Q: What Is More Dangerous Than An Idiot In A Car? – A: An Idiot In A Very Fast Car

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

No, it’s not another quiz. I think you could categorize it as one of those “it seemed a good idea at the time” stories. This is the story of an idiot whose stupidity and a fast car brought him to a premature end.  

The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering wreckage embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. They were mystified.

The metal debris resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it turned out to be the vaporized remains of an automobile. The make of the vehicle was unidentifiable at the scene.

It took the CSI type people in the lab to finally figure out what it was, and pieced together the events that led up to its demise.

It seems that a former Air Force sergeant had somehow got hold of a JATO (Jet Assisted Take-Off) unit. JATO units are solid fuel rockets used to give heavy military transport airplanes an extra push for take-off from short airfields.

Dried desert lakebeds are the location of choice for breaking the world ground vehicle speed record. So the sergeant took the JATO unit into the Arizona desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, accelerated to a high speed, and fired off the rocket.

The facts, as best as could be determined, are as follows:

The operator was driving a 1967 Chevy Impala. He ignited the JATO unit approximately 3.9 miles from the crash site. This was established by the location of a prominently scorched and melted strip of asphalt.

The vehicle quickly reached a speed of between 250 and 300 mph and continued at that speed, under full power, for an additional 20-25 seconds.

The soon-to-be pilot experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners.

The Chevy remained on the straight highway for approximately 2.6 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied the brakes, completely melting them, blowing the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface.

The vehicle then became airborne for an additional 1.3 miles, impacted the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, and left a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.

Most of the driver's remains were not recovered; however, small fragments of bone, teeth, and hair were extracted from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.

Ironically a still-legible bumper sticker was found, reading "How do you like my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT."

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Never Hitch Your Wagon To Another Man’s Horse

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Strangely this blog post is neither about wagons nor horses, but I thought the title was catchy. It is related though, I haven’t reached the stage yet where I have to deceive people into reading my blog.


This post is about Chief Petty Officer Roman Styles, U.S. Coast Guard Station, Jacksonville, Florida who decided to repair some damaged shingles on the roof of his house himself, instead of paying a contractor to do it for him.


Ever conscious about the dangers of working at heights and on sloping shingles in particular, Chief Petty Officer Styles tied a safety rope to the trailer hitch of his truck prior to climbing up on his steep roof. Then, once he had climbed up to the peak of his roof he secured the other end of the line around his waist and slid over the top of the roof to repair the shingles.


So far so good. 


He started his repairs.


As luck would have it, bad luck that is, shortly after he started to work, his teenage son called for a ride home from a Boy Scout trip. Mr Styles’ wife, Jane, took the call and went straight out of the house, got into the truck and yelled to her husband that she’d be back right away.


"I didn't see the rope," Mrs. Styles said later, "until I saw it in the rear-view mirror. By then I was half-way down the street."


Bill Schlimm, a next door neighbor, said, "I'll never forget the look on Roman's face as he came sailing over the peak of that house. If it hadn't been for that tall cedar tree he would have been really hurt."


After realizing what had happened, but not before she had dragged her poor husband quite a ways down the street, Mrs Styles summoned emergency help.


Mr Styles’ bad luck was compensated by the good luck that he only had to be treated for a slight concussion and a few scrapes and bruises. 

Airline Announcements And George Carlin

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy” 


Today we seem to be back on the subject of travel again. It has a way of cropping up quite a bit.

 This time it’s another video presentation, part of a routine by comedian and life observer George Carlin.

 I was always a big fan of George Carlin. I didn’t agree with a lot of the things that he said, and he never refrained from using strong language when he wanted to, but he had a great gift for seeing the funny side of life, and for that I was grateful. Too often we get too frustrated and angry at the idiots we have to deal with and miss the ridiculous absurdity of what is happening around us. Not George.

 Sadly George is no longer with us, but his work lives on.

 *** WARNING: As usual if you are likely to be offended by strong language, then perhaps you should give this one a miss, otherwise, enjoy!

