How Cool Is This?

"Yankee Siege"

It's the 2005 Punkin Chunkin Championship, in which teams compete to build the best catapult, cannon, trebuchet or sling to hurl an 8 to 10 pound pumpkin the furthest distance across a field. Only rule? No explosives.

Our pal Rachel came across an article in The Economist that, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, makes a good point about what this kind of competition says about our national character:

All in all, Punkin Chunkin is a symbol of what makes America great. Only in the richest country on earth could regular guys spend tens of thousands of dollars building a pumpkin gun. Only in a nation with such a fine tradition of inventiveness, not to mention martial prowess, would so many choose to. And only in a land of wide open spaces would they be able to practise their chunkin without killing their neighbours.

(The article goes on to mourn the loss of the the grounds used for the past 20 years in Millsboro, Delaware. However, according to the Punk-Chunk website linked above, next year's Chunk will take place there.)

Maybe it is because I'm both a guy and an Amurican, but dang that looks like a lot of fun!