Deadliest Warrior

Salamu

I am up to date with True Blood having watched all three seasons available to me to date and I have watched seasons 1 and 2 of the Tudors and am hoping to get seasons Three and Four soon.

Now I am busy watching my new favourite series…Deadliest Warrior

I have spoken about this before on this blog. But that was after viewing a rather one-sided fight between William Wallace and Shaka Zulu. And I only saw the simulation, I didn’t get to see the whole production put into a single show.

The reason I love this series is that I am an Anthropologist at heart. I have read numerous books on Shaka Zulu, Attila the Hun, the Samurai, Vikings and Romans and can say that although I might not be an ABSOLUTE authority on the subject. I can be trusted as a reliable source on specific cultures.

The whole concept of the series is this: warriors which the public think are the worlds deadliest are pitted against each other in a simulated fight to the death. Concept plain and simple! Which is sometimes good for a series. Or even movies for that matter.

Because most of the warriors/tribes are long dead, modern day experts, who are at times direct descendents from the warrior tribes in question, test five weapons of each of the warriors. These tests are then put into a computer programme, designed by Slytherin Studios, which simulates 1 000 fights between the warriors in order to get a winner. This is to prevent a single lucky blow ultimately deciding an important thing such as who is deadliest.

But you ask…if the warriors in question are long dead, how can this be important in any way? Well, as discussed we have current experts who are either passionate about the warrior in question and their fighting methods or are direct decedents of the warrior in question. So MASSIVE amounts of PRIDE is at stake. And as we know, people can get VERY hot under the collar when pride is at stake.

Case in point…last night I watched the episode that pitted Attila the Hun against Alexander The Great. And the experts from each team where at each other the whole episode with sarcastic chirps and trash talking. In the first episode of the first season, Apache vs Gladiator, one of the Apache experts got so offended by a sly comment from one of the Gladiator experts that he picked up a Tomahawk and was ready to scalp him. The only thing holding him back was the other Apache expert.

And the experts get severely pissed of when their warrior loses! In the episode Shaolin Monk vs Maori, the Maori experts [all decedents of actual Maori tribes] were very surprised that they lost. But in true Kiwi fashion, their sense of humour came trough. At the end the expert said: This battle was run trough a computer and said that the little monk guy beat my huge Maori? The computer must be Chinese!

What makes this funny is that most likely the computer was Chinese and the Shaolin monks came from China.

Taking into account the tests put into the production of one of these episodes the concept of the show makes a whole lot more sense to me then the first time I commented on this.

When I originally commented, I said it was rather unfair because certain warriors will be fighting in unfamiliar terrain. And as we all know, some of histories greatest battles have been decided on terrain alone. However, at times it doesn’t really matter what terrain you fight in, superior weapons and armour will account for the advantage gained in fighting in unfamiliar terrain.

Or will it? The first episode matched up a Gladiator with an Apache Indian, and the Apache won despite using rather primitive weapons when compared to the weapons used by Gladiators. This was because the fight took place in a forest environment where the Apache could use many elements of the terrain to his advantage. If the fight had taken place in a ring [gladiatorial arena] environment where the Apache cant ‘sneak up’ on the Gladiator as it were., the result could have been VERY different.

For those familiar with the series, my favourite episodes are listed below:
Apache vs Gladiator
Viking vs Samurai
Green Beret vs Spetsnaz
Shaolin Monk vs Maori Warrior
IRA vs Taliban
Swat vs GSG9
Attila the Hun vs Alexander The Great

I did enjoy the episode William Wallace vs Shaka Zulu, despite Shaka being decimated by Wallace. I just had a problem with the fact that the so called ‘experts’ that they had fighting the cause for Shaka were questionable at best. They had the moves and they were well versed in Zulu warfare. But they had little to no clue on tactics used by Shaka. The production people could have really flown in an expert from South Africa.

Winners from the episodes that I have enjoyed are the Apache, the Samurai, the Spetsnaz, the Shaolin Monk, the IRA, Swat and Attila the Hun.

Now what would be interesting is if we took the winners from the various fights and pitted them against each other. I mean how awesome would it be to see a Samurai warrior up against a Spartan [the winner of the episode Spartan vs Ninja]? Or an Apache against a Shaolin Monk?

I must say that I am very much enjoying this series and hope to get my hands on season three soon.

Going back in time a bit

Salamu.

I can finally tell you the news which I have been somewhat elusive about over the past few weeks. I have handed in my resignation at my current company and am making a move down to the warmer climates of the land of the Zulus where I will be a Cricket Writer for one of the country’s oldest daily newspapers.

