UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

As of the time of writing, the general consensus seems to be Melissa Theuriau (born 18 July 1978), a French journalist and news anchor for M6, a popular private French television company.

I’m sure many would jump at the chance to go on a Royal Caribbean cruise with her, no?

In recent times, Ms Theuriau has become an internet phenomenon, her fans constantly uploading video compilations of her online, and these typically get tons of views. Reportedly, she’s “surprised” by all the attention, reportedly saying, “I cannot explain it…I am absolutely not seeking this publicity.”

The following video is one of the many videos of her on youtube:

In 2006, Maxium US readers voted her “TV’s sexiest news anchor”. The next year, FHM France named her the world’s most beautiful woman.

In May 2008 she married French comedian/actor Jamel Debbouze; her son Leon was born in December that year.

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Jordan Romero (born 12th July 1996) of the USA became the youngest person ever to successfully scale Mount Everest on 22nd May 2010. He was 13 years 10 months old then. The previous record was held by Temba Tsheri of Nepal who was 16 years old when he did it in 2001.

Laura Dekker (born 20th September 1995) of the Netherlands is bidding to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world. After initial opposition from the Dutch government when she announced her plans in 2009, she was finally given the go-ahead in July 2010.

These two are too young to drive, yet they did something even more exciting than merely driving a car; still, their hobbies might cause them to realise that finding cheap auto insurance quotes are adventures in themselves!

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The Miss World and Miss Universe beauty pageants are generally acknowledged to be the world’s top two showcases of female beauty.

We often hear about Indians and Venezuelans winning them.

So how about Malaysia?

The first Malaysian lass to crack the top ten at a Miss World is Arianna Teoh Lai Poh who was a semifinalist i.e. top 10 in 1997.

Arianna (right) and Sarita Carreon

[photo credit - Sarita Carreon]

A year later, Lina Teoh (Angelina Teoh Pick Lim) created history by finishing third at the 1998 Miss World – the best ever achievement by a Malaysian in an international beauty pageant. For the record, the title that year was won by Israel’s Linor Abargil, while the runner up was France’s Veronique Caloc.

[photo credit - The Talent Factory]

Does that mean Lina is the most beautiful Malaysian who ever lived? Anyway, the best Malaysian achievement since then was Deborah Priya Henry’s top 16 finish at Miss World 2007.

As for Miss Universe, it proved to be an even tougher nut to crack.

Malaysia’s best ever showing there was way back in 1970 when Josephine Lena Wong Jaw Leng (now known as Datin Josephine Fonseka) managed a top 15 finish. For the record, Miss Universe 1970 was Puerto Rico’s Marisol Malaret and Japan’s Jun Shimada placed 4th.

That means, as far as Miss Universe achievements go, we’re still behind countries like Belize, Angola and Guam, and level with Vietnam. Doesn’t sound so good huh?

Incidentally, Datin Fonseka is the mother of Andrea Fonseka, Miss Malaysia/Universe 2004.

It is heartening to see our beauties still maintaining their figures after all these years; one wonders what they use to do that – a p90x perhaps?

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To get to the answer, I considered the placing of the albums in the following lists:

(i) Rolling Stone (RS) magazine’s “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, published November 2003. Placings were based on votes from 273 rock musicians, critics, and industry figures.

(ii) The National Association of Recording Merchandisers’ (NARM) (US based) list, published 2007. NARM was established in 1958, and is a non-profit trade association serving “music retailing businesses in lobbying and trade promotion.” Its membership includes “entertainment retailers, wholesalers, distributors, record labels, multimedia suppliers, and suppliers of related products and services, as well as individual professionals and educators in the music business field.” Its retail members account for “almost 85% of the music sold in the USD12 billion US music market.”

(iii) Rate Your Music’s (RYM) list, which is constantly updated. RYM is the IMDB for music, where, amongst others, music albums are “added, rated, and reviewed by users.” The data generated is then used to create a list of top-rated music albums. As with IMDB, “weighted averages are used to calculate the ordering for these lists; regular members who write reviews and rate more albums have a greater weight applied to their ratings.”

Here we go.

The music album collectively ranked the highest is The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). It placed 1st in both RS’ and NARM’s lists, and 9th in RYM’s list, hence an aggregate score of 11.

