Paws Up!

Our Salute to the Awesome!

Newer Paws Up!

From Episode Ten: Lowenbrau
Black Bear Casino Resort
Black Bear Casino Resort, near Carlton, Minnesota, cooked up a behemoth burger over the Labor Day Weekend. The 2,014-pound, 10-foot-diameter bacon cheeseburger set a Guinness World Record in the biggest burger one-off event category, the casino reported. Guinness adjudicator Philip Robertson was flown in to verify the record.

Read the story from Duluth News Tribune here.

To Black Bear Casino Resort, for showing us where's the beef, we salute you. PAWS UP!

From Episode Nine: Fish with Genitals on their Heads
Ron Arkana
83-year-old flight attendant, Ron Akana, completed his 63-year career with United Airlines after completing his final flight for the airline Saturday. Aside from what he says was a rewarding career, Akana's longevity also will earn him a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-serving flight attendant in the history of U.S. aviation, according to the newspaper.

Read the story from USA Today here.

To Ron Arkana, for seeing the job through... all the way through, we salute you. PAWS UP!

From Episode Eight: The Dreaded Candiru
Jack Andraka
Fifteen-year-old Jack Andraka took home top science fair honours this year for the development of a cancer-testing method found to be 168 times faster, 26,000 times cheaper and 400 times more sensitive than the current gold-medal standard.

Even more impressive is the source he credits for much of his success: Google. "I basically went to Google and was looking up cancer statistics, also looking at a bunch of different documents on like, single walled carbon nanotubes and pancreatic cancer biology."

Read the story from CBC News here.

To Jack Andraka, for being thinking outside the box with the materials at hand, we salute you. PAWS UP!

From Episode Seven: Benise
Toad Suck, Arkansas
A new poll across seven English-speaking countries has chosen Toad Suck, Arkansas, as having the "most unfortunate" town name in the United States. Toad Suck, an unincorporated community in Perry County, took top dishonors, edging out Climax, Georgia, and Boring, Oregon.

Toad Suck reportedly takes its name from a once popular drinking location for boaters on the Arkansas River. The toadsuck.org site explains in more detail, "While they waited, they refreshed themselves at the local tavern there, to the dismay of the folks living nearby, who said: 'They suck on the bottle 'til they swell up like toads.' Hence, the name Toad Suck."

Read the story from Yahoo! News here.

To Toad Suck, Arkansas, for being... Toad Suck, Arkansas... we salute you. PAWS UP!

From Episode Six: Banana Fight Club
Oscar Swahn and Lawrence Lemieux
Oscar Swahn, a 72-year-old Swede, is the oldest Olympic medalist ever after earning Silver Medal in Shooting (team double-shot running deer) at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics.

Lawrence Lemieux, a Canadian sailor, competed 1988 Seoul Olympics. During one of his races, it suddenly became very windy, escalating from 15 to 35 knots. In a different class race occurring nearby at the same time, Singapore sailors Joseph Chan and Shaw Her Siew were thrown into the rough water. They were injured and unable to right their damaged boat. Lemieux was sailing alone near the halfway point in his race and was in second place. Upon seeing the capsized crew, Lemieux broke away and sailed to rescue them. After he rescued Chen and Siew, he waited for and transferred the two sailors onto an official patrol boat. He then finished 22nd in his race.

Soon after the race, the jury of the International Yacht Racing Union unanimously decided that Lemieux should be awarded second place, the position he was in when he went to the aid of the Singapore crew. At the medal awards ceremony, Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee, awarded Lemieux the Pierre de Coubertin Medal for Sportsmanship; only 11 of these have been awarded since it was launched in 1964. "By your sportsmanship, self-sacrifice and courage," said Samaranch, "you embody all that is right with the Olympic ideal."

To Oscar Swahn, who reminds us you can never be too old, and to Lawrence Lemieux, for doing the right thing, we salute you. Double PAWS UP!

From Episode Five: Dead Sea Scrolls
Michael Phelps
To date, 21 total Olympic Medal, 17 of them Gold (with the possibility for one more).

You've seen the stories, the interviews, and all that, but it can't be stressed enough: Phelps may be... check that... IS the greatest Olympic champion ever. To win that many medals is a feat that may not be duplicated.

To Michael Phelps, for dominating the three straight Olympiads and setting ridiculous records, we salute you. PAWS UP!

From Episode Four: A New Hope
Archery
Archery associations, clubs and shops across the nation say the sport is experiencing a surge of interest led by young girls.

The Hunger Games book trilogy and movie, featuring a futuristic, bow-wielding heroine named Katniss Everdeen, and the animated movie Brave with its archer, Princess Merida, are fueling the spike the interest. They expect even more attention after archery competitions at the Summer Olympic Games in London.

Read the story from USA Today here.

To archery, for just being awesome, we salute you. PAWS UP!

From Episode Three: Bizarre Tangents and Witty Asides
Hubble Space Telescope
Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to work out when precisely our Milky Way Galaxy will crash into its neighbour, Andromeda.

The pair are being pulled together by their mutual gravity and the scientists, based on Hubble's data, expect them to begin to merge in about four billion years' time.

Read the story and check out some boss artist renditions from the BBC News here.

To the Hubble Space Telescope, that has provided the data for us to determine when the Milky Way Galaxy as we know it will cease to exist, we salute you. PAWS UP!

From Episode Two: The Wrath of Khan
Canadian McDonald's
To be more transparent about how the world's largest burger chain operates, McDonald's in Canada introduced a website where customers can ask questions. And it's answered most of them, ranging from the basic to the secretive.

When asked what goes into a Big Mac, McDonald's executive chef Dan Coudreaut revealed how it's made, and revealed the recipe for the special sauce. It's mayo, sweet pickle relish, yellow mustard, onion powder, white wine vinegar, garlic powder, and paprika.

Read the story from the Yahoo! news.

To McDonald's (the Canadian version), who are pulling back to curtain to reveal their inner workings, we salute you. PAWS UP!

From Episode One: World Premiere
Taco Bell
Last month, fliers trumpeting the debut of Taco Bell in Bethel, Alaska, got residents salivating. But it turned out to be a hoax.

When Taco Bell executives learned of the cruel joke, they sent a free consolation package. A helicopter was sent to a remote Alaska town bearing a Taco Bell truck, itself bearing ingredients for 10,000 Doritos Locos tacos.

Read the story from the L.A. Times here.

To Taco Bell, who airlifted a taco truck to the middle of nowhere to people who got punked by a hoax, we salute you. PAWS UP!

From Episode Zero: The Preseason Prequel
Martha Payne
A 9 year old from Scotland who created a blog about her school lunches (it was called NeverSeconds, find it at http://neverseconds.blogspot.ca) ... that was subsequently banned... and then had that ban lifted.

Read the story from the CBC here.

To Martha, who did something creative, stood up against The Man, and won... we salute you. PAWS UP!

Newer Paws Up!