UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

Unsecured loan consulting and placement firm America One was established in 1999 and offers its services to both small business owners and general consumers across the country.

They had been the nation’s biggest provider of such services 7 years in a row and handles a whopping half a million applications every year.

The ideal customers for them are those that are looking into amounts of between USD10,000 and USD100,000. Any reasons are accepted: Business or Personal Loans.

Perhaps the thing most borrowers want to hear is that America One is exclusively dedicated to unsecured financing. This is in direct contrast to the practice of many financial instutions and banks. The result of America One’s practice is predictable: there are more approvals in Personal Loan applications and most importantly, satisfied customers.

So, check them out if you’re in the USA and looking for a Loan.

Popularity: 2% [?]

According to the Happy Planet Index (HPI), the level of happiness of the people of a nation is measured by “the success of countries in supporting good life for their citizens, whilst repecting the environmental resource limits upon which our lives depend.” The BBC’s website says it “shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered.”

The study was done by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) in 2006, where the aim of the HPI was to demonstrate that well-being did not have to be linked to “high levels of consumption.”

Vanuatu came out tops, out of 178 countries surveyed. In contrast, its GDP is ranked only 207th out of 233 economies.

Blue waters contrast with black sand beach, Sulphur Bay, Tanna Island, Vanuatu

Malaysia is ranked 44th.

My immediate thought was: at least our world happiness ranking is higher than our world football rankings. On a more serious note, we’re doing better than some of the largest economies: Germany is at 81st, Japan at 95th and the US at 150th.

HPI is based on unconventional factors like consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness, not the usual things like GDP.

Regarding Vanuatu, it is a tropical island in the South Pacific and has a population of 209,000. It has a GDP of USD2,900 and its main resource are forests and fish. Its economy is mainly based on small-time agriculture and tourism.

The rest of the top 10 are dominated by Latin Americans.

Now we know about the happiest country, how about the unhappiest? African and Eastern European countries dominate the bottom 10 of the list.

Some of the more interesting findings of the study:
- “Retail therapy” (=shop till you drop) does not bring happiness: ladies, take note!
- The last 50 years have seen standards of living in the West improved tremendously; but the level of happiness has remained stagnant.
- The main source of happiness is human relationships, not monetary wealth.

So if you want to go on vacation surrounded by happy people, you know where to go. Or perhaps, you’d like to retire there.

Source
Happy Planet Index
The BBC, 12th July 2006

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Queen, and in particular Freddie Mercury’s finest hour was on 13th July 1985, during the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium, London, in front of 72,000 people (some say 80,000).

Live Aid is, until now still the world’s largest televised pop concert. Queen were onstage for 20 minutes, and were generally considered to have stolen the show. Live Aid was shown to 170 countries, and seen by 1.5 billion people.

Mercury’s performance, and Queen’s set has been described as “the greatest gig in the history of rock”.

I think that is rightly so, because he singlehandedly managed to get ALL 72,000, right to the last person at the back of the stadium, to sing along, to clap hands, to sway in unison to “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions”

Queen performed 5 songs:

- “Bohemian Rhapsody” (partial only. Why? Because no tape playbacks or
soundchecks were allowed, to save time)
- “Radio Ga Ga” (in which Freddie got the ENTIRE stadium to clap in
unison to the chorus)
- “Hammer to Fall”, (during which he danced with a cameraman)
- “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”,
- “We Will Rock You” (partial) (in which Freddie got the ENTIRE stadium to sing along, word-for-word)
- “We Are the Champions” (in which Freddie got the ENTIRE stadium to sing along, word-for-word)

At any gig, no matter how small, it will usually impossible to get every member of the audience to do this.

Click here to see the performance

Popularity: 5% [?]

Who else but the late Freddie Mercury (1946-1991), lead singer of world-famous group Queen? Born Farrokh Bulsara, his parents were both Parsis from the province of Gujarat in India. He was born in Zanzibar, an island off the coast of eastern Africa because his father worked with the British Colonial Office.

Mr Bulsara legally changed his name to Freddie Mercury sometime in the early 1970s.

As well as an acclaimed rock vocalist and world-class showman, Mercury was a formidable songwriter, having composed international hits and all-time classics like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Are the Champions”.

At the age of 17, Mercury and his family fled Zanzibar, because of the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution, and moved to Britain. He became a British citizen.

