealthy commoners, and displayed as the next best thing to partaking in the sport, again representing a certain degree of nobility.

We also covered soapbox racing, dolphin boating,pumpkin chunking, iron man, human dogsledding etc. WOW, what a fun year.


Life is blessed, and my favorite part of this new year is knowing that there will be surprises I never even thought about, and once I experience them I will wonder how I lived my life without them.

Wuff Wuff