Known as Dia de los Muertos in Mexico and the Mexican-populated areas of the US, this holiday dates back to the times of the Aztecs, when they celebrated Mictecacihuatl (The Lady of the Dead).  The celebration of Day of the Dead focuses on remembering and honoring friends and relatives that have died.

Dia de los Muertos is celebrated every year on November 1st and 2nd, during which time it is believed the spirits of the dead return to visit the living. People buy toys and traditional sweets for the dead children and different alcoholic drinks for the deceased adults. They build shrines on the tombs and plce the trets there so the dead can consume the spirit of the foods. Even though they are eventually consumed by the living, the foods are believed to have no nutritional value.

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China hosted the annual Acrobatic Art Festival in Wuhan, this year. The location changes every year but the exhibition is just as breathtaking every time, no matter where it’s held. The event took place in a stationary circus in Wuhan and attracted more than 2,000 spectators that were simply mesmerized by the 30 acrobatic numbers performed by artists from all around the world.

The Acrobatic Art Festival included acrobatics, animal tricks and clownery.

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Inspired by La Tomatina Festival in Bunol, Spain, about 10,000 people of Dongguan, southern Guangdong province, China, organized their own tomato fight on October 19. Over 15 tons of tomatoes were used in this over-sized food fight and this led to a huge controversy both online and in the national media. People were baffled when they saw so much good food go to waste for a few hours of entertainent, in a country where some people are still starving.

That’s a good point if you ask me, why wate food when you can’t afford to eat?

Manuel Uribe, the World’s Heaviest man Record holder, according to Guinness Book of Records, tied the not with his beloved Claudia Solis. despite losing 550lbs out of the 1,230 he weighed back in 2006 when he got his title, Uribe was not able to leave the bed he has been confined to for the past years. The bed was decorated in white and loaded on the back of a truck and carried to the place where the ceremony took place.

More than 400 people and multiple camera crews enjoyed the wedding party, but Uribe stuck to his diet and resisted tasting the five-tier cake prepared for the event. Manuel Uribe announced earlier this year that his goal is to stand up at the altar for his wedding on October 26, but unfortunately he wasn’t able to. During the couple’s first dance Claudia held Manuel’s hand while she swayed to the music.

Manuel Uribe plans to reach the weight of 220 pounds in the next few years. Good luck!

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Sarah Palin is probably the most popular figure in the US right now, there’s no doubt about that and entrepreneurs are using their image to gain some profit or some serious exposure that will ultimately turn into…profit. After the porn parody Nalin’ Palin, where industry star Lisa Ann played republican VP candidate and the Sarah Palin Halloween costumes that were a big hit, the owner of The Paradise Club, a strip club in Las Vegas, organized a contest for Sarah Palin look-alikes.

The contest attracted Palin look-alike strippers from all over the country and the winner got a $10,000 prize and a trip for 2, at the Washington DC inauguration, whether Palin wins or not. The girls were judged by their appearance and ability to debate.

Some girls really look like Sarah, check out the pics and video to see for yourself:

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Hundreds of clowns from all over Central America, USA and Mexico gathered in Mexico City for the 13th Annual Clown Convention. Lasting through the week that ends on October 23, the convention has workshops and gatherings to help the clowns share their secrets and prove their talents to the audience.

Those lucky enough to be in Mexico City during the Clown Convention will be able to shop for outrageous clothing, wacky clown shoes, clown makeup and funny wigs.

Clowns are a very important and respected part of Mexico‘s culture, with many of them standing at street corners, entertainig passers-by and earning some honest pesos. there are over 10,000 registered clowns in Mexico, 3,000 of them are women.

A Chinese balance-beam artist attempted a new world record for balancing on a wire 700 meters into the air with no safety measures. Unfortunately things didn’t go exactly as planned and one false step almost ended his career and his life. Fortunately he was quick enough to grab on to the wire he was balancing on.

Though he couldn’t control his emotions and started acting all hysterical, he managed to hold-on until the cavalry showed up and got him down safely. I bet he won’t be trying to break any records in the near future.

