Some of you may have seen Mark Beaumont on TV after  he claimed the new  Guinness World Record for cycling around the world. He completed 18,000 miles in 194 days! Mark and his sisters  grew up at Bridge of Cally, near Glenshee and our son, Cameron and Mark cycled in the forest at Crow Hill and up Glen Callater, when they were very young.

We had just moved to Canada as Mark was travelling on his world trip and I followed his journey with interest. His record was actually beaten by James Bowthorpe, who cut the record to 175 days. Right now, Julian Sayarer is on his last 400 miles and if all goes according to plan, should beat the record again by about 10 days. Where does this end? There must be a limit to how fast one man and his bike can travel.

But, Mark  is now on a new adventure, cycling from Alaska to Argentina. No mean feat, but he climbed Mount McKinley on his way through Alaska and plans to climb Aconcagua as he travels through Argentina. He is filming and making a series for the BBC. You can read about his trip and follow his journey at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/cyclingtheamericas/2009/05/welcome-to-cycling-the-america.shtml

Since following Mark, I’ve found that half the world is on its bike, either on extended trips taking years, or just out at week-ends.

This family of 4 have been cycling from Alaska to Argentina as well, and actually met up with Mark.

You can read their adventures at   http://familyonbikes.org/

I also read about a couple from Mull, travelling the same route with their 8 year old daughter.

But this expedition really inspired me.

Ann Wilson, at the age of 59, decided to set off on her own adventure.

Read about it here

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=RrzKj&page_id=113699&v=8y

And this couple from Muthill, on their way to Australia!

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=RrzKj&page_id=122344&v=EV

Another adventurer whose writings I love to read is Alastair Humphreys. He has been on lots of different expeditions and has written book.

His web site is worth bookmarking and looking at again and again.

http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/adventures/canoeing-the-yukon/

It seems that we are never too old to do something different. Anyone fancy cycling across Canada with Jeff and I or maybe walking the Apalachian trail?

Okay, so I’m hearing all the news from over the weekend about this guy. The basic story is, Jeremy Swan now holds the Guinness World Record for the number of tattoos done in 24 hours. The long story is, should we care? Yes, it’s kind of cool, and every artist wants to be the best at something in particular- but should we care about how fast a tattoo artist can bust out a tattoo, or should we care about its quality? Should we give awards for speed, or artistic merit? Can you measure artistic merit?

Keeping things short, here’s what I’ve already written on the matter for TATTOO TV:

Swan Stops At Nothing For a Record <Via Tattoo.TV>

As of this moment, I have 58 followers on Twitter after creating an account 4 months ago. Pretty stellar, eh?

Based on this underwhelming success, I am definitely not your best source for learning how to reach Twitter stardom. But who really cares about gaining more followers and participating in games of superficiality? What Twitter users are dying to know is the opposite: attaining absolutely NO followers PERIOD. Right?

So with my expertise and well-established track record, let me dispose to you the invaluable secrets to losing all your Twitter followers once and for all.

Step 1: Obsessively tweet to a Guinness World Record

Last October, the #BeatCancer campaign set a new Guinness World Record for the most social network mentions in 24 hours with 209,771 total messages shared through blogs, Twitter, and Facebook.

Having conducted some unscientific research on Google, I have come to the conclusion that there is no Guinness world record for the most tweets by a single account in a given time period. What does this mean? It means that you can achieve fame and fortune(sort of) while working towards your desired goal of losing every Twitter follower.

How’s that for some extrinsic motivation?

Step 2: Replace your Avatar with a Spambot Photo

Many people have a habit of perusing their list of followers regularly looking for spambot accounts to block. Why this occurs, is beyond my understanding. Maybe they feel insulted by the fact that BritneyFVideos is not worthy of hearing what they had to eat for breakfast that particular morning. Or maybe they recall that traumatizing time when they mistakenly clicked the posted link on a spambot’s tweet and pictures of naked, hairy old men began to fill the entire screen.

Either way, with a spambot photo you can be assured that you’ll lose a good, healthy portion of your followers.

Step 3: Lie to your Followers

I was devastated when I clicked on the link to that Twitpic. I remember how excited I was after reading it and could barely believe what was happening. It was an early Christmas present…..that was filled with charcoal.

Don’t do this again, Megan. Please, I beg you.

Do you have zero followers yet?

