mike

Last night was historic. The second coming of Man vs. Beast. Yes, my favorite Fox special of all time returned after more than a year. If you have forgotten last years then take a look at my post (link might not work, its from 1/15/03 on the Greenwich site).

Man vs. Dog – Long Jump
The event was the same as a normal dog long jump. Giving the dog the advantage off the bat. The two were neck and neck, matching each other at every jump. The dog won by six inches after a video review. The announcers were terrible as usual. They had to always say beast instead of dog and that the video review kept everyone is suspense.

Man vs. Orangutan – Hanging
The Orangutan makes its second MvB appearance, last year winning the Tug of War. The object was simple, hang from a bar. Orangutan, easy win, right? It looked that way from the start. The Orangutan swung on the bar, which apparently was taunting his opponent. Eventually the Orangutan grabbed onto the bar’s support and was disqualified. Again, like the giraffe from last year, the beasts are a bunch of cheaters.

Man vs. Chimpanzee – Tree Climbing
Another one that looked easy for the beast. To make things safer for the man he was allowed to tie a cloth between his feet. Of course this was also used to climb the tree much quicker. The race was tight at the start but then the man took off and destroyed the beast. The man was so confident he claimed that he could go up and down twice before the chimp could do it once. The chimp was able to make it back down before the man did the second time, apparently restoring the chimps self confidence.

Midgets vs. Camel – Race
The midgets were back to get revenge for their loss to the elephant last year. It has been a tough year for all the little people around the world since that heart breaking loss. The camel stumbled out of the gate but, while not a fast animal, its’ stride is plenty long enough to catch up and in the end the camel was victorious.

Since the stupid tree climber challenged the chimp to another race we only got 4 events this year, with the score 2-2. I have to give the night to the beasts. Why? Cause the animals don’t know what’s going on. If the Orangutan knew that he wasn’t supposed to touch the supports he could have hung there forever. The chimp also wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do. He had to grab a towel at the top of the tree and bring it back down. When he got to the top he had to investigate what this strange thing was at the top. It better be back next year but they need to spend more than five minutes coming up with ideas.

Yesterday after watching St. Joe’s destroy La Salle to move to 20-0 I decided to take a trip up to St. Paul to see the Ice Palace, since this was its last weekend, and also if there was any excitement for the All Star Game. The Ice Palace was packed. There was an hour wait just to walk through it. I wasn’t standing outside in the cold with tons of little kids to get inside, I had no clue what was in there and figured it couldn’t be worth the wait. As for the All Star game the FanFest was $15 to get in and the one scalper I found wanted $75 for a ticket to the skills competition. I decided it would be better just to walk around and see the city. It isn’t that big of a city but there were a few cool things. The Cathedral is really neat, its at the top of a giant hill overlooking the city, all the shots of the Xcel Center that were on TV today were taken from right in front of it. When I got up to it I could see the capital building. I headed over to it, by the time I got over to it, it was beginning to get dark and there wasn’t anyone around. It was really strange. Back into town there was still no one and there were no places to eat. It wasn’t that they were closed, they weren’t even there. My guess is that there is stuff indoors along the skyway, but it was impossible to get into a building, I had to get buzzed in just to get back to my car. I finally found a Quizno’s, which I had decided to boycott due to the new ad campaign, which is terrible. Being my only option, I had to cave. It was fun just getting to drive up there and wander around a bit. It wasn’t too cold, around 10-15 and its really peaceful in the evening. I took a few pics so check them out here. If you want to know more about the Ice Palace, which is part of St. Paul’s winter carnival, go here.

I messed around with the site today and found some cool new tools. The update system is new, which really won’t matter until the apartment site next fall. I also found a new program to work with my pictures. You can see what I’ve done with it over on the side under photo albums. Along with the St. Paul pics I put up some of IBM, the Eagles game I went to, and made my collection of pictures from my Graduation Wall of Fame more accessible.