High Five Me News

The High Five-o-meter

2008-03-24T15:22:00.002Z

We received an e-mail from Rob Nichols of Indiana, USA the other day informing us of his groundbreaking invention - the Highfiveometer! Rob describes the eureka moment:

After a night of 60+ high fives at the bar, I was sitting on my couch and noticed a pedometer. I instantly attached it to my wrist, and presto! Highfivometer

Rob's invention (pictured to the right) is now immortalised in our high five databank. Thanks for the e-mail Rob, and keep up the prolific high-fiving!

It has been too long...

2007-10-07T15:43:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the long delay since we last updated this. There is no excuse - but here are a few any way:

We have been busy, had exams, new jobs and far too much responsibility to deal with. There have been internet access issues and the moving of houses by all.

That said here are a few pictures our loyal fans (family) have taken in a variety of places in the world whilst spreading the high five love:

Ian trying to re-enact the miracle five on a giant somewhere in Italy. I think it was slightly too late even for the power of the high five to do any good here. It doesn't look like this fact is getting Ian down though - which is good.

The old Folks high fiving at Machu Picchu in Peru. Slightly obscured by rain but I think we can all agree that it happened and that this isn't a photo from a elaborate sound stage in Nevada.

Giant hand fives in front of Buckingham palace - a five specially commissioned by HRH Queen Elizabeth II which from henceforth will be known as the "royal five".

Whilst in Italy Ian decided to flaunt the local (and heavily signed) law against high fiving.

Who could live with such tyranny?! A freedom movement needs to be started to overcome this brutal oppression!

Right I hope that your thirst for updates has been quenched. We will try and make the next update gap shorter to avoid the literally ones of emails demanding the latest high five news!

NMDSC Five - I'll vote for that!

2007-05-08T23:20:00.000+01:00

So, we here at High Five HQ have caught wind of a plucky group of young upstarts who together seem to think they have a vision for a brighter world - a world filled with High Fives.

This may not be of huge interest to the majority of people out there on the interweb, but if you're one of the lucky few who frequent the same hallowed halls that Chris and I stalked (and on occasion still continue to stalk), those who call themselves Newcastle Medics, read on.

Team 'HIGH 5' (no relation) are running to be the next NMDSC committee.

'That's all just a load of letters, that has no bearing on my life' I hear you cry, but you'd be wrong, so so wrong!

For many years, and briefly under the stewardship of our very own Chris, the NMDSC has brought purpose and meaning to the otherwise dull and banal lives lead by medical students.

They organise the peer parenting scheme, cheese and wine, the half way party and the end of year ball, and who better to have at the helm than as fine a collection of ambassadors of the High Five as we have ever had the pleasure to meet.

To show your support, join their facebook group and vote for them before 11th May. Since you'll be on anyway, why not join our group too, you know it makes sense! To see more about what they're about, have a look at their promotional video.

Long overdue updates are here!

2007-04-28T13:03:00.000+01:00

It's been a long time since the highfive.me.uk blog was updated, so here are some overdue announcements on updates to the site.

First off - thanks to all the people who've been e-mailing with high five related information including:

Ernie who told us about the Thunder Five;
Jonathan Cho who let us know about the High Five Enthusiast sketch on Saturday Night Live;
Martin Ray who filled us in on the details of the Double Tap and another as-yet unamed variation of the high five;
Cathy Pratt who enlightened us regarding the use of the term "High Five Slut", and the 'tarded five;
George Lohse who told us about a high-fiving slug in the film "Flushed Away".

There's also been some other high five related news since the last blog post:

We fought the law - the law won

We never regarded highfive.me.uk as being a controversial website so we were quite surprised when on 19 March we got the following e-mail:

I note that a graphic on your website www.highfive.me.uk makes novel use of the famous BSI Kitemark symbol as part of its centre-piece:

As you may be aware, the Kitemark symbol is a registered trademark protected in law and its use is strictly controlled - this does not extend to the form of graphic shown above !

Please remove our registered trademark from your website and any other media with immediate effect and let me know that such action has been taken.

Thanks and best regards,
Richard Moore
Technical Development Manager
Accreditation Maintenance and Development
BSI Group

The offending graphic in question is the high five kitemark that we used to have on the homepage. We were unsure whether it was actually possible to infringe on a trademark if you're not carrying on a trade, and whether the fact that our server is in Germany would allow us to keep on ripping off BSI.

However we thought it better to ditch the kitemark symbol rather than lawyer up and "stick it to the man". If anyone's an intellectual property expert and fancies giving us some advice feel free! Or if you're an artistic type and feel like desiging a new logo to denote the international standard for high fiving we'd be most grateful too.

National High Five Day 2007

April 19 was National High Five Day. Highfive.me.uk had a rather lacklustre National High Five Day this year sadly - being busy with work/exams. However I did rustle up a High Five Day Countdown Widget for Mac OS X users (to anyone who downloaded this previously: this version actually works and doesn't tell you there are 65,000 days until the next NH5D!).

