Spring Break
Randomonium!!!
It's like Random Facts of the Week meets Hollywood Hearsay
Ruben Casas
Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: Diversions
In the "things that are true" stack, we hear that 72 Australian under-sea ironers beat the standing record (70) in "extreme ironing," which the group's website touts as the "latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt." The group plunged into 10-foot-deep waters, carrying their irons, ironing boards and wrinkled linens. Let me admit that the "extremeness" of "extreme ironing" makes me question the "extremeness" of other extreme sports - such as big-wave or tow-in surfing, for example, where surfers not only compete against other high-skilled surfers but against 40-plus-foot waves. If it's really just a matter of an increased level of inherent danger over a non-extreme version of the same activity, or that a contestant is pitted up against a higher number of variables, then "extreme mustache-growing" could just as easily fit into this category because of its inherent danger of ridicule that comes with growing a mustache after 1991.
A new, simpler, more sanitary and hopefully better-attended method for administering CPR falls into the "things that might be true" pile. New stipulations announced by the American Heart Association indicate that rapid, deep presses on a victim's chest are just as effective as the previously prescribed method that included mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Part of the revision, the AHA admits, is because so many potential bystanders were reticent to lock lips with a complete stranger - sad news for those lonely individuals who pray for their chance at intimacy with whoever was lucky enough to suddenly collapse, stop breathing and be otherwise unresponsive before them. That's 310,000 fewer potential liaisons for these desperate friends (based on the number of Americans that die each year from cardiac arrest outside of hospitals or emergency rooms). One thing's for certain: you can now be a lot more comfortable about passing out in the middle of the street than you were yesterday.
Britney Spears' appearance on CBS's "How I Met Your Mother" marks the beginning of a comeback for the famous-for-being-famous celebrity. The notion that her small but carefully scripted role in the modestly successful sitcom demonstrates a new direction in the way Britney's tarnished image is marketed by not bowing to the pressures of appearing on scandal-hungry shows such as "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" goes into the "things that are not true at all" heap. But hey, at least Britney was able to recite her lines accurately, which is certainly a long way from her other recent television appearances that showed her breaking down in her front yard and being carted off in a stretcher.
Ruben Casas
diversions@dailybarometer.com
A new, simpler, more sanitary and hopefully better-attended method for administering CPR falls into the "things that might be true" pile. New stipulations announced by the American Heart Association indicate that rapid, deep presses on a victim's chest are just as effective as the previously prescribed method that included mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Part of the revision, the AHA admits, is because so many potential bystanders were reticent to lock lips with a complete stranger - sad news for those lonely individuals who pray for their chance at intimacy with whoever was lucky enough to suddenly collapse, stop breathing and be otherwise unresponsive before them. That's 310,000 fewer potential liaisons for these desperate friends (based on the number of Americans that die each year from cardiac arrest outside of hospitals or emergency rooms). One thing's for certain: you can now be a lot more comfortable about passing out in the middle of the street than you were yesterday.
Britney Spears' appearance on CBS's "How I Met Your Mother" marks the beginning of a comeback for the famous-for-being-famous celebrity. The notion that her small but carefully scripted role in the modestly successful sitcom demonstrates a new direction in the way Britney's tarnished image is marketed by not bowing to the pressures of appearing on scandal-hungry shows such as "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" goes into the "things that are not true at all" heap. But hey, at least Britney was able to recite her lines accurately, which is certainly a long way from her other recent television appearances that showed her breaking down in her front yard and being carted off in a stretcher.
Ruben Casas
diversions@dailybarometer.com
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