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Pointless Endeavours (Arbitrary Pursuits; Not Record Attempts)

And when it comes to pointless gestures who is better at it than mad despots?

Turkmen leader orders ice palace

By Monica Whitlock
BBC Central Asia correspondent

President Niyazov of Turkmenistan has ordered the construction of a palace made of ice in the heart of his desert country, one of the hottest on earth.

It is the latest in a series of colossal building projects instigated by the all-powerful president that seem to defy the country's environment.

"Let us build a palace of ice," said President Niyazov, "big and grand enough for 1,000 people."

The palace will stand in the mountains just outside the capital, Ashgabat.

President Niyazov made the announcement in a speech broadcast on Turkmen television, which in effect made it a presidential order.

Environmental challenge

The idea is to build the palace in the Copa Deg Mountains outside Ashgabat, now baking in the summer heat, with a long cable-car running up from the city.

"Our children can learn to ski," Mr Niyazov enthused, "we can build cafes there, and restaurants."

President Niyazov's extravagant buildings are a hallmark of his idiosyncratic regime.

He is currently building one of the biggest mosques in the world, and has a chain of conventional palaces.

But the latest have a special quality - of challenging Turkmenistan's desert environment.

As well as the ice palace, there is to be a vast aquarium. The projects tend now to be sites of recreation for the people, like a Disney-style theme park instead of state palaces.

That is in keeping with Mr Niyazov's image as a servant of his people, who lays on every sort of amenity for them.

Ice palaces were popular in the Soviet Union, to which Turkmenistan once belonged, but they were built in the freezing cities of the north, far away.

The Turkmen mountains are relatively high, but it is hard to imagine the palace remaining frozen without some sort of technical help.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3554626.stm

Published: 2004/08/11 09:48:40 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 
President Niyazov of Turkmenistan has ordered the construction of a palace made of ice in the heart of his desert country, one of the hottest on earth.

He really is a character isn't he? he's the guy who passed a ruling that Turkmenistan nationals who have to take a driving test need to read and then pass another exam on his own relgious and social writings before they are a certified driver.

Or something like that.
 
Agent Buffy said:
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!!!!:

he was probably drunk. i'm fairly sure that's how i found out i could lick my own nipples.
 
fluffle said:
he was probably drunk. i'm fairly sure that's how i found out i could lick my own nipples.

By Jove we are a talented lot - which gives me an idea for a thread.

edit: Its here:

forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17117
Link is obsolete. The current link is:

Wild Talents: What Are Yours?
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/wild-talents-what-are-yours.17117/


Oh and I don't remember how I discovered I could do the same - I just woke up in intensive care in a neck brace.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I firmly believe that if we collectively as a species didn't focus our time and effort on useless things we would very likely have destroyed ourselves by now. Why else would we spend money on things like art, music, or something like the opening cermony for the olympic games? Talk to an existentialist, or if one is unavailable in your area read a book by Camus or Sartre, and you'll find out why people spend so much time doing silly, useless things. I don't have my library handy right now, but Im pretty sure that Camus (maybe it was one of the other guys) wrote something (an essay? a book? that unclassifiable and nearly unreadable piece of work I can only call a philosophical treatise?) on suicide that got me thinking...thankfully I stopped thinking and went back to drinking soon afterwards.
 
Min Bannister said:
Blimey, thats worse than the elastic band bloke.

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

I've got one of those on my desk at work. :eek:

Not as big as that, of course, but it's getting on for the size of a baby's head. I automatically add the elastic bands from the day's post to it each morning . . .

Carole
 
Ms Indigo said:
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?

Absolutely, excellent place. Especially FA's daughter freaking everyone out by seeing a "Ghost" walking up the stairs ahead of us
 
I thought this was rather pointless one-up-manship:

DAREDEVIL WALKS THE WALK

A blindfolded man has walked a tightrope between two hot air balloons 4,000ft above the ground in the first stunt of its kind.

Mike Howard, 38, already holds the world record for the highest balloon tightrope walk at 18,800ft.

The Manchester airline pilot inched his way along the 19ft pole at the four-day Bristol Balloon fiesta.

He claimed it was the first time such a feat had been performed blindfolded.

The stunt was a practice run before he attempts it again at a record-breaking 20,000ft.

As Mr Howard returned to ground level he said the experience was "exhilarating."

He said: "People think hot air ballooning is pretty but very sedate - we like to show that it can be a bit more exciting."

Mr Howard insisted the need to concentrate on balancing meant he had no time for nerves during the three-minute walk.

The daredevil was wearing a parachute in case he fell.