Man On Scaffolding (Well, Some Of The Time)

"Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy"

I employed a guy to paint my house. Simple enough, I’m sure many of you have done the same. At the time I lived in what they call a chalet bungalow, or as I preferred to describe it, a bungalow with an upstairs in it. Apart from the gable ends there were very few really high bits and most of it could be reached with a small bay of scaffolding, which I had. 

So the painter came along, a youngish guy, in his early to mid thirties probably, slim build, but wiry and strong. Not overly tall, maybe 5’ 9” or 10”, but with fairly long, spindly legs. You’ll see the point of describing the legs later.

I helped him set up the scaffolding and up he went to get started prepping the fascia board and soffit first, and I went indoors to my home office to get some work done. About a couple of hours later I reckoned I needed a cup of coffee and I went outside to see if he would like one as well. He said he would and we sat down outside to drink the coffee and do some damage to a packet of milk chocolate digestive cookies.

When we were done, he thanked me and climbed back up on the scaffolding to get back to work. He was a good worker, didn’t waste any time, and he was on a job rate, rather than per hour, so there was an incentive for him to get it done as soon as he could.

It was a nice day, quite warm, and I had most of my chores taken care of for the morning so I decided to sit outside for a while. Somebody once said, “I love hard work. I could sit here and watch it all day.” And I can sympathize with that statement. I was watching the whole affair from my vantage point, sitting on a low wall about ten feet behind him.

As he got closer and closer to the edge of the planks, I though to myself, “He’s going to fall off.” (You see I was the smart one, I’d figured that out. He hadn’t.)

I told him he was getting a bit close to the edge, but he either didn’t hear me or thought I was being overly cautious. He just talked on and painted on.

And I watched on.

He kept taking steps to his left, ever closer towards the edge, talking away and painting away, oblivious to everything else.

And then it happened. He took another step to his left, and then another. And then another, only this time he couldn’t get anything to set his left foot on.

Maybe you had to be there, but my goodness it was funny. And the great thing was, it seemed to last for ages. There was his left leg in mid air, padding frantically at the empty space for something solid, but finding nothing.

Whatever was going on in this poor bloke’s head I don’t know, but his solution to not falling off, wasn’t to take a step to his right, back on to the planks. Oh, no. Absolutely not. Far too easy. Instead he had made up his mind that the thing to do was to keep sticking his left leg further and further out to the left, into mid air, possibly in the hope that there was another invisible bit of scaffolding somewhere with reach.

Of course, there wasn’t, and, as many women have testified, gravity is a really unforgiving so-and-so and it will always get you in the end. And it certainly got my painter friend. Down he went.

Captain John Sheridan, (no he wasn’t the guy on the scaffolding, he’s a fictional character in the TV sci fi show Babylon 5, played by Bruce Boxleitner) said that his dad always used to say, "If you're falling off a cliff, you may as well try to fly. You have nothing to lose." And to give the painter a bit of credit he flailed about with both arms and legs trying to push against the air as he plummeted earthwards.

It took little more than a second I’m sure, but it was a glorious second of pure comedy. And then there was a “flump” kind of noise and he disappeared in behind another tiny wall about two feet high.  

He was dead!

No, no, of course he wasn’t dead, but he could have been as far as I was concerned. He could have fractured his skull, or an arm, or a leg, or had all sorts of horrific injuries. But if that had been the case and my swift intervention could have saved him, well, I’m afraid this bloke was a goner. For quite a number of seconds I was as powerless to do anything as he had been at flying. I was just in an uncontrollable state of laughter.

When I’d settled myself down a little, I got up to walk over to where he had landed to assess the damage. Just then a hand and then the bottom half of his left arm appeared, clutching at the top of the small wall. Then his head appeared.

I thought the funniest thing I had ever seen was him falling to the ground, trying to fly. But the expression now on his face beat that by a mile and then some. It’s hard to do it justice in a description here, but you could tell immediately by his face that he was completely mystified about what had happened, or even where he was. Those were his very next words in fact.

“Where am I?” he asked.

