Whatever happened to long-distance bed pushing? It was a craze that swept across colleges in 1961. Time magazine (Feb. 24, 1961) reported on it:
The latest caper in Canadian colleges is bed pushing. Born at the University of Rhodesia, and perfected—as was last year's college craze, phone-booth stacking —at South Africa's University of Natal, it spread over some sort of Commonwealth bush telegraph. Last week Canadian college students from Nova Scotia to British Columbia were indefatigably mounting beds on wheels and pushing them over highways, prairies and frozen lakes. The current world's record of 1,000 continuous miles is claimed by a team from Ontario's Queens University, which kept its Simmons rolling day and night for a week.
I found reports of students continuing to push beds long distances as late as 1979 when a new world record was set (1,980 miles by students from Pennsylvania's St. Vincent College who pushed a bed in laps around a shopping center). But then the fad seemed to fade away. At least, I haven't been able to find reports of more recent updates to the record.
The picture below shows students from Ontario Western University pushing a bed along a highway back in 1961.
Mustafa Ismail won the 2013 Guinness World Record for having the largest biceps. He's called the 'Egyptian Popeye.' He insists his bulging arm muscles are 100% natural, and according to albawaba.com, 'Japanese doctors' have examined him, looking for any signs of doping or suspicious needle marks, and have pronounced him to be the real deal. But I'm having trouble believing that. Arm muscles simply don't develop like that naturally.
Among the things Guinness awards world records for is breast-milk donation, and Texas mom Alicia Richman was recently recognized as the new record holder for donating 86 gallons of breast milk over a period of nine months. That's a lot of milk. She hopes to break her record if she has another child. [chron.com]
Mike Carmichael of Indiana owns the World's Largest Ball of Paint. It started out back in 1977 as an ordinary baseball -- and then he began to paint it. Many thousands of coats later, it weighs over 3000 pounds, has become a roadside attraction, and is recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest ball of paint in the world (I'm not sure if there are any competitors to the title).
According to Mike's website, for $10 he'll write anything you want on his paint ball and send you a picture of it. His website was last updated in 2007, so I'm not sure if the offer still stands, but if it does I'd be tempted to put a message from Weird Universe on it. Any suggestions?
Watch Travis Fessler set the record by stuffing 11 cockroaches in his mouth. According to an article on Cincinnati CityBeat, he says doing this hurts because the roaches have sharp barbs on their legs, and they try to crawl down his throat. So I'm crossing this off my bucket list.
It's not enough for BrewDog to make the world's strongest beer (55% APV), but to serve it up in Squirrels is a novel idea. (PETA will hate it, of course.)
When I think of the Olympics, I rarely consider that each event has both a mens and a womens division. I tend to focus more on the sport itself regardless of who is competing. After all, the Olympics is supposed to encourage the spirit of friendly competition, and not highlight major flaws, such as gender bias. Unfortunately this year's winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, is doing just that. Women ski jumpers have petitioned to join every Winter Olympics since Nagano in 1998, and each time they have been denied by the International Olympics Committee (IOC). So what's the deal? Well, the IOC is sidestepping the issue. They've issued a written statement that reads "Women's Ski Jumping does not reach the necessary technical criteria and as such does not yet warrant a place alongside other Olympic events." Yet female ski jumpers argue the point (read about it here). Lindsey Van, current world record holder for the longest jump, is quick to point out that they meet the necessary criteria. But it may be a long time before we see women flying off the end of a ski jump in front of Olympic judges. IOC member Dick Pound is quoted as saying "If in the meantime you're making all kinds of allegations about the IOC and how it's discriminating on the basis of gender," he warned, "the IOC may say, 'Oh yeah, I remember them. They're the ones that embarrassed us and caused us a lot of trouble in Vancouver, maybe they should wait another four years or eight years.'" Yes, you read that right. He is publicly threatening female ski jumpers to keep them out of the Olympics for years if they persist. So much for the spirit of friendly competition.
Category: Fads, World Records, 1960's