bullriding, dogies, cow tipping and chupacabras, personal moons

i was hanging out yesterday evening with a friend, and the topic of bull riding came up; specifically, the Professional Bull Rider bucking bull called Bushwacker. Bushwacker was, for 3 years, unridable; he had a 100% buckoff rate, meaning no one could stay on him for the full 8 seconds required for a successful ride. This 56-ride long streak was broken on August 17th by a bull rider named J.B. Mauney (who'd actually attempted it several times before, at various points), and here's a clip of the qualifying ride. Why is 8 seconds the length of a qualified ride in bullriding? Ask.com's Rodeo section reports that "The 8 second length of a qualified ride was devised purely for the safety and well-being of the animals involved. After 8 seconds the horse or bulls bucking ability decreases because of fatigue, adrenaline loss, etc. ". Other sources state that before the 8 second rule was set, that bulls were rode until they stopped bucking. The NBR handbook doesn't give any reasoning.

Another facet of that conversation involved why cattle are referred to as 'doggies' on occasion. i guessed that was because of their stature from the back of a horse, they might sort of look like dogs. The internet has several potential answers. One is that it's a corruption of the African word kidogo, or 'something small'. Another possibility mentions that orphaned calves, due to poor nutrition (in some instances, the orphan calves were fed a mixture of flour and water?!), were called 'dough-guts', which got shortened to 'dogies'. i favor the latter explanation.

In interesting synchronicity (as typically happens), a link to this highly informative article regarding cow-tipping showed up on the twitter feed of the highly enjoyable Daily Coyote's Shreve. (i was once subjected to hilarious rant from my mother where she, after hearing about it for the first time 3 or 4 years ago, went off on why cow tipping is impossible as well as the dumbest thing she's ever heard of.) Mentioned within that article was how the urban legend of cow-tipping is along the same vein as snipe hunting.The south Texas version, basically a reason to go stomping around outside after dark and scaring your friends, is Chupacabra hunting. It's a lot of fun, actually. Humorously, there's a pretty deadpan wiki how-to article on how to 'properly' hunt chupas (note; the outings i've been on have never involved blood nor guns. Perhaps that explains our 0% success rate).

So there's a Russian artist, Leonid Tishkov, who has a man-made crescent moon light-up sculpture thing which he takes various places; a recent interview explains it as, " Like a character out of some ancient fairy tale, Russian artist Leonid Tishkov can't seem to go anywhere without a human-sized crescent moon by his side.". And the work is lovely.

As posted on Flavorwire, a collection of the last words of 15 different writers. i appreciate the Bukowski one, "Don't Try."