---------
Last Updated: 13:22 UK, Saturday August 14, 2004

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1147650,00.html

You can imagine them sitting around drunk:

"Well I'm going to walk between two balloons"

"I'm going to do it blindfold"

"I'm going to do it blindfold on a bike!!!!"

"I'm going to do it blindfold on a bike while on fire!!!!!!!"
 
i just saw a bloke on the telly who had made the world's longest length of french knitting. there was about enough to fill a skip, and he was still going. apparently this aussie is trying to beat him now, but he reckons the aussie is stretching his knitting to make it longer which is cheating of course.
 
long distance running . . .:eek!!!!:

Vomiting, the shakes, diarrhoea - all delightful after-effects of running ultra-marathons. The human body isn't built to run 50 miles a day, but that doesn't mean no one will try it.

Bob Brown finished a 3,100 mile race across the United States fuelled by the three Ps: Preparation. Perseverance. Pasties.

He describes himself as a laid-back primary teacher who enjoys life in Cornwall with his wife, Amy. But his biography reveals something else about the 35-year-old: "I just cannot resist a challenge." And he has, in the past, described himself as an exercise junkie.

So the fact that his name was among the dozen entrants in the Run Across America makes sense, even if the idea of running nearly two marathons a day seems ludicrous.

Fuelled by Cornish Pasties and competitive fire, Mr Brown was the first to cross the finish line in New York's Central Park nearly 511 hours - of running - after he first set out from southern California on 12 June.

That makes more than eight hours and 43 miles a day. Hard? Certainly. Sensible? Debatable.

official website - apparently they pay the organisers $2000:eek!!!!:
 
Apologies if posted elsewhere, have run a search couldn't find anything:

One of those that you question "How on Earth do you find out you can do this?"

Turkish man eyes squirting record

The effort that goes into breaking some world records is enough to bring tears to your eyes.

But record hopeful Turkish Mehmet Yilmaz's eyes don't water, they milk.

Mr Yilmaz, 28, has mastered the discipline of eye-squirting - sucking milk through the nose into the eye before squirting it out across a table.

He hopes his latest distance of 2.795m (9.2ft) is confirmed as breaking the former record of 2.615m (8.6 ft) held by a competitor from British Columbia.

"I have been working for almost three years, I practised with more than 100 litres of milk," Mr Yilmaz told Reuters television.

"Now I can say that I don't like milk a lot, I cannot look at milk and milk products as food."

How do you get into such a sport, or discover such talent? Watch for bubbles in the bath.

Four years ago, Mr Yilmaz found bubbles were coming out of his left eye while swimming in a pool.

He later found out that the bubbles came from a pressure leak inside his eyelids.

When he saw a previous Guinness attempt on television, he thought he would give it a go.

But the feat carries a "don't try this at home" warning, as only a few people around the world have the necessary physical anomaly.

The Guinness World Records must confirm the attempt before Mr Yilmaz can call himself a record holder.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/3618788.stm

Published: 2004/09/01 17:27:02 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 
Quixote said:
Apologies if posted elsewhere, have run a search couldn't find anything:

One of those that you question "How on Earth do you find out you can do this?"

and the supplementary question: Why is there even a record??
 
How,is it the sauna stuff possible?
1. I though water couldn't be brought to a temperature above boiling except under pressure.
2. If the water really were above boiling setting in it for 12 minutes would allmost certainly prove fatal.

I'd like to know more about this stunt.
 
In a sauna you're sitting on a bench not in water it's the air temperature that is above boiling point. Adding water to the stove just generates steam (which can be above 100C at normal atomospheric pressure).

I'm not sure how it's supposed to keep the temperature up though, I suspect some there's some garbling in the the report.
 
OK not quite pointless but you do wonder if people want do something pointless and then work in a "worthy" motive. On a less cyncially footing: Good for him!!!

Load of good, clean fun had

Apr 14 2005

By Helen Korn, Ormskirk Advertiser


A PRIMARY teacher reached the peak of success after climbing a 3560ft mountain - with a washing machine strapped to his back.

Mark Gibbons, 28, from Ormskirk, wanted to raise money for the Kenyan Orphan Project by carrying the six-stone appliance up Mount Snowdon in Wales.

He was inspired to help after seeing the success of his friend Paul Lyon who cycled from John O'Groats to Land's End, raising over £500 for the charity.

Mark said: "It was one of those crazy ideas you get on a night out.

"I don't think anyone has ever done anything like this before - at least not with a Hotpoint Deluxe 800!"

The fundraiser spent a whole day making himself a harness out of an old ruck-sack and used string the next day to attach the washing machine to his back.

Friends John Alcock, Matt Collins and Geraldine McAdam also climbed the mountain and were there to spot him in case he tripped up or was struggling.

