Extreme sports doesn’t have to be just a pastime. With several degree programs offered, you can make it a full time career.

It’s that time of year again. College students are wrapping up summertime study/party trips and heading back to the hallowed halls to get back to some serious educational endeavoring. If you’re a coed living the TauBu lifestyle, you’re probably going back to school with a few bruises and scars from your summer of mountain climbing/skateboarding/BMX biking/wingsuit flying/etc., but sporting a smile, too. So, if you haven’t yet declared your major, why not make a career of something you love?

The Adventuresports Institute (ASI), part of Garrett College in McHenry, Maryland offers degrees in extreme / adventure sports management with study tracks in business management, therapeutic recreation and adventure videography, as well as leadership and environmental education. The school is located near Marsh Mountain, Deep Creek Lake and Savage River and played host to the 1989 Whitewater World Championships and the 1992 US Canoe and Kayak Whitewater Team Olympic Trials. It’s a perfect spot for extreme and adventure sports.

If you’re the study-abroad type, consider England’s Southampton Solent University, offering degrees in adventure and extreme sports management, and outdoor learning and watersports management.

Business opportunities in extreme and adventure sports are growing exponentially, as more people ditch the trappings of too much stuff and head out doors for some back-to-the-basics fun, and as extreme sports celebrities become increasingly popular. It ain’t just a taboo pastime that wracks your mama’s nerves. It’s now a full-blown career choice. Get yours.

Campy horror flick Pirhanha 3DD is among the TauBu Girls' summer movie picks.

The TauBu Girls are big fans of the big screen. And we ain’t talking cheesy, weepy chick flicks. They love action, special effects, sexy comedies, campy horror flicks and anything that gives a cinematic nod to the taboo. Here are their top picks for movie-going in June.

Battleship, May 18: Plenty of action, special effects and muscle flexing in this film based on the Hasbro head game you loved as a kid, says TauBu Girl Diamond. Yet, it’s also quite the love story, kicking off with a violent string of mishaps that involves a beautiful blonde in bar, a taser gun and a chicken burrito. Romance at its cinematic finest – if you’re the TauBu type. It goes on to deliver a storyline that gives serious props to America’s retired and injured military veterans.

Snow White and the Huntsman, June 1: TauBu Girl Rickie is looking forward to this one. After all, she shares a few traits with the fairytale heroine. Both are raven-haired beauties with mad sword skills. This reworked version of the Brothers Grimm’s most famous tale ain’t for the kiddies, though. It’s a badass chick flick that even the biggest guy’s guy will love. Lust, hate, violence and raw, edgy scenes that put Snow White in a suit of armor, plus one epic girl fight. Evil Apple, anyone?

Piranha 3DD, June 1: This is one for the campy horror flick fans, says TauBu Girl Ginny. After their spring break feeding frenzy at Lake Victoria, the swarm heads upstream in this dark comedy sequel to 2010′s Piranha. This time, they make their way to Big Wet, a new local water park where the tanned, toned, frat boy and sorority girl set go hoping to “get wet, get loaded and get some,” says the IMDB.com description. Brawny guys, busty babes, blood and gore to spare.

Which of these are you looking forward to?  Pop the top on your favorite TauBu flavor, take a look at these trailers and post your May/June movie picks on the TauBu Facebook fan page.
Piranha 3DD Trailer

Battleship Trailer

Snow White and the Huntsman

Nathan Fletcher didn't think he'd survive that record-setting Teahupoo bomb he pulled off last August. He did. And scored major props and a $50,000 check for it at the Billabong XXL Big Wave Awards.

Billabong’s annual Global Big Wave Awards were handed out earlier this month in Anaheim, California. And if you were lucky enough to be in the audience, you witnessed some amazing feats by the world’s best surfers via the massive video screens – the next best thing to being in the sand or surf and seeing it all firsthand. TauBu beer makers congratulate all the winners breaking taboos and smashing records.

Major props go to Nathan Fletcher who scored a $50,000 check for the Sony Xperia Ride of the Year for his August 27, 2011 Teahupoo bomb. The monster swell that hit the south coast of Tahiti that day prompted the French Polynesian government to issue a red alert, forbidding any sea navigation. Even surfing great Kelly Slater passed on attempting the wave, but Fletcher was game. The competitive surfing world watched in mixed amazement and horror as Fletcher took on the massive wave, setting a new record for the largest and deepest ride ever at Teahupoo.

