You'd Need a Big Backyard for These Ballistics

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm fascinated by siege engines. I've even threatened to build some and test them out in our backyard. I last blogged about it here. In the comments of that post, my younger brother (probably unwisely) suggested an appropriate use for all those cheap pumpkins left over after Halloween.

Well!

I read the website of the magazine National Review on a fairly regular basis. One of their regular writers--a very colorful character in his understated, eccentric way, named John Derbyshire--started a bit of a conversation on the group blog over there with a post about an observed difference between men and women: men are fascinated by the question of what happens to beer bottles when you put them in a campfire--and will, at the first opportunity, perform experiments to answer the question. Women who observe this behavior think the men are nuts.

As I said, this started a bit of a conversation over there, about all the other things that males do, thinking it's absolutely normal: putting model rocket engines on plastic airplane models; fun with firecrackers; that sort of stuff. Eventually, though, the Derb made his way to the topic that is near and dear to my heart: Giant Pumpkin-Chucking Catapults, some of which have been known to lob a decent-sized gourd more than three thousand feet.

Andy, that's what I'm talkin' about.