Just look at this list of achievements, can any other Asian mega/rock/pop star beat this:

- Queen has apparently sold 300 million albums;
- As of 2005, Queen albums have spent a total of 1,322 weeks (27 years!) on the UK album charts; even more than The Beatles or Elvis Presley!
- Their album “A Night At The Opera” (1975), which contains “Bohemian Rhapsody” is ranked number 230 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
- Their compilation album “Greatest Hits” (1981) has sold 25 million copies worldwide.
- In 2006, Time Asia named Mercury as one of the most influential Asian heroes of the past 60 years.
- Their performance during Live Aid (1985) is considered the greatest gig in the history of rock.

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Yes, Valentine’s Day 2008 is over. But keep this for next year. But hey, who said you can only give roses to your other half during the V-Day itself only?

Why not give her arguably the world’s tallest and biggest roses?

Costs USD250 per dozen as sold by Organic Bouquet.

It measures 5 to 6 feet in height, and each stem has a large head which opens to 3-4 inches in diameter!

These red roses were grown naturally in Ecuador, between 2 volcanoes at more than 9,600 ft high.

How did they become so tall? According to the website, this is due to “days of prolonged sunlight and cool nights.”

Source

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Watch this guy checking out the apparently problematic mike. He put his ears next to it, as though expecting sound to come out of it – but I thought you have to listen to the loudspeakers instead? Or perhaps he detected some kind of insect trapped inside and making a buzzing noise?

Your guess is as good as mine, but I’d go as far as saying even an AP Royal Oak won’t help his case here.

Click here to see the video

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There’s so many things wrong: timing, pitch, melody, pronounciation: everything!

You can even see the incredulous faces of some young spectators in the background.

And it happened right in my backyard more than 20 years ago!!

Click here to see the video

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You would NOT want this guy to borrow your car, he’d not even make it out of the driveway!!!

Click here to see the video

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I’ve always been a sucker for one-of-a-kind performances, especially when they involve world-class celebrities.

In early 1999, Shania Twain performed, together with The Backstreet Boys, one of her best-loved songs, and a favourite at weddings, “From This Moment On”.

The Backstreet Boys might’ve been dissed left and right, but there’s no doubting that they can really sing:

Click here to see the video

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Elton John went up on stage with Shania Twain and sung, together, 2 of their biggest hits: “You’re Still The One” and “Something About The Way You Look Tonight”.

What a contrast in styles, and Elton demonstrated yet again why he’s one of the world’s greatest living musicians by infusing his very own style into any song, and Shania showed how unfair life can be: she’s a top-selling country singer who, at the same time, looks like a supermodel. Mutt Lange, you da man…

I think any music lover would be entranced by this one-of-a-kind performance:

Click here to see the video

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I think’s it must be the famous “Dueling Banjos” scene from the film Deliverance (1972).

I first saw the movie in 1986, 14 years after it was made, and thanks to YouTube i saw the scene again almost 22 years later.

The scene shows Billy Redden, 16 as Lonnie, an intellectually challenged and inbred boy but extremely gifted banjo player, playing the instrument with Ronny Cox, who plays a guitar.

It was acutually played by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel. Weissberg is considered to be one of the best five-string banjo players ever.

Billy Redden in 2004, 32 years after Deliverance

The piece was originally composed in 1955 by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith and Don Reno, and was originally known as Feuding Banjos in 1955.

Click here to see the video

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Possibly she is not someone who you’d expect to see perform at San Diego cigar bars, but anyway: Lena, 74 of Hornchurch, Essex, United Kingdom is a real stripper. She’s the oldest stripper in the UK and possibly the world.

Why does she do it? She said she’s “fed up with busty young blonde girls hogging the limelight. I want to put the sex back into 60 plus. People want something a bit more real.”

Amazingly, she has been doing this for 25 years. Even more amazingly, she claimed that her popularity did not dwindle as she aged. And perhaps most amazingly, she has seven children and ten grandchildren.

But this one tops it all: she said all her grandchildren are really proud of her!

Source
The Sun (UK), 21st Jan 2008

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What can be more amazing than playing 2 guitars at once, in BOTH hands?

In April 2003, Guitar One Magazine named Michael Angelo Batio the fastest guitarist of all time.

Here he is playing a Double Guitar, apparently his invention.

Click here to see the video

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