Trying to set the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to Hula Hoop 10k? You’re going to have to beat Ashrita Furman. Most jelly eaten in one minute, blindfolded with no hands? That’s Ashrita’s territory. Think you’re pretty good at spitting champagne corks? Probably not as good as Ashrita. Mr. Furman, a 56-year-old Queens, N.Y. native, currently holds 120+ Guinness Records. Despite considering himself a “non-athlete,” he started setting records at the age of 24 in 1979 by doing 27,000... READ ON

Want to be an author? You should probably think about going by your first and middle initials. A surprising number of writers have struck literary gold while remaining semi-anonymous by using initials instead of full names. Here are a handful of them - and some of the reasons why they opted to drop their given... READ ON

© Image Source/Corbis In just a few weeks, most college kids will head back to school. Inevitably, some roommate/lab partner/friend/professor/tour guide/lacrosse team mascot is going to tell one of those kids about how, according to “an old law still on the books,” any house with more than a certain number of female residents constitutes a brothel. If you happen to be a college kid who hears this story this fall, or used to be a college kid who heard it years ago, I have some news for you: the... READ ON

Money is dirty. You’ve been hearing that since you were knee-high to a grasshopper and your mom had to stop you from putting coins in your mouth and up your nose. Turns out, mama didn’t know how right she was: the flu virus can actually survive on money for up to 10 days. And you’ve probably heard the crazy statistic that 90 percent of U.S. bills have cocaine on them. Lucky for all of us, then, that the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco is doing their part to make the world of currency just a... READ ON