Hopefully then I will be afforded full access to my blog page and I wont have to act like a scaly bastard using proxy hiders and such!

However, this means that I wont have to wait until Easter to get out hand at Kings Park because the first purchase I am going to make when I settle down in Durban are season tickets to the Shark Tank so I will be able to get “out of hand” every weekend! This also means that I will have to make a last run at Hooters in Johannesburg!

My last appearance there included chatting up a rather young, busty waitress who was showing ample cleavage (not unusual), breaking the record and drinking 8 litres of beer in a single sitting (very proud of this), and leaning out of the window of Stalkers car pumping Duck Sauce’s new number: The Big Bad Wolf and howling at the Askria!

I KNOW! I KNOW! I am a hooligan when I am drunk! But it isn’t me, it’s my alter ego: Ahmed the Lebanese Terrorist!

Fortunately Ahmed doesn’t have permanent residency both in South Africa and in my sometimes rather disturbed mind so I can go to Hooters and actually walk out there sober as a judge. The problem is that when that happens Adam’s (Stalker) alter ego: Sao Feng comes out.

I have spoken about one of my more sober occasions at Hooters here before. It was the time that myself and Stalker were made to feel old by the waitresses. I have always been fascinated by human nature and how smells, tastes, songs, movies and even seasons can take you back in time to a particular juncture.

On the night we were made to feel like old bastards I heard the Armand Van Helden number: MY MY MY MY played in the radio on the way to Hooters. This took me back to a time where I was driving down Jumeirah Beach Road on my way to visit a then girlfriend of mine. Dubai 2006 was one of the most adventurous years of my life. All the top songs that get played from 2006 take me back there. Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie takes me back to Scarlet’s and the World Cup Soccer Match match between England and Sweden, the night I met my Essex Girlfriend. R Kelly’s Burn It Up takes me back to a Sheesha Bar near Deira City Centre where me and the boys, one of whom was Essex Girlfriends brother who often used to rip through Abu Dhabi with me, had to play Poker (for money) in the back room of the bar so as not to raise the suspicions of the Askria who we had to pay off more then once anyway!

Anyway, back to Hooters, it was the night of the Cricket World Cup final and we had to have a shot on Gary Kirsten who was coaching India at the time. I had a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich, which again took me right back to Dubai and Charley’s Grilled Subs where you will not get any better Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich anywhere in the world! ON MY LIFE!

On all of my trips to Durban I stop off at the Caltex Garage in Van Reenens Pass which is exactly half way to Durban. I always have a Double Chicken and Cheese Burger from the Country Burger Inn at the garage because they are the second best chicken burgers in the world.

These also put me on a trip of nostalgia to Mozambique 2004. This was my first holiday out of the country and a whole group of us were driving in convoy. We were hungry and decided to stop off and get a bite of something to eat. We find this marooned hull of a ship near Xai Xai with tables and chairs outside of it. Interested, we go in and find it is a restaurant. So we order a chicken & cheese burger and the following excerpt is a certified classic.

Me: I would like a chicken burger please.
Cashier: What part of the Chicken you want?
Me: Breast please.
Cashier: Very good.
He then turns to the back and starts screaming at his accomplice in the kitchen.

Cashier: Hey Manuel! Trazer uma galinha para a frente! [Hey Manuel! Bring a chicken to the front]
Manuel: Que porra é essa de? [What the f##k for?]
Cashier: Porque eu quero jogar cartas com ele seu idiota! Eu tenho uma encomenda de um hambúrguer de frango aqui! [Because I want to play cards with it you moron! I have an order for a chicken burger here!}
Manuel: Eu dice que com este talhador de carne! Dê-me dois segundos, o frango está chegando! [I'll dice you with this meat cleaver! Give me two seconds, the chicken is comming]

Manuel then brings this LIVE chicken to the front, slaughters it in front of me, cuts out the breast and then as he is about to go to the back and cook it...

Cashier: não se esqueça de colocar um pouco de queijo sobre ela seu idiota [dont forget to put some cheese on it you moron]
Manuel: Doente tem que perguntar a sua irmã e seu cousen para virar na cama para que eu possa obtê-lo embora [Ill have to ask your sister and your cousen to turn over in the bed so that I can get it though]

Despite this gruesome spectacle, and the rather interesting conversation which I understood every Word of, it was by a COUNTRY MILE the best chicken burger I have ever had!