UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

Lee Yoon-hyung appeared to have everything.

She was young and beautiful, only 26 years of age.

She had social status, being daughter of billionaire former Samsung Group chief Lee Kun-hee, and liked fine arts.

She was rich in her own right, estimated to be worth USD191 million, mostly from her Samsung shares, meaning she could buy the world’s best diet pills if she wanted to, only that she obviously didn’t need them.

She was popular: she had her own blog/website that was so popular that it had to be shut down.

She was adventurous: liked racing cars, like her father.

She was intelligent: at the time of her death, she was a first-year postgraduate student of an arts management program at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She received her first degree at Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul.

She was one of the wealthiest women in South Korea, but she was not happy.

She hanged herself at her luxurious Astor Place apartment in Manhattan, New York on 18th November 2005. She was found by her boyfriend, Soobin Shin and a friend around 3 a.m. hanging by an electrical cord attached to the door to her apartment.

The cause of her unhappiness was reportedly the fact that her father had forbidden her from marrying her Korean boyfriend, whom her parents considered “too lowly.”

Source
Wikipedia

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

You could always trust the Japanese to come up with the world’s most outlandish creations.

For an ashtray (or as some prefer to call it: cigarette extinguisher), instead of the usual boring dish-like contraption, the creative people of the Far East have managed to mass-produce something that’s wrong on so many fronts, including smoking, public nudity and of course the very act of extinguishing fags in another human being’s mouth, or rather throat by the looks of it.

This is the gadget in action, and probably its most innocent image in its gallery:

Click here to see the photo

Dede, now 37, is an Indonesian who accidentally cut his knee while working as a builder at a building site at 15 years of age. It was only a small wound, but a few weeks later a small wart then developed on his lower leg, then spread uncontrollably throughout his body.

The condition manifested itself as horn-like extensions, or gnarled growths, so big and thick that they looked like “twisted tree roots growing out of his skin.”

It had caused him, over time, to be sacked from his job by his early 20s, left by his wife of 10 years and shunned by neighbours. His 2 children had to be taken care of by relatives.

He was nicknamed the “Tree Man”.

It’s not that he didn’t try to find a cure before: Indonesian doctors tried their best, even burning off some of his growths, but the growths simply came back a few weeks later, and the growth rate was even faster!

Then, it was only natural that Dede’s worst fear was that the warts would completely cover his face, making him blind and starving him to death.

It was diagnosed as an extremely rare severe Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) infection by Dr Anthony Gaspari, American dermatologist. In fact HPV is a “fairly common infection” where in normal cases, it only causes small warts to develop. However, in Dede’s case, he has a rare genetic fault that gets in the way of his immune system: his body cannot deal with the warts. Hence, the virus was able to:

hijack the cellular machinery of his skin cells, ordering them to produce massive amounts of the substance that caused the tree-like growths known as “cutaneous horns” on his hands and feet.

The condition became so bad that it became life-threatening, as the warts caused a lung infection which necessitated his hospitalisation in early 2008.

By the end of his 9-month stay in hospital, 6 kg of warts were surgically removed from his body. In all, 95% of the warts had been removed.

Finally on 26th August 2008 he was cleared to go home so that he could observe the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan with his family.

Before he went home, he showed journalists how he could now write for the first time in more than 10 years:

If you thought his condition is still bad, you should see his condition BEFORE being hospitalised.

Video of him being interviewed by The Telegraph UK before he was admitted to hospital:

Click here to see the video

Check out these superlatives: more than 15,000 performers. 4 hours long. Reportedly cost over USD300 million to produce. Attended by more than 100 heads of state, heads of government and sovereigns, by far the largest in Olympic history.

An NBC commentator said: “No matter how spectacular others have been, and there have been many, that this is uber-spectacular. Even if they pull off 75% of their plans, it will truly be over the top and it should be something that that anybody who sees it will never forget.”

Well, no matter how good it is, people will remember the fakes and the failures, which include the following.

On 11th August, 3 days after the opening ceremony, it was mentioned in Gizmodo that what must be the world’s most spectacular display of Microsoft Windows XP Blue Screen of Death ever seen was right there on the roof of the Bird’s Nest:

This photo was first posted at powerapple.com. The date is 9th August instead of 8th August because by the time the torch was lit by Li Ning, it was near or after midnight in Beijing.

Rivercool was inside the stadium during the ceremony and reported that the BSOD was there for about 2 hours, from 10pm to midnight local time. Why the technicians didn’t notice it is anybody’s guess. An even more pertinent question is: what was the purpose of the roof projection?

Bill Gates was at Beijing too for the Olympics. Wonder what he thought of this.

Then, on 12th August, 4 days after the opening ceremony, Lin Miaoke, 9, who sang “Ode to the Motherland” that night was revealed to have only been miming, and that it was not even her voice, but rather that of Yang Peiyi, who was not chosen because she wasn’t pretty enough, even though her voice was better than Lin’s. Apparently it’s something to do with her crooked teeth, rather than a need for acne cream. This decision was defended by the organisers as “it was in the best interests of the country.” As for Yang, she was reported to have said that she did not regret the decision, as “she was satisfied to have had her voice featured in the opening ceremony.”

This was the performance:

Before that episode, on the 10th of August, it was revealed that a fireworks display used during the opening ceremony was a digitally-crafted fake a year in the making which was then inserted into live TV feed at the correct moments. Those watching TV would’ve seen 29 (or was it 28?) firework “footprints” travelling across Beijing from south to north. Later a senior official from the organising committee confirmed that footage of the display had been produced before the actual opening ceremony. It was explained that this was done for “convenience and theatrical effects,” because following the footprints’ real trail would’ve been too dangerous for a helicopter camera:

It must be said that the footprints were well and truly set off, which can be clearly seen from the ground:

Source
The BBC, 12th August 2008
Gizmodo

The 2008 Olympiad must be the most reported - written about, videoed, photographed event of the year. Hundreds, if not thousands of journalists and of course bloggers are covering it. Then there comes a point where one gets sick of it all: Olympics overdose, if you will.

When this happens, only truly iconic, truly memorable images will be good enough to jolt you back to your senses.

So ladies and gentlemen, IMHO, the best photograph of the current Olympics I have seen so far is the following, of US President George W Bush looking at World and Olympic champion beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh. He visited the US team at Beijing’s Chaoyang Park Beach on 9th August 2008.

The only caption possible is: WOW!

Source

Ad: You could also say Bush was thinking: she definitely does not need any treatments for acne!

Devenna Jaikob was Miss Sabah / World 2008 in April. She was also the 2006 Unduk Ngadau. She went on to represent Sabah at recent Miss Malaysia / World 2008 pageant, but went out in the earlier rounds. Frankly, I thought she looked prettier than the winner.

The following photo was taken during the rehearsals of Miss Sabah / World 2008, sans make up:

…and the following photo was taken during the pageant:

Does she look like she needs an Orovo drink?

Dennis Reggie

Denis Reggie is a 25-year veteran in this arena. Based in Atlanta, he became famous for a new style of wedding photography called “wedding photojournalism.” He’s shot hundreds of celebrity weddings, and probably took the most famous wedding photograph of all time - that of John Kennedy Jr. to Carolyn Bessette - the groom kissing the bride’s hand as they step out of the one-room church where the ceremony was held:

Reggie described it in his own words:

They asked me to release just one picture of the wedding that I thought told the story, only one and it was to be my choice. There was a special energy about the moment. It’s one that I actually had to take in silhouette because it was a very dark island, no electricity for miles and there were candlelight’s only. I am focusing on her silhouette and I noticed that John had reached for her hand to bring her hand to his lips and I thought: ” gosh what a wonderful moment”. And I’m thinking in slow motion, although they were moving pretty quickly and I was able to get that one picture off with my Hasselblad and it was a moment for me that said it all. It’s one that that was later to be used on over a thousand covers of magazines and newspapers and it was a great honor. Of course it was a bittersweet as well because of their tragic demise three years later and that moment will always be a happy moment.

Hundreds of celebrity weddings. A thousand magazine covers. Hasselblad camera.

Top that!

Joe Buissink

Joe Buissink of Beverly Hills. Question: What’s so special about him? Answer: None other than Annie Leibovitz has hired him, not once but twice: to shoot her sister’s wedding, then to shoot her cousin’s. If you didn’t know, Leibovitz is the USA’s most famous photographer, who took many famous photos, amongst them Demi Moore’s pregnant and naked photos in Vanity Fair, Cyndi Lauper’s “She’s So Unusual” and “True Colors” album covers, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” album cover, Gisele Bündchen and LeBron James on the April 2008 cover of Vogue America and Miley Cyrus’ controversial Vanity Fair photo in which she appeared to be semi-nude.

Having said that, in the past more than 10 years Buissink himself has shot weddings almost the same number of celebrities as Leibovitz, including for Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Lopez.

Jerry Ghionis

Jerry Ghionis, based in Australia has won two “Album of the Year” awards at the prestigious annual Wedding & Portrait Photographers International convention, where he’s been the winningest photographer of the last four years. Although based in Australia, he draws huge crowds in the U.S. as a speaker.

Kevin Kubota

When Kevin Kubota charged USD10,000 per wedding a few years ago, and still people hired him. He even has his own line of Photoshop add-ons, Kubota Image Tools.

That’s it. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading my list of photographers whose creations are worth our picture frames.

Source

Last month, the Chinese Crested dog was named the World’s Ugliest Dog, and won USD1,600.

The owner said the prizemoney would be spent to treat Gus’ skin cancer.

Gus has had it worse than most dogs: rescued from a bad home, then had a leg amputated due to the cancer, then lost one eye after fighting with a tomcat.

But honestly speaking, I think he looks rather endearing.

The organisers should take a look at some of the dogs in Sabah - they look truly horrendous, and not in an acne-ridden way…

Source

Arguably, the earliest and greatest ever car chase in the movies was made 40 years ago in “Bullitt”, that 1968 police thriller, starring legendary actor Steve McQueen as Lieutenant Frank Bullitt.

It won an Oscar for Best Film Editing.

It’s will always be remembered for THE car chase scene, lasting about 9 minutes, in downtown San Francisco, where Bullitt, in a dark “Highland Green” 1968 Ford Mustang GT-390 CID Fastback chasing 2 bad guys in a “Tuxedo Black” 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440 Magnum.

Bullitt and his Mustang burning rubber

A little tech info:
- the car that Bullitt drove was a first-generation, modified Mustang.
- 2 V8 Mustangs (325 bhp) were actually used
- the Mustangs’ engines, brakes and suspensions were highly modified for the chase by veteran car racer Max Balchowsky.
- the cars reached speeds of over 110 mph (175 kmph)

The movie poster

Such was the impact of the film that in 2007, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Finally, I saw the film for the first time a few years ago, and even though I’ve seen many later films with impressive car chases, I think I have yet to see another to surpass this, with the possible exception of the French Connection.

Click here to see a video of the chase scene