OT Humour - Darwin Awards

The Long awaited 2004 DARWIN AWARDS..............

Yes, these are all true. They are finally out again. It's an annual
honour given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by
killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's
winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled
over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.

So, the nominees this year in reverse order a

6. A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply,
because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with
milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited
into the fireplace in his house. This resulting explosion and fire
burned his house down, killing both him and his sister.

5. Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude
when another plane approached. It appears that they decided to moon the
occupants of the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and
crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants
around their ankles.

4. A 22-year-old,Glade Drive, Reston,VA, man was found dead after he
tried to use octopus straps to bungee-jump off a 70-foot railroad
trestle. Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker,
taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped one end around one foot,
anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped, and
hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said
investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby
"The length of the cord that he assembled was greater than the distance
between the trestle and the ground, "Carmichael said. Police say the
apparent cause of death was "major trauma."

3. A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and a
friend were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a ball.
The friend, no doubt a future Darwin Awards candidate, was hospitalized.

2. Employees in a medium-size warehouse in West Texas noticed the smell
of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building,
extinguishing all potential sources of ignition; lights, power, etc.
After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas
company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they had
difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the
lights worked. Witnesses later described the sight of one of the
technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that
resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like
object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to
three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter
was virtually untouched by the explosion. His peers had never thought of
the technician suspected of causing the blast as "bright".

AND THE WINNER IS....

1. Based on a bet by the other members of his threesome, Everitt Sanchez
tried to wash his own "balls" in a ball-washer at the local golf course.
Proving once again that beer and testosterone are a bad mix, Sanchez
managed to straddle the ball washer and dangle his scrotum in the
machine. Much to his dismay, one of his buddies upped the ante by
spinning the crank on the machine with Sanchez's scrotum in place,
wedging it solidly in the mechanism. Sanchez, who immediately passed his
threshold of pain, collapsed and tumbled from his perch. Unfortunately
for him, the ball washer was more than a foot higher off the ground than
his testicles are in a normal stance, and the scrotum was the weakest
link.
Sanchez's scrotum was ripped open during the fall. One testicle was
plucked from him forever and remained in the ball washer, while the
other testicle was compressed and flattened as it was pulled between the
housing of the washer and the rotating machinery inside. To add insult
to injury, Sanchez broke a new $300 driver that he had just purchased
from the pro shop and was using to balance himself. Sanchez was rushed
to the hospital for surgery, and the remaining, er, members of the
threesome were asked to leave the course. This last one wouldn't
normally count, because the idiot didn't die. But because he cannot
reproduce as a result of his qualifying act of stupidity, we have
allowed it.

(MartinM) writes:

The Long awaited 2004 DARWIN AWARDS..............

Yes, these are all true. They are finally out again. It's an annual
honour given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by
killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way.

How about having Darwin Awards for the person who contributes to the
gene pool in the most significant way, i.e. stupendously successful
people who manage to have lots of well adjusted children who
contribute to human endeavour in the most positive way? After all,
that's a bigger bonus to society than all the attendant costs of
losing people to pointless accidents.

A

Ambrose Nankivell wrote:

How about having Darwin Awards for the person who contributes to the
gene pool in the most significant way, i.e. stupendously successful
people who manage to have lots of well adjusted children who
contribute to human endeavour in the most positive way? After all,
that's a bigger bonus to society than all the attendant costs of
losing people to pointless accidents.

Yeah, and people would prefer to read about that...

--
Mark.

Mark Tranchant writes:

Ambrose Nankivell wrote:

How about having Darwin Awards for the person who contributes to the
gene pool in the most significant way, i.e. stupendously successful
people who manage to have lots of well adjusted children who
contribute to human endeavour in the most positive way? After all,
that's a bigger bonus to society than all the attendant costs of
losing people to pointless accidents.

Yeah, and people would prefer to read about that...

Of course not. But the vicious smugness of the current Darwin Awards
really annoys me.

A

MartinM popped their head over the parapet saw what was going on and
said
The Long awaited 2004 DARWIN AWARDS..............

Yes, these are all true AND THE WINNER IS....

1. Based on a bet by the other members of his threesome, Everitt
Sanchez tried to wash his own "balls" in a ball-washer at the local
golf course. Proving once again that beer and testosterone are a bad
mix,

snip word for word tale of woe

Probably not true.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/follies/ballwash.htm

--
yours S
addy not usable (not that you would try it)
Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione

Probably not true.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/follies/ballwash.htm

While we're at it I read the lighter one several years ago, possibly in the
Fortean Times Strange Deaths column, so I doubt that's true either. I
always wondered who it was in the building that saw him get the lighter out
of his pocket.

In article ,
(MartinM) writes:

6. A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply,
because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with
milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited
into the fireplace in his house. This resulting explosion and fire
burned his house down, killing both him and his sister.

OK, so public safety requires that we ensure petrol costs at least as
much as booze. Mr Brown, are you listening?

--
Nick Kew

In message 57, Mark
Thompson writes
Probably not true.

While we're at it I read the lighter one several years ago, possibly in the
Fortean Times Strange Deaths column, so I doubt that's true either. I
always wondered who it was in the building that saw him get the lighter out
of his pocket.

Explosions can have odd damage patterns.

During the First World War, in a munitions factory at Limehouse in East
London [1] a foreman saw a workman using a cold chisel to scrape spilt
nitroglycerine off the concrete floor. This was so dangerous that the
shocked foreman sacked the worker on the spot.
The worker reacted by throwing the chisel into the pool of
nitroglycerine, causing an explosion that was still London folklore in
the 1980s. The witness who watched this was standing in the doorway of
the shed; he was blown an impressive distance by the blast but escaped
serious injury.
My grandmother heard and felt the explosion from the City, and she said
it seemed much nearer than it was.

Also Google for details of the Soham explosion (more munitions, this
time in a burning train in WW2) where a witness survived.

[1] Limehouse still looked blast-flattened when I last saw it.

--
Sue ];(

(Nick Kew) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(MartinM) writes:

6. A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply,
because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with
milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited
into the fireplace in his house. This resulting explosion and fire
burned his house down, killing both him and his sister.

OK, so public safety requires that we ensure petrol costs at least as
much as booze. Mr Brown, are you listening?

Would that put off Mr Withnail?

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Sue
breathed:

In message 57, Mark
Thompson writes
Probably not true.

While we're at it I read the lighter one several years ago, possibly in the
Fortean Times Strange Deaths column, so I doubt that's true either. I
always wondered who it was in the building that saw him get the lighter out
of his pocket.

Explosions can have odd damage patterns.

snip

Indeed. IIRC when a petrol tanker exploded on (I think) a coast road in
the Algarve, right beside a holiday park, in one case a large motor
caravan and all its occupants were reduced to ash yet a caged bird which
had been next to the caravan escaped unscathed.

--
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