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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

My girlfriend has got this thing for extreme winter sports. She is after me to go with her to see “Crashed Ice” in St. Paul this weekend, which I have read a little bit about. It appears the idea is to go as fast as you can on ice skates down a steep hill inside the padded boundaries of a course that ends, thankfully, near a hospital.

There are sudden drops, awkward turns and bumpy stretches and it all seems so wrong, Dr. Babooner. Ice is supposed to be flat and smooth and enclosed in a heated arena where I can buy a beer and a hot dog. That’s winter sports, to me! But she says my ideas are “too tame.” Friends tell me I should be thrilled to have such a fun-loving, outdoorsy girlfriend who can get excited about a raucous event where weekend daredevils risk concussions and broken bones just for the privilege of saying they did it!

I don’t get a kick out of seeing blood on the ice and limbs twisted at weird angles, but I’m starting to wonder if my girlfriend does!

Dr. Babooner, I’d rather go to “Crashed Couch”, an event where I throw myself on a short, padded course that sits in front of the TV, and the crazy, impossible goal is to stay awake all the way to the end (of the movie).

Are we incompatible?

Sincerely,
Jack, a Dull Boy

I told Jack that yes, he and his girlfriend are incompatible and if he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life standing outside with his frozen toes surrounded by empty cans of Red Bull, he should break off the relationship right now. That, or encourage his girlfriend to become a Crashed Ice participant so he can go wait for her indoors, in the emergency room.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

45 thoughts on “Ask Dr. Babooner”

  1. Wow, I don’t believe I’ve been first poster before! Where are y’all?

    JADB – see if she’s interested in his “Crashed Couch” event, which I’m guessing she’s not… but you’ll find out sooner than later that you’re not compatible!

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  2. is she breathing? then she is incompatible. there are so many ways to do life differently than the other guy why focus on the negative. if you are with her for the question to be asked that may be your last shot bucko. you want to sit on the couch by yourself and veg out. you can do that anytime. the question is how do you stop. on the couch by yourself with no one bothering you sounds like peace of mind or a life sentence depending on your view. i’ll go with her if you won’t you lard ass or someone else will. get a life or just a stack of double a batteries for the drawer near the easy chair so the remote never goes dead. build up those channel surfing muscles.
    what if… you strapped on the skates and went down the hill at 40 mph crashing into the wall and laughing your ass off as the adrenalin rush overtook you for 15 minutes. then go get a peppermint schnapps a beer and a back rub from your sweetie pie admirer. it would be different. kind of like pay per view. something you have to make a conscious effort at.
    just saying…

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    1. How are you on skates, tim? I would make the trip to St. Paul to watch you go down the chute. Forty mph must seem like 100 when you are standing on two thin blades, eh?

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      3. Just drove by that course. oh. my.

        I grew up in Iowa and have very little skill on skates on a nice smooth, flat service that is impeccably maintained. It might, however, be fun to ride down that course on a gunny sack, like the Giant Slide at the Fair (which is how I would end up anyway).
        Crash Ice indeed, more like Crazy Ice.

        I promise I will find Artichoke Bruschetta (still not found here) and bring it to you in the hospital if need be, tim.

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    2. Now, if I were to give tim’s answer to Dale query above, not only would it be a lie, but it also wouldn’t give you a clue that I wasn’t very good ever. Certainly not good enough to attempt going down this course. Did you go tim?

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  3. As the mother of a child with brittle bone disease and 150 fractures (without skates) Crashed Ice is my worst nightmare. It does not seem wise to associate with anyone who would consider the event. The only encouraging (safe is too generous a word) aspect is that at least the participants don’r carry sticks!

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    1. I agree, Beth-Ann. None of those events where there might be and probably will be some serious iinjuries appeal to me. I think it is good that Jack doesn’t want to go to Crashed Ice, but not good that he is so interested having a crashed couch event.

