Weekend Randomness: The Domino Mattress World Record

Usain Bolt is crazy jelly!

Since the dawn of time people have worshipped at the altar of their favourite sports stars, from the great legends of folklore to modern sporting icons such as Christiano Rinaldo or Usain Bolt. Every one probably has one moment in their lives where sport played a major roll, where you watched mouth open as the worlds most impressive athletes shaved a few precious seconds off of that world record, claiming a gold medal and glory for the nation. 

The people who I am writing about today are not those kind of people yet they did manage to smash a world record this past weekend in New Orleans. 850 Americans broke the world record (as approved by an on site adjudicator from the Guiness World Records Group) for the longest chain of mattress dominoes. The preious worldrecord was 550 which had been achieved by a group in Belgium last year. The donated mattresses will now be given to various charaties.  A video of the group can be viewed here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCVi6JjVaaA . 

Weekend Randomness: Playmate Found Mummified

Yvette Vickers

The body of Yvette Vickers, a former playboy playmate was found severely decomposed in her Beverly Hills home this week. A neighbour of her's had claimed that the B-Movie actress had not been seen outside her home since the Summer.

It was this neighbour (Susan Savage) who noticed cobwebs forming on the Ms Vickers' letterbox. There she found the cordless phone off the hook and the electric heater still on. She claimed the body of her neighbour was barely recognisable.

Weekend Randomness: The Case of Tokyo's Oldest Man

This story is one of the site's most popular Weekend Randomness post originally posted on the 31st of July last year. Its a genuinely bizarre story and one of my personal favourites. 

The current world life expectancy average is 67.5 years with the Japanese being the most long lived population in the world with average life expectancy of 82.6 years. This contrasts with the average in Swaziland of just 39.6 years. This weekends random news comes from Tokyo, a thriving metropolis of nearly 14,000,000 people.

 So in such a long lived population there is a lot of interest in just who is the most aged resident in the city. Up until this week the record was held by one Sogen Kato a man of 111 years. The record for world's oldest man is held by another Japanese person Tamoji Tanabe in the Southern City of Miyakonojo. He is also 111 years.

Weekend Randomness: The Georgian Woman who Brought Down the Internet

Hayastan Shakarian - Could you trust this woman?

In my time away from the  blog (and at the library) I've been missing my weekly randomness section quite a bit s today makes its triumphant return with a brilliant story about a  75 year old Georgian pensioner, Hayastan Shakarian,  leaving the internet browsers of bot Georgia and Armenia without access for 8 hours last week.

Shakarian was searching for scrap metal near her home in the village of Ksani, Georgia when she came cross the fibre optic copper wire with as a Georgian minister put it "a view to stealing it". Taking into account her age she has been released pending  further investigation, however, she may face up to three years in prison if properly convicted in the future.

Weekend Randomness: A Little Sexism for the Weekend - Man Flu

This is easily one of my favourite weekend randomness posts. In South Korea scientists investigating the man-flu phenomenon have made a startling discovery, it may in fact be real.

The scientists analysed over 1,200 manual workers in 40 companies in Incheon, South Korea. The found that men in more demanding jobs were 74% more likely to report having a cold or flu symptoms than those under less pressure. There was at 42% heightened risk of illness in men with insufficient control over their jobs and 40% among those who lacked adeqate "social suport".

The study should that work related illness was by and large a problem reserved only for the male population. Women were said to be generally less susceptible to work related pressures and are more "stoic" in their approach to such matters according to the scientists who carried out the research. I can't help maintaining an aura of skepticism around this research. What do you guys think?

Weekend Randomness: The Bullet Sneezing Man

This weekends bizarre and wonderful nugget of random information comes courtesy of Darco Sangermano a 28 year old labourer from Italy. While in partying in Naples with his girlfriend on New Years Eve, Mr Sangermano was struck with a stray bullet which  entered into his temple. I know what you are thinking, this doesn't sound like the typical fluffy weekend randomness fodder. Read on.

Weekend Randomness: Montana Teen Tries to Buy Drugs off of a Police Officer

This story is an amusing little gem which came out of the Associated Press News Agency today dealing with the case of a teen from the Montanan capital of Helena in the central Northern United States.

The male teen thought he was sending the following message to his drug dealer to get some pot "Hey Dawg, do you have a $20 I could buy right now?" Unfortunately, the young man actually sent the message to the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton.

Weekend Randomness: The Japanese Sumo Association

The Japanese Sumo Association or JSA made the news this week for taking a step out of character and investing in the latest form of technology for its plus-size members, apple's IPad.

The decision was taken after members complained of the difficulty of sending texts and e-mails using the small keys on a standard mobile phone. Owing to the larger size of the IPad the touchscreen has larger keys which are more navigable by their larger digits. The JSA claimed having one of these in every stable would allow them to keep in contact with their members more easily. They had been using faxes and phones to contact their memories in the past.

