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Whether or not you’re in a relationship, it’s still pretty easy to get swept away in the romantic spirit of Valentine’s Day. In honor of the holiday, let’s take a look at some of the most romantic world records ever achieved.
I don’t know about you guys, but I would need a serious Chap Stick infusion after kissing someone for 46 and a half hours. The couple, Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat, was part of a contest held in Thailand in 2011, which led to seven couples breaking the existing record of 32 hours that was set back in 2009.
It takes two people who can both hold their breath for a long while to break this record, which is why it is so impressive that Italians Michele Fucarino and Elisa Lazzarini were able to hold their breath while kissing for 3 minutes and 24 seconds.
While the Italian couple may have set the record for longest underwater kiss without breathing, Antonio de la Rosa Suarez holds a different but equally impressive record for kissing underwater. In his case, two women took turns kissing him while passing air to him. He stayed down there for 7 minutes, which seems like a relatively short record given that he was allowed to breathe during the process. Maybe one of you guys could take a crack at this one.
Love Sharon Stone? Not as much as Joni Rimm apparently. Rimm actually shelled out $50,000 for one kiss with the actress, who offered up a lick-smacking session as part of a charity auction supporting Project Angel Foods, a charity dedicated to providing free meals for people with HIV and AIDS.
As if having a giant wedding ceremony wasn’t romantic enough, the fact that 34 couples opted to exchange wedding vows underwater on Valentine’s Day makes this one sweet occasion, even if kissing the bride 33 feet underwater isn’t exactly an easy proposition.
It seems strange, but the world’s longest hug was actually almost a full day shorter than the world’s longest kiss. At only 24 hours and 33 minutes, it seems that this record, held by Ron O’Neil and Theresa Kerr, is just begging to be broken –so if you want to get in the book, better start locking arms now.
Wanna get your MMO romance on and help set a new world record? Well, if you happen to play RIFT, then get married in the game on Valentine’s Day and you can help them set a Guinness record for most virtual marriages in a 24 hour period. Personally, the fact that you can incorporate a corgi into your virtual wedding is a huge selling point for me.
Link Via Geekosystem
The new Guinness World Record Book is coming out next week. One of the new record holders is Harbor, a Black and Tan Coonhound, who has the longest ears of any living dog. His left ear measures 12.25 inches (31.1 cm) and his right ear is 13.5 inches (34.3 cm) long! -via the Presurfer
The old ad slogan "Guinness is good for you" may actually be true: a study showed that drinking just over a pint of Guinness at mealtimes may help reduce the blood’s ability to form dangerous clots that may lead to heart attacks.
Drinking lager does not yield the same benefits, experts from University of Wisconsin told a conference in the US.
Guinness were told to stop using the slogan decades ago – and the firm still makes no health claims for the drink.
The Wisconsin team tested the health-giving properties of stout against lager by giving it to dogs who had narrowed arteries similar to those in heart disease.
They found that those given the Guinness had reduced clotting activity in their blood, but not those given lager.
Link (Image: spleeney [Flickr])
Previously on Neatorama: Stories Behind 7 Famous Beer Logos
The next time you open a bottle of beer, don't just chug the brew - take a look at the logo on the label. Ever wonder who St. Pauli Girl actually is? Or why there's the mysterious number "33" on Rolling Rock beer bottles? Read on. Neatorama takes a look at the Stories Behind 7 Famous Beer Logos:
Photo: safoocat
[Flickr]
What's not to like about the St. Pauli Girl? She's blonde, big bosomed, and brings us big frothy mugs of beer! But what most people don't realize is that she's not exactly just a waitress. Yep, St. Pauli is the famous red light district of Hamburg, Germany.
In 1977, St. Pauli Girl Beer started to choose a spokesmodel to represent the beer brand and appear on the popular St. Pauli Girl poster. In 1999, they started using Playboy magazine playmates as the girl (the 2008 St. Pauli Girl is Irina Voronina). Here's the gallery of St. Pauli Girls from 1977 to 2007: Link
This one's pretty straightforward. PBR was originally named Best Select, then Pabst Select and finally Pabst Blue Ribbon, named because the practice of tying blue ribbons around the beer bottleneck from 1882 until 1916.
Pabst advertisement from 1911 (Source)
The
mysterious '33' has been on the label of Rolling Rock since the Latrobe
Brewing Company brewed its first batch in 1939, but what does it actually
stand for? Theories about the origin of the cryptic '33', some undoubtedly
hatched in bar arguments, range from the year 1933 (the year Prohibition
was repealed), how many steps it took to walk from the brewmaster's office
to the brewing floor, the number of the racing horse on the label, and
even the highest level of Freemasonry (33rd degree).
