Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
The 2001 Darwin Awards were recently finalised. I believe that the current crop of "Honorable Mentions" are not in the same league as their Predecessors, which should have been an inspiration for them, surely... ... .
Here's a couple from the Darwin Award Archives to illustrate what I mean. Does anybody else believe that we would now appear to be scratching around at the bottom of the gene pool? Would Charles Darwin be turning in his grave now?
(1998) In rural Carbon County, Pennsylvania, a group of men were drinking beer and discharging firearms from the rear deck of a home owned by Irving Michaels, age 27. The men were firing at a raccoon that was wandering by, but the beer apparently impaired their aim. Despite an estimated 35 shots fired by the group, the animal escaped into a 35 inch diameter drainage pipe
100 feet away from Mr. Michaels' deck.
Determined to terminate the animal, Mr. Michaels retrieved a can of gasoline and poured some down the pipe, intending to smoke the animal out. After several unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel, Michaels emptied the entire five-gallon fuel can down the pipe and tried to light it again, to no avail.
Not one to admit defeat by wildlife, the determined Mr. Michaels proceeded to slide feet-first approximately 20 feet down the sloping pipe to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly expanding fireball propelled Mr. Michaels back the way he had come, though at a much higher rate of speed. He exited the angled pipe "like a Polaris missile leaves a submarine," according to eye witness Joseph McFadden, 31.
Mr. Michaels was launched directly over his own home, right over the heads of his astonished friends, onto his front lawn. In all, he traveled over 200 feet through the air. "There was a Doppler Effect to his scream as he flew over us," McFadden reported, "followed by a loud thud. " Amazingly, he suffered only minor injuries.
"It was actually pretty cool," Michaels said afterwards, "Like when they shoot someone out of a cannon at the circus. I'd do it again if I was sure I wouldn't get hurt. "
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(1982, California) Larry Walters of Los Angeles is one of the few to contend for the Darwin Awards and live to tell the tale. "I have fulfilled my 20-year dream," said Walters, a former truck driver for a company that makes TV commercials. "I'm staying on the ground. I've proved the thing works. "
Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. But fates conspired to keep him from his dream. He joined the Air Force, but his poor eyesight disqualified him from the job of pilot. After he was discharged from the military, he sat in his backyard watching jets fly overhead.
He hatched his weather balloon scheme while sitting outside in his "extremely comfortable" Sears lawnchair. He purchased 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered lawnchair dubbed the Inspiration # I, and filled the 4 feet diameter balloons with helium. Then he strapped himself into his lawnchair with some sandwiches, Miller Lite, and a BB pellet gun. He figured he would pop a few of the many balloons, when it was time to descend.
Larry's game plan was to sever the anchor and lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard, where he would enjoy a few hours of flight before coming back down. But things didn't work out quite as Larry planned.
When his friends (!?)cut the cord anchoring the lawnchair to his Jeep, he did not float lazily up to 30 feet. Instead, he streaked through the smog layer into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon, pulled by the lift of 42 individual helium balloons, each holding 33 cubic feet of helium. He didn't level off at 30 feet, nor did he level off at 1,000 feet. After climbing and climbing and climbing... ... he eventually levelled off at around 16,000 feet and was rewarded with multiple panoramic views including the Queen Mary cruise ship tied up in Long Beach and the San Gabriel mountains behind him.
At that height he felt he couldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in real trouble.
So he stayed there, drifting cold and frightened with his (cold) beer and sandwiches, for more than 14 hours. During his inaugral flight, he crossed the primary approach corridor of LAX International airport, where Trans World Airlines and Delta Airlines pilots radioed in reports of the strange sight. Eventually he gathered the nerve to shoot a few balloons, and slowly descended. The hanging tethers tangled and subsequently got caught in a power line, blacking out a Long Beach neighborhood for 20 minutes. Larry climbed to safety, where he was arrested by waiting members of LAPD's finest. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked him why he had done it. Larry replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around. "
The Federal Aviation Administration however was not amused. Safety Inspector Neal Savoy said, "We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, a charge will be filed. "
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The experience would be memorable and something cool to tell the grandkids - LOL
