UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

New York City has its annual No Pants Subway Ride, where hundreds of people would board a particular subway train fully clothed above the waist, but under the waist, only in their briefs or panties. What they’re doing is not breaking any laws, hence they’ve been at it since 2002, started by 7 members of the comedy group Improv Everywhere.

This year, they again used the #6 train, on 13th January. Starting in the afternoon, one person would board the train in boxers and briefs. Then another, and another. By the end of the ride, there’d be 20 to 40 similarly underdressed people on the same train. So, at the beginning fellow passengers could dismiss the lone underdressed guy as deranged, but when there’s many of them, it becomes something that’s obviously meant to be funny.

Some pics

Another are flash mobs, where a group of people would assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual for a short period, then quickly disperse. This is possible due to modern communications networks like mobile phones and the internet. Flash mobs are not restricted to the western world, the Far East don’t want to be undone either.

Check out this Japanese flash mob, taken from a comedy show, where 100 people chase after random strangers, with extremely funny reactions. Apparently, what the mob is shouting is:

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IMHO, the world’s best natural optical illusion is this picture of 2 planes which seem to be colliding in mid-air, but are in fact a safe distance from each other.

Apparently, it’s a Lufthansa 747-400 and a United Airlines 757-200 that were on simultaneous approaches to 2 separate runways at San Francisco Airport. The separation requirement for flying in parallel and doing simultaneous approaches is more than 200 meters. Therefore, these 2 planes are actually more than 200m apart!

How did the picture turn out to be like that? Timing and position of the photographer is one thing. Another, and possibly most important is: The fact that the Lufthansa plane is 3 times larger than the other plane and it being positioned slightly behind, gives us this amazing optical illusion.

Impressed? Check out this other optical illusion. The squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray, yet they appear different. I bet everybody, even after several glances, would be stumped by this one.

After the jump.

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The world’s oldest rape victim

It could be the 98-year-old woman at an Australian nursing home. As reported by ABC TV in February 2006, the woman suffering from dementia was raped three times in a nursing home in Victoria State by a staff members. In addition, he also allegedly abused other residents. [1]

The world’s oldest person on whom rape was attempted

In June 2006, the BBC reported that Paul Blackwood broke into a 101-year-old woman’s house in West Midlands, United Kingdom, in November 2005 and attempted to rape her.

The world’s strangest rape case (I)

In February 2007, The Oregonian reported that Georgie Audean Buoy, an 82-year-old woman, and described as a “kind old church volunteer who enjoys gardening”, has been sentenced to 3 years jail for having a sexual relationship with an 11-year-old boy in The Dalles, Oregon, USA. Even residents of the town where it happened are still having a hard time believing it. She was apparently a foster mother to the boy and was arrested a year ago in the town with a population of 12,000. The DA felt compelled to offer a copy of her taped confession to quell the protests of the many doubters. Buoy has been a member of the local church for more than 20 years, greeted parishioners on Sundays and welcomed those in need to stay at her house. The pastor summed it up: “This is one of those things that’s unexplainable to us”. [3]

But I think this case below takes the cake:

The world’s strangest rape case (II)

Apparently, in November 2004, sobkor.ru reported that a cat named Timka raped a woman in Russia - she was hospitalised with “severe injuries to her genitals”. How did it happen? Well, 2 women, Vera and Svetlana wanted to er… “experience sexual pleasure via intimate contact with a cat.” Yep, zoophilia, bestiality, whatever you call it was on the cards. Can’t really blame the cat, can you?

Full story after the jump.
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I try not to mention anything that’s already mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records, but this one is too interesting not to add here.

Apparently, the world’s highest heels is 16 inches tall with an 11 inch platform - that’s a 5 inch difference, and it looks like this:

[image from powernet.co.uk]

Can you imagine wearing something like that? Your demure, average height 5′4″ lady will end up looking like one of those Amazonian warriors, or worse, circus clown who’s 6′8″ tall and struggling not to fall over.

Apparently it’s made by Ladybwear.

Next up, the world’s most extreme ladies’ shoe designs are made by Mr James Designs. They have come up with designs like this:

More pics:

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Today, 2 persons stake claim to that title: Tiger Woods, 31 (golf)

…and Roger Federer, 25 (tennis).

They became friends last year, and both happens to play in Miami this week. They are undisputably the best at what they do, but that does not stop this question being asked in bars around the world: who’s better?