It beat other classics like:
- Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (1965), which placed 4th at RS, 8th at NARM and 7th at RYM.
- The Beatles – Abbey Road (1969), which placed 14th at RM, 12th at NARM and 1st at RYM.
- Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon (1973), which placed 43rd at RS, 2nd at NARM and 5th at RYM.
- Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV (1971), which placed 66th at RS, 4th at NARM and 14th at RYM.
- The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds (1966), which placed 2nd at RS, 9th at NARM and 32nd at RYM.
- The Beatles – Revolver (1966), which placed 3rd at RS, 42nd at NARM and 2nd at RYM.
- The Beatles – Rubber Soul (1965), which placed 5th at RS, 110th at NARM and 22nd at RYM.
- The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street (1972), which placed 7th at RM, 6th at NARM and 90th at RYM.
- Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue (1959), which placed 12th at RM, 34th at NARM and 8th at RYM.
- Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run (1975), which placed 18th at RM, 15th at NARM and a lowly 191st at RYM.

However, it must be discreetly mentioned that in the 40+ years since its launch, it must’ve been played so many times that for some people, playing it even just one more time could provoke violent reactions, which could necessitate the need to call personal injury lawyers Tucson area, and for all intents and purposes, anywhere really.

Some modern classics had wildly fluctuating placings:
- Radiohead – OK Computer (1997), 162nd at RM, 111th at NARM and 3rd at RYM, and indeed topped the list at besteveralbums.com’s list, which attempts to compile “the overall rankings for the best albums in history as determined by their aggregate positions in over 1,800 different greatest album charts on BestEverAlbums.com.”
- The best selling album of all time, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, was rated 20th by RS, 3rd by NARM and 445th by RYM.
- Nirvana – Nevermind (1991), placed 17th at RM, 10th at NARM and 109th at RYM.
- U2 – The Joshua Tree (1987), placed 26th at RM, 5th at NARM and a terrible 904th at RYM.

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It is doubtful if any self-respecting person would choose this robotic monstrosity as their ringtone.

That is just tragic. For a laugh, yes you are welcome to use it, but seriously, nobody should seriously consider using it as their long-term ringtone.

That would be like a horrendously acne-ridden person hawking acne products, all the while gushing about how good the product he/she’s using is.

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The following are in my humble opinion the greatest dangdut songs ever, and their original performers.

Rhoma Irama – Penasaran (writer: Rhoma Irama) (1970s)

Koes Plus – Cubit-cubitan (writer: Murry) (1970s). Yours truly even performed this in front of a live audience in Japan, one of 2 Malaysian amongst a group of Indonesians.

Amriz A – Madu (writer: Yanto Sari) (2000s)

(apparently) Anuar A – Hitam Manis (1960s)

In keeping with the times, modern dangdut songs generally have mindblowingly fast tempos, as those done by Inul Daratista, so much so that dancing to them has become an alternative to consumingweightlosstablets.

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This one goes back quite a while, during a time where probably one finding for safest diet pills are but a mere figment of one’s imagination.

American musician Miles Davis released Kind Of Blue in 1959. Many critics regard it the greatest jazz album of all time, and indeed some have regarded it the greatest music album, regardless of genre, in all of history. What is definite is that it has been masssively influential on all music styles, including rock and classical.

There are only 5 tracks on the original release, all averaging around 9 minutes in length. They are as follows. Enjoy music at its absolute best.

So What (9:05)

Freddie Freeloader (9:35)

Blue In Green (5:28)

All Blues (11:33)

Flamenco Sketches (9:24)

The team:

- Trumpet & band leader: Miles Davis
- Piano: Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly
- Drums: Jimmy Cobb
- Double Bass: Paul Chambers
- Saxophone: John Coltrane, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley

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IMHO, it must be that one particular scene in Predator (1987), when Blain Cooper (played by Jesse Ventura), the Vietnam vet-Slouch hat wearing-tobacco chewing-modified M134 minigun toting hard man was killed when he was shot in the neck, then the back by the Predator, an alien killing machine so effective you’d never get that disability insurance if the insurers knew who you’re up against.

Everybody in the special forces team led by Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) heard the commotion, and raced to the scene.