Brazilian beauty Maya Gabeira won her fifth Billabong XXL Big Wave Award earlier this month.

In media interviews that followed, Fletcher admitted that for several underwater moments, he thought he’d ridden his last wave and that the next time his body hit air, it would be via the efforts of a search and recovery team. Fortunately for Fletcher and surfing competitors and fans worldwide, he was wrong.

“Anything great in my life has been by mistake,” Fletcher has since told reporters. “If I go in over prepared and overthink shit, I’ll psyche myself right out of it. If I go and I’m accidently in the spot by luck or fate, then that’s just how I go. A lot of times it probably doesn’t work as well, but that time it just had to happen, I guess.

“That was for Sion and Andy,” he added, referring to late friends Andy Irons and Sion Milosky, both Hawaiian-born champion surfers who passed away within months of each other.

Other winners included Garrett McNamara, who scored the Biggest Wave Award for his 78-foot A-Frame ride in Portugal that set a new world record. Ironically, McNamara also won the Verizon Wipeout Award of the Year for his not-so-graceful tumble at Jaws in Peah’i, Maui.

“Martin Potter once said ‘if you can’t have a great ride might as well have a good wipeout,’” Garrett said. “I guess I’m good at wiping out.”

Dave Wassel’s 53-foot ride at Jaws landed him the Monster Paddle Award. And Brazilian beauty Maya Gabeira won her fifth Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Award. She had already racked up four in a row between 2007 and 2010, but says this year’s award was the best.

“Usually there are one or two standouts,” she told reporters. “This time the level was so much higher with all five nominees being solid entries.”

Couldn’t make the 2012 Billabong XXL Big Wave Awards ceremony in Anaheim? No worries. You can see it on TV again this Sunday, May 20 3pm Pacific / 6pm Eastern on Fuel. Or pop the top off a can of Wicked Punch, scroll down and click “Play” to watch it right here on the TauBu blog.

Queen Marie Antoinette - She'd have been a TauBu Girl, for sure.

Exactly 222 years ago today, Parisian revolutionaries stormed the Bastille, a royal fortress that represented France’s Bourbon monarchs and its most taboo little tart to ever don a tiara. Fed up with their impotent king and more than a little ticked off at their Austrian-born queen’s obscene spending habits and her cavorting with questionable associates, the French were ready to bring down the house – literally.

Many attribute the start of the French Revolution to the original Material Girl herself. No – not Madonna, though the pop queen did channel the instigator-in-question in her performance of her hit “Vogue” at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards. We’re talking about Marie Antoinette, the 15-year-old bride who would become one of the most contentious characters in French history, hang from the gallows, and yet live on in spirit as one of the world’s most iconic female figures.

But did Marie Antoinette deserve such a bad rap for her undoubtedly taboo ways? Historians disagree. Yes, it’s assumed she may have been less than faithful to Louis XVI, but it’s said that the couple didn’t consummate their marriage until a full seven years after the wedding, when pressure to produce an heir to the throne hit a highpoint. Granted, Marie Antoinette developed a frowned-upon penchant for gambling and spending lavishly on clothes, shoes and cosmetics. But supporters say it was only to make up for the lack of affection from her husband and constant nagging from her mother, the Empress of Austria, to pop out a grandkid stat, thus uniting France and Austria with a common royal blood lineage.

Oh, and that whole “Let them eat cake” thing? Research shows that it might not have been Marie Antoinette who actually uttered the phrase anyway. Turns out it likely was said by another Queen, Marie-Thérèse about a century earlier in a totally different crisis.

In any case, Bastille Day celebrations are going on all around the world today. What’s your take on Marie Antoinette: royal miscreant or just a misunderstood young woman with a taste for the taboo? TauBu wants to know. And in the meantime, if you never saw Sophia Coppola’s Oscar-winning 2006 film starring Kirsten Dunst as the feisty, flirty Marie Antoinette, pop the top on a can of TauBu Evil Apple, Midnite Berry or Wicked Punch and enjoy …