Nobel Prize High Five

2007-02-03T09:18:00.000Z

As well as being anti-racist highfive.me.uk is also anti-ageist - although the high five may be seen as the gesture of choice for the young and happening, we also think it transcends the generations and should unite people of all ages. Just check out these two old-timers enjoying a celebratory high five.

But wait just one minute - these aren't just two random old guys, they're Nobel Laureates Barry Marshall and Robin Warren. Marshall and Warren won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2005 for "their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease" (they discovered that ulcers aren't caused by stress but by bacteria). They were also recently made Companions in the Order of Australia, and it looks like they celebrated with a high five then too. It goes to show that high fiving is the celebration of choice no matter how prestigious the award you're receiving is.

Anti-Racism Five

2007-01-26T18:25:00.000Z

What with racist outbursts on "Big Brother", "Shipwrecked", and by the chief executive of Standard Life Insurance, Britain hasn't been portraying itself as a particularly tolerant nation of late. As highfive.me.uk is UK based we'd like to offer a big 'Anti-Racism' five to people around the world. The high five is such a potent symbol of friendship I'm surprised the people at the centre of these race rows haven't been slapping more skin as a means of endearing themselves to the public they've offended!

While I was looking for a suitable "anti-racism high five" image I chanced across information on "High Five a Muslim Day", it's definitely one of the more controversial high fives I've come across. Although "High Five a Muslim Day" doesn't seem particularly offensive to anyone; most of the sites I found information about it on seemed fairly bigoted, and I'd hate to see the high five become a symbol of intolerance. I'm sure all you high five fans out there will keep it real and continue to spread the high five goodwill. Peace out.

Happy Birthday to Us!

2007-01-18T18:21:00.000Z

Today is HighFive.me.uk's first birthday. Just twelve short months ago the world was without a website devoted entirely to the high five. We've enjoyed making the site over the past year, and it's been good to hear from all the high five enthusiasts from around the world. If you've got any high five information or stories you'd like to share (or you just want to say happy birthday) send us an e-mail to e-five@highfive.me.uk.

There's been a recent update to the site - we've created new videos for the Jive Five and the Desk Five. These are probably our favourite videos so far (despite being of a couple of the more esoteric types of high five) we hope you like them too.

Strike Fives, Spare Fives and the Dallas High Five

2006-12-16T14:16:00.000Z

Michael Dabkowski e-mailed me with details of the Strike Five and the Spare Five, some ten-pin bowling inspired high five variations. I've added them to the High Five Variations page, which has also undergone a bit of a facelift, as I thought it was looking a bit tired.

If anyone else has any other types of high five they'd like to share with the world, send an e-mail to e-five@highfive.me.uk.

You may have noticed a few pictures of motorway bridges scrolling past on our "high five pictures on flickr". In case you were wondering why people have tagged photos of bits of road with "high five", they're actually pictures of the High Five Interchange in Dallas, Texas. I've added a brief description to the High Five Databank.

Give a High Five for Christmas

2006-12-14T11:12:00.000Z

If you're currently suffering from 'present ennui' brought on by having to purchase boring Christmas presents for friends and relatives, why not buy a few exciting stocking-fillers from the exclusive High Five Me online shop?

We've got some high quality items available including this stylish mug, which I can personally recommend. Mine's been through the dishwasher a few times and it's still looking good as new!

Cick here to get your hands on a High Five Me mug!

We've also got 'Desk-Five' Mousepads in the online store - if you're at home or in the office and need to celebrate with a high five but no one is around just slap some skin with the desk five mousepad!

The Desk Five mousepad makes an ideal gift for stockbrokers, ardent online gamers, eBay entrepreneurs or anyone else who's likely to be celebrating whilst using their computer.

Click here to snap up a Desk Five!

Click here to see what else is in the online store!

Pizza Fives!

2006-10-25T20:59:00.000+01:00

What with traveling the world to save lives and moving house to start new jobs it's been a while since Team High Five Me got together to get down to some serious high fiving. However after seeing the new Pizza Hut advert in which the sheer amount of cheese crammed into the crust of the new Cheesy Bites™ pizza causes spontaneous high fiving, we knew we had to hit the hut.

After heading to one of Edinburgh's many Pizza Huts we weren't disappointed by either the volume of cheese (and calories) in the pizzas, and also the high fiving it inspired! It also gave us a chance to show off our jaunty High Five Me t-shirts!

Hopefully there'll be plenty more blog entries and updates added to the site soon - and following the recent acquisition of YouTube by Google we're expecting an attempted buy out of Highfive.me.uk soon. E-mail offers over $1.65bn to e-five@highfive.me.uk

Gimme Some Skin

2006-09-03T14:31:00.000+01:00

After all the exciting blog entries from around the world Team High Five Me are now all back in the UK - so here's a slightly more prosaic blog entry about new entries to our Culture Section.