I couldn’t answer. I mean I knew where he was all right, but the look on his face had me doubled up with laughter. I couldn’t say anything.

“What happened?” he went on, his voice shaking.

I pulled myself together.

“You fell off that scaffolding,” I told him.

“What scaffolding?” he then asked.

Again I couldn’t answer. I put my hand over my mouth and did one of those coughie-laughs, or is it laughie-coughs, I’m not sure, but I did it. By this time he was on his knees and attempting to get up. I walked over, still with my hand over my mouth, and held out my arm to help him. Together we got him to his feet and I sat him down on the wall. He was badly shaken, but no injuries, not a scratch on him. Lucky!

“I could do with a smoke,” he said, and he pulled out small tin with all the doings. He was what they call a “roll-up” man. But his hands were still trembling and the first couple of attempts to make a cigarette were a disaster. There were bits of tobacco everywhere but on the cigarette paper. I’m not a smoker and I’ve never made up one of these things in my life, but I tried to help as best I could and between us we made something resembling a cigarette, albeit a very crooked and crumpled one. He wasn’t having a lot of success with his matches either, so I took them and held one for him. He lit the makeshift cigarette and took several deep drags.

“Just sit there a minute,” I said and went in the house to make him a cup of tea. I’d always heard that a cup of sweet tea was a good thing for someone in shock, and this bloke was definitely in shock. I brought out the tea, he drank it, finished his cigarette and sat on the wall for a while longer. Then, when he’d got his wits back again (he actually had only half of them, but we’ll get to that) he said he felt okay and would get back to work. More power to him for his attitude.

We located his paint brush, which had landed in the garden just about the same time he had, and back up he went on to the scaffolding. I decided to stick around for a while just to make sure he was okay. He seemed fine, and as he painted he started chatting away again just as before. All was good.

For a while.

“He’s getting very close to the edge,” I thought to myself as I watched.

Closer and closer to the left edge of the scaffolding he got.

“Bloody hell,” I said to myself. “I do believe this idiot’s going to do it again!” I remember actually saying that second bit out loud and looking round for someone to share this incredible moment with, but unfortunately there was no one.

The tension and anticipation was almost unbearable. And I couldn’t move. It was quite a surreal experience. This was real life, it was happening right in front of me, but at the same time it was as if I was watching the whole debacle on a cinema or tv screen, or a youtube video on the computer (oh how I wish I had had a video camera – this was a million hitter for sure).

And then, like a slow motion replay of the first time, out went the long, spindly left leg padding the air for more non existent scaffolding. Out and out, farther and farther into mid air until his balance was lost. Our old friend gravity took charge again and away he went.

He did try to fly again, arms and legs flailing about like a mad thing. But he was no better at it than the first time, and a second later he disappeared from view in behind the same little wall accompanied by the same ‘FLUMP’ sound.

I didn’t laugh just so much this time. I was more amazed that it was possible for someone to be stupid enough to do the same thing in the same way another time. Even when his left hand and arm appeared clutching at the wall, or his bewildered face came into view, I was able to contain myself reasonably well. I was quite proud of myself this time actually.

But then, as he got up on his knees, and started to stand up, he said something that sent me off on another laughing fit.

“Where am I?” he asked again.

Then, his voice shaking as before, “What happened?”  

“You fell off that scaffolding,” I told him, as best I could.

“What scaffolding?”

That was it. The final straw. When he said, “What scaffolding?” there was no coming back for me. I was gone. Up he got, sat down on the wall, tried to make another cigarette, all without my assistance this time. My right hand was on my brow and I was staring intently at the ground, my entire body vibrating with spasms of laughter.

We sat there for a good few minutes, neither of us able to say anything or do anything, for different reasons. Then I said that I though he should go home for the day.

“I think maybe I will,” he agreed. And off he went.

I walked over to the garage, found a piece of rope, climbed on to the scaffolding and tied it around the edge about three feet higher than the platform floor as a make-shift guard rail.

Perhaps tomorrow would be a better day for painting.

Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.