Weekend Randomness: The Case of the Exploding Mobile

In what has been a decidedly light week for news besides the constant horrific flooding in Pakistan this story could almost have made it into my regular week day posts however, I think it fits perfectly into my weekend randomnes Saturday slot.

Gopal Gujja, a 23 year old Indian man was the victim of a rather tragic, and unfortunate accident, his Nokia mobile phone exploded fatally killing him. While there were no witnesses to the event it is presumed he was talking on the phone at the time of the incident. He sustained fatal damage to his neck, head and shoulders.

Weekend Randomness: An Interesting Awakening

Anyone looking for an amusing anecdote for the weekend could do a lot worse than talking to Arctic explorer Sebastian Plur Nilssen. The 23 year old was traveling with his companion Ludvig Fjeld as they attempted to become the first duo to ever travel around the Arctic island archipeligo of Svalbard, a region home to 2,700 citizens belonging to the kingdom of Norway.


While this is no mean feet in and of itself it was undoubtedly made just a tad more difficult by the events of one morning just last week where Mr Nilssen woke up to find himself in jaws of the worlds largest land predator, an adult male polar bear. He was subsequently dragged screaming in the jaws of the bear from the tent having tried to grab his shotgun but noticing the bear had managed to bend it in half.

Weekend Randomness: Tokyo' Oldest Woman

Yes on first look this might appear to be a repost but this really remarkably is a different story. Indeed, if you missed my post this time last week on Tokyo's oldest man you might want to take a look at it because it is as a direct result of that eerie finding that this latest revelation has come about.

Sparked by said eerie events the relevant authorities in Tokyo have begun investigating the whereabouts of their cities centenarians. They have now bene forced to start the hunt for Fusa Furuya, said to be Tokyo's oldest living female resident at 103 years of age.

Weekend randomness: Tokyo's Oldest Man

Update: A story regarding the whereabouts of Tokyo's oldest woman has come about it the past week. Catch up at the link.

The current world life expectancy average is 67.5 years with the Japanese being the most long lived population in the world with average life expectancy of 82.6 years. This contrasts with the average in Swaziland of just 39.6 years. This weekends random news comes from Tokyo, a thriving metropolis of nearly 14,000,000 people.

 So in such a long lived population there is a lot of interest in just who is the most aged resident in the city. Up until this week the record was held by one Sogen Kato a man of 111 years. The record for world's oldest man is held by another Japanese person Tamoji Tanabe in the Southern City of Miyakonojo. He is also 111 years.

Weekend Randomness:The Taiwanese Newsreader

Another week has flown by meaning its is time for another piece of weekend randomness. If you have missed out on any of the other editions in this series you can check them out in the blog archive on the side bar. This nugget of brilliance comes courtesy of Huang Ching a Taiwanese newsreader.

Last Wednesday while live on air the newsreader was the victim of a mosquito. The small insect was seen across homes in the nation crawling into the newsreader's mouth. Subsequently, the woman could be seen struggling for breath while valiantly trying to read out the rest of the news. Eventually, while in the midst of a sever asthmatic attack the broadcaster cut to 4 minutes of ads while a replacement presenter was drafted in and Ching was sent to hospital.

Weekend Randomness: I can be people too!

Update: According to magical internet statistics last week's post on the penguin theft from Dublin Zoo  was pretty popular with you guys so I've decided to make Weekend Randomness a weekly feature. Tell me what you guys think in the comments section.

One of the suprising things you find while searching the web on the trawl for the best in international news is the sheer volume of random and brilliantly unique events that happen every day on this crazy planet of ours. But the story that particularly caught my eye this week was that of a pack of gorillas which began making the rounds on Wednesday.

Dr. Davila Ross has a job that most of us would envy, and probably as rare as a social dialectologist. Dr. Ross is an expert in primates with specific focus on play and leisure. Over the past three years she has spearheaded a study into a simple game of chasing (or tag in American) between a group of gorillas in 5 different European zoos.

Weekend Randomness: Dublin on its Knees

I thought I should post this story because given the international readership of this blog it is unlikely that anyone outside of the Emerald Isle (ie Ireland) will ever hear about it. Of course being the blogger that I am and covering the type of material that I do I love anything with the faintest whiff of news or current affairs about it.

However, one major criteria for this is that it must not be Irish. Now this has nothing to do with the quality of Irish broadcasting. In fact for the money it receives i would be willing to bet the Irish state broadcaster does a fine job when compared to its international counterparts. Indeed for sports coverage Irish pundits are lauded in all major disciplines for being much much stronger than their British counterparts. The sole reason is that next to nothing ever happens in this country. That was until yesterday, Thursday the 8th of July.2010.