Sunday, November 23, 2008

Top 10 Bizarre World Records

Before the Guinness Book of World records took on the format of a coffee table book, I used to read it cover to cover every year. Back then the categories seemed to be pretty straight forward. Tallest, shortest, heaviest, fastest etc. Now it seems many categories are a little contrived just to keep the book fresh and different. However I do have to admit some are quite interesting to watch. So here is a list of 10 world records that are different and entertaining.
10
Lying With Live Cockroaches



This guy lays down in a glass coffin while people pour a record amount of cockroaches on him. It is simply astonishing what people will do to get mentioned in a book.



9
French Kissing




8
Head Spins



This guy does 124 head spins with no hands break dance style. Tylenol anyone?




7
Slam dunk off a trampoline




These guys take their slam dunks off of a trampoline distance records very seriously.



6
Motorcycle Jump to a Moving Truck







 



5
Consecutive Three Pointers




4
House Speed Building





3
Highest Vocal Note by a Male



In this clip we see Adam Lopez - an Australian. He sings a note higher than D7 (the highest note on a piano). The host of the show actually asks this guy if he still has his testicles.



2
Freeflying




This is called “Freeflying.” Instead of falling belly to earth as an average skydiver would do these people fall vertically. It really has an eerie look to it. In some of the camera angles it looks like you are walking in on a ghostly party gathering. When falling this way it increases the freefall speed so since most parachutes are not designed to be opened at these speeds freeflyers must transition back to the belly to earth position and slow down their descent for several seconds before deploying their parachute. This was a world record for largest Vertical Formation and was set on August 3, 2007 over Chicago.

1
Rolling an Orange with your Nose




Terminal 4 at JFK International Airport was the unlikely location for 21-time Guinness record holder Ashrita Furman’s latest attempt to make history. Furman was attempting to break the Guinness record of 29 minutes for rolling an orange with his nose for one mile. Although rolling an orange with ones nose may look amusing, getting in record-setting form is serious business, said Furman. “It’s down to 29 minutes for the mile and it’s actually very fast, it’s a very intense record and so it’s a challenge to me even though it’s silly so hopefully it’ll work out.” After 24 minutes and 34 seconds, the orange and then Furman entered the record books, squashing the old record by over 3 minutes. It was the first for the orange, but Furman’s 87th time in the Guinness book.