A Day When I Didn't Feel A Tit!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

We’re back on travel today. Sort of. Well it’s about an incident that occurred while I was traveling. A lot of noteworthy incidents seem to happen in and around airports and plane journeys, not sure exactly why. This one is about the impractical things some people wear on airplanes.

Ok, ok, so it’s actually about breasts. Traveling breasts, but breasts. You just knew there had to be one, right?

This may upset some female readers (I know not why) but it is a fact of life that men like to look at womens’ breasts. I mean, when do men ever do anything, be it a blog, or a book, or a movie, or just a walk down the street and not take an interest in female mammary glands?

Even men with big boobs of their own, will still look at womens’ boobs, and even at women with smaller boobs than theirs. Similarly, men with little boobs will look at women with little boobs too, and big ones, and medium sized ones. And men with no boobs at all will look at women with boobs of all sizes and descriptions.

On behalf of men everywhere I feel obliged to point out that this fascination we have is not our fault, in fact it’s not a fault at all. It’s just a natural instinct residing inside every healthy heterosexual male.

Some women like to complain about it, but if they don’t want them admired why spend so much time and money pushing them up, pointing them out, paying for implants and using all the other mechanical aids and devices that has made the fashion industry $billions?

And before there is a burst of protest over that last statement, please remember that women have their own fascination…. with men’s butts. Only, because us men haven’t got eyes in the back of our heads, we can’t see them doing it so we don’t get annoyed or feign annoyance. Not that we would in any case. We’d just be grateful for the attention.

And it has to be said, there are a lot of men who also admire women’s butts too. But the women never see the faces we make when we are having a look. I bet they’d love to now! (Did I just say “we”? Oh dear!).

So we’ve established that today’s blog is about breasts, or boobs as they are called these days. Just one boob in fact, but a very nice one.

Actually, I’ve just thought of another justification for this story on my blog. “Boob” used to be a word that meant stupid people, or to do something stupid. Years ago anyone could say, “Hey, I made a boob,” and everyone knew what they were talking about. Now only a cosmetic surgeon can use that line and still illicit the same understanding response. But back to the story.

It was on a flight from Las Vegas to New York, New York. Because of the time difference it was a night flight arriving early the next morning at JFK. I was in my usual aisle seat and in the window seat was a woman approaching middle age and trying very hard not to look it. She was wearing a pair of tight denim jeans and a very, very low cut V-neck cardigan. I think it had sleeves, I’m not sure, my attention was elsewhere. Yes, she had large beasts. We were in double-D grand canyon territory at least. Quite a lot was showing thanks to the V-neck, and the whole stack appeared to be bra-less (that is an important fact to remember for the rest of this blog).

So that was okay. We both got seated, buckled up, listened to the safety speech and took off more or less on time. It was dark and after refreshments were handed out, which happened quite quickly after take-off, the lights in the cabin were dimmed and the windows shut to allow any passengers who wanted to, to sleep.

The woman beside me turned on her overhead light and began to read a novel she had taken from her bag. For a short while I read over a few of the papers I had with me for a meeting the following morning. Then I turned out my light and sat back to try to, if not sleep, at least relax for a bit. I knew I had lots of time to finish reading my stuff later.

Apparently I dozed off, I can’t remember for how long, but when I wakened later most of the other passengers also looked as if they were asleep or trying to get some rest. I unbuckled my seatbelt to change position slightly after having slid down in the seat a bit while asleep. That was ok, not a big operation, and I tried to do it as gently as possible so as not to disturb anyone close to me. Then I re-buckled my seatbelt.

In my efforts to check that I hadn’t disturbed anyone I turned my head to the left to see if the woman beside me was still reading her book. Her light was still on.

It was a simple act, but as many simple acts do, it had consequences. Not the kind that changed my life or anything like that, but the kind that certainly changed the flight completely. I never did finish reading my papers.

The woman had fallen asleep as well and was still sleeping. The book she had been reading hadn’t quite fallen out of her hand, but was resting on her legs. Her head and the top half of her body had slumped downwards and a little bit in my direction, which was fine because there was no one in the middle seat so there was lots of room.

