The Banff/Lake Louise Housing Olympics were held a few weeks ago in my neck of the woods, where sixteen teams competed in five events: mop racing, bed-making competition, upright vacuum relay, towel-folding and towel art competition, and buffer pad toss. Over in Hungary, the best gravediggers recently vied to advance to the regional grave digging championships in Slovakia, where pairs of grave diggers are judged on speed and style (as measured by the looks of the finished grave mounds). At Argus Industries in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the front office employees compete against the back office employees in their annual X Games competition, highlighting various work-related skills and in the process helping employees learn how challenging each others jobs are.

So get creative and figure out how you can create a special contest or games event to honor your profession or employees' unique talents that may sometimes get overlooked. Challenge nearby businesses and turn it into a charity event or have teams in your own organization compete against one another in offbeat contests for fun prizes.

Vasile Cepoi was elected mayor of a town in Romania last week, beating out Vasile Cepoi by 1,100 votes and Vasile Cepoi by 1190 votes. The winning candidate included his middle name on the ballot, which is evidently quite helpful if you live in a town where several people named Vasile Cepoi are running for mayor.