Testosterone meets Red Bull

What could be more entertaining than watching a bunch of men, hopped up on large amounts of caffeine and sugar, launching heavy, unflightworthy contraptions off a ledge into the water? Not much. Welcome to Flugtag. Red Bull's slogan, "Red Bull gives you WINGS!" has inspired a major national event to pit brains and courage against gravity and stupidity. Because Red Bull doesn't always give you wings. Not when your wings are paper mache and your flying contraption is aluminum and wood filled with 440 lbs of testosterone-poisoned men. Such a joy to watch. And we happened to be in Portland last week, so we thought we'd attend the event. See that white L shape in the picture above? That's the ledge. See that water? That's about 20 feet below the ledge. See that white dot on the far left of the picture? No? Well that's me trying (unsuccessfullly) to get anywhere near the ledge so I could watch the hilarity up close.

You can see some footage of the event (not mine) below. When you watch the opening clips (starting 1:12 mins into Jimmi Hendrix Wannabe's guitar solo), you'll wonder, like I did, if that was really Red Bull they were drinking before the competition.