A World-class waste of space

Even though making fun of people and bitching about things are two of my greatest skills, I don't always enjoy doing it. Sometimes I hear about things so inane and stupid that I feel compelled to write about them even though I sort of dread it. Think of it like a movie reviewer going to see Meet The Spartans; they know it will be awful, but that's what they do (and yes they get paid while I don't, so you should appreciate my efforts even more). Sometimes I hear a story that I want to write about even though I hate it.

Today's entry is one of those. Several Toronto news outlets were straining themselves for various Elvis jokes today to celebrate local dork Suresh Joachim who just set a world record by impersonating Elvis for 55 straight hours.

Bad enough that Joachim's life is pointless enough for him to blow 55 hours on this fruitless exercise, but this marks the 53rd time he's set a completely pointless, worthless record.

I've never followed it closely enough to pinpoint when it happened, but there's no doubt that the Guinness Book of World Records has descended so far past the point of irrelevance that it couldn't catch a bus back to that point, and Suresh Joachim's resume illustrates that fact.

The father of two holds the following records:

* Continuous ironing: 55 hours, 5 minutes
* Balancing on one foot: 76 hours
* Continuous TV watching: 69 hours
* Non-stop crawling: 56.62 kilometres

One thing Joachim does not hold:

* A JOB

Any entity that lauds 69 hours of TV-watching or ironing obviously has no credibility at all. Why? Because any worthless idiot could do that. Many people probably have done it, but they don't want to brag about it because at least they recognize what a non-achievement it is. Why reward a moron who spent six days setting a record for escalator-riding (Joachim again)?

The Guinness Book still celebrates worthwhile and interesting records, but it's also polluted with stupid shit. Case in point: I went to the Guinness page and typed in "fastest." Do I get Olympic sprinters? Racehorses? No, I get crap like "fastest furniture" – some idiot driving a motorized sofa. It does have stuff like a dog that was trained to open a car window, which is kind of cool. But it's mostly trash.

It's not that hard to set a record for driving a motorized sofa or continuous ironing, because your only competition are losers. As long as you're creative enough, it's not hard to set a world record. My next blog entry will cover my record-setting attempt for Longest Time Spent Holding Down The Semicolon Key On A Black Keyboard While Facing East and Wearing Sunglasses In Toronto.

I was almost prepared to give Joachim a free pass today when I saw a glancing mention to how he does this to raise awareness for suffering children around the world. But in glancing over 10 newspaper articles about this idiot, I saw one quick mention of his cause. It smacks for of a justification for his being a total oxygen-bandit.

Much more prominent is the fact that he's really just a shameless attention whore.

He made his own wedding into a ridiculous record circus by having 79 bridesmaids, 79 groomsmen and the world's longest bouquet. Too bad you can't measure something like World's Most Tolerant Bride.

He's also amazingly deluded, somehow fancying himself an inspiring and impressive hero.

"God created everyone with the same talents. But so many don't like to try in case they fail," he told the Toronto Star. "People can achieve anything but they have to bear the pain."

No, most people don't like to try watching 69 hours of TV or 84 hours of drumming because it's a stupid fucking waste of time and we have better things to do. Yes, people can achieve anything. But most people apply themselves to achieving something that's not completely worthless.