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Topic: Double Darwin Award (Read 739 times) |
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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Double Darwin Award
« on: 2008-07-14 10:40:38 » |
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[Blunderov] Raises the bar and then some. Formidable.
Darwin Awards Newsletter [news@list.darwinawards.com]
DARWIN AWARDS NEWSLETTER - July 2008
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DARWIN AWARDS: A Chronicle of Enterprising Demises
http://darwinawards.com
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BALLOON PRIEST -- Confirmed True by Darwin
In 1982 Lawn Chair Larry, beloved survivor of a Darwin Award attempt, attached 45 huge helium balloons to his comfortable Sears lawn chair, packed a picnic lunch, and cut the tether. But instead of drifting lazily above the Los Angeles landscape, the combined lift of 45 weather balloons rocketed Larry into LAX air traffic lanes 16,000 feet above sea level. Astoundingly, he survived the "flight."
In homage to Larry's whimsical adventure, a Catholic priest recently ascended towards heaven on a host of helium party balloons. Andelir Antonio de Carli, 41, was attempting to set the world record for clustered balloon flight to publicize his plan to build a spiritual rest stop for truckers.
Spending more than 19 hours in a lawn chair is not a trivial matter, even in the comfort of your own backyard. The priest took numerous safety precautions, including wearing a survival suit, selecting a buoyant chair, and packing a satellite phone and a GPS. However, the late Adelir Antonio made a fatal mistake.
He did not know how to use the GPS.
The winds changed, as winds do, and he was blown off course toward the ocean. He could have parachuted to safety while still over land, but chose against this prudent act. Not until he was hopelessly lost at sea did he telephone for help. But rescuers were unable to reach the voyager since he could not provide his location. He struggled with the intricacies of his GPS as the charge on the satellite phone dwindled.
Instead of a GPS, the priest let God be his guide, and God guided him straight to heaven. For several weeks, bits of balloons were found on mountains and beaches. Ultimately the priest's body surfaced, confirming that he, like Elvis, had left the building.
The kicker? Caltholic priests take vows of celibacy. Since they voluntarily remove themselves from the gene pool, the entire group earns a mass Darwin Award. Adelir Antonio is a winner twice over!
Reference: globo.com, Sydney Morning Herald, Associated Press, and numerous others
http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-16.html
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Note from Darwin: "A hot air balloon is maneuvered by altering its altitude. The wind direction changes as one ascends, generally toward the right in the northern hemisphere. A skillful pilot uses that variation to alter the downwind track. (airborneballoons.co.uk) By comparison, a mass of individual balloons is completely at the mercy of the wind."
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"Just think how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are even stupider!"
--George Carlin
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Double Darwin Award
« Reply #1 on: 2008-07-14 16:01:50 » |
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[Blunderov] Talkin' Darwin Awards. A delectable recent discovery. I laughed my ass off. So will y'all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darwin_Awards_(film)
The Darwin Awards (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Darwin Awards is a comedy film based on the website of the same name.
Written and directed by Finn Taylor, the film premiered January 25, 2006, at the Sundance Film Festival. The film features Joseph Fiennes, Winona Ryder, David Arquette, Juliette Lewis, Wilmer Valderrama, Chris Penn, Julianna Margulies, Robin Tunney, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Brad Hunt, Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman and Metallica. This was Chris Penn's last movie before his death on January 24, 2006, the day before the movie's premiere. The film includes several full and partial re-enactments of "Darwin Awards", most of which are actually urban legends, most notably the debunked JATO Rocket Car story.
Cast:
Joseph Fiennes stars as Michael Burrows, a detective hired pro tempore by an insurance company to profile Darwin Award candidates who accidentally kill themselves, in order to save the insurance company's money.
Winona Ryder plays Siri, a work-hardened yet sweetly authentic insurance investigator working with Burrows.
Wilmer Valderrama plays a film director who is coincidentally the main point-of-view of the movie. He records Burrows during the final police call that ended his work prematurely, and follows him through his pursuit of a job with the insurance company.
Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, the hosts of the TV show MythBusters, play two army-junk sellers. They appear during the story of the rocket car, which they effectively reproduced in their show's pilot episode.
Plot
The movie opens with a shot of a man in a car with a JATO rocket strapped to it. The relevance of the opening isn't explained for some time as the movie shifts gears to a detailed look into the life of Michael Burrows, a criminal profiler for the San Francisco Police Department. Much of the film is shot in a documentary style, ostensibly as a part of a dissertation by a film school grad that follows Michael through the movie. Fired from the force after his hemophobia lets a murderer get away, he drifts about in a deep depression for several weeks before coming up with a way to combine his obsession with the Darwin Awards with his talent for profiling: Help insurance companies detect people that are likely to accidentally end their own lives before they're sold insurance policies. After impressing a manager at the insurance company with his talent for profiling, he's paired up with Siri, a specialist in 'weird' insurance cases.
Siri and Michael travel the country investigating several legendary examples of stupidity on behalf of the insurance company, such as the above mentioned JATO rocket car, not all of which would qualify as 'Darwin Awards'. For example, a pair of men who are attempting to ice fish get frustrated and try to use a stick of dynamite to blast a hole in the ice only to have their trusty black lab fetch the stick of dynamite, run back to their brand-new SUV, and sink it to the bottom of the lake without either man being killed. As they investigate those and other cases, Michael tries to find a common factor in these people; the closest the movie gets to an explanation is a confused monologue by Siri about insurance companies always denying claims and driving people insane.
Ironically, Michael narrowly avoids becoming a Darwin Award winner throughout the movie. In one instance, he and Siri are stranded out in the middle of nowhere on a cold winter night. Desperate for warmth, he attempts to set a fire with gasoline to get warm only to blow up his own car. In a later scene, Siri confronts Michael, accusing him of being so obsessed with the Darwin Award winners because he suspects he's one of them.
A twist of fate leads to Michael finding out where the murder suspect he let get away lives. As he attempts to videotape the man in his home by rappelling down the side of his building, the film school student is seen for the first time. He, too, is hanging on the side of the building by a rope- with the other end of the same rope Michael is dangling by. The stone vase the pair is anchored by inches closer to the edge as the serial killer taunts them from the roof, slicing open his own hand in an effort to trigger Michaels' hemophobia. Michael is able to overcome his hemophobia, defeat the serial killer, and live happily ever after with Siri.
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