In 2010, doctors diagnosed Jen with a rare type of bone cancer. As part of her thankfully successful recovery, part of Jen's pelvis was surgically removed. Now she can bend her left leg much farther than ever before. In this video, she asks TV show host Ellen DeGeneres to let her show off this ability on television.
-via Yababoon
When aspiring rapper Baba Brinkman went to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, he decided to mix a little rap into his studies in Medieval and Renaissance English Lit. In fact, he recreated Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in rap for his Master's thesis, thus making him the only peer-reviewed rapper in the world.
After graduating in 2003, Brinkman began his career as a rap troubadour and achieved great success with this clip above, The Rap Guide to Evolution.
View more of Brinkman's work over at this neat post by 'xim Sauriol over at Geeks Are Sexy: Link
If you find jogging on the treadmill boring, try this instead: treadmill dancing! Was he inspired by OK GO's Treadmill Dancing?
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Holykaw and Pleated Jean
Meet Maedir Eugster, a 58-year-old "balance master" of Rigolo Swiss Nouveau Cirque who can balance anything - and by anything, we mean a feather and 15 palm frond spines on top of one another until they become a giant kinetic sculpture unlike anything you've seen before.
View BALANCE, as directed by Tobias Hutzler: Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo] - via Co.DESIGN
Photo: Russell Cheyne
Daredevil cyclist Adam Flint, who once bungee jumped on a bike, rode down the wall of the Lawers Dam on Lochan na Lairige in Scotland. Now that's a "dam" neat trick! Photographer Russell Cheyne snapped this fantastic photo, which you can see over at The Guardian: Link
Skill. And a very sharp knife. And someone mentioned the advantage of a great cutting board. A whole watermelon is chopped and ready for salad in 20 seconds flat. (via Viral Viral Videos)
Richie Trimble rides tall in his 14.5-foot bicycle. He sees the world from 17 feet above ground, which gives him a unique view. It can't be easy balancing on a bicycle that has to be up against a building just to climb on!
As a cinematographer in Los Angeles, it’s rare for Richie to make it out to bike rides. Two weeks ago, his calendar clear, he rode on The Safari Bike Ride where he met up with friend and fellow bike builder, Rick Hill. Richie tells me that “Rick makes the most awesome bikes.”
Richie challenged Rick to the tallest bike in LA – two weeks later, STOOPID TALL would be constructed. Richie was building it for Saturday night’s bike ride, C.R.A.N.K. MOB, to take it to the next level. It took him twelve hours to build, the final eight hours on the day of the bike ride.With only one Huffy beach cruiser frame, crank, handle bars, seat post and the fork as the rest of the bike is made by round and square steel tubing. The curves in the the round tubing were created from an upside down shopping cart and log on top. The chain alone is six and a half bicycle chains, that’s thirty-two and a half feet. With no real tools or a flush surface, Richie used c-stands (usually seen being used on film sets), levels and small wedges, built by eye-ing it in his back yard. “I was skeptical it would even ride at all.”
But it did, as you can see from this POV video. Warning: may induce vertigo.
Read more about the bike called STOOPID TALL at L.A. Streets Blog. Link -via Blame It On The Voices
Thirty freestyle athletes hold hands, ski, and do a backflip, mostly at the same time. How this happened without anyone breaking something, I can't understand. The friends pulled this off yesterday at Mont Saint-Sauveur in Quebec. See more pictures of the stunt at imgur. Read more about it at reddit. Link -Thanks, Terrence!
You've heard the phrase "he's got more talent in his big toe than I've got in my whole body"? Austrian band Mnozil Brass shows off some skills you didn't even know musicians had in this performance of "Lonely Boy." -via Arbroath
This delightfully silly piece is Albert Lavignac's "Galop Marche," a short work usually performed by multiple pianists on as few pianos as possible. Here's one performance in Dublin that requires the use of 16 hands squeezed onto 2 pianos.
-via TYWKIWDBI
Devin Graham, also known as devinsupertramp, brings us the adventures of a group of extreme cliff jumpers and their 300-foot rope swing. And they did it over and over to make sure they got all the right camera angles. You can see a behind-the-scenes video with more information. Do not try this! I saw Wile E. Coyote pull this stunt in a film more than once, and it always ended with him slamming face-first into the cliff wall. -Thanks, Dallin Smith!
Don't try this at home or anywhere! Professional free runner Ronnie Shalvis knows what he is doing -I think. I can't help but suspect there are painful outtakes and hospital bills involved in the production of this video. -Thanks, Dallin Smith!
The baker knows what he is doing, and he really enjoys it, baking the bread that makes up so much of what we eat every day. Starter, mix, knead, rise, knead, rise, shape, bake, dance! Once you've seen the video, tell us which do you want now: a piece of fresh-baked bread, or a job in a bakery? -via reddit
This finely-edited compilation of clips by Zapatou is heavy on extreme sports, featuring amazing athleticism and skill, odd POVs, and some heart-stopping moments. Not all of them are real. Don't blink, or you'll miss something crazy! -via Viral Viral Videos
Spencer Watson competes in the Open Individual Indoor Unlimited competition at the 12th Annual Windless Kite Festival. This is a new thing to me -sort of like dance mixed with puppetry, but it's mesmerizing to watch. -via Metafilter
Watch and marvel at what these craftsmen can do. The wood plane is a tool that woodworkers use to reduce flat surfaces. In Japan, the use of the wood plane is a competitive sport by masters of the craft. At the link, you can see them cut long slices of wood in sheets as thin as 9 microns.
