ANST - fwd: 1997 Darwin Awards!

Tim McDaniel tmcd at crl.com
Thu Jan 15 21:41:00 PST 1998


On Thu, 15 Jan 1998, Alan J. Boertjens <a-boertjens1 at ti.com>
wrote:
> These stories definitely qualify as stupid-squire-tricks
> by mundanes.
> ~Johan

These are good stories.  However, please realize that they
are *stories*.  Despite searching, no evidence has ever been
presented that most of them here ever happened, so I label
them "false" below.  The one that I know did happen had many
details messed up.  The alt.folklore.urban Usenet newsgroup
has much information on such things, as do books by
Brunvand.  You can look at http://www.urbanlegends.com for
more info.  A fellow named Snopes has a web site too, but I
don't remember where (http://www.snopes.com?).

I have no problem with telling them as stories, but I
disagree with anyone saying they're all true.

> 1997 Darwin Awards:
No actual body presents "Darwin Awards".  The lists of
"awardees" varies from mail to mail.

> the man killed when the vending machine he was trying to
> extract a can of Coke from fell on him,
Probably true; I dunno.

> [JATO car]
False.

> [lawn-chair balloonist]
Basically true, but it was 42 balloons, he was prepared
(he had a parachute, for example), and he landed under 
control and unharmed.  Details on request.

> #6 - [Pop-n-fresh brains]
False.

> #7 - [Ice fishing a utility vehicle]
False.

> [Grand prize]
Dunno, but it seems highly unlikely, rather like the classic
"unlucky bricklayer" / "why Paddy won't be in to work today"
story.  I don't see how the police could reconstruct the
exact sequence of events, though.

The rest I dunno.  Check out the web sites and/or newsgroups.

-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com; if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com
is work address.  tmcd at tmcd.austin.tx.us is wrong tool.  Never use this.
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