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| Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it. |
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(21 February 2004, Ottawa, Canada) Ameer, a second-year engineering student
at Carleton University, was celebrating his 20th birthday with friends in
his 11th-floor apartment when they embarked on a spitting contest. His two
friends had already made their marks. Ameer thought he could use his
engineering skills to improve his performance. A quick mental calculation
of trajectory, projectile velocity, and wind speed indicated that winning
required more than a simple "stand and spit" technique. Ameer took a
running start, flew over the balcony railing, and plunged to his death.
"It was purely accidental," said Ottawa police, "momentum carried him beyond." The building's security guard heard the thud. "He was one of the smartest guys I ever met in my life," the guard said. "He had a maturity beyond his age." Spitting contest deaths are becoming a trend. In 1999, a 25-year-old soldier in Alabama won the first Darwin Award in this category in 1999, using the same techinque and achieving the same result. 23-year-old Bartosz of Mt. Prospect, was nominated for falling 20 feet onto his head in December 2005. Bartosz is remarkable for having fallen over an apartment railing without running start. But Ameer clearly trumps his competitors with his 11-story fall. Perhaps the three have reunited in the afterlife, arm in arm, sailing through the air, their projectiles suspended in front of them like bullets in the Matrix movies.
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Darwin Awards III: Survival of the Fittest
Hardback. 304 pages. Autographed.$15 The human race's most popular humor series returns with a brand-new collection of macabre mishaps and misadventures. Honoring those who improve our gene pool by inadvertently removing themselves from it, the Darwin Awards III shows once more how uncommon common sense still is. Salute the sheriff who inadvertently shot himself--twice! Witness the insurance defrauder who amputated his leg with a chainsaw! Heed the story of the farmer who avoided bee stings by sealing his head in a plastic bag! Cringe at the man crushed by a branch he'd just severed... directly over his head! 123 new stories, 18 full-page illustrations, plus discussions of transgenic animals, the origin of life, and more. Autographed by Author! |
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