Gizmodo
Here's what you do when you're a student in the Belgian town of Leuven. You don a blue plastic poncho alongside 1,499 undergraduates, all standing in line at very long table, on which is placed a bottle of Diet Coke and a Mento. On the count of three, having raised your hood, you drop the mint in the plastic bottle, and 1,500 fountains of sticky drink erupt simultaneously. More pics below. Update: We've stuck a video up there, as well.
Belgian Students Break Mento-and-Coke World Record
It's rather reminiscent of a miracle occurring during dinner in the refectory of the Order of the Blue Man Monastery (patron saint Tobias Funcke.)
The record was broken, I hope the stickiness was cleaned up from Place Ladeuzeplein, and the kids got to keep their ponchos.
5:25 AM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Addy Dugdale
54,244 views
63 comments
Comments
Ejaculation spectacular!
What 1499 people and NO prematures?!?!?! ;)
the reason (and really the ONLY reason) you use diet coke is exactly for it NOT to be sticky afterwards...
@mumin: Nope, that's not it. The sweetener adds to the reaction, Mythbusters did a thing on it.
@TetsuBo: He's right though, diet softdrink isn't sticky.
Makes me proud to be Belgian
I just don't get the interest in this stunt. I guess it's a European thing and I just will not understand.
Ah, Leuven. I had my right arm reconstructed at the teaching hospital there.
Good times.
Yep, non-sticky soda FTW.
They deserve an award.
I mean look at all the folks that won't have to DRINK that poison now.
Good work!
@djheath: WHAT?!?
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA1!!!
Sure thing ! Being a belgian, it makes me proud of being a member of that Sub-culture ;o))
What? No video?
I participated in this event!
Even though we all had poncho's, we did get really wet, but it was really fun.
world hunger - meh
high unemployment - meh
environmental awarness - huh?
over-consumption - shrug
1500 bottles of soda, 1500 matching rain gear, and a crap load of menthos - FTW!!!!!!
world is officially doomed
hahahha oh wow
The most random yet precisely accurate comparison ever.
I'm sure the rain helped in the clean up. Wow, I wonder what all that caffeine will do to the local sewer wildlife?
Mmmm...Leuven! I was there a couple months ago visiting the Stella Artois factory.
im sick of retarded camera men
@demiwashere
Yeah, he missed the point of the whole thing. D-, see me after school.
@PsychoCemia: @TendoMentis:
Beer and reconstructive surgery (hopefully not at the same time)...
Ok, Leuven is now officially on my list of places to visit.
@demiwashere:
Agreed!
@demiwashere: Seriously! What an awful angle to take for that stunt. Hmmm, I'll just aim in the middle and zoom back and forth. Idiot.
No one has mentioned the best part...IT ENDS WITH A TECHNO RAVE PARTY!
Hey fun boys, watch out for the cd changer in the trunk yah?
Pretty cool. Too bad the camera-person missed the beginning and most of the video was on an angle. Do it again!
And there was much rejoicing! Hooray!
what the fuck cameraman?
Where's the 600 FPS digital camera when you need it??
What a huge waste. I bet each bottle of soda was individual packaged in over sized card board boxes when delivered to them too...
Meh. I suppose this is the best use for diet soda. They may as well make it look cool because it sure tastes like shit.
still nowhere near as cool as this
+ Watch video
I thought this was a still from the next harry potter movie.
I did that off the balcony of a San Juan hotel room one day, with everyone's cars waiting to be valeted down below.
Funny for me, I was able to duck out of sight and not be caught...down below, well, I quickly went downstairs minding my own business and there was couple really pissed off valets covered in Pepsi.
that's very unusual: local students usually waste beer.
YES, they throw good Belgian beer at each others whenever they can!
Wouldn't this work with just plain carbonated water?
This would have seriously been 100x cooler if they didn't all do it at the same time. Some sort of cascade would have been awesome. It could be easily coordinated by one guy standing on a table and pointing from one end to the other.
@stonefry:
I know, it had so much potential.
@stonefry: The Wave is so 1980
I like how it turns into a rave
Watch the Mythbusters on it. They tried lots of different things.
@Noobs-R-Us:
Think about all those Coke reward points...
Starving children all over the world, watching on their OLPC's, shed a tear.
Nice camera work. Almost missed the damn beginning :-/
oh the humanity...think of all the children...
I wonder what their carbon footprint was and how many belgian waffles they have to give up to make this stunt carbon neutral...
crazy europeans...
Love reading all the environmental wacko commenting here. Your comments make me want to drive down the road and throw a bunch of garbage out the window of my car just because I can!
and the world hates America and our wasteful habits...
As long as the world fears us, they can hate away!
@Siouxperman:
"Your comments make me want to drive down the road and throw a bunch of garbage out the window of my car just because I can!"
I really wouldn't want even you , Mr. Stupidman, to injury yourself.
and where do I get the soundtrack for this movie?
I love the rave that breaks out after.
Moving right along...
Holy Breugel Awesomeness!
-Otherwise, not surprising. Much like the state of Maine, there really isn't that much to do in Belgium; other than drink beer; and get frisky with the mooses; and build new highways for the drug traffickers; and play wack-job-junkie-pervert shooting gallery at night in Brussels; and marvel at the depraved crappiness of the train station in that town; and wonder if Timmy from South Park was allowed to write the Belgian Train Schedules, -and create the Flemish Language, -because French is clearly better than Flemish; and wonder if all Belgians are somehow the products of incest based on how they look; ok, -other than that, not much to do there.
1499 students walk away thirsty and have bad breath.
@djheath: bukkake spectacular
What a great way to cap off Earth Week</