First in was Mac Eliot (played by Bill Duke), Blain’s close buddy since Vietnam. Upon discovering his friend’s body, and seeing for himself the Predator which “blinked” at him, engulfed in rage, he used his own gun to shoot at the alien, injuring it as it ran away.

Finishing his round, Mac threw away his cap, picked up Blain’s minigun, which Blain used to call “Ol’ Painless”, and continued shooting. Soon the others joined him in the shooting craze, with Mac screaming at all times, resulting in the jungle before them being cleared.

The end of the scene, where the others had stopped shooting while Mac’s spent minigun was still spinning and his priceless facial expression is simply unforgettable.

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They say music of the 21st century is generally inferior to those of earlier times, but arguably the biggest rock songs of this period is still excellent, or at least positively memorable.

Here’s a list of some of the most recognisable rock songs of that decade, not necessarily the best, but definitely favourites of yours truly:

Creed – My Sacrifice (2001)

Nickelback – How You Remind Me (2001)

Puddle Of Mudd – Blurry (2001)

Green Day – Boulevard of Broken Dreams (2004)

Metallica – The Day That Never Comes (2008): the introduction is truly excellent, but after that I can’t really remember the melody.

Hoobastank – The Reason (2004)

Arguably the biggest pop star at the moment is Lady Gaga – if she ever ventured into rock territory, I would rush out and purchase lady gaga tickets in an instant.

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Remember Quake II, that classic first-person shooter (FPS) computer game developed by id Software and released 9th September 1997? It was a huge hit, selling more than a million copies.

Apart from the neat gameplay itself, some consider the soundtrack to be the very best for a computer game: hard rock music mostly provided by Sonic Mayhem, which is often mistaken for Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails. Sonic Mayhem is Sascha “Buzzfunk” Dikiciyan.

If ever you could play the game on your ipad, you’d need ipad insurance just in case, due to all that headbanging going on.

Soundtrack list:

1 Operation Overlord (3:31)
2 Rage (2:20)
3 Kill Ratio (2:34)
4 March Of The Stroggs (2:54)
5 The Underworld (2:37)
6 Quad Machine (3:37)
7 Enter Big Gun (3:06)
8 Descent Into Cerberon (2:38)
9 Climb (2:02)
10 Showdown (2:01)

I consider these 2 as stand-out tracks:

Descent Into Cerberon

Quad Machine

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Song title: Aaj Kal Tere Mere Pyaar Ke Charche

Composers: Shankarsinh Raghuwanshi and Jaikishan Dayabhai Pankal

Lyrics: Hasrat Jaipuri

Singers: Mohammad Rafi & Suman Kalyanpur (although some people said Lata Mangeshkar)

Off the movie Brahmachari (1968), where actors Shammi Kapoor (then 37) and Mumtaz mimed to the song. Apparently, what Shammi Kapoor had was bursting energy that was unprecendented in 60s Indian movies. One site wrote:

In the gentlemanly 50s and 60s, Shammi yelled the loudest and courted his heroine with the unmistakeable arrogance of good looks laced with pure, almost manic boisterousness.

He was the trailblazer. In that song in the movie, he did his trademark uninhibited, Elvis-like dancing, almost outdoing The King himself! Never mind that he looks like he’s sick of accounting jobs at the office and was merely letting his hair down.

In a sure indication of the quality and enduring popularity of the song, it has been covered countless times, even by 60s Malaysian group Zurah II. If ever you want to impress people and guarantee the dancefloor is
filled up at your annual dinner, why not sing this classic Hindi song, complete with head-shaking, Bollywood dance moves?

Approximate lyrics:

Aajkal Tere Mere Pyar Ke Charche Har Zubaan Par
Sab Ko Maloom Hai Aur Sabko Khabar Ho Gayi

Humne To Pyar Mein Aisa Kaam Kar Liya
Pyar Ki Raah Mein Apna Naam Kar Liya
Aajkal Tere Mere…….

Do Badan Ek Dil Ek Jaan Ho Gaye
Manzilen Ek Hui Humsafar Ban Gaye
Aajkal Tere Mere…….

Kyon Bhala Hum Daren Dil Ke Malik Hain Hum
Har Janam Mein Tujhe Apna Mana Sanam
Aajkal Tere Mere Pyar Ke Charche Har Zubaan Par
Sab Ko Maloom Hai Aur Sabko Khabar Ho Gayi

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