If not, remember to go block loneplacebo since he might be following you as well.

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Bus Pulling Hair

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/ap_on_fe_st/eu_odd_britain_record_breaking

i was actually looking for pacquiao vs cotto live stream link but instead, i found these amazing kids showing up their stunning stacking skills. but wait, did i say that they set the newest Guinness World Record on stacking? watch Steven Purunganan and his team USA while doing the amazing stacking tricks for the Guinness Record. their performance was done on a 3-6-3 relay at 12.72 seconds. here is the video:

you think you got what it takes to beat them?

I was one of the first who went to Suomenlinna as we had to put up some signs which would guide everybody(meaning the Guinness Team,the planning team, the participants, and some weird tourists) to the sauna. The sauna is a military sauna and the biggest wood-heated sauna in the world.It was very cold and at some point I was sure my hands would fall off. Anyways, we survived and thanks to Lieutenant Commander XXX XXXX (i forgot his name…but I remember it was veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long) we could go into the sauna building early and warm up. 3 hours later almost everybody was there and we started registering the people and were followed around by cameras(photo and film). It was kinda hard cuz I was helping registering,copying passports(accompanied by good looking military police) and as I was also participating in the event by playing Miss Germany I had to do some “acting” for Guinness. Some of us had to line up and go into the sauna and show our t-shirts(which showed our native country) and scream/yell the name of our country. Do you know how hard it is to “yell” your home country in a way which does not sound stupid?

who can find me?(that one’s easy actually lol)

Well the real event started at 1pm. I almost missed it because I was busy doing other stuff and did not notice everybody was already on their way into the sauna…I made it though and had the honor to stand upstairs very close to the ceiling where the heat was worst. The Guinness Commitee closed the door and then our record-breaking attempt started. We all had to stay in the sauna for 5 minutes. The accordion player(who was actually just supposed to play during the registration) came in as well for some entertainment. It was very funny and cool as everybody was clapping, singing and shouting. At some point we all chanted “we want beer,we want beer!”…I don’t even like beer but ah,whatever . Almost at the end of those 5 minutes I noticed i left my earrings in my ears and they started to get very hot and kinda burned the skin on my neck…ouuuuuuuch!

can you see me? I am at the very top…kinda in the middle.

After the 5 minutes the Guinness team came in and announced that we had 76 different nationalities in the sauna and broke the old record of 57(losers!!! muahahah lol)! Oh boy you should have heard us…we were loud!That’s the sound of world record winners .

we are the champions!

So the 5 minutes were over but the entire TV team came in now and filmed us and handing over the certificate to our teacher. I am not sure how long we stayed in there…but i was getting seriously hot up there and was very glad when I could leave the sauna. We were all so happy!!

Gerard accepting the certificate

Miss Russia & Miss Germany

José,Fleur & I…all sweaty but awesome

And we even won another record!! Two students of the team broke the record of the “fastest human wheelbarrow in 40 meters” another triumph!!

I don’t remember what time we left Suomenlinna but I was one of the last as we had to clean up afterwards.We all met up in O Malley’s, Helsinkis’s oldest pub. We got some free booze and food there and had a little ceremony where I got another certificate(for planning and organizing the whole sauna shit).

Paul,Fleur,Simone & I @ O Malley’s

I went home after that to shower,change and get ready for after-party number 2.

We all went to “Fabric” and best of all..I had free drink tickets. Actually, every participant just got one but somehow I ended up with 10 (thank you Fleur lol) so it was a very cheap night

cheers!!!

followed by sauna!!!

party hardy

Fleur & I with some weird(=disgusting) Martini which tasted like pure wodka

I wanted to leave early and take my last bus at 1.30am but somehow I changed my mind and was home at 4 this morning. Sweet! So I slept until 2:30pm and then I noticed how much stuff I actually have to do today. And because I like to distract myself from doing chores I spent a big part of the day skyping family and friends.

Now it is 1am…and I have to get up again in 3,5 hours. I am leaving for a studytrip to Russia with my marketing course. I’m a bit scared but quite excited. I hope I’m gonna have internet there so I can keep u up to date with blogs. If not, see you in about a week! Good night!!

P.S. I’m awesome.Thank you.

Ok before I go back to hibernation a little update:

I planned on having a nice cozy,alcohol- and party-free,quiet weekend at home but of course that did not work out. Some evil friends convinced me to go to Tiger with them. I love that club(and those evils knew it!) and this time they even had red carpets there…as if they knew i was coming .

