We have had nothing but bleak news for the past several days. Wall Street is in turmoil with the threat of collapse of more financial institutions and further chaos in the world economy. Even more bleak news was the devastation associated with Hurricane Ike. Galveston is virtually destroyed and Houston remains paralyzed with the lack of power. The political candidates continue to fight and blame each other for everything. Greedy CEOs continue to salt millions away while the rest of us are on our knees and ready for the bread lines.

The only glimmer of good news was that the world’s shortest man met the woman with the world’s longest legs. The Chinese dwarf He Pingping, age 20, met the leggy Russian Svetiana Paintretova, 36, in London this week. He is a mere 2ft. 5 inches tall and her legs measure an incredible 52 inches in length. The upper torso of Svetiana is apparently normal and her height is only 6’4’’. She is more like a giraffe. If these two find romance and marry they can travel as one. She will be able to smuggle him into most places under her skirt. Svetiana will always be wearing a skirt because they just don’t make the legs of pants long enough to accommodate her elongated extremities. She can only find mini skirts, which are normal length skirts for the average woman.

These people are for real and will be listed in the Guinnes World Record Book for 2009. Sometimes we see fake stuff that can be created with computer programs. You can place heads of famous people on other folk’s bodies and do all sorts of things. Even with my amateur skills I created a picture of my grandson sitting next to his hero Spiderman. I have also completely eliminated an unwanted person from a group picture. There are no fakes in the Guiness book and these two will take their place with some other extraordinary and sometimes freakish people.

I’m thinking about trying to set a record and get my name in the famous book of world records. I might attempt to set the record for the longest sitting time in a rocker on the porch without the TV turned on. Now is the time for me to try and set this record so I won’t have to listen to the bad news about Wall Street and all the political bickering.