World of Grip at the World Alternative Games

Entering the World of Grip!

While organising the World Finger Jousting Championships at the World Alternative Games in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales I had a go at the sport of Grip.

The World of Grip were at the Games and hosted a variety of events, including one aimed at newcomers.

The World of Grip medals at the World Alternative Games

In the First-Timers Class there were eleven competitors and I finished in 9th place overall, picking up a 5th place finish in the first event - the Half a Penny Hold!

Event 1 - the Half a Penny hold - literally holding a weight by half a penny sized disc using only your thumb and forefinger. I managed to hold 10kg for 6 seconds

In event 2 - Shallow Hub - I was 10th and in the third and final event - PickAxe Lever to Rear - I was 9th.

Event 2 - the Shallow Hub - like holding a very large and heavy jar by the lid using only the tips of your fingers and thumb. I recorded a lift of 9kg for 14 seconds

Event 3 - the PickAxe Lever to Rear hold - you had to keep the lever steady so as not to knock a small ball off of the middle of the lever. I managed to lift and hold 2.4kg for 11 seconds

My very first go at World of Grip saw me lift a weight for 19 seconds, but this was outscored by my 6 second lift of 10kg in the Half a Penny discipline.

The World Alternative Games Corinthian medal for competing in the World of Grip

There were also some pro events and a number of world records were broken at the event! Check out David Horne's World of Grip website and the World of Grip Facebook page for more info and results.

The pro Grip athletes in action at the final event of the day - the Braced Snapping Steel Bar - a twenty minute event where the competitors have to snap a steel bar!

The World of Grip contest was another in the long-line of hand and finger sports I've competed in that have included Finger Jousting, Arm Champs (video game Arm Wrestling), Thumb Wrestling and Rock Paper Scissors.

The World Alternative Games 2014 is a multi-sport event with over 60 sport and recreation contest held during the festival of fun and games in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales.

Related blog posts:
- World Alternative Games
- Behold...

Links:
- David Horne's World of Grip website
- World of Grip's Facebook page
- Results of the 2014 World Alternative Games – World of Grip contest
- Results of the World of Grip contest on the World Alternative Games website
- World Alternative Games

My top ten videos on YouTube

To mark my 500th YouTube video being uploaded here are the top ten by number of views since I put my first video on the site in February 2007.

1.       Crazy Golf at Poole Park - Hole 9 Pinball. 86,692 views.

2.       Castle Golf World Crazy Golf Championships 2011 - Final Sudden-Death Play-off - Holes1-4. 46,029 views.

3.       Crazy Golf at Poole Park - Hole 9 Pinball - hole in one. 35,760 views.

4.       Crazy Golf at Henblas Park. 27,210 views.

5.       Hither Green Swedish Felt Minigolf course visit - video 3 of 6. 19,456 views.

6.       Jobbing to Arm Champs II Arcade Machine. 17,275 views. The first video I ever uploaded to YouTube.

7.       UK Rock Paper Scissors Championship 2010 - The Grand Final. 5,398 views.

8.       Hither Green Swedish Felt Minigolf course visit - video 2 of 6. 4,179 views.

9.       Minigolf Trick Shot - Blindfolded Hole-in-One - Putter King Miniature Golf ScavengerHunt. 3,387 views.

10.   Hither Green Swedish Felt Minigolf course visit - video 4 of 6. 2,876 views.

My 500 videos have a combined 376,031 views! Thanks to everyone who has watched one (or more).

Do you have a favourite? Let me know if you do via the comments below.

A Quarter of a Million visits to The Ham & Egger Files!

Today The Ham & Egger Files received its 250,000th visitor!

 

From my first blog post in December 2006 until the end of December 2011 the site received 100,000 hits and in the last nine and bit months it's received a further 150,000 visits!  People that like "Ham" and/or "Eggs" must be sorely disappointed to find a blog predominantly about Minigolf upon their visit.

 

Thank you to everyone who has visited, read, commented and linked to content on the site. It’s very much appreciated.

 

Some of the most searched for terms from visitors to The Ham & Egger Files are 'minigolf', 'crazy golf', 'crazy golf London, 'laser quest' and 'mini golf London'. From 1,527 blog posts the most visited with 21,053 hits is the 'Minigolf and Crazy Golf courses in and around London' blog post.

 

In addition to details of our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour, The Ham & Egger Files also contains posts about a number of different things including Air Hockey, Amusement Arcades, Arm Champs II Arcade Games Arm Wrestling, Brussels Sprout Competitive Eating, Bun Throwing, Christmas Tree Throwing, Conga Dancing, Crazy Air Squash, Crazy Golf, Crystal Maze Games, Darts, Dodgeball, Egg Throwing, Fake Alligators/Crocodiles, Gluten Free Food & Places to Eat, Guinness World Records, Lazer (Laser) Tag, Picnicking, Piers, (Ping) Pong, Pirate Flyer Laser Monorails, Rock Paper Scissors, Shooting Shacks, 'Tat' Challenges, Tea Rooms, Thumb Wrestling, Town Criers and Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Men!