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Vic Fearn & Company Limited make the world’s weirdest coffins, and business has never been so good for the 160-year old company based in Nottingham, central England. They make 20,000 conventional coffins a year, but recently things have begun to change, for better or worse.

These guys are truly the champions of the spirit of anything goes when it comes to making coffins, meaning this is definitely too progressive to be accepted here in Malaysia, let alone in Sabah.

There’s a mind boggling array of things one can choose to roll up the aisle, and later on get buried in, including the following:

A bench, complete with cushion, although I doubt it if anyone would want to sit on it!

More weird coffin pictures after the jump.

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You’d think that Israelis are one of the world’s most paranoid people - but an article I came across some time ago totally shot that idea down.

Reuters reported on 19th February that Israeli police found that a car was blocking traffic in the fast lane of a major highway somewhere near Jerusalem, of all places. Reading about this, one would immediately suspect that terrorists were on to something - going to blow up that car or something similar.

Instead, they found a couple inside having sex! Apparently, the female driver and her male companion simply could not wait for a more private location. In fact, they could not even make the time to park at the roadside.

Amazing, considering the racket the other motorists caused with their honking and cursing. As would be expected, they caused a massive traffic jam and forced other roadusers to swerve to avoid them.

And for all that, they only got a ticket. No charge for public indecency or something like that. See, Israelis are probably the world’s most laidback people! I mean, if it happened anywhere else, somewhere in the laidback Western Hemisphere perhaps, probably nobody would bat an eyelid.

source

Reuters reported on 19th February 2007 that a TV in New York was found to have been left on and blaring away since at least December 2005.

How did they know? Because sitting in front of it was the mummified remains of the homeowner, Vincenzo Ricardo, 70, who has been dead for at least as long as the TV had been switched on.

Another sad story of human loneliness - I’ve read similar stories before - even one guy being dead in the office for some time without anybody noticing.

Apparently he died of natural causes - he was diabetic and had been blind for years.

Decomposition was slowed down by low humidity, and that his face could still be made out.

He might have been undiscovered for longer had not a water pipe burst in his home, which made a neighbour complain to police, who in turn forced their way in, only to make the gruesome discovery.

Asked, neighbours said they did not suspect anything, since they assumed Ricardo was away at the hospital or a long-term care facility.

Someone even wrote an online eulogy for Vinnie:

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South Korea’s Love Land is a theme park located on the northern part of Cheju (also known as Jeju) Island, an island off the south coast. It’s full of statues, photographs and sculptures of the sexual nature.

On the way to the park, the traffic signs are already suggestive:

When you first enter the park, you will be greeted with this statue:

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UPDATE 22nd May 2009

It was reported today that Spanish “blogging granny” Maria Amelia Lopez has died at age 97.

She began blogging at the age of 95 when he grandson set up a blog for her as a birthday present.

Her postings on international affairs, Spanish politics and a deeply personal insight into the aging process tinged with humour quickly turned her into a celebrity, with many followers around the world. Later on she used video rather than text for her posts.

In one of her final posts in February, she said:

When I’m on the internet, I forget about my illness. The distraction is good for you - being able to communicate with people. It wakes up the brain, and gives you great strength.

The blog had others raving from as far as Alaska, China and Nigeria, and a prestigious international media award to boot.

Heck, because of her blog, she even met the Prime Minister!

She also set up a Facebook account and a group called “the elderly in action”.

There have been at least 2 other reputed bloggers who were at least 100 years old when they died:

Olive Riley, who died aged 108 in July 2008. She’d been blogging for a year. Her final post.

Ruth Hamilton, who died aged 109 in January 2009.

Then there’s 100-year-old Frank Pelatowski, “the World’s Oldest Newspaper Columnist.”

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12 March 2007

As followup from mrbadak’s post in November 2006, in which he wrote that Donald Crowdis of Toronto, Canada is probably the world’s oldest blogger at 93 years by Christmas 2006. I checked just now, his latest entry posted 8th March is interestingly entitled "I’m not dead" and continues to say that family concerns are preventing him from blogging.

Now seems there’s another blogger of the same age as Crowdis, tomato grower Ray White, whose blog is called Dad’s Tomato Garden Journal.

Last but not least, the title for the world’s oldest blogger should now belong to Allan Loof (pic below, courtesy of mojix.org) of Norrkoping, Sweden who is older than Crowdis and White by 2 years. The blog is in Swedish, of course.

On 2nd December 2006, Swedish daily Norrkopings Tidningar displayed his photo and a story about him by author/photographer Hakan Pettersson on its front page.

