popcorn stand

Those of you who choose to read this Popcorn Stand know my obsession with weird world records, not necessarily the records themselves, but how people come up with the ideas for these records. Like did Oliver Strumpfel just wake up one day and say I’m going to set the world record for most beer steins carried over 40 meters?

Or did the people of a small town in Mexico just decide one day to get together and say, “you know what would be neat, if we made a 3-ton guacamole.”

You hear about Olympic athletes train for years for their moment of glory like in the 100-meter dash that lasts less than 10 seconds. Well, Struempfel apparently trained for two years for his moment of glory, which didn’t take long at all.

And Streumpfel’s feat was covered like an Olympic event as can be seen in this video http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oliver-struempfel-beer-stein_us_59ad7c54e4b0354e440bc4dd?section=us_weird-news. There’s an announcer right behind Streumpfel apparently describing his every move. I have to admit I was impressed with Streumpfel’s ability to carry mugs of beer as he made two trips to set his world record.

He walked 40 meters, carrying 31 mugs of beer Two tipped over at the last second, so Struempfel was credited with just 29, still more than enough for the world record. Of course, my guess for what the previous record was would be zero.

But if the 40-meter beer stein walk ever becomes an Olympic event, Streumpfel would be the favorite.

As far the 3-ton guacamole, full disclosure, I don’t like guacamole, which comes as a shock to pretty much everybody since pretty much everybody loves guacamole. But I’m left-handed and I’ve been told there are actually other left-handed people who don’t like guacamole, so maybe there’s a connection there, I don’t know.

Anyway about a 1,000 total people including student chefs got together on Concepcion de Buenos Aires to make their 3-ton guacamole.

No word on if they came up with a chip big enough to dip in guacamole that size.

— Charles Whisnand