 

The most views of the site have come from the UK, some 171,530 hits. In second place with 38,705 is the USA, while there have been 3,935 visits from Germany and 3,649 from Russia. Visitors from Canada, France, Ireland, Australia, Netherlands and South Korea make up the rest of the all-time top ten page views by country.

 

The blog has now received hits from over a quarter of a million people from 112 countries! Quite what the person from Réunion, a French Island in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, was looking for I don’t exactly now. Here’s a list of the 112 countries that The Ham & Egger Files has been visited from:
 

1. Afghanistan
2. Algeria
3. Andorra
4. Argentina
5. Armenia
6. Australia
7. Austria
8. Bahrain
9. Bangladesh
10. Belarus
11. Belgium
12. Bermuda
13. Bosnia and Herzegovina
14. Brazil
15. Brunei
16. Bulgaria
17. Burundi
18. Canada
19. Chile
20. China
21. Colombia
22. Costa Rica
23. Croatia
24. Cyprus
25. Czech Republic
26. Denmark
27. Dominican Republic
28. Ecuador
29. Egypt
30. Estonia
31. Ethiopia
32. Finland
33. France
34. Gabon
35. Georgia
36. Germany
37. Ghana
38. Greece
39. Guatemala
40. Guernsey
41. Hong Kong
42. Hungary
43. Iceland
44. India
45. Indonesia
46. Iraq
47. Ireland
48. Isle of Man
49. Israel
50. Italy
51. Jamaica
52. Japan
53. Jersey
54. Jordan
55. Kuwait
56. Laos
57. Latvia
58. Libya
59. Lithuania
60. Macau
61. Macedonia [FYROM]
62. Malaysia
63. Malta
64. Martinique
65. Mauritius
66. Mexico
67. Moldova
68. Mongolia
69. Montenegro
70. Morocco
71. Myanmar (Burma)
72. Namibia
73. Nepal
74. Netherlands
75. New Zealand
76. Nigeria
77. Norway
78. Pakistan
79. Panama
80. Peru
81. Philippines
82. Poland
83. Portugal
84. Puerto Rico
85. Qatar
86. Réunion
87. Romania
88. Russia
89. Samoa
90. Saudi Arabia
91. Serbia
92. Singapore
93. Slovakia
94. Slovenia
95. South Africa
96. South Korea
97. Spain
98. Sri Lanka
99. Sweden
100. Switzerland
101. Taiwan
102. Tanzania
103. Thailand
104. Tunisia
105. Turkey
106. Ukraine
107. United Arab Emirates
108. Uruguay
109. USA
110. Uzbekistan
111. Venezuela
112. Vietnam

 

Here's to the next quarter of a million hits to the blog.

 

Related Blog Posts:
- The Ham & Egger Files – An Introduction
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
- Behold...

Attending a Wrestling event for the first time in five years!

Last Friday night I headed to a Power Trip Wrestling event in Luton. I haven’t been to a Wrestling event since I went to the WWE TV Tapings for ECW, Raw and Smackdown at Earl’s Court back in April 2007.

I used to be a big wrestling fan and a bunch of us used to go and watch a lot of the All Star Wrestling shows back in Oxford in the 90’s. Nowadays I’m more likely to fast forward WWE Superstars and the WWE Experience but as it was PTW’s 5th Birthday show I thought I’d check it out.

I wasn’t disappointed, it was really good fun!

My favourite match saw El Technico Supremo (a Hulk Hogan-inspired Mexican wrestler gimmick – with an Italian accent) take on Shane Stevens in a great battle which was a mixture of some hard hitting action, high spots and comedy. It had the near capacity crowd of over 50 people cheering loudly. You can watch the match on the PTW YouTube Channel.

El Technico Supremo 'Hulks-up' in his match against Shane Stevens

The rest of the card saw a mix of tag-team and singles bouts, along with a 10-man Battle Royal and a PTW World title match between 'Sexy' Zizou Middoux w/ the PTW Wildcard Champion 'Perfect' P.T. Player vs. 'The Renegade' Marcus Phayer. I also enjoyed the opening bout between Chris Sharpe and the dastardly heel 'The Earl of Excellence' Robert Rochester-Rose!

The PTW show was raising funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust and was great fun and well worth the £5 entry fee for a good two and half hours of wrestling!

Links:

- Power Trip Wrestling on YouTube

- Power Trip Wrestling on Twitter

'Tenuously Linked to Wrestling' Blog Posts on The Ham & Egger Files:

- Richard & Emily Gottfried Compete in the 2011 UK Thumb Wrestling Championships

- Arm Champs II, Turks and Jobbing - a revisit to Great Yarmouth's Best Arcade Machine

- Jobbing to Arm Champs - the original Arm Wrestling Arcade Game

- Richard Gottfried - Next 'Broski of the Week' Woo Woo Woo, You Know It!