[pic source: Norrkopings Tidningar]

According to the article, he has been blogging for a year and has had his own site http://allanloof.com for a couple of years.

Tags: blog, blogs, blogging

I thought I’ve heard everything about strange choices for wedding venues, but Scott Amsler, 27 and Miranda Patterson, 21 proved me wrong.

They are planning (or should I say dying?) to get married in a cemetery this September in a suburb of St Louis, US.

The following is a picture of them, presumably for the wedding album, posing for the camera last month in the very cemetery where they plan to get married (photo source: AP)

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The first incestuous line in pop music was “The End” by the legendary group The Doors from their debut album released in January 1967, where Jim Morrison speaks:

“Father / Yes son? / I want to kill you / Mother, I want to… fxxx you”.

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What would you do to show you undying support for your favourite soccer team?

Start a fansite? Buy their merchandise?

Marin Levidzhev of Bulgaria has upped the ante.

He loves the British club so much that he battled the courts for years to have his name changed to what else but… Manchester United.

But the magistrates, being spoilsports, only made him half the man that he should be. They decided that he could only call himself Manchester Levidzhev, because his arguments are "not strong enough."

But Mr Levidzhev, or Mr United if you want, has not given up yet.

As quoted by ananova.com, he says: "I feel as if I am only at the halftime break. I won’t feel right until I get all my name changed to Manchester United. I love the club. It’s my whole life, and I want my name to reflect that."

Tags: manchester united, Man Utd

Due to not wearing this dress at the 79th Academy Awards red carpet event — Live from the Red Carpet, televised on Star Movies, with 30 million viewers across Asia, where she should’ve been a co-host last Monday night — it could break Linda Onn’s career.

She had planned to wear a black and white modern kebaya labuh — decked with Swarovski crystals, lace and fine embroidery — created by Indonesian designer Jovian Mandagie but “one hour before going to the Kodak Theatre for rehearsals”, was asked to wear another baju kebaya, a champagne-coloured outfit, created by Malaysian designer Radzuan Radziwill.

She refused, and on Oscar night, only Dominic Lau, sporting a Armani tuxedo was spotted.

She’s not the first ever Malaysian to given such a task: Maya Karin co-hosted with Terrance Yin of Hong Kong last year.

Unanswered questions: (more…)

Back in December, I blogged about the world’s worst music album covers. However, while researching my earlier post about black metal music, I stumbled upon what must be the world’s worst ever album cover by a remotely famous band.

We’re talking about the band called Mayhem here. Even though most people would’ve never heard of them, that band seems quite influential in the black metal sphere. Its vocalist, Dead (strange name, I know) committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun in 1991, at age 22. A bandmember then took several pictures of the corpse. The running unfunny thing to say then of course is: Dead is dead.

Then follows a series of bizarre events, which culminated in a photograph of the corpse being used as cover art for their bootleg album Dawn of the Black Hearts. I have decided that the picture is a little too gory to be included in here, but if you really have to see it, click on the link above.

Now a little about Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin). He seems to be one of the strangest persons who ever lived. Consider these (all from related entries in wikipedia):

Dead, as suggested by his stage name, was melancholic by nature and fascinated by death, decay, and darkness. He left even Euronymous (a co-band member), who by all accounts despised him, expressing concern for his mental stability. Despite this he was well liked on the scene, though regarded as a little naïve.

According to Bard Eithun “He (Dead) wasn’t a guy you could know very well. I think even the other guys in Mayhem didn’t know him very well. He was hard to get close to. I met him two weeks before he died. I’d met him maybe six to eight times, all in all. He had lots of weird ideas. I remember Aarseth was talking about him and said he did not have any humour. He did, but it was very obscure. Honestly, I don’t think he was enjoying living in this world.” ^[1]

Dead had, over time, carefully cultivated a notoriety for strange behavior; once burying a set of clothes underground for weeks so that he could later wear the decaying rags onstage. He had kept a rotting raven in a plastic bag so better to “inhale the scent of death” before going on stage. Such morbid fascinations and antics further developed Mayhem’s progressing musical atmosphere, and by this point the band’s lyrics had moved increasingly toward Satanism, darkness, depression and evil. A focal point of gigs at this time was the planting of pigs heads on stakes, center stage, and Dead cutting himself with a knife.