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A true wedding marathon took place last week in the small Republic of Artsakh, internationally known as Nagorno-Karabakh. The fact that they are living in a territory disputed between Azerbaijan and Armenia, didn’t stop the inhabitants of this country to prove their  independence by organizing a wedding marathon.

700 pairs united their destinies in a ceremony that will go down in the record books as one of the biggest mass-weddings in history.

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21-year-old Brad Sciullo of Uniontown is the first person to ever finish eating the monster-burger known as the Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser. The burger itself weighed 15 pounds but with all the toppings (lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, mild banana peppers, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and relish)  and the buns, it reached 20,2 pounds. Sure any man could gobble down a delicacy like this but hardly anyone could do it in 5 hours.

Brad Sciullo managed to do it, but it wasn’t easy, as he himself admits: “About three hours into it, things got tough,”and everyone can understand why. But he pushed himself to the edge and manage to finish the whole burger and won a $400 prize, 3 t-shirts, a certificate and “a burger hangover” as the owner od Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, where the event took place.

Asked why on Earth he decided to eat the giant burger, Sciullo said “I wanted to see if I could.”

A few months ago I wrote a post about the world’s tallest tower near Legoland Windsor, in England, but now it is forced to hand over the title to the new LEGO Tower in Vienna.

Built by hundreds of children near Vienna‘s city-hall, the new world’s tallest LEGO tower ended up being 29,48 meters tall, beating the previous tower of “only” 29,03 meters. The LEGO tower in Vienna was built using a crane and several support wires that secured it against strong winds. After the record was certified by an official judge from The Guinness Book of Records, the LEGO Tower was dismantled.

The Tower of Vienna was created to celebrate the festival “100 Years of Friends of Children“.

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I never imagined weddings in South Central L.A. were tuxedo and nightgown only, but I didn’t think they were this “gangsta” either. I like it, it’s very original, everyone can wear a suit at a wedding but not anyone can wear a spray-painted extra-large T-shirt like that. If that’s what did it for them , then good for them, they keppin’ it real…

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Well the last thing any of us would do is laying it all on the asphalt as a beautiful mosaic right? Stefan Sagmeister of Sagmeister Inc. did just that during the first edition of Biennale, in Amsterdam. Entitled “Obsessions make my life worse and my work better“, Sagmeister‘s work of art was made out of around 300,000  euro- cent coins set up on a 20×42 square meters surface. This intricate installation was a challenge to all passers-by, with so much money at stake, would people leave it alone and appreciate its beauty or would they just go for the money out of greed?

After the show was over the complex art piece was simply sweeped away with a brush.

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The people of Russian city Chelyabinsk have found a unique way to make their beloved city known to the entire world by using Google Earth.

In a carefully planed event, the citizens of  Chelyabinsk calculated when Google’s satellite, “Quick Bird”, passes directly over the city and formed a yellow smiley face that could be noticed from out of space. The result of their organized effort will be seen the next time Google Earth updates, but whether they get the exposure they were looking for or not, the people behind the Smiley-Face of Chelyabinsk have our congratulations for the effort.

On August 23rd, an extraordinary even took place in the German port-city of Hamburg. The world’s top 10 cliff-divers gathered here to demonstrate their abilities and claim the title of 2008 Red Bull Cliff Diving Champion.  The winner of such a competition is not even important, just being able to accomplish such incredible acrobatic feats is remarkable. These people accelerate from 0 to 90 km/h and drop back to 0 in a free fall that only lasts 2.5 seconds.

Just watch the video and be amazed:

I can here the Brits screaming “Run for your lives, the blue rubber duckies are attacking!!!”, must have been horrible…Well not really, it was just the annual Great British Duck Race, a charity event where people paid 2 ponds two enlist their rubber ducky in a race on the river Thames.

The prize was 10,000 pounds for the fastest floating rubber duck on the river and all the earnings went to charity. In case you were wondering, the rubber ducks were blue because last year, when they were yellow, people threw their own ducks without paying the fee.

This year’s Great British Duck Race scored a new world record for the most rubber ducks in one place, around 250,000. I wonder who had the “pleasure” of counting them.