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  4. Dear Jack,

    You may well be incompatible with your girlfriend. I’m wondering if there’s a big age difference between you? I have been to a couple of Red Bull sponsored events and have found myself surrounded by people a good deal younger than myself. That hasn’t stopped me from having a rollicking good time. This Crashed Ice course is by all counts very challenging; it will be great fun seeing these daredevils push their skating skills to the limit. I’m just hoping that no one gets seriously hurt.

    And Jack, your notion that ice should be enclosed in a heated arena is absurd. Have you heard of pond hockey? For my money it beats the hell out of that violent game that takes places in ice arenas everywhere. Here’s my advice to you: bundle up, (brightly colored hat and mittens are encouraged) and join your girlfriend at this event, you just might have great time. If you don’t, you’re probably with the wrong girlfriend.

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    1. I hear the Pond Hockey Tournament is a “go” for next weekend, even though other lake surface events have had to cancel due to open water. Apparently Lake Nokomis freezes well – better than other lakes, somehow.

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      2. By a power not known among us,
        Freeze the waters of Nokomis.
        Is not done by fronts prodigious
        Or by weather, O, so frigious.
        Could it be by Harry Potter?
        Stay in fiction then he oughter.
        Dark mist by Ventura, Jesse?
        His mind and soul are much too messy.
        Gubernatorial decree of Mark the Dayton?
        No, he is absorbed with Vikings’ Stayton.
        A freezing blast come from Bemidji?
        To scour the Cities, land of Sissy?
        Ask, do ask the watchful dockman,
        His passed by lately Mrs. Bachman.
        Did she drop into the water,
        The soulless votes her funds had bought her?
        Did there follow then a ration,
        Of all her warmth and her compassion?
        Could it be this freak of nature,
        Is fed by losses that do grate her?
        Is gathered there the soul of
        All those who serve the role of
        Leading on the party tea
        With no warmth even in their pee.

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      4. A friend of my husband’s has worked on the Pond Hockey tournament some years – I think part of why they chose Nokomis is because it’s pretty shallow and freezes quickly. Those folks are kinda crazy though – they continued to play the year their tournament weekend was in the double digits below zero. I’m told once you get moving, the game moves quickly enough you stay quite toasty. Just don’t stop moving.

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    2. I plan to move to a house not too far from Lake Nokomis. I hope Bachman will stay away from there even if she can assist in freezing it up in time for the pond hockey tournament. I don’t want to be exposed to her chilly aura.

      I supose pond hockey is a fun sport. I stayed in a motel where some of the pond hockey people stayed a few years ago. Some of the young boys were kind of rowdy and were shooting pucks around in the lobby with their hockey sticks, I guess you have to be a very active person to play hockey out doors in the usually very cold wearher we have in January. Perhaps those boys in the lobby were just getting heated up to go out on the lake.

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  5. Good morning to all. I don’t know if you should end your relationship with your girl friend or if you should find a way to keep it going. There must be something you have in common with her. You probably will never find a perfect match so I think you should try to over come your dislike for her interest in the Crashed Ice show. Also, try to avoid too much of that crashed couch activity. You might be in danger of becoming an attachment for a TV set. Have you noticed that one of your hands seems to have become modified to be a device for operating the remote control for your TV? Is the TV the only object that your eyes can focus on clearly?

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  6. Dear Jack – This may be an indicator that you and your GF are incompatible or it may be an opportunity to stretch your horizons a bit. I’m with PJ, put on a brightly colored hat and head out to St. Paul. And then be glad that your GF only wants you to go as a spectator, not a participant. Maybe you can convince her to stop at one of the lovely coffee shops nearby afterwards for a warm-up. There’s a good one as I recall in the same building that currently houses that nice independent bookstore owned buy whats-his-name from the radio (though I have heard that he’s moving his store a little west soon closer to the former home of the old Hungry Mind/Ruminator Books). If it doesn’t work out, well, at least it’s bound to be more entertaining than sitting at home on your couch – you might get a good story to tell your pals about come Monday instead of having to say you did “nothing” this weekend…

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  7. Jack, you need to tell your girlfriend that sitting on the couch has become at least as dangerous as this Ice Crash thing. Dare her to join you in the real challenge:
    http://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135575490/sitting-all-day-worse-for-you-than-you-might-think

    Or, go to the Crash thing, then come home and get real dangerous on the couch! It’s all good!