According to Occultus, who briefly took position as vocalist after Dead’s suicide: “He (Dead) didn’t see himself as human; he saw himself as a creature from another world. He said he had many visions that his blood has frozen in his veins, that he was dead. That is the reason he took that name. He knew he would die..”^[2]

source

Tags: music, black metal

You might think the first Microsoft Vista commercial is boring, which, as gizmodo.com says: “Rather than helping us see the difference, it shows us a bunch of people parading back and forth with goofy smiles on their faces.”

But I think that’s nothing compared to the Microsoft commercial/promo video of another era: the Windows 386 promotion.

Actually it’s 12 minutes long, but only gets interesting at the 7th.

Calling her PC T-Bone, the leading lady was quite well behaved until she started singing (or is it rapping) while typing away at her keyboard. And the lyrics are amongst the cheesiest ever committed on video: I’m using Windows, Windows three-eighty-six, so all my app-li-ca-tions, are running at once…” And then, she starts to take off her clothes…

Total classic. Video link after the jump.

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shiveredsky compiled a list, back in December 2006, of his take of the world’s most ridiculous products for babies.

In my opinion, after considering the products’ level of pointlessness and other comments, I would pick the Baby Toupee - who’d spend USD20 for this thing which has no purpose other than to laugh at how stupid your baby looks after putting this on? [all pics below taken from their website]

More pics after the jump.  (more…)

ruthlessreviews.com compiled 2 lists of the most ridiculous black metal (in case you’re still in the dark, we’re talking about black metal music here) pictures of all time, one in 2004 and another one in 2005. Out of the 2 lists, my pick for the world’s most ridiculous black metal picture is this one:

The guy above is apparently named Maniac of the group Mayhem. I couldn’t have said it better than the editors at ruthlessreviews.com (non-censored!): (more…)

[pic source: sharifahpole2pole.com]

Yang Berbahagia Datin Paduka Sharifah Mazlina Syed Abdul Kadir, 42 does not fit the Datin stereotype. She is definitely one of the world’s most adventurous women.

Her greatest achievement to date was accomplished in January 2005, when she set the world record for the fastest solo crossing (by any gender) of the Antarctia: South Pole to Hercules Inlet by ski sailing solo for more than 1,000 km in 22 days. She is the first woman in the world to do this. (more…)

Chuck Lamb, 47 aka The Dead Body Guy probably has the world’s strangest hobby: he likes to play dead. As if that’s not enough, he takes it one step further: take photos and videos of himself playing dead and posts them on his website, starting in 2005.

These bizarre antics have attracted 32 million hits to his website by its 1st anniversary, and several newsprint, TV and radio appearances. But what is his motivation? In his website, he says that he’d always dreamed of being in a movie or on TV: "I grew up like most people in their 40’s watching everything from Dragnet to Twilight Zone and dreaming ‘I can do that if just given the chance’. I still watch every bit of the credits of a show or movie to see all of the people it takes to make it. Key grips, best boys and personal assistants are all included. I close my eyes and see dead body… played by… me!"

Well, that seems to be a pretty bizarre hobby for a married man with 6 kids. He himself admitted that he has no acting experience and not good looking. In other words, he’d never make it as an actor. But there’s one thing he can do as well as anyone: lay around with the best of them!

He continues: "Just ask my wife. No one can lay around like me. Every CSI, Law & Order, and countless other movies and shows feature a dead body in it. I say ‘THAT COULD BE ME!’ I can lay there and be dead. I can achieve my dream by being shot, stabbed, drugged, mugged, mangled, strangled or any other scenario you can think of. I can even recite lines if needed. As you have probably already guessed, I am not shy at all. I am asking people all over the world ‘Help Me Live My Dream — Let Me Play Dead.’"

Make his dream come true, if you want, by checking out his website.

Beauty is a subjective matter, but your truly believes that the world’s most beautiful waterfall is the Iguazu Falls, located on the border between Argentina and Brazil. It’s so spectacular that it’s been featured in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979).

It is much larger than the Niagara Falls. It’s only worthy contender as the world’s most beautiful and spectacular waterfall is Victoria Falls in Africa. However I think Iguazu clinches the title because it is wider and and has 270 separate falls. Having said that, Victoria has the world’s biggest interrupted water curtain: it has about the same length as the Iguazu’s total and > 90 metres tall. The Iguazu is 82m at its tallest.

The most impressive part of the falls is the Garganta del Diablo, also known as The Devil’s Throat (pictured below), a U-shaped, 150m wide wide and 700m long cliff.

 [pic source: wikipedia.org] (more…)