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Pointless Endeavours (Arbitrary Pursuits; Not Record Attempts)

SoundDust

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Chainsaw Madman

Just one question - Why?

Amid blinding stage lights a lone juggler has mustered all his strength to juggle three rotating chainsaws - scaring his audience but setting a new world record as a result.

The record he had to beat was 42 throws but after failing the first attempt, dropping a chainsaw after number 22, the record looked as if it was going to survive another day.

The challenge has been laid down to the previous record-holder, Rafael Carlos Rodriguez Bove of Cuba.

"The other guy uses electrical chainsaws while Tom uses petrol ones which are far more dangerous. Electrical ones are kinda wimpy," said Mr Sandberg.
 
I'd pay to see him drop one...........chainsaw that is.
 
Yeah cos electrical chainsaws just maim you horribly, whereas petrol ones maim you horribly AND stink the place out! :rolleyes:
 
I thought that Guiness had put a ban on records involving active stupidity...err, I mean that involve doing dangerous things with sharp implements.

I wonder how many throws that French (I think) guy (from Cirque de Soleil?) got in before he cut his own arm off?

There was an American juggler who used to be big on the Australian comedy circuit who regularly juggled chainsaws, but I believe he had a trick clutch on them so the chains didn't turn, but the engines made lots of noise.
 
For stuff that you wonder "Why bother?" - OK I know such things can get you into the Guiness Book of Records:

forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11117
Link is obsolete. The current link is:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/world-records-general-miscellaneous.68437/


but that always struck me as seocndary to soem of these people and that is just a way to legitimise ther weird obsessions.

Like:

Man Creates 1,300-Pound Baseball

Mon Mar 15, 7:49 AM ET



ALEXANDRIA, Ind. - A man who's spent years applying layers of paint to a baseball that's grown to enormous proportions is hoping to have it declared the world's largest ball of paint.

For the past 27 years, Mike Carmichael has been painting a baseball that hangs in a shed behind his home. It now weighs 1,300 pounds, is more than 35 inches in diameter and has a 111-inch circumference due to more than 18,000 layers of paint.

On Saturday, Carmichael watched as a crew took a core sample from the green ball that's needed before it can earn a spot in the Guinness Book of Records.

In honor of Carmichael's work, Saturday was declared Ball of Paint Day in Alexandria, about 25 miles northeast of Indianapolis. It starting with a proclamation honoring Carmichael on the steps of City Hall, followed by a photo exhibit and ending with the core sample taken at Carmichael's home.

"I am not going to start any more baseballs," Carmichael declared.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...57&e=10&u=/ap/20040315/ap_on_fe_st/paint_ball

Emps
 
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Blimey, thats worse than the elastic band bloke.

http://www.dragon-pictures.com/h64.htm

I'm sure you are right Emps. I mean normal people have to be able to find some things kind of addictive (work, sport etc) or else no-one would ever succeed at them. But thats just not normal. Perhaps some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder?
 
So to get back On Topic as it were, my patience on the subject ran out way before ridiculous balls of paint/longest shoelace/loudest burp/smelliest fart/biggest snot feats of human ingenuity and endurance.

What do these people think they're doing with their lives?
 
I guess they feel in some peculiar way it gives them a purpose, and life has more meaning if it has a purpose, however daft it seems to everyone else! Incidentally, have been reading about the Winchester House in San Jose, California, it sounds a fascinating place. But apparently Sarah Winchester kept building onto it obsessively for years, 24/7. Stairways leading nowhere, windows in floors etc. All 160 rooms of it. I guess in the end though it did have a purpose because it must generate quite a bit of local tourist revenue. BTW, has anyone visited it?
 
Snail-Spitting Championship

Fisherman nets snail-spitting title

A French fisherman has won a world title in an event that definitely won't be on the programme at the Olympic Games this year - snail spitting.

Reigning champion Alain Jourden, 43, retained his title by spitting the live creature a distance of 9.38 metres (31ft), said French news agency AFP.

Challengers from 14 countries,including Belgium, Spain and the UK, took part in the event at the French port of Mogueriec.

But they could not match the distance set by Mr Jourden.

The 110 competitors are each allowed three snail-spits for the unusual event.

And there appears to be a technique to sending the snail flying.

Entrants roll the live snail in their mouths to get the right angle for propulsion, then run along a 20 metre track before spitting the mollusc into the air.

An organiser said wind conditions were not favourable for this year's competition, which attracted 2,000 spectators.

Mr Jourden told AFP he had trained hard for a week before the event, carrying out "several spits a day".

He holds the world record of 10.4 metres.

A British entrant broke his country's record when his snail reached 5.82 metres. A new female spitters' record was set at 4.10 metres and a child competitor, in the under 10 category, set a record distance of three metres.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3528814.stm
 
Italian swims from Alcatraz with hands, feet bound
Fri 6 August, 2004 20:41

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An Italian pharmacist swam from the former prison island of Alcatraz to San Francisco with his hands and feet tied on Friday, the first such feat in more than three decades.

"I'm feeling good but a bit cold," Alberto Cristini told Reuters shortly after completing the roughly 2-mile (3-km) swim in an hour and 50 minutes. "The currents were strong when I started out but everything turned out well."

A resident of Rovigo near Venice, Cristini, 43, had his hands and legs tied with thick rubber bands. He wore a black wet suit, pointed his hands forward and kicked with his legs.

By the time he arrived at Chrissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge, he looked pale and his eye were bloodshot.

Although currents between Alcatraz and San Francisco were said to be so strong and waters so cold that no prisoner could escape, others have made the swim.