No seriously, I was shocked cuz I was so sure I would not get in as I was wearing jeans and sneakers…but I got through face control yaay!

The actual reason for the red carpet was that Mick Jagger’s daughter Jade hosted a Jezebel party there and also promoted her Belvedere Jagger Dagger. It was pretty fun!

Now the new week has started and I am already stressed out as hell! I’ve lotsa stuff to do because I’m going to Russia next week and need to take care of things before I leave and there’s also the World Sauna Challenge this Saturday. It’s a project from my university and I am a member of the planning team.

We’ll try to break the world record this Sat.! We will try to get as many different nationalities into 1 sauna as possible. The current record is 57. We have 82 nationalities registered so let’s hope all of them are coming!! (or at least 58 ). If everything goes as planned I’m gonna represent Germany in the sauna.

Some people of the Guinness World Record Commitee are coming and will film everything. They will “use” us for the GWR Day 2009 which is gonna be on Nov.12th. So stay tuned cuz u might see me on TV all sweaty and creepy looking because I am not getting enough sleep these dayzzzZZ…

P.S. thanks to Liz for that fun skype-call yesterday! Was so good to see and hear you again! hugsies to the killerdog! love and miss you!

Trying to break a Guinness World record across the country, a few hundred people danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” at the Paul Derda Recreation Center, Saturday, October 26, 2009. Proceeds went to benefit “A Precious Child” charity, which is “devoted to making a positive impact in the lives of disadvantaged and displaced children world-wide.” (www.apreciouschild.org)
P.s. Check out the 3 year old dressed as Michael on the left-hand side!

done

There has been a lot of criticism towards the reasons behind this Guinness record, but, as frivolous as they may be, I’d rather see Lebanon making the headlines on such lighthearted grounds rather than news of bombings, wars and terrorism. That is why, regardless of the stubborn competitiveness of the Lebanese Industrialists Associations I say: “Make Tabbouleh, humus, kebbeh… or anything you may, but DON’t make war!” And maybe we all should look at it that way.

Our country needs the extra positive promotion, now more than ever, and despite all of our political differences, food always brings the Lebanese together.

The Tabbouleh

Yesterday, I passed by the Largest Tabbouleh, very shortly. I do not think Chef Ramzi was very proud of this Tabbouleh. The parsley was anything but finely chopped, and the remaining ingredients were floating inside the lemon, olive mix. Hence, I called it Tabbouleh Soup.

I can say that a lot of good ingredients went to waste, 1600 kg of parsley to start with. You can check out all the ingredients that went into the giant Hommos & Tabbouleh plates, as well as classical tabbouleh & hommos recipes here. What I did not understand how 1600 kgs of parsley plus 1500 kgs of tomatoes plus all the other ingredients, make for only 3000 kgs? Is there so much waste?

Some nice photos of the ‘making of ‘ on Star Scene.

Final Words of wisdom off the record

Waseet: It is great that you are planting trees, but its un-cool to distribute flyers, printed on virgin paper (without ecological certification) to promote it.

People: Littering is un-cool, even if you know there will be someone cleaning after you. Would you act like that in your homes?

“GUINNESS WORLD RECORD SHATTERED BY CITIZENS ACROSS GLOBE DEMANDING THAT THEIR LEADERS END POVERTY

More than 173 Million People Gather at “Stand Up, Take Action, End Poverty Now!” events, setting new world record for largest mobilization in history

A Guinness World Record shattered this weekend when 173,045,325 citizens gathered at over 3,000 events in more than 120 countries, demanding that their governments eradicate extreme poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). “Stand Up, Take Action, End Poverty Now!”, now in its fourth year, has been certified by Guinness World Records as the largest mobilization of human beings in recorded history, an increase of about 57 million people over last year.

http://standagainstpoverty.org/

“The more than 173 million people who mobilized this weekend sent a clear message to world leaders that there is massive, universal, global demand for eradicating poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals,” said Salil Shetty, Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign. “In particular, we have seen citizens determined to show their governments that they will hold them accountable for keeping their promises to end hunger, improve maternal health and abolish trade-distorting agricultural subsidies. They will not accept excuses for breaking promises to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, who have already been hardest hit by the global food, economic and climate crises they had no role in causing.”