swimming freestyle

Going for the world piercing record

Yuck.

A local tattoo shop owner is going for a unique world record, but to make history, he will need to endure the sting of 2,000 needles. 

Aryan Hopkins said he had his first piercing by the time he was seven years old and has eight of them now, but that's about to change Saturday. "How often do you hear, 'Come and see someone get stabbed 2,000 times?'" Hopkins said.

The world record currently stands at 1,200 piercings over three hours, but Aryan is hoping to beat that by 800.

Hopkins will open the doors of his Roseville (California) tattoo shop, Abstract Ink, as part of a fundraiser for Shriners Hospital for Children on Saturday to anyone who wants to witness the 2,000 piercings. Fellow tattoo and piercing artist Paul Dunkleberger will have the task of inserting the 18-gauge hollow needles an eighth of an inch apart up and down Hopkins' body. "We'll be applying a stencil all over his body," Paul said. "I think he can do it. I've tattooed his whole chest."

Hopkins said he isn't too worried about the pain, but he is worried about passing out: After they insert the 2,000 needles, they all have to come out. When needles are inserted into the skin for several hours, the skin tightens and bends the needles, which could lead to serious complications. "After we start taking this many needles out, he has a chance of significant blood loss," Paul said.

An EMT will be on hand during the world record attempt, which begins this Saturday at noon. (Link)

It's crazy enough that Hopkins is going to have 2,000 needles stuck in his body.  It's even crazier that a bunch of people will likely show up Saturday to watch.

In defense of idealism

Via The Daily Dish comes this clip from 1972 of psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, speaking on man's search for meaning and purpose.

Craftsman music

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Best birthday ever

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(h/t Buzzfeed)

Constructing the ultimate TED talk

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'Impossible motion'

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(h/t Boing Boing)

Walking on water

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(h/t Today's Big Thing)

Paul Rudd's computer

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Charles Darwin was correct

Darwin's theory of natural selection states that those organisms best suited to the environmental conditions will thrive and those least suited will be unable to compete and, ultimately, die off.

Sometimes there's collateral damage.

A Chinese man has died after an eel was inserted in rectum by friends as, reports claim, a joke. 

Doctors in Sichaun, China, apparently found the creature, a 50cm Asian swamp eel, in the 59-year-old man's rectum after he had died from internal bleeding. The eel had reportedly done severe damage to the man's intestines.

While doctors were initially baffled as to how the eel could have gotten there, the man's friends allegedly confessed that they had inserted the live creature as a joke after a bout of heavy drinking. (Link)

Making do

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Does he have to reconfigure the apartment when he gets up in the middle of the night to pee?