    Dear Fearful, Dear Fearful
    You have no complaints
    You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t
    So listen up, Chicken, and listen up good
    Stop counting on broken legs and return to your couch!

    Dr. Babooner

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    1. If Jack wants to avoid the dangers of too much sitting in front the TV he could follow the advice in that article, Krista, and try watching TV while sitting on an exercise ball.

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  8. Jack, I know just how you feel. My husband and I spent our honeymoon in Minneapolis. He loves swimming, especially in rivers. I can swim, but I think bodies of water are nice to just look at and I really don’t like going swimming very much. One of my greatest fears is drowning. One day we took a side trip to the St.Croix river. There were lots of people floating down the river on tubes and such. My husband got so excited when he saw this that he told me he was going to jump in the river without a tube or anything and float down river and I should just drive somewhere in that direction and wait for the several hours that he would be in the river until he floated by. He couldn’t quite understand why I opposed the idea, but finally understood that I didn’t want to lose my new husband in the river. Aside from our differences in our opinions about swimming in rivers, we are very compatible in almost all other respects.

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    1. He had to take a double-dose of Xanax when he saw the track – it put him to sleep. The organizers of the event have decided to keep him on a Xanax drip until they leave town to ensure he does not disrupt the races.

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      2. Yes, that course is no place for BSOR from what I have heard. It is probably a good thing that he had that drug to keep him from going into a total panic.

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  10. Let’s see here… Red Bull sponsors their ‘Flugtag’ event where contestants, in their -homemade- (and I can’t stress that enough) flying machines, propel themselves off a ramp in lemming-esque fashion to glide/crash into a body of water. They did it last summer here at Harriet Island into the Mississippi River.

    Now they’ve put together this homemade luge course that combines the speed of vehicular homicide, the smoothness of class 5 fill dirt, and participant safety gear that ranks somewhere close to competitive mall-walking. It appears to be called ‘ice cross.’ Possibly because its a ‘cross’ between ice and horrible mutilation.

    These events appear to be extremely popular. And if that’s what appeals to you, then have at it. It’s like live reality TV. And there are lots of sports, “real” or “made up” (what’s the difference, really?), that I’d rather not watch or participate in. But as long as you’re not landing on my car, and as long as I don’t have to pay to have you stitched back together, have fun!

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      1. Easy. It would be live chess, like at the Renn Fest, except that the weapons would be real and the ‘pieces’ would actually fight it out. Moves would be balanced by which piece would actually win in a fight. So, you could move your piece but if he lost to the piece he was attacking, you’d actually lose your piece as he was carted off to the hospital or morgue. You’d definitely have to be able to adjust your strategy. EXTREME!!!

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    2. Spent the late afternoon and evening at the Crashed Ice site, and I tell you, that was a lot of fun…if a little on the nippy side. There was apparently a country music concert at the Excell Center, so downtown was packed with all the local cowboys and cowgirls; for a moment there I thought I was in Texas! Traffic was nuts, and parking impossible but there was definitely a party vibe in the air. Didn’t see tim, though he might have eluded me in the crowds. My mukluks got a real nice workout toady.

      Don’t know if I’ll make it to BBC tomorrow, depends on driving conditions.

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  11. Crashed Ice sounds like a heckuva deal! Another reason to move to MN when I’m deported. Great idea Krista had to recommend Dull Boy come back home and get dangerous on the couch. May do wonders to help clear up the compatibility question. Just don’t put it on youtube for God’s sakes!

    Did you kids hear Garrison pronounce Bono, bone-o? My girls were big U2 fans in the 90s and sometimes I’d call him that just to get a rise. Never failed.

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  13. Way too steep for some one like me. I think it would take a very good skater to avoid getting out of control. There were some injuries reported. The number of them wasn’t mentioned in the story I saw.

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