Check Your Local Listings!

Last Thanksgiving I happened to be  channel surfing and fortuitously ran across some of the most compelling TV ever!  Punkin Chunkin!  Take your average home garage shop engineer, task him with hurling a big gourd and give him liberal amounts of time you come up with some of the most outlandish mechanical devices ever seen, including medieval trebuchets and giant air cannons, like those shown at left. 

The last few years the World Championship, held in Delaware the first weekend in November has been broadcast Thanksgiving evening on the Discovery and Science Channels. Last year's show, "hosted" by Adam and Jamie of the Mythbuster series on the Discovery Channel, was a hoot.  The overall winner was a female team - Hormone Blaster, their air cannon reaching 3760 feet!  The Guinness Record is currently held by "Big 10 Inch" with a distance of 5545 feet in the thin air of Moab, Utah - yes, over a mile!  This year the show is hosted by the Mythbuster "kids" - Kari, Grant and Tory (Youtube promo shown here).  Tune in Thursday night (9pm in Tucson, rebroadcast at Midnight and again Saturday the 26th) and prepare to be amazed!