The Darwin Awards

[Andrew_GTR]

The Darwin Awards are the Stupidity equivalent of the Nobel Awards - and definitely hilarious.

Here is the glorious winner:

1. When his 38 calibre revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

And now, the honourable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

3. A man who shovelled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.. The deception wasn't discovered for three days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer... $15. [if someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?]

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly.. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast... The man, frustrated, walked away. [*A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]

10. When a man attempted to syphon gasoline from a motorhome parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his syphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

LoL... just thought id post this up for some fun... i liked the Zimbabwean one the best..lol..cos its something that could easily have happened in Sri Lanka too!!

[miniace]

ha ha good collection!

MINIACE

[RLan]

The Zimbabwean one is my winner too.

Hilarious. Cheers for posting Andrew.

[Devinda_Z]

all of them are pretty darn funny!

[Pericles]

Darwin Awards are given to ppl who do a service to humanity by removing their stupid genes from the gene pool. Evolution in action, hence Darwin. The winner counts. Honorable mentions means those who came close (or at least, messed up their chances of passing on genes ) So that train kid might count. The rest don't qualify.

Tho it still is funny My fave is the last one. Toilet humour. Ahhh... nothing to beat it

[harshansenadhir]

some updates from darwinawards.com

Tiny Elec Fence

10 January 2010, Brazil) An electrical discharge made toast of municipal guard Arthur de Souza Coelho, 47, on Sunday evening. According to police reports, he had installed a tiny electric fence around his car to protect against the frequent robberies that occur in his neighborhood in Belem, Para. Then (direct translation from Portuguese) "he forgot that he had left the fence on and he finished dying with the electric shock."

After all, we are all dying, but some finish sooner than others.

Mock Death

2009 Darwin Award Nominee

Confirmed True by Darwin

(1 November 2009, Belgium) Policemen received a desesperate call from a man who had been attacked on a motorway near the town of Liege. The 37-year-old man was named Thierry B. When the policemen arrived, he was lying dead on the ground, his body stabbed, his car burning. Witnesses had seen a big truck driving away.

But there was no evidence of fighting or struggling around the body--only the knife wounds on his shoulder and neck. Puzzled, inspectors analysed his cell phone calls. He had recently reconnected with an old friend, a fact that intrigued Inspector Closeau. I mean, Commissioner Lamoque. Childhood friend, lost sight of for ten years, back in touch? Lamoque asked the 42-year-old friend in for a chat about the roadside aggression.

The dead man was aggrieved regarding insurance money he felt was owed, but never paid, after his restaurant burned two years before. He asked his old friend to bring him a knife and a jerrycan of fuel, and leave him alone on the motorway, a man with a plan to get the insurance money one way or another.

The "victim" then set his car on fire, called police, and stabbed himself, accidentally cutting an artery in his neck. By the sime his simulated act of violence was over, he was over too, face against the ground ten yards from his burned car. Roll credits on this little staged drama.

Reader comment: "Mock aggression mocks death"

Flying Door

2010 At-Risk Survivor

Unconfirmed by Darwin

(military personal account, at-risk survivor, vehicle vignette.)

When I was in the Marines, a bottom-enlisted and an NCO were required to stand 24-hour watch together. One evening I showed up for duty to find the NCO limping, and covered with dozens of fresh scabs. He was reluctant to reveal what caused his injuries until I promised to not tell. I lived with that promise for thirty years, until now, I hear of the Darwin Awards and learn that he was a classic example of an At-Risk Survivor.

This NCO had an NCO friend we'll call Dutch, and these guys would do just about anything for a laugh. The two NCO's ended up working together in the squadron truck, and had an idea good for a few laughs. Now, Dutch was possessed of great upper body strength, he had been a Greco-Roman wrestler in high school and was an active weight lifter. Dutch would put his arm outside the open window, hang on to the door under his armpit, and when hia buddy made a left turn Dutch would open the door and swing out with the centrifugal force of the turn, riding on the door under his arm. Good fun, huh?

These two were having a few laughs with their flying door routine, all well and good, until one turn brought the open door too close to a fire hydrant. The hydrant caught the bottom corner and the door rebounded, slamming shut and sendingDutch sailing across the vinyl bench seat and slamming into his friend with enough force to knock open the driver's door and eject the driver from the vehicle!

Dutch managed to recover the wheel and prevent the NCO from being run down. Both men were in pain for weeks, and this being the military, both spent long hours in extra duty. After all, they were risking US Government Property.

can find hundreds of stories at http://www.darwinawards.com/