A sign on his back read "This is for charity, I'm not crazy" to alert confused passersby.

During the eight-hour trek up the mountain, several generous people stopped to donate money and Mark managed to collect an impressive £200 on the mountain alone.

Some American women watched the climber in awe and one man even took the machine off him for a few yards and then gave him £2 for the privilege.

On eventually reaching the summit, Mark got his highlydeserved sandwiches out of the drum and ate them.

He added: "I was tired at the end of it, but it was a nice day, so it wasn't too cold. "I want to thank everyone who gave me donations during the climb and everyone who sponsored me."

---------------
MARK'S next mission is to carry a whole bathroom suite to the top of Ben Nevis in the summer, again aided by his friends.

He is hoping to raise even more money and has set up a website to collect donations. Total proceeds raised by Mark and Paul will go towards the construction of two new classrooms, a library and laboratory for the new school and running costs of an orphanage in one of the poorest cities in Kenya - Kisumu.

Mark and his team of volunteer helpers will be going over in the summer to begin the work.

Both projects are backed by a registered charity, the Widows and Orphans international charity.

The group website is http://www.justgiving.com/climbbritainkop. Currently their target is to raise £1,000.

If anyone would like to donate a bathroom suite for the team to carry, please contact Mark on his website.

Source
 
Ms Indigo said:
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?


I havent been there but I watched a special featuring this and other strange houses. The reason the winchester house was constantly being worked on was that the mrs. thought the house was haunted and spirit activity only stopped when there was construction going on. So the only way to keep from being tormented and frightend by the spirits(which she was convinced were the dead who had been killed by winchester made guns) was to have the noise and clamor of construction.
 
There is so much to see and do and yet some people try and do things like this:

Man trying to visit every Starbucks in the world

Liz Atwood
Baltimore Sun
May. 5, 2005 11:24 AM

John Winter Smith is nothing if not an optimist. For eight years, he has chased a goal that he admits he may never achieve: to visit every Starbucks Coffee Co. store in the world.

The Silver Spring, Md., resident has bought coffee at more than 4,500 of the chain's outlets in North America and 213 overseas. He still has a long way to go.

How many more stores? Maybe 100 or 200 in North America, hundreds more overseas. "I think I'm slipping a little," says Smith, 33, who recently moved to Maryland and works as a computer programmer for an Elkridge manufacturing company.

The popular Seattle-based coffee chain owns 4,525 stores in North America and 1,018 abroad, according to a company spokeswoman. In the coming year, Starbucks expects to open 1,500 stores worldwide -- an average of four stores a day.

Smith, a native of Houston, says his quest began as a lark, spurred by a conversation with a friend in a Starbucks in his hometown in 1997. "The idea randomly popped into my head," he says.

At first, he tried to visit any store with a Starbucks sign, but he found a mind-numbing sameness to the grocery-store outlets and airport kiosks that are licensed, but not owned, by Starbucks. So he tweaked the rules for his quest and decided to visit only those stores that are company-owned.

And for a visit to count, he must order a small cup of coffee at the store.

It's a pursuit that he likens to collecting. Some people assemble baseball cards, coins or hubcaps; he collects Starbucks visits -- and occasionally keeps the coffee cups, which he turns into sculptures.

"If I could sum it up in one word, it is the adventure," he says. "The road trip is iconic America."

And while the unusual hobby fulfills his lifelong desire to stand apart from the crowd, it also meshes well with his other passion: tournament Scrabble.

So far he hasn't made headlines for his Scrabble playing, but he has won a certain amount of acclaim for his Starbucks endeavor. He's been invited to lecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara and appear at Kings Dominion amusement park in Virginia. He's been on the CBS' "The Early Show," National Public Radio and CNN Headline News. An amateur filmmaker is making a documentary about Smith's odyssey.

"It struck me that this guy is doing something so bizarre it would be a great subject for a documentary," says Bill Tangeman, a lawyer from Kearney, Neb., who has been filming Smith for the last several months. "I had always wanted to do a documentary," says Tangeman, a former broadcast journalist. "But I had never found a subject worthy of the effort."

Taking temporary computer-programming jobs, Smith travels the country in a 1997 Honda Civic, attending two or three Scrabble tournaments a month and visiting Starbucks stores along the way. He has put more than 70,000 miles on his car in the past year, and this spring spent 11 days traveling through the South, sleeping in his car.

"In the overall sense, I don't get tired of it. The whole process is very enjoyable," he says. "I've learned to push my boundaries and limits farther than I thought I could."

Although he confesses that many of the suburban Starbucks are a blur in his memory, a few stand out, like one in a round pink building in Wayne, Pa., and the store in a Tokyo amusement park.