But her left breast which had originally been showing a little bit, tittilatingly one might say (groan!), was now almost half the way outside her cardigan.

Before I continue, I should rush to my own defence here and preface this next bit by saying that long night flights in particular are very boring if you’re not lucky enough to get to sleep. I had been asleep for a while, but there was very little chance now of me repeating my slumber. There was only one thing to do.

You see I had become fascinated by what was happening. There wasn’t a stirring in my loins or anything like that, she wasn’t my type, and anyway these days boobs are on show all over the place. This was more of an intellectual “I wonder what’s going to happen next” kind of fascination.

This included, of course, an overwhelming urge to look, not once, but frequently. Always quickly glancing back to see if anyone else was watching, not her, but rather, me watching her. They weren’t so that was ok.

There were lots of permutations going through my head, but the three main ones were:

A. Would it simply fall all the way out?

B. Would it see its shadow, like the groundhog, and scurry back into place again, signifying another six more weeks of winter?

Or,

C. Would the woman waken up, realize what had happened and quickly rectify the situation?

Unlike Bill Murray, I hadn’t time to learn how to play the piano. In fact I hadn’t long to wait at all. The plane hit some fairly strong turbulence, and it was door number ‘A’ that opened.

Yes, another quarter or more jostled out to join the half already exposed, so now almost all of this woman’s left boobie was on show to the world. Well, in truth the world wasn’t paying attention, but it was on show to me.

Now, as most women and men know there is an unspoken law, what you might call a ‘titti protocol’. This law states that women don’t usually mind (in fact they like??) strangers, particularly men to look and admire the top part of their breasts. The sides are okay too. Clevage in the middle, positively encouraged. But the, shall we say more sensitive, nipple area is out of bounds (without prior permission, that is).

Well there beside me on the plane, out of bounds or not, the whole shebang was out there. The turbulence earlier hadn’t even stirred the woman let alone wakened her, so there was a good chance she was going to sleep for a while.

What to do?

Was there a solution to the problem?

Was there even a problem?

You know how, these days, identity theft has become a big thing. People are constantly being warned to burn or at least shred any mail and paperwork that may have details about them, because when your rubbish is outside the bounds of your home waiting for collection it is deemed to be in the public domain.

You know what’s coming next.

Yes, that’s right. I was sitting there debating whether this rule applied to wayward boobies. Now that this one had made its way independently outside the bounds of this woman’s cardigan was it, or was it not, in the public domain?

The Good Samaritan in me felt obliged to cup my hand and gently set it back inside her top. On my other shoulder however was another voice telling me what I should really be doing was to leave it alone and just enjoy the view.

In the end I decided it was one of those heads I would lose and tails I would lose as well situations.

If I tried to help, and took matters into my own hands, or hand in this case, and she woke up during the procedure would she think I was pushing it back inside her cardigan, or in some pervy way pulling more of it out to get a better look. Maybe I would get the blame for pulling it out in the first place! Either way I doubted very much if gratitude would have been her first reaction.

But then a stewardess came walking down the aisle checking seatbelts and so forth. When she got to my seat I stopped her, indicating the problem. She was highly amused at the spectacle and then she looked back to me and promptly went away. I thought that was that, but in a few moments she arrived back with another female colleague, her supervisor perhaps, and she too looked at the situation. They both giggled. I think it was at the woman, but it could equally have been at me. As a matter of fact I think it was a bit of both.

In a moment however, their professional training kicked in and the supervisor reached across me and shook the woman gentle by the shoulder. The woman wakened, the problem was indicated by the stewardess and, rather embarrassed, she turned slightly away and gathered up and packed away the offending article. Not that it was in the least bit offensive. After all was rectified she looked over at me and apologized profusely.

I told her not to worry, there was no need to apologize, these things happen.

And anyway I had hardly even noticed!

Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.

TSA Vid

Hi,

Back to flights and airports todau.

Here is a video about the TSA (courtesy of AirportsMadeSimple.com).

Hope you enjoy.