I love catapults. This morning's Cul de Sac cartoon got me wishing (again) for a great big full-size catapult of my very own.
Why do I love catapults? Because I seriously rolled off the couch laughing the first time I saw this:
SNL - Yard-A-Pult
It's the dog that gets me. I talked about that one for years - I think it's the funniest thing SNL has ever done.
When I was in Torino years and years ago we visited a beautiful park (Parco del Valentino) by the Po that has a replica of a medieval village. There we found a weaponry shop and they had the most fantastic catapult - just big enough to have some torque, maybe a 15-inch arm - for sale. It wasn't just that it was a catapult - it was beautifully styled with rope and wooden wheels, etc, so it was captivating in a way your amazon.com balsa catapult-from-a-kit could never be. (They also had a little guillotine, which to me is much more scary but almost as cool.) Sadly, I was in no position to buy it, but the last time I was in Italy I did get an itty-bitty working catapult pencil sharpener at the Colosseum. Yes, I realize that catapults have nothing to do with the Colosseum, but that is the souvenir I bought there. It's about big enough to launch an M&M. Mostly it has been used to launch wads of paper at my webcam when Skyping with my nephew and niece.
Wow. I've got to get back to Torino.
Hooray for the catapult and its family of flinging weapons. I can't embed it, but here is a great video for the road - a British medieval weapons enthusiast with a great big trebuchet. Enjoy. Really.
And how about a song?
Elizabeth & the Catapult - Taller Children
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