And even when he is not visiting new Starbucks, he tends to hang out in familiar ones, preferring to work on his laptop in the coffee shop.

"I've always liked the hustle and bustle," he says.

This year, he hopes to travel to California where about half of the Starbucks stores he hasn't visited are located. And a store in Silver Spring will be opening soon that he'll have to visit.

But Smith doesn't know if he'll ever catch up to the sprawling coffee company.

"I have no timetable and no plan to stop," he says.

Despite his persistence, it seems unlikely Smith will become a Starbucks mascot the way Jared Fogle has been adopted by the Subway sandwich chain.

Starbucks spokeswoman Lara Wyss says Smith "demonstrates a great enthusiasm for the Starbucks experience and it is flattering to learn about his passion for Starbucks coffee."

Actually, Smith makes it clear he isn't interested in shilling for the company. His opinion of the coffee: "It's very consistent," he says. "I've gotten used to it."

Source
 
Two things to note here: He's an optimist? Only if he thinks the experience will get any better. Or change at all, for that matter. (As he intimates himself.) He sounds more like a masochist to me.

Or maybe a geek? He's a programmer, and he plays competition Scrabble. He's a geek, but not the good kind.
 
Crikey! A dark side Geek. Truly dangerous! :D
Starbucks coffee consistent? Wth what? Dishwater? Cat urine? Coolant fluid?
:?
 
He didn't say it was good, just consistent.

Definition of a psychotic: Someone who repeats the same action over and over again, expecting a different result.
 
anome said:
Definition of a psychotic: Someone who repeats the same action over and over again, expecting a different result.
No, he's expecting the same result, so he's not psychotic.

These massive conglomerates of outlets that all look the same ... Has anyone ever written a story abou all the Mc'Donalds in the world being so alike, that one day a wormhole will appear and all the fastfood stores will become interconnected.

Has this big ball already been mentioned as a pointless endeavour?

Biggest Ball of Twine, Cawker City, Kansas
Passing through Cawker City? Stop by. Check out our Ball of Twine. Who knows? Maybe you'll be impressed.
 
Emperor said:
Pointless but it really does appeal to me:

www.fincher.org/Misc/Pennies/

Anyone else eying their penny jar?

I'm kicking myself because I cashed one in recently (I got £80 out purest slummy but......).

[edit: Linked to form the above but I thought I'd throw it in too:

http://kassett.net/coin/

Some fine spiarls!!!]

that's amazing. i'm going to start saving my pennies now!
 
Emperor said:
Pointless but it really does appeal to me:

www.fincher.org/Misc/Pennies/

Anyone else eying their penny jar?

I'm kicking myself because I cashed one in recently (I got £80 out purest slummy but......).

[edit: Linked to form the above but I thought I'd throw it in too:

http://kassett.net/coin/

Some fine spiarls!!!]

Power is out at my place for past 3 days. I've got a pretty big penny tower going. Neighbors think I'm nuts. Thought you'd enjoy that Emperor.
 
Pointless? Well, mostly, but I quite like this one myself and it is raising awareness for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, which continue to be an excellent programme:

Dinner and dive from air balloon

A team of explorers say they have broken a world record to host a dinner party at a table suspended below a hot air balloon at 24,000ft (7,315m).
David Hempleman-Adams, Bear Grylls and Lieutenant Commander Alan Veal were all involved in the unusual challenge in Somerset on Thursday.

A three-course spread was laid on for Mr Grylls and Lt Comm Veal who abseiled from the balloon's basket to the table.

They saluted the Queen before skydiving to earth.

Mr Grylls, 30, said: "The aim was to celebrate 50 years of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award.

"The record was set at 22,000ft (6,705m) in the Himalayas and we wanted to break it with a twist."

Temperatures reached -45C as the adventurers enjoyed duck a l'orange on plastic plates.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wilt ... 636543.stm

And toasting Her Majesty the Queen at 24,000ft and -45C has a certain charm..
 
Man Builds Full-size Viking Ship Of Ice Cream Sticks

August 29, 2005, 10:59:26


A former Hollywood stunt man has built a 45-foot Viking style ship - made entirely out of wooden ice cream sticks.

Rob McDonald, who now lives in the Netherlands, used millions of the lolly-pop sticks and more than a ton of glue to make the replica ship. The 13 tonne boat set sail in Amsterdam after it was delicately lifted onto the water by crane.

'Captain Rob', as he likes to be known, is now planning to apply for a mention in the Guinness Book of Records.

McDonald estimates he used 15 million birch wood ice cream sticks in total, which were donated by an ice cream manufacturer and found as rubbish by local children.

www.femalefirst.co.uk/bizarre/88142004.htm
 
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