According to James Tito, the former CEO of Latrobe Brewing, the number '33' may actually be an accident. When the founders of the company came up with the slogan
Rolling Rock - From the glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe, we tender this premium beer for your enjoyment as a tribute to your good taste. It comes from the mountain springs to you.
someone wrote '33' at the end to indicate the number of words, but the bottle printer mistakenly incorporated it into the label graphic. They decided to keep the 33 instead of having to scrap and replace the bottles. Even though the slogan had been changed several times in the history of Rolling Rock, the company had made sure to use the same number of words. (Source - see argument against this reasoning within)
(Image: Gravy Bread)
The logo of Heineken is rather simple: it consists of the five-pointed red star and the word "Heineken" in green, but there's something remarkable about it: Alfred Henry (Freddy) Heineken, the grandson of the founder of the company, Gerard Heineken, helped develop the company's own typeface (common today, but rare back then). He insisted that the 'e' in the logo should look friendlier. Indeed, the three letters 'e' in the logo are slightly tilted backwards to make it seem that they are smiling.
Arthur
Guinness brewed his first stout in 1759, it took Guinness over 100 years
later to select its logo - the harp of Brian Boru - a gaelic harp in Ireland's
heraldic emblem and a symbol of Irish unity, not to mention the Euro coin.
By the way, Ireland is the only country in the world with a musical instrument
as a national emblem.
Brian Boru was the king of Ireland that ruled from 1002 to 1014 and protected and/or freed - depending on who you ask - the Irish people from the Vikings. The harp named after him, however, was actually much, much older. According to Celtic myth, the gaelic harp was owned by the Dagda, a king/god/father-figure, that can summon the seasons.
There's actually a real instrument named the harp of Brian Boru. It's one of three surviving medieval harps dating from the 14th or 15th century and is on display at Trinity College Dublin.
By the way, if you are named O'Brien or O'Brian, then you're a descendant of King Brian Boru - so a toast (Guinness, of course) is in order!
Stella Artois was launched as a Christmas beer in 1926 - its name is a combination of the latin word for "star" and Sebastian Artois, a brewmaster in the Den Hoorn Brewery (founded 1366) in Louvain, Belgium.
The logo of Stella Artois beer reflects the beer's origin - Den Hoorn is Dutch for "The Horn," and the now-defunct brewery lives on as the horn prominently displayed on the top of the label of every bottle of Stella Artois beer. The fancy frame around the name is also in the style of Flemish architecture in the city.
(L) Bass & Co's Pale Ale, the very first trademark registered in the
UK (1876) at the Intellectual
Property Office; (R) current logo
Bass Pale Ale's Red Triangle logo may be simple, but it's pretty darned special: it's the very first trademark registered in Britain. When trademark registration law took effect on January 1, 1876, a Bass employee was sent to wait overnight outside the registrar's office in order to be the first in line to register a trademark the next morning. Bass & Co. Brewery got the first two trademarks, the first being the Bass Red Triangle for their pale ale and the second the Bass Red Diamond for their strong ale.
Bass is also the most frequently featured beer in fine arts. Bottles of Bass beer can be seen in Manet's 1882 painting Bar at the Folies-Bergère.
Bar in den Folies-Bergère by Edouard Manet (1882)
Okay, so this isn't exactly about beer logos - but brewers often advertise their beers in outrageous manners, and there's nothing quite as outrageous as the notorious Old Milwaukee's Swedish Bikini Team:
Ironically, there's nothing Swedish about the Swedish Bikini Team - the women were all played by American actresses wearing platinum blonde wigs!
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Obviously we haven't talked about many other beer logos. So if your favorite beer isn't listed here, why not tell us all about it in the comment section?
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If you like the article above, take a look at the rest of Neatorama's Logo series:
- Evolution
of Tech Logos
- Evolution
of Car Logos
- Stories
Behind 10 Famous Food Logos
- Stories
Behind Hollywood Studio Logos
My friends sometimes say I have a problem with never shutting up. I bet if they met Lluis Colet, they might change their tune. In 2004, Colet was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for longest speech. His 2004 speech lasted 48 hours. Since then, the record was beaten, so Colet won it again, this time by talking for an amazing 124 hours. In the name of all people who talk too much, my hat is off to you Lluis.
Link Via Weird Stuff News
