Sand Blasters: The Extreme Sand-Sculpting Championship

Late one Memorial Day Weekend evening, muh wife and I were suffering through some humid weather -- not wanting to admit that we probably wanted to turn on the air conditioning... when my pudgy fingers came across one of the most exciting shows on television.

There were dynamic personalities...

There were bank robbers....

There were chicks in bikinis...

And... most importantly... there were explosions!!!!

What was this incredible display of super duper awesomeness... you may ask?

It was.... Sand Blasters: The Extreme Sand-Sculpting Championship!

I'm not kidding folks...

How do I describe this?... SAND BLASTERS turns sand sculpting into a major competitive television event -- one with an interesting twist. Eight teams comprised of two world-class sand sculptors each potentially have up to eleven hours to create a sand masterpiece. In addition to the usual challenges the sculptors face -- time limits, weather and sand quality -- one more obstacle must be overcome before any of these teams have a chance at winning a share of the $15,000 prize money - explosives! Periodically, through random selection, one of these works-in-progress is blown-up and the sculptors must start from scratch with whatever time they have left. It is a race to the finish to see which team can overcome the odds and beat out the competition.

The announcers (Chris McGee of vollyeball announcing fame and Vanessa Vander Pluym over hyped and over announced every single bit of this competition. And... we bought every second of it. It was truly a super fun show.

Of the eight teams, five of their works were blown up using real explosives. One of the best parts of the explosions were watching the faces and castles keeping their shape just a split second longer than the rest of the heap. It was even more fun when it was shown in Sllloooooowwww...mmmooooooootttion.....

For some video... as a "preview" of sorts... check out this video..

Enjoy this video... because...as hard as I tried... I just couldn't find a set of pictures from the event...

One of the most amazing things about the event was the detail and dedication that these people put into their work. I would be simply amazed if what they created was a real statue... let alone one made from the elements of a beach.

Sure...the carvers were geeks or a bit on the artsy side... but this show was a "blast" and I am glad that we found it...

Oh yeah... here's the embarassing tidbit.... we were so tired... that we taped the second hour of it so we could see who won....

I wanna blow stuff up... I really do...in a controlled fashion of course!