On the ultimate thrill

Okay, so I was going to hold off on this until we'd heard the final word, but it's looking like that could take longer than expected and I know my mom's been waiting for this video.

So here it is. Labor Day weekend, I got together with 902 near-complete strangers at DragonCon in Atlanta in a Guinness Book of World Records attempt. Our feat? To amass the greatest number of people ever in one place doing the "Thriller" dance at one time.

And it went a little something like this:



Alas, you can't actually see me in that video; I'd be all the way house right, about five rows back. Pity, really, because my moves were slick. Seriously. No, shut up, they were. But you can enjoy the dance stylings of the creepy Burger King king, the Joker, the Flying Spaghetti Monster (and Her attendant pirate), and a big silver Michael Jackson glove.

A few notes on the record attempt: Damn. The organizers had to go to ends to make this happen. Apparently, they had to submit video and still photography from several different angles, at least one of which showed all participants at the same time, and a log book signed by each participant as we came in. We all had to be dancing the whole time, and we had to be doing the 5:58 version. At some point, someone from Guinness will sit down with one of those pictures and literally count heads to make sure that every name in the logbook corresponds to a head on the dance floor. And what do we get? A certificate. Not even that--organizers Kimber, Lisa, and Lauren get a certificate, and the other 900 of us get the pleasure of knowing we solidly kicked the asses of 242 William & Mary students who did it back in April. Suck it, Tribe!

And a note on the Mexico City attempt: Nothin' doin'. Wrong version of the song (the two-minute one), and not everyone danced the whole time. But it still looked like a whole hell of a lot of fun, and I commend them for getting 13,000 people together for that fun. Maybe we'll get the City of Atlanta to shut down Peachtree Street for next year's attempt.

Further updates as events warrant.