Oct 24 2022 - Dominos

 

There is a visual delight of the chain reaction of dominos.  This has been presented in many photos and videos.  There is the world record started in 1998 Domino D-Day:  Visionland in which a total of 2,300,000 dominos were placesd and 1,605,757 fell - 69.8%.  The latest record is 2009 Domino Day:  The World in Domina - The Show with the Flow - again in Laeuwarden Netherlands with 4,491,863 placed and 4,800,00 fallen - 93.6%. Here are some of the events and records of Domino Day in the Netherlands: During the preparations of Domino Day 2005 on 14 November, with only four days to go until event, a sparrow flew into the building and landed on several domino bricks, eventually causing 23,000 of them (out of 4 million) to fall. The sparrow was eventually shot by a hired exterminator. Outraged by the shooting, animal rights groups took court actions against the exterminator and the Domino Day production company Endemol. Public prosecutors in The Hague opened an investigation and eventually issued a €200 fine to the exterminator.   On 14 November 2008 the team of Weijers Domino Productions tried to break the world record domino toppling. They set up 4.5 million dominoes in the WTC Expo convention centre in Leeuwarden to try topping the previous record of 2 years ago, which was at 4,079,381 dominoes toppled. 'Celebrating 10 years of Domino Day - Breaking more World Records than ever' is the central theme of Domino Day 2008. Domino Day celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Although the second Builder's Challenge failed, the record was broken with 4,345,027 dominoes toppled. Also, 10 additional world records were attempted and successfully broken. These additional world records were: Longest domino spiral (200 m) Highest domino climb (12 m) Smallest domino stone (7 mm) Largest domino stone (4.8 m) Longest domino wall (16 m) Largest domino structure (25,000 stones) Fastest topple of 30 metres of domino stones (4.21 sec) (the sprinter Churandy Martina ran with the dominoes and achieved the time of 3.81 sec for the same distance) Largest number of domino stones resting on a single domino (727 stones) Largest rectangular level domino field (1 million stones) Most fallen dominoes (4,345,027 stones) The show has been paused since 2010 due to financial and organizational problems, and then the pandemic.   Here's the 2009 video - it is worth watching just the beginning - the ads show Dutch people rather than North Americans and the intro is a wonder.  HERE it is. Highlights of the record-breaking year 2008 are HERE.  This picture makes me think of dominos. One of those wonderful Flexify manipulations.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

The Biggest Boat

Many people are taking cruises.  This is an extremely popular vacation format.  They discuss which cruise lines have the best value  and offer the best packages for entertainment, meals, drinks, etc. Do you know that the ship Symphony of the Seas with the Royal Caribbean line holds a maximum of 6,870 passengers?  It is the largest cruise ship in the world and was built this year, in 2018.  It is 1,188 feet long and has 18 total decks. It has seven different 'neighbourhoods'.  It looks like it has eight stories above the deck level.  Below is a picture of the historical growth off cruise ships:   Symphony of the Seas Facts The Symphony of the Seas has more pieces of art on board than found in the Louvre Museum in Paris On an average 7-night sailing, over 60,000 fresh eggs are used on board On a week-long cruise, six million coffee beans are required to make the total coffee made on the ship During a 24-hour period on the ship, roughly 500,000 gallons of fresh water are consumed Compared to one eruption of Old Faithful, the Symphony’s 24 pools and water attractions use close to 100x that amount of water Information about the largest cruise ships is HERE.  Or another article is HERE. There were 26 million cruise passengers in 2017, and the estimate for 2018 is 27 million.  The industry has been operating at near 100% capacity.  It is a $100 billion industry. The trend of passengers getting older is true.  And the trend of millennials becoming a major market is true.  The cruise line U by Uniworld imposed an age requirement of 21-45.  That restriction was scrapped before the ships started to sail.  Industry information claims the average age of a cruiser in North America is 46.    I conclude with this cruise ship joke: A magician was working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. The audience would be different each week so the magician allowed himself to do the same tricks over and over again. There was only one problem: the captain's parrot saw the shows each week and began to understand how the magician did every trick. Once he understood the parrot started shouting in the middle of the show: "Look, it's not the same hat". "Look, he is hiding the flowers under the table". "Hey, why are all these cards the Ace of Spades?" The magician was furious but couldn't do anything; it was, after all, the captain's parrot. One day the ship had an accident and sank. The magician found himself on a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean with the parrot, of course! They stared at each other with hate, but did not utter a word. This went on for a day and another and another. After a week the parrot said: "OK, I give up. Where's the boat?" Our picture today is luxury living here in Vineland, with a reserved table at the Watering Can, a landmark garden centre in Niagara.