Photo: China Daily
Eye ay ay! Wang Xianxiang has a unique way to carry buckets of water: with his eye lids!
The 42-year-old fireworks maker from the central Chinese province of Hunan was photographed last weekend performing his signature trick: Suspending two water buckets with a combined weight of 9 pounds on plastic hangers hooked to his eyelids for a minute.
Wang entertained local migrant workers at a provincial festival near his hometown of Liuyang Saturday.
“When I first started it was extremely painful,” Wang told NBC News about his unique talent, “but after a lot of practice it’s just uncomfortable today.”
NBC News' Behind the Wall has the story: Link
I've eaten so many oranges during my life. Now I feel like I wasted them all. Who knew such a crafting feat was possible? Follow the apparently simple instructions by Koji Nakamura to make your own orange wristwatch.
-via Pleated Jeans
You and I may hum the soundtrack of popular movies, but Petra Haden really takes it to the next level. Watch her a cappella performance of famous movie scores using just the layerings of her own vocals.
The video clip above has the following songs:
Rebel Without A Cause Main Title 00:00
God's Lonely Man 02:50
Cool Hand Luke Main Title 04:51
Cinema Paradise 06:57
A Fistful Of Dollars Theme 09:58
Psycho Main Title 11:49
Goldfinger Main Title 13:52
Carlotta's Gallop 16:03
It Might Be You 19:04
The Planet Krypton 24:19
Superman? Theme 25:41
My Bodygaurd 29:36
Pascal's Waltz 32:26
Calling You 33:50
Hand Covers Bruise 38:37
This Is Not America 42:58
Or check out some specific selections:
Like that? You can get her album Petra Goes to the Movies
Link: Petra Haden Official Website - Thanks Tiffany!
Who still rides scooters? Guys who can do this. They are:
The Pro riders featured in this video were....
Lucky Pro Riders:
Kota Schuetz (@dakotaschuetz)
Lil Jon (@Jonjeffrey92)
Mike Montgomery (@Mikeshyphy)
And special guests Jake Clark (@jakeclarkk1) and Vincent Kudrna
In a video by Devin Supertramp. -via Daily of the Day
Well, those crates of beer aren't going to sort themselves, will they? That's why this group of Romanian warehouse workers sort cases of empty beer bottles for recycling LIKE A BOSS!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
Blink and you'll miss it! French magician Yann Frisch shows us how much fun (or rather, frustration) that one can have with cups and balls.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks Marge!
There's walking and then there's precision walking. And it's a sport of sorts in Japan, complete with Precision Walking Competition (previously on Neatorama). There can only be one explanation: they're bots.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
Think you can parallel park? Not like this, you can't!
Apparently, the world record for tightest parallel parking is highly competitive. In the past two years, the record has changed hands several times. At first, the title belonged to New Zealand stuntman Peter Bell, which parked his car in a space only 27 cm (10.63 inch) longer than the length of the car.
In August 2011, the record was smashed by German stunt driver Ronny "C-Rock" Wechselberger, who beat Bell's record by one centimeter:
Twenty six centimeter (10.24 inch) turned out to be too long, because Patrick Folco beat it by a full two centimeters. Then, Zhang Hua upped (or is it lowered?) the bar at 24 cm (9.45 inch):
Not to be outdone, Chinese master wheelman Han Yue managed to set a new Guinness World Record by shaving an incredible 7 cm from the record. As it currently stands, the Guinness World Record for Tightest Parallel Parking is an astonishing 15 cm (5.91 inches) longer than the car.
Check it out:
Sean Pawling figured skiing was just too easy, so he took his trombone along on a downhill run at Lake Tahoe. If you were going to shuss down a mountain while playing music, what song would you play? Yep, that's right. -via Arbroath
Eighth grader Matt DeMember made an unbelievable shot that just beat the buzzer in a youth basketball game at Greenridge Baptist Church in Maryland. Not only did he get a great reaction from the crowd, but later ESPN tweeted the video. It's a kid's dream come true!
-via HuffPost Sports
What a treat -to be at your local doughnut shop and suddenly a group of talented elderly men break into song! Recorded in Oakville, Ontario, the group is believed to be The Entertainers. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Behold the acrobatic basketball of Faceteam, a freestyle basketball troupe from Hungary, highlighted properly in a video from Devin Supertramp. Don't try this at home. -via Viral Viral Videos
His job is to grab attention, and he's a master at it! Nonstop (Marquese Scott) collaborated with this sign flipper to bring us a video celebrating their mad skills. -via Holy Kaw!
