UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

If you know of any other school that has a worse name than Pansy Kidd Middle School, pls tell me.

This school is apparently located at Poteau, Oklahoma, USA.

This is not to say that the funny name was chosen in bad faith. It was actually the name of an outstanding teacher, Ms Pansy Ingle Kidd (1890-1978) who taught at the school for 42 years. The school’s original name was then changed to its present name in honour of her.

Someone commented that her middle name should’ve been included as part of the school name. Then it would sound more respectable.

A plaque of Ms Kidd hangs in a school hallway:

Click here to see the plaque

IMHO, Paul Anka has the honour, in swing no less. I think this easily defeats Weird Al Yankovic’s spoof or even Kurt Cobain himself’s low-pitched version on Top Of The Pops. I’d bet that the audience never saw this song coming.

Click here to see the video

Mondegren director Buffalax is a comic genius. I haven’t watched a Hindi music video in its entirety for a very long time, until the day I saw this video. Usually I’d just skip, or fast forward the singing part. This has to be seen to be believed, guaranteed to make one laugh uncontrollably.

Buffalax added subtitles of the “written English approximation of the video’s original language sound,” then uploaded it on 18th August 2007. Since then the video has been viewed more than 8 million times and commented more than 25,000 times.

The song’s name is Kalluri Vaanil, a love song, sung by Prabhu Deva Sundaram in the Indian Tamil movie Pennin Manathai Thottu released in 2000.

As a result of Buffalax’s work, I think interest in the movie from outside India skyrocketed, stunning those involved in the making of the movie.

Click here to see the video

This is not your usual Christian Sunday Mass or service. This not even your usual Praise and Worship sessions typical of Evangelical meetings.

This is the Metal Mass, or Metallimessu in Finland’s Lutheran Church, the state religion.

Inside church buildings, worshippers scream out hymns as lead singers headbang onstage to extremely loud live heavy metal music, with the pastor and altar, both in white waiting on the sides.

Probably this kind of church service is only available in that country, the land where heavy metal is more mainstream than in others. In Helsinki, the capital, there are many heavy metal karaoke bars, clubs, live concerts and festivals. The radiowaves are filled with heavy metal songs. The Finnish Eurovision Song Contest and the Finnish Idol competition were won with heavy metal songs.

Good thing too, since this has caused churches there to be packed with young people.

Not to say all churches there are like this or in favour of it. Some are dead against it, while some heavy metal fans outside the church accuse the church of using their music to boost church attendances. But mostly response has been encouraging.

The first Metal Mass in the country was held in 2006 at the “Tuska” (in English, “Pain”) festival in Helsinki.

Here are some videos to showing a Metal Mass in action:

Click here to see the videos

The Expat is a Malaysia-produced magazine catering to obviously… expatriates.

However, that does not stop it, in a recent publication, from condemning Malaysia’s taxi fleet as the worst in the world.

200 foreigners from 30 countries took part in a survey done by the magazine and among 23 countries compared, Malaysia finished last when judged by taxi quality, courtesy, availability and expertise.

Yes, worse than even Thailand and Indonesia. There drivers are apparently far more courteous.

In fact, comments were very strong, including “a source of national shame” and “a serious threat to tourists - rude bullies and extortionists“.

And locals are not spared either.

Having also used taxis in Great Britain, Singapore and Japan, I feel inclined to agree with the survey results.

More often than not, we’d encounter below-par service and unfriendly taxi drivers with their vehicles in sorry conditions.

Most of them would refuse to use the meter (using the term “flat rate”), overcharge and are choosy about destinations.

An example in the magazine is typical: A Norwegian couple in downtown Kuala Lumpur wanting to go back to their hotel located less than 2 km away being charged RM25 “flat rate” instead of the RM2+ if the meter was used.

Why this is so?

Lack of enforcement, due to corruption in the police and bureaucracy.

Why is this important?

First impressions of a visitor to a country is most often a taxi driver, which is his/her first direct contact with a local.

Solutions in sight

New taxi operators like Citicab have entered the market. offering pricier but quality services. The drivers are uniformed, use the meter without asking and would go to any destination.

Source
Yahoo News, 18th Sept 2008

…or the world’s most unbelieveable ending to a football match.

On 28th October 1998, it was reported by L’Avenir, a Kinshasha (of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa) newspaper that there was a football match in the country’s eastern province of Kasai between the home team Basanga and a visiting team.

During the match, with the score at 1-1, a bolt of lightning suddenly hit the ground, resulting in ALL 11 members of the visiting team dead!

Even more amazingly, not one member of the home team was hurt.

Still, the paper reported that 30 other people got burns.