I've added entries about the songs "High Five Anxiety" by Nerf Herder, and "Gimme Some Skin" - the title of songs by both James Brown and Iggy Pop.

There are no doubt many more high five related songs out there so if you know of any please let us know by e-fiving us at e-five@highfive.me.uk.

2006-08-11T02:45:00.000+01:00

High Five Me is proud to be supporting Sydneys Westpac Lifesaver Helicopter. It may be supporting it in pure personel terms rather than with funds, but it is support non the less.
We have a lot to thank the helicopter Lifesaver 1 for - it was the location of the worlds first helicopter high five! To my knowledge anyway and that is good enough for me! Thanks go to my brother Ian for suggesting that such a monumental five should take place.

The opera house was beneath us, the patient wasnt dead, it was a beautiful sunny day, there was no excuse not to celebrate. There was no need to the helmet comms, I just raised my hand and my indication was clear the Aussie paramedic was quick to resiprocate the gesture and the sweet sweet five took place. Even above the roar of the rotor blades and through the built in ear defenders of my helmet, the slap of the palms could be heard. It was a good day. All we needed was a ghetto blaster with some 80s rock and a volley ball net but such is life...

Fiving in a land down under

2006-08-02T03:41:00.000+01:00

Whilst you all anxiously wait for photos of me topgunned up in my flight suit down here at Sydneys lifesaver rescue helicopter where I am "working", please enjoy these fabulous shots of the high five me logo on tour amongst world famous icons.

Goodbye High Fives

2006-07-30T12:32:00.000+01:00

The Culture section of High Five Me is admittedly quite small at the moment. However, there is a new addition to our section on high fives in music: Goodbye High Fives.

The Goodbye High Fives hail from Abingdon in Oxfordshire and are named after one of The Todd's (a character from Scrubs) high fives. You can find out more about the band by reading the description on High Five Me, or checking out their MySpace Profile where you can hear some of their songs.

Goodbye High Fives are very good and you should check them out if you're a fan of music or high fives; or better yet both.

Out of Africa

2006-07-24T12:53:00.000+01:00

It was time for me to leave. Many lives were saved and High Fiving skills were spread throughout the region. Especially to George the elderly theatre porter, he loved the sting of an early morning high five greating.

I am off to Australia now to spead the Fives even further and hopefully get some photos with the logo in next to famous land marks.

In the meantime please enjoy this photo of me at the hospital gates spreading the love.

Hollywood High Fives

2006-07-16T21:54:00.000+01:00

Emily's been in LA recently and while there she took the opportunity to High Five with Jemma over Tom Cruise's Walk of Fame star! Cruise has a prominent place in High Five culture, having starred as Maverick in the classic "Top Gun" he's famous for unleashing the High Five, Low Five on an unsuspecting world back in '86.

You know who else lives in LA apart from Tom Cruise and a bunch of other Scientologists? The Fresh Prince of Bel Air thats who, and if you remember the TV series as well as Danny Gray does you'll recall that Will and Jazzy Jeff had their own Fresh Prince Five. Danny pointed out our list of High Five Variations was lacking this type of five, and even sent us a link to a video of the Fresh Prince Five in action! Good work D-Money!

You can check out our new entry for the Fresh Prince Five here.

If anyone else has suggestions or comments for the site they're most welcome so just send us an e-five to e-five@highfive.me.uk

New High Fives!

2006-07-06T22:18:00.000+01:00

Yet more types of High Five have been added to our High Five Variations page. The most recent additions are the Sterile Five; Mental Five; and the Miss You High Five.

The Variants Page now boasts 25 different types of High Five!

All Kinds of High Fives

2006-07-05T23:16:00.000+01:00

High Five Me's Emily is currently living it up travelling round the world under the pretence of doing a medical elective. You don't fool me Emily. Anyway she's keeping it real enough to remember to spread the word of High Five Me around the world and high five in some unique locations. Check out these pictures of Emily giving a high five to a bear, and high fiving inside the world's biggest tree!

Emily's fellow fivee is Matt - not me, I'm at home slaving over a hot MacBook Pro (and I don't mean hot figuratively you could cook on this thing). Much props to Matt for spreading the five love in the US of A!

If anyone else out there has any good high five pictures they'd like to share, send them to us at e-five@highfive.me.uk and we'll put them in our High Five Gallery.

Wherever you are in the world - keep on fivin'!

High Five Comedy

2006-07-04T21:05:00.000+01:00

We all know that not following good High Five Etiquette can result in embarassment, but would anyone believe it could result in injury or even death? Well thats what the quick-witted folks at Improv-Abilities tried to find out when they took their improvisational comedy to the streets of Kansas City.

