Improving the Olympics, aka "Why Isn't this Here?"

There are several foreign sports that should be added to the Olympics that I think (mostly) Americans would love once they watch it.

1. Calcio Fiorentino.  Started in the 16th century by noble Italian families who would compete with each other to show off their power and prowess, calcio fiorentino appears to be a combination of rugby and wrestling without the refs, rules, or timeouts.  There are 27 people on each team, and you're allowed to do whatever it takes, except for kicks to the back of the head, for 50 minutes straight.  There are no substitutes, so if someone gets injured then that team is down one man.  This would put football, soccer, and rugby to shame. See more here.

 

 

2. Botaoshi.  2 teams of 75 people. 2 poles. 2 rounds.  One team attacks and the other defends. The second round the teams switch.  The point is the see who can take down the other team's pole in the fastest time.  It was started by the Japanese as a military exercise, which they still do annually to initiate the new recruits.  So in essence it's a big brawl between 150 men attacking a pole.  No sexual overtones there, eh? But still, to watch a video of this it looks pretty awesome and reminds me of a childhood game we played in the neighborhood that was a combination of team freeze tag, hide and seek, and capture the flag.

3. Fierljeppen.  It's Dutch pole vaulting, but you do it over a canal.  You take a running start, grab a pole, and then try to climb as high as you can before jumping off it on the other side of a canal.  Whoever goes the farthest wins.  Here you go.  If you've ever watched a show called MXC (Most Extreme Elimination!) then you've probably seen something similar.  Combining MXC's version of it (well, they ripped it from a japanese game show) with the landing pad and wider canal would make it very watchable.

That is all.

A History of Books, aka "Reading is Fundamental"

I love to read.  If I could, I would spend most of my time reading books.  I don't know what it is, but I will even read bad books just because I want to finish it out.  I'm not the same with movies or games because I don't have to think about them as much as I do with books.  With movies you get to see everything and don't have to think much (unless it's a really good movie).  Therea re a few games that I like, but for the most part I prefer to be with a book.  It's so bad that whenever I get one to read I usually finish it within a day; I've ignored everything else before just to finish a book (skip dinner, showering, going to work, etc.).  I've stopped my book reading because of so many things I have to do since I'm supposed to be a responsible adult, but every once in a while I get the chance to pick out a book and finish it in a few hours.

That being said, there are so many stories that I remember but not the titles.  Luckily with the internet there are good descriptors for stories, so I just type in part of the plot to get the titles. I plan on trying to keep a list of all the books i've read (even as a kid)  just because it's interesting to me.

My favorite book of all is Dante's Divine Comedy.  I'm not a religious person,, but something about it just draws me.  Other than that my primary genres are horror fiction, comic books and collected editions, science fiction, and the occasional mystery anthology.  Here's what I can recall off the top of my head:

1. Almost all the VC Andrews books up to 1995 - My high school years.  I saw the movie Flowers in the Attic and was curious about the stories.  So I read that one and enjoyed it.  The rest? Not so much.  It was just... bad.  Most of that was about incest, rich families, and people being weird.  But I still read them.

2. The Moves Make the Man by Bruce Brooks
3.  All the Iceberg Slim novels - I can thank my mother for that.  I found a stash of books she had and read almost every single thing she had, one of which was Airtight Willie & Me.
4.  I read one Donald Goins book, which I did not like.  Haven't read another once since.
5 . Journeys of the Catechist books by Alan Dean Foster (writer of Aliens).
6.  Everything Stephen King has written.
7.  Most of Dean Koontz's work, before his similes became really bad.  The Bad Place was my favorite.
8. World War Z.  Awesome book.
9.  Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Three Investigators.  Every. Single. Story.  Very cheesy but interesting to me.
10. Encyclopaedia Brown books.  TV show sucked.
11.  Repairman Jack novels.
12. The Iliad.
13. Odyssey.  It always took me a few pages to begin to understand the style of speak and be able to follow them.
14.  My Brother Sam is Dead. I read this in the 5th grade and initially had trouble with it, but then got into it about halfway through.
15. Beowulf
16. Grendel.
17.  The "Choose Your Own Adventures" series up until I was 17.
18. The school reading lists that include Tom Sawyer, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Pearl, The Lion, Witch, & Wardrobe, etc.