It’s no wonder that the most popular local opinion is that somebody had put a powerful curse on the visiting team.

Unbelieveable? Well, it was a little difficult to verify the report since war was going on in that part of the country at the time of the match.

That incident capped a very strange few days for football (or soccer, as some prefer to call it). A few days earlier, during a South African premier league match in Johannesburg between the Jomo Cosmos and the Moroka Swallows, a bolt of lightning also struck the ground as the ball was being played near a penalty box.

At that time, one of them was leading 2-0.

Result:
(i) half the players from both teams fell to the ground;
(ii) several could be seen holding their eyes and ears;
(iii) the referee was so shocked that he blew his whistle non-stop;
(iv) two players had to be taken to hospital for shock and irregular heartbeats.

Click here to see photos

In Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989), there’s a scene where Indiana and his father Henry travel to Berlin to get back a diary containing clues on the Holy Grail, which Hitler wants for himself.

That led him to a Nazi book burning rally in Berlin, where Indiana Jones bumps into the Fuhrer himself. Michael Sheard played Adolf Hitler in this scene. The scene is extremely funny in that Hitler did not realise he has met Indiana or that he is actually holding the Grail Diary. He then proceeded to casually open the diary to a random page, sign his name, then give it back to an incredulous Indiana:

Click here to see the video

Grandfather of two Jim “Chris” Christou, 100 is Great Britain’s, and possibly the world’s oldest bartender.

If you thought he’s so poor that he had to keep on working, actually he said he worked at the Westwood Masonic Centre (WMC) “to keep fit.”

He’s been working at the WMC for more than 20 years, pulling pints twice weekly. Before that he worked as a waiter.

So how does he do it? In his own words:

There’s no secret to how I’m still working. I just do normal things, eat normal food and do the shopping.

Of course clean living surely helps: he’s been a teetotaler for almost 30 years.

Source
The Telegraph (UK), 29th Aug 2008

Dennis Avner, 50 of Nevada, USA is a Native American whose traditonal name is Stalking Cat. Apart from that he has the following nicknames: Catman, Cat, Tiger and Tiger man.

He has spent a lot of money and time (and of course endured the pain) to surgically modify his body to resemble that of a tiger.

Why? He explains in his website:

I am Huron and Lakota and in following a very old Huron Tradition I am transforming myself into my totem, a tiger.

Apparently, it all began through a dream when he was 23 years old. In the dream, an Indian Chief told him to “follow the ways of the tiger”.

This is Catman a long time ago before any surgery was done:

A recent photo of the Catman; can you see any similarity between this picture and the above?

Click here to see the picture

Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK - Middle/Secondary School) Tanjung Lumpur is located in the city of Kuantan, state of Pahang, Malaysia. It was established in 1983 and has 820 students.

Since some time in May 2008, the school has experienced what is probably unprecedented in the history of the world’s educational institutions: almost daily supernatural / paranormal manifestations right in the middle of class, and right in front of journalists covering it.

So far 35 students have been affected.

Timeline of news reported in local mass media:

8th September 2008

The NST reported that dozens of bomohs, spiritual and faith healers have visited the school in the last few weeks. Some came from another state, while some came all the way from Indonesia.

They all said the same thing: there are many ghosts, spirits, jin and other supernatural beings in the school.

Some of the bomoh said they have communicated with the spirits who caused the bouts of hysteria and claimed that the spirits said:
(i) the cause of the problem is that the construction of the school’s new building had encroached on their area
(ii) they can leave the school, but they have several demands including a special feast.

What did the affected students see?
(i) most claimed that they saw a being with long hair
(ii) others claimed they were possessed by an old woman. That was apparently the reason why they acted and sounded like one.

Eminent local religious figure, state mufti Datuk Abdul Rahman Osman does not agree on “striking a deal” with the beings.

Two “paranormals” from Indonesia said:

Only one or two of the students were possessed by the spirits while the rest were responding due to a “herd instinct”. Most of them become hysterical due to other factors, including examination pressure and family problems. Some are reacting to the harsh treatment meted by bomohs during exorcism.

But some victim’s parents disagreed, like Mariah Mat Zain who said:

I’ve seen my daughter [form 2 student] turning her head more than 180 degrees. She could also overpower five men when possessed. She had been transferred to another school but she still suffers from bouts of hysteria. Don’t tell me she is faking it. She’s too young to do it.

She had sent her daughter to see a doctor, as had some other parents, but doctors gave the students clean bills of health, and they (the doctors) said it was a difficult phenomenon to explain, especially if it involved a Muslim. Usually, the only advice given would be to seek help from an ustaz [religious teacher] and pray.

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