Foreword: As you may or may not have noticed, astute readers, there have been quite a few changes/updates/additions to The Sky is Falling of late. In large part it's due to the free time I have now that classes are over for the summer, but it's also due to some late night shooting of the shit with some friends of mine, in particular the Doc, J. Marx (of Zen Marxism fame), about some stuff I could add to the site to draw in a larger audience.

I originally thought about hiring someone to give free ZJ's to every reader (if you don't know what a ZJ is, you probably can't afford one--any takers on the movie?). One of the things suggested by a friend was a post on the Most Underrated Badasses of All Time. After undertaking the task, I realized that it would take a lot more than just one post, or one afternoon, to accomplish so I decided to roll out a new section, much like the "Answers from a Guy" section people seemed to be fond of, entitled the Underrated Badass Awards or (UBAs for short) This isn't an actual award, but if it was, I envision the little golden statue depicting Chuck Norris, mid round-house kick, biting the head off of a cobra.

So as this is the first UBA ever, I figured I should make sure that the person it was awarded to really set the tone for future awards. I mean, I'm not going to give out a nonexistent golden Chuck Norris statue to just anyone after all. So I did a little research, peeping headlines on CNN, Reuters, NYTimes etc. looking for someone who really stood out from the crowd in terms of mantastic awesomeness and sheer badasstitude (both of these terms are actually real, and can be found on pages 347 and 96 of Oxford's New English Dictionary respectively) but it was to no avail. It wasn't until I gave up actively looking for my UBA winner, that I found Steve Wilder after clicking on a headline entitled, Man Uses Steak Knife to Perform Tracheotomy--On Himself.

As a future med-school hopeful, I was originally intrigued by the headline title. I mean, for those of you who don't know what a tracheotomy is, it's a surgical procedure involving cutting a hole directly into a person's trachea (windpipe) via their throat. Performing said surgery, on oneself, with no anesthesia? That's literally fucking insane and pretty fucking badass as well. Here's how it went down according to the story:

Steve Wilder a 55 year old Omaha man and throat cancer survivor, awoke in the middle of the night unable to breathe. Fearing that emergency services would not arrive in time, he ran down to his kitchen, picked up a steak knife, and cute a hole directly into his windpipe to allow airflow. This saved his life until EMS arrived. Doctors say that once the hole in his throat heals, they expect a full recovery.

Um...yeah. I'd say that is just about the most badass thing I've ever heard of in my entire life. Using a steak knife to a cut a hole in your own trachea? I cringed when the guys from Jackass gave themselves papercuts, and this guy is taking some CutCo to his throat.

So congratulations to Steve Wilder, the first ever winner of the Sky is Falling's Underrated Badass Award! (Expect to not recieve your golden Norris in the mail sometimes soon).

-Adam