Writing Life

A periodic record of thoughts and life as these happen via the various roles I play: individual, husband, father, grandfather, son, brother (brother-in-law), writer, university professor and others.

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Location: Tennessee, United States

I was born on Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina, then lived a while in Fayetteville, North Carolina, before moving, at the age of 5, to Walnut, NC. I graduated from Madison High School in 1977. After a brief time in college, I spent the most of the 1980s in Nashville, Tennessee, working as a songwriter and playing in a band. I spent most of the 1990s in school and now teach at a university in Tennessee. My household includes wife and son and cat. In South Carolina I have a son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

2007 Darwin Awards

This list comes out every year. I don't know if these people and events are real, but I thought I'd post them anyway.


2007 Darwin Awards

29 July 2007

Have you heard of the Darwin awards? They are given to those who allegedly keep out gene pool clean by taking themselves out of it. They’ve been around for a few years and these are the awards for this year apparently.

First place winner:1. When his 38-caliber 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…..
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And now, the honorable 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.
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3. A man who shoveled 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 3 days.
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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.
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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?)
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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.
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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.”
(And they wonder why tigers eat their young!)
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9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a 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.
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***A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER***
10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home 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 to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon 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.

2 Comments:

Blogger quig said...

I went to school at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti Michigan for one year.....while there, I ate tongue (beef, I think) for the first timefixed by a Persion roommate, ....and, the campus police escorted me back to my dorm room while intoxicated....
and It is also the first time the temperature was so cold that when I spat, it froze before hitting the ground.... great place...... Great memories...... Easy to understand why Ypsilanti Michigan made the top ten... for the Darwin Awards.......

8/01/2007  
Blogger nbta said...

Too wild!

8/02/2007  

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