Category: Guinness Book of World Records

Trivial Pursuits

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, District Trivia, Guinness Book of World Records, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Nick Groves

Hey there, ‘Redheads… I’m beat. I’ve got very little in me to blog about right now and I could curl up on the floor and fall asleep, I’m so tired.

There’s one reader out there that I’ll get no sympathy from, and that’s my buddy Nick, who, pending confirmation, just smashed the world record for Longest Quizmaster Marathon. He stayed up 34 hours to do it, asking a question a minute. I was there for five of those hours last night to help out with scoring. I’ll tell you what the biggest issue was for me in that time, so I can only imagine what it was like for the people who went the whole way, was swamp ass. You have to pace yourself and make sure you air things out every half hour or so. My favorite moment from last night, after the question was asked, “Who was the oldest of the Marx Brothers?”, I overheard a member of one of the teams wonder aloud, “Was Steve a Marx Brother?” Maybe I was just giddy, but I laughed about that for awhile. The winning team, El Guapo, took home a cool $1000 in ones. That’s making it rain money. I just got off the phone with Nick, and he told me that after 34 hours, the winning score came down to just seven points. Very cool. Congrats to everyone involved.

See you Wednesday.

Weekend Roundup

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in Blessing of the Fleets, comedy, Guinness Book of World Records, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, mascots, pictures, Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival, trivia

G’morning, ‘Redheads… I’m bright-eyed, bushy tailed, and I’m lying to you about those first two things, but I’m at the very least awake and able to type. I have to get this blog on the books early today, because my evening is spoken for and I can’t guarantee I’ll be home by midnight to keep the streak alive. Why so busy on a Monday night, you ask? Well, starting at noon today, the trivia arm of the entertainment company I work with, District Entertainment, is attempting to break the world record for the Longest Quizmaster Marathon at Caddie’s in Bethesda. The previous record is 32 hours and 15 minutes, so if all goes well, we’ll be finishing up tomorrow night at 8:00ish. I’m not the lead question asker, but I’ll be there assisting after I take my nose off the grindstone. If you want to wrangle a team to try to win the top prize of $1000, click here for all the details.

Since I don’t have a Monday’s worth of blather to blog about, I need to tap into my weekend reserves. On Saturday, I met up with pals, Chris, Allyson, and Eric to check out the Blessing of the Fleets at the Navy Memorial, where water from the seven seas is poured into the fountain in a ceremony to make sure our naval forces sail smoothly this year. Afterwards, the crowd was treated to Navy Bean soup, prepared by the White House Mess, which, with a little Texas Pete’s hot sauce, was delicious. They also gave out boxes of Presidential M&M’s. Needless to say, I went through the line twice. Before the ceremony, we got a picture with the Naval Academy mascot, Bill the Goat.We figured we had filled our costume photo quota, but as we walked through Penn Quarter, we ran into famed crime dog, McGruff.We felt safer knowing he was on whatever case there was to be on. Sniffing the butt of justice. When you get one picture with a mascot, it’s fun and random. Once we got two, it became a mission to complete the set. Luckily for us, the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival was going on nearby. Not only did it seem like a fun thing to check out, but we knew it would be a treasure trove of freaks in costume. It did not disappoint…We also missed the chance to get a picture with a Japanese NASCAR driver. A novelty to be sure, but he didn’t meet our arbitrary qualifications of a cartoonishly large head and unblinking eyes. Aside from the anime, there was all manner of Japanese culture spread out over several blocks, from calligraphy to samurai sword demonstrations. Well worth the $5 admission. And all of the proceeds went toward tsunami relief, so we could feel good about ourselves to go along with our sushi. Good times.

See you Tuesday. Or at the big trivia event tonight.

Milestoned

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in Bart Scott, comedy, Guinness Book of World Records, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Jets, Magooby's, playoffs

Hey there, ‘Redheads… This post is about milestones, two arbitrary and one that belongs in an episode of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not (wow, I’m old). Let me rattle a few off for you. This is the 300th installment of the blog (only took me 5 1/2 years). As of yesterday’s post, the blog passed the 26,000 hit mark (most of those are me constantly clicking on the blog to see how many hits I have). And, the most important one, one that will be inscribed in the annals of history, Magooby’s Joke House in Baltimore broke the Guinness World Record for Longest Continuous Comedy Show last night. 81 hours of comedy. An hour and a half of which was my brand of mild amusement. I had the good fortune of having some cherry time slots. 8pm is a perfectly normal time for comedy. Kudos to my comedy comrades who got on stage at noon or 4am. That’s when comedy is passed out. According to the rules, there had to be at least ten people in the audience, and at those times, that’s about all that was there. Apparently, over the 81 hours, we averaged 42 people a show. That was helped by the near sell out crowd we had for the final three hours. Here’s my set from last night. The video has the tail end of Jim Meyer’s set, then me, then Ayanna Dookie. There’s some new stuff in there, but I had to play the hits to fill the half hour.

Since there were so many comics involved in this, I’m thinking we should get a plaque or a trophy with everyone’s name on it to commemorate. A Comedy Stanley Cup, or something. Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out and supported us. The fact that a club in Timonium was able to break a record that was held by a club in L.A. really says something about the comedy scene ’round these parts. And it was all for a great cause. I think we raised over $30,000 for Special Olympics. That’s my good deed for the year.

I neglected to mention my playoff pick results on Monday. Once again, I went 2-2. I was right about it being a bad weekend for things that fly. All of the birds went down like a game of Duck Hunt. All that was missing was that dog to laugh at them…The one game that no one picked was the Jets-Patriots tilt. Tom Brady and the Pats crapped in their hat (almost sounds like a Dr. Seuss book). The Jets talk more trash than Oscar the Grouch, so it was nice to see them actually back it up, even though I picked the Pats. The game will probably be remembered best for the epic on-field post game interview that Bart Scott gave to Sal Pal…

So, in the hopes that I can continue my .500 playoff pick record, let’s pull out the magic dart board and look at the championship match-ups for this weekend. In the NFC, I’ve been picking the cheeseheads this long, so I don’t see any reason to jump off the wheel of gouda at this point. In the AFC, as fun as it would be to have Rex Ryan in the SuperBowl, just for the quotes in the two weeks leading up to it, I gotta go with Big Ben and the Steelers. Besides, I can’t think of two teams that’d piss off Jerry Jones more to have in his house on the NFL’s biggest night.

See you Monday… Can’t wait!