The only thing worse than paying $4,000 for a scooter has to be using said scooter for a game of polo.

Yes, friends, it has come to that. A small band of Bay Area Segway owners have set a new low for the device - an almost impossible feat when you consider that "IT" was meant to have revolutionized cities by now but has actually ended up being little more than a poor selling toy. About ten of the Segway grunts recently gathered for a disturbing go at scooter polo.

The Segway owners created homemade mallets out of PVC pipe, foam and duct tape. The mallet building instructions are here [PDF] (http://www.bayareaseg.com/SegPoloMallet.pdf), although Segway LLC has surely started production on a more refined version of this essential accessory.

A video of the polo battle (http://www.bayareaseg.com/video/SegwayPoloWeb.mov) shows a collection of fairly uncoordinated bloggers on wheels (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/21/bloggers_on_wheels/), running into each other and falling down. Did you expect any less?

"We had a great time playing polo on the Segway," says on member of the Bay Area Segway Enthusiasts Group. "Not a huge turnout but the game was fun and pretty competitive. It's also harder than it looks. Who says that riding the Segway isn't exercise?"

That's the spirit!

Inspired by the Segway enthusiasts' passion for exercise, your reporter (http://www.tennisherald.com/) left the office this morning with a six-pack in hand, hailed a cab, drank the six-pack, returned to The Vulture Compound and then waved his arms wildly while riding the elevator back up to the office. This feat did not cost $4,000, and it left us with a shred of dignity.

We're still waiting for Chicago officials to begin redesigning the "second city" to accommodate the myriad Segways here. It may, however, take a few thousand more arse-feeds (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/01/boffins_isolate_blogging_gene/), BPEL services and reality altering blogs to pull off this lifestyle revolution. ®

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