100,000+ hits - Thank you for reading!

Towards the end of December 2011 The Ham & Egger Files had its 100,000th 'hit'!

I’d like to start the New Year by thanking everyone for visiting and reading the blog over the years.

Looking at the web stats, The Ham & Egger Files has been visited by people from 32 countries outside of the UK, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Finland, Germany, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jersey, Moldova, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, the USA and Venezuela.

So, wherever you are from and whatever your interests are, be it Miniature Golf (Air Hockey, Amusement Arcades, Arm Champs II Arcade Games Arm Wrestling, Brussels Sprout Competitive Eating, Bun Throwing, Conga Dancing, Crazy Air Squash, Crazy Golf, Crystal Maze Games, Darts, Dodgeball, Fake Alligators/Crocodiles, Gluten Free, Guinness World Records, Lazer Tag, Picnicking, Piers, (Ping) Pong, Pirate Flyer Laser Monorails, Rock Paper Scissors, Shooting Shacks, 'Tat' Challenges, Tea Rooms, Thumb Wrestling or Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Men) do keep checking back for more...as I'll be continuing to write about our travels on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour (and other sports and games).

If you have any suggestions or comments to make please do let me know, it’s always good to hear feedback from visitors from around the world.

All the best for 2012.

Richard

Still Jobbing To Arm Champs II Arcade Game in Great Yarmouth

At the time of writing this blog post I have uploaded a total of 387 videos to YouTube. Of these the most viewed video is one of me "Jobbing to Arm Champs II Arcade Machine" which has had 14,071 views since I uploaded it on the 16th of February 2007.

On Sunday 7th of August 2011 we were once again in Great Yarmouth and I had another go on the Arm Champs II machine to see if I could beat 'Chang'. This time I did (legitimately too I might add), only to go and be jobbed out in the Bonus Stage!?



Related Blog Posts:
- 2007 - Jobbing to Arm Champs II Arcade Machine
- 2009 - Arm Champs II – the rematch
- 2009 - Jobbing to Arm Champs - the original Arm Wrestling Arcade Game
- 2011 - Arm Champs II, Turks and Jobbing - a revisit to Great Yarmouth's Best Arcade Machine

Arm Champs II, Turks and Jobbing - a revisit to Great Yarmouth's Best Arcade Machine

On Sunday 5th June 2011 we headed to Great Yarmouth for some minigolf and amusement arcade action, and I couldn't resist a revisit to the arcade that is home to the Arm Champs II Arm Wrestling Game. Bizarrely, a video of me losing (Jobbing) on it in February 2007 is my most viewed YouTube video!? At the time of writing this blog post it has 13,017 views!!!

Links:
- 2007 - Jobbing to Arm Champs II Arcade Machine
- 2009 - Arm Champs II – the rematch
- 2009 - Jobbing to Arm Champs - the original Arm Wrestling Arcade Game - the video in this match has had 1,236 views to date

The original video

Behold...the sports and games we've played so far

Minigolf* and Finger Jousting isn't all that he can do, behold the great Richard Gottfried - a gift from me to you...

Adventure Golf

Air Hockey
Archery
Archery Tag

Arm Champs II Arm Wrestling
Bagatelle
Bar Billiards

Brussels Sprout Competitive Eating
Bun Throwing
Christmas Tree Throwing
Conga Dancing

Crazy Air Squash
Crazy Golf
Crazy Golf Pool

Dodgeball
Egg Throwing
FootGolf
FootPool
Football Pool

Guinness World Records
Laser Tag
London Skittles
Pétanque

Picnicking

(Ping) Pong
Pit-Pat
PongCrazy

Pirate Flyer Laser Monorails

Rock Paper Scissors
Shooting Shacks
Shuffleboard

'Tat' Challenges
Thumb Wrestling
World of Grip
Worm Charming

What's next?

Keep following The Ham & Egger Files to find out!

Richard Gottfried - Out Standing In His Field

* check out the post Types and Variants of Miniature Golf visited and played on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour for details of other versions of the game

Jobbing to Arm Champs - the original Arm Wrestling Arcade Game

While in Towyn I spotted an original Arm Champs arm wrestling arcade game and couldn't resist having a go, despite my previous failures in Great Yarmouth in 2007 and May 2009.

You can see how I got on this time in the video below.

Arm Champs II – the rematch

Back in February 2007 I fought and lost (in controversial circumstances) against the Arcade machine Arm Champs II in Great Yarmouth. In May 2009 I returned for a rematch and this time lost in match one!




See the original match video here:
http://hamandeggerfiles.blogspot.com/search?q=arm+champs

Jobbing to Arm Champs II Arcade Machine

Here's me losing to the arcade game 'Arm Champs II' even though I actually beat Chang!?!