Author: rokur

So there is a “Underwater Extreme Ironing” battle going on that many of us haven’t heard of, between Australia and the Netherlands and UK, Poland, New Zealand and probably other countries too. The Netherlands hold the record of 173 scuba divers ironing underwater simulteneusly in March, but now Australia wants the record back, aiming for a whopping 200. Read Diamond Valley Leader. “The latest sport combines the thrills of an outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt,” Mrs Azzopardi said. “I am aiming for around 200 divers to iron out the record, so to speak, and show those…

Food connoisseur Garrett Weber-Gale has been out visiting the Next Restaurant Chicago, ‘explorers of world cuisine’. Looks like a fun ride, with something in a cardboard box, drawing on your plate, meal packed in a WWF thermos, sweet potatoes on fire and ice to be licked off a beater. And it was great, he tweets.

25-year-old Katie Dell suffers from a rare disease called aquagenic urticarial that makes her skin react with pain and rashes if drenched in water. She left her job as a dance trainer because sweat causes her rashes, she has to rush her baths, cannot cry and cannot do the dishes. Living in Britain, it has a great impact on her social life, as she has to frequently cancel her appointments due to rain. I tell you, here in the Faroes, she’d be dead. Via Emirates 24/7 Picture courtesy of onlinewoman, cc by-sa-sa 2.0

Nice and simple, via the17thman

Divers in Egypt have created this remarkable music video (and track) reflecting on the wonders of the underwater world – and how we need to support those who for for its conservation. Warning, quite graphic segment in it, with a live shark having its fins cut off before being thrown into the sea again. Buy it online to support marine conservation work, or donate on www.thetankbangers.org. Via Divernet. “So here we are. At the finish line. 10 month in the making. 7 minutes long. It has taken hundred of dives and thousands of takes. It has cost us a small…

When Laszlo Cseh finds himself tired from travel or training, he cues a video of the 200-meter-butterfly final at the 2008 Olympics. Read The New York Times. “Sometimes when I go to training in the morning and I get tired or I want to sleep more and I feel I need some boost, I watch it,” Cseh said. He added, “I watch it a lot of times.”

Very internal joke, so much that he doesn’t even know about it! Got this picture from Jón before the 2011 Duel in the Pool finals this evening, and my first thought was “Jón, don’t get that tattoo!”. Reflecting on the miserable performance of the Europeans, yesterday evening. He told me that it was jet lag and general tiredness, but well, Pál somehow pulled through! :-)

Pál Joensen won the men’s 800 freestyle at the 2011 Duel in the Pool a minute ago, in a new Faroese and Nordic record of 7:36.24. Convincing victory too, as USA’s Michael Klueh was No. 2 in 7:39.90, and Denmark’s Mads Glæsner No. 3 in 7:42.27. Pál’s former Faroese record was from back in the supersuit days, 7:43.38 from the European Championships in Istanbul 2009, the Nordic of Mads Glæsner 7:39.45 from the same event. See result list here.

Love it when engineers mess with our conventions (as an engineer myself :-). And by the way … this need for the model to wear an in principle illegal modesty suit to make the video ‘safe for work’, is a real and practical problem in the locker rooms! If the suits are designed to take several minutes to put on, then you should be allowed to have some kind of (maybe standard) modesty suit within the tech suit. Via scaq.blogspot.com.

Beat that USA, the Salnikov Cup has right now been streamed live and open to all here on russwimming.ru, featuring top swimmers like Alexander Dale Oen, Cameron van der Burgh, Paul Biedermann and Britta Steffen. And will be streamed again here tomorrow at 17:00 local time, that is 13:00 GMT/UTC. See result from today’s events here, and www.salnikovcup.ru for other info. I for one declare Russia as winner of this weekend’s live internet swimming events!