Claiming to be members of the fictious Team High Five they hit the streets to spread the word of high five safety and let people know of the potentially tragic consequences of a mis-timed high five. It seems a lot of people believed that you really can sustain life-threatening injuries high-fiving. You can read the full story of the Team High five comedy mission at kcimprov.com.

It's always good to hear about high five related happenings. It was also good to hear that High Five Me had helped someone in a small way - Scott from KC Improv told me that they used some of the information on High Five Me as material! It was also interesting to find out about a genuine high-five injury sustained by Terry Harper, a former baseball player

New! Send us a Web Cam Five!

2006-06-26T22:23:00.000+01:00

It's always good to hear from people who've visited the site, so thanks to everyone who's been e-mailing (or rather e-fiving) High Five Me. It's even better to be able to see who's been vsiting the site though, and now you can send us a message and picture by sending us a Web Cam Five!

All you need is a webcam attached to your computer and you can send us a picture - possibly demonstrating your high five technique or any new styles of high fiving you've developed. Just visit our Web Cam Five page to get started.

If you're more a fan of the traditional e-mail (or don't have a webcam) and you've got any questions, comments or information for us just send us an e-mail to e-five@highfive.me.uk.

Chris' Pictures

2006-06-20T18:26:00.000+01:00

Good work Chris, glad to see you're being such an ambassador for High Five Me! Here are some pictures of you at the summit:

High Fiving reaches new heights!

2006-06-19T15:59:00.000+01:00

As you may or may not know, two thirds of highfive.me are currently away on their medical electives. Mine began with the ascension of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and the highest five in the world ever (probably)!!

It had been a 7 hour near vertical ascent to the summit, I felt crap, I should have turned back long ago. One thing kept me going, the thought of an ultimate five at an altitude of 5895M asl! Words cannot describe how sweet it was, the sun was just rising and the tingling of my hand following the five was keenly felt despite the minus 14 degree temperature and the fact that my hands had frozen many hours previously.

I obviously took some photos and as soon as it is humanly possible I will put them here for your all to enjoy the glory that is the highest five of them all!!!

Big

2006-05-28T12:07:00.000+01:00

Team High Five Me were browsing Blockbuster last night and were sorely dissapointed by the lack of quality films on offer. However I spotted the Tom Hanks classic "Big" in the comedy section and after having our choice approved by the Blockbuster staff we headed to High Five Me HQ to revel in the 80s nostalgia whilst eating Smarties ice cream.

Obviously the films a classic and everyone's favourite scene is the giant piano in the toy store, but we loved Hanks' energetic high five where he jumped up and slapped some skin with a delivery man.

Again this film shows how the high five really captured the zeitgeist of the 80s, and if you're looking for some of the best high fives commited to celluloid you've got to go back a decade or two.

The Ultimate Five!

2006-05-17T21:29:00.000+01:00

As people who spend a lot of time thinking about high fives, Team High Five Me^® often wonder what makes the "Ultimate Five". For Chris it's the all important tingling sensation you get in your hand after getting a really good high five. Not everyone is down with this high-velocity fiving though (some people won't even high five Chris anymore he fives with such force). In the video of the Delayed Five what you can't see is that after completing the Delayed Five Chris' hand was bleeding from the force of the high five!

Anyway, we'd like to know what other peoples' Ultimate Fives are. Here's one from Shukes and Tim to get started:

"What we consider our ultimate hi 5 - firstly a flipside hi-5 is done by both participants with opposite hands, and then again each person using their other hand, they then do a Fonzy type "eeeeyyyyyy!" followed by the pulling of hair behind ears."

If you want to tell us what your ultimate five is drop us an email at e-five@highfive.me.uk, or just post your comments below.

Philippines leads the world in High Five searches...

2006-05-11T22:31:00.000+01:00

I was taking a look at Google Trends today, which is basically a way of seeing what people have been searching for on Google. It also allows you to see search keyword popularity by region, and compare different search terms over time. Anyway, it turns out that the Philippines lead the world in searches for "high five".

I also did a quick comparison of the different ways of spelling "High Five"; i.e. high five; high 5; hi five; hi 5. See the results here. It was pretty level pegging until mid-2004 when "hi 5" took off big-time and is now the search term of choice! "High Five" is the media's choice appearing in more news stories than the other variations. There's also a noticeable difference in search terms between different US cities. In Columbus its all about the "high five", whereas in Rochester they're loving the "high 5". Chicago and New York aren't fussy with people from these cities searching fairly evenly with all four variations.

Google trends seems quite interesting and is probably useful if you're running a online business. I wonder if they'll release a Google Maps style API for trends?. Anyway, here are some high five related trends I had a look at. Let me know if you find any interesting Google trends

"High Ten"(popular with Mormons)

"Top Gun" vs. "Scrubs".