"Play some Enya, chick babe."

Sometimes I just don’t understand how people come up with their world record attempts other than the standard excuse of, “We just felt like it.” Apparently 641 people just felt like rubbing each other’s backs yesterday in Thailand, because that’s how many masseuses it took to break the world record for the most people spontaneously massaging each other at the same time. I assume the world record for most people who couldn’t roll over for a minute because of a boner was also broken.

The previous record was set in 2010 when 263 performed massages at the same time, and I guess 2012 has just turned into the year of sh*tting all over Australia’s world records. Whatever doesn’t kill them, I suppose. Enough about Australia, let’s celebrate the people of the hour: masseuses!

“It was easy because this is what we do every day for a living,” said 53-year-old Chayanan Chanwuttisawan, one of the mostly female masseuses who took part in the event. “I’m proud of myself and my profession. I never thought we’d have a chance to be recognized like this.” (Via Bloomberg)

But the real question here is how are we supposed to take this record seriously when it was broken in such a notoriously sordid place?

Read the rest of this entry »

There are a lot of sports in the world, ranging from those that require top-shelf physical skill (marathon running, pro football against the New Orleans Saints) to sports you can sorta perform involuntarily (curling, the luge).

Apparently the “wide wide world of sports” isn’t wide enough for some people, as natives of the Malay-Thai Peninsula have combined soccer, tennis, volleyball and I’m pretty sure hacky sack to perfect the sport of sepak takraw. I’m sure some of you have seen it before and will be all, “way to be cultured, Brandon, snoot snoot”, but no, I’ve never seen this before and it feels like they should be wearing wooden helmets and performing in the background of The Lion King. I think the best part of the video is that it takes place on FASHION ISLAND.

From the Wikipedia entry for sepak takraw:

Similar games include footbag net, footvolley, football tennis, bossaball, jianzi and sipa. These similar games all involve keepie uppies.

Yeah, that clears it up. Thanks, Wikipedia. I would’ve called the keepie uppies “chazzwazzers”.

[h/t Fark Sports]

This is Taiwanese Thai lighweight/flyweight that goes by the name of, if I can read the card here, Mapichit Sitsongpeenong, and he might be the scariest thing on two legs that I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been to Alabama. Sitsongpeenong can be seen here working out in prep for an upcoming fight (he uses four different sparring partners in a 36-minute session) throwing punches, kicks and knees, and I think he pulls out a whip towards the end and swings out of the gym. But just watch the first minute or so and you get the idea.

And this kid is sixteen years old. Maybe it’s good that America has a childhood obesity issue. Otherwise we’d be raising a nation of angry killing machines.

Further proof that the people of Thailand are perverted beyond what you thought possible: a Buddhist temple there has a shrine in the image of David Beckham:

The statue itself is definitely Beckham, sporting his floppy haircut from nearly a decade ago and even with the sponsorship logo Sharp picked out on his chest. It’s about half a metre high. As I wrote in my previous story about the David Beckham temple, the statue was installed at the temple in 1998 as part of the World Cup celebrations by Thai sculptor Thongruang Haemhod. According to this BBC News story, Thongruang wanted to add it because football is the new religion, and the temple’s abbot agreed.

The statue is also believed to be softer than Victoria Beckham's breasts.

I had a statue erected in Thailand, you know.  Well, not so much a "statue" in the strict American definition.  More of an obelisk.  Built by two 16-year-olds wise beyond their years, and polished diligently every day since then.