While taking a break from wanton destruction with his Astrojax, Jack mentioned the sport of cup stacking. Apparently, very bored people living in very cold states compete in cup stacking. They stack cups in pyramids and break them down again. For speed. Competitively. Really.

For a stunning example of this, go to the Speed Stacks video page and click on the link titled “Emily Fox does Cycle in 7.43 seconds”. Turning on sound will enhance the experience. Keep in mind that the stacking in question is being shown real time.

Naturally, our first reaction was “Pffft. We could do better than that.” We immediately descended on a conference room with a stack of paper cups. We were having lots of problems with them sticking together, so we made some very scientific modifications with the pointy part of a pen. Our efforts met with limited (actually no) success. We might have saved ourselves the trouble if we had first consulted the Speed Stacks cup comparison chart. Apparently, you need to use official plastic cups with shoulder ribs, air holes, and exterior texturing in order to be competitive. I have a set on order.