Health club trainer Pedro Ordenes claims hold the record for most unshackled swims between Alcatraz and San Francisco at 238. "This is one of the most difficult channels of water in the world to cross because of the currents," he said.

Fitness guru Jack La Lanne, 89, who was born in San Francisco in 1914, pioneered an Alcatraz to San Francisco swim in 1955 while handcuffed.

"It's tough," he said in an interview from his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast. "I congratulate him, I think it's terrific."

La Lanne repeated the swim on his 60th birthday handcuffed and with his legs shackled -- and while pulling a 1,000-pound (450-kg) boat.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=5900510&section=news
 
Finn and Belarussian win sauna contest
Sun 8 August, 2004 20:10

HEINOLA, Finland (Reuters) -A Finnish man and a Belarussian woman have won a competition for sitting in a blisteringly hot sauna, with both nations keeping the world titles in the bizarre endurance test.

Leo Pusa, 56, a three times former champion took back the title won by a fellow Finn last year, spending almost 12 minutes in the 110 degrees Celsius (230 degrees Fahrenheit) heat on Sunday.

Natalya Tryfanava from Belarus held onto the title she won last year in the women's contest, managing to stick it out for just over eight minutes.

Ninety competitors from 12 countries took part in the contest, held for the sixth time in the small Finnish town Heinola, some 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of the capital Helsinki.

Competitors sat in sauna cabins set up on a stage for as long as they could take the heat before running out to cool down.

Water was poured onto the sauna stove every 30 seconds to keep the temperature up.

A crowd of several thousand followed their favourites on a big video screen, cheering on every competitor as they rushed out.

"In the sauna, my head was almost empty, no thoughts about victory or anything," said 36-year-old Tryfanava, her face and limbs red from the heat.

"I was just trying to relax as much as possible, keep my breathing in check and not get burned, and still enjoy it."

Tryfanava said she and her team mates, who came third and fourth, underwent a special training programme, but declined to reveal details.

The men's contest has always been won by a Finn.

Pusa said it would be hard for foreigners to beat Finns as saunas are the country's favourite pastime.

Finland has more than 2 million saunas for a population of 5 million.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=5904632&section=news
 
Frank Keating in the Guardian reckons that a 'contest' can only be a 'sport' if you can't do it with a fag in your mouth.

(That's an English fag by the way.)

Think darts, chess and hang-gliding, against surfing, windsurfing and logrolling. :D

So 'hot sauna endurance' fails this this test whereas 'swimming with hands and legs tied with thick rubber bands' passes it.
:laughing:
 
escargot said:
Frank Keating in the Guardian reckons that a 'contest' can only be a 'sport' if you can't do it with a fag in your mouth.
Almost on-topic here: I don't know if it's still true, but smoking on the field of play was not against the rules of football (that's proper football, BTW, not this poncy, armour-clad hoopla called "grid-iron" or whatever ;)). During the record victory (or defeat - a perspective thing) in the UK, where Arbroath beat Aberdeen Bon Accord 36 - 0, the Aberdeen keeper spent most of the match leaning on a goal post, having a smoke. Now that's classy :cool:

As for pointless endeavors, I did read as a small boy of a bloke from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who was able to swim 65 yards on his back, balancing a ladder on his chin.

How do you find out you can do that ?! :eek!!!!:
 
Maybe you start by balancing other stuff (buckets, live pigs) first and progress to the ladder.

Haven't I seen Mr. Cholmondeley-Warner and his pals smoking pipes on the footer field? :cool:
 
Almost certainly - with Charles "Charlie" Charles, playing Liverpool who, for the first time, will be playing in black and white :D

And depending on which way up you balance the live pig, you probably aren't going to want to take a deep breath. Getting a mouthful of water is probably the least of your worries ;)
 
You could use a snorkel, vis-a-vis the live pig, which would also preclude cigarette-smoking and nudge the event decisively towards a 'sporting' nomenclature.
 
I dunno - you could pop a really big cuban cigar in the top of the snorkel - it'd be a bit like one of those poncy cigarette holders that 1920's flappers used to have. Then again, I'd probably prefer a mouthful of pig effluent to a hit off that!
 
Folklore tells us that pigs don't swim so unless the pig were well-trained it would panic, with inevitable effluent-related result.

You could retrieve and dry the pig effluent and smoke it in a bong while swimming on your back, maybe balance it on the ladder.
 
Oh yes, the pig would be trained - trying to balance an untrained pig on your chin, whilst swimming on your back smoking a cigar through a snorkel would just be ridiculous :D
 
What shall we do with the bucket?
 
Alternatively, we could sing a song - a bucket of water song.

***I have absolutley no idea where I dredged that up from. I'll be talking about the Phantom Flan Flinger next!***
 
There's two suggestions right away.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
 
Wow, and now almost back on topic (as if we ever strayed far from it at all - sheesh :rolleyes: ;) )

Did anybody see "The Peoples Book of Records " (I think it was called), where one of the records was to see how far you could run, whilst doing the Lenny Henry "Ooooooooo-Kaaaaaayyyyy" thing, as ably demonstrated above. The last record was the unknown record, where challengers went into a room, did **something** and came out. Does anybody know what the challenge actually was - I missed the ast one, and so never found out if it was revealed.
 
He had a big hat, that Lenny Henry.
 
escargot said:
He had a big hat, that Lenny Henry.
Well, you know what they say about men with big hats ...




They need big hat-boxes to keep them in.
 
...They